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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
BEN
E L M Y.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE FOURPENCE.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGII,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�tJX°7
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
CHAPTER I.
THE
DAWN OF LIFE.
All things on this earth may be roughly divided into two
classes : things which have motion, and things which have
not; in other words, things which are living, and things
which are dead. The first constitute the animal and vege
table kingdoms, and the mineral kingdom contains all the
inanimate class. Motion and life seem at once to be in
timately connected ; we recognise the vitality of any living
thing, animal or vegetable, by its power of motion; whether
from place to place, as in an animal, or in simple changes of
form or aspect, as in both animal and vegetable.
Yet we must not confound motion and life. We see
motion in even the class of inanimate things. Steam will
rise in the air, a stone will fall to the ground ; both these
are instances of motion, yet even a child scarcely considers
them as any sign of life. I propose to myself the project
of pondering how far life and motion may be assumed to be
indeed one and the same element, though they may differ in
degree as much or more than a man differs from a jelly-fish.
It will be necessary first to think what phases of motion are
readily perceptible to our senses, and then to follow up that
chain till we approach forms of motion almost as little to be
rendered account of to our senses as is the ultimate mystery,
life itself. We may at any rate prove that there is a path
advancing step by step into the unknown; we may even go
along some part of the road, and we may form a just notion
as to where that road will ultimately lead us.
I have already instanced the simplest form of motion with
which we are acquainted—the falling of a stone or other
body towards the earth. This action or motion is so gene
ral or, as it were, natural, that countless generations of men
had witnessed it and it did not even occur to them to think
of rendering a reason for it. Some of the old Greek phi
losophers gave a feeble consideration to the matter, but did
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
not or could not follow the question out; and there it rested till
an English philosopher, Isaac Newton, had the remembrance
of their difficulties brought to his mind by observing an
apple fall from a tree, and set himself to think why the .
apple should fall to the earth, and whether that motion
was in the apple or in the earth. The result of longthought and calculation on his part was the ascertained,
truth that every substance in the universe is attracted, or
drawn towards, or seeks to approach every other substance *
and that it will so approach if there be not forces acting in
other directions to prevent it. This attraction is called the
force of gravitation, or weight-force; and it is so called
because it is greater in proportion to the weight and density
of the body exercising that attraction.
It is this same force that accounts for the second form of
motion that I mentioned—the rising of steam through the.
air; for the particles of steam are lighter in proportion to
their size or bulk than the particles of the air; the particles
of the air are, therefore, more forcibly attracted to the earth,
and squeeze out of place or force away the steam higher up. '
into the air, i.e., farther away from the earth.
If instead of air we take water for an example, we shall
see the same series of motions repeated, for a piece of iron
will sink or drop through the water, because iron is heavier
or denser, bulk for bulk, than water; and a bubble of air or
a piece of cork will rise through water (just as steam does
through the air) because both air and cork are lighter or
less dense, bulk for bulk, than water. And now, if instead
of water we take mercury, which is also a fluid, we shall find
that a piece of gold will sink in it, but a piece of iron will
float in it; and this again for the same reason, because gold
is denser than mercury, and iron is not so dense as
mercury.
Here we may learn two things : firstly, that some solids
may be less dense than other fluids; and, secondly, that
density is after all but a comparative and conditional term,
and is proportional to the medium or atmosphere in which
the action takes place, for both iron and gold will sink in
water, or drop through the air, yet only one of them will
sink in mercury.
We all know that what is called an empty bucket, that is,
a bucket full of air, is not so heavy as a bucket full of water,
and that this again is not so heavy as a lump of iron the
same size, and this lump of iron will not be so heavy as a
�THE DAWN OF LIFE.
3
bucket full of mercury, nor this again so heavy as a similar
mass of gold.
Now the real meaning of the weight or heaviness of all
these is simply the greater or less force with which they are
•attracted towards the earth ; that force being in exact pro
portion to their density as compared with their bulk. For
'the earth is the great mass towards which all substances on
the earth are attracted, and as far as earthly things are con
sidered we may call it the centre of gravitation. It is our
. greatest and heaviest mass, and hence all earthly things pro
gress or fall towards it when not prevented by other forces
■ or obstacles. It is true that what we call celestial objects
have also an attraction for each other and the earth, and for
.all things on the earth; but distance is also an element in
..the calculation of gravitation, and the earth is so much nearer
that a stone let go at the distance of 1000 or 100,000 feet
.-.above the earth is attracted more powerfully by the earth
which is near than by the sun which is so far off, though the
sun is 1,300,000 times larger than the earth, and its attrac
tion proportionately great.
And the planets and our earth and the sun would all rush
^together but for their motion in their orbits—a circular motion
•which they have that counterbalances this attraction or
motion of gravitation and keeps them hovering at a distance.
What is the secret or cause of this circular or orbital motion
may be discovered by another Newton, but it will certainly
• be found to be but a phase of this universal force of
gravitation.
Indeed all motions and conditions seem to be but phases
or consequences of phases of this universal law. Next in
order to gravitation as generally defined, we might place
what is called the attraction of cohesion—an attraction that
does not seem quite so dependent on density, and that might
be defined as the greater attraction that substances of the
same nature have for each other under favourable circum
stances than for substances of a dissimilar nature. It is this
^attraction that causes the homogeneousness or consistency
• of t metals, or stone, or wood, &c. This attraction gives
. as its evidence the two qualities known as hardness and
tenacity. It may be exemplified by the cutting of a piece
of wood or lead with a steel knife, whereas a piece of steel
could not be cut with a wooden or leaden knife. The
mechanical explanation of this fact is that the particles of
steel have a greater attraction Of cohesion for each other
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM
than have the particles of wood or lead; the particles off
wood or lead may be easily separated, but the particles of
steel are separable with difficulty.
This attraction of cohesion may seem to be but a passiveor defensive attraction, while gravitation is an active or
offensive power; yet the seemingly passive force of cohesion
is always really in action, for it must not be forgotten that
it is this force which at every instant holds bodies together
in resistance to the active force of gravitation which might
otherwise cause an indiscriminate mingling of their atoms,
with those of all the other bodies composing the mass of'
the earth. And some phases of this form of attraction are
palpably active, for under this head may be classed the
force of chemical affinity, and the force which produces and.
guides crystallization.
The force, chemical affinity, bears a very close resemblance?
to the attraction of cohesion, and may be roughly defined,
as the attraction which the particles of one clearly defined,
chemical clement or substance have for another of those
elements. At present these elements are known to have
certain affinities or combining powers with each other, and.
these attractions or affinities vary in each case, so that an.
element will leave one with which it is already combined to
join another for which it has a greater affinity, and will
again leave that, if one for which it has a still greater affinity
be presented to it.
And now we come to the force of crystallization, and must
give our earnest attention to this force ; for we get here the
first glimpse of a force or motion that in some of its actionsclosely resembles life. For we have here introduced de
fined growth towards a defined form. Crystals are of vary
ing sizes and shapes according to their substance, the same
substance generally following fixed and certain rules as to form. .
The growth of crystals is sometimes so rapid or vivid that
with some substances, and a strong magnifying glass, the
crystals may be seen forming themselves. In some instancesthis action of growth might well be mistaken for some part,
of the action that is seen in vegetable life. On ancient:
flint implements accretions of iron and manganese havebeen found which bear more than a casual resemblance to
various cryptogamous plants, mosses, lichens, and algae orseaweed. An example familiar to us all is that of the moss
like appearance of a frozen window-pane, the “ moss ” being,
simply water in a state of crystallization..
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
5
This last example brings us face to face with another
series of forces or attractions; the force by which bodies
may be brought to, and held in, any one of the three con
ditions : the solid, the fluid, and the gaseous—in a word,
how water may exist as ice, water, or steam, each of the
three conditions giving powers of combination, or altered
force, which would not be possible in any other condition.
As far as we know, all elements are capable of these conditions
under given circumstances, and there is, as just said, a con
siderable intrinsic difference in the conditions. Fluids seem
only compressible with intense force, while solids have a con
siderable and gases an excessive amount of compressibility.
Fluids and solids, again, have the attraction of cohesion, so
that solids retain their form, and fluids their equilibrium; yet
in gases the force of cohesion seems to be almost, if not
altogether, absent. A pound of any solid substance, or a
pint of any fluid, would retain their simple appearance in
a vacuum; but it would seem that the same measure of gas
would permeate and fill up (though in a rarefied or attenu
ated form) any vacuum however great.
Now, each of these conditions is distinctly defined and
separate, and the change from one to another seems to be
effected by some form of the most living force we have yet
spoken of—heat. And as we consider this force of heat we
find it to be as universal as gravitation, every substance
having specific, or intrinsic, or self-contained heat, just as
it has specific or self-contained weight. And specific heat
varies in different bodies just in a similar manner to what
specific weight or gravity does. And just as we may not
perceive the weight of a body till some displacement occurs
which allows the force of gravitation to come into perceptible
action, so specific heat may only become manifest or percep
tible when certain changes are brought about in the condition
of the substance containing it. When heat is thus manifest
or active, it does to the evidence of our senses change some
substances from the solid into the fluid state, and from that
again into the gaseous state, and a deprivation of heat will
act in just the reverse direction.
Chemical action or affinity, which has already been
spoken of, is very frequently attended by the evolution or
absorption of heat, and for the reason already given, z>., a
disturbance in the molecular conditions of elements which
makes manifest their specific heat. Chemical action, indeed,
is the main source of the heat with which we are acquainted,
�6
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
for the heat of the sun itself is but the result of chemical
action or combustion in or on the sun.
As with the other forms of force or motion or attraction
spoken of, heat is but a comparative condition, and our ex
perience of it on this earth has but a very limited range.
We may readily imagine a planet or world where the heat
was so great that water was only known in a gaseous state,
and their rivers might be of molten metal; or, on the other
hand, one so cold that ice might be their usual building
material, roofed with sheets of hydrogen, an element that we
only know in a gaseous state. And any bodily organism of
living creatures would have to be proportionately altered ;
yet there is nothing repugnant to the idea of a similar con
dition to mind, or soul, or life, call it what we will, existing
under the changed circumstances.
And I think this may be taken as a probable solution of
the question whether there is life on other planets or worlds;
for wherever there exist the forces that we have knowledge of
on this earth, there will life follow as a natural consequence.
I spoke just now of combustion. This word simply means
chemical action or combination so intense that heat and
light result. And in light we have reached almost the last
of the series of forces of which we have yet any clear con
ception. We have seen by now that the word force is to be
used in a somewhat different sense from that generally as
cribed to it. It is too generally confounded with “strength”
or “motion yet we see it may be existing where we have
only pictured inactivity, or rest, or death. We may see a
soldier standing “at ease.” He too is resting, yet the
muscles of his legs and back are all in action, or the man
would fall to the earth. And in speaking of light as a force
it might be thought that I was applying a false word. In
giving an instance or two of the power of light, we may
recognize that it is literally a force.
We know that a plant in comparative darkness will
hardly grow, and will at best be but pale and sickly. It is
light that gives the green colour to all vegetation, simply
because it is the initial force which gives the chemical
elements in vegetation the impulse to unite and form
healthy green flesh necessary for the plant’s full life. Again,
light is the force that draws all our photographic pictures.
In taking those pictures, where the light falls strongest the
chemical salts are destroyed or decomposed ; where the
light does not fall those salts are left untouched.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
7
It must need force to do this, and light is that force,
light is certainly the initial force of a vast amount of
chemical action, and again it seems sometimes to be the
conseqtience of chemical action ; as with heat, which is in
turn the origin or result of such action. Some time we may
have knowledge of latent or specific light as well as of
specific heat or specific gravity.
As yet we know but little of the vast force involved in light.
George Stephenson said that a railway engine was driven by
the rays of bottled sunshine contained in the coals that fed the
furnace, and there seems no doubt that he was correct.
Coal is the buried vegetation of forests of millions of years ago.
The sun shone on those trees and on their leaves and branches
day by day in their growth, the light and warmth was
effective in working the chemical change that formed their
vegetable tissue, and when the trees fell, century by century,
their dead bodies contained and preserved the results of this
action ; this absorbed or latent light and heat lay buried in
them, is in them when they are mined and dug up, and when
they are put into the fire-box of the engine. The fire is lit,
and by combustion, the bottled sunbeams, developed into
the form of heat, are transmitted to the water in the boiler,
this heat turns the water from fluid into the gaseous state of
steam; the steam occupies vastly more space than water, and
in endeavouring to get room to spread itself to its natural
bulk is allowed to force out a piston, this piston moves a
crank which turns the wheel on which the engine rests, and
the whole engine moves on.
In this brief story we see what permutations or
changes may take place in the same force; now it appears
to us as light, now as heat, now as chemical action, now as
mechanical motion overcoming the attraction of gravitation.
Indeed there seems but one force, and the changes in it are
but changes in that they are more clearly perceived by some
one of our imperfect senses than by the others.
I have used the words initial force once or twice and
shall need to explain this somewhat, for the ultimate pur
poses of our argument. Initial force, then, is the impulse
which once given to matter or force is carried on in the
matter or force itself without need for repetition of the original
impulse. For instance, the mechanical action involved in
the striking of a match is the initial force which gives rise to
its combustion, and this combustion may be conveyed to
things innumerable without need for any repetition of
�8
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM
mechanical action. With a slight knowledge of chemistry,
we may remember where a single drop of sulphuric acid is
capable of initializing the same process of combustion.
In some cases the force of crystallization maybe initialized
in a similar way. A mass of salts may be in a condition
ready for crystallization, and continue in that preparatory
stage till some tiny initial mechanical impulse, such as even
the prick of a needle, is given, when the mass will at once
rush into crystals. We all know too that nitro-glycerine
may. by a slight mechanical force be driven into gas, and
possibly a frightful explosion ensue.
Any slight amount
of one kind of force may, under favourable circumstances,
be the initializer of a vastly increased mass of some widely
different phase.
And now I will only call attention to one other form of
force before endeavouring to show how all these forces, or
some combination of them, may have given the initial impulse
to the wondrous force of life. This last force to which I shall
draw attention is electricity, a force of whose knowledge we
are but yet in the infancy; and a force that seems, even as
far as our present knowledge goes, to be capable of a con
siderable number of phases. This is the force by which, to
give a simple example, a man’s words may be conveyed
almost without lapse of time from one place to another (the
electric telegraph) ; it is also the force that causes the
attraction of a magnet for iron.
Whether electricity be the cause of some of the various forms
of force already named, or simply a resultant of them, is
more than can be said at present: it sometimes appears in
the one character and sometimes in the other. It seems in
this way to add greater strength to the presumption that all
force is but some different and convertible phase of some
great and ultimate property:—the very property of being or
existing; for existence and movement or force are inalienable
and interchangeable terms. But be electricity what it may,
it is already known that all things are subject to its influence,
and that it is therefore presumably as universal and great in
its results as gravitation itself.
With all this well weighed and considered—bearing in mind the different possibilities of matter in its known con
ditions of solid, fluid, and gaseous—bearing in mind the
powers of chemical combination and the novel substances
engendered thereby—bearing in mind the power of definite
form and growth of which the force of crystallisation is an
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
9
.example—bearing in mind that an initial impulse however
slight, once communicated, may give rise to a condition so
widely differing from itself that the change is to our present
powers utterly inexplicable; and that this condition will be
perpetuated as long as there is matter favourably situated to
be affected by it—bearing in mind all this, I ask if there
is anything very inconceivable in the idea that matter has been
so acted upon by some initial impulse that has given rise to
the phase of force which we call life, with all its attendant
phenomena ?
For, after all, what is life ? Animated beings may be
traced down to a type wherein they seem little more than
inert masses of matter—masses of gelatinous substance,
or of vegetable growth scarce differing from rust—and with
little more than the power of growth or assimilation of
similar matter to that of their own substance, which they
have in common with many substances that we hold to be
but minerals with the chemical properties of cohesion and
combination.
To such a view as this the continual objection made is :
“Yes, but you never show us what is the initial force by
which inanimate matter is endowed with the property of
life.” To this I can but say: Can we yet explain any initial
impulse ? And why do you call rtvzy matter inanimate ? Is
not chemical Action itself a phase of life, just as we reason
ably presume all these other forces to be but phases of some
universal ruling principle ? And indeed to me thefe seems a
less distance between the crudest forms of living organisms
and simple chemical action, than between those same
organisnjjjRind intellectual man. This difference and pro
gress I shall make an attempt to follow in my next study,
the “ Dawn of Humanity.” And as to the question of defin
ing or pointing out the initial force which institutes the
beginning of life, that initial force is just as easy or as
difficult to point out as any other initial force of which I
have spoken : we see the results, and it is a simple matter
of comparative result on which we have arbitrarily made the
distinction of calling one phenomenon animate action, while
we stigmatize the other as inanimate.
■ Yes : the greater our power of observation, the less do wfe
see to be the distinction between life and death, between
force and matter ; death (f.e. inanimation} is but hidden life,
matter is but hidden force. Change, or rather motion, is
the one constant rule of all things; and as our senses grow,
�IO
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
and fresh capacities or organs of sensibility are developed, ,
we shall grasp at higher and still more intangible phenomena..
It is not that Nature’s workings are so mysterious, but that:
our own faculties are so small, our own eyesight so dim.
Yet if we will carefully consult and ever strive to improvethe faculties we have, and follow out and strengthen in ourbeing the perceptions of justice and truth which Nature- everywhere shows us, we shall grow to know her better, and.
to have fuller, stronger sight—we shall be worthy to know
more of the at present mysterious meaning of life. When
we are so worthy the knowledge cannot be hidden from us,.
we may become intelligent co-operators in Nature’s work
and with power in our eyes and love in our hearts weshall fulfil the poet’s golden prophecy, and become in very
deed
“ the crowning race
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge ; under whose command
Is earth and earth’s, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book.”
CHAPTER II.
THE
DAWN
OF
HUMANITY.
In the previous study, I have presumed or asserted that:
matter, under certain conditions, may become a living
organism, such active life being the sequence of an initial
impulse which we may hope eventually to trace and solve..
I have further asserted that matter to which such an im
pulse has been once conveyed, may continue or even
increase that impulse under suitable conditions. . Theseassertions cover two of the most advanced theories yet
deduced from our knowledge of to-day—viz., Spontaneous.
Generation, and the Development or Origin of Species. In
plain words, the theory of Spontaneous Generation declares,
that, under certain conditions of matter, life will be initiated
and living organisms will be evolved or spontaneously geneja.ted ; and the theory of Development is that these
organisms once evolved will not only have the power of
continuing the impulse, i.e. of propagating themselves, but
also of developing further and higher capabilities under
favouring conditions, and thereby of becoming higher
organisms—organisms, in fact, such that we could no longer
j
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
II
'readily accept the supposition of their being in that condition
-spontaneously generated.
The theory of Spontaneous Generation has as yet but a
'limited acceptance, owing to the difficulty at present of
producing positive argument and irrefutable experiment in
its support, and owing, moreover, to its entire antagonism
to any biblical or other revelation, or to belief in any super
natural power. But it seems to me that the position may be
conclusively proved and justified even by negative argument;
,and it may be useful so to justify it before going further.
Evidently all primary generation (or initiation of life)
must either be spontaneous, or else the act of some creative
power foreign to the organism itself. In other words, life
is either the natural, innate, and inevitable result of certain
• conditions of matter, or it is the act of a creator external to
■ the matter. Such a presumed creator is usually styled God,
.-.and we may therefore conveniently use this term in the
1 sense specified. Nor shall we in so using the word be
-doing any wrong to the somewhat numerous class who seem
disinclined to accept the theory of spontaneity of life, while
yet rejecting the inconsistencies which become every day
more palpable in the theory of God and his creation of life.
For indeed there is no logical halting-place between the
■ two conclusions. Either all phenomena (life included) are
attributable to certain natural properties and sequences, or
■ they are due to an extra-natural power, a God.
Let us shift our questioning, then, from matter to its pre■sumed “Creator.” .Let us inquire into the origin of God.
How came he into existence? Did he' create himself? If
. so, we have a notable instance of the spontaneous generation
which his believers deny. Had God himself a creator
outside himself? If so, we may apply the same questioning
as to his creator. We only get the elephant and tortoise
fable over again.
There is but one resource left, and that is the assertion
- that God has existed for ever. This is but a begging of the
question, for no proof is given of the truth 6f the assertion ;
. and being unverified and unverifiable, it has not the least
: tangible claim to assent from our intellect.
The God theory is then placed in this dilemma: that it
' must either acknowledge spontaneity of life (which renders
i the God theory itself unnecessary), or take refuge in an
unverified assertion utterly beyond the ken of our senses
• and intellect.
�12
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
Against such a course of argument as this the constant,
objection of Theists or supernaturalists is, that there are
more things existent than can be brought to the evidence of
our senses ; but on that perfectly allowable position they
base the startling affirmation that therefore we must not
reason about God, or, at any rate, must not accept any con
clusion of our reason which leads to his rejection ! Yet in all
the assertions that they make in support of the God theory,
it is to these very senses of ours that they ultimately appeal
they have recourse with confidence to our senses and our
reason for acknowledgment of what they call the works of a
God, and thereby of a God himself, and yet they deny t(A
our senses and reason any right to evidence of, or faculty tocriticise, the hypothetical being whom they expect our reason j
to recognise !
The words reason and senses may in this connection ho
used as of the same meaning, for reason is but the collected
and developed experience of our senses. Now, if thisreason and these senses may be safely appealed to, and.
their evidence be received in the case of results, materialists
hold that the questionings of reason may be and must be
extended to causes, and that indeed the conclusions of'
reason are the only ones that can validly be accepted by the
organism that has given birth to it, and, as it were, dele
gated to it the care and power of the guidance and govern- ment of the organism.
It is to this reason and to these senses that Materialism ,
appeals, for it sees in man’s being no evidence of any
higher tribunal. Nor need it care to do so, since it also ■<
sees in the reason and the senses, and the self-responsibility of man, a faculty of development, of power, and of harmony
with nature, far beyond the feeble dreams and dulcet
cajoleries of any God theory, ancient or modern.
And Materialism claims for itself and for its evidence a ■
higher character and a greater worth of acceptance than it
holds due to any religious or supernatural or ultra-intel
lectual theory And this on several grounds. For Mate
rialism appeals to no select few, but to senses and faculties
which all possess. It does not recognise that any special
clique or class of man has received a supernatural revelation
of things in which all men have a joint and equal concern.
Its evidences are facts which have been gathered with careand painstaking by close observers and lovers of nature, not
dark fancies evolved from the tortured and ascetic brains of ‘
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
13
men who have begun their system with the assumption that
nature is an abhorrent and unholy thing. Materialism
claims the higher character, because it comes into the light
and courts the examination and aid of all, not shrouding
and hiding itself in impenetrable unintelligibleness, and
hurling threats and cursings and thunderings at those who
shall dare to deny its infallibility, analyse its inconsistency,
or despise its degrading sycophancy and terrorism.
Though I have spoken of Spontaneous Generation as not
having been to the consent of all irrefutably proved, it must
not be forgotten that there are men who decisively affirm
that they have to the evidence of the senses produced organic
life where it was previously non-existent.
The evidence
of Bastian and others is convincing that living organisms
are constantly evolved in liquids which have been her
metically sealed in flasks while boiling, or submitted to still
greater heat, and carefully preserved from all extraneous
influence of the atmosphere.
The arguments used by opponents to explain or contra
dict these experiments, is what is known as the “ germ '*
theory—an assertion that there are countless seeds of living
organisms floating in the air, and ever ready to develop
themselves into active life when favourable conditions of
matter are presented. It is true that these germs may be
invisible in even the most powerful microscope, and so im
perceptible as to elude the subtlest chemical test, yet the
theory has the convenient property of continuing to refer the
initiation of life to some primary act on the part of a creator. ’
It is to such germs, also, that many forms of disease, epi
demic or otherwise, are attributed ; so that if the theory of
the creation of germs be correct, it will follow that the ap
pearance of certain new and previously unknown forms of
disease, such as diphtheria or rinderpest, is an evidence that
the creation was not an act once accomplished and done'
with, but that the Creator still busies himself from time to
time with doubtful benefits to his creatures.
Let it be understood that Materialists do not deny that low,
organisms may propagate themselves by germs, as well as byj
other means more clearly visible to our senses. Materialism,
simply denies any extra-natural creation or origin of these'
germs, and the materialistic explanation of a new form of
parasitic disease would be that certain novel conditions of
matter had evolved or developed into a new form some low,
type of organism, which, once generated, might propagate.
�14
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM. .
itself either by cell-growth or by germs. The Germ theorists
would say, that if all the germs or spprules of small-pox,
typhoid fever, &c., could once be destroyed, we should never
see those diseases more ; the Evolutionist says that similar
unsanitary conditions to those that now exist where those dis
eases are rife, would again evolve them.
It must not be forgotten that it would be no refutation of
spontaneous generation even if men had not yet succeeded
in producing it. It is the action of nature that is in ques
tion, rather than man’s power, to evoke that action. And
certainly, whether by spontaneous generation or other
wise primitive and extremely simple organisms are,
under favourable circumstances, everywhere readily and
plentifully generated, and in an ascending scale from them
we have a series of ever higher developments.
As instances of fairly lowr (though not the lowest) animal
and vegetable organisms, I may take the amoeba and the
algae, previously referred to as “masses of gelatinous sub
stance, or of vegetable growth, scarce differing from rust.”
The amoeba is but a floating speck of jelly that absorbs or
covers other floating particles of matter which can afford
sustenance to it. It has no defined organs of nutrition, or
of any other function ; it simply lets the floating particle
sink into its jelly-like substance, and then, by a process no
more vital than chemical affinity, or even simple attraction
4|f cohesion, it absorbs what there may be in the floating
particles analogous to its own substance, and lets the re
mainder Jgain sink or drop through. Its action seems no
more a living one than is the action of the isinglass used in
“ fining ” beer. The isinglass that is there introduced falls
gradually to the bottom of the cask, enfolding in its own
substance, and bearing down with it, every floating speck of
turbid matter, and leaving the beer clear. And, undoubt
edly, any particle of isinglass or other gelatinous matter
that might previously have existed in the floating specks
would be absorbed from out them into the homogeneous
mass of the isinglass itself. Why this action of the isinglass
is to be set down as mechanical action, while that of the
amceba is to be exalted to the dignity of living action, it is
not for me to say, since I do not believer in the dis
tinction.
Some forms of the alga, are a sort of grey-green mould or
rust : they “ vegetate exclusively in water or in damp situa
tions ; they I cquire no nutriment, but such as is supplied by
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
“water and the air dissolved in it, which they absorb equally
by every part of their surface.'” These are the words of one
•of the most strenuous advocates of the God theory. Yet if
' for alga we substitute the word rust, how perfect a descrip
tion we get of .the action of moisture or water on iron. And
what is the difference between the two actions ? As far as
I can see, it is simply this, that the alga form a compound
•of three lements, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, while the
iron merely absorbs oxygen from the air or water, and so
forms a compound of only two elements, oxygen and iron.
No one disputes the spontaneous evolution of rust, that is,
■ of a compound of iron and oxygen : strange that men should
find it so hard to credit the spontaneous evolution of a
• compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen !
Two objections may here be raised : firstly, that rust will
• only appear or propagate itself where there is iron or some
other metal to feed it; and, secondly, that the action of
algae, or, at any rate, of other living organisms, is more vivid
than that of rust. To the first objection it is a sufficient
^answer that neither will algae nor any other organisms appear
■or propagate themselves where there is not suitable food for
them; and to the second, I would reply that I am not
asserting an equal degree of vital action in both the cases,
but simply that both instances are but different degrees of
the same natural and spontaneous action ; the dragging of
•one stick across another may seem to be action remote
-enough from that of combustion, yet we know that combus
tion is but an enhanced form of such action, and is, under
given circumstances, educible thereby.
In the lower living organisms, the distinction between
animal and vegetable is frequently so confused as to render
the organisms incapable of being classified with certainty;
■some motionless and apparently vegetable growths having
■ other well-defined animal properties, whilst some actively
moving organisms are, in other respects, as undoubtedly
1 vegetable. One would almost say, that on the threshold of
life the organisms are debating and undecided as to which
1 -of the two great channels they will follow. When this
choice is made, the same indecision seems extended again
somewhat to choice of species ; the mass of the primitive
■ organisms being involved in a hazy mist, to which only a
•very self-confident man could venture to assign defined
•limits and arbitrary classifications.
In these lower forms of life, the methods of extension or
�iU
STUDIES IN MATEfWCCTSSt
spreading, or repetition of both animal and vegetable,
organisms are, as might be presumed, identical; and are
visibly effected by either gemmation, or fissure, or both.
Gemmation is only another word for budding; buds form
on the original organism, which break off and become inde
pendent organisms. Fissure means that the original organ
ism, when grown, splits into two or more independent,
organisms. Some of the lowest organisms are asserted to
consist of single cells of animated organic matter, and it is,
of course, the development of further cells that renders,
practicable either gemmation or fissure. Yet we may soon
find organisms with a considerable accretion of cells not.
separating from each other, but remaining with the parent
organism, and, as it were, helping in the mutual and better
development of each; and we then begin to find special
groupings of these cells fulfilling certain definite functions,
in the economy of the organism, becoming, in point of fact,,
the organs for the support and growth and propagation of
the organism.
Here, too, we begin to come on clearer distinctions
between animal and vegetable; whose main difference has
been roughly, but fairly well-defined in the observation,
that with a vegetable the food is mainly applied to con
tinually increasing its fabric throughout its life, whereas,
with the animal, the food is only applied to growth till the
adult form is attained, and is then simply used to maintain,
that condition in efficiency.
We then go on to find special and peculiar formations,
and growths of cells for various purposes in the structure of
the organism; so that, eventually, we have cells whose
special purpose is to form the tissue or flesh of a plant,,
while others of different structure form the bark or fruit;.
and in animals we have cells which form the fibres of the
muscle, somewhat different ones forming the bone, and
others yet different forming the brain or nerve matter,.
&c., &c.
This development of different cells and functions is but
one form of the variations which are taking place, of which,
perhaps, the most important is the adaptation of the organisms
themselves to altered circumstances in which they may find
it convenient or necessary to live, and the development of
varied forms and poweis which will render that life more
acceptable and enjoyable to them. And it may fairly
be said that this variation or development is a fact in which
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
"7
»aZZ classes of observers agree, though not all are willing to
lallow to it the same great ultimate results. It is the reason
ing out of such of these results as we have undoubted
cognizance of to their possible and logical conclusions, and
the acceptance of those conclusions, that constitutes the
theory already referred to of development or origin of
species.
In the lower forms of organisms this development or
variation is, as I have previously intimated, very conspicuous,
so that fructification or generation has frequently to be
waited for and observed before the organisms can with any
certainty be assigned to a definite class. And this question
of fructification or generation brings us to one of the most
vexed and evaded questions in the whole history of physio
logy or development—that of alternate generation, which
will be presently discussed.
For a further phenomenon has manifested itself in the
< course of these developments—the difference of sexes ; and to
this I shall need to draw your careful attention, since in his
• own case man has based on that difference a series of arti
ficial and arbitrary, and therefore unjust, distinctions which
. have done more than any other act to retard the progress
. and hinder the happiness of the human race.
We noticed that in the extension or propagation of the
lower forms of life, the growth or birth of further cells was
■followed by a constant budding or splitting off from the
•parent organism, but that in somewhat higher forms we find
' cells remaining and allotting themselves to various special
functions, and forming special organs for those purposes.
As might naturally be supposed, a substitute is at once pro
vided for the superseded actions of gemmation or fissure ;
-so that among the first definite organs we find those for
the extension or propagation of the species, and with such a
• specialized function we also find, as we might anticipate, a
-more methodical manner of fulfilling that function. The cells
•or germs which will form the infant organisms are no longer
■indiscriminately severed as soon as formed ; but are stored in
■• •assigned receptacles to await what shall seem to the organism
. a fitting time for their evolvement and extrusion. To con■wey this fitness and impulse for extrusion is the function of
a further organ, which in its turn has secreted special cells.
In these two sets of organs and their difference of cells
;-We have the first glimpse of separate male and female func
tions. To distinguish the two classes of cells, the latter are
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
usually called germ cells, and the former sperm cells. Thesecretion of sperm cells, and their application, in due time,
to the germ cells, is the function of the male organs ; the
secretion of the germ cells, and the care of their develop
ment after impregnation, is the female function. For a
long time we find both these organs existing in the same
creature ; and this arrangement is very general throughout
vegetable life, from the lowest forms to the very highest. It
also extends into some fairly high grades of animal life, the
oyster being a notable instance of hermaphroditism, as this
union of the two organs in one being is termed.
At first, too, both these functions may be performed
within the one being without any extraneous aid; but pre
sently it would seem that a better result is attained by some
intermingling of possible slight variations, and we find two
individual organisms uniting in a mutual and utterly reciprocatory act of parentage, each being having fulfilled the
functions of father, and accepted the responsibilities of
mother, to an ensuing progeny. But this intermingling
does not seem an inevitable necessity, for there is evidence
that many such organisms have the capacity of both self and
reciprocal impregnation. Here, too, the strange fact may’
be noted that in some organisms the co-operation of threeindividuals is necessary to effect the generative act.
The change from gemmation to sexual generation is by
no means an invariable or fixed one, for we have here inter* vening the strange phenomenon of alternate generation just,
referred to. Various organisms may propagate a progeny by
means of sexual organs, and the members of this progenywill be of a totally different type to their parents in nature,,
appearance, and capabilities, and having no sexual organs,
but giving birth to their progeny by the primitive methods,
of gemmation or fissure; yet this further progeny will befully developed like the first set of parents, having sexual
organs, yet giving birth in turn to organisms that differ in
type, and only propagate by gemmation. It is, as it were,
an inheritance from grandparent to grandchild, with an in
tervening generation of an utterly different and inferiororganism. In some instances this descent seems to run.
through three forms of organisms before reverting to the
original type.
This phenomenon is affected to be made somewhat light
of and readily explained away by the holders of the God.
theory; apparently because it militates somewhat against.
�STUDIES in mateulwism,
I?
their idea of a creation, and is equally strong evidence in
&VOUr of the materialistic theory of development or origin
of species. If, as is the case, a stationary and, in so far,
vegetable-like polyp can give birth to an independent and
totally different swimming creature (a form of medusa),
which lives its life and gives birth again to stationary polyps,
it is easy enough to say that the one is but a latent or inter
vening form of the other; but this does not explain the
difference, nor destroy the evident fact that some organisms
under certain circumstances do evolve an utterly different
form of being. It were perhaps to “consider too curiously
to ask the God theorists which of the types was the one
originally created, and whence came the other ?
It is too much the habit of the God theorists to play fast
and loose with species ; holding, when it suits their purpose,,
to the idea of the special creation of each individual species,
and dropping that idea when the conclusions become at all
inconvenient. Yet there are only two possible ways of
accounting for species. Either they are the results of the
development of accidental or beneficial natural variations ;
or they must be the result of distinct creative acts. In the
first case the materialistic theory of development must be
accepted with all its consequent inductions (summarized
towards the end of this paper); in the second case all the
logical consequences of special creation must be accepted,,
of which consequences we may readily find an exemplifica
tion.
It is a definite and accepted fact, for instance, that
there are various species of entozoa or internal parasites find
ing a congenial habitat in the flesh and organs of special
animals and incapable of existence elsewhere. There are
also varied species of external parasites which make their
dwelling-place on the skin of animals, and live by extract
ing the grateful juices from within, nor can they exist on
other than specified animals. In the case of man, we may
instance psoriasis (as the itch is technically called), the
presence of exceedingly small but irritating animalculse,.
without troubling to refer to larger easily remembered in
sects. With the creation theory, or with the germ theory as.
propounded by non-evolutionists, we must accept the conclu
sion that the first man and animals had within and without
them all the various types of the parasitic organisms with which
their descendants are still troubled.
�20
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
II.--- THE DAWN OF HUMANITY.
Surely, none but a fabled God, the dark imagination of
•an ignorant and uncultured mind, could look upon poor
Adam or any other man, afflicted inwardly with tcenia and
ascarides, busied externally with the prolific pediculi that
enliven the solitude of the primitive savage, and having
the monotony of his consequent reflections diversified by
the chigo of the West Indies and the guinea-worm of torrid
Africa; could look too upon the sheep with a diseased liver,
owing to the fasciolae or “ flukes” therein existent; could gaze
on the pig evincing more than a suspicion of trichinae or
“ measles,” and upon the potato for the food of the same
pig already bearing the germs of the dreaded “disease,”
and pronounce such a sample of his creative powers as
“ very good 1”
Let it not be thought that these conclusions are only
ludicrous ; they are very serious indeed—for Bibliolaters
and the germ theorists. Nor let it be said that I am speak
ing of repulsive things : the man who believes that God
made all these things and called them good, must also
believe that God made what repulsiveness they have ; and it
is not my fault if the theory of creation is capable of a
reductio ad absurdam.
To return to the gradations and developments of func
tions, we find, at the stage at which we had just arrived,
individual organisms with only one set of generative organs
and functions—those of the male or those of the female
respectively; though, again, it does not follow that this is
an instant and unvarying result, since we may find forms of
the same organisms in which some individuals have only
male or female organs or functions, while others have both,
powerfully developed. This is even the case in some of the
orchids, plants bearing a very high rank in vegetable life.
In some species of gregarious insects, as ants or bees, we
find a further variation, for there are a very small number
with female organs, a larger number with male organs, and
a vast majority without any sexual organs at all; yet the
grubs, which would otherwise have become non-sexual in
sects or working bees, can be, in case of need, developed
by the other working bees themselves into perfect females or
queens.
Difference of sex is, as we all know, the rule in the
higher grades of animal life. We find, too, an increasing
�STUDIES IN MATKKIJIXIKI.
21
importance and responsibility attaching to the female func
tions. In some cases, as in fishes (which are classed very
high in animal life, being vertebrated}, the functions of both
male and female may continue to be as simple or even more
simple than in some of the primitive forms already men
tioned ; for with most fishes no congress of the sexes is
needed for the act of generation. The ova of the female
are simply extruded in some convenient locality, and the
secretion of the male is extruded in the water near by.
But with birds, and with the mammalia upwards to man,
the maternal function is one of increasing burden and
responsibility; no longer limited to the simple formation
and extrusion of germs or ova containing, as it were, latent
life, but now nourishing and cherishing the impregnated
cell or cells within their own body or otherwise, till even
tually an almost perfectly developed progeny is put forth
into the world. In this natural function and adaptability
we have a link which stretches through all remaining types
of life, in very deed “ one touch of nature ” that “ makes
the whole world kin;for in the system of development
that I have roughly sketched we have, in the incident of
separation of sex, arrived at or passed through all the phases
of living organisms of which we have any knowledge—the
lowest organisms as well as articulata, crustacese, insects,
fishes, reptiles, birds and mammalia—all therein included.
At the head of these as intelligent beings may be probably
placed the insect the ant, and the mammal zwzw.
I cannot attempt to explain in brief words all the evidence
that is adduced by materialists in favour of the assertion
that man has been eventually developed by simple natural
laws from lower organisms somewhat such as now surround
us. I will only draw attention to two inevitable conclu
sions : firstly, that if we verify any one instance in an
organism of development or adaptation to an altered con
dition of surroundings, there is no logical bar to such a
series of developments as would eventually result in man,
and might through him go on to still higher beings; and
secondly, that if we concede the spontaneous generation of
any one living organism we at once lay a sufficient basis for
such a series of developments as is just suggested.
Both these conclusions are antagonistic to and utterly do
away with any necessity for recourse to imaginary forces
outside the natural properties of matter. And this is, in brief,
the essential point of Materialism. In matter, ?.<?., in that which
�22
BTUbllS in MATERIALISM.
is perceptible to our senses, we find the basis of, and the
potentiality for, all of which those senses and their resultant
reason can give us any knowledge. We find, for example,
in the fact of man’s mind or intellect, simply a high instance
of this potentiality of matter; mind or intellect being but an
empty phrase, without the existence of brain and reason
{i.e., experience of the senses) to evolve and contain it.
Materialism does not, as is falsely assumed, degrade the
vital forces of life and thought to the level of the inert and
inanimate conditions usually attributed to matter; on the
contrary it elevates ignorantly despised matter to the capa
bilities and possibilities of the highest existence and most
subtle energies; materialism is no adding of death unto
death, but a resurrection of all things unto life. It does not
hold matter as alien or foreign to spirit, it sees in the one
but a capacity or phase of the other ; it does not say
matter is a vice, it finds no vice resultant anywhere but from
the want of knowledge of the laws of matter; it does not
look on matter as a foe to virtue and high intelligence, it sees
in matter the noble mother of all living.
I have wronged my argument somewhat by seeming to
assume that an hypothesis was necessary for the first of the
conclusions given above. But development is already more
than a theory, it has established itself in the region of in
disputable fact.
One of the most recent observations on
this point is that concerning the axolotl, a Mexican lizard,
furnished with gills, and living only in the water; but which
by accidental natural circumstances, or by such circumstances
artificially imitated, may be developed into a perfect land
salamander (hitherto considered of an entirely different genus,
which is a greater distinction than a species), breathing only
by lungs and being incapable of a life in the water; its gills
having disappeared together with the tail-fin, dorsal ridge and
other especially aquatic adaptations, and corresponding
capacities for a life on land having been developed.
Now if the variation from a life only possible in water to
one only possible in air,—if such a variation or adaptation
or development can be brought about during the brief period
of existence of one little reptile, who shall dare to assign a
limit to the variations and developments that may be
evolved in untold myriads of years ? This factor of time
is one of the most difficult to realize and grasp the full
import of, since we have but such a tiny experience of it
in our own life, or even in all the centuries during which
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
23
man has left any written or graven record of his life and
.acts. Thirty or forty centuries would seem to be the limit
of the period during which we have anything like historical
record of man, though we may grasp that there were then
many and diverse races of men, some of which had at
tained a high state of civilization. Nor does there seem to
be any indubitable change traceable in the actual bodily
framework of man during that time. But sufficient expla: nations of this at once suggest themselves. In the first
place, that, as has been already noticed, it is in the lowest
and simplest organisms that cardinal changes are most
readily evolved, and we may expect in the case of so high
.an organism as man that many generations may pass away
before any distinct and palpable development may have
manifested itself; and that indeed no change would be neces. sitated in such organs as had, during all that period, been, suffi
ciently adapted to the circumstances ; secondly, that in tracing
the record of man through prehistoric times, in such evi
dence as is afforded us by fossil implements and bones of
man himself, we do get irrefutable evidence of development
since that more distant period ; and, lastly, that if we will
consider the case of organs or faculties which have ?z<7/been
.sufficiently adapted to the circumstances, we shall get here,
too, distinct and indubitable evidence of development.
Somewhat of such development it will be my effort to
trace in the next study—the Progress of Civilization ; the
■development of the faculties by which we have reached
from the material into that which has been usually, and, we
hold, incorrectly, styled and considered the immaterial.
With more highly developed faculties we may find how all
things are material : i.e., ultimately reducible to the cogni.zance of the senses; we shall find in materialism the even
tual explanation of all that lay outside the ken of duller
senses, and was therefore attributed to ultra-intelligible and
extra-natural agency; we shall find in materialism the sure
basis and touchstone for both the outward and inward
conduct of- man—all true work, all true science, all true
morality being therefrom deducible and provable. Nought
of despondency, nought of untrust is there in Materialism,
no dark, cold, fanciful belief, but simple knowledge, full of
Nature’s warmth and life and light. Not ours
“to seek
If any golden harbour be for men
In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt,”
�24
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
for to us Doubt is not sunless, it is the very bright and'
bracing air in which we grow ever more strong, more
humble, more confident,—and we trouble about no poetical
fictions as to Death ; for we hold that, as far as man is con
cerned, Death is but the condition of non-existence, and it
is manifestly absurd to endow the sheer absence of existence
with either charms or terrors.
in.—THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION.
In tracing the progress of man from a simple animal condi
tion to one of high intellectual power or civilisation, twomethods of inquiry are available; firstly, such historical
record as is afforded by writings and monuments, together
with what pre-historic evidence we may gather from fossil
bones or implements, or other evidences of man; and,
secondly, such knowledge as we may deduce from the con
ditions and characteristics of existing uncivilised races. To
my mind the evidence resultant from the comparison of
present existing conditions is less open to difference of
opinion than the historic or pre-historic source. It is on this
account that I have preferred to exemplify the development
theory by reference to now existing types and conditions
from the lowest organisms up to man, and by showing a
power and action of development in those which infer a
previous course of development ere reaching their present
condition, rather than to base my position more specially on
fossil forms and types which indubitably establish such
development, according to some observers, whilst others
dispute the conclusions thus arrived at. In man, however,
with both these sources of inquiry at our command we may
adduce evidence of development which it is impossible to
controvert, and I think we may further prove that such pro
gressive development has been incessant, and will, under
given circumstances, continue to be so.
In considering man and the higher organisms by com
parison with the lower and primitive types, we may take the
greatest acquired difference as that of sex. And for this
diversity of sex the Materialist may find a ready and natural
explanation. In the lowest types of life, as we have already
seen, the beings have the powers and functions of both sexes
(?.<?., impregnation and conception) united in one body, and
these functions may presently be exercised either indepen
dently of another being, or reciprocally with another being.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
2$
Now, it is a natural fact, and resultant from obvious reasons,
that liability to conception may and does exist before the
power of impregnation is existent. For impregnation can
only be effected by an animal already arrived at puberty,
while the capacity for reception and retention of the sperm
cells exists, and may come into operation before the actual
capacity for conception, which is also an attribute of puberty.
If, therefore, we presume a double-sexed animal at just
this stage of its existence taking part with, or being forced
to submit to an older and fully developed animal in what
should virtually be a reciprocal act, we shall find as the result
that the immature animal will receive and retain sperm cells,
with which its germ cells will in due time be vivified, while
the mature animal will have received no sperm cells from,
its partner, and its own germ cells will, therefore, remain
unimpregnated and unvivified. In plain words the first
animal will have found exercise for its female organs alone,
and the second for its male organs alone. And, supposing
no further intercourse or exercise of the organs to take place,
it is evident that the one animal will have fulfilled the func
tion of a mother only, and the other that of a father only.
It will also be seen, and I call special attention to this fact,,
that an animal might be forced or coaxed into the position
of maternity before its own impulses or capabilities would,
have prompted any such responsibility.
Another singular natural feature now comes into play.
Where an act is susceptible of repetition, the use of the
necessary organ has a tendency to cause an increased ability,
of that organ ; and the disuse of an organ has a corre
sponding tendency to produce debility or atrophy of that
organ. So that in the next acts of intercourse of the two
individuals we have presumed, there will be a tendency to?the uni-sexual function alone being exercised. Taught by
experience, too, the older individual may have learnt that by
being careful always to select young and scarcely mature
individuals it may secure what amount of gratification is
afforded by the sexual act, without any resultant burden or
incommodity of maternity to itself. It might, in fact, readily
act as a male being, with the tendency to masculinity con
tinually increasing throughout its life. And some of its progeny would inherit this tendency to be of the male sex
only; as also others of the progeny would, from the mother's
induced habit, have a corresponding tendency to be of the
female sex only. With these tendencies once developed into.-
�26
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
■fixed habits, and they certainly will so develop, the fact of
•division into separate sexes is accomplished.
Upon thp incidents mentioned in the earlier part of the
preceding paragraph two others follow almost as corollaries;
firstly, that with the idea of the evasion of the incommodity of
maternity once conceded, it would need the exercise or develop
ment of but a very slight amount of cunning or instinct to lead
an experienced mature animal to evade the maternal function
when trafficking with even a matured animal of less experi
ence ; and, secondly, that in addition to the induced
femininity of the younger animal, there would be developed
and perpetuated a sort of habit of juvenility which might
explain the seeming secondariness of development or immatury in some aspects of females generally; and further, the
general earlier capacity of parentage on the part of the female
than of the male which is now existent.
And I think it may easily be shown that maternity is an
incommodity sufficiently great to prompt to its evasion in
the manner I have suggested. For in even the lowest or
ganisms the fact of the organism being gravid, or heavy
with young, will necessarily restrain its liberty of action or
locomotion, and yet will entail on it a necessity for increased
action in order to find the extra food for the formation of its
• coming progeny.
The habit of unisexuality on the part of either male or
female, would be further established by the fact that with
many of the lower types, both of animals and vegetables, the
act of fructification once fulfilled the being dies. Those of my
readers who have kept silkworms may have noticed how the
male moth will live even for several days, should not a female
moth be present, but that the sexual act once accomplished
the male forthwith dies. And the fact of the female receiv
ing and retaining the male secretion may be well seen in the
female moth who does not begin laying eggs till two or three
days afterwards, and who has within her body, in common
with many other insects, a special cavity, called the sper■motheca, for the storing up till time of need of the secretion
received from the male. In the ant also, the instant death
of the male after the sexual act, and the long-continued
impregnation of the female, is a prominent example of this
phenomenon.
I instance these things to show that I am not drawing on
hypothesis alone, but also on facts and parallels for the
theory as to origin of sex. I hope, at least, to have shown
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
27
that there may be a perfectly intelligible and natural way of
accounting for difference in sex, and of refuting the super
natural fiction that “ male and female created he them.”
It is but one contradiction the more of the fable of creation
that primitive and even some advanced forms of animal life
are not of divided sex.
Among the evidences that can be adduced in proof of the
some time general hermaphroditism of the progenitors of
animals that are now of clearly defined sexes, is the fact that
the rudiments or survivals of the organs and characteristics
of either sex are found in animals of the opposite sex;
rudiments of specially male organs or characteristics being
traceable in every woman, as are likewise rudiments
of the female organs in every man. Man, with other
male mammals, has nipples, and there are known cases
in which a perfectly developed man has given milk in
sufficient quantity to suckle a child. It would even seem
from recent observations in Germany that this faculty and
power may be somewhat readily called into activity. In
women, when the specially female functions have lapsed
through age, the male characteristics more or less assert
themselves; there is a distinct tendency to a more masculine
type in feature, voice, &c., and not unfrequently some ap
pearance of hair on the lips or chin. In the domestic fowl,
a hen past laying will acquire spurs and comb like the male,
and the habit of crowing. Again in the human being, if
accidentally or purposely the specially sexual organs are
removed, there is an instant and persistent tendency to the
development of the stirviving organs and characteristics of
the opposite sex (as though these organs had only been
kept in a state of dormancy by the predominances of the
previous set) ; thus male eunuchs are beardless, their
muscles less firm in texture, and their breasts grow and
soften; and, conversely, in women from whom the ovaries
have been removed, the breasts shrink and disappear, and
masculinity of voice and bearing supervene.
A still stronger exemplification of this survival of double
sexuality remains. As it is in the generative organs that the
main departure from the stage of hermaphroditism has
been made, so also is it there that we must be prepared to
furnish crucial proofs if we would maintain a still existing
identity of being in male and female; such an identity, I
mean, as should do away with all distinctions other than those
really existing in Nature. And it is precisely in those organs
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
that survival can most clearly be evidenced, most celebrated
anatomists and physiologists asserting that precise analogues
or rudiments of every portion of the female economy are
to be found in the man, and vice versa.
I am calling attention at this length to the present and
real identities and differences of male and female, becau-se
in the case of the human being the natural difference has
been very much over-rated, and, as I have already said, man
has based a series of artificial and arbitrary and unjust distinc
tions on that difference. I wish it to be clearly understood
that I am but relating what seems to me a very probable
history of the origin of sex. Whether my theory be alto
gether correct or not, we shall undoubtedly, by searching,
■eventually find out that division of sex has been as simply
and naturally induced as any other phenomenon which was
at one time a mystery, but is now clear. Such a mode of
natural action as I have suggested would go far to account
for all the good and evil of existing civilisation. For the
difference of sex is certainly at the very base of civilisation
as far as man is concerned : from this difference (as I shall
-endeavour to show) have arisen all the conditions of social
and political life, all the working of men together for mutual
and common interests, all the good that has been en
gendered by reciprocity of action and sharing of benefits,
and all the social evil from which the world still groans,
and which is but the resultant of selfishness or non
reciprocity.
For I take civilisation* to mean the banding of many to
gether to do that which could not be done by one, and the more
entirely mutual and reciprocal the benefits received from
such union are, the higher and truer is the civilisation. It is
the custom to credit man alone with being civilised, but it
will be seen that under the definition I have adopted many
other animals may be included, some sorts of ants, bees
and wasps among insects, while perhaps the beaver is the
only other among mammals. It will be seen that intelligence
alone does not imply civilisation, for though the elephant, the
dog, and other animals have a high degree of intelligence,
yet the cases are rare in which they seem to combine for a
general good. And when such instances do occur, they
seem but temporary and transitory conditions, whereas, in the
beaver and the insects named the union is a permanent
one, insomuch that fixed habitations are erected for the
general welfare of the community. Indeed the word civis
�STUD IE S IN MATERIALISM.
29
means a denizen of a city or State, and in all the animals I
have classed as civilised the construction of cities or com
monwealths is an essential feature. Yet the art of building
.alone does not constitute civilisation: birds, squirrels, and
.sticklebacks build nests, though generally only for temporary
purposes ; moles dig passages and chambers, spiders make
webs, and catapillars spin cocoons.
It is in the fact of community that we find civilisation ; it
.is in what tends to and ensures the general benefit of that
community that we find the good of civilisation : it is where
the personal acts or interests of an individual are selfish,
.and, therefore, irrelevant or inimical to the general well
being that we have evil resultant. I know it is asserted by
some sophists that all actions of man spring from a selfish
motive, but we need not trouble much about such a defini
tion ; it will be sufficient for our purpose to distinguish
.between the acts in which a man may believe that his own
well-being or happiness will be an eventual result of benefitting others, and the acts in which he seeks a personal
advantage utterly irrespective of any evil consequences of
such acts to others. Few of my readers will hesitate to
call the former acts good and unselfish, and the latter
.selfish and evil.
Now, it would seem that the class of actions confined to
•.self-interest alone had their origin as a natural consequence
■ of the primitive unisexual and self-sufficient condition, and
that the wider class of feelings and actions have been the
eventual outcome of separation into sex—i.e., of the render,
ing each individual reciprocally helpful to, and more or less
•dependent on, the well-being and full life of some other.
For in looking for the primitive origin of man’s power of
feeling, passion, idea, thought, and reason, we must be ready
to recognize and accept beginnings utterly small and infini
tesimal as compared with his present powers; we must be
prepared to find that the love of a mother for her child had
.as rudimentary and material an origin as the breast and the
milk with which she suckles the babe. As we may already
.ascribe back the wondrous delicacy of finger of a Benve
nuto Cellini or a Michael Angelo to slow development
from such power as lies in the vague changes of form of the
amoeba, so may we look for the birthplace of all the pas
sions that a Shakespeare pourtrays, of all the wisdom with
* which a Socrates and a Bacon enrich the world, in the
^cravings of hunger and the sensations of heat and cold on
�the unisexual being, and then, with wonderfully increased'
impetus, in the fresh set of feelings evolved when quest for
love was added to the quest for food. For many of the
capabilities evolved and developed in either quest would
become of avail in the other, the mutual action and reaction
giving to the organs an acceleration and extent of develop
ment which they might not otherwise have attained.
In speaking of sensations of heat, cold, and hunger in the
lowest organisms, no further intellectual action is implied on
their part than is involved in the simple chemical, or even
mechanical, effects of heat and cold, moisture and dryness
some such action, for instance, as is seen in the rotifer, a
fairly advanced organism, which, in the absence of moisture,
dries up, and will lie, to all intents and purposes, as dead
matter, even for years, but will instantly revive and resume
full activity with the advent of a few drops of water.
A distinct tendency of animated matter is to accept suchconditions as are favourable to animation, the distinguishing
power of locomotion being developed and constantly exerted
to this end. Nor can it be doubted that constantly
recurring experiences of things inimical to the organism’s
well-being will cause even a mechanical tendency to the
avoidance of such evil things, and will develop a pro
vision from the remembrances of experiences, which is the step
ping-stone to an intellect. We see the pimpernel flowerclose itself when rain is coming, that its pollen may not be
injured by the moisture. Doubtless the mechanical causeof this is that some condition of the atmosphere previous
to rain causes a relaxation, and therefore a closing, as in sleep,,
of the flower. We see men and women, when rain is coming,
take an umbrella, that their clothes or their health may not
be injured. They are warned by some evidence of theirsenses: a dark cloud in the sky causes a mechanical relaxation,
in the retina of their eye analogous to the relaxation of the
corolla of the pimpernel, or they see a change in that furthermechanical contrivance, the barometer. Why are we to call,
the carrying of an umbrella an intellectual act, and the closing
ota flower a mechanical act ? Men only use a further de
veloped set of experiences and remembrances and mecha
nisms ; the base of the action and the resultant are essen
tially the same, the avoidance of a condition hurtful to thewell-being of the organism. Man’s intellectual chain may
be longer than that of the pimpernel, but the links are forged,
of the same metal.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
31
The fact is that every experience of an organism is in
some way duly registered in the organism, just as truly as
every touch of a sculptor’s chisel has its effect in the image
he produces. One result of this law—a result that will at
some time be as clear to our understanding as it is now in
many instances to our vision—is that the accretion of experi
ences produces, as might be expected, some definite change
or growth in the organism itself, such change being, in point
of fact, an organ ; and so truly is this the case that it is by
examining the organs of any living thing that we arrive at
the knowledge of the conditions and experiences of its life.
Indeed, we should not greatly err in calling organs materi
alized experiences. In such a way we may not only clearly
explain the necessarily slow progress of development, but
we may also show the very how and why of its existence.
And so the varied necessities of food and love induced
the gradual evolution and development of the organs and
faculties of touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste, locomotion,
prehension, speech; and from the experiences and remem
brances attendant on their continual use arose by similar
slow evolution all the powers that we call intelligence, or
mind, or soul. For we may find a fully sufficient basis for
mind and all its phenomena in such experiences and
remembrances, such impressions, inherited or acquiredimpressions inherited from countless ages of progenitors as
unconsciously, but just as tangibly, as our limbs are in
herited—impressions from our own smaller experiences—-im
pressions which we acquire from others by living converse,
or by bookly intercourse with the mighty dead.
It is the quest for food and the quest for love that are at
the bottom of the two laws so clearly enunciated by Charles
Darwin—Sexual Selection and the Survival of the Fittest.
It must be borne in mind that this survival of the fittest
simply means the survival of the types or animals best
capable of living under certain conditions and contingencies ;
it does not mean the survival of the animals which man
might have considered the most fitting denizens of the earth
as far as his ideas were concerned. For further considera
tion as to these two laws, I must refer the reader to the
works of the author just mentioned. I simply wish here to
note that the quest for food, coincident with the survival of
the fittest, and the quest for love, which evolved the prin
ciple of sexual selection, opened out two separate and widely
varying vistas of impulse and action.
�32
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
As already estimated, the quest of food involved feelings
mainly concerning the self of the organism, and affecting
only the inward personality of the individual; while from
the quest for love, for intercourse and companionship with
fellow-beings, have arisen the feelings concerning the larger
world outside the individual—the feelings which have their
outcome in parental affection, social relations, and civilisation.
And in the commingling and interaction of these inward and'
outer interests we may find the source of all intellectual action.
For, indeed, the reaction of these two sets of feelings on
each other has been so incessant and so multitudinous that
it is difficult, if not impossible, now to classify some of the
many varied passions of man according to their original
incentive. And the organs naturally bear evidence to this
intermingling of causes and events, for the gentle murmur
ing of words of love is as delicious to the lips and tongue as
is the most delicate fruit, and “ the warmth of hand in hand
is more tender and delightful than the sunniest glow of
summer skies.
In man, as in the male of many other animals, this inter
changeability of usage of the organs has been temporarily
used to evil ends, for the organs of prehension acquired in
the quest for food have been in some instances developed
by the quest for love into instruments of outrage; so that, as
already said, the young of the opposite sex have continually
had enforced on them the function of maternity before their
own strength or inclination would have suggested any such
burden or responsibility. In looking at the means of pre
hension used for amatory purposes by male animals gene
rally, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the maternal
office has been a matter of compulsion rather than of equal
and voluntary acceptance. In some beetles, the cruellooking specially-developed organs of prehension are repul
sively suggestive of the idea that conquest and not endear
ment is their purpose, and that it must have been a great re
pugnance on the part of the female which has necessitated
such implements of brute force in the male.
It is true that in the course of time a habit of tolerance,
or even of perfect acquiescence, has been acquired by some
females, yet the habit is far from universal, and, perhaps,
never will be so, so long as the female remains exposed to
the capacity of having maternity forced upon her despite
her own will, while the male is incapable of having the office
of paternity enforced by outrage on him.
�TUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
33;
In the primitive and savage condition of mankind we
have such evidence of the abominable treatment and out
rage of the young females as to leave us without wonder
that the result has been to make woman of a generally
more feeble type than man, and to have induced in her an
utterly abnormal and unnatural phenomenon from which
men and even female animals are exempt. At the first
glance it is pitiful to reflect that man’s vaunted superiority
over the brute, the greater activity of his brain, and thesubtler cunning of his hand have for so long lent them
selves to the oppression that has resulted in such pernicious,
consequences and in the still existent slavery, social and
physical, of the female of his own species. The function
of child-bearing has been exaggerated to an utterly dispropor
tionate degree in her life; it has been made her almost sole
claim to existence. Yet it is not the true purpose of any
intellectual organism to live solely to give birth to succeed
ing organisms; its duty is also to live for its own happiness
and well-being. Indeed, in so doing, it will be acting in
one of the most certain ways to ensure that faculty and
possession of happiness that it aims to secure for its pro
geny. But up to the present woman has scarcely been
treated as an intellectual being. In earlier history her fate
was entirely subordinated to the passions of man, nor has
our civilization yet sufficiently advanced to leave her to
choose her own life, or to develop the powers, the inclina
tions, or the individuality which lie within her nature; and
in our still feeble intellectual powers, in our narrow sym
pathies, and in our stunted capacities, we men are reaping
the natural consequences of our blindness and injustice.
Truly the tale of man’s ignorant injustice will be a bitter
one when unfolded; yet there is the bright hope and con
fidence that to know the wrong will be to redress it. And
it is by intelligent materialistic research that we can alone
assure such knowledge, and by the destruction of all reli
gions and priestcrafts. For a main basis and element in
the constitution of these is the subjugation of woman,
enunciated in tacit and open assumptions and assertions of'
her inferiority and secondariness to man, or in hideous and
insulting fables proclamatory of her innate baseness, and
exculpatory of the condition to which the wrong and selfish
ness of man has alone reduced her.
Further and very conclusive evidence in favour of develop
ment by interaction of these sets of motives and quests is.
�34
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
offered by the nervous system in organised beings. This
system comprises the organs of intellect and of action, and
divides into two main conditions having these specific func
tions. In the lowest organisms little evidence of nervous
structure is presented beyond disjected filaments, but with
■organisms of more experiences (and, therefore, develop
ment) the nervous system becomes an apparatus of filaments
combined with knots or ganglia. And with division into
sets we have the accession of a cephalic ganglion or brain,
at any rate in the more advanced organisms. The minute
ness of many intelligent organisms (such as ants, bees,
wasps, beetles, &c.) throws greater difficulty in the way of
obtaining precise statistics concerning their nervous struc
ture, but in the vertebrata we have greater facilities. That
the brain seems to be a special outcome of wider experiences
■and motives is evidenced by its greater bulk in proportion to
Average Proportion of Weight of Brain to Body :
Fishes ........................... I to 5568
Reptiles ........................ 1 ,, 1321
Birds ........................... 1 ,, 212
Mammals....................... I ,, 186
Man............................... I „ 35
The spinal system, which we are assuming to be more
-specially developed by, and connected with, the narrower
series of motives implicated in self-preservation alone, offers
a similar confirmatory result in its proportion to the amount
of brain, as in the ensuing fairly accurate table :—
Proportion of Weight of Brain to Spinal Marrow :
Fishes ............. • i£, or 2 to 1
Reptiles ......... • 2, „ 2% „ 1
Birds .............
,, 1
Mammals......... • 3> „ 4 „ 1
Man ................. • 23, >, 24 „ 1
This proportion ot brain or mental power to spinal or
active power shall be noted with the coincident sexual,
parental, and social conditions, as follows :—
Fishes.—In general there is no approach of the sexes,
and no indication of parental feeling, except in very rare
instances.
Reptiles.—Approach of the sexes, and sometimes (as in
the viper) fairly developed parental care.
Birds.—In general a greatly increased degree of parental
care, with, in some cases, a steady companionship of two
individuals of opposite sex, which may even endure through
out life.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
35
Mammals.—Parental, or rather maternal, care has here
evolved a special organ, affording food to the young; the
degrees and conditions of parentage, and of sexual affection
and companionship, vary greatly. In many birds and mam- .
mals a power of affection, outside sexual or parental feeling,
has been developed. In animals which have been much
cared for by man, and become domesticated, this affection
may be so prominent as sometimes to override both the
quest for food, and sexual or parental affection. Instances
are not rare o*f the dog or the horse who willingly refuses a
meal in order to be with his master, or who will leave puppy
or colt at the sound of the same dear voice.
Man.—The office and issues of parentage have been ex
tended through simple paternal brute force, with subjugation
of wife and child; patriarchism, with attendant slavery ■
autocracy, with attendant servitude; limited monarchy, with
attendant subjection; to Republicanism, with recognition of
equality of individual right. And from some phase of these
have arisen the vast majority of the existent relations
between man and man. These form the subject of the
further science of materialism called Sociology, and to that
branch of the subject we must leave them, as also the wider
discussion of the development of love in man to its grand
phases of conjugal love, parental and filial affection,
patriotism, and general humanity.
I need only draw attention to one further incident before
bringing these papers to a close ; the fact that the superiority
of man’s primitive culture over that of animals is mainly
evidenced in three things—agriculture, the use of tools, and
the use of fire, each of these having contributed its quota to
the development of man’s intellect. Agriculture would seem
to be an outcome of the habit, common to many animals, of
hiding a superfluity of food till a time of need, though there
is, of course, a vast distance between the simple hiding of
food and the sowing of seeds and the preparing of land for
the purpose, yet it is not difficult to imagine that the acci
dental growth of a store of nuts or roots hidden in the
ground gave to man the idea of providing for food in that
manner.
Evidence of the origin of the use of tools is to be found
in the habit of some birds in carrying to a height and
dropping shell-fish which they have not the strength to
break or open ; monkeys, too, are known to break cocoa-nuts
by dropping them. In these cases the earth itself is used as
�36
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
a hammer, and the unintentional dropping of a shell or a
cocoa-nut offers an easy solution for the origin of the habit,
which would readily spread by imitation and inheritance.
The next step in the scale of mechanical progress is evi
denced in some monkeys, who use a stone as a hammer, or
a stick as a lever. Then follows man, with the adaptation
of the lever (or handle) to the stone, and the use of sharp-edged stones (knives and axes), and with the advent of fire
•and the smelting of metals we gradually arrive at the whole
series of tools and machines that may be found in an inter
national exhibition.
There seems no glimpse of any approach to the creation
■of fire in any animal but man, though many animals willingly
accept its artificial warmth, and prefer the food that is
cooked by its aid. In primitive times the chipping of his
flint implements must have afforded man many instances of
sparks of fire, and possibly of undesigned conflagration, with
•attendant flame and heat. The observation of this may
well have led some thoughtful man to turn the unexpected
discovery to profit and to imitate it; and the evolution by
friction of a heat similar to that caused by fire might suggest
to him or to others the continuance and increase of that
friction till flame would be the reward of their curiosity and
perseverance. And all this would be the consequence of as
clear and simple a train of reasoning as that which led
Columbus to discover land to the west of the Atlantic, or
James Watt to foresee that the force which could raise the
lid of a teakettle could also drive mighty engines.
We do not now dignify either of these men with the title
■of gods, or suppose that they stole their knowledge from
heaven, our times are already too materialistic for that; yet in
n preceding age we have the invention of fire attributed to
■such agency, and the shrewd and patient woman who
evolved the primitive art of the culture of corn and fruit
figured as a goddess, whose name we still use when
speaking of our cereal productions.
Yet, though we no longer dream of referring such inven
tions or knowledge to supernatural power, though we no
longer place faith in fictions of the divinity of the inventors,
we, as a majority, present the pitiable spectacle of still
accepting such primitive and infantile explanations of all the
phenomena that man’s intellect has not yet had the per
severance or the opportunity to solve. The inquisitiveness
and habit of research evolved in man’s natural quests have
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
led him to continually inquire into the origin and sequence
-of all the circumstances that he sees around him, and, where
-want of true knowledge has supervened there have not been
wanting those who have offered all sorts of fictitious and
baneful explanations. It is the evil of all religions, from
that of Confucius to that of Comte, that they are, in the
main, a compound of unverified assertions concerning man’s
physical and social condition, together with a series of selfstyled moral aphorisms deduced from such assertions. It is
only when the spirit of materialistic inquiry shall be carried
into the region of ethics, when every action and idea and
sequence of man’s intellect and mind shall be accredited
solely on the same terms as any other physical fact, that we
shall arrive at any true morality, at any assured knowledge
■of living to the best for ourselves and for each other. Pro
ceeding in this way we shall find that man’s intellect will
have power to find the solution of all that that intellect can
suggest, and to speak of anything further is simply to speak
■of what is for man non-existent.
It has been my purpose to indicate somewhat of the line
.and method of thought which 'may be available in this
further research, but each man must be left to travel by
himself along that road. Sect and name-following can find
no place there; open eyes for Nature’s facts, open hearts
for Nature’s love, these will be our unerring guides to the
■ever-increasing knowledge, the ever-growing happiness, the
-ever-higher potentiality of life, and love, and humanity.
Farewell.
��
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Studies in materialism
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Elmy, Ben
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 37 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Printed and published by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[187-?]
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Philosophy
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Materialism
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