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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
FIRST & THE LAST CATASTROPHE ;
A CRITICISM
ON SOME RECENT SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE
DURATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY
AFTERNOON,
12 th
APRIL,
1874.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprinted from the ‘ Fortnightly Review,' by hind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�SYLLABUS.
Professor Clerk Maxwell, in his lecture on
“ Molecules,” delivered to the British Association at
Bradford, argued from the absolute similarity of
certain molecules in the Sun and Stars and upon
the earth’s surface, that they can neither have been
evolved by any natural process nor have existed
from all eternity. In the first part of the lecture it
will be argued that we have no evidence of such
absolute exactness as would warrant the first con
clusion, and that a theory of the evolution of matter
may yet be looked upon as a possibility.
Sir William Thomson has remarked that if,
assuming Fourier’s laws of the conduction of heat,
we endeavoui’ to calculate the past history of any
portion of matter, this calculation is only successful
for a limited time, and that at a certain date this
portion of matter must have been in a state which
cannot have resulted by the conduction of heat from
any previous state. Some writers (Mr. Murphy,
'Scientific Bases of Faith;’ Professor Jevons,
' Principles of Science,’ p. 438) have inferred from
this that we have evidence either of a beginning of
the universe or of a change in the laws of nature at
a distant date. The Second Part of the Lecture will
be devoted to showing that this inference is not a
valid one, and that we have no such evidence of a
beginning of the present order of things.
Finally, it will be pointed out that the field of
healthy human interest is limited to so much of the
past as can serve as guide to our actions, and so
much of the future as may be appreciably affected
by them.
�THE
FIRST & THE LAST CATASTROPHE;
A CRITICISM
ON SOME RECENT SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE
DURATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
PROPOSE in this lecture to consider speculations of
quite recent days about the beginning and the end of
the world. The world is a very interesting thing, and I
suppose that from the earliest times that men began to form
any coherent idea of it at all, they began to guess in some
way or other how it was that it all began, and how it was
all going to end. But there is one peculiarity about these
speculations which I wish now to consider, that makes them
quite different from the early guesses of which we read in
many ancient books. These modern speculations are
attempts to find out how things began, and how they are
to end, by consideration of the way in which they are
going on now. And it is just that character of these
speculations that gives them their interest for you and for
me; for we have only to consider these questions from the
scientific point of view. By the scientific point of view,
I mean one which attempts to apply past experience to new
circumstances according to an observed order of nature.
So that we shall only consider the way in which things
began, and the way in which they are to end, in so far as
we seem able to draw inferences about those questions
from facts which we know about the way in which things
are going on now. And, in fact, the great interest of the
subject to me lies in the amount of illustration which it
offers of the degree of knowledge which we have now
attained of the way in which the universe is going on.
I
�4
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
The first of these speculations is one set forth by Pro
fessor Clerk Maxwell, in a lecture on Molecules, delivered
before the British Association at Bradford. By a coinci
dence, which to me is a happy one, at this moment Pro
fessor Maxwell is lecturing to the Chemical Society of
London upon the evidences of the molecular constitution
of matter.
*
Now, this argument of his, which he put
before the British Association at Bradford, depends entirely
upon the modern theory of the molecular constitution of
matter. I think this the more important, because a great
number of people appear to have been led to the conclusion
that this theory is very similar to the guesses which we
find in ancient writers—Democritus and Lucretius. It so
happens that these ancient writers did hold a view of the
constitution of things which in many striking respects
agrees with the view which we hold in modern times.
This parallelism has been brought recently before the
public by Professor Tyndall in his excellent address at
Belfast. And it is perhaps on account of the parallelism,
which he pointed out at that place, between the theories
held amongst the ancients and the theory now held amongst
the moderns, that many people who are acquainted with
classic literature have thought that a knowledge of the
views of Democritus and Lucretius would enable them to
understand and criticise the modern theory of matter.
That, however, is a mistake. The difference between the
two is mainly this : the atomic theory of Democritus was
a guess, and no more than a guess. Everybody around
him was guessing about the origin of things, and they
guessed in a great number of ways ; but he happened to
make a guess which was more near the right thing than
any of the others. This view was right in its main hypo
thesis, that all things are made up of elementary parts,
and that the different properties of different things depend
rather upon difference of arrangement than upon ultimate
difference in the substance of which they are composed.
* See Nature, vol. viii., pp. 441, and vol. xi., pp. 357,374.
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
$
Although this was contained in the atomic theory of
Democritus, as expounded by Lucretius, yet it will be
found by any one who examines further the consequences
which are drawn from it, that it very soon diverges from
the truth of things, as we might naturally expect it
would. On the contrary, the view of the constitution of
matter which is held by scientific men in the present day
is not a guess at all.
In the first place I will endeavour to explain what are
the main points in this theory. First of all we must take
the simplest form of matter, which turns out to be a gas,
—such, for example, as the air in this room. The belief
of scientific men in the present day is that this air is not
a continuous thing, that it does not fill the whole of th®
space in the room, but is made up of an enormous num
ber of exceedingly small particles. There are two sorts of
particles : one sort of particle is oxygen, and another sort
of particle nitrogen. All the particles of oxygen are as
near as possible alike in these two respects ; first in weighty
and secondly in certain peculiarities of mechanical struc
ture. These small molecules are not at rest in the room,
but are flying about in all directions with a mean velocity
of seventeen miles a minute. They do not fly far in one
direction ; but any particular molecule, after going over an
incredibly short distance—the measure of which has been
made—meets another, not exactly plump, but a little on
one side, so that they behave to one another somewhat in
the same way as two people do who are dancing Sir Roger
de Coverley; they join hands, swing round, and then fly
away in different directions. All these molecules are con
stantly changing the direction of each other’s motion;
they are flying about with very different velocities, although,
as I have said, their mean velocity is about seventeen miles
a minute. If the velocities were all marked off on a scale,
they would be found distributed about the mean velocity
just as shots are distributed about a mark. If a great
many shots are fired at a target, the hits will be found
thickest at the bull’s-eye, and they will gradually diminish
�6
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
as we go away from that, according to a certain law, which
is called the law of error. It was first stated clearly by
La Place ; and it is one of the most remarkable conse
quences of theory that the molecules of a gas have
their velocities distributed amongst them precisely accord
ing to this law of error. In the case of a liquid, it is
believed that the state of things is quite different. We
said that in the gas the molecules are moved in straight
lines, and that it is only during a small portion of their
motion that they are deflected by other molecules ; but in
a liquid we may say that the molecules go about as if they
were dancing the grand chain in the Lancers. Every mole
cule after parting company with one finds another, and so
is constantly going about in a curved path, and never gets
quite clear away from the sphere of action of the surround
ing molecules. But notwithstanding that, all molecules in
a liquid are constantly changing their places, and it is for
that reason that diffusion takes place in the liquid. Take
a large tank of water and drop a little iodine into it, and
you will find after a certain time all the water turned
slightly blue. That is because all the iodine molecules
have changed like the others and spread themselves over
the whole of the tank. Because, however, you cannot see
this, except where you use different colours, you must not
suppose that it does not take place where the colours are
the same. In every liquid all the molecules are running
about and continually changing and mixing themselves up
in fresh forms. In the case of a solid quite a different
thing takes place. In a solid every molecule has a place
which it keeps ; that is to say, it is not at rest any more
than a molecule of a liquid or a gas, but it has a certain
mean position which it is always vibrating about and keep
ing fairly near to, and it is kept from losing that position
by the action of the surrounding molecules. These are
the main points of the theory of the constitution of matter
as at present believed.
It differs from the theory of Democritus in this way.
There is no doubt that in the first origin of it, when
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
7
it was suggested to the mind of Daniel Bernouilli as an
explanation of the pressure of gases, or to. the mind of
Dalton as an explanation of chemical reactions, it was a
guess; that is to say, it was a supposition which would
explain these facts of physics and chemistry,.but which was
not known to be true. Some theories are still in that posi
tion ; other theories are known to be true, because they
can be argued back to from the facts. In order to make
out that your supposition is true, it is necessary to show,
not merely that that particular supposition will explain the
facts, but also that no other one will. Now, by the efforts
of Clausius and Clerk Maxwell, the molecular theory or
matter has been put in this other position. Namely,.instead
no.w of saying, Let us suppose that such and such things are
true, and then deducing from that supposition what the con
sequences ought to be, and showing that these consequences
are just the facts which we observe ; instead of doing that, I
say, we make-certain experiments, we show that certain facts
are’undoubtedly true, and from these facts we go back by a
direct chain of logical reasoning, which there is. no way of
getting out of, to the statement that all matter is made up
of separate pieces or molecules, and that in matter of a
given kind, in oxygen, or in hydrogen, or in nitrogen, these
molecules are of very nearly the same weight, and have
certain mechanical properties which are common to all of
them. In order to show you something of the kind of
■evidence for that statement, I must mention another theory
which, as it seems to me, is in the same position; namely,
the doctrine of the luminiferous ether, or that wonderful
substance which is distributed all over space, and which
carries light and radiant heat. By means of certain experi
ments upon interference of light, we can show, not by any
hypothesis, not by any guess at all, but by a pure interpre
tation of the experiment—we can show that in every ray
of light there is some change or other, whatever it is,
which is periodic in time and in place. By saying it is
periodic in time, I mean that at a given point of the ray
of light, this change increases up to a certain instant, then
�8
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
decreases, then increases in the opposite direction, and
then decreases again, and so on alternately. That is
shown by experiments of interference; it is not a theory
which will explain the facts, but it is a fact which is
got out of observation. By saying that this pheno
menon is periodic in space, I mean that, if at any given
instant you could examine the ray of light, you would
find that some change or disturbance, whatever it is
has taken place all along it in different degrees.
It
vanishes at certain points, and between these it increases
gradually to a maximum on one side and the other alter
nately. That is to say, in travelling along a ray of light
there. is a certain change (which can be observed by
experiments, by operating upon a ray of light with other
rays of light), which goes through a periodic variation in
amount. The height of the sea, as you know if you travel
along it, goes through certain periodic changes ; it increases
and decreases, and increases and decreases again at definite
intervals. And if you take the case of waves travelling
over the sea, and place yourself at a given point, say you
put a cork upon the surface, you will find that the cork
will rise up and down, that is to say, there will be a change
or displacement of the cork s position, which is periodic in
time, .which increases and decreases, then increases in the
opposite direction, and decreases again. Now, this fact,
which is established by experiment, and which is not a
guess at all, the fact that light is a phenomenon, periodic
in time and space, is what we call the wave theory of
light. The word theory here does not mean a guess; it
means an organised account of the facts, such that from
it you may deduce results which are applicable to future
experiments, the like of which have not yet been made.
But we can see more than this. So far we say that
light consists of waves, merely in the sense that it consists
of some phenomenon or other which is periodic in time
and in place ; but we know that a ray of light or heat is
capable of doing work. Radiant heat, for example, striking
on a body, will warm it and enable it to do work by ex*
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
9
pansion; therefore this periodic phenomenon which takes
place in a ray of light is something or other which possesses
mechanical energy, which is capable of doing work. We
may make it, if you like, a mere matter of definition, and
say: Any change which possesses energy is a motion of
matter; and this is perhaps the most intelligible definition
of matter that we can frame. In that sense, and in that
sense only, it is a matter of demonstration, and not a
matter of guess, that light consists of the periodic motion
of matter, of something which is between the luminous
object and our eyes.
But that something is not matter in the ordinary
sense of the term, it is not made up of such molecules
as gases and liquids and solids are made up of. This
last statement again is no guess, but a proved fact.
There are people who ask, Why is it necessary to
suppose a luminiferous ether to be anything else except
molecules of matter in space, in order to carry light
about ? The answer is a very simple one. In order that
separate molecules may carry about a disturbance, it is
necessary that they should travel at least as fast as the
disturbance travels. Now we know by means that I shall
afterwards come to, that the molecules of gas travel at a
very ordinary rate, about twenty times as fast as a good
train. But, on the contrary, we know by the most certain
of all evidence, by five or six different means, that the velo
city of light is 200,000 miles a second. By that very simple
consideration we are able to tell that it is quite impossible
for light to be carried by the molecules of ordinary matter,
and that it wants something else that lies between those
molecules to carry the light. Now remembering the
evidence which we have for the existence of this ether,
let us consider another piece of evidence, let us now
consider what evidence we have that the molecules of ~a
gas are separate from one another and have something
between them. We find out, by experiment again, that the
different colours of light depend upon the various rapidity
of these waves, depend upon the size and upon the length
�io
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
of the waves that travel through the ether, and that when
we send light through glass or any transparent medium
except a vacuum, the waves of different lengths travel
with different velocities. That is the case with the sea;
we find that long waves travel faster than short ones. In
much the same way, when light comes out of a vacuum
and impinges upon any transparent medium, say upon
glass, we find that the rate of transmission of all the light
is diminished, that it goes slower when it gets inside of
a material body ; and that this change is greater in the
case of small waves than of large ones. The small waves
correspond to blue light and the large waves correspond to
red light. The waves of red light are not .made to travel
so slowly as the waves of blue light, but, as in the case of
waves travelling over the sea, when light moves in the
interior of a transparent body the largest waves travel
most quickly. Well, then, by using such a body as will
separate out the different colours—a prism—we are able
to affirm what are the constituents of the light which
strikes upon it. The light that comes from the sun is
made up of waves of various lengths; but making it pass
through a prism we can separate it out into a spectrum,
and in that way we find a band of light instead of a spot
coming from the sun, and to every band in the spectrum
corresponds a wave of a certain definite length and definite
time in vibration. Now we come to a very singular
phenomenon. If you take a gas such as chlorine and
interpose it in the path of that light, you will find that
certain particular rays of the spectrum are absorbed, while
others are not. Now how is it that certain particular rates
of vibration can be absorbed by this chlorine gas while
others are not ? That happens in this way, that the
chlorine gas consists of a great number of very small struc
tures, each of which is capable of vibrating internally.
Each of these structures is complicated, and is capable of a
change of relative position amongst its parts of a vibratory
character. We know that molecules are capable of such
internal vibrations, for this reason, that if we heat any
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
11
solid body sufficiently it will in time give out light; that
is to say, the molecules are got into such a state of vibration
that they start the ether vibrating, and they start the
ether vibrating at the same rate at which they vibrate
themselves. So that what we learn from the absorption of
certain particular rays of light by chlorine gas, is that the
molecules of that gas are structures which have certain
natural rates of vibration which they absorb, precisely those
rates of vibration which belong to the molecules naturally.
If you sing a certain note to a string of a piano, that string if
in tune will vibrate. If, therefore, a screen of such strings
were put across a room, and you sang a note on one side,
a person on the other side would hear the note very weakly
or not at all, because it would be absorbed by the strings ;
but if you sang another note, not one to which the strings
naturally vibrated, then it would pass through, and would
not be eaten up by setting the strings vibrating. Now this
question arises. Let us put the molecules aside for a
moment. Suppose we do not know of their existence, and
say, is this rate of vibration which naturally belongs to the
gas, a thing which belongs to it as a whole, or does it
belong -to separate parts of it ? You might suppose that it
belongs to the gas as a whole. A jar of water if you shake
it has a perfectly definite time in which it oscillates, and
that is very easily measured. That time of oscillation
belongs to the jar of water as a whole. It depends upon
the weight of the water and the shape of the jar. But
now, by a very certain method, we know that the time of
vibration which corresponds to a certain definite gas, does
not belong to it as a whole, but belongs to the separate
parts of it, for this reason : that if you squeeze the gas you
do not alter the time of vibration. Let us suppose that we
have a great number of fiddles in a room which are all in
contact, and have strings accurately tuned to vibrate to
certain notes. If you sang one of those notes all the fiddles
would answer ; but if you compress them you clearly put
them all out of tune. They are all in contact, and they will
not answer to the note with the same precision as before.
�12
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
But if you have a room which is full of fiddles, placed at a
certain distance from one another, then if you bring them
within shorter distances of one another, so that they still
don’t touch, they will not be put out of tune, they will answer
exactly to the same note as before. We see, therefore, that
since compression of a gas within certain limits does not alter
the rate of vibration which belongs to it, that rate of vibra
tion cannot belong to the body of gas as a whole, but it must
belong to the individual parts of it. Now, by such reason
ing as this it seems to me that the modern theory of the
constitution of matter is put upon a basis which is abso
lutely independent of hypothesis. The theory is simply an
organised statement of the facts, a statement, that is, which
is rather different from the experiments, being made out
from them in just such a way as to be most convenient for
finding out from them what will be the results of other
experiments. That is all we mean at present by scientific
theory.
Upon this theory Professor Clerk Maxwell founded a
certain argument in his lecture before the British Associa
tion at Bradford. It is a consequence of the molecular
theory, as I said before, that all the molecules of a certain
given substance, say oxygen, are as near as possible alike
in two respects—first in weight, and secondly in their times
of vibration. Now Professor Clerk Maxwell’s argument
was this. He first of all said that the theory required us
to believe not that these molecules were as near as may be
alike, but that they were exactly alike in these two respects—
at least the argument appeared to me to require that. Then
he said all the oxygen we know of, whatever processes it
has gone through—whether it is got out of the atmosphere,
or out of some oxide of iron or carbon, or whether it belongs
to the sun or the fixed stars or the planets or the nebulae—
all this oxygen is alike. And all these molecules of oxygen
we find upon the earth must have existed unaltered, or
appreciably unaltered, during the whole of the time the
earth has been evolved. Whatever vicissitudes they have
gone through, how many times they have entered into
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
13
combination with iron or carbon and been carried down
beneath the crust of the earth, or set free and sent up
again through the atmosphere, they have remained stead
fast to their original form unaltered, the monuments of
what they were when the world began. Now Professor
Clerk Maxwell argues that things which are unalterable,
and are exactly alike, cannot have been formed by any
natural process. Moreover, being exactly alike, they cannot
have existed for ever, and therefore they must have been
made. As Sir John Herschell said, “they bear the stamp
of the manufactured article.”
Now, into these further deductions I do not propose to
enter at all. I confine myself strictly to the first of the
deductions which Professor Clerk Maxwell made from the
molecular theory. He said that because these molecules
are exactly alike, and because they have not been in the
least altered since the beginning of time, therefore they
cannot have been produced by any process of evolution.
It is just that question which I want to discuss. I want
to consider whether the evidence that we have to prove
that these molecules are exactly alike is sufficient to make
it impossible that they can have been produced by any
process of evolution.
The position, that this evidence is not sufficient, is
evidently by far the easier to defend; because the negative
iS proverbially hard to prove ; and if any one should
prove that a process of evolution was impossible, it would
be an entirely unique thing in science and philosophy.
In fact, we may see from this example precisely how
great is the influence of authority in matters of science.
If there is any name among contemporary natural philo
sophers to whom is due the reverence of all true students
of science, it is that of Professor Clerk Maxwell. But if
any one, not possessing his great authority, had put
forward an argument founded apparently upon a scientific
basis, in which there occurred assumptions about what
things can and what things cannot have existed from
eternity, and about the exact similarity of two or more
�14
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
things established by experiment, we should say, “ Past
eternity; absolute exactness; this won’t do; ” and we should
pass on to another book. The experience of all scientific
culture for all ages during which it has been a light to men,
has shown us that we never do get at any conclusions of that
sort. We do not get at conclusions about infinite time or
infinite exactness. We get at conclusions which are as
nearly true as experiment can show, and sometimes which
are a great deal more- correct than direct experiment can
be, so that we are able actually to correct one experiment
by deductions from another ; but we never get at con
clusions which we have a right to say are absolutely exact;
so that even if we find a man of the highest powers
saying that he had reason to believe a certain statement to
be exactly true, or that he believed a certain thing to have
existed from the beginning exactly as it is now, we must
say, “It is quite possible that a man of so great eminence
may have found out something which is entirely different
from the whole of our previous knowledge, and the thing
must be inquired into.- But, notwithstanding that, it
remains a fact that this piece of knowledge will be abso
lutely of a different kind from anything that We knew
before.”
Now let us examine the evidence by which we know
that the molecules of the same gas are as near as may be
• alike in weight and in rates of vibration. There were
experiments made by Dr. Graham, late Master of the
Mint, upon the rate at which different gases were mixed
together. He found that if he divided a vessel by a thin
partition made of black-lead or graphite, and put different
gases on the two opposite sides, they would mix together
nearly as fast as though there was nothing between them.
The difference was that the plate of graphite made it
more easy to measure the rate of mixture; and Dr.
Graham made measurements and came to conclusions
which are exactly such as are required by the molecular
theory. It is found by a process of mathematical calcula
tion that the rate of diffusion of different gases depends
�The First and the Fast Catastrophe.
15
upon the weight of the molecules. A molecule of oxygen
is sixteen times as heavy as a molecule of hydrogen,
and it is found upon experiment that hydrogen goes
through a septum or wall of graphite four times as fast as
oxygen does. Four times four are sixteen. We express
that rule in mathematics by saying that the rate of diffu
sion of gas is inversely as the square root of the mass of
its molecules. If one molecule is-thirty-six times as heavy
as another—the molecule of chlorine is nearly that multi
ple of hydrogen—it- will diffuse itself at one-sixth of
the rate.
This rule is a deduction from the molecular theory, and
it is found, like innumerable other such deductions, to come
right in practice. But now observe what is the conse
quence of this. Suppose that, instead of taking one gas and
making it diffuse itself through a wall, we take a mixture of
two gases. Suppose we put oxygen and hydrogen into one
side of a vessel which is divided into two parte by a wall of
graphite, and we exhaust the air from the other side, then the
hydrogen will go through this wall four times as fast as the
oxygen will. Consequently, as soon as the other side is full
there will be a great deal more hydrogen in it than oxygen
•—that is to say, that we shall have sifted the oxygen from
the hydrogen, not.completely, but in a great measure, pre
cisely as by means of a screen we can sift large coals from
small ones. Now, suppose when we have oxygen gas
unmixed with any other, the molecules are of two sorts
and of two different weights. Then you see that if we
make that gas pass through a porous wall, the lighter par
ticles would pass through first, and we should get two dif
ferent specimens of oxygen gas, in one of which the mole
cules would be lighter than in the other. The properties
of one of these specimens of oxygen gas would necessarily
be different from those of the other, and that difference
might be found by very easy processes. If there were any
perceptible difference between the average weight of the
molecules on the two sides of the septum, there would be
no difficulty in finding that out. No such difference has
�16
The First and the Last Catastrophe,
ever been observed. If we put any single gas into a
vessel, and we filter it through a septum of black-lead into
another vessel, we find no difference between the gas on
one side of the wall and the gas on the other side. That
is to say, if there is any difference it is too small to be
perceived by our present means of observation. It is
upon that sort of evidence that the statement rests that
the molecules of a given gas are all very nearly of the
same weight. Why do I say very nearly ? Because evi
dence of that sort can never prove that they are exactly
of the same weight. The means of measurement we have
may be exceedingly correct, but a certain limit must
always be allowed for deviation ; and if the deviation of
molecules of oxygen from a certain standard of weight
were very small, and restricted within small limits, it would
be quite possible for our experiments to give us the results
which they do now. Suppose, for example, the variation
in the size of «the oxygen atoms was as great as that in the
weight of different men, then it would be very difficult
indeed to tell by such a process of sifting what that dif
ference was, or in fact to establish that it existed at all.
But, on the other hand, if we suppose the forces which
originally caused all those molecules to be so nearly alike
as they are, to be constantly acting and setting the thing
right as soon as by any sort of experiment we set it wrong,
then the small oxygen atoms on one side would be made
up to their right size, and it would be impossible to test
the difference by any experiment which was not quicker
than the processes by which they were made right again.
There is another reason why we are obliged to regard
that experiment as only approximate, and as not giving us
any exact results. There is very strong evidence, although
it is not conclusive, that in a given gas—say in a vessel
full of carbonic acid—the molecules are not all of the
same weight. If we compress the gas, we find that when
in the state of a perfect gas, or nearly so, the pressure
increases just in the ratio that the volume diminishes.
That law is entirely explained by means of the molecular
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
iy
It is what ought to exist if the molecular theoryIf we compress the gas further, we find that the •
pressure is smaller than it ought to be according to this law..
This can be explained in two ways. First of all we may sup
pose that the molecules are so crowded that the time during
which they are sufficiently near to attract each other sensibly
becomes too large a proportion of the whole time to be
neglected; and this will account for the change in the
law. There is, however, another explanation. We may
suppose, for illustration, that two molecules approach one
another, and that the speed at which one is going relatively
to the other is very small, and then that they so direct one
another that they get caught together, and go on circling,
making only one molecule. This, on scientific principles,
will account for our fact, that the pressure in a gas which
is near a liquid state is too small—that instead of the
molecules going about singly, some are hung together in
couples and some in larger numbers, and making still larger
molecules. This supposition is confirmed very strikingly
by the spectroscope. If we take the case of chlorine gas,
we find that it changes colour—that it gets darker as it
approaches the liquid condition. This change of colour
means that there is a change in the rate of vibration which
belongs to its -component parts; and it is a very simple
mechanical deduction that the larger molecules will, as a
rule, have a slower rate of vibration than the smaller ones
—very much in the same way as a short string gives a
higher note than a long one. The colour of chlorine
changes just in the way we should expect if the molecules
instead of going about separately, were hanging together
m couples; and the same thing is true of a great number
of the metals. Mr. Lockyer, in his admirable researches
has shown that several of the metals and metalloids have
various spectra, according to the temperature and the
pressure to which they are exposed; and he has made it
exceedingly probable that these various spectra, that is,
the rates of vibration of the molecules, depend upon the
molecules being actually of different sizes. Dr. Roscoe
theory.
is true.
B
�18
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
has, a few months ago, shown an entirely new spectrum of
the metal sodium, whereby it appears that this metal exists
in a gaseous state in four different degrees of aggregation,
as a simple molecule, and as three or four or eight mole
cules together. Every increase in the complication of the
molecules—every extra molecule you hang on to the aggre
gate that goes about together, will make a difference in
the rate of the vibration of that system, and so will make
a difference in the colour of the substance.
So then we have an evidence, you see, of an entirely
extraneous character, that in a given gas the actual mole
cules that exist are not all of the same weight. Any
experiment which failed to detect this would fail to detect
any smaller difference. And here also we can see a reason
why, although a difference in the size of the molecules
does exist, yet we do not find that out by sifting. Suppose
you take oxygen gas consisting of single molecules and
double molecules, and you sift it through a plate ; the
single molecules get through first, but when they get
through, some of them join themselves together as double
molecules; and although more double molecules are left on
the other side, yet some of them separate up and make
single molecules ; so the process of sifting, which ought to
give you single molecules on the one side anti double on the
other, merely gives you a mixture of single and double on
both sides ; because the reasons which originally decided
that there should be just those two forms are always at
work, and continually setting things right.
Now let us take the other point in which molecules
are very nearly alike; viz., that they have very nearly the
same rate of vibration. The metal sodium in the common
salt upon the earth has two rates of vibration ; it sounds
two notes as it were, which are very near to each other.
They form the well-known double line D, in the yellow
part of the spectrum. These two bright yellow lines
are very easy to observe. They occur in the spectra
of a great number of stars. They occur in the solar
spectrum as dark lines, showing that there is sodium in
�The First and the Fast Catastrophe.
i9
the outer rim of the sun, which is stopping and shutting
off the light of the bright parts behind. All these
lines of sodium are just in the same position in the
spectrum, showing that the rates of vibration of all these
molecules of sodium all over the universe, so far as we
know, are as near as possible alike. That implies a
similarity of molecular structure, which is a great deal
more delicate than, mere test of weight. You may weigh
two fiddles until you are tired, and you will never find out
whether they are in tune; the one test is a great deal more
■delicate than the other, Let us see how delicate this test
is. Lord Eayleigh has remarked that there is a natural
limit for the precise position of a given line in the spec
trum, and for this reason. If a body which is emitting a
sound comes towards you, you will find that the pitch of
the sound is altered. Suppose that omnibuses run every
ten minutes in the streets, and you walk in a direction *
opposite to that in which they are coming, you will
obviously pass more omnibuses in an hour °than if you
walked in an opposite direction. If a body emitting light
is coming towards you, you will find more waves in a
certain direction than if it was going from you; conse
quently, if you are approaching a body emitting light, the
waves will come at shorter intervals, the vibration will be
of shorter period, and the light will be higher up in the
spectrum—it will be more blue. If you are going away
from the body, then the rate is slower, the light is lower
down on the spectrum, and consequently more red. By
means of such variations in the positions of certain known
lines, the actual rate of approach of certain fixed stars to
the earth has been measured, and the rate of going away
of certain other fixed stars has also been measured. Suppose
we have a gas which is glowing in a state of incandescence,
all the molecules are giving out light at a certain
specified rate of V.bration; but some of these are
coming towards us at a rate much greater than seven
teen miles a minute, because the temperature is higher
when the gas is glowing, and others are also going
�20
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
away at a much higher rate than that. The consequence is,
that instead of having one sharply defined line on the spec
trum, instead of having light of exactly one bright colour,
we have light which varies between certain limits. If
the actual rate of the vibration of the molecules of the
gas were marked down upon the spectrum, we should not
get that single bright line there, but we should get a
bright band overlapping it on each side. Lord Eayleigh
calculated that, in the most favourable circumstances, the
breadth of this band would not be less than one-hundredth
of the distance between the sodium lines. It is precisely
upon that experiment that the evidence of the exact
similarity of molecules rests. We see, therefore, from the
nature of the experiment, that we should get exactly the
same results if the rates of vibration of all the molecules
were not exactly equal, but varied within certain very
small limits.
If, for example, the rates of vibration
varied in the same way as the heads of different men,
then we should get very much what we get now from the
experiment.
From the evidence of these two facts, then, the evidence
that molecules are of the same weight and degree of
vibration, all that we can conclude is that whatever
differences there are in their weights, and whatever differ
ences there are in their degrees of vibration, these
differences are too small to be found out by our present
modes of measurement. And that is precisely all that we
can conclude in every similar question of science.
Now, how does this apply to the question whether it is
possible for molecules to have been evolved by natural
processes ? I do not understand, myself, how, even sup
posing we knew that they were 'exactly alike, we could
infer, for certain, that they had not been evolved;
because there is only one case of evolution that we know
anything at all about—and that we know very little about
yet__namely, the evolution of organised beings.
The
processes by which that evolution takes place are long,
cumbrous, and wasteful processes of natural selection and
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
21
hereditary descent. They are processes which act slowly,
which take a great lapse of ages to produce their natural
effects. But it seems to me quite possible to conceive, in
our entire ignorance of the subject, that there may be
other processes of evolution which result in a definite
number of forms,—those of the chemical elements,—just
as these processess of the evolution of organised beings
have resulted in a greater number of forms. All that we
know of the ether shows that its actions are of a rapidity
very much exceeding anything we know of the motions
of visible matter. It is a possible thing, for example,
that mechanical conditions should exist, according to
which all bodies must be made of regular solids, that
molecules should all have flat sides, and that these sides
should all be of the same shape. I suppose that it is just
conceivable that it might be impossible for a molecule to
exist with two of its faces different. In that case we
know there would be just five shapes for a molecule to exist
in, and these would be produced by process of evolution.
Now the forms of various matter that we know, and that
chemists call elements, seem to be related one to another
very much in that sort of way; that is, as if they rose out
of mechanical conditions which only rendered it possible
for a certain definite number of forms to exist, and which,
whenever any molecule deviates slightly from one of these
forms, would immediately operate to set it right again. I
do not know at all—we have nothing definite to go upon
—what the shape of a molecule is, or what is the nature
of the vibration it undergoes, or what its condition is com
pared with the ether; and in our absolute ignorance
it would be impossible to make any conception of the
mode in which it grew up. When we know as much about
the shape of a molecule as we do about the solar system,
for example, we may be as sure of its mode of evolution
as we are of the way in which the solar system came
about; but in our present ignorance all we have to do is to
show that such experiments as we can make do not give us
.evidence that it is absolutely impossible for molecules of
�22
The First and the .Last Catastrophe.
matter to have been evolved out of ether by natural
processes.
The evidence which tells us that the molecules of a
given substance are alike, is only approximate. The theory
leaves room for certain small deviations, and consequently
if there are any conditions at work in the nature of the
ether, which render it impossible for other forms of matter
than those we know of to exist, the great probability is,
that when by any process we contrive to sift molecules of
one. kind from molecules of another, these very conditions
at once bring them back and restore to us a mass of gas
consisting of molecules whose average type is a normal one.
Now I want to consider a speculation of an entirely dif
ferent character. A remark was made about thirty years ago,
by Sir William Thomson, upon the nature of certain pro
blems in the conduction of heat. These problems had been
solved by Fourier, many years before, in a beautiful
treatise. The theory was that if you knew the degree of
warmth of a body, then you could find what would happen
to it afterwards, you would find how the body would
gradually cool. Suppose you put the end of a poker in
the fire and make it red hot, that end is very much hotter
than the other end, and if you take it out and let it cool,
you will find that heat is travelling from the hot end to
the cool end, and the amount of this travelling, and the
temperature at either end of the poker can be calculated
with great accuracy. This, comes out of Fourier’s theory.
Now suppose you try to go backwards in time, and take the
poker at any instant when it is about half cool, and say,
“ this equation,—does it give me the means of finding out
what was happening to it before this time, in so far as the
present state of things has been produced by cooling?”
You will find the equation will give you an account of the
state of the poker before the time when it came into your
hands, with great accuracy up to a certain point, but beyond
that point it refuses to give you any more information, and
it begins to talk nonsense. It is in the nature of a problem
of the conduction of heat, that it allows you to trace the
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
23
forward history of it to any extent you like ; but it will
not allow you to trace the history of it backward, beyond
a certain point. There is another case in which a similar
thing happens. There is an experiment in the excellent
manual, ‘ The Boy’s Own Book,’ which tells you that if you
half fill a glass with beer, and put some paper on it, and
then pour in water carefully, and draw the paper out
without disturbing the two liquids, the water will rest on
the beer. The problem then is to drink the beer without
drinking the water, and it is accomplished by means of a
straw. Let us suppose these two liquids resting in contact ;
we shall find they begin to mix, and it is possible to write
down an equation which is exactly of the same form as
the equation for the conduction of heat, which would tell
you how much water had passed into the beer at any given
time after the mixture began. So that given the water and
the beer half mixed, you could trace forward the process of
mixing, and measure it with accuracy, and give a perfect
*
account of it; but if you attempt to trace that back you
will have a point where the equation will stop, and will
begin to talk nonsense. That is the point where you took
away the paper, and allowed the mixing to begin. If we
apply that same consideration to the case of the poker,
and try to trace back its history, you will find that the
point where the equation begins to talk nonsense is the
point where you took it out of the fire. The mathematical
theory supposes that the process of conduction of heat has
gone on in a quiet manner, according to certain defined
laws, and that if at any time there was a catastrophe, one
not included in the laws of the conduction of heat, then
the equation could give you no account of it. There is
another thing which is of the same kind, namely, the
transmission of fluid friction. If you take your tea in
your cup, and stir it round with a spoon, it won’t go on
circulating round for ever, but will come to a stop ; and
the reason is that there is a certain friction of the liquid
against the sides of the cup, and of the different parts of
the liquid with one another. Now the friction of the
�24
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
different parts of a liquid or a gas is precisely a matter of
mixing. The particles which are going fast, and are in
the middle, not having been stopped by the side, get mixed,
and the particles at the side going slow, get mixed with
the particles in the middle. This process of mixing can
be calculated, and it leads to an equation of exactly the
same sort as that which applies to the conduction of heat.
We have, therefore, in these problems a natural process
which consists in mixing things together, and this always
has the propei’ty that you can go on mixing them for ever,
without coming to anything impossible ; but if you attempt
to trace the history of the thing backward, you must
always come to a state which could not have been produced
by mixing, namely, a state of complete separation.
Now upon this remark of Sir W. Thomson’s, the true
consequences of which you will find correctly stated in
Mr. Balfour Stewart’s book on the ‘ Conservation of
Energy,’ a most singular doctrine has been founded.
These writers have been speaking of a particular pro
blem, on which they were employed at the moment.
Sir W. Thomson was speaking of the conduction of
heat, and he said this heat problem leads you back
to a state which could not have been produced by the
conduction of heat. And so Professor Clerk Maxwell,
speaking of the same problem, and also of the diffusion of
gases, said there was evidence of a limit in past time to
the existing order of things, when something else than
mixing took place. But a most eminent man, who has
done a great deal of service to mankind, Professor Stanley
Jevons, in his very admirable book, the ‘ Principles of
Science,’ which is simply marvellous for the number of
examples illustrating logical principles which he has drawn
from all kinds of regions of science, and for the small
number of mistakes that occur in it, takes this remark of
Sir W. Thomson’s, and takes out two very important
words, and puts in two other very important words. He
says, “We have here evidence of a limit of a state of
things which could not have been produced by the previous
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
2.5
state of things according to the known laws of nature.’’
It is not according to the known laws of nature, it is
according to the known laws of conduction of heat, that
Sir William Thomson is speaking; and from this . we
may see the fallacy of concluding, that if we consider
the case of the whole universe we should be able, suppose
we had paper and ink enough, to write down an equation
which would enable us to make out the history of the
world forward, as far forward as we liked to go, but if we
attempted to calculate the history of the world backward,
we should come to a point where the equation would begin
to talk nonsense, we should come to a state of things which
could not have been produced from any previous state of
things, by any known natural laws. You will see at once
that that is an entirely different statement. The same
doctrine has been used by Mr. Murphy, in a very able
book, 1 The Scientific Basis of Faith,’ to build upon it an
enormous superstructure—I think the restoration of the
Irish Church was one of the results of it. But this doctrine
is founded, as I think, upon a pure misconception. It is
founded entirely upon forgetfulness of the condition
under which the remark was originally made. All these
physical writers, knowing what they were writing about,
simply drew such conclusions from the facts which were
before them as could be reasonably drawn. They say
*
here is a state of things which could not have been pro
duced by the circumstances we are at present investigating.
Then your speculator comes, he reads a sentence and says,
Here is an opportunity for me to have my fling. And he
has his fling and makes a purely baseless theory about the
necessary origin of the present order of nature at some
definite point of time which might "be calculated. But if
we consider the matter, we shall see that this is not in any
way a consequence of the theory of the conduction of heat;
because the conduction of heat is not the only process that
goes on in the universe.
If we apply that theory to the case of the earth, we find
that at present there is evidence of a certain distribution of
�26
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
temperature in the interior of it; there is a certain rate at
which the temperature increases as we go down, and no
doubt if we made further investigations, we should find that
if we went deeper an accurate law would be found, accord
ing to which the temperature increases in the interior.
Now, assuming this to be so, taking this as the basis of
our problem, we might endeavour to find out what was the
history of the earth in past times, and when it began
cooling down. That is exactly what Sir William Thom
son has done. When we attempt it, we find that there is a
definite point to which we can go, and at which our equa
tion talks nonsense. But we do not conclude that at that point
the laws of nature began to be what they are; we only
conclude that the earth began to solidify. Now solidifica
tion is not a process of the conduction of heat, and so the
thing cannot be given by our equation. That point is
given definitely as a point of time, not with great accuracy
but still as near as we can expect to get it with such means
of measuring as we have, and Sir William Thomson has
calculated that the earth must have solidified at some time
a hundred millions or two hundred millions of years ago;
and there we arrive at the beginning of the present state
of things; the process of cooling the earth which is
going on now. Before that it was cooling as a liquid, and
in passing from the liquid to the solid state there was a
catastrophe which introduced a new rate of cooling. So
that by means of that law we do come to a time when the
earth began to assume its present' state. We do not find
the time of the commencement of the universe, but simply
of the present structure of the earth. If we went farther
back, we might make more calculations and find how
long the earth had been in a liquid state. We should
come to another catastrophe, and say at that time, not that
the universe began to exist, but that the present earth
passed from the gaseous to the liquid state.. And if we
went farther back still we should probably find the earth
falling together out of a great ring of matter surrounding
the sun and distributed over its orbit. The same thing is
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
27
true of every body of matter : if we trace its history back,
we come to a certain time at which a catastrophe took
place, and if we were to trace back the history of all the
bodies of the universe in that way we should continually
see them separating up into smaller parts. What t ey
have actually done is to fall together and get solid. If we
could reverse the process we should see them separating
and getting fluid, and, as a limit to that, at an indefinite
distance in past time, we should find that all these Jodies
would be resolved into molecules, and all these would be
flying away from each other. There would be no limit to »
that process, and we could trace it as far back as ever we
liked to trace it. So that on the assumption, a very large
assumption, that the present constitution of the laws of
geometry and mechanics has held good during the whole ot
past time, we should be led to the conclusion that at an
inconceivably long time ago the universe did consist of
ultimate molecules, all separate from one another, and
approaching one another. Then they would meet together
and form a great number of small hot bodies. Then you
would have the process of cooling going on in these bodies,
exactly as we find it going on now. But you will observe
that we have no evidence of such a catastrophe as implies
a beginning of the laws of nature. We do not come to
something of which we cannot make any further calcula
tion- we find that however far we like to go back, we
approximate to a certain state of things, but never actually
get to it.
„
Here, then, we have a doctrine about the beginning ot
things. ' First, we have a probability, about as great as
science can make it, of the beginning of the present state
of things on the earth, of the fitness of the earth for habi
tation ; and then we have a probability about the beginning
of the universe as a whole which is so small, that it is
better put in this form, that we do not know anything at
all about it. The reason why I say that we do not know
anything at all of the beginning of the universe, is that
we have no reason whatever fob believing that what we
�28
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
at present know of the laws of geometry and mechanics
are exactly and absolutely true at present, or that they have
been even approximately true for any period of time,
further than we have direct evidence of. The evidence we
have of them is founded on experience, and we should have
exactly the same experience of them now, if those laws
were not exactly and absolutely true, but were only so
nearly true that we could not observe the difference. So
that in making the assumption we may argue upon the
absolute uniformity of nature, and "suppose these laws to
e have remained exactly as they are, we are assuming some
thing we know nothing about. My conclusion then is, that
we do know, with great probability, of the beginning of
the habitability of the earth about one hundred or two
hundred millions of years back, but that of a beginning of
the universe we know nothing at all.
Now let us consider what we can find out about the end
of things. The life which exists upon the earth is made
by the sun’s action, and it depends upon the sun for its
continuance. We know that the sun is wearing out, that
it is cooling, and although this heat which it loses day by
day is made up in some measure, perhaps completely at
present, by the contraction of its mass, yet that process
cannot go on for ever. There is only a certain amount of
energy in the present constitution of the sun, and when
that has been used up, the sun cannot go on giving out
any more heat. Supposing, therefore, the earth remains
in her present orbit about the sun, seeing that the sun
must be cooled down at some time, we shall all be frozen
out. On the other hand, we have no reason to believe
that the orbit of the earth about the sun is an absolutely
stable thing. It has been maintained for a long time that
there is a certain resisting medium which the planets have
to move through, and it may be argued from that, that in
time all the planets must be gradually made to move
in smaller orbits, and so to fall in towards the sun.
But, on the other hand, the evidences upon which this
assertion was based, the movement of Encke’s comet and
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
<1$
others, has been quite recently entirely overturned by
Professor Tait. He supposes that these comets consist of
bodies of meteors. Now, it was proved a long time ago,
that a mass of small bodies travelling together m an orbit
about a central body, will always tend to fall in towards it,
and that is the case with the rings of Saturn. So that,
in fact, the movement of Encke’s comet is entirely accounted
for on the supposition that it is a swarm , of meteors, with
out regarding the assumption of a resisting medium. On
the other hand, it seems exceedingly natural to suppme
that some matter in a very thin state is diffused about the
planetary spaces. Then we have another consideration,
just as the sun and moon make tides upon the sea, so the
planets make tides upon the sun. If we consider the ti e
which the earth makes upon the sun, instead of being a
great wave lifting the mass of the sun up directly under
the earth, it is carried forward by the sun’s rotation ; the
result is, that the earth instead of being attracted to tha
sun’s centre, is attracted to a point before the centre. The
immediate tendency is to accelerate the earth s motion,
and the final effect of this upon the planet is to make
its orbit larger. That planet disturbing all the other
planets, the consequence is that we have the earth gradually
going away from the sun, instead of falling into it.
*
In any case, all we know is that the sun is going out.
If we fall into the sun then we shall be fried; if we go
away from the sun, or the sun goes out, then we shall be
frozen. So that, so far as the earth is concerned, we have
no means of determining what will be the character of the
end, but we know that one of these two things must take
place in time: But in regard to the whole universe, if we
were to travel forward as we have travelled backward in
time, consider things as falling together, we should come
finally to a great central mass, all in one piece, which
would send out waves of heat through a perfectly empty
* I learn from Sir W Thomson that the ultimate effect of tidal defor
mation ona number of bodies is to reduce them to two, which move as if
they were rigidly connected.
�jo
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
ether, and gradually cool itself down. As this mass got
cool it would be deprived of all life or motion ; it would
be just a mere enormous frozen block in the middle of the
ether. But that conclusion, which is like the one that we
discussed about the beginning of the world, is one which
we have no right whatever to rest upon. It depends upon
the same assumption that the laws of geometry and
mechanics are exactly and absolutely true ; and that they
will continue exactly and absolutely true for ever and
ever. Such an assumption we have no right whatever to
make. We may therefore, I think, conclude about the
end of things that so far as the earth is concerned, an end
of life upon it is as probable as science can make any
thing ; but that in regard to the universe we have no right
to draw any conclusion at all.
So far, we have considered simply the material existence
of the earth; but of course our greatest interest lies
not so much with the material life upon it, the organised
beings, as with another fact which goes along with that,
and which is an entirely different one—the fact of the
consciousness that exists upon the earth. We find very
good reason indeed to believe that this consciousness
in the case of any organism is itself a very complex
thing, and that it corresponds part for part to the action
of the nervous system, and more particularly of the
brain of that organised thing. There are some whom
such evidence has led to the conclusion that the destruc
tion which we have seen reason to think probable of all
organised beings upon the earth, will lead also to the final
destruction of the consciousness that goes with them.
Upon this point I know there is great difference of opinion
amongst those who have a right to speak. But to those
who do see the cogency of the evidences of modern physio
logy and’ modern psychology in this direction, it is a very
serious thing to consider that not only the earth itself
and all that beautiful face of nature we see, but also the
living things upon it, and all the consciousness of men,
and the ideas of society, which have grown up upon the
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
3i
surface, must come to an end. We who hold that belief
must just face the fact and make the best of it; and 1
think we are helped in this by the words of that Jew
philosopher, who was himself a worthy crown to the
splendid achievements of his race in the cause of progress
during the Middle Ages, Benedict Spinoza. He said
“ The free man thinks of nothing so little as of death, and
his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.
ur
interest lies with so much of the past as may serve
to guide our actions in the present, and to intensify our
pious allegiance to the fathers who' have gone before us
and the brethren who are with us ; and our interest lies
with so much of the future as we may hope will be
appreciably affected by our good actions now. Beyond
that, as it seems to me, we do not know, and we ought no
to care. Do I seem to say, “ Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die ? ” Far from it; on. the contrary I say,
“ Let us take hands and help, for this day we are alive
together.”
PRINTED BY C. IV. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENBY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETYS LECTURES
AKE DELIVERED AT
ST GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 23rd April,
1876, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,_
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s.
6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and
�
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The first & the last catastrophe : a criticism on some recent speculations about the duration of the universe : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 12th April, 1874
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
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Cosmology
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
BEARING
ON
OF
MORALS
RELIGION.
$ Tnta
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
.SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 4th 'MARCH, 1877.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprinted from the ‘ Fortnightly Review,' by kind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1877.
Price Threepence.
��THE BEARING OF MORALS
ON RELIGION.
HE word religion is used in many different mea^
ings and there have been not a few- controversy
the main difference between the contending
parties was only this, that they understood by religion
two different things. I will therefore begin by settog
forth as clearly aB I can one or two of the mea g
which the word appears to have in P°Pa y SP
Kr8t’ Sse “TyheX“tha o^e°Vh“ehgion ■”
“?nTisPseX’ce5‘ The religion of Buddha teaches that
the soul is not a distinct substance.
Opinions differ
upon the question what doctrines may properly be callei
religious ^some people holding that there can be no r^
ligion without belief in a god and in a future life jso^ hat
n their judgment the body of doctrines must necessarily
include these two : while others would insist upon other
special dogmas being included, before they could consent
to call thelystem by this name. But the number of such
Deonle is daily diminishing, by reason of. the spread an
thePincrease of our knowledge about distant countries
and races. To me, indeed, it would seem rash to asse
of any doctrine or its contrary that it might not for
part of a religion. But, fortunately, it is not necessary
to any part of the discussion on which I propose to ente ,
that this question should be settled.
.
Secondly, religion may mean a ceremonial or cuLt, m
volving an organized priesthood and a machinery of
T
�6
The Bearing of Morals
sacred things and places. In this sense we speak of the
clergy as ministers of religion, or of a state as tolerating
the practice of certain religions. There is a somewhat
wider meaning which it will be convenient to consider
together with this one, and as a mere extension of it,
namely, that in which religion stands for the influence of
a certain priesthood. A religion is sometimes said to
have been successful when it has got its priests into
power; thus some writers speak of the wonderfully rapid
success of Christianity. A nation is said to have em
braced a religion when the authorities of that nation have
granted privileges to the clergy, have made them as far
as possible the leaders of society, and have given them a
considerable share in the management of public affairs.
So the northern nations of Europe are said to have em
braced the Catholic religion at an early date. The rea
son why it seems to me convenient to take these two
meanings together is, that they are both related to the
priesthood. Although the priesthood itself is not called
religion, so far as I know, yet the word is used for the
general influence and professional acts of the priest
hood.
Thirdly, religion may mean a body of precepts or code
of rules, intended to guide human conduct, as in this
sentence of the authorised version of the New Testa
ment : “ Pure religion and undefiled before God and the
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
(James i. 27). It is sometimes difficult to draw the line
bet ween this meaning and the last, for it is a mark of the
great majority of religions that they confound ceremonial
observances with duties having real moral obligation.
Thus in the Jewish decalogue the command to do no
work on Saturdays is found side by side with the prohi
bition of murder and theft. It might seem to be the
more correct as well as the more philosophical course to
follow in this matter the distinction made by Butler be
tween moral and positive commands, and to class all those
�.on Religion.
7
precepts which are not of universal moral obligation
under the head of ceremonial. And, in fact, when we
come to examine the matter from the point of view of
morality, the distinction is of course of the utmost im
portance. But from the point of view of religion there
are difficulties in making it. ' In the first place, the dis
tinction is not made, or is not understood, by religious
folk in general. Innumerable tracts and pretty stories
impress upon us that Sabbath-breaking is rather worse
than stealing, and leads naturally on to materialism and
murder. Less than a hundred years ago sacrilege was
punishable by burning in France, and murder by simple
decapitation. In the next place, ifwe pick out a religion
at haphazard, we shall find that it is not at all easy to
divide its precepts into those which are really of moral
obligation and those which are indifferent and of a cere
monial character. We may find precepts unconnected
with any ceremonial, and yet positively immoral; and
ceremonials may be immoral in themselves, or construc
tively immoral, on account of their known symbolism.
On the whole, it seems to me most convenient to draw
the plain and obvious distinction between those actions
which a religion prescribes to all its followers, whether
the actions are ceremonial or not, and those which are
prescribed only as professional actions of a sacerdotal
-class. The latter will come under what I have called the
second meaning of religion, the professional acts and the
influence of a priesthood. In the third meaning will be
included all that practically guides the life of a layman,
in so far as this guidance is supplied to him by his re
ligion.
..
Fourthly, and lastly, there is a meaning of the word.
religion which has been coming more and more promi
nently forward of late years, till it has even threatened
to supersede all the others. Religion has been defined
as morality touched with emotion. I will not here adopt
this definition, because I wish to deal with the concrete
in the first place, and only to pass on to the abstract m
�8
The Bearing of Morals
so far as that previous study appears to lead to it. I
wish to consider the facts of religion as we find them,,
and not ideal possibilities. “ Yes, but,” every one will
say, “ if you mean my own religion, it is already, as a
matter of fact, morality touched with emotion. It is thehighest morality touched with the purest emotion, an
emotion directed towards the most worthy of objects.”
Unfortunately we do not mean your religion alone, but
all manner of heresies and heathenisms along with it:
the religions of the Thug, of the Jesuit, of the South Sea
cannibal, of Confucius, of the poor Indian with his un
tutored mind, of the Peculiar People, of the Mormons,
and of the old cat-worshipping Egyptian. It must be
clear that we shall restrict ourselves to a very narrow
circle of what are commonly called religious facts, unless
we include in our considerations not only morality
touched with emotion, but also immorality touched with
emotion. In fact, what is really touched with emotion
in any case is that body of precepts for the guidance of a
layman’s life which we have taken to be the third mean
ing of religion. In that collection of precepts there may
be some agreeable to morality, and some repugnant to it,
and some indifferent, but being all enjoined by the reli
gion they will all be touched by the same religious emo
tion. Shall we then say that religion means a feeling,
an emotion, an habitual attitude of mind towards some
object or objects, or towards life in general, which has a
bearing upon the way in which men regard the rules of
conduct ? I think the last phrase should be left out.
An habitual attitude of mind, of a religious character,
does always have some bearing upon the way in which
men regard the rules of conduct; but it seems sometimes
as if this were an accident, and not the essence of the
religious feeling. Some devout people prefer to have
their devotion pure and simple, without admixture of any
such application—they do not want to listen to “cauld
morality.” And it seems as if the religious feeling of the
Greeks, and partly also of our own ancestors, was so far
�on Religion.
9
divorced from morality that it affected it only, as it were,
by a side-wind, through the influence of the character
and example of the gods. So that it. seems only likely
to create confusion if we mix up morality with this fourth
meaning of religion. Sometimes religion means a code
of precepts, and sometimes it means a devotional habit ot
mind ; the two things are sometimes connected, but also
they are sometimes quite distinct. But that the connec
tion of these two things is more and more insisted on,
that it is the key-note of the apparent revival of religion
which has taken place in this century, is a very significant
fact, about which there is more to be said.
As to the nature of this devotional habit of mind, there
are no doubt many who would like a closer definition.
But I am not at all prepared to say what attitude of mind
may properly be called religious, and what may not.
Some will hold that religion must have a person for its
object; but Buddha was filled with religious feeling, and
yet he had no personal object. Spinoza,.the god-intoxi
cated man, had no personal object for his devotion. It
might be possible to frame a definition which would
fairly include all cases, but it would require the expendi
ture of vast ingenuity and research, and would not,
I am inclined to think, be of much use when it was ob
tained.
Nor is the difficulty to be got over by taking any de
finite and well-organized sect, whose principles are settled
in black and white ; for example, the Boman Catholic
Church, whose seamless unity has just been exhibited
and protected by an (Ecumenical Council. Shall we
listen to Mr. Mivart, who “ execrates without reserve
Marian persecutions, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and all similar acts ?” or to the editor of the Dublin
Review, who thinks that a teacher of false doctrines
should be visited by the law with just that amount of
severity which the public sentiment willj. bear ?Eor
assuredly common-sense morality will passjvery different
judgments on these two distinct religions, although it
�IO
The Bearing of Morals
appears that experts have found room for both of them'
within the limits of the Vatican definitions.
Moreover, there is very great good to be got by widen
ing our view of what may be contained in religion. If
we go to a man and propose to test his own religion by
the canons of common-sense morality, he will be, most
likely, offended, for he will say that his religion is far too
sublime and exalted to be affected by considerations of
that sort. But he will have no such objection in the case
of other people’s religion. And when he has found that
in the name of religion other people, in other circum
stances, have believed in doctrines that were false, have
supported priesthoods that were social evils, have taken
wrong for right, and have even poisoned the very sources
of morality, he may be tempted to ask himself, “Is there
no trace of any of these evils in my own religion, or at
least in my own conception and practice of it ?” And
that is just what we want him to do. Bring your doc
trines, your priesthoods, your precepts, yea, even the
inner devotion of your soul, before the tribunal of con
science ; she is no man’s and no god’s vicar, but the
supreme judge of men and gods.
Let us inquire, then, what morality has to say in re
gard to religious doctrines. It deals with the manner
of religious belief directly, and with the matter indirectly.
Religious beliefs must be founded on evidence; if they
are not so founded, it is wrong to hold them. The rule
of right conduct in this matter is exactly the opposite of
that implied in the t^vo famous texts : “ He that believeth
not shall be damned,” and “ Blessed are they that have
not seen and yet have believed.” For a man who clearly
felt and recognised the duty of intellectual honesty, of
carefully testing every belief before he received it, and
especially before he recommended it to others, it would
be impossible to ascribe the profoundly immoral teaching
of these texts to a true prophet or worthy leader of
humanity. It will comfort those who wish to preserve
their reverence for the character of a great teacher to-
�on Religion.
11
remember that one of these sayings is in the well-known
forged passage at the end of the second gospel, and that
the other occurs only in the late and legendary fourth
gospel; both being described as spoken under utterly
impossible circumstances. These precepts belong to the
Church and not to the Gospel. But whoever wrote either
of them down as a deliverance of one whom he supposed
to be a divine teacher, has thereby written down himself
as a man void of intellectual honesty, as a man whose
word cannot be trusted, as a man who would accept and
spread about any kind of baseless fiction for fear of be
lieving too little.
So far as to the manner of religious belief. Let us
now inquire what bearing morality has upon its matter.
We may see at once that this can only be indirect; for
the rightness or wrongness of belief in a doctrine de
pends only upon the nature of the evidence for it, and
not upon what the doctrine is. But there is a very im
portant way in which religious doctrine may lead to
morality or immorality, and in which, therefore, morality
has a bearing upon doctrine. It is when that doctrine
declares the character and actions of the gods who are
regarded as objects of reverence and worship. If a god
is represented as doing that which is clearly wrong, and
is still held up to the reverence of men, they will be
tempted to think that in doing this wrong thing they
are not so very wrong after all, but are only following
an example which all men respect. So says Plato : —
*
“We must not tell a youthful listener that he ■will be doing
nothing extraordinary if he commit the foulest crimes, nor yet if
he chastise the crimes of a father in the most unscrupulous man
ner, but will simply be doing what the first and greatest of the
gods have done before him. ...
“ Nor yet is it proper to say in any case—what is indeed untrue
—that gods wage war against gods, and intrigue and fight among
themselves ; that is, if the future guardians of our state are to
deem it a most disgraceful thing to quarrel lightly with one
another: far less ought we to select as subjects for fiction and
Rep. ii. 378. Tr. Davies and Vaughan.
�12
The Bearing of Morals
embroidery, the battles of the giants, and numerous other feuds of
all sorts, in which gods and heroes fight against their own kith
and kin. But if there is any possibility of persuading them, that
to quarrel with one’s fellow is a sin of which no member of a state
was ever guilty, such ought rather to be the language held to our
children from the first, by old men and old women, and all elderly
persons; and such is the strain in which our poets must be com
pelled to write. But stories like the chaining of Here by her son,
and the flinging of Hephaistos out of heaven for trying to take his
mother’s part when his father was beating her, and all those battles
of the gods which are to be found in Homer, must be refused ad
mittance into our state, whether they be allegorical or not. For
a child cannot discriminate between what is allegory and what is
not; and whatever at that age is adopted as a matter of belief,
has a tendency to become fixed and indelible, and therefore, per
haps, we ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the
fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most
perfect manner to the promotion of virtue. ”
And Seneca says the same thing, with still more rea
son in his day and country : “ What else is this appeal
to the precedent of the gods for, but to inflame our lusts,
and to furnish licence and excuse for the corrupt act
under the divine protection ?” And again, of the cha
racter of Jupiter as described in the popular legends :
“ This has led to no other result than to deprive sin of
its shame in man’s eyes, by showing him the god no
better than himself.” In Imperial Rome, the sink of all
nations, it was not uncommon to find “ the intending
sinner addressing to the deified vice which he contem
plated a prayer for the success of his design ; the adul
teress imploring of Venus the favours of her paramour ;
.
. the thief praying to Hermes Dolios for aid in
his enterprise, or offering up to him the first-fruits of
his plunder;
youths entreating Hercules to
expedite the death of a rich uncle.”*
When we reflect that criminal deities were worshipped
all over the empire, we cannot but wonder that any good
people were left; that man could still be holy, although
every god was vile. Yet this was undoubtedly the case;
* North British Review, 1867, p. 284.
�cn Religion.
ij
the social forces worked steadily on wherever there was
peace and a settled government and municipal freedom ;
and the wicked stories of theologians were somehow ex
plained away and disregarded. If men were no better
than their religions, the world would be a hell indeed.
It is very important, however, to consider what really
ought to be done in the case of stories like these. When
the poet sings that Zeus kicked Hephaistos out of heaven
for trying to help his mother, Plato says that this fiction
must be suppressed by law. We cannot follow him
there, for since his time we have had too much of trying
to suppress false doctrines by law. Plato thinks it quite
obviously clear that God cannot produce evil, and he
would stop everybody’s mouth who ventured to say that
he can. But in regard to the doctrine itself, we can
only ask, “ Is it true ?”
And that is a question
to be settled by evidence. Did Zeus commit this
crime, or did he not ? We must ask the apologists, the
reconcilers of religion and science, what evidence they
can produce to prove that Zeus kicked Hephaistos out
of heaven. That a doctrine may lead to immoral conse
quences is no reason for disbelieving it. But whether'
the doctrine were true or false, one thing does clearly
follow from its moral character: namely this, that if
Zeus behaved as he is said to have behaved he ought not'
to be worshipped. To those who complain of his violence
and injustice, it is no answer to say that the divine attri
butes are far above human comprehension, that the wavs
of Zeus are not our ways, neither are his thoughts our
thoughts. If he is to be worshipped, he must do some
thing vaster and nobler and greater than good men do,
but it must be like what they do in its goodness. His
actions must not be merely a magnified copy of what bad
men do. So soon as they are thus represented, morality
has something to say. Not indeed about the fact; for
it is not conscience, but reason, that has to judge matters
of fact; but about the worship of a character so repre
sented. If there really is good evidence that Zeus kicked
�14
The Bearing of Morals
Hephaistos out of heaven, and seduced Alkmene by a
mean trick, say so by all means ; but say also that it is
wrong to salute his priests or to make offerings in his
temple.
When men do their duty in this respect, morality has
a very carious indirect effect on the religious doctrine
itself. As soon as the offerings become less frequent, the
evidence for the doctrine begins to fade away; the pro
cess of theological interpretation gradually brings out
the true inner meaning of it, that Zeus did not kick
Hephaistos out of heaven, and did not seduce Alk
mene.
Is this a merely theoretical discussion about far-away
things ? Let us come back for a moment to our own
time and country, and think whether there can be any
lesson for us in this refusal of common-sense morality to
worship a deity whose actions are a magnified copy of
what bad men do. There are three doctrines which find
very wide acceptance among our countrymen at the pre
sent day: the doctrines of original sin,vof a vicarious
sacrifice, and of eternal punishments. We are not con
cerned with any refined evaporations of these doctrines
which are exhaled by courtly theologians, but with the
naked statements which are put into the minds of chil
dren and of ignorant people, which are taught broadcast
and without shame in denominational schools. Father
Faber, good soul, persuaded himself that after all only a
very few people would be really damned, and Father
Oxenham gives one the impression that it will not hurt
even them very much. But one learns the practical
teaching of the Church from such books as “A Glimpse
of Hell,” where a child is described as thrown between
the bars upon the burning coals, there to writhe for
ever. The masses do not get the elegant emasculations
of Father Faber and Father Oxenham ; they get “ a
Glimpse of Hell.”
Now to condemn all mankind for the sin of Adam and
Eve; to let the innocent suffer for the guilty;, to keep
�on Religion.
15
any one alive in torture for ever and ever : these actions
are simply magnified copies of what bad men do. No
juggling with “ divine justice and mercy” can make them
anything else. This must be said to all kinds and con
ditions of men : that if God holds all mankind guilty for
the sin of Adam, if he has visited upon the innocent the
punishment of the guilty, if he is to torture any single
soul for ever, then it is wrong to worship him.
But there is something to be said also to those who
think that religious beliefs are not indeed true, but are
useful for the masses ; who deprecate any open and public
argument against them, and think that all sceptical books
should be published at a high price ; who go to church,
not because they approve of it themselves, but to set an
example to the servants. Let us ask them to ponder the
words of Plato, who, like them, thought that all these
tales of the gods were fables, but still fables which might
be useful to amuse children with : “T7e ought to esteem vt
of the greatest importance that the fictions which children
first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to
the. promotion of virtue.” If we grant to you that it is
good for poor people and children to believe some of these
fictions, is it not better, at least, that they should believe
those which are adapted to the promotion of virtue ?
Now the stories which you send your servants and chil
dren to hear are adapted to the promotion of vice. So
far as the remedy is in your own hands, you are bound
to apply it; stop your voluntary subscriptions and the
moral support of your presence from any place where the
criminal doctrines are taught. ¥ou will find more men
and better men to preach that which is agreeable to their
conscience, than to thunder out doctrines under which
their minds are always uneasy, and which only a con
tinual self-deception can keep them from feeling to be
wicked'.
Let us now go on to inquire what morality has to say
in the matter of religious ministrations, the official acts
and the general influence of a priesthood. This question
�16
The Bearing of Morals
seems to me a more difficult one than the former ; at any
rate it is not so easy to find general principles which are
at once simple in their nature and clear to the conscience
of any man who honestly considers them. One such
principle, indeed, there is, which can hardly be stated in
a Protestant country without meeting with a cordial
response ; being indeed that characteristic of our race
which made the Reformation a necessity, and became the
soul of the Protestant movement. I mean the principle
which forbids the priest to come between a man and his
conscience. If it be true, as our daily experience teaches
us, that the moral sense gains in clearness and power by
exercise, by the constant endeavour to find out and to see
for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, it must
be nothing short of a moral suicide to delegate our con
science to another man. It is true that when we are in
difficulties, and do not altogether see our way, we quite
rio-htly seek counsel and advice of some friend who has
more experience, more wisdom begot by it, more devo
tion to the right than ourselves, and who, not being in
volved in the difficulties which encompass us, may more
easily see the way out of them. But such counsel does
not and ought not to take the place of our private judg
ment ; on the contrary, among wise men it is asked and
given’for the purpose of helping and supporting private
judgment. I should go to my friend, not that he may
tell me what to do, but that he may help me to see what
is right.
.
Now, as we all know, there is a priesthood whose in
fluence's not to be made light of, even in our own land,
which claims to do two things : to declare with infallible
authority what is right and what is wrong, and to take
away the guilt of the sinner after confession has been
made to it. The second of these claims we shall come
back upon in connection with another part of the sub
ject. But that claim is one which, as it seems to me,
ought to condemn the priesthood making it in the eyes
of every conscientious man. We must take care to keep
�on Religion.
this question to itself, and not to let it be confused with
quite different ones. The priesthood in question, as we
all know, has taught that as right which is not right,
and has condemned as wrong some of the holiest dutiesof mankind. But this is not what we are here concerned
with. Let us put an ideal case of a priesthood which,
as a matter of fact, taught a morality agreeing with thehealthy conscience of all men at a given time ; but which,
nevertheless, taught this as an infallible revelation. The
tendency of such teaching, if really accepted, would be
to destroy morality altogether, for it is of the very essence
of the moral sense that it is a common perception by men
of what is good for man. It arises, not in one man’smind by a flash of genius or a transport of ecstasy, but
in all men’s minds, as the fruit of their necessary inter
course and united labour for a common object. When
an infallible authority is set up, the voice of this natural
human conscience must be hushed and schooled, and
made to speak the words of a formula. Obedience be
comes the whole duty of man; and the notion of right
is attached to a lifeless code of rules, instead of being the
informing character of a nation. The natural conse
quence is that it fades gradually out and ends by disap
pearing altogether. I am not describing a purely con
jectural state of things, but an effect which has actually
been produced at various times and in considerable popu
lations by the influence of the Catholic Church. It is
true that we cannot find an actually crucial instance of
a pure morality taught as an infallible revelation, and so
in time ceasing to be morality for that reason alone.
There are two circumstances which prevent this. One
is that the Catholic priesthood has always practically
taught an imperfect morality, and that it is difficult to
distinguish between the effects of precepts which are
wrong in themselves and precepts which are only wrong
because of the manner in which they are enforced. The
other circumstance is that the priesthood has very rarely
found a population willing to place itself completely and
�18
The Bearing of Morals
absolutely under priestly control. Men must live together
and work for common objects even in priest-ridden
■countries ; and those conditions, which in the course of
ages have been able to create the moral sense, cannot
fail in some degree to recall it to men’s minds and gra
dually to reinforce it. Thus it comes about that a great
and increasing portion of life breaks free from priestly
influences, and is governed upon right and rational
grounds. The goodness of men shows itself in time
more powerful than the wickedness of some of their re
ligions.
The practical inference is, then, that we ought to do
all in our power to restrain and diminish the influence of
any priesthood which claims to rule consciences. But
when we attempt to go beyond this plain Protestant
principle, we find that the question is one of history and
politics. The question which we want to ask ourselves
—“Is it right to support this or that priesthood ?”—can
only be answered by this other question, “ What has it
done or got done ?”
In asking this question, we must bear in mind that
the word priesthood, as we have used it hitherto, has a
very wide meaning—namely, it means any body of men
who perform special ceremonies in the name of religion ;
a ceremony being an act which is prescribed by religion
to that body of men, but not on account of its intrinsic
rightness or wrongness. It includes, therefore, not only
the priests of Catholicism, or of the Obi rites, who lay
claim to a magical character and powers, but the more
familiar clergymen or ministers of Protestant denomina
tions, and the members of monastic orders. But there
is a considerable difference, pointed out by Hume, be
tween a priest, who lays claim to a magical character
and powers, and a clergyman, in the English sense, as
it was understood in Hume’s day, whose office was to
remind people of their duties every Sunday, and
to represent a certain standard of culture in remote
country districts. It will, perhaps, conduce to clear-
�on Religion.
19
ness if we use the word priest exclusively in the first
sense.
There is another confusion which we must endeavour
to avoid, if we would really get at the truth of this
matter. When one ventures to doubt whether the
Catholic clergy has really been an unmixed blessing to
Europe, one is generally met by the reply, “ You cannot
find any fault with the Sermon on the Mount.” Now,
it would be too much to say that this has nothing to do
with the question we were proposing to ask, for there is
a sense in which the Sermon on the Mount and the
Catholic clergy have something to do with each other.
The Sermon on the Mount is admitted on all hands to
be the best and most precious thing that Christianity
has offered to the world ; and it cannot be doubted that
the Catholic clergy of East and West were the only
spokesmen of Christianity until the Reformation, and
are the spokesmen of the vast majority of Christians at
this moment. But it must surely be unnecessary to say,
in a Protestant country, that the Catholic Church and
the Gospel are two very different things. The moral
teaching of Christ, as partly preserved in the three first
gospels, or—which is the same thing—the moral teach
ing of the great Rabbi Hillel, as partly preserved in the
Pirke Aboth, is the expression of the conscience of a
people who had fought long and heroically for their
national existence. In that terrible conflict they had
learned the supreme and overwhelming importance of
conduct, the necessity for those who would survive, of
fighting manfully for their lives and making a stand
against the hostile powers around; the weakness and
uselessness of solitary and selfish efforts, the necessity'
for a man who would be a man to lose his poor single
personality in the being of a greater and nobler com
batant—the nation. And they said all this, after their
fashion of short and potent sayings, perhaps better than
any other men have said it before or since. “ If I am
not for myself,” said the great Hillel, “who is for me ?
�20
The Bearing of Morals
And if I am only for myself, where is the use of me ?
And if not noiv, when ?" It would be hard to find a morestriking contrast than exists between the sturdy unsel
fish independence of this saying, and the abject and
selfish servility of the priest-ridden claimant of the skies.
It was this heroic people that produced the morality of
the Sermon on the Mount. But it was not they who
produced the priests and the dogmas of Catholicism.
Shaven crowns, linen vestments, and the claim to priestly
rule over consciences, these were dwellers on the banks
of the Nile. The gospel indeed came out of Judaea, bub
the Church and her dogmas came out of Egypt. Not,
as it is written, “ Out of Egypt have I called my son,”
but, “ Out of Egypt have I called my daughter.” St.
Gregory of Nazianzum remarks with wonder that Egypt,
having so lately worshipped bulls, goats, and crocodiles,
was now teaching the world the worship of the Trinity
in its truest form.”* Poor, simple St. Gregory! it was
not that Egypt had risen higher, but that the world had
sunk lower. The empire, which in the time of Augustus
had dreaded, and with reason, the corrupting influenceof Egyptian superstitions, was now eaten up by them,
and rapidly rotting away.
Then, when we ask what has been the influence of the
Catholic clergy upon European nations, we are not in
quiring about the results of accepting the morality of the
Sermon on the Mount; we are inquiring into the effect
of attaching an Egyptian priesthood, which teaches
Egyptian dogmas, to the life and sayings of a Jewish
prophet.
In this inquiry, which requires the knowledge of facts
beyond our own immediate experience, we must make
use of the great principle of authority, which enables us
to profit by the experience of other men. The great
civilised countries on the continent of Europe at the
present day—France, Germany, Austria, and Italy—
* See Sharpe, ‘ Egyptian Mythology and Egj ptian Christianity,’ p. 114.
�on Religion.
21
have had an extensive experience of the Catholic ^ergy
for a great number of centuries, and. they are forced by
strong practical reasons to form a. judgment, upon the
•character and tendencies of an institution which is sutficiently powerful to command the attention of all w o
are interested in public affairs. We might add the ex
perience of our forefathers three centuries ago, and ot
Ireland at this moment; but home politics are apt to be
looked upon with other eyes than those of reason. Let
us hear, then, the judgment of the civilised people o
Europe on this question.
It is a matter of notoriety that an aider and abettor ot
clerical pretensions is regarded in France as an enemy
of France and of Frenchmen ; in Germany as an enemy
of Germany and of Germans ; in Austria as an enemy of
Austria and Hungary, of both Austrians and .Magyars ;
and in Italy as an enemy of Italy and the Italians. He
is so regarded, not by a few wild and revolutionary en
thusiasts who have cast away all the beliefs of their
childhood and all bonds connecting them with the past,
but by a great and increasing majority of sober and con
scientious men of all creeds and persuasions, who are
filled with a love for their country, and whose hopes and
aims for the future are animated and guided by the
•examples of those who have gone before them, and by a
sense of the continuity of national life. The profound
conviction and determination of the people in all these
countries, that the clergy must be restricted to a purely
ceremonial province, and must not be allowed to inter
fere, as clergy, in public affairs—this conviction and de
termination, I say, are not the effect of a rejection of the
Catholic dogmas. Such rejection has not in fact been
made in Catholic countries by the great, majority. It
involves many difficult speculative questions, the pro
found disturbance of old habits of thought, and the toil
some consideration of abstract ideas. But such is the
happy inconsistency of human nature, that men who
would be shocked and pained by a doubt about the cen
�22
The Bearing of Morals
tral doctrines of their religions, are far more really and
practically shocked and pained by the moral consequences
of clerical ascendancy. About the dogmas they do not
know; they were taught them in childhood, and have
not inquired into them since, and therefore they are not
competent witnesses to the truth of them. But about
the priesthood they do know, by daily and hourly expe
rience ; and to its character they are competent wit
nesses. JSo man can express his convictions more
forcibly than by acting upon them in a great and solemn
matter of national importance. In all these countries
the conviction of the serious and sober majority of the
people is embodied, and is being daily embodied, in
special legislation, openly and avowedly intended to
guard against clerical aggression." The more closely the
legislature of these countries reflects the popular will,
the more clear and pronounced does this tendency be
come. It may be thwarted or evaded for the moment
by constitutional devices and parliamentary tricks, but
sooner 01 later the nation will be thoroughly represented
in all of them ; and as to what is then to be expected let
the panic of the clerical parties make answer.
This is a state of opinion and of feeling which we in
our own country find it hard to understand, although it
is one of the most persistent characters of our nation in
past times. We have spoken so plainly and struck so
hard in the past, that we seem to have won the right to
let this matter alone. We think our enemies are dead,
and we forget that our neighbour’s enemies are plainly
alive : and then we wonder that he does not sit down,
and be quiet as we are. We are not much accustomed to
be afraid, and we never know when we are beaten. But
those who are nearer to the danger feel a very real and,
it seems to me, well-grounded fear. The whole struc
ture of modern society, the fruit of long and painful
efforts, the hopes of further improvement, the triumphs
of justice, of freedom, and of light, the bonds of patriotism
which make each nation one, the bonds of humanity
�on Religion.
2$
which bring different nations together—all these they
see to be menaced with a great and real and even press
ing danger. For myself, I confess that I cannot help
feeling as they feel. It seems to me quite possible that
the moral and intellectual culture of Europe, the light
and the right, what makes life worth having and men
worthy to have it, may be clean swept away by a revival
of superstition. We are, perhaps, ourselves not free
from such a domestic danger; but no one can doubt that
the danger would speedily arise if all Europe at our side
should become again barbaric, not with the weakness
and docility of a barbarism which has never known better,
but with the strength of a past civilisation perverted to
the service of evil.
Those who know best, then, about the Catholic priest
hood at present, regard it as a standing menace to the
state and to the moral fabric of society.
Some would have us believe that this condition of
things is quite new, and has in fact been created by the
Vatican Council. In the Middle Ages> they say, the
Church did incalculable service ; or even if you do not
allow that, yet the ancient Egyptian priesthood invented
many useful arts; or if you have read anything which is
not to their credit, there were the Babylonians and
Assyrians who had priests, thousands of years ago ; and
in fact, the more you go back into prehistoric ages, and
the further you go away into distant countries, the less
you can find to say against the priesthoods of those
times and places. This statement, for which there is
certainly much foundation, may be put into another
form : the more you come forward into modern times
and neighbouring countries, where the facts can actually
be got at, the more complete is the evidence against the
priesthoods of these times and places. But the whole
argument is founded upon what is at least a doubtful
view of human nature and of society. Just as an early
school of geologists were accustomed to explain the pre
sent state of the earth’s surface by supposing that in
�24
The Bearing of Morals
primitive ages the processes of geologic change were far
more violent and rapid than they are now—so cata
strophic, indeed, as to constitute a thoroughly different
state of things—so there is a school of historians who
think that the intimate structure of human nature, its
capabilities of learning and of adapting itself to society,
have so far altered within the historic period as to make
the present processes of social change totally different in
character from those even of the moderately distant past.
They think that institutions and conditions which are
plainly harmful to us now have at other times and places
■done good and serviceable work. War, pestilence, priest
craft, and slavery have been represented as positive
boons to an early state of society. They are not
blessings to us, it is true; but then times have altered
very much.
On the other hand, a later school of geologists have
■seen reason to think that the processes of change have
never, since the earth finally solidified, been very diffe
rent from what they áre now. More rapid, indeed, they
must have been in early times, for many reasons; but
not so very much more rapid as to constitute an entirely
different state of things. And it does seem to me in
like manner that a wider and more rational view of his
tory will recognise more and more of the permanent and
less and less of the changeable element in human nature.
No doubt our ancestors of a thousand generations back
■were very different beings from ourselves ; perhaps fifty
thousand generations back they were not men at all.
But the historic period is hardly to be stretched beyond
two hundred generations ; and it seems unreasonable to
■expect that in such a tiny page of our biography we can
trace with clearness the growth and progress of a long
life. Compare Egypt in the time of King Menes, say
six thousand years ago, with Spain in this present cen
tury, before Englishmen made any railways there : I
suppose the main difference is that the Egyptians washed
themselves. It seems more analogous to what we find
�on Religion.
2$
in other fields of inquiry, to suppose that there, are cer
tain great broad principles of human life ■which have
been true all along; that certain conditions have always
been favourable to the health of society, and certain
other conditions always hurtful.
Now, although I have many times asked for it, from
those who said that somewhere and at some time man
kind had derived benefits from a priesthood laying claim
to a magical character and powers, I have never been
able to get any evidence for this statement. Nobody
will give me a date, and a latitude and longitude, that I
may examine into the matter. “ In the Middle Ages the
priests and monks were the sole depositories of learning.’*
Quite so ; a man burns your house to the ground, builds
a wretched hovel on the ruins, and then takes credit for
whatever shelter there is about the place. In the Middle
Agesnearly all learned men were obliged to become priests
and monks. “ Then again, the bishops have sometimes
acted as tribunes of the people, to protect them against
the tyranny of kings.” No doubt, when Pope and Caesar
fall out, honest men may come by their own. If two
men rob you in a dark lane, and then quarrel over the
plunder, so that you get a chance to escape with your
life, you will of course be very grateful to each of them
for having prevented the other from killing you; but
you would be much more grateful to a policeman who
locked them both up. Two powers have sought to en
slave the people, and have quarrelled with each other;,
certainly we are very much obliged to them for quarrel
ling, but a condition of still greater happiness and security
would be the non-existence of both.
I can find no evidence that seriously militates against
the rule that the priest is at all times and in all placesthe enemy of all men—Sacerdos semper, ubique, et omni
bus inimicus. I do not deny that the priest is very often
a most earnest and conscientious man, doing the very
best that he knows of as well as he can do it. Lord
Amberley is quite right insayingthat the blame rests more
�06
The Bearing of Morals
.with the laity than with the priesthood; that it has in
sisted on magic and mysteries, and has forced the priest
hood to produce them. But then, how dreadful is the
system that puts good men to such uses!
And although it is true that in its origin a priesthood is
the effect of an evil already existing, a symptom of social
.disease rather than a cause of it, yet, once being created
and made powerful, it tends in many ways to prolong
and increase the disease which gave it birth. One of
these ways is so marked and of such practical import
ance that we are bound to consider it here; I mean the
education of children. If there is one lesson which his
tory forces upon us in every page, it is this : keep your
children away from the priest, or he will make them the
enemies of mankind. It is not the Catholic clergy and
those like them who are alone to be dreaded in this
matter ; even the representatives of apparently harmless
religions may do incalculable mischief if they get educa
tion into their hands. To the early Mohammedans the
mosque was the one public building in every place where
public business could be transacted ; and so it was natu
rally the place of primary education, which they held to
be a matter of supreme importance. By-and-bye, as the
clergy grew up, the mosque was gradually usurped by
them, and primary education fell into their hands. Then
ensued a “ revival of religion
religion became a fana
ticism : books were burnt and universities were closed ;
the empire rotted away in East and West, until it was
conquered by Turkish savages in Asia and by Christian
savages in Spain.
The labours of students of the early history of institu
tions—notably Sir Henry Maine and M. Laveleye—have
disclosed to us an element of society which appears to
have existed in all times and places, and which is the
basis of our own social structure. The village commu
nity, or commune, or township, found in tribes of the
most vaiied race and time, has so modified itself as to
get adapted in one place or another to all the different
�on Religion.
27
•conditions of human existence. This union of men to
work for a common object has transformed them from
wild animals into tame ones. _ Century by century the
educating process of the social life has been working at
.human nature; it has built itself into our inmost soul.
Such as we are—moral and rational beings—thinking
and talking in general conceptions about the facts that
make up our life, feeling a necessity to act, not for our
selves, but for Ourself, for the larger life of Man in which
wre are elements ; such moral and rational beings, I say,
Man has made us. By Man I mean men organized into
a society, which fights for its life, not only as a mere col
lection of men who must separately be kept alive, but as
a society. It must fight, not only against external ene
mies, but against treason and disruption within it.
Hence comes the unity of interest of all its members;
each of them has to feel that he is not himself only but
a part of all the rest. Conscience—the sense of right
and wrong—-^springs out of the habit of judging things
from the point of view of all and not of one. It is Our
self, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness.
The codes of morality, then, which are adopted into
various religions, and afterwards taught as parts of reli
gious systems, are derived from secular sources. The
most ancient version of the Ten Commandments, what
ever the investigations of scholars may make it out to
be, originates, not in the thunders of Sinai, but in the
peaceful life of men on the plains of Chaldsea. Conscience
is the voice of Man ingrained into our hearts, command
ing us to work for Man.
Religions differ in the treatment which they give to
this most sacred heirloom of our past history. Some
times they invert its precepts—telling men to be sub■ missive under oppression because the powers that be are
ordained of God ; telling them to believe where they have
not seen, and to play with falsehood in order that a par
ticular doctrine may prevail, instead of seeking for truth
. whatever it may be ; telling them to betray their country
�28
The Bearing of Morals
for the sake of their church; But there is one great dis
tinction to which I wish, in conclusion, to call special
attention—a distinction between two kinds of religious
emotion which bear upon the conduct of men.
We said that conscience is the voice of Man within
us, commanding us to work for Man. We do not know
this immediately by our own experience; we only know
that something within us commands us to work for Man.
This fact men have tried to explain ; and they have
thought, for the most part, that this voice was the
voice of a god. But the explanation takes two dif
ferent forms: the god may speak in us for Man’s
sake, or for his own sake.
If he speaks for his
own sake—and this is what generally happens when
he has priests who lay claim to a magical charac
ter and powers—our allegiance is apt to be taken away
from Man, and transferred to the god. When we love
our brother for the sake of our brother we help all men
to grow in the right; but when we love our brother for
the sake of somebody else, who is very likely to damn
our brother, it very soon comes to burning him alive for
his soul’s health. When men respect human life for the
sake of Man, tranquillity, order, and progress go hand in
hand ; but those who only respected human life because
God had forbidden murder, have set their mark upon
Europe in fifteen centuries of blood and fire.
These are only two examples of a general rule. Wher
ever the allegiance of men has been diverted from Man
to some divinity who speaks to men for his own sake and
seeks his own glory, one thing has happened. The right
precepts might be enforced, but they were enforced upon
wrong grounds, and they were not obeyed. But right
precepts are not always enforced ; the fact that the foun
tains of morality have been poisoned makes it easy to
substitute wrong precepts for right ones.
To this same treason against humanity belongs the
claim of the priesthood to take away the guilt of a sinner
after confession has been made to it. The Catholic priest
�on Religion.
professes to act as an ambassador for his God, and to
absolve the guilty man by conveying to him the forgive
ness of heaven. If his credentials were ever so sure, it
he were indeed the ambassador of a superhuman power,
the claim would be treasonable. Can the favour of the
Czar make guiltless the murderer of old men and women
and children in Circassian valleys ? Can the pardon of
the Sultan make clean the bloody hands.of a Pasha?
As little can any God forgive sins committed against
man. When men think he can, they compound for old
sins which the god did not like by committing new ones
which he does like. Many a remorseful despot has
atoned for the levities of his youth by the persecution of
heretics in his old age. That frightful crime, the adul
teration of food, could not possibly be so common
amongst us if men were not taught to regard it as merely
objectionable because it is remotely connected with
stealing, of which God has expressed his disapproval in
the Decalogue ; and therefore, as quite naturally set
right by a punctual attendance at church on Sundays.
When a Ritualist breaks his fast before celebrating the
Holy Communion, his deity can forgive him, if he likes,
for the matter concerns nobody else; but no deity can
forgive him for preventing his parishioners from setting
up a public library and reading room for fear they should
read Mr. Darwin’s works in it. That sin is committed
against the people, and a god cannot take it away.
I call those religions which undermine the supreme
allegiance of the conscience to Man ultramontane reli
gions, because they seek their springs of action ultra
monies, outside of the common experience and daily life
of man. And I remark about them that they are espe
cially apt to teach wrong precepts, and that even when
they command men to do the right things they put the
command upon wrong motives, and do not get the things
done.
But there are forms of religious emotion which do not
thus undermine the conscience. Par be it from me to
�3©
The Bearing of Morals on Religion.
undervalue the help and strength which many of the
bravest of our brethren have drawn from the thought of
an unseen helper of men. He who, wearied or stricken
in the fight with the powers of darkness, asks himself in
a solitary place, “ Is it all for nothing ? shall we indeed
be overthrown ?” He does find something which may
justify that thought. In such a moment of utter sin
cerity, when a man has bared his own soul before the
immensities and the eternities, a presence, in which his
own poor personality is shrivelled into nothingness,
arises within him, and says, as plainly as words can say,
“ I am with thee, and I am greater than thou.” Many
names of gods, of many shapes, have men given to thispresence; seeking by names and pictures to know more
clearly and to remember more continually the guide and
the helper of men. No such comradeship with the Great:
Companion shall have anything but reverence from me,)
who have known the divine gentleness of Denison
Maurice, the strong and healthy practical instinct of
Charles Kingsley, and who now revere with all my heart
the teaching of James Martineau. They seem to me, one
and all, to be reaching forward with loving anticipation
to a clearer vision which is yet to come—tencLentesque
manus ripcB ulterioris amore. For, after all, such a helper ,
of men, outside of humanity, the truth will not allow us
to see. The dim and shadowy outlines of the super
human deity fade slowly away from before us; and as
the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with
greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander
and nobler figure—of Him who made all gods and shall
unmake them. From the dim dawn of history, and from
the inmost depth of every soul, the face of our father
Man looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in
his eyes, and says, “ Before Jehovah was, I am !”
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
—physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE“ SOCIETYS LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 24th April,
1878, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
■single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
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each lecture.
For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter, enclos
ing postage-stamps, order, or cheque), to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm.
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Payment at the door One Penny Sixpence ;—and
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�The Society’s Lectures by Professor Clifford are —
On “ Body and Mind.”
On “ The first and the last Catastrophe : A criticism on some
recent speculations about the duration of the Universe.”
On “ Right and Wrong; the scientific ground of their dis
tinction.”
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The price of each of the above Lectures is 3d., or post-free 3|d.
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The bearing of morals on religion : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 4th March, 1877
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
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i3'3'
*
NATIONALSECULARSOCIETY
, MO) 3
RIGHT AND WRONG:
THE SCIENTIFIC GROUND OF THEIR DISTINCTION.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 7tJi NOVEMBER,
1876.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprinted from the ‘Fortnightly Review,’ by kind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1876. ’
Price Threepence.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
—physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE
SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely.
(Annually— from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 23rd April,
1876, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available-for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s.; being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter) to the
Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door One
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Penny
Sixpence ;—and
�SYLLABUS.
We feel that, it is wrong to steal or tell lies, and right to
take care of our families ; .and that we are responsible for
our actions. The aggregate of such feelings we call.Conscience,
or the Moral Sense.
In this lecture it is proposed to consider what account can
be given of these facts by the scientific. method. This is a
method of getting knowledge by inference ; first of pheno
mena from phenomena, on the assumption of uniformity of
nature, and secondly of mental facts simultaneous with and
underlying these phenomena, on the assumption that other
men have feelings like mine. Each of these assumptions
rests on a moral basis; it is our duty to guide our beliefs in
this way.
A man is morally responsible for an action in so far as he
has a conscience which might direct it. Moral approbation
and reprobation are used as means of strengthening this con
science and bringing it to bear upon the action. The use of
this means involves the assumption that the man is the same
man at different times, i.e., that the effect of events is pre
served in his character ; and that his actions depend upon
his character and the circumstances. The notion of respon
sibility is founded on the observed uniformity of this connec
tion.
The question of right or wrong in a particular case is
primarily determined by the conscience of the individual.
The further question of what is the best conscience (the
question of abstract or absolute right) is only to be deter
mined by knowledge of the function or purpose of the con
�4
Syllabus.
science ; and this must be got at by study of its origin and
evolution. This leads to Mr. Darwin’s doctrine that the pur
pose of conscience is the advantage of the community as such
in the struggle for existence. There are two kinds of pur
pose : one due to natural selection, the survival of the best
adaptation, the other (design) due to a complex nervous
system in which an image or symbol of the end determines
the use of the means. The conscience must always be based
on an instinct serving a purpose of the first kind ; but it may
be directed by a purpose of the second kind.
Allegiance to the community, or piety, is thus the first
principle of morals. This involves the negative duty of
abstaining from obvious injury to others, and the positive
duty of being a good citizen in each department of life. It is
to be distinguished from altruism, and from a sentimental
shrinking from the idea of suffering.
Truth, or straightforwardness, is a consequence of piety,
and depends upon faith in man. The duty of searching after
truth is based upon the great importance to mankind of a
true conception of the universe. Belief is a sacred thing,
which must not be profanely wasted on unproved statements.
It is not necessary even for other people to believe what is
false in order to do what is right.
�RIGHT AND WRONG:
THE SCIENTIFIC GROUND OF THEIR DISTINCTION.
HE questions which are here to be considered are
especially and peculiarly everybody’s questions.
It is not everybody’s business to be an engineer, or a
doctor, or a carpenter, or a soldier ; but it is evervbody’s
business to be a citizen. The doctrines and precepts
which guide the practice of the good engineer are of inter
est to him who uses them and to those whose business it
is to investigate them by mechanical science ; the rest
■of us neither obey nor disobey them. But the doctrines
and precepts of morality, which guide the practice of
the good citizen, are of interest to all; they must be
either obeyed or disobeyed by every human being who
is not hopelessly and for ever separated from the rest of
mankind. No one can say, therefore, that in this inquiry
we are not minding our own business, that we are med
dling with other men’s affairs. We are in fact studying
the principles of our profession, so far as we are able;
a necessary thing for every man who wishes to do good
work in it.
Along with the character of universal interest which
belongs to our subject there goes another. What is
everybody’s practical business is also to a large extent
what everybody knows; and it may be reasonably ex
pected that a discourse about Right and W rong will be
full of platitudes and truisms. The expectation is a
just one. The considerations I have to offer are of the
very oldest and the very simplest commonplace and
common sense ; and no one can be more astonished than
I am that there should be any reason to speak of them
at all. But there is reason to speak of them, because
platitudes are not all of one kind. Some platitudes
have a definite meaning and a practical application, and
are established by the uniform and long-continued ex-
JL
B
�6
Right and Wrong.
perience of all people. Other platitudes, having 11»
definite meaning and no practical application, seem not
to be worth anybody’s while to test; and these are quite
sufficiently established by mere assertion, if it is auda
cious enough to begin with and persistent enough after
wards. It is in order to distinguish these two kinds of
platitude from one another, and to make sure that those
which we retain form a body of doctrine consistent with
itself and with the rest of our beliefs, that we undertake
this examination of obvious and widespread principles.
First of all, then, what are the facts ?
We say that it is wrong to murder, to steal, to tell
lies, and that it is right to take care of our families.
When we say in this sense that one action is right
and another wrong, we have a certain feeling towards
the action which is peculiar and not quite like any other
feeling. It is clearly a feeling towards the action and
not towards the man who does it; because we speak of
hating the sin and loving the sinner. We might reason
ably dislike a man whom we knew or suspected to be a
murderer, because of the natural fear that he might
murder us ; and we might like our own parents for
taking care of us. But everybody knows that these
feelings are something quite different from the feeling
which condemns murder as a wrong thing, and approves
parental care as a right thing. I say nothing here about
the possibility of analyzing this feeling, or proving that
it arises by combination of other feelings ; all I want to
notice is that it is as distinct and recognisable as the
feeling of pleasure in a sweet taste or of displeasure at
a toothache. In speaking of right and wrong, we speak
of qualities of actions which arouse definite feelings that
everybody knows and recognises. It is not necessary,
then, to give a definition at the outset; we are going to
use familiar terms which have a definite meaning in the
same sense in which everybody uses them. We may
ultimately come to something like a definition; but
what we have to do first is to collect the facts and see
what can be made of them, just as if we were going to
talk about limestone, or parents and children, or fuel.
*
* These subjects were treated in the lectures which immediately preceded
and followed the present one.
�Right and PFrong.
7
It is easy to conceive that murder and theft and
neglect of the young might be considered wrong in a
very simple state of society. But we find at present
that the condemnation of these actions does not stand
alone; it goes with the condemnation of a great number
of other actions which seem to be included with the ob
viously criminal action in a sort of general rule. The
wrongness of murder, for example, belongs in a less
degree to any form of bodily injury that one man may
inflict on another ; and it is even extended so as to in
clude injuries to his reputation or his feelings. I make
these more refined precepts follow in the train of the
more obvious and rough ones, because this appears to
have been the traditional order of their establishment.
“ He that makes his neighbour blush in public,” says the
Mishna, “ is as if he had shed his blood.” In the same
way the rough condemnation of stealing carries with it a
condemnation of more refined forms of dishonesty: we
do not hesitate to say that it is wrong for a tradesman
to adulterate his goods, or for a labourer to scamp his
work. We not only say that it is wrong to tell lies, but
that it is wrong to deceive in other more ingenious ways;
wrong to use words so that they shall have one sense to
some people and another sense to other people ; wrong
to suppress the truth when that suppression leads to
false belief in others. And again, the duty of parents
towards their children is seen to be a special case of a
very large and varied class of duties towards that great
family to which we belong—to the fatherland and them
that dwell therein. The word duty which I have here
used, has as definite a sense to the general mind as the
words right and wrong; we say that it is right to do our
duty, and wrong to neglect it. These duties to the
community serve in our minds to explain and define our
duties to individuals. It is wrong to kill any one ; unless
we are an executioner, when it may be our duty to kill a
Criminal; or a soldier, when it may be our duty to kill
the enemy of our country ; and in general it is wrong to
injure any man in any way in our private capacity and
for our own sakes. Thus if a man injures us, it is only
right to retaliate on behalf of other men. Of two men
in a desert island, if one takes away the other’s cloak, it
�8
Right and Wrong.
may or may not be right for the other to let him have
his coat also ; but if a man takes away my cloak while
we both live in society, it is my duty to use such means
as I can to prevent him from taking away other people’s
cloaks. Observe that I am endeavouring to describe
the facts of the moral feelings of Englishmen, such as
they are now.
The last remark leads us to another platitude of ex
ceedingly ancient date. We said that it was wrong to
injure any man in our private capacity and for our own
sakes. A rule like this differs from all the others that
we have considered, because it not only deals with phy
sical acts, words and deeds which can be observed and
known by others, but also with thoughts which are
known only to the man himself. Who can tell whether a
given act of punishment was done from a private or from
a public motive ? Only the agent himself. And yet if
the punishment was just and within the law, we should
condemn the man in the one case and approve him. m the
other. This pursuit of the actions of men to their very
sources, in the feelings which they only can know, is as
ancient as any morality we know of, and extends to the
whole range of it. Injury to another man arises from
anger, malice, hatred, revenge; these feelings are. con
demned as wrong. But feelings are not immediately
under our control, in the same way that, overt actions
are : I can shake anybody by the hand if I like, but 1
cannot always feel friendly to him. Nevertheless we
can pay attention to such aspects of the circumstances,
and we can put ourselves into such conditions, that our
feelings get gradually modified in one way or the.other;
we form a habit of checking our anger by calling up
certain images and considerations, whereby in time the
offending passion is brought into subjection and control.
Accordingly, we say that it is right to acquire and to exer
cise this control; and the control is supposed to exist when
ever we say that one feeling or disposition of mind is right
and another wrong. Thus, in connection with the pre
cept against stealing, we condemn envy, and covetous
ness ; we applaud a sensitive honesty which shudders, at
anything underhand or dishonourable. In connection
with the rough precept against lying, we have built up
�Right and Wrong.
9
and are still building a great fabric of intellectual.mora
lity, whereby a man is forbidden to tell lies to himself,
and is commanded to practise candour and fairness and
open-mindedness in his judgments, and to labour zea
lously in pursuit of the truth. And in connection with
the duty to our families, we say that it is right to culti
vate public spirit, a quick sense of sympathy, and all that
belongs to a social disposition.
Two other words are used in this connection which it
seems necessary to mention. When we regard an action
as right or wrong for ourselves, this feeling about the
action impels us to do it or not to do it, as the case may
be. We may say that the moral sense acts in this case as
a motive ; meaning by moral sense only the feeling in
regard to an action which is considered as right or
wrong, and by motive something which impels us to act.
Of course there may be other motives at work at the
same time, and it does not at all follow that we shall do
the right action or abstain from the wrong one. This
we all know to our cost. But still our feeling about the
rightness or wrongness of an action does operate as a
motive when we think of the action as being done by us ;
and when so operating it is called conscience. I have
nothing to do at present with the questions about con
science, whether it is a result of education, whether it
can be explained by self-love, and so forth ; I am only
concerned in describing well-known facts, and in getting
as clear as I can about the meaning of well-known words.
Conscience, then, is the whole aggregate of our feelings
about actions as being right or wrong, regarded as tend
ing to make us do the right actions and avoid the wrong
ones. We also say sometimes, in answer to the question,
“ How do you know that this is right or wrong ? ” “ My
conscience tells me so.” And this way of speaking is
quite analogous to other expressions of the same form;
thus if I put my hand into water, and you ask me how I
know that it is hot, I might say, “ My feeling of warmth
tells me so.”
When we consider a right or a wrong action as done
by another person, we think of that person as worthy of
moral approbation or reprobation. He may be punished
or not; but in any case this feeling towards him is quite
�IO
Right and Wrong.
different from the feeling of dislike of a person injurious
to us, or of disappointment at a machine which will not
go. Whenever we can morally approve or disapprove a
man for his action, we say that he is morally responsible
for it, and vice versa. To say that a man is not morally
responsible for his actions, is the same thing as to say
that it would be unreasonable to praise or blame him for
them.
The statement that we ourselves are morally respon
sible is somewhat more complicated, but the meaning is
very easily made out; namely, that another person may
reasonably regard our actions as right or wrong, and
may praise or blame us for them.
We can now, I suppose, understand one another pretty
clearly in using the words right and wrong, conscience,
responsibility; and we have made a rapid survey of the
facts of the case in our own country at the present time.
Of course I do not pretend that this survey in any way
approaches to completeness; but it will supply us at
least with enough facts to enable us to deal always with
concrete examples instead of remaining in generalities ;
and it may serve to show pretty fairly what the moral
sense of an Englishman is like. We must next consider
what account we can give of these facts by the scientific
method.
But first let us stop to note that we really have used
the scientific method in making this first step; and also
that to the same extent the method has been used by all
serious moralists. Some would have us define virtue, to
begin with, in terms of some other thing which is not
virtue, and then work out from our definition all the de
tails of what we ought to do. So Plato said that virtue was
knowledge, Aristotle that it was the golden mean, and
Benthan} said that the right action was that which con
duced to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
But so also, in physical speculations ; Thales said that
everything was Water, and Heraclitus said it was All
becoming, and Empedocles said it was made’out of Four
Elements, and Pythagoras said it was Number. But we
only began to know about things when people looked
straight at the facts, and made what they could out of
them; and that is the only way in which we can know
�Right and Wrong.
II
anything about right and wrong. Moreover, it is the
way in which the great moralists have set to work, when
they came to treat of verifiable things and not of
theories all in the air. A great many people think of
a prophet as a man who, all by himself, or from some
secret source, gets the belief that this thing is right and
that thing wrong. And then (they imagine) he gets
up. and goes about persuading other people to feel as
he does about it; and so it becomes a part of their con
science, and a new duty is created. This may be in some
*
cases, but I have never met with any example of it in
history. When Socrates puzzled the Greeks by asking
them what they precisely meant by Goodness and Justice
and Virtue, the mere existence of the words shows that
the people, as a whole, possessed a moral sense, and
felt that certain things were right and others wrong.
What the moralist did was to show the connection be
tween different virtues, the likeness of virtue to certain
other things, the implications which a thoughtful man
could find in the common language. Wherever the
Greek moral sense had come from, it was there in the
people before it could be enforced by a prophet or dis
cussed by a philosopher. Again, we find a wonderful
collection of moral aphorisms in those shrewd sayings of
the Jewish fathers which are preserved in the Mishna
or oral law. Some of this teaching is familiar to us all
from the popular exposition of it which is contained in
the three first Gospels. But the very plainness and
homeliness of the precepts shows that, they are just
acute statements of what was already felt by the popular
■common sense; protesting, in many cases, against the for
malism of the ceremonial law with which,they arecuriously
mixed up. The rabbis even show a jealousy of prophetic
interference, as if they knew well that it takes not one
man, but many men, to feel what is right. When a cer
tain Rabbi Eliezer, being worsted in argument, cried
out,, “ If I am right, let heaven pronounce in my favour 1”
there was heard a Bath-kol or voice from the skies, say
ing, “ Do you venture to dispute with Rabbi Eliezer,
who is an authority on all religious questions ? ” But ,
Rabbi Joshua rose and said, “ Our law is not in heaven,
but in the book which dates from , Sinai, and, which j,
�12
Right and Wrong.
teaches us that in matters of discussion the majority"
makes the law.”*
One of the most important expressions of the moral
sense for all time is that of the Stoic philosophy, espe
cially after its reception among the Romans. It is here
that we find the enthusiasm of humanity—the caritas
generis liumani—which is so large and important a
feature in all modern conceptions of morality, and whose
widespread influence upon Roman citizens may be traced
in the Epistles of St. Paul. In the Stoic emperors, also,
we find probably the earliest example of great moral
principles consciously applied to legislation on a large
scale. But are we to attribute this to the individual in
sight of the Stoic philosophers ? It might seem at first
sight that we must, if we are to listen to that vulgar vitu
peration of the older culture, which has descended to us
from those who had everything to gain by its destruc
tion.f We hear enough of the luxurious feasting of the
Roman capital, how it would almost have taxed the
resources of a modern pastrycook; of the cruelty of
gladiatorial shows, how they were nearly as bad as autida-fe, except that a man had bis fair chance, and was
* Treatise Bab. bathr. 59. b. I derive this story and reference from a
most interesting book, Koi K6re (vox clamantis), La Bible, le Talmud, et
l’Evangile; par le R. Elie Soloweyczyk. Paris : E. Brifere. 1870.
+ Compare these passages from Merivale (‘ Romans under the Empire,’
vi.), to whom “ it seems a duty to protest against the common tendency of
Christian moralists to dwell only on the dark side of Pagan society, in order
to heighten by contrast the blessings of the Gospel.”
“Much candour and discrimination are required in comparing the sins of
one age with those of another................. the cruelty of our inquisitions
and sectarian persecutions, of our laws against sorcery, our serfdom and
our slavery; the petty fraudulence we tolerate in almost every class and
calling of the community; the bold front worn by our open sensuality; the
deeper degradation of that which is concealed; all these leave us little
room for boasting of our modern discipline, and must deter the thoughtful
inquirer from too confidently contrasting the morals of the old world and
the new.”
“ Even at Rome, in the worst of times. ... all the relations of life
were adorned in turn with bright instances of devotion, and mankind
transacted their business with an ordinary confidence in the force of con
science and right reason. The steady development of enlightened legal
principles conclusively proves the general dependence upon law as a guide
and corrector of manners. In the camp, however, more especially as the
chief sphere of this purifying activity, the great qualities of the Roman
character continued to be plainly manifested. The history of the Caesars
presents to us a constant succession of brave, patient, resolute, and faithful
soldiers, men deeply impressed with a sense of duty, superior to vanity,
despisers of boasting, content to toil in obscurity and shed their blood at
the frontiers of the empire, unrepining at the cold mistrust of their masters,
not clamourous for the honours so sparingly awarded to them, but satisfied
in the daily work of their hands, and full of faith in the national destiny
which they were daily accomplishing.”
�Right and Wrong.
13
not tortured for torture’s sake ; of the oppression of
provincials by people like Verres, of whom it may even
be said that if they had been the East India Company
they could not have been worse; of the complaints of
Tacitus against bad and mad emperors (as Sir Henry
Maine says) ; and of the still more serious complaints of
the modern historian against the excessive taxation
*
which was one great cause of the fall of the empire.
Of all this we are told a great deal; but we are not told
of the many thousands of honourable men who carried
civilisation to the ends of the known world, and adminis
tered a mighty empire so that it was loved and worshipped
to the furthest corner of it. It is to these men and their
common action that we must attribute the morality
which found its organised expression in the writings of
the Stoic philosophers. From these three cases we may
gather that Right is a thing which must be done before
it can be talked about, although after that it may only
too easily be talked about without being done. . Indivi
dual effort and energy may insist upon getting that
done which was already felt to be right; and individual
insight and acumen may point out consequences of an
action which bring it under previously known moral
rules. There is another dispute of the rabbis that may
serve to show what is meant by this. It was forbidden
by the law to have any dealings with the Sabasan idola
ters during the week preceding their idolatrous feasts.
But the doctors discussed the case in which one of these
idolaters owes you a bill; are you to let him pay it
during that week or not ? The school of Shammai said
“ No ; for he will want all his money to enjoy himself at
the feast.” But the school of Hillel said “ Yes, let him
pay it; for how can he enjoy his feast while his bills are
unpaid ?” The question here is about the consequences
of an action; but there is no dispute about the moral
principle, which is that consideration and kindness are
to be shown to idolaters, even in the matter of their
idolatrous rites.
It seems, then, that we are no worse off than anybody
else who has studied this subject, in finding our mate
rials ready made for us; sufficiently definite meanings
* Finlay, ‘ Greece under the Romans.’
�Right and Wrong.
given in the common speech to the words right and
wrong, good and bad, with which we have to deal; a
fair body of facts familiarly known, which we have to
organise and account for as best we can. But our
special inquiry is, what account can be given of these
facts by the scientific method ? to which end we cannot
do better than fix our ideas as well as we can upon the
character and scope of that method.
Now the scientific method is a method of getting
knowledge by inference, and that of two different kinds.
One kind of inference is that which is used in the phy
sical and natural sciences, and it enables us to go from
known phenomena to unknown phenomena. Because a
stone is heavy in the morning, I infer that it will be
heavy in the afternoon; and i infer this by assuming a
certain uniformity of nature. The sort of uniformity
that I assume depends upon the extent of my scientific
education; the rules of inference become more and more
definite as we go on. At first I might assume that all
things are always alike; this would not be true, but it
has to be assumed in a vague way, in order that a thing
may have the same name at different times. Afterwards
I get the more definite belief that certain particular
qualities, like weight, have nothing to do with the time
of day; and subsequently I find that weight has nothing
to do with the shape of the stone, but only with the
quantity of it. The uniformity which we assume, then,
isnot that vague one that we started with, but a chastened
and corrected uniformity. I might go on to suppose, for
example, that the weight of the stone had nothing to do
with the place where it was ; and a great deal might be
said for this supposition. It would, however, have to be
corrected when it was found that the weight varies
slightly in different latitudes. On the other hand, I
should find that this variation was just the same for my
stone as for a piece of iron or wood; that it had nothing
to do with the kind of matter. And so I might be led
to the conclusion that all matter is heavy, and that the
weight of it depends only on its quantity and its position
relative to the earth. You see here that I go on arriving
at conclusions always of this form; that some one cir
cumstance or quality has nothing to do with some other
�Right and Wrong.
*5x
circumstance or quality. I begin by assuming that it is
independent of everything; I end by finding . that it is
independent of some definite things. That is, I begin
by assuming a vague uniformity, and I end by assuming
a clear and definite uniformity. I always use this assump
tion to infer from some one fact a .great number of other
facts ; but as my education proceeds, I get to know what
sort of things may be inferred and what may not. An
observer of scientific mind takes note of just those things
from which inferences may be drawn, and passes by the
rest. If an astronomer, observing the sun, were to record
the fact that at the moment when a sun-spot began to
shrink there was a rap at his front door, we should know
that he was not up to his work. But if he records that
sun-spots are thickest every eleven years, and that this
is. also the period of extra cloudiness in Jupiter, the
observation may or may not be confirmed, and it may or
may not lead to inferences of importance; but still it is
the kind of thing from which inferences may be drawn.
There is always a certain instinct among instructed people
which tells them in this way what kinds of inferences
my be drawn; and this is. the unconscious effect of the
definite uniformity which they have been led to assume
in nature. It may subsequently be organised into a law
or general truth, and no doubt becomes a surer guide by.
that process. Then it goes to form the more precise
instinct of the next generation.
What we have said about this first kind of inference,
which goes from phenomena to phenomena, is shortly this.
It proceeds upon an assumption of uniformity in nature ;
and this assumption is not fixed and made once for all,
but is. a changing and growing thing, becoming more
definite as we go on.
If I were told to pick out some one character which
especially colours this guiding conception of uniformity
in our present stage of science, I should certainly reply,
Atomism. The form of this with which we are most
familiar is the molecular theory of bodies; which repre
sents all bodies as made up of small elements of uniform ,
character, each practically having relations only with the,
adjacent ones, and these relations the same all through
—namely, some simple mechanical action upon each
�i6
Right and Throng.
other’s motions. But this is only a particular case. A
palace, a cottage, the tunnel of the underground railway,
and a factory chimney, are all built of bricks ; the bricks
are alike in all these cases, each brick is practically
related only to the adjacent ones, and the relation is
throughout the same, namely, two flat sides are stuck
together with mortar. There is an atomism in the sci
ences of number, of quantity, of’space; the theorems of
geometry are groupings of individual points, each related
only to the adjacent ones by certain definite laws. But
what concerns us chiefly at present is the atomism
of human physiology. Just as every solid is built up of
molecules, so the nervous system is built up of nerve
threads and nerve-corpuscles. We owe to Mr. Lewes our
very best thanks for the stress which he has laid on the
doctrine that nerve-fibre is uniform in structure and func
tion, and for the word neurility, which expresses its com
mon properties. And similar gratitude is due to Dr.
Hughlings Jackson for his long defence of the proposition
that the element of nervous structure and function is a
sensori-motor process. In structure, this is two fibres
or bundles of fibres going to the same grey corpuscle ; in
function it is a message travelling up one fibre or bundle
to the corpuscle, and then down the other fibre or bundle.
*
Out of this, as a brick, the house of our life is built. All
these simple elementary processes are alike, and each is
practically related only to the adjacent ones; the relation
being in all cases of the same kind, viz., the passage from
a simple to a complex message, or vice versa.
The result of atomism in any form, dealing with any
subject, is that the principle of uniformity is hunted
down into the elements of things ; it is resolved into the
uniformity of these elements or atoms, and of the rela
tions of those which are next to each other. By an ele
ment or an atom we do not here mean something
absolutely simple or indivisible, for a molecule, a brick,
and a nerve process are all very complex things. We
only mean that, for the purpose in hand, the properties
of the still more complex thing which is made of them
have nothing to do with the complexities or the differ* Mr. Herbert Spencer bad assigned a slightly different element. Prin
ciples of Psychology, vol. 1, p. 28.
�Right and Wrong.
17
ences of these elements. The solid made of molecules,
the house made of bricks, the nervous system made of
sensori-motor processes, are nothing more than collec
tions of these practically uniform elements, having cer
tain relations of nextness, and behaviour uniform y
depending on that nextness.
,
The inference of phenomena from phenomena, then, is
based upon an assumption of uniformity, which m the
present stage of science may be called an atomic uni-
The^other mode of inference which belongs to the
scientific method is that which is used in what are called
mental and moral sciences ; and it enables us to go from
phenomena to the facts which underlie phenomena, and
which are themselves not phenomena at all. it 1 pmch
your arm, and you draw it away and make a face, I infer
that you have felt pain. I infer this by assuming that
you have a consciousness similar to my own, and related
to your perception of your body as my consciousness is
related to my perception of my body. Now is this
the same assumption as before, a mere assumption o
the uniformity of nature ? It certainly seems like it at
first • but if we think about it we shall find that there is
a very profound difference between them. In physical
inference I go from phenomena to phenomena ; that is,
from the knowledge of certain appearances or represen
tations actually present to my mind I infer certain other
appearances that might be present to my mind. I rom
the weight of a stone in the morning—that is, from my
feeling of its weight, or my perception of the process of
weighing it, I infer that the stone will be heavy mthe
afternoon—that is, I infer the possibility of similar feel
ings and perceptions in me at another time. The whole
process relates to me and my perceptions, to things con
tained in my mind. But when I infer that you are
conscious from what you say or do, I pass from that
which is my feeling or perception, which is in my mind
and part of me, to that which is not my feeling at all
which is outside me altogether, namely your feelings and
perceptions. Now there is no possible physical inference,
no inference of phenomena from phenomena, that will
help me over that gulf. I am obliged to admit that this
�18
Right and Wrong.
second kind of inference depends upon another assump
tion, not included in the assumption of the uniformity of
phenomena.
How does a dream differ from waking life ? In a
fairly coherent dream everything seems quite real, and
it is rare, I think, with most people to know in a dream
that they are dreaming. Now, if a dream is sufficiently
vivid and coherent, all physical inferences are just as
valid in it as they are in waking life. In a hazy or im
perfect dream, it is true, things melt into one another
unexpectedly and unaccountably ; we fly, remove moun
tains, and stop runaway horses with a finger. But there’
is nothing in the mere nature of a dream to hinder it
from being an exact copy of waking experience. If I find
a stone heavy in one part of my dream, and infer that it
is heavy at some subsequent part, the inference will be
verified if the dream is coherent enough; I shall go to
the stone, lift it up, and find it as heavy as before. And
the same thing is true of all inferences of phenomena
from phenomena. For physical purposes a dream is just
as good as real life; the only difference is in vividness
and coherence.
What, then, hinders us from Saying that life is all-a
dream ? If the phenomena we dream of are just as good
and real phenomena as those we see and feel when we
are awake, what right have we to say that the material
universe has any more existence apart from our minds than
the things we see and feel in our dreams ? The answer
which Berkeley gave to that question was, No right at
all. The physical universe which I see and feel and
infer, is just my dream and nothing else; that which you
see is your dream ; only it so happens that all our dreams
agree in many respects. This doctrine of Berkeley’s has
now been so far confirmed by the physiology of the
senses, that it is no longer a metaphysical speculation
*
but a scientifically established fact.
But there is a difference between dreams and waking
life, which is of far too great importance for any of us to
be in danger of neglecting it. When I see a man in my
-dream, there is just as good'a body as if I were awake;
muscles, nerves, circulation, capability of adapting means
to ends. If only the dream is coherent enough, no
�Right and Wrong.
*9
physical test can establish that it is a dream. In both
cases I see and feel the same thing. In both cases I
assume the existence of more than I can see and feel,
namely the consciousness of this other man. Bnt now
here is a great difference, and the only difference: in a
dream this assumption is wrong ; in waking life, it is
right. The man I see in my dream is a mere machine; a
bundle of phenomena with no underlying reality ; there
is no consciousness involved except my consciousness,,
no feeling in the case except my feelings. The man I
see in waking life is more than a bundle of phenomena ;
his body and its actions are phenomena, but these pheno
mena are merely the symbols and representatives in my
mind of a reality which is outside my mind, namely, the
consciousness of the man himself which is represented by
the working of his brain, and the simpler quasi-mental
facts, not woven into his consciousness, which are
represented by the working of the rest of his body.
What makes life not to be a dream is the existence of
those facts which we arrive at by our second process
of inference ; the consciousness of men and the higher
animals, the sub-consciousness of lower organisms, and
the quasi-mental facts which go along with the motions
of inanimate matter. In a book which is very largely
and deservedly known by heart, ‘Through the Looking
glass,’ there is a very instructive discussion upon this
point, Alice has been taken to see the Bed King as he
lies snoring; and Tweedledee asks, “ Do you know what
he is dreaming about?” “Nobody can guess that,”
replies Alice. “ Why, about you,” he says triumphantly.
“ And if he stopped dreaming about you, where do you
suppose you’d be?” “Where I am now, of course,”
said Alice. “Not you,” said Tweedledee, “you’d be
nowhere. You are only a sort of thing in his dream.”
“If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum,
“ you’d go out, bang! just like a candle.” Alice was
quite right in regarding these remarks as unphilosophical.
The fact that she could see, think, and feel was proof
positive that she was not a sort of thing in anybody’s
dream. This is the meaning of that saying, Cogito ergo
sum, of Descartes. By him, and by Spinoza after him,
the verb cogito and the substantive cogitatio were used to
�20
Right and Wrong.
denote consciousness in general, any kind of feelinoeven what we now call subconsciousness. The saying
means that feeling exists in and for itself, not as a
quality or modification or state or manifestation of any
thing else.
We are obliged in every hour of our lives to act upon
beliefs which have been arrived at by inferences of these
two kinds ; inferences based on the assumption of uni
formity in nature, and inferences which add to this the
assumption of feelings which are not our own. By orga
nising the “common sense ” which embodies the first
class of inferences, we build up the physical sciences;
that is to say, all those sciences which deal with the phy
sical, material, or phenomenal universe, whether animate
or inanimate. And so by organising the common
sense which embodies the second class of inferences, we
build up various sciences of mind. The description and
classification of feelings, the facts of their association
with each other, and of their simultaneity with pheno
mena of nerve-action, all this belongs to psychology,
which may be historical and comparative. The doctrine
of certain special classes of feeling's is organized into
the special sciences of those feelings; thus the facts
about the feelings which we are now considering, about
the feelings of moral approbation and reprobation, are
organized into the science of ethics, and the facts about
the feeling of beauty or ugliness are organized into the
science of aesthetics, or, as it is sometimes called, the
philosophy of art. For all of these the uniformity of
nature has to be assumed as a basis of inference; but
over and above that it is necessary to assume that other
men are conscious in the same way that I am. Now in
these sciences of mind, just as in the physical sciences,
the uniformity which is assumed in the inferred mental
facts is a growing thing which becomes more definite as
we go on, and each successive generation of observers
knows better what to observe and what sort of inferences
may be drawn from observed things. But, moreover, it
is as true of the mental sciences as of the physical ones,
that the uniformity is in the present stage of science an
atomic uniformity. We have learned to regard our
consciousness as made up of elements practically alike,
�Right and Wrong.
21
having relations of succession in time and of contiguity
at each instant, which relations are in all cases practi
cally the same. The element of consciousness is the
transference of an impression into the beginning of
action. Our mental life is a structure made out of such
elements just as the working of our nervous system is
made out of sensorimotor processes. And accordingly
the interaction of the two branches of science leads us
to regard the mental facts as the realities or things-inthemselves, of which the material phenomena are mere
pictures or symbols. The final result seems to be that
atomism is carried beyond phenomena into the realities
which phenomena represent; and that the observed uni
formities of nature, in so far as they can be expressed
in the language of atomism, are actual uniformities of
things in themselves.
So much for the two things which I have promised to
bring together; the facts of our moral feelings, and
the scientific method. It may appear that the latter
has been expounded at more length than was necessary
for the treatment of this particular subject; but the
justification for this length is to be found in certain
common objections to the claims of science to be the
sole judge of mental and moral questions. Some of the
chief of these objections I will now mention.
It is sometimes said that science can only deal
with what is, but that art and morals deal with what
ought to be. The saying is perfectly true, but it is
quite consistent with what is equally true, that the
facts of art and morals are fit subject-matter of science.
I may describe all that I have in my house, and I may
state everything that I want in my house ; these are two
very different things, but they are equally statements of
facts. One is a statement about phenomena, about the
objects which are actually in my possession ; the other
is a statement about my feelings, about my wants and
desires. There are facts, to be got at by common sense,
about the kind of thing that a man of a certain character
and occupation will like to have in his house, and these
facts may be organized into general statements on the
assumption of uniformity in nature. Now the organized
results of common sense dealing with facts are just
�22
Right and Wrong.
science and nothing else. And. in the same way I may
say what men do at the present day, “ how we live now,”
or I may say what we ought to do, namely, what course
of conduct, if adopted, we should morally approve ; and
no doubt these would be two- very different things.
But each of them would be a- statement of facts. One
would belong to the sociology of our time; in so far
as men’s deeds could not be adequately described to
us without some account of their feelings and inten
tions, it would involve facts belonging to psychology as
well as facts belonging to the physical sciences. But
the other would be an account of a particular class of
our feelings^ namely, those which we feel towards an
action when it is regarded as right or wrong. These
facts may be organized by common sense on the assump
tion of uniformity in nature just as well as any other
facts. And we shall see farther on, that not only in this
sense, but in a deeper and more abstract sense, “ what
ought to be done ” is a question for scientific inquiry.
The same objection is sometimes put into another
form. It is said that laws of chemistry, for example,
are general statements about what happens when bodies
are treated in a certain way, and that such laws are fit
matter for science; but that moral laws are different,
because they tell us to do certain things, and we may or
may not obey therm The mood of the one is indicative,
of the other imperative. Now it is quite true that the
word
in the expression “ law of nature,” and in the
expressions “ law of morals,” “law of the land,” has two
totally different meanings, which no educated person
will confound; and I am not aware that any one has
rested the claim of science to judge moral questions on
what is no better than a stale and unprofitable pun.
But two different things may be equally matters of
scientific investigation, even when their names are alike
in sound, A telegraph post is not the same thing as a
post in the War Office, and yet the same intelligence
may be used to investigate the conditions of the one and
the other. That such and such things are right or
wrong, that such and such laws are laws of morals or
laws; of the land, these are facts, just, as the laws of
chemistry are facts; and all facts belong to science, and
are her portion for ever.
�Again, it is sometimes Said that moral questions have
been authoritatively settled by other methods; that we
ought to accept this decision, and not to question it by
any method of scientific inquiry; and that reason should
give way to revelation On such matters. I hope before
I have done to show just cause why we Should pronounce
*
on such teaching aS this no light sentence of moral con
demnation : first, because it is our duty to form those
beliefs which are to guide our actions by the two
scientific modes of inference, and by these alone; and,
secondly, because the proposed mode of settling ethical
questions by authority is contrary to the very nature of
right and wrong.
Leaving this, then, for the present, I pass on to the
most formidable objection that has been made to a
scientific treatment of ethics. The objection is that the
scientific method is not applicable to human action,
because the rule of uniformity does not hold good.
Whenever a man exercises his will, and makes a volun
tary choice of one out of various possible courses, an
event occurs whose relation to contiguous events cannot
be included in a general statement applicable to all
similar cases. There is something wholly capricious and
disorderly, belonging to that moment only; and we have
no right to conclude that if the circumstances were ex
actly repeated, and the man himself absolutely unaltered,
he would choose the same course.
It is clear that if the doctrine here stated is true, the
ground is really cat from under our feet, and we cannot
deal with human action by the scientific method. I
shall endeavour to show, moreover, that in this case,
although we might still have a feeling of moral appro
bation or reprobation towards actions, yet we could not
reasonably praise or blame men for their deeds, nor
regard them as morally responsible. So that, if my
contention is just, to deprive us of the scientific method
is practically to deprive us of morals altogether. On
both grounds, therefore, it is of the greatest importance
that we should define our position in regard to this con
troversy; if, indeed, that can be called a controversy in
which the practical belief of all mankind and the consent
of nearly all serious writers' are on one side.
�24
Right and Wrong.
Let us in the first place consider a little more closely
the connection between conscience and responsibility.
Words in common use, such as these two, have their
meanings practically fixed before difficult controversies
arise; but after the controversy has arisen, each party
gives that slight tinge to the meaning which best suits
its own view of the question. Thus it appears to each
that the common language obviously supports that view,
that this is the natural and primary view of the matter,
and that the opponents are using words in a new mean
ing and wresting them from their proper sense. Now
this is just my position. I have endeavoured so far to
use all words in their common every-day sense, only
making this as precise as I can; and, with two excep
tions, of which due warning will be given, I shall do my
best to continue this practice in future. I seem to my
self to be talking the most obvious platitudes; but it
must be remembered that those who take the opposite
view will think I am perverting the English language.
There is a common meaning of the word “ responsible,”
which though not the same as that of the phrase “ mo
rally responsible,” may throw some light upon it. If
we say of a book, “A is responsible for the preface and
the first half, and B is responsible for the rest,” we mean
that A wrote the preface and the first half. If two
people go into a shop and choose a blue silk dress to
gether, it might be said that A was responsible for its
being silk and B for its being blue. Before they chose,
the dress was undetermined both in colour and in material.
A’s choice fixed the material, and then it was undeter
mined only in colour. B’s choice fixed the colour ; and
if we suppose that there were no more variable condi
tions (only one blue silk dress in the shop), the dress was
then completely determined. In this sense of the word
we say that a man is responsible for that part of an event
which was undetermined when he was left out of account,
and which became determined when he was taken account
of. Suppose two narrow streets, one lying north and
south, one east and west, and crossing one another. A
man is put down where they cross, and has to walk.
Then he must walk either north, south, east, or west,
and he is not responsible for that; what he is responsi-
�Right and Wrong.
25
hie for is the choice of one of these four directions.
May we not say in the present sense of the word that
the external circumstances are responsible for the restric
tion on his choice? we should mean only that the fact
of his going in one or other of the four directions was
due to external circumstances, and not to him. Again,
suppose I have a number of punches of various shapes,
some square, some oblong, some oval, some round, and
that I am going to punch a hole in a piece of paper.
Where I shall punch the hole may be fixed by any kind
of circumstances ; but the shape of the hole depends on
the punch I take. May we say that the punch is lesponsible for the shape of the hole, but not for the posi
tion of it ?
It may be said that this is not the whole of the mean
ing of the word “ responsible,” even in its loosest sense ;
that it ought never to be used except of a conscious
agent. Still this is part of its meaning; if we regard
an event as determined by a variety of circumstances, a
man’s choice being among them, we say that he is
responsible for just that choice which is left him by the
other circumstances.
When we ask the practical question, “ Who is respon
sible for so-and-so ?” we want to find out who is to be
got at in order that so-and-so may be altered. If I want
to change the shape of the hole I make in my paper, I
must change my punch; but this will be of no use if I
want to change the position of the hole. If I want the
colour of the dress changed from blue to green, it is B,
and not A, that I must persuade.
We mean something more than this when we say that
a man is morally responsible for an action. It seems to
me that moral responsibility and conscience go together,
both in regard to the man and in regard to the action.
In order that a man may be morally responsible for an
action, the man must have a conscience, and the action
must be one in regard to which conscience is capable of
acting as a motive, that is, the action must be capable of
being right or wrong. If a child were left on a desert
island and grew up wholly without a conscience, and
then were brought among men, he would not be morally
responsible for his actions until he had acquired a con
�2.6
Right and Wrong.
science by education. He would of course be responsible
m the sense just explained, for that part of them which
was left undetermined by external circumstances, and if
we wanted to alter his actions in these respects we
should have to do it by altering him. But it would be
useless and unreasonable to attempt to do this by means
of praise or blame, the expression of moral approbation
or disapprobation, until he had acquired a conscience
which could be worked upon by such means.
It seems, then, that in order that a man may be
morally responsible for an action, three things are ne
cessary :—
1. He might have done something else; that is to sayz
the action was not wholly determined by external cir
cumstances, and he is responsible only for the choice
which was left him.
2. He had a conscience.
3. The action was one in regard to the doing or not
doing of which conscience might be a sufficient motive.
These three things are necessary, but it does not fol
low that they are sufficient. It is very commonly said
that the action must be a voluntary one. It will be
found, I think, that this is contained in my third con
dition, and also that the form of statement I have
adopted exhibits more clearly the reason why the con
dition is necessary. We may say that an action is in
voluntary either when it is instinctive, or when one
motive is so strong that there is no voluntary choice
between motives. An involuntary cough produced by
irritation of the glottis is no proper subject for blame or
praise. A man is not responsible for it because it is
done by a part of his body without consulting him.
What is meant by him in thia case will require further
investigation. Again, when a dipsomaniac has so great
and overmastering an inclination to drink that we cannot
conceive of conscience being strong enough to conquer
it, he is not responsible for that act, though he may
be responsible for having got himself into the state..
But if it is conceivable that a very strong conscience
fully brought to bear might succeed in conquering the
inclination, we may take a lenient view of the fall and
say there was a very strong temptation, but we shall
�Right and hRrong.
'^T
still regard it as a fall, and say that the man is respon
sible and a wrong has been done.
But since it is just in this distinction between volun
tary and involuntary action that the whole crux ot the
matter lies, let us examine more closely into it. 1 say
that when I cough or sneeze involuntarily, it is ready
not I that cough or sneeze, but a part of iny body which
acts without consulting me. This action is determined
for me by the circumstances, and. is not part of the choice
that is left to me, so that I am not responsible for it.
The question comes then to determining how much is to
be called circumstances, and how much is to be called
m Now I want to describe what happens when I volun
tarily do anything, and there are two courses open to
me. I may describe the things m themselves, my feel
ings and the general course of my consciousness, trust
ing to the analogy between my consciousness and yours
to make me understood ; or I may describe these things
as nature describes them to your senses, namely, in terms
of the phenomena of my nervous system, appealing to
your memory of phenomena and your knowledge of phy
sical action. I shall do both, because in some respects
our knowledge is more, complete from the one source,
and in some respects from the other. When I look back
and reflect upon a voluntary action, I seem to find that
it differs from an involuntary action in the fact that a
certain portion of my character has been consulted.
There is always a suggestion of some sort, either the end
of a train of thought or a new sensation ; and there is an
action ensuing, either the movement of a muscle or set
of muscles, or the fixing of attention upon something.
But between these two there is a consultation, as it were,
of my past history. The suggestion is viewed in the
light of everything bearing on it that I think of at the
time, and in virtue of this light it moves me to act m
one or more ways. Bet us first suppose that no hesita
tion is involved, that only one way of acting is sugges
ted, and I yield to this impulse and act in the particu
lar way. This is the simplest kind of voluntary action.
It differs from involuntary or instinctive action in the
fact that with the latter there is no such conscious con-
�28
Right and Wrong.
saltation of past history. If we describe these facts in
terms of the phenomena which picture them to other
minds, we shall say that in involuntary action a message
passes straight through from the sensory to the motor
centre, and so on to the muscles, without consulting the
cerebrum; while in voluntary action the message is
passed on from the sensory centre to the cerebrum, there
translated into appropriate motor stimuli, carried down
to the motor centre, and so on to the muscles. There
may be other differences, but at least there is this differ
ence. Now, on the physical side, that which determines
what groups of cerebral fibres shall be set at work by
i.en^Ven rnessaSe’ and what groups of motor stimuli
shall be set at work by these, is the mechanism of my
brain at the time; and on the mental side, that which
determines what memories shall be called up by the
given sensation, and what motives these memories shall
bring into action, is my mental character. We may
say, then, in this simplest case of voluntary action, that
w en the suggestion is given it is the character of me
which determines the character of the ensuing action ;
and consequently that I am responsible for choosing that
particular course out of those which were left open to
me by the external circumstances.
This is when I yield to the impulse. But suppose I
do not; suppose that the original suggestion, viewed in
the light of memory, sets various motives in action, each
motive belonging to a certain class of things which I
remember. Then I choose which of these motives shall
prevail. Those who carefully watch themselves find out
that a particular motive is made to prevail by the fixing
of the attention upon that class of remembered things
which calls up the motive. The physical side of this is
the sending of blood to a certain set of nerves—namely,
those whose action corresponds to the memories which
are to be attended to. The sending of blood is accom
plished by the pinching of arteries ; and there are special
nerves, called vaso-motor nerves, whose business it is to
carry messages to the walls of the arteries and get them
pinched. Now this act of directing the attention may
be voluntary or involuntary, just like any other act.
en tn© transformed and reinforced nerve-message
�Right and Wrong.
29
gets to the vaso-motor centre, some part of it may be so
predominant that a message goes straight off to the arte
ries, and sends a quantity of blood to the nerves supply
ing that part; or the call for blood may be sent back for
revision by the cerebrum, which is thus again consulted.
To say the same thing in terms of my feelings, a particular
class of memories roused by the original suggestion may
seize upon my attention before I have time to choose
what I will attend to; or the appeal may be carried to
a deeper part of my character, dealing with wider and
more abstract conceptions, which views the conflicting
motives in the light of a past experience of motives, and
by that light is drawn to one or the other of them.
We thus get to a sort of motive of the second order or
motive of motives. Is there any reason why we should
not go on to a motive of the third order, and the fourth,
and so on ? None whatever that I know of, except that
no one has ever observed such a thing. There seems
plenty of room for the requisite mechanism on the phy
sical side; and no one can say, on the mental side, how
complex is the working of his consciousness. But we
must carefully distinguish between the intellectual deli
beration about motives, which applies to the future and
the past, and the practical choice of motives in the
moment of will. The former may be a train of any
length and complexity ; we have no reason to believe
that the latter is more than engine and tender.
We are now in a position to classify actions in respect
of the kind of responsibility which belongs to them :
namely, we have—
1. Involuntary or instinctive actions.
2. Voluntary actions in which the choice of motives
is involuntary.
3. Voluntary actions in which the choice of motives is
voluntary.
In each of these cases what is responsible is that part
of my character which determines what the action shall
be. For instinctive actions we do not say that I am
responsible, because the choice is made before I know
anything about it. For voluntary actions I am respon
sible, because I make the choice; that is, the character
of me is what determines the character of the action.
�jo
Right and Wvwig„
In me, then, for this purpose, is included the aggregate
of links of association which determines what memories
shall be called up by a given suggestion, and what mo
tives shall be set at work by these memories. But we
distinguish this mass of passions and pleasures, desire
and knowledge and pain, which makes up most of my
character at the moment, from that inner and deeper
motive-choosing self which is called Reason, and the
Will, and the Ego; which is only responsible when
motives are voluntarily chosen by directing attention to
them. It is responsible only forthe choice of one motive
out of those presented to it, not for the nature of the
motives which arc presented.
But again, I may reasonably be blamed for what I did
yesterday, or a week ago, or last year. This is because
I am permanent; in so far as from my actions of that
date an inference may be drawn about my character
now, it is reasonable that I should be treated as praise
worthy or blameable. And within certain limits I am
for the same reason responsible for what I am now,
because within certain limits I have made myself. Even
instinctive actions are dependent, in many cases, upon
habits which may be altered by proper attention and
care; and still more the nature of the connections
between sensation and action, the associations of memory
and motive, may be voluntarily modified if I choose to
try. The habit of choosing among motives is one which
may be acquired and strengthened by practice, and the
strength of particular motives, by continually directing
attention to them, may be almost indefinitely increased
or diminished. Thus, if by me is meant not the instan
taneous me of this moment, but the aggregate me of my
past life, or even of the last year, the range of my
responsibility is very largely increased. I am responsible
for a very large portion of the circumstances which are
now external to me ; that is to say, I am responsible for
certain of the restrictions on my own freedom. As the
eagle was shot with an arrow that flew on its own
feather, so I find myself bound with fetters of my proper
forging.
Let us now endeavour to conceive an action which is
not determined in any way by the character of the agent.
�Right and Wrong,
3<
If we ask, 11 What makes it to be that action and noother ? ” we are told, “ The man’s Ego.” The wordsare here used, it seems to me, in some non-natural sense,
if in any sense at all. One thing makes another to be
what it is when the characters of the two things are
connected together by some general statement or rule.
But we have to suppose that the character of the action
is not connected with the character of the Ego by any
general statement or rule. With the same Ego and the
same circumstances of all kinds, anything within the
limits imposed by the circumstances may happen at any
moment. I find myself unable to conceive any distinct
sense in which responsibility could apply in this case
nor do I see at all how it would be reasonable to use
praise or blame. If the action does not depend on the
character, what is the use of trying to alter the character ?
Suppose, however, that this indeterminateness is only
partial; that the character does add some restrictions tothose already imposed by circumstances, but leaves the
choice between certain actions undetermined to besettled by chance or the transcendental Ego. Is it not
clear that the man would be responsible for precisely
that part of the character of the action which was deter
mined by his character, and not for what was left un
determined by it? For it is just that part which was
determined by his character which it is reasonable totry to alter by altering him.
We who believe in uniformity are not the only peopleunable to conceive responsibility without it. These are
the words of Sir W. Hamilton, as quoted by Mr. J. S.
Mill*
“Nay, were we even to admit as true, what we cannot think
as possible, still the doctrine of a motiveless volition would beonly casualism; and the free acts of an indifferent are, morally
and rationally, as worthless as the pre-ordered passions of a deter
mined will.”
“That, though inconceivable, a motiveless volition would, if
conceived, be conceived as morally worthless, only shows our
impotence more clearly. ”
“ Is the person an original undetermined cause of the determina
tion of his will? If he be not, then he is not a free agent, and the
scheme of necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first place, it is
impossible to conceive the possibility of this ; and in the second, if
* Examination, p. 556.
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Right and IVrong.
the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is impossible to see
how a cause, undetermined by any motive, can be a rational,
moral, and accountable cause. ”
It is true that Hamilton also says that the scheme of
necessity is inconceivable, because it leads to an infinite
non-commencement; and that “the possibility of morality
depends on the possibility of liberty; for if a man be not
a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and
has, therefore, no responsibility—no moral personality
at all.”
I know nothing about necessity; I only believe that
nature is practically uniform even in human action. I
know nothing about an infinitely distant past; I only
know that I ought to base on uniformity those infer
ences which are to guide my actions. But that man is
a free agent appears to me obvious, and that in the natu
ral sense of the words. We need ask for no better defi
nition than Kant’s :—•
“ Will is that kind of causality attributed to living agents, in
so far as they are possessed of reason; and freedom is such a pro
perty of that causality as enables them to originate events inde
pendently of foreign determining causes ; as, on the other hand
(mechanical), necessity is that property of the causality of irra
tionals, whereby their activity is excited and determined by the
influence of foreign causes.”*
I believe that I am a free agent when my actions are
independent of the control of circumstances outside mej
and it seems a misuse of language to call me a free
agent if my actions are determined by a transcendental
Ego who is independent of the circumstances inside me
—that is to say, of my character. The expression “ free
will” has unfortunately been imported into mental
science from a theological controversy rather different
from the one we are now considering. It is surely too
much to expect that good and serviceable English words
should be sacrificed to a phantom.
In an admirable book, ‘ The Methods of Ethics,’ Mr.
Henry Sidgwick has stated, with supreme fairness and
impartiality, both sides of this question. After setting
forth the “almost overwhelming cumulative proof” of
uniformity in human action, he says that it seems “ more
* ‘ Metaphysic of Ethics, ’ chap. iii.
�Right and Wrong.
33
than balanced by a single argument on the other side:
the immediate affirmation of consciousness m the moment
of deliberate volition.” “ No amount of experience of
the sway of motives ever tends to make me distrust my
intuitive consciousness that in resolving, after delibera
tion, I exercise free choice as to which of the motives
acting upon me shall prevail.”
. , ,
, <t
The only answer to this argument is that it is not on
the other side.” There is no doubt about the deliver
ance of consciousness ; and even if our powers of self
observation had not been acute enough to discover it,
the existence of some choice between motives would be
proved by the existence of vaso-motor. nerves. But
perhaps the most instructive way of meeting arguments
of this kind is to inquire what consciousness ought to
say in order that its deliverances may be of any use
in the controversy. It is affirmed, on the side of uni
formity, that the feelings in my consciousness m the
moment of voluntary choice have been preceded by
facts out of my consciousness which are related to them
in a uniform manner, so that if the previous facts had
been accurately known the voluntary choice might have
been predicted. On the other side this is denied. To
be of any use in the controversy, then, the immediate
deliverance of my consciousness must be competent to
assure me of the non-existence of something which by
hypothesis is not in my consciousness. Given an abso
lutely dark room, can my sense of sight assure me that
there is no one but myself in it ? Can my sense of
hearing assure me that nothing inaudible is going.on?
As little can the immediate deliverance of my conscious
ness assure me that the uniformity of nature does not
apply to human actions.
It is perhaps necessary, in connection with this ques
tion, to refer to that singular Materialism of high
authority and recent date which makes consciousness a
physical agent, “ correlates ” it with Light and Nerve
force, and so reduces it to an objective phenomenon.
This doctrine is founded on a common and very useful
mode of speech, in which we say, for example, that a
good fire is a source of pleasure on a cold day, and that
a man’s feeling of chill may make him run to it. But
�34
Right and Wrong.
so also we say that the sun rises and seta every morn and
night, although the man in the moon sees clearly that
this is due to the rotation of the earth. One cannot be
pedantic all day. But if we choose for once to be
pedantic, the matter is after all very simple. Suppose
that I am made to run by a feeling of chill. When I
begin to move my leg, I may observe if I like a double
series of facts. I have the feeling of effort, the sensa
tion of motion in my leg; I feel the pressure of my foot
-on the ground. Along with this I may see with my
eyes, or feel with my hands, the motion of my leg as a
material object. The first series of facts belongs to me
alone; the second may be equally observed by anybody
-else. The mental series began first; I willed to move
my leg before I saw it move. But when I know more
about the matter, I can trace the material series further
back,, and find nerve messages going to the muscles of
my leg to make it move. But I had a feeling of chill
before I chose to move my leg. Accordingly, I can find
nerve messages, excited by the contraction due to the
Tow temperature, going to my brain from the chilled
skin. Assuming the uniformity of nature, I carry
forward and backward both the mental and the material
series. A uniformity is observed in each, and a paral
lelism is observed between them, whenever observations
can be made. But sometimes one series is known
better, and sometimes the other; so that in telling a
story we quite naturally speak sometimes of mental
facts and sometimes' of material facts. A feeling of chill
made a man run; strictly speaking, the nervous disturb
ance which coexisted with that feeling of chill made him
run, if we want to talk about material facts; or the
feeling of chill produced the form of sub-consciousness •
which coexists with the motion of legs, if we want to
talk about mental facts. But we know nothing about
the special nervous disturbance which coexists with a
feeling of chill, because it has not yet been localised in
the brain ; and we know nothing about the form of sub
consciousness which coexists with the motion of legs;
although there is very good reason for believing in the
existence of both. So we talk about the feeling of chill
and the running, because in one case we know the
�Right and Wrong.
3.5
mental side, and in the other the material side. A man
nanght show me a picture of the battle of Gravelotte, and
say, “ You can’t see the battle, because it is all over,
but there is a picture of it.” And then he might put a
chassepot into my hand, and say, “We could not repre
sent the whole construction of a ehassepot in the picture,
but you. can examine this one, and find it out.” If I
now insisted on mixing up the two modes of communi
cation of knowledge, if I expected that the chassepots in
the picture would go off, and said that the one in my
hand was painted on heavy canvas, I should be acting
exactly in the spirit of the new materialism. For the
material facts are a representation or symbol of the
mental facts, just as a picture is a representation or
symbol of a. battle. And my own mind is a reality from
which I can judge by analogy of the realities represen
ted by other men’s brains, just as the chassepot in my
hand is a reality from which I can judge by analogy of
the chassepots represented in the picture. When,
therefore, we ask, “What is the physical link between
the ingoing message from chilled skin and the outgoing
message which moves the leg? ” and the answer is, “A
man’s Will,” we have as much right to be amused as if
we had asked our friend with the picture what pigment
was used in painting the cannon in the foreground, and
received the answer, “ Wrought iron.” . It will be found
excellent practice in the mental operations required by
this doctrine to imagine a train, the fore part of which is
an engine and three carriages linked with iron couplings,
and the hind part three other carriages linked with iron
couplings ; the bond between the two parts being made
out of the sentiments of amity subsisting between the
stoker and the guard.
To sum up ; the: uniformity of nature in human actions
has been denied on the ground that it takes away re
sponsibility, that it is contradicted by the testimony of
consciousness, and that there is a physical correlation
between mind and matter. We have replied that the
uniformity of nature is necessary to responsibility, that
it is affirmed by the testimony of consciousness when
ever consciousness is competent to testify, and that
matter is the phenomenon or symbol of which mind or
�36
Right and Wrong.
quasi-mind is the symbolized and represented thing. We
are now free to continue our inquiries on the supposition
that nature is uniform.
We began by describing the moral sense of an English
man. No doubt the description would serve very well for
the more civilised nations of Europe; most closely for
Germans and Dutch. But the fact that we can speak in
this way discloses that there is more than one moral sense,
and that what I feel to be right another man may feel
to be wrong. Thus we cannot help asking whether there
is any reason for preferring one moral sense to another;
whether the question, “What is right to do ?” has in any
one set of circumstances a single answer which can be
definitely known.
Now clearly in the first rough sense of the word this is
not true. What is right for me to do now, seeing that
I am here with a certain character, and a certain moral
sense as part of it, is just what I feel to be right. The
individual conscience is, in the moment of volition, the
only possible judge of what is right; there is no con
flicting claim. But if we are deliberating about the
future, we know that we can modify our conscience
gradually by associating with certain people, reading
certain books, and paying attention to certain ideas and
feelings ; and we may ask ourselves, “ How shall we
modify our conscience, if at all? what kind of conscience
shall we try to get ? what is the best conscience ?” We
may ask similar questions about our sense of taste. There
is no doubt at present that the nicest things to me are the
things I like; but I know that I can train myself to like
some things and dislike others, and that things which are
very nasty at one time may come to be great delicacies
at another. I may ask, “ How shall I train myself ?
What is the best taste ?” And this leads very naturally
to putting the question in another form, namely, “ What
is taste good for? What is the purpose or function of
taste?” We should probably find as the answer to that
question that the purpose or function of taste is to dis
criminate wholesome food from unwholesome; that it is a
matter of stomach and digestion. It will follow from
this that the best taste is that which prefers wholesome
food, and that by cultivating a preference for wholesome and
�Right and Wrong.
37
nutritious things I shall be training my palate in the way
it should go. In just the same way our question about
the best conscience will resolve itself into a question about
the purpose or function of the conscience—why we have
got it, and what it is good for.
Now to my mind the simplest and clearest and most
profound philosophy that was ever written upon this sub
ject is to be found in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Mr.
Darwin’s ‘ Descent of Man.’ In these chapters it appears
that just as most physical characteristics of organisms have
been evolved and preserved because they were useful to the
individual in the struggle for existence against other indi
viduals and other species, so this particular feeling has been
evolved and preserved because it is useful to the tribe or
community in the struggle for existence against othei’
tribes, and against the environment as a whole. The func
tion of conscience is the preservation of the tribe as a tribe.
And we shall rightly train our consciences if we learn to
approve those actions which tend to the advantage of the
community in the struggle for existence.
There are here some words, however, which require care
ful definition. And first the word purpose. A thing serves
a purpose when it is adapted to some end ; thus a corkscrew
is adapted to the end of extracting corks from bottles, and
our lungs are adapted to the end of respiration. We may
say that the extraction of corks is the purpose of the cork
screw, and that respiration is the purpose of the lungs. But
here we shall have used the word in two different senses.
A man made the corkscrew with a purpose in his mind,
and he knew and intended that it should be used for pulling
out corks. But nobody made our lungs with a purpose in
his mind, and intended that they should be used for
breathing. The respiratory apparatus was adapted to its
purpose by natural selection—namely, by the gradual pre
servation of better and better adaptations, and the killing
off of the worse and imperfect adaptations. In using the
word purpose for the result of this unconscious process of
adaptation by survival of the fittest, I know that I am
somewhat extending its ordinary sense, which implies con
sciousness. But it seems to me that on the score of conve
nience there is a great deal to be said for this extension of
meaning. We want a word to express the adaptation of
D
�38
Right and JVrong.
means to an end, whether involving consciousness or not;
the word purpose will do very well, and the adjective pur
posive has already been used in this sense. But if the use
is admitted, we must distinguish two kinds of purpose.
There is the unconscious purpose which is attained by
natural selection, in which no consciousness need be con
cerned ; and there is the conscious purpose of an intelligence
which designs a thing that it may serve to do something
which he desires to be done. The distinguishing mark of
this second kind, design or conscious purpose, is that in the
consciousness of the agent there is an image or symbol of
the end which he desires, and this precedes and determines
the use of the means. Thus the man who first invented a
corkscrew must have previously known that corks were in
bottles, and have desired to get them out. We may
describe this if we like in terms of matter, and say that a
purpose of the second kind implies a complex nervous
system, in which there can be formed an image or symbol
of the end, and that this symbol determines the use of the
means. The nervous image or symbol of anything is that
mode of working of part of my brain which goes on simul
taneously and is correlated with my thinking of the thing.
Aristotle defines an organism as that in which the
part exists for the sake of the whole. It is not that
the existence of the part depends on the existence of
the whole, for every whole exists only as an aggregate
of parts related in a certain way; but that the shape
and nature of the part are determined by the wants of
the whole. Thus the shape and nature of my foot are
what they are, not for the sake of my foot itself, but
for the sake of my whole body, and because it wants
to move about. That which the part has to do for the
whole is called its function. Thus the function of my foot
is to support me, and assist in locomotion. Not ail the
nature of the part is necessarily for the sake of the whole;
the comparative callosity of the skin of my sole is for the
protection of my foot itself.
Society is an organism, and man in society is part of an
organism according to this definition, in so far as some
portion of the nature of man is what it is for the sake of
the whole—society. Now conscience is such a portion of
the nature of man, and its function is the preservation of
�Right and Wrong.
39
society in the struggle for existence. We may be able to
define this function more closely when we know more about
the way in which conscience tends to preserve society.
Next let us endeavour to make precise the meaning of
the words community and society. It is clear that at dif
ferent times men may be divided into groups of greater or
less extent—tribes, clans, families, nations, towns. If a
certain number of clans are struggling for existence, that
portion of the conscience will be developed which tends to
the preservation of the clan; so, if towns or families are
struggling, we shall get a moral sense adapted to the ad
vantage of the town or the family. In this way different
portions of the moral sense may be developed at different
stages of progress. Now it is clear that for the purpose of
the conscience, the word community at any time will mean
a group of that size and nature which is being selected or
not selected for survival as a whole. Selection may be
going on at the same time among many different kinds of
groups. And ultimately the moral sense will be composed
of various portions relating to various groups, the function
or purpose of each portion being the advantage of that
group to which it relates in the struggle for existence.
Thus we have a sense of family duty, of municipal duty, of
national duty, and of duties towards all mankind.
It is to be noticed that part of the nature of a smaller
group may be what it is for the sake of a larger group to
which it belongs; and then we may speak of the function
of the smaller group. Thus it appears probable that the
family, in the form in which it now exists among us, is
’determined by the good of the nation ; and we may say
that the function of the family is to promote the advan
tage of the nation or larger society in some certain ways.
But I do not think it would be right to follow Auguste
Comte in speaking of the function of humanity; because
humanity is obviously not a part of any larger organism
for whose sake it is what it is.
Now that we have cleared up the meanings of some of
our words, we are still a great way from the definite solu
tion of our question, “ What is the best conscience ? or
what ought I to think right ? ” For we do not yet know
what is for the advantage of the community in the struggle
for existence. If we choose to learn by the analogy of an
�4°
Right and Wrong.
individual organism, we may see that no permanent or
final answer can be given, because the organism grows in
consequence of the struggle, and develops new wants while
it is satisfying the old ones. But at any given time it has
quite enough to do to keep alive and to avoid dangers and
diseases. So we may expect that the wants and even the
necessities of the social organism will grow with its growth
and that it is impossible to predict what may tend in the
distant future to its advantage in the struggle for existence.
But still, in this vague and general statement of the func
tions of conscience, we shall find that we have already
established a great deal.
In the first place, right is an affair of the community,
and must not be referred to anything else. To go back to
our analogy of taste ; if I tried to persuade you that the
best palate was that which preferred things pretty to look
at, you might condemn me a priori without any experience,
by merely knowing that taste is an affair of stomach and
digestion—that its function is to select wholesome food.
And so, if any one tries to persuade us that the best con
science is that which thinks it right to obey the will of
some individual, as a deity or a monarch, he is condemned
a priori in the very nature of right and wrong. In order
that the worship of a deity may be consistent with natural
ethics, he must be regarded as the friend and helper of
humanity, and his character must be judged from his
actions by a moral standard which is independent of him.
And this, it must be admitted, is the position which has
been taken by most English divines, as long as they were
Englishmen first and divines afterwards. The worship of a
deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any
portion of the community is a wrong thing, howevcr great
may be the threats and promises by which it is commended.
And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his
arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of the allegiance
of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most
insidious and fatal of social diseases. It was against this
that the Teutonic conscience protested in the Reformation.
Again, in monarchical countries, in order that allegiance to
the sovereign may be consistent with natural ethics, he
must be regarded as the servant and symbol of the national
unity, capable of rebellion and punishable for it. And this
�Right and Wrong.
41
has been the theory of the English constitution from time
immemorial.
The first principle of natural ethics, then, is the sole and
supreme allegiance of conscience to the community. I
venture to call this piety, in accordance with the older
meaning of the word. Even if it should turn out impossible
to sever it from the unfortunate associations which have
clung to its later meaning, still it seems worth while
to try.
An immediate deduction from our principle is that there
are no self-regarding virtues properly so called ; those quali
ties which tend to the advantage and preservation of the
individual being only morally right in so far as they make
him a more useful citizen. And this conclusion is in some
cases of great practical importance. The virtue of purity,
for example, attains in this way a fairly exact definition :
purity in a man is that course of conduct which makes him
to be a good husband and father, in a woman that which
makes her to be a good wife and mother, or which helps
other people so to prepare and keep themselves. It is easy
to see how many false ideas and pernicious precepts are
swept away by even so simple a definition as that.
Next, we may fairly define our position in regard to that
moral system which has deservedly found favour with the
great mass of our countrymen. In the common statement
of utilitarianism, the end of right action is defined to be
the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It seems
to me that the reason and the ample justification of the
success of this system is that it explicitly sets forth the
community as the object of moral allegiance. But our
determination of the purpose of the conscience will oblige
us to make a change in the statement of it. Happiness is
not the end of right action. My happiness is of no use to
the community except in so far as it makes me a more
efficient citizen ; that is to say, it is rightly desired as a
means and not as an end. The end may be described as
the greatest efficiency of all citizens as such. No doubt
happiness will in the long run accrue to the community as
a consequence of right conduct; but the right is deter
mined independently of the happiness, and, as Plato says,
it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
*
* The word altruism seems to me unfortunate, because the community,
(my neighbour) is to be regarded not as other, but as myself. I have endea
voured to defend this view elsewhere.
�42
Right and Wrong.
In conclusion, I would add some words on the relation
of Veracity to the first principle of Piety. It is clear that
veracity is founded on faith in man; you tell a man the
truth when you can trust him with it and are not afraid.
This perhaps is made more evident by considering the case
of exception allowed by all moralists—namely, that if a
man asks you the way with a view to committing a murder,
it is right to tell a lie and misdirect him. The reason why
he must not have the truth told him is that he would make
a bad use of it, he cannot be trusted with it. About these
cases of exception an important remark must be made in
passing. When we hear that a man has told a lie under
such circumstances, we are indeed ready to admit that for
once it was right, mensonge admirable; but we always have
a sort of feeling that it must not occur again. And the
same thing applies to cases of conflicting obligations, when
for example the family conscience and the national con
science disagree. In such cases no general rule can be laid
down ; we have to choose the less of two evils; but this is
not right altogether in the same sense as it is right to speak
the truth. There is something wrong in the circumstances
that we should have to choose an evil at all. The actual
course to be pursued will vary with the progress of society;
that evil which at first was greater will become less, and in
a perfect society the conflict will be resolved into harmony.
But meanwhile these cases of exception must be carefully
kept distinct from the straightforward cases of right and
wrong, and they always imply an obligation to mend the
circumstances if we can.
Veracity to an individual is not only enjoined by piety
in virtue of the obvious advantage which attends a straight
forward and mutually trusting community as compared
with others, but also because deception is in all cases a per
sonal injury. Still more is this true of veracity to the
community itself. The conception of the universe or aggre
gate of beliefs which forms the link between sensation and
action for each individual is a public and not a private
matter; it is formed by society and for society. Of what
enormous importance it is to the community that this should
be a true conception I need not attempt to describe. Now
to the attainment of this true conception two things are
necessary.
�Right and Wrong.
43
First, if we study the history of those methods by which
true beliefs and false beliefs have been attained,we shall
see that it is our duty to guide our beliefs by inference
from experience on the assumption of uniformity of nature
and consciousness in other men, and by this only. ppty
upon this moral basis can the foundations of the empirical
method be justified.
Secondly, veracity to the community depends upon faith
in man. Surely I ought to be talking platitudes when I
say that it is not English to tell a man a lie, or to suggest
a lie by your silence or your actions, because you are afraid
that he is not prepared for the truth, because you don t
quite know what he will do when he knows it, because
perhaps after all this lie is a better thing for him than the
truth would be; this same man being all the time an
honest fellow-citizen whom you have every reason to trust.
Surely I have heard that this craven crookedness is the
object of our national detestation. And yet it is constantly
whispered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain
truths to the masses. “ I know the whole thing is untrue :
but then it is so useful for the people; you don t know
what harm you might do by shaking their faith in it.
Crooked ways are none the less crooked because they are
meant to deceive great masses of people instead of indivi
duals. If a thing is true, let us all believe it, rich and
poor, men, women, and children. If a thing is untrue, let
us all disbelieve it, rich and poor, men, women, and children.
Truth is a thing to be shouted from the housetops, not to
be whispered over rose-water after dinner when the ladies
are gone away.
Even in those whom I would most reverence, who would
shrink with horror from such actual deception as I have
just mentioned, I find traces of a want of faith in man.
Even that noble thinker, to whom we of this generation
owe more than I can tell, seemed to say in one of his post
humous essays that in regard to questions of great public
importance we might encourage a hope in excess of the
evidence (which would infallibly grow into a belief and
defy evidence) if we found that life was made easier by it.
As if we should not lose infinitely more by nourishing a
tendency to falsehood than we could gain by the delusion
of a pleasing fancy. Life must first of all be made straight
�44
Right and Wrong.
and true ; it may get easier through the help this brings to
the commonwealth. And the great historian of mate*
rialism says that the amount of false belief necessary to
morality in a given society is a matter of taste. I cannot
believe that any falsehood whatever is necessary to mo
rality. It cannot be true of my race and yours that to
keep ourselves from becoming scoundrels we must needs
believe a lie. The sense of right grew up among healthy
men and was fixed by the practice of comradeship. It has
never had help from phantoms and falsehoods, and it never
can want any. By faith in man and piety towards man we
have taught each other the right hitherto ; with faith in
man and piety towards man we shall never more depart
from it.
* Lange, ‘ Geschichte des Materialismus.’
PRINTED BY C. W. liEYNELL, LITTLE rULTENET STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Right and wrong : the scientific origin of their distinction : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 7th November, 1876
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Right and wrong
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national secular society
BODY AND MIND.
&
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 1st NOVEMBER, 1874.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprintedfrom the ‘Fortnightly Review,' by kind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�♦
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
—physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 2nd May,
1875, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door :—One
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and
�BODY AND MIND.
HE subject of this Lecture is one in regard to which
a great change has recently taken place in the public
mind. Some time ago it was the custom to look with sus
picion upon all questions of a metaphysical nature as being
questions that could not be discussed with any good result,
and which, leading inquirers round and round in the same
circle, never came to an end. But quite of late years there
is an indication that a large number of people are waking
up to the fact that Science has something to say upon these
subjects ; and the English people have always been very
ready to hear what Science can say—understanding by
Science what we shall now understand by it, that is,
organised common sense.
When I say Science, I do not mean what some people
are pleased to call Philosophy. The word “philosopher,”
which meant originally “ lover of wisdom,” has come in
some strange way to mean a man who thinks it his business
to explain everything in a certain number of large books.
It will be found, I think, that in proportion to his colossal
ignorance is the perfection and symmetry of the system
which he sets up; because it is so much easier to put an
empty room tidy than a full one. A man of science, on
the other hand, explains as much as ever he can, and then
he says, “ This is all I can do ; for the rest, you must ask
the next man.” And with regard to such explanations as
he has given, whether the next man comes at all, whether
there is any next man or any further explanation or no (and
we may have to wait hundreds or even thousands of years
before another step is made), yet if the original step was
a scientific step, was made by true scientific methods, and
was an organization of the normal experience of healthy
men, that step will remain good for ever, no matter how
much is left unexplained by it.
Now the supposition that this subject in itself is neces
sarily one which cannot be discussed to good purpose, that
is to say, in such a way as to lead to definite results, is a
T
�4
Body and Mind.
mistake. The fact that the subject has been discussed
for many hundreds of years to no good purpose, and with
out leading to definite results, by great numbers of people,
is due to the method which was employed, and not to the
subject itself; and, in fact, if we like to look in the same
way upon other subjects as we have been accustomed to
look upon metaphysics—if we regard every man who has
written about mathematics or mechanics as having just
the same right to speak and to be heard that we give to
every man who has written about metaphysics—then I
think we shall find that exactly the same thing can be said
about the most certain regions of human science.
Those who like to read the last number of the Edinburgh
Revieiv, for example, will find, from an article on “ Comets,”
that it is at present quite an open question whether bodies
which are shot out from the sun by eruptive force may not
come to circle about the sun in orbits which are like those
of the planets. Now that is not an open question ; the
supposition is an utterly absurd one, and has been utterly
absurd from the time of Kepler. Again, those who are
curious enough to read a number of pamphlets that are to
be found here and there, may think it is an open question
whether the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its dia
meter may not be expressed by certain finite numbers. It
is not an open question to Science; it is only open to those
people who do not know any Trigonometry, and who will
not learn it. In exactly the same way there are numbers
of questions relating to the connection of the mind with
the body which have ceased to be open questions, because
Science has had her word to say about them; and they are
only open now to people who do not know what that word
of Science is, and who will not try to learn it.
The whole field of human knowledge may be divided
roughly, for the sake of convenience, into three great
regions. There are first of all what we call par
excellence the Physical Sciences—those which deal with
inanimate matter. Next, there are those sciences which
deal with organic bodies—the bodies of living things,
whether plants or animals, and the rules according to
which those things move. And lastly, there are those
sciences which make a further supposition—which suppose
that besides this physical world, including both organic
�Body and Mind.
5
and inorganic bodies, there are also certain other facts,
namely, that other men besides me, and most likely other
animals besides men, are conscious. The sciences which
make that supposition are the sciences of Ethics and
Politics, which are still in the practical stage, and especially
the more advanced science which is now to be considered
■—Psychology, the Science of Mind itself; that is to say,
the science of the laws which regulate the succession of
feelings in any one consciousness.. Each of these three
great divisions began in the form of a number of per
fectly disconnected subjects, between which nobody knew
of any relation; but in the history of science each of them
has been woven together, in consequence of connections
being found between the different subjects included in it,
into a complete whole ; and the further progress of the
history of science requires that each of these great threads,
into which all the little threads have been twined, should
themselves be twined together into a single string.
Now with regard to the first, two groups, the group of
mechanical sciences as we may call them, or the physics
of inorganic bodies, and the group of biological sciences, or
the physics of organic bodies—the gulf between these two
has in these last days been firmly bridged over. A
description of that bridge, and an account of the doctrines
which form it, will be found in Professor Huxley’s admirable
lecture delivered at Belfast before the British Association,
which is printed in the November number of the Fortnightly
Review. That bridge, as we have it now, is, in the con
ception of it, mainly due to Descartes ; but parts of it have
been worked out since his time by a vast number of physio
logists, with the expenditure of an enormous amount of
labour and thought. Such facts as that discovered by
Harvey, that the movement of the blood was a mere question
of Hydrodynamics, and was to be explained upon the same
principles as the motion of water in pipes—facts like these
have been piled up, one upon another, and have gradually
led to the conclusion that the science of organic bodies is
only a complication of the science of inorganic bodies.
It would not be advisable here to describe in detail the
stones which compose this bridge ; but we have to ask
whether it is possible to construct some similar bridge
between the now united Science of Physics, which deals
�6
Body and Mind.
with all phenomena, whether organic or inorganic, in fact
with all the material world, and the other science, the
Science of Consciousness, which deals with the Laws of
Mind and with the subject of Ethics. This is the question
which we have now to discuss.
In order to make this bridge a firm one, so that it will
not break down like those which philosophers have made,
it is necessary to observe with great care what is the exact
difference between the two classes of facts. If we confuse
the two things together to begin with, if we do not recog
nise the great difference between them, we shall not be
likely to find any explanation which will reduce them to
some common term. The first thing, therefore, that we
have to do is to realise as clearly as possible how profound
the gulf is between the facts which we call Physical facts
and the facts which we call Mental facts. The difference
is one which has been observed from primeval times, when
man or his prehuman ancestor found it not good to be
alone ; for the very earliest precept that we find set forth
in all societies to regulate the lives of those who belong
to them, is, “Put yourself in his place;” that is to say,
ascribe to other men a consciousness which is like your
own. And this belief which the lowest savage got, that
there was something else than the physical organization in
other men, is the foundation of Natural Ethics as well as of
the modern Science of Consciousness. But in very early
times an hypothesis was formed which was supposed to
make this belief easier. If you eat too much you will
dream when you are asleep ; if you eat too little you will
dream when you are awake, or have visions; and those
dreams of savages whose food was very precarious led them
to a biological hypothesis. They saw in those dreams
their fellows, other men, when it appeared from evidence
furnished to them afterwards that those other men were
not there when they were dreaming. Consequently, they
supposed that the actions of the organic body were caused
by some other body which was not physical in the ordinary
sense, which was not made of ordinary matter, and this
other body was called the Soul. Animism, as Mr. Tylor
calls this belief, was at first, then, an hypothesis in the
domain of biology. It was a physical hypothesis to account
for the peculiar way in which living things went about.
�Body and Mind.
7
But then when people had got this belief in another body
which was not a physical body, after a long series of years
they reasoned in this way. It is very difficult indeed to
suppose that the ordinary matter which makes a man’s
body can be conscious. This Me is quite different from
the flesh and blood which make up a man; but then as to
this other body, or soul, we do not know anything about it,
so that it may as well be conscious as not. That hypo
thesis put upon the soul, whose basis was in the phenomena
of dreams, the explanation of the consciousness which we
cannot help believing to exist in other men. I have men
tioned this early hypothesis on the subject, because out of
it grew the almost universal custom of holding at this
time of the year the Festival of the Dead which we preserve
in our All Souls’ Day.
But now let us see what it is that Science can tell us,
and what we can believe in place of that early hypothesis
of our savage ancestors. In the first place, let us consider
a little more narrowly what we mean by the body, and
more especially what we mean by the nervous system ; for
it is the great discovery of Descartes that the nervous
system is that part of the body which is related directly
to the mind. This can hardly be better expressed than it
is by the first of that series of propositions which Pro
fessor Huxley has stated in his lecture.
I. “ The brain is the organ of sensation, thought, and
■emotion; that is to say, some change in the condition of
the matter of this organ is the invariable antecedent of
the state of consciousness to which each of these terms
is applied.” We may complete this statement by saying
not only that some change in the matter of this organ
is the invariable antecedent, but that some other change is
the invariable concomitant of sensation, thought, and
■emotion; and that is rather an important remark, as you
will see presently.
Let us now look at the general structure of the brain
and see what it is like. We can easily make a rough
picture of it, which will serve our present purpose (see
p. 12). A parachute is a round piece of paper, like the
top of a parasol, with strings going from its circumference
to a cork. Let us imagine a parachute with two corks, a
red and a blue one; each of these corks being attached by
�8
Body and Mind,
strings, not only to the circumference of our piece of
paper, but to innumerable points in the inside of it.
Moreover, let innumerable other strings go across from
point to point of the paper, like a spider’s web spun in the
inside of a parasol. And the corks themselves must be
tied to each other and to a third cork, say the white one,
while from all three streamers fly away in all directions.
This is our diagram. Now the sheet of paper repre
sents the cerebral hemispheres, a great sheet of grey
nervous matter which forms the outside of your brain, and
lies just under your skull. Our red and blue corks are two
other masses of grey matter lying at the base of the brain,
and called the optic thalami and the corpora striata
respectively. The white cork is another mass of grey
matter called the medulla oblongata, which is the top of
the spinal cord. Our strings which tie part of the para
chute together, and our streamers which go out in all
directions from the corks represent the nerves, white
threads that run all over the body. And they are of two
kinds; there are some which go to the brain from any
part of the body, and others which come from the brain
to it. As regards the position of the nerves this is the
same thing for both of them, but it is not the same thing
with regard to what they do. The nerves which are called
Sensory nerves, and which go to the brain, are those
which are excited whenever any part of the body is
touched. When your finger is touched a certain excite
ment is given to the nerves which end in your finger, and
that excitement is carried along your arm and away up to
the medulla, represented by our white cork. But when
you are going to move your arm the excitement starts from
the brain, and goes along the other set of nerves which
are called Motor nerves, or moving nerves, and goes to the
muscles which work the part of the arm which you want
to move. And that excitement of the nerves by purely
mechanical means makes those muscles contract so as to
move the part which you want to move. We have then a con
nection between the brain and any part of the body which
is of a double kind: there is the means of sending a
message to the brain from this part of the body, and the
means of taking a message from the brain to this part.
The nerves which carry the message to the brain are called
�Body and Mind.
9
the “Sensory nerves” because they accompany what we
call sensation; the nerves which carry the message from
the brain are called “Motor nerves” because they are the
agents in the motion of that part of the body.
All this is expressed in Professor Huxley’s second and
third propositions.
II. “ The movements of animals are due to the change of
form of the muscles, which shorten and, become thicker; and
this change of form in a muscle arises from a motion of the
substance contained within the nerves which go to the
muscle.”
III. “ The sensations of animals are due to a motion of
the substance of the nerves which connect the sensory organs
with the brain.”
I pass on to his fourth proposition:—
IV. “ The motion of the matter of a sensory nerve mag
be transmitted through the brain to motor nerves, and thereby
give rise to a contraction of the muscles to which these motor
nerves are distributed; and this reflection of motion from a
sensory into a motor nerve may take place without volition^
or even contrary to it.”
Let us take that organ of sense which always occurs to
us as a type, of the others, because it is the most perfect—
the eye. The optic nerve which runs from the eye towards
the brain may be represented by one of our streamers going tothe red cork, to which it is fastened by a knot that is called
the “ Optic ganglion.” Supposing that you move your hand
rapidly towards anybody’s eye, a message with news of this
movement goes along the nerve to the optic ganglion, and
it comes away back again by another streamer, not direct
from the ganglion, but from a point on the blue cork very
near it, to the muscles which move the eyelid, and that
makes the eye wink. You know that the winking of the
eye, when anybody moves his hand very rapidly towards it, is
not a thing which you determine to do, and which you con
sider about; it is a thing which happens without your in
terference with it; and in fact it is not you who wink your
eye, but your body that does it. This is called Automatic
■ or involuntary motion, or again it is called Reflex action,
because it is a purely mechanical thing. A wave runs
along that nerve, and comes back on another nerve, and
that without any deliberation; and at the point where it
�IO
Body and Mind.
stops and comes back it is just a reflection like the wave
which you send along a string and which comes back from
the end of the string, or like a wave of water which is sent
up against a sea-wall, and which reflects itself back along
the sea.
V. The. motion of any given portion of the matter of
the brain excited by the motion of a sensory nerve, leaves
behind it a readiness to be moved in the same way in that
part, and anything which resuscitates the motion gives rise
to the appropriate feeling. This is the physical mechanism
of memory.” We can, perhaps, make this a little more
clear in the following manner :—Suppose two messages are
sent at once to the brain ; each of them is reflected back,
but the two disturbances which they set up in the brain
create, in some way or other, a link between them, so that
when one of these disturbances is set up afterwards the
other one is also set up. It is as if every time two bells of
a house were rung together, that of itself made a string to
tie them together, so that when you rang one bell it was
necessary to ring the other bell in consequence. That, re
member, is purely a physical circumstance which we know
happens. There is a physical excitation or disturbance
which is sent along two different nerves, and which pro
duces two different disturbances in the brain, and the effect
of these two disturbances taking place together is to make
a change in the character of the brain itself, so that when
the one of them takes place it produces the other.
Now there are two different ways in which a stimulus
coming to the eye can be made to move the hand. In the
first place, suppose you are copying out a book; you have
the book before you, and you read the book whilst you are
copying with your hand, and consequently the light coming
, into your eye from the book directs your hand to move in
a certain way. It is possible for this light impinging upon
the eye to send a message along the optic nerve into the
ganglion, and that message may go almost, though not
quite, direct to the hand, so as to make the hand move, and
that causes the hand to describe the letter which you have
seen in the book; or else the message may go by a longer
route which takes more time. A simple experiment to dis
tinguish between these processes was tried by Donders, the
great Dutch physiologist. He made a sign to a man at a
�Body and Mind.
11
distance, and when he made this sign the man was to put
down a key with his hand. He measured the time which
was taken in this process, that is to say, the time which
was taken by the message in going from the eye to the gan
glion, and then to the hand. Measurements of the rate of
nerve-motions have also been made by Helmholtz. The
velocity varies to a certain extent in different people, but it
is something like one hundred feet a second. But Donders
also made another measurement. Suppose it is not decided
beforehand whether the man is to move the key with his
right or his left hand, and this is to be determined by the
nature of the signal, then before he can move his hand he
has to decide which hand he will use. The time taken for
that process of decision was also measured. That process of
decision, when looked at from the physical side, means
this. The message goes up from the eye to the ganglion.
It is immediately connected there with the mass of grey
matter represented by our red cork. From that mass of
grey matter there go white threads away to the whole of
the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, or the paper of our
parachute, and they take that message, therefore, which
comes from the eye to the ganglion away to all this grey
matter which is put round the inside of your skull. There
are also white threads which connect all the parts of this
grey matter together, and they run across from every part
of it to almost every other part of it. As soon as a message
has been taken to this grey matter, there is a vast inter
change of messages going on between those parts; but
finally, as the result of that, a number of messages come
upon other white threads to another piece of grey matter,
which is represented by our blue cork ; from that the
message is then taken to the muscles of the hand. There
are then two different ways in which a message may go from
the eye to the hand. It may go to the optic ganglion, and
then almost straight to the hand, and in that case you do
not know much about it—you only know that something
has taken place, you do not think that you have done it
yourself; or it may go to the optic ganglion, and be sent
up to the cerebral hemispheres, and then be sent back to
the sensory tract and then on to the hand. But that takes
more time, and it implies that you have deliberated upon
the act.
�12
Body and Mind.
and H is the hand.
The curve C C represents the
cerebral hemispheres, or the top of our parachute. If the
action is so habitually associated with the signal that it
takes place involuntarily, without any effort of the will,
the message goes from the eye to the hand along the line
E B B H. This may happen with a practised performer
when it is settled beforehand which hand he is to use.
But if it is necessary to deliberate about the action, to call
in the exercise of the will, the message goes round the
loop-line, E B C 0 B H ; from the eye to the optic thalami,
from them to the cerebrum, thence to the corpora striata,
and so through the medulla to the hand.
Besides this fact which we have j ust explained, the fact
of a message going from one part of the body to the brain
and coming out in the motion of some other part of the
body, there is another thing which is going on continually,
and that is this. There is a faint reproduction of some
excitement which has previously existed in the cerebral
hemispheres, and which calls up, by the process which we
have just now described, all those that have become
associated with it; and it is continually sending down
faint messages which do not actually tell the muscles to
move, but which begin to tell them to move as it were.
They are not always strong enough to produce actual
motions, but they produce just the beginnings of those
motions: and that process goes on even when there is
apparently no sensation and no motion. If a man is in a
�Body and Mind.
i3
brpwn study, with his eyes shut, although he apparently
sees and feels nothing at all, there is a certain action going
on inside his brain which is not sensation, but is like it,
because it is the transmission to the cerebral hemispheres
of faint messages which are copies of previous sensations ;
and it does not produce motion, but it produces something
like it; it produces incipient motion, the beginnings of
motion which do not actually take effect. Sometimes a
train of thought may so increase in strength as to produce
motion. A man may get so excited by a train of thought
that he jumps up and does something in consequence.
And the sensory impressions which are taken from the
ganglia to the hemispheres may be so strong as to produce
an illusion ; he may think that he sees something, he may
think that he sees a ghost, when he does not. This con
tinuous action of the brain depends upon the presence of
blood ; so long as a proper amount of blood is sent to the
brain it is active, and when the blood is taken away it
becomes inactive. And it is a curious property of the
nervous system that it can direct the supply of blood
which is to be sent to a particular part of it. It is possible,
by directing your attention to a particular part of your
hand, to make a determination of blood to that part which
shall in time become a sore place. Some people have
given this explanation, which seems a very probable one,
of what has happened to those saints who have meditated
so long upon the crucifixion, that they have got what are
called stigmata, that is, marks of wounds corresponding to
the wounds in what they were thinking about.
That, then, is the general character of the nervous
system which we have to consider in connection with the
mind. There is a train of facts between stimulus and
motion which may be of two kinds ; it may be direct or it
may be indirect, it may go round the loop-line or not; and
also there is a continuous action of the brain even when
these steps are not taking place in completeness. More
over, when two actions take place simultaneously they form
a sort of link between them, so that if one of them is
afterwards repeated the other gets repeated with it. That
is what we have to remember chiefly as to the character of
the brain.
Now let us consider the other class of facts and the con
�14
Body and Mind.
nections between them—the facts of consciousness. An
eminent divine once said to me that he thought there were
only'two kinds of consciousness—to have a feeling and to
know that you have a feeling. Now it seems to me that
there is only one kind of consciousness, and that is to have
fifty thousand feelings at once, and to know them all in
different degrees. Whenever I try to analyse any particular
state of consciousness in which I am, I find that it is an ex
tremely complex one. I cannot help at this moment having
a consciousness of all the different parts of this hall, and
of a great sea of faces before me; and I cannot help having
the consciousness, at the same time, of all the suggestions
that that picture makes, that each face represents a person
sitting there and listening or not, as the case may be. And
I cannot help combining with them at the same moment a
number of actions which they suggest to me, and in par
ticular the action of going on speaking. There are a great
number of elements of complexity which I cannot describe,
because I am so faintly conscious of them that I cannot
remember them. Any state of our consciousness, then, as
we are at present constituted, is an exceedingly complex
thing ; but it certainly possesses this property, that if two
feelings have occurred together, and one of them afterwards
occurs again, it is very likely that the other will be called
up by it. That is to say, two states of consciousness which
have taken place at the same moment produce a link
between them, so that a repetition of the one cafis up a
repetition of the other.
Again I find a certain train of facts between my sensa
tions and my exertions. When I see a thing, I may go
through a long process of deliberation as to what I shall do
with it, and then afterwards I may do that which I have
deliberated and decided upon. But, on the other hand, I
may, by seeing a thing, be quite suddenly forced into doing
something without any chance of deliberation at all. If I
suddenly see a cab coming upon me from the corner of a
street where I did not at all expect it, I jump out of the
way without thinking that it is a very desirable thing to
get out of the way of the cab. But if I see a cab a little
while before, and have more time to think about it, then it
occurs to me that it will be unpleasant and undesirable to
be run over by that cab, and that I can avoid it by walking
�Body and Mind.
!5
out of the way. You here see that there are in the case of
the mind two distinct trains of facts between sensation and
exertion. There is an involuntary train of facts when the
exertion follows the sensation without asking my leave,
and there is a voluntary train in which it does ask my
leave.
Then, again, there is this fact : that even when there is
no actual sensation and no actual exertion, there may still
be a long train of facts and sensations which hang
together; there may be faint reproductions of sensation
which are not so vivid as are the sensations themselves,
but which form a series of pictures of sensations which
pass continually before my mind; and there will be faint
beginnings of action. Now the sense in which there are
faint beginnings of action is very instructive. Any beginning
of an action is what we call a judgment. When you see a
thing, you in the first instance form no judgment about it
at all—you are not prepared to assert any proposition—
you merely have the feeling of a certain sight or sound
presented to you ; but after a very short space of time, so
short that you cannot perceive it, you begin to frame pro
positions. If you consider what a proposition means, you
will see that it must correspond to the beginning of some
sort of exertion. When you say that A is B, you mean
that you are going to act as if A were B. If I see water
with a particularly dull surface, and with stones resting
upon the surface of it, then, first of all, I have merely an
impression of a certain sheet of colour, and of ‘ certain
objects which interrupt the colour of that sheet. But the
second thing that I do is to come to the conclusion that the
water is frozen, and that therefore I may walk upon it.
The assertion that the water is frozen implies a bundle of
resolves ; which means, given certain other conditions, I
shall go and walk upon it. So, then, an act of judgment
or an assertion of any kind implies a certain incipient
action of the muscles, not actually carried out at that time
and place, but preparing a certain condition of the mind
such as afterwards, when the occasion comes, will guide the
action that we shall take up.
Now, then, what is it that we mean by the character of
a person ? You judge of a person’s character by what be
thinks and does under certain circumstances. Let us see
�16
Body and Mind.
what determines this. We can only be speaking here of
voluntary actions—those actions in which the person is con
sulted, and which are not done by his body without his
leave. In those voluntary actions what takes place is,
that a certain sensation is communicated to the mind, that
sensation is manipulated by the mind, and conclusions are
drawn from it, and then a message is sent out which causes
certain motions to take place. Now the character of the
person is evidently determined by the nature of this
manipulation. If the sensation suggests a wrong thing,
the character of the person will be bad; if the sensation
suggests in the great majority of cases a right thing, you
will say that the character of the person is good. So,
then, it is the character of the mind which determines
what it will do with a given sensation, and what act will
follow from it, which determines what we call the per
sonality of any person ; and that character is persistent in
the main, although it is continually changing a little.
The vast mass of it is a thing which lasts through the
whole of every individual’s life, although everything which
happens to him makes some small change in it, and that
constitutes the education of the man.
Now, then, the question arises, is there anything else in
your consciousness of a different nature from what we have
here described ? That is a question which every man has
to decide by examining his own consciousness. I do not
find anything else in mine. If you find anything else in
yours, it is extremely important that you should analyse it
and find out all that you possibly can about it, and state it
in the clearest form to other people ; because it is one of the
most important problems of philosophy to account for the
whole of consciousness out of individual feelings. It seems
to me that the account of which I have only given a very
rough sketch, which was begun by Locke and Hume, and
has been carried out by their successors, chiefly in this
country, is in its great general features complete, and
leaves nothing but more detailed explanations to be de
sired. It seems to me that I find nothing in myself which
is not accounted for when I describe myself as a stream of
feelings such that each of them is capable of a faint repeti
tion, and that when two of them have occurred together the
repetition of the one calls up the other, and that there are
�Body and Mind.
17
rules according to which the resuscitated feeling calls up
its fellows. These are, in the main, fixed rules which de
termine and are determined by my character ; but my cha
racter is gradually changing in consequence of the education
of life. It seems to me that this is a complete account of
all the kinds of facts which I can find in myself ■ and, as I
said before, if anybody finds any other kinds of facts in
himself, it is an exceedingly important thing that he should
describe them as clearly as he possibly can.
We have described two classes of facts ; let us now notice
the parallelism between them. First, we have these two
parallel facts, that two actions of the brain which occur to
gether form a link between themselves, so that the one
being called up the other is called up; and two states of
consciousness which occur together form a link between
them, so that when one is called up the other is called up.
But also we find a train of facts between the physical fact
of the stimulus of light going into the eye and the physical
fact of the motion of the muscles. Corresponding to a part of
that train, we have found a train of fact between sensation,
the mental fact which corresponds to a message arriving
from the eye, and exertion, the mental fact which corre
sponds to the motion of the hand by a message going out
along the nerves. And we have found a correspondence
between the continuous action of the brain and the con
tinuous existence of consciousness apparently independent
of sensation and exertion.
But let us look at this correspondence a little more
closely; we shall find that there are one or two things
which can be established with practical certainty. In the
first place, it is not the whole of the physical train of
facts which corresponds to the mental train of facts. The
beginning of the physical train consists of light going into
the eye and exciting the retina, and then of that wave of
excitation being carried along the optic nerve to the gan
glion. For all we know, and it is a very probable thing,
the mental fact begins here, at the ganglion. There is no
sensation till the message has got to the optic ganglion for
this reason, that if you press the optic nerve behind the eye
you can produce the sensation of light. It is like tapping
a telegraph, and sending a message which has not come
from the station from which it ought to have come;
B
�18
Body and Mind.
nobody at the other end can tell whether it has come from
that station or not. The optic ganglion cannot tell whether
this message which comes along the nerve has come from
the eye or is the result of a tapping of the telegraph,
whether it is produced by light or by pressure upon the
nerve. It is a fact of immense importance that all these
nerves are exactly of the same kind. The only thing
which the nerve does is to transmit a message which has
been given to it; it does not transmit a message in any
other way than the telegraph wire transmits a message—
that is to say, it is excited at certain intervals, and the
succession of these intervals determines what this message
is, not the nature of the excitation which passes along the
wire. So that if we watched the nerve excited by pressure
the message going along to the ganglion would be exactly
the same as if it were the actual sight of the eye. We may
draw from this the conclusion that the mental fact does not
begin anywhere before the optic ganglion. Again, a man
who has had one of his legs cut off can try to move his toes,
which he feels as if they were still there ; and that shows
that the consciousness of the motor impulse which is sent
out along the nerve does not go to the end to see whether
it is obeyed or not. The only way in which we know
whether 'our orders, given to any parts of our body, are
obeyed, is by having a message sent back to say that they
are obeyed. If I tell my hand to press against this black
board, the only way in which I know that it does press is
by having a message sent back by my skin to say that it is
pressed. But supposing there is no skin there, I can have
the exertion that precedes the action without actually per
forming it, because I can send out a message, and con
sciousness stops with the sending of the message, and does
not know anything further. So that the mental fact is
somewhere or other in the region B 0 0 B of the diagram,
and does not include the two ends. That is to say, it is
not the whole of the bodily fact that the mental fact cor
responds to, but only an intermediate part of it. If it just
passes through the points R B, without going round the
loop from C to 0, then we merely have the sensation that
something has taken place—we have had no voice in the
nature of it and no choice about it. If it has gone round
from C to C we have a much larger fact—we have that
�Body and Mind.
J9
fact which we call choice, or the exercise of vojition. We
may conclude, then—I am not able in so short a space as
I have to give you the whole evidence which goes to an
assertion of this kind; but there is evidence which is suffi
cient to satisfy any competent scientific man of this day—
that every fact of consciousness is parallel to some disturb
ance of nerve matter, although there are some nervous dis
turbances which have no parallel in consciousness, properly
so called ; that is to say, disturbances of my nerves may
exist which have no parallel in my consciousness.
We have now observed two classes of facts and the
parallelism between them. Let us next observe what an
^enormous gulf there is between these two classes of facts.
"The state of a man’s brain and the actions which go
•along it are things which every other man can perceive,
observe, measure, and tabulate • but the state of a man’s
own consciousness is known to him only, and not to any
other person. Things which appear to us and which we
•can observe are called objects or pAenomewa. Facts in a
man’s consciousness are not objects or phenomena to any
■other man ; they are capable of being observed only by
him. We have no possible ground, therefore, for speaking
of another man’s consciousness as in any sense a part of
the physical world of objects or phenomena. It is a thing
entirely separate from it; and all the evidence that we
have goes to show that the physical world gets along
entirely by itself, according to practically universal rules.
That is to say, the laws which hold good in the physical
world hold good everywhere in it—they hold good with
practical universality, and there is no reason to suppose
anything else but those laws in order to account for any
physical fact; there is no reason to suppose anything but
the universal laws of mechanics in order to account for
the motion of organic bodies. The train of physical facts
between the stimulus sent into the eye, or to any one of
our senses, and the exertion which follows it, and the train
of physical facts which goes on in the brain, even when
there is no stimulus and no exertion, these are perfectly
complete physical trains, and every step is fully accounted
for by mechanical conditions. In order to show what is
meant by that, I will endeavour to explain another supposi
tion which might be made ; that when stimulus comes
�20
Body and Mind,
into the eye there is a certain amount of energy transferred
from the ether, which fills space, to this nerve; and this
energy travels along into the ganglion, and sets the
ganglion into a state of disturbance which may use up
some energy previously stored in it. The amount of
energy is the same as before by the law of the conserva
tion of energy. That energy is spread over a number of
threads which go out to the brain, and it comes back again
and is reflected from there. It may be supposed that a
very small portion of energy is created in that process,
and that while the stimulus is going round this loop-line it
gets a little push somewhere, and then, when it comes back
to the ganglia, it goes away to the muscle and sets loose a
store of - energy in the muscle so that it moves the limb.
Now the question is, Is there any creation of energy any
where ? Is there any part of the physical progress which
cannot be included within ordinary physical laws ? It has
been supposed, I say, by some people, as it seems to me
merely by a confusion of ideas, that there is, at some part
or other of this process, a creation of energy ; but there is
no reason whatever why we should suppose this. The
difficulty in proving a negative in these cases is similar to
that in proving a negative about anything which exists on
the other side of the moon. It is quite true that I am not
absolutely certain that the law of the conservation of energy
is exactly true; but there is no more reason why I should
suppose a particular exception to occur in the brain than any
where else. I might just as well assert that whenever any
thing passes over the Line, when it goes from the north side
of the Equator to the south, there is a certain creation of
energy, as that there is a creation of energy in the brain..
If I chose to say that the amount was so small that none
of our present measurements could appreciate it, it would
be difficult or indeed impossible for anybody to disprovethat assertion ; but I should have no reason whatever for
making it. There being, then, an absence of positive
evidence that the conditions are exceptional, the reasons
which lead us to assert that there is no loss of energy in
organic any more than in inorganic bodies are absolutely
overwhelming. There is no more reason to assert that
there is a creation of energy in any part of an organic body,
because we are not absolutely sure of the exact nature of
�Body and Mind.
21
the law, than there is reason, because we do not know what
there is on the other side of the moon, to assert that there
is a sky-blue peacock there with forty-five eyes in his tail.
Then it is not a right thing to say, for example, that
the mind is a force, because if the mind were a force we
should be able to perceive it. I should be able to perceive
your mind and to measure it, but I cannot; I have abso
lutely no means of perceiving your mind. I judge by
analogy that it exists, and the instinct which leads me to
come to that conclusion is the social instinct, as it has
been formed in me by generations during which men have
lived together, and they could not have lived together
unless they had gone upon that supposition. But I may
very well say that among the physical facts which go along
at the same time with mental facts there are forces at work.
That is perfectly true, but the two things are on two
utterly different platforms—the physical facts go along by
themselves, and the mental facts go along by themselves.
There is a parallelism between them, but there is no inter
ference of one with the other. Again, if anybody says that
the will influences matter, the statement is not untrue, but
it is nonsense. The will is not a material thing, it is not
a mode of material motion. Such an assertion belongs to
the crude materialism of the savage. Now the only thing
which influences matter is the position of surrounding
matter or the motion of surrounding matter. It may be
conceived that at the same time with every exercise of
volition there is a disturbance of the physical laws; but
this disturbance, being perceptible to me, would be a
physical fact accompanying the volition, and could not be
the volition itself, which is not perceptible to me. Whether
there is such a disturbance of the physical laws or no, is a
question of fact to which we have the best of reasons for
giving a negative answer ; but the assertion that another
man’s volition, a feeling in his consciousness which I cannot
perceive, is part of the train of physical facts which I may
perceive, this is neither true nor untrue, but nonsense ; it
is a combination of words whose corresponding ideas will
not go together.
Then we are to regard the body as a physical machine,
which goes by itself according to a physical law, that is to
say, is automatic. An automaton is a thing which goes by
�22
Body and Mind.
itself when it is wound up, and we go by ourselves when*
we have had food. Excepting the fact that other men areconscious, there is no reason why we should not regard the
human body as merely an exceedingly complicated machine
which is wound up by putting food into the mouth. But
it is not merely a machine, because consciousness goes with
it. The mind, then, is to be regarded as a stream of
feelings which runs parallel to, and simultaneous with, a
certain part of the action of the body, that is to say, that
particular part of the action of the brain in which thecerebrum and the sensory tract are excited.
Then, you say, if we are automata what becomes of thefreedom of the will ? The freedom of the will, according,
to Kant, is that property which enables us to originate
events independently of foreign determining causes ; which,,
it seems to me, amounts to saying precisely that we areautomata, that is, that we go by ourselves, and do not want
anybody to push or pull us. The distinction between an
automaton and a puppet is, that the one goes by itself
when it is wound up and the other requires to be pushed
or pulled by wires or strings. We do not want any stimulusfrom without, but we go by ourselves when we have our
food, and therefore so far as that distinction goes we arc
automata. But we are more than automata, because we areconscious ; mental facts go along with the bodily facts.
That does not hinder us from describing the bodily factsby themselves, and if we restrict our attention to them we
must describe ourselves as automata.
The objection which many people feel to this doctrine is
derived, I think, from the conception of such automata as
are made by man. In that case there is somebody outside
the automaton who has constructed it in a certain definite
way, with definite intentions, and has meant it to go in
that way; and the whole action of the automaton is deter
mined by such person outside. Of course, if we consider,
for example, a machine such as Frankenstein made, and
imagine ourselves to have been put together as that fearful
machine was put together by a German student, the con
ception naturally strikes us with horror ; but if we consider
the actual fact, we shall see that our own case is not an
analogous one. For, as a matter of fact, we were not made
by any Frankenstein, but we made ourselves. I do not
�Body and Mind.
^3
mean that every individual has made the whole of his own
character, hut that the human race as a whole has made
itself during the process of ages. The action of the whole
race at any given time determines what the character . ot
the race shall be in the future. From the continual storing
up of the effects of such actions, graven into the character
of the race, there arises in process of time that exact human
constitution which we now have. By that process ot
Natural Selection all the actions of our ancestors are built
into us and form our character, and in that sense it may
be said that the human race has made itself. In that
sense also we are individually responsible for what the
human race will be in the future, because every one of our
actions goes to determine what the character of the race
shall be to-morrow. If, on the contrary, we suppose that
in the action of the brain there is some point where
physical causes do not apply, and where there is a discon
tinuity, then it will follow that some of our actions are not
dependent upon our character. Provided the action which
goes on in my brain is a continuous one, subject to physical
rules then it will depend upon what the character of my
brain is ; or if I look at it from the mental side, it will
depend upon what my mental character is; but if there is
a certain point where the law of causation does not app y,
where my action does not follow by regular physical causes
from what I am, then I am not responsible for it, because
it is not I that do it. So you see the notion that we. are
not automata destroys responsibility; because, if my actions
are not determined by my character in accordance with the
particular circumstances which occur, then I am not re
sponsible for them, and it is not I that do them.
Moreover, if we once admit that physical causes are not
continuous, but that there is some break, then we_ leave
the way open for the doctrine of a destiny or a providence
outside of us, overruling human efforts and guiding history
to a foregone conclusion. Now of course it is the business
of the seeker after truth to find out whether a proposition
is true or no, and not what are the moral consequences
which may be expected to follow from it. But I do think
that if it is right to call any doctrine immoral, it is right
so to call this doctrine ; when we remember how often it
has paralysed the efforts of those who were climbing
�24
Body and Mind.
honestly up the hillside towards the light and the right
and how often it has nerved the sacrilegious arm of the
society °r
adventurer wlao was conspiring against
I want now, very briefly indeed, to consider to what
extent these doctrines furnish a bridge between the two
c asses of facts. I have said that the series of mental facts
corresponds to only a portion of the action of the organism
Hut we have to consider not only ourselves, but also those
animals which are next below us in the scale of organisalon, and we cannot help ascribing to them a consciousness
which is.analogous to our own. We find, when we attempt
to enter into that and to judge by their actions what sort
of consciousness they possess, that it differs from our own
in precisely the. same way that their brains differ from our
rams. There is less of the co-ordination which is implied
by a message going round the loop-line. A much larger
number of the messages which go in at a cat’s eyes and
come out at her paws go straight through without any
loop-line at all than do m the case of a man ; but still there
is a Lttle loop-line left. And the lower we go down in the
scale of organisation the less of this loop-line there is; yet
we cannot suppose that so enormous a jump from one
creature to another should have occurred at any point in
the process of evolution as the introduction of a fact entirely
different and absolutely separate from the physical fact. It
is impossible for anybody to point out the particular place
in the line of descent where that event can be supposed to
have, taken place. The only thing that we can come to, if
we accept the doctrine of evolution at all, is that even in
the very lowest organisms, even in the Amceba which swims
about in our own blood, there is something or other, incon
ceivably simple to us, which is of the same nature with
our own consciousness, although not of the same complexity
that is to say (for we cannot stop at organic matter,
knowing as we do that it must have arisen by continuous
physical processes out of inorganic matter), we are obliged to
assume, m order to save continuity in our belief, that along
wit every motion of .matter, whether organic or inorganic,
there is some fact which corresponds to the mental fact in
ourse ves. The mental fact in ourselves is an exceedingly
■complex thing ; so also our brain is an exceedingly complex
�Body and Mind.
thing. We may assume that the quasi-mental fact which
corresponds and which goes along with the motion of. every
particle of matter is of such inconceivable simplicity, as
compared with our own mental fact, with our consciousness,
as the motion of a molecule of matter is of inconceivable
simplicity when compared with the motion in our brain.
This doctrine is not merely a speculation, but is a, result
to which all the greatest minds that have studied this
question in the right way have gradually been approxi
mating for a long time.
Again, let us consider what takes place when we perceive
anything by means of our eye. A certain picture is pro
duced upon the retina of the eye, which is like the picture
on the ground-glass plate in a photographic camera ; but
it is not there that the consciousness begins, as I have
shown before. When I see anything there is a picture
produced on the retina, but I am not conscious of it there ;
and in order that I may be conscious the message must be
taken from each point of this picture along the special
nerve-fibre to the ganglion. These innumerable fine nerves
which come away from the retina go each of them to a
particular point of the ganglion, and the result is that,
corresponding to that picture at the back of the retina,
there is a disturbance of a great number of centres of. grey
matter in the ganglion. If certain parts of the retina of
my eye, having light thrown upon them, are disturbed so
as to produce the figure of a square, then certain little
pieces of grey matter, in this ganglion, which are distributed
we do not know how, will also be disturbed, and the impres
sion corresponding to that is a square. Consciousness
belongs to this disturbance of the ganglion, and not to the
picture in the eye; and therefore it is something quite
different from the thing which is perceived.. But at the
same time, if we consider another man looking at some
thing, we shall say that the fact is this there is something
outside of him which is matter in motion, and that which
corresponds inside of him is also matter in motion. The
external motion of matter produces, in the optic ganglion
something which corresponds to it, but is. not like it.
Although for every point in the object there is a point, of
disturbance in the optic ganglion, and for every connection
between two points in the object there is a connection be-
�26
Body and Mind.
tween two disturbances, yet they are not like one another.
Nevertheless they are made of the same stuff; the object
outside and the optic ganglion are both matter, and that
matter is made of molecules moving about in ether. When
I consider the impression which is produced upon my mind
of any fact, that is just a part of my mind ; the impression
is a part of me. The hall which I see now is just an
impression produced on my mind by something outside of
it, and that impression is a part of me.
We may conclude from this theory of sensation, which is
established by the discoveries of Helmholtz, that the feeling
which I have in my mind—the picture of this hall—is some
thing corresponding, point for point, to the actual reality
outside. Though every small part of the reality which is
outside corresponds to a small part of my picture, though
every connection between two parts of that reality outside
corresponds to a connection between two parts of my picture,
yet the two things are not alike. They correspond to one
another, just as a map may be said in a certain sense to
correspond with the country of which it is a map, or as a
written sentence may be said to correspond to a spoken
sentence. But then I may conclude, from what I said
before, that, although the two corresponding things are
not alike, yet they are made of the same stuff. Now what
is my picture made of ? My picture is made of exceedingly
simple mental facts, so simple that I only feel them in
groups. My picture is made up of these elements ; and I
am therefore to conclude that the real thing which is out
side me, and which corresponds to my picture, is made up
of similar things ; that is to say, the reality which under
lies matter, the reality which we perceive as matter, is that
same stuff which, being compounded together in a particular
way, produces mind. What I perceive as your brain is
really in itself your consciousness, is You ; but then, that
which I call your brain, the material fact, is merely my
perception. Suppose we put a certain man in the middle
of the hall, and we all looked at him. We should all have
perceptions of his brain ; those would be facts in our con
sciousness, but they would be all different facts. My
perception would be different from the picture produced
upon you, and it would be another picture, although it
might be very like it. So that corresponding to all those
�Body and Mind.
27
pictures which are produced in our minds from an external
object there is a reality which is not like the pictures, but
which’ corresponds to them point for point, and which is
made of the same stuff that the pictures are The actual
reality which underlies what we call matter is not the
same thing as the mind, is not the same thing as our per
ception, but it is made of the same stuff. To use the wor
o/the old disputants, we may say that matter is not of
the same substance as mind, not Z^m^.but it is ot
ZiA-e substance, it is made of similar stuff differently com
pacted together, homoi-ousion.
, , , .,
~
With the exception of just this last bridge connec g
the two great regions of inquiry that we have been discuss
ing, the whole of what I have said is a body of doctrine
which is accepted now, as far as I know, by all compe e
people who have considered the subject There are of
course, individual exceptions with regard to particular
points, such as that I have mentioned about the possible
creation of energy in the brain ; but these are few, an
they occur mainly, I think, among those who are sa
exceedingly well acquainted with one side of the subJ
that they regard the whole of it from the pom o v
of that side, and do not sufficiently weigh what may come
from the other side. With such exceptions as those, and
with the exception of the last speculation of all,
&
doctrine which I have expounded to you is the doctrine of
Science at the present day.’
These results may now be applied to the considera
of certain questions which have always been 0 grea
interest. The application which I shall make is a pure y
tentative one, and must be regarded as merely indica ingthat such an application becomes more possible every day.
The first of these questions is that of the possible existence
of consciousness apart from a nervous system of mind
without body. Let us first of all consider the effect upon
this question of the doctrines which are. admitted by all
competent scientific men. All the consciousness
a we
know of is associated with a brain in a certain definite
manner, namely, it is built up out of elements m the same
way as part of the action of the brain is built up out ot
elements: an element of one corresponds to an element in
the other ; and the mode of connection, the shape ot the
�28
Body and Mind.
building, is the same in the two cases. The mere fact
that all the consciousness we know of is associated with
certain complex forms of matter need only make us
exceedingly cautious not to imagine any consciousness
apart from matter without very good reason indeed ; just
as the fact of all swans having turned out white up to a
certain time made us quite rightly careful about accepting
stories that involved black swans. But the fact that mind
and brain are associated in a definite way, and in that
particular way that I have mentioned, affords a very strong
presumption that we have here something which can be
explained; that it is possible to find a reason for this
exact correspondence. If such a reason can be found, the
case is entirely altered • instead of a provisional proba
bility which may rightly make us cautious, we should have
the highest assurance that Science can give, a practical
certainty.on which we are bound to act, that there is no
mind without a brain. Whatever, therefore, is the
probability that an explanation exists of the connection of
mind with brain in action, such is also the probability that
each of them involves the other.
If, however, that particular explanation which I have
ventured to offer should turn out to be the true one, the
case becomes even stronger. If mind is the reality or
substance of that which appears to us as brain-action, the
supposition of mind without brain is the supposition of an
organised material substance not affecting other substances
(for if it did it might be perceived), and therefore not
affected by them; in other words, it is the supposition of
immaterial matter, a contradiction in terms to the funda
mental assumption of uniformity of nature, without
practically believing in which we should none of us have
been here to-day. But if mind without brain is a con
tradiction, is it not still possible that an organisation like
the brain can exist without being perceived, without our
being able to hold it fast, and weigh it, and cut it up ?
Now this is a physical question, and we know quite enough
about the physical world to say, “ Certainly not.” It is made
of atoms and ether, and there is no room in it for ghosts.
The other question which may be asked is this : Can we
regard the universe, or that part of it which immediately
surrounds us, as a vast brain, and therefore the reality
�Body and Mind.
29
which underlies it as a conscious mind ? This question has
been considered by the great naturalist Du Bois Reymond,
and has received from him that negative answer which I
think we also must give. For we found that the particular
organisation of the brain which enables its action to run
parallel with consciousness amounts to this—that dis
turbances run along definite channels, and that two
disturbances which occur together establish links between
the channels along which they run, so that they naturally
occur together again. Now it will, I think, be clear to
every one that these are not characteristics of the great
interplanetary spaces. Is it not possible, however, that
the stars we can see are just atoms in some vast organism,
bearing some such relation to it as the atoms which make
up our brains bear to us ? I am sure I do not know. But
it seems clear that the knowledge of such an organism
could not extend to events taking place on the earth, and
that its volition could not be concerned in them. And
if some vast brain existed far away in space, being
invisible because not self-luminous, then, according to the
laws of matter at present known to us, it could affect the
solar system only by its weight.
On the whole, therefore, we seem entitled to conclude
that during such time as we can have evidence of, no
intelligence or volition has been concerned in events
happening within the range of the solar system, except
that of animals living on the planets. The weight of
such probabilities is, of course, estimated differently by
different people, and the questions are only just beginning
to receive the right sort of attention. But it does seem to
me that we may expect in time to have negative evidence
on this point of the same kind and of the same cogency
as that which forbids us to assume the existence between
the Earth and Venus of a planet as large as either of them.
• Now about these conclusions which I have described as
probable ones, there are two things that may be said. In
the first place it may be said that they make the world a
blank, because they take away the objects of very impor
tant and widespread emotions of hope and reverence and
love, which are human faculties and require to be exercised,
and that they destroy the motives for good conduct. To
this it may be answered that we have no right to call the
�3°
Body and Mind.
world a blank while it is full of men and women, even
though our one friend may be lost to us. And in the
regular everyday facts of this common life of men, and in
the promise which it holds out for the future, there is
room enough and to spare for all the high and noble
emotions of which our nature is capable. Moreover,
healthy emotions are felt about facts and not about
phantoms; and the question is not “ What conclusion will
be most pleasing or elevating to my feelings ? ” but “What
is the truth ? ” For it is not all human faculties that have
to be exercised, but only the good ones. It is not right
to exercise the faculty of feeling terror or of resisting
evidence. And if there are any faculties which prevent
us from accepting the truth and guiding our conduct by
it, these faculties ought not to be exercised. As for the
assertion that these conclusions destroy the motive for
good conduct, it seems to me that it is not only utterly
untrue, but, because of its great influence upon human
action, one of the most dangerous doctrines that can be
set forth. The two questions which we have last dis
cussed are exceedingly difficult and complex questions; the
ideas and the knowledge which we used in their discussion
are the product of long centuries of laborious investigation
and thought; and perhaps, although we all make our little
guesses, there is not one man in a million who has any
right to a definite opinion about them. But it is not
necessary to answer these questions in order to tell an
honest man from a rogue. The distinction of right and
wrong grows up in the broad light of day out of natural
causes wherever men live together; and the only right
motive to right action is to be found in the social
instincts which have been bred into mankind by hundreds
of generations of social life. In the target of every true
Englishman’s allegiance, the bull’s-eye belongs to his
countrymen, who are visible and palpable and who stand
around him ; not to any far-off shadowy centre beyond
the hills, ultra monies, either at Rome or in heaven.
Duty to one’s countrymen and fellow-citizens, which is the
social instinct guided by reason, is in all healthy com
munities the one thing sacred and supreme. If the course
of things is guided by some unseen intelligent person, then
this instinct is his highest and clearest voice, and because
�Body and Mind.
3i
of it we may call him good. But if the course .of things
is not so guided, that voice loses nothing of its sacred
ness, nothing of its clearness, nothing of its obligation.
In the second place it may be said that Science ought
not to deal with these questions at all; that while
scientific men are concerned with physical facts, they
are clans leur droit, but that in treating of such subjects
as these they are going out of their domain, and must
do harm.
What is the domain of Science ? It is all possible
human knowledge which can rightly be used to guide
human conduct.
In many parts of Europe it is customary, to leave a
part of the field untilled for the Brownie to live in,
because he cannot live in cultivated ground. And if you
grant him this grace, he will do a great deal of your
household work for you in the night while you sleep.
In Scotland the piece of ground which is left wild for the
devil to live in is called “ the good man’s croft.” Now,
there are people who indulge a hope that the ploughshare
of Science will leave a sort of good man’s croft around the
field of reasoned truth ; and they promise that in that
case a good deal of our civilising work shall be done for us
in the dark, by means we know nothing of. I do not share
this hope ; and I feel very sure that it will not be realised.
I think that we should do our work with our own hands
in a healthy straightforward way, and not leave any croft
to the good man from which his arrow may fly by night
and in which his pestilence may walk in the noonday. It
is idle to set bounds to the purifying and organising work
of Science. Without mercy and without resentment she
ploughs up weed and briar; from her footsteps behind her
grow up corn and healing flowers; and no corner is far
enough to escape her furrow. Provided only that we take
as our motto and our rule of action, Man speed the plough.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
��
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Body and mind, a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 1st November, 1874
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
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Text
SCIENCE LECTURES FOR THE PEOPLE.
No. 4.—FOURTH SERIES—1872.
ATOMS.
A LECTURE
BY
PROFESSOR CLIFFORD, M.A.,
OF CAMBRIDGE.
Delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester,
November 20th,
Also before
the
1872;
Sunday Lecture Society, in London,
ON THE 7TH OF JANUARY, 1872.
Air. Davies Benson in the chair.
[REPORTED BY HENRY PITMAN.]
PRICE
OZE" ZE
IE3 IE ZEST ZEST AT _
I
MANCHESTER :
JTO II N HEYWOOD, 141 and 143, DEANSGATE.
LONDON : F. PITMAN, PATERNOSTER ROW.
��ATOMS.
A LECTURE
By
PROFESSOR CLIFFORD, M.A.,
Delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, Nov. 20th., 1872 ;
yjfso before the Sunday Lecture Society, in London, on the yth of January, 1872.
If I were to wet my finger and then rub it along the edge of this
glass, I should no doubt persuade the glass to give out a certain
musical note. So also if I were to sing to that glass the same
note loud enough, I should get the glass to answer me back with
a note.
I want you to remember that fact, because it is of capital
importance for the arguments we shall have to consider to-night.
! The very same note which I can get the tumbler to give out by
I agitating it, by rubbing the edge, that same note I can also get
the tumbler to answer back to me when I sing to it. Now,
I .remembering that, please to conceive a rather complicated thing
I that I am now going to try to describe to you. The same
I -property that belongs to the glass belongs also to a bell which is
I made out of metal. If that bell is agitated by being struck, or in
I .any other way, it will give out the same sound that it will answer
| back if you .sing that sound to it; but if you sing a different
I '-Sound to it then it will not answer.
Now suppose that I have several of these metal bells which
| ‘.answer to quite different notes, and that they are all fastened
to a set of elastic stalks which spring out of a certain centre
? to which they are fastened. All these bells, then, are not only
: fastened to these stalks, but they are held there in such a way
that they can spin round upon the points to which they are
»-■fastened.
And then the centre to which these elastic stalks are
fastened or suspended, you may imagine as able to move in all
manner of directions, and that the whole structure made up of
■these bells and stalks and centre is able to spin round any axis
�4
whatever. We must also suppose that there is surrounding thisstructure a certain framework. We willsuppose the framework to bemade of some elastic material, so that it is able to be pressed in toa certain extent. Suppose that framework is made of whalebone,
if you like. Now this structure I am going for'the present to call
an “atom.” I do not mean to say that atoms are made of a
structure like that. I do not mean to say that there is anything
in an atom which is in the shape of a bell; and I do not mean
to say that there is anything analogous to an elastic stalk in it..
But what I mean is this-—that an atom is something that iscapable of vibrating at certain definite rates; also that it is
capable of other motions of its parts besides those vibrations at
certain definite rates; and also that it is capable of spinning
round about any axis. Now by the framework which I suppose
to be put round that structure made out of bells and elastic
stalks, I mean this—that supposing you had two such structures,
then you cannot put them closer together than a certain distance,
but they will begin to resist being put close together after you .
have put them as near as that, and they will push each other
away if you attempt to put them closer. That is all I mean then.
You must only suppose that that structure is described, and that
set of ideas is put together, just for the sake of giving us some
definite notion of a thing which has similar properties to that
structure. But you must not suppose that there is any special,
part of an atom which has got a bell-like form, or any part like an
elastic stalk made out of whalebone.
Now having got the idea of such a complicated structure,
which is capable, as we said, of vibratory motion, and of othersorts of motion, I am going on to explain what is the belief of
those people who have studied the subject about the composition
of the air which fills this room. The air which fills thisroom is what is called a gas; but it is not a simple gas;
it is a mixture of two different gases, oxygen and nitrogen.
Now what is believed about this air is that it consists of
quite distinct portions or little masses of air—that is, of littlemasses each of which is either oxygen or nitrogen; and that
these little masses are perpetually flying about in all directions.
The number of them in this room is so great that it strains the
powers of our numerical system to count them. They are flying?
about in all directions and mostly in straight lines, except where
they get quite near to one another, and then they rebound and fly
off in other directions. Part of these little masses which compose
the air are of one sort—they are called oxygen. All those little
�5
masses which are called oxygen are alike; they are of the same
weight; they have the same rates of vibration; and they go about
on the average at a certain rate. The other part of these
little masses is called nitrogen, and they have a different weight;
but the weight of all the nitrogen masses is the same, as nearly as
we can make out. They have again the same rates of vibration;
but the rates of vibration that belong to them are different from
the rates of vibration that belong to the oxygen masses; and the
nitrogen masses go about on the average at a certain rate, but this
rate is different from the average rate at which the oxygen masses
go about. So then, taking up that structure which I endeavoured
to describe to you at first, we should represent the state of the air
in this room as being made up of such a lot . of compound atoms
of those structures of bells and stalks, with frameworks round
them, that I described to you, being thrown about in all directions
with great rapidity, and continually impinging against one another,
-each flying off in a different direction, so that they would go mostly
in straight lines (you must suppose them for a moment not to fall
■down towards the earth), excepting where they come near enough
for their two frameworks to be in contact, and then their frame
works throw them off in different directions : that is a conception
of the state of things which actually takes place inside of gas.
Now, the conception which scientific men have of the state of
things which takes place inside of a liquid is different from that.
We should conceive it in this way: We should suppose that a
number of these structures are put so close together that their
frameworks are always in contact; and yet they are moving about
and rolling among one another, so that no one of them keeps the
same place for two instants together, and any one of them is
travelling all over the whole space. Inside of this glass, where
there is a liquid, all the small particles or molecules are running
about among one another, and yet none of them goes for any
-appreciable portion of its path in a straight line, because there is
310 small distance that it goes without being in contact with others
all around it; .and the effect of this contact of the others all around
it is that they press against it and force it out of a straight path.
'So that the path of a particle in a liquid is a sort of wavy path ;
it goes in and out in all directions, and a particle at one part of
the liquid will, at a certain time, have traversed all the different
parts one after another.
The conception of what happens inside of a solid body, say a
crystal of salt, is different again from this. It is supposed that
the very small particles which constitute that crystal of salt do not
�6
travel about from one part of the crystal to another, but that each
one of them remains pretty much in the same place. I say
“ pretty much,” but not exactly, and the motion of it is like this:
Suppose one of my structures, with its framework round it, to be
fastened up by elastic strings, so that one string goes to the ceiling,
and another to the floor, and another to each wall, so that it is
fastened by all these strings. Then if these strings are stretched,
and a particle is displaced in any way, it will just oscillate about
its mean position, and will not go far away from it; and if forced
away from that position it will come back again. That is the
sort of motion that belongs to a particle in the inside of a solid
body. A solid body, such as a crystal of salt, is made up, just as
a liquid or a gas is made up, of innumerable small particles, but
they are so attached to one another that each of them can only
oscillate about its mean position. It is very probable that it is
also able to spin about any axis in that position or near it; but it
is not able to leave that position finally, and to go and take up
another position in the crystal: it must stop in or near about the
same position.
These, then, are the views which are held by scientific men at
present about what actually goes on inside of a gaseous body, or
a liquid body, or a solid body. In each case the body is supposed
to be made up of a very large number of very small particles ;
but in one case these particles are very seldom in contact with
one another, that is, very seldom within range of each other’s
action; in this case they are during the greater part of the time
moving separately along straight lines. In the case of a liquid
*they are constantly within the range of each other’s action, but
they do not move along straight lines for any appreciable part of
the time; they are always changing their position relatively to the
other particles, and one of them gets about from one part of theliquid to another. In the case of a solid they are always alsowithin the range of each other’s action, and they are so much
within that range that they are not able to change their relative
positions; and each one of them is obliged to remain in very
nearly the same position.
Now what I want to do this evening is to explain to you, so
far as I can, the reasons which have led scientific men to adopt
these views; and what I wish especially to impress upon you is
this, that what is called the “ atomic theory ”—that is what I have
-just been explaining—is no longer in the position of a theory, but
that such of the facts as I have just explained to you are really
things which are definitely known and which are no. longer
�7
Suppositions; that the arguments by which scientific men have
been led to adopt these views are such as, to anybody who fairly
considers them, justify that person iri believing that the statements
are true.
Now first of all I want to explain what the reasons are
why we believe that the air consists of separate portions, and that
these portions are repetitions of the same structures. That is to
say that in the air we have two structures really, each of them a
great number of times repeated. Take a simple illustration,
which is a rather easier one to consider. Suppose we take a
vessel which is filled with oxygen. I want to show what the
reasons are which lead us to believe that that gas consists of a
certain structure which is a great number of times repeated, and
that between two examples of that structure which exist inside of
the vessel there is a certain empty space which does not contain
any oxygen. That oxygen gas contained in the vessel is made up
of small particles which are not close together, and each of these
particles has a certain structure, which structure also belongs
to the rest of the particles. Now this argument is rather a
difficult one, and I shall ask you therefore to follow it as closely
as possible, because it is an extremely complicated argument to
follow out the first time that it is presented to you.
I want to consider again the case of this finger glass. You
must often have tried that experiment—that a glass will give out
when it is agitated the same note which it will return when it is
sung to. Well, now, suppose that I have got this room filled with
a certain number of such atomic structures as I have endeavoured
to describe—that is to say, of sets of bells, the bells answering to
certain given notes. Each of these little structures is exactly
alike, that is to say, it contains just the bells corresponding to the
same notes. Well, now, suppose that you sing to a glass or to a
bell, there are three things that may happen. First, you may sing
a note which does not belong to the bell at all. In that case the
bell will not answer; it will not be affected or agitated by your
singing that note, but it will remain quite still. Next, if you sing
a note that belongs to the bell, but if you sing it rather low, then
the effect of that note will be to make the bell move a little, but
the bell will not move so much as to give back the note in an
audible form. Thirdly, if you sing the note which belongs to the
bell loud enough, then you will so far agitate the bell that it will
give back the note to you again. Now exactly that same property
belongs to a stretched string, or the string of a piano. You know
that if you sing a certain note in a room where there is a piano,
�8
the string belonging to that note will answer you if you sing loud
enough. The other strings won’t answer at all. If you don’t sing
loud enough the string will be affected, but not enough to answer
you. Now let us imagine a screen of piano strings, all of exactly
the same length, of the same material, and stretched equally, and
that this screen of strings is put across the room; that I am at one
end and that you are at another, and that I proceed to sing notes
straight up the scale. Now while I sing notes which are different
from that note which belongs to the screen of strings, they will
pass through the screen without being altered, because the
agitation of the air which I produce will not affect the strings.
But that note will be heard quite well at the other side of the
screen. You must remember that when the air carries a sound it
vibrates at a certain rate belonging to the sound. I make the air
vibrate by singing a particular note, and if that rate of vibration
corresponds to the strings the air will pass on part of its vibration
to the strings, and so make the strings move. But if the rate of
vibration is not the one that corresponds to the strings, then the
air will not pass on any of its vibrations to the strings, and
consequently the sound will be heard equally loud after it has
passed through the strings. Having put the strings of the piano
across the room, if I sing up the scale, when I come to the note
which belongs to each of the strings my voice will suddenly
appear to be deadened, because at the moment that the rate of
vibration which I impress upon the air coincides with that
belonging to the strings, part of it will be taken up in setting the
strings in motion. As I pass the note, then, which belongs to the
strings, that note will be deadened.
Instead of a screen of piano strings let us put in a series ot
sets of bells, three or four belonging to each set, so that each set
of bells answers to three or four notes, and so that all the sets are
exactly alike. Now suppose that these sets of bells are distributed
all over the middle part of the room, and that I sing straight up
the scale from one note to another until I come to the note that
corresponds to one of the bells in these sets, then that note will
appear to be deadened at the other end, because part of the
vibration communicated to the air will be taken up in setting those
bells in motion. When I come to another note which belongs to
them, that note will also be deadened ; so that a person listening
at the other end of the room would observe that certain notes were
deadened, or even had disappeared altogether. If, however, I sing
loud enough, then I should set all these bells vibrating. What
would be heard at the other end of the room ? Why just the
�9
chord compounded out of those sounds that belonged to the bells,
because the bells having been set vibrating would give out the
corresponding notes. So you see there are here three facts.
When I sing a note which does not belong to the bells, my voice
passes to the end of the room without diminution. When I sing
a note that does belong to the bells, then if it is not loud enough
it is deadened by passing through the screen ; but if it is loud
enough it sets the bells vibrating, and is heard afterwards. Now
just notice this consequence. We have supposed a screen made
out of these structures that I have imagined to represent atoms,
and when I sing through the scale at one end of the room certain
notes appear to be deadened. If I take away half of those
structures, what will be the effect ? Exactly the same notes will
be deadened, but they will not be deadened so much ; the notes
which are picked out of the thinner screen to be deadened will be
exactly the same notes, but the amount of the deadening will not
be the same.
So far we have only been talking about the transmission of
sound. You know that sound consists of certain waves which are
passed along in the air ; they are called “ aerial vibrations.” Now
we also know that light consists of certain waves which are passed
along not in the air, but along another medium. I cannot stop at
present to explain to you what the sort of evidence is upon which
that assertion rests, but it is the same sort of evidence as that
which I shall try to show you belongs to the statement about
atoms ; that is to say, the “ undulatory theory,” as it is called, of
light; the theory that light consists of waves transmitted along a
certain medium, has passed out of the stage of being a theory,
and has passed into the stage of being a demonstrated fact. The
difference between a theory and a demonstrated fact is something
like this : If you supposed a man to have walked from Chorlton
Town Hall down here say in ten minutes, the natural conclusion
would be that he had walked along the Stretford Road. Now
that theory would entirely account for all the facts, but at the same
time the facts would not be proved by it. But suppose it happened
to be winter time, with snow on the road, and that you could
trace the man’s footsteps all along the road, then you would know
that he had walked along that way. Now the sort of evidence
we have to show that light does consist of waves transmitted
through a medium is the sort of evidence that footsteps upon the
snow make; it is not a theory merely which simply accounts for
the facts, but it is a theory which can be reasoned back to from
the facts without any other theory being possible. So that you
�io
must just for the present take it for granted that the arguments
in favour of the hypothesis that light consists of waves are such
as to take it out of the region of hypothesis, and make it into
demonstrated fact.
Very well, then, light consists of waves transmitted along this
medium in the same way that sound is transmitted along the air.
The waves are not of the same kind; but still they are waves, and
they are transmitted as such; and the different colours of light
correspond to the different lengths of these waves, or to the
different rates of the vibration of the medium, just as the different
pitches of sound correspond to the different lengths of the air
waves, or to the different rates of the vibration of the air. Now
if we take any gas, such as oxygen, and we pass light through it,
we find that that gas intercepts, or weakens, certain particular
colours. If we take any other gas, such as hydrogen, and pass
light through it, we find that that gas intercepts, or weakens,
certain other particular colours of the light. Now, there are two
ways in which it can do that: it is clear that the undulations, or
waves, are made weaker, because they happen to coincide with the
rate of vibration of the gas they are passing through. But the
gas may vibrate as a whole in the same way that the air does
when you transmit sound. Or the waves may be stopped, because
the gas consists of a number of small structures; just as my
screen, which I imagine to consist of structures; or just as the
screen of piano strings is made up of the same structure many
times repeated. Either of these suppositions would apparently at
first account for the fact that certain waves of light are intercepted
by the gas, while others are let through. But now how is it that
we can show one of these suppositions is wrong and the other is
right ? Instead of taking so small a structure as piano strings, let
us suppose we had got a series of fiddles, the strings of all of
them being stretched exactly in tune. I suppose this case because
it makes a more complicated structure, for there would be two or
three notes corresponding in each fiddle. If you suppose this
screen of fiddles to be hung up and then compressed, what will
be the effect ? The effect of the compression will be, if they are
all in contact, that each fiddle itself will be altered. If the fiddles
are compressed longways, the strings will give lower notes than
before, and consequently the series of notes which will be inter
cepted by that screen will be different from the series of notes
which were intercepted before. But if you have a screen made
out of fiddles which are at a distance from one another, and then
if you compress them into a smaller space by merely bringing
�IT
them nearer together, without making them touch, then it is clear
that exactly the same notes will be intercepted as before; only, as
there will be more fiddles in the same space, the deadening of the
sound will be greater.
Now when you compress any gas you find that it intercepts
exactly the same colours of light which it intercepted before it
was compressed. It follows, therefore, that the rates of vibration
which it intercepts depend not upon the mass of the gas whose
properties are altered by the compression, but upon some
individual parts of it which were at a distance from one another
before, and which are only brought nearer together without being
absolutely brought into contact so as to squeeze them. That is the
sort of reasoning by which it is made clear that the interception
of light, or particular waves of light by means of a gas, must
depend on certain individual structures in the gas which are at
a distance from one another, and which by compression are not
themselves compressed, but only brought nearer to one another.
There is an extremely interesting consequence which follows
from this reasoning, and which was deduced from it by Professor
Stokes in the year 1851, and which was afterwards presented in a
more developed form in the magnificent researches of Kirchhoff—
namely the reasoning about the presence of certain matter in the
Stm. If you analyse the solar light by passing it through a prism,
the effect of the prism is to divide it off so as to separate the
light into the different colours which it contains. That line of
variously coloured light which is produced by the prism is, as you
know, called the spectrum. Now when that spectrum is made in
a very accurate way, so that the parts of it are well defined, it is
observed to contain certain dark lines. That is, there is a certain
kind of light which is missing in the sun light; certain kinds of
light, as we travel along the scale of lights, are missing. Why are
they missing? Because there is something that the light has
passed through which intercepts or weakens those kinds of light.
Now that something which the light has passed through, how
shall we find out what it is ? It ought to be the same sort of
substance which if it were heated would give out exactly that
Hud of light. Now there is a certain kind of light which is
intercepted which makes a group of dark lines in the solar
Spectrum. There are two principal lines which together are
called the line D; and it is found that exactly that sort of light is
emitted by sodium when heated hot enough. The conclusion
therefore is that that matter which intercepts that particular part
of the solar light is sodium, or that there is sodium somewhere
�T2
between us and the hot portion of the sun which sends us the
light And other reasons lead us to conclude that this sodium is
not in the atmosphere of the earth, but in the neighbourhood
the sun—that it exists in a gaseous state in the sun’s atmosphere.
And nearly all the lines in the solar spectrum have been explained
in that way, and shown to belong to certain substances which we
are able to heat here, and to show that when they are heated they
give out exactly the same kind of light which they intercepted
when the light was first given out by the sun and they stood in
the.way. So you see that is a phenomenon exactly like the
phenomenon presented by the finger-glass that we began with.
Precisely the same light which any gas will give out when it is
heated, that same kind of light it will stop or much weaken it if
the light is attempted to be passed through it. That means that
this medium which transmits light, and which we call the
“ luminiferous ether,” has a certain rate of vibration for every
particular colour of the spectrum. When that rate of vibration
coincides with one of the rates of vibration of an atom, then it
will be stopped by that atom, because it will set the atom
vibrating itself. If therefore you pass light of any particular
colour through a gas whose atoms are capable of the corresponding
rate of vibration, the light will be cut off by the gas. If on the
other hand you so far heat the gas that the atoms are vibrating
strongly enough to give out light, it will give out a light of a kind
which it previously stopped.
We have reason then for believing that a simple gas consists
of a great number of atoms; that it consists of very small portions,
each of which has a complicated structure, but that structure is
the same for each of them, and that these portions are separate,
or that there is space between them.
In the next place I want to show you what is the evidence
upon which we believe that these portions of the gas are in motion—
that they are constantly moving.
If this were a political instead of a scientific meeting, there
would probably be some people who would be inclined to disagree
with us, instead of all being inclined to agree with one another;
and these people might have taken it into their heads, as has been
done in certain cases, to stop the meeting by putting a bottle of
sulphuretted hydrogen in one corner of the room and taking the
cork out. You know that after a certain time the whole room
would contain sulphuretted hydrogen, which is a very unpleasant
thing to come in contact with. Now how is it that that gas which
was contained in a small bottle could get in a short time over the
�13
whole room unless it was in motion? What we mean by motion
is change of place. Now the gas was in one corner and it is after
wards all over the room. There has therefore been motion some
where, and this motion must have been of considerable rapidity,
because we know that there was the air which filled the room
beforehand to oppose resistance to that motion. We cannot
suppose that the sulphuretted hydrogen gas was the only thing
that was in motion, and that the air was not in motion itself,
because if we had used any other gas we should find that it would
diffuse itself in exactly the same way. Now an argument just like
that applies also to the case of a liquid. Suppose this room were
a large tank entirely filled with water and anybody were to drop a
little iodine into it, after a certain time the whole of the water
would be found to be tinged of a blue colour. Now that drop
may be introduced into any part of the tank you like, either at the
top or bottom, and it will always diffuse itself over the whole
water. There has here again been motion. We cannot suppose
that the drop which was introduced was the only thing that moved
about, because any other substance would equally have moved
about. And the water has moved into the place where the drop
was, because in the place where you put the drop there is not so
much iodine as there was to begin with. Well then it is clear that
in the case of a gas, these particles of which we have shown it to
Consist must be constantly in motion; and we have shown also
that a liquid must consist of parts that are in motion, because it is
able to admit the particles of another body among them.
Now when we have decided that the particles of a gas are
in motion, there are two things that they may do—they may
either hit against one another, or they may not. Now it is esta
blished that they do hit against one another, and that they do
not proceed along straight lines independent of one another.
But 1 cannot at present explain to you the whole of the reasoning
upon which that conclusion is grounded. It is grounded upon
some rather hard mathematics. It was shown by Professor
Clerk Maxwell that a gas cannot be a medium consisting of small
particles moved about in all directions in straight lines, which do
not interfere with one another, but which bound off from the
surfaces which contain this medium. Supposing we had a box
containing a gas of this sort. Well, these particles do not inter
fere with one another, but only rebound when they come against
the sides of the box; then that portion of the gas will behave not
like a gas but like a solid body. The peculiarity of liquids and
gases is that they do not mind being bent and having their shape
�altered. It has been shown by Clerk Maxwell that a medium
whose particles do not interfere with one another would behave
like a solid body and object to be bent. It was a most extra
ordinary conclusion to come to, but it is entirely borne out by the
mathematical formulae. It is certain that if there were a medium
composed of small particles flying about in all directions and not
interfering with one another, then that medium would be to a
certain extent solid, that is, would resist any bending or change
of shape. By that means then it is known that these particles do
run against one another. Now they come apart again. There
were two things of course they might do, they might either go on
in contact, or they might come apart. Now we know that they
come apart for this reason—we have already considered how two
gases in contact will diffuse into one another. If you were to put
a bucket containing carbonic acid (which is very heavy) upon the
floor of this room it would after a certain time diffuse itself over all
the room; you would find carbonic acid gas in every part of the
room. Now Graham found that if you were to cover over the top
of that bucket with a very thin cover made out of graphite, or
blacklead, then the gas would diffuse itself over the room pretty
nearly as fast as before. The graphite acts like a porous body, as
a sponge does to water, and lets the gas get through. The
remarkable thing is that if the graphite is thin the gas will get
through nearly as fast as it will if nothing is put between to stop
it. Graham found out another fact. Suppose that bucket to
contain two very different gases, say a mixture of hydrogen and
carbonic acid gas. Then the hydrogen would come out through
the blacklead very much faster than the carbonic acid gas. Now
it is found by mathematical calculation that if you have two gases,
which are supposed to consist of small particles which are all
banging about, the gas whose particles are lightest will come out
quickest; that a gas which is four times as light will come out
twice as fast; and a gas nine times as light will come out three
times as fast, and so on. Consequently, when you mix two gases
together and then pass them through a thin piece of blacklead,
the lightest gas comes out quickest, and is as it were sifted from
the other. Now suppose we put pure hydrogen into a bucket and
put blacklead on the top, and then see how fast the hydrogen
comes out. If the particles of the hydrogen are different from one
another, if some are heavier, the lighter ones will come out first.
Now let us suppose we have got a vessel which is divided into
two parts by a thin wall of blacklead. We will put hydrogen into
one of these parts and allow it to come through this blacklead
�15
into the other part; then if the hydrogen contains any molecules
or atoms which are lighter than the others, those will come
through first. If we test the hydrogen that has come through, we
shall find that the atoms, as a rule, on one side of this wall are
lighter than the atoms on the other side. How should we find
that out ? Why we should take these two portions of gas, and
we should try whether one of them would pass through another
piece of blacklead quicker than the other; because if it did, it
would consist of lighter particles. Graham found that it did not
pass any quicker. Supposing you put hydrogen into one half of
guch a vessel, and then allow the gas to diffuse itself through the
blacklead, the gas on the two sides would be found to be of
precisely the same qualities. Consequently, there has not been
in this case any sifting of the lighter particles from the heavier
ones; and consequently there could not have been any lighter
particles to sift, because we know that if there were any they
would have come through quicker than the others. Therefore
we are led to the conclusion that in any simple gas, such as
hydrogen or oxygen, all the atoms are, as nearly as possible, of
the same weight. We have no right to conclude that they are
exactly of the same weight, because there is no experiment in the
world that enables us to come to an exact conclusion of that sort.
But we are enabled to conclude that, within the limits of experi
ment, all the atoms af a simple gas are of the same weight. What
Mows from that ? It follows that when they bang against one
another, they must come apart again; for if two of them were to
go on as one, that one would be twice as heavy as the others,
and would consequently be sifted back. It follows therefore that
two particles of a gas which bang against one another must
come apart again, because if they were to cling together they
would form a particle twice as heavy, and so this clinging
would show itself when the gas was passed through the screen
of blacklead.
Now there are certain particles or small masses of matter
which we know to bang against one another according to certain
laws ; such, for example, as billiard balls. Now the way in which
different bodies, after hitting together, come apart again depends
on the constitution of those bodies. The earlier hypothesis about
the constitution of a gas supposed that the particles of them came
apart according to the same law that billiard balls do; but that
hypothesis, although it was found to explain a great number of
phenomena, did not explain them all. And it was Professor
Clerk Maxwell again who found the hypothesis which does explain
�i6
all the rest of the phenomena. He found that particles when they
come together separate as if they repelled one another, or pushed
one another away; and as if they did that much more strongly
when close together than when further apart. You know that
what is called the great law of gravitation asserts that all bodies
pull one another together according to a certain law, and that they
pull one another more when close than when further apart. Now
that law differs from the law which Clerk Maxwell found out as
affecting the repulsion of gaseous particles. The law of attraction
of gravitation is this; that when you halve the distance, you have
to multiply the attraction four times—twice two make four. If
you divide the distance into three, you must multiply the attraction
nine times—three times three are 9. Now in the case of atomic
repulsion you have got to multiply not twice two, or three times
three, but five twos together—which multiplied make 32. If you
halve the distance between two particles you increase the repulsion
32 times. So also five threes multiplied together make 243 ; and
if you divide the distance between two particles by three, then you
increase the repulsion by 243. So you see the repulsion increases
with enormous rapidity as the distance diminishes. That law is
expressed by saying that the repulsion of two gases is inversely as
the fifth power of the distance. But now I must warn you against
supposing that that law is established in the same sense that these
other statements that we have been making are established. That
law is true provided that there is a repulsion between two gaseous
particles, and that it varies as a power of the distance; it is
proved that if there is any law of repulsion, and if the law is that
it varies as some power of the distance, then that power cannot
be any other than the fifth. It has not been shown that the action
between the two particles is not something perhaps more compli
cated than this, but which on the average produces the same
results. But still the statement that the action of gaseous molecules
upon one another can be entirely explained by the assumption of
a law like that, is the newest statement in physics since the law of
gravitation was discovered. You know that there are other actions
of matter which apparently take place through intervening spaces
and which always follow the same law as gravitation, such as the
attraction or repulsion of magnetical or electrical particles : those
follow the same law as gravitation. But here is a law of repulsion
which follows a different law to that of gravitation, and in that lies
the extreme interest of Professor Clerk Maxwell’s investigation.
Now the next thing that I want to give you reasoning for is again
rather a hard thing in respect of the reasoning, but the fact is an
�■exremely simple and beautiful one. It is this. Suppose I have two
vessels, say cylinders, with stoppers which do not fit upon the top of
the vessel, but slide up and down inside and yet fit exactly. These
two vessels are of exactly the same size; one of them contains
hydrogen and the other contains oxygen. They are to be of the
same temperature and pressure, that is to say they will bear
exactly the same weight on the top. Very well, these two vessels
having equal volumes of gas of the same pressure and temperature
will contain just the same number of atoms in each, only the
.atoms of oxygen will be heavier than the atoms of hydrogen.
Now how is it that we arrive at that result? I shall endeavour to
explain the process of reasoning. Boyle discovered a law about
tire dependence of the pressure of a gas upon its volume, which
¡showed that if you squeezed a gas into a smaller space it will press
so much the more as the space has been diminished. If the
space has been diminished one-half, then the pressure is doubled ;
if the space is diminished to one-third, then the pressure is
increased to three times what it was before. This holds for a
Varying volume of the same gas. That same law would tell us
that if we put twice the quantity of gas into the same space, we
should get twice the amount of pressure. Now Dalton made a
new statement of that law, which expresses it in this form, that
when you put more gas into a vessel which already contains gas,
the pressure that you get is the sum of the two pressures which
would be got from the two gases separately. You will see
•directly that that is equivalent to the other law. But the
importance of Dalton’s statement of the law is this, that it enabled
the law to be extended from the case of the same gas to the case
of two different gases. If instead of putting a pint of oxygen into
a vessel already containing a pint, I were to put in a pint of
nitrogen, I should equally get a double pressure. The oxygen
and nitrogen when mixed together would exert the sum of the
pressures upon the vessel that the oxygen and nitrogen would
exert separately. Now the explanation of that pressure is this.
The pressure of the gas upon the sides of the vessel is due to the
impact of these small particles which are constantly flying about
And impinging upon the sides of the vessel. It is first of all
■shown mathematically that the effect of that impinging would be
the same as the pressure of the gas. But the amount of thpressure could be found if we knew how many particles there
were in a given space, and what was the effect of each one
when it impinged on the sides of the vessel. You see directly
why it is that putting twice as many particles, which are
�i8
going at the same rate, into the same vessel, we should get twice
the effect. Although there are just twice as many particles to hit
the sides of the vessel, they are apparently stopped by each
other when they bound off. But the effect of there being more
particles is to make them come back quicker; so that altogether
the number of impacts upon the sides of the vessel is just
doubled when you double the number of particles. Now sup
posing we have got a cubic inch of space, then the amount of
pressure upon the side of that cubic inch depends upon the
number of particles inside the cube, and upon the energy with
which each one of them strikes against the sides of the vessel.
Well now again there is a law which connects together the
pressure of a gas and its temperature. It is found that there is a
certain absolute zero of temperature, and that if you reckon your
temperature from that then the pressure of the gas is directly
proportional to the temperature, that twice the temperature will
give twice the pressure of the same gas, and three times the
temperature will give three times the pressure of the same gas.
Well now we have just got to remember these two rules—the
law of Boyle, as expressed by Dalton, connecting together the
pressure of a gas and its volume, and this law which connects
together the pressure with the absolute temperature. You must
remember that it has been calculated by mathematics that the
pressure upon one side of a vessel of a cubic inch has been got
by multiplying together the number of particles into the energy
with which each of them strikes against the side of the vessel.
Now if we keep that same gas in a vessel and alter its temperature,
then we find that the pressure is proportional to the temperature ;
but since the number of molecules remains the same when we
double the pressure, we must alter that other factor in the
pressure, we must double the energy with which each of the
particles attacks the side of the vessel. That is to say, when we
double the temperature of the gas we double the energy of each
particle; consequently the temperature of the gas is proportional
always to the energy of its particles. That is the case with a
single gas. If we mix two gases, what happens ? They come to
exactly the same temperature. It is calculated also by mathe
matics that the particles of one gas have the same effect as those
of the other; that is, the light particles go faster to make up for
their want of weight. If you mix oxygen and hydrogen, you find
that the particles of hydrogen go four times as fast as the particle^
of oxygen. Now we have here a mathematical statement—that
when two gases are mixed together, the energy of the two particles
�19
is the same; ancl with any one gas considered by itself that
energy is proportional to the temperature. Also when two gasesare mixed together the two temperatures become equal. If you
think over that a little you will see that it proves that whether we
take the same gas or different gases, the energy of the single
particles is always proportional to the temperature of the gas.
Well now what follows ? If I have two vessels containing gas
at the same pressure and the same temperature (suppose that
hydrogen is in one and oxygen in the other) then I know that the
temperature of the hydrogen is the same as the temperature of the
oxygen, and that the pressure of the hydrogen is the same as the
pressure of the oxygen. I also know (because the temperatures
are equal) that the average energy of a particle of the hydrogen is the
same as that of a particle of the oxygen. Now the pressure is
made up by multiplying the energy by the number of particles in
both gases; and as the pressure in both cases is the same, there
fore the number of particles is the same. That is the reasoning;.
I am afraid it will seem rather complicated at first hearing, but it
is this sort of reasoning which establishes the fact that in two
equal volumes of different gases at the same temperature and
pressure, the number of particles is the same.
Now there is an exceedingly interesting conclusion which wasarrived at very early in the theory of gases, and calculated by
Mr. Joule. It is found that the pressure of a gas upon the sides
of a vessel may be represented quite fairly in this way. Let us
divide the particles of gas into three companies or bands. Suppose
I have a cubical vessel in which one of these companies is to go
forward and backward, another right and left, and the other to go
up and down. If we make those three companies of particles to ■
go in their several directions, then the effect upon the sides of the
vessel will not be altered; there will be the same impact and
pressure. It was also, found out that the effect of this pressurewould not be altered if we combined together all the particles
forming one company into one mass, and made them impinge
with the same velocity upon the sides of the vessel. The effect
of the pressure would be just the same. Now we know what the
weight of a gas is, and we know what the pressure is that it
produces, and we want to find the velocity it is moving at on
the average. We can find out at what velocity a certain weight has
got to move in order to produce a certain definite impact. There
fore we have merely got to take the weight of the gas, divide it by
three, and to find how fast that has got to move in order to
produce the pressure, and that will give us the average rate at
�20
which the gas is moving. By that means Mr. Joule calculated
that in air of ordinary temperature and pressure the velocity is
.about 500 metres per second, nearly five miles in sixteen seconds,
or nearly twenty miles a minute—about sixty times the rate of an
ordinary train.
The average velocity of the particles of gas is about i| times
..as great as the velocity of sound. Now you can easily remember
the velocity of sound in air at freezing point—it is 333 metres per
second ; so that about i| times, really 1'432 of that would be the
average velocity of a particle of air. At the ordinary temperature—
•60 degrees Fahrenheit—the velocity would, of course, be greater.
Now then just let us consider how much we have established
so far about these small particles of which we find that the gas
•consists. We have so far been treating mainly of gases. We find
that a gas, such as the air in this room, consists of small particles,
which are separate with spaces between them. They are as a
matter of fact of two different types, oxygen and nitrogen. All
the particles of oxygen contain the same structure, and the rates
•of internal vibration are the same for all these particles. It is
also compounded of particles of nitrogen which have different
■rates of internal vibration. We have shown that these particles
.are moving about constantly. We have shown that they impinge
against and interfere with one another’s motion; and we have
shown that they come apart again. We have shown that in vessels
of the same size containing two different gases of the same pressure
and temperature there is the same number of those two different
sorts of particles. We have shown also that the average velocity
of these particles in the air of this room is about twenty miles
.a minute.
Now there is one other point of very great interest to which I
want to call your attention. The word “ atom,” as you know,
has a Greek origin; it means—that which is not divided. Various
.people have given it the meaning of that which cannot be divided;
but if there is anything which cannot be divided we do not know
it, because we know nothing about possibilities or impossibilities,
■only about what has or has not taken place. Let us then
take the word in the sense in which it can be applied to a
scientific investigation. An atom means something which is not
divided in certain cases that we are considering. Now these atoms
I have been talking about may be called physical atoms, because
they are not divided under those circumstances that are con
sidered in physics. These atoms are not divided under the
ordinary alteration of temperature and pressure of gas, and
�21
variation of heat; they are not in general divided by the
application of electricity to the gas, unless the stream is very
strong. But there is a science which deals with operations by
which these atoms which we have been considering can be
divided into two parts, and in which therefore they are no longer
atoms. That science is chemistry. The chemist therefore will
not consent to call these little particles that we are speaking of
by the name of atoms, because he knows that there are certain
processes to which he can subject them which will divide them
into parts, and then they cease to be things which have
not been divided. Now I will give you an instance of that.
The atoms of oxygen which exist in enormous numbers in
this room consist of two portions, which are of exactly the
same structure. Every molecule, as the chemist would call
it, travelling in this room, is made up of two portions which
are exactly alike in their structure. It is a complicated
structure; but that structure is double. It is like the human
body—one side is like the other side. How do we know
that? We know it in this way. Suppose that I take a vessel
•which is divided into two parts by a division which I can take
Sway. One of these parts is twice as large as the other part, and
will contain twice as much gas. Into that part which is twice as
big as the other I put hydrogen; into the other I put oxygen.
Suppose that one contains a quart and the other a pint; then I
have a quart of hydrogen and a pint of oxygen in this vessel.
Now I will take away the division so that they can permeate one
another, and then if the vessel is strong enough I pass an electric
spark through them. The result will be an explosion inside the
vessel; it won’t break if it is strong enough; but the quart of
hydrogen and the pint of oxygen will be converted into steam;
they will combine together to form steam. If I choose to cool
down that steam until it is just as hot as the two gases were before
I passed the electric spark through them, then I shall find that at
the same pressure there will only be a quart of steam. Now let
us remember what it was that we established about two equal
volumes of different gases at the same temperature and pressure.
First of all, we had a quart of hydrogen with a pint of oxygen.
We know that that quart of hydrogen contains twice as many
hydrogen molecules as the pint of oxygen contains of oxygen
molecules. Let us take particular numbers. Suppose instead
of a quart or a pint we take a smaller quantity, and say
that there are ioo hydrogen and 50 oxygen molecules. Well
after the cooling has taken place, I should find a volume of
�22
•steam which was equal to the volume of hydrogen, that is
I should find ioo steam molecules. Now these steam mole■cules are made up of hydrogen and oxygen molecules.
I
have got therefore ioo things which are all exactly alike, made up
of ioo things and 50 things—100 hydrogen and 50 oxygen,
making 100 steam molecules. Now since the 100 steam molecules
are exactly alike, we have those 50 oxygen molecules distributed
•over the whole of these steam molecules. Therefore unless the
oxygen contains something which is common to the hydrogen algo,
it is clear that each of those 50 molecules of oxygen must have
been divided into two ; because you cannot put 50 horses into 100
stables, so that there shall be exactly the same amount of horse in
each stable; but you can divide 50 pairs of horses among 100
stables. There we have the supposition that there is nothing
common to the oxygen and hydrogen, that there is no structure
that belongs to each of them. Now that supposition is made by
.a great majority of chemists. Sir Benjamin Brodie, however, has
made a supposition that there is a structure in hydrogen which is
also common to certain other elements. He has himself, for
particular reasons, restricted that supposition to the belief that
hydrogen is contained as a whole in many of the other elements.
Let us make that further supposition and it will not alter our case
at all. We have then one hundred hydrogen and fifty oxygen
molecules, but there is something common to the two. Well this
something we will call X. Of this we have to make one hundred
equal portions. Now that cannot be the case unless that structure
occurred twice as often in each molecule of oxygen as in each
molecule of hydrogen. Consequently, whether the oxygen mole
cule contains something common to hydrogen or not, it is equally
true that the oxygen molecule must contain the same thing repeated
twice over; it must be divisible into two parts which are exactly
.alike.
Similar reasoning applies to a great number of other elements ;
to all those which are said to have an even number of atomicities.
But -with regard to those which are said to have an odd number,
although many of these also are supposed to be double, yet the
•evidence in favour of that supposition is of a different kind; and.
we must regard the supposition as still a theory and not yet a
■demonstrated fact.
Now I have spoken so far only of gases. I must for one or
two moments refer to some calculations of Sir Wm. Thompson,
which are of exceeding interest as showing us what is the proximity
of the molecules in liquids and in solids. By four different modes
�23
of argument derived from different parts of science, and pointing
mainly to the same conclusion, he has shown that the distance
between two molecules in a drop of water is such that there are
between five hundred millions and five thousand millions of them
in an inch. He expresses that result in this way—that if you
were to magnify a drop of water to the size of the earth, then the
coarseness of the graining of it would be something between that
of cricket balls and small shot. Or we may express it in this
rather striking way. You know that the best microscopes can
be made to magnify from 6,000 to 8,000 times. A microscope
which would magnify that result as much again would show the
molecular structure of water.
There is another scientific theory analogous to this one which
leads us to hope that some time we shall know more about these
molecules. You know that since the time that we have known
all about the motions of the solar system, people have speculated
about the origin of it; and a theory started by Laplace and worked
out by other people has, like the theory of luminiferous ether,
been taken out of the rank of hypothesis into that of fact. We
know the rough outlines of the history of the solar system, and
there are hopes that when we know the structure and properties
of a molecule, what its internal motions are and what are the parts
and shape of it, somebody may be able to form a theory as to
how that was built up and what it was built out of. It is obvious
that until we know the shape and structure of it, nobody will be
able to form such a theory. But we can look forward to the time
when the structure and motions in the inside of a molecule will be
so well known that some future Kant or Laplace will be able to
form a hypothesis about the history and formation of matter.
In acknowledging a vote of thanks, Professor Clifford took the
opportunity of recommending his auditors to read Professor Clerk
Maxwell’s book on the Theory of Heat, at the end of which would
be found a short exposition of the molecular theory of matter.
Note.—The mathematical development of this subject is due to
Clausius and Maxwell. References to the chiefpapers will be found
at the beginning of Maxwell's memoir “ On the Dynamical Theory
of Gascsf Phil. Trans.1867.
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Atoms: a lecture by Professor Clifford ... delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, November 20th, 1872; and before the Sunday Lecture Society, in London, on the 7th January 1872
Creator
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
Description
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Place of publication: Manchester; London
Collation: [54]-74 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Science lectures for the people; fourth series
Series number: No. 4
Notes: Reported by Henry Pitman; Mr Davies Benson in the chair. Publisher's series list on unnumbered back page. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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John Heywood; F. Pitman
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[1872]
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N089
G5363
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Physics
Science
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Atoms: a lecture by Professor Clifford ... delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, November 20th, 1872; and before the Sunday Lecture Society, in London, on the 7th January 1872), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Atoms
Conway Tracts
NSS