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AN
HOUR IN A LIBRARY,
IH SEARCH OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
its relation to Literature, to Culture, and to Conduct.
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DELIVERED BEFORE THE
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SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 28th JANUARY, 1883,
BY
A.
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ELLEY
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PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1883.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
j!/. to c' H
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, are—on
“Erasmus: his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Now out of Print.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.”
“The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Development of the Human Mind.”
“The Principles of Political Economy: their Scientific
Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
“The English Free-thinkers
tury.”
of the
Eighteenth Cen
“ The Science of Life worth Living.”
“ The Victories of Science
stition.”
in its
Warfare
with
Super
“ An Aspiration of Science : ‘ On Earth Peace, Good-will to
wards Menrescued from the New Testament Revision.”
“An Hour in
ledge.”
a
Library,
in search of
Natural Know
Price of each of the above Lectures 3rf., or post free 3^d.
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between
Lord Bacon and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 100, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post free
5s. 3d.)
“ The Pursuit of Truth : as Exemplified in the Principles of
Evidence—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post free
5s. 3d.)
The Lectures still in print can be obtained (on remittance, by letter
of postage stamps or order payable Porchester Road, w.) of
the Hon. Treas., W. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of
Lecture, or of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 350, Oxford Street,
W., or Messrs. Cattell & Co., 84, Fleet Street, E. C.
�SYLLABUS.
Popular division of Knowledge into Natural and Supernatural.
These distinctive terms current in England since the establish
ment of the Royal Society in 1662.
Historically the distinction is traceable in Europe beyond the
fourth century before Christ.
Natural Knowledge is the result of human Observation, Ex
periment, and Reasoning, and is here regarded as embraced by
the Physical, Mental, and Moral Sciences; hence Religions,
Theologies, Metaphysics, and works of mere Imagination, are
excluded from the definition.
Natural Knowledge is primarily derivable, as regards the
Physical Sciences, through work (questioning of Nature) in the
Observatory and Laboratory; as regards the Moral Sciences,
through experience (knowledge of the World) in real life.
Illustrations from Astronomy and the Sky. Chemistry and
the Crucible. Anatomy and the Dissecting Table. Jurispru
dence and the Court of Justice.
Natural Knowledge is secondarily derivable through the ve
hicle of its Literature. To others than Specialists therefore,
a Library is the most available source and depository of such
knowledge.
The companionship and solace of Books.
The Literature of Natural knowledge is distinguished from
other Literature by its logical method. Two such methods dis
cernible, viz.:
Scholastic Logic—allied to authority—purely deductive and
subjective.
Scientific Logic—related to research—mainly inductive and
objective.
Illustrations of the logical method of authority from “ the
Classics,” Theology, and “ the Belles lettres,” e.g., Homer’s Iliad,
Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Illustrations of the logical method of research from the Lite
rature of Science, e.g., Darwin’s Origin of Species and Descent
of Man.
�Natural Knowledge is characterised by lucidity. Tt demon
strates an inverse ratio between Superstition and Science. It
is essential for completing Culture, and conciliating Conduct
into compliance with the established Order of Nature, through
whose invariable laws human life is known to be inexorably
governed.
Man’s position in Nature, his moral constitution, and his
history show, that his progress and happiness are correspondent
to the cultivation of Natural Knowledge, which forms the real
basis of, and security for the prosperity of our Western Civili
zation.
Chronological selection of Books cited in illustration of the
argument of the Lecture.
The Subjective Method of Authority.
Homer’s Iliad—Plato’s Dialogues—Herodotus’s Grecian History
—Livy’s History of Pome—Virgil’s (Eneid—The Works of the
School-men passim—Pearson on the Creed—Milton’s Paradise
Lost—Spinoza’s Ethics—Butler’s Analogy—Paley’s Evidences
—Newman’s Grammar of Assent—Matthew Arnold’s Litera
ture and Dogma.
The Objective Method of Research.
Aristotle’s Organon—Archimedes on the Sphere and Cylinder—
Thucidides’ Grecian History—Lucretius on the Nature of
Things—Galileo’s Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican
Systems — Bacon’s Novum Organon — Newton’s Principia—
Malthus on the Principle of Population—Comte’s Philosophy
Positive— Mill’s System of Logic—Buckle’s History of Civili
zation—Maudsley’s Physiology of the Mind—Darwin’s Origin
of Species and Descent of Man — Tyndall’s Heat a Mode of
Motion—Lewes’s Study of Psychology—Huxley’s Physiography
—Herbert Spencer’s Study of Sociology — Leslie Stephen’s
Science of Ethics.
Y
I Hit moil ih’p
�AN HOUR IN A LIBRARY,
IN SEARCH OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
ITS RELATION TO LITERATURE, TO CULTURE,
AND TO CONDUCT.
------ ♦------
F the simple invitation of our unpretending Society
to come and spend an hour in a Library, on this
Sunday afternoon, even in imagination, can bring to
gether the numerous and expectant audience whom I have
the honour of addressing, we can easily appreciate the
extent of the deprivation inflicted upon thousands of our
fellow subjects, through the persistent resolution of the
Legislature, or municipal authorities, to keep closed against
them on Sundays the Public and Free Libraries established
in the several large Towns throughout the Kingdom.
The reason given for this irrational, and cruel inflic
tion, as said by some, is to diminish, or discourage Sunday
labour. Why, there is probably more Sunday labour em
ployed in taking a Bishop of the Established Church in
his carriage to and fro his devotional services on a Sun
day, than would suffice to keep open, and take care of
the Public, or Peoples’ Library in his Cathedral City,
during the entire day. Others again tell us that the
recreation involved in acquiring the secular information
which a miscellaneous Library affords would, if indulged
I
�6
An Hour in a Library,
in on a Sunday, be irreligious. Not “ seeing,” as Shake
speare told the bigots of his day—
“ Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
What is it, however, that we mean by Knowledge ? In
its largest sense, Knowledge may be defined as human
perception of all that has been said, or done, or has
happened in the World. Knowledge, so widely regarded,
is at once divisible into that which is believed to be Super
natural, and that which is known to be simply Natural.
In the present day we may further say that Super
natural Knowledge is, with unimportant exceptions,
embraced by Religion, whilst Natural Knowledge is
almost synonymous with Science.
This division is however modern, and, until quite
recently, Supernatural Knowledge would have been held
to include such antiquated subjects as Witchcraft, Divina
tion, Exorcism, Sorcery, and Magic—subjects, which, in
our day, have dwindled into the phantom impostures
of Spirit rapping, and Table turning, with practising
which the weak and superstitious minds amongst us still
divert themselves.
It is not many generations ago since it was otherwise ;
and, to so great an extent did the practise of what has
been called ‘ The Black Art ’ prevail in this Country in
the reign of Charles the 2nd, that a few intelligent per
sons were then induced to associate themselves together,
and to found a Society for the purpose of cultivating
those branches of Natural Knowledge that are based
upon Observation and Experiment—what we now term
the Physical Sciences ; and in the year 1662 they were
incorporated by the King under the style and title of
‘ The Royal Societytheir object being, as stated in the
Charter of Incorporation, “ The improvement of Natural
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
7
Knowledge”; and, from that date, we have become
familiar with the distinctive appellations of Supernatural
and Natural Knowledge.
But the distinction itself is far more ancient. It can
be traced in Europe to remote antiquity, and we find it
conspicuous in that age of enlightenment in ancient
Greece, the third and fourth centuries before Christ,
when the supernatural-knowledge-mongers of that day
found themselves in antagonism to the natural reasonings
of such powerful investigators and thinkers as Thales,
Anaxagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Euclid,
Apollonius, Archimedes, and some others.
Natural Knowledge, as we are now viewing it, and as
distinguished from opinion, is purely the result of human
observation of the facts of Nature, aided by experiment,
and perfected by reasoning or reflection thereon. It is
comprehended by the Physical, Mental, and Moral
Sciences, such as Astronomy, Geology, Mineralogy, Che
mistry, Zoology, Physiology, Psychology, and that great
Moral Science Jurisprudence, which erects in civilized
countries a supreme or sovereign standard for regulating
the actions of man towards his fellow man, upon the
basis of general justice, and equal rights before the Law.
We exclude then from our definition Religions, The
ologies, Metaphysics, works of fiction and pure imagi
nation of all kinds, and they are thus precluded from
embarassing or confusing the simplicity (and I hope the
clearness), of my discourse this afternoon.
Now, when we come to look into the nature of the
knowledge which forms the material of the Physical
Sciences, say, for example, Astronomy, Chemistry and
Physiology, we find that it is not primarily derived from
anything that has been simply asserted in speech or
writing by men however eminent or venerable, nor from
anything alleged to be a revelation from a supernatural
�8
An Hour in a Library,
source, but that it consists of natural facts discovered by.
careful observation, or by experiment, which is indeed
only observation artificially assisted by instruments in
vented by human ingenuity for the purpose, so to speak,
of more closely questioning Nature.
To go to physical Astronomy for an illustration. Astro
nomical knowledge is gained primarily by carefully
observing the sky through the Telescope, aided by the
Equatorial, the Transit, the Sextant and other instru
ments, with, clockwork conveniently fixed and, arranged
in the Observatory. By these means the existence, size,
and movements, of the heavenly bodies are accurately
observed, and registered. It is thus that our knowledge
of a comet, for instance, has been derived.
“ The blazing Star,
Threat’ning the World with famine, plague, and war! ”
Verifying a startling theory propounded by Sir Isaac
Newton in his Principia, the illustrious Astronomers
Halley and Clairaut succeeded in discovering that Comets,
appearing to move more slowly or swiftly according to
the position of the Earth, must have an annual parallax,
and belong to the region of the planets—that they are
in truth members of our Solar System, circulating in
conic sections round the Sun in rigid conformity to the
universal law of gravitation, or attractive force varying
directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the
distance.
Three astronomical observations taken of a Comet on
its passage through space usually suffice for ascertaining
its orbit, or path in the sky, and for calculating its rate
of movement. If its orbit be elliptical then (an ellipse
being a closed curve) the comet’s return can be foretold
and timed. To so great an extent have Astronomers
observed and studied the appearance of Comets, that
upwards of 500 of these wandering visitors have been
�9
in Search of Natural Knowledge.
recorded; of them, the orbits of nearly 300 have been
mathematically calculated ; 19 of such orbits being ellip
tical, and 54 subsequent returns of comets have already
been registered.
Now, through this natural knowledge of comets, the
ancient terrifying superstitions respecting them, that
they were ominous of the wrath of Heaven, the har
bingers of wars and famines, of the dethronement of
Monarchs, and the dissolution of Empires, have been
completely exploded!
If Chemistry be the science under consideration, then
the accurate and exhaustive analysis required to solve
one of its problems can only be completely accomplished
in the laboratory. Looking at Chemistry in its general
sense as the science of the constitution of bodies, ascer
tained through the laws of composition and decomposi
tion, i.e., the modification all substances may undergo in
virtue of their molecular reactions, it has for one of its
chief objects really this—The properties of simple bodies
being given, to find those of all compound bodies that
may be formed from them. The study and practice of
Chemistry therefore is a constant training of our faculties
in the great art of experimentation, carried on in the
furnace, the retort and the crucible, the latter being a
vessel, in which substances may be analysed, dissolved, or
combined, by means of the application of heat.
The invaluable inventions of the science of Chemistry
are sufficiently indicated in alluding to one only of its
many thousand useful discoveries, viz.—hydrogen or in
flammable gas, whose familiar flame is now becoming
eclipsed by the superior splendour of the electric light.
If the science of Physiology is being pursued, then, as
to one branch of it, a correct knowledge of the various
physical constituents of the human being, such as the skin,
the muscles, the veins, the arteries, and the nerves; this
B
�10
An Hour in a .Library,
is obtained through precise and minute anatomy of the
human body, practised in the dissecting room. I will
illustrate this by reference to the serious malady known
as the aneurism of an artery (a tumour formed by its
morbid enlargement).
Until recent times this formidable, and mostly fatal,
disease was very rarely cured, without amputation of the
limb in which the artery was situate ; but now, owing to
an acute discovery made by the consummate anatomist
John Hunter, practically followed up by the great sur
geon Abernethy, a successful operation is performed,
consisting of tying the artery at a distance from the sac of
the aneurism the seat of the disease, instead of cutting
into it, whereby the arterial blood, whose continuous flow
prevents the cure, is diverted into other channels, and,
by this apparently simple expedient, thousands of lives
have been saved. But observe, neither a correct diagnosis
of the disease, nor the successful method of curing it
could have been arrived at otherwise than through that
actual contact of the intelligent sense of man with the
physiological facts of Nature that takes place in the
manual process of dissection.
So far the physical sciences; but the same principle
underlies our knowledge of the mental and moral
sciences.
To take an illustration from that grandest of the moral
sciences, Jurisprudence or the science of Law, the pride
(as it . has been called) of the human intellect, which,
with all its defects, redundances and errors, is the
collected reason of ages, combining the principles of
original justice with the infinite variety of human con
cerns—“ A science in which the greatest powers of under
standing are applied to the greatest number of facts.”
On first impression it would appear that Law is a
science of a purely literary character. A Law library
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
11
would be supposed to comprise all that was necessary to
be known upon the subject. In truth however, it is so
far otherwise, that it would hardly be possible for anyone
correctly to comprehend a single legal treatise, unless he
had been educated to the law ; an essential part of a
legal education consisting in the actual experience derived
from practice in personally attending Courts of justice,
and there becoming familiar with human nature itself, in
that phase of real life, where it must be studied in the
characters, the habits, and peculiarities of Judges, Jury
men, Counsel, and Witnesses.
In that grand epoch of history, when the physical and
moral sciences were experiencing, as it were, a new birth,
that period, when, in our country, we boasted the great
names of Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Harvey, and
Hooker, the revival of the science of the law was not
behindhand, and in the name of Lord Chief Justice Coke
we have one of the most profound and scientific lawyers
of which even this great and free country (where the
certainty and impartiality of the law are rightly reverenced
as the guarantee cf real freedom) is so justly proud.
Lord Coke, in his first Institute, (familiarly known in
legal circles, as ‘ Coke upon Littleton ’) expressly points
out to the law-students that, though law is indeed the
very perfection of reason, “ that must be understood, not
as every man’s undisciplined reason but, as the reason
gotten by long study, observation, and experience, which
will be gained, when he heareth a case vouched and
applied in Westminster Hall, where it is necessary for
him to be a diligent hearer and observer of cases of law.”
Scientific knowledge then we see is primarily derivable
from Nature herself. It is not obtained at first hand from
literature, and no one can become a real specialist in any
science without the faculty or practice of appealing
directly to Nature, and acquiring, through the medium
�12
An Hour in a Library,
of his senses, actual knowledge or touch of those pro
perties of things which are only derivatively learnt
through the medium of language.
Science then, you observe, is a knowledge of things
rather than a knowledge of books.
Now of the indispensable acquisition of such know
ledge towards the perfecting of human life the mere
literary world is apparently, even yet, in a state of un
conscious ignorance.
Professor Matthew Arnold, in the course of his bril
liant Rede Lecture, lately delivered before the University
of Cambridge, told that learned assembly that, his studies
having been almost wholly in letters, his visits to the
field of the Natural Sciences had been very slight and in
adequate, although, he naively observed, those sciences
strongly moved his curiosity. This remarkable utterance
was quite in the spirit of the old classical culture.
I trust that I have been able to place the nature of
scientific knowledge sufficiently before you, even in the
few observations time permits me now to make, as to
impress you with the conviction that the Natural Sciences
are something more than mere matters of curiosity. They
are indeed subjects of the very highest concern to the daily
life of our modern civilization. One would have thought
that their utility or vast practical advantage was by this
time obvious to the merest tyro, as well as their wide in
fluence in strengthening and raising up the intellectual
and moral faculties of our understanding, by emancipating
human existence from the pressure of debasing super
stitions, from whose stupefying terrorism, not the Classics,
nor Letters, nor the finical culture that is bred solely
of them, but, the rise and progress of Natural Knowledge
have now so effectually freed it.
It would however be a sad look out for the world at
large, if no one could hope to obtain Natural Knowledge
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
13
excepting in the Observatory and Laboratory, where com
paratively few can enter, and, in. truth, the diffusion of
such knowledge is really carried on derivatively through
the vehicle of Literature; consisting chiefly of those
treatises on Scientific Knowledge which we owe to the
Men of Science themselves, whose humane desire to en
lighten and benefit their fellow creatures has invariably
led them to seek to disseminate their special knowledge
by writing books about it; and therefore, it is undoubtedly
the fact, that to the intelligent general reader, that is, to
all who are not specialists, and to specialists themselves,
in all branches of Natural Knowledge in which they are
not specialists, a library is the available source and de
pository of such knowledge. And so it has come to pass
that the thirst for knowledge is most usually gratified
through the passion or taste for reading, and books come
to be rightly regarded as the readiest sources of informa
tion. And such is the genuine pleasure arising from ac
quiring knowledge of any sort, that books in all their
variety are by everyone more or less resorted to for
solace or amusement, as well as for instruction, and they'
yield, to the dwellers in cities especially, and to the sons
and daughters of toil, for the most part innocent and
elevating recreation.
“ Books beloved, ye are to me
An unretorting family.
Ye for each day’s irritation,
Always bring a compensation,
Curing all sad perturbations
With your silent inspirations.
How should sadness come, or gloom,
While ye lie about my room,
Or look down from friendly nooks ?
My benison upon ye, Books.”
We now approach a very interesting and instructive
characteristic, which separates, almost by a sharp line, the
literature embodying Natural Knowledge, from literature
�14
i
■
An Hour in a Library,
of every other kind. I am alluding to the intellectual
method upon which it is composed.
Looking at literature or books in the mass, we easily
distinguish two very distinct logical methods of literary
composition—the one method, which I will call the method
of authority, characterises all books which are written on
the principle of taking for granted, or on the authority of
ancient or individual assertion or opinion or belief, the
ultimate premises from which the reasonings and discus
sions contained in them are deduced, and this method
may therefore be described as the deductive method; then,
as the facts and arguments are drawn from the human
mind, rather than from external Nature, the method in
question may also be fitly called subjective.
This deductive and subjective logical method will be
found to underlie more or less all literature, with the
exception of the literature relating to Natural Knowledge.
The other logical method, which I will call the method
of research, is remarkably different from the method of
authority. In the method of research the premises of a
dissertation or discussion are not taken from human
assertion, or opinion or belief, however ancient or vener
able, or from the intuitions of the mind, but, from those
facts of nature which have been derived from the study of
Nature herself, and are traceable to the verification or
.
stamp of truth that has been impressed upon them in the
Observatory or Laboratory; that is, the premises from
which the reasoning proceeds have been obtained by the
process of induction. The method therefore may be
described as the inductive method, and, as the premises
have not been drawn from the human mind, but from the
observation and interrogation of Nature, the method now
being characterised may also be fitly called objective.
Now the opposition I am pointing out, between the
deductive subjective method of authority, and the induc
tive objective method of research, is not simply a dialec
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
15
tical distinction, it is one of substance, and of great
moment; for I may without hesitation assert that, though
the old logic of authority is ever multiplying opinions, it
has never produced any increase of real knowledge, or
brought about the discovery of new truth, nor has it ever
practically resulted in relieving one pang of pain, or in
lifting an ounce of the burden of human misery; whilst,
on the other hand, the modern logic of research has made,
by means of its marvellous discoveries, a considerable
share of material comfort the common heritage of all
civilized men.
I could make this quite plain to you, as well as greatly
increase the interest of the subject, by giving you various
illustrations from almost the entire realm of literature.
You will observe in my syllabus (which is I hope in your
hands) that I have drawn up two lists of books respectively
cited in support of this argument. These lists may per
haps appear to some of you rather formidable, whilst to
others of you, especially those who might be disposed to
dispute my propositions, they may appear altogether too
meagre, whilst there are among you others who would
probably make a somewhat different choice.
Well, you will not forget that we are now supposed to
be assembled in a Library, and that, in the mind’s eye, we
see around us many thousands of volumes, which, being
the depository of the thoughts of mankind, contain much
wisdom, and also many absurdities, some things that are
true, but a great many that are false. Hence it is, that
book knowledge is not always real knowledge. My task
therefore is one of search and of selection, and, bearing in
mind, that I am speaking within the compass of an hour,
such selection is necessarily very restricted, assisted,
though I am, by this admirably classified Catalogue of
the Library of the Royal Institution. I think however
the books cited will be found sufficient in number and
character for my purpose. At any rate they comprise on
�’16
An Hour in a Library,
either side several of the acknowledged masterpieces of
the human mind.
Everyone present is, I feel sure, more or less familiar
with some of them. Who, for instance, has not felt the
stirring strains of old Homer’s Iliad, even through the
medium of a translation ? That exciting episode in the
siege of Troy—
“ Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered ....
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain.”
Who again has not been moved by Milton’s melodious
muse, which in “ Paradise Lost ” sings so sacredly, (how
ever superstitiously)—
“ Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, ’till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.”
Probably too, the youngest lad amongst us this day has
had his mind indirectly illuminated, thanks to our Board
Schools, by a knowledge more or less of those trans
cendent truths of Nature, which radiated originally from
the sublime cosmical conception of Copernicus, or the
glorious and immortal Principia of Sir Isaac Newton.
Well then, to save our time I think I may suggest to
you that, without further particular reference to my array
of books, I should be allowed to take them as read, and
so be enabled to proceed to make a few observations upon
one or two of them.
Returning then to the grand epic of Homer, we find
that its exquisite verse, its dramatic force of incident, its
exuberant invention, its marvellously realistic descriptions
of the characters, manners and customs of the ancient
Grecians, and its abounding literary graces are all, from
the point of view of Natural Knowledge, tarnished by
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
17
their intimate association with the false and sensual
mythology of the ancient heathens, a mythology that
strikes our rational minds with astonishment, when we
find it related that battles are encouraged or interfered
with by Gods and Goddesses descending to the Earth,
and ensuring victory or defeat by enveloping the com
batants in clouds, or, sometimes, by dragging them bodily
away from their enemies.
Then again, when we read, that during the Siege of
Troy epidemic fever wasted the Grecian Caiip, the God
Apollo is presumed to have been offended, and the remedy
is sought in some sacerdotal sacrifice to appease him. In
our day, during the Siege of Sebastopol epidemic fever
also wasted the British Camp, but the remedy was sought
in better ventilation and improved drainage. No super
stitious priesthood were implored to propitiate an angry
God, but scientific physicians prescribed that doses of
quinine should be administered to the suffering soldiers.
Turning to the majestic numbers of Milton we find
them for the most part marred in like manner. In the
poem of Paradise Lost we may observe a remarkable
analogy of ideas with the poem of the Iliad. In both
there is the same association of the story and its heroes
with supernatural agencies. In the one, the Iliad, the
supernatural machinery is that of the mythology of
the ancient Greeks. In the other, the Paradise Lost,
the supernatural machinery is that of the mythology
of the semi-barbarous Hebrews.
But, what I desire to call your attention to is, the
different effect produced on our minds by the perusal of
these two magnificent epic poems.
We have been educated to ignore, to despise, and to
laugh at the heathen religions of the ancient Classical
World, and we only smile amused when we read in
Homer’s Iliad that, in the very crisis of the mortal combat
�18
An Hour in a Library,
between Menelaus and Paris, and as the latter is on the
point of being throttled by the former’s grip of his
helmet’s band—
“ Then had his ruin crown’d Atrides’ joy
But Venus trembled for the Prince of Troy.
Unseen she came, and burst the golden band,
And left an empty helmet in his hand.
The Queen of Love her favored champion shrouds
(For Gods can all things) in a veil of clouds.”
On the other hand, we have been brought up from
infancy to believe as positively true the Semitic supersti
tions of the semi-barbarous Hebrews, and those, whose
credulity still compels them to accept such superstitions as
the scheme of a living religion, seriously read in Milton’s
Paradise Lost, without being shocked at its amazing
absurdity, how an imaginary supernatural evil power, an
arch-fiend termed Satan—“Prince and Chief of many
throned Powers, that led the embattled Seraphim to
war”—actually entered, first into the body of a cormorant,
and then, into that of a serpent, in order to tempt Eve
to eat of the forbidden fruit. How she, meditating on
such temptation, -thus reflects—
................... “ In the day we eat
Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die.
How dies the Serpent ? He hath eaten, and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,
Irrational till then. For us alone
Was death invented p Or to us denied
This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?
......................... . . This fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wise. What hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind ?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she eat!
Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost! ”
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
19
Now, from this difference in our early training in
respect of the mythologies referred to, the grand poem
of Homer has probably been a source of intelligent
interest, of unalloyed pleasure, and of innocent instruc
tion to its millions of modern readers, whilst the study of
the grand poem of Milton has probably done more to
obstruct the progress of Natural Knowledge, and to
intensify the Mosaic superstitions enshrined in' its har
monious numbers, than all the reading of the book of
Genesis ; the magic influence of its fascinating fable over
whelming the reason of its reader, whilst enchanting his
enraptured and spell-bound imagination.
To the student of Natural Knowledge the respective '
mythologies of the ancient Greeks and the semi-bar
barous Hebrews are, in point of historical credibility,
about on a par, and they are alike by him regarded as
the probable product of that credulous condition of the
emotional faculties of fear and wonder, as they existed in
the dawning intelligence, and dazed imagination of primi
tive barbarian man. Our knowledge of such childhood of
religions is however quite recent, and for much of it we
are indebted to the sceptical and truth-seeking minds of
critical scholars still living amongst us.
When Bishop Colenso, one of the greatest biblical critics
of the present age, published his profound work on the
Pentateuch, he had to deplore the dense prejudices and
superstitions of the half-educated classes in this country,
who seemed to be positively incapable of comprehending
his thorough exposure of the errors, the absurdities, and
the contradictions to science contained in the book of
Genesis, and the other earlier books of the Bible; but, he
remarks in one of the prefaces to his learned work, that
the opposition his views had to encounter was evidently
not derived from any actual knowledge his assailants had
of the Bible itself (which they had never probably read,
�20
An Hour in a Library,
except through the spectacles of their theology) but that
it for the most part proceeded from the fact of their
having been saturated in early youth with the poems of
Milton. We, observed Colenso, literally groan, even in
the present day, under the burden of Milton’s mythology.
Now, the spirit of the remarks I have been making on
the poems of Homer and Milton is really applicable, in
various degree, to all literature that has been composed
and written on the subjective method of authority. That
is to say, so much of it is mere imagination, or is taken
for granted, or is assumed without evidence or due veri
fication through the reason, that you have no guarantee
whatever for its objective truth, and it is in fact all more
or less blended with fictions or fallacies, or irrational be
liefs of one kind or another.
Turning now to the literature of Science, which is the
result of the unprejudiced search into Nature, which
founds its reasonings and inferences exclusively upon the
natural facts that have been arrived at through the obser
vation and questioning of Nature, which assumes nothing,
takes nothing for granted, and declines to adopt human
assertion or belief however venerable or authoritative,
without its having been duly verified by an appeal to
Nature, we shall come upon some very striking differences
from the class of literature we have just been engaged
upon.
As an apposite illustration of such differences, I will,
from my list of books, very briefly direct your attention
to the two principal works of our late illustrious VicePresident, Charles Darwin—‘ The Origin of Species ’ and
‘ The Descent of Man?
These memorable monographs are amongst the finest
examples of scientific literature in our language. Their
superstructure is erected upon a massive foundation of
natural facts, their generalisations are based upon indue
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
21
lions from a vast survey and cross-examination of most
various premises, their reasonings are ethical as well as
logical, that is, they everywhere evince an ardent desire
to arrive at truth, and a conscientious care to distinguish
certainties from probabilities, and never to press the
latter beyond their legitimate weight.
We have all heard and read a great deal about Charles
Darwin since his surprising and impressive funeral in
Westminster Abbey; when the Church, which had so
reviled him whilst living, solemnly recanted at his grave.
With her Cathedral Service sanctifying the truth of his
astonishing discoveries, and in her choral anthem’s
swelling peal, confessing—
“ Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and getteth under
standing.
“ She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou
canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
“ Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand
riches and honour.
» “ His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore ! ”
Our accomplished Vice-President Dr. Richardson re
cently gave us a most interesting lecture upon Charles
Darwin, but even the capacity of Dr. Richardson could
not exhaust so fertile a theme as the works of Darwin in
a single lecture, and I think that the way in which I
will try to present to you the grand genius and brilliant
discoveries that have encircled the name of Darwin with
the halo of world-wide renown, may have a freshness to
many of you even yet.
Now it is remarkable that there has never been any
great intellectual discovery which, when it came to, be
known, and looked at historically, that is in connection
with the previous knowledge existent at the time of such
discovery, has not appeared to have -been, to a great ex
tent, anticipated by previous discoveries. This has been
the case with respect to Lord Bacon’s Novum Organon ;
�22
An Hour in a Library,
it was so in reference to the startling cosmical conception
of Copernicus; it was so with the discoveries of Gralileo;
with that of the circulation of the blood by William
Harvey; with the discovery of universal gravitation by
Newton; with that of the functions of the brain by Dr.
Grail; and with others I could mention; and it has been
so with regard to the discoveries of Charles Darwin, as we
indeed heard from Dr. Richardson, and as you will pre
sently hear further from me.
The truth would seem to be, that Natural Knowledge,
or the human discovery of new truth, does not proceed by
leaps and bounds, but only by small or graduated steps
throughout the effluxion of time.
The existing state of knowledge and opinion on the
subject of Darwin’s great work ‘ The Origin of Species?
at the time when its appearance took the scientific
world captive by its overpowering force and originality,
may be very briefly stated. I am now of course going to
speak as little in the language of technical science as
possible, and the term ‘ Species,’ so bewildering in its
zoological and botanical variety, may, for our present pur
pose, be taken as meaning, the commonly distinguished
classes of individuals composing the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, i.e., the several kinds of Beasts, Birds, Reptiles,
Dishes, Insects, Plants, and Blowers.
Up to a comparatively recent period all such indivi
duals were supposed to be the-/ac simile descendants or
copies of those of like kind which had been suddenly,
that is within a period of six days, brought into exis
tence at the Creation, as described in the Book of Grenesis,
and subsequently, when the flood came, preserved in
Noah’s Ark. That from such time to the present there
had been no variation in them, and, to those who be
lieved this (chiefly the theological world), the invariability
or fixity of Species was simply a dogma.
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
23
The noble Science of Geology however had very rudely
disturbed this belief, and it had shown, more especially in
the masterly works of our late deceased member Sir
Charles Lyell, that, amongst other matters, millions of
species, altogether different from those now in existence,
had at various times in past ages inhabited this earth, and
that, if they had been created at all, such creation must
have occupied ages in the process, and most certainly did
not take place in the order, any more than in the time,
described in the Book of Genesis—Genesis in brief, from
the point of view of Geological Science, stood absolutely
discredited : and the mind of man, being freed from the
shackles of the Mosaic Cosmogony was left at liberty to in
vestigate when and how all this enormous amount and
apparent waste of life originated.
The most rational scientific hypothesis on the subject,
the credit of which is chiefly due to the illustrious French
naturalist Lamarck, was simply that, existing species
were not copies, but were the modified or transformed
descendants of previous species that had died out, such
modification having arisen by changes singly impercep
tible, but perpetually accumulating throughout the enor
mously long period of time, during which it was proved
by geological monuments that life in its various extinct
forms had existed on this earth. Hence the scientific
world had come firmly to believe in the new doctrine of
the variability or transmutation of Species.Now, in this diverse condition of knowledge and
opinion, the startling effect produced by the publication
of Darwin’s great work was the result of his having not
only thereby confirmed the scientific view of the trans
mutation of species, by the marvellous assemblage of
natural facts which he had collected and classified on the
subject by years of travel, voyage, and intellectual toil,
including most interesting experiments conducted by
�24
An Hour in a Library,
himself in the selective breeding of pigeons (altogether
amounting to a resistless accumulation of proofs), but, by
his having shown with all the clearness of his consummate
genius actually how and why such transmutation must
have taken place.
That is to say, he first pointed attention to the re
markable fact which, if previously known, had not
hitherto been correctly appreciated, viz.—that Nature,
in every species of life, produces a vast number of in
dividuals in excess of those for whom there is or can be
subsistence. That this vast number so produced must
therefore perish—That in fact they do perish, but not
without a struggle or food-scramble—A battle for life
everywhere ensues, in which, Darwin acutely inferred,
the strongest or most capable must conquer and live, whilst
the weakest will be defeated and die. This striking dis
covery Darwin luminously defined as ‘Natural Selection,’
or survival of the fittest. Darwin then drew particular
attention to his sagacious inference that the survivors
must have had superior qualities, as evidenced by their
victory in the battle, and that, in virtue of the known
natural law of hereditary transmission and adaptation,
such superior qualities would be more or less transmitted
to their offspring. In the next ensuing struggle there
would be then a further natural selection amongst these,
and another survival of the fittest of them ; and this
struggle and survival ever repeating itself in the course
of almost endless generations of such transitional forms,
a divergence of superiority or improved modification,
though at first Scarcely perceptible, would become so
augmented by gradual development as to cause the pro
duction, naturally, of all the various species now existing
amongst us, from predecessors so remote as to be utterly
different from them in nearly every conceivable character
istic ; so that, for example, Birds would really be the
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
25
modified or transformed descendants of Reptiles; a con
ception which, however difficult of realisation by our
minds, has now been established as a natural fact through
the original research of Professor Huxley who, guided by
Darwin’s theory, has actually spotted ‘ the missing link ’
in the remains of a creature that was, when living, half a
Bird and half a Reptile !
I will further concisely illustrate the process and
meaning of Natural Selection as discovered by Darwin by
a brief reference to the eye, our organ of sight. In some
of the early struggles for existence occurring ages ago
amongst the low organisms obtaining their food chiefly
by the use of their eyesight, those individuals which had
the best power of vision would be those best enabled to
live, and would naturally be the survivors; and the almost
endless repetition of such struggles occurring in the
course of ages, by successive and minute stages of im
provement in the visual organ would naturally and
inevitably result in the present perfection of the eye.
Now the animal kingdom, aided by geological research,
brings before us a series of creatures, in whom can be
traced by comparative anatomy, a regular, graduated, and
successive improvement in the mechanism, range, and
power of their eyesight, slowly evolved in the lapse of
enormous periods of time; whereby the eye, from being
in the lowest animal a simple spot of pigment incapable
of even reflecting images of external objects, and at most
distinguishing different rays of light, has at length de
veloped into the marvellously complex and exquisitely
perfect apparatus for sight , that we living now possess
and enjoy.
These enormous periods of time I am referring to are,
by some minds, very difficult to realise, and are held to
be obstacles to belief in Darwin’s theories—That is to
say, people do not reflect, that however enormously long
�26
An Hour in a Library,
a lapse of time the human mind would, or can conceive,
it is hut a span in comparison with eternity, which both
precedes and follows it.
My observations on the other great work of Darwin
‘ The Descent of Man ’ need not detain us long. Although
it was not obvious to the popular mind that the facts and
reasonings of the essay on ‘ The Origin of Species ’ must
equally apply to the Origin of Man himself, no scientific
investigator of the subject could have had any doubt about
it; but the publication of ‘ The Descent of Man’ brought
the whole subject home to the general reading public, and
raised a perfect storm of dissent and disapprobation,
showing how little the views of its illustrious author, as
expounded in ‘ The Origin of Species’ had been compre
hended, or reflected upon.
The question raised was simply this—when and how
did Man make his first appearance on our Planet ? It
was proved by Geological research that the Earth, and
animal life upon its surface had existed for ages before
man’s appearance.
The only specific account we have of man’s origin is
that contained in the book of Genesis, which tells us that
he was made from the dust of the Earth. But the scien
tific authority of that book had been, as I have observed,
utterly discredited, and the human mind had been set free
to enquire and reflect upon the matter.
Now, the alternative put forward by Darwin was very
briefly this—Due regard being had to what is known geolo
gically, zoologically, and embryologically of the ascending
gradations of animal life, including especially the develop
mental changes in the embryo of man himself, it is as
certain as reasoning from such premises can make it, that
man is the evolution or development of ’ lower animal
forms. Such evolution or development having taken
place gradually throughout the Succession of a long course
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
27
of ages, during which such lower animal forms, by the
continued constant struggle for existence and survival of
the fittest, were slowly and gradually acquiring all those
superior attributes, qualities and characteristics, more
especially those we term mental, that at length culminated
in the production of a creature viz., primeval savage
barbarous man; a being distinguishable in degree rather
than in kind from his immediate animal parents, from
whom he probably differed less than he would be found
to differ from his civilized European descendant of the
present day; and that such descent, or, one might say,
ascent, from the lower animal life, was the true natural
pedigree of Man.
I told you just now that you would hear also from me
by whom Darwin’s discoveries had been to some extent
anticipated, and I will single out one who was named by
the modest and candid mind of Darwin himself as having,
in a very remarkable and original work, pointed out to
him the constant fact of the ever continuing struggle or
intense competition for the means of subsistence, owing to
the vastly greater number of individuals Nature, uncon
trolled by human intelligence, brings into existence, than
can possibly be provided for. It is the name of one
whose profound and truthful views have had to contend
against, and have nearly been suppressed by, the pre
judices and superstitions of the age in which he lived;
but I will here describe him as a discoverer who will cer
tainly in due time be recognised as one of the greatest
benefactors of our race. It is to the celebrated Essay
on the Principle of Population in its relation to Human
Happiness, written by the benevolent Malthus, that Darwin
states he was indebted for his knowledge of the principle
underlying the discoveries of his own great works, and I
will venture now to say, that sooner or later it will be
acknowledged that not the least of the services rendered
�28
A n Hour in a Library,
to mankind by the illustrious Darv^n has been his cor
roboration and elucidation of the profound and important
truths enunciated by the scarcely less illustrio.us Malthus
—when it will come to be generally known that the dis
coveries of Malthus and Darwin have in reality effected
for our knowledge of the Order of Nature in the organic
Kingdom, what, in a manner somewhat similar, the dis
coveries of Copernicus and Newton effected for our
knowledge of the Order of Nature in the inorganic
Kingdom.
We are now, I think, in a position to point out several
characteristics of Natural Knowledge. Its most striking
peculiarity in relation to other knowledge is its lucidity.
It is truth,- and truth of the clearest and simplest kind.
Nature, when questioned, answers, not evasively or am
biguously, but in the most direct and positive manner.
She does not express herself with that confusion or
obscurity of ideas and language which are found more or
less pervading the literary lucubrations of man.
Natural Knowledge, as the verified basis of conscien
tious Belief, also exhibits to us the antagonism existing
between Superstition or assumed manifestations of the
Supernatural, and Science, and enables us to formulate as
an axiom—‘ The more Natural Knowledge, the less Super
stition’—No Culture then can be complete without Natural
Knowledge, which is indeed its better part, as seems
obvious on the slightest reflection—For what should we
understand by culture ? It has been defined by its chief
apostle as, “ Knowing (through literature) the best that
has been thought and said in the world.” That is, I
submit to you, an imperfect definition, though it neces
sarily includes some library knowledge of Science, since it
would be difficult to find anything in the world really
better than what Science has revealed to us. For Science
has shown us that Nature is the expression of a definite
�in Search of Natural Knoioledge.
29
order, or invariable succession of phenomena, termed laws
of Nature, with which nothing interferes, and that man,
to exert his full powers, and to live uprightly and happily,
must master that order, and govern himself accordingly ;
and thereby Science has added to the conventional defini
tion of culture, by compelling it to include such a disci
pline of the human mind in scientific method as will teach
it to rise superior to Superstition, and so instruct man
to regard as his highest duty the regulation of his conduct
in obedience to the dictates of the natural moral law.
Natural Knowledge therefore is not a knowledge
merely of physical inorganic Nature, but it comprises
that knowledge which is the result of our enquiries into
the nature of man himself, his moral and social con
stitution, and its relations to his environment; and, if we
turn to the records of the history of civilized communities,
we find, that, separating the actual knowledge men have
possessed from their superstitious beliefs, we are enabled
to trace such happiness and progress as they have enjoyed
to their real source in the cultivation of Natural Know
ledge.
It is the increase and spread of such knowledge, and
the inventions and discoveries that have arisen from
man’s study and interrogation of Nature—the true, the
useful, and the practical—that distinguish, in so remark
able a manner, the modern nations of Europe from the
barbarous and classical nations of antiquity, and there
can be no doubt that Theologies and Metaphysics, with
their endless and confusing jargons and their senseless
beliefs, have decayed and are dying out, in proportion as
the culture of Natural Knowledge has increased and is
increasing; whereby human progress, not only in indi
vidual or selfish happiness, but in the recognition of right
or humanity towards every member of the great human
family, has advanced, has become vivified, and is being
�30
A n Hour in a Library.
practically acted upon; so that the secular moral virtues
Veracity and Justice are at last gradually becoming the
universally accepted criterion of Conduct, the acknow
ledged standard of human actions.
Finally it is this Natural Knowledge that forms the
sure basis of, and affords the most effectual security for
the stability and prosperity of that enlightened and
rationally regulated Liberty, which, in contrast with the
ignorance, the superstition, the slavery, and the inhu
manity of Barbarism, Classicism, Medievalism, and
Orientalism, is so significantly termed—Otjb Westebn
Civilization.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Koad, N.W.
�
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An hour in a library, in search of natural knowledge, its relation to literature, to culture, and to conduct. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 28th January, 1883
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5.
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Finch, A. Elley
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1883
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Sunday Lecture Society
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Text
AN
“On Earth Peace, Good-will towards Men”; rescued from
the New Testament Revision.
Jetta
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 19th FEBRUARY, 1882,
BY
A. ELLEY FINCH.
bonbon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1882.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—
physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and
Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement and
social well-being of mankind.
PRESIDENT.
W. B. Carpenter, Esq., C.B., LL.D„ M.D., F.R.S., &c.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
Professor Alexander
Bain.
Charles Darwin, Esq.,
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq.,
D.C.L., Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S.,
F.S.A.
Right Hon. Sir Arthur Hob
house, K.C.S.I.
Thomas Henry Huxley,
Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S.
Benjamin Ward Richard
son, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.
Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode,
Esq.,
LL.D., Pres.R.S.
John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D.,
F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May.)
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series) ending 23rd April,
1882, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket,
transferable (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets, available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Three
pence each lecture.
For tickets, and for list of the Lectures published by the
Society, apply (by letter) to the Hob. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq,, 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Shilling (Reserved Seats);—
Sixpence and One Penny.
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, are—on
“ Erasmus ; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Now out of Print.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.”
“The Influence of Astronomical Discovery
Development of the Human Mind.”
in the
“ The Principles of Political Economy ; their Scientific
Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
“The English Free-thinkers
tury.”
of the
Eighteenth Cen
“ The Science jof Life worth Living.”
“ The Victories
stition.”
of
Science in
its
Warfare
with Super
“ An Aspiration of Science : ‘ On Earth Peace, Good-will to
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�SYLLABUS.
Origin and history of the English authorised text (a.d. 1611)
Luke ch. 2, v. 14, before quoted, and its Greek and Latin source8
since the invention of printing. Erasmus (1516). Tyndale
(1534). R. Stephens (1551). Genevan-English Version (1557-60).
Beza (1580).
Our authorised form of this text not found in the great uncial
Greek nor in the Latin Manuscripts, nor in the printed Latin
Vulgate (decreed as authentic by the Council of Trent).
Ambiguous evidence in support of this text as embodying an
actual utterance by the heavenly host.
Its inconsistency with the declaration of Christ (Matt. ch. 10,
v. 34): “ Think not that I am come to send Peace on Earth,”
&c.
Its want of fulfilment as a prophecy. Hence probably ex
punged by the Revisers.
Divergent aims of Theology and Science—the one regarding
the Glory of God—the other the Well-being of Man.
Illustrations from some of the chief Theologies of the world,
showing that the Well-being of Man is therein subordinated to
the Glory of God.
Hence the conflict between Theology and Science. Its rise and
nature.
The text explained as an Aspiration of Science.
Illustrations of the primary care (good-will) of Science for
Humanity from its discoveries, deductions, and teachings in re
ference to (e.g.):—•
1. The Order of nature.
2. The Constitution of Man.
3. Health.
4. Education.
5. Morality (Virtue, Happiness).
6. Aversion from War.
7. International Arbitration.
Concluding inferences.
Editions
Scriptures shown in Illustration
of the Lecture:
TheEditio princeps of the Greek New Testament, by Erasmus,
in which the text ‘ good-will towards men ’ (ai>0pd>7rois eiboKia
—hominibus bona voluntas) is first met with in print (Basilese,
1519).
The first Bible in which the Scriptures are separated into
verses, and the text “ towards men good-will ” first appears in
the English language. (Geneva, 1560.)
The Greek and Latin New Testament of Beza. (Editio tertia,
1580.)
of the
�AN ASPIRATION OF SCIENCE:
“ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD-WILL TOWARDS MEN";
RESCUED FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT REVISION.
T is a remarkable circumstance connected with the
origin of the Christian Religion, that no authentic
record of the Life and Doctrines of its founder should
now exist, or ever have existed, written in the language
of the country where Jesus lived and talked; the only
language in which he could have been listened to and
understood by the majority of his disciples, or the com
mon people, who, we are told expressly, heard him gladly.
This reflection must often have occurred to, and more
or less embarrassed, the numerous scholars and critics,
whose investigations into the authenticity and genuine
ness of the New Testament Scriptures form so consider
able a portion of the vast library of Christian theology
and history.
It is a reflection, moreover, that must be borne in mind
when considering the value and authority of the various
translations,, commentaries, and revisions that appear
from time to time, and whose production indeed follows
a natural law, arising as they do out of the necessity of
accommodating these ancient writings to the continuous,
however slow, progress of human thought and intelligence;
that is to say, the spirit of the age requires to be read
into them before it-can be read out.
This view of the function of the commentator, trans
lator, or reviser is not indeed quite obvious, nor is it the
I
�6
An Aspiration of Science,
ostensible reason put forward for undertaking their
work; that reason is invariably alleged to be, in order to
make the translation or revision in question more accurate
in reference to the original; a task which, if we only had
the original as a standard to refer to, might be a not
unprofitable proceeding, but any such original, in the
sense I have adverted to, is not now, and never was, to
be met with.
For the New Testament Scriptures were at the very
first written in a foreign tongue, that is, the Greek
language. We cannot even except the Gospel according
to St. Matthew, for, though there is a probable tradition
that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Syro-Chaldaic
dialect (the colloquial language of the Hebrews in Pales
tine), this supposition can hardly be accepted as more
than a tradition, since we have not only no positive
proof of it, but not even such a consensus of biblical
critics as might warrant our receiving such supposition
as an admitted fact.
Now the Greek version of the sayings and discourses
of Jesus and others narrated in the Gospels, however
ancient, can no more be regarded as the original of such
sayings and discourses, than an Italian report of one of
the splendid speeches of Mr. Gladstone could be regarded
as the original of what that great English orator may
actually have spoken.
These reflections are especially applicable to the con
sideration of the narrative which St. Luke gives in the
second chapter of his Gospel, part of which, as English
Protestants have hitherto understood it, I have taken for
the subject of the present lecture.
St. Luke, probably a Grecian, at any rate writing in
Greek, tells us (according to our authorised version of
the year 1611) that, shortly after the birth of Jesus in
Bethlehem, ‘ there were in the same country shepherds
�An Aspiration of Science.
7
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by
night, and lo! the Angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and
they were sore afraid. And the Angel said unto them,
fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy
which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day
in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of
the heavenly host praising God, and saying—Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth Peace, Good-will
towards men.’
We are now told, on the authority of the eminent
scholars and divines constituting the company of the New
Testament Devisers, that Luke’s relation of this remark
able supernatural occurrence is not accurately given in
our authorised version. That what Luke really wrote
must be translated or rendered into English thus—‘ Glory
to God in the highest, and on Earth peace among men in
whom he is well pleased.’
This correction, or corruption, of so venerable a text
will be variously regarded, according to the critic’s point
of view. To the pious mind, accustomed to revere the
Scriptures as inspired Oracles, the shock must be great
on finding that he has been imposed upon in being taught
to believe that so sublime an utterance ever formed a
genuine portion of the Gospels, and his dismay will
hardly be diminished on finding further that it has long
been, and will still remain, notwithstanding the revision,
a matter of dispute amongst biblical experts what it really
was that St. Luke actually wrote. The critical scholar,
uninfluenced by dogmatic or doctrinal prepossessions,
will still probably retain his sceptical ©pinion on the sub
ject ; whilst the man of science must consider that what
Luke may himself have written, if not a matter of con
jecture altogether, can be of very little real importance,
�8
An Aspiration of Science.
seeing that he is no authority whatever for what the
heavenly host did really say. For Luke was not present
on the occasion, he does not allege that he received the
report from those who were present, his account of it is
therefore simply hearsay, and, whatever the very words
were, it is morally certain they could not have been
spoken in Greek, that being a language utterly unintelli
gible, an unknown tongue indeed to the shepherds of
Bethlehem, so that, putting it at the highest, if we were
sure, or were agreed, that we were in possession of the
exact language of Luke, it would only in itself amount to
a version or translation of a non-existent, and long since
vanished original.
The man of science, however, will not care to reject
the reviser’s alteration, for he knows that the sublime
aspiration of our text enshrines a truth having higher
intrinsic value than ancient manuscripts, or biblical
critics can confer, and, that though it may henceforth
cease to be received as part of authentic Scripture, it
will live, where in truth it originated, in the noble
inspirations of the human mind, yearning in its benevolence
to ameliorate the lot of man. That it is one of those
scientific forecasts which, flashing from human genius,
are found in history sparsely strewed along the path of
human progress, not confined to creeds, but illuminating
the entire earthly highway towards that goal of human
happiness which all good men are now striving to attain,
for others as well as for themselves.
Before finally parting with our text from the Scrip
ture record, it may be interesting very briefly to trace
its origin and history, to see how and when, in point
of fact, it came to get into our authorised version of
1611.
At the time of the birth of Jesus Christ the language
of the Jews, the Hebrew language, had long ceased to be
�An Aspiration of Science.
9
current amongst the inhabitants of Syria, and their
vernacular speech was that known to scholars as the
Aramaen or Syro-Chaldaic, a dialect very little used as
the vehicle of literature. Hence it happened that the
written accounts or narratives of the life and discourses
of Jesus Christ came from the very first to be composed
in the Greek language ; that language being not only the
language of the learned, but, dispersed through the con
quests of Alexander, was very generally familiar to
educated people of the ancient civilised world, even
amongst the Romans, though their vulgar tongue was
Latin, St. Paul, for instance, when writing his grand
Epistle to the Romans, using the Greek and not the
Latin language.
In the earliest churches established after the death of
Jesus and the spread of a knowledge of his religion, in
the churches, for instance, of Jerusalem, Antioch,
Ephesus, Alexandria, and Rome, the Greek manuscript
gospels had not only to be copied for the purpose of their
dissemination, but, as regards Rome and Alexandria
(Northern Egypt being then a province of the Roman Em
pire), as the religion became dispersed amongst the people
at large, the gospel had to be translated into the latin
tongue, and such translation took place so early, and to so
great an extent, that of the at present existing ancient
manuscripts of the Scriptures the Latin are not only more
numerous than the Greek, but it is by no means a matter
of agreement amongst scholars which of such manuscripts
are the highest in point of authority for what the orginal
writings or autographs of the Apostles (long since utterly
lost), actually contained. Protestant theologians and
critics consider the Greek to be the higher authority.
On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church consider
the Latin to be now the more reliable source.
Amongst other arguments relied upon by the Roman
�10
An Aspiration of Science.
Church is this, that the most ancient existing latin manu
scripts, even if not more ancient than the existing greek
ones, are known to be recensions of a text that was re
vised in the 4th century by St. Eusebius, and also by St.
Jerome, through comparison with greek manuscripts con
fessedly more ancient than any now existing, or of which
we have now any other knowledge; and from that early
period up to the time of the Reformation, that is for
upwards of 1,000 years, the only Bible of western chris
tendom was a latin book, generally known as the Latin
Vulgate, the text of which was decreed to be authentic
by the Council of Trent (in the year 1546).
The first English translation of the New Testament of
any note was that executed by John Wiclif (the gospel
doctor, as the people called him) about the year 1380.
This was evidently made from the latin version, such
appearing to be the case, not only from internal evidence,
but from the fact that at that time greek manuscripts
were scarce in Europe, and a knowledge of the greek
language rarely possessed by englishmen, and almost
certainly not by Wiclif. His translation therefore simply
followed the latin.
Previously to the next stage in the history we are
following there occurred two memorable events. The one
was the invention of the printing press in the year 1440,
and the very first book that was printed was the splendid
latin bible of the Cardinal Mazarin. The other event was
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in the year
1453. Its immediate consequence was the diffusion of
greek manuscripts, and greek scholars throughout the
chief European cities.
The first published New Testament in the greek lan
guage, the Editio princeps, was compiled and edited
by the illustrious Erasmus, being printed for him by
Eroben of Basle in the year 1516. Erasmus’s second and
�An Aspiration of Science.
11
greatly improved impression (which I possess here) being
printed in the year 1519.
Now it is observable that in none of the latin manu
scripts, nor in the printed latin version of the Scriptures
do we find the text “ good-will towards men.” The text
of the latin version invariably runs thus: “ Peace on
earth towards men of good-will.” The meaning of which,
as seemingly held by the Roman Church, being, “ Peace
of mind amongst true believers”; such being of course
Roman Catholics.
When Erasmus published his New Testament he gave
to the world a version from Greek Manuscripts that could
not be so rendered. Along with the Greek text he printed
a literal latin translation of his own, differing greatly in
many important particulars from the Latin Vulgate, and,
in reference to the text we are considering, he gave in
latin, more plainly to mark his meaning, the words
‘ hominibus bona voluntas’ ‘ good-will towards men.’
It is really then to this illustrious scholar, who, I venture
to say, was, in learning and scholastic accomplishments,
in liberal-mindedness, in large-heartedness, in love of
toleration, and in disrelish of dogma, the very proto
type of our late lamented Arthur Stanley, Dean of West
minster—it is to Erasmus we really owe our first distinct
knowledge of the sublime expression ‘ On Earth Peace,
towards men Good-will.’
To those of you who are not acquainted with Greek it
may be surprising to hear that the whole difference
between the two renderings turns upon a single letter of
a single word. That is to say, if the G-reek word were
eiSoKla ending with the letter a, as it is found in some
manuscripts, then the literal translation would be ‘ towards
men good-will,” but if the word were euSoKtas, having the
letter s, as it is found in other manuscripts, then the
rendering would be ‘ towards men of good-will ’ or some
�12
A n Aspiration of Science.
equivalent phrase, even so far fetched, and apparently
strained as that formulated by the Revisers, viz.: “ among
men in whom he is well pleased.”
From Erasmus we may at once turn to our great
countryman and reformer, William Tyndale. He had
probably become personally acquainted with Erasmus on
one of his visits to this country. Tyndale being at
Magdalen Hall, Oxford, whilst Erasmus was at Magdalen
College. Tyndale had great admiration for the erudition
of Erasmus, and had read his Greek Testament, for we
find him paraphrasing the paraclesis prefixed to this
impression of 1519. Tyndale, in his English Translation
of the New Testament (first published in 1526), had
evidently the Greek text of Erasmus in his mind, for his
translation widely differs from the Vulgate Latin, and he
renders our text thus—‘ Peace on Earth, and unto men
rejoicing.’
Erasmus was more closely followed by Robert Stephens
of Paris, who in his fourth edition of the Greek New
Testament (published at Geneva in 1551) not only
reprinted the Greek text of Erasmus with slight variation,
but adopted his latin version verbatim. This Edition of
Stephens is noticeable also as being the first in which the
Scriptures were divided into verses, that is so numbered,
not altogether broken up into verses; that was first done
in the Genevan-English version which I am now going to
mention.
The Greek and Latin texts of Erasmus and Stephens
are the foundation of the valuable translation of the New
Testament executed by the English Exiles at Geneva in
Queen Mary’s reign (in the year 1557). This, together
with their English translation of the Old Testament pub
lished in 1560 (the second year of Queen Elizabeth) formed
for many years the favourite popular household Bible in
in this country (I possess it here). Erasmus and Stephens
�An A spiration of Science.
13
were also further followed on the Continent by the
weighty authority of Theodore Beza, the eminent Genevan
Reformer, and discoverer of the ancient uncial Codex
Bezse, presented by him to Cambridge University, and
whose Greek and elegant Latin Testament of 1580 I also
have here.
In the Anglo-Genevan version we meet with the text
under consideration for the first time printed in the
English language as it was subsequently given in the
authorised version of 1611, the translators of which were
commanded by King James to show especial regard to
this Genevan-English version. Now such as we there
find the text it has ever since remained, and been
accepted by the Protestant English nation and all englishspeaking protestant peoples, until the revision of the New
Testament published last year, that is from the year 1557
down to the year 1881, when we find this time-hallowed
text expunged, and in place of it the strained expression
I have already quoted, that the Peace on Earth, instead
of being for all men, is only for those in whom he is
well pleased; and thus we have the angelic announcement
of ‘ good tidings of great joy to all people ’ cut down and
narrowed by the utterance of the heavenly host (as
interpreted by the revisers), to some portion only of the
great human race.
Now I must not be understood as dissenting from, or
in any way presuming to criticise what the revisers have
accomplished. Erom a doctrinal point of view, there were
doubtless many inducements tempting them to tamper
with the text, and to get rid if possible of the elevated
conception primarily presented to us in print through the
critical acumen of Erasmus. In the first place ‘ Peace
on earth, Good-will towards men’ as general Christian
sentiments, are strikingly inconsistent with the subse
quent declaration of Christ himself. (Matt. ch. x. v. 34.)
�14
An Aspiration of Science.
“ Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth ?
I tell ye, Nay, but rather division. Think not that I
came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace
but a sword. For I am come to set a man at vari
ance against his father, and the daughter against her
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-inlaw.”
Then again, if regarded in any prophetic sense, the
announcement has had no fulfilment. Indeed the history
of the world since the coming of Christ fully and fear
fully contradicts it. Not only has there been no increase
of peace on the earth, there have probably been more
wars and bloodshed arising out of Christianity, or since
its birth, than ever took place before. An eloquent his
torian has remarked ‘ That from the very commencement
of the Christian era the sword has accompanied the Cross,
a sword that has never found and never will find a
scabbard, till superstitious creeds and immoral dogmas
shall be abandoned as things invented in the dark ages of
the world, as things directly calculated to sow the seeds
of discord in society, create feuds between man and man,
and perpetuate those animosities which turn the sweets
of life into wormwood. This dogmatic Christianity has
done in every age and in every country into which it has
been introduced. Wherever the Cross has been raised
thither have followed fire and sword, horrid burnings,
brutal massacres. All history teems with accounts of its
savage wars, its deluging bloodshed.’ Even at this very
time our common humanity is being outraged by the
atrocities of the Christian persecution of the Jews now
being carried on in ‘ Holy’ Russia!
From a theologian’s point of view therefore the
authorized text of 1611 might well be considered as a
stumbling block, and the reasoning above adverted to may
not improbably have contributed, even unconsciously, to
�An Aspiration of Science.
15
the decision which has now expunged, or attempted to
expunge, the text, entirely from our English Bible.
If however we are to lose the sublime sentiment of
‘good-will towards men’ from the gospel, it may be
worth while to consider whether we are compelled to part
with it altogether. If it be not inspired Scripture, and
if dogmatic theology disown it, may it not find its true
home to be with Science ? Let us consider shortly how
this may be.
The conspicuous conflict between Theology and Science
which characterises our transitional progress from the age
of Eaith to the age of Reason, when looked into with
the object of ascertaining its less obvious causes, will be
found to arise out of the divergent ends which each of
these great systems of thought appears to be aiming at.
Theology will be found to have for its ultimate realisation
the Glory of Grod. The Aspirations of Science, on the
other hand, are wholly directed towards the well-being of
Man.
I could give you abundant illustration of the aim of
Theology taken from any of the great book-religions of
the world enumerated in my lecture of last year, showing,
as they unmistakeably do, that the glory of Grod and the
well-being of Man are very often not altogether consis
tent ; but it will amply suffice for my present argument
to confine my illustrations to those two great Theologies
the Jewish and the Christian, which are embraced in the
single volume of the Bible, and in the creeds and con
fessions of faith that have been deduced from its pages,
and which are supposed, more plainly than Holy writ
itself, to explain its meaning.
In the very first book of that volume we find the Deity
represented as cursing man and the whole human race his
descendants on account of his having partaken of the
forbidden fruit. The fearful fate thus decreed to man
�16
An Aspiration of Science.
kind universally, though subsequently a comparative few
termed “the Elect” were excepted, is better known
through the adroitly devised and necessarily subdued tone
of it that has been evolved through ecclesiastical subtlety,
such, for instance, as we find it moulded in that authorita
tive theological standard the Westminster Confession of
Eaith, presented by the Assembly of Divines to both
Houses of Parliament in the year 1646, and wherein it
is thus expressed: “ By the decree of God, for the mani
festation of his glory some men and angels are predes
tined unto everlasting life, and others foredained to
everlasting death. God hath appointed the elect unto
glory. The rest of mankind God has pleased, according
to the unsearchable counsels of his own will, for the glory
of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and
ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the
praise of his glorious justice I ”
I need hardly quote familiar passages from the book of
Psalms and other books of the Old Testament showing
the many fearful human calamities ordained or practised,
even to the sacrifice of the lives of human beings, all for
the glory of God! If we turn to the New Testament
Scriptures the awful idea we are contemplating culmi
nates in the appalling announcement of the everlasting
punishment of Hell!
Now the God of Theology is an idea of the human
mind. Like the Poet’s, the Theologian’s eye
“ Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the theologian's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.’'
Even the ghastly conception of eternal torments, and
the foredoomed fate of millions of human beings is all
�An Aspiration of Science.
declared by theologians to be for the glory of God.
the grim irony of Burns expresses it—
17
As
I Oh Thou, wha in the heav’ns dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel,
Sends ane to Heaven, and ten to Hell
A’ for thy glory,
And no for ony guid or ill
They’ve done afore thee.”
If we turn from theological theory to the practice of
theologians, as exhibited in history, we plainly perceive
how their treatment of mankind has ever corresponded
with the cruel character of their credentials. The
reproachful summing up of their conduct by the learned
historian Buckle is only too true. ‘ The theologians,’ he
declares, ‘considered as a class, have in every country
and in every age deliberately opposed themselves to
gratifications which are essential to the happiness of an
overwhelming majority of the human race. Eaising up
a God of their own creation, whom they hold out as a
lover of penance, of sacrifice, and of mortification, they,
under this pretence, forbid enjoyments which are not only
innocent but praiseworthy ... It must be admitted
by whoever will take a comprehensive view of what they
have done, that they have not only been the most bitter
foes of human happiness, but the most successful ones.
In their high and palmy days, when they reigned supreme,
when credulity was universal, and doubt unknown, they
afflicted mankind in every possible way, enjoining fasts,
and penances, and pilgrimages, teaching their simple and
ignorant victims every kind of austerity, teaching them
to flog their own bodies, to tear their own flesh, and to
mortify the most natural of their appetites.’ And Buckle
emphatically warns us, ‘ that we shall assuredly sink under
the accumulated pressure of our high and complex
civilization if we imitate the credulity of our forefathers,
�18
An Aspiration of Science.
who allowed their energies to be cramped and weakened
by those pernicious notions which the clergy, partly
from ignorance, and partly from interest, have in every
age palmed upon the people, and have thereby diminished
the national happiness, and retarded the march of the
national prosperity.’
As we are now accepting it as settled by the New
Testament Revision, that the text ‘ Peace on Earth,
Good-will towards men ’ was no part of original Scripture,
and is discarded by theology, it becomes the privilege of
Science, with the right hand of fellowship, to bid it wel
come. It embodies indeed her most cherished aspirations,
for we shall see that, as the ultimate end of Science is to
bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest num
ber, ‘ Good-will towards men,’ that is human well-being,
and ‘ Peace on earth ’ have ever been objects Science has
had nearest and dearest to her, are indeed of the very
essence of her transcendent faith.
And here I call to mind that the leading idea of my
lecture was a few years since, with almost prophetic
foresight of the work of the New Testament Revisers,
shadowed forth in the luminous and lofty language of a
pioneer of progress, one of the bravest and soundest of
our sons of Science. In professor Tyndall’s Presidential
Address on ‘ Science and Man,’ delivered before the
Midland Institute in October, 1877, he asks “ Does the
song of the herald angels ‘ Glory to God on the highest,
and on earth Peace, Good-will toward men,’ express the
exaltation and the yearning of a human soul, or does it
describe an optical and acoustical fact, a visible host, and
an audible song ? If the former, the exaltation and the
yearning are man’s imperishable possession, if the latter,
then belief in the entire transaction is wrecked by nonfulfilment. The promise of ‘ Peace on Earth, Good-will
toward men’ is a dream ruined by the experience of
�.An Aspiration of Science.
19
eighteen centuries, and in that ruin are involved the
claim of the heavenly host to prophetic vision. But,
though the mechanical theory proves untenable, the
immortal song, and the feelings it expresses are still ours,
to be incorporated, let us hope, in the poetry, philosophy,
and practice of the future.”
Now we seem to breathe the free atmosphere of
Science; Science so variously defined, so differently
understood in the past ages of the world. To us, Science,
in its general sense, is simply real knowledge—know
ledge that may be tested and known to be real by verifi
cation through, or comparison with, the facts of Nature.
This is no mere verbal definition, for, side by side with
real knowledge has always existed the persuasion of false
knowledge. This distinction helps to explain, too, how it
has come to happen that Theology and Science are so often
seen in conflict. To say, as is sometimes done, that
Theology is based on supernatural knowledge, whilst
Science is limited to knowledge that is natural, does not
really solve the problem. It might account for difference
in their respective degrees of knowledge, but not, if both
be true, for downright contradiction between them.
The conflict, in its present proportions, has really
arisen in comparatively recent times, and we shall best
get at its source and nature by glancing at it historically.
In the ancient world, and throughout what might be
termed the golden age of Theology, Science was very dif
ferently conceived to what is now regarded as its right
meaning. In that subtle dialogue of Plato,—Theaitetos,
which is a discussion concerning what is meant by Science,
(written nearly 400 years before the Christian Era,) we
find that Socrates could only define or conceive Science
as being the inmost perception of the mind, or inner
consciousness, concerning any matter. He thought that
there could be no external standard, and that what the
�20
An Aspiration of Science.
individual mind arrives at through pure reflection as
true, must be regarded as the truth by that mind. Such
was the only conclusion that consummate thinker could
come to as to the nature of Science. In Plato’s more
mature Dialogue ‘The Republic’ we again find the nature
and end of Science repeatedly referred to. Thus, with
reference to the Sciences of Arithmetic and Geometry,
Plato thought nothing of any worldly use they might
serve. The object of the study of the properties of num
bers, he says, is to habituate the mind to the contempla
tion of pure and abstract truth, and so to raise us above
the material universe.
In these writings of Plato we have then distinctly
stated the end of Science, and also its method, as he
regarded them; such method being, in the majority of
instances, utterly fallacious, viz.:—That the intuition of
the mind, or the idea which is subjectively conceived, is
to be accepted as the equivalent or correlative of an
objective fact. This fallacy may be detected underlying
those metaphysical systems of philosophy that so authori
tatively prevailed until they were displaced by the modern
inductive method of research, which is based, not on
mental intuitions, but on material facts, ascertained
through the senses, and so marshalled as to constitute an
objective criterion, to which speculative propositions may
be referred, for the purpose of testing which are true and
which are false.
Now the Platonic idea of Science was very early
pressed into the service of Theology. The late Bishop
Hampden, in his learned lectures on the Scholastic Phil
osophy, has acutely explained how this arose, and he
remarks that its abstractedness from the visible world
was one chief reason why Platonism became established
as the orthodox system of the Western Church. This
Platonic notion of Science, having thus become combined
�An Aspiration of Science.
21
with, or subordinated to the dogmas of Theology, with its
universal panacea of prayer, really continued, not always
in practice, but, in intellectual theory, until the advent of
our illustrious countryman Lord Bacon. Bacon, by the
exercise of his marvellous insight, penetrated to the very
core of real knowledge, showing, especially in that latin
casket of scientific gems, the Novum Organum (published
in 1620), that the first thing necessary in the search of
truth is intellectual light—‘ lumen siccum ’ pure light,
unobscured by the mists of superstition, passion, preju
dice, or interest. But then he at once points out that
the intellect left to itself, like the naked hand, can effect
little, that it must be assisted by helps and by instru
ments, and that its intuitions must be corrected, or duly
verified by the observation, or interrogation through ex
periment, of the facts of Nature. That ‘wre scire esse
per causas scire ’—we only truly know anything when we
know its cause.
Utterly ignoring the jargon of theology concerning the
Kingdom of Heaven, Bacon avowed his object was to
establish on Earth the Kingdom of Man, whose sovereignty
would rest on Science, which was not a thing to be
demanded back from the darkness of antiquity, but
must be sought from the light of Nature.
That Science was not derived from human authority,
but is the offspring or fruit resulting ‘ commercio mentis et
rerum’ from the intercourse of mind and matter, or, as
he quaintly phrases it, ‘ the happy marriage between the
mind of man and the nature of things.’
But Bacon’s sagacious discovery, or, at least, his vigorous
presentment in clear and cogent logic of the right method
of arriving at the source of real knowledge, was only a
portion, though a magnificently grand one, of the ser
vices he has rendered to mankind. He proceeded further,
and showed that the speculations of the ancient Philoso
�22
An Aspiration of Science.
phers were comparatively worthless, as not having in view
the true end of Science, which was not, he averred, an
intellectual pastime, or ‘ web of the wit,’ woven merely to
amuse or mystify the dialectical faculties of the human
mind, but was an investigation into Nature, in order to
establish the well-being, and bring about the happiness
of the human race. The end of Science was to consist in
the multiplying of human enjoyments, and the mitigating
of human miseries, concisely it was, to use his own preg
nant words, ‘the relief of man’s estate’; and this is the
sense in which we are to understand his often-repeated
aphorism ‘ Scientia est Potentia,’ real knowledge is power
—power enabling man to grapple with and overcome the
evils of life.
And thus, through the exhaustive exposition of Bacon,
Science was no longer limited by the definitions or ideas
of Plato, the human intellect became liberated from the
bondage of verbal disputation, and Was turned to the con
sideration of useful truths. Science came to be seen as
we now know it, that is, as the process of discovery, by
man’s natural faculties, of the order or laws of Nature.
The laboratory of Science being, according to Plato,
the inner sanctuary of the mind, and the materials of
Science being, according to Bacon, facts, acquired through
the senses, from the outer World of Nature. So con
sidered, the sphere of Science comprehends everything
that, by the constitution of the human faculties, can be
positively known; the region of reality, as distinguished
from the realm of visionary knowledge, that has been
built up, by means of unverified mental intuitions, into
theological and metaphysical systems.
Now what the genuis of Bacon was so powerfully
propounding in precept, others were almost simul
taneously performing in practice.
In our own country we find William Harvey, the
�An Aspiration of Science.
23
friend and physician of Bacon, discovering, by the aid of
experiment, the circulation of the blood, and, in his con
cise ‘exerdtatio de motu Cordis et Sanguinis’, explaining
this grand truth (published in 1628, two years after the
death of Bacon), and also in his larger work ‘ de generatione
Animalium ’ (published in 1651) we may, I think, perceive
many passages proving the extent to which Harvey was
indebted intellectually to his great predecessor Bacon.
Another almost immediate result of the profound
impression made upon thinking minds by the extra
ordinary brilliancy of Bacon’s philosophical writings
appears in the very striking treatise of Richd. Cumberland
on the Laws of Nature, his ‘ de legibus Natures disquisitio’
(published in 1672). “In this work” (says Hallam)
“ the Bathers and Schoolmen, the Canonists and Casuists,
have vanished like ghosts at the first daylight.* The con
tinued appeal is to experience, and never to authority,
unless it be to the authority of the great apostles of
experimental philosophy.”
And thus piety was becoming purified from the dross
of dogma, for with Science, ‘ laborare est orare ’—prayer
consists in work, and the world was being aroused from
the supineness of superstitious sloth to the activity of
intelligent industry.
And now we may distinctly observe what is the relation
which the Baconian or Inductive Science holds towards
Theology. I pass by the attempts that were made by the
Church to strangle it in its birth. The persecution of
Science by the Church when it possessed power, and of
scientific men, the great men who have been the inter
preters of Nature,
“ Their only crime that they should dare
To think, and then their thought declare ”—
is indeed a theme painfully familiar, but happily it forms
no part of my present argument. We are now only
�24
An Aspiration of Science.
referring to the intellectual influence of Science, which
is by Buckle thus tersely summarised, and contrasted
with Theology:—
“ Inductive Science takes for its basis individual and
specific experience, and seeks by that means to overthrow
the general and traditional notions on which all church
power is founded. Its plan is to refuse to accept prin
ciples which cannot be substantiated by facts. In Theology
certain principles are taken for granted, and it is deemed
impious to question them. In England, the rise of the
Baconian Philosophy, with its determination to subordi
nate ancient principles to modern experience, was the
heaviest blow which has ever been inflicted on the Theo
logians, whose method is to begin, not with experience,
but with principles which are said to be inscrutable.
That is, they proceed from arbitrary assumptions, for
which they have no proof, except by appealing to other
assumptions equally arbitrary, and equally unproven.
Over the inferior order of minds our clergy still wield
great influence, but the Baconian Philosophy, bv bring
ing their favourite method into disrepute, has sapped the
very base of their system. From the moment that their
method of investigation was discredited, the secret of
their power was gone.”
And the present attitude of the Church towards
Science is thus graphically portrayed by Dr. Draper :—
“ At length the Church has fastened its eyes on Science.
Under that dreaded name there stands before it what
seems to be a spectre of uncertain form, of hourly dilating
proportions, of threatening aspect.
Sometimes the
Church addresses this stupendous apparition in words of
courtesy, sometimes in tones of denunciation.” This
mingled and trembling tone of courtesy and defiance, of
welcome and of dread, may I think be detected in nearly
all the great theological utterances going on around us.
�An Aspiration of Science.
25
We however may in Science recognise the spirit that
has promised to lead us into all truth, and we may hail
as the children of light those who are endowed with the
intelligence enabling them to follow whithersoever such
spirit may lead, and therefore, when the Bishop of Man
chester asks, as he did in his somewhat singular sermon
preached before the British Association in August last
—“ Is Science to tell me what I am to believe, and how
I am to act,” let us, however respectfully, ask empha
tically, Why not ? For it has now been demonstrated
by experience, that only by belief in Science, and by
acting in accordance with its teaching of Grood-will to
wards man, can the great miseries of human life, its
pinching poverty, its depraving intemperance, its de
moralising vices, its agonising diseases, its premature
deaths, with their attendant train of heartrending sorrows
and corroding griefs, be banished, and life on earth ren
dered tolerably happy. It is only by belief in Science,
and by following its teaching, that wars will ever be
abolished, and ‘ Peace on Earth ’ practically realised.
I need not now dilate on illustrations of the primary
care of Science for humanity, as manifested in its dis
coveries, deductions, and teachings in reference to the
Order of Nature, to the Constitution of Man. The great
astronomical and physiological discoveries are more or
less known to every one. On the subject of Health, so
essential to our happiness, I will dwell for a few moments.
The theological theory of disease (explained in my lecture
last year) has been completely exploded from the creed of
the educated classes, and it is now acknowledged that
Health is entirely dependent on the observance of immu
table and imperative laws of Nature. Diseases are
now distinctly traceable to infringement of these
laws, and several diseases are indissolubly associated
with the poisonous nature of some of the food we
�26
An Aspiration of Science.
eat, and the liquids we drink. But the scientific
knowledge of the subject requires diffusing, to be more
generally taught, and brought vividly home to the reason
and common sense of the people.
Now, some of you may remember that in a former
lecture I deplored the paucity of scientific tracts and texts
or axioms disseminated amongst us, compared with the
number of superstitious stories with which we are literally
deluged by theological Societies. Yet I think that scien
tific teaching might to a great extent be carried on in a
similar manner. Let me hazard a suggestion, illustrative
of my meaning. Some of you I dare say have observed
the scripture text that is engraved above a drinking foun
tain within a quarter of a mile from our doors : “ Whoso
ever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whoso
ever drinketh of the water I shall give him shall never
thirst.”
Now, don’t assume that I am quoting this text for the
purpose of scoffing. I only now say, it is not Science,
but it strikes me as pointing out to us a corresponding
method of diffusing scientific knowledge, and that we
might well have our fountains engraved with some scien
tific axiom or truth in connection with their use. Thus,
we might have written over them some such scientific
axiom as the following : “ Whosoever drinketh of water
polluted with organic germs shall be in danger of disease
and death; but whosoever drinketh of water purified
therefrom by Science shall escape taking thereby diarrhoea,
dysentery, cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria.”
Going to the subject of Education I may point out
that in our Great Schools and Colleges the curriculum
of studies has been considerably changed since society
has come to appreciate the educational value of the study
of the Physical Sciences, not only as regards the real and
useful knowledge thereby imparted of the material world
�An Aspiration of Science.
27
and our actual mode of existence, but in reference to the
discipline of the mental faculties involved in learning their
precise and accurate methods of investigating and veri
fying truth, and showing what concrete truth consists in.
In the Parliamentary Report of the Public Schools Com
mission published in the year 1864 we find Professor
Owen, the late Sir Charles Lyell, and Professor Faraday,
our esteemed President Dr. Carpenter, Professor Tyndall,
and other eminent scientists giving the most clear and
convincing testimony to the value of such study in training
a class of mental faculties which are almost ignored by
purely classical and mathematical culture; such as the dis
tinguishing things from words ; the accurate observation,
and classification of the facts of Nature, and the exercise
of the reasoning faculties on such facts ; the teaching to
the student the principles of real evidence; and how, in
the unprejudiced pursuit of truth, to estimate correctly
the weight of such evidence.
But perhaps the greatest blow that enlightenment has
publicly dealt to superstition in our day was inflicted by
the Elementary Education Act of 1870—under which
Board Schools have been so widely established for impart
ing some amount of really useful secular common-sense
knowledge to the children of the masses of our people,
in the place of the Bible reading and Hymn singing, in
the learning of which their precious time was so much
consumed in the old Church Schools. By Sec. 7 of that
Act of Parliament it is expressly provided, that no religious
observance, or instruction in religious subjects shall be
given during the necessary school hours. That no scholar
shall be bound to attend any religious observance or in
struction, and that it shall be no part of the duty of Her
Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools to enquire into any
instruction in any religious subjects given at such school,
or to examine any scholar therein. Now, bearing in mind
�28
An Aspiration of Science.
that the term religious instruction used in the Act has
especial reference to the jarring and discordant theologies
of the rival religious sects, all of whom were contending
to get the child under their special influence, and that the
prohibition in the Act of Parliament of religious instruction
was resorted to as the only practicable course of getting
rid of the obstructive opposition of such sects; I don’t
think I am going too far in characterising the enactment
in question as the greatest legislative blow dealt at super
stition since the passing of the Act of the 9th of Greo. II.
which repealed that astounding statute of James I., which
had actually recognised as realities the theological delu
sions of witchcraft, conjuration, and dealing with evil
and wicked Spirits, and authorised prosecutions, con
victions, and the infliction of barbarous punishments,
for the alleged commission of such purely imaginary
crimes 1
Now we are all taught in our youth to believe that
Theology or our Religious System is the source or sanc
tion of all morality. If Boman Catholics we are taught
that in matters of Faith and Morals the Pope is the in
fallible authority; a dogma the more astonishing, inas
much as it must be obvious to unprejudiced historical
students that, as the power of the Pope has decayed, the
moral tone of European society has improved. But, in
the decomposition, or decline of theological belief every
where going on, there must exist a danger that what has
been supposed an essential part of its teaching may
decline too. Hence has arisen the necessity of showing,
as the fact is, that the true foundation of morality, or the
right conduct of man towards man, is scientific or secular,
and not essentially theological at all.
Now, that pure morality is absolutely independent of
all theology has been known to Science from the time of
Aristotle, whose demonstration of the doctrine is con
�An Aspiration of Science.
29
tained in his profound and sagacious treatise the Nicomachean Ethics.
Turning then to the consideration of virtue, as the
supreme moral end, we shall see what Science has dis
covered and taught us as the indestructible basis of the
duty of doing, not only what is just and right, but what
is calculated for the happiness of mankind, all of which
are comprehended in that felicitously compendious ex
pression, ‘ good-will towards men.’
It is to the illustrious Grotius (whose great work on the
principles of human conduct I somewhat fully referred to
in my lecture of last year) that we are indebted, according
to his able editor the late Dr. Whewell, for the first
clear enunciation of the true source of moral science.
Man, says Grotius, following the lead of Aristotle, is by
his nature a rational and social being. He can only exist
in the society of his fellow-creatures, and he must live
with them, not anyhow, but according to his instincts,
his faculties, and his desires, that is, peacefully and hap
pily. Human Nature then is the mother of moral right,
and the moral guilt or rectitude of any action is deter
mined by its agreement or disagreement with our rational
and social nature.
These ideas of Aristotle and Grotius have been admirably
developed by (amongst others) Jeremy Bentham, John S.
Mill, and Herbert Spencer. ‘ Nature (says Bentham) has
placed mankind under the government of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point
out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what
we shall do. The standard of right and wrong is fastened
to their throne. In words a man may pretend to abjure
their empire, but in reality he will remain subject to it
all the while. The principle of utility recognises this
subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that
system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity
�30
An Aspiration of Science.
by the hand of reason and of law. Systems which
attempt to question it deal in sound instead of sense, in
caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.’
This scientific foundation of morals, general utility, or
the greatest happiness principle (adds John S. Mill) holds
that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. This utilitarian standard, however, is not
the agent’s own greatest happiness but, the greatest
amount of happiness altogether. Utilitarianism there
fore can only attain its end by the general cultivation of
nobleness of character, and the multiplication of happiness
is, according to such standard of ethics, the object of
virtue. Thus it embraces not only our duties, but by
what test we may know them. And the highest life,
says Herbert Spencer, is that which includes the greatest
happiness, and ‘that happiness is the supreme virtuous
end is beyond question true, for it is the concomitant of
that ultimate end which every theory of moral guidance
has distinctly, or vaguely in view.
Such shortly is the ideal of Science in regard to the
true nature of virtue, but so backward is our present
social state, that so far from our being able to realise
such an ideal, the greater part of our present virtue
consists in practising the duty of self-denial, lest the
attempted gratification of our own faculties aud activities
should interfere with corresponding gratifications on the
part of others. For (says Herbert Spencer) the main
tenance of equitable relations all round is the condition
to the attainment of the greatest happiness of all..
There is probably no subject respecting which the
teachings of Theology and Science are more at variance
than in their respective views concerning the dreadful
ordeal of War. You know, if you consult the pages of
the Bible, you find that War is treated as almost, under
�An A spiration of Science.
31
certain circumstances, a normal condition of human
existence. I will not stay to quote texts illustrating this
conclusion, in which the Deity is represented as the Lord
of Hosts, as the Grod of Battles, as a Man of War, over
and over again taking part in and encouraging warfare,
and even expressly commanding Wars to be undertaken.
What the human mind may be degraded into believing
through the too exclusive study of Theology, and the too
confiding credulity in all that we find written in the old
historical books of the semi-barbarous Hebrews, may be
gathered from a recent utterance of one of our learned
Bishops, who declared that he believed War was one of
the means by which the Almighty carried on the govern
ment of the world, and promoted civilization!
Now Science cannot conceive an Almighty power
governing or encouraging a world of human beings
through the dreadful horrors of war, and such power
could not, in any scientific sense, be regarded as benefi
cent, if he were really capable of coolly carrying on human
government by means of the atrocious machinery of
warfare. According to Science, such an idea can only
be a delusion of the morbid imagination, enfeebled through
unreflecting faith in the senseless suggestions of supersti
tion. Science can indeed show that it is quite unneces
sary to attribute war to the intentional Will of an
Almighty Supernatural Being, for it can trace its causes
to the passions of human nature, acting in ignorance or
disregard of those preventives of war which the human
understanding, enlightened by Science, has succeeded in
discovering, and by following which wars might be alto
gether banished from the face of the earth, or, at least,
from amongst the Nations of Europe. Hence in nearly
all such Nations have arisen Peace Societies, founded for
the purpose of diffusing such intelligence amongst the
people at large, that they, being instructed to recognise
�32
An Aspiration of Science.
that their true interest always lies on the side of Peace,
may, through enlightened public opinion, bring pressure
to bear upon their rulers, in order that Peace may be
preserved, and the horrors of War avoided. That this
could even now be effected, through the instrumentality
of International Arbitration, can hardly be doubted by
those who have considered the subject from a scientific
point of view.
I may now then conclude by affirming that the senti
ments ‘ Good-will towards men ’ and ‘ Peace on Earth,’
though expelled from Sacred Scripture, and disowned by
dogmatic Theology, are the inalienable heritage of Science,
and under its guardianship will remain, to exemplify the
sublime sympathies of those noble-minded men, whose
fervent thoughts and dignified lives are devoted to the
realisation of their spontaneous aspirations to improve, to
lift up, and to sweeten the earthly lives of their fellow
creatures ; aspirations which superstition has not suc
ceeded in suppressing, because they are the natural
promptings of the uncorrupted heart, and mind, and con
science of man, civilized through Science.
KENNY & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, N.W.
�
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An aspiration of science : "On earth peace, good-will towards men", rescued from the New Testament revision. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 19th February, 1882
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5.
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Finch, A. Elley
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1883
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Sunday Lecture Society
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G3429
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Bible
Science
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Morris Tracts
Science
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PDF Text
Text
HIS
LIFE,
WORKS,
AND
INFLUENCE
UPON THE
SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION.
fuinrt
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 28th FEBRUARY, 1875.
A.
ELLEY FINCH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. H THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�SYLLABUS.
Intellectual and Ecclesiastical condition of Europe about
the beginning of the sixteenth century. Characterised by
the awakening of the human mind from the long slumber of
the Middle Ages, stimulated mainly by three memorable
events :—
1. The invention of the Printing Press (1440).
2. The dispersion of Scholars on the fall of the Eastern
Empire of the Bomans (1453).
3. The actual discovery of the shape and smallness, of the
Earth through the voyages Of Columbus and Vasco
de Gama (1492-7), and Magellan’s Squadron (1522).
Sketch of the Life of Erasmus (1467-1536). His visits to
England and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. His
friendships with Colet, Linacre, Grocyn, More, Fisher, and
others of our learned -men. His zeal and travels for restoring
the culture of Classical Literature. His Works—‘Praise of
Folly,’ ‘ Adages,’ Edition of the Greek Testament, ‘ Familiar
Colloquies,’ ‘ Complaint of Peace,’ Editions of Classical Authors
and Christian Fathers, &c.
Bise of the Beformation, and its outbreak (1517) through
the intrepid preaching and conduct of Luther. His contro
versy with Erasmus. Divergence of their views.
Two aspects of the Beformation :—
1. Theological—A contest respecting the standard of
Beligious Truth. Ended in the substitution of an
assumed infallible Book for an alleged infallible
Church. (Luther.)
2. Historical-—The emancipation of the human reason
from the yoke of ecclesiastical authority through
the revival of learning. Still in progress by the
advance of culture and the freedom of discussion.
(Erasmus.)
�Syllabus.
Erasmus’s ‘Greek Testament’ (pditio princeps) 1516,followed
by Robert Stephens’s third (first critical) edition, 1550; Elzevir’s
(textus receptus), 1624; Mill’s, 1707 ; Wetstein’s, 1751; Matthsei’s, 1782-8 ; Griesbach’s, 1796 ; Scholz, 1830-6 ; Lachmann’s,
1831 ; Tischendorf’s, 1841, and other critical editions, embrac
ing the collation of upwards of six hundred manuscripts, and
the discovery of more than one hundred thousand various
readings, and no “ immaculate ” text, necessitates the science
of biblical criticism, i.e., the application of scientific truths
and tests, methods of inquiry and canons of evidence to the
investigation of the genuineness, authenticity, and true inter
pretation of the Christian Records.
Illustration of various readings—First Epistle General of
John, chap, v., verses 7, 8.
Concise account of the following ancient existing Scripture
Manuscripts :—
Language.
t----------------------------------
Source or
Text.
Date.
Latin.
Greek.
Codex Alexandrinus . 1 Codex Brixianus .... Byzantium (4th to
J 7th
(in the Gospels) J
„ Versio Vulgata . Palestine . j Cent.
„ Vaticanus ....
,, Vercellencis . . . Alexandria
A.D.
,, Cantabrigiensis.
The Spirit of the Reformation—the assertion of the principle
of private judgment arising from Reason and the Moral Sense,
in opposition to the practice of persecution resulting from the
spirit of dogmatism—is hostile to Priestcraft, but friendly to
Truth, by respecting the rights of conscience, and encouraging
the fearless advancement of Religious Knowledge through
Liberty of Inquiry, Freedom of Thought, and Honesty of
Expression.
�ERASMUS:
HIS LIFE, WORFS, AND INFLUENCE UPON THE SPIRIT OF
THE REFORMATION.
Throughout the greater part of the times historically
known, as the Middle Ages, down to so late a period as
the end of the 15th century, the Christian Countries of
Europe were ruled in reality by the Popes of Rome.
They were mapped out into Ecclesiastical Provinces,
each presided over by a Roman Archbishop ; Provinces’
were divided into Dioceses, and these into Parishes, each
with its Romish Priest, forming altogether an ecclesiasti
cal network, the strings of which were grasped at Rome
by the Pope and the College of Cardinals. In addition
to this clergy there were numerous orders of begging
Monks and Friars, Benedictines, Cistercians, Domini
cans, Franciscans, and Augustinians, whose numbers
swarmed everywhere; there being in most towns from
one to half-a-dozen Monasteries or Religious Houses.
The Power wielded through this ecclesiastical system
was enormous. Kings even were not secure of their
crowns till they had the sanction of the Church ; for, by
whatever jesuitical casuistry Vatican Decrees are now
sought to be explained away, in the days we are speak
ing of, Sovereigns were dethroned, their kingdoms laid
under interdicts, and their subjects were absolved from
their allegiance, by the usurped deposing power of the
Pope. The Roman Catholic Clergy alone baptized and
married, and buried, or refused Christian burial, they
alone disposed of dead men’s goods. No man’s Will
could take effect until proved in an Ecclesiastical Court.
If their claims were disputed remonstrants were handed
over to the secular arm or Civil Power, which acted in
abject submission to the arbitrary dictates of the
Church.
The Revenues of this Priesthood were immense.
�6
Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
Even the Monks, under their vows of poverty begging
alms for bread in return for prayers, obtaining bound
less wealth from the superstitious credulity of those who
thought that by giving them their property they could
save their souls.
But the ecclesiastical was not the only power in
Europe that was Roman. The whole learned world
was linked to Rome through the subtleties of the* scho
lastic system. All scholars talked and wrote in Latin,
the language of Rome. Learned people of all sorts were
looked upon as belonging to the Clergy. In England,
a man charged with crime, if he could only show such a
modicum of learning as being able to read and write,
could claim “benefit of clergy,” that is, be tried in an
ecclesiastical Court, which practically amounted to an
exemption from the punishments of the criminal law of
the Land. This tended to give all learning a clerical caste,
so that matters of real knowledge or science, which
could only be proved by observation of the facts of
Nature,—such, for instauce, as, whether the Sun moved
round the Earth, or the Earth round the Sun, were
settled by texts taken from the Bible I Whilst, as to
the Christian Religion itself, it had ceased to be what it
was in the days of Christ and the Apostles, an affair of
the heart; it had become a Theology, which is a thing of
the head.
About the beginning of the 16th century the restless
ness of the human mind under this servile system
becomes very observable, and is distinctly traceable to
the influence of certain memorable events, which were
then of recent occurrence. One was the invention of
the Printing-press, which occurred in about the year
1440, and which operated in two ways—in the multi
plying and cheapening of books, thereby diffusing
knowledge, and in substituting reading or private study
for oral instruction. Previously to the invention of
Printing, books were in manuscripts, comparatively so
few in number, that teaching was of necessity chiefly
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
7
carried on by means of Lectures or Sermons. Now, the
oral teacher unavoidably exerts over his audience a sym
pathetic influence, imbuing them with the bias of his
own views, and the gain to Truth must have been con
siderable, when the solitary student, intent only on its
pursuit, could acquire knowledge through the mute
medium of the printed page, and exercise upon it his
own powers of reflection, unprejudiced by the presence of
a personal Instructor. Thus it was that the PrintingPress came to deprive the Pulpit of its supremacy, and
to subordinate the Sermon to the Newspaper.
Another event was the taking of Constantinople by
the Turks, in the year 1453. This celebrated city had
been the home, or the refuge, of learning since its founda
tion by the Emperor Constantine in the year 330. On
its fall, learned Greeks and Jews, driven from the East,
were dispersed over Europe, and mostly settled in Italy.
The Greek and Hebrew languages were again studied,
and thence there resulted a remarkable revival of
classical learning, and there arose an intelligent criti
cism of the Latin credentials of the Roman Catholic
Faith. What (said the faculty of theology in Paris),
what will become of our religion, if the study of Greek
and Hebrew be permitted ? Time has verified this
prophetic fear of the Romish Church, and has shown,
that the prevalence of the Latin tongue was an essential
condition of her power.
The third event I shall advert to was the discovery of
the rounded form, and relative smallness, of our Earth,
through the Voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama
in the years 1492-7, and of Magellan’s expedition in the
years 1519-1522. The effect on the human mind of this
physical discovery must have been very powerful, since
it shocked directly some of the most cherished religious
notions of those days. Fact had now falsified faith ;
for the infallible Church had transmuted a geographical
problem into a theological dogma, by committing her
self against the figure of the Earth being round. Her
�8
Erasmus; his Life, Works3 and Influence
teaching was now shown to be untrue, and the authority
of her fervid Fathers Lactantius and Augustin proved to
be worthless, by the astounding achievement of the
actual circumnavigation of the Globe !
It should be observed that the spread of knowledge
at the period we are referring to was remarkably rapid.
Schools of learning were numerous, many of them dating
from their foundation by Charlemagne in the ninth cen
tury ; and Europe was dotted over by Universities, all
of which were more or less in close connection with one
another. The one language, Latin, was common to them
all, and students passed freely from one to another,
flocking often in great numbers to an University where
there happened to be a famous Professor.
Such, shortly, was the ecclesiastical and intellectual
condition of Western Christendom about the time of
the advent of the illustrious scholar, whose career we
are going slightly to trace. It was a time, when:—
“ Much was believ’d, but little understood,
And to be dull was constru’d to be good;
A second deluge Learning had o’er-run,
And the Monks finish’d what the Goths begun.
At length Erasmus, that great injur’d name,
(The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame!)
Stem’d the wild torrent of a barb’rous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.”
Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam in about
the year 1467. His parents were, one Gerard, a native
of Tergouw, and Margaret, the daughter of a Physician
at Zevenbergen in Brabant. Gerard in the Dutch
language signifies “ beloved,” and the son, following a
quaint fashion of the times, called himself by its Latin
and Greek equivalents—that is “ Desiderius ” in Latin
and “Erasmus” (more accurately Erasmios) in Greek.
As a boy he was considered slow at learning, and was
early placed in the choir of the Cathedral of Utrecht,butat
the age of nine he was removed to a then distinguished
school at Deventer, a town on the Yssel, where he had as a
schoolfellow a future Pope, Adrian the VI., and where
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
9
he made astonishing progress, causing Zinthius, one of
the masters, to prophecy that Erasmus would eventually
reach the highest pinnacle of learning. On leaving
school he was, much against his will, induced by his
guardians (he was already an orphan, having lost both
his parents), to enter the Augustinian Monastery of
Steyn, and to become a Monk. Whilst an inmate, he
was allowed by way of solace, to occupy the greater
portion of his time in study, especially of such of the
Greek and Latin classics as could there be met with.
His deliverance from the monastery was owing to his
accomplished scholarship, and happened thus. In the
year 1491 the Bishop of Cambray, being about to set
out for Rome in the hope of becoming a Cardinal, was
in search of a scholar to be his secretary and companion,
and he selected Erasmus. Erom Cambray Erasmus
(leaving the service of the Bishop, who did not go to
Rome after all) proceeded to Paris, and mastered the
studies that were then taught to the students of its
University (chiefly the scholastic philosophy or science
of sophistry, a metaphysical jargon enabling doctors
of theology endlessly to confute one another), living
very poorly, and more or less in pecuniary difficulty,
supported partly by presents, that it was customary for
the rich and noble to make to students, and partly by
begging, which was a common practice of the Monks
of the Mendicant Orders. In 1498 Erasmus visited
this country, remaining here until the year 1500, em
ploying his time a good deal at the. University of
Oxford, and in making the acquaintance of the most
learned and noted Englishmen of that day, especially
Thomas Linacre, Physician to Henry the 8th, William
Grocyn who was engaged at Oxford in giving Lectures
on the Greek Language, Thomas Latimer the theologian,
Thomas More, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Colet,
Dean of St Paul’s and founder of St Paul’s School.
Erasmus appears to have been greatly delighted with
this visit to England, and was much impressed with the
�io Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
number of our learned men, and they too were equally
taken with the varied scholarship of their visitor, almost
inducing him to’ settle at Oxford and give lectures
there. On leaving England, Erasmus was struck down
by fever at Orleans. He recovered, he says, through
the intercession of Saint Genevieve, though not without
the help of a good Physician. In the year 1506 Erasmus
paid a second visit to this country, staying about a year,
renewing his intercourse with his old friends, and visit
ing for the first time the University of Cambridge,
where he was made a Bachelor of Divinity. Leaving
England he again visited Paris, and afterwards crossed
the Alps to see the Cities of Italy, Turin, Venice, and
Rome, always pursuing his studies, and making the
acquaintance of great men and scholars, with whom he
carried on a voluminous and instructive correspondence.
He now obtained from the Pope a release from his
monastic vows. It seems to have long been his ambi
tion to pay a visit to Italy, then renowned through the
world for her antiquities, her arts, and her learning,
where the old classical memories had never died out, and
where, in the days of Erasmus, they were recovering their
influence.
In the year 1509 we find Erasmus again in London,
living with his friend Sir Thomas More, and it was
whilst with him that he produced one of his most bril
liant works—one, indeed, of the most famous satires of
world. Erasmus, reflecting on the name of his friend the
More, thinking how strange so wise a man should bear
the name of fool—(More being the Latin for folly)—
thinking too how many fools there were in the world,
and what various forms folly assumed, conceived the
idea of satirising and turning the weak side of all classes
of men into ridicule, under the pretence of eulogising
folly. Such was the origin of his book ‘Encomium
Morise,’ or ‘ Praise of Eolly.’ In this masterly per
formance, abounding in wit and eloquence, the super
stitions of the Monks of his time, the pride, avarice and
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
11
tyranny of the Nobles are exposed in a vein of scathing
satire. The Miracle-mongers, the traffickers in Pardons,
and the theologians generally are attacked with great
force of humour, and exhibited in lights that make them
appear really ridiculous ; the schoolmen, the Mendicant
Friars, even the Pope himself, being handled in a vein of
sarcastic pleasantry. The fame of this remarkable book
was immense. In a few months it went through seven
editions; Kings, Bishops, Cardinals appear to have
been delighted with it, the great Pope Leo the 10th
reading it through from beginning to end. Of course it
was attacked, though it was long before the Monks
broke silence. Their dull brains did not at first take in
the fact that they were being turned into ridicule, and
that, (to use the expression of Dorpius), their heads
were being fitted with asses’ ears.
The enlightening influence of this little book, in
rousing men to a consideration of the ecclesiastical state
of things around them, forcing them to ask themselves
whether all that they had been taught to believe could
be true, must have been very great.
Soon after this second arrival of Erasmus in England
he was invited to Cambridge University by Fisher the
then Chancellor, a very learned man and a warm patron
of letters, and who was labouring to improve the studies
of the University, which were scarcely so advanced as
those of Oxford in the culture of the great classical
authors and the Greek Language. At Cambridge
Erasmus gave the first Lectures ever given there on
Greek, and was appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of
Divinity. His stay at Cambridge was, however, com
paratively short; he complained that the living and bad
wine did not agree with him, and we soon find him
again travelling about the world, particularly at Ghent,
at Strasburg, and at Basle.
In the year 1508 there appeared from the printing
press of Manutius Aldus in Venice, in a greatly im
proved edition, another very remarkable work of
�12 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
Erasmus termed the 1 Adages,’ that is, proverbs, or
impressive sayings and maxims, which he had labori
ously culled from the whole compass of classical and
polite literature, for the most part derived with diffi
culty from hidden and defaced manuscripts, many of
them in the Greek language. A perfect cyclopaedia of
wit and wisdom, interspersed with reflections and disser
tations of his own, exposing, with admirable humour and
irony, the superstitions and follies of monks and kings.
The Proverbs collected in this vast magazine (one of the
most astonishing monuments of literary diligence exist
ing in the world) amount to upwards of four thousand.
An immense number of copies were sold, and distributed
amongst the thinking portion of the European Public.
In allusion to the Printing-press, as the unconscious
agent in this diffusion of book-knowledge, Erasmus
finely remarks, “ whilst the vast Alexandrian library of
the great Ptolemy was confined to the walls of a single
building, Aldus our printer is constructing a library
which will have no limits but those of the literary
world! ”
Bearing in mind that these brilliant and attractive
Works of Erasmus, diffusing a knowledge of classical
literature, assailing (under the mask of playful wit) the
conduct of Popes, Monarchs, and Ecclesiastics, and
satirising the vices, impostures, and scandals of the
Church and Court of Rome, were being published
during the years immediately preceding the rise of the
Reformation, we cannot doubt how much they effected
in preparing the world for coming events.
But the prodigious learning and resources of Erasmus
were far from being exhausted, and, in the year 1516, he
gave to the learned world, through the printing press of
Froben at Basle, the entire New Testament in Greek,
with a Latin translation and annotations. The work
was dedicated to the Pope, with an account of the ancient
manuscripts that had been used in its production. They
were indeed few in number compared with those that
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
13
have since been discovered and collated, and, with refer
ence to the Apocalypse, there was but one Greek manu
script, and that so defective that Erasmus had to make
up the Greek version by translations of his own from the
Latin. The book was not indeed, in several particulars,
faultless, yet, having regard to the time when it was
composed, to the existing means of accomplishing so
great a work, to the fact that it was the “ editio princeps,” or first edition, of the Greek Testament that had
ever been printed (for, at the time when Erasmus pro
duced his Greek Testament, as well as for centuries
before, the Church Bible was a Latin version of the
Scriptures), and, judging it even by all that has been
effected by the research and accomplishments of the
numerous subsequent critical editors, it is impossible to
deny, that it was a very marvel of ability and industry.
The sale of it was very rapid; upwards of 3,300 folio
copies were disposed of almost immediately. At length
Scholars and Divines, and Princes and Nobility, were
enabled to possess an actual copy of the Christian Scrip
tures in their original tongue. Of course curiosity led
to translations into the vernacular languages which soon
followed, and, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the
debt which we, living now, owe to Erasmus for this
splendid monument of his scholarship, of which, as I
shall have occasion again to refer to it, I will only now
remark, that the annotations are distinguished by that
boldness of criticism which in our day is denounced as
rationalistic. As usual, the book provoked enmity and
censure, again the malevolence of the Monks was
aroused. In reference to his emendations of the vulgate
or Latin text they accused him of impiety in presuming
to correct the Holy Ghost. “Is every fool then,” he
retorted, “to be permitted to corrupt the manuscripts
of the gospels, and a scholar to be declared impious for
restoring what has been corrupted ?” It was also
bitterly attacked by rival scholars, but, when his Greek
was charged with want of elegance, Erasmus simply
�14 Erasmus; his Life, Works} and Influence
replied, “ The apostles did not learn their Greek from
the orations of Demosthenes.”
The next work of importance that engaged the pen of
Erasmus was an edition of the ‘Life and Works of St.
Jerome.’ This was published in July, 1516, in nine
splendid folio volumes. As in former works, so in this,
Erasmus accompanied the text with learned scholia,
that is, brief critical and explanatory notes, in which
all the resources of his vast erudition were called into
requisition to elucidate obscure and doubtful points.
The work was dedicated to Warham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and speedily passed through three editions.
During all this time Erasmus was continually travelling
about, making ceaseless journeys to Churches, Monas
teries, and Universities containing rare or noted manu
scripts, thereby rescuing for the Printing Press those
immortal works of the wise ancients that were hourly
perishing with the worm-eaten parchments on which
they were traced. He had left England for Basle in
1515, but we find him back here again in 1517. Still
however he declined to remain amongst us, partly, he
states in a letter to the Physician of the Cardinal of
• York, on account of the sweating sicknesses, plagues,
and contagious fevers that were of so frequent occur
rence here in the 16th century, arising chiefly, accord
ing to Erasmus (whose observations exhibit consider
able sanitary knowledge), from our disregard of the
laws of health, in the filthy and stifling state, and
defective ventilation, of the ordinary residences of the
people.
This year 1517 signalised the outbreak of the Refor
mation in Germany, and Erasmus was at once involved
in correspondence with Luther, Cardinal Wolsey, Albert
Prince Elector and Cardinal Archbishop of Maintz, and
with the Pope himself. He appears to have been inde
cisive in his theological opinions, and desirous to bring
about some middle course between the antagonistic
views of the Church and the Reformers; but the quarrel
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
i$
soon became too embittered for mediators, and Erasmus,
though clinging to the Roman Church, incurred severe
censure from both sides. As I shall presently more
particularly discuss his position in relation to Luther,
I pass on to the consideration of his principal remaining
literary productions.
There is a work of Erasmus I must mention, for it
shows clearly his humane nature and correct moral prin
ciples. This was his book called ‘ The Complaint of
Peace.’ No man ever detested war more cordially than
he did, and, even in that warlike age, he lifted up his
voice loudly against it. Nothing, he shows, can be more
utterly at variance with war than Christianity, whose
founder is emphatically called “The Prince of Peace.”
He is powerfully severe on the Clergy of his time for
the way in which they foment the warlike passions of
princes and people. “ Priests and Bishops,” he ob
serves, “ leave their churches and follow armies to the
field, waving above the contending hosts the holy Cross,
thus made the symbol of war by those whose mission it
is, before all things, to preserve peace. Their prayers
must indeed be a mere mockery to God, when their very
cannon are named after the Apostles, and engraved with
the images of the Saints !”
In 1524 Erasmus published a paraphrase of the New
Testament, which was esteemed so highly that a copy
of it, translated into English by Nicholas Udal, Master
of Eton College, was, by an order in Council, directed
to be placed in every Parish Church in this Country
beside the Bible.
The last work of the great Scholar I shall mention
was that which is the best known of all—viz., ‘ The
Familiar Colloquies,’ published in 1526, professedly
designed for the instruction of youth, and long de
servedly much read in our schools. It consists of a
large number of conversations on a great variety of
subjects, conducted in the most natural manner, full of
delicate humour, keen irony, and subtle wit. In it the
�16 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
clergy are everywhere represented as idle and corrupt.
Indulgences, auricular confession, and eating fish on
fast days, are satirically laughed at. Again and again
the coarse, overfed, ignorant monks are lashed with
ridicule, and their lives and conduct exposed. The
indignation of the clerical world was now really roused
to resentment, but the success of the work was splendid.
It is related that a publisher in Paris, Colineus, hearing
that it was about to be condemned by the University,
printed no less than 24,000 copies, and sold them all.
However, in the end, the reading of the book was pro
hibited by the Faculty of Theology, on the grounds,
amongst others, that Christians are discouraged by it
from becoming monks, that grammatical is preferred to
theological erudition, and that it contained “ erroneous,
scandalous, and impious propositions, in which the
author, as though he were a heathen, ridicules, satirises,
and sneers at the holy ceremonies and observances of
the Christian Religion.”
From this time Erasmus became the object of attack
by theologians on all sides, and had to defend himself
from the censures of the Sorbonne in Paris. There can
be no doubt that these controversies, and the works from
which they proceeded, had much effect in undermining
the power of the monkish party, in laughing down their
superstitions, and bringing their whole system into con
tempt. But it was not only the monks that were to
blame. Erasmus saw, he says, a new set of fanatics
arising on the reformed side, as ignorant, as presump
tuous, as hostile to liberal culture as the fanatics of the
Church. He dreaded lest the world, instead of being
freed from the yoke of superstition, should merely expe
rience a change of masters. This new Gospel (he writes
of the views of the ignorant adherents of Luther) is pro
ducing a new set of men, so impudent, hypocritical, and
abusive, such liars and sycophants and ranters, agreeing
neither with one another nor with any one else, so uni
versally offensive and seditious, in short, so distasteful
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
17
to me, that if I knew any city in which I should be free
from them I would go there at once.
The enemies of Erasmus of course increased with the
bitterness of his scornful attacks upon their miser
able superstitions, and their gross illiterate ignorance.
“ Every goose now hisses at Erasmus ” (he writes). But,
in his retreat at Basle, on the banks of the Rhine, the
great champion of literary culture still carried on the
theological feud. One of his most characteristic pieces
is the letter of farewell to his assailants that he pub
lished in 1525, in which they are contemptuously styled
“ certain impudent jackdaws, young men, whose igno
rance is matched only by their arrogance.”
In the year 1529 the progress of the reformed faith,
and the violence of the mob, in attacking and defacing
the members and Churches of the Roman Catholic Reli
gion, compelled Erasmus to remove to Friburg. His
account of his flight, given in a letter to a friend, is
extremely graphic and sarcastic. “ The rabble,” he says,
“ heaped such insults on the images of the Saints and
the Crucifix itself, that it was astonishing there was no
miracle, considering how many there always used to be
whenever the saints were even but slightly offended.”
In the year 1534 affairs were sufficiently quiet to
enable Erasmus to return to Basle, where,—whilst re
posing in the hospitable home of his friend Jerome
Froben, the famous printer, and engaged in revising,
“ segra manu ” (he tells us), his latest works, and shortly
after hearing of the tyrannical murder of his eminent
friend Sir Thomas More,—Erasmus was summoned to
meet his last enemy, and on the 12th of February, 1536,
being in the 69th year of his age, he there succumbed to
the attack of death.
Though of the Roman Catholic Faith, no priestly
mummeries were enacted round his death-bed. “He
has died,” exclaimed the illiterate monks in their dogLatin, “ sine Lux, sine Crux.” But the liberal and
beneficent city of Basle knew better how to celebrate the
B
�18 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
event of a great man, whatever his creed, having closed
his career in their midst. The Magistrates, with the
Professors and Students of the University, shared among
them the envied honour of carrying to their last restingplace in Basle Cathedral (a sanctuary for the literary
dead) the remains of the great luminary of the age, the
greatest scholar perhaps of any age, lamented by all
lovers of learning, respected by every crowned head in
Europe, hated only by ecclesiastics incapable, through
ignorance, of appreciating his merits—merits, which, on
any candid review, must ever appear most remarkable.
His attainments were indeed stupendous, and, in his own
age, his powers of reason, imagination, and caustic wit
were unmatched. Though neither physically nor men
tally cast in the heroic mould of Luther ; quite unable,
like him, to have stood alone against the united power
of Church and State, yet, with pen in hand, and sur
rounded by his books, the whole learned world in ex
pectation of what he should utter, Erasmus reigned
supreme I His sarcasms were hurled against vice, igno
rance, and error, with crushing effect. At a time when
literary ignorance was the besetting sin, his variety of
erudition, and unrivalled powers of diffusing knowledge
and inspiring the love of literary culture, were invalu
able. The faculty of humour appears to have been his
most original mental quality. That civil irony, by
whose unsparing use he succeeded in making the super
stitions of his day supremely ridiculous, has never been
surpassed. The dogmas of theology were his aversion.
The sum of our religion, he avers, is Peace, which is to
be preserved by defining only primary points, leaving
the rest to every one’s own judgment. That a man’s
Faith should be looked for in the life he led, not in the
creed he professed. His desire was to correct the
abuses of the Church without rebelling from her autho
rity, to reform her discipline, and recall religion from
ritualistic rites and ceremonies to the simplicity of the
Gospels. His great weapon for effecting such reform
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
19
was knowledge combined with common sense and the
use of reason. Far before his own age, he embodied in
himself what we now term the modern spirit—the spirit,
of doubt and free enquiry. Like the Broad Churchmen
of our day, he had outgrown the narrow orthodoxy of
his Church, and, like them, he conscientiously refused
to separate himself from her communion. He broke off
from Luther, as we shall presently see, .when Luther’s
dogmatic theology and impetuous conduct threatened
rebellion rather than reform, and when reason, literary
culture, and freedom of speech were becoming stifled by
the violent conduct of the Reformers. The sagacious
mind of Erasmus was rather sceptical and critical than
affirmative and dogmatic. In religious strife, the arena
of argument and discussion was his vantage-ground, and
to aid in educating the mind to the skilful use of these
intellectual weapons by means of his well-reasoned
writings was no insignificant contribution to the reli
gious crisis of his age, the great contest with the fana
ticism of the 16th century.
Of the person and manners of Erasmus his friend
Beatus Rhenanus has told us that he had a cheerful
countenance and an agreeable utterance, was a pleasant
companion, a constant friend, generous and charitable.
Leaving the grave of our incomparable scholar, we
must now revert to events which my narrative has some
what outstripped.
In the year 1517 the magnificent taste of John de
Medici, Pope Leo the 10th, was engaged in, ^amongst
other splendid works, the erection of the Church of
St. Peter’s at Rome, and he was pressed for supplies of
money. To replenish his exhausted exchequer he com
missioned Tetzel, a Dominican Friar, to preach through
out Germany a sale of Indulgences, that is, a remittance
from the pains of purgatory and all other punishments
of sin, in consideration of money payments made to the
Pope. A sale of Indulgences for the perpetration of sin,
however nefarious, was nothing novel. It was a recog-
�20 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
nised practice of the Roman Catholic Church ; but the
proceedings of Tetzel, who had been created an Inquisitor
to. give more influence to his mission, were conducted
with unusual indecency and audacity. Travelling
through towns and villages, hawking them about at
fairs, market places, and taverns, his conduct respmhlnd
that of a mountebank or quack doctor, and the temper
of the times was foreboding some intellectual explosion.
Tetzel’s profanity appears to have excited deep disgust
and indignation in the mind of an Augustinian Monk,
Martin Luther, who first remonstrated and then publicly
denounced Tetzel’s whole proceedings as a gigantic
scandal. Drawing up propositions denying the right of
the Pope to pardon sin, denying that Indulgences could
possibly be more than a release from the censures of the
Church, he reduced these to the form of scholastic theses
for discussion, and, on the 31st Oct., 1517, nailed them
publicly to the door of the Church at Wittenberg, with a
challenge to Tetzel and all others whom it might concern
to come forward and publicly confute them. This
slight, but significant, act of an almost obscure Monk
was the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation .’ Almost
all Germany, who had no idea of allowing their money
to be drained to Rome, took up the cause of Luther, who
proceeded to denounce numerous other religious rites
and ceremonies as errors and superstitions of the
Romish Church.
The Pope, failing methods of conciliation, on the
15th of June, 1520, issued a Bull, in which Luther’s
opinions were condemned as heresies, and his books
ordered to be publicly burnt. This proceeding of the
Pope was instantly met by Luther, in a manner and
with a spirit, that at once showed the intrepid and impe
rious character of the man. Causing a huge bonfire to
be lit within the walls of Wittenberg he, on the
20th Dec., 1520, committed the Pope’s Bull to the
flames, together with the Canons and Decretals that set
forth the Pope’s supremacy.
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
21
All communion with the Church of Rome was thus for
ever renounced, and the reformed churches date their
origin from this transaction.
Now, for many years previously to this outbreak, long
before Luther was heard of, Erasmus had been working
for the reformation of the Church ; but a reform, not a
revolution, had been his cherished idea, to be brought
about by the advancement of learning, and the diffusion
of a knowledge of the Scriptures, but to be so effected as
not to create schism, and so that the unity of Chris
tendom under one head should remain unimpaired. The
reckless impulse of the dauntless Luther, who had
sought to shatter the fabric of the Papacy at a single
blow, simply shocked the nervous Erasmus, causing him
to conclude that the advance of knowledge, through
peaceful discussion, and the consequent reform of abuses,
the improvement of morals, and extinction of supersti
tions, would be retarded, rather than aided, by Luther’s
defiant acts.
These illustrious characters were undoubtedly actuated
originally by like motives, and were, at the outset, sin
cerely desirous of acting in concert, mutually discussing
their respective views in a serious written correspondence;
but Erasmus, unable to agree with the Augustinian
theology of Luther, and terrified by his extreme course
of action, had broken off from him, and now indeed
stood aghast at the conflagration, moral and material, that
was spreading from the burning of the Pope’s Bull.
The religious questions at issue between Rome and the
Reformers were thenceforth discussed in Diets or Poli
tical assemblies. The Reformers and their tenets were
condemned by an edict of the Diet of Worms in 1521,
which excommunicated Luther and all his adherents.
At the first Diet of Spires in 1526 it was resolved that
the cruel and persecuting Edict of Worms should not be
carried out, but, at the Second Diet of Spires in 1529
the decision of its First Diet was ruthlessly reversed.
The iniquitous decree of this Second Diet of Spires was
�22 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
solemnly protested against by the Elector of Saxony, the
Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, and other
political powers and great men, whence, as you may
remember, the Reformers derived their designation of
Protestants, by which term all Christian sects that differ
from Rome have ever since been styled.
The religious dissensions still continued, followed, as
always has been the case, by holy wars! in which the
excesses of German peasants and Dutch Anabaptists
were extinguished in the blood of 80,000 victims; but
they were ultimately brought to an end in the year
1555 in an imperial Diet, which decreed that Protestants
who embraced the theological propositions known as
“ The Confession of Augsburg ” should be entirely
exempted from the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff.
And thus at last was reached the first stage of what
religious rulers have termed Toleration, which is, the
insolent permission of men in power, granted to other
men to think and believe on religious questions, and to
worship the Deity, as their reason and conscience may
dictate.
The grand Protestant Reformation, whose historical
outline I have so barely sketched, in order to be under
stood must be considered under two aspects, the Theo
logical and the Historical.
Theologically regarded, the Reformation was the
result of a contest respecting the standard of Religious
Truth, that is to say, whether it was to be found in the
Church or in the Bible, and it has hitherto been, prac
tically, very little more than a change of theological
dogmas ; for, though it effected the abolition of Saint
Worship, and the ceremony of the Mass, the destruction
of images, the eradication of Monkery and the free cir
culation of the Scriptures, it ended in imposing upon
the human mind theological propositions stereotyped in
ecclesiastical creeds, confessions of faith, and articles of
Religion dialectically deduced from the language of an
assumed infallible book, but substituted as bonds, in the
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
23
place of other theological propositions that had been
dogmatically decreed by an alleged infallible church.
Yet, to this extent, it was an immense step in advance,
and even now, notwithstanding all our scientific and
moral progress, a large majority of protestant Christians
firmly adhere to the religious conclusions that were then
arrived at, the basis of which, as the ultimate standard
of theological faith, is thus forcibly described by Chil
lingworth writing in the year 1637 :—
“ The Bible I say, the Bible only, is the Religion of
Protestants. Propose me anything out of this book, and
require whether I believe it or no, and, seem it never so
incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it
with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can
be stronger than this—God hath said so—therefore it is
true.”
Regarded historically, the essential principle of the
great Reformation appears to be of a more profound and
general nature. In the struggle that is ever progressing
between the efforts of the human reason, on the one
hand, to assert its own freedom, and, on the other hand,
the coercion exercised over it by ecclesiastical power, a
struggle that, in our day, is rapidly attaining the pro
portions of an impending conflict between Superstition
and Science, the Reformation may be described as the
sudden expansion of the human mind, invigorated
through the revival of learning, to burst asunder the
bonds of priestly tyranny; to assert the right of every
man to exercise his own judgment in matters of the
highest importance to him ; to inquire into and discuss
them, and to seek for Truth, unfettered by any dogmatic
authority whatsoever, and in the freedom of his indi
vidual reason and conscience.
Seen from this historical point of view, it is not the
dogmatic and unlettered Luther, “bellowing in bad Latin,”
but rather, the cultured and rationalising Erasmus—
“ Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer,
The lord of irony, that master spell— ”
�24 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
who appears as the chief apostle of the Reformation, and
the principles abounding in his writings to be those to
which we now owe our present liberty of religious
thought. He, though but the precursor of bolder
prophets than himself, was the first distinguished enemy
to ignorance and superstition, the first restorer of morality
on the Gospel precepts. If, as was said at the time by
the monks, “ Erasmus laid the egg, but Luther hatched
it,” we may now add, that the continued and still soaring
flight of its vigorous offspring is owing to the prolific
power of the parent, and to those principles of nurture
which the prophetic genius of Erasmus descried. It is
to the development of that culture of the understanding
which he had at heart, and to the freedom of intellectual
discussion which is its natural fruit, that the enlightened
religious opinions of our own day are chiefly owing, and
their resistless advance in this country, since the days
of Chilling worth, is remarkably conspicuous, when read
in the light of the judgment of the judicial Committee
of the Privy Council delivered, in Wilson v. Fendall, the
case of Essays and Reviews, on the 8th of February.,
1864. By virtue of that well-advised and authoritative
declaration of the law, all, both cleric and lay, are
secured in their liberty, as respects the interpretation of
the Bible, to accept “ as parable, or poetry, or legend, the
story of a serpent tempter, of an ass speaking with man’s
voice, of an arresting of the earth’s motion, of water
standing in a solid heap, of an universal deluge dried up
by the wind, of the personality of Satan, together with
many other alleged miraculous events.” All are by that
judgment legally entitled advisedly to maintain and affirm,
that “ the Scriptures are not entirely God’s Word, though
the Word of God is contained in Scripture, and that
the dark patches of human passion and error that
form a partial crust upon it, are to be separated and
distinguished from the bright centre of spiritual truth
within.”
Now our present more accurate knowledge of the nature
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
2$
and contents of the Bible has resulted from the progress
of Biblical Criticism, a secular science, for which, in its
origin, we are very much indebted to the great learning
and labours of Erasmus. Almost the very first general
demand that was created by the revival of letters was to
obtain a sight of the Christian Scriptures, but at that
time they positively had no existence for the people at
large, for they were to be found only in manuscripts
in the Greek, Syriac, Latin, and other ancient or
oriental tongues, few in number, and buried in the
sacristies of Churches, and the libraries of Monasteries
and Universities scattered over Europe. It was the work
of Erasmus, by means of unwearied travel and inces
sant toil, to copy and collate some of the more important
of these, and to publish the first printed edition of the
New Testament in its original tongue. This gigantic
task accomplished, the rest has been comparatively easy.
Thousands of copies of this first edition of the printed
Christian Scriptures were issued and disseminated, and
translations into the vernacular languages were imme
diately made, and then, to some extent, the people at
large obtained the opportunity of reading them, and
comparing with their simple spiritual and moral teach
ing the pompous ceremonial, and ritualistic apparatus, of
the Romish Church. Other editions also rapidly fol
lowed. Industrious scholars vied with one another in
a critical examination of ancient manuscripts, and in
publishing the results. In 1550 the renowned printer
Robert Stephens published his 3rd edition of the Greek
Testament, which contained in the margin notes of the
various readings of the manuscripts he had consulted.
This, the first critical edition, was succeeded by others
on a similar plan, the chief of which you will find speci
fied in the syllabus in your hands, and a conclusion has
been thereby arrived at, which, stated in its simplest
form, you will probably think sufficiently striking, viz.,
That the careful collation of upwards of 600 ancient
manuscripts of New Testament Writings exhibits a total
�26 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
of more than 100,000. various readings, and the discovery
of no single text that can be selected as immaculate.
Such was the condition of things which brought into
existence that most important branch of modern scholar
ship, the secular science of Biblical Criticism, which may
be defined as an intellectual method or discipline, based
on reason and evidence, for applying the truths, the
tests, the logic and canons of proof, of the more exact
sciences to the investigation of the genuineness, the
authenticity, and the true interpretation of the Christian
Records. The light which is now flowing in upon us
from the free, but conscientious, pursuit of this important
study, especially in Germany, Holland, Erance, and
England can hardly be exceeded. It has made its way
in this country where, a generation or so ago, it would
have been thought incredible. It has shown that our
authorised version of the Bible, in many respects
indeed most admirable, is nevertheless so imperfect, that
two companies of translators appointed by authority are
now engaged in revising and correcting it.
Of the various readings in the ancient manuscripts I
will call your attention to one, as the discussion of it
chiefly dates from the publication of Erasmus’s Edition
of the Greek Testament. It is the passage contained
in the 7th and 8th verses of the 5th chapter of the
first General Epistle of St John, known controversially
as “ The Text of the three heavenly witnesses.” It is
commonly found in the Latin, but not in the Greek
Manuscripts.
In your Bibles you will find it in these words—“w
heaven the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and
these three are one. 8. And there are three that bear
witness in earth.” These words you observe are wanting
in the original Greek. It is a text almost crucial with
reference to the theological dogma of the Trinity, and
the controversy respecting it has been, whether the
Trinitarians interpolated it, or the Arians expunged it.
The passage in question was omitted by Erasmus from
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
27
his first and second editions, but was inserted by him in
his third edition, on the presumed authority of a single
Greek manuscript, which was pressed upon him by
Edward Lee, Chaplain to King Henry the 8th and after
wards Archbishop of York. This manuscript, the Codex
Montfortianus, now in the library of Trinity College,
Dublin, was not, apparently, ever seen by Erasmus him
self, and is believed to have been forged between the
years 1519 and 1522 for the express purpose of betray
ing Erasmus into making the desired alteration in his
printed text. At any rate, since the decisive controversy between Professor Porson and Archdeacon Travis
in the year 1790, respecting the genuineness of this
text, the ablest critics are unanimous in rejecting it as
spurious, all the Greek manuscripts of undoubted anti
quity and integrity alike omitting it. As, notwithstand
ing such rejection, our authorised English version,
though professing to be translated from the original
Greek, at present retains it, it is a matter of expectant
curiosity to see what our “ New Testament Company of
Translators ” will do with it.
A concise account of some of the most ancient exist
ing manuscripts of the New Testament will place in
perhaps yet stronger light the source of, and necessity
for, the science of biblical criticism.
,
The autographs or manuscripts that were written
by the Apostles or their amanuenses have long since
perished, and we have no information whatever con
cerning their history. No manuscript of the Scriptures
now extant can be traced higher than .the fourth century
after Christ.
At the commencement of the Christian era the Latin,
as a general language, was gradually supplanting the
Greek, and it appears from the testimony of Augustin
that the Latin Church possessed numerous versions of
the Scriptures in the Latin language made at the first
introduction of Christianity. Hence, of the most ancient
now existing manuscripts of the New Testament Scrip-
�2 8 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
tures, some are in Latin, and some are in Greek ; and it
has not been possible to ascertain with certainty which
of these are the oldest.
The interesting subject of the date, integrity, and
authenticity of the numerous manuscripts of the Chris
tian Scriptures is involved in so wide a controversy and
variety of critical opinion, that even the few facts I
shall allege in such observations as I can now venture
to make must be accepted partly as probabilities only,
in which very eminent scholars concur.
Of the most ancient and important existing Greek
manuscripts, there are three, respectively known as the
Codex Alexandrinus, the Codex Vaticanus, and the
Codex Cantabrigiensis or Bezse; and there are three,
- equally in some respects, important Latin manuscripts,
probably as ancient, or perhaps more so, than the three
Greek ones—viz., the Codex Brixianus, the Versio
Vulgata, and the Codex Vercellencis. None of these
manuscripts are perfect, and all differ more or less from
one another. They exhibit, however, three distinct
classes of text, respectively traceable to the territories
whence they were originally derived—viz., Constan
tinople or Byzantium, Palestine, and Egypt or Alex
andria. Viewed under this threefold distribution, the
ancient Latin manuscripts coincide so remarkably, in
style and arrangement of language, with the ancient
Greek ones, that I can conveniently group them together
in the following remarks.
The Greek Codex Alexandrinus is a manuscript pre
served in our British Museum, where part of it may be
seen open in a glass case. It consists of four volumes,
three of which contain the Old, and the fourth the New
Testament and other writings. Its Pedigree has been
traced with singular success. It was a present to King
Charles the First from Cyrillus Lucaris, Patriarch of
Constantinople in the year 1628. Cyrillus found it in a
monastery on Mount Athos, and took it with him to
Alexandria, whence he brought it to this country. It
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
29
was written, according to tradition, by Thecla the martyress, a noble Egyptian lady, shortly after the Council
of Nice, which assembled in the year 325. Its delicate
penmanship is characteristic of a female hand. It is
written on vellum in uncial or capital letters, an acknow
ledged mark of high antiquity. A fac-simile of so much
of this manuscript as contains the New Testament was
published in London in 1786 by the late Dr. Woide,
with types that were cast for the purpose.
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Codex Alexandrinus in the Gospels is the Codex
Brixianus, a manuscript of great beauty and of the most
expensive character, being written on purple vellum in
silver characters. It is attributed to the learned Philastrius Brixiensis, who was Bishop of Brescia in Italy in
the year 381, and it is preserved at Brescia in the church
there of his name. It has often been inspected by
scholars. The text represents the ancient Italic version
of the Scriptures previously to its revision by St. Jerome,
in the latter part of the 4th century.
These Codices Alexandrinus in the Gospels, and
Brixianus entirely, are exemplars of what is termed the
Constantinopolitan recension, or Byzantine Text.
The Greek Codex Vaticanus is a manuscript preserved
in the Library of the Vatican at Rome. It is written on
vellum in uncial letters, in three columns in each page,
but without any division of chapters or verses. The
uniform shape of the letters and colour of the ink seem
to show that it was written throughout by the same
hand. This manuscript contains, with some exceptions,
the entire Bible, and is thought to contest the palm of
antiquity with the Codex Alexandrinus already referred
to. It has been repeatedly collated. Fac-similes of parts
of it have, from time to time, been published, and an
entire printed edition of it appeared a few years ago at
Rome under the auspices of the Cardinal Angelo Mai—
a version that has been received with a not unnatural
shyness on the part of Protestant Divines.
�30 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Greek Codex Vaticanus is the Versio Vulgata, which
is a manuscript representing the Latin text as it was
corrected by St. Jerome at the instance of Pope Damusus,
who flourished about the year 366. It is also preserved
in the library of the Vatican, and forms the foundation
of the Roman Catholic authorised Bible, declared to be
authentic by the Council of Trent, and which, as many
of you know, is still, as it has always been, a book in the
Latin language styled ‘ Biblia Sacra.’
These Codices Vaticanus and Versio Vulgata are
archetypes of the Palestine Text.
The Greek Codex Cantabrigiensis or Bezaa is a manu
script preserved in the Library of Cambridge University
(where it can be seen under a glass case), to which it
was presented in the year 1581 by Theodore Beza, a
French Protestant and refugee. In his letter of pre
sentation Beza states that it was found in the monastery
of St. Irenaeus, at Lyons, where it had evidently lain for a
long time. It contains only the Gospels and the Acts of
the Apostles. It has, of course, been often collated, and
an exact facsimile of it was published under the patronage
of the University in the year 1793. It is also written in
uncial letters, and is confessedly of a very high antiquity,
written probably between the fifth and seventh centuries.
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Codex Cantabrigiensis is the Codex Vercellencis, a
manuscript that has been immemorially ascribed to
Eusebius, Bishop of Verceli, as being the result of a
revision of the then existing text, undertaken by him at
the desire of his friend Pope Julius, who flourished about
the year 331. It is deposited among the relics which
are reverently preserved and shown in St. Eusebius’s
Church at Verceli in Piedmont. There is no reason to
doubt its extreme antiquity, or its originality.
These Codices Cantabrigiensis and Vercellencis, and
parts of the Codex Alexandrinus are now the most ancient
existing source of the Egyptian or Alexandrine Text.
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
31
These several manuscripts, with the Codex Sinaiticus
(discovered by Tischendorf in a monastery on Mount
Sinai in 1859, probably the oldest MS. extant), and
one of the ancient Syriac version (of which time does
not permit further mention), carry the critical inquirer
as near to the source of the sacred writings as it is now
possible to ascend. Not one of them can be accepted as
exhibiting an immaculate text. The utmost that an
orthodox critic of the highest authority, the late eminent
scholar Dr. Bentley, could say with reference to the
textual veracity of Scripture is, that the real text of the
sacred writers does not now (since the originals have
been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edi
tion, but is dispersed in them all. Whilst another
accomplished critic, Dr. Nolan, in his learned work
on the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, has declared,
that “ the notion of a literary identity between the
present manuscripts of the inspired text and the originals
which were published by the sacred writers is a vulgar
error, with as little foundation in reason as justification
in fact.”
The truth seems to be that the Scriptures, in common
with all other ancient writings, have been preserved and
diffused by human transcription; hence the admission of
mistakes has been unavoidable. These, increasing with
the multitude of copies, necessarily produced a great
variety of different readings, the majority of which, it
should however be observed, are very minute, and, did
they not relate to a book of which, though it be but a
modern version of the lost original, it has again and
again, and still continues to be, solemnly asserted by
our evangelical theologians that every word of it is
inspired, would be regarded as of a trifling and insigni
ficant character.
Returning to the argument of the Lecture, I conclude
by affirming that the essential Spirit of the Protestant
Reformation, and its cardinal principle, are to be sought
for under that which I have characterised as its his-
�32
Erasmus; his Life, Works, &c.
torical aspect, with which are associated the name and
labours of Erasmus, and that they are manifested in the
irrepressible aspirations of the human mind, enlightened
by advancing Science, to establish the right of every
individual to judge for himself, that is, to follow, in
matters most deeply affecting his welfare and peace of
mind, the decisions of his reason, and the dictates of his
moral sense, thereby to emancipate himself from the
yoke of ecclesiastical systems, and the thraldom of
theological creeds, which superstition has invented, and
sacerdotalism has transmitted, and which, all history
assures us, have ever been enforced by the pestilent
practice of Religious Persecution. This Spirit of the
Reformation, however hostile to priestcraft, is friendly
to Truth, by respecting the rights of conscience, and by
encouraging the fearless advance of religious knowledge,
through liberty of inquiry, freedom of thought, and out
spoken honesty of expression.
And, whilst we have amongst us men like Darwin,
Huxley, Tyndall, Carpenter, to keep alive the lamp of
Science ; others, like Dean Stanley, and Bishop Colenso,
to rival the illustrious Erasmus in sacred scholarship
and in critical acumen; others again, like the singleminded and unselfish Voysey, who, however much
resenting the tyranny of the letter, are moved by the
spirit of Truth to proclaim for all the loving Father
hood of God, we may rest assured that the sceptre of
knowledge must, eventually, be wholly wrested from the
grasp of superstition, and that, meanwhile, the Progress
of the Reformation cannot be stayed.
PRINTED BY C W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, LONDON, W.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Erasmus : his life, works, and influence upon the spirit of the Reformation.
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Finch, A. Elley
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London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 28th February 1875. Printed by C.W. Reynell. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1875
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N217
CT134
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Desiderius Erasmus
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Conway Tracts
Desiderius Erasmus
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Reformation
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VICTORIES OF SCIENCE
IN ITS
WARFARE WITH SUPERSTITION.
•
’ *
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 20th FEBRUARY, 1881,
2U■
BY
A. ELLEY
FINCH.
j'lwdu* 1
i-niiHfirhi
-sawi)
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1881..
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to
encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical,
intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially
in their bearing upon the improvement and social well-being of
mankind.
PRESIDENT.
W. B. Carpenter, Esq., C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
Professor Alexander
Bain.
Charles
Darwin, Esq.,
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq.,
D.C.L., Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S.,
F.S.A.
Ser Arthur
Hobhouse,
K.C.S.I.
Thomas Henry Huxley,
Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S.
Benjamin Ward Richard
son, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.
Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode,
Esq.,
LL.D., Pres.R.S.
John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D.,
F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ABE DELIVERED AT
ST.. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May.)
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series) ending 25th April,
1881, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, trans
ferable (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single
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Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
•
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To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
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For tickets, and for list of the Lectures published by the Society,
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Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Shilling (Reserved Seats);—Six
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and One Penny. . .
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author,
now printed, are—on
,
“ Erasmus ; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Price 3d., or post free 3|d.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modem
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.” (Price 3d., or post
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.
• .
’9 f
Can be obtained (on remittance by letter of postage stamps or
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Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days
of Lecture; or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street, W.
�SYLLABUS.
Vast number, variety, and vacillation of Religious Beliefs, pre
sented to us by the history of the Human Race.
Distribution amongst mankind of the eight great Theologies
(book-religions) of the present day, viz., Zoroastrianism—
Brahmanism—Buddhism—Confucianism —Tao-ism—Mosaism—
Christianism—Mahommedanism.
No generally acknowledged standard of Theological truth,
and why.
Theology explained as a human (logical) system, based upon
the blending of Religion with Superstition.
Religion as defined by Herbert Spencer, the late Lord Amberley,
and Dr. James Martineau.
Superstition defined as credulity concerning manifestations
of the Supernatural inconsistent with the experienced order and
veracity of Reason and Nature.
Science explained as generalized human knowledge of Natural
Phenomena.
The criticism of Science purifies Theology by purging it of
Superstitions, thereby compelling it to undergo transmutations
corresponding to the progress of human intelligence.
Illustrations from the conflict of Science with the following
Superstitions:—
1. The relative magnitude, flat form, and immobility of the
Earth. (Conflict with Astronomical Science.)
2. The six days creation of the world 6,000 years ago.
(Conflict with Geological Science.)
3. The government of human life by Special Providence.
(Conflict with Physical Science.)
4. The Theological theory of disease, involving miracle-cure,
relic-cure, prayer-cure, &c. (Cwflict with Sanitary
Science.)
5. Anthropomorphic conceptions of the Nature, Attributes,
and Will of Deity. (Conflict with Mental and Mol'd
Science.)
Probability that popular Theologies are still saturated with
Superstitions (e.g., belief in the objective efficacy of sacerdotal
supplications, humiliations, and asceticisms, supernatural revela
tions, and exclusive salvations) which the expansion of Science
must eventually explode.
Summary of evils of life inflicted by Superstition, and ameli
orations of human well-being achieved by Science, showing that
the increase of Health, Happiness, and the Moral Virtues is
coincident with the decline of Superstition and the advancement
of Science.
The debt Religion owes to Science.
�THE VICTORIES OF SCIENCE
IN ITS
WARFARE WITH SUPERSTITION.
HE modern student 'of Universal History, seeking
T to enlarge and generalize his conception of human
nature by the contemplation of the life of man in almost
every discovered clime, and throughout the ages of
recorded time, finds himself at the confluence of the
greatest number of streams of knowledge that have ever
been found flowing and converging together; greatly
embarrassed therefore, not to say overwhelmed, by the
multiplicity and diversity of his materials. .
Even limiting his research to that emotional and
imaginative yet transcendently interesting aspect of the
human mind presented by religious phenomena, he
quickly discovers that he is surrounded by a vast number,
variety, and almost incessant fluctuation of Beliefs con
cerning the supernatural, that have everywhere been
found more or less prevailing from the earliest dawn of
authentic history.
On the one hand, it is remarkable that no people, or
trace of a people, has hitherto been discovered absolutely
destitute of some of the ultimate elements or sentiments
of Beligion, Travellers and thinkers entertaining diverse
views on historical, political, and social questions, who
have made the early history of man, or his most savage
condition subjects of careful study, are really agreed on
this fundamental point.
On the other hand, the most civilized and polished
nations on the fa,ce of the globe have exhibited, and still
�6
The Victories of Science in its
exhibit almost endless differences, divisions, and distinc
tions in their theological creeds, rites, and ceremonies.
The time now at our disposal would not suffice for
the slightest allusion to the numerous Religions or
Mythologies of even the chief Nations of the ancient
world. Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians,
Arabians (before conversion), Greeks, Romans, various
Teuton, Celtic, and Sclavonic Nations, the Astecs of
Mexico, the Incas of Peru—all having their indigenous
and various ways of regarding and. worshipping the
supernatural—must now be passed by, in order that I
may concentrate some general observations, suggested by
so endless a variety of supernatural beliefs, upon those
great Theologies or book-religions which constitute the
religious faiths of the present inhabitants of our globe—
viz.—(taking them in the order of their antiquity)—
Zoroastrianism, with its sacred Zend-Avesta, the religion
of the Parsees, descendants of the ancient Persians—
Brahmanism and Buddhism, with their sacred Vedas and
Tripitaka, the chief religions of the inhabitants of the
great Indian Peninsula.— Confucianism and Tao-ism
with their sacred books of Kings and Tad-te-King, the
religions of the Chinese — Mosaism with the Hebrew
Scriptures, the religion of the Jews—Christianity with
the New Testament, the religion of modem Europeans
and Americans—and Mahommedanism, with its sacred
volume the Koran, the religion of the Turks and
Arabians, and other considerable peoples in Asia.
The numbers of the respective members of these
several faiths, as given in Johnston’s Physical Atlas,
may be summed up thus—assuming the entire population
of the earth at 1,000 millions, the Christians constitute
340 millions, the Buddhists 300 millions, the Brahmins
130 millions, the Mahommedans 124 millions, the Jews
6 millions, and all other religions 100 millions. A some
�Warfare' with Superstition.
7
what different proportion is cited by Professor Max
Muller from the geography of Berghaus; where the
Buddhists are stated to constitute 31 per cent, of the
entire population of the globe, the Christians 30 per
cent., the Mahommedans 15 per cent., the Brahmins
13 per cent, the Jews a fraction of 3, and all other
religions 8 per cent. These different estimates call of
course be only roughly approximate, but either is
sufficiently near for illustrating our present purpose.
If we looked somewhat closer we should find that
these several religious faiths are mostly subdivided in
ternally into numerous conflicting sects. Christianity,
the religion of the most intellectual and cultured peoples
in existence, is almost infinitely so divided. In Pro
fessor Schaff’s comprehensive and learned work upon
‘ The Creeds of Christendom ’ we are furnished with the
literal texts of nearly 100 distinct creeds, confessions,
articles and formularies of faith of the almost endless
denominations among which dogmatic Christianity has
now become dispersed.
i“
When the mind is thus brought into the simultaneous
presence of the irreconcilable dogmas of the numerous
and conflicting theological faiths, all devoutly believed
in by their respective worshippers, it is difficult to
conceive how any one of them can be considered as
constituting a supernatural universal scheme necessary
for the Salvation of Mankind, seeing th^it it has not,
after upwards of 1,800 years, been believed in, or even
sb much as heard of by more than about a third part
of the great human race.
In view of such manifold differences of theological
belief as a simple comparison of creeds discloses, it is
almost obvious to observe that there can be no generally
acknowledged standard or infallible test of theological
truth. To use the words of a late accomplished historian—-
�8
The Victories of Science in its
Henry Thomas Buckle—“ Theological systems are sub
jects upon which different persons and different nations,
equally honest, equally enlightened, and equally com
petent, have entertained and still entertain the most
different opinions, which they advocate with the greatest
confidence, and support by arguments perfectly satis
factory to themselves, but contemptuously rejected by
their opponents.”
It is so very difficult to place oneself at the point of
view of any religion save our own that we invariably
hear with amazement the arguments or evidence adduced
by the advocates of other religions. Dr. Sprenger, in
the course of a theological discussion, was seriously
asked by a Mussulman how he could possibly disbelieve
the religion of Islam, seeing that Mahomet’s name was
written on the gates of Paradise I and Dr. Morell, in his
thoughtful work on “ The Philosophy of Religion,” relates
the following authentic incident. A distinguished friend
of his in the East had been arguing for some time with
a Mahommedan upon the evidences of Christianity, and
apparently with some success. At length the Mahom
medan, who had been listening attentively, exclaimed—
“ I tell you what it is, Rajah. You Franks are very clever
people; God has given you the power to make ships and
houses and penknives, and to do a great many wonderful
things, but he has granted to us what he has denied to
you—the knowledge of the true Religion.”
The philosopher, though he is confident that all theo
logical systems cannot be wholly true, yet feels that in
the search after truth it must be possible, however
difficult, to arrive at some explanation that may seem
to reconcile the existence of so many divergent faiths;
and if we look a little carefully into the constituents
of theology we may I think discover a clue to the desired
solution. Now we find on examination of any theology
�Warfare with Superstition.
9
or book-religion that it essentially consists of a body of
connected propositions, logically deduced by the human
mind from certain assumed to be inspired writings.
So long then as to err is human, and man remains
short of being infallible, it is clear that such a system of
knowledge must contain some amount of error, and we
may therefore assert with tolerable accuracy, that every
theology the world has seen will be found on analysis to
be compounded of two elements—viz., a germ or sub
stratum of probable truth, and a superstructure or ad
mixture of positive error. The substratum of truth must
ultimately be the same in all theologies, but their several
superstructures of error will be found to vary; partly in
accordance with difference of climate and other geogra
phical circumstances ; partly on account of the differing
race or genius of the peoples, and their stage of civilization,
amongst whom the various theologies have respectively
arisen, or by whom they have since been adopted; and
partly from the dissimilar mental idiosyncracies of their
respective founders or principal expositors.
For the purpose of our argument this afternoon, we
may conveniently designate the substratum of truth as
Religion, and the superstructure of error as Superstition.
Now, keeping this simple distinction clearly in view, we
shall find that notwithstanding the abuse and vituperation
which the Religious World (as it is phrased), have so
incessantly heaped upon Science and its professors, men
of science, whose noble purpose ever is simply to arrive
at truth, and who, for that end, would impress on us the
duty of enquiry, and the folly of credulity, have in reality
never attacked Religion at all, but that in their discoveries
and contentions for the purpose of enabling truth to pre
vail, they have only been attacking or unmasking the
falsehood and error that are ever found lurking in the
guise of Superstition. Superstition—that incubus upon
�IO
The Victories of Science in its
the human mind, whose malediction was so eloquently
pronounced by Buckle, who declared that against the
vitality of that dark and ill-omened principle there was
only one weapon, and that weapon was Science.
I will now define more exactly what we should under
stand by the terms Religion and Superstition, in connection
with the present discourse.
Religion, whatever other quality we claim for it, must
certainly be regarded as true. Its intellectual meaning
then must be strictly limited to assertions that cannot be
contradicted by the discoveries of Science now or hereafter,
or by the truly religious assumption of any theology
whatever; for religious and scientific truth must ever be
one. In reference to this its fundamental requisite, we
find that Religion has been defined by many thoughtful
minds. Thus, our profound philosopher Herbert Spencer
has described it as “ our consciousness of an Inscrutable
Power or Cause manifested to us through all phenomena,
but whose nature transcends intuition, and is beyond
imagination.” The late lamented Lord Amberley, in his
exhaustive “ Analysis of Religious Belief,” describes Re
ligion as ‘ an abstract indefinable pervading sentiment
corresponding to the relation subsisting between the
hyperphysical (or supernatural) power in the Universe,
and the hyperphysical entity in Man.” Dr. James
Martineau, one of the most highly cultured and liberalminded of our theologians, has defined or distinguished
Religion and Science thus—“Science discloses the method
of the World, Religion its cause, and there is no conflict
between them, except when either forgets its ignorance of
what the other alone can know.”
Dr. Martineau however does not leave his definition
there. He boldly ventures into the region of assumptions,
and affirms “that the universe which includes us and folds
us round is the life-dwelling of an Eternal Mind ; that the
�Warfare with Superstition.
•
11
world of our abode is the scene of a moral government
incipient but not yet complete; and that the upper zones
of human affection above the clouds of self and passion
raise us into the sphere of a Divine Communion.” These
three assumptions he considers to be independent of any
possible result of the natural sciences.
Now let us turn to the consideration of what we are
to understand by the term Superstition. Here we have
to deal with something that should be regarded as the
opposite of Religion, for it is something, which taking its
rise from the faculty of fear or dread of the unknown,
imaginatively figures to itself the features of some super
natural or super-human power which is manifested in
ways that are inconsistent with our knowledge of the
established order of nature and the veracity of human
reason; based as such knowledge is on the verified dis
coveries of science and on the uniformity and analogy of
invariable human experience. Superstition then is that
which assumes thus to know and to describe the super
natural. But what, we may ask, is the supernatural ?
It was well argued by the sublime philosopher Spinoza
(whose noble moral life, and subtle thoughts have lately
been so powerfully portrayed by the pen of our good
friend and lecturer Frederick Pollock) that “ we cannot
pretend to determine the boundary between the natural
and the supernatural until the whole of nature shall be
open to our knowledge,” and the late Oxford professor,
Baden Powell, in his striking Essay on the Order of
Nature has remarked, and in approval of this acute
observation of Spinoza, that the supernatural can really
never be a matter of science or knowledge at all, for
the moment it is brought within the cognizance of
reason it ceases to be supernatural; and he affirms that
all assumed knowledge of the supernatural is the off-
�12
.
The Victones of Science in its
spring of ignorance, and the parent of superstition and
idolatry.
Now let us briefly consider what, in connection with
our subject, we should understand by the term Science.
Science you know does not pretend to deal with the
supernatural. Its views and its researches are limited
entirely to Nature. The natural phenomena, matter,
force, and energy are its sources of knowledge, whilst
its organon of induction, or methods of investigation
subordinate the suggestions of the imagination and the
emotions to the dictates of Beason and the evidence
of Nature — Science then simply signifies methodized
or reasoned knowledge of the experienced course of
Nature, i.e. those invariable co-existences and successions
of phenomena — which the human mind discovers by
accurate observation and reflection, and then generalizes
as laws of Nature or unalterable rules constituting the
actual or ultimate government of the course of our
lives. In an abstract sense these laws, being inferences
drawn by the human mind from the observed uniformity
of Nature, may be said to possess in themselves no
governing power ; and that the force we seem to observe
in natural law may in reality be a force behind Nature.
This criticism many of you may remember was most
ably and lucidly submitted to us by our respected Presi
dent Dr. Carpenter in the opening lecture of this year.
But the practical danger of pressing this metaphysical
assumption of some recondite force, of which Science
knows and can know nothing, appears to be this, that it
has a manifest tendency to cause us to retrogade from
Science back to Superstition, for the mystery it involves
inevitably allures the mind to disregard the clearly
observed Law, and to make its appeal to the force or
power assumed to exist behind the law.
�Warfare with Superstition.
13
Now, so far as scientific knowledge extends, the exis
tence of any such force has nowhere been proved.
Natural law is apparently universal and ultimate. “ The
growing belief” observes Herbert Spencer “in the uni
versality of law is so conspicuous to cultivated minds as
scarcely to need illustration, but,” (he shrewdly adds,)
“ Though the fact is sufficiently familiar, the philosophy
of the fact is not so.” “ A natural philosopher,” (says
Professor Jowett) “ capable of seeing creation with a real
scientific insight, would behold the reign of law every
where ; one and continuous in all the different spheres
of knowledge, in all the different realms of Nature,
throughout all time, and over all space.” “ And,” (says
Dr. Carpenter, referring for instance to the law of gravi
tation) “ we feel an assurance of its truth which nothing
save a complete revolution in the world of matter or in
the world of mind can ever shake.”
Although then the inference which the mind draws
from observing the uniformity of Nature is, at the out
set, simply a scientific assumption, similar to the meta
physical assumption of a force existing behind Nature,
yet the substantial difference between the two is really
this—that whilst the metaphysical assumption ever
remains an assumption, the scientific assumption becomes
verified as true through the evidence of universal
experience.
Such undoubtedly are the conclusions of science, and
if they cannot be disproved I submit to you, not specu
latively, but as an important practical matter, that we
should be counselled to regulate our lives in obedience to,
or conformity with the discovered and verified Law of
Nature, and not in reference to some unknown force
assumed to exist behind Nature.
If now we turn and limit our attention to the more
recent history of European Communities we find that
�14
The Victories of Science in its
their advance in civilization, that is in material and
social comfort, and in the conveniences and even neces
saries of civilized life, has progressed in a remarkable
manner parallel with the development of Science. There
is scarcely an improvement in real life that is not strictly
traceable to scientific discovery or invention, and all
such discovery and invention being the result of the
exercise of natural human sagacity is, by its very nature,
antagonistic to Superstition; and the process of continu
ally ascertaining and applying the natural law, by which
the events of life on earth are found to be really regu
lated, has the necessary gradual effect of purifying
theology, so far. as it superstitiously attributes such
events to the immediate action of supernatural causes,
and thereby of compelling theology to undergo interpre
tations and modifications corresponding more or less
closely, to the continual progress of human intelligence.
We shall I think meet with ample evidence of this
progressive change in theological beliefs if we examine,
by way of illustration, some few of the more con
spicuous examples of that ceaseless conflict which Science,
since the establishment of Christianity in Europe, has
ever had to wage with superstition, and where it has
come into collision with the prevailing theological dogmas
of the day.
The first of these memorable contests which I will
mention relates to the supposed magnitude, immobility,
and flat form of the Earth. At the time when this con
flict seriously arose (about the beginning of the 16th
century), the Bible was universally believed to be an
inspired supernatural authority for every matter asserted
or treated of within its various pages, and its true
interpretation in any ambiguous matter to have been
authoritatively declared in the dogmas decreed by suc
cessive Councils of the Church, or in the commentaries
�Warfare with Superstition.
15
of a succession of personages of extraordinary learning
and sanctity termed the Fathers, and it was not only
thought to be utterly fallacious but to be awfully wicked
for anyone to set up an opinion adverse to so revered a
weight of authority as the Bible, Councils, and Fathers
combined was held to be.
Amongst other matters of fact, believed to have been
thereby decided as infallibly true, were the size and
shape of the Earth. It was declared to be the largest
Or chief body in the Universe, and in form or shape to
be a flat plane—and relatively immoveable—and that the
sun, moon, and stars all moved round it; and every
attempt to show, from observation of Nature or calcula
tions of the reason based on such observation, that these
views were physically untrue was met for a long time
with simple scorn and derision : which only became con
verted into the actual persecution of Science and its
professors when so large an amount of evidence to the
contrary had been collected, and marshalled in such a
way as to produce a profound impression upon the lay
intelligence of the age, and when therefore the scientific
views could no longer be safely ignored by ecclesiastical
power.
This evidence I can only glance at, and indeed we are
all now of course more or less familiar with it. For
instance, the voyages of those adventurous navigators
Columbus and Vasco de Gama in the years 1492—97,
and of Magellan in the year 1519, who had amongst them
actually sailed round the earth, proving to demonstration
by this astonishing achievment that it was of definite and
comparatively small size, and not in form a flat plane, but
a circular or globular body. Then the startling astro
nomical researches of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and
Kepler, had resulted in demonstrating the Earth’s motion
round the Sun. That it was the Sun that was stationary
�16
The Victories of Science in its
and not the Earth: and then Galileo who, supplementing
previous discoveries by his own, and by the aid of the
telescope, then recently invented, verified, visually as well
as mathematically, the great outline of our Solar System
in a manner that utterly contradicted and indeed outraged
all that men had been taught to believe, and did then
verily believe, on the faith of scriptural and patristic
authority.
The discoveries resulting from the invention of the
telescope were indeed simply astounding, and they exer
cised such a withering influence upon the prevailing
orthodox theories that many of the theologians refused
even to look through the telescope, being afraid to behold
the heavenly phenomena then revealed for the first time
to mortal eyes. A most amusing letter on the subject
from Galileo to Kepler, written in the year 1609 has
been preserved: “Oh, my dear Kepler,” he writes, “how
I wish we could have one hearty laugh together. Here,
at Padua, is the professor of Philosophy, whom I have
repeatedly requested to look at the moon and planets
through my glass, pertinaciously refusing to do so.
Why are you not here ? What laughter we should have
at this glorious folly, and to hear the professor labouring
before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as with
magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the
sky! ”
Now Galileo, you remember, was accused of having
attacked Religion; he was prosecuted accordingly, and,
though the consummate audacity of the infallible Roman
Church has since been equal to the denial of its com
plicity in his condemnation—he was summoned before
the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, the grand ecclesi
astical Court of the time, and he was made, as you know,
to recant all his scientific convictions. We have the
exact words of his recantation, and they sre still worthy
�Warfare with Superstition.
17
of being repeated. Galileo was compelled to declare—
first, bis proposition, “that the Sun is the Centre of the
World and immovable from its place,” is absurd, philo
sophically false, and formally heretical, because it is
expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. Secondly, his
proposition, “ that the Earth is not the Centre of the
World nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a
diurnal motion,” is absurd, philosophically false, and
theologically considered, erroneous in faith.
Now it should be observed that the Cardinal Inquisi
tors who sentenced Galileo were amongst the most
enlightened ecclesiastics of their age; they were not bad
men, they acted conscientiously according to their light,
and their views were in harmony with the generally
accepted religious knowledge and sentiments of the
time.
The case therefore was one in which it was solemnly
adjudged by theologians that Science had attacked and
was in conflict with Religion. We, living now, know
perfectly well that it was nothing of the sort—that it
was Science in possession of the truth, sapping the
superstitions that formed the superstructure of the theo
logical system of the day; and now every Schoolboy is
taught that Galileo’s recanted propositions are matters of
verified astronomical science, and therefore cannot be
contradictory to, but must be in harmony with, real re
ligious truth. Thus the discoveries and reasoning of these
astronomers and their illustrious successors Newton,
Laplace, Herschel, and divers others, constitute the
first complete victory achieved by Science over Super
stition.
I need not stop to dilate upon the deep importance to
our thoughts and lives of the transcendent truths dis
covered by Astronomers, having given a summary of the
subject in a lecture delivered here four years ago, and
�18
The Victories of Science in its
still in print, “ On the Influence of Astronomical discovery
“ in the development of the human Mind.”
We will now turn to a second illustration of the main
argument of the present lecture. Until quite recently,
almost within the memory of living men, we were sup
posed to possess in the Bible a supernatural revelation of
the Creation of the World, and the time when and the
manner in which it took place. There are ecclesiastical
commentaries on the book of Genesis which undertake to
inform the reader by means of biblical interpretation the
exact month and day of the week when this stupendous
event occurred. Generally however, what is known as
Archbishop Ussher’s chronology was believed as a part of
religious faith, and that system of dates placed the Crea
tion as occurring precisely 4004 years before the birth of
Christ; and the authority of other books of the Penta
teuch is explicit and confirmatory of the Creation having
been accomplished in six days, and according to the
method described in the opening chapters of Genesis.
We read therein, amongst other amazing assertions,
that God rested on the seventh day, and we, or those to
whom these writings are assumed to have been addressed,
are commanded to keep the seventh day holy on that
account, and there can be no doubt of belief in these
narrative and injunction being considered as an essen
tial part of religious faith. Indeed the wearying gloom
and austerity in which the religious world still struggle
to retain our Sunday are strictly traceable to credulity
in the superstition in question.
Now, the science of Geology, which, as most of you
know, consists primarily of an actual examination of the
Earth’s crust or surface and strata beneath for the pur
pose of ascertaining what they may teach concerning the
Earth’s age and history, establishes the existence of a
multiplicity of facts which are utterly contradictory to
�Warfare with Superstition.
19
and subversive of^-first, the alleged creation of the Earth
only some 6,000 years ago, and secondly, of its present
order of inhabitants, vegetable, animal, and human,
having then been brought into existence in the course
of the six days mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and
in the order of succession therein particularised. How
thoroughly irreconcileable with the Biblical account of
the Creation are the scientific conclusions of Geology
will sufficiently appear from the consideration of, amongst
others, the two following well-established geological con
clusions :—Evidence has been obtained in Egypt of the
existence of inhabitants to some extent civilized in that
country 13,000 years ago, and geologists of eminence,
however differing on the details of their science are
agreed that the present condition of the rocks over and
near to which flow the Falls of Niagara evidencing the
recession of the falls from Queenstown to their present
site, has been occasioned by the continuous action of
water throughout a period of 30,000 years—and the
most trustworthy and recent geological authorities, such as
Lyell, Croll, Darwin, Haeckel, Boyd-Dawkins, and Geikie
concur in considering that the antiquity of man is to be
reckoned not by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of
thousands of years !
But I need not occupy your time by considerations
showing how utterly fallacious were the religious notions
on the subject derived simply from the study of the
Scriptures—their fallacy is now on all hands conceded.
I may quote as recent theological authority for our
present scientific views the statement of the Bev. Bobert
Main, Badcliffe observer in the University of Oxford:—
“ Some school books,” he remarks, “ still teach to the
ignorant that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and that
all things were created in six days—No well educated
person of the present day shares in the delusion. What-
�20
The Victories of Science in its
ever the meaning of the six days, ending with the seventh
day’s mystical and symbolical rest, indisputably we
cannot accept them in their literal meaning, they as
plainly do not denote the order of succession of all the
individual creations.” And Dr. James Martineau has
declared emphatically “ that the whole history of the'
genesis of things Religion must now unconditionally
surrender to Science.”
Well, but there is hardly any class of scientific men
who have been more vehemently denounced for attacking
religion than the geologists. The great argument used
to discredit their researches was the old cry that their
conclusions contradicted Scripture, and accordingly
volumes upon volumes have been published all composed
on the same argumentative basis, viz., That what contra
dicts Scripture cannot be true—an argument as some
of you may have heard, as old at least as the time of
Galileo. “If nature contradicts Scripture” (said the
schoolmen to Galileo), “ Nature must be mistaken, for
we know that the Scriptures are true! ”
And now how does the case stand as regards our
illustration. Geological science being true could not
have been attacking religion, but only those parts of the
theological system which had been constructed from the
superstitions of the day, and thus it has come to pass
that, through the discoveries of the geologists, a second
great victory has been achieved by Science in its warfare
with Superstition.
A third illustration I will refer to relates to the super
stition which I have mentioned in the syllabus of the
Lecture as belief in the government of human life by
special Providence;—the question being whether the
affairs of life are carried on subject to incessant super
natural intervention, or Whether they take place through
the operation of constant invariable natural law.
�Warfare with Superstition.
21
Previously to the rise of the physical Sciences, especially
Astronomy and Geology, the almost universal belief of
Christian Europe was that every significant act #nd
occurrence of life was the direct result of the exercise of
the providence of God, or the power of the Devil. Not
only was this conclusion directly deducible from the
literal interpretation of the language of the Bible, but,
it being the manifest interest of a priesthood, (whose
aim is ever to stand between the prayer of the Votary
and the providential act,) to encourage this belief, books
of devotion are composed by them based upon this idea,
in which instructions are given to enable the worshipper
to beseech the Almighty in a becoming manner for
almost every conceivable thing the circumstances of his
life may for the time being seem to require.
The church of England book of Common Prayer com
piled more than three centuries ago, that is long before
the Physical Sciences had been popularly heard of in this
Country, need only to be opened at random to confirm
what I am now submitting to you. But the progress
of Science has proved beyond rational doubt, that those
circumstances of our lives which were theologically re
ferred to as direct Providential or Satanic interventions,
the inflictions, chastisement, temptations, judgments, or
whatever other sacerdotal phrases are employed to define
supposed manifestations of supernatural Will, are the
result of the operation of natural Law, that is, they are
the direct consequences of the disregard of SQme natural
law which might have been observed and obeyed by the
sagacious use of man’s natural and moral intelligence.
So now, in reference, for example, to the cause and cure
of sickness, our attention is being most usefully drawn
away by Science from miserably moping over manuals
of devotion to the exhilirating study of handy books on
the laws of health—and thus it is, in the words of
�22
The Victories of Science in its
Professor Huxley, that “ Science is teaching the World
that the ultimate Court of Appeal is observation and
experiment, and not theological authority, she is teaching
us to estimate the value of evidence, she is creating a
firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral
and physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the
highest possible aim of an intelligent being.”
No one then who has impartially watched the course
and improvement of human life, since we have come
to study and to treat its healthy physical and moral exis
tence as immediately dependent upon the observance
of natural law, can doubt that the illustration we are
considering constitutes another most important triumph
of Science over Superstition.
Connected with the last illustration, or rather a con
tinuation of it, is what we may not inaptly term the
theological theory of disease—viz. the notion that diseases,
and epidemics especially, were punishments or judgments
inflicted by the hand of the Almighty for some individual
or national sins, and that they are to be cured sometimes
by a miracle, sometimes by devotion to the shrine or relics
of a Saint, and sometimes by simple prayer addressed to
the Supreme. All these various ways and practices of
appealing for relief to supernatural power were until
quite recent times devoutly believed in throughout almost
the whole of Europe, and were supposed to form essential
parts of religious faith.
Even now in visiting Boman Catholic Churches, espe
cially on the Continent, you cannot fail to observe the
number of Votive offerings that are fixed or suspended
round the shrine and image of a favorite Saint by those
who believe that they have recovered from diseases or
misfortunes through the intervention of the Saint in
answer to the invocations of the patient. This practice,
(like the Ritualistic lighting of candles on the Altars of
�Warfare with Superstition,
23
Churches in the day time,) has been copied from the ser
vice of the Temples of the Pagan religions which prevailed
in Ancient Rome at the time of the establishment of
Christianity in the reign of the Emperor Constantine.
Well therefore asks the astute Middleton, in his instruc
tive “Letter from Rome,”—“ what is all this but a revival
of the old impostures, with no other difference, than what
the Pagan priests ascribed to the imaginary help of their
Deities, the Romish priests as foolishly impute to the
favor of their Saints.” Of course it has been the policy
of the Church to discourage the physician and his science.
He interfered too much with the gifts to and profits of
the shrines.
At one time it was a constant practice on the breaking
out of an epidemic to carry the relics of the Patron Saint
of the locality round the infected districts to drive the
disease away. The superstitious belief we are considering
had become so extravagant, and the practice in connection
with it had obtained a height so ludicrous, that no longer
ago than the end of the last century, the clergy in Spain
induced the people to believe that a pestilence then raging
was caused by their allowing the performance of so un
godly an entertainment as the opera, and it is a fact
that the opera had actually on that account to be put a
stop to 1
Although sanitary science has now in this country com
pletely triumphed over the Superstition in question, yet
owing to our still continued narrow theological teaching
very lamentable occurrences are occasionally seen to
happen. For instance, it is still taught at those strong
holds of sacredotalism, our two great Universities, that
the Bible is in every part of it supernaturally inspired
truth. Mr. Burgon, recently one of the select preachers
at Oxford, in a work addressed to the junior members of
the University, thus expressed himself:—“ The Bible is
�24
The Victories of Science in its
none other than the Voice of Him that sitteth upon the
Throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every
verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, every
letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High.
The Bible is none other than the Word of God—not
some part of it more some part of it less, but all alike the
utterance of Him who sitteth upon the Throne—absolute,
faultlegs, unerring, supreme ! ” We cannot wonder then
that there should be persons who repose faith in its verbal
teaching as applicable at the present time, and who seek
to derive benefit from strictly and literally following its
plainly expressed precepts. One of the apparently plainest
of its injunctions is contained in the general Epistle of
St. James the 5th chap, and the 14th and 15th verses.
“ Is any sick among you ?, Let him call for the elders of
the Church, and let them pray over him anointing him
with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith
shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.”
A religious sect known as the Peculiar People rigidly
follow this injunction in cases of sickness, and it is not so
long since we were scandalized by the spectacle of a cri
minal prosecution, on account of the death of a child
whose parents had treated it biblically and not medically,
and the Magistrate, (Bible and University theological
teaching non obstante,) found the Parents to have been
guilty of culpable neglect for relying on the Bible, with
out calling in medical assistance, and punished them
accordingly.
This case strikingly illustrates the spirit of our age,
showing as it does that secular teaching is in point of
intelligence very far in advance of theological teaching ;
yet it is impossible not to feel commiseration for the
unfortunate people who are so drugged with dognfa that
their religious beliefs actually become conducive to the
deaths of their own offspring, and who are only roused
�Warfare with Superstition.
25
out of their superstitions by finding them thus rudely
shocked by the judgment and penal sentence of the law.
With this exception we in England may be said to
have entirely freed ourselves from the folly of this
branch of superstition, unless it may be thought still to
linger at Guy’s Hospital, where, as we have lately seen,
praying nurses are placed in authority over scientific
physicians !
The only further illustration I will now give you has
reference to those anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity
which have more or less disfigured all the theological
systems of the world,.and until recently characterised
our own conception of the God of Christianity, who is
of course the historical continuation of the Jehovah of
the Hebrew Scriptures ; for, though the Deity of the
New Testament has attributes somewhat different from
those of Jehovah (to which I shall presently refer), He is
evidently the same God throughout.
It might not be easy, it would indeed be impracticable
within the time now at our disposal, to exhibit the
successive steps which have resulted in generally endow
ing the foremost minds of our generation with that
correct and exalted standard of morality or moral sense
by which our social actions, opinions, and beliefs are
righteously judged in the last resort, and whereby the
practice of life has become so mild and humane and
unselfish compared with that of our ancestors, or other
semi-barbarous peoples.
One great effort to improve the morality of Princes
and Rulers stands out conspicuous—I mean the great
work of Hugo Grotius published at Paris in the year
1625 and entitled, “ Three books concerning the Rights
of War and Peacea work whose main objects were,
First—To induce nations to abstain as far as possible
from resorting to the dreadful ordeal of war. and to
�26
The Victories of Science in its
cultivate that noble ideal of the lovers of mankind—a
perpetual peace. To recognise the sovereignty of the
moral or social law, and to submit their quarrels and
conflicting claims to be judged at the bar of conscience.
To this end to establish Courts of Conciliation, and
agree to settle international disputes by arbitration.
Secondly—when that could not be done, or war avoided,
to conduct their warfare with as generous a humanity as
possible. And thirdly—To treat prisoners of war with the
clemency due to them as human beings and brothers, and
not with the relentless cruelties that were then habitu
ally practised towards those unfortunate persons.
The chief contents of Grotius’ grand work consist of
discussions historical and moral enlivened and embel
lished with abundant and interesting citations from the
most celebrated authors of classical and sacred antiquity
—poets, orators, historians, philosophers, and sages of
all times and nations are, with the very splendour of
learning, laid under contributions for the purpose of
supporting, by their conspiring sentiments and reason
ings, the benevolent objects of the good and great
Grotius ; showing in short the unanimity of the higher
order of minds of the whole human race on the great
rules of duty, and the fundamental principles of morals.
If we, studying the lofty argument of Grotius at the
present day,’ can hardly fail to find our views of virtue
and humanity expanded and inspired by so impressive a
display of the principles it expounds, we can easily be
lieve what is related of it when first published—viz. that
it at once fascinated all the sovereigns and ministers and
great men of the time ; that the king of Sweden,
Gustavus Adolphus carried it about with him and kept
it under his pillow ; that a professorship was founded to
teach and diffuse its doctrines ; and that it was translated
(from its original latin) into most modern languages.
�Warfare with Superstition.
27
There has been of course, since the time of the illustri
ous Grrotius, a succession of similar though lesser lights,
whom I will not now stop to name, all exhibiting and
enforcing his humane and philanthropic views.
Another cause operating in the same direction has
been the gradual improvement in the nature and number
of criminal punishments. The penal codes of all Euro
pean nations during the times of theological ascendency
were painfully disfigured by the practice of judicial torture
and arbitrary imprisonments, and the cruel and vindictive
punishments inflicted upon criminals. Bearing in mind
too how large an extent the moral sense or conscience of
a community is a reflection of its legal system, the pre
sent mitigated severity and graduated scale of punish
ments, more or less proportioned to the nature and
gravity of the offence, and to the frailty of and tempta
tion besetting the offender, must have materially assisted
in maturing and refining the public moral sentiment.
A similar effect is also observable as proceeding from
the more civilized character of our popular amusements
—bear baiting, bull baiting, badger baiting, dog fighting,
cock fighting and shying, and other cruel and depraving
sports have now almost ceased amongst us, and if we
desire an example to show the connection between such
barbarous cruelties and the influence of Superstition, we
need only turn our gaze towards Spain, where we see the
most brutalizing of sports—bull-fighting—is still the
principle pastime of the most superstitious people on the
face of Europe.
Now that the cause of our advance in intelligence and
morality, and of our more earnest love of toleration and
truth, has' been scientific or secular, and not theological,
seems plain from the fact that it has resulted in causing
us to view with a sentiment akin to horror, some of the
anthropomorphic attributes and commands of Deity that
�28
The Victories of Science in its
we find recorded in the books of the Bible, and which
previously to the scientific culture and elevation of our
moral sense were generally acquiesced in quite as a matter
of course; were to be believed (suggested an eminent
theologian, the late Dean Mansel,) as God’s temporary
suspensions of the laws of moral obligation, or moral
miracles ! Thus, in the old Testament the Almighty is
represented as walking on the Earth, eating with Abra
ham, wrestling with Jacob, appearing in a visible form to
Moses, .tempting men, and speaking with human speech.
Then the shocking stories related, such as the Divine
sanction of the frightful massacres of the Canaanites and
Levites, with the ruthless slaughter of women and childred, the divine patronage of the odious Jacob—and
numerous instances of extraordinary cruelties ascribed
to Jehovah in the books of the Pentateuch, making him
out to be a man of war, cruel, capricious, revengeful,
and not to be trusted.
In the New Testament indeed we find an improved
character of the Deity, and one in many important aspects
widely different. There is however attributed to the God
of the New Testament what, if rigorously balanced against
the failings ascribed to Jehovah, must be considered to
outweigh them all; viz., the eternity of punishment which
he will inflict in a future life. No efforts of the disci
plined human reason, which is guided by the conscious
ness of right, can discover any justification for the creation
of beings whose lives are to terminate in endless torment.
The enlightened intellectual and moral capacity of civil
ized man rejects the idea of eternal punishment as utterly
revolting to its sense of justice, mercy, and charity,, and
any attempt to realise ‘ in the unpolluted temple of the
mind ’ an enormity so awful causes it to recoil from its
imputed author, who (as is alleged) could create the human
race with the infallible foreknowledge, and therefore
�Warfare with Superstition.
29
with the intention, that the majority, or even some were
eventually to be consigned to the horrible and everlasting
torture of Hell-fire I
From the slight review we have now taken of the influ
ence of Science upon Superstition, and the modifications
that religious creeds have thereby undergone, we may feel
assured that the process is not yet ended, and that popu
lar theologies are still disfigured by superstitions which
expanding science will explode. Such for instance prob
ably, as belief in the objective efficacy of the supplications,
humiliations, fastings, and other asceticisms prescribed by
preistcraft, and not improbably, I venture to think, our
beliefs in supernatural revelations and exclusive salva
tions.
We now know through the Science of Geology, whose
connected sequence of events was so admirably summar
ised by Professor Ramsay, in his Presidential address last
year to the British Association for the advancement of
Science, that in the physical government of the world,
throughout the long ages whose history is embraced by
this marvellous science, all progress has been continuous
and orderly, not varying in kind and intensity from that
of which we now have experience, is indeed the effect of
causes still in full operation, that is, without cataclysms
or catastrophes of any kind. Reasoning by analogy we
should say that if such has been the course of the mate
rial world the course of the spiritual world (the sphere
of religious development) has most probably been similar,
and that if there has been no physical cataclysm in the
one world, neither has there been a spiritual cataclysm
in the other, such as a sudden supernatural revelation
accompanied by miracles would undoubtedly be, but that
throughout the ages all spiritual enlightenment has pro
gressed by the same means and in the same manner as at
the present moment.
�30
The Victories of Science in its
Probably therefore it may come to be generally believed
that the only real revelation is in Science, which, as Herbert
Spencer observes, is a continuous disclosure, through the
intelligence with which we are endowed, of the established
order of the Universe.
If time permitted me now to enter upon a catalogue
of the evil effects wrought by Superstition, that is false
demoralising beliefs relating to the supernatural, we
should find that there is scarcely a single one of the great
miseries of life that is not distinctly traceable to this,
cause. I will only now recall to your mind the horrors
of the Crusades, the numerous religious wars, the Spanish
Inquisition, the persecutions, burnings, martyrdoms,
massacres, and other hideous atrocities that for ages
formed part of the very staple of European history, and
which directly arose out of the superstitious beliefs en
gendered by their dogmatic Theology, which, in its merci
less endeavours to crush freedom of thought and speech,
has impelled man to inflict upon his fellow-man every
species of cruelty and calamity that bigotted and intoler
ant fanaticism could devise.
Now one of the habits engendered by superstitious
belief is of course a tendency to assume that everything
happens through the interposition of providence, and.
must accordingly be right however unscrutable; and,,
however disastrous, yet sent for some good purpose and
to chasten or to benefit us somehow and eventually.
Of course such a tendency operates mischievously by its
withdrawing our minds and energies and precious time
from the search in this world for those natural causes of
misery which when discovered show that it is remediable
by scientific effort, in other words, that it is to be alleviated
by the application of our natural intelligence, and not by
our taking refuge in that sanctuary of Superstition (pro
fanely called) the Will of God.
�Warfare with Superstition*
31
To enumerate the ameliorations of human well-being
that have been achieved through the exercise of man’s
natural intelligence would be a theme almost exhaustless.
In reference to these I will now confine myself to
merely quoting to you the striking summing-up by
Macaulay in his brilliant Essay on Lord Bacon, of the
utilitarian result of the development of scientific method,
so luminously expounded to his contemporaries, and
impressed upon his posterity by the genius of the great
English Philosopher, who enunciated the fruitful axiom
that true philosophy, whatever its theory, is practically
the application of the discoveries and methods of the
sciences to the regulation of the affairs and conduct of
our lives
“ Ask a follower of Bacon what Science has effected for man->
kind and his answer is ready. It has lengthened life; it has
mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased
the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the
mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has
spanned great rivers with bridges of form unknown to our
fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven
•to earth ; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the
day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has
multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated
motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated inter
course, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of
business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the
sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious
recesses of the earth; to traverse the land in carriages which
whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which run
ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its
fruits, and of its first fruits—for Science never rests, its law is
progress.”
But in truth every page of the history of civilization
shows us that improvement in the health, the happiness,
and the virtue of mankind has taken place entirely
through the intellectual and moral progress resulting
from the teaching of Science. You will find the un
answerable details of this history very clearly exhibited
in Dr. Draper’s remarkable work on “ The intellectual
development of Europe,” and also in its condensed and
�32 Victories of Science in its Warfare with Superstition.
lucid summary, published under the title of ‘ The Con
flict between Religion and Science.’ An unhappy
misnomer this title, however, if the argument of my
lecture be a sound one, viz., That it is not Religion that
Science has attacked or come into conflict with—but
only the superstitions of the hour, that were ignorantly
and erroneously supposed to form parts of Religion, and
that were 1 intent on offering to the Author of Truth
the unclean sacrifice of a lie.’ Now, in exposing and
stamping out Superstition and that old theological spirit
which has brought so much misery upon the world,
Science has actually rendered the most vital service to
Religion; for the true beliefs which Science has thus
compelled Theology to adopt are far more really reli
gious than the superstitious beliefs which Science has
from time to time forced Theology to surrender.
Let us rejoice, in the cause of Humanity, that such
has been the case, and moreover that this purifying
process is yet proceeding, and that Science, whose coura
geous career has hitherto been unstained by cruelty,
oppression, or crime, will, in her warfare with Supersti
tion, still continue marching on to Victories alike
beneficent and bloodless; for
Science is a child as yet,
And her power and scope shall grow,
And her triumphs in the future
Shall diminish toil and woe.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, N.W.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The victories of science in its warfare with superstitions: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 20th February 1881
Creator
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Finch, A. Elley
Description
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5. The Society's lectures by the same author on p. [3].
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1881
Identifier
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G3428
Subject
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Science
Superstition
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Morris Tracts
Science and Religion
Superstition
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.. 11
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
!
CIVILIZATION:
A SKETCH OF ITS
RISE AND PROGRESS ;
MODERN SAFEGUARDS & FUTURE PROSPECTS
Jfcrlix«
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 20th FEBRUARY, 1876.
A.
ELLEY
FINCH.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1876.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED RY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET
HAYMARKET, W.
�ft 24 £
SYLLABUS.
The Creation from the stand-point of Science.
Autobiography of the Earth, and of Life on its
surface, from its fluid state through intense heat to
its attaining fitness for human habitation.
This knowledge revealed through the sciences of
Astronomy and Geology, which exhibit terrestrial
existence as a progress towards Intelligence under
the dominion of Divine Law.
Civilization explained as Man’s progress, by means
of his reason, towards the gratification of his social
impulse to live peaceably, morally, and happily.
Civilized man first found in Asia—His progress
barred by Superstition retarding the development of
his reason.
Historical illustrations from Oriental civilizations.
Civilized man in Europe. The growth of his
reason enables him to diminish Superstition, to
interpret Nature, and to exchange the theological
doctrine of Arbitrary Will for the scientific principle
of Invariable Law.
Historical illustrations from European civilizations.
The influence of Supernatural Religion.
The extinction of Superstition assured, and modern
Civilization protected from decay, by our possession
. of a criterion of Truth, a standard of Right, and a
reserve of Moral Force chiefly derived from—
�IV
Syllabus.
1. —Our knowledge of the Order and Uniformity
of Nature. The method of the govern
ment of the World. Man’s position in it.
2. —Our means of preserving and diffusing
Truth and Moral Sentiment through the
Printing Press—the Steam Engine—the
Electric Telegraph.
■ B.—International Conscience, created by Com
mercial Intercourse.
4. —Public Opinion based, on Free Discussion.
5. —Political Government through the Represen
tative
Our present Civilization a state of relative Bar
barism, attested by the existence of pauperism, over
work, vice, crime, disease, premature death, &c.
The causes of these calamities.
Prospect of great increase of human happiness and
virtue from the application of knowledge to the
improvement of the breed of Man.
How a City of “ Hygeia ” may become a possible
reality.
�CIVILIZATION:
A SKETCH OF ITS
RISE AND PROGRESS; ITS MODERN SAFEGUARDS
/
AND FUTURE PROSPECTS.
WILL ask you, for our present purpose, to dismiss
from your minds all that you may have heard con
cerning “the Creation,” as a stupendous event, represented'
as occurring, according to the precise arithmetic of our
patristic chronologers, 4,004 years anterior to the birth of
Christ; and, in place of that definite intelligence, of which
I may seem to be about to deprive you, to substitutewhat science tells us in relation to it.
In the vocabulary of science, “ creation ” is a term
simply expressive of our absolute ignorance of the be
ginning of the present order of the Universe. Science
knows nothing of Creation, having discovered only evo
lution. But, whilst it can find no trace of the Creation,
some 6,000 years ago, science can tell us something of
the history of our planet, during those millions of ages
in which it was undergoing a process of gradual cooling,
from a condition molten with intense heat, until it ar
rived at a state of temperature and atmosp here fitted
for the existence of man, and when, accordingly, man
made his appearance on its surface. This knowledge is
essential for any comprehensive understanding of human
civilization.
At the time of man’s first appearance, the Earth, and
everything upon it, appear to have been ruled by those
natural laws, especially of Motion, of Heat, and of Grravi-
I
�6
Civilization.
tation, from the study of which has been built up that
vast body of positive knowledge, termed collectively the
Physical Sciences; for science, however defined, is
strictly the pursuit of law, and, man being born under
a system of law, his intellectual nature is to seek and
discover it. The science of Astronomy, in its calcula
tions of the most ancient events, as well as in its predic
tion of those that are to come, is founded on the axiom
that all its phenomena are subjected to invariable Law,
and that there has not been in the times under conside
ration, and that there never will be in the future, any
exercise of arbitrary or over-riding Will.
The first clear view which we obtain, through science,
of the early condition of the Earth, presents it to us as a
ball of matter, fluid with fervent heat, spinning on its
axis, and revolving round the sun. The science of geo
logy then exhibits to us the remains of a long preorganic
period, termed the Azoic, or that in which life was not;
then the remains of an orderly progression of organic
life whose existence had corresponded with the varying
condition of the earth’s slowly changing atmosphere and
temperature, such series extending backwards over an
incalculable, but undoubtedly enormous, period of time,
termed the Palaeozoic, or that of antique life.
Now, when we transport our minds back to these pri
meval ages, we are enabled, apart from any of the preju
dice with which we approach the consideration of the
subject during the period of human existence, to con
template clearly two very important and distinct things,
each of which is by some minds even yet denied or
doubted. The one is, the divine principle upon which
life on Earth is governed ; the other is, that orderly and
gradual change, towards a determinate end, termed
progress.
At the remote period to which I am referring it can
hardly be doubted by an unprejudiced mind that the
government of our Earth was a dominion of physical
law, for there is no discovered indication whatever, in
�Civilization.
7
deed there then existed no subject whatever, of moral
government. The Earth tells u£ its own history, not
founded on fables but on facts, through the sciences of
astronomy and geology, and the entire range of terres
trial phenomena brought to light by those sciences are
all found to be in harmony with the effects of the ope
ration of the mathematical law which regulates the
gradual cooling of a vast body, such as, in size and
shape, we know our Earth to be.
Now our knowledge of this life of our globe, previously
to man’s appearance is, comparatively speaking, quite
modern. It has been revealed to us through a number
of discoveries, made by a succession of scientific men, all
flourishing within about the last 300 years. I may say
that the very basis of the facts and reasonings upon
which it rests was the geometrical conception of our solar
system by Copernicus, whose book on the revolutions of
the celestial orbs was published in the year 1543. That
conception, as most of you know, was in direct opposi
tion to the prevailing religious views of his time. Those
views, derived from texts of Scripture, and dogmas of the
Fathers, asserted that the Earth was the centre of the
Universe and immovable, and that the sun and stars
moved round it. Copernicus, on the other hand, de
duced from mathematical considerations a theory directly
the reverse of this. He showed reasons for assuming
that the sun was the centre, and relatively immovable,
and that the Earth and other planets moved round the
sun. When Copernicus divined this theory there was
no sufficient astronomical science, or power of penetrat
ing space (for the telescope had not then been invented),
to corroborate or refute him, and, so little did the eccle
siastics of his day appreciate the probable correctness,
or comprehend the vast significance of his theory, that
his great work was published at the solicitation of a
Cardinal, and dedicated to Pope Paul III. Copernicus
died before his work was fully before the world, and,
with the exception of a courageous expression of con
�8
Civilization.
currence by the ill-fated Giordano Bruno, hardly any
serious notice was taken of it. Nearly a century after
wards, indeed, at a time when, through astronomical
observations by means of the telescope, and philosophical
reasonings resulting from the discovery of the laws of
motion by the illustrious Galileo, and by the publication
in 1632 of his remarkable Dialogue respecting the oppo
site systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus, the sublime yet
simple grandeur of the Copernican system began to be
verified as true, then the infallible Church became
roused to resentment, and condemned Galileo to abjure
his views; to solemnly declare that the proposition
maintained in his dialogue, that the sun is the centre of
the world and immovable, was absurd, false, and ex
pressly contrary to Holy Scripture, and that his other
proposition, that the earth is not the centre of the world,
and that it moves, is absurd and false, and erroneous in
faith.
Next in importance to the discovery of the laws of
motion was the grand discovery, by the astronomer
Kepler, of the laws that regulate the planetary motions.
This extraordinary man, one of the last of the old
astrologers, by the help of a mass of observations of the
Heavens, recorded for the most part by his celebrated
precursor Tycho Brahe, discovered the three great laws
which actually regulate all the movements of the
planets, including our Earth, round the sun ; and the
subsequent marvellous discovery by Sir Isaac Newton of
the very cause itself of Kepler’s laws, viz.—the princi
ple of Universal Gravitation, showed, that those laws
might actually have been predicted as well as observed,
Newton proving, by mathematical deductions from his
discovered principle, that all bodies attract each other
with a force directly as their masses and inversely as
the squares of their distances; that the movements of
the celestial bodies, their described areas, their elliptical
orbits, the relation of the squares of their times to the
cubes of their distances, may be mathematically
�Civilization.
9
accounted for, and are indeed mathematically neces
sary !
But the fact which strikes the reason with perhaps
greatest force, as revealing the vast duration of the past
history of our planet, is the Earth’s peculiar form, which
was also discovered, through mathematical calculations,
by Sir Isaac Newton. The history of this discovery is
interesting.
In the year 1691—the astronomer Dominic Cassini,
whom Louis XIV. had placed over the observatory of
Paris, looking through his telescope at the planet Jupi
ter, was struck by observing that the figure of the
planet was not round, as had been supposed, but oblate,
or flattened at the poles. The reason of this peculiar
flattening at the poles, as regards the planet Jupiter,
we are not now concerned to follow, beyond remarking
that, as it evidently had resulted from the planet’s move
ments in obedience to the laws of motion and gravita
tion, it suggested that the Earth must have a similar
shape. That is to say, a body revolving round an axis
gives to those particles the greatest tendency to fly off
which move with the greatest velocity, those, viz., which
are furthest from the centre of rotation and nearest the
equator, whilst those particles near the poles, describing
smaller circles, move slower, and have less tendency to
fly
hence there would be an accumulation of matter
towards the equator, whilst the poles would be depressed
or flattened. Now,-if the body were fluid such ten
dency must have the effect of shaping it accordingly,
causing its equatorial axis to be longer than its polar.
The intellectual consequences of this apparently sim
ple matter have been amazing. It led at once to the
discovery by Newton of the actual form of our Earth,
Newton solving the problem by an application of the
dynamics of his immortal Principia, on the supposition
that the Earth had been originally fluid, and thence cal
culating that its diameter at the equator would be to its
diameter at the poles, as 230 is to 229—and the Earth’s
B
�IO
Civilization.
elliptic figure, which he thus arrived at, was subsquently
verified by actual admeasurement! Now, the consili
ence of these results, the correspondence of the fact
with the theory, is, considered rationally, a resistless
proof of the original high temperature of our globe,
when it must hate been fluid from intense heat; fluid
and solid being the opposite material effects of heat and
cold.
The age then of our planet is no fact of supernatural
revelation, nor is it a question to be decided by autho
rity or tradition. It is simply a mathematical problem,
that is, regard being had to the discovered laws of motion,
of heat, and of gravitation, to determine the time of the
cooling of a rotating globe, of known diameter and conducibility, by the radiation of its heat into space—and
even an approximate solution of such problem must con
vince us, that our Earth has existed for myriads of ages,
and, moreover, that it has been moulded into its pre
sent shape by mechanical means, that is, by secondary
causes.
The discoveries which have been made, through the
investigations of geologists into the Earth’s crust, of the
evidence of the action of heat in remote ages, and of
the countless remains of extinct plants and animals of
different species, all having apparently successively arisen
and died out in close correlation with the changes in
their physical surroundings consequent on the Earth’s
gradual decline of temperature, are not only in harmony
with but, confirmatory of, the discoveries of the astro
nomers, and the two, taken together, form cogent evi
dence of the fact of the state of our planet at the time
of man’s first appearance having been the result of a
process of cooling continued through ’enormously long
periods of time, not without oscillations, sometimes of
the reverse of heat, as shown in the remains of the gla
cial epochs.
They are also evidence of the two important matters
to which I have referred. They show that the divine
�Civilization.
Il
government of the earth had been and was a dominion
of primordial law, and they show that the series of
countless changes, that had occurred throughout the
lapse of those preceding ages, constituted progress, for,
when looked at as a whole, they appear as a continuous,
orderly, and progressive change towards the develop
ment of intelligence. Life and mind gradually becom
ing properties of matter, or matter becoming inhabited
by life and mind. Throughout the entire animal series
there is distinctly seen a progressively ascending nervous
development with its correlated or parallel phenomena,
automatic, instinctive, rational ; this progress amongst
the vertebrates consistingin their increasing resemblance
to man, and, when we take into one view the whole suc
cession of organisms including man, whether we regard
it physiologically or historically, we find the direction
•of evolution is towards the intellectual. Indeed, phy
siologically, there is no apparent provision in the nervous
system for moral improvement save through the intel
lectual, and historically (regarding our race rather than
the individual), we find it is the intellectual that has led
the way in social advancement, the moral being subor
dinate ; even our monitor within, the conscience, being
seen to be an organ of the mind, and to be strengthened
and purified in proportion to the education of the intel
lect.
I should here remark that though, whilst we are
summing up the results of immense periods of geological
time, progress is very clearly visible, yet that when we
attempt to gauge its rate of advance during so compara
tively brief a period of historical time as human civili
zation, it is sometimes scarcely discernible. Now, this
is owing to the rate of change in man’s physical sur
roundings being itself so slow as scarcely to be measur
able by human means, our planet having attained so
nearly a condition of equilibrium that, since the age of
the astronomer Hipparchus, who flourished about a cen
tury and a half before the Christian Era, the length of
�12
Civilization.
our solar day (according to the calculations of Laplace)
has only varied the fraction of a second of time !
Thus have I endeavoured to present to you some idea
of the grand principle or Law of progress, that vast
orderly concourse, which has successively risen in the
past, introduced the present, and is preparing the future,
and of which Human Civilization is the now continuing
phase, or further development, under the divine domi
nion of natural immutable Law.
Wherever we find man, or the traces of his former
existence, there is one fact which invariably meets us,
viz. : That the nature of the human being is social,
that is, he has an instinct which impels him to live in
the society of his fellow-creatures; and, generalising our
knowledge of his history, I may venture to define the
complex term “civilization,” as man’s progress by means
of his reason, acting under the control of natural law,
towards the gratification of his social impulse to live
with his fellow-creatures peaceably, morally, and hap
pily, and in accordance with the ever-increasing know
ledge for accomplishing this object that results from the
gradual improvement of his intelligence, for, another
fact, which history teaches us, seems undeniable, viz.—•
That the intelligence of our species has improved, and
is improving; that the powers of the mind grow with
the possessions of the mind.
The most ancient accounts we have of man show us
that originally, or as near as we can get at his origin,
his condition was barbarous and brutal, his tastes, his
habits, and his understanding apparently only in degree
elevated above those of the animal life below him.
They were such as we see in the savages of the present
day, which have been so closely observed and described
by modern travellers, especially by one whose untimely
end will ever be lamented by this Society, for the first
only lecture which the late Winwood Read lived to
deliver in this Hall gave hopes of future brilliant and
instructive discourses.
�Civilization.
J3
If you have followed my introductory argument, I
need hardly impress upon you that man’s career has been
one of constant progress, however slow and variable, from
the barbarism of the savage to our present comparatively
high condition. There have been and are, however,
writers who think differently, and who have inferred
that man was originally civilized, and afterwards became
degraded to the savage state. In the face of the primor
dial law of progress, which is traceable throughout the
countless ages during which the Earth has been the
abode of organic life, to hold that man was first civi
lized and afterwards retrograded to the savage state, is,
scientifically speaking, the same as it would be to hold,
in the face of the primordial law of gravitation, that the
rivers, which we now find flowing from the valleys of
the hills downwards to the sea, commenced originally
by flowing upwards from the sea towards the hills.
The earliest Civilizations of which we have any
authentic accounts are those of the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians. They
were all located in or near the Torrid Zone of our Earth,
and they were probably the earliest manifestations of
civilized man, since there are strong reasons for con
cluding that man’s birth-place was in the warmer regions
of our globe. When first these ancient communities
became known to us, man had already achieved the
primary step towards his civilization, that which
enables him to advance by means of the experience of his
predecessors—the invention of written characters, or
means of recording past events.
These civilizations were, intellectually and morally,
very far inferior to the civilizations which have subse
quently flourished in the European or Temperate Zone
of the Earth, and they were all characterised more or
less by the fact that the great masses of the people were
uncared for, often treated as slaves, and always more or
less oppressed. The upper ranks of their rude societies
monopolized not only power, but nearly all such enjoy
�14
Civilization.
ments of life as their civilization produced. Their
mental powers were for the most part absorbed in the
cultivation of gross superstitions, or in weaving systems
of philosophy which were not based upon observed facts,
but were the offspring of imagination, clothed in the
allegories and subtleties of Oriental speech, or their
active powers were exhibited in styles of architecture
based upon the employment and display of great physi
cal force. If we attempt any general review of their
intellectual productions, their theology, their law, or their
science, we find that they follow a marked tendency to
fall into system and to stagnate. The mind of the
Asiatic seems essentially synthetic, that is, ideas are
added together rather than separated and analysed, and
such adding together being a process that is sooner
brought to an end, everything becomes invariable; there
ensues what in Europe is called stagnation, though in
the East it is considered repose.
Eastern civilizations appear to have reached a certain
point, and there to have stopped, hindered probably
from advancing by reason of their knowledge being
bound up with theological opinions held to be sacred
and immutable, or by reason of their mental constitu
tion having attained the natural limit imposed by their
climate and surrounding physical circumstances. Those
physical surroundings being such as powerfully to exalt
the imagination, for the sublimity and grandeur of the
aspects of Nature in the Torrid Zone, the suddenness
and violence of her convulsions, engender terror and
depress the reasoning faculty, suggesting the perpetual
interference of a supernatural Will, and so give rise to
those appalling superstitions which have to so great an
extent been inherited by Europeans, and, in their disas
trous influence upon the peace and happiness of life,
have probably done more to hinder the progress of civi
lization than any of the numerous inventions and
luxuries, derived from the East, have done to advance it.
It is not until, following the migrations of man
�Civilization.
15
from his birth-place, we find him in the climate of
Europe we can discover that any considerable progress
has been made towards the social happiness of our race.
Ancient Greece is the country where we first find man
shaping the course of his life by the exercise of his
reasoning faculties, and gradually noting those invari
able sequences in surrounding phenomena that indicate
the settled order of nature, and free the mind from the
bondage of superstition, beginning to observe and in
vestigate nature, and gradually exchanging the theolo
gical doctrine of the government of Life by arbitrary
Supernatural Will, for the scientific doctrine of such
government being regulated by invariable Natural Law.
In ancient Greece this beginning was made. In the
cross-examining elenchus of Socrates, in the logical
organon of Aristotle, in the mathematical science of
Euclid, in the mechanical genius and resources of
Archimedes, we find exhibited in wonderful distinctness
the analytical character of the European intellect, that
quality which gives birth to doubt, impels to inquiry,
and demands a reason, and which, transferred to Alex
andria, flourished there in such remarkable exuberance.
In the lives of the great men of Greece we also find
moral qualities that were unknown in the East. Yet
much of Grecian learning was evidently derived from
Oriental sources, more particularly from Egypt, several
of the Grecian sages having visited that country—
Amongst others, Pythagoras had resided at Thebes,
Solon at Sais, Thales and Democritus at Memphis,
Plato at Heliopolis. But what they derived from the
East the different physiological and intellectual endow
ments of the Greeks materially modified and improved ;
and we, now looking back, can plainly perceive that
many of the ancient Grecians had just, however elemen
tary, notions of the various problems, still under contro
versy, in theology, law, politics, natural science and
philosophy.
With respect to their fascinating philosophy, which,
�i6
Civilization.
from the period of its birth under the shadow of the
Pyramids to its final extinction in the very same place,
extended over a period of twelve hundred years, it can
hardly be affirmed that it has added very much to our
stock of practical wisdom, or that it has greatly assisted
in promoting the happiness of the human race. In the
few words I can now bestow upon it I am constrained to
say rather that the Greek philosophy, on the whole,
affords little else than a picture of the subtlety and
restlessness of the human mind. Its professors, with a
few exceptions, instead of observation and experiment,
satisfied themselves with constructing, by means of
metaphysical verbiage, ideal theories, and these, want
ing the facts of nature for their basis, have chiefly
served to perplex the human understanding and to
retard the advancement of useful knowledge. Greek
Philosophy was a failure, because its method was a false
one.
To her mathematicians, however, great admiration is
due, for, as Condorcet said, the sailor, who now escapes
from shipwreck by an exact observation of the longitude,
owes his safety to the speculations in quest of Truth of
the ancient Greek geometers, since it was their mathe
matical reasonings that brought about the renovation of
the science of astronomy, which has since led to the
present perfection of the art of navigation.
Passing onwards from contemplation of the life of
ancient Greece, the mind is arrested by the civilization
of the ancient Bomans; but, in the slight survey I am
taking of the progress of mankind towards the attain
ment of social and individual happiness, though that illus
trious people aspired to an Imperial sovereignty that event
ually subjugated almost the entire then existing civilized
world, if we inquire what they effected towards man’s
intellectual and moral advancement, the account, with
one exception, is not considerable. In intellectual ac
quirements, as well as in original genius, they were
inferior to the ancient Greeks, from whom indeed they
�Civilization.
acquired the greater part of what real knowledge they
possessed. In their language and literature this con
trast is conspicuous, but in one respect, and that cer
tainly of the highest moment to our argument, they
did make a decided advance.
They showed a re
markable aptitude for the science of Jurisprudence
and for political and municipal government, and the
protection afforded to life and property under Roman
rule was very greatly superior to what the world had
ever previously seen. We perhaps can hardly realize
the proud self-respect with which a Roman citizen
asserted his simple credentials—“ Oivis Romanus sum.”
Still however, if we look to the condition of the
people at large, we find them subjected to great tyranny
and oppression—an absence of anything approaching
our own notions of the dignity and happiness involved
in a life of honest industry. The populace of Rome
itself being encouraged in idleness and sensuality, sup
ported very largely by contributions wrung from the
conquered countries that formed the outlying provinces
of the Empire, and kept amused by the frequency of
brutalizing gladiatorial shows.
The superstitions of the ancient mythologies were,
as superstitions usually are, thoroughly inculcated upon
the credulity of the masses, and, though the educated
class, of necessity a small one, utterly disbelieved and
despised them, there was no possibility of freedom of
discussion respecting such matters. The morals of the
ancient Romans under the Emperors were extremely
impure, especially in everything relating to the true
position of woman, and, although many eminent men
of lofty principles and pure lives are found amongst
their Philosophers, especially of the distinguished sect of
Stoics, such men as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius, yet such characters were rare, and the general
moral tone of their society, summed up with graphic
force in Mr. Leckie’s instructive volumes, was degrading
and selfish. But the genius or overmastering passion
�Civilization.
of the Roman People was for military conquest and
territorial annexation, and at last their unwieldy
Empire became too extensive to hold together, and was
overwhelmed by the incursions of the barbarian nations
by whom they were surrounded, and whose enmity
they had so often provoked.
If it be asked what then became of the Romans, we
must answer that they were actually obliterated, for the
Roman ethnical element, any more than the Roman proper
names, cannot be said to have survived in the degenerate
half-breeds that resulted from the settlement on their
soil of the hordes of invaders to whose prodigious
numbers the Roman legions had succumbed, and whose,
inferior natures composed the mongrel Italian popula
tion, which throughout the middle or dark ages was
the main support of that monstrous superstition, the
mediaeval Papacy, which then ruled the emasculated
minds of those credulous men who, abdicating their
God-like prerogative of reason, sought refuge in a
fatuous faith that led them to cringe with servility at
the feet of Pontiffs, whose history is indeed imposing,
but whose lives were infamous, and whose object was,
notthe promotion of civilization, but the aggrandize
ment of their Church.
For, throughout the long ages during which the
papal despotism was omnipotent, (from about the 5th
to the 15th centuries,) nothing whatever was done by
that baleful tyranny towards advancing Civilization,
nothing to forward intellectual development. Its policy
was to subjugate the human mind, and to keep men
illiterate and ignorant, well knowing that, whilst ignor
ance is the mother of devotion, knowledge is power.
Century after century passed away without any real
improvement in the condition of the people, and it is a
fact, very shocking to those who comprehend its full
meaning, that at the end of a thousand years of this
government under an ‘ infallible ’ head, the population
of Europe had scarcely doubled !
�Civilization.
J9
After the fall of the ancient Civilizations it is not
until about the end of the 15th century of our era that
we can find much trace of any real improvement in the
social life and happiness of the people at large, but an
impartial study of history from about that time com
pels us to conclude that the progress Europe has made
from barbarism is' really due to its intellectual activity,
and that, though eminent individuals, whose virtuous
lives seemed essential as examples of moral principles,
die, and nations, that had attained the pinnacles of
political power, decay, and superstitions, that once ruled
the mind of the community, become extinct, yet, when
man, in some fresh latitude springs up, forms societies,
and cultivates his reasoning faculties, we observe that
in proportion as he endeavours to guide his life by the
dictates of reason, so does his civilization, that is, all
that tends to make him moral and happy and free,
follow in his wake.
The greatest foe to Civilization has been Super
naturalism, that principle which is the genius of every
religion whose object is to withdraw man from the
study and improvement and regard for this world, to
the contemplation of a future state of existence in a
world that is to come. To depreciate the present life
as fleeting and worthless compared with the life of that
unknown world where happiness and repose are expected
to be everlasting.
To attempt to trace in outline, however vague, the
history of Civilization without some allusion to the part
which religion has played in it, would I have no doubt
strike you as involving an obvious omission, and there
fore I shall venture to refer to the part which Chris
tianity has taken. This indeed is not easy in a sketch,
for to say all I could wish on the subject would be dis
proportionate to the rest of the picture. In regard to
one form of Christianity, that which was represented
by the Romish Church in the Middle Ages, I have
already made some remarks; what I can now say must
�20
Civilization.
have reference to it as it is manifested in the Life and
Sayings of Christ himself, as we find them portrayed
in the New Testament writings.
Now Civilization, as I am viewing it, is the progress
of this world and of this life, through the advance of
human intelligence, and it has for its main object the
getting rid of poverty and misery, and promoting worldly
prosperity, human enterprise, and happiness. Chris
tianity, as exhibited in the life and sayings of its great
founder, was not put forth as a supernatural scheme for
improving the affairs of this world, which indeed was
believed to be then shortly coming to an end, but for
establishing an unworldly kingdom in its stead, or in
opposition to it. Poverty was not to be got rid of, but
to be caressed. The Poor were to be the blest, those
who had riches were to sell their possessions and give
what they had to the poor. No thought was to be
taken for the morrow. Happiness here was not the end
in view at all. A man was to fling all he had at the
foot of the Cross and follow Christ—a man of sorrows.
The maxims of the great modern Science of organised
industry, Political Economy, a main source of our pre
sent prosperity, are set at nought by it. In fine, the
genius of Christianity, as a supernatural religion, like the
genius of nearly every other supernatural religion, is the
very opposite of the genius of Civilization, and, so far as
it has been believed in and followed as such, when we
call to mind the frightful religious wars, crusades, per
secutions, massacres, and atrocities that have followed
its footsteps—the dread Tribunal of the Inquisition,
with its horrible apparatus for the torture and vivisec
tion, not of the lower animals for the ends of science,
but of man himself, for the glory of God and in the
name of Christ, we may be permitted at least to doubt
whether the march of Civilization has been most aided
or most hindered by it.
If indeed Jesus of Nazareth had been always regarded,
in reference to his pure and beneficent life and sublime
�Civilization.
21
precepts, simply as a great moral Teacher, the case
would have been otherwise, for much of that which we
may suppose, and are taught, that Civilization owes to
supernatural Christianity is owing in reality to that
moral and social standard which the advance of human
intelligence and culture, through a succession of great
minds (amongst whom Christ shines conspicuous), has
woven into our course of life, and which is partly de
rived from Greek and Roman exemplars of noble
patriotism and heroic virtues, and is chiefly secular, and
has, in truth, little closer connection with supernatural
Christianity than conventionally going by its name.
Since the 15th century the cultivation of the human
reason, stimulated chiefly by the observation and inter
rogation of nature through the methods of the physical
sciences, and the discoveries which have been thereby
made, has greatly diminished the influence of supersti
tion, and in distinguishing knowledge from emotion has
enabled the highest class of minds to perceive that human
affairs are not regulated by any discoverable influence of
a supernatural arbitrary Will, but that the course of life
proceeds now as it did during those countless ages that
elapsed previously to the birth of man, that is, in
obedience to natural invariable Law. It is also seen
that our civilization is really the result of intellectual
development, keeping pace with the improvement and
exercise of man’s natural intelligence. A philosophical
historian of rare erudition, the late Henry Thomas Buckle,
has shown us that the diminution of the two greatest
evils with which men have yet contrived to afflict their
fellow-creatures, viz., Religious Persecution and the
Practice of War, has been effected solely by the activity
of the human intellect, and the inventions and dis
coveries which, in a long course of ages, man has been
able to make.
Now, glancing backwards over the historical period I
have so slightly sought to traverse, we see indeed that
nations, like individuals, have apparently a physiological
�22
Civilization.
life, that they are born and progress with marked regu
larity through periods of youth, maturity, decline, and
death, but we also see that the ideas and principles, both
intellectual and moral, that have been elicited through
experience in the course of their careers are not wholly
lost to mankind, and that, though for a time they may
remain buried beneath the barbarian wave, they become
resuscitated for the use of succeeding generations. Thus
it was that Greece acquired much of her wisdom from
the Egyptians, then again the Alexandrians were the
pupils of Greece, Rome learnt from both, next the
Arabians held aloft the lamp of knowledge, helping to
rekindle it in Moorish Spain, amongst the descendants
of the Goths and Vandals that had overrun that portion
of the Boman Empire. The great nations of modern
Europe, especially Germany, France, and England, have
imbibed the lore, and garnered the experience, of all
preceding times, and our own mission perhaps may be
to pass on the sacred deposit through those English
speaking races that are now illuminating with their in
telligence the New Worlds of America and Australia.
The progress of Civilization is at present more rapid
and more firmly established than at any prior period of
the world’s history. Are we to believe that it is destined
to become again extinguished or suppressed ? or can we
discover modern elements and safeguards apparently
sufficient to protect our modern civilization from retro
gression or decay ?
If we compare our social life with that of ancient
times we shall observe some very remarkable differences.
We shall find that we are in possession of a Criterion of
Truth, a Standard of Right, and a power of Moral In
fluence that were entirely wanting to the nations of
antiquity.
In the first place I will observe that one of the most
important particulars in which the moderns have ad
vanced beyond the ancients consists in our having
attained to a knowledge of the nature of and right method
�Civilization.
23
of using the reasoning faculty, of discovering truth, and
of acquiring real knowledge. We may assert that man
was never thoroughly taught these until the advent of
the two great thinkers, Bacon and Descartes, now recog
nised as the Fathers of true Philosophy. At the time
when they flourished, the beginning of the 17th cen
tury, the powers and authority of the human reason had
become discredited, partly through the influence of
superstition, and partly from centuries of failure. Taking
all the philosophers together, it was asked, what had
their subtle reasonings done towards promoting the
happiness of mankind? Yet these two illustrious men,
in the face of such discouragement, in Bacon’s case, after
reviewing the deficiencies of all preceding scientific sys
tems, boldly proclaimed that nevertheless the human
reason was the only instrument for acquiring and testing
truth—both pointed out that doubt and inquiry were its
necessary preliminaries, and both inculcated that sound
maxim of wisdom ; to distrust what the Reason cannot
be appealed to to verify. But our great countryman
Bacon went beyond this, and enunciated a fur
ther principle, which collected from his writings, and
compressed into a single aphorism, may be thus stated:
that the Reason, as an instrument for the discovery of
Truth is like the lever; it requires a point of material
support. Hence he called on men to interpret the facts
of nature, to observe her through experience and to in
terrogate her by experiment; and our superiority to the
ancients in real knowledge, and in those correct moral
principles that flow from real knowledge, is greatly the
result of modern scientific men following this the objec
tive method of research. Pursuing this method, Sir
John Herschell made the important intellectual discovery
that the axioms of mathematics are not, as the ancients
and some moderns supposed, intuitive truths, but that
they are inductions from human experience of comparison
and measurement; and thus has been imparted to the
human mind a new tendency withdrawing it from that
�24
Civilization.
delusive, and mentally demoralising doctrine, that deems
intuition to be the voice of God, and to speak with an
authority higher than Reason or Nature.
In the second place, we have become acquainted
through the Physical Sciences, with the order and uni
formity of Nature, the method of the government of the
World, and man’s position in it, and we are thereby
enabled by foresight of the future, that true power of
prevision which science bestows, to regulate life in
accordance with those inexorable conditions or laws of
nature upon which its health, its longevity, and its
happiness, so materially depend.
Thirdly, through the modern inventions of the Print
ing Press, the Steam Engine, and the Electric Tele
graph, and their subsidiary appliances, we possess
means (unknown to the ancients) of both accurately
recording, and speedily and universally diffusing, those
intellectual truths and moral sentiments which the
foremost minds amongst us are ever and anon inspired
with, and flash forth for our benefit and guidance.
Thus, society at large in all the civilized nations is
early and continually being impregnated with the prin
ciples and maxims mental and moral that should regu
late the conduct of civilized men towards one another.
In the fourth place, consequent on the first practical
use of the discovered polarity of the magnet, the
mariner’s compass, that diffusing agency of Civilization,
Commercial Intercourse,
“By which remotest regions are allied,
Which makes one city of the universe,”
has become established amongst the modern nations of
the Earth, and being founded on mutual interest and
reciprocal integrity, unites them into one brotherhood,
enabling the moral force of the whole to be brought to
bear in turn upon each, and creating, so to speak, an
International Conscience, to whose dictates each state
becomes more or less sensitive, and thereby acts of
inhumanity, aggression, and persecution, that were of so
�Civilization.
^5
frequent perpetration in the isolated communities of
antiquity, are shrunk from beneath the reproachful
gaze of surrounding nations.
In the fifth place, that assured Freedom of Speech,
(by virtue of which we are enabled freely to address
you in this Hall), and that full discussion by a Free
press which are now secured in all European countries
to an extent that in ancient times was undreamt of,
have become the true source of an enlightened public
opinion, which the greatest of potentates, be they sove
reigns or statesmen, are powerless to resist; and lastly,
I will mention that great modern discovery in the science
of politics, the Representative Principle, through whose
operation the voice of all finds utterance in the very
making of the laws enacted for the government of all.
This freedom of speech, and discussion, and political
enfranchisement, constitute our great security (wholly
wanting to the peoples of antiquity) that our property,
our lives, and our liberties, shall be, everywhere and at
all times, duly respected.
These are indeed advantages and safeguards that
seem to render our present Civilization impregnable, and
to enable us with confidence to predict a continued
progress that shall bring about a great increase of the
happiness of the human race—or, perhaps I might with
more accuracy say, a great decrease in the unhappiness
of life ; for, though the condition of modern society is,
in this respect, greatly in advance of that of ancient
nations, if we will consider it in relation to what the
life of man is capable probably of being made, we shall
see that our boasted Civilization is in truth a state of
relative barbarism. If we reflect upon the frightful
miseries of pauperism, overwork, drunkenness, vice,
crime, disease, premature death! that are so rife
amongst us, and consider the amount of physical suffer
ing and mental anguish that are essentially bound up
with them, we must conclude that modern Civilization,
comprising as it does all these calamities, falls very far
short of what Civilization should be.
�26
Civilization.
The calamities to which I am referring are so familiar
to us that they can hardly be made more impressive by
any statistical proof, yet it is painfully convincing to
know, on such undoubted authority, that, whilst (ac
cording to the Registrar-General) the normal length of
the life of man is probably now nearly 100 years, the
average length of the actual lives of our industrious
classes is not nearly half that amount, whilst, of the
children that are brought into existence, a fearful
number never live to attain manhood at all!
Now, it is a true, however melancholy, reflection that
there is sufficient knowledge in the world, if it were
only universally diffused and acted upon,—if even it
were preached from the thousand pulpits of our land in
the stead of superstition,—to banish from life nearly all
its miseries, for nearly all are traceable to ignorance,
and we may well ask how it happens that such is still
the shocking condition of our civilization, notwith
standing all our intellectual, scientific and moral pro
gress. The answer is a very simple one. Man has
never yet applied his knowledge to devise the proper
remedies. In the case of premature death, medical
and sanitary science have indeed accomplished much
towards the prevention and cure of fatal diseases,—yet
the plague is not stayed, and why, because diseases are
not the causes of premature deaths, diseases are nature’s
expedients through which such causes operate, and,
though all known diseases were stamped out to-morrow,
the effect upon the Registrar-General’s return of deaths
could be but slight.
Before I refer to the probable reason of this some
what startling proposition let me in some measure pro
ceed to verify it as a fact. I will take as an illustration
the single disease of small-pox. -Previously to the dis
covery by Jenner of a specific means of preventing
small-pox, the deaths that occurred through that loath
some malady were numbered by tens of thousands. At
the present day, death, through the agency of small
�Civilization,
27
pox, is so rare that, except at long intervals, it is
scarcely observable; even in this densely-crowded metro
polis frequently not one death out of its entire popula
tion occurs through small-pox in the course of several
weeks. Yet the average proportion of premature deaths
has been but slightly decreased by the stamping out of
small-pox, that is, nearly the same proportion of deaths
to the whole population has continued to occur, and,
when the small-pox returns and claims its victims, again
the average of total deaths is not appreciably affected
by it. In proof of this I can appeal to facts within
your own knowledge, for doubtless none can have for
gotten the terrible outbreak of small-pox in this metropolls in the year 1870-1. Well, the Registrar-General’s
weekly return of deaths throughout that period showed
that at the very time when the small-pox epidemic was
most fatal, the total number of deaths from all causes
was not only not increased, but was actually below the
usual average. Thus, (to present you with actual
details), in the week ending the 2nd of February,
1871, the deaths from small-pox were 1.87, the total
deaths “ from all causes ” were 1,632, being 163 below
the estimated average. In the week ending the 9th of
February the deaths from small-pox were 196, the
total deaths from all causes 1,683, being 46 below the
estimated average. In the week ending the 27th of
February the deaths from small-pox were 227, the total
deaths from all causes were 1,633, being 13 below the
estimated average.
The explanation of these facts is, that when, in our
present social condition, deaths decrease or increase
through one particular form of fatal disease the number
of deaths through other forms of disease becomes cor
respondingly varied. Thus at the present time we are
apparently enjoying the fruits of a remarkable stimulus
that has within the last few years been given to the
appliances of sanitary science, and there can be no doubt
that diseases and deaths that were occasioned by over
�28
Civilization.
crowded dwellings, putrescent food, polluted water,
defective drainage, and deficient ventilation, have been
very much diminished, for, not only have the medical
faculty exerted all their skilled and benevolent energies
in this direction, but the improved education of the peo
ple has brought them to some knowledge of the laws of
health, and to the regulation of life in accordance with
their teachings ; yet the aggregate gain to life by such
improvement is but slightly felt, and at this moment the
attention of the sanitary authorities, as appears from Dr.
Buchanan’s presidential address to the Medical Officers of
Health in October last, is greatly engrossed in the obser
vation of an insidious and fatal form of diarrhoea, of
recent appearance, that during the summer months
attacks and destroys young children by thousands upon
thousands !
Such is a sample of the evidence that exists in proof
of the proposition that, though all existing diseases
could be at once stamped out, (the ratio between popu
lation and subsistence remaining the same,) the diminu
tion in the aggregate number of deaths would be but
slight. Well, if that be a matter of correct inference
from actual observation, we must conclude that those
diseases, though they were the agencies by which the
deaths occurring took place, yet were not themselves the
causes of such deaths, and that the real causes must be
sought elsewhere. Now there are some interesting con
siderations that should guide us in the search.
What is it, would you suppose, that occasions the
number of people to be so different in different coun
tries, or in the same country at different times ? Why,
for instance, should the population of these Islands, in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, scarcely number five mil
lions, whilst, in the reign of Queen Victoria, it exceeds
twenty-five millions ? The answer, in a general propo
sition, is this. The means of human subsistence for our
population in Queen Elizabeth’s reign were less than
they are in Queen Victoria’s reign by the proportional
�Civilization.
29
difference between their respective populations—for the
number of the population of any particular country at
any stated time is simply that precise number which the
resources, or means of subsistence of such country, can
then support. If such resources remained stationary
the population would remain stationary, as they increase
so does the amount of the population.
Now if we turn our attention to the lower forms of
life we find that the researches of physiologists have
ascertained as an undoubted fact that all organisms are
■endowed with a physical tendency to multiply beyond
their means of subsistence, that is, by reason of the high
geometrical ratio of their increase more are born than
■can possibly survive, so that there is a surplus that must
perish. The discovered principle of the continuity of
Nature forcibly suggests that man himself can be no
exception to this physical law, that probably more
human beings are born than can possibly survive, and
that the population is constantly being reduced, to that
inexorable limit which the resources of the country can
for the time being sustain, by those various death-deal
ing agencies, “ Nature’s terrible correctives of redun
dancy,” to which I have referred.
Man, however, by the exercise of his intelligence,
controls the operation of this law in all lower forms of
life, whereby not only a limited number of individuals
is produced, but the breed itself is continued under
conditions of permanent health and vigour. The late
Edward Holland of Dumbleton, one of the greatest
breeders of sheep in this country, assured me that the
loss of life amongst his lambs, from those causes that
in a human being would occasion premature death, did
not amount to ten per cent.
Now, can it be supposed by any reflecting mind that,
whilst man, by the use of his intelligence, can so regu
late the multiplication of the lower animals as to pro
duce and rear them in normal health, he is using his
intelligence aright in abandoning the breed of the supe-
�3°
Civilization.
rior animal man to such recklesness, ignorance, and
superstition as combine to produce the diseased, the
physically and mentally stunted, the half-starved and
short-lived individuals that form almost the very staple
of the masses in the cities and towns of our most highly
civilized countries. Of our human lambs it is not ten
per cent, but forty per cent, that perish in agonies
during the period of infancy 1
It was a saying of Descartes that if it be possible to
perfect mankind the means of doing so would be found
in the medical sciences, and it has become a settled
axiom that a sound philosophy of human life must be
based upon the truths of Physiology.
The future prospects of our Civilization, not only the
future happiness, but the future virtue, (if they be
separable,) of the community are probably greatly
dependent upon the discovery of remedial means whereby
this wholesale slaughter of children, and the diseases
and other agencies that bring an untimely end to life,
may be put a stop to, and the ratio of human increase
subordinated to the ratio of the increase of adequate
human subsistence, so that the miseries of the masses,
resulting from the pressure of their numbers, may be
effectually alleviated, and the balance of the population
maintained, not, as now, by premature deaths, but by
fewer births. Such means, whatever they may be, must
approve themselves to our highest moral sense, other
wise they would deservedly remain inoperative.
If, then, instead of resigning ourselves to the despair
ing contemplation of that remote and visionary future,
which Herbert Spencer, in his 'Principles of Biology,’
has shadowed forth as the only human prospect of relief
from these evils, we may sensibly look forward to such
more immediate remedies as I have adverted to, then we
may yet hope to see the lower level of life raised to a
really civilized condition, and the most miserable and
degraded classes or members of our present society
absorbed into a superior type. Then, too, though not,
�Civilization.
31
it is to be feared, until then, the sanguine creation of the
genius of Dr. Richardson, in his captivating address to
the Social Science Congress at Brighton, may be expected
to prove a reality, and the sanitary city of "Hygeia” be
found descending from the realms of the Imagination to
assume a beneficent sway upon Earth.
FEINTED BY C. W. EEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STEEET, HAYMABKET.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
—physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUU o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 23rd April,
1876, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s.
6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter) to the
Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and
�
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Civilization : a sketch of its rise and progress, its modern safeguards & future prospects; a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 20th February, 1876
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Finch, A. Elley
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Civilization
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THE SCIENCE OF LIFE
WORTH LIVING.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 22nd, FEBRUARY, 1880,
By A. ELLEY FINCH.
London:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
PRICE THEEPENCE.
�The Society’s Leetures by the same Author,
now printed, are—on
Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Price 3d., or post free 3jd.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modem
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�SYLLABUS.
The two theories of the Universe and of Human Life, derived
respectively from Superstition and Science.
1. The theory derived from Superstition stated, with indica
tions of its source.
Biassed belief in this (theological) theory arising from early
training in creeds, catechisms, and sermons, and from the in
fluence of proselyting societies. Illustrations from the Reports
of the Sunday School Union Society; the British and Foreign
Bible Society; the Religious Tract Society.
Our actual condition (or practice) of life shown to be based
upon the theological theory. Illustrations of its overcrowding,
poverty, intemperance, disease, crime, premature death, &c.,
from the Census Population Returns. The Registrar General’s
Returns. Fry’s Royal Guide to the London Charities. Statistics
of Prisons and Lunatic Asylums.
The present attitude of Science in relation to these features of
human existence.
2. The theory of the Universe and of Human Life (physio
logical) derived from Science stated, with indications of its source.
Illustrations from Newton’s Principia. Darwin’s Descent of
Man.
Remarkable absence of Societies for spreading knowledge of
and inducing belief in the theory derived from Science.
Summary of the Natural Law by virtue of which organised
bodies are multiplied in excess of their means of subsistence.
Illustrations of the inexorable operation of this law from
Haeckel’s History of the Creation. Darwin’s Origin of Species.
Walford’s Famines of the World.
The first canon of scientific culture of life involves limitation
of numbers, and the controlling of physical conditions of repro
duction through the application of human intelligence.
How the continuity or similarity of structure and function
between human, animal, and vegetal organisms, enables Science
(through comparative research) to acquire knowledge of the
nature of the constitution of man, and to originate rules for its
right treatment and progressive improvement. Illustrations
from Huxley’s Man’s place in Nature—Galton’s Hereditary
Genius.
Responsibility (taught by Science) in becoming a factor of
posterity.
To what extent, by applying (analogically) to the rearing of
the Human Being the scientific methods that have produced the
exquisite growth, maturity, and beauty of cultivated Flowers
and Fruit, and the joyousness, hilarity, and perfection of form,
temper, and disposition of the thorough-bred Animal, the evils
of our present existence might be eliminated, its morality puri
fied and elevated, its course converted into a career of virtuous
enjoyment, and Life practically made worth Living.
��THE
SCIENCE OF LIFE WORTH LIVING.
----- !-----
Iw the arena of European thought there are at the pre
sent time conspicuous two conflicting conceptions or
theories concerning the nature of the Universe, and the
origin and nature of Human Life.
One of these theories is based upon supposed Super
natural Knowledge, and, inasmuch as, from the point of
view of Science, all alleged knowledge of what transcends
Nature relates to the region of the emotional imagination,
I will, for the sake of distinction, designate the concep
tion I am now alluding to as—;the theofy derived from
Superstition.
The other conception is one which has slowly emerged
from the long series of human discoveries that have
gradually brought to light those facts and laws of Nature
upon the truth and experience of which it will be found
to be exclusively based. I will designate it therefore as
—the theory derived from Science.
You all know, more or less, what are the salient points
of these respective theories, having probably learnt them
by rote. I am going to restate them now, because the
argument of the Lecture is founded upon an endeavour
to realise them by our reason, and to reflect upon them
by way of comparison; notwithstanding that it has be
come the intellectual fashion with a certain school to en
courage subtle and plausible attempts to reconcile these
theories—or hopelessly to confuse the separate provinces
of reason and faith.
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Now the prior-mentioned theory may I think be shortly
stated thus—First, with regard to the Universe; that it
came into existence by the fiat of the Will of an Almighty
Power, which, somewhere about six thousand years ago,
created it out of nothing in six days. That the principle
part of this Universe consists of the World our Earth,
which is a fixed plain or vast floor, arched over by a con
cave vault. The Sun and Moon, and the Stars which
stud this vault or firmament, and which move round the
fixed earth, are simply greater and lesser lights created
subordinate to, and called into existence for the purpose
of the earth, and to give light thereon.
Secondly, with respect to the origin and nature of
Man, the theory under consideration is more complex, as
well as of more serious interest, and can only be com
prehended (so far as human reason can comprehend any
thing so mysterious,) by entering into somewhat more
detail.
It is related then that the Almighty Power created
man by forming him out of the dust of the ground, and
breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, whereby
man became a living soul; and the other sex we are told
was created by the causing of a deep sleep to fall upon
the man, and the taking out of one of his ribs, and the
closing up of the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which
was so taken from the man was made into a woman; and
this first-created pair were commanded to be fruitful and
multiply.
The theory then goes on to relate that the man and
woman, thus created pure and sinless, were immediately
tempted into sin by Satan in the form of a serpent. That
this sin of our first parents brought a curse upon the
Earth, and incurred the penalty of death for themselves
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7
and for all their posterity. That the human race thence
forth became more wicked, so that the Almighty repented
that he had made man, and destroyed by a deluge all the
inhabitants of the Earth, with the exception of eight per
sons who had feared him, chiefly Noah and his sons; who
also were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. This
sweeping purification however was as futile as the origi
nal design, and men became more wicked than ever, and
the final remedy devised by the Almighty for the salva
tion of his human creatures was the incarnation of him
self in the person of his only Son (the second person of a
mysterious trinity). That the death of such only Son
upon the Cross, the innocent for the guilty, was a vi
carious expiation or atonement of the sins of the World;
provided however that all this should be believed; faith
or belief in it being made the condition upon which
alone such salvation is possible.
The theory does not however stop there. It declares
that everything which happens upon the Earth is the
direct effect of the exercise of the Will of this Almighty
Power, so that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without his sanction or knowledge, and moreover that the
ills of life are to be remedied by means of prayer or en
treaty directed to him. Man therefore is emphatically
counselled to be constant in prayer; to pray without
ceasing. He is assured that the prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. That the prayer of faith shall save
the sick. That when two or three are gathered in the
name of the Almighty he will grant their requests, and
that whatsoever any man shall ask Him in the name of
Christ (his only son before mentioned) it shall be granted
to him.
Then, as to our state of life; the theory inculcates that
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poverty on Earth is a condition pleasing to the Almighty,
and will be rewarded by riches in Heaven, and that the
aim of our life here should be to qualify ourselves for ob
taining this heavenly reward. That wealth and happiness
on Earth are not therefore the ends in view at all, but are
rather obstacles than otherwise to attaining Life everlast
ing in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That our brief existence in this World is a transitory
state of probation, merely accessory or a passage to an
other, where life will be endless ; eternal bliss in Heaven
to those who have believed in this theory, eternal torment
in Hell to those who have disbelieved in it.
Such, in short compass, is an outline of the one theory
of the Universe, and of the origin and nature of the life
of Man.
Now it is by no means easy to point out the source of
the theory I have been slightly sketching. It is commonly
supposed to be contained in the Bible. Partly no doubt
it is so, partly it is even more ancient, for India and
Egypt share in its origin with Palestine and Syria. As
a whole it is the theory of theology; that is to say, it has
been, in its ultimate shape, elaborated from the metaphy
sical and scholastic subtleties of that remarkable class of
men the Patres et Doctores—the Fathers and Schoolmen
who flourished throughout the early centuries of the
Christian era, and during that period of scientific dark
ness termed the middle ages; and, so potent has been the
indirect influence of their speculative interpretations of
the oriental metaphors of scripture, that it is quite doubt
ful whether any of us now living are capable of reading
the Bible free from the prejudices and preconceptions
that, partly by inheritance, and partly by education, we
have imbibed from such speculations, and which, in the
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&
mystifying form of creeds, catechisms, confessions of
faith, and other ecclesiastical devices, are now found to
stand between man’s unsophisticated reason and the,
unique language of Holy Writ.
We are educated then to believe in this theological
theory, and our belief is not only thus biassed from birth
to manhood, but throughout our whole lives the most
extraordinary pains are taken to retain our understand
ings in its thraldom.
It may surprise some of you to hear that there are in
this metropolis alone upwards of 150 Missionary, Bible,
Beligious Tract, Christian evidence, and other proselyting
Societies applying large funds and exercising wide ranging
influence in spreading the knowledge of, and persuading
to the belief in this theological theory. Some idea may
be gained of the extent of the operations of these societies
if I give you a very few of the published statistics of some
two or three of them.
First I will instance the Sunday School Union Society,
who, in their Annual lieport for last year of what they
term their threefold work of pioneering, extension, and
consolidation, and the overcoming of prejudices, sophisms,
and personal antipathies, state that they have now in
London upwards of 830 schools, 20,000 teachers, and.
231,000 scholars.
I may here very appositely remark in reference gene
rally to the academical system of this country, that there
is not even yet a single one of our great Public Schools
that is presided over by a head master who is not a theo
logian. When therefore we read of a Conference of Head
Masters, such as was held on 22nd of December last, we.
must not be shocked to find that an adequate or more
thorough teaching of Science formed no part of their pro
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gramme, and that they should be largely occupied in
discussing such subjects as “de flagellatione corporis” and
“ de cerevisia potendo ”—that is—concerning the flogging
of the little boys, and stopping the beer of the big ones.
Next I will take a very few facts and figures from the
last Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It
is therein stated that in the year 1878 the Society had
issued and circulated upwards of 3,340,000 copies of the
scriptures in whole or in part. That from the commence
ment of the Society’s operations in the year 1804, upwards
of eighty-five millions of such copies had been circulated,
and they calculate that they have thereby rendered the
Bible available to seven hundred millions of the human
family!
I will lastly turn to the Report of the Religious Tract
Society for the year 1878. There I find it stated that the
total circulation from London alone of the various mis
cellaneous issues of this energetic body had reached the
astounding total of upwards of sixty millions, of which
28,500,000 were religious tracts; so that I think we may
conclude that the community is tolerably saturated with
this species of literature, even if we did not know, what
is probably within the experience of nearly every one
present, viz.: That you cannot walk the streets without
having these publications thrust upon you, and that you
can hardly enter a Railway Station or a room in a Hotel
throughout the Kingdom which is not supplied with the
scriptures gratis, and partly adorned by a display of theo
logical tracts and texts.
We cannot wonder then if we find, as the fact is, that
the actual condition or practice of our lives is based upon
the theological theory, and that whatever may be the
prevalent form of ailment with society or any of its
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11
members, the sovereign cure suggested by our accredited
teachers is resort to the theological agency of Prayer,
Intercession, or Thanksgiving to the Supernatural Pro
vidence assumed by the theory to be specially regulating
the affairs of life. Things serious and trivial are alike
affected by it.
If bells are to be hung in a Church, they must first be
blessed by the ministers of supernatural grace. If a
vessel of war is to be named, a christening or theological
ceremony must be performed over it. If new colours are
presented to a regiment of soldiers, the approval of the
supernatural must be invoked. If an epidemic prevails,
prayer is to be resorted to to drive it away. If the
weather is such that the crops will not ripen, the super
natural is appealed to to change it. If, notwithstanding
such appeal, the weather continues disastrous, the crops
are destroyed, and the farmer is ruined, so inveterate are
our theological habits that a harvest Thanksgiving to the
supernatural must nevertheless be held 1
Even the sick room is overshadowed by this superstition,
and sometimes becomes converted into the chamber of
death, by reason of the physician’s skill being baffled, not
by the symptoms of the disease but by the patient’s
nervous depression and anxiety resulting from terrified
belief in the theological theory.
And now, if we turn to the characteristics of our life
carried on under the influence of this theory, what do we
find them to be ? I think I do not err if I describe them
as being for the most part divers forms and shapes of
misery, and variety of wretchedness—I am not of course
alluding to the lives of the upper ten thousand, who are
by their special circumstances exceptionally placed in
relation to any theory, but I am referring more particu
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larly to the lives of the masses of those who compose the
middle and lower ranks of society.
In verification of this assertion I will again appeal to
the irrefutable logic of statistics. If we turn to the
Population Census returns we find that whilst, in the
judgment of the Registrar-General (whose conclusion I
may add is confirmed by the reasonings and research of
our friend Dr. Richardson), the fair natural limit of the
life of the human being is stated to be 100 years, yet the
average length of life in this country, taking all of us
together, is only between forty and fifty years, whilst, if
we confine our calculation to those who constitute our
toiling millions, their actual average length of life is only
between twenty and thirty years. It may be literally said
that the natural length of life is ground out of them by
over-work, by overcrowding, by intemperance, by disease,
and by destitution. So short a span of existence can in
deed be to many of them little more than the prolonged
agony of a slow death. “We don’t live,”—said many of
the street folk to Horace Mayhew, when he was enquiring
into the habits of the London poor,—“ We don’t live—
we starve.”
Again, in the Registrar-General’s summary of births,
deaths, and marriages for the year 1878 we find it recorded
that out of the 83,000 deaths that occurred in London in
that year, upwards of 42,000 took place at ages under
twenty years, and it appears as a general inference from
his figures that of the children that are brought into
existence upwards of 40 per cent, of them perish under
five years of age ! "
Now these are very fearful facts, in whatever light we
may view them, and the amount of human misery they
involve can hardly be realised by means of languages
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13
though if it were necessary to paint with sadder colours
the sorrows of our existence I would refer to Fry’s Royal
Guide to the London Charities, amongst which are enume
rated no less than some seventy Hospitals, having an
annual aggregate of nearly 1,000,000 in-and-out-door
patients 1
All honour indeed to those whose munificence supports
these beneficent Institutions, but, what we are now con
cerned to notice is the appalling mass of disease and
destitution that renders them necessary, and fills to over
flowing their tens of thousands of beds and appliances.
I might7 even still further darken the picture of life if
I summed up, however briefly, the statistics of our habits
of intemperance and the numbers of committals to jails
and of the inmates of lunatic asylums; but I think that
what I have stated may at any rate be regarded as suffi
ciently justifying the Apostle of Superstition, who has
lately been heard to enquire so despairingly—Is Life
worth Living ?
Now, remembering that in obedience to the theological
theory millions of prayers, in every conceivable variety
that the will of man can devise, have been, and are being
continually uttered imploring supernatural relief from
the evils of this world of woe, I think we might well
reply to the above enquiry by asking—Is it not time
seriously to try something else ?
There is no doubt that in one sense enlightened minds
have been for a long time engaged in endeavouring to
lessen the ills of life by the application of the teachings
of Science. Philanthropists have especially sought to
show that in matters relating to health, diseases for
instance, chiefly result from the disregard of certain
natural laws; but, between Superstition and Science there
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is really no ratio, and, whilst the one appeals to super
natural Providence for the cure of evil, and the other
would rouse up the human reason to discover the law of
nature which the presence of evil shows us has been dis
regarded, it is in fact impracticable effectually to graft
the resources of science upon the theological theory, and,
in attempting it, we are only engaged in the delusive
practice of pouring new wine into old bottles. The old
bottles of theology are indeed from time to time burst,
while the new wine of science is mostly spilt and lost.
Not but what a summary of the achievements of science
during even the present century would show us very
remarkable changes bearing upon the progress of our
every day life,—commerce freed from restrictions; trade
monopolies broken down; the necessaries of life cheapened;
important political, economic, and legal reforms effected;
locomotion and the means of communication marvellously
expedited ; vast improvements in the medical art; pain
mitigated, diseases diminished, life itself lengthened.
Yet the conclusion I desire to put to you is, that the
expected beneficial results of these scientific achievements
have been more or less neutralized or impeded through
the influence of the theological theory, by the stimulus
they have thereby been encouraged to impart to the irra
tional and reckless over production of human beings, so
that their most striking effect has been the excessive, that
is, the too rapid increase of our population, especially of
the indigent or wage receiving class, whose miserable
lives and untimely deaths are but too surely vouched for
by those remorseless returns of the Registrar General.
It appears by the published digest of the last census
that the population of England and Wales, which, in the
year 1801 was nine millions, had doubled its numbers by
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15
the year 1851, and, by the year 1871, had increased to
twenty-three millions I
Then in relation to our education on the theological
basis, the attitude of science is thus humourously de
scribed by Professor Huxley. “The educational tree,” he
remarks, “ seems to have its roots in the air, its leaves
and flowers in the ground, and I confess I should like to
turn it upside down, so that its roots might be solidly
embedded among the facts of nature, and draw thence a
sound nutriment for its foliage and fruit of literature and
of art. I think I do not err in saying that if Science
were made the foundation of education instead of being
at most stuck on as a cornice to the edifice, the present
state of things could not exist.”
Let us now turn to the consideration of the theory of
the Universe, and of the origin an-d nature of Human Life
which we have derived from the discoveries of Science.
When you look up at the sky on a bright cLear night
of course you see the vast apparent dome over your heads
profusely studded with constellations and multitudes of
stars. You observe that the great majority of these
appear to be fixed in their relative positions, always
appearing in their accustomed places, no matter where .
the observer may be, but that with regard to some few of
the-stars, which appear to be larger than the rest, and to
shine with a more brilliant and attractive light, these
you observe to be perpetually shifting their positions,
only some of them appearing together on any particular
night.
,
Now the marvellous discoveries of astronomical science
respecting the stars are shortly this. Those that are
never seen to move out of their relative positions, and
therefore called the fixed stars, are at an enormous,
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practically an incalculable distance from the Earth, and
are of vast size compared with it, many of them being
indeed suns, the centres of systems similar to what is
termed our solar system. They are altogether so removed
from us as to exert no appreciable influence upon the
earth, and they may be dismissed from present considera
tion with the single observation, that they powerfully
impress us with the vastness of the universe according to
the scientific conception of it, far beyond realisation by
the human imagination, and convince us that our earth can
not be the world that the theological theory asserts, but that
it is really only a very minute portion of the vast creation.
To attain anything like a realisable idea of our World
according to Science we must limit our reflections to those
few moving stars whose larger size and softer brilliancy
seem so to fascinate our sight and thoughts, and which are,
relatively to the fixed stars, very near to us. These mov
ing stars then are the planets that circle round our Sun.
The Earth is known by science to be one of such planets,
and to an observer placed upon the surface of any of the
others the earth would appear very much like what they
appear to us, though indeed, as to some of them, the
planet Jupiter for instance with its four satellites or
moons and whose bulk is some 1300 times larger than
that of the Earth, our planet with its one moon would
appear to an inhabitant of Jupiter, if visible at all, as a
very insignificant star indeed.
‘ To comprehend this more clearly we must mentally
separate this planetary system from the rest of the starry
universe, and contemplate it distinctly by itself.
Here you have an ordinary representation of a few of
the chief bodies of the system,* showing the Sun in the
* See diagram on opposite page.
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URANUS'^..
17
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centre and the several principle planets in their respec
tive orbits round the Sun. It tolerably represents what
the eye would see, supposing we were not upon the Earth,
but looking down on the system from a great elevation
on its north side.
Now, of this majestic system Science explains the pro
bable formation. That is to say—It is known, from tele
scopic observations and mathematical calculations, that
the moving bodies in this system are all similar in form,
being globes not quite spherical or round but oblate, that
is, flattened at their poles. ( That they all severally ro
tate upon their axes in the same direction. That they
all move through space in the same common direction
from West to East. That the curve of their respective
orbits is not mathematically circular but elliptical. That
the eccentricity of their orbits is very slight, and the incli
nation of their planes very small in comparison with that
of the Solar Equator, and that all these planetary bodies
revolve round the central Sun in particular periodic
times.
Now these discovered facts, considered in connection
with the known natural laws of gravitation, of motion,
and of heat, and the known laws that rule the human in
tellect in its search after truth, impel our reason towards
certain conclusions, viz.: That the former state of the
solar atmosphere, myriads of ages ago, was that of a vast
zone of nebulous or gaseous matter in a state of extreme
heat, extending to the utmost limits of the system, under
going a gradual process of progressive cooling, contrac
tion, and condensation, and that the present state of the
system is simply the necessary physical result of such
natural process of cooling, contracting, and condensing .
by virtue of which the nebulous mass broke up, or sepa
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19
rated into its several component moving bodies, at first
liquid, then becoming solid and such as we now see them.
The entire system, which, as you have seen, is but a
fragment of the starry cosmos, is yet of a size almost
beyond the grasp of our understanding. Thus, the central
Sun is a body 883,000 miles in diameter and is at a dis
tance from our Earth of 93 millions of miles. The Sun’s
distance from the planet Jupiter is 496 millions of miles,
and its distance from the planet Neptune is more than
2,800 millions of miles. These figures help to give us
some idea of the immense magnitude of this relatively
small system.
Now the points to which I wish to draw your attention
are that science has further discovered that this system
and every portion of it is governed by, as well as being
the result of the operation of, fixed natural laws, especially
the laws of gravitation, of motion, of light, and of heat.
That these laws operate uniformly and continuously upon
each one of the bodies of this system as a part of the
whole, and that, with regard to some of these laws—the
law of gravitation for example, it could not possibly be
suspended or altered (physically speaking) in reference to
any one of these bodies, without affecting the relation
subsisting between it and all the other bodies of the
system, so as to perturb, probably annihilate its cosmic,
harmony, as we have it mathematically demonstrated in
the immortal “ Principia ” of Sir Isaac Newton.
You need not then be startled to hear that some of the
greatest astronomers the world has seen, men who have
made the laws of this stupendous system their profoundest
study, notably the illustrious Laplace and Lalande, have
declared that they had been unable to detect in the recon
dite mechanism of its invariable order any indication what
ever of the God of theology.
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The system, so far as human knowledge of it extends,
may be described as a realm of Natural invariable law,
Such as we see it now, it has existed through countless
ages, and such it must continue to exist for countless
ages to come!
Therefore, whilst theologians for the last 1800 years
have been perpetually preaching the approaching end of
the World, astronomers have only recently calculated the
coming variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit
for a million years following the year 1800 I
Hence Science teaches us that the general laws of the
astronomical phenomena of our solar system constitute
the basis of all our real knowledge.
So a venerated philosopher has said—•
“ Two things I contemplate with ceaseles awe;
The Stars of Heaven, and man’s sense of Law.”
Turning now from the system, we must concentrate
our attention upon a very small, but integral portion of
it, a body scarcely 8000 miles in diameter, that globe
which we call the Earth; for obviously we can form no
scientific theory of human existence without knowing the
scientific elements that characterise the planet which is
the home of that existence. The sciences then of As
tronomy and Geology, which together give us the space
scale and the time scale of our world, armed with the
knowledge of the natural laws already referred to, have
been able to trace the formation, the shape, and the his
tory of the Earth for ages before man appeared upon it,
and to tell us that plants and animals came into existence
by slow degrees, and that the condition to which they
had severally attained at the time of man’s appearance
was the result of variation or natural selection progress
ing by means of the physiological interaction of adapta
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21
tion, and inheritance and survival of the fittest operating
throughout, not six days, but enormously long periods of
time. In fact, as to the progress or change in every
thing taking place on our planet, including the seemingly
capricious phenomena of human actions, and even, (as
Dr. Maudesley put it to us so clearly last Sunday), the
apparent freedom of the will, Science has discovered that
all is regulated by the operation of invariable natural law,
linked together, that is, in a chain of secondary causation,
whose only modification is brought about by the interven
tion of human intelligence.
Thus Science is assured that the law of gravitation
would annihilate in an instant the most pious person in
the kingdom, if he lost his footing on a mountain without
having first placed himself in circumstances to counteract
the inexorable operation of such law, or, that if he inno
cently swallowed what the laws of physiology have shown
to be a fatal dose of prussic acid, not all the prayers of
Christendom could avail to save his life.
We are thus according to Science living under the reign
of invariable natural law, and not according to Theology
under the reign of arbitrary supernatural will, and there
fore the aim of the human mind should be to find out and
to study Natural Law, rather than to keep on seeking by
perpetual entreaty to influence Supernatural Will.
These few facts, which for our present purpose may be
accepted as sufficiently representing an outline of the
theory of the Universe derived from Science, are no longer
questioned by competent minds, and I should hardly think
that anyone capable of giving them unprejudiced con
sideration could fail to perceive, that they are contradictory
to, and incompatible with the theory derived from Super-?
stition, which I commenced by describing.
�22
The Science of Life Worth Living.
Now, with reference to the first appearance or creation
of man, Science can at present furnish us only with proba
bilities. These are however the logical outcome of an ap
paratus of evidence almost irresistable.
The scientific view of the origin of the human species
is that which has been made more or less familiar to us
by the works of our illustrious countryman Charles Darwin.
The logic of his argument is really very clear, as well as
cogent, and the result of it may, I think, be thus in
telligibly stated. Due regard being had to what is now
known geologically, zoologically, and embryologically of
the ascending gradations of animal life, especially in the
vertebrate series, and regard being also had to the known
continuity of Nature, it is highly probable that man is the
evolution or development of some lower animal form of
the simian or ape species, from the individuals of which
he is found to differ organically less than the higher and
lower apes differ from each other.
Observe—Darwin does not say that Man came from a
monkey. No one capable of comprehending his great
argument would give utterance to such an absurdity; but,
if Darwin’s biological theory embodies the truth, then
there must have been some ancestral link in the pedigree
of man which has not yet been discovered.
Man, observes Darwin, must be included with other
organic beings in any general conclusion respecting the
manner of his appearance on this earth. And Professor
Huxley, in his treatise on Man’s place in Nature, has
clearly shown from exhaustive observation of biological
phenomena, that the mode of origin and the early stages
of the development of man are identical with those of the
animals below him in the scale.
But, be man’s origin what it may, that with which we
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
23
are more immediately concerned is a scientifically estab
lished fact, viz., his unity of organization with the higher
animals, which again are scientifically found to be organi
cally co-ordinated with the entire series of life below them.
So that it may be said all the organisms on our planet are
related through their structural and functional resem
blances—the human being similar to the animal organism,
only higher in degree.
Such then is the conception of the origin and nature of
Human Life derived from the discoveries of Science.
Now it is remarkable that with regard to the scientific
theory of the Universe, and of the origin and nature of
Man, there is an almost total absence of proselyting
societies for diffusing knowledge of the theory and bringing
about belief in it. There is no Sunday Science School
Society. There is no gratuitous distribution of scientific
tracts or texts.
Indeed, with the exception of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, and the Society under
whose auspices I am now addressing you, I can scarcely
call to mind a single Society whose main object it is to
circulate the knowledge of scientific truth amongst the
people at large, and not only so, but we may call to mind
that on this day of the week at this very hour there are
being delivered from thousands of pulpits exciting exhor
tations to persuade or to frighten men and women (chiefly
I suspect the latter) still to go on, supinely acquiescing
in the theological theory; whilst, with reference to our
Society’s Lectures delivered here, they have, on the part
of the public press, been simply welcomed ■with the con
spiracy of silence.
Yet I do not think the people, if encouraging oppor
tunities were affored them, would be found generally
�24
The Science of Life Worth Living,
indifferent to the acquisition of scientific truth, insensible
to its sublimity, or regardless of its utility.
The Archbishop of York, in his sermon preached on
the occasion of the meeting of the British Association in
August last, declared that “ he did not know how it
would fare with them if none but scientific theories were
to guide them, for ” (said his Grace) “ the great majority
of men did not take an interest in scientific generalisa
tions, they could not appreciate them.” Well, 1 think it
might fairly be replied to these observations that the
majority of men are simply kept in ignorance of science,
and have really at present no available means provided
for their gaining scientific knowledge; but, if they had, I
will venture to say most advisedly that they would soon
be found to prefer Science to Superstition, quickly become
able to distinguish the light of nature from the darkness
of dogma, and eager to guide themselves by scientific
authority.
The scientific theory, having then explained to us the
probable origin, and the physiological nature of man#
proceeds to enlighten us concerning the conditions under
which he is found to increase and multiply.
Now the fundamental natural law discovered by science
in relation to the multiplication of living organisms is
simply this,—that they are everywhere, and under purely
physical conditions, produced in excess of their means of
subsistence. In other words, many more are born than
can possibly survive. Hence the great struggle for exist
ence, so graphically described, especially in relation to
plants and animals, in Haeckel’s “ History of the
Creation,” and in Darwin’s great works.
But this primordial natural law is proved to apply
equally to the production of human beings, and our
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
25
. interest at the present moment is the consideration of the
effect of its operation and consequent struggle for exist
ence on the human race.
If we carry our minds to the populations of the East
we can have no difficulty in realising this problem. In
Cornelius Walford’s instructive book on “the Famines of
the World,” we read accounts of “Nature’s terrible cor
rectives of redundancy ” in all their unmitigated horror.
The recent famine in India has destroyed in one Presidency
alone more than 500,000 people by starvation! and has
thrown a million and a half more upon charity. It has
indeed been recently stated on authority that 1,250,000
persons have perished of this famine. Such is the
appalling result of the people recklessly multiplying
beyond their means of subsistence.
We are blind however to the operation of the law of
population amongst ourselves. We fail to see its working
in the premature deaths of the forty per cent, of all that
are born under five years of age, in the 42,000 deaths
under twenty years of age out of the 83,000 annual
deaths in this metropolis, so blinded are we to the
warnings of Nature through our biassed belief in the
theological theory. Yet the great majority of our un
timely deaths are truly traceable to the very causes that
in uncivilised countries terminate in actual starvation!
The first canon of scientific culture of life therefore
requires that reckless or irrational multiplication should
be restrained, and that man should apply his intelligence
towards controlling the purely physical and mechanical
conditions of reproduction.
We see this canon systematically carried out by the
florist in his culture of flowers. Seeds are sown, but
when they come up they are carefully thinned out, in
�26
The Science of Life Worth Living.
order that, there - being no overcrowding, healthy and
beautiful flowers may be produced by those that are left.
We see the same principle in operation where fine fruit
is desired. The buds are thinned out upon the trees, in
order that the diminished number that are left may attain
perfection of size and maturity. The agriculturist follows
precisely the same course. He is careful, as regards his
stock, that only a limited number of offspring shall be
produced or allowed to survive, and, moreover, that their
parentage shall be the result of careful selection.
Some idea may be gained of the value and importance
of such selective breeding from a case recently decided in
our Law Courts, in which a well known grazier recovered
a sum of =£750 damages for the injury inflicted on his
herd by the fraudulent introduction of an animal with a
false pedigree, but guaranteed, when he purchased it, to
be thorough bred.
Can we doubt what might be the improvement of the
human race, if even the slightest similar care were taken
with our own marriages ?
“ Man’s natural qualities,” observes Francis Gallon, in
his masterly work on Hereditary Genius, “are derived
by inheritance under exactly the same conditions as are
the form and the physical features of the whole organic
world.” “ Man,” says Darwin, “ scans with scrupulous
care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and
dogs before he matches them, but when he comes to his
own marriage, he rarely or never takes any such care.
Yet he might by selection do something, not only for the
bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for
their intellectual and moral qualities.”
Now the continuity of structure and function, that
has been traced by biological science to exist between
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
27
human, animal, and vegetal organisms, has enabled
Science by comparative research, that is, by observation
and experiment upon the lower animals, and even upon
individuals of the vegetable kingdom, to acquire remark
ably useful knowledge of the organic nature and constitu
tion of the human being, and, through these means, to
suggest most important rules for its treatment and pro
gressive improvement.
This is no new idea even in this country. Sir Richard
Steele, writing in the “ Tatler ” 150 years ago, told his
readers that “ one might wear any passion out of a family
by culture, as skilful gardeners blot a colour out of a
tulip that hurts its beauty.”
Science in short shows us that the life of man, like
that of all other living organisms on our planet, is
governed by fixed natural laws, and that by the use of his
understanding man can improve his life through the dis
covery of these laws, and by regulating his. conduct in
obedience to their dictates. That all his faculties are
adapted to his existence in this world of Nature; that
they do not inform him of any Super-natural world,
thereby suggesting that prosperity and enjoyment on
earth are the real moral ends to be desired, and that his
noblest aspirations should be transmuted into good and
useful actions for mankind, and not consumed in senseless
supplications addressed to Supernatural Power.
Thus Science shows us that the discovery by man of
the physiological laws will enable him to enjoy health and
good spirits—of the intellectual laws to acquire know
ledge and mental power—of the economic laws to gain
wealth or competency—of the social and moral laws to
practice virtue, to delight in duty, and to attain to
happiness.
�28
The Science of Life Worth Living.
Therefore Science, which yearns to see mankind re
joicing in life and action, counsels us that one great object
of education should be the study of these laws—to in
culcate obedience to them, and to train our understandings
so that we may conform our lives to their unalterable
nature.
In illustration of these propositions I observe, for
example, that Science has established beyond controversy
that the qualities, whether good or bad, of the parent are
transmitted to, or are inherited by the offspring, and that
this result is as certainly true of the human being as it is
of the lower animal. Hence we are taught what grave
responsibility does in reality rest upon us in becoming
the factors of posterity—in other words, in bringing
children into the world, for we are thus shown that the
future of human life will be what we make it. So true is
what our late friend Professor Clifford told us, “ that man
has made himself,” to which therefore let us add, “ man
can make himself better.”
The theological theory indeed assumes a supernatural
mystery in the matter. Its favourite text, “Be fruitful
and multiply,” addressed, you remember, to Noah, when
nearly all the inhabitants of the earth had been destroyed,
is supposed to be applicable to the teeming millions of
the crowded cities of this nineteenth century! and it is
correspondingly asserted by the theological theory that
“ when God sends mouths he sends meat to fill them.”
But Science reads us a very different lesson, and I will
quote, as pointedly expressing its salutary teaching, what
Professor Matthew Arnold, in his remarkable book
“ Culture and Anarchy,” has said upon that subject.
“ A man’s children ” (he declares) “ are not sent any
more than the pictures upon his walls or the-horses in
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
29
his stable are sent, and to bring people into the world
when one cannot afford to keep them and oneself
decently .... or to bring more of them into the world
than one can offord so to keep.... is by no means an
accomplishment of the divine will, or a fulfilment of
Nature’s simplest laws, but is just as wrong, just as con
trary to the will of God, as for a man to have horses, or
carriages, or pictures when he cannot afford them, or to
have more of them than he can afford.”
This extract from Matthew Arnold’s writings, you may
think is very plain speaking, but, as J. Stuart Mill has
remarked, no one would guess from ordinary talk, that
man had any voice or choice in the matter, so complete is
the confusion of ideas on the whole subject, owing to the
mystery in which it is shrouded by a spurious delicacy,
and that the diseases of society can no more than corporal
maladies be prevented or cured without being spoken
about in plain language.
Now I think we may observe amongst our men of
science, especially those whose minds are most free from
the taint of that inherited mental malady Superstition,
a growing tendency towards advocating the application
to the culture of the Human Being of those scientific me
thods that have proved so successful in producing the ex
quisite growth, maturity, and beauty of cultivated Flowers
and Fruit, and the joyousuess, hilarity, and perfection of
form, temper, and disposition of the thorough - bred
Animal.
Such methods can of course only be applied to man by
way of analogy—that is to say, in reference for instance
to overpopulation, human beings cannot, like flowers, be
destroyed after they are once born, nor can they be
treated by mechanical methods as the lower animals are,
�30
The Science of Life Worth Living.
but man’s intelligence can be appealed to in his own
behalf, his reason can be aroused, and his moral senti
ments interested, and the mode by which the reckless
increase of his numbers should be diminished will un
doubtedly be by inducing fewer births, so as to put a stop
to premature deaths, and the diseases by which premature
deaths are ushered in, diseases, which should plainly in
struct us that, somehow the laws of Nature are being
outraged.
Now, if this were to any appreciable extent accomp
lished it can hardly be doubted that a vast amount of
human misery, that, viz., which is scientifically attribu
table to overpopulation, might be gradually eliminated.
Even war could eventually be deprived of its victims, and
the hideous vice that haunts the public places of our
cities, so reproachful to our boasted civilization and the
moral spirit of our age, might to a great extent be got rid
of; so too the large amount of crime that results from
temptation, so sorely pressing upon the indigent, made
indigent by the competition of the overwhelming numbers
that throng the labour market and depress the rate of
wages, would almost disappear; the savagery of personal
assaults especially upon wives, so often traceable to the
irritability arising from overcrowding, and the demora
lising effect of its vitiated atmosphere, would be found to
vanish; and thus in fine our low-toned morality, which is
the despair of the theologian, would in many respects be
purified and elevated, the course of our existence tend to
become converted into a career of virtuous enjoyment, and
earthly Life, whose inborn delight is at present so em
bittered to all of us by its blendings, or surroundings of
suffering, sorrow, and sin, might, not merely in theory,
but really, and practically be made worth Living.
�
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The science of life worth living: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 22nd February, 1880
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Place of publication: London
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE INFLUENCE OF
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY
IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN MIED
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 25th FEBRUARY, 1877,
By
A. ELLEY
FINCH.
ISanUcm :
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1877.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author,
now printed, are—on
“ Erasmus ; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of the Refor
mation.” (Price 3d.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern Safe-guards,
and Future Prospects.” (Price 3d.)
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between Lord Bacon
and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes and Authorities, (pp. 100,
cloth 8vo., price 5s.)
“ The Pursuit oe Truth ; as Exemplified in the Principles of Evidence
—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With Notes and Authorities,
(pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s.)
Can be obtained of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq.,
15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of
Lecture; or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street.
�SYLLABUS.
Earliest notions respecting the Stars. Genesis. Socrates.
Astronomy as Science is the result of mental calculation based on exact
observation of the Heavenly Bodies, by aid of the Telescope and other
modern scientific instruments.
The Human Understanding previously to the growth of Astronomical
Science was under the dominion of the Imagination.
Illustration of the pre-scientific type of mind—Plato.
The conception of the size and nature of the World was imaginary.
Illustration from their description by Cosmas.
The destiny of the Universe, and man’s position in it were also imaginary.
Illustration from the works of the Fathers and Schoolmen.
Sketch of the true System of the World as made known through the
great Astronomical Discoveries. Hipparchus (160 a.c.)—Ptolemy (140 a.d.)
—Copernicus (1542)—Invention of the Telescope (1609)—Kepler (1619)—
Galileo (1632)—Sir Isaac Newton (1687)—Lagrange and Laplace (1776—
1825)—Adams (1846), and others.
Astronomical Discovery has displaced the theological scheme of existence
by the substitution of a scientific platform; correcting, enlarging, and
elevating men’s views by transferring the intellectual position of the
observer from the Earth to the Sun.
In demonstrating the stability of our Solar System it has destroyed the
theological dogma of the approaching end of the World, with all its
demoralizing influences.
It reveals the Universe as a realm of Law, and Laws of Nature as Laws
of Reason.
It proves a Reign of Reason to be paramount the Dominion of the
Imagination. Illustration from astronomical measurements, magnitudes,
and distances beyond the realization of the Imagination.
It exhibits the reason of man as part of the universal reason, and both
as correlated with a material basis. Illustration from the discovery and
connection of Conic Sections, the curvature of the Planetary Orbits, and
the Law of Gravitation.
It unfolds an Order of Nature as the criterion of Truth, the area of
Knowledge, and the standard of Proportion.
In displaying a real power of Prediction, it has rescued Science from
Theology and Metaphysics.
. It has sapped Superstition, i.e., Belief inconsistent with the unbiassed
dictates of Reason and the verified course of Nature.
In encom-aging a love of inquiry in the spirit of Truth, it has invigorated
Culture and reformed Education.
In eradicating vicious views and false beliefs, it has purified Moral
Principles and augmented Human Happiness.
Illustration of the scientific type of mind—J. S. Mill.
’ Plato and Mill—a parallel.
ILLUSTRATIVE DIAGRAMS.
1. Conic Sections.—2. The Orbit of a Planet round the Sun.—3. Phases of
the Planet Venus as shown by the Telescope.—4. Our Solar System.
��IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN MIND.
HE earliest astronomical sentiments of the human race find
their simplest expression in our
nursery
Tdating back probably to those primevalfamiliarwhen, in therhyme,
times
cloudless
serenity of an oriental night, Shepherd-priests of the Chaldean
plains, awe-subdued and silent, intently watch the star-studded
expanse, glittering so mysteriously above and around them—
“ Twinkle, twinkle little Star,
How I wonder what you are ! ”
That the stars were very small bodies, that they could never
be more to man than objects of wonder, were the intellectual beliefs
of ages—even in the time of the cultured Greeks, we find the great
Athenian Socrates pronouncing Astronomy (that science which now
exhibits the highest perfection, and most exact power of prediction
to which the human mind has ever attained) to be a Divine mystery,
impossible to understand, and impious to investigate ; whilst their
illustrious Philosopher, Anaxagoras, was accused of blasphemy,
for daring to dispersonify their Sun-God Helios, in attempting to
assign invariable laws to the Solar phenomena !
But a writer, more ancient than Socrates, perhaps no less
illustrious than the Grecian Sage, has ventured to narrate to us,
as a fact, the Creation of the little Stars. Thus, he writes—“ And
God made two great Lights .... He made the Stars also. And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth.” Those twinkling points of light are thus regarded as
�6
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
some small addition to the Sun and Moon, without the least
suspicion that each one of their glorious host was itself a mighty
Sun, in comparison with whose bulk that of our earth shrinks to
insignificance !
Now, one of the most certain, as well as important, of the
discoveries of modern Critical Research, has shown us that the
Pentateuch is the composition of several writers, put together
out of different sources, prior documents or legends; and it may, I
trust, be said without improperly shocking the prejudices of any
intelligent person, that the statement I have cited from the book
of Genesis, as to the inferior size, and apparent purpose of the
Stars, is entirely contradicted by the discoveries of Astronomical
Science, and that the fact of such a statement having for so long
a period retained its hold over human beliefs, as supernaturallyinspired truth, must now be attributed mainly to its sublime
audacity.
Mere observation of the Heavens, or Star-gazing, however long
continued, could never have created a Science of Astronomy. The
Chinese, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, all in
ancient times, made and recorded numerous observations of the
Heavenly bodies, but they seldom arrived at scientific conceptions.
Physical Science indeed is not of Asiatic descent, its parentage is
European.
Astronomical Science, that knowledge which enables us to com
prehend the past and future state of the system of the World, has
resulted from a series of marvellous discoveries made by the
intellect of European Man. As Science, Astronomy is even yet
the youthful offspring of the unprejudiced reason, being the result
of mental calculation, based upon an accurate observation of the
Heavenly bodies, by aid of the Telescope, and other modern
scientific Instruments.
The discovery of the real motions of the Earth ; and the other
Planets revolving round the Sun; of the laws which regulate these
motions; of the principle of universal gravitation, as the cause of
these laws; of the actual form of the planetary orbits, and the rate
of speed at which they are traversed; so that the future position of
the vast celestial orbs, rolling incessantly through space, can be
accurately predicted; has been work accomplished, not so much by
the human eye, as by the human brain.
If, when surveying the history of human opinion, we attempt
�Development of the Human Mind.
7
to range its several schools on one side or the other of a single
line of demarcation, we find that the minds of men seem separable
into two almost opposite types. The one being that in which the
Imagination is found to predominate as the ruling intellectual
faculty, the other type being that in which the Beason is regarded
as the ultimate arbiter of both what is true and what is right.
This remarkable mental distinction appears to have prevailed from
very early times. In reference to its organic source, the poet
Coleridge has, in one of his writings, remarked, that all men are
born to be disciples either of Plato or of Aristotle; these
intellectual chiefs of classical antiquity, showing throughout their
writings the very marked mental distinction to which I am
alluding.
With respect to the bearing of this two-fold intellectual organi
zation upon the times in which we are living, and the subjects that
are being so passionately discussed in our day, I will venture to
designate the one, which looks to Imagination as its supreme and
ruling mental power, The theological type of mind: and the other,
which relies on Beason as its ultimate appeal and last resort,
The scientific type of mind. Both types do indeed make use of
reason and imagination too, but they are distinguished by this
peculiarity, that the theological type reasons from premises which
the exalted imagination supplies, under various specious disguises,
such as intuitions, facts of consciousness, innate ideas, and the
like; whilst the scientific type of mind controls the imagination by
the reason, and reasons from premises, directly or indirectly,
derived from experience of the facts of Nature.
Of the theological type of mind, Plato is perhaps the most
memorable example with which history supplies us. One of the
most brilliant thinkers the world has ever produced, he may be
said to be the father of that Metaphysical Philosophy which
constitutes the body of doctrine that the mind builds up by means
of abstract ideas, largely evolved from its inner consciousness, or,
at least, based upon its own intuitions and emotions. Hence it is
the Philosophy of Plato that has been the great secular authority
with Theologians ; its abstractedness from the visible or natural
world recommending it strongly to their imaginations and feelings.
This theological type of mind not only characterised the culture
of antiquity, it coloured deeply the thoughts of men throughout
the middle ages, continuing its overshadowing influence, until, as
�8
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
I am about to show you, it was, to a great extent, displaced by the
development of Astronomical Discovery. Meanwhile, however,
so paramount was its spirit, that the historian of “ Civilization
in Europe,” Monsieur Guizot,- has declared that, previously to
the 17th century, all opinions were saturated with it; that
questions philosophical, political, historical, were all regarded
from a theological point of view ; that even the mathematical and
physical sciences were subordinated to the dogmas of theology.
We cannot wonder that, in such an intellectual condition of
Society, man’s conception of the size and nature of the globe he
inhabited should be purely imaginary. Passing over the views of
heathen antiquity, embodied for the most part in the fascinating
fables of the Greeks, and selecting an illustration from times
believed to be illuminated on the subject by the teaching of inspired
Scriptures, I will cite a work of acknowledged ability, and un
deniable authority at the time when it was published, viz., the
treatise of Cosmas on the Nature of the World.
In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, about the year 535, there
was living at Alexandria a monk named Cosmas, noted for his
inquisitive mind, his scientific attainments, and his knowledge of
the relation between Science and Scripture. At the request of
some learned men he composed and published a considerable work,
entitled “ Christian Opinion concerning the World.” According
to this authority the World was a flat parallelogram or plain. In
the centre is the Earth we inhabit, surrounded by the Ocean, and
encircled by another Earth. To the north is a high conical
mountain, around which the Sun and Moon revolve. When the
Sun is behind the mountain, it is Night, when the Sun is in front
of the mountain, it is Day. The Sky is fixed to the edges of the
outer Earth. It consists of four high walls rising to a great
height, and then meeting in a vast concave roof. The whole is
an immense edifice, of which the World is the floor. The idea that
the World could possibly be inhabited on any other side than its
flat upper surface was treated generally with incredulous scorn.
The great Fathers Augustin and Lactantius especially deriding it,
as the preposterous notion that men could exist hanging down
wards with their feet higher than their heads !
Such being the generally received opinion, even amongst the
learned, of the nature of the Earth and Sky, we must not be
surprised to find that their opinions of the destiny of the World,
�Development of the Haman Mind..
9
and man’s position in it, were also purely imaginary. In fact
their whole system of theological belief rested on the notion that
the Universe was ordained for Man!
Of course, if our Earth were the great central object of the
Universe, man, being the highest existing object on Earth, would
be, apparently, the centre of all things. Accordingly, every
startling phenomenon was believed to have some bearing upon his
proceedings. The darkness of the Eclipse, the Comet’s fiery tail,
the dazzling Meteor, were all pointed at as preternatural portents,
manifestations of Divine Displeasure, intended to operate on the
mind of man, as threatenings, or warnings to him. His whole
career is linked with them—
“ The warrior’s fate is blazon’d, in the skies !
A world is darken’d when a hero dies ! ”
Turning from the ideal World and its phantoms, which the
imaginations of men have created, to the consideration of that real
Universe which Astronomical Science has revealed to us, we find
that from the earliest ages the scientific type of mind has existed
along with the theological type, although, owing to the want of
material in the shape of ascertained physical facts and laws of
nature (which have been of slow, and comparatively recent,
discovery), there were no means for its discipline, or scope for its
growth. Still, its nature being to require facts as the basis of
reasoning, and to draw its conclusions from real premises, it has
ever been the great instrument of scientific discovery. The
scientific type of mind was conspicuous in Plato’s great disciple,
Aristotle, whose method of arriving at real knowledge contrasts
very remarkably with that of his illustrious master. Aristotle’s
method was not to begin with ideas furnished by the mind, but,
with the facts of sense derived from observation of Nature. A
thingy with him was not to be regarded as true, because the
Imagination had suggested it, or because it was amenable to
dialectical treatment, but, because the Reason could verify it
inductively by an appeal to experience.
The Astronomers have been from a very early period the chief
exemplars of the scientific type of mind, showing how (in the
words of Professor Tyndall) “ Imagination, bounded and con
ditioned by co-operant Reason, becomes the mightiest instrument
of the physical discoverer.” Observations of the Heavenly bodies,
�10
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
as accurate as could be made by means of the unassisted senses, or
with such rude instruments as at the time could be constructed;
carefully, continuously, and systematically recorded, built up by
degrees a body of ascertained celestial facts; and, so far back as
about 200 years before Christ, we recognise Astronomy (which
chiefly then consisted of such observed facts) developing into
Science, by virtue of the early Greek geometers applying to it
mathematical calculations, whereby they were enabled to detect
the principle of uniformity, or law, which regulates the motions of
the Heavenly bodies, and so became enabled to predict, to a certain
extent, what would be the state of the sky at a future time.
It was during the reign of the Ptolemies (descendants of Philip
of Macedon), commenced at Alexandria, some 300 years before the
Christian era, that Astronomy, under the munificent patronage of
those princes, began to be cultivated as a science of combined
observation and theory.
The History, Method, and Instruments of Ancient Astronomy
formed the subject of an interesting lecture delivered here in the
month of April last by our friend Mr. Seabroke. I can now only
refer to a few leading names, but, I may single out Hipparchus,
who flourished at Alexandria about 160 years before Christ. It is
to him that the origin of Astronomy, as a science of mental calcula
tion, is chiefly to be attributed. He, being a mathematician as
well as an observer, well knew that mere observation cannot
constitute Science, and the mode in which he applied, his reasoning
faculty to obtain theoretical results is in the highest degree
interesting. One of his many discoveries I will mention, since it
is the earliest known example, in the history of Astronomy, of the
correction of an apparent fact of sense, by the intellectual com
parison of two distant observations. In the days of Hipparchus,
the length of the tropical year (an important astronomical datum)
was supposed to consist of exactly 365 days and a quarter of a day.
Hipparchus approached this problem with doubt and enquiry.
Hr first himself observed a solstice (that is the position of the sun
on the longest day), and then proceeded to compare it with a
solstice observed by the astronomer Aristarchus 147 years earlier,
and thereby he found that the Sun arrived at the same place
twelve hours sooner than it should have done if the year were of
the length I have mentioned. Hipparchus thereupon worked out
mentally the correction, viz., that the true length of the year
�Development of the Human Mind.
11
was less than 365 days and a quarter by -j^oth part, and that is
now known: to be almost exactly the true length of the tropical
year. But the great importance of this mental calculation of
Hipparchus is not so much its result, as its having inaugurated
the scientific method of obtaining real astronomical knowledge.
The works of this illustrious man have not come down to us.
They perished, along with many other priceless relics of the past,
in that great calamity for the human race, the conflagration of the
Alexandrian Library. Hence our knowledge of the discoveries of
Hipparchus is derived from the work of his celebrated successor,
the Astronomer and Geographer, Ptolemseus, or Ptolemy, who
flourished about the year 140. He is the author of one of the
greatest astronomical books in existence, the Syntaxis, as it is
called in Greek, more generally known by its Arabian name of the
Almagest—a most valuable monument of antiquity, since it con
tains nearly all the knowledge we possess of the Astronomy of the
Ancients.
Many of you know that Ptolemy adopted, as the basis of his
theory, that system of the world which places the Earth immovable
in the centre of the Universe. The Sun, the Moon, and the
Planets being supposed to revolve severally in orbits of different
magnitudes ; the entire Heavens turning round the earth in every
twenty-four hours. It had, of course, been matter of very early
observation that some few of the more brilliant of the stars move
continually about in a very erratic manner. Hence was given to
them the name of Planets (from the Greek verb 7rXavaw, to wander).
To account for the irregular motions of the Planets, Ptolemy, and
his astronomical precursors, had invented an ingenious theory of
epicycles and eccentrics, based upon imaginary circular orbits,
which was considered sufficient to explain them.
Such in brief was the supposed nature of the Universe that
became so well known as the Ptolemaic System, and which, in the
long conflict between Science and Theology, maintained its ground
for upwards of thirteen centuries !
Now, the Ptolemaic System did sufficiently account for all the
appearances that the Heavens presented to the ordinary observer.
With reference to the Stars, for instance, it is the same thing to
the spectator whether the Heavens, that is all space with its
contents, revolve round him in one direction, or the earth on which
he stands revolve within them in the opposite direction, that is,
�12
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
the diurnal phenomena would be in no way different. To believe,
however, that the fixed Stars really revolved round the Earth in
twenty-four hours required the most enormous stretch of credulity,
for, it was generally conceded, what indeed it had become impossible
rationally to doubt, that the fixed Stars must be bodies immensely
distant from the Earth, as it had been also matter of observation
that these Stars, no matter from what point they were viewed, mani
fested not the slightest variation of position amongst themselves.
The nicest measurement of the apparent angular distance of any
two Stars from each other, at whatever point of the Earth’s surface
(I might almost say the Earth’s orbit) it is performed, gives
results actually identical; that is, the fixed Stars present to the
spectator no parallax (the astronomical name for any variation of
such angular distance when found to exist). In other words,
the dimensions of the Earth, large as it is, are simply imperceptible
when compared with the vast distance which separates the Stars
from the Earth.
If, then, the Stars were so immensely distant, and of such
enormous size, as they were thus shown to be, to suppose that
they could nevertheless revolve round the Earth in twenty-four
hours is rationally inconceivable. To the theological type of mind
this difficulty of conception was of course as nothing, but, to the
scientific type of mind, the difficulty is insuperable; for science,
being based on the conviction of the uniformity of Nature, views
the Heavenly bodies and their movements, not as without, but, as
within the pale of analogy and experience, and regards Astronomy,
not as a mystery, but as a Science of cause and effect.
When, therefore, about the year 1537, Copernicus (adopting the
opinion of Pythagoras) propounded his geometrical conception,
based upon the supposition of the Earth’s double motion, its
rotation on its axis, and its translation through space in an orbit
round the Sun, a rationally conceivable account was given of every
motion that the Heavens presented to the Astronomer; an
account showing that they could all intelligibly cohere without
contradicting each other, and without any violation of the nature
of things as concluded from human experience. It was, indeed,
though not altogether original, a marvellous conception, for
Copernicus neither did nor could, in the then state of science,
explain the mechanical origin of the movements he supposed, or
assign them any dependence on physical causes. That, however,
�Development of the Human Mind.
13
was subsequently done, as we shall presently see when glancing at
the discoveries of Kepler, of Galileo, and of Newton.
*This is an ordinary representation of the chief features of the
Copernican or Solar System, showing the Sun in the centre, and
the several principal Planets in their respective orbits 'round the
Sun. It represents what the eye would see if looking down on
the system from a great elevation on the north side. It has,
however, one misleading feature, to which I beg your particular
attention. It shows the orbits of the several Planets as Circles.
Such is not the real fact. It was indeed long supposed that the
Planets moved in circles round the Sun. It was strenously
argued that they must do so. It was, however, discovered that
they don’t—that they move not in circles, but in ovals of peculiar
mathematical form.
Many were the objections raised against the startling theory of
Copernicus, The chief of them was that it contradicted Scripture,
which had taught people that it was the Sun, and not the Earth,
that moved. Amongst others, it was urged, with regard to the
Planets that are nearer to the Sun than the Earth—Venus for
example—that if she so revolved round the Sun, she would show,
when looked at from the Earth, various phases as our Moon does,
that is, she would be seen at times partly in shadow, and so exhibit
a broken, or crescent-like shape; whereas, in point of fact, nothing
of the kind, as respects the Planet Venus, had ever been observed.
Many of you have probably often gazed upon this brilliant and
singularly dazzling star without ever having observed any peculiarity
of shape about it. In truth, the objection was, at the time, un
answerable, and was by many accepted as fatal to the truth of the
theory. But, the year 1609 saw the production of one of the
most wonderful instruments ever invented by human ingenuity,
which may be said virtually to have connected the eye of the mind
with the eye of the body by means of a new sense, enabling the
observer to see the Heavens with a precision, and to an extent,
hitherto undreamt of, and, when the Telescope, in the grasp of
Galileo, was turned towards the Planet Venus, the phases attri
buted to her by the Copernican theory appeared, actually as
the testimony of the Heavens themselves, in attestation of its
accuracy!
* See Diagram, page 14.
�14
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
�Development of the Human Mind.
Here you see the phases of the
Planet as the Telescope shows
them. They are photographic as
well as telescopic appearances, but
they show clearly the various opti
Ld
cal sizes and shapes of the Planet Q_
resulting from her moving in an O
orbit round the Sun interior to o
CO
that of our Earth.
Lil
Still several important details _l
remained unexplained. For in Ld
stance—the observed motions of Ithe Planets seemed still so erratic, Ld
that the complicated scheme of I
cycles and epicycles had been H
retained by Copernicus to account >
for them. At length the actual CD
form of the orbits of the Planets
was discovered by the Astronomer Z
£
Kepler, and subsequently eluci
o
dated in a manner that proves I
a most remarkable coincidence, not co
to say identity, between the reason
co
of man and the reason that regu <
lates the movements of the Uni
co
verse !
Now, some 1800 years before D
Z
the Astronomer Kepler discovered id
the precise form of the planetary >
orbits round the Sun, and the Ll
beautiful laws which regulate them, O
the Mathematicians of Ancient
Greece had acutely divined, that if co
Ld
a right-angled triangle be made co
to revolve round one of its sides <
containing the right angle, there I
will be described a figure having 0very remarkable properties, des
tined (though undesigned by them)
to lead eventually to very sur
prising results.
15
�16
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
K
This is a right-angled triangle
and, if I were to make it
revolve round its vertical side as _ a fixed axis, the figure so
described would obviously be> this. A This figure, in its solid
this,
sugar-loaf shape, is termed a Cone, / \ and, if it be intersected
C
or cut by a plane in certain particular -- directions, there are pro- .
duced several distinct forms of Curves.
This is the figure of a right Cone.* If it be intersected in a line
parallel to its base, the resulting closed curve is a Circle. If cut
through at an angle to its base, the resulting closed curve is an
Ellipse. If cut parallel to one of its sloping sides, the resulting
curve is a Parabola, and if the plane cut only one side of the
cone, and not parallel to the other, the curve produced is the
Hyperbola.
Now these Curves, or Conic Sections, are susceptible of mathe
matical treatment of a singularly interesting and elegant character,
and the ancient Greek Geometers, particularly Apollonius and
Archimedes, have left us mathematical works showing that they
took intense delight in following out such speculations.
Why they should have been thus fascinated cannot be doubtful
to us, for the vast development of physico-mathematical science in
our day has shown conclusively that the intellect of man is so
constituted as to be ever in affinity with scientific truth, to have a
natural relish and love for it; and the Greek Geometers, in their
invention of Conic Sections, had lighted upon a truth of Nature of
the most expansive and recondite character, although they neither
knew nor suspected what they led to, and what the illustrious
Kepler, by their assistance, discovered, viz.: That the Planets
actually move round the Sun in that one of these Conic Sections
termed an Ellipse (the Ellipse and a planet’s Orbit are, you observe,
in form identicalt); and, moreover (as was demonstrated by Sir
Isaac Newton), regard being had to the laws of motion (discovered
by Galileo), and the principle of universal Gravitation (discovered
by Newton himself), it would be physically impossible for the
Heavenly bodies to move in any other orbit than one or other of
the Conic Sections !
Thus then there became revealed the immense chain of truths
that connects geometrical propositions conceived by the reason
of man with the most sublime and majestic phenomena of Universal
See Diagram, page 17. + See Ibid, and Diagram, p. 23.
�C O N IC
17
HYPERBOLA
SECTIONS.
Development of the Human Mind.
�18
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Nature, showing them to be the unerring results of the operation
of mathematical, that is, intellectual, Laws I
As our argument particularly regards Astronomical Discovery
as resulting chiefly from the exercise* of the human reason, I will
try to show you somewhat more distinctly some of the great
intellectual truths that the genius of Kepler, of Galileo, and of
Newton, combined, succeeded in establishing.
Copernicus had not in reality attacked the principle of the
Ptolemaic or Epicyclical theory. He had rather sought to render
it more simple; and, though he had correctly pointed out that the
Sun was the centre of the planetary system, he had not discovered
that the Sun had any physical connection with the Planets as the
centre of their motions. Now, Kepler, in the course of his con
summate researches, demonstrated the important fact, that the
planes of the orbits of all the Planets, and the lines of force
joining their apsides (the points of their orbital extremities) passed
through the Sun; thereby establishing a most important relation
between the Sun and the Planets. This family connection (as it
has been called) Kepler further demonstrated by discovering the
three remarkable laws which regulate all the planetary motions.
The first of these celebrated Laws is : That a Planet moves in
the Conic Section termed an Ellipse, having the Sun, not in the
centre, but in one of its foci. The second law is : That the
Planet’s radius vector (an imaginary line joining the Planet to the
Sun*) will, as it moves, describe about its centre equal areas in
equal times. A full explanation of these two laws would involve
us in mathematics, but presently I will give you an illustration
showing the peculiar combination of force by which the elliptic
orbit is formed, and equal areas swept out by the Planet’s vector
in equal times. Kepler’s third law applies to all the Planets
considered in conjunction with the Sun as their common focus,
and may be expressed thus : That the squares of the times of the
planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean
distances from the Sun; which is a result of the Sun and the whole
of the Planets reciprocally affecting one another.
It is a necessary inference from this law that it must be one and
the same force (subsequently discovered, as we shall see, by Sir
Isaac Newton), modified only by distance from the Sun, that
retains all the Planets in their respective orbits round about the
Sun.
See Diagram, p. 23.
�Development of the Human Mind.
19
Such were the three remarkable Laws whose discovery we owe
to the sagacity of Kepler. Their immutable truth may be taken as
conclusively proved, inasmuch as, since Kepler’s time, the number
of discovered bodies in our Solar System has more than trebled,
and all have in turn verified these laws.
Upon these propositions of Kepler it was reserved for Sir Isaac
Newton to bring to bear those matchless powers of generalization
which enabled him to discover the cause of the whole of them,
aided, however, by the acute discoveries of the laws of motion by
Galileo (Galileo, whose persecution by the infallible Church, on
account of his scientific verification of the Earth’s motion, is at last
becoming a common place of history !).
Galileo then discovered the first great Law of motion or inertia,
viz.: That all motion is rectilinear and uniform—that is, a body
impelled by a single force will move in a right line, and with an
invariable velocity. He also discovered the Law of acceleration,
which regulates the motion of a falling body, viz.: That the
velocity and the space traversed are proportioned—the one to the
time and the other to its square. He also discovered that most
important law of the co-existence of force, viz.: That any motion
common to all the bodies of any system whatever does not affect
the particular motions of such bodies with regard to each other.
At length came the grand discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, up
to which I have desired to lead you through the discoveries of
his predecessors, because it is commonly supposed that Newton’s
discoveries were something immeasurably superior to, and utterly
unlike, everything that had gone before—That in short
“ Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night;
God said—‘ Let Newton be!’—and all was Light! ”
This, however, is more of a poetic fancy than a scientific truth.
The magnificent genius of Newton required no such flattery at the
hands of his countryman. In point of fact Newton’s illustrious
precursors, whose discoveries we have been considering, and other
Astronomers, especially Huyghens, Borelli, Halley, and Hooke,
whom I can now only name, had approached exceedingly near to
what Newton accomplished, so that his grand discoveries, though
going further, really supplement and harmonise with their previous
labours, illustrating clearly the law of continuity that regulates, by
successive steps, the graduated progress of human intelligence.
�20
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
It should be remarked too, because it has been often thought other
wise, that though Newton, in the propositions of the “ Principia,”
has described his discoveries through the medium of a singularly con
cise mathematical synthesis, yet (as pointed out by Laplace in his
“ Systéme du Monde”) Newton actually made those discoveries
by following the analytical method of Induction, so luminously ex
pounded by Lord Bacon in the aphorisms of the “Novum Organum.”
The great discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, as mathematically
developed in his immortal “ Principia” (published in the year 1687),
were mainly these. His chief discovery was that of the Law or
Principle of Universal Gravitation, viz.: That every particle of
matter in existence attracts every other particle with a force, vary
ing inversely as the square of their mutual distances, and directly
as the mass of the attracting particle. It is related that Newton
was led to arrive at the knowledge of this fundamental law of the
Universe by observing an apple fall from a tree before him, and,
though the anecdote is not well authenticated, there seems nothing
improbable in conceiving that, though a common incident to
common minds, it should have roused such a mind as Newton’s to
reflect upon it. It is certain, however, that he first tested his
discovery by applying it to the observed motions of the Moon, and
it is an attested fact, that, on finding his calculations were about
to show results verifying his hypothesis, he became so agitated as
to require the assistance of a friend to complete them. Thus
Newton developed his grand thought, that the movements of the
Heavenly bodies occur according to the same laws as the move
ments here on Earth!
Newton’s second great discovery consisted in demonstrating as
mathematical truths the laws of the planetary motions discovered
by Kepler, showing that they are the result of the attraction of
gravitation, a centripetal (or centre-seeking) force varying inversely
as the square of the distance of the Planets from the Sun as their
focus, and proving mathematically that no curve can be the
trajectory of a body moving in obedience to such a force other than
the curve of one or other of the Conic Sections !
These amazing discoveries enabled Newton to ascertain that the
most mysterious Comets are members of our Solar System, moving
periodically round the Sun in elongated ellipses.
Now, as soon as it is ascertained that a Comet moves in an
ellipse, it is known that the Comet must return to us—the ellipse
�Development of the Human Mind.
21
being a closed curve.* Hence Newton was able to calculate and
define precisely the elliptic orbit which takes the great Comet,
whose reappearance has been recorded but four times within the
period of human memory, exactly 575 years to go away and come
back to us again !
Thus became established the fundamental truths of the Coper
nican system; the Ptolemaic theory of eccentrics and epicycles
completely overthrown; the elliptical theory established in its
stead; and the motions of the Heavenly Bodies, especially the
Planets, shown to be the effects of mathematical laws. The elliptic
elements of the Planetary Orbits I will now very briefly try to
explain.
The orbital motion of a Planet round the Sun is the resultant of
two forces. The one is a force, which, by itself, would simply
cause the Planet to move in a right line and with constant velocity.
How such a force originated, or what the cause of it, is, at present,
unknown. It may be, as Mary Somerville defined it, an impulse
or momentum imparted to the Planet when it was first projected
into space. The other force is one, whose nature as we have seen,
was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, viz.: The attraction of
Gravitation. By itself, it would simply cause the Planet to fall or
be drawn into the Sun, by reason of the Sun’s vastly superior re
lative size. This latter force, combined with the former, deflects
the right line of the Planet’s motion into a curve.
I will give you a simple illustration of the combination of these
forces :—
Suppose this small ball to represent a Planet, and this large ball
the Sun, my hand as imparting to the Planet its momentum, or
force of projection, and this string, connecting the two, to represent
the force of gravitation attracting the Planet to the Sun. Now, if
the force of the Planet’s projection were perpendicular to the force
of gravitation, and if the two forces acted simply in balanced
combination, the velocity of the Planet would be constant, and its
Orbit round the Sun would be exactly the Conic Section termed a
circle. (The small ball is whirled round.)
Now, if the force of gravitation were to cease, that is, if my
string were to break, the Planet would not continue a curved
motion, but would fly off its orbit at a tangent. (Marked on the
* See Diagram, page 17.
�22
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
diagram.*) If the Planet’s momentum were destroyed, the Planet,
yielding to the force of gravitation, would fall, or be drawn into
the Sun.
The two forces, however, do not affect the Planet equally; the
direction of its momentum not being perpendicular but oblique to
the force of gravitation, and the force of gravitation varying
inversely as the square of the distance of the Planet from the Sun.
Hence the Planet moves, not with a constant, but with an ever
varying velocity, and in an Orbit, which is not circular but elliptic,
or oval.
A B C D show the elliptic path of P a planet round S the Sunt.
The Planet moves from C to D in the same time that it moves
from A to B, although the distances differ, by reason of the area
C S D being equal to the area A S B.
Now this equal movement is thus effected. Bear in mind that
the force of gravitation varies inversely as the square of the
distance of the Planet from the Sun; so that when this varying
force of gravitation (represented again by this string) is increased,
which of course it is as the Planet approaches the Sun, there is an
increase of its angular and linear velocity, and a rapid quickening
of its periodic time, showing the compensation by which its equable
description of areas is maintained under a constantly diminishing
distance. Thus (as the small ball is whirled round, the string is
wound upon the handle), you observe that as the distance of the
Planet from the Sun decreases, its motion becomes more rapid. Now,
such is the nature of the Planet’s motion taking place in one part of
its orbit, viz., from C to D, where it is being drawn nearer to the
Sun.
On the other hand, when the varying force of gravitation is
diminished, which of course it is as the Planet passes away from
the Sun, then the Planet’s time is slower, whilst the velocity is
lessened. Thus (as the small ball is whirled round, the string is
unwound from the handle), you observe, that as the distance of
the Planet from the Sun increases, its motion becomes slower.
Now, such is the nature of the Planet’s motion taking place in
another part of its orbit, viz., from A to B, where it is receding
further off from the Sun.
The combination then of the oblique direction of the Planet’s
* See Diagram, page 23.
t Ibid.
�Development of the Human Mind.
ORBIT OF A PLANET ROUND THE SUN.
Slowest in Aphelion.
Fastest in Perihelion.
23
�24
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
momentum, with the ever-varying force of gravitation, compels the
Planet to move in the Conic Section, termed an Ellipse, and causes
the radius vector of the Planet to sweep out equal areas in equal times.
Such is the rationale of the astonishing phenomena first dis
covered to be Physical Laws by Kepler, and afterwards demon
strated as mathematical truths by Newton !
Remarkable corollaries have since been dedueed from the Coper
nican System, especially by the Astronomers Clairaut, Lagrange,
and Laplace.
We owe to the Astronomer Lagrange the demonstration of the
stability of the system. The conclusion he arrived at was indeed
most astounding. He discovered that the mean distances of the
several planets are really not subject to any variation whatever.
They are merely affected by a series of inequalities and inclinations
that in successive periods mutually compensate themselves ; so
that, throughout an indefinite lapse of ages the mean motions of „
the planets, including our Earth, must have remained, and must
still remain, unaltered—a striking proof of the unerring order
which reigns among the vast bodies of the Universe, and of the
immutable laws by which they are controlled in their courses.
The great geometer Laplace supplemented his abstruse astrono
mical researches by the composition of a work (Traité de Méchanique Céleste), showing that the entire mechanism of the celestial
bodies is strictly in accordance with the principles and laws of
mathematical science. This profound and luminous treatise of
Laplace is the most wonderful performance perhaps (Newton’s
immortal “ Principia ” excepted) that has ever proceeded from the
human pen. In it, all that had been perceptible to the eye of
scientific analogy, or could be theoretically deduced from the
great Newtonian principle of Cosmical order, is so fully developed
and mathematically demonstrated, that at length this material
mechanism of the Heavens comes to strike the astonished student
as being, in itself, the very highest exponent of mind !
I cannot conclude this rapid and imperfect sketch without some
reference, however slight, to the brilliant discovery of the Planet
N eptune by the Astronomers Leverrier and Adams, in the year
1846. The Planet Uranus* showed such perturbations of its orbit as
made it appear a conspicuous exception to the laws of Kepler.
The cause of these perturbations was surmised by Adams to be
See Diagram, p. 14.
�Development of the Human Mind.
25
the attraction of some undiscovered body in the Heavens, at such
a distance, and of such a mass, as would exhibit an attractive force
sufficient to account for them.
On this hypothesis Adams proceeded to calculate from the •
irregularities in the motions of Uranus, as data, what should be
the mass and the elements of the orbit of the disturbing body, and
what therefore would be the exact spot in the sky in which it
should be found, and he forwarded his calculations to the Astro
nomer Royal. The disturbing body, thus pointed at, was soon
afterwards found (by Dr. Galle) in the place indicated, being the
planet to which the name of Neptune* has been given.
The amazing difficulty of working out such a recondite mathe
matical problem can be conceived. Indeed, the intellectual
grandeur of this discovery surpasses probably everything preceding
it, and, by the test of resolving the inverse problem of perturbations
—that is, “ given the disturbance, to find, as unknown quantities,
the orbit of the disturbing body, and its place in that orbit,”
corroborates conclusively the truth of the theoretical views of
Copernicus, of Kepler, and of Newton.
Thus have I essayed to lead you to the threshold of the
Sanctuary of Astronomical Science. Time does not permit, even
if I possessed the power, to lift the veil, that we might behold the
intellectual treasures of the Shrine within !
Here then we may pause; to contemplate with more intelligence
than the Chaldean of old, but, with none the less reverence, the
glorious splendours of the starry host! “Heaven’s golden alphabet,
emblazed to seize the sight!
“ The prospect vast, what is it ? viewed aright,
’Tis Nature’s system of Divinity;
*********
’Tis elder Scripture, writ by God’s own hand,
Scripture authentic, uncorrupt by man.
*********
’Tis unconfined
To Christian Land or Jewry; fairly writ,
In Language universal to Mankind,
A Language worthy the Great Mind that Speaks ! ”
Though my sketch of so lofty a theme has necessarily been of
the slightest character, I hope I have succeeded in showing you
that the noble Study of Astronomy, though, by reason of the
* See Diagram, p. 14.
�26
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
stupendous phenomena with which it deals, does not, like Chem
istry, permit of experiment, yet presents to us the purest type of
true scientific method, viz., the free and unbiassed exercise of the
■highest powers of Reason upon the most carefully observed facts
and phenomena of Nature; proving that these are subject to
invariable Laws, and imparting to man, whose life, even whose
species, occupies a mere point in the duration of the World,
knowledge that embraces myriads of ages.
And now let us endeavour to realise the more striking eifects of
the marvellous Astronomical Discoveries that have revealed to us
the true system of our Universe.
The first idea that must occur to us is, that our point of outward
view should be the surface of the Sun. Taking our intellectual
stand at the Sun,* the Heavenly bodies of our system appear before
us in all the Majesty of the Divine Order of their due proportions.
Our Earth is seen, as it really is, not the world, but comparatively
a very small globular star, not the centre of anything, but, circula
ting in its place and season, among the other planets, round the
Sun.f The petty theological schemes, that were composed by men
when they believed the earth to be a flat plain, the centre of the
Universe, disappear altogether, like ghosts before the rising light
of dawn!
Our views then, whether religious or otherwise, are at once
corrected, expanded, and elevated, to a degree that must convince
us that not only are isolated statements in the Hebrew Scriptures
discredited, but that the whole Theology of the Christian Lathers
is deprived of its fundamental basis.
Our knowledge, derived from Astronomy, of the small size, and
double motion, of the Planet we inhabit, has, in truth, destroyed
intellectually every system of theological belief that has been based
on the notion that the entire Universe was ordained for man.
But, more than this, Astronomical discovery has proved to us
that the order maintained on Earth, and throughout our System,
is not dependent upon theological dogma, however much belief in
it be backed up by authority and tradition, but, results from the
universal simple gravitation of its parts. Eor gravitation not only
regulates every physical efiect; there can be no mental calculation,
no moral feeling, no social custom into which the law of gravita
tion has not, in some shape, at some time, entered as a factor.
See Diagram, p. 14. t Ibid.
�Development of the Human Mind.
27
Another most important consequence has been this. Previously
to the proof obtained through Astronomical discovery of the per
manence of the surrounding physical conditions of life (so con
clusively demonstrated by Lagrange), the very conception of
stability in human association was inadmissable. Anything like a
social science was impossible. Even attempts at social improve
ment seemed waste of energy, for, in the ignorance of its astro
nomical conditions, it was believed that the World was shortly
coming to an end ! and, indeed, as a device designed by Priestcraft
for exciting terror, the notion that the World was shortly coming
to an end was assiduously asserted, and as credulously accepted.
In the early ages of Christianity this terrorising conception was
thoroughly believed in. The Christian Gospels were interpreted
as being saturated with its spirit. John the Baptist and Christ
himself were understood to be clear and emphatic that the end of
all earthly things was at hand! Of course such a prospect com
pletely paralysed all attempts to improve the conditions of social
life. To retreat from the World to a monastery or a nunnery,
there to await the awful event, seemed the only wise and holy course.
In the 10th century the minds of men were- so impregnated
with this appalling opinion that people of wealth and intelligence
actually commenced their last Wills and solemn documents with
language such as this: “In the expectation of the approaching
end of the World I devise and bequeath,” so and so.
In the 16th century the inhabitants of Europe were nearly
driven mad with fright by a theological prediction of a second
Deluge being about to happen. The people of Toulouse in Erance
building themselves a huge vessel, after the pattern of Noah’s
Ark, to save themselves from the expected impending destruction!
But the predicted day came and passed, and still the Seasons run
their appointed courses.
The disastrous influence of this demoralising dogma can of course
be imagined. Astronomical discovery, in showing the permanent
stability of our Solar System, has at length, in the minds of
nearly all rational persons, utterly exploded it.
Another scarcely less important deduction from Astronomical
Science is this : it exhibits the Universe as a region of uniformity
or realm of Law, and the Laws of Nature as Laws of Beason.
Eor, it is obvious, from the regidarity of its grand disclosures, that
our World is ruled by Natural Law, and not by Supernatural
�28
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Will. That one reason pervades and governs all Nature, and that,
unless the laws of our Reason and the laws of Nature were
identical, it would be impossible to comprehend the latter to the
extent Astronomers have done. It has proved to us also that the
reign of Reason dominates the dominion of the Imagination; for
Astronomical Science, fathoming the abysses of space, has measured
magnitudes, computed distances, and calculated results (proved in
verified predictions) that are utterly beyond the realisation of the
human Imagination.
Astronomical discovery also shows (I know not why we should
shrink from its avowal) that the Reason pervading the Universe,
and the Reason of man flow from, or are correlated with, a mate
rial source.
The Astronomer, who has weighed the worlds, penetrated space
to the depths of infinity, and learnt the laws that rule every
motion of the heavenly bodies, still finds himself in presence of a
mystery, and, reflecting upon the material brain that produces
thought, the material cone that yields its curve, the material globes
of heaven winging their measured flight in orbits, whose curvature
thought has formulated, the material principle of universal gravi
tation, that human thought has unveiled, the material energy that
brings us light from the remotest stars, feels impelled to ask (and,
like the physicist, he asks in vain)—divorced from Matter, where
is Mind to be found ?
Astronomical discovery has also revealed to us an Order of
Nature, as the Criterion of objective Truth, and the Area of real
Knowledge. It has also supplied us with a just Standard of Pro
portion—as regards external Nature, in proving to us that our
Earth is not the World, but only a very small proportionate part
of it—as respects the Human Mind, in proving to us, that the
Imagination cannot rightfully be the dominating intellectual
faculty, since the Reason is shown to excel it.
Astronomical discovery has also armed man with a real power
of Prediction, that is, a power enabling him to foretell beforehand
events that will happen, and to indicate clearly the precise time
and place at which they will appear. All of you know that, either
in the Nautical Almanac, or the periodical press, it is pointed out
long previously when there will occur an eclipse of the Sun or
Moon, or an occultation or transit of a Planet, or an extraordinary
high Tide, even the return of a Comet, and you know, by your own
�Development of the Human Mind.
29
experience more or less, that such prediction is exactly fulfilled to
the day and hour. In this precise power of prediction, Science,
whose great object is prevision, savoir pour prévoir—-to see in order
to foresee-—has effectually rescued herself from all Theology and
Metaphysics, whose mystifying and interminable controversies,
now continued through more than 2,000 years, have never been
able to prophecy accurately anything. The whole compass of
sacred literature does not contain a single undisputed instance of
a theological prophecy being even so much as intelligible until after
the happening of the event, which then indeed, but not until then,
is alleged to have been predicted.
Another most ennobling influence on the human mind of Astro
nomical Science has been its extirpation of Superstitions, or Beliefs
inconsistent with the unbiassed dictates of Beason, and the expe
rienced course of Nature. This it has accomplished in showing
that the basis of all our real knowledge may be traced by our
Beason to the laws of Astronomical phenomena, and so accounted
for, without any necessity of resorting to the supposition of super
natural interference, or the intrusion into the course of life of
any providential power contrary to the order of Beason.
Again, Astronomical discovery, in encouraging a love of enquiry
in the spirit of Truth, has both invigorated Culture and reformed
Education. Previously to the growth of Astronomical Science and
the subsidiary sciences to which it led, especially biological science,
with which Astronomy is closely connected (it being impossible to
form a scientific conception of the conditions of vital existence
without taking into account the Astronomical elements that charac
terise the planet which is the home of that existence), the principle
branches of the higher Academical Culture consisted in the study
of the Mythology, the History, and the Literature of Classical
Antiquity, the verbal Logic of Aristotle, and the Theology and
Metaphysics of the early Christian and Middle Ages, usually
accompanied by a course of Mathematics, though, respecting the
utility of mathematics, a difference of opinion actually prevailed.
That intellectual refinement and fastidious taste were produced by
the discipline of these studies is undoubted. They were, however,
not rarely accompanied by a want of appreciation of the Truths of
Nature, by a tendency to believe whatever was inculcated by
authority, and by an inordinate reverence for whatever was old':
and the result was sometimes seen in an emasculation of mind, or
�30
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
atrophy of the investigating and sceptical faculties. The essence
of such a curriculum might almost be distilled into a single phrase
—The Cultivation of Credulity !
Science has very considerably improved all this, and if we look
at the course of studies now pursued at our academies,-even at the
old conservative Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, we per
ceive that an attempt is honestly being made to impart to Youth
some portion of that positive or scientific knowledge which forms
the backbone of our European Civilization; and that the object in
view, in the training of the mind, is no longer to impress upon the
scholar—“ To acquiesce, to remember, and to believe ”—but,- “ To
doubt, to enquire, and to compare.” In one important study, that
of Mathematics, their transition, through the advance of physical
science, from pure to applied—that is, their alliance with, or appli
cation to, the facts and processes of Nature, has converted mathe
matics, from being used as a basis of mere dialectics, into the most
powerful deductive instrument for the discovery of the Laws of
Natural Phenomena, and for the verification of scientific knowledge.
Lastly, I will add, that, when we call to mind the false theolo
gical views of the nature of the World we inhabit, the spurious
theological beliefs respecting its method of government, which
Astronomical discovery has exorcised, setting free the mind from
the fear which they inspired, we cannot doubt how greatly it has
aided in the purifying of Moral Principles, and in the increasing of
Human Happiness.
Human happiness, the greatest good of social man. Virtuous
happiness was the goal which the speculations of Plato were
intended to reach, and it was the ethical standard at which were
aimed the lifelong studies of one whom I am now going to name
in contrast with Plato,—John Stuart Mill.
If the occasion permitted, willingly would I dwell on the many
points in common that characterised and adorned the genius of
these greatly-gifted men; each of whom was endowed with an
order of mind the loftiest which our species has ever exhibited.
But the one, Plato, as we have seen, lived before the rise of
Astronomical Science, and those subsidiary sciences that have
followed its lead; whilst the other, Mill, presents to us the ripest
results of scientific culture. Both were enthusiasts in their love
of right and hatred of wrong; but Plato was a visionary, Mill an
utilitarian. To summarise the Philosophy of Plato has ever been
�Development of the Human Mind.
31
a logical impossibility, for he never seems to have had any steady
convictions to guide him. Though the most influential thinker of
antiquity, it is difficult to point out any real important truths
that he can be said to have established. His subjective method of
enquiry accounts for this. He thought that the source of know
ledge was Reflection, which gives us ideas—and not Experience,
which gives us facts. Hence there is a shadowy unsubstantial
vein pervading his writings, which, when deprived of the halo of
their exquisite style and language, so charming to the lover of
literature, leave a void in the mind of the student seeking to
attain some solid foothold for support and counsel in the battle ot
actual life. How different is this from Mill, who has taught us
that all real knowledge is derived from Experience, and that the
grand sources of human suffering are conquerable by human
energy and scientific effort.
I will mention, by way of further contrast, but a single work
of each—-Plato’s “Republic”—Mill’s “Political Economy.” The
college recluse may indeed continue to prefer the former, and
scornfully smile at the simplicity of our juxtaposition of these
celebrated Treatises ; but, to the man of common sense and common
humanity, whose pulse beats strongly with the desire of doing
something practical towards elevating the moral and material con
dition of the humblest of his fellow creatures, and who fain would
leave his little corner of the world better and happier than he
found it—the superiority, in solid truth, in moral worth, in social
utility, of the great work of Mill, does not admit of the shadow
of a doubt.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 29th April, 1877, will
be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket transfer
able (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reservedseat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence each
lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny;—Sixpence;—and (Reserved Seats)
One Shilling.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The influence of astronomical discovery in the development of the human mind : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 25th February, 1877
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Finch, A. Elley
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. : ill. (diags.) ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1877
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N218
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Astronomy
Science
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The influence of astronomical discovery in the development of the human mind : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 25th February, 1877), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Astronomy
Mind
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