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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN
�This Cheap Edition of “A Modern Zoroas-
trian ” is also published in cloth, price One
Shilling.
Copies of the original larger type edition,
in cloth,
Shillings net.
bound
can be supplied at Two
�A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN
BY
S. LAING,
AUTHOR OF “MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT,” “PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE/’
“human
origins’*
Revised and brought up to date by JOSEPH MeCABE
[issued for
the rationalist press association, limited]
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1904
�I
�PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
From some of the criticisms on the first edition of this work I fear
that the distinction I endeavoured to draw between the use of the term
“ polarity ” in the inorganic and in the spiritual worlds has not been
made sufficiently clear. I stated in the Introduction “ That, while the
principle of polarity pervades both worlds, I am far from assuming that
the laws under which it acts are identical; and that virtue and vice,
pain and pleasure, are products of the same mathematical laws as
regulate the attractions and repulsions of molecules and atoms.” But
this warning has apparently been overlooked by some readers, who have
assumed that, instead of analogy, I meant identity, and that it was a
mistake to use the same word “ polarity ” for phenomena so essentially
distinct as those of the material and the spiritual worlds.
Thus my “guide, philosopher, and friend,” Professor Huxley, for
whose authority I have the highest respect, observed in a recent article
that he had long ago acquired a habit, if he came across the word
“ polarity ” applied to anything but magnetism and electricity, of throwing
down the book and reading no farther. I must confess that I felt a
little disconcerted when I read this passage; but I was soon consoled,
for, a month or two afterwards, I came across another passage in the
same Review, which said : “ However revolting may be the accumulation
of misery at the negative pole of Society, in contrast with that of
monstrous wealth at the positive pole, this state of things must abide
and grow continuously worse, as long as Istar (the dual Goddess of the
Babylonians) holds her way unchecked.”
Surely, I thought, here is a case in which the Professor must have
thrown down the Review when he came to these words : but when I
reached the end I found that it was not the Review, but the pen, which
must have been thrown down, for the article is signed “ T. Huxley.”
Can there be a more conclusive proof that there are a vast variety of
facts outside of magnetism and electricity, connected by an underlying
idea, which inevitably suggests analogy to them, and which can be most
conveniently expressed by the word “ polarity ” ?
Words, after all, are
�6
PREFACE
only coins to facilitate the interchange of ideas, and the best word is
that which serves the purpose most clearly and concisely, Thus, instead
of using a waggon load of copper, or the verbiage of a conveyancer’s
deed, to express the ideas comprised in such words as “theism,”
“ pantheism,” or “ agnosticism,” we coin them for general use, as Huxley
did the word “agnosticism,” in order to convey our meaning.
Polarity is such a word. It sums up what Emerson says in his
Essay on Compensation: “ Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet
in every part of Nature—in darkness and light; in the ebb and flow
of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of
plants and animals; in the undulations of fluids and of sounds ; in the
centripetal and centrifugal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and
chemical affinity. Superinduce Magnetism at one end of a needle,
the opposite Magnetism takes place at the other end. If the South
attracts, the North repels. An inevitable dualism besets nature, so that
each thing is a half, and suggests another to make it whole—as spirit,
matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out,
upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay.”
These, by whatever name we like to call them, are facts and not
fancies, and facts which enter largely into all questions, whether of
science, philosophy, religion, or practical policy. Every one who wishes
to keep at all abreast with modern culture ought to have some general
knowledge of the ideas and principles which underlie them, and which
are embraced in the comprehensive word “polarity.” My object in
this book has been to assist the reader who is not a specialist in arriving
at some general understanding of the subjects treated of, and, I may
hope, in awakening such an interest in them as may induce him to
prosecute further researches. If I succeed in this, my object will have
been attained.
S. Laing.
�PREFACE
The reception given to my former work, on Modern Science and
Modern Thought, has induced me to write this further one. I refer
not so much to the reviews of professional critics, though as a rule
nothing could be more courteous and candid, but rather to the letters I
have received from readers of various age, sex, and condition, saying
that I had assisted them in understanding much interesting matter
which had previously been a sealed book to them.
If I am good for anything, it is for a certain faculty of lucid con
densation, and I have thought that I might apply this to some of the
less-known branches of modern science, such as the new chemistry
and physiology, as well as, in my first work, to the more familiar subjects
of astronomy and geology; while at the same time I might extend it to
some of the more obvious problems of religion, morals, metaphysics,
and practical life, which force themselves, more and more every day, on
the attention of intelligent thinkers.
As in the former work the scientific speculations were linked
together by the leading idea of the universality of law, so, in this,
unity is given to them by the all-pervading principle of polarity, which
manifests itself everywhere as the fundamental condition of the
material and spiritual universe.
For the scientific portion of the work I am indebted to the most
approved authorities, such as Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and Professor
Cooke’s volume on the New Chemistry in the International Scientific
Series. For the religious and philosophical speculations I am myself
responsible; for, although I have derived the greatest possible pleasure
and profit from Herbert Spencer’s writings, I had arrived at my
principal conclusions independently before I had read any of his works.
I can only hope that I may have succeeded in presenting a good many
abstruse questions in a popular form, intelligible to the average mind of
ordinary readers, and calculated, if it teaches nothing else, to teach
them a practical philosophy which inculcates tolerance and charity,
and assists them in finding
Sermons in stones and good in everything.
S. Laing.
�CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Introductory
PAGE
Experiment with magnet—Principle of polarity—Applies universally—Analogies
in spiritual world—Zoroastrian religion—Changes in modern environment—
Require corresponding changes in religions and philosophies .
.
.
11
CHAPTER II.
Polarity in Matter—Molecules and Atoms
Matter consists of molecules—Nature of molecules—Laws of their action in gases
—Law of Avogadro—Molecules composed of atoms—Atoms and electrons—
Proved by composition of water—Combinations of atoms—Elementary sub
stances—Qualities of matter depend on atoms—Dimensions and velocities of
molecules and atoms—These are ascertained facts, not theories
.
. 14
CHAPTER III.
Ether
Ether proved by light—Light-waves—Elasticity of ether—Its universal diffusion
—Influences molecules and atoms—Is influenced by them—Successive orders
of the infinitely small—Illustrated by the differential and integral calculus—
Explanation of this calculus—Theory of vortex rings—Theory of electrons . 20
CHAPTER IV.
Energy
Energy of motion and of position—Energy can be transformed, not created or
destroyed—Notcreated by free will—Conservation of mechanical power—Con
vertibility of heat and work—Nature of heat—The steam-engine—Different
forms of energy—Gravity—Molecular energy—Chemical energy—DynamiteChemical affinities—Electricity—Produced by friction—By the voltaic battery—
Electric currents—Arc light—Induction—Magnetism—The magnetic needle—
The electric telegraph—The telephone—Dynamo-electric engine—Accumulator 26
CHAPTER V.
Polarity in Matter
Ultimate elements of universe—Built up by polarity—Experiment with magnet—
Chemical affinity—Atomic poles—Alkalies and acids—Quantivalence—Atom
icity _ Isomerism—Chemical stability — Thermo-chemistry — Definition of
atoms—All matte: built up by polar forces
.
.
■
.
-39
CHAPTER VI.
Polarity
in
Life
Contrast of living and dead—Eating and being eaten—Trace matter upwards and
life downwards—Colloids—Cells—Protoplasm—Monera—Composition of pro
toplasm—Essential qualities of life—Nutrition and sensation—MotionReproduction—Spontaneous generation—Organic compounds—Polar condi
.
•
•
.
.
•
•
•
-44
tions of life
�CONTENTS
9
CHAPTER VII.
Primitive Polarities—Plant and Animal
PAGE
Contrast in developed life-Plants producers, animals consumers-Differences
disappear insimple forms-Zoophytes-Protista-Nummulites-Corals-Fungi
—Lichens_ Insectivorous plants—’Geological succession Primary period,
Aims and Ferns—Secondary period, Gymnosperms—Tertiary and recent.
Angiosperms — Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons—Parallel evolution of
animal life—Primary, protista, mollusca, and fish—Secondary, reptiles Ter
tiary and recent, mammals
.
•
*
•
•
• 51
CHAPTER VIII.
Primitive Polarities—Polarity of Sex
Sexual generation—Base of ancient cosmogonies—Propagation non-sexual m
simpler forms—Amoeba and cells—Germs and buds Anemones Worms
Spores—Origin of sex—Ovary and male organ—Hermaphrodites—Partheno
genesis—Bees and insects—-Man and woman—Characters of each sex—Woman s
position—Improved by civilisation-Christianity the feminine pole—Mono
gamy the law of nature—Tone respecting women test of character—Women in
literature—In society—Attraction and repulsion of sexes Like attracts unlike
_ Ideal marriage—Woman’s rights and modern legislation .
.
• .55
CHAPTER IX.
Primitive Polarities—Heredity and Variation
Heredity in simple forms of life—In more complex organisms—Pangenesis—-Varie' ties how produced—Fixed by law of survival of the fittest—Dr. Temple s view
_ Examples : triton, axolotl—Variations in individuals and species Lizards
into birds—Ringed snakes—Echidna .
61
CHAPTER X.
The Knowable
and
Unknowable—Brain and Thought
Basis of knowledge—Perception—Constitution of brain—White and grey matter
_ Average size and weight of brains—European, negro, and ape—Mechanism
of perception—Sensory and motor nerves—Separate areas of brain—Sensory
and motor centres—Abnormal states of brain—Hypnotism—Somnambulism—
'Prance_ Thought-reading—Spiritualism—Reflex action—Ideas, how formed
_ Number and space—Creation unknowable—Conceptions based on percep
tions—Metaphysics—-Descartes, Kant, Berkeley—-Anthropomorphism—Laws
65
of nature
CHAPTER XI.
Religions
and
Philosophies
Religions “ working hypotheses ”—Newman’s illative sense—Origin of religions—
Ghosts and spirits—Fetishes—Nature-worship—Solar myths—Planets—Evo
lution of nature-worship—Polytheism, pantheism, and theism—Evolution of
monotheism in the Old Testament—Evolution of morality—Natural law and
miracle—Evidence for miracles—Insufficiency of evidence—Absence ot intelli
gent design—-Agnosticism—Origin of evil—Can only be explained by polarity
_ Optimism and pessimism—Jesus, the Christian Ormuzd Christianity
without miracles
•
•
•
•
•
•
*
^4
CHAPTER XII.
Christianity and Morals
Christianity based on morals—Origin of morality Traced in Judaism—Origi
nates in evolution—Instance of murder—Freedom of will—Will suspended in
certain states of brain—Hypnotism—-Mechanical. theory Pre-established
harmony—Human and animal conscience—Analysis of will—Explained by
polarity—Practical conclusion ..•••••
90
�IO
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIII.
Zoroastrianism
Zoroaster an historical person—The Parsees—Iranian branch of Aryan family PAGE
—Zoroaster a religious reformer—Scene at Balkh—Conversion of Vishtasp—
Doctrines of the “ excellent religion”—Monotheism—Polarity—Dr. Haug’s
description Ormuzd and Ahriman—Anquetil du Perron—Approximation
to modern thought—Absence of miracles—Code of morals—Its comprehen
siveness—And liberality—Special rites—Fire-worship—Disposal of dead—
Practical results—The Parsees of Bombay—Their probity, enterprise, respect
for women—Zeal for education—Philanthropy and public spirit—Statistics—
Death and birth rates .
.
.
.
.
,
t
.96
CHAPTER XIV.
Forms of Worship
Byron’s lines—-Carnegie’s description—Parsee nature-worship—English Sunday
—The sermon—Appeals to reason misplaced—Music better than words—The •
Mass—Zoroastrianism brings religion into daily life—Sanitation—Zoroastrian
prayer—Religion of the Future—Sermons in stones and good in everything . 106
CHAPTER XV.
Practical Polarities
Fable of the shield—Progress and conservatism—English and French colonisa
tion—Law-abidingness—Irish land question—True conservative legislation—
Ultra-conservatism—Law and education—Patriotism—Jingoism and paro
chialism—True statesmanship—Free trade and protection—Capital and labour
—Egoism and altruism—Socialism and laissez faire—Contracts—Rights and
duties of landlords—George’s theory—State interference—Railways—Post
Office—Telegraphs—National defence—Concluding remarks •
.
. 109
�A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN
Chapter I.
INTRODUCTORY
Experiment with magnet—Principle of polarity
—Applies universally—Analogies in spiritual
world — Zoroastrian religion — Changes in
modern environment—Require corresponding
changes in religions and philosophies.
Scatter a heap of iron filings on a plate
of glass; bring near it a magnet, and tap
the glass gently, and you will see the
filings arrange themselves in regular
forms.
If one pole only of the magnet is
brought near the glass, the filings arrange
themselves in lines radiating from that
pole.
Next, lay the bar-magnet on the glass
so that the filings are influenced by both
poles; they will arrange themselves into
a series of regular curves.
In other words, the Chaos of a con
fused heap of inert matter has become
a Cosmos of harmonious arrangement
assuming definite form in obedience to
manifestation of the more general prin
ciple of polarity, by which energy, when
it passes from the passive or neutralised
into the active state, does so under the
condition of developing opposite and
conflicting energies: no action without
reaction, no positive without a negative,
and, as we see it in the simplest form in
law.
As the old saying has it, that “every
road leads to Rome,” so this simple
experiment leads up to a principle which
underlies all existence knowable to
human faculty—that of Polarity. Why
do the iron filings arrange themselves
in regular curves? Because they are our magnets, no North Pole without a
magnetised by the influence of the larger South Pole—like ever repelling like and
The magnet, again,
magnet, and each little particle of iron attracting unlike.
is converted into a little magnet with may be considered as a special form of
two opposite poles attracting and re electricity, for, if we send an electric
current through a coil of copper wire
pelling.
What is a magnet? It is a special encircling a bar of soft iron, the bar is at
�12
INTRODUCTORY
once converted into a magnet; so that
a magnet may be considered as the
summing up, at two opposite extremities
or poles, of the attractive and repulsive
effects of electric currents circulating
round it. But this electricity is itself
subject to the law of polarity, whether
developed by chemical action in the
form of a current or electricity in motion,
or by friction in the form of statical
electricity of small quantity but high
tension. In all cases a positive implies
a negative; in all, like repels like and
attracts unlike. Conversely, as polarity
produces definite structure, so definite
structure everywhere implies polarity.
The same principle prevails not only
throughout the inorganic or world of
matter, but throughout the organic or
world of life, and specially throughout its
highest manifestations in human life and
character, and in the highest products of
its evolution, in societies, religions, and
philosophies. To show this by some
familiar and striking examples is the
main object of this book.
But here let me interpose a word of
caution. I must avoid the error which
vitiates Professor Drummond’s interesting
work on Natural Law in the Spiritual
World, of confounding analogy and
identity.
Because the principle of
polarity pervades alike the natural and
spiritual worlds, I am far from assuming
that the laws under which it acts are
identical; and that virtue and vice, pain
and pleasure, ugliness and beauty, are
products of the same mathematical
changes of sign and inverse squares or
cubes of distances as regulate the attrac
tions and repulsions of molecules and
atoms. All I say is that the same per
vading principle may be traced wherever
human thought and human knowledge
extend; that it is apparently, for some
reason unknown to us, the essential
condition of all existence within the
sphere of that thought and that know
ledge ; and that what lies beyond it is
the great unknown, behind the impene
trable veil which it is not given to
mortals to uplift. In like manner, if I
call myself “a modern Zoroastrian,” it is
not that I wish or expect to teach a new
religion or revive an old one, to see
Christian churches dedicated to Ormuzd,
or right reverend bishops exchanging
the apron and shovel-hat for the mitre
and flowing robes of the ancient Magi.
It is simply this. All religions I take to
be “ working hypotheses,” by which
successive ages and races of men try to
satisfy the aspirations and harmonise the
knowledge which in the course of evolu
tion have come to be, for the time, their
spiritual equipment. The best proof of
any religion is that it exists—i.e., that it
is part of the same evolution, and that on
the whole it works well, or is in tolerable
harmony with its environment. When
that environment changes, when loftier
views of morality prevail, when know
ledge is increased and the domain of
science everywhere extends its frontier,
religions must change with it if they
are to remain good working, and not
become unworkable and unbelievable,
hypotheses.
Now, of all the religious hypotheses
which remain workable in the present
state of human knowledge, that seems to
me the best which frankly recognises the
existence of this dual law, or law of
polarity, as the fundamental condition of
the universe, and, personifying the good
principle under the name of Ormuzd,
and the evil one under that of Ahriman,
looks with earnest but silent and un
spoken reverence on the great unknown
beyond, which may, in some way incom
prehensible to mortals, reconcile the two
opposites, and give the final victory to
the good.
“ Oh ! yet we hope that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill.”
So sings the poet of the nineteenth
century: so, if we understand his
doctrine rightly, taught the Bactnan
sage, Zoroaster, some thirty centuries
earlier.
This, and this alone, seems to me to
afford a working hypothesis which is
based on fact, can be brought into
�INTRODUCTORY
13
indestructibility of matter, the correlation
harmony with the existing environment,
and embraces, in a wider synthesis, all of forces, and the conservation of energy,
that is good in other philosophies and were unknown, or only just beginning to
be foreshadowed. As regards life,, proto
religions.
plasm was a word unheard of; scientific
When I talk of our new environment,
biology, zoology, and botany were in their
it requires one who, like the author, has
infancy; and the gradual building up of
lived more than the Scriptural three-score
and ten years, and has, so to speak, one all living matter from a speck of proto
foot on the past and one on the present, plasm, through a primitive cell, was not
to realise how enormous is the change even suspected. Above all, the works
which a single generation has made in of Darwin had not been published, and
the whole spiritual surroundings of a evolution had not become the general
law of modern thought; nor had the
civilised man of the nineteenth century.
When I was a student at Cambridge, discovery of the antiquity of man, and
of his slow development upwards from
little more than fifty years ago, astronomy
was the only branch of natural science the rudest origins, shattered into frag
which could be said to be definitely ments established beliefs as to his recent
brought within the domain of natural miraculous creation.
Science and miracle have been fighting
law; and that only as regards the law
out their battle during the last fifty years
of gravity, and the motions of the
heavenly bodies, for little or nothing along the whole line, and science has
was known as to their constitution. been at every point victorious. Miracle,
Geology was just beginning the series of in the sense in which our fathers believed
conquest? by which time and the order in it, has been not only repulsed, but
and succession of life on the earth have annihilated so completely that really little
been annexed by science as completely remains but to bury the dead.
The result of these discoveries has
as space by astronomy; and theories of
cataclysms, universal deluges, and special been to make a greater change in the
recent creations of animals and man, spiritual environment of a single genera
still held their ground, and were quoted tion than would be made in their
as proofs of a universe maintained by physical environment if the glacial
period suddenly returned and buried
constant supernatural interference.
And when I say that space had. been Northern Europe under polar ice. The
annexed to science by astronomy, it was change is certainly greater in the last
really only that half of space which fifty years than it had been in the pre
extends from the standpoint of the vious five hundred, and in many respects
human senses in the direction of the greater than m the previous five thousand.
It may be sufficient to glance shortly
infinitely great. The other equally im
portant half which extends downwards at the equally great corresponding
to the infinitely small was unknown, or changes which this period has witnessed
the subject only of the vaguest conjec in the practical conditions of life and of
society.
If astronomy and geology
tures.
Chemistry was, to a great extent, an have extended the dominion of the
empirical science, and molecules and mind over space and time, steamers,
atoms were at best guesses at truth, or railways, and the electric telegraph have
rather convenient mathematical abstrac gained the mastery over them for
Commerce . and
tions with no more actual reality than practical purposes.
the symbols of the differential calculus. emigration have assumed international
The real causes and laws of heat, light, proportions, and India, Australia, and
and electricity were as little known as America are nearer to us, and connected
those of molecular action and of chemi with us by closer ties, than Scotland was
I to England in my schoolboy days.
cal affinity.
The great laws of the
�14
POLARITY IN MATTER—MOLECULES AND ATOMS
Education and a cheap press have even
in a greater degree revolutionised society;
and knowledge, reaching the masses, has
carried with it power, so that democracy
and freethought are, whether for good or
evil, everywhere in the ascendant, and
old privileges and traditions are every
where decaying.
With such a great change of environ
ment it is evident that many of the old
creeds, institutions, and other organisms,
adapted to old conditions, must have
become as obsolete as a schoolboy’s
jacket would be if taken to be the
habiliment of a grown-up man. But as
a lobster which has cast its shell does
not feel at ease until it has grown a new
one, so thinking men of the present day
are driven to devise, to a great extent
each for themselves, some larger theory
which may serve them as a “working
hypothesis” with which to go through
life, and bring the ineradicable aspira
tions and emotions of their nature into
some tolerable harmony with existing facts.
To me, as one of those thinking units,
this theory, of what for want of a
better name I call “Zoroastrianism,”
has approved itself as a good working
theory, which reconciles more intellectual
and moral difficulties, and affords a
better guide in conduct and practical
life than any other; and, in a word,
enables me to reduce my own individual
Chaos into some sort of an intelligible
and ordered Cosmos. I feel moved,
therefore, to preach through the press
my little sermon upon it, for the benefit
of those whom it may concern, feeling
assured that the process of evolution, by
which
“The old order changes, giving place to new,”
can best be assisted by the honest and
unbiassed expression of the results of
individual thought and experience on
the part of any one of those units
whose aggregates form the complicated
organisms of religions and philosophies,
of societies and of humanity.
Chapter II.
POLARITY IN MATTER—MOLECULES AND ATOMS
Matter consists of molecules—Nature of mole
cules—Laws of their action in gases—Law of
Avogadro—Molecules composed of atoms—
Atoms and electrons—Proved by composi
tion of water—Combinations of atoms—Ele
mentary substances — Qualities of matter
depend on atoms—Dimensions and velocities
of molecules and atoms—These are ascertained
facts, not theories.
If, in building a house that is to stand
when the rains fall and the winds blow,
it is requisite to go down to the solid
rock for a foundation, so much the
more is it necessary in building up a
theory to begin at the beginning and
give it a solid groundwork. Nine-tenths
of the fallacies current in the world arise
from the haste with which people rush
to conclusions on insufficient premises.
Take, for instance, any of the political
questions of the day, such as the Irish
question: how many of those who
express confident opinions, and get
angry and excited on one side or the
other, could answer any of the pre
liminary questions which are the indis
pensable conditions of any rational
judgment? How many marks would
they get for an- examination paper
which asked what was the population of
Ireland ; what proportion of that popula
' tion was agricultural; what proportion
�POLARITY IN MA TTER—MOLECULES AND A TOMS
of that agricultural population consisted
Of holders of small tenements; what was
the scale of rents compared with that
for small holdings in other countries;
how much of that rent was levied on
them for their own improvements; and
other similar questions which lie at the
root of the matter ? In how many
cases would it be found that the whole
Superstructure of their confident and
passionate theories about the Irish dificulty was based on no more solid
foundation than their like or dislike of a
particular statesman or of a particular
15
ing the same qualities and behaviour
under chemical tests as the original bar
of iron from which the filings were
taken. This carries us a long way down
towards the infinitely small, for mechani
cal division and microscopic visibility
can be carried down to magnitudes
which are of the order of nm™ <jth part of
an inch.
But this is only the first step; to
understand our molecules we must
ascertain whether they are infinitely
divisible, and whether they are con
tinuous, expanding by being spread out
thinner and thinner like gold-beaters
party?
, .
.
skin : or are they separate bodies with
I propose, therefore, to begin at the
intervals between them, like little planets
beginning, and, taking the simplest case, forming one solar system and revolving
that of dead or inorganic matter, show
in space by fixed laws ? Ancient science
bow the material universe is built up by
guessed at the former solution and
the operation of the all-pervading Jaw of
embodied it in the maxim “ that nature
polarity. What does matter consist of.
abhors a vacuum
modern science
Of molecules, and molecules are made
proves the latter.
.
up of atoms, and these (while themselves
In the first place,, bodies combine
made up of electrons) are held together
only in fixed proportions, which is a
©r parted, and built up into the various necessary consequence if they consist of
forms of the material universe, primarily
definite indivisible particles, but incon
by polar forces.
. .
ceivable if the substance of each is
Let me endeavour to make this mtelindefinitely divisible.
Thus water is
• ligible to the intelligent but. unscientific
formed in one way and one only by
reader. Suppose the Pyramid of Cheops uniting one volume or molecule of
were shown for the first time to a giant
oxygen with two of hydrogen ; and any
whose eye was on such a scale that he
excess of one or the other is.left out and
could just discern it as a separate object.
remains uncombined. But if the mole
. He might make all sorts of ingenious
cules could be divided into halves,
conjectures as to its nature, but.if micro
quarters, and so on indefinitely, there
scopes had been invented in Giant-land,
can be no reason why their union should
and he looked through one, he would
take place always in this one proportion,
find that it was built up, layer by layer,
.
.
on a regular plan and in determinate and this only.
A still more conclusive proof 1$
lines and angles, by molecules, or what
furnished by the behaviour of substances
seemed to him almost infinitely small which exist in the form of gases. If a
masses of squared stone. For pyramid
jar is filled with one gas, a second and
write crystal, and we may see by the
third gas can be poured into it as
human sense, aided by human instru
readily as into a vacuum, the. result
ments and human reason, a similar
being that the pressure on the sides of
Structure built up in the same. way by
the jar is exactly equal to the sum of
minute particles. Or, again, divide and
the separate pressures of each separate
subdivide our iron filings until we. reach
gas. This evidently means that the first
the limit .of possible mechanical division
gas does not occupy the whole space, but
discernible by the microscope, each one
that its particles are like a battalion of
remains essentially a bar of iron, as
soldiers in loose skirmishing order, with
capable of being magnetised and show
�16
POLARITY IN matter—molecules and atoms
such intervals between each unit that ai substances arises, not from one having
second and third battalion can be: more molecules in the same volume than
inarched in and placed on the same: another, but from the molecules them
ground, without disturbing the formation, selves being heavier.
If we weigh a
and with the result only of increasing the: gallon or litre of hydrogen gas, which is
intensity of the fire.
the lightest known substance, and then,
Now, gas is matter as much as solids weighing an equal volume of oxygen gas,
or liquids, and in the familiar instance of find that it is sixteen times heavier, we
water we see that it is merely a question know for certain that the molecule or
of more or less heat whether the same ultimate particle of oxygen is sixteen
matter exists as ice, water, or steam. time heavier than that of hydrogen.
The number and nature of the molecules
It is evident that in this way the mole
is not changed, only in the one case cules of all simple substances which can
they are close to one another and exist in the form of pure gas can be
solidly linked together; in the other, weighed, and their weight expressed in
further removed and free to move about terms of the unit which is generally
one another, though still held together adopted, that of the molecule of the
as a mass by their mutual attractions ; lightest known substance, hydrogen. But
and in the third, still further apart, so science, not content with this achieve
that their mutual attraction is lost, and ment, wants to know not the relative
they dart about, each with its own weight only, but the absolute dimensions,
proper motion, bombarding the surface qualities, and motions of these little
which contains them, and by the resul bodies; and whether, although they
tant of their impacts producing pressure. cannot be divided further by mechanical
In this latter and simpler form of gas means, and while retaining the qualities
the following laws are found to prevail of the substances they build up, they are
universally for all substances. Under really ultimate and indivisible particles
like conditions volumes vary directly as or themselves composites.
,the temperature and inversely as the
Chemistry and electricity give a ready •
pressure. That is to say, the pressure answer to this latter question. Molecules
which contains them remaining the are composites of still smaller bodies,
same, equal volumes of air, steam, or and to get near to the ultimate particle,
any other substance in the state of gas, we must go on to atoms. All chemical
expand into twice the volume if the changes resolve themselves into the
temperature is doubled, three times if it breaking up of molecules and re-arrange
is tripled, and so on; contracting in the ment of their constituent atoms. If the
same way if the temperature is lowered. opposite poles of a voltaic battery are
If, on the other hand, the temperature inserted in a vessel containing water,
remains constant, the volume is reduced molecules of water are broken up,
to one-half or one-third, if the pressure is bubbles of gas rise at each pole, and, if
doubled or tripled. From these laws the these are collected, the gas at the posi
further grand generalisation has been tive pole is found to be oxygen, and that
arrived at, that all substances existing at the negative pole hydrogen. Nothing
in the form of gas contain the same has been added or taken away, for the
number of molecules in the same volume. weight of the two gases evolved exactly
This, which is known as the Law of equals that of the water which has dis
Avogadro, from the Italian chemist by ;appeared. But the molecules of the
whom it was first discovered, is one 'water have been broken up, and their
of the fundamental laws of modern <constituents reappear in totally different
chemistry.
1forms, for nothing can well be more
This conclusion obviously follows from 1unlike water than each of the two gases
That it is
it, that difference of weight in different (of which it is composed.
�POLARITY IN MATTER—MOLECULES AND ATOMS
17
composed of them can be verified by the sixteen, but eight to one. . If, therefore,
reverse experiment of mixing the two the molecule were identical with the
gases together in the same proportion of atom of oxygen, we must admit that the
two volumes of hydrogen to one of atom could be halved, which is contrary
oxygen as was produced by the decom to its definition as the ultimate indi
position of water, passing an electric visible particle of the substance oxygen.
spark through the. vessel containing the But if the oxygen molecule consists of
mixture, when, with a loud explosion, two linked atoms, O—O, and the hydro
the gases reunite, and water, is formed gen molecule equally of two, H—H, as
in precisely the same quantity as pro can be proved by other considerations,
duced the volumes of gas by its decom everything is explained by assuming that
position. Can the ultimate particles of the molecule of water consists of two
these gases be further subdivided j can atoms of hydrogen linked to one of
they, like those of water, be broken up oxygen, or H„O, and that, when this
molecule is broken up by electricity, its
and reappear in new forms ?
It has long been suspected by physi constituents resolve themselves into
cists that the atom itself is compound, atoms, which recombine so as to form
and that one simple and identical form twice as many molecules of hydrogen,
of matter is made up into the atoms of H—H, as of oxygen, O,—i.e. into two
the various elements.
Recent. expeii- volumes of hydrogen gas to one of
ments have thrown so much light on oxygen.
Taking the single hydrogen atom as
this that it is now all but demonstrated.
The new element, radium, is seen to the unit of weight as being the lightest
throw off actual particles of its sub known ponderable body, and calling this
stance. We see, as Sir O. Lodge says, weight a microcrith, or standard of the
bits chipped off the atom. A further smallest of this order of excessively small
inquiry showed that this decomposition weights, this is equivalent to saying that
of the atom is observable, in a great the weight of an oxygen atom is equal to
many other cases, as, for instance, in 16 microcriths, and, as water is composed
newly-fallen rain. Working on these of one such atom plus two of hydrogen,
data, physicists have very generally the weight of its molecule ought to be
accepted the theory that the atom is x6 + 2 = i8, which is, in fact, the exact
itself composed of a great number of still ratio in which the weight of a volume
smaller particles—how small we shall of steam, or water in the form of gas, is
see presently. The atom of hydrogen, heavier than an equal volume of
for example, is made up of a thousand hydrogen.
This key unlocks the whole secret of
of these tiny particles (called “ electrons,”
the chemical changes and combinations
because they are the particles we find in
the electric charge), while the atom of by which matter assumes all the various
mercury contains 100,000 electrons. The forms known to us in the universe.
Thus oxygen enters into a great variety
term atom must, therefore, no longer
be taken to mean something absolutely of combinations forming different sub
stances, but always in the proportion
indivisible.
It is further known that the molecule which is either 16, or some multiple of
of oxygen consists of two atoms of 16, such as 32, 48, 64. That is, either
oxygen linked together. This appears 1, 2, 3, or 4 atoms of oxygen unite with
from the fact that while the weight of other atoms to form the molecules from
oxygen, and therefore that of its mole which these other substances are made.
One atom of oxygen weighing 16
cules, is sixteen times greater than that
of an equal volume of hydrogen, and microcriths combines, as we have, seen,
therefore of hydrogen molecules, it com with two atoms of hydrogen weighing. 2,
bines with it in the proportion not of to form a molecule of water weighing
c
�i8
POLARITY IN MATTER-MOLECULES AND ATOMS
18 me.
In like manner i atom of that atoms “ are not merely helps to
oxygen, 16 me., combines with one of puzzled mathematicians, but physical
carbon, which weighs 12 me., to form a realities.”
molecule of carbonic oxide weighing 28
The researches of chemists have suc
me.; and 2 of oxygen, 32 me., with one ceeded in discovering some seventy-eight
of carbon, 12 me., to form a molecule substances which are still spoken of°as
of carbonic dioxide weighing 44 me.
elementary,” though their decomposiThe same applies to all elementary bihty is now within sight. Their atoms
substances. Thus hydrogen, two atoms differ widely in size and weight: that of
of which combine with one of oxygen mercury, for instance, being 200 times
to form water, combines one atom to heavier than that of hydrogen, and the
one with chlorine to form the molecule weights varying from 1 me. for the
of hydrochloric acid, which weighs 36.5 hydrogen atom, up to 240 for that of
me., being the united weights of one uranium. When we call them elemen
atom of chlorine, 35.5 me., and one of tary substances, we merely mean that we
hydrogen, 1 me. These, with hundreds know no means of decomposing them.
of similar instances, are the results not It is now believed that all of them are
of theories as to molecules and atoms,
compounds, which we cannot take to
but of actual facts, ascertained by in pieces, of some substratum of uniform
numerable experiments made indepen matter, and it is remarkable that the
dently by careful observers over long weight of nearly all of these elementary
periods of years, many of them dating atoms is some simple multiple of that of
back to the labours of the alchemists of hydrogen, pointing to their being all
the middle ages in pursuit of gold. The combinations of one common substratum
atomic theory is the child and not the of matter. The recent discovery of the
parent of the facts, and is indeed nothing decomposition of the atom of radium
but the summary of the vast variety of leads chemists to hope they may yet
experiments which led up to it, as reduce all to a primitive form, and that
Newton’s law of gravitation is of the facts all the atoms are so many multiples, or
known to us with regard to the attractions clusters, of electrons. They are not all
and motions of matter in the mass. But equally important to us. Of the seventy
as Newton’s law enables us to predict eight elementary substances enumerated
new facts, to calculate eclipses and the in chemical treatises, thirty to thirty-five
return of comets beforehand, and to are either known only to chemists in
compile nautical almanacks, so the new minute quantities, or exist in nature in
chemistry, based on the atomic theory, small quantities, having no very material
affords the same conclusive proof of its bearing upon man’s relation to matter.
truth by enabling us in many cases to The most important are oxygen, hydro
predict phenomena which are subse gen, nitrogen, and carbon.
Oxygen
quently verified by experiment, and to diluted by nitrogen gives us the air we
infer beforehand what combinations are breathe, combined with hydrogen the
possible, and what will be their nature.
water we drink, and with metals and
The actual existence, therefore, of other primitive bases the solid earth on
molecules and atoms is as well-ascer which we tread. Carbon again is the
tained a fact as that of cwts. and lbs., great basis of organised matter and life,
or of planets and stars, of solar systems to which it leads up by a variety of com
and nebulae. Several attempts have been plex combinations with oxygen, hydrogen,
made of late years, especially by meta and nitrogen.
physicians, to show that the atom is only
The qualities and relations of elemen
a hypothesis or convenient fiction. But tary atoms afford a subject of great
Sir A. Rucker, in his presidential address interest, but of such vast extent that
to the British Association in 1901, proved those who wish to understand it must be
�POLARITY IN MATTER—MOLECULES AND ATOMS
referred to professed works on modern
chemistry. For the present purpose it
is sufficient to say that the following
conclusions are firmly established.
All the various forms of matter are
composed of combinations of atoms which
form molecules, the molecules being
neither more nor less than very small
pieces of ordinary matter.
The qualities of this matter, or, what
is the same thing, of its molecules,
depend partly on the qualities of the
atoms, which are something quite distinct
from those of the molecules, and partly
on their mode of aggregation into mole. cules, affecting the form, size, stability,
and other attributes of the molecule.
All matter, down to the smallest atom,
has definite weight and is indestructible.
No man by taking thought can add the
millionth of a milligramme to the weight
of any substance, or make it either more
or less than the sum of the weights of its
component factors, any more than he
can add a cubit to his stature. When
Shelley sang of the cloud,
“ I change, but I cannot die,”
he enunciated a scientific axiom of the
first importance. Creation, in the sense
of making something out of nothing, is
a thing absolutely unknown and unknow
able to us. If we say we waA?.a ship or
a steam-engine, we simply mean that we
transform existing matter and existing
energies into new combinations, which
give results convenient for our purpose.
So, if we talk of making a world, our idea
really is that, if our powers and know
ledge were indefinitely increased, we
might be able, given the atoms and
energies with their laws of existence, to
put them together so as to produce the
desired results. But how the atoms and
their inherent laws got there is a question
as to which knowledge, or even con
ceivability, is impossible, for it altogether
transcends human experience.
19
Before finally taking leave of atoms it
may be well to state shortly that science,
not content with having proved their
existence and weighed them in terms of
the lightest element, the hydrogen atom,
has attempted, not without success, to
solve the more difficult problem of their
real dimensions, intervals, and velocities.
This problem has been attacked by
Clausius, Lord Kelvin, Clerk Maxwell,
and others, from various sides : from a
comparison with the wave-lengths of
light ; with the tenuity of the thinnest
films of soap-bubbles just before they
burst, and when they are presumably
reduced to a single layer of molecules;
and from the kinetic theory of gases, in
volving the dimensions, paths, and velo
cities of elastic bodies, constantly collid
ing, and by their impacts producing the
resulting pressure on the confining sur
face. All these methods involve such
refined mathematical calculations that it
is impossible to explain them popularly,
but they all lead to nearly identical
results, which involve figures so marvel
lous as to be almost incomprehensible.
For instance, a cubic centimetre of air is
calculated to contain 21 trillions of
molecules—i.e., 21 times the cube of a
million, or 21 followed by 18 ciphers;
the average distance between each mole
cule equals 95 millionths of a millimetre,
which is about 25 times smaller than the
smallest magnitude visible under a micro
scope ; the average velocity of each
molecule is 447 metres per second; and
the average number of impacts received
by each molecule in a second is 4,700
millions. When we further descend
from atoms to electrons, we deal with a
far lower order of magnitude still.
Taking an atom of hydrogen, the
smallest known, we find that the elec
trons, or small particles which com
pose it, are 100,000 times smaller still
in diameter.
�20
ETHER
Chapter III,
ETHER
Ether proved by light—Light-waves—Elasticity
of ether—Its universal diffusion—Influences
molecules and atoms—Is influenced by them
Successive orders of the infinitely small—
Illustrated by the differential and integral
calculus—Explanation of this calculus—
Theory of vortex rings—Theory of electrons.
Perhaps the best way to convey some
idea of this order of magnitudes to the
ordinary reader is to quote Lord Kelvin’s
illustration, that if we could suppose a
cubic inch of water magnified to the
size of the earth—zW, to a sphere of
24,000 miles in circumference—the
dimensions of its atoms, magnified on
the same scale, or, as he expresses it, its
degree of coarse-grainedness, would be
something between the size of rifle
bullets and cricket-balls. If we then
suppose the atom to be in its turn
magnified to the size of a building 160
feet long, 80 feet wide, and 40 feet
high, we must conceive its component
electrons to be of the size of a full-stop
as printed on this page.
Extraordinary as these dimensions are,
they are not more so than those at the
opposite extremity of the scale, where
the distance of stars and nebulae has to be
measured by the number of thousand
years their light, travelling at the rate of
186,000 miles per second, takes to reach
us. Infinitely small, however, as those
dimensions appear to our original con
ceptions derived from our natural senses,
they are certain and ascertained facts, if
not as to the precise figures, yet beyond
all doubt as to the orders of magnitude.
In dealing with them, also, we are, to a
great extent, on familiar ground. Mole
cules are nothing more nor less than
small pieces of ordinary matter; and
atoms are also matter, for they obey the
law of gravity, have definite weights,
and build up molecules as surely as
molecules build up ordinary matter, and
as squared stones build up pyramids.
But to understand the constitution of
the material universe we must go a step
further, apart from the familiar world of
sense, and deal with an all-pervading
medium, which is at the same time matter
and not matter, which lies outside the
law of gravity, and yet obeys other laws
intelligible and calculable by us; of
which it may be said we know it and we
know it not. We call it ether.
Ether is a medium assumed as a
necessary consequence from the pheno
mena of light, heat, and electricity—
primarily from those of light. Respect
ing light, two facts are known to us with
absolute certainty.
1 st. It traverses space at the rate of
186,000 miles per second.
2nd. It is propagated not by particles
actually travelling at this rate, but, like
sound through air, by the transmission of
waves.
The first fact is known from the dif
ference of time at which eclipses of
Jupiter’s satellites are seen, according as
the earth is at the point of its orbit
nearest to or farthest from Jupiter—/.<?.,
from the time light takes to traverse the
diameter of the earth’s orbit, which is
about 180 millions of miles; and this
velocity of light is confirmed by direct
experiments, as by noting the difference
of time between seeing the flash and
hearing the sound of a gun, which gives
the velocity of light compared with the
known velocity of sound.
The second fact is equally certain from
the phenomena of what are called inter
ferences, when the crest of one wave just
overtakes the hollow of a preceding one,
so that, if the two waves are of equal
�ETHER
magnitude, the oscillations exactly neu
ttftlise one another, and two lights pro
duce darkness. This is shown in a
thousand different ways, and for all the
different colours depending on different
waves into which white light is analysed
when passed through a prism. It is a
certain result of wave-motion, and of
wave-motion only, and therefore we know
without a doubt that light is propagated
by waves.
But waves imply a medium, through
which wave-forms are transmitted, for
waves are nothing but the rhythmic
motion of something which rises and
falls, or oscillates symmetrically about a
mean position of rest, slowly or quickly
according to the less or greater elasticity
of the medium. The waves which run
along a large and slack wire are. large
and slow, those along a small and tightlystretched wire are small and quick ; and
from the data we possess as to light, its
velocity of transmission, its refraction
when its waves pass from one medium
into another of different density, and
from the distance between the waves as
shown by interference, it is easy to. calcu
late the lengths and vibratory, periods of
the waves, and the elasticity of the
medium through which such waves are
transmitted.
The figures at which we arrive . are
truly extraordinary.
The dimensions
and rates of oscillations of the waves
which produce the different colours of
visible light have been measured and
calculated with the greatest accuracy,
and they are as follows :—
Dimensions of Light Waves.
Colours.
Red..........
Orange ...
Yellow ...
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet
No. of
waves in
one inch.
No. of oscillations
in one second.
39,000
460,000,000,000,000
42,000
495,OOO,OOO, OOO,OOO
44,000
518, OOO,000,000, OOO
47,000
554,000,000,000,000
51,000
601,000,000,000,000
54,000
636,000,000,000, OOO
57,000
672,000,000,000,000
21
The elasticity of this wonderful
medium is even more extraordinary.
The rapidity with which wave-motion
is transmitted depends, other things
being equal, on the elasticity of the
medium, which is proportional to the
square of the velocity with which a. wave
travels through it. As the velocity of
the sound-wave in air is about 1,100 feet
in a second, and that of the light-wave
about 186,000 miles in the same time, it
follows that the velocity of the latter is
about a million times greater than that
of the former, and, if the density of ether
were the same as that of air, its elasticity
must be about a million million times
greater. But the elasticity is the same
thing as the power of resisting compres
sion, which, in the case of air, we know
to be about 15 pounds to the square
inch ; so that the ether, if equally dense,
would balance a pressure of .15 million
million pounds to the square inch —that
is, it would require a pressure of about
750 millions of tons to the square inch
to condense ether to the density of air.
On the other hand, its density, if any,
must be so infinitesimally small that the
earth, moving through it in its orbit, with
a velocity of 1,100 miles a minute, suffers
no perceptible retardation.
Consider what this means. Air blowing
at the rate of 100 miles an hour is a
hurricane uprooting trees and levelling
houses. If ether were as dense as air,
the resistance to the earth in passing
through it would be 600 times that, of
going dead to windward in a tropical
hurricane. But, in point of fact, there is
no sensible resistance, for the earth and
heavenly bodies move in their calculated
paths according to the law of gravity
exactly as they would do if they were
moving in a vacuum. Even the comets,
which consist of such excessively rare
matter that, when one of them got en
tangled among the satellites of Jupiter, it
did not affect their movements, are not
retarded by the ether, or so slightly that
any retardation in the case of one or two
of them is suspected rather than proved.
But, if the ether has no weight, how can
�22
ETHER
we call it material, weight being, as we the boundaries of the infinitely great we
have seen, the invariable test and know from the fact that light reaches us
measure of all matter down to the from.the remotest stars and nebulas, and
minutest atom ? And yet how can we that in this light the spectroscope enables
deny its existence when it is demon
us to detect waves propagated and
strably necessary to account for un absorbed by the very same vibrations of
doubted facts revealed to us every day the same familiar atoms at these enor
by the prism, the spectroscope, elec mous distances as at the earth’s surface.
tricity, and chemical action, and deduc Glowing hydrogen, for instance, is a
tions from these facts based on the strict principal ingredient of the sun’s atmo
laws of mathematical calculation? For sphere and of those distant suns we call
the existence of the ether is not based stars, and it affects the ether and is
only on the phenomena of light: it is an affected by it exactly in the same manner
equally necessary postulate to explain as the hydrogen burning in an ordinary
those of heat, electricity, and chemical gas-lamp.
action. We must conceive of our atoms
In the direction also of the infinitely
and molecules as forming systems and small, ether permeates the apparently
performing . their movements, not in solid structure of crystals, whose mole
vacuo, but in an all-pervading medium cules perform their limited and rigidly
of this ether, to which they impart, and definite movements in an atmosphere of
from which they receive, impulses.
it, as is shown by the fact that in sg
These impulses are excessively minute, many cases light and heat penetrate
and when they occur in irregular order through them. A whole series of re
they produce no appreciable effect; but markable phenomena arise from the
when the vibrations of the ether keep manner in which the vibrations of ether
time with those of the atoms, the multi which cause light are affected by the
tude of small effects becomes summed structure of the molecules of crystals
up into one considerable enough to pro through which they pass. In certain
duce great changes. Just so a rhythmic cases they are what is called polarised,
succession of tiny ripples may set a heavy or so affected that, while they pass freely
buoy oscillating, and the footfalls of a if the crystal is held in one direction,
regiment of soldiers marching over a they are stopped if it is turned round
suspension-bridge may make it swing through an angle of co° to its former
until it breaks down, while a confused position, so that one and the same crystal
mob could traverse it in safety. The may be alternately transparent and non
latter affords a good illustration of the transparent. It would seem as if its
way in which molecular structures may structure were like that of wood,
be broken down, and their atoms set free grained, and more easy to penetrate if
to enter into other combinations, by the cut with the grain than against it, so that,
action of heat, light, or chemical rays when a ray of light attempted to pene
beyond the visible end of the spectrum.
trate, its vibrations were resolved into
Conversely, the phenomena of the two, one with the grain which got
spectroscope all depend on the fact that through, the other against it which was
the vibrations of atoms and molecules suppressed ; and thus the emerging ray,
can propagate waves through the ether, which entered with a circular vibration,
as well as absorb ether-waves into their got out with only one rectilinear vibra
own motions, and thus give spectra dis tion parallel to the diameter which
tinguished by bright or dark lines coincided with the grain.
peculiar to each substance, by which it
Other crystals of more complicated
can be identified. Whatever ether may structure affect transmitted light in a
be, this much is certain about it: it more complex way, developing a double
pervades all space. That it extends to polarity very similar to that induced in
�ETHER
the iron filings when brought under the
influence of the two poles of the magnet.
With this polarised light the most beau
tiful coloured rings can be produced
from the waves of the different colours
into which the white light has been
analysed in passing through the crystal,
which alternately flash out and disappear
as the crystal is turned round its axis,
and which present a remarkable analogy
to the curves into which the iron filings
form themselves under the single or
double poles of the magnet. _ The importance of this will _ appear
afterwards. For the present it is suffi
cient to show that the waves of ether
which cause light really penetrate through
the molecules of crystals, but in doing so
may be affected by them.
RINGS OF POLARISED LIGHT,
UNIAXIAL CRYSTALS.
RINGS OF POLARISED LIGHT,
BIAXIAL CRYSTALS.
In dealing with these excessively small
magnitudes it may assist the reader who
has a slight acquaintance with mathe
matics, in forming some conception of
them, to refer to that refinement of calcula
tion, the differential and integral calculus.
'And even the non-mathematical reader
may find it worth while to give a little
attention in order to gain some idea of
this celebrated calculus which was the
23
key by which Newton and his successors
unlocked the mysteries of the heavens.
The first rough idea of it is gained by
considering what would happen if, in a
calculation involving hundreds of miles,
we neglected inches. Suppose we had
a block of land to measure, 300 miles
long and 200 wide 5 as there are, say,
5,000 feet in a mile, and the error from
omitting inches could not exceed a foot,
the utmost error in the measurement of
length could not exceed Tiroioo oth, and
in width 100000 0th part of the conect
amount.
In the area of 300 x 200
= 60,000 square miles, the limit of error
would, by adding or . omitting the
rectangle formed by multiplying together
these two small errors, not exceed
i7B0 0 0'<nr X ndmr = Tsooooiooinmrth
part. It is evident that the first error is
an excessively small part of the true
figure, and the second error a still more
excessively small part of the first error.
But, as we are dealing with abstract
numbers, we can just as readily conceive
our initial error to be the iHth or
10 th of an meh as one inch, and, m
fact, diminish it until it becomes an in
finitesimally small or evanescent quantity.
In doing so, however, it is evident that
we shall make the second error such a
still more infinitesimally small fraction of
the first that it may be considered as
altogether disappearing.
The first error is called a differential of
the first order and denoted by d, the
second a differential of the second order
denoted by ^2. Thus, if we call the base
of our rectangle x and its height
the
area will be xy. Let us suppose x to
receive the addition of a very small incre
ment dx, and y the corresponding incre
ment dy, what will be the corresponding
increment of the area, or d.xyl Clearly
the difference between the old area xy
and the new area (xydx) multiplied by
(y + dy). This multiplication gives:—
•x + af#
y + dy
xy +y d x
x dy -\-d x . dy
xy + xdy +y d x'+ dx .dy
�24
ETHER
The difference between this and xy is
xdyyy dx + dx . dy. But d x . dy is,
as we have seen, a differential of the
second order and may be neglected.
Therefore dxy^x dy=y dx. In like
manner dx2 = b: + dx'd-T = 2 xdx +
da.2, which last term may be neglected,
’
and d x2 — 2 x d x. In this way the
differentials of all manner of functions
and equations of symbols representing
dimensions and motions may be found.
Conversely, the wholes may be considered
as made up of an infinite number of
these infinitely small parts, and found
from them by summing up or integrating
the differentials. Thus if we had the
equation,
d xy +y d x — 2 z d z,
we know that the left-hand side is the
differential of xy, and therefore that by
integrating it we shall get xy; while the
right side is the differential of z2, which
we shall get by integrating it. The
relation expressed therefore is that
xy = z2, or, in other words, that a rec
tangle whose sides are x and y exactly
equals a square whose side is z.
The use of this device in assisting cal
culation will be apparent if we take the
case of an area bounded by a curved
line. We cannot directly calculate this
area, but we can easily tell that of a
rectangle. Now, it is evident that, if we
inscribe rectangles in this area a b c, the
more rectangles we inscribe the less will
be the error in taking their sum as equal
to the curved area. This is apparent if
we compare fig. 2 with fig. 3. Suppose
we take a point p on the curve, call
B N = and P n =y, and suppose n n to
be dx, the differentially small increment
of x, and p q = dy the corresponding
small increment of y. The area of the
rectangle p q n n = p n x n n —y d x, and
differs from the true curvilinear area
P/ n N by less than the little rectangle of
p Q x/ Q or of dx. dy. But, as we have
seen, if we push our division to the first
infinitesimal order, or make N/z and pq
differentials of x and y, dx.dy may
be neglected—/.<?., multiply the number
of rectangles indefinitely, and the sum of
their areas will differ from the true area
enclosed by the curve by an error which
is evanescent.
If, then, x and y are connected by
some fixed law, as must be the case if
the extremity of y traces out some
regular curve, the relation between them
may be expressed by an equation, which
will remain one however often it may be
differentiated or again integrated, and
whatever modifications or transfor
mations it may receive by mathematical
processes which do not alter the essential
equality of the two sides connected by
the symbol of equality =. Thus, by
differentiating and casting off as evanes
cent all differentials of a lower order
than that which we are working with, we
may arrive at forms of which we know
the integrals, and by integrating get
back to the results in ordinary numbers,
which we were in search of, but could
not attain directly.
The same thing will apply if our
symbols are more numerous, and .if they
express relations of motion as well as of
space, or, in fact, any relations which
are governed by fixed laws expressible by
equations. If I have succeeded in con
veying to the readers any idea of this
celebrated calculus, they will perceive
what an analogy it presents to the idea
of modern physical and chemical science,
that of molecules, atoms, and ether,
�ETHER
25
molecules and atoms; and the collision
forming differentials of successive orders
of billiard balls, knocked about at
of the infinitely small. It is certainly
random, to the movement of those
most remarkable that, while the former
minute bodies and the kinetic theory of
was a purely intellectual idea based on
gases. In the case of the vortex theory
mathematical abstractions, and which
the idea is given by the rings of smoke
was invented and worked as an instru which certain adroit smokers amuse
ment for solving the most intricate astro
themselves by puffing into the air. These
nomical problems for nearly two centuries,
rings float for a considerable time,
without a suspicion that it represented
retaining their circular form, and showing
any objective reality, the latter idea,
their elasticity by oscillating about it and
based on actual experiment, seems to returning to it if their form is altered,
show that differentials and integrals have
and by rebounding and vibrating ener
their real counterpart in nature, and
getically, just as two solid elastic bodies
represent fundamental facts in the con
would do if two rings come into collision.
stitution of the universe.
If we try to cut them in two, they recede
Those who are of a mystic or meta
before the knife, or bend round it, return
physical turn of mind may try to prove ing, when the external force is removed,
from this that matter and laws of matter
to their original form without the loss of
are, after all, only manifestations of one
a single particle, and preserving their
universal, all-pervading . mind ; but in
own individuality through every change
following such speculations we should
of form and of velocity.
This persis
be deserting the solid earth for cloudland,
tence of form they owe to the fact that
and passing the limit of positive know
their particles are revolving in small
ledge into the region where reflections
circles at right angles to the axis . or
of our own hopes, fears, religious feelings,
circumference of the larger circle which
and poetical sentiments form and dissolve
forms the ring; motion thus giving them
themselves against the background of the
stability, very much as in the familiar
great unknown. For the present, there
instance of the bicycle. They burst at
fore, I confine myself to pointing out
how these undoubted truths of mathe last because they are formed and rotate
in the air, which is a resisting medium ;
matical science, which have verified
but mathematical calculation shows that
themselves in the practical form of
in a perfect fluid free from all friction
enabling us to predict eclipses and con
these vortex rings would be indivisible
struct nautical almanacks, correspond with
and throw light upon the equally certain and indestructible—in other words, they
facts of this succession of infinitely small would be atoms.
The vortex theory assumes, therefore,
quantities of successive orders in the
that the universe consists of one uniform
constitution of matter.
primary substance, a fluid which fills all
An attempt has been made, based on
abstruse mathematical calculations, to space, and that what we call matter
consists of portions of this fluid which
carry our knowledge of the constitution
of matter one step further back, and have become animated with vortex
identify atoms with ether. This is motion. The innumerable atoms which
attempted by the vortex theory of Helm- form molecules, and through molecules
holz, Lord Kelvin, and Professor Tait. all the diversified forms of matter of the
material universe, are therefore simply so
It is singular how some of the ultimate
many vortex rings, each perfectly limited,
facts discovered by the refinements of
science correspond with some of the distinct, and indestructible, both as to
its form, mass, and mode of motion.
most trivial amusements.
Thus the
blowing of soap-bubbles gives the best They cannot change or disappear, nor
clue to the movement of waves of light, can they be formed spontaneously.
and through them to the dimensions of I Those of the same kind are constituted
�26
ENERGY
after the same fashion, and therefore are
endowed with the same properties.
Dr. Larmor has urged a further modi
fication of this theory. But of late years
the discovery of radio-action, or the dis
integration of the atom, has led most
physicists to conceive it as a little world
of electrons which, infinitesimal in bulk
(the electron is as much smaller than
the atom as a small speck is from a
house), make up the atom by the action
of their forces. It is believed to be
these electrons that cause the wave
movements in ether that we perceive as
heat and light, and cause the electrical
condition of the atom. The inquiry is
being pursued very assiduously just now
among physicists, and will probably
lead to a much higher comprehension of
the nature of matter.
Chapter IV.
ENERGY
Energy of motion and of position—Energy can
be transformed, not created or destroyed—•
Not created by free will—Conservation of
mechanical power—Convertibility of heat and
work—Nature of heat—The steam-engine—
Different forms of energy—Gravity—Mole
cular energy—Chemical energy—Dynamite—
Chemical affinities—Electricity—Produced by
friction—By the voltaic battery—Electric
currents—Arc light—Induction—Magnetism
—The magnetic needle—The electric tele
graph — The telephone — Dynamo-electric
engine—Accumulator.
called energy of motion, in the latter
energy of position. _ It is important to
realise this distinction clearly, for many
of the ordered and harmonious arrange
ments of the universe depend on the
polarity, or conflict with alternate vic
tories and defeats, between those two
forms of energy.
Thus, if a b is a pendulum suspended
at the point a, if we move it from its
position of rest a c to a b and hold it
there, its whole energy is that of position.
If we let it go, it swings backwards and
forwards between the positions a b and
a d, and but for the resistance of the air
and the friction at the point of suspen
sion, it would so swing for ever. But in
Those ultimate elements, however,
atoms, electrons, and ether, only give us
what may be called the dead half of the
universe, which could not exist without
the constant presence of the animating
principle of force or energy. Energy is
the term generally adopted in the lan
guage of science, for force is apt to be
associated with human effort and with
actual motion produced, while energy is
a comprehensive term, embracing what
ever produces or is capable of producing
motion. Thus, if we bend a cross-bow
the force with which it is bent may
either reappear at once in the flight of
the arrow, if we' let go the spring; or it
may remain stored up, if we fix the string thus swinging what happens ? From A b
in the notch, ready to reappear when we to a c energy of motion keeps gaining
pull the trigger. In the former case it is on energy of position, until when the
�ENERGY
pendulum reaches c it has annihilated
it Energy of position has entiiely dis
appeared, and the whole original force
expended in raising the pendulum to
AB exactly reappears in the force or
momentum of the pendulum at its
lowest point. But is this victory final ?
By no means ; energy of position, having
touched bottom, gathers, like Antaeus,
fresh vigour for the contest, and from the
position a c upwards it gains ground on
its adversary, until, when the pendulum
reaches a d, it is in its turn completely
victorious.
The same alternation between energy
of motion and of position takes place in
all rhythmical movements, such as waves,
which, whether in water, air, or ether, are
propagated, as in the case of the pen
dulum, by particles forced out of their
position of rest and oscillating between
the two energies.
Thus, if waves run along an elastic
wire A B, the particle p, which has. been
forced into the position p, oscillates
backwards and forwards between^ and
q, beginning with nothing but energy of
position at p, losing it all for energy of
motion at p, and regaining it at q. All
wave-motions, therefore—that is to say,
all sound, light, and heat—depend on
this primitive polarity.
If we have got this definition of the
two forms of energy clearly into our
heads, we shall be the better prepared
for this further generalisation— the
grandest, perhaps, in the whole range
of modern science : that energy, like
matter, is indestructible, and can only
be transformed, but never created or
annihilated.
This is at first sight a more difficult
proposition to establish in the case of
energy than in that of matter. In the
latter case we have nothing in our expe
rience that can lead us to suppose that
wc have ever created something out of
27
nothing; but in the former our first
impression undoubtedly is that we do
create force. If I throw a stone at a
bird, I have an instinctive impression
that the force which projects the stone
is the creation of my own conscious will;
that I had the choice either to throw or
not to throw ; and that, if I had decided
not to throw, the impelling force would
never have existed. But, if we. look
more closely at the matter, it. is not
really so. The chain of events is this :
the first impulse proceeds from the
visual rays, which, concentrated by the
lens of the eye on the retina, give an
image of the bird ; this sends vibrations
along the optic nerve to the brain,
setting in motion certain molecules of
that organ ; these, again, send vibrations
along other nerves to certain muscles of
the arm and hand, which contract, and
by doing so give out the energy of move
ment which throws the stone. All this
process is strictly mechanical; the eye
acts precisely like a camera obscura in
forming the image; the nerve-vibrations,
though not identical with those of the
wires of an electric telegraph, are of the
same nature, their velocity can be
measured, and their presence detected
by the galvanometer ; the energy of the
muscle is stored there by the slow com
bustion of the food we have eaten and
the oxygen of the air we have breathed.
Take any of these conditions away, and
no effort of the will can produce the
result. If the nerve is paralysed, or the
muscle, from prolonged starvation, has
no energy left, the stone will not be
thrown, however much we may desire to
kill the bird.
Again, precisely the same circle of
events takes place in numerous instances
without any intervention of this addi
tional factor of conscious will. We
breathe mechanically, the muscles of the
chest causing it to rise and fall like the
waves of the ocean, without any deli
berate intention of taking air into the
lungs and exhaling it. Nay, more: there
are instances of what was at first accom
panied by the sensation of conscious
�ENERGY
28
will, ceasing to be so when the molecular
movements had made channels for them
selves, as when a piano player, who had
learned his notes with difficulty, ends by
playing a complicated piece automati
cally. The case of animals also raises
another difficulty. Suppose a retriever
dog sees his master shoot at and miss a
hare: shall he obey the promptings of
his animal instinct and give chase, or
those of his higher moral nature which
tell him that it is wrong to do so without
the word of command? It is hard to
see how this differs from the case of a
man resisting or yielding to temptation ;
and how, if we assign conscious will to
the man, we can deny it to the dog.
Reasoning from these premises, some
philosophers have come to the conclu
sion that man and all animals are but
mechanical automata, cleverly con
structed to work in a certain way fitting
in with the equally pre-ordained course
of outward phenomena; and that the
sensation of will is merely an illusion
arising as a last refinement in the adjust
ment of the machinery. But here comes
in that principle of duality or polarity
by which a proposition may be at once
true and untrue and two contradictory
opposites exist together. No amount
of philosophical reasoning can make us
believe that we are altogether machines
and not free agents; it runs off us like
water from a duck’s back, and leaves us in
presence of the intuitive conviction that
to a great extent
Man is man and master of his fate.
If this be an illusion, why not everything
—evidence of the senses, experiment,
natural law, science, as well as morality
and religion ?
To pursue this farther would lead us
far astray into the misty realm of meta
physics, and I refer to it only as showing
that the principle of the conservation of
energy, standing as it does in apparent
contradiction to our natural impressions,
requires a fuller demonstration than the
kindred principle of the indestructibility
of matter.
In the case of ordinary mechanical
power it had been long known that the
intervention of machinery did not create
force, but only transformed it. If a
weight of i lb., a, just balances a
weight of 2 lb., b, by aid of a pulley, and
by the addition of a minute
fraction, such as a grain,
raises it i foot, it will be
invariably found that A has
descended 2 feet. In other
words, 1 lb. working through
2 feet does exactly the same
work as 2 lbs. working
through 1 foot.
And, whatever may
be the intervening machinery, the same
thing holds good, and the work put in
at one end comes out, neither more nor
less, at the other, except for a minute
loss due to friction and resistance of
air. If a force equal to 1 lb. is made,
by multiplying the intermediate machi
nery, to raise a ton a foot from the
ground, exactly as much force must have
been exerted as if the ton had been
divided into 2,240 parts of 1 lb. each,
and each part separately lifted.
But, although energy cannot be created,
at first sight it seems as if it might be
destroyed, as when the ton falls to the
ground and seems to have lost all its
energy, whether of motion or of position.
But here science steps in and shows us
that it is not destroyed, but simply trans
formed into another sort of motion, which
we call heat.
Some connection between mechanical
work and heat had long been known, as
in the familiar experiment of rubbing our
hands together to warm them; and the
practice known to most primitive races
of obtaining fire by twirling a stick
rapidly in a hole drilled in a block of
wood—a practice described by the old
Sanskrit word “ pramantha,” which
means an instrument for obtaining fire
by pressure or friction, and which, trans
lated into Greek, has been immortalised
by the legend of Prometheus. But it
was reserved for recent years, and for an
English philosopher, Dr. Joule, to give
scientific precision and generality to this
�ENERGY
29
factors which have united to form it.
idea, by actually measuring the amount
Thus, if iron is burnt in oxygen gas, the
of heat produced by a given amount of
product, oxide of iron or rust, weighs
work, and showing that they were in all
cases convertible terms—so much heat more than the original iron by just as
much as the weight of the oxygen which
for so much work, and so much work
for so much heat. He did this by has been consumed. But heat, light,
and electricity add nothing to the weight
measuring accurately by a thermometer
of a body when they are added to it, and
the heat added to a given amount of
water by the work done by a set of take nothing away when they are sub
tracted. The inference is unavoidable
paddles revolving in it, set in rapid
that heat, like light, is not ponderable
motion by a known weight descending
matter, but an energy transmitted by
through a known space. The unit of
waves of the imponderable medium know n
work being taken as that sufficient to
as ether. This is confirmed by finding
raise 1 kilogramme through 1 metre,
that, when a ray from the sun is analysed
and that of heat as that required to
by passing through a refracting. prism,
raise the temperature of 1 kilogramme
one part of the spectrum show’s light of
of water by i° Centigrade, the relation
various colours, while another gives heat.
between them, as found by a vast
number of careful experiments, is that of The hottest part of the spectrum lies in
424 to 1. That is, one unit of heat is the red and beyond it, showing that the
heat-waves are longer, and their oscilla
equal to 424 units of work.
In this, and all cases requiring scientific tions slower, than those of light. Heatprecision, it is better to use the units of waves also may be made to interfere,
the metrical system than our clumsy and to become polarised, in a manner
English standards ; but it may be suffi analogous to the phenomena exhibited
cient for the ordinary reader to take the by those of light.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that
metre, which is about 39.37 inches, as
practically a yard, and the kilogramme, heat, like light, is an energy or mode of
which is 15,432 English grains, as prac motion, transmitted by waves of an
tically equal to 2 lbs. This is sufficient imponderable ether, and that it acts on
to show the much greater energy of the the molecules and atoms of matter by
invisible forces which act at minute dis the accumulated successive impulses of
tances than that of gravity and other those waves on the molecules and atoms
forces which do appreciable mechanical which are floating in it, or rather which
work, the energy of a weight falling from are revolving in it, in definite groups and
a height of more than 1,300 feet being fixed orbits, like miniature solar systems
only sufficient to heat its own weight or starry universes. We can now see
how heat performs work, and why work
by i°.
This proof of the convertibility of can be transformed into it.
Heat performs work in two ways.
work into heat gives much greater preci
sion to our ideas respecting the real First, it expands bodies—that is, it draws
nature of heat and its kindred molecular their molecules farther apart against the
and atomic energies. Heat is clearly force of cohesion which binds them
not a material substance, for a body together or keeps them moving in definite
does not gain weight by becoming orbits at definite distances. It is as if
hotter. In the case of all ponderable it increased the velocity, and therefore
matter down to the atoms, which are the centrifugal force, of a system of
only of the size of cricket-balls compared planets, and so caused them to revolve in
to that of the earth, any combination wider orbits. The expansion of mercury
which adds matter adds weight, and the in a thermometer affords a familiar in
weight of the product exactly equals the stance of this effect of heat and the
sum of the weights of the separate; readiest measure of its amount. Secondly,
�30
ENERGY
it increases the energy of the molecular
lghting the coal, or, in other words,
motions, so that they dart about, collide,
separating its molecules more widely by
and vibrate with greater force. Thus, as heat, we enable them to exert once more
heat increases, evaporation increases
their natural affinity for oxygen, and
for molecules on the surface are pro
burn, that is re-combine into carbonic
jected with so much force as to
dioxide. The heat thus produced turns
get beyond the sphere of the cohesive
water into steam, which passes through
attraction which binds them to the
a cylinder, either into a condenser if the
system, and they dart off like comets steam js . at low pressure, or into the
into space. Finally, as heat increases,
outer air if it has been superheated and
and more and more work is done, against brought to a higher pressure than that of
the centripetal force of cohesion, most the atmosphere. The difference of the
substances, and doubtless all if we could
pressure or elasticity of the steam in the
get heat enough, are converted from boiler, and of the same steam when it is
solids into fluids, and ultimately into
condensed or liberated, is available for
gases, in which latter state the molecules doing work, and, being admitted and
have got altogether beyond the sphere of
released alternately at the two ends of
their mutual attraction, and tend to dart
the cylinder, drives a piston up and
off indefinitely in the direction of their
down, which, by means of cranks and
own proper centrifugal motions, unless shafts,. turns a wheel or does whatever
confined, in which case they dart about, work is required of it.
In doing this
collide, rebound, and exercise pressure heat disappears, being converted into
on the containing surface.
work, and the amount of heat would
Conversely, if heat expands bodies, it
exactly equal that into which the work
is given out when they contract. Thus
would be converted according to Joule’s
the enormous quantity of heat poured law, if it could all be utilised without the
out for millions of years by the sun is loss necessarily incurred by friction,
probably owing mainly to the mechanical radiation, and the still more important
force of contraction of the original cosmic absorption of latent heat required to
matter condensing about the solar convert water at boiling-point into vapour
nucleus.
of the same temperature. This latter is
Again, when gases suddenly expand not really an annihilation of the heat,
their temperature falls, which is the but its conversion into work done in
principle by which artificial ice is pro separating the molecules against the
cured, and frozen beef and mutton are force of cohesion. The whole heat,
brought from America and Australia, therefore, is transformed into work,
producing, such are the complicated rela mainly molecular work in tearing mole
tions of modern society, agricultural cules asunder, and the residue into
depression, fall of rents, and a serious mechanical work turning spindles and
aggravation of the Irish question.
driving locomotives and steamboats.
As an example of the converse pro
The intermediate machinery here,
position of the transformation of heat including the water in the boiler, is
into mechanical work, the steam-engine merely the means of applying the original
affords the aptest illustration. The energy in the particular way we desire,
original power came from the sun l he essential thing is the transformation
millions of years ago, and did work by or a certain amount of heat into work
enabling the leaves of plants to overcome by passing, in accordance with the laws
the strong mutual affinity of carbon and of heat, from a hotter to a colder body,
oxygen in the carbonic dioxide in the lhe last condition is indispensable, for
air, and store up the carbon in the plant, the nature of heat is to seek an equili
where it remained since the coal era in brium by passing from hot to cold, and
the form of energy of position. By no work can be got out of it in the
�ENERGY
reverse way.
On the contrary, work
must be expended and turned into heat
to restore the temperature which has run
down. The case is analogous to that of
water, which, if raised by evaporation or
stored up in reservoirs at a level above
the sea, can be made to turn a wheel
while it is running down; but, when it
has all run down to the sea level, can do
no more work, and can only be pumped
up again to a higher level by the expen
diture of fresh work. Owing to this
tendency of heat, we can see that,
although matter and energy are to all
appearance indestructible, the present
constitution of the universe is not
eternal. The animating energy of heat
is always tending to obliterate differences
of temperature, and bring all energy
down to one uniform dead level of a
common average, in which no further
life, work, or motion is possible. For
tunately this consummation is far off, and
for many tens or hundreds of millions of
years the inhabitants of this tiny planet
may feel fairly secure, and need not, like
the late Dr. Cumming, of millenarian
celebrity, introduce breaks in the leases
of their houses to provide against the
contingency of the world coming to an
end at an early date. Moreover, recent
physicists point out that there may be
compensating processes in nature, so that
the idea of all energy being finally trans
formed into heat must not be taken too
seriously.
Dismissing, then, to the remote future
any speculations as to the failure of this
essential element of active energy, let us
rather consider the various protean forms
in which it shows itself.
1. The energy of visible motion,
which, as we have seen, may be trans
formed into an equivalent amount of
energy of position.
2. Molecular energy, which causes the
cohesive attraction, repulsion, and other
proper motions of these minute and
invisible particles of matter.
3. Energy of heat and light, which
are transmitted by waves of the assumed
imponderable medium called ether.
3i
4. Energy of chemical action, by
which the small particles of ponderable
matter, called atoms, separate and com
bine into the various combinations of
molecules constituting visible matter, in
obedience to certain affinities, or inherent
attractions and repulsions.
5. Electrical energy, which includes
magnetism as a special instance.
All these forms of energy may exist,
as in the case of visible energy,. either as
energies of motion or of position; and
the actual constitution of the universe is
due in a great measure to the alternation
of these two energies. Thus all wave
motion, whether it be of the waves of the
sea grinding down a rocky coast, of the
air transmitting sound, or of ether trans
mitting light and heat, are instances of
energies of motion and of position, con
flicting with one another and alternately
gaining the victory. So also a pound of
gunpowder or dynamite has an immense
energy of position, which, when its atoms
are let loose from their mutual unstable
connection by heat or percussion, mani
fests itself in an enormous energy of
motion, which is more or less destructive
according to the rapidity with which the
atoms rush into new combinations.
Let us consider these different energies
a little more in detail. The energy of
visible motion is manifested principally
by the law of gravitation, under which
all matter attracts other matter directly
as the mass and inversely as the square
of the distance. The word “attract”
must not be taken literally, as the real
nature of the force is not yet clear;
many physicists think the atoms are
pushed towards each other rather than
pulled by each other. It is a universal
and uniform law of matter, and can be
traced without change or variation from
the minutest atom up to the remotest
double star. The energy of living force
might, at first sight, be considered as
another of the commonest causes of
visible motion ; but, when closely
analysed, it will be found that what
appears as such is only the result of
molecular energy of position stored up
�32
ENERGY
in the living body by chemical changes equal to a ton for each square inch of
f
during the slow combustion of food, and section, as exemplified in the tubular
s
that nothing has been added by any bridge across the Menai Straits, where
1
hypothetical vital force. The conscious space has to be allowed for the free con
s
will seems to act in those cases simply as traction and expansion of the irotl under
1
the signalman who shows a white flag changes of temperature.
'
Chemical energy, or the mutual attrac
may act on a train which has been stand
ing on the line waiting for. it.. The tions and repulsions of atoms, is even
energy which moves the train is due more powerful than that of molecules
entirely to the difference of heat, which It displays itself in their elective affinities,
has been developed by the combustion or what may be called the likes and dis
of coal, between the steam in the boiler likes, or loves and hatreds, of these
and the steam when allowed to escape ultimate particles. Perhaps the best
into the air; and this energy came illustration will be afforded by that “latest
originally from the sun, whose rays resource of civilisation,” dynamite. This
enabled the leaves.of growing plants to substance, or, to give it its scientific name,
decompose carbonic dioxide and store nitro-glycerine, is composed of molecules
up the carbon in the coal. Of this force each of which is a complex combination
of gravitation causing visible motion we of nine atoms of oxygen, five of hydrogen,
may say that it is comparatively a very three of nitrogen, and three of carbon.
weak force, which acts uniformly over all Of these, oxygen and hydrogen have a
strong affinity for one another, as is seen
distances, great or small.
Molecular energies, on the other hand, by their rushing together whenever they
act with vastly greater force, but at very get the chance and by their union form
small distances, and appear sometimes, as ing the very stable compound, water.
attractive and sometimes as repulsive Oxygen and carbon have also a very
forces. Thus solid bodies are . held strong affinity, and readily form the stable
together by a force of cohesion which is product, carbonic dioxide gas. Nitrogen,
very powerful, but acts only at . very on the other hand, is a very inert sub
small distances, as we may see if we stance; its molecule consists of two
break a piece of glass and try to mend it atoms of itself which are bound together
by pressing the broken edges together. by a strong affinity, and can only, be
We cannot draw them near enough to coaxed with difficulty into combinations
bring the molecular attraction again into with other elements, forming compounds
play and make the broken glass solid. which are, as it were, artificial structures,
But the same glass acts with repellent and very unstable. We see this in the
energy if another solid tries to penetrate air, which consists mainly of oxygen and
it, so that we can walk on a glass floor nitrogen, but not in chemical combina
without sinking into it. Heat, also, by tion, the oxygen being simply diluted by
increasing the distance between the the nitrogen, as whisky is with water,
molecules, first weakens the cohesive with the same object of diluting the too
force so that the solid becomes fluid, and powerful oxygen or too potent alcohol,
finally overcomes it altogether, so that it and enabling the air-breather or whisky
passes into the state of gas in which the drinker to take them into the system
centripetal attraction of the molecules is without burning up the tissues too rapidly.
extinguished, and they tend to recede: If nitrogen had more affinity for oxygen,
further and further from each. other■ it would combine chemically with it, and
under the centrifugal force of their ownl we should live in an atmosphere of
proper velocities. The great energy off nitrous oxide, or laughing gas.
The molecule, therefore, of mtromolecular forces will be apparent fromL
the fact that a bar of iron, in coolingr glycerine resembles a house of cards, so
io° Centigrade, contracts with a force» | nicely balanced that it will just stand,
�ENERGY
but will fall to pieces at the slightest
•oj| touch. When this is supplied by a slight
"q I percussion, the molecule falls to pieces
and is resolved into its constituent atoms,
which rush together in accordance with
their natural affinities, forming an
mi immense volume of gas, partly of water
rri in the form of steam where oxygen has
CClj combined with hydrogen, and partly of
ffiS carbonic dioxide where it has combined
with carbon, leaving the nitrogen atoms
•ol to pair off, and revert to their original
■ol form of two-atom molecules of nitrogen
<£4 gas. It is as if ill-assorted couples, who
t£$ had been united by matrimonial bonds
>St3 tied by the manoeuvres of Belgravian
:un mothers, found themselves suddenly freed
yd by a decree of divorce a vinculo matri
:'WS monii, and rushed impetuously into each
I JO other’s arms, according to the laws of
!3dJ their respective affinities.
So striking is
3fij xthe similitude that one of Goethe’s bestyui known novels, the Wahlverwandschaften,
takes its title from the human play of
sdJ these chemical reactions. The enormous
| energy developed when these atomic
>10)1 forces are let loose, and a vast volume of
asgi gas almost instantaneously created, is
aijjs J attested by the destructive force by which
the hardest rocks are shattered to pieces
and the strongest buildings overthrown.
These loves and hatreds, or, as they are
termed, chemical affinities and repulsions
of the atoms, are the principal means by
Iqsi which the material structure of the universe
gi is built up from the original elements.
,xlTj The earth, or solid crust of the planet
we inhabit, consists mainly of oxidised
jcLftdl bases, and is due to the affinity of oxygen
. ipi for silicon, calcium, aluminium, iron, and
xffd other primary elements of what are called
.
metals. This affinity enables them to
£$ui make stable compounds, which, under
-.hi the existing conditions of temperature
Umj and otherwise, hold together and are not
fe|'s| readily decomposed.
Water in like
tell manner, in all its forms of waves, seas,
lakes, rivers, clouds, and invisible vapour,
a is due to the affinity between oxygen
poiand hydrogen forming a stable comwound. Salt, again, is owing to the
huHiaffinity of chlorine for sodium, and so
flw1
33
for nearly all the various products with
which we are familiar, oxygen and nitro
gen in the air we breathe being almost
the only elements which exist in their
primary and uncombined state in any
considerable quantities, and form an
essential part of the conditions which
render our planet a habitable abode for
man and other forms of life.
We shall see presently something more
of the nature of these affinities, and the
laws by which they act; but before
entering on this branch of the subject
we must consider the remaining form in
which the one indestructible energy of
the universe manifests itself—viz., that of
electricity.
Electricity is the most subtle and the
least understood of these forms. In its
simplest form it appears as the result of
friction between dissimilar substances.
Thus, if we rub a glass rod with a piece
of silk, taking care that both are warm
and dry, we find that the glass has
acquired the property of attracting light
bodies, such as little bits of paper, or
balls of elder-pith. Other substances,
such as sealing-wax and amber, have the
same property. Pursuing our research
further, we find that this influence is
not, like that of gravity, uniform and
always acting in the same direction, but
of two kinds, equal and opposite. If
we touch the pith-ball by the excited
glass rod, it will after contact be repelled;
but if we bring the ball which has been
excited by contact with the glass within
the influence of a stick of sealing-wax
which has been excited by rubbing it
with warm dry flannel, the ball, instead
of being repelled, is attracted.
Conversely, if the pith-ball has been
first touched by excited ceiling-wax, it
will afterwards be repelled by excited
ceiling-wax and attracted by excited glass.
It is clear, therefore, that there are two
opposite electricities, and that bodies
charged with similar electricities repel,
and with unlike electricities attract, one
another. For convenience, one of these
electricities, that developed in glass, is
called positive, and the other negative;
D
�34
ENERGY
and it has been clearly proved that one
cannot exist without the other, and that,
whenever one electricity is produced,
just as much is produced of an opposite
description.
If positive electricity is
produced in glass by rubbing it with
silk, just as much negative electricity is
produced upon the silk.
Another.primary fact is that some sub
stances are able to carry away and diffuse
or neutralise this peculiar influence called
electricity, while others are unable to do
so and retain it. The former are called
conductors, the latter non-conductors.
Thus, glass is an insulator or non-con
ductor, while metal is a conductor of
electricity ; and the reason why the sub
stances rubbed together, as glass and silk,
must be dry is that water, in all its forms,
is a conductor which carries away the
electricity as fast as it is produced.
These facts led to the formation of a
theory of the existence of two opposite
electric fluids, which, in the ordinary or
unexcited body, are combined and neu
tralise one another, but are separated by
friction, and flow in opposite directions,
accumulating at opposite poles, or, it
may be, one being accumulated at one
pole, while the other is diffused through
some conducting medium and lost sight
of.
The latest discoveries in physics have,
however, disposed us to conceive the
process differently.
Electricity is the
substratum of matter. Lord Kelvin says
that “ the atomic theory of electricity is
now universally accepted.” We have
seen that it is the tiny particles of the
electric charge, the electrons, that make
up the atom; and the positive or nega
tive state of the atom (and therefore of
the mass composed of atoms) is thought
to depend on the number of its com
ponent particles.
However, there is a great analogy
between electrical energy and those of
heat and of chemical affinity. The same
mechanical work—viz., friction—which
generates heat, generates electricity. The
chief difference seems to be that friction
may be transformed into heat when the
same substances are rubbed together, as
in the case of obtaining fire by the fric
tion of wood ; but electricity can only be
obtained by friction between dissimilar
substances. Thus no electricity is ob
tained by rubbing glass upon glass, or
silk upon silk, or upon glass covered with
silk, though a slight difference of texture
is sometimes sufficient to separate the
electric fluids. Thus, if two pieces of
the same silk ribbon are rubbed together,
lengthways, no electricity is produced, but
if crossways, one is positively, and the
other negatively, electrified.
In this
respect, the analogy is evident to chemi
cal affinity, which, in like manner, only
acts between dissimilar bodies.
The analogy is even more striking
when we follow up electricity far beyond
the simple manifestations of the glass rod
and sealing wax, and pursue it to its
origin, in the transformations of chemical
action and mechanical work, in the
voltaic battery, the electric telegraph, the
telephone, and the dynamo.
The voltaic battery, in its simplest
form, is a trough containing an acid
liquid in which pairs of plates of different
metals are immersed. It is evident that,
if the action of the acid on each metal
were precisely the same, equal quantities
of each would be dissolved in the acid,
and the equilibrium of chemical energies
would not be affected. But, the action
being different, this equilibrium is dis
turbed, and if the sum of these distur
bances for a number of separate pairs
of plates can be accumulated, it will
become considerable. This is done by
connecting the plates of the same metal
in each cell by a metallic wire, covered
by some non-conducting substance.
There are, therefore, two wires, one to
the right hand, the other to the left, the
loose extremities of which are called the
poles of the battery. If we test these
poles as we did the glass rod and stick
of sealing-wax, we find that one pole is
charged with positive and the other with
negative electricity. In other words, the
chemical energy, whose equilibrium was
disturbed by the unequal action of the
�ENERGY
acid on the plates of different metals, has
been transformed into electrical energy,
manifesting itself, as it always does, under
the condition of two equal and opposite
polarities. If we connect these two poles
with one another, the two electricities
rush together and unite, and there is
established what is called an electrical
current circulating round the battery.
As the chemical action of the acid on the
metals is not momentary, but continuous,
the acid taking up molecule after mole
cule of the metal, so also the current is
continuous. When we call it a current,
the term is used for the sake of con
venience ; for as the current, as we shall
presently see, will flow along the wire or
other conducting substance for immense
distances, as across the Atlantic, with a
velocity of many thousands of miles per
second, we can no more than in the case
of light figure it to ourselves as an actual
transfer of material particles swept along
as by a river running with this enormous
velocity. In a free current of electricity
the particles are literally shot forth, but
along a solid they are only transmitted
from atom to atom, as in the wave
motion of heat. Be this as it may, the
effect of these electric currents is very
varied and very energetic. It can pro
duce intense heat, for if, instead of uniting
the two poles, we connect them by a
thin platinum wire, it will, in a few
seconds, become heated to redness. If
the connecting wire is thicker, heat will
equally be generated, but less intense,
thus maintaining the analogy to the
current which rushes with more im
petuosity through a narrow than through
a wide channel. If the poles are tipped
with a solid substance like carbon, whose
particles remain solid under great heat,
when they are brought nearly together
intense light is produced, and the carbon
slowly burns away. This produces what
is called the arc light, which gives such
a strong illuminating power, and is
coming into general use for lighting up
large spaces.
Another transformation is back again
into chemical energy, which is shown by
35
the power of the electric current to
decompose compound substances. If,
for instance, the poles of a battery are
plunged into a vessel containing water,
the molecules of the water will be
decomposed and bubbles of oxygen gas
will rise from the positive, and of
hydrogen from the negative, pole.
Another effect of electrical currents is
that of attraction and repulsion on one
another. If two parallel wires, free to
move, carry currents flowing in the same
direction as from positive to negative, or
vice versa, they will attract one another ;
if in opposite directions, they will repel.
Electrical currents also work by way of
induction—that is, they disturb the elec
trical equilibrium of bodies brought
within their influence and induce cur
rents in them. Thus, if we have two
circular coils of insulated wire placed
near each other, one on the right hand,
the other on the left, and connect the
extremities of the right-hand coil with
the poles of a battery, when the connec
tion is first made and the current begins
to flow, a momentary current in the
opposite direction will pass through the
left-hand coil. This will cease, and as
long as the current continues to flow
through the right-hand coil there will be
no current through the other; but if we
break the contact between the right-hand
coil and the battery, there will be again
a momentary current through the left
hand coil, but this time in the same
direction as the other. The same effect
will be produced if, instead of making
and breaking contact in the right-hand
coil, we keep the current constantly flow
ing through it,’and make the right-hand
coil alternately approach and recede from
the other coil. In this case, when the
right-hand coil approaches, it induces an
opposite current in the left-hand one ;
and when it recedes, one in the same
direction as that of the primary.
These phenomena of induction prepare
us to understand the nature of magnets,
and the magnetic effects produced by
electrical currents. If an insulated wire
is wrapped round a cylinder of soft or
�36
ENERGY
unmagnetic iron, and a current passed
through the wire, the cylinder is con
verted into a magnet and becomes able
to sustain weights.
If the current
ceases, the cylinder is no longer a
magnet, and drops the weight.
A
magnet is therefore evidently a substance
in which electric currents are circulating
at right angles to its axis, and a per
manent magnet is one in which such
currents permanently circulate from the
constitution of the body without being
supplied from without. The earth is
such a magnet, and also iron and other
substances, under certain conditions.
This being established, it is easy to
see why an electrical current deflects the
magnetic needle. If such a needle is
suspended freely near a wire parallel
with it, on a current being passed through
the wire it must attract if similar, or
repel if dissimilar, the currents which are
circulating at right angles to the axis of
the needle, and thus tend to make the
needle swing into a position at right
angles with the wire, so that its currents
may be parallel to that of the needle.
This is the reason why the needle in its
ordinary condition points to the north
and south, or rather to the magnetic
poles of the earth, because its currents
are influenced by the earth currents
which circulate parallel to the magnetic
equator. The deviation of the needle
from this direction, caused by any other
current, like that passed along the wire,
will depend on the strength of the
current, which may be measured by the
amount of deflection of the needle. The
direction in which the needle deflects—viz., whether the north pole swings to
the right or to the left, will depend on
the direction of the current through the
wire. The direction of the circular
currents which form a magnet is such
that if you look towards the north pole
of a freely suspended cylindrical magnet
—i.e., if you stand on the north of it and
look southwards—the positive current
will ascend on your right hand, or on the
west side, and descend on the east. It
follows that unlike poles must neces
sarily attract and like poles repel one
another, for in the former case the
circular currents which face each other
are going in the same and in the latter
in opposite directions.
The reader is now in a position to
understand the principle of the electric
telegraph, that wonderful invention which
has revolutionised human intercourse
and, to a great extent, annihilated space
and time. It originated in the discovery
made by Oersted, a Danish savant, that
the effect of an electric current was to
make a magnet swing round, in the
endeavour to place itself at right angles
to it. The conducting power of insulated
copper wire is such that it practically
makes no difference whether one of the
wires connected with the pole of a
battery is two feet or 2,000 miles in
length, and the earth, being a conducting
medium, supplies an equal extension
from the other pole, so that a closed
electric circuit may be established across
the Atlantic as easily as within the walls
of a laboratory.
If, therefore, a magnetic needle is sus
pended at the American end, it will
respond to every electrical current, and
to any interruption, renewal, or reversal
of that current established in England.
The needle may thus be made to swing
to the right or left, by forming or revers
ing a current through the wire; and it
will return to its position whenever the
current is interrupted, and repeat its
movement whenever the current is
renewed. In fact, it may be made to
move like the arm of the old-fashioned
telegraph, or of a railway signal. It only
remains to have a machine by which the
operator can form and interrupt currents
rapidly, and a code by which certain
movements of the needle stand for cer
tain letters of the alphabet, and you have
the electric telegraph.
There are many ingenious applications
of the machinery, but in principle they
all resolve themselves into transformations
of energy. Chemical energy is trans
formed into electric energy, . and that
again into mechanical work in moving
�ENERGY
the needle or other apparatus used. It
has now been found possible to dispense
with the wires altogether, as. in the
Marconi system, and the transmitter and
receiver of the electric current are very
elaborate.
The telephone is another instance of
similar transformations. Here, spoken
words create vibrations of the air, which
cause corresponding vibrations in a thin
plate or disc of metal at one end, which
are conveyed by intermediate machinery
to a similar disc at the other end, whose
vibrations cause similar vibrations in the
air, reproducing the spoken words at a
distance which may be a great many
miles from the speaker.
The great inventions of modern science
which have so revolutionised society are
all instances of the law of the conserva
tion of energy. Man makes the powers
of nature available for his purposes by
transforming them backwards and for
wards, now into one, now into another
form of energy, as required for the result
he wishes to attain. He wants mechanical
power to pump water or drive a locomo
tive or steamboat: he gets it from the
steam-engine, by transforming the energy
of heat in coal, which came ages ago
from the energy of chemical action pro
duced by the sun’s rays in the green
leaves of growing plants. He wants to
send messages in a few seconds across
the Atlantic : he does it by transforming
chemical energy into electricity in a
voltaic battery, sending its vibrations
along a conducting wire, and converting
it at the far end into mechanical power,
making a magnetic needle turn on its
axis and give signals. If, instead of
sending a message, he wants to hold a
conversation at a distance, he invents
the telephone, by which sound-vibrations
of air are transformed into vibrations of
a disc, then into electric currents, then
into vibrations of a distant disc, and
finally back again to spoken words. Or,
if he wants light, he turns electricity into
it by tipping the poles of his battery
with carbon and bringing them close
together.
'37
The latest inventions of electrical
science—the dynamo and the accumu
lator—afford remarkable instances of this
convertibility of one primitive energy
into different forms. In the instance
just quoted, of obtaining light from
electricity by the voltaic battery, the
cost has hitherto proved an obstacle to
its adoption. The electrical energy is
all obtained from-the transformation of
the heat produced in the cells by the
chemical action on the metal used, which
is commonly zinc. Now, the heat of
combination of zinc with oxygen is only
about one-sixth of that of coal, while the
cost of zinc is about twenty times as
great. Theoretically, therefore,, energy
got by burning zinc costs 120 times as
much as that got by burning coal.
Practically the difference is not nearly
so great, for there is very little loss of
energy in the battery by the process, of
conversion, while the best steam-engine
cannot convert into work as much astwenty per cent, of the heat energy in
the coal consumed. Still, after making
every allowance, the cost of energy from
zinc remains some twenty times as great
as from coal, so that, unless some process,
is found for obtaining back the zinc as a
residual product, there is no prospect of
this form of electricity being generally
available for light or for mechanical
power.
The dynamo is an instrument invented
for the mechanical generation of elec
tricity by taking advantage of the prin
ciple that electrical energy is produced
by moving magnets near coils of wire, or
coils of wire near magnets. A current
is thus started by induction, and, once
started, the mechanical power exerted in
making the magnet or coils revolve is
continually converted into electricity
until the accumulated electrical energy
becomes very powerful. The original
energy comes, of course, from the coal
burned in the steam-engine which makes
the magnet or coils revolve.
The principle of the conservation of
energy is well illustrated by the fact that,
as the dynamo generates an electric
�38
ENERGY
current if made to revolve, conversely it
may be made to revolve itself if an
electric current is sent through it from
an exterior source. It is, therefore,
available not only as a source of light
in the former case, but as a direct
source of mechanical power in the latter.
It is on this principle that electric
engines are constructed and electric
railways are worked. Here also it is a
question of cost and convenience, for
you can only get electricity enough, either
to light a street or to drive an engine, by
an original steam-engine or other motive
power to work the dynamo; and a system
of conducting wires to convey the elec
tricity to the place where the light or
power is wanted. Where the motive
power is supplied by nature, as in the
case of tidal or river currents or water
falls, it is quite possible that power may
be obtained in this way to compete with
that obtained directly from the steamengine ; but there are as yet considerable
practical difficulties to be overcome in
the transmission of any large amount of
-energy for long distances.
To overcome some of these difficulties
the accumulator has been invented,
which affords yet another remarkable
instance of the transformation of energy.
It consists of two lead plates immersed
in acidulated water. When a strong
electrical current is sent through the
water it decomposes it, the oxygen going
to one lead plate and the hydrogen to
the other. The oxygen attacks the lead
plate to which it goes, forming peroxide
of lead; while the hydrogen reduces
any oxide in the other plate, producing
pure lead, and leaving a film of surplus
hydrogen on the surface. The charging
current is then reversed, so that the
latter plate is now attacked and the
former one reduced, when the current is
again reversed. By continuing this pro
cess the surfaces of both lead plates
become porous, so that they present a
large surface, and can therefore hold a
great deal of peroxide of lead. The
charging current being now broken, the
oxygen which has been forcibly separated
from the liquid seeks to recombine with
hydrogen ; and if the two lead plates are
joined by a wire, this effect of the oxygen
generates an electrical current in the
opposite direction to the original one,
which is the current utilised. Electricity
is thus stored up in a portable box,
where it can be kept till wanted, when it
is drawn out by connecting the plates,
and, as a large amount of energy has
been accumulated, the current which is
produced lasts for a considerable time.
Unfortunately, accumulators are bulky,
heavy, and expensive, and nearly half
the energy of the original charging
current is lost in obtaining the reversed
or working current. They are therefore
not as yet adapted for general use,
though perfectly capable of supplying
either light or motive power, for both
which purposes they have been success
fully applied in special cases. The
future both of electric power and electric
lighting is now reduced entirely to a
question of cost; and though it is hard
to beat gas and the steam engine, with
cheap coal, and air and water for
nothing, it is possible that by using
natural sources of power to move
dynamos, and by obtaining zinc back as
a residual product in batteries, electricity
may in certain cases carry the day. A
visit to any modern electrical exhibition
will show that it is rapidly displacing the
older motive forces at every turn.
�POLARITY IN MATTER
39
Chapter V.
POLARITY IN MATTER
Ultimate elements of universe—Built up by
polarity—Experiment with magnet—Chemical
affinity—Atomic poles—Alkalies and acids—
Quantivalence — Atomicity — Isomerism —
Chemical stability — Thermo-chemistry —Definition of atoms—All matter built up by
polar forces.
I almost fear that by this time some of
my readers may think that I have
seduced them under false pretences to
read long chapters of dry science, when
they had been led from the introduction
to anticipate discussions on the more
immediately interesting topics of morals,
religions, and philosophies. My excuse
must be that these scientific subjects are
really of extreme interest in themselves
and indispensable as a solid basis for the
superstructure to be raised on them.
How can I attempt to show that the law
of polarity extends to the more complex
problems of human thought and life if I
fail in establishing its application to the
simpler case of inorganic force and
matter? It must be recollected also
that among the primitive polarities is
that of author and reader. It is my
part to endeavour to present the leading
facts and laws of the material universe in
such plain and popular language that the
ordinary reader who has neither time nor
faculty for special studies may apprehend
them clearly without excessive effort or
extraordinary intelligence. But it is the
reader’s part to supply a fair average
amount of attention, and above all to feel
an interest in interesting matters. Clever
ness and curiosity are very much con
vertible terms, and the clearest exposition
is thrown away on the torpid mind which
views the marvellous universe in which he
has the privilege to live with the stupid
apathy of the savage, taking things as
they come without caring to know any
thing about them.
'
For the reader’s part of the work I am
not responsible; but for my own I am,
and I proceed therefore to give in my
own way, and with the best faculty that
is in me, a clear summary of such of the
fundamental facts and laws of nature as
seem necessary for the work I have
undertaken.
From the preceding chapters we are
now able to realise what are the ultimate
elements of the material universe, and it
remains to show how they are put together.
The elements are ether, energy, and
matter.
First, ether: a universal, all-pervading,
medium, imponderable or infinitely light,
and almost infinitely elastic, in which all
matter, from suns and planets down to
molecules and atoms, float as in a bound
less ocean, and whose tremors or vibra
tions, propagated as waves, transport the
different forms of energy, light, heat, and
electricity, across space.
Secondly, energy : a primitive, indes
tructible something, which causes motion
and manifests itself under its many diver
sified forms, such as gravitation, mecha
nical work, molecular and atomic forces,,
light and heat, all of which are merely
Protean transformations of the one funda
mental energy, and convertible into each
other.
Thirdly, matter: the ultimate elements
of this are the electrons, or electric
particles, which combine to form atoms
these in turn build up molecules, or little
pieces of ordinary matter with all its
qualities, which are the bricks used in
building all the varied structures of the
organic and inorganic worlds. Of these
atoms some seventy-eight have been dis
tinguished, and, although we suspect that
they are merely combinations or trans
formations of one original matter, it is
still convenient to consider them as
�4°
POLARITY IN MATTER
elementary. In like manner we may
suspect that matter is in reality only
another form of energy, and that the im
pression of solidity is given by the action
of a repellent force which is very energetic
at short distances. If this were estab
lished, we might look forward to the
generalisation that energy was the one
reality of nature ; but for the present it
is a mere speculation, and we must be
content to pursue our inquiry into the
nature and unions of the electrons. In
any case this much is certain, that
matter, like energy, is indestructible.
We have absolutely no experience of
either of them being created or annihi
lated. Nay, more, we have no faculties
to enable us even to conceive how some
thing can be made out of nothing; and
all we know, or can ever know, about these
primitive constituents of the universe
concerns their laws of existence, their
evolutions and their transformations.
Minute as the electrons and atoms and
molecules are, we must conceive of them
: not as stationary and indissolubly con
nected, but rather as little solar systems
■in which revolving electrons form the
atom, revolving atoms form the molecule,
and revolving molecules form the matter,
held together as separate systems by
their proper energies and motions, until
some superior force intruding breaks up
the system and sets its components free
lo form new combinations.
What is the principle which thus forms,
•un-forms, and re-forms the various com
binations of atomic and molecular
systems by which the world is built up
from its constituent elements ? It is
polarity.
As I began with the illustration of the
magnet introducing order and harmony
into the confused mass of iron filings, let me
take this other illustration from the same
source. If we place an iron bar in con
tact with the pole of a magnet, the bar
becomes itself a magnet with opposite
poles to the original one, so that, as
opposite poles attract, the iron bar
adheres to it. Bring a lump of nickel in
contact with the further end or free pole
of the iron bar, and the nickel also will
be magnetised and adhere. Let the
lump of nickel be as large as the pole of
the iron bar is able to support, and now
bring a lump of soft iron near this pole.
It will drop the nickel and take the iron.
This is exactly similar to those cases of
chemical affinity in which a molecule
drops one of its factors and takes on
another to which its attraction is stronger.
If iron rusts in water, it is because the
oxygen atom drops hydrogen to take iron,
just as the magnet dropped nickel.
The polarity of chemical elements is
attested by the fact that, when compounds
are decomposed by the electric current,
the different elementary substances
appear at different poles of the battery.
Thus oxygen, chlorine, and non-metallic
substances appear at the positive pole;
while hydrogen, potassium, and metals
generally, appear at the negative one.
The inference is irresistible that the
atoms had in each case an opposite
polarity to that of the poles to which
they were attracted. This is confirmed
by the fact that the radicals—i.e., the
elementary atoms or groups of atoms
which have opposite polarities—combine
readily; while those which have the
same polarity, as two metals, have but
slight affinity for each other. Like there
fore attracts unlike, as in all cases of
polarity, and the greater- the degree of
unlikeness the stronger is the attraction.
Thus, the radicals of all alkalies are
electro-positive, and appear at the nega
tive pole of a battery; while those of
acids are all electro-negative, and the
higher each stands in its respective scale
of polarity the more strongly does it
show the peculiar qualities of acid or
alkali and the more eagerly does it com
bine with its opposite.
Acids and alkalies are, in fact, all
members of the same class of compounds
called Hydrates, because a single atom
of hydrogen is a common feature in
their composition. This atom is coupled
with a single atom of oxygen, which may
be conceived of as the central magnet
holding the hydrogen atom at one pole,
�POLARITY IN MATTER
4i
while at the other it holds either a single hydrogen, just as the magnet dropped
atom of some metallic element, such as nickel and took iron.
This polarity of chemical elements
potassium or sodium, or a group consist
ing, of such an element together with manifests itself in different ways. In
atoms of oxygen, so constituted as to some cases it appears like that of. a
present a single pole to the attraction of magnet, in which there are two opposite
the central oxygen atom. Thus, if K poles, and two only, one at each end.
stands for kali or potassium, N for Thus oxygen (O) is bipolar, and its atom
nitrogen, O for oxygen, and H for holds together two atoms of hydrogen
hydrogen, we may have the compounds (H) in forming the molecule of water,
which may be represented as H + H - O - K
O + - H, which is equivalent to
iron
The former is the molecule of potassic
hydrate, which is the most caustic or
strongest of alkalies; the latter, that of
nitric acid, the most corrosive or power
ful of acids. These are the extremes of
the series, of which there are many
intermediate members, all being more or
less alkaline, that is caustic and turning
litmus-paper blue, when the third element
is a simple metallic atom; and acid,
corrosive, and turning litmus-paper red,
when it is a compound radical of a group
of metallic and oxygen atoms. This
shows to what an extent whole classes of
substances may have a general resem
blance in their constitution, and yet differ
most widely in their qualities by the sub
stitution of one element for another.
These special qualities may be made
to diminish and finally disappear by
mixing the two opposite substances, or,
as it is called, neutralising an acid by an
alkali or an alkali by an acid. Thus, if
hydrochloric acid, H Cl, be poured into
a solution of sodic-hydrate, Na - O - H,
the alkaline qualities of the latter diminish
and finally disappear, the result of the
neutral solution being water, H - O - H,
and sodic-chloride, or common salt,
Na-Cl. It is evident that this result
has been produced by the hydrogen
atom in H - Cl and the sodium atom in
Na - O - H changing places, the former
preferring to unite with oxygen to form
water, while the displaced sodium atom
finds a refuge with chlorine. The oxygen
atom has dropped sodium and taken
__________
| n| s |magnet[ N |s_|. Others, again,
like hydrogen and chlorine, seem to
have only a single pole, as in the case of
electricity in an excited glass rod, and „
have to create for themselves the opposite
pole, which is the indispensable con
dition of all polarity, by. induction in
another body. Thus, muriatic or hydro
chloric acid is formed by the union of a
single atom of chlorine, which is strongly
negative, with a single atom of hydrogen,
in which it appears to have induced a
positive pole; though the combination is
not a very stable one, for, if an element
with a stronger positive pole of its own is
presented to the chlorine, it drops the
hydrogen, just as the magnet drops the
nickel. Other atoms are multipolar, and
seem as if made up of more than one
magnet, or rather as if the atom had
regular shape like a triangle, square, or
pentagon, and each angle was a pole,
thus enabling it to unite with three, four,
five, or more atoms of other substances.
Thus, one atom of nitrogen unites with
three of hydrogen, one of carbon with
four of hydrogen, and so on. . Every
substance has, therefore, what is called
its “ quantivalence,” or power of uniting
with it a greater or less quantity of other
atoms, and conversely that of replacing
in combinations other atoms, or groups
of atoms, the sum of whose quantivalence
equals its own.
Thus, one atom of
carbon, which has four poles, combines
with four atoms of hydrogen or chlorine,
which is unipolar, but with only two of
oxygen, which is bipolar; while the
oxygen atom combines with two of
�42
POLARITY IN MA TTER
hydrogen, and that of chlorine with one
atom only of hydrogen. The analogy
between the single atomic and electrical
poles on the one hand, and the dual and
magnetic poles on the other, will be
evident if we consider what occurs if a
pith-ball, electrified positively, is brought
near a similar ball electrified negatively.
They attract each other, and the one
becomes the pole of the other; but if
separated, each carries with it its own
electrical charge. But the separate balls
or poles, though no longer influencing
each other, are not isolated, for each
draws by induction an electrical charge
opposite to its own to the extremity of
the nearest conductor, and thus creates
for itself a new or second pole. Polarity,
in fact, involves opposition of relations,
or two poles, and electrical only differs
from magnetic polarity in the fact that
in the latter the two poles are in the
same body, while in the former they are
in separate bodies.
For pith-balls read atoms, and we
have an explanation of the univalent
atoms like those of chlorine and sodium
which act as single poles : and this is
confirmed by the fact that such atoms
are never found isolated, but are always
associated in a molecule with at least one
other atom which forms the opposite
pole of the molecular system. Bivalent
or magnetic atoms, on the other hand,
which have two poles, like those of
mercury and zinc, may constitute a
complete polar system, and be found
isolated, and form the class of molecules
which consist of single atoms.
This conception of the polarity of
atoms enables us to understand the way
in which the almost infinite variety of
substances existing in the world is built
up from a comparatively few simple
elements.
Atoms and radicals, which
are multipolar, can attract and form
molecules with as many other atoms or
radicals as they have poles. This is
called their degree of atomicity, which is
the same as their quantivalence; and
each of these atoms or radicals may be
replaced by some other atom or radical,
which presents to any pole a more
powerful polarity.
Thus, compounds
may be built up of great and varied
complexity, for the quality of any com-,
pound may be greatly altered by any one
of the substitutions at any one of the
poles.
And the molecules, or small
specimens of matter, may be thus built
up into very complex aggregations of
atoms, some single molecules containing
more than a hundred atoms. Thus,
carbon has four poles, or is quadrivalent,
and its atoms possess the power of com
bining among themselves to an almost
indefinite extent and forming groups of
great stability. Thus, carbon radicals
may be formed in very great number,
each affording a nucleus upon which
compound radicals may be built up, so
that carbon has been aptly called the
skeleton of almost all the varied com
pounds of the more complex forms of
inorganic matter as well as the principal
foundation of organic life.
Nor is this all, for the qualities of
substances depend not only on the quali
ties of their constituent elements, but also
on the manner in which these elements
are grouped. Two substances may have
exactly the same chemical composition
and yet be very different. We may
suppose that the same elements affect
us differently according as they are
grouped. Thus, the same bricks may
be built up either into a cube or pyramid,
which forms are extremely stable and
can only be taken to pieces brick by
brick; or into a Gothic arch, which all
tumbles to pieces if a single brick form
ing the keystone is displaced. As an
instance of this, butyric acid, which gives
the offensive odour to rancid butter, has
exactly the same composition as acetic
ether, which gives the flavour to a ripe
apple. They consist of the same number
of atoms of the same elements— carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen—united in the
same proportions. This applies to a
number of substances, and is called
Isomerism, or formation of different
wholes from the same parts.
The principle of polarity, therefore,
�POLARITY IN MA TTER
aided by the subsidiary conditions of
quantivalence, atomicity, and isomerism,
gives the clue to the construction of the
inorganic world out of some seventy
eight elementary substances. Of the sub
stances thus formed, whether of mole
cules or of combinations of molecules,
some are stable and some unstable. As
a rule, the simpler combinations are the
most stable, and instability increases with
complexity. Thus the diamond, which
is merely a crystal of pure carbon, is very
hard and indestructible; while dynamite,
or nitro-glycerine, which is a very com
plex compound, explodes at a touch.
The stability of a substance depends
partly on the stable structure of its com
ponent elements, and partly on their
mutual affinity being strong enough to
keep them together in .presence of the
attractions of other outside elements,
which, in the case of most natural sub
stances at the surface of the earth, con
sist principally of air and water. Thus,
the rocks, earths, metallic oxides, water,
carbonic dioxide, and nitrogen are ex
tremely stable, and resist decomposition,
or chemical union with other substances,
with great energy. With regard to all
substances this law holds good, that the
tendency is to fall back from a less stable
to a more stable condition, and that such
a falling back is always attended with an
evolution of heat; while, on the other
hand, heat is always absorbed and dis-’
appears whenever the elements of a more
stable substance are made to enter into
a less stable condition. Thus, when
wood bums, there is a falling back from
a substance unstable, on account of its
affinity for the oxygen in the air, into the
stable products, carbonic dioxide and
water, and the heat evolved is the effect
of this fall.
43
As the tendency of all changes is
towards stability, we arrive at the follow
ing law, which is one of the most recent
generalisations of modern chemistry : In
all cases of chemical change the tendency
is to those products whose formation^
will determine the greatest evolution.,
of heat.
This, however, does not imply that
the tendency may not be overcome and
unstable products formed, for just as a
weight may be lifted against the force of
gravity, so may the chemical tendency
be overcome by a sufficient energy acting
against it. Heat is the principal means
of supplying this energy, and by increas
ing it sufficiently not only are molecules
drawn apart and most solids converted
into fluids and finally into gases, but
there is reason to believe that at extremely
high temperatures, such as may prevail
in the sun, all matter would be resolved
into isolated or dissociated atoms. As
tronomers, indeed, think they have
detected matter with even its atoms
disintegrated in some of the stars.
Thus, water at a temperature of i,2ooa
is resolved into a mixture of oxygen and
hydrogen atoms no longer chemically
united into water-molecules; and iodinevapour, which below 700° degrees con
sists of molecules of two atoms, above
that temperature consists of single atoms
only.
The subject might be pursued further,
but enough has been said for the present
purpose to show that the universe con
sists of atoms which are endowed with
polarity, and that as diminished tempera
ture allows these atoms to come closer
together and form compounds, matter in
all its forms is built up by the action of
polar forces.
�44
POLARITY IN LIFE
Chapter VI.
POLARITY IN LIFE
Contrast of living and dead—Eating and being
eaten—Trace matter upwards and life down
wards — Colloids — Cells — Protoplasm —
Monera— Composition of protoplasm — Es
sential qualities of life—-Nutrition and sensa
tion — Motion — Reproduction—Spontaneous
generation—Organic compounds—Polar con
ditions of life.
Polarity having been established as
the universal law of the inorganic world,
we have now to pass to the organic, or
world of life. At first sight there seems
to be a great gulf fixed between the
living and the dead which no bridge
can span. But first impressions are
very apt to deceive us, and when things
are traced up to their origins we often
find them getting nearer and nearer,
until it is difficult to say where one
begins and the other ends. Take, for
instance, such an antithesis as “ eating
or being eaten.” If a hunter meets a
grizzly bear in the Rocky Mountains,
one would say that no distinction can
be sharper than whether the bear eats
■the man or the man the bear. In the
•one case there is a man, and in the other
•a bear, less in the world. But look
through a microscope at a glass of water,
and you may see two specks of jelly-like
substance swimming in it. They are
living creatures, for they eat and grow,
and thrust out and retract processes of
their formless mass, which serve as
temporary legs and arms for seizing food
and for voluntary motion. In short,
they are each what may be called
strictly individual amcebae, forming
separate units of the animated creation as
much as the man and the bear. But if
the two happen to come in contact, what
happens ? The two slimy masses involve
one another and coalesce, and the
resulting amoeba swims -away merrily as
two gentlemen rolled into one.
Now, in this case what became of their
individualities ? Did amoeba A eat
amoeba B, or vice versa, and is the
resulting amoeba a survival of A or of B,
or of both or neither of them? And
what becomes of the antithesis of “eating
or being eaten ” which was so clear and
distinct in the highly specialised forms of
life, and is so evanescent in the simpler
forms ? This illustration may serve to
teach us how necessary it is to trace
things up to their origins, before express
ing too trenchant and confident opinions
as to their nature and relations.
In the case of the organic and inor
ganic worlds the proper course obviously
is, not to draw conclusions from extreme
and highly specialised instances, but to
follow life downwards to its simplest and
most primitive form, and matter upwards
to the form which approaches most
nearly to this form of life. Following
matter upwards, we find a regular pro
gression from the simple to the complex.
Take the diamond, which is one of the
simplest of substances, being merely the
crystallised form of a single ultimate
element, carbon. It is extremely hard
and extremely stable.
Ascending to
compounds of two, three, or more ele
ments, we get substances which are more
complex and less stable ; and at last we
arrive at combinations which involve
many elements and are extremely com
plex. Among these latter substances are
some, called colloids, which are neither
solid, like crystals, nor fluid, like liquids,
but in an intermediate state, like jelly or
the white of an egg, in which the mole
cules have great mobility and are at a
considerable distance apart, so that water
can penetrate their mass. These colloids
are for the most part very complicated
compounds of various elements based on
a nucleus of carbon, which, from its atom
�L
r
POLARITY IN LIFE
45
Protoplasm is, therefore, evidently the
having four poles with strong mutual
nearest approach of life to matter; and
attractions, is eminently qualified for
if life ever originated from atomic and
forming what may be called the inner molecular combinations, it was in this
skeleton of these complex combinations.
form. To suppose that any more com
Colloids of this description form the last plex form of life, however humble, could
stage of the ascending line from inorganic
originate from chemical combinations,
matter to organic life.
.
would be a violation of the law of evolu
Next, let us trace life downwards
tion, which shows a uniform develop
towards matter. There is a constant ment from the simple to the complex,
succession from the more to the less
and never a sudden jump passing at a
complex and differentiated : from man bound over intermediate grades.
To
through mammals, reptiles, fishes, and
understand life, therefore, we must under
a long chain of more simple forms,
stand protoplasm; for protoplasm, closely
until at its end we come to the two last
as it approximates to lifeless colloid
links, which are the same for all animals,
matter, is thoroughly alive. . A whole
all plants, and all forms of animated
family, the Monera, consist, simply of a
existence. The last link but one is the
living globule of jelly, which has not
cell; the last of all is protoplasm.
even begun to be differentiated. Every
Protoplasm, or, as Huxley calls it,
molecule, as in a crystal, is of homoge
“the physical basis of life,’ is a colour
neous chemical composition and an
less jelly-like substance, absolutely homo
geneous, without parts or structure in epitome of the whole mass. There are
no special parts, no organs told off for
fact, a mere microscopic speck of jelly.
The cell is the first step in the particular functions; and yet all life
functions—nutrition, reproduction, sensa
specialisation of protoplasm, the outer
tion, and movement—are performed, but
layer of which, in contact with the
each by the whole body. The jelly
surrounding
environment,
becomes
hardened so as to form an enclosing speck becomes a mouth to swallow,.and,
turning inside out, a stomach to digest.
cell-wall, while a portion of the enclosed
protoplasm condenses into a nucleus, in It shoots out tongues of jelly to move
and feel with, and presently withdraws
which a further condensation makes
. . .
what is called the nucleolus or second them.
With these characteristics it is impos
smaller nucleus. This constitutes the
sible to deny to protoplasm the full attri
nucleated cell, whose repeated sub
butes of life, or to doubt that, like the
division into other similar cells in geo
atom in the material world, it is. the
metrical progression furnishes the raw
primary element of organic or living
material out of which all . the varied
structures of the world of life are built existence. Given the atom, we can
trace up, step by step, the evolution of
up. Plants and animals, bones, muscles,
and organs of sense, are all composed of matter; so given the protoplasm, we
modified cells, hardened, flattened, , or can trace up the evolution of life by
otherwise altered, as the case may require. progressive stages to the highest, develop
If we trace life up to its origin in the ment—man. To understand life, there
individual instead of in the species, we fore, we must begin by trying to under
arrive at the same result. All plants and stand protoplasm.
What is protoplasm ? In its substance
animals, whether of the lowest or highest
it is a nitrogenous carbon compound,
forms—fish, reptile, bird, mammal, man
—begin their individual existence as a differing only from other similar , com
speck of protoplasm, passing, into a pounds of the albuminous family of
nucleated cell, which contains in it the colloids by the extremely complex com
whole principle of its subsequent evolu position of its atoms. It consists of five
tion into the mature and completed form. elements, and its average composition is
�46
POLARITY IN LIFE
said by chemists to be 52.55 per cent, waste preponderates, remaining always
carbon, 21.23 oxygen, I5-I7 nitrogen, itself. The distinction will be clear if
6.7 hydrogen, 1.2 sulphur. Its peculiar we consider what happens when water
qualities, therefore, including life, are rusts iron. In a certain sense the iron
not the result of any new and strange may be said to eat the oxygen, reject the
atom added to the known chemical hydrogen, and grow, or increase in weight
compounds of the same family, but of by what it feeds on; but the result is not
the manner of grouping and motions of a bigger piece of iron, but a new sub
these well-known material elements. It stance, rust, or oxide of iron. That
has in a remarkable degree the faculty living matter should feed internally
of absorbing water, so that its molecules is not so wonderful, for its semi-fluid
seem to float in it in a condition of semi condition may well enable foreign mole
fluid aggregation, which seems to be cules to penetrate its mass and come in
necessary for the complex molecular contact with its own interior molecules ;
movements which are the cause or but it is an experience different from
accompaniment of life. Living proto anything known in the inorganic world
plasm, in fact, contains from eighty to that it should be able to manufacture
eighty-five per cent, of water. Thus, molecules of protoplasm like its own out
many seeds and animalculse, if perfectly of these foreign molecules, and thus
dry, may remain apparently as dead and grow by assimilation. For instance,
as unchanging as crystals, for years, or when amoebae, bacteria, and other low
even, as in the case of the mummy organisms live and multiply in chemical
wheat, for centuries, to revive into life solutions which contain no protoplasm,
when moistened.
but only inorganic compounds con
But in addition to those material taining the requisite atoms for making
qualities in which protoplasm seems to protoplasm, or when a plant not only
differ only from a whole group of similar chemically decomposes carbonic dioxide,
compounds of the type of glycerine, by exhaling the oxygen and depositing the
the greater complexity and mobility of carbon in its stem and leaves, but also
its molecules, it has developed the new from this and other elements drawn
and peculiar element which is called life. from the soil or air manufactures the
Life in its essence is manifested by the living protoplasm which courses through
faculties of nutrition, sensation, move its channels, the result is that life has
ment, and reproduction.
manufactured life out of non-living mate
As regards nutrition, there is this rials.
essential difference beween living and
If we take sensation, this, in its last
non-living matter. The latter, if it feeds analysis, is change, or molecular motion,
and grows at all, does so only by taking induced in a body by the action of its
on fresh molecules of its own substance environment.
Here there is a certain
on its outer surface, as in the case of analogy between living and non-living
a small nucleus-crystal of ice in freezing matter, for the latter does respond to
water. If it feeds on foreign matter and changes in the surrounding environment,
throughout its mass, it does so only as in the case of heat, electricity, and
in the way of chemical combination, other forces; but living matter is far
forming a new product. Living matter, more sensitive, the changes are far more
on the other hand, feeds internally, and frequent and complex, and in certain
works up foreign substances, by the pro cases they are accompanied by a sensa
cess we call digestion, into molecules tion of what is called consciousness,
like its own, which it assimilates, reject which in the higher organisms rises into
ing as waste any surplus or foreign a perception of voluntary effort or free
matter which it cannot incorporate. It will as a factor in the transformation of
thus grows and decays as assimilation or energies. Thus it happens that in the
�’ IN LIFE
________________ 47
are built up, which, in their turn, repeat
case of dead matter the changes pro the process and reproduce themselves in
duced by a change of conditions follow
offspring. This is the real mystery of
fixed laws, and can be predicted and
life; we can partly see or suspect how
calculated, while those of living matter
its other faculties might arise from an
are apparently uncertain and capricious
extension of the known qualities and
We can tell how much an iron bar will
laws of matter and of energy; but we
expand with heat; but we cannot say
whether, if a particle of food is. brought can discern no .analogy between the nonreproductive nitrogenous carbon com
within reach of an amceba, it will or will
not shoot out a finger to seize it. If the pound, which makes so near an approach
to protoplasm in its chemical composi
amoeba is hungry, it probably will; if it
tion, and the reproductive protoplasm,
is enjoying a siesta after a full meal, it
which is fertile, increases and multiplies,
probably will not.
.
The case of sensation includes that ot and replenishes the earth. Can the gap
motion, which is, after all, only sensation be bridged over: can protoplasm be
applied in the liberation of energy of manufactured out of chemical elements ?
position, which has, by some chemical It is done every day by plants which
process, become stored up, either in the make protoplasm out of inorganic ele
living mass, or in some special organ of ments, and by the lowest forms of life
which live and multiply in chemical
it, such as muscle. Iron, for instance,
moves when it expands by heat or is solutions. It is done also in the life*
history of all individuals whose primitive
attracted by a magnet; but it moves,
like the planets, by fixed and calculable cell or ovum makes thousands or millions
of other cells, each containing within its
laws ; while living matter moves., as
might be expected from the variable enclosing membrane as much protoplasm
as there was in the unit from which they
character of its sensation, in a manner
which often cannot be calculated. There started. But in all these instances there
are cases, however, of reflex or involun was the living principle to start with,
tary motion where, even in the highest existing in the primitive speck of proto
living organisms, sensation and motion plasm, from which the rest were de
seem to follow change of environment, veloped. Can this primitive speck be
in a fixed and invariable sequence, as in created; or, in other words, can proto
shrinking from pain, touching or gal plasm be artificially manufactured by
vanising a nerve ; and it may be that the chemical processes ?
The answer must be, No ; not by any
apparent spontaneousness and varia
bility of living motion is only the result process now known. The similarity, of
of the almost infinitely greater com chemical composition, and the increasing
plexity and mobility of the elements of conviction of the universality of natural
law and of- evolution, have led to a very
living matter.
Reproduction remains, which, is the general . belief that such a spontaneous
faculty most characteristic of life, and generation of life must be possible, and
which distinguishes most, sharply the numerous experiments have been made
organic from the inorganic world. In to produce it. For a time the balance
the inorganic there is no known process seemed to be very evenly held between
by w7hich dead matter reproduces itself, the supporters and opponents of spon
In fact, starting
as the cell does when it contracts in the taneous generation.
from the assumption, which at first was
middle and splits up into two cells,
which, in their turn, propagate an endless common to both sides, that heat equal
number of similar cells, increasing in to the boiling point of water destroyed
geometrical progression, until they supply all living organisms, spontaneous genera
the raw material from which all. the tion had the best of it; for it was clearly
countless varieties of living organisms proved that living organisms did appear
�48
POLARITY IN LIFE
in infusions contained in vessels which form of gout", indigotine, the principle of
had been hermetically sealed, after being the blue colouring matter of the indigo
subjected to this or even a higher degree plant ; and alizarine, that of madder—
of heat. But subsequent and more care all are now produced artificially, and
ful experiments have shown that the have even become important articles of
germs or spores of bacteria and other commerce. If. chemists can make the
animalcule, which are generally floating indigotine, which the growing plant
in the air, can, when dry, withstand a elaborates at the same time as it
greater degree of heat, and that when the elaborates protoplasm, may we not hope
experiments are made in optically pure some day to make the latter as well as
air no life ever appears and the infusions the former product? Now, organic com
never putrefy.
On questions of this pounds of this class are being formed
sort all who are not themselves prac artificially every day, and it is said that
tised experimentalists must be guided chemists have already succeeded in pro
by authority, and we may be content to ducing several hundreds. Of late years,
accept the dictum of Huxley that bio in fact, chemists have advanced as far
genesis, or all life from previous life, as the artificial manufacture of albuminoid
was “ victorious along the whole line.” substances, some of the most character
But in doing so we must accept Huxley’s istic of organic compounds. But even
caution, “that with organic chemistry, if this expectation is never fulfilled, we
molecular physics, and physiology yet in may fall back on Huxley’s second reser
their infancy, and every day making pro vation of the enormous difference of
digious strides, it would be the height of chemical and physical conditions in the
presumption for any man to say that the early stages of the earth’s life from any
conditions under which matter assumes thing now known. It has been calcu
the qualities called vital may not some lated that the earth’s temperature, when
day be artificially brought together.”
it first started on its career as an inde
And, further, “ that as a matter not of pendent planet, was something like
proof, but of probability, if it were given 3,ooo,ooo0 Fahrenheit. At this heat
to me to look beyond the abyss of geo probably all atoms would be dissociated;
logically recorded time, to the still more but as the temperature diminished they
remote period when the earth was passing would come closer together, though still
through chemical and physical conditions with a great deal of motion, and making
which it can never see again, I should wide excursions, which might bring many
expect to be a witness of the evolution different atoms together in complex
of living protoplasms from non-living though unstable combinations. More
matter.” Such is the cautious candour over, carbon, which is the basis of all
with which scientific men approach such combinations of the class of proto
problems upon which theologians dogma plasm, was far more abundant in those
tise with the unerring intrepidity of early days in the form of carbonic
ignorance.
dioxide gas, before the enormous amount
In the meantime, what may be said of vegetable matter in the form of coal
as to Huxley’s reservation is this: A and otherwise, had been subtracted
considerable step has been made in the from it. In any case, the first protoplasm
direction indicated, by the success of must be extremely ancient, for the
recent chemistry in forming artificially remains of sea-weeds are found in the
what are called organic compounds— oldest strata, and vegetation of any sort
that is, substances which were previously implies the manufacture of protoplasm
known only as products of animal or from inorganic matter.
vegetable secretions. Urea, for instance,
The passage from the organic into the
the base of uric acid, with which so inorganic world is best traced by follow
many are unfortunately familiar in the ing the line of Pasteur’s researches on
�49
POLARITY IN LIFE
ferments. How does the world escape
being choked up by the accumulation of
dead organic matter throughout innumer
able ages ? By what are called ferments,
inducing processes of fermentation, and
putrefaction, by which the course of life
is reversed, and the organic elements are
taken to pieces and restored to the
inorganic world. Pasteur proved, in
opposition to the theories of Liebig and
other older chemists, that this was not
done directly by the oxygen of the air,
but through the intermediate agency of
living microbes, whose spores, floating
in the air, took up their abode and
multiplied wherever they found an
appropriate habitation. Given an air
purified from germs, or a temperature
low enough to prevent them from
germinating, and putrescible substances
would keep sweet for ever. The prac
tical realisation of this is seen in the
enormous commerce in canned meats
and fruits, and in the imports of frozen
beef and mutton, causing a fall of rents
and much lamentation among British
landlords and farmers.
But then the question was asked, How
are your microscopic organisms disposed
of? What are the ferments of your
ferments ? For even microscopic bacteria
and vibrios would, in time, choke up the
world by their residue if not got rid of.
Pasteur answered that the ferments are
destroyed by a new series of organisms
■—aerobes—living in the air, and these
by other aerobes in succession, until the
ultimate products are oxidised. “ Thus,
in the destruction of what has lived, all
is reduced to the simultaneous action of
the three great natural phenomena—
fermentation, putrefaction, and slow
combustion. A living being, animal, or
vegetable, or the debris of either, having
just died, is exposed to the air. The
life that has abandoned it is succeeded
by life under other forms. In the super
ficial parts, accessible to the air, the
germs of the infinitely little aerobes
flourish and multiply. The carbon,
hydrogen, and nitrogen of the organic
matter are transformed by the oxygen of
the air, and under the vital activity of
the aerobes, into carbonic acid, the
vapour of water, and ammonia. The
combustion continues as long as organic
matter and air are present together.
At the same time the superficial com
bustion is going on, fermentation and
putrefaction are performing their work
in the midst of the mass by means of
the developed germs of the original
microbes, which, note, do not need
oxygen to live, but which oxygen causes
to perish. Gradually the phenomena of
destruction are at last accomplished
through the work of latent fermentation
and slow combustion.”
This seems a complete demonstration
of the passage of the organic into the
inorganic world in the way of analysis,
or taking the puzzle to pieces. In the
opposite way of synthesis, or putting it
together, the nearest approach yet made
has been in the manufacture of those
organic compounds already referred. to,
such as urea, alizarine, indigotine,
albuminoids, and other substances which
had hitherto only been known as pro
ducts of animal or vegetable life. Of
these a vast number have been already
formed from inorganic elements by
chemical processes, and almost every
day announces some fresh discovery.
Under these circumstances, it is unsafe
to affirm either, on the one hand, that
the problem has been solved and that
life has ever been made in a laboratory;
or, on the other hand, that there is any
such great gulf fixed between the organic
and the inorganic, that we can assume a
break requiring secondary supernatural
interference to surmount it, and ignore
the good old maxim that “Natura nihil
facit per salturn! Positive proof is
wanting, but the probabilities point here,
as they do everywhere else throughout
the universe, to the truth of the theory
of “ original impress ” as opposed to that
of “secondary interference.”
It remains to show how the funda
mental law of polarity affects the more
complex relations of life and of its
various combinations. And here it. is
-E
�5o
POLARITY IN LIFE
important to bear in mind that, as the
factors of the problem become more
intricate and complex, so also do the
laws which regulate their existence and
action. Polarity is no longer a simple
question of attraction and repulsion at
the two ends of a magnet or at the
opposite poles of an atom. It appears
rather as a general law under which, as
the simple and absolute becomes dif
ferentiated by evolution into the complex
and manifold, it does so under the con
dition of developing contrasts.
For
every plus there is a minus, for every like
an unlike; one cannot exist without
the other; and, although apparently
antagonistic, harmonious order is only
possible by their co-existence and mutual
balance.
This is so important that it may be
well to make the idea clearer by an illustra
tion. The earth revolves round the sun
in its annual orbit under the influence
of two forces: the centripetal, or force
of gravity tending to draw it towards the
sun; and the centrifugal, tending to
make it dart away into infinite space.
During half the orbit the centripetal
seems to be gaining ground on the
centrifugal, and the earth is approaching
nearer to the sun. If this continued, it
would revolve ever nearer and soon fall
into it; but the centrifugal force is
gradually recruiting its strength from the
increased velocity of the earth, until it
first equals the centripetal, and finally
outstrips it, and for the remaining half
of the orbit it is constantly gaining
ground. If this went on, the earth
would fly off into the chilly regions of
outer space; but the centripetal force in
its turn regains the ascendency; and'
thus by the balance of the two forces
our planet describes the beautiful ellipse,
its harmonious orbit as a habitable globe;
while comets in which one or the other
force unduly preponderates for long
periods are alternately drawn into fiery
proximity to the sun, and sent careering
through regions void of heat.
Compare this passage from Herbert
Spencer: “As from antagonist physical
forces, as from antagonist emotions in
each man, so from the antagonist social
tendencies man’s emotions create, there
always results not a medium state, but
a rhythm between opposite states. The
one force or tendency is not continuously
counterbalanced by the other force or
tendency; but now the one greatly
preponderates, and presently by reaction1
there comes a preponderance of the
other.”
And again: “ There is nowhere a
balanced judgment and a balanced
action, but always .a cancelling of one
another by opposite errors. Men pair
off in insane parties, as Emerson puts
it.”
The reader will now begin to under
stand the sense in which polarity applies
to these complex conditions of an
advanced evolution.
To return, however, from this digres
sion to the point at which it began—viz.,
the origin of life—we have to show how
the law of polarity prevails in the organic
as well as in the inorganic world. In the
first place, the material to which all life is
attached, from the speck of protoplasm
to the brain of man, is strictly a chemical
product of atoms and molecules bound
together by the same polar laws of those
of inorganic matter.
In like manner, all the essential pro
cesses by which life lives, moves, and
has its being are equally mechanical
and chemical. If the brain, receiving a
telegram from without through the optic
nerve, sends a reply along another nerve
which liberates energy stored up in.
a muscle and produces motion, the
messages are received and transmitted
like those sent by a voltaic battery along
the wires of a telegraph, and the energy
is stored up by the slow combustion
of food in oxygen, just as that of the
steam-engine is produced by the com
bustion of coal. All this is mechanical,
inorganic, and therefore polar.
But when we come to the conditions
of life proper, we find the influence of
polarity mainly in this: that as it
develops from simpler into more complex
�\
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—PLANT AND ANIMAL
forms, it does so under the law of de
veloping contrasts or opposite polarities,
which are necessary complements of
each other’s existence. Thus, as we
51
ascend in the scale oi lite, we nna two
primitive polarities developed : that of
plant and animal, and that of male and
female.
Chapter VII.
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—plant and animal
Contrast in developed life—Plants producers, framework of its structure from the air,
animals consumers—Differences disappear in by breathing in through its leaves the
simple forms — Zoophytes —- Protista—Num- carbonic dioxide present. in the atmo
mulites— Corals—Fungi —Lichens Insecti
sphere, decomposing it, fixing the carbon
vorous plants — Geological succession
Primary period, Algse and Ferns—Secondary in its roots, stem, and branches, and
period, Gymnosperms—Tertiary and recent, exhaling the oxygen. The animal exactly
Angiosperms—Monocotyledons and Dicotyle reverses the process, inhaling the oxygen
dons—Parallel evolution of animal life —
Primary, protista, mollusca, and fish Secon of the air, combining it with the carbon
dary, reptiles—Tertiary and recent, mammals. of its food, and exhaling carbonic dioxide.
Animals or plants? Judging by first
impressions, nothing can be more dis
tinct. No one, whether scientific or
unscientific, could mistake an oak
tree for an ox. To the unscientific
observer the tree differs in having
no power of free movement, and. ap
parently no sensation or conscious
ness—in fact, hardly any of the attributes
of life. The scientific observer, sees
still more fundamental differences in the
fact that the plant feeds on inorganic
ingredients, out of which it manufactures
living matter, or protoplasm; while the
animal can only provide itself with pro
toplasm from that already manufactured
by the-plant. The ox, who lives on
grass, could not live on what the grass
thrives on—viz., carbon, oxygen, hydro
gen, and nitrogen. The contrast is so
striking that the vegetable world . has
been called the producer, and the animal
world the consumer, of nature. In the
language of recent science, plants are
plasmodomus and animals plasmophagous.
Again, the plant derives the material
Thus, a complete polarity is established,
as we see in the aquarium, where plant
and animal life balance each other, and
the opposites live and thrive, where the
existence of either would be impossible
without the other.
Sharp, however, as the contrast appears
to be in the more specialised and de
veloped specimens of the two worlds, we
have here another instance of the diffi
culty of trusting to first impressions, and
have to modify our conceptions greatly,
if we trace animal and vegetable life up
to their simplest forms and earliest
origins. In the first place, each indi
vidual vegetable or animal begins its exist
ence from a simple piece of pure proto
plasm. This develops in the same way
into a nucleated cell, by whose repeated
subdivision the raw material is provided
for both structures alike. The chief
difference at this early stage is that the
animal cells remain soft and naked,
while those of vegetables secrete a com
paratively solid cell-wall, which makes
them less mobile and plastic. This gives
greater rigidity to the frame and tissues of
the plant, and prevents the development
�52
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—PLANT AND ANIMAL
of the finer organs of sensation and
other vital processes which charac
terise the animal. But this is a differ
ence of development only, and the
origination of the future life from the
speck of protoplasm is the same in both
worlds.
If, instead of looking at the origin of
individuals, we trace back the various
forms of animal and vegetable life from
the more complex to the simpler forms,
we find the distinctions between the two
disappearing, until at last we arrive at a
vanishing point where it is impossible to
say whether the organism is an animal
pr a plant.
A whole family, comprising sponges,
corals, and jelly-fish, were once called
Zoophytes, or plant-animals, from the
difficulty of assigning them to one
kingdom or the other. They are now a
chief division of the Coelenterata. But
when we descend a £tep lower in the
scale of existence, we come to a large
family—the Protista—of which it is im
possible to say that they are either plants
or animals. In fact, scientific observers
have classed them sometimes as belong
ing to one and sometimes to the other
kingdom; and it was an organism of
this class, looking at which through a
microscope Huxley pronounced it to be
probably a plant, while Tyndall exclaimed
that he would as soon call a sheep a
vegetable. They are mostly microscopic,
and are the first step in organised
development from the Monera, which are
mere specks of homogeneous protoplasm.
Small as they are, they have played an
important part in the formation of the
earth’s crust, for the little slimy mass of
aggregated cells has in many instances
the power of secreting a solid skeleton,
or a minute and delicate envelope or
shell, the petrified remains of which form
entire mountains. Thus the nummulitic
limestone, which forms high ranges on
the Alps and Himalayas, and of which
the Pyramids are built, consists of the
petrified skeletons of a species of Radiolaria, or many-chambered shells, forming
the complicated and elegant mansion
with many rooms and passages, of the
formless, slimy mass which constitutes
the living organism. Chalk also, and
the chalk-like formation which is accumu
lating at the bottom of deep oceans, are
the results of the long-continued fall of
the microscopic snowdrift of shells of the
Globigerina and other protistic forms
swimming in the sea; and in a higher
stage of development the skeletons of
corals, one of the family of Zoophytes or
plant-animals, form the coral reefs and
islands so numerous in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans, and are the basis of
the vast masses of coralline limestone
deposited in the coal era and other past
geological periods.
As development proceeds the distinc
tion between plants and animals becomes
more apparent, though even here the
simplest and earliest forms often show
signs of a common origin by interchang
ing some of ihe fundamental attributes
of the two kingdoms. Thus, the essential
condition of plant existence is to live on
inorganic food, which they manufacture
into protoplasm, by working up simple
combinations into others more compli
cated. Their diet consists of water,
carbonic dioxide, and ammonia; they
take in carbonic dioxide and give out
oxygen, while animals do exactly the
reverse. But the fungi live, like animals,
upon organic food consisting of compli
cated combinations of carbon, which
they assimilate; and, like animals, they
inhale oxygen and give out carbonic
dioxide.
Lichens afford a very curious instance
of the association of vegetable and
animal functions in the same plant.
They are really formed of two distinct
organisms—a body which is a low form
of Alga or sea-weed, and a parasitic form
of fungus, which lives upon it. The
former has a plant life, living on in
organic matter and forming the green
cells, or chlorophyll, which are the
essential property of plants, enabling
them under the action of the sun’s rays
to decompose carbonic dioxide; while
the parasite lives like an animal on the
�PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—PLANT AND ANIMAL
formed protoplasm of the parent stem,
forming threads of colourless cells which
envelop and interlace with the original
lichen, of which they constitute the prin
cipal mass, as in a tree overgrown with ivy.
Even in existing and highly developed
plants we find some curious instances of
reversion towards animal life. . Certain
plants, for instance, like the pionsea or
Venus’ fly-trap, finding it difficult, to
obtain the requisite supply of nitro
genous food in a fluid state from the
arid or marshy soil in which they grow,
have acquired a habit of supplying the
deficiency by taking to an animal diet
and eating flies. Conjoined with this is
a more highly developed sensitiveness, a
power of what appears to be voluntary
motion, and a faculty of secreting a sort
of gastric juice, in which the flies are
digested. The fundamental, property
also of decomposing carbonic dioxide
and exhaling oxygen depends on. light
stimulating a peculiar chemical action of
the chlorophyll; and at night leaves
breathe like lungs, exhaling not oxygen,
but the carbonic dioxide.
The records of geology, imperfect, as
they are, show a continued progression
from these simple and neutral organisms
to higher and more differentiated forms,
both in the animal and vegetable worlds.
These records are imperfect because the
soft bodies of the simpler and for the
most part microscopic forms of proto
plasm and cell life are not capable of
being preserved in petrifactions, and it
is only when they happen to have
secreted shells or skeletons that we have
a chance of identifying them. Still we
have a sufficient number of remains in
the different geological strata to enable
us to trace development. Thus, in the
vegetable world, in the earliest strata,
the Laurentian, Cambrian, and Silurian,
forming the primordial period, which
has a thickness of some 70,000 feet
of the earth’s crust—or more than that
of the whole of the subsequent strata
taken together—we find few other vege
table remains besides those of the lowest
group of plants, that of the Tangles or
53
Algse, which live in water. Forests of
these sea-weeds, like .those of the
Aleutian Islands, in some of which
single tangles stream to the length of
sixty feet, and floating masses like those
of the Sargasso Sea, appear to have con
stituted almost the sole vegetation of
these primaeval periods. Recently a few
specimens of a land-flora are thought to
have been found.
The rest of the Primary epoch, com
prising the Devonian or Old Red Sand
stone, the Carboniferous or Coal system,
and the Permian, follow, the average
thickness of the three together amounting
to about 42,000 feet. In. these the
family of Ferns predominates, the
remains of which constitute the bulk of
the large strata of coal, forming in
modern times our great resource for
obtaining the energy which, in a trans
formed shape, does so much of our
work. Pines begin to appear, though
sparingly, in this epoch.
The Secondary epoch comprises the
Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous
or Chalk formation, the average thickness
of the three amounting to about 15,000
feet. In this era a higher species of
vegetation predominates, that of the
Gymnosperms, or plants having naked
seeds, of which the pines, or Coniferse,
and the palm-ferns, or Cycadese, are the
two principal classes. As in the case of
the former epoch, traces of the approach
ing higher organisation in the form of
leaf-bearing trees begin to appear towards
its close.
The Tertiary period extends from the
end of the Chalk to the commencement
of the Quaternary or modern period.
It is divided into the Eocene or older,
Oligocene or less old, the Miocene or
middle, and the Pliocene or newest
Tertiary system; though the division is
somewhat arbitrary, depending on the
number of existing species, mostly of
shell-fish, which have been found in
each. The average thickness of the three
together is about 3,000 feet. In this
formation a still higher class of vegetation
of the same order as that now existing,
�54
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—PLANT AND ANIMAL
which made its first appearance in
In the Primary era the Devonian and
the Chalk period, has become predomi Permian formations are characterised by
nant. It is that of Angiosperms, or a great abundance of fishes, of the
plants with covered seeds, forming leafy antique type, which has no true bony
. forests of true trees. This group is skeleton, but is clothed in an army of
divided into the two classes of mono enamelled scales, and whose tail, instead
cotyledons or single-seed-lobed plants, of being bi-lobed or forked, has one lobe
and dicotyledons or plants with double only—a type of which the sturgeon and
seed-lobes. The monocotyledons spring garpike are the nearest surviving repre
from a single germ leaf, and are of sentatives. In the Coal formation are
simpler organisation than the other class. found the first remains of land animals
They comprise the grasses, rushes, lilies, in the form of insects and a scorpion,
irids, orchids, sea-grasses, and a number and a few traces of vertebrate amphibious
of aquatic plants, and in their highest animals and reptiles j while higher up in
form develop into the tree-like families the Permian are found a few more
of the palms and bananas.
highly developed reptiles, some of which
The dicotyledons include all forms of approximate to the existing crocodile.
leaf-bearing forest trees, almost all fruits Still, fishes greatly predominate, so that
and flowers, in fact by far the greater the whole Primary period may be called
part of the vegetable world familiar to the age of fishes, as truly as, looking at
man, as coming into immediate relation its flora, it may be called the age of
with it, except in the case of the culti ferns.
vated plants, which are developments of
In the Secondary period reptiles pre
the monocotyledon grasses.
dominate, and are developed into a
We see, therefore, in the geological great variety of strange and colossal
record a confirmation of the evolution forms. The first birds appear, being
over immense periods of time of the obviously developed from some of the
more complex and perfect from the forms of flying lizards, and having many
simple and primitive.
reptilian characters. Mammals also put
If we turn to the same geological in a first feeble appearance, in the form
record to trace the development of of small, marsupial, insectivorous crea
animal life, we find it running a parallel tures.
course with that of plants. It was
In the Tertiary period the class of
believed for a long time that the earliest mammals greatly predominates over all
known fossil was the Eozoon Canadense, other vertebrate animals, and we can
from the Lower Laurentian, which was see the principal types slowly developing
held to be the chambered shell of a and differentiating into those at present
protista of the class of Rhizopods, whose existing. The human type appears
soft body consisted of mere protoplasm plainly in the Miocene, in the form of
not yet differentiated into cells. But large anthropoid apes, the Dryopithecus,
this formation is now generally regarded the Pliopithecus, etc. In the Pliocene
by geologists as not organic. Still, a we have the remains of the Pithecan
certain number of remains of lowly thropus (or “ missing link ”) ; and
Crustacea, sponges, etc., have been found undoubted human remains are found in
in Pre-Cambrian strata. As we ascend the beginning of the Quaternary, if not,
the scale of the primordial era, traces as many distinguished geologists believe,
of marine life of the lower organisms in the Pliocene and even in the Miocene
begin to appear, until in the Silurian .ages.
they become very abundant, consisting,
So far, therefore, there seems to be a
however, mainly of mollusca and complete parallelism between the evolu
Crustacea, and in the Upper Silurian we tion of animal and vegetable life from
find the first traces of fishes.
the earliest to the latest, and from the
�PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF SEX
simplest to the most complex forms.
The facts now plainly establish a pro
cess of evolution by which the animal
and vegetable worlds, starting from a
common origin in protoplasm, the lowest
and simplest form of living matter, have
gradually advanced step by step, along
diverging lines, until we have at last
arrived at the sharp antithesis of the ox
and the oak tree. It is clear, however,
that this evolution has gone on under
what I have called the generalised law
of polarity, by which contrasts are pro
duced of apparently opposite and anta
gonistic qualities, which, however, are
indispensable for each other’s existence.
Thus animals could not exist without
plants to work up the crude inorganic
55
materials into the complex and mobile
molecules of protoplasm, which are alone
suited for assimilation by the more
delicate and complex organisation of
animal life. Plants, on the other hand,
could not exist without a supply of the
carbonic dioxide, which is their principal
food, and which animals are continually
pouring into the air from the combustion
of their carbonised food in oxygen,
which supplies them with heat and
energy. Thus nature is one huge
aquarium, in which animal and vegetable
life balance each other by their con
trasted and supplemental action, and,
as in the inorganic world, harmonious
existence becomes possible by this due
balance of opposing factors.
Chapter VIII.
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF SEX
Sexual generation—Base of ancient cosmogonies
—Propagation non-sexual in simpler forms—
Amceba and cells—Germs and buds—Ane
mones—Worms—Spores—Origin of sex—
Ovary and male organ—Hermaphrodites—
Parthenogenesis—Bees and insects—Man and
woman—Characters of each sex—Woman’s
position—Improved by civilisation—Chris
tianity the feminine pole—Monogamy the law
<5f nature—Tone respecting women test of
character—Women in literature—In society—
Attraction and repulsion of sexes—Like
attracts unlike—Ideal marriage—Woman’s
rights and modern legislation.
“ Male and female created he them.”
At first sight this distinction of sex
appears as fundamental as that of plant
and animal. Mankind, and all the
higher forms of life with which mankind
has relations, can only propagate their
species in one way : by the co-operation
of two individuals of the species, who
are essentially like and yet unlike, pos
sessing attributes which are comple
mentary of one another, and whose
union is requisite to originate a new
living unit—in other words, by sexual
propagation.
So certain does this
appear that all ancient religions and
philosophies begin by assuming a male
and female principle for their gods, or
first guesses at the unknown first causes
of the phenomena of nature. Thus
Ouranos and Gaia, Heaven and Earth;
Phoebus and Artemis, the Sun and
Moon ; are all figured ' by the primitive
imagination as male and female; and
the Spirit of God, brooding over Chaos
and producing the world, is only a later
edition, revised according to mono
theistic ideas, of the far older Chaldean
legend which describes the creation of
Cosmos out of Chaos by the co-opera
tion of great gods, male and female.
Even in later and more advanced reli
gions, traces of this ineradicable tendency
to assume difference of sex as the indis
pensable condition of the creation of new
�56
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF SEX
existence are found to linger and crop
up in cases where they are altogether
inapplicable. Thus, in the orthodox
Christian creed we are taught to repeat
“ begotten, not made,” a phrase which is
absolute nonsense, or non-sense—that is,
an instance of using words like counter
feit notes, which have no solid value of
an idea behind them. For “ begotten ”
is a very definite term, which implies the
conjunction of two opposite sexes to
produce a new individual. Unless two
deities are assumed of different sexes, the
statement has no possible meaning. It
is a curious instance of atavism, or the
way in which the qualities and ideas of
remote ancestors sometimes crop up in
their posterity.
Science, however, makes sad havoc
with this impression of sexual generation
being the original and only mode of
reproduction, and the microscope and
dissecting knife of the naturalist intro
duce us to new and altogether unsus
pected worlds of life. By far the larger
proportion of living forms, in number at
any rate, if not in size, have come into
existence without the aid of sexual pro
pagation. When we begin at the begin
ning, or with those Monera which are
simple specks of homogeneous proto
plasm, we find them multiplying by self
division. Amoeba A, when it outgrows
its natural size, contracts in the middle
and splits into two Amoebse, B and C,
which are exactly like one another and
like the original A. In fact, B contains
one half of its parent A, and C the other
half. They each grow to the size of the
original A, and then repeat the pro
cess of splitting and duplicating them
selves.
The next earliest stage in the evolu
tion of living matter, the nucleated cell,
does exactly the same thing.
The
nucleus splits into two, each of which
becomes a new nucleus for the proto
plasmic matter of the original cell, and
either multiply within it, or burst the old
cell-wall, and become two new cells
resembling the first.
The next stage in advance is that of
propagation by germs-or buds, in which
the organism does not divide into two
equal parts, but a small portion of it
swells out at its surface, and finally parts
company and starts on a separate exist
ence, which grows to the size of the
parent by its inherent faculty of manu
facturing fresh protoplasm from surround
ing inorganic materials. This process
may be witnessed any day in an aquarium
containing specimens of the sea-anemone,
where the minute new anemones may
be seen in every form, both before and
after they have parted from the parent
body. It remains one of the principal
modes of propagation of the vegetable
world, where plants are multiplied from
buds even after they have developed the
higher mode of sexual propagation by
seeds. In some of the lowest animals,
such as worms, the buds are reduced to
a small aggregation of cells, which form
themselves into distinct individuals inside
the body of the parent, and separate from
it when they have attained a certain
stage of development.
Advancing still further on the road
towards sexual reproduction, we find
these germ-buds reduced to spores, or
single cells, which are emitted from the
parent, and afterwards multiply by divi
sion, until they form a many-celled
organism, which has the hereditary
qualities of the original one. This is
the general form of propagation of the
lower plants, such as algae, mosses, and
ferns, and also of a number of the lower
forms of animal-like microscopic organ
isms, such as bacteria, whose spores,
floating in the air in enormous quanti
ties, and multiplying when they find a
fit soil with astonishing rapidity, in a few
days devastate the potato crop of a whole
district or bring about an epidemic of
scarlet-fever or cholera.
They have
their use, however, in creation, and their
action is beneficent as well as the reverse,
for they are the principal cause of putre
faction, the process whereby the dead
organic matter, which, if not removed,
would choke up the world, is resolved
into the inorganic elements from which
�PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF SEX
it sprang, and rendered available for
fresh combinations.
We are now at the threshold of that
system of sexual progagation which has
become the rule in all the higher families
of animals and in many plants. It may
be conceived as originating in the amal
gamation of some germ-cell or spore with
the original cell which was about to
develop into a germ-bud within the body
of some individual, and, by the union of
the two, producing a new and more
vigorous originating cell, which modified
the course of development of the germ
bud and of its resulting organism.. This
organism, having advantages in the
struggle for life, established itself per
manently with ever new developments in
the same direction, which would be fixed
and extended in its descendants by here
dity, and special organs developed to
meet the altered conditions. Thus at
length the distinction would be firmly
established of a female organ or ovary
containing the egg or primitive cell from
which the new being was to be
developed, and a male organ supplying
the fertilising spore or cell, which was
necessary to start the egg in the evolu
tionary process by which it developed
into the germ of an offspring combining
qualities of the two parents. This is
confirmed by a study of embryology,
which shows that in the human and
higher animal species the distinction of
sex is not developed until a considerable
progress has been made in the growth of
the embryo. It is only, however, in the
higher and more specialised families
that we find this mode of propagation by
two distinct individuals of different sexes
firmly established. In the great majority
of plants, and in some of the lower
families of animals—for instance, snails
and earth-worms—the male and female
organs are developed within the same
being, and they are what are called
hermaphrodites. Thus, in most of the
flowering plants the same blossom con
tains both the stamens and anther,
which are the male organ, and the style
and germ, which are the female.
57
Another transition form is Partheno
genesis, or virginal reproduction, in
which germ-cells, apparently similar in
all respects to egg-cells, develop them
selves into new individuals without any
fructifying element. This is found to be
the case with many species of insects,
and with this curious result, that those
same germ-cells are often capable of
being fructified, and in that case produce
very different individuals. Thus, among
the common bees, male bees or drones
arise from the non-fructified eggs of the
queen bee, while females are produced
if the egg has been fructified.
In the higher families, however, of
animal life the distinction of sex in
different individuals has become the
universal rule, and it produces a polarity
or contrast which becomes ever more
conspicuous as we rise in the scale of
creation, until it attains its highest
development in the highest stage hitherto
reached, that of civilised man and woman.
Both physical and mental characteristics
depend mainly on the fact that the ovary
or egg-producing organ is developed in
the female, and thus the whole work of
reproduction is thrown on her. To per
form this a large portion of the vital
energy is required, which in the male is
available for larger and more prolonged
growth of organs, such as the brain,
stature, and limbs, by which a more
powerful grasp is attained of the outward
environment.
In other words, the
female comes sooner to maturity and is
weaker than the male. She is also
animated by a much stronger love for
the offspring, which is part of her own
body, during the period of infancy; and
thus, in addition to the physical attri
butes, such as lacteal glands and larger
breasts, she inherits qualities of softness,
amiability, and devotion which fit her
for the office of nurse. Her physical
weakness, again, has made her, for un
told ages, and even now in all the less
advanced communities, and too often
even in the most advanced, the slave of
the stronger male.
She has thus in
herited many of the mental qualities
�58
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF
which are essential to such a state : the
desire to propitiate by pleasing and
making herself attractive j the gentleness
and submissiveness which shrink from a
contest of brute force in which she is
sure to be defeated j the clinging to a
stronger nature for support, which in
extreme cases leads to blind admiration
of power and the spaniel-like attachment
to a master, whether deserving of it or
not. As civilisation, however, advances,
and as intellectual and moral qualities
gain ascendency over brute strength and
animal instincts, the condition of woman
improves, and it comes more and more
to be recognised that she is not made to
be man’s slave or plaything,, but has her
own personality and character, which, if
in some respects inferior, are in others
better than those of the male half of
creation. Tennyson, the great poet of
modern thought, who sums up so many
of the ideas and tendencies of the age in
concise and vigorous verse, writes :—
For woman is not undeveloped map,
Nor yet man’s opposite.
Not opposite, yet different, so that the
one supplements what is wanting to the
other, and the harmonious union of the
two makes ideal perfection. It is the
glory of European civilisation to have
done so much to develop this idea of the
equality of the sexes, and to have gone
so far towards emancipating the weaker
half of the human species from the
tyranny of the stronger half.
It would be unfair to omit mention of
the great part which Christianity has had
in this good work; not only by direct
precept and recognition of religious
equality, but even more by the embodi
ment, as its ideal, of the feminine virtues
of gentleness, humility, resignation, selfdevotion, and charity.
Ideal Chris
tianity is, in fact, what may be called the
feminine pole of conduct and morality,
as opposed to the masculine one of
courage, hardihood, energy, and selfreliance.
Many of the precepts of
Christianity are unworkable, and have to
be silently dropped in practice. It would
SEX
not. answer either for individuals or
nations “ when smitten on one cheek to
turn the other.” When an appeal is made
to fact to decide whether it is a right
rule to live as the sparrows do, taking no
thought for the morrow, the verdict of
^/is in favour of foresight and frugality.
erbert Spencer has stated this polarity
very strongly as that of the religion of
amity and the religion of enmity; but I
think he states the case too adversely for
the latter, for the qualities which make
men and nations good fighters and vic
torious in the struggle for existence are
in their way just as essential as the
gentler virtues, and both alike become
defects when pushed to the “ falsehood
o extremes.
Christianity, therefore,
whatever may become of its dogmas,
ought always to be regarded with affec
tion and respect for the humanising effect
it has produced, especially in improving
the condition of the female half of
creation.
This improvement in the condition of
women has brought about a correspond
ing improvement in the male sex, for the
polarity between the two has come to be
the most intimate and far-reaching in
fluence of modern life. Take the litera
ture of the novel and play, which aim at
holding up the mirror to human nature
and contemporary manners, and you will
find that they nearly all turn upon love.
The word “immorality” has come to
signify the one particular breach of the
laws of morality which arises from the
relations of the sexes.
In providing for the birth of nearly
equal numbers of each sex, nature clearly
establishes monogamy, or union of single
pairs, as the condition of things most in
accordance with natural laws.
The
family, also, the first germ of civilisation,
is impossible, or can only exist in a very
imperfect and half-developed state, without
this permanent union of a single husband
and wife. Violations of this law lead to
such disastrous consequences to indi
viduals, and are so deteriorating to
nations, that they are properly considered
as the “ immorality ” far excellence^ and
�PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF SEX
condemned by all right-minded opinion.
And yet to observe this law is a constant
lesson in self-control for a great part of
the life—a lesson of the utmost value,
for it is a virtue which is at the root of
all other virtues. And it is formed and
becomes habitual and easy by practice,
for just as the muscles of the balletdancer’s leg or blacksmith’s arm acquire
strength and elasticity by use, so do the
finer fibres of the brain improve by exer
cise and become soft and flabby by
disuse, so that effort in the former case
is a pleasure and in the latter a pain.
For this reason chaste nations are gene
rally strong and conquering nations;
dissolute Imperial Rome went down
before the Goths and Germans, and
polygamous Turkey perishes of dry rot
in the midst of the progress of the twen
tieth century. Indeed, there is no better
test of the position which either an indi
vidual, a class, or a nation holds in the
scale of civilisation than the tone which
prevails among the men with regard to
women. Wherever Turkish ideas pre
vail, we may be sure that, whatever may
be the outward varnish of manner, there
is essential snobbishness.
“Up and down
Along the scales of life, through all,
To him who wears the golden ball,
By birth a king, at heart a clown.”
On the other hand, wherever women are
regarded with a chivalrous respect and
reverence, the heart of a true gentleman
beats, though it be under the rough
exterior of one of Bret Harte’s cow-boys
or Californian miners.
Nothing, in fact, gives one more hope
in the progress of human society than to
find that in the freest countries, and
those farthest advanced towards modern
ideas and democratic institutions, the
tone with regard to women shows the
greatest improvement. There is a regu
lar crescendo scale of progress from Turkey
to America. I do not refer so much to
the fact that in the newer colonies and
countries women can travel unprotected
without fear of insult or injury, as to the
almost instinctive recognition of their
59
equal rights as intelligent and moral
beings, who have a personality and charac
ter of their own, which places them on
the same platform as men, though on
opposite sides of it.
To understand rightly the real spirit
of an age or country, it is not enough to
study dry statistics or history in the form
of records of wars and political changes.
We must study the works of the best
poets, novelists, and dramatists, who
seek to embody types and to hold up
the mirror to contemporary ideas and
manners. A careful perusal of such works
as those of Dickens, Thackeray, Trol
lope, and George Eliot at home, and of
Bret Harte, Howells, James, and Mrs.
Burnett in the United States, will give a
truer insight into the inner life of the
country and period than any number of
blue-books or consular returns. They
show what the writers of the greatest
genius—that is, of the greatest insight—
see as types of the actual ideas and
characters surrounding them; and the
fact of their works being popular shows
that the types are recognised as true.
Now, it is certain that the English litera
ture of fiction and its latest development,
that of the American novelists, show an
ever-increasing recognition of the female
individual as an equal unit with the male
in the constitution of modern society.
Those dear “ school marms ” of Bret
Harte’s and Wendell Holmes’s, who
career so joyously through mining camps,
receiving courtesy and radiating civilis
ing influences among the rough inhabi
tants, or touch the hearts and throw a
mellow light over the autumn days of
middle-aged professors and philosophers,
are far removed from the slaves of pre
historic savages or the inmates of a
Turkish harem. So also in the more
complex relations of a more crowded
civilisation, in the circles of Washington,
New York, and Boston, the ideal Ame
rican woman is always depicted as bright,
intelligent, and independent, with a
character and personality of her own;
and the suspicion never seems to enter
the author’s head that she is in any
�6o
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—POLARITY OF SEX
respect inferior to the male characters
with whom she is associated.
The same may be said to a great
extent of English literature from the
time of Shakespeare downwards.
No
better portrait than Portia was ever
drawn of the
“ Perfect woman, nobly planned
To soothe, to comfort, and command ;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light.”
And in the long gallery of good and
loveable women, from Rosalind and
Irtlogene down to Lucy Roberts and
Laura Pendennis, we have not one who
is a mere nonentity or child of passionate
impulse.
Nor is the recognition of
woman’s equality less marked in the
bad characters.
Lady Macbeth is of
a stronger nature than Macbeth ; Becky
Sharp more clever and full of resources
than the men with whom she plays like
puppets; Maggie Tulliver, with all her
wild struggles with herself and her sur
roundings, has far more in her than her
brother Tom. Compare these characters
with those of the school of modern
French novels, which turn mainly on
adultery and seduction, committed for
the most part not in any whirlwind of
irresistible passion, but to gratify some
passing caprice or vanity, and it is easy
to see how wide is the gulf which
separates the ideals and moral atmo
sphere of the two countries.
It is not, therefore, from any wish to
indulge in what Herbert Spencer calls
the “unpatriotic bias,” and depreciate
my own country, that I am disposed to
think that the younger English-speaking
communities are somewhat in advance
of ourselves in this matter of the rela
tions of the sexes, but simply because
I think that the feeling is there more
widespread and universal. We have in
English society two strata in which
women are still considered as inferior
beings to men : a lower one, where better
ideas have not yet permeated the dense
mass of ignorance and brutality; and a
higher one, where among a certain por
tion, let us hope a small one, of the
gilded youth and upper ten, luxury and
idleness have blunted the finer suscepti
bilities, and created what may be most
aptly called a Turkish tone about women.
There are many of this class, and unfor
tunately often in high places, where their
example does widespread mischief, whose
ideal might be summed up in the words
of the Irish ballad :—
“ I am one of the ould sort of Bradies,
My turn does not lie to hard work ;
But I’m fond of my pipe and the ladies,
And I’d make a most illigant Turk.”
And most “illigant Turks’’they make,
though far worse than real Turks, who
are born and brought up in the ideas
and surroundings of a lower civilisation ;
while the tone of our English Turks is
far more nauseous and disgusting, as
denoting innate selfishness, sensuality,
and vulgarity. Of these two classes
there seem to be fewer in the newer
English communities ; and if they exist,
they are in such a small minority that
they conceal their existence, and pay the
homage of vice to virtue which is called
hypocrisy.
To return, however, to the more
scientific aspects of the question, the
polarity of sex displays itself as con
spicuously as that of the magnet in the
fundamental law of repulsion of like for
like, and attraction of like for unlike.
In each case there must be an identity of
essence developing itself in opposite
directions. Thus, atoms attract or repel
atoms, but not molecules ; for if they
seem to do so, it is only in cases in
which the molecule contains some atom
whose atomicity or polar power has not
been fully satisfied. So currents of air
or water do not affect electric currents.
But given the identity of substance, its
differentiation takes place under an everincreasing progression of polarity of
affinities and repulsions.
A German naturalist, Brahm, discussing
the question why birds sing, says : “ The
male finds in the female those desirable
and attractive qualities which are want
ing in himself. He seeks the opposite
to himself with the force of a chemical
�PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—HEREDITY AND VARIATION
element.” This is equally true of the |
male and female of the human species.
A masculine woman and effeminate man
are equally unattractive, and, if the quali
ties are pushed to an extreme extent, the
individuals become monstrosities, and,
instead of attracting, excite vehement
disgust and repulsion. This, which is
true physically, is equally true of moral
and intellectual characteristics. Each
seeks, in the happy marriage or perfect
ideal union, the qualities which are most
deficient in themselves: the woman,
strength, active courage, and the harder
qualities; the man, gentleness, amiability,
and the softer virtues. In each indi
vidual, as in each union of individuals,
harmony and perfection depend on the
due balance of the opposite qualities,
and the “ falsehood of extremes ” leads
up to chaos and insanity. The man in
whom strength and hardihood are not
tempered by gentleness and affection
becomes brutal and tyrannical; while
the woman who has no strength of char
acter becomes silly and frivolous. Mar
riage, however, involves the highest ideal,
for the well-assorted union of the two in
one gives a more complete harmony and
reconciliation of opposites than can be
attained by the single individual, who
must always remain more or less within
the sphere of the polarity of his or her
respective sex. But here also the same
law of polarity operates, for as happy
marriage affords the highest ideal, so do
61
unhappy and ill-assorted unions involve
the greatest misery and most complete
shipwreck of life. Especially to the
woman, for the man has other pursuits
and occupations, and can to a great
extent withdraw himself from domestic
troubles; while the woman has no
defence against the coarseness, selfish
ness, and the vulgarity of the partner to
whom she is tied, and who may make
her life a perpetual purgatory, and drag
all her finer intellectual and moral nature
down to a lower level.
Fortunately,
extreme cases are rare, and, though the
ideal of a perfect union may seldom be
attained to, the great majority of married
couples manage to jog on together, and
bring up families in comparative comfort
and respectability. Evidently, however,
in many cases the weaker party does not
get fair play, and the laws which are the
result of centuries of male legislation
are often too oblivious of the maxim that
what is “sauce for goose is sauce for
gander.” Improvement, however, is
coming from the growth of the more
healthy public opinion, which stigmatises
any invasion of woman’s real rights, and
any attempt on the part of her natural
protector to bully and tyrannise, as
utterly disgraceful; and the waves of
this public opinion are slowly but surely
sapping the cliffs of legal conservatism,
and forcing the intrenchments of stolid
injustice behind ermine robes, horsehair
wigs, and obsolete Acts of Parliament.
Chapter
IX.
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—HEREDITY AND
VARIATION
Heredity in simple forms of life—In more com
plex organisms—Pangenesis—Varieties, how
produced — Fixed by law of survival of
the fittest—Dr. Temple’s view—Examples :
triton, axolotl—Variations in individuals and
species—Lizards into birds—Ringed snakes—
Echidna.
As the earth is kept in an orbit, which
makes life possible by the balance of the
antagonistic centripetal and centrifugal
forces, so is that life evolved and main
tained by the balance of the two con
flicting forces of heredity and variation.
�62
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—HEREDITY AND VARIATION
Heredity, or the principle which makes
offsprings resemble the parental organ
isms, may be considered as the centri
petal force which gives stability to
species; while variation is like the
centrifugal force which tends to make
them develop into new forms, and pre
vents organic matter from remaining ever
consolidated into one uniform mass.
As regards heredity, the considerations
which have been advanced in the last
chapter, on the origin of sex, will enable
the reader to understand the principles
on which it is based. When a moneron,
or living piece of pure protoplasm, or its
successor the nucleated cell, propagates
itself by simple division into two equal
parts, it is obvious that each half must,
in its atomic constitution and motions,
exactly resemble the original. If amceba
A divides into amcebse B and C, both B
and C are exact facsimiles of A and of
one another, and so are the progeny of
B and C through any number of genera
tions. They must remain identical repe
titions of the parent form, unless some
of them should happen to be modified
by different actions of their surrounding
environment, powerful enough to affect
the original organisation.
In propagation by germs or buds, the
same thing must hold true, only, as the
offspring carries with it not the half,, but
only a small portion of the parental
organism, its impress will be less
powerful, and the new organism will
more readily be affected by external
influences. When we come to propaga
tion by spores or single cells, and still
more to sexual propagation by the union
of single cells of two progenitors, it
becomes more difficult to see how the
type of the two parents, and of a long
line of preceding ancestors, can be main
tained so perfectly.
Of the fact that it is maintained there
can be no doubt. Not only do species
breed true and remain substantially the
same for immense periods, but the
characters of individual parents and
their ancestors repeat themselves, to a
great extent, in their offspring. Thus
the cross between the white and black
varieties of the human species per
petuates itself to such an extent that a
single cross of black blood leaves traces
for a number of generations. In the
Spanish American States and the West
Indies, where the distinction is closely
observed, the term “ octoroon ” is well
known, as applied to creoles who have
seven-eighths of white to one-eighth of
black blood in their composition. In
the case of what is called “atavism,” this
recurrence to the characters of ancestors
is carried to a much further extent. In
breeding animals, it is not uncommon to
find the peculiar features of generations
of ancestors long since extinct cropping
up occasionally in individuals. Thus,
stripes like those of the ass along the
back and down the shoulders occa
sionally appear on horses whose imme
diate ancestors for many generations
back showed nothing of the sort; and
even stripes across the legs like those of
the zebra occur quite unexpectedly, and
testify to the common descent of the
various species of the horse tribe from a
striped ancestor. How these ancestral
peculiarities can be transmitted through
many generations, each individual of
which originated from a single micro
scopic cell which had been fructified by
another cell, is one of the greatest
mysteries of nature. It may assist us in
forming some idea of the possibility of a
solution to remember what has been
proved as to the dimensions of atoms.
Their order of magnitude is that of a
cricket-ball to the earth. In a single
microscopic cell, therefore, there may be
myriads of such atoms circling round
one another and forming infinitesimal
solar systems, of infinite complexity and
variety. Darwin’s theory of “ Pange
nesis ” supposes that some of the actual
identical atoms which formed part of
ancestral bodies are thus transmitted
through their descendants for generation
after generation, so that we are literally
“flesh of the flesh” of the primseval
creature who was developed into man in
the later tertiary or early glacial period.
�PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—HEREDITY AND VARIATION
Haeckel, more plausibly, suggests that
not the identical atoms, but their pecu
liar motions and mode of aggregation,
have been thus transmitted—-a mode of
transmission which, with his prevailing
tendency to invent long and learned
names for everything, he calls the
“Perigenesis of plastids.” Weismann
has more recently, while denying, that
acquired characteristics are transmitted,
formed a theory known as that of the
“continuity of the germ-plasm.” This
implies that a part of a definite substance
from the germ-cells (or “ germ-plasm ”)
of the parent is not used up in construct
ing the body of the new organism, but
“ reserved unchanged for the formation
of the germ-cells of the following genera
tions.” In any case, however, these must
be taken not as solutions of the problem,
but as guesses at the truth which show
that its solution is not impossible.
The opposite principle to heredity,
that of variation, is equally important
and universal. It is apparent in the
fact that, although every individual of
every species reproduces qualities of
parents and ancestors, no two individuals
do so in precisely the same manner; no
two are exactly alike. This difference,
or individuality, becomes more marked
as the organism is higher. Thus, sheep
and hounds differ from one another by
slight differences, which require the
practised eye of the shepherd or hunts
man to detect; while human beings are so
unlike that of the many millions existing
in each generation no two exactly
resemble one another. The reason of
this is apparent if we consider that the
higher the organism the more complex
does it become, and the less the chance
of the whole complicated relations of
parent and ancestral organisms being
transmitted by single cells so solidly and
completely as to overpower and remain
uninfluenced by external influences.
Variation evidently depends mainly on
the varying influences of environment.
If the exterior layer of molecules of a
lump of protoplasm become differentiated
from the interior ones and form a cell
63
wall, it is because they are in more
immediate contact with the air or other
surrounding medium. Internal changes
depend on conditions such as tempera
ture and nutrition. In the case of culti
vated plants and domestic animals we
can see most clearly how varieties are
produced by adaptation to changes of
environment. These variations, how
ever, would not proceed very far were
it not for the interaction of the opposing
forces of variation and heredity, by which
latter the variations appearing in indivi
duals are fixed’ and accumulated in
descendants, until they become wide and
permanent divergencies. This is done
in the case of cultivated plants and
domestic animals by man’s artificial
selection in pairing individuals who show
the same variations; and in nature by
the struggle for existence, giving victory
and survival to those forms, and in the
long run to those forms only, whose
variations, slight as they may be in each
generation, tend to bring individuals into
better adaptation to their environment.
It is the great glory of Darwin to have
established this firmly by an immense
number of interesting and exhaustive
instances, and thus placed evolution, or
a scientific explanation of the develop
ment and laws of life, on a solid basis.
Every day fresh discoveries and experi
ments confirm this great principle, and it
has almost passed into the same phase as
Newton’s law of gravity, as a fundamental
law accepted as axiomatic by all men of
science, and as the basis of modern
thought, to which all religions and philo
sophies have to conform, accepted by
nearly all modern thinkers. I may here
quote a passage from an eminent Angli
can divine, Dr. Temple, for the double
purpose of showing how universal has
become the acceptance of this Darwinian
view of evolution among intelligent men,
and how little terrible are its conse
quences, even to those who look at the
facts of the universe through a theo
logical medium and retain their belief in
accepted creeds :—
“ It seems in itself something more
�64
PRIMITIVE POLARITIES—HEREDITY AND VARIATION
majestic, more befitting of him to whom
a thousand years are as one day, and one
day as a thousand years, thus to impress
his will once for all on this creation, and
provide for all its countless varieties by
this one original impress, than by special
acts of creation to be perpetually modi
fying what he had previously made.”1
Scientific men would be content to
accept this statement of Dr. Temple’s
almost in his own words, except that
they might consider his definition of the
Great First Cause as somewhat too
absolute and confident. Having had to
deal so much with actual facts and
accurate knowledge, they are apt to be
more modest in assertion than even the
most enlightened theologian, whose
studies have lain rather in the direction
of phrases and ideas, which, from their
very nature, are more vague and in
definite, and perhaps rather guesses and
aspirations after truth than proofs of it.
In any case, there is the authority of a
learned and liberal-minded bishop for
the position that the scientific way of
looking at the universe is not necessarily
profane or irreligious.
To return to variation: the instances
of the operation of this principle, alone
or in conjunction with that of heredity,
in working out the evolution of species,
are exceedingly numerous and interesting.
Those who wish to understand the
subject thoroughly must study the works
of Darwin, Haeckel, Huxley, and other
modern writers; but for my present
purpose it will be sufficient to refer to a
few of the most marked instances which
may assist the reader in comprehending
how the gradual evolution of life and
creation of new species may have been
brought about.
There is an amphibious animal, called
the triton or water-salamander, akin to
the frog, whose normal course is to begin
life living in the water and breathing by
gills, and end it on land with gills meta
morphosed into lungs. If they are shut
up in water and kept in a tank, they
1 Dr. Temple, Religion and Science.
never lose their gills, but continue through
life in the lower stage of development,
and reproduce themselves in other tritons
with gills. Conversely, the axolotl, a
peculiar gilded salamander from the Lake
of Mexico, has its normal course to live,
die, and propagate its species in water,
breathing by gills; but if an axolotl
happens to stray from the water and
take to living on dry land, the gills are
modified into lungs and the animal gains
a place in the class in the school of
development. This fits in remarkably
with the fact that the embryo of all
vertebrate mammals, including man,
passes through the gilled stage before
arriving at the development of lungs,
which assists us in understanding two
facts of primary importance in the history
of evolution.
First, how terrestrial life may have
arisen from aquatic life by adaptation to
altered conditions.
Secondly, how the evolution of the
embryo sums up in the individual, in
the period of a few days or months, the
various stages of evolutions which it has
taken millions of years to accomplish in
the species.
As a parallel to the transformation of
gills into lungs, and an aquatic into a
land animal, if we turn to the geological
records of the Secondary period, we may
trace the transformation of a water into
an air population, of sea-lizards into
flying-lizards, and of flying-lizards into
birds. The “ Hesperornis ” is an actual
specimen of the transition, being a
feathered lizard, or rather winged and
feathered creature which is half lizard
and half bird.
A remarkable instance of the great
change of functions which may be pro
duced by a change of outward conditions
is afforded by the common ringed snake,
which in its natural state lays eggs that
take three weeks to hatch; but if con
fined in a cage in which no sand is
strewed, it hatches the eggs within its
own body, and from oviparous becomes
viviparous. This may help us to under
stand how the lowest order of mammals,
�THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT 65
which, -like the Australian echidna or
duck-billed mole, lay eggs, may have de
veloped, first into marsupial, and finally
into placental mammals.
These examples may assist the reader
in understanding how the infinite diver
sities of living species may have been
developed in the course of evolution
from simple origins, just as the inorganic
world was from atoms, by the action and
reaction of primitive polar forces be
tween the organism and its environment,
and between heredity and variation.
Chapter
X.
THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN
AND THOUGHT
how these impressions are made. In
all ordinary cases they are made through
the channels of the senses ; but it is
possible that in certain exceptional cases
vibration in the brain, causing percep
tions, may be conveyed to it through
the nerves in other ways. In somnam
bulism, for instance, it seems to be an
ascertained fact that a somnambulist with
closed eyes securely bandaged can walk
in the dark and avoid obstacles as well
as if guided by the sight in full daylight.
Before entering on the higher subjects There is a great deal of evidence also
of religions and philosophies, it is well that in artificial somnambulism, other
to arrive at some precise idea of the wise called mesmerism or hypnotism,
limits of human knowledge, and of the and also in what is called thought-reading,
boundary line which separates the know perception may be conveyed from one
able from the unknowable. The ultimate brain to another otherwise than by the
basis of all knowledge is perception. usual methods of speech or writing.
Without an environment to create But these phenomena, however far they
impressions, and an organ to receive may be extended, do not affect the
them, we should know absolutely nothing. position that impressions on the brain
What is the environment and what the are the essential condition of thought.
organ of human knowledge ? The If the grey matter of the brain is deficient
environment is the whole surrounding or diseased, the mind is affected, and
universe, or, in the last analysis, the beyond a certain point becomes extinct.
motions, or changes of motion, by which
The second and more important reser
the objects in that universe make impres vation is that, although mind and all its
sions on the recipient organ. The organ qualities are thus indissolubly connected
is the grey matter of that large nervous with matter, it by no means follows that
agglomeration, the brain. But here I they are matter or mere qualities of it.
must at the outset make two reserva In the case of the atoms and energ-ies,
tions. In the first place, I do not define we know absolutely nothing of their real
Basis of knowledge—Perception—Constitution
of brain—White and grey matter;—Average
size and weight of brains—European, negro,
and ape—Mechanism of perception—Sensory
and motor nerves—Separate areas of brain—Sensory and motor centres—Abnormal states
of brain — Hypnotism — Somnambulism —
Trance — Thought-reading —• Spiritualism —•
Reflex action—Ideas how formed—Number
and space—Creation unknowable—Concep
tions based on perceptions—Metaphysics—
Descartes, Kant, Berkeley—Anthropomor
phism—Laws of nature.
�66
THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE-BRAIN AND THOUGHt
essence, and cannot form even a con
ception of what they are, how they came
there, or what will become of them. It
is the same with mind, soul, or self: we
feel an instinctive certainty of their exist
ence, as we do of that of matter; and
we can trace their laws and manifesta
tions under the conditions in which they
are known to us—viz., those of associa
tion with matter and motion in the brain.
But of their real essence or existence we
know nothing, and it is as unscientific
to affirm as to deny. Directly we pass
beyond the boundary of such knowledge
as really can be known by human
faculty, and stand face to face with the
mystery of the Great Unknown, we can
only bow our heads with reverence and
say with the poet,
“Behold, I know not anything.”
I hope thus to steer safely between
Scylla and Charybdis—between the arid
rocks of materialism and the whirling
eddies of spiritualism. Materialist and
spiritualist seem to me very like two
men disputing as to the existence of life
in the sun. “No,” argues the former;
“for the known conditions there are
totally inconsistent with any life we can
conceive.” “Yes,” says the other; “for
the belief fits in with many things which
I earnestly wish to believe respecting a
Supreme Being and a future existence.”
To the first I say, ignorance is not evi
dence; to the second, wishes are not
proofs. For myself, while not quarrelling
with those more favoured mortals who
have, or fancy they have, superior know
ledge, I can only say that I really know
nothing; and this being the case, I see
no use in saying that I know, and think
it both more truthful and more modest
to confess the limitation of my faculties.
With this caution, I return to the
field of positive knowledge. The brain,
spinal marrow, and nerves consist of two
substances: one white, which constitutes
the great mass consisting of tubes or
fibres; the other grey, which is an aggre
gation of minute cells, so minute that
it has been computed that there are
several millions of them in a space no
larger than a sixpence. The bulk of
this grey nerve-tissue is found in the
higher animals, and especially in man,
in the outside rind which covers the
brain; and its amount is greatly increased
by the convolutions of that organ giving
a greater extent of covering surface.
In fact, the convolutions of the average
human brain give as much grey matter
in a head of average size as would be
given by a head of four times the size if
the brain were a plane surface. The
extent of the convolutions is, therefore,
a sure sign of the extent of intellect.
They are more numerous and deeper in
the European than in the negro; in the
negro than in the chimpanzee; in the
anthropoid ape than in the monkey or
lemur. This grey nerve-tissue is the
organ by which impressions from without
are turned into perceptions, volitions,
and evolutions of nerve force. The
white matter is simply the medium of
transmission, or we may say the tele
graph wires by which the impressions
are conveyed to the head office and the
answers sent. The cell-tissue of the
grey matter is thus emphatically the
organ of the mind. In fact, if it did not
sound too materialistic, we- might call
thought a secretion of the grey matter,
only in saying so we must bear in mind
that it is only a mode of expressing the
fact that the two invariably go together;
and that if we say with the German
philosopher, Ohne Phosphor kein Gedank,
it does not mean that thought and
phosphorus are identical, but simply
that the condition on which thought
depends is that of the existence of a
material organ of which phosphorus is
an ingredient.
That this grey nerve-tissue is really
the organ of thought has been firmly
established by numerous experiments
both in man and the lower animals.
Injuries to it, or diseases in it, invariably
affect what is called the mind; while
considerable portions of the white matter
may be removed without affecting the
thinking and perceptive powers. A
�THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT 67
certain amount of it is indispensable for
the existence of intellect; the more there
is of it as the brain increases in size and
the convolutions become deeper, the
greater is the intellect; when these fall
below certain dimensions, intellect is ex
tinguished, and we have idiocy. The
average brain of the male white European
weighs 49% ounces, of the negro a little
under 47. The maximum brains which
have been accurately weighed and
measured are those of Cuvier and Daniel
Webster, the weight of the former being
64^ ounces, and the capacity of the
latter being 122 cubic inches ; while the
average capacity of the Teutonic race, in
cluding English, Germans, and Ameri
cans, is 92 inches, of the negro 83, and
of the Australian and Hottentot 75. The
brain of the idiot seldom weighs over
23 ounces, and the minimum weight
consistent with a fair degree of intelli
gence is about 34 ounces.
The mechanism by which correspon
dence is kept up between the living indi
vidual and the surrounding universe is
very simple—in reality, as simple as that
of any ordinary electric circuit. In the
most complex case, that of man, there
are a number or nerve-endings, or small
lumps of protoplasm, embedded in the
tissues all over the body, or highly
specialised and grouped together in
separate organs, such as the eye and ear,
from which a nerve fibre leads direct to
the brain, or to the spinal cord, and so
up to the brain. These nerve-endings
receive the different vibrations by which
outward energy presents itself, which
propagate a current or succession of
vibrations of nerve-energy along the
nerve-fibre. This nerve-fibre is a round
thread of protoplasm covered by a white
sheath of fatty matter, which insulates it
like the wire of a submarine telegraph
coated with gutta-percha. This nerve
wire leads up to a nerve-centre, consist
ing of two corpuscles of protoplasm : the
first, or sensory, a smaller one, which is
connected by branches with the second,
a much larger one, called the motor,
from which a much larger nerve-fibre or
wire proceeds, which terminates in a
mass of protoplasm firmly attached to a
muscle. Thus, a sensation is propagated
along the sensory nerve to the sensory
nerve-centre, whence it is transmitted to
the motor-centre, which acts as an accu
mulator of stored-up energy, a large flow
of which is sent through the large con
ductor of the motor-nerve to the muscle,
which it causes to contract and thus pro
duces motion. It is thus that the
simpler involuntary actions are pro
duced by a process which is purely
mechanical. In the more complex cases,
in which consciousness and will are
involved, the process is essentially the
same, though more complicated. The
message is transmitted to the brain,
where it is received by a cluster of small
sensory cells or nerve-centres, which are
connected with another cluster of fewer
and larger motor-centres, often at some
distance from them, by a network of
interlacing fibres. But it is always a
case of a single circuit of wires, batteries,
and accumulators, adapted for receiving,
recording, and transmitting one sort of
vibrations caused by and producing one
sort of energy, and one only. The brain
does not act as a whole, receiving indis
criminately impressions of light, sound,
and heat, but by separate organs for
each, located in separate parts of it. It
is like a great central office, in one room
of which you have a printing instrument
reading off and recording messages sent
through an electric telegraph; in another
a telephone ; in a third a self-registering
thermometer, and so on. And the same
for the motor centres and nerves. One
set is told off to move the muscles of the
face, another those of the arms, others
for the legs and body, and so forth.
This is further complicated by the fact
that the brain, like the rest of the body,
has two sides—a right and left, and that
in some cases the motor-apparatus is
doubled, each working only on one side,
while in others the same battery and
wires serve for both. As a rule, the right
hemisphere of the brain works the
muscles of the left side of the body, and
�68
THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT
vice versa, so that an injury to one side
of the brain may paralyse the voluntary
motion of the limbs on the opposite side,
leaving in a perfect condition those on
its own side.
In the case of the higher functions
involving thought, the upper part of the
brain, which performs these functions,
seems to be a sort of duplex machine, so
that we have two brains capable of think
ing, just as we have two eyes capable of
seeing. It is a remarkable fact that the
areas of the brain which are appropriated
to the lowest and most instinctive func
tions, which appear first, lie lowest, and
as the functions rise the position of their
nerve-centres rises with them. Thus, at
the very base of the frontal convolutions
at the lowest end of the fissure of
Rolando we find the motor areas for
the lower part of the face, by which the
lowest animals and the new-born infant
perform their solitary function of sucking
and swallowing.
Higher up are the
centres in the right and left brains for
moving the upper limbs—that is, for seiz
ing food and conveying it to the mouth,
which is the next function in the ascend
ing scale.
Next above these are the
centres for moving the lower limbs and
for co-ordinating the motions of the arms
and legs, marking the progression of an
organism which can pursue and catch as
well as eat its food. And still higher
are the centres which regulate the
motions of the trunk and body in corre
spondence with those of the limbs.
It is easy to see that this corresponds
with the progression of the individual,
for the infant sucks and cries for food
from the first day, soon learns to extend
its hand and grasp objects, but takes
some time to learn to walk, and still
longer to perform exercises like dancing
or riding, in which the motions of the
whole body have to be co-ordinated with
those of the limbs. And as the develop
ment of the individual is an epitome of
the evolution of life from protoplasm, we
may well suppose that the brain was de
veloped in this order from its first origin
in a swelling at the end of the spinal
cord as we find it in the lowest verte
brates.
It is a singular fact that the particular
motor area which gives the faculty of
articulate speech lies in a small patch of
about one and a half square inches on
the left side of the lower portion of the
first brain. If this is injured, the disease
called aphasia is produced, in which the
patient loses the power of expressing
ideas by connected words. The corre
sponding area on the right side cannot
talk; but in left-handed persons this
state of things is reversed, and the right
side, which is generally aphasial, can be
taught to speak in young people, though
not in the aged.
Higher up in the cortex, or convoluted
envelope of the brain, come the areas for
hearing and seeing, the latter being the
more extensive. The visual centre lies
at the hindmost and lowest part of the
cortex (the occipital lobe), and the area
of hearing is found over the temples.
The centre for smell is believed to lie
in the frontal lobe. These areas are filled
mainly by a great number of sensory
nerve-centres or cells, connected with one
another in a very complicated network.
These seem to be concerned with the
multitude of ideas which are excited in
the brain by perceptions derived from
the higher senses, especially that of sight.
The simple movements are produced by
a few large motor-centres, which have
only one idea and do only one thing,
whether it be to move the leg or the
arm. But a sensation from sight often
calls up a multitude of ideas. Suppose
you see the face of one with whom some
fifty years ago you may have had some
youthful love passages, but your lives
drifted apart, and you now meet for the
first time after these long years, how
many ideas will crowd on the mind, how
many nerve-cells will be set vibrating,
and how many nerve-currents set cours
ing along intricate paths ! No wonder
that the nerve-corpuscles are numerous
and minute, and the nerve-channels
many and complicated.
When we come to the seats of the
�THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT 69
intellectual faculties, the question becomes
still more obscure. The recent investi
gations of Flechsig, which are generally
accepted in substance, locate these
faculties between the great sense-centres
in the cortex : the sensory-areas occupy
ing the lower edge, and the thought-areas
the upper and central mass of the four
great cerebral lobes. They depend in
their action on the grey matter consist
ing of an immense number of minute
sensory cells. It has been computed
that there are millions in the area of a
square inch, and they are all in a state of
the most delicate equilibrium, vibrating
with the slightest breath of nervous
impression. They depend for their
activity entirely on the sensory percep
tive centres, for there is no consciousness
in the absence of sensory stimulation, as
in dreamless sleep. Perception, how
ever caused, whether by outward stimu
lation of real objects or by former per
ceptions revived by memory, sends a
stream of energy through the sense-area,
which expands, like a river divided into
numerous channels fertilising the intel
lectual area, where it is stored up by
memory, giving us the idea of continual
individual existence, and by some myste
rious and unknown process becoming
transformed into consciousness and
deliberate thought. And, conversely, the
process is reversed when what we call
will is excited, and the small currents of
the intellectual are concentrated by an
effort of attention and sent along the
proper nerve-channels to the motor
centres, whose function it is to produce
the desired movement. This mechani
cal explanation, it will be observed,
leaves entirely untouched the question of
the real essence and origin of these in
tellectual faculties, as to which we know
nothing more than we do of the real
essence and origin of life, of matter, and
of energy.
A very curious light, however, is thrown
on them by phenomena which occur in
abnormal states of the brain, as in a
trance, somnambulism, and hypnotism.
In the latter, by straining the attention
on a given object or idea, such as a coin
held in the hand or a black wafer on a
white wall, or by manual passes on the
part of the operator, or, in rare cases,
even by a distant projection of will
power, the normal action of the brain is,
in the case of many persons—perhaps
one out of every three or four—thrown
out of gear, and a state induced in which
the will seems to be annihilated, and the
thoughts and actions brought into sub
jection to the will of another person. In
this state also a cataleptic condition of
the muscles is often induced, in which
they acquire enormous strength and
rigidity.
In somnambulism outward
consciousness is in a great measure sus
pended, and the somnambulist lives forthe time in a walking dream, which he
acts and mistakes for reality. In this
state old perceptions, scarcely felt at the
time, seem to revive, as in dreams, with
such wonderful vividness and accuracy
that the somnambulist, in acting the
dream, does things altogether impossible
in the waking state. Thus an ignorant
servant-maid is said to have recited half
a chapter of the Hebrew version of the
Old Testament: the explanation being,
that she had been in the service of a
minister who was studying Hebrew, and
who used to walk about his room recit
ing this identical passage. It would
seem as if the brain were like a very
delicate photographic plate, which takesaccurate impressions of all perceptions,
whether we notice them or not, and.
stores them up ready to be reproduced
whenever stronger impressions are
dormant, and memory, by some strange
caprice, breathes on the plate.
Most wonderful, however, are some of
the phenomena of trance. In this case
it really seems as if two distinct indivi
duals might inhabit the same body.
Jones falls into a trance and dreams
that he is Smith. While the trance
lasts he acts and talks as Smith;
he really is Smith, and even ad
dresses his former self Jones as a
stranger. When he wakes from the
trance he has no recollection of it, and
�70
THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT
takes up the thread of his own life, just
as if he had dozed for a minute instead
of being in a trance for hours. But if
he falls into a second trance, days or
weeks afterwards, he takes up his trance
life exactly where he dropped it, abso
lutely forgetting his intermediate real
life. And so he may go on alternating
between two lives, with two separate
personalities and consciousnesses, being
to all intents and purposes now Jones
•and now Smith. If he died during a
trance, which would he be, Jones or
Smith ? The question is ’ more easily
asked than answered; but it certainly
appears as if with one mode of motion in
the same brain you might have one mind
and personal identity associated with it,
and with another mode of motion dif
ferent ones.
It would take me too far, and the facts
are too doubtful, to investigate the large
class of cases included under the terras
thought-reading, telepathy, psychism,
and spiritualism. It may suffice to say
that there is a good deal of evidence for
the reality of very curious phenomena,
but none of any real weight for their
being caused by any spiritualistic or
- supernatural agency. The same conclu
sion is given by Mr. Podmore, for many
years secretary of the Psychical Research
Society, in his well-known works. They
all seem to resolve themselves into the
assertion that under special conditions
the perceptions of one brain can be re
produced in another otherwise than by
the ordinary medium of the senses, and
that in such conditions a special sort of
cataleptic energy or psychic force may
be developed. The amount of negative
evidence is of course enormous, for it is
certain that in millions upon millions of
cases thought cannot be read, things are
not seen beyond the range of vision, and
coincidences do not occur between
deaths and dreams or visions. Neither
can tables be turned, nor heavy bodies
lifted, without some known form of
energy and a fulcrum at which to apply it.
This borderland of knowledge is, there
fore, best left to time, which is the safest
test of truth. That which is real will
survive, and be gradually brought within
the domain of science and made to fit
in with other facts and laws of nature.
That which is unreal will pass away, as
ghosts and goblins have done, and be
forgotten as the fickle fashion changes of
superstitious fancy. In the meantime
we shall do better to confine ourselves to
ascertained facts and normal conditions.
It is pretty certain that, although the
brain greatly preponderates as an organ
of mind in man and the higher animals,
the grey tissue in the spinal marrow and
nervous ganglia exercises a limited
amount of the same functions propor
tionate to its smaller quantity. The
reflex or automatic actions, such as
breathing, are carried on without refer
ence to the brain, and the messages are
received and transmitted through the
local offices without going to the head
office. This is the case with many com
plicated motions which originated in the
brain, but have become habitual and
automatic, as in walking, where thought
and conscious effort only intervene when
something unusual occurs which requires
a reference to the head office; and in
the still more complex case of the pianoplayer, who fingers difficult passages
correctly while thinking of something else,
or even talking to a bystander.
Indeed, in extreme cases, where experi
ments on the brain have been tried on
lower animals, it is found that it can be
entirely removed without destroying life,
or affecting many of the actions which
require perception and volition. Thus,
when the brain has been entirely removed
from a pigeon, it smoothes its feathers
with its bill when they have been ruffled,
and places its head under its wing when
it sleeps; and a frog under the same
conditions, if held by one foot, endeavours
to draw it away, and, if unsuccessful,
places the other foot against an obstacle
in order to get more purchase in the effort
to liberate itself.
So much for the organ of mind; the
other factor, that of outward stimulus, is
still more obvious. If thought cannot
�THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT 71
exist without grey nerve-tissue, neither
can it without impressions to stimulate
that tissue. A perfect brain, if cut off
from all communication with the external
universe, could no more think and have
perceptions than impressions from with
out could generate them without the
appropriate nerve-tissue. Once gene
rated, the mind can store them up by
memory, control them by reason, and
gradually evolve fro_m them ever higher
and higher ideas and trains of reasoning,
both in the individual and the species : in
the individual, passing from infancy to
manhood, partly by heredity from ances
tors, and partly by education—using the
word in the large sense of influences of
all sorts from the surrounding environ
ment ; in the species, by a similar but
much slower development from savagery
to civilisation.
Thus the whole fabric of arithmetic,
algebra, and the higher calculi is built
up from the primitive perception of
number. The earliest palaeolithic savage
must have been conscious of a difference
between encountering one or two cave
bears or mammoths ; and some existing
races of savages have hardly got beyond
this primitive perception. Some Austra
lian tribes, it is said, have not got beyond
three numerals—one, two, and a great
number. But by degrees the perceptions
of number have become more extensive
and accurate, and the number of fingers
on each hand has been used as a standard
of comparison. Thus ten, or two-hand,
the number of fingers on the two hands,
has gradually become the basis of arith
metical numeration, and from this up to
Sir W. Hamilton’s “ Quaternions ” the
progression is regular and intelligible.
But Newton could never have invented
the differential calculus and solved the
problem of the heavens if thousands of
centuries before some primitive human
mind had not perceived that two apples
or two bears were different from one.
In like manner geometry, as its name
indicates, arises from primitive percep
tions of space, applied to the practical
necessity of land-measuring in alluvial |
valleys like those of the Nile and
Euphrates, where annual inundations
obliterated to a great extent the dividing
lines between adjoining properties. The
first perceptions of space would take the
form of the rectangle, or so many feet or
paces, or cubits or arm-lengths, forwards,,
and so many sideways, to give the proper
area; but, as areas were irregular, it wouldbe discovered that the triangle was-,
necessary for more accurate measurement...
Hence the science of the triangle, circle,,
and other regular forms, as we see it
developed in Euclid and later treatises,
on geometry, until we come to its latest
development in speculations as to space
of four dimensions.
But in all these cases we see the
same fundamental principle as prevails
throughout the universe under the name
of the “ conservation of energy”—always
something out of something, never some
thing out of nothing.
This, therefore, defines the limit of
human knowledge, or boundary line
between the knowable and the unknow
able.
Whatever is transformationaccording to existing laws is, whether
known or unknown, at any rate know
able—whatever is creation is unknow
able. We have absolutely no faculties
to enable us to form the remotest con
ception of what the essence of these
primary atoms and energies really is,
how they came there, and how the laws,
or invariable sequences, under which
they act came to be impressed on them..
We have no faculties, because we have
never had any perceptions upon which
the mind can work. Reason and imagi
nation can no more work without ante
cedent perceptions than a bird can fly
in a vacuum.
Thus, for instance, the imagination
can invent dragons, centaurs, and any
number of fabulous monsters, by piecing
together fragments of perceptions in new
combinations; but ask it to invent a
monster whose head shall be that of an
inhabitant of Saturn and its body that
of a denizen of Jupiter, and where is it?
Of necessity, all attempts to define or
�72
THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT
describe things of which we have never
had perceptions must be made in terms
of things of which we have had percep
tions, or, in other words, must be anthro
pomorphic.
So far as science gives any positive
knowledge as to the relations of mind
to matter, it amounts to this: That all
we call mind is indissolubly connected
with matter through the grey cells of the
brain and other nervous ganglia. This
is positive. If the skull could be
removed without injury to the living
organism, a skilful physiologist could
play with his finger on the human
brain, as on that of a dog, pigeon, or
other animal, and by pressure on dif
ferent notes, as on the keys of a piano,
annihilate successively voluntary motion,
speech, hearing, sight, and finally will,
consciousness, reasoning power, and
memory. But beyond this physical
science cannot go. It cannot explain
how molecular motions of cells of nervecentres can be transformed into, or can
create, the phenomena of mind, any
more than it can explain how the atoms
and energies to which it has traced
up the material universe were themselves
created or what they really are.
All attempts to further fathom the
depths of the unknown follow a different
line, that of metaphysics, or, in other
words, introspection of mind by mind,
and endeavour to explain thought by
thinking. On entering into this region,
we at once find that the solid earth is
giving way under our feet, and that we
are attempting to fly in an extremely
rare atmosphere, if, indeed, we are not
idly flapping our wings in an absolute
vacuum. Instead of ascertained facts
which all recognise, and experiments
which, conducted under the same con
ditions, always give the same results, we
have a dissolving view of theories and
intuitions, accepted by some, denied by
others, and changing with the changing
conditions of the age, and with individual
varieties of character, emotions, and
wishes. Thus, mind and soul are with
some philosophers identical, with others
mind is a product of soul; with some
soul is a subtle essence, with others
absolutely immaterial; with some it has
an individual, with others a universal,
existence; by some it is limited to man,
by others conceded to the lower animals;
by some located in the brain, by others
in the heart, blood, pineal gland, or
dura mater; with some it is pre-exist
ent and immortal, with others created
specially for its own individual organism;
and so on ad infinitum. The greatest
philosophers come mostly to the conclu
sion that we really know nothing about
it. Thus Descartes, after having built
up an elaborate metaphysical theory as
to a spiritual, indivisible substance inde
pendent of the brain and cognisable by
self-consciousness alone, ends by honestly
confessing “ that by natural reason we
can make many conjectures about the
soul, and have flattering hopes, but no
assurance.” Kant also, greatest of meta
physicians, when he has demolished the
fallacies of former theories, and comes to
define his “ noumenon,” has to use the
vaguest of phrases, such as “an inde
scribable something, safely located out
of space and time, as such not subject
to the mutabilities of those phenomenal
spheres,....... and of whose ontological
existence we are made aware by its
phenomenal projections, or effects in
consciousness.” The sentence takes our
breath away, and makes us sympathise
with Bishop Berkeley when he says, “ We
metaphysicians have first raised a dust,
and then complain we cannot see.” It
prepares us also for Kant’s final admission
that nothing can really be proved by
metaphysics concerning the attributes,
or even the existence, of the soul;
though, on the other hand, as it cannot
be disproved, its reality may for moral
purposes be assumed.
It appears, therefore, that the efforts
of the sublimest transcendentalists do
not carry us one step farther than the
conclusions of the commonest common
sense—viz., that there are certain funda
mental conditions of thought, such as
space, time, consciousness, personal
�THE KNOWABLE AND UNKNOWABLE—BRAIN AND THOUGHT 73
identity, and freedom of will, which we
cannot explain, but cannot get rid of.
The sublimest speculations of a Plato
and a Kant bring us back to the homely
conclusions of the old woman in the
nursery ballad, in whose mind grave
questions as to her personal identity
were raised by the felonious abstraction
of the lower portion of her petticoat.
“ If I be I, as I think I be,
I’ve a little dog at home, and he’ll know me.”
It is a safe “ working hypothesis ” that,
when I go home in the afternoon, my
wife, children, and little dog will recog
nise me as being “ I myself I ”; but why
or how I am I, whether I was I before I
was born, or shall be so after I am dead,
I really know no more than the little dog
who wags his tail and yelps for joy when
he recognises my personal identity as
something distinct from his own, when
he sees me coming up the walk.
Our conceptions, therefore, are neces
sarily based on our perceptions, and are
what is called anthropomorphic. The
term has almost come to be one of
reproach, because it has so often been
applied to religious conceptions of a
Deity with human, though often not very
humane, attributes; but, if considered
rightly, it - is an inevitable necessity of
any attempt to define such a being or
beings. We can only conceive of such
as a magnified man, indefinitely magnified
no doubt, but still with a will, intelli
gence, and faculties corresponding to our
own. The whole supernatural or miracu
lous theory of the universe rests on the
supposition that its phenomena are, in a
great many cases, brought about, not by
uniform law, but by the intervention of
some Power, which, by the exercise of
will guided by intelligent design, alters
the course of events and brings about
special effects. As long as the theory is
confined to knowable transformations of
existing things, like those which are seen
to be affected by human will, it is not
necessarily inconceivable or irrational.
Inferring like effects from like causes, the
hypothesis was by no means unreason
able that thunder and lightning, for in
stance, were caused by some angry
invisible power in the clouds. On the
contrary, the first savage who drew the
deduction was a natural philosopher, who
reasoned quite justly from his assumed
premises.
Whether the premises were
true or not was a question which could
only be determined centuries later by the
advance of accurate knowledge.
When do we say we know a thing?
Not when we know its essence and
primary origin, for of these the wisest
philosopher is as ignorant as the rudest
savage; but when we know its place in
the universe, its relation to other things,
and can fit it in to that harmonious
sequence of events which is summed up
in what are called Laws of Nature. Thehighest knowledge is when we can trace
it up to its earliest origin from, existing
matter and energy, and follow it down
wards so as to be able to predict its
results. The force of gravity affords a
good illustration of this knowledge, both
where it comes up to and where it falls
short of perfection.
Newton’s law leaves nothing to. be
desired as regards its universal applica
tion and power of prediction ; but we
do not yet fully understand its mode of
action or its relation to other forms of
energy. It is probable that some day we
may be able to understand how the force
of gravity appears to act instantaneously
at a distance, and how all the transform
able forces—gravity, light, heat, electricity,
and molecular or atomic forces—are but
different manifestations of one common
energy. But in the meantime we know
this for certain, that the law of gravity
is not a local or special phenomenon,
but prevails universally from the fixed
stars to the atoms, from the infinitely
great to the infinitely small. This is a
fact to which all other phenomena which
are really facts and not illusions must
conform.
In like manner, when we find in caves
or river-gravels, under circumstances im
plying enormous antiquity, and associated
with remains of extinct animals, rude
�74
RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
implements so exactly resembling those
in use among existing savages that, if the
collection in the Colonial Exhibition of
stone celts and arrow-heads used by the
Bushmen of South Africa were placed
side by side with one from the British
Museum of similar objects from Kent’s
Cavern or the caves of the Dordogne,
no one but an expert could distinguish
between them, the conclusion is inevit
able that Devonshire and Southern
France were inhabited at some remote
period by a race of men not more
advanced than the Bushmen. Any theory
of man’s origin and evolution which is to
hold water must take account of this
fact and square with it. And so of a
vast variety of facts which have been
reduced to law and become certainly
known during the last half-century. A
great deal of ground remains unexplored
or only partially explored ; but sufficient
has been discovered to enable us to say
that what we know we know thoroughly,
and that certain leading facts and princi
ples undoubtedly prevail throughout the
knowable universe, including not only
that which is known, but that which is
as yet partially or wholly unknown; for
instance, the law of gravity, the conserva
tion of energy, the indestructibility of
matter, and the law of evolution, or
development from the simple to the
complex.
Chapter
XI.
RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
Religions “ working hypotheses ”—Newman’s harmonious concordance. I said so for
illative sense—Origins of religions—Ghosts the following reasons. In a discussion
and spirits—Fetishes—Nature-worship—Solar
myths—Planets—Evolution of nature-worship at the Metaphysical Society, recorded in
—Polytheism, pantheism, and theism—Evolu the • Nineteenth Century, on the uni
tion of monotheism in the Old Testament—■ formity of the laws of nature, Huxley is
Evolution of morality—Natural law and represented as saying that he considered
miracle—Evidence for miracles—Insufficiency
of evidence—Absence of intelligent design— this uniformity, not as an axiomatic
Agnosticism—Origin of evil—Can only be truth like the first postulates of geometry,
explained by polarity—Optimism and pes but as a “ working hypothesis
adding,
simism—Jesus, the Christian Ormuzd—Chris however, that it was an hypothesis which
tianity without miracles.
Having thus, I may hope, given the
reader some precise ideas of what are
the boundaries and conditions of human
knowledge, we may proceed to consider
their application to the highest subjects,
religions and philosophies.
In the introductory chapter of this
work I have said that all religions are in
effect “ working hypotheses,” by which
men seek to reconcile the highest aspira
tions of their nature with the facts of the
universe, and bring the whole into some
had never been known to fail. To this
some distinguished advocates of Catholic
theology replied, that their conviction
was of a higher nature, for their belief in
God was a final truth, which was the
basis of their whole intellectual and
moral nature, and which it was irrational
to question. This is, in effect, Cardinal
Newman’s celebrated argument of an
“illative sense,” based on a complete
assent of all the faculties, and which was
therefore a higher authority than any
conclusions of science. The answer is
obvious, that complete assent, so far from
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
being a test of truth, is, on the contrary,
almost always a proof that truth has not
been attained, owing either , to erroneous
assumptions as to the premises or to the
omission of important factors in the solu
tion of the problem. To give an instance,
I suppose there could not be a stronger
case of complete assent than that of the
Inquisitors who condemned the theories
of Galileo. They had in support of the
proposition that the sun revolved round
the earth the testimony of the senses, the
universal belief of mankind in all ages,
the direct statement of inspired Scripture,
the authority of the infallible Church.
Was all this to be set aside because some
“ sophist vainly mad with dubious lore ”
told them, on grounds of some new
fangled so-called science, that the earth
revolved round its axis and round the
sun? “No; let us stamp out a heresy
so contrary to our ‘ illative sense,’ and so
fatal to all the most certain and cherished
beliefs of the Christian world, to the
inspiration of the Word of God, and to
the authority of his Church.” “Epur si
muoveP and yet the earth really did
move ; and the verdict of pact was that
Galileo and science were right, and the
Church and the illative sense wrong.
In truth, the distinction between the
conclusions of science and those of
religious creeds might be more properly
expressed by saying that the former are
“ working hypotheses ” which never fail,
while the latter are “ working hypothe
ses” which frequently fail. ‘Thus, the
fundamental hypothesis of Cardinal New
man and his school of a one infinite and
eternal personal Deity, who regulates the
course of events' by frequent miraculous
interpositions, so far from being a neces
sary and axiomatic truth, has never
appeared so to the immense majority of
the human race ; and even at the present
day, in civilised and so-called Christian
countries, its principal advocates com
plain that ninety-nine out of every hun
dred practically ignore it. It is not so
with the uniformity of the laws of nature.
No palaeolithic savage ever hesitated
about putting one foot after another in
75
chase of a mammoth from a fear that
his working hypothesis of uniform law
might fail, the support of the solid earth
give way, and with his next step he
might find himself toppling over into the
abyss of an infinite vacuum. In like
manner Greeks and Romans, Indians,
and Chinese, monotheists, polytheists^
pantheists, Jews and Buddhists, Chris
tians and Mohammedans, all use standard,
weights in their daily transactions with
out any misgivings that the law of gravity
may turn out not to be uniform. But
religious theories vary from time to time
and from place to place, and we can in
a great many cases trace their origins and
developments like those of other political
and social organisms.
To trace their origins we must, as in
the case of social institutions, look first
at the ideas prevailing among those
savage and barbarous races who are the
best representatives of our early pro
genitors ; and secondly at historical
records. In the first case we find the
earliest rudiments of religious ideas in
the universal belief in ghosts and spirits.
Every man is conceived of as being a
double of himself, and as having a sort
of shadowy self, which comes and goesin sleep or trance, and finally takes leave
of the body, at death, to continue its
existence as a ghost. The air is thus
peopled with an immense number of
ghosts, who continue very much their
ordinary existence, haunt their accus
tomed abodes, and. retain their living
powers and attributes, which are exerted
generally with a malevolent desire to
injure and annoy. Hence among savage
races, and by survival even among primi
tive nations of the present day, we find
the most curious devices to cheat or
frighten away the ghost, so that he may
not return to the house in which he died.
Thus, the corpse is carried out, not by
the door, but by a hole made for the
purpose in the wall, which is afterwards
built up—a custom which prevails with
a number of widely separated races—
Greenlanders, Hottentots, Algonquins,
and Fijians; and the practice even
�76
RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
survives among more civilised nations,
such as the Chinese, Siamese, and
Thibetans; nor is it wholly extinct in
some of the primitive parts of Europe.
This idea obviously led to the practice
of constructing tents or houses for the
ghosts to live in, and of depositing with
them articles of food and weapons to be
used in their ghostly existence. In the
case of great chiefs, not only their arms
and ornaments were deposited, but their
horses, slaves, and wives were sacrificed
and buried with them, so that they might
enter spirit-land with an appropriate
retinue.
The early Egyptian tombs
were as nearly as possible facsimiles of
the house in which the deceased had
lived, with pictures of his geese, oxen,
-and other possessions painted on the
walls, evidently under the idea that the
ghosts of these objects would minister
to the wants and please the fancy of the
human ghost whose eternal dwelling was
in the tomb where his mummy was de
posited.
Another development of the belief in
spirits is that of fetish-worship, in which
superstitious reverenc.e is paid to some
stock or stone, tree or animal, in which
a mysterious influence is supposed to
reside, probably owing to its being the
chosen abode of some powerful spirit.
This is common among the negro races,
and it takes a curious development
among many races of American Indians,
where the tribe is distinguished by the
totem, or badge of some particular animal,
such as the bear, the tortoise, or the
hare, which is in some way supposed to
be the patron spirit of the clan, and often
the progenitor from whom they are
descended. This idea is so rooted that
intermarriage between men and women
who have the same totem is prohibited
as a sort of incest, and the daughter of
a bear-mother must seek for a husband
among the sons of the deer or fox.
Possibly a vestige of the survival of this
idea may be traced in the coat-of-arms
of the Sutherland family, and the wild
cat may have been the totem of the
Clan Chattan, while the oak tree was
that of the Clan Quoich, with whom
they fought on the Inch of Perth. Be
this as it may, it is clearly a most ancient
and widespread idea, and prevails from
Greenland to Australia; while it evidently
formed the oldest element of the pre
historic religion of Egypt, where each
separate province had its peculiar sacred
animal, worshipped by the populace in
one nome and detested in the neigh
bouring one.
By far the earliest traces of anything
resembling religious ideas are those
found in burying-places of the neolithic
period. It is evident that at this remote
period ideas prevailed respecting ghost
or spirit life and a future existence very
similar to those of modern savages.
They placed weapons and implements
in the graves of the dead, and not
infrequently sacrificed human victims
and held cannibal feasts. Whether this
was done in the far more remote palaeo
lithic era' is uncertain, for very few
undoubted burials of this period have
been discovered, and those few have
frequently been used again for later
interments. We can only draw a nega
tive inference from the absence of idols,
which are so abundant in the prehistoric
abodes explored by Professor Schlie
mann, among the very numerous
carvings and drawings found in the
caves of the reindeer period in France
and Germany—namely, that the religion
of the palaeolithic men, if they had any,
had not reached the stage when spirits
or deities were represented by images.
For the first traces, therefore, of any
thing like what is now understood by
the term religion, we must look beyond
the vague superstitions of savages, at the
historical records of civilised nations.
As civilisation advanced population
multiplied, and the rude tribes of hunters
were amalgamated into agricultural com
munities and powerful empires, in which
a leisured and cultured class arose, to
whom the old superstitions were no
longer sufficient. They had to enlarge
their “working hypothesis” from the
worship of stocks and stones and fear of
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
ghosts, to take in a multitude of new
facts and ideas, and specially those
relating to natural phenomena which had
roused their curiosity, or become impor
tant to them as matters of practical
utility. The establishment of an here
ditary caste of priests accelerated this
evolution of religious ideas, and from
time to time recorded its progress. The
oldest of such records are those of Egypt
and Chaldsea, where the fertility of
alluvial valleys watered by great rivers
had led to the earliest development of a
high civilisation. The records also of
the Chinese, Hindoos, Persians, and
other nations take us a long way back
towards the origins of religions.
In all cases we find them identical
with the first origins of science, and
taking the form of attempted explanations
of natural phenomena, by the theory of
deified objects and powers of nature.
In the Vedas we see this in the simplest
form, where the gods are simply personi
fications of the heavens, earth, sun,
moon, dawn, and so forth; where we
should say the red glow of morning
announces the rising of the sun, they
express it that Aurora blushes at the
approach of her lover, the mighty Sun
god. It is very interesting to observe
how the old Chaldsean legend of the
creation of the world has been modified
in the far later Jewish edition of it in
Genesis, to adapt it to monotheistic
ideas. The Chaldaean legend begins,
like that of Genesis, with an “earth
without form and void,” and darkness on
the chaotic deep. In each legend the
Spirit of God, called Absu in the
Chaldaean, moves on the face of the
waters, and they are gathered together
and separated from the land. But here
a difference begins: in the original
Chaldsean legend “ the great gods were
then made; the gods Lakman and
Lakmana caused themselves to come
forth; the gods Assur and Kesar were
made; the gods Anu, Bel, and Idea
were born.”
The appearance of the gods Lakman
and Lakmana was the primitive mode of
77
expressing the same idea as that which
is expressed in Genesis by saying that
God created the firmament separating
the heaven above from the earth beneath;
Assur and Kesar mean the same thing as
the hosts of heaven and the earth; the
god Bel is the sun, and so forth. It is
evident that the first attempts to explain
the phenomena of nature originated, in
the idea that motion and power implied
life, personality, and conscious will; and
therefore that the earth, sky, sun, moon,
and other grand and striking phenomena,
must be regarded as separate gods.
As culture advanced astronomy be
came more and more prominent in these
early religions, and solar myths became
a principal part of their mythologies,
while astrology, or the influence of
planets or stars on human affairs, became
an important part of practical life. .The
Chaldsean legend referred to contains a
mass of astronomical knowledge, which
in the Genesis edition is reduced to
“ He made the stars also.” It describes
how the constellations were assigned
their forms and names, the twelve signs
of the Zodiac established, the year
divided into twelve months, the equi
noxes determined, and the seasons set
their bounds. Also how the moon was
made to regulate the months by its disc,
“ horns shining forth to lighten the
heavens, which, on the seventh day,
approaches a circle.”
In the still older Egyptian pyramids
- we find proof of the long previous exist
ence of great astronomical knowledge
and refined methods of observation; for
these buildings, which are at once the
largest and the oldest in the world, are
laid down so exactly in a meridian line,
and with such a close approximation to
the true latitude, as would have other
wise been impossible. In fact, there is
every reason to believe that, while they
were constructed as tombs for kings,
they were at the same time intended for
national observatories ; for the arrange
ment of the internal passages is such as
to make the Great Pyramid serve, the
purpose of a telescope, equatorially
�78
RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
mounted, and showing the transit of stars to the Gallery of Dresden, he would see in
and planets over the meridian, by refer Raffaelle s Madonna di San Sisto what he
ence to a reflected image of what was would consider to bean admirable repre
then the polar star, a knowledge of which sentation of Horus in the arms of Isis.
was essential for accurate calculation of . The planets also, still more mysterious
the calendar and seasons, for fixing the m their movements than the sun, and
proper date of religious ceremonies, and therefore still more endowed with human
very probably for astrological purposes.
like faculties of life, power, and purpose,
The prevalence of these solar and were from an early period believed to
astronomical myths among a number of exercise an influence on human affairs.
different nations separated by wide inter Of the universality of this belief we find
vals of space and time is very remarkable. traces in . the names of the days of the
Egyptians, Indians, Babylonians, Chinese, week, which are so generally taken from
Mexicans, and Peruvians had myths the sun, moon, and five visible planets—
which were strangely similar, indeed Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and
almost identical, based on the sun’s Saturn—to whom special days were dedi
annual passage through the constella cated. If every seventh day is a day of
tions of the zodiac. His apparent decline rest, it was originally so because it was
and death as he approached the winter thought unlucky to undertake any work
solstice, and his return to life when he on the Sabbath, Saturday, or day of the
had passed it, gave rise to myths of the gloomy and malignant Saturn.
murder of the Sun-god by some fierce
As time rolled on and civilisation ad
wild boar, or treacherous enemy, and of vanced, this simple nature-worship and
his triumphant resurrection in renewed deification of astronomical phenomena
glory. Hence, also, the passage of the developed into larger and more complex
winter solstice was a season of general conceptions. Following different lines
rejoicing and festivity, traces of which of evolution, polytheism, pantheism, and
survive when the sirloin and turkey smoke monotheism began to emerge as religious
upon the hospitable tables of modern systems with definite creeds, rituals, and
Christmas. One remarkable myth had a sacred books. These lines seem to have
very universal acceptance, that of the been determined a good deal by the
birth of the infant Sun-god from a virgin genius of the race in which the religious
mother. It appears to have originated development took place. The impres
from the period, some 6,450 years ago, sions made on the human mind by the
when the sun, which now rises at the surrounding universe are very various.
winter solstice in the constellation of Suppose ourselves looking up at the
Sagittarius, rose in that of Pisces, with heavens on a clear starry night, what
the constellation of the Virgin, with will be the impression ? To one, that of
upraised arms marked by five stars, awe and reverence; he will feel crushed,
setting in the north-west. Anyhow, this as it were, into nothingness in the pre
myth of an infant god born of a virgin sence of such a sublime manifestation of
mother holds a prominent place in the majesty and glory. Another, of a more
religions of Egypt, India, China, aesthetic nature, will be charmed by the
Chaldaea, Greece, Rome, Siam, Mexico, beauty of the spectacle, and tempted to
Peru, and other nations. The resem assign life to it, and to personify and
blances are often so close that the first dramatise its incidents. A third, of a
Jesuit missionaries to China found that scientific turn, will above all things wish
their account of the miraculous concep to understand it.
tion of Christ had been anticipated by
Thus, we find the impression of awe
that of Fuh-ke, born 3468 b.c. ; and if preponderating among the Semitic races
an ancient priest of Thebes or Helio generally; and as in their political rela
polis could be restored to life and taken tions, so in their, religious conceptions,
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
we find them prone to prostrate them
selves before despotic power.. With the
Greeks, again, the aesthetic idea almost
swallowed up the others, and the old
astronomical myths blossomed into a
perfect flower-bed of poetical and fanciful
legends. The Chinese never got beyond
a simple pantheism, which looked upon
the universe as being alive, and saw
nothing behind it ; while the more meta
physical and physically feebler races of
Hindoos and Buddhists refined their
pantheism into a system of illusion, in
which their own existence and the sur
rounding universe were literally
“ such stuff
As dreams are made on,”
and to be “ rounded with a sleep ” was
the final consummation devoutly to be
desired.
Monotheism developed itself later,
partly from the feeling of the unity of
nature forcing itself on the more philoso
phical minds ; partly from that feeling of
reverence and awe in presence of the
Unknown which swallowed up other
conceptions; and partly, in the earlier
stages, from the feeling which exalted the
local god of the tribe or nation, first into
a supremacy over other gods, and finally
into sole supremacy, degrading all other
gods into the category of dumb idols
made by human hands. In the Old
Testament we can trace the development
of this latter idea in its successive stages.
Until the later days of the Jewish
monarchy it is evident that the Jews
never doubted the existence of other
gods; their allegiance oscillated between
Jehovah and the heathen deities sym
bolised by the golden calf, worshipped in
high places, and contending for the
mastership in the rival sacrifices of Elijah
and the priests of Baal. But the pro
phetic element gradually introduced
higher ideas, and in the reigns of Heze
kiah and Josiah the worship of Jehovah
as the sole God became the religion of
the State; and old legends and docu
ments were re-edited in this sense in the
sacred book, which was discovered and
79
published for the first time in the reign
of the latter king. The subsequent mis
fortunes of the nation, their captivity and
contact with other religions in Babylonia
(from which the old legends had them
selves been largely though indirectly
borrowed), strengthened this mono
theism into an ardent, passionate, na
tional faith, as it has continued to be
with this remarkable people up to the
present day. Christianity and Mohamme
danism, children of Judaism, have spread
this form of faith over a great part of the
civilised world; and of the three theories
—polytheism, pantheism, and mono
theism—it may be said that only the
two latter survive.
Polytheism was bound to perish first,
for, slow as the advance of science was,
the uniformity of most of the pheno
mena, which had been attributed to so
many separate gods, could not fail to
make an impression; and as. ideas of
morality came slowly and tardily to. be
appropriated as an element of religion,
the cruel rites and scandalous fables
which so generally accompanied poly
theistic religions became shocking to an
awakening conscience.
It is worthy of remark that this ele
ment of morality, which has now gone
so far towards swallowing up the others,
was the latest to appear. Even in the
Jewish conception Jehovah was for a long
time just as often cruel, jealous, and
capricious as just and merciful; and St.
Paul’s doctrine that, because God had the
power to do as he liked, he was warranted
in creating a large portion of the human
race as “ vessels of wrath,” predestined
to eternal punishment, is as revolting to
the modern conscience as any sacrifice to
Beelzebub or Moloch. If we wish to
see how little necessary connection there
is between morality and monotheism, we
have only to look at Mohammedanism,
which, in its extremer forms, may be
called monotheism run mad.
The Wahabite reformer, we are told
by Palgrave, preached that there were
only two deadly sins: paying divine
honours to any creature of Allah’s, and
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RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
smoking tobacco; and that murder,
adultery, and such-like trivial matters,
were minor offences which a merciful
Allah would condone. He held, also,
that of the whole inhabitants of the
world all would surely be damned, except
one out of the seventy-two sects of
Mohammedans, who held the true faith
and dwelt in the district of Riad. This
illustrates the insane extremes into which
all human speculations run, if a single
idea—in this case that of awe, reverence,
and abject submission in presence of an
almighty power—is allowed to run its
course without check and obtain undue
preponderance.
Apart from these extreme instances,
we may say that the two religious theories
which have survived to the present day
in the struggle for existence are mono
theism and pantheism. Pantheism is,
in the main, the creed of half the human
race—of the teeming millions of India,
China, Japan, Ceylon, Thibet, Siam,
and Burmah. How deeply it is rooted
in their conceptions was very forcibly
impressed on me in a conversation I
had on board one of the P. and O.
steamers with an English missionary
returning from China. He told me how
he had dined one evening with an intelli
gent Chinese merchant, and after dinner
they walked in the garden discussing
religious subjects, and he tried to impress
on his host the first principles of the
Christian religion. It was a starlight
night, and for sole reply the Chinese
gentleman stretched his hand to the
heavens and said: “ Do you mean to tell
me all that is dead—do you take me for
a fool?” The Chinese “illative sense”
was as absolute in its conclusions for
pantheism as that of Cardinal Newman
for theism. In fact, pantheism, though
not the whole truth, and almost as incon
sistent as polytheism with the real facts
of the universe as disclosed by science,
has a certain poetical truth in it, to
which chords of human emotion vibrate
responsively, and is perhaps not so widely
in error as some of the extreme theories
which treat matter as something base
and brutal. Wordsworth’s noble lines—
“ A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ;
A motion, and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,
And rolls through all things ”—
are pure pantheism, and yet we cannot
but feel ourselves to a great extent in
sympathy with them.
So also the well-known lines of a
greater than Wordsworth, Shakespeare,
are pure Buddhism :—
“ The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on ; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
No one can read these lines without
feeling that the Buddhist conception is
as far as possible from being a trivial or
vulgar one, and that the triviality and
vulgarity are rather with those who
cannot, up to a certain point, under
stand and sympathise with it.
The religions of the East are very
philosophical, and have kept very clearly
in view this fundamental distinction
between the knowable and the unknow
able. In the Century Magazine of July,
1886, there is an interesting account of
a conversation between an American
missionary and the Bozu or chief priest
of the great temple of the Shin Sect of
Buddhists at Kioto in Japan. The priest
was an intelligent and highly educated
gentleman, who spoke English, and was
well versed in the speculations of modern
philosophy. The conversation turned
on theological questions, and when
pressed by the argument for a Divine
Creator, from design shown in the uni
verse implying intelligence, he replied :—
“ No; God cannot make matter. Only
artificial things show design, only things
which can be made. What do you mean
by saying a thing shows design? You
only mean that by trying a man could
make it.”
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RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
And he proceeded to illustrate it
thus
“You show me a gold ring ; the ring
shows design, but not the gold; gold is
an ultimate element, which can neither
be made nor destroyed. When men can
make a world, then they can prove that
this one shows design, for the only way
they know of design is by what they
make.”
He went on to argue for the immor
tality of the soul, and as a consequence
for its pre-existence and the transmigra
tion of souls, from the conservation of
energy; and concluded his argument
against the creation and government of
the world by a comprehensible, anthro
pomorphic Creator, by adducing the
existence of evil.
“ There is a sickness,” he said, “ called
fever and ague; what do you call the
medicine to cure that ?”
“ Quinine.”
“Yes; now we have not found that
long ; a good God would not have let so
many people suffer if he could have
given them that. A man found it by
chance. The sickness and suffering in
this life are for wrong done in another life.”
We may not accept this unproved
theory of the cause of sickness and
suffering, but it is very interesting to
find that candid and intelligent minds,
brought up in a society and religious
beliefs so widely different from our own,
have arrived practically at the same con
clusions as John Stuart Mill, Herbert
Spencer, and other leaders of advanced
thought in modern Europe, and drawn
almost identically the same line between
that which is knowable and that which
is unknowable by the human mind.
But, however large-minded we may
become in seeing the good in other
forms of creed, we English of the twen
tieth century are not going to turn
either Pantheists or Buddhists, and prac
tically the contest of the present day is
between the supernatural or miraculous,
and the natural or scientific, hypotheses.
According to the former, the opera
tions of the universe are carried on to
a considerable extent by what may be
called secondary inferences of a super
natural being, who with will, intelligence,
and design, like human though vastly
superior, frequently interposes to alter
the course of events and bring about
something which natural law would not
have brought about. The other hypo
thesis cannot be stated better than in
Bishop Temple’s words, that the Great
First Cause created things so perfect
from the first that no such secondary
interferences have ever been necessary;
and everything has been and is evolved
from the primary atoms and energies in
a necessary and invariable succession.
The supernatural and the natural theories
of the universe are thus brought into
direct antagonism.
For the supernatural theory it must be
conceded that it is quite conceivable, as
is proved by the fact that it has been the
almost universal conception of mankind
for ages, and remains so still for the
greater number. It is, as I have said,
the inevitable first conception when men
began to reflect on the phenomena of
the universe, and to reason from effects
to causes. I have always thought that
Hume went too far in condemning
miracles as absolutely incredible a priori.
It it is a question of evidence. A priori,
I can conceive that the true explanation
of the universe might have been natural
law, as the general rule, supplemented
by miracles; just as readily as that it is
law always, and miracle never. The
verdict must be decided by the weight
of evidence. The two theories must be
called, face to face, before the tribunal
of fact, and its decision must be respected.
This is exactly what has been going on
for the last two centuries, and specially
for the last half century ; and the record
of decisions is now a very ample one.
In every single instance law has carried
the day against miracle.
Instance after instance has occurred
in which phenomena which in former
ages were attributed without hesitation
to supernatural agencies have been con
clusively proved to be due to natural
G
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RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
laws. Take the obvious instance of tered incantations, the new ones quinine 3
thunder. When Horace wrote—which cure the most patients ?
In like manner, demonology and witch
“ Jam satis terris nivis, atque dirre
Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente
craft, with all their train of cruelties and
Dextera sacras jaculatus arces
horrors, once universally believed even
Terruit orbem,”
by men like Justice Hale, have passed
he wrote to a public to whom it was an into oblivion as completely as the Lamiee,
undoubted article of faith that thunder Phorkyads, and other fantastic figures
and lightning, hail and snowstorms, came of the classical Walpurgis-night. Is the
direct from .the Father of the gods in world* the better or the worse for this
the sky. Even to a late period this was triumph of natural law over super
the general faith, and the prayers in our naturalism ?
rubric for rain or fine weather remain as
The triumph has been so complete in
a survival of the belief that these things, innumerable instances, without a single
when unusual or in excess, are super one to the contrary, that belief in the
natural manifestations. But Benjamin permanence and universality of natural
Franklin said : “ No, there is nothing law has become almost an instinct in all
supernatural about lightning. I will educated minds, and even those who
bring it down from the clouds and cling to old beliefs must admit that the
manufacture it by turning a wheel.” most cogent and irresistible evidence is
Appeal being made to fact, the verdict requisite to establish the fact of a real
is that Franklin was right, and that supernatural inference. It may be taken
lightning-conductors protect ships and as an axiom that, wherever a natural
houses better than prayers or incanta explanation is possible, a miraculous one
tions. Again, when Galileo and the is impossible.
Church joined issue as to whether the
Now, this is just the point on which,
earth was round or flat, inspiration and as knowledge has increased, the evidence
authority were cited in vain for the for miracles has become weaker, almost
received theoryj fact said it was round, in the exact ratio in which the necessity
and it was proved to be so by men for evidence has become stronger.
sailing round it. The law of gravity was • Take, for instance, the following case
considered a very dangerous heresy, and recorded by Dr. Braid, of Glasgow. Miss
for a long time pious divines held out R. had suffered from ophthalmia and
against its conclusions, and contended was totally blind. She could not discern
that it was no better than atheism to a single letter of the title-page of a book
doubt that comets were signs of God’s placed close to her, though some of the
anger sent to warn a sinful world. But letters were a quarter of an inch long.
Halley calculated the time of his comet’s Dr. Braid placed the patient in a condi
return according to the laws of gravity, tion of hypnotism, and directed the
and, appeal being made to fact, the comet nervous force, or sustained attention of
returned true to time.
the mind, to the eyes by wafting over
This has occurred so often that few them. After a first sitting of about ten
are left who doubt the universal preva minutes she was able to read a great
lence of law in the material universe, part of the title-page, and after four more
where former generations saw miracles at sittings she was able to read the smallestevery turn. Nor is the defeat of miracle sized print in a newspaper, and was quite
less conspicuous in the spiritual world. cured for the rest of her life. In another
Where former ages and rude races saw, case, that of Mrs. S., blindness of the
and still see, possession by evil spirits, left eye had occurred owing to an attack
modern doctors see fevers, epilepsies, or of rheumatic fever, the structure of the
insanity. Once more appeal being made eye, both external and internal, being
to fact, the old medicine-men adminis considerably injured, and more than
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
half the cornea covered by an opaque
film. After a few sittings the cornea
became transparent, and the patient was
cured.
In both these cases the blind were
made to see by processes which were
purely mechanical, for hypnotism was
induced by the simple means of making
the patient strain her attention on some
fixed idea or object, commonly on a
black wafer stuck on a white wall, and
the stimulation of the optic nerve to
greater activity did the rest. And if the
blind could be made to see, a fortiori
the deaf were made to hear, and the
lame and halt to walk, by the same
mechanical process. Here there is an
explanation of nine-tenths of all recorded
miracles by purely natural causes.
Again, take the well-known case of the
Berlin bookseller, Nicolai, who, having
fallen into ill-health, for a whole year
saw, when awake, visions so real and
palpable that he may be said to have
lived in the company of disembodied
spirits, undistinguishable from actual men
and women. This is a common pheno
menon in vivid dreams, but the Berlin
case takes us a step farther, and shows
us howsubjective impressions mayassume
the form of objective realities, even in the
case of a man wide awake, of a sceptical
turn of mind, and in full possession of
his reasoning faculties. Why, then, should
we be driven to the alternative of miracle
or imposture to account for similar
dreams or visions being taken for objec
tive realities by enthusiastic minds, living
in an atmosphere of religious excitement,
in an uncritical age, when supernatural
occurrences were considered to be
matters of course? And history is full
of instances which show how any super
natural germ, planted in such a medium,
propagates itself and extends to millions,
almost as rapidly as the bacillus germ
does in an epidemic of small-pox. St.
Vitus’s dance, or the dancing mania, ran
the round of Europe like the potato
disease, and even yet survives in the
hysterical affections of the sect of Shakers.
The gift of tongues spread like wildfire
83
through Irving’s congregation, and only
died out because it had fallen on the
uncongenial soil of the nineteenth cen
tury ; even the story of the tail of the
lion over the gateway of the old Northum
berland House being seen by many
passers-by to wag because one had
asserted it, illustrates the contagiousness
of nervous sympathy, and the tricks which
“ strong imagination ” can play with the
senses.
Another great blow has been dealt
against the miraculous theory by what
can only be called the singular want of
intelligence displayed in the exercise of
miraculous power as commonly recorded.
The raison d'etre, or effect desired to be
produced by miracles, is to convert man
kind from sin, or to attest a divine
mission by convincing proofs. Even
ordinary human intelligence—and how
much more so that of a superior Being—
must see that to attain this end the means
must be to make the proof convincing.
There is no reason in itself why it should
not be so. The fact that a man who
was alive and signed a will is now dead
is attested, as regards the latter proposi
tion, by a proper medical certificate, and
as regards the former by two credible
witnesses, who are prepared to come into
court, give their names and addresses,
depose on oath to the signature, and
stand cross-examination. If this testi
mony is required to establish a fact so
antecedently probable as that one parti
cular man has undergone the common
fate of millions of millions of other men
—that is to say, that he has died after
being alive—how much more must it be
requisite to establish the fact so antece
dently improbable as that one man
among those many millions, after having
died, came back to life. And yet, where
is the recorded miracle for which' even
this minimum, amount of testimony is
forthcoming?
Why are miracles so
constantly performed in holes and
corners, in obscure localities, among
little knots of ignorant and enthusiastic
adherents, attested by the vaguest hear| say evidence of unknown or incompetent
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RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
witnesses, and apparently under circum so by working a miracle, he had refused,
stances inevitably calculated to defeat he would from his point of view have
their object and engender doubts in the been guilty of a great sin—that of pre
minds of reasonable and conscientious
venting the coming of the kingdom of
men. Take, for instance, the miracles heaven.
now said to be wrought at Lourdes. The
Again, who were the Pharisees ? No
object must be taken to be to convert doubt there were formalists and hypo
infidel France to the Catholic faith. But crites among them, but the position of
obviously this object would be far better the sect in the Jewish nation was almost
attained by a single undoubted miracle exactly similar to that of the English
wrought at Paris before a commission Puritans in the reign of Charles. They
headed by a man like Pasteur, than by were the embodiment of the patriotic
any number of miracles scarcely, if at all, and religious spirit of the race, the sons
distinguishable from those of Dr. Braid, of the heroic fathers who fought under
alleged to occur at an obscure village in Judas Maccabeus against Antiochus, the
the presence.of peasants and pilgrims. fathers of the equally heroic sons who
Or, take a higher instance, that of the made the last desperate stand against the
demand made by the Pharisees to Jesus legions of Titus. . It was their duty, when
for a sign to attest his Messiahship. Con a claim to Messiahship was advanced,
sider the. circumstances of the case, and before departing from the traditions of
see if it is at all possible that, if he had their ancestors, to require evidence. The
possessed the power of working miracles, universally expected evidence of a tem
he should have replied, “ Why doth this poral. deliverer being wanting, there
generation seek after a sign? verily I say remained only the evidence of miracles,
unto you, there shall no sign be given which, moreover, were assigned as the
unto this generation” (St. Mark ix. 12). test of a Messiah by all their prophets.
In the first place, the statement throws To refuse them a sign, if a sign were
discredit upon all the miracles said to possible, was to do injustice to many
have been wrought, by the positive and sincere and conscientious men. Nay,
explicit declaration that none should be more, it was an act of cruelty if leaving
wrought. But beyond this, the very them in their old faith entailed eternal
essence of the mission of Jesus was con punishment. The same thing applies to
tained in the words, “ Repent ye, for the all records of miracles. They are never
kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He had wrought under circumstances where they
a firm conviction that the kingdom of would be the most effective means for
heaven, or a millennium of peace and attaining proposed ends. They are never
goodwill, was close at hand, and its wrought under circumstances which leave
advent only retarded by the sinfulness them clear of the suspicion of being sub
and want of faith of his chosen people. jective illusions of misinterpretations of
He thought it his bounden duty to do effects due to natural causes. They
all he could to remove the obstacle and never convince any but those who are
expedite the coming of the kingdom. more than half convinced already.
With this conviction, though fully seeing
It would be easy to multiply instances
the risk and counting the cost, when he showing the inadequacy of the evidence
found- that he was making no decided adduced to establish such an exceptional
headway by preaching in a remote pro and extraordinary fact as the occurrence
vince, he determined to go to Jerusalem of a real miracle. But it is unnecessary
and make there one great effort to to do so, as all thinking minds have
accomplish his object. Can it be doubted come, or are fast coming, to the conclu
that he would use every means in his sion of Dr. Temple, that “all the count
power to carry his mission to a successful less varieties of the universe were pro
conclusion ? If, having the power to do | vided for by one original impress, and
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
not by special acts of creation modifying
what had previously been made.”
It is only when we look behind the
phenomena of the universe at this Great
First Cause that I see anything to object
to in the definition of Dr. Temple, and
of Christian philosophers generally. They
assume it to be a personal Deity, who is
to a great extent known or knowable, and
therefore must have attributes conform
able to human perceptions which are the
basis of all human knowledge. In other
words, however much we may purify and
enlarge these attributes, He must be
essentially an anthropomorphic God or
magnified man. To this theory there
seems to me to be this fatal objection,
that it gives no account of the origin of
evil, or rather that it makes the Divine
Creator directly responsible for it. . The
existence of evil in the world is as
palpable a fact as the existence of good.
There are many things which to our
human perceptions appear to be base,
cruel, foul, and ugly, just as clearly as
other things appear to be noble, merciful,
pure, and beautiful. Whence come they ?
If the existence of good proves a good
Creator, how can we escape the inference
that the existence of evil proves an evil
one ? This is never so forcibly impressed
on me as when I read the arguments of
those who insist most strongly on the
conception of a one, anthropomorphic
God. When Carlyle says, “All that is
good, generous, wise, right—whatever I
deliberately and for ever love in others
and myself—who or what could by any
possibility have given it to me but One
who first had it to give? This is not
logic, but axiom.” I cannot but picture
to myself the sledge-hammer force with
which, if he had approached the question
without prepossessions, he would have
come down on the cant, the insincerity,
the treason to the eternal veracities,
which refused to look facts in the face,
and apply the same reasoning to the evil.
Or if Arnold defines the Deity as the
“ Something not ourselves which makes
for righteousness,” how of the Some
thing not ourselves which makes for
85
unrighteousness?
The only escape I
can find from this dilemma is to accept
existing facts and not evade them. It' is
a fact that polarity is the law of existence.
Why we know not, any more than we
know the real essence and origin of the
atoms and energies which are our other
ultimate facts. But we accept atoms and
energies, and accept the law of gravity and
other laws; why not accept also the law of
polarity, and admit that it is part of the
“original impress”: one of the funda
mental conditions under which, the
evolution of Creation from its ultimate
elements is necessitated to proceed.
This the human mind can understand;
beyond it is the great unknown or un
knowable, in presence of which we can
only feel emotions of reverence and of
awe, and “ faintly trust the larger hope ”
that duality may somehow ultimately be
merged in unity, evil in good, and “ every
winter turn to spring.”
As nations advanced in civilisation,
there has always been a tendency among
the higher and purer minds to relegate
the Great First Cause further and further
back into the unknown, and to divest it
of anthropomorphic attributes. When
Socrates said, “that divinely revealed
wisdom of what you speak, I deny not,
inasmuch as I do not know it; I can
only understand human reason,” he spoke
the identical language of Darwin, Spencer,
Huxley, and those leaders of modern
thought whom theologians call agnostics.
Even in religions based on the idea of a
single anthropomorphic Deity the same
tendency often appears among the highest
thinkers. Thus Emmanuel Deutsch, in
his learned work on the Talmud, tells us :
“ Its first chapter treats of the Deity as
conceived by Jewish philosophy. The
existence of God is, of course, pre
supposed. But what of his attributes ?
Has he any ? Scripture literally taken
seems to affirm this. Yet taken in a
higher sense, as understood by the Alex
andrines, the Talmud, and the Targum,
it denies it.”
The great Jewish doctors, Ibn Ezra,
Jehuda Hilmi, and Maimonides, take
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RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
this view of a divine origin shrouded in
ineffable mystery. Maimonides says: “If
you give attributes to a thing, you define
this thing, and defining a thing means to
bring it under some head, to compare it
with something like it. God is sole of
his kind. Determine him, circumscribe
him, and you bring him down to the
modes and categories of created things.”
Even St. Paul says : “ O the depths of
God. How unsearchable are his judg
ments, and how inscrutable his ways”;
and the Creed of our own Church, in
the midst of a string of definitions all
implying that God is comprehensible, has
the words, “the Father incomprehen
sible.”
It is evident that the reasons why
these anticipations of the prevailing ten
dency of modern thought only appeared
by glimpses, and among a very limited
number of philosophic minds, arose from
the fact that the miraculous theory of the
universe everywhere prevailed. Every
unusual occurrence was supposed to be
owing to the direct supernatural interfer
ence of a Being acting in the main with
human attributes, and therefore to be a
direct refutation of the theory which
denied the possibility of defining His
attributes, and relegated Him to the dim
distance of an incomprehensible Creator.
With the utter breakdown of the miracu
lous theory, and the certainty that all the
countless varieties of the universe arise,
not from special interferences, but from
one original impress, this theory of a
reverent and devout agnosticism becomes
impregnable and holds the field against
all rivals. It, and it alone, is consistent
with the facts of science, the deductions
of reason, the axioms of morality, while
at the same time it denies nothing, and
leaves an ample background on which to
paint the visions of faith, and to reflect
back to us spectral images of our hopes
and fears, our longings and aspirations.
Some seek for a solution of the mysteiy, and try to reconcile the existence of
evil with that of an almighty and benefi
cent Creator, by assuming that in the
long run everything will come right.
Evolution, they say, has led constantly
to higher and better things, and when
carried far enough will lead to a state of
society in which wars will cease, evil
passions die out, and universal love and
charity _ prevail—in other words, to a
millennium.
Even if this were true, what of the un
told millions of the human race who have
perished in their sins while evolution was
slowly working out this tardy millennium?
Are they the chair a canons, whom a
Napoleon-like Deity sacrifices with
cynical indifference, in the calculated
moves of the game of Creation ? Is this
their idea of an all-wise and all-merciful
Father who is in heaven ?
And, again, is it true that evolution
works constantly for good and promises
to bring about such a millennium ? It
is doubtless true that evolution means
progress, and the ever-increasing develop
ment of the more and more complex and
differentiated from the simple and uni
form. But is this all for good, or all for
happiness; and is not evolution, like
everything else, subject to the primary
and all-pervading law of polarity ? We
have only to ask the question to answer
it. In the case of the individual, which
is the epitome of the history of the
species, is development from the engag
ing innocence of childhood always in the
direction of goodness and happiness ?
So far is this from being the case that,
as individuals and societies advance, and
become higher and more complex in the
scale of organisation, the law of polarity
asserts itself with ever-increasing force,
and contrasts become sharper. The
good become better, the bad worse ; and
as we become less
“Like the beasts with lower pleasures,
Like the beasts with lower pains,”
if our happiness becomes more intense,
so does our misery become more intoler
able. I refer not merely to physical
conditions, though here the contrast is
most apparent. An intelligent traveller
who recently circled the world, survey
ing mankind with a keen and impartial
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
eye “ from China to Peru,” says, as the
result of his experience : “ The traveller
will not see, in all his wanderings, so
much abject repulsive misery among
human beings in the most heathen lands
as that which startles him in his civilised
Christian home, for nowhere are the
extremes of wealth and poverty so pain
fully presented.” This is perfectly true;
but it would be a rash conclusion to
infer that civilised and Christian coun
tries are worse than heathen lands, or
that those who march in the van of pro
gress, and who succeed in the struggle
for life, have a larger dose of original sin
than the laggards and those who fail.
Accumulations of population and
accumulations of capital are alike causes
and effects of progress in an industrial
age. But you can no more have a north
without a south pole than you can have
this progress without its counterpart of
suffering. When an educated gentleman
was, like the good vicar,
“ Passing rich with forty pounds a year,”
how many struggles and how many
heart-aches were avoided. When “ merry
England” dwelt in rural hamlets and
villages, the “bitter cry” of East Lon
don could scarcely have been written.
Turn it as you like, increase of popula
tion means increase of poverty. Say
that only five per cent, fail in the battle
of life, from their own or inherited
faults—from bad luck, ill-health, weak
ness of mind, adverse surroundings—five
per cent, on thirty millions is a larger
figure than five per cent, on ten millions.
And the lot of those who fail is aggra
vated by the success of those who
succeed. The scale of living rises, and
the cost of living increases, while compe
tition becomes keener. Increase of
population in a limited area means in
creased difficulty of finding employment j
and the complex relations of interna
tional commerce send panics and crises
vibrating throughout the world, which
throw millions out of work, or reduce
them to starvation wages. In simple
forms of society everyone accepts the
87
condition in which he finds himself as a
matter of course, while in a more com
plex civilisation the fiend Envy steps in,
and teaches the baser natures who are
failures to regard every success as an
insult and every successful man as an
enemy. Hence Labour rises in mad
revolt against Capital; Socialists attack
society with dynamite; and Utopian
theorists preach a millennium to be
attained by abolishing private property
and individual liberty.
If we turn to the moral aspects of the
question, it is still more clear that evolu
tion does not tend solely to the side of
virtue. There is doubtless less ferocious
savagery, less rude and unconscious, or
half-conscious crime, in civilised societies,
but there is far more deliberate and
diabolical wickedness. The very tempta
tions and opportunities which, if resisted,
lead to higher virtues, if succumbed to,
lead to greater vice. Even the intellec
tual advance, if perverted, becomes the
instrument of greater crimes. A chemist
discovers nitro-glycerine, and dynamite
becomes a resource of civilisation. There
is a saying that there is “no blackguard
so bad as a Scotch blackguard,” which,
as a patriotic Scotchman, I take to be a
tribute to the generally high intellectual
and moral character of my countrymen.
A powerful polarity is powerful, as the
case may be, either for good or evil.
Why, then, should we believe that evo
lution, which, carried thus far, has de
veloped more strongly the contrast
between good and evil, will, if carried a
little farther, extinguish it by annihilating
the evil ?
In fact, the good and evil resulting
from the higher evolution of society are
so evenly balanced that it depends very
much on place, time, and temperament
whether we are optimists or pessimists.
If my liver acts properly, I am an opti
mist ; if it is out of order, a pessimist.
Personally, I incline to optimism—that
is, I think that this world, if not exactly
“ the best of all possible worlds,” is yet
on the whole a very tolerable world, and
that life to the majority, and on the
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RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
average, is worth living. I think also
that progress is certainly towards higher,
and very probably towards happier, con
ditions. It seems to me that in the most
advanced English-speaking communities
the condition of at least one half—viz.,
the female half—of the population is
distinctly better, and that the working
class, who form the majority of the male
half, though many are worse off than
formerly, are, on the whole, better fed,
better clothed, better educated, and
better behaved.
This, however, is perhaps very much a
matter of temperament. Greater minds
than mine have seen things differently
and inclined to pessimism. Buddhism,
and almost all Oriental religions and
philosophies, are based upon it, and look
to Nirvana or annihilation of personal
identity as the supreme bliss. Pauline
Christianity assumes that all mankind,
except a few chosen vessels, are so hope
lessly bad as to be predestined to eternal
damnation. And even more remarkable,
Shakespeare, the universal genius, who,
one would say, had as happy a tempera
ment and led as successful a life as any
man, had his moods of despondency in
which he could say :—
“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone bemoan my outcast state ;
Wearying deaf heaven with my fruitless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate.”
Or declare with Hamlet that no one
would bear the ills of life if
“ He himself could his quietus make
With a bare bodkin.”
With instances like these, and the dis
gust of life manifested in so many
modern societies by the increase of
suicides, and the spread of pessimistic
theories like those of Schopenhauer and
Hartmann, who can deny that the great
magnet of modern civilisation has a
south as well as a north pole, and that
progress is not all towards perfection ?
The attempts of theologians to recon
cile the existence of evil with the good
ness of an almighty Creator, by relegating
the adjustment to a future life, only
make the fact of this fundamental polarity
more apparent, for their conceptions of
a heaven and hell obviously do not
reconcile, but only intensify, the opposite
polarities. The good are better, the
bad worse, the happy happier, and the
wretched more miserable, in all these
attempts to define the undefinable and
to reconcile divine justice with divine
mercy. All that remains really clear to
each individual is that by his efforts in
this life he can do something to keep the
balance of polarities somewhat more on
the side of good, both in his own indi
vidual existence and in that of the aggre
gate of units, of which he is one, which
is called society or humanity.
The great advantage of this form of
religious hypothesis, which for want of a
better name I call Zoroastrianism, is
that, in the first place, it gets rid of the
antagonism between religion and science,
for there is no possible discovery of
science which is irreconcilable with the
fact that there is a necessary and inevit
able polarity of good and evil, and in
the background a great unknown, which
may be regarded with those feelings and
aspirations which are inseparable from
human nature. And, secondly, there is
the still greater advantage that we can
devote ourselves with a whole heart and
sincere mind to the worship of the good
principle, without paltering with our
moral nature by professing to love and
adore a Being who is the author of all
the evil and misery in the world as well
as of the good. If it were really true
that there were such a Being as theolo
gians describe, who created the immense
majority of the human race vessels of
wrath doomed to eternal punishment,
either from pure caprice or to avenge
the slight offered to him by the disobe
dience of a remote ancestor, what would
be the attitude of every healthy human
soul towards such a Being? Rather
that of Prometheus or Satan than of
Gabriel or Michael; of heroic defiance
than of abject submission. We may
gloss this over in words, but the fact
remains, and it is difficult to over-
�RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES
estimate the amount of evil which has
resulted in the world from this confusion
of moral sentiments, which has made
good men do devil’s work in the belief
that it had Divine sanction.
The horrors of demonology and witch
craft had their origin in texts of the Old
Testament; religious wars and persecu
tions arose out of the fundamental error
that intellectual acceptance of' doubtful
dogmas was the one thing necessary for
salvation ; and ruthless cruelty was justi
fied by an appeal to God’s anger with
Saul for refusing to hew in pieces the
captive Amal ekites.
A follower of
Zoroaster would see at once that these
were works of Ahriman and not of
Ormuzd, and that in taking part in them
he was deserting the standard under
which he had enlisted, and doing deeds
of darkness while pretending to serve the
Prince of Light. This idea of being a
soldier enlisted in the army of light
seems to me to afford one of the strongest
practical inducements to hate what is
evil and cleave to what is good. A bad
deed or foul thought is felt to be not
only wrong, but dishonourable : a disloyal
going over to the enemy and abandon
ment of the chief under whom we had
enlisted, and of the comrades with whom
we had served. This is a very strong
motive, and even in the humble ranks
of the Salvation Army we can see how
powerfully it operates to make men true
to their banner.
Indeed, a great deal of what is best in
genuine Christianity seems to me to
resolve itself very much into the worship
of Jesus as the Ormuzd or personifica
tion of the good principle, and determina
tion to try to follow his example and do
his work. It happens to me to receive
a good many circulars from the devoted
men and women who are doing so much
charitable work to assist the poor and
fallen, and I observe that the appeals are
almost constantly made in the name of
Jesus. When the Salvation Army makes
an appeal once a year to its members
for funds to prosecute their campaign,
it is touching to read the replies and
____________ 89
see men parting with an overcoat . or
giving up their beer, and women going
without a new bonnet or cup of tea, to
contribute their mite. But always for
the “ love of Jesus,” for the “ Saviour’s
sake,” as an offering to the “dear
Redeemer.”
Theological Christianity
says that the one thing needful is to
believe in the Catholic Faith as defined
by the Athanasian Creed, without which
we shall “without doubt perish ever
lastingly.”
Practical Christianity has
completely dropped the Holy Ghost as
a sort of fifth wheel to the coach, and
relegated the Father into ever vaguer and
greater distance; while it has fastened
more and more on the figure of Jesus of
Nazareth as the practical living embodi
ment of the good principle of the uni
verse. In a word, Christianity, as it has
become more reasonable, more charitable,
more pure, and more elevated, has ap
proximated more and more to Zoroas
trianism ; and for practical purposes
modern Christians are, to a great extent,
without knowing it, worshippers of
Ormuzd, with Christ for their Ormuzd.
To this I see no sort of objection.
The tendency to personify abstract
principles in something which is warmer,
dearer, nearer to ourselves, is ineradic
able in human nature; and especially
among the great masses of mankind who
cannot rise to the height of philosophical
speculations. It is impossible in . the
present age to invent new personifications,
or to revive old ones. Jesus has the
immense advantage of being in posses
sion of the field, with all the accumulated
love and reverence of nineteen centuries
of followers. 'It would be difficult to
invent a better ideal or a more perfect
example. No doubt the ideal, like all
human conceptions, is not absolutely
perfect; it is subject to the law of
polarity, and its excellences, if pushed to
the “falsehood of extremes,” in many
cases become faults. It would not do
in practice if smitten on one cheek to
turn the other, or to take no thought for
the morrow and live like the sparrows.
The opposition between the flesh and
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CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
the spirit is also stated so absolutely
that it is apt to lead to a barren and
ignoble asceticism. But those are ele
ments which, practically, are not likely
to be pushed to excess, and which serve
rather to mitigate the tendencies of
modern civilisation to an undue pre
ponderance of the opposite polarities of
selfishness, worldliness, and sensuality.
Courage, hardihood, self-reliance, fore
sight, a love of progress, and a desire to
attain independence, will always remain
prominent virtues, especially of the
stronger races, and the gentler teachings
of Christianity will long be wanted as an
influence to soften, to elevate, and to
purify. By all means, therefore, let
Christians remain Christians, and see in
Christ their Ormuzd, or personification
of the good principle. Only let them
remember that that there are two sides
to every question, and cease to entertain
hard and bitter thoughts towards those
who follow the truth after a different
fashion. Let them delight rather to dis
cover unity in the spirit than differences
in the letter, and, instead of anathematis
ing with Athanasius those who dissent
by one hair’s breadth from the Catholic
faith, strive with St. Paul after that
charity which “ suffereth long and is
kind : beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things.”
This will be easier if they recollect
that love and reverence for Jesus, as the
personification of the good principle, is
in no way connected with the super
natural dogmas and legends which have
come down from superstitious ages, and
which are seen every day, more and more
clearly, to stand in direct contradiction
to the real facts and real laws of the
universe. He is the bright example of
the highest ideal of human virtue, not on
account of miracles, but in spite of them ;
not because he was a transcendental
abstraction with attributes altogether
outside of human experience or concep
tion, but because he was a man whom
other men can love and other men can
strive to imitate. The dogmas and
miracles may quietly fade out of sight, as
so many articles of the Athanasian Creed
have already done, like mists before the
rising rays of larger knowledge and purer
morality, and yet the essence of Chris
tianity will remain, as a worship of the
good and beautiful, personified in the
brightest examplewhich has beenafforded
—that of Jesus, the son of the carpenter
of Nazareth.
Chapter XII.
CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
Christianity based on morals—Origin of morality
—Traced in Judaism—Originates in evolution
—Instance of murder—Freedom of will—Will
suspended in certain states of brain—Hyp
notism—Mechanical theory—Pre-established
harmony—Human and animal conscience—
Analysis of will—Explained by polarity—
Practical conclusion.
religions ” of the world. The creeds of
ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia, as
well as Buddhism and Confucianism,
contain many excellent moral precepts;
and the injunction to “do unto others
as you would be done by,” and to “ love
your neighbour as yourself,” are to be
found long before the Sermon on the
Christianity occupies a prominent Mount. Recent research into the literary
place among what are called the “ ethical remains of Egypt and Babylon give us
�CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
9i
an increasingly high estimate of their parallels of latitude or degrees of longi
moral teaching. In the same way Chris tude ; and they invent tribal gods, who
tianity became to the majority of its are simply great chiefs, bound by no
adherents a rule of conduct. and an laws, but granting favours when appeased
incentive, strengthened by divine sanc and inflicting injuries when angry. By
tion, to lead pure and upright lives. slow degrees, as civilisation advances,
This is the sense in which it has always moral ideas are evolved, and the more
been understood by the majority of enlightened minds begin to attribute
Christians, and its corruptions have come moral attributes to the deities. Earnest
much more from above than from below men, prophets, and reformers take up
—from theologians, priests, and politi these ideas and preach them to the world,
cians, rather than from the instincts of and, if circumstances are favourable and
the millions; and this it is which enables the soil prepared, they take root . and
it to retain such a wonderful vitality even become popular convictions, surviving
in modern times, when faith in dogmas in the struggle for life, and becoming
and miracles has been so greatly stronger from generation to generation.
This evolution of moral ideas is most
weakened. In order to appreciate the
clearly traced in the religious history of
solidity of this basis, it is necessary to
understand the origin of morals, and to the Jews, because in their case a more
see that the fundamental precepts of complete religious literature has reached
moral law are not mere chance inven us. In their earlier conceptions, when
tions of a few exceptional minds, or the they had passed the stage of polytheism
teachings of doubtful revelations, but are and human sacrifices, Jehovah is repre
the necessary growth and products of sented with all the traits of a jealous and
human nature, in the course of the capricious Oriental sultan. The one
evolution of society from rude beginnings virtue in his eyes is implicit obedience;
to a high civilisation. This gives them the one unpardonable crime, anything
a certainty and sanction which could be that looks like disrespect. David is the
derived from no other source, and makes man after God’s own heart, though he
them what in fact they have become— commits crimes of the foulest descrip
almost primary instincts of the natural tion, and treats as nullities the moral
and normal mind in civilised communi commandments against adultery and
ties. I proceed, therefore, to endeavour murder. But when he takes a census of
to trace shortly the process by which his people, Jehovah is offended, and,
moral laws have originated and grown up with a total disregard of justice, visits
to their present certainty and cogency in his anger, not on the offender, but on
the innocent people whom he decimates
the course of evolution.
As I have already said, the element by a pestilence. In like manner, Abra
of morality is one of the latest to be ham is favoured because he is ready to
developed in religious conceptions. The obey the inhuman command to sacrifice
first impressions of savage races reflect his son ; while Saul loses Jehovah’s
the feelings of vague superstitious terror favour because he hesitates to massacre
with which they regard unknown pheno his captives in. cold blood. The first
mena and powers. They are afraid of ideas of a higher moral sense appear
ghosts and afraid of thunder long before with the prophets in the troubled times
they rise to a belief in a future state of the later kings—-when poor little
of rewards and punishments, or to the Palestine was being ground between the
notion of an almighty Being acting upper millstone of Assyria and the nether
by natural laws. In a higher state of one of Egypt. Sufferings and persecu
development they personify natural tions, anxieties and tribulations, wrought
powers in gods, who have no more idea a ferment in the Jewish mind from which
of morality than if they were so many new ideas were generated. Sacrifices
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CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
had been duly offered, and yet the thee. This is the whole Law, the rest is
enemies of Jehovah waxed and his chosen mere commentary.” And again : “ Do
people waned. It must be that he was , not judge thy neighbour until thou hast
offended with them because he required stood in his place.”
something better than the blood of bulls
The Talmud anticipates in a wonder
—justice and mercy. So taught the ful degree, not only the moral precepts of
popular preachers of the day—men like the Gospel, but to a great extent its
Isaiah and Amos—and by degrees their phraseology and technical terms. “Re
words found acceptance. It was not, demption,” “grace,” “faith,” “salvation,”
however, until the Captivity that these “ Son of man,” “ Son of God,” “ king
ideas of morality were wrought into the dom of heaven,” were all, as Deutsch
Jewish nation so as to become, so to shows, not invented by Christianity, but
speak, flesh of their flesh and blood of were household words of contemporary
their blood, as they have remained ever Judaism. In one respect only Chris
since. Whether it was contact with the tianity shows a higher evolution of
more advanced moral ideas of religions morality than Judaism—viz., its univer
like those of ancient Babylon, or of sality. Pure Judaism hardly rises above
Buddha and Zoroaster, or through their the idea of “neighbour,” or those who
sufferings from the cruelty and injustice were of the same race or common faith ;
of their conquerors, the Captivity cer while Christianity, as enlarged by St.
tainly made them a new nation, attached, Paul, embraces all mankind, and may
ardently to morality and monotheism— truly say : “Humani nihil a me alienum
thus affecting in a few years, and by puto.”
purely human agencies, what, according
The idea that morality and religion are
to received beliefs, centuries of miracu products of a slowly developing evolution
lous dispensation had failed to accom is denounced by many as degrading and
plish. How speedily and how effectually materialistic. In many the instinct of
the work was done appears from that the “ good ” is so strong that it seems to
most interesting description of the them sacrilege to attempt to explain it.
domestic life of a middle-class Jew of They insist that it is either a universal
Nineveh, the Book of Tobit—though the instinct implanted from the first in all
book may belong to a much later date. mankind, or else that it has been so im
The simple piety and homely household planted by a divine revelation. They
virtues are almost identically the same forget that, to use the vigorous phrase
as those of many a Jewish family living ology of Carlyle, “It matters not whether
to-day in London or Frankfort. From you call a thing pan-theism or pot-theism;
that time forward Jewish morality main what really concerns us is to know
tains a high level, and in the age imme whether it is true." Now, it admits of
diately preceding Christianity it had no question that, whether we like it or
attained great purity and spirituality in not, the evolutionist theory of morality
the school of the early doctors of the is the true one. Take an extreme in
Talmud, and of the Jewish colony of stance, that of murder. We feel an
Alexandria. The Sermon on the Mount, instinctive horror at the idea, and even a
beautiful as it is, is but an admirable brutal ruffian like Bill Sikes becomes an
resume of maxims which are to be found accursed thing to himself and his com
in the works of Philo and other Jewish panions when he has transgressed the
teachers, and which were current in the commandment, “ Thou shalt do no
synagogues of the day. Hillel, who was murder.” But is it so everywhere, and
president of the Sanhedrin when Christ was it so always? By no means; the
was born, on being asked what was the Fiji islander kills and eats a stranger or
law, replied : “Do not unto another what enemy without scruple; the Red Indian
thou wouldst not have another do unto and Dyak are not accounted men until
�CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
they have murdered some one and
brought home his scalp or his head as a
trophy. Even at a late period among
ourselves murder was considered to be
rather a civil injury, to be met by com
pensation, than a crime; and a regular
tariff was established of the amount to
be paid according as the victim was a
slave or a freeman.
The origin and progress of the idea
that murder is a crime can almost be
traced step by step. The wife of a rude
savage does something which offends
him; a violent perception of anger
flashes from the visual organ to the per
ceptive area of the brain, and a reflex
action flashes from it along the motor
nerve to the muscles of the arm. He
strikes and kills her, almost as uncon
sciously and instinctively as he walks or
breathes. But other perceptions follow
on the act. He finds next day that he
has no one to cook his food; the image
of her dying face photographed on his
brain is an unpleasant one ; and thus by
degrees a series of secondary perceptions
get attached to the primary one of
striking when he feels angry. If he gets
another wife who again provokes him,
the primary perception calls up the
secondary ones, and the nerve-centres of
his brain, instead of being solicited only
in one direction, are acted on in opposite
ways by conflicting impressions. He
hesitates, and, as the primary impulse of
passion is probably the more evanescent,
the restraining impulses prevail, and
every time they prevail they acquire
more strength. Gradually they extend
to a conviction that it is both inconve
nient and disagreeable to kill any one
with whom he is closely related either by
family or tribal ties, and that, in a word,
murder does not pay, and is wrong,
unless practised on an enemy. This
idea accumulates by heredity, and evi
dently those tribes or races in whom it
is strongest will have an advantage in the
struggle for life and be most likely to
survive.
From this point the idea may be
traced historically, deepening and widen
93
ing from generation to generation as
civilisation advances, until in the higher
races it assumes the form of an instinc
tive abhorrence of murder in the abstract,
as we find it at the present day.
It is a mistake to suppose that the
foundations of morality are in any way
weakened by thus tracing them up to
their first origins. On the contrary, if
we consider the matter rightly, they are
placed on a much more solid and un
assailable basis. If we say that moral
laws depend on a universal instinct im
planted in all mankind, faith in them is
shaken whenever we read in history, or
hear from the report of travellers, of
whole nations, constituting from first to
last the immense majority of the human
race, who had none of those ideas which
we now consider fundamental. If, again,
we base them on divine precepts miracu
lously conveyed, every discovery of
science and development of thought
which weakens faith in miracles impairs
the basis of morals. And on this theory
hopeless contradictions arise within the
sphere of those very moral laws which we
seek to establish, as in reconciling the
justice and mercy of the Creator in
revealing this inspired code only to
limited portions of the human race, and
under conditions which leave large scope
for legitimate doubt, and which, in point
of fact, failed to ensure recognition for its
moral precepts among his chosen people
for a long period after its promulgation.
But on the scientific theory of the
evolution of morality by natural laws it
stands on an impregnable footing. No
one can deny that, as a matter of fact,
such instincts do prevail, and have
become part of the nature of all the
best men and best races, and that each
successive generation tends to fix them
more firmly. Mathematical laws are not
the less certain because they can be
traced back to counting on the fingers,
and moral laws will continue to have a
certainty and cogency scarcely inferior
to the axioms of mathematics, although
we can trace them back to origins as
rude as the attempts of the Australian
�94
CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
savage to extend his perceptions of
number beyond “ one, two, and a great
many.”
The real difficulty is not in tracing the
origin of these instincts of morality, but
in that fundamental difficulty which
underlies all theories of reconciling the
consciousness of free-will with the material
attributes with which it is indissolubly
associated. Without freedom of will
there can be no conscience, no right or
wrong in acting in accordance or other
wise with the instincts of moral law,
however those instincts may have been
derived. Now, it is certain that the will,
like life, memory, consciousness, and
other mental functions, is, so far as
human knowledge extends, indissolubly
connected with matter and natural laws,
in the form of certain motions of the
cells which form the grey substance of
the nerves and of the nervous ganglia of
which the cortex of the brain is the
most considerable. This is conclusively
proved by experiment. We know that,
by removing certain portions of the brain
of a dog or of a pigeon, we can destroy
the power of motion while preserving
the will, and by removing certain other
portions we can destroy the will while
preserving the powers of motion. Take
away a certain portion of the brain of a
pigeon, and, although it retains the power
of taking food, it has so totally lost the
will to exercise this power that it will
starve in the midst of abundance, though
it can be kept alive by placing the food
in its mouth. In like manner, in the
human brain there are certain portions
which, if destroyed by injury or disease,
will paralyse the power of giving effect
to the will by muscular movements, while
the destruction of other portions will
paralyse the will which originates such
movements.
Numerous
cases
are
recorded in medical treatises in which
the will is completely paralysed for the
performance of certain functions, and in
such cases the anatomist can lay his
finger on the spot where the brain is
affected, and, when the brain is dissected
after the death of the patient, it will be
found that his prediction is verified, and
that this region of the brain really was
diseased. In sleep also, and in abnormal
states of the brain such as somnambulism,
and mesmerism or hypnotism, the action
of the will is suspended. Hypnotism
affords the most remarkable instances,
for here the will seems to be transferred
from the ego or individuality of the
patient to that of the operator, and the
currents of nervous energy which induce
motion in A are set going by impulses
in the mind of A, not caused by his own
will, but by that of B, conveyed by
words, gestures, or other subtle indica
tions. A ludicrous instance of this is
recorded by Dr. Braid, in which an old
lady, who had a true puritanical abhor
rence of dancing as sinful, being hypno
tised, began capering about the room
when a waltz tune was struck up, on
being told to do so by the operators.
There are some other curious effects
produced by hypnotism, in the way of
inducing a sort of double consciousness
and memory, which makes people in this
condition totally forget things which
they remember when awake, and remem
ber things which were totally forgotten
in the waking state.
These and a variety of other instances
point to the conclusion that man is only
a conscious machine. In other words,
that the original impress, to use Dr.
Temple’s words, was so perfect that it
provided a pre-established harmony not
only for the innumerable phenomena of
the material universe as unfolded by
evolution, but for the still more innume
rable phenomena of life in all its manifes
tations and all its complex relations to
outward environment. I say of life, for we
•clearly cannot confine the theory to human
life. A dog, who with the two courses
before him of doing wrong and chasing
a rabbit, or doing right and remaining at
his master’s heel, chooses one of them,
is in exactly the same position as
Hercules between the rival attractions of
virtue and pleasure. If Hercules acted
as a machine, yielding to the pre-estab
lished preponderance of the stronger
�CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS
attraction, so did the dog; but if Hercules
exerted free-will and felt the approval or
blame of conscience, so did the retriever.
There is no fundamental distinction, but
merely a question of degree, between
human conscience and the shame which
a dog feels when it knows that it has
done wrong, and the pleasure which it
manifests when conscious that it has
behaved properly.
Shall we thus conclude, as Leibnitz
and other great philosophers have done,
in favour of the mechanical theory ?
But if we do, how are we to account for
the instinctive ineradicable feeling, which
comes home to every one with a convic
tion even stronger than the evidence, of
the senses, that wre really have a choice
between opposite courses, and can decide
on our own actions—a conviction which
is obviously the foundation of all con
science and of all morality ?
Let us try to analyse more closely
what Will really means, and under what
conditions it is manifested. The circuit
which connects any one single percep
tion with action, through sensory nerve,
sensory centre, motor centre, motor
nerve and muscle, is as purely mechanical
as that of an electric circuit. Reflex
motions such as breathing, and even
more complex motions which by repeti
tion have become reflex or instinctive,
are also mechanical and involve, no
exercise of will. But when perceptions
become complex, and one primary
evokes a number of secondary percep
tions—in other words, when the cells
of the corresponding portions of grey
matter in the cortex of the brain are set
vibrating by a variety of complex and con
flicting molecular motions—the feeling
of free-will inevitably arises-. We feel
the conviction that there is a.something
which we call soul, mind, or, in the last
analysis, “I myself I,” which sits, as Von
Moltke might do, in a cabinet receiving
conflicting telegraphic messages from
different generals, and deciding then and
there what order to flash out in reply.
What can we say to this ? That it is
like space and time, one of the cate
95
gories of thought, or primary moulds in
which thought is cast. We do not know
what space and time really are in their
essence, or why they are the necessary
conditions of thought, any more than we
do in the case of will. They may be
illusions, but we accept them, and of
necessity accept them, as facts. For all
practical purposes it is the same to us
as if we understood their essence and
knew them to be realities. A man. can
no more doubt that he is an individual
being, with a will which, in a great many
cases, enables him to decide which of a
variety of impulses shall prevail, than he
can hesitate, if he is furnishing a room,
to regulate his purchase of carpeting and
paper by space of three dimensions,
without regard to possible speculations
as to quarternions.
Perhaps the principle of polarity may
assist us in understanding that both
theories may be true; or rather that
matter and spirit, necessity and free-will,
may be opposite poles of one funda
mental truth which is beyond our com
prehension. We cannot shake off this
principle of polarity, and arrive at any
knowledge, or even conception, of the
absolute truth in regard to the atoms,
energies, and natural laws, which make
up the universe of matter and of all the
ordinary and material functions of life,
why should we expect to do so in the
higher manifestations of the same life,
which have been arrived at in the later
stages of one unbroken course of evolu
tion from monad to man ?T
This, at any rate, is the theory which
best satisfies my own mind and enables
me to reduce my own individual chaos
into some sort of a cosmos. I draw
from it the following conclusions :—
For all practical purposes assume that
u right is right,” and that the moral
1 Recent psychologists tend to distinguish
between free-will, in the old sense of purely
spontaneous initiative, and self-determination ;
thus Dr. Stout in his latest manual. The latter
would seem to meet the theoretic requirements
of morality, while they reject , the former as
inconsistent with the facts of their science.
�96
ZOROASTRIANISM
instincts, however they have been formed,
are imperative laws. Assume also that
“ Man is man and master of his fate,”
and that we have, to a great extent, the
power of deciding what to do and what
not to do. But, in doing so, keep the
mind open to all conclusions of science,
and admit freely that these assumptions
are indissolubly connected with natural
laws and with material organs, and that
man is to a very great extent dependent
on his environment and his place in
Chapter
evolution, both for his moral code and
for the force of will and conscience which
enables him to conform to it. Learn,
therefore, the lesson of a large toleration
and of charity in thought and deed,
towards those who, from inherited con
stitution or unfortunate conditions of
education and outward circumstances,
fall under the sway of the principle of
evil, and lead bad, useless, and unlovely
lives. Had you and I, reader, been in
their place, should we have done better ?
XIII.
ZOROASTRIANISM
Zoroaster an historical person—-The Parsees—
Iranian branch of Aryan family—Zoroaster a
religious reformer—Scene at Balkh—Conver
sion of Vishtasp—Doctrines of the “ excellent
religion ” — Monotheism — Polarity — Dr.
Haug’s description—Ormuzd and Ahriman—
Anquetil du Perron — Approximation to
modern thought—Absence of miracles—Code
of morals —■ Its comprehensiveness — And
liberality—Special rites—Fire-worship—Dis' posal of dead—Practical results—The Parsees
of Bombay—Their probity, enterprise, respect
for women—Zeal for education—Philanthropy
and public spirit—Statistics—Death and birth
rates.
Zoroastrianism is commonly supposed
to derive its name from its founder,
Zoroaster, a Bactrian sage or prophet,
who lived in the reign of King Vishtasp
the First. Zoroaster’s name has come
down to us from antiquity in much the
same relation to this form of religion as
that of Moses to Judaism, or of SakyaMouni to Buddhism. As in those cases,
certain learned commentators have en
deavoured to show that the alleged
founder was purely mythical and had no
real historical existence, basing their argu
ment mainly on a fact that a number of
supernatural attributes, and embodiments
of metaphysical and theological ideas,
became attached to the name, just as a
whole cycle of solar myths became
associated with the name of Hercules.
But this seems to be carrying scepticism
too far. Experience shows that religions
have generally originated in the crystal
lisation of ideas floating in solution at
certain periods of the evolution of
societies, about the nucleus of some
powerful personality. Nearly all the
great religions of the world, such as
Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity,
and Mohammedanism, clearly had his
torical founders, and it would be hyper
critical to deny that such a man as Jesus
of Nazareth really lived because many
of his sayings and doings may be traced
to applications, more or less erroneous,
of ancient prophecies, or because his
human nature became transfigured into
the Logos and other mataphysical con
ceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy.
In the case of Zoroaster, the argument
for his historical existence seems even
stronger, for his name is connected with
historical reigns and places, and his
genuine early history contains nothing
�ZOROASTRIA NISM
supernatural or improbable.1 He is
represented as simply a deep thinker
and powerful preacher, like Luther, who
gave new form and expression to the
vague religious and philosophical ideas
of his age and nation, reformed its super
stitions and abuses, and converted the
leading minds of his day, including the
monarch, by the earnestness and elo
quence of his discourses. At any rate,
for my purpose I shall assume his
personality, for my object is not to write
a critical essay on the origin and develop
ment of the Zoroastrian religion, but to
show that in its fundamental ideas and
essential spirit it approximates wonder
fully to those of the most advanced
modern thought, and gives the outline
of a creed which goes further than any
other to meet the practical wants of the
present day, and to reconcile the conflict
between faith and science. This will
be most clearly and vividly shown by
assuming the commonly accepted his
torical existence of Zoroaster to be true,
and by confining myself to the broad,
leading principles of his religion, without
dwelling on its varying phases, or on the
mythical legends and ritualistic obser
vances which, as in the case of all other
old religions, have crystallised about the
primitive idea and the primitive founder.
Zara-thustra, or, as he is commonly
called, Zoroaster, and the religion which
goes by his name, are known to us
mainly from the sacred books which
have been preserved by the modern
Parsees. The Parsees, a small remnant
of the Persians who under Cyrus founded
one of the mightiest empires of the
ancient world, flying from their native
country to escape from persecution after
the Mohammedan conquest, formed a
colony in India, and are now settled at
Bombay. They form a small but highly
intelligent community, who have pre
served their ancient religipn, and, fortu1 Professor Jackson, in his recent Zoroaster,
declares that scholars are now “generally agreed ”
as to the historical character of Zoroaster, and
that the doubts raised by Kern and Darmesteter
have been “ dispelled. ”
97
nately, some considerable fragments of
their sacred scriptures. The oldest of
these are written in the Gatha dialect of
the Avesta or Zend language, which is
contemporary with Sanskrit, and bears
much the same relation to it as Latin
does to Greek. The primitive Aryan
family at some very remote period
became divided into two branches, and
radiated from their Central Asian home
in two directions. The Hindoo branch
migrated to the south into the Punjaub
and Hindostan; the Iranian westwards,
into Bactria and Persia; while other
successive w7aves of Aryan migration in
prehistoric times rolled still further west
wards over Europe, obliterating all but a
few traces of the aboriginal population.
The period of this separation of the
Iranian and Hindoo races must be very
remote, for the Rig-Veda is probably at
least 4,000 years old, and the divergence
between its form of Sanskrit and the
Gatha dialect of the Zend is already as
great as that between two kindred
European languages, such as Greek and
Latin. The divergence of religious ideas
is also evidently of very early date. In
the Hindoo, and all other races of the
primitive Aryan stock, the word used for
gods and good spirits is taken from the
root “ div,” to shine. Thus, Daeva in
Sanskrit, Zeus and Theos in Greek, Deus
in Latin, Tius in German, Diewrs in
Lutheranism, Dia in Irish, Dew in
Kymric, all mean the bright or shining
one represented by the vault of heaven.
But in Iranian the word has an opposite
sense, and the “deevs” correspond to
our “devils.”
The primitive Aryan religions were
evidently all derived from a contempla
tion of the powers and phenomena of
nature. The sky, with its flood of light
and vault of ethereal blue, was considered
to be the highest manifestation of a
Supreme Power; while the sun and
moon', the stars and planets, the winds
and clouds, the earth and waters, were
personified, either as symbols of the
Deity or as subordinate gods. The
original simple faith was thus apt to
H
�98
ZOROASTRIANISM
degenerate into a system of polytheism,
and, as the gods came to be represented
by visible forms, into idolatry.
Zoroasterappears to us, like Mohammed
at a later age and among a ruder people,
as a prophet or reformer who abolished
these abuses and restored the ancient
faith in a loftier and more intellectual
form, adapted to the use of an advanced
and civilised society. The records of
his life and teaching have fortunately
been preserved in so authentic a form
that, distant as he is from us, we can
form a singularly accurate idea of who
he was and what he taught. Our know
ledge is chiefly drawn from the Gathas,
the oldest section of the Avesta, or
Persian Bible.
Some 2,500 years ago a sight might
have been seen in the ancient city of
Balkh—the famous capital of Bactria,
the “ Mother of Cities ”—very like that
witnessed some eleven centuries later at
our own Canterbury. The king and his
chief nobles and courtiers were assem
bled to hear the discourse of a preacher
who proposed to teach them a better
religion. Vishtasp listened to Zoroaster,
as Ethelbert listened to Augustine, and
in each case reason and eloquence
carried conviction, and the nation be
came converts to the new doctrine.
This conversion was effected without
miracles, for it is expressly stated in the
celebrated speech of the prophet, pre
served in the 30th chapter of the Yasna,
that he relied solely on persuasion and
argument. Ferdousi, the Persian Homer,
thus describes the first interview between
Zoroaster and Vishtasp: “ Learn,” he
said, “ the rites and doctrines of the
religion of excellence. For without re
ligion there cannot be any worth in a
king. When the mighty monarch heard
him speak of the excellent religion, he
accepted from him the excellent rites
and doctrines,”
The doctrines of this “ excellent reli
gion” are extremely simple. The leading
idea is that of monotheism, but the one
God has far fewer anthropomorphic attri
butes, and is relegated much farther back
into the vague and infinite than the god of
any other monotheistic religion. Geiger
describes it as “one of the purest and
most sublime religions that have ever
existed.” Ahura-Mazda, of which the
more favourite appellation Ormuzd is an
abbreviation, means the “All-knowing
Lord ”; he is said sometimes to dwell
in the infinite luminous space, and some
times to be identical with it. He is, in
fact, not unlike the inscrutable First
Cause, whom we may regard with awe
and reverence, with love and hope, but
whom we cannot pretend to define or to
understand. But the radical difference
between Zoroastrianism and other reli
gions is that it does not conceive of this
one God as an omnipotent Creator, who
might make the universe as he chose,
and therefore was directly responsible for
all the evil in it; but as a Being acting
by certain fixed laws, one of which was,
for reasons totally inscrutable to us, that
existence implied polarity, and therefore
that there could be no good without
corresponding evil.
Dr. Haug, who is a high authority on
all questions connected with the Zend
scriptures, says : “ Having arrived at the
grand idea of the unity and indivisibility
of the Supreme Being, Zoroaster under
took to solve the great problem which
has engaged the attention of so many
wise men of antiquity and even in
modern times—viz., how are the imper
fections discernible in the world, the
various kinds of evil, wickedness, and
baseness, compatible with the goodness,
holiness, and justness of God? This
great thinker of remote antiquity solved
this difficult question philosophically, by
the supposition of two primaeval causes,
which, though different, were united, and
produced the world of material things as
well as that of spirit. These two primae
val principles are the two moving causes
in the universe, united from the begin
ning, and therefore called twins. They
are present everywhere—in the Ahura
Mazda, or Supreme Deity, as well as in
man.”
They are called in the Vendidad
�ZOROASTRIANISM
Spento Mainyush, or the “beneficent
spirit,” and Angro Mainyush, or the
“hurtful spirit.” The latter is generally
known as Ahriman, the Prince of Dark
ness ; and the former, as Ormuzd, is
identified with Ahura Mazda, the good
God, though, strictly speaking, Ahura
Mazda is the great unknown _ First
Cause, who comprehends within himself
both principles as a necessary law of
existence, and in whom believers may
hope that evil and good will ultimately
be reconciled.
Anquetil du Perron, the first translator
of the Zendavesta, in his Critical View
of the Theological and Ceremonial System
of Zar-thurst, thus sums up the Parsee
creed: “ The first point in the theo
logical system of Zoroaster is to recognise
and adore the Master of all that is good,
the Principle of all righteousness, Ormuzd,
according to the form of worship pre
scribed by him, and with purity of
thought, of word, and of action—a purity
which is marked and preserved by purity
of body. Next, to have a respect,
accompanied by gratitude, for the intel
ligence to which Ormuzd has committed
the care of nature (z>., to the laws of
nature), to take in our actions their
attributes for models, to copy in our
conduct the harmony which reigns in
the different parts of the universe, and
generally to honour Ormuzd in all that
he has produced. The second part of
their religion consists in detesting the
author of all evil, moral and physical,
Ahriman—his productions, and his
works; and to contribute, as far as in us
lies, to exalt the glory of Ormuzd by
enfeebling the tyranny which the Evil
Principle exercises over the world.”
It is evident that this simple and
sublime religion is one to which, by
whatever name we may call it, the best
modern thought is fast approximating.
Men of science like Huxley, philosophers
like Herbert Spencer, poets like Tenny
son, might all subscribe to it; and even
enlightened Christian divines, like Dr.
Temple, are not very far from it when
they admit the idea of a Creator behind
99
the atoms and energies, whose original
impress, given in the form of laws of
nature, was so perfect as to require no
secondary interference. Admit that
Christ is the best personification of the
Spenta Mainyush, or good principle in
the inscrutable Divine polarity of exist
ence, and a man may be at the same
time a Christian and a Zoroastrian.
The religion of Zoroaster has, how
ever, this great advantage in the existing
conditions of modern thought, that it is
not dragged down by such a dead weight
of traditional dogmas and miracles as
still hangs upon the skirts of Christianity.
Its dogmas are comprised in the state
ment that there is one supreme, un
known, First Cause, who manifests him
self in the universe under fixed laws
which involve the principle of polarity.
This is hardly so much a dogma as a
statement of fact, or of the ultimate and
absolute truth at which it is possible for
human faculty to arrive. No progress
of-science or philosophy conflicts with it,
but rather they confirm it, by showingmore and more clearly with every dis
covery that this is in very fact and deed
the literal truth. Religion, or the feeling
of reverence and love for the Great Un
known which lies beyond the sphere of
human sense and reason, shines more
brightly through this pure medium than
through the fogs of misty metaphysics ;
and we can worship God in spirit and in
truth without puzzling our brains as to
the precise nature of the Logos, or
exercising them on the insoluble problem
how one can be equal to three, and at
the same time three equal to one.
As regards miracles, which are another
millstone about the neck of Catholic
Christianity, the religion of Zoroaster is •
entirely free from them. There are, it
is true, a few miraculous myths about
him in some of the later writings in the
Pehlvi language, as of his conception by
his mother drinking a cup of the sacred
Homa; but these are of no authority, and
form no part of the religion. On the
contrary, the original scriptures, which
profess to record his exact words and
�V
ioo
ZOROASTRIANISM
precepts, disclaim all pretension to divine
nature or miraculous power, and base
the claims of the “excellent religion”
purely on reason. This is an immense
advantage in the “ struggle for life,” when
every day is making it more impossible
for educated men to believe that real
miracles ever actually occurred, and when
the evidence on which they were accepted
is crumbling to pieces under the light of
critical inquiry. The Parsee has no
reason to tremble for his faith if a Galileo
invents the telescope or a Newton dis
covers the law of gravity. He has no
occasion to argue for Noah’s deluge, or
for the order of Creation described in
Genesis. Nay, even, he may remain
undisturbed by that latest and most fatal
discovery that man has existed on the
earth for untold ages, and, instead of
falling from a high estate, has risen con
tinuously by slow and painful progress
from the rudest origins. How many
orthodox Christians can say the same, or
deny that their faith in their sacred books
and venerable traditions has been rudely
shaken ?
The code of morality enjoined by the
Zoroastrian religion is as pure as its
theory is perfect. Dr. Haug enumerates
the following sins denounced by its code,
and considered as such by the present
Parsees : Murder, infanticide, poisoning,
adultery on the part of men as well as
women, sorcery, sodomy, cheating in
weight and measure, breach of promise
whether made to a Zoroastrian or nonZoroastrian, telling lies and deceiving,
false covenants, slander and calumny,
perjury, dishonest appropriation of wealth,
taking bribes, keeping back the wages of
labourers, misappropriation of religious
property, removal of a boundary stone,
turning people out of their property,
maladministration and defrauding, apos
tasy, heresy, rebellion. These are positive
injunctions. The following are con
demnable from a religious point of view :
Abandoning the husband; not acknow
ledging one’s children on the part of the
father; cruelty towards subjects on the
part of a ruler; avarice, laziness, illiber-
ality and egotism, envy. In addition,
there are a number of special precepts
adapted to the peculiar rites of the
Zoroastrian religion which aim princi
pally at the enforcement of sanitary rules,
kindness to animals, hospitality to
strangers and travellers, respect to
superiors, and help to the poor and
needy.
It is evident that this is the most
complete and comprehensive code of
morals to be found in any system of
religion. It comprises all that is best
in the codes of Buddhism, Judaism, and
Christianity, with a much more ample
definition of many vices and virtues
which, even in the Christian religion, are
left to be drawn as inferences rather than
inculcated as precepts. Thus, laziness,
cheating, selfishness, and envy are dis
tinctly defined as crimes and their
opposites as virtues, and not merely left
to be inferred from the general maxims
of “ loving your neighbour as yourself,”
and “ doing unto others as you would be
done by.” The comprehensiveness and
liberal spirit of the code is also remark
able, for we are repeatedly told that these
rules of moralityapply to non-Zoroastrians
as well as to Zoroastrians. The applica
tion of religious precepts to practical
life is another distinguishing feature.
Thus kindness to animals is specially
enjoined, and it is considered a sin
to ill-treat animals of the good crea
tion, such as cattle, sheep, horses, or
dogs, by starving, beating, or unneces
sarily killing them. With true practical
wisdom, however, the “falsehood of
extremes ” is avoided, and this precept
is not, as in the case of Brahminism and
Buddhism, carried so far as to prohibit
altogether the taking of animal life, which
is expressly sanctioned when necessary.
This sober practical wisdom, or what
Matthew Arnold calls “ sweet reasonable
ness,” is a very characteristic feature of
Zoroaster’s religion, and very remarkable
as having been taught at so early a period
in the history of civilisation.
Another precept, which might well
have been made by an English Board of
�ZOROASTRIANISM
Health in the nineteenth century, is not I
to pollute water by throwing impure
matter into it.
The only special Parsee rites which
would be unsuited for modern European
society are the worship of the sacred fire
and the disposal of the dead. It is true
that the former is distinctly understood
to be merely a symbol of the Deity, and
used exactly as water is in baptism, or as
the ascending flame of candles and
smoke from swinging incense are, in the
Catholic ritual, to bring more vividly
before the minds of the worshippers the
idea of the spirit soaring upwards to
wards heaven. Still, in modern society
fire is too well understood as merely a
particular form of chemical combination,
and is too familiar as the strong slave
and household drudge of man, to ac
quire a leading place in a religious ritual
where it has not been hallowed by the
usage of a long line of ancestors and the
traditions of a venerable antiquity. All
that can be said is that, if religious rites
and ceremonies are to be maintained in
an age when science has become the
prevailing mode of thought, appropriate
symbolism, especially that of music, must
more and more take the place of appeals
to the intellect on metaphysical ques
tions, and of repetitions of traditional
formulse which have lost all living signifi
cance.
Another Parsee rite, which is even
less adapted for general usage, is that of
disposing of the dead on towers of
silence, where the body moulders away
or is devoured by birds of prey. It
originates in a poetical motive of not
defiling the pure elements, fire, earth, or
water, by corruption ; but it is obviously
unsuited for the conditions of civilisation
and climate which prevail in crowded
cities under a humid sky.
There is little prospect, therefore, of
any general conversion to the sect of
Zoroastrians; but what seems probable
is the gradual transformation of existing
modes both of religious and secular
thought into something which is, in
principle, very closely akin to the “ ex
IOI
cellent religion ” taught by the Bactrian
prophet.
The miraculous theory of the universe
being virtually dead, the only theory that
can reconcile facts with feelings, and the
ineradicable emotions and aspirations of
the human mind with the incontro
vertible conclusions of science, is that of
a remote and more or less unknown and
incomprehensible First Cause, which has
given the original atoms and energies so
perfect an impress from the first that
all phenomena are evolved from them by
fixed laws, one of the principal of such
laws being that of polarity, which de
velops the ever-increasing complexities
and contrasts of the inorganic and
organic worlds, of moralities, philoso
phies, religions, and human societies.
True religion consists in a recognition of
this truth, a feeling of reverence in pre
sence of the unknown, and, above all,
a feeling of love and admiration for the
good principle in whatever form it is
manifested, in the beauties of nature and
of art, in moral and physical purity and
perfection, and all else that falls within
the domain of the Prince of Light, in
whose service, whether we conceive of
him as an abstract principle or accept
some personification of him as a living
figure, we enlist as loyal soldiers, doing
our best to fight in his ranks against the
powers of evil.
The application of the all-pervading
principle of polarity is exemplified in the
realm of art. The glorious Greek drama
turned mainly on the conflict between
resistless fate and heroic free-will, and is
typified in its highest form by ZEschylus,
when he depicts Prometheus chained to
the rock hurling defiance at the tyrant
of heaven. Our own Milton, in like
manner, gives us the spectacle of the
fallen archangel opposing his indomitable
will and fertile resources to the extremity
of adverse circumstance and to Almighty
power.
The greatest of modern dramas,
Goethe’s “ Faust,” turns so entirely on
the opposition between the human soul
striving after the infinite and the spirit
�102
ZOROA STRIANISM
der verneint, who combats ideal aspira
tions with a cynical sneer, that it might
well be called a Zoroastrian drama. It
is a picture of the conflict between the
two opposite principles of good and evil,
of affirmation and negation, of the beau
tiful and the ugly, personified in Faust
and Mephistopheles, and it is painted
on a background of the great mysterious
unknown. “ Wer darf ihn nennen ?”
“ Who dares to name him,
Who to-say of him, ‘ I believe,’
Who is there ever with a heart to dare
To utter, ‘ I believe him not ’?”
So in poetry, Tennyson, the poet of
modern thought, touches the deepest
chords when he asks :
“ Are God and Nature, then, at strife ? ”
and paints in the sharpest contrast on
the background of the unknown the
conflict between the faith that
“ God is love, indeed,
And love creation’s final law,”
'and the harsh realities of nature, which
“ Red in tooth and claw
With ravine shrieks against the creed”;
or again in his later work, The Ancient
Sage, he says :
“ Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son !
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven.”
In like manner in the works of art
which embrace a wider range, and hold
up the mirror to human nature, as in
Shakespeare’s plays, and the novels of
Walter Scott, and other great authors,
the interest arises mainly from the
polarity of the various characters. We
care little for the goody-goody heroes or
vulgar villains, but we recognise a touch
of that nature which makes all the world
akin in a Macbeth drawn by metaphysi
cal suggestion to wade through a sea of
blood ; in Othello’s noble nature caught
like a lion in the toils by the net of
circumstances woven by a wily hunter;
in Falstaff, a rogue, a liar, and a glutton,
yet made almost likeable by his ready
wit, imperturbable good humour, and
fertile resources. Shakespeare is, in fact,
the greatest of artists, because he is
the most multipolar. He has poles of
sympathy in him which, as the poles of
carbon attract so many elements and
form so many combinations, enable him
to take into his own nature, assimilate,
and reproduce every varied shade of
character from a Miranda to a Caliban,
from an Imogen to a Lady Macbeth,
from a Falstaff to an Othello. Sir Walter
Scott and all our great novelists have the
same faculty, though in a less degree,
and are great in exact proportion as they
have many poles in their nature, and as
those are poles of powerful polarity. The
characters and incidents which affect us
strongly and dwell in the memory are
those in which the clash and conflict of
opposites are most vividly represented.
We feel infinite pity for a Maggie
Tulliver dashing her young life, like a
prisoned wild bird, against the bars of
trivial and prosaic environment which
hem her in; or for a Colonel Newcome
opposing the patience of a gentle nature
to the buffets of such a fate as meets us
in the everyday world of modern life, the
failure of his bank and the naggings of
the Old Campaigner. On a higher level
of art we sympathise with a Lancelot and
a Guinevere, because they are types of
what we may meet in many a London
drawing-room, noble natures drawn by
some fatal fairy fascination into ignoble
acts, but still retaining something of
their original nobility, and, while
“ Their honour rooted in dishonour stands,”
appearing to ordinary mortals little less
than “archangels ruined.” Or even if
we descend to the lowest level of the
penny dreadful or suburban drama, we
find that the polarity between vice and
virtue, however coarsely delineated, is
that which mostly fascinates the uncul
tured mind.
The affinity between Zoroastrianism
and art is easily explained when we con
sider that in one respect it has a mani
fest advantage over most Christian forms
of religion. Christianity in its early
�Z OROAS TRIA NISM
103
origins received a taint of Oriental the main causes of the indifference or
asceticism which it never shook off, and hostility to religion which is so widely
which, in the declining centuries of the spreading among the mass of the popula
Roman empire, and in the barbarism tion. Children are brought up to con
and superstition of the Middle Ages, de sider Sunday as a day of penance, and
veloped into what may be almost called church-going as a disagreeable necessity;
a devil-worship of the ugly and repulsive. while grown-up men, especially those of
The antithesis between the flesh and the the working classes, resent being, told
spirit was carried to such an extreme and that a walk in the country, a cricket
false extent that everything that was match, or a visit to a library or museum
pleasant and beautiful came to be re on their only holiday, is sinful.
In view of the approximation between
garded as sinful, and the odour of
the Zoroastrian religion and the forms of
sanctity was an odour which the passer
by would do well to keep on the wind modern thought, it is interesting to note
ward side of. This leaven of asceticism how the former works among its adherentsis the rock upon which Puritanism, in actual practice. For, after all, the
monasticism, and many of the highest practical side of a religion is more impor
forms of Christian life have invariably tant than its speculative or philosophical
split. It is contrary to human nature, theories. Thus, for instance, the Quakers
and directly opposed to the spirit of the have a. faith which is about the most
life and doctrines of the Founder of the reasonable of any of the numerous sects
religion. Jesus, who was ££ a Jew living of Christianity and nearest to the spirit
among Jews and speaking to Jews, of its Founder, and yet Quakerism
adopted the true Jewish point of view of remains a narrow sect, which is far from
making religion amiable and attractive, being victorious in the “ struggle for
and denouncing, as all the best Jewish life.” Mohammedanism, again, while
doctors of the Talmud did, the Pharisai dying out among civilised nations, shows
cal strictness which insisted on ritualistic itself superior to Christianity in the work
observances and arbitrary restrictions. of raising the barbarous, fetish-worship
In no passages of his life does the ping negroes of Africa to a higher level.
“ sweet reasonableness” of his character And Mormonism, based on the . most
appear more conspicuous than where we obvious imposture and absurdity, is the
find him strolling through the fields with only new religion which, in recent times,
his disciples and plucking ears of corn has taken root and to a certain extent
on the Sabbath, and replying to the for flourished.
Tried by this test, Zoroastrianism has
malists who were scandalised, “ The
made good its claim to be called the
Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath.” The ascetic bias subse ££ excellent religion.” Its followers, the
quently introduced may have been a limited community of Parsees in India,
necessary element in counteracting the are honourably distinguished for probity,
corruption of Rome; but the pendulum intelligence, enterprise, public spirit,
in its reaction swung much too far, and benevolence, tolerance, and other good
when organised in its celibacy of the qualities. By virtue of these qualities
clergy and monastic institutions asceti they have raised themselves to a pro
cism became the source of great, evils. minent position in our Indian empire,
Even at a late period we can see in the and take a leading part in its commerce
reaction of the reign of Charles II. how and industrial enterprise. The chief
antagonistic the puritanical creed, even shipbuilder at Bombay, the first great
of men like Cromwell and Milton, native railway contractor, the founder of
proved to the healthy natural instinct of cotton factories, are all Parsees, and they
the great mass of the English nation. are found as merchants, traders, and
And at the present day it remains one of shopkeepers in all the chief towns of
�io4
ZOROASTRIANISM
British India and distant places, such as
t Aden and Zanzibar. Their commercial
probity is proverbial, and, as in England,
they have few written agreements, the
word of a Parsee, like that of an English
man, being considered as good as his
bond. Their high character and practi
cal aptitude for business are attested by
the fact that the first mayor, or chairman
of the Corporation of Bombay, was a
Parsee, who was elected by the unanimous
vote both of Europeans and natives.
The position of women affords perhaps
the best test of the real civilisation and
intrinsic worth of any community. Where
men considerwomen as inferior creatures,
it is a sure proof that they themselves
are so. They are totally wanting in that
■delicacy and refinement of nature which
distinguishes the true gentleman from
. the snob or the savage, and are coarse,
- vulgar brutes, however disguised under a
veneer of outward polish. On the other
hand, respect for women implies selfrespect, nobility of nature, capability of
rising to high ideals above the sordid
level of animal appetite and the selfish
supremacy of brute force.
The Parsees in this respect stand high,
far higher, than any other Oriental people,
and on a level with the best European
civilisation. The equality of the sexes
is distinctly laid down in the Zoroastrian
scriptures. Women are always mentioned
as a necessary part of the religious com
munity. They have the same religious
.-rites as the men. The spirits of deceased
-women are invoked as well as those of
men. Long contact with the other races
of India, and the necessity for some
outward conformity to the practices of
Hindoo and Mohammedan rulers, did
something to impair the position of
females as regards public appearances,
though the Parsee wife and mother always
remained a principal figure in the Parsee
household ; and latterly, under the
security of English rule, Parsee ladies
may be seen everywhere in public,
enjoying just as much liberty as the
ladies of Europe or America. Nor are
they at all behind their Western sisters |
in education, accomplishments, and, it
may be added, in daintiness of fashion
able attire. In fact, an eager desire for
education has become a prominent feature
among all classes of the Parsee com
munity, and they are quite on a par with
Scotch, German, and other European
races in their efforts to establish schools,
and in the numbers who attend, and
especially of those who obtain dis
tinguished places in the higher schools
and colleges, such as the Elphinstone
Institute and the Bombay University.
Female education is also actively pro
moted, and no prejudices stand in the
way of attendance at the numerous
girls’ schools which have been estab
lished, or even of studying in medical
colleges, where Parsee women attend
lectures on all branches of medical
science along with male students. Those
who know the position of inferiority and
seclusion in which women are kept
among all other Oriental nations can best
appreciate the largeness and liberality
of spirit of a religion which, in spite of
all surrounding influences, has rendered
such a thing possible in such a country
as India.
Another prominent trait of the Parsee
character is that of philanthropy and
public spirit. In proportion to their
numbers and means, they raise more
money for charitable objects than any
other religious sect. And they raise it
in a way which does the greatest credit
to their tolerance and liberality. For
instance, the Parsees were the principal
subscribers to a fund raised in Bombay
in aid of the “ Scottish Corporation
and quite recently a Parsee gentleman
gave 16,000 towards the establishment
of a female hospital under the care of
lady doctors, although the benefit of
such an institution would be confined
principally to Mohammedan and Hindoo
women, Parsee women having no pre
judice against employing male doctors.
The public spirit shown by acts like
this is the trait by which the Parsee
community is most honourably dis
tinguished, and in respect of which it
�ZOROASTRIANISM
must be candidly confessed it far sur
passes, not only other Oriental races, but
most European nations, including our
own. Whatever the reason may be, the
fact is certain that in England, while a
great deal of money is spent 111 charity,
lamentably little is spent from the
enormous surplus wealth of the country
on what may be called public objects.
There is neither religious influence nor
social opinion brought to bear on the
numerous class who have incomes far
beyond any possible want, to teach them
that it should be both a pleasure and
a pride to associate their names with
some act of noble liberality.. A better
spirit we may hope is springing up, and
there have been occasional instances of
large sums applied to public purposes,
such as parks and colleges, by private
individuals, principally of the trading and
manufacturing classes, such as the Salts,
Crossleys, Baxters, and Holloways ; but,
on the whole, the amount contributed is
miserably small. It is probably part of
the price we pay for aristocratic institu
tions that those who inherit or accumu
late great fortunes consider it their
primary object to perpetuate or to found
great families. Be this as it may, a
totally different spirit prevails among the
Parsees of Bombay, where it has been
truly stated that hardly a year passes
without some wealthy Parsee coming
forward to perform a work of public
generosity. The instance of Sir Jamsedjee Jijibhoy, who attained a European
reputation for his noble benevolence, is
only one conspicuous instance out of a
thousand of this “ public spirit ” which
has become almost an instinctive ele
ment in Parsee society.
How far the large and liberal religion
may be the cause of the large and liberal
practice it is impossible to say. Other
influences have doubtless been at work.
105
The Parsees are a commercial people,
and commerce is always more libera
with its money than land. They are the
descendants of a persecuted race, and, as
a rule, it is better to be persecuted than
to persecute.
Still, after making all
allowances, it remains that the tree can
not be bad which bears such fruits ; the
religion must be a good one which pro
duces good men and women and good
deeds.
Statistical facts testify quite as strongly
to the high standard of the Parsee race,
and the practical results which follow
from the observance of the Zoroastrian
ritual. A small death-rate and a large
proportion of children prove the vigorous
vitality of a race. The Parsees have the
lowest death-rate of any of the many
races who inhabit Bombay. The aver
age for the two years 1881 and 1882 per
thousand was—for Hindoos, 26.11 ; for
Mussulmans, 30.46
f°r Europeans,
20.18; for Parsees, 19.26.
The per
centage of children under two years old
to women between fifteen and forty-five
was 30.27 for Parsees, as against
Hindoos 22.24, and Mussulmans. 24.9>
showing incontestably greater vitality
and greater care for human life.
Of 6,618 male and 2,966 female
mendicants in the city of Bombay, only
five male and one female were Parsees.
These figures speak for themselves.
It is evident that a religion in which
such results are possible cannot be
unfavourable to the development of
the mens sana in corpore sano, and
that, although we may not turn Zoroastrians, we may envy some of the good
results of a creed which inculcates wor
ship of the good, the pure, and the
beautiful in the concerns of daily life, as
well as in the abstract regions of theo
logical and philosophical speculation.
�106
FORMS OF WORSHIP
Chapter
XIV.
FORMS OF WORSHIP
Byron’s lines—Carnegie’s description—Parsee
nature-worship—English Sunday—The ser
mon—Appeals to reason misplaced—Music
better than words—The Mass—Zoroastrian
ism brings religion into daily life—Sanitation
—Zoroastrian prayer—Religion of the future
—Sermons in stones and good in everything.
4‘Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o’ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall’d temple, where to seek
The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear’d of human hands. Come, and com
pare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With nature’s realms of worship, earth and
air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy
prayer !”
—Childe Harold, iii. 91,
.A shrewd Scotch-American ironmaster
—Andrew Carnegie—in an interesting
and instructive record of experiences
during a voyage round the world, gives
the following description of the worship
of the modern Parsees, as actually wit
nessed by him at Bombay :—
“ This evening we were surprised to
see, as we strolled along the beach,
more Parsees than ever before, and more
Parsee ladies richly dressed, all wending
their way towards the sea. It was the
first of the new moon, a period sacred
to these worshippers of the elements;
and here on the shore of the ocean, as
the sun was sinking in the sea, and the
slender silver thread of the crescent
moon was faintly shining on the horizon,
they congregated to perform their re
ligious rites.
“ Fire was there in its grandest form,
the setting sun, and water in the vast
expanse of the Indian Ocean outstretched
before them. The earth was under their
feet, and, wafted across the sea, the air
came laden with the perfumes of ‘ Araby
the blest.’ Surely no time or place could
be more fitly chosen than this for lifting
up the soul to the realms beyond sense.
I could not but participate with these
worshippers in what was so grandly
beautiful. There was no music save the
solemn moan of the waves as they broke
into foam on the beach. But where
shall we find so mighty an organ, or so
grand an anthem ?
“How inexpressibly sublime the scene
appeared to me, and how insignificant
and unworthy of the unknown seemed
even our cathedrals ‘ made with human
hands,’ when compared with this looking
up through nature unto nature’s God !
I stood and drank in the serene happi
ness which seemed to fill the air. I
have seen many modes and forms of
worship—some disgusting, others sadden
ing, a few elevating when the organ
pealed forth its tones, but all poor in
comparison with this. Nor do I ever
expect in all my life to witness a religious
ceremony which will so powerfully affect
me as that of the Parsees on the beach
at Bombay.”
I say Amen with all my heart to Mr.
Carnegie. Here is an ideal religious
ceremony combining all that is most
true, most touching, and most sublime,
in the attitude of man towards the Great
Unknown. Compare it with the routine
of an ordinary English Sunday, and how
poor and prosaic does the latter appear !
There is nothing which seems to me to
have fallen more completely out of har
mony with its existing environment than
our traditional form of church service.
The sermon has been killed by the Press,
and has become an anachronism. There
was a time when sermons like those, of
Latimer and John Knox were living
realities ; they dealt with all the burning
political and personal questions of the
day, and to a great extent did the work
now done by platform speeches and
�FORMS OF WORSHIP
leading articles. If there are national
dangers to be denounced, national short
comings to be pointed out, iniquity in
high places to be rebuked, we look to
our daily newspaper, and not to our
weekly sermon. The sermon has, in a
great majority of cases, become a sort of
schoolboy theme, in which traditional
assumptions and conventional phrases
are ground out, with as little soul or idea
behind them as in the Thibetan praying
mill. In the course of a long life I have
gained innumerable ideas and experi
enced innumerable influences, from con
tact with the world, with fellow-men, and
with books; but, although I have heard
a good many sermons, I cannot honestly
say that I ever got an idea or an influence
from one of them which made me wiser
or better, or different in any respect from
what I should have been if I had slept
through them. And this from no fault
of the preachers. I have heard many
who gave me the impression that they
were good men, and a few who impressed
me as being able and liberal-minded men
—nor do I know that, under the condi
tions in which they are placed, I could
have done any better myself. But they
were dancing in fetters, and so tied down
by conventionalities that it was simply
impossible for them to depart from the
paths of a decorous routine.
The fact is that the whole point of
view of our religious services, especially
in Protestant countries, has become a
mistaken one. It is far too much an
appeal to the intellect and to abstract
dogmas, and too little one to the realities
of actual life and to the vague emotions
and aspirations which constitute the
proper field of religion. In the great
reaction of the Reformation it was per
haps inevitable that an appeal should be
made to reason against the abuses of an
infallible Church; and as long as the
literal inspiration of the Bible and other
theological premises were held to be un
doubted axioms by the whole Christian
world, there might be a certain interest
in hearing them repeated over and over
again in becoming language, and in
107
listening to sermons which explained
shortly conclusions which might be
drawn from these admitted axioms. But
this is no longer the case. It is impos
sible to touch the merest fringe of the
questions now raised by the intellectual
side of religion in discourses of half an.
hour’s length; even if the preacher were
perfectly free, and not hampered by thefear of scandalising simple, pious souls
by plain language. Spoken words have
to a great extent ceased to be the appro
priate vehicle for appealing either to reli
gious reason or to religious emotion—books for the former, music for the latter,
are infinitely more effective.
Music
especially seems made to be the language
of religion. Not only its beauty and
harmony, but its vagueness and its
power of exciting the imagination and
stirring the feelings, without anything
definite which has to be proved and can
be contradicted, fit it to be the inter
preter of those emotions and aspirations
which fill the human soul in presence of
the universe and of the Great Unknown.
Demonstrate, with St. Thomas Aquinas
or Duns Scotus, how many angels can
stand on the point of a needle, and I
remain unaffected; but let me' hear
Rossini’s Cujus Animam, or Mozart’s
Agnus Dei, and I say, “ Thus the angels
sing.”
In this respect the Roman Catholic
Church has retained a great advantage
over reformed Churches. Whatever we
may think of its tenets and principles,
its forms of worship are more impressive
and more attractive. The Mass, apart
from all dogma and miracle, is a
mysterious and beautiful religious drama,
in which appropriate symbolism, vocal
and instrumental music, all the highest
efforts of human art, are united to pro
duce feelings of joy and of devoutness.
The vestment of the priest, his gestures
and genuflexions, the Latin words chanted
in stately recitative, the flame of the
candles pointingheaven wards, theburning
incense slowly soaring upwards, the music
of great masters, not like our dreary and
monotonous psalmody, but in fullest
�108
FORMS OF WORSHIP
harmony and richest melody—all com
bine to attune the mind to that state of
feeling which is the soul of religion.
In this respect, however, what I have
called the Zoroastrian theory of religion
affords great advantages. It connects
religion directly with all that is good and
beautiful, not only in the higher realms
of speculation and of emotion, but in
the ordinary affairs of daily life. To
feel the truth of what is true, the beauty
of what is beautiful, is of itself a silent
prayer or act of worship to the Spirit of
Light; to make an honest, earnest effort
to attain this feeling is an offering or
act of homage. Cleanliness of mind
and body, order and propriety in con
duct, civility in intercourse, and all the
homely virtues of everyday life, thus
acquire a higher significance, and any
wilful and persistent disregard of them
becomes an act of mutiny against the
Power whom we have elected to serve.
Such moral perversion becomes impos
sible as that which in the Middle Ages
..associated filth with holiness, and adduced
-as a title to canonisation that the saint
had worn the same woollen shirt until it
fell to pieces under the attacks of vermin.
We . laugh at this in more enlightened
days, but we often imitate it by setting
up false religious standards, and thinking
we can make men better by penning
them up on Sundays in the foul air and
corrupting influences of densely-peopled
cities.
The identification of moral and
physical evil, which is one of the most
essential and peculiar tenets of the
Zoroastrian creed, is fast becoming a
leading idea in modern civilisation. Our
most earnest philanthropists and zealous
workers in the fields of sin and misery
in crowded cities are coming, more and
more every day, to the conviction that
an improvement in the physical con
ditions of life is the first indispensable
condition of moral and religious pro
gress. More air, more light, better
lodging, better food, more innocent and
healthy recreation, are what are wanted
to make any real impression on the
masses who have either been born and
bred in an evil environment, or have
fallen out of the ranks and are the waifs
and stragglers left behind in the rapid
progress and intense competition of
modern society. Hence we see that
the devoted individuals and charitable
institutions who take the lead in works
of practical benevolence direct their
attention more and more to the rescue
of children from bad surroundings; to
sending them to new and happier homes
in the colonies, to country retreats for
the sickly, and excursions for the healthy;
and to providing clubs and reading
rooms as substitutes for the gin-palace
and public-house. A recent develop
ment of this idea, the “People’s Palace”
in the East End of London, is a noble
offering to the “ Spirit of Light,” by
whatever name we choose to call him,
in opposition to the “Spirit of Dark
ness.”
To the Zoroastrian prayer assumes
the form of a recognition of all that is
pure, sublime, and beautiful in the sur
rounding universe. He can never want
opportunities of paying homage to the
Good Spirit and of looking into the
abysses of the unknown with reverence
and wonder. The light of setting suns,
the dome of loving blue, the clouds in
the might of the tempest or resting still
as brooding doves, the mountains, the
“ Waste
And solitary places where we taste
The pleasures of believing what we see,
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be”;
the ocean lashed by storm, or where it
“ All down the sand
Lies breathing in its sleep,
Heard by the land ”—
these are a Zoroastrian’s prayers.
And even if, “ in populous cities
pent,” he is cut off from close com
munion with nature, opportunities are
not wanting to him of letting his soul
soar aloft with purifying aspirations. A
glimpse of the starry sky, even if seen
from a London street, may bear in on
him the awful yet lovely mystery of the
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
io9
literature, science, and art, he can hear
Infinite. Good books, good music, true
works of art, may all strengthen his love best
“ The still sad music of humanity,
of the good and beautiful. A dense fog
Not harsh nor grating, but of ample power
or drizzling rain may obscure the out
To chasen and subdue,”
ward view, but with the inner eye he may
and associate himself with movements in
stand listening to the lark or under the
which his little individual effort is exerted
vernal sky, and while his
towards making the world a little better
rather than a little worse than he found
“ Heart looks down and up,
Serene, secure ;
Warm as the crocus-cup,
As snowdrops pure,”
thank the Good Spirit that it has. been
given to man to write, and to him. to
read, verses of such exquisite perfection
as Shelley’s “ Ode to a Skylark ” and
Tennyson’s “ Early Spring.” Above all,
where men congregate in masses, in the
great centres of politics, of commerce, of
This, rather than wrangling with his
fellow-mortals about creeds and attempts
to name the unnameable, believe the un
believable, and define the undefinable,
seems to me to be the religion of the future.
Call it by what name you like, I quarrel
with no one as long as he can find
“ Sermons in stones and good in everything.”
Chapter XV.
PRACTICAL POLARITIES
Everything was fresh and cheerful as
Fable of the shield—Progress and conservatism
—English and French colonisation—Law- of a new-born earth, and so were the
abidingness—Irish land question True con spirits of the two youthful knights who
servative legislation — Ultra-conservatism
were pricking forth in search of adven
Law and education—Patriotism—Jingoism
and parochialism—True statesmanship—Free tures. He whose face was turned towards
trade and protection—Capital and labour— the West, where the rising sun. had. last
Egoism and altruism—Socialism and laissez set, wore a primrose scarf over his cuirass,
faire—Contracts—Rights and duties of land and had on his shield a quaint device,
lords—George’s theory—State interference—
Railways—Post Office—Telegraphs—National which, on closer inspection, might be seen
to be a tombstone with the inscription,
defence—Concluding remarks.
“ I was well, would be better, and here I, am.”
A well-known fable tells how, in the
olden time, two knights were riding in
opposite directions along a green road
overarched by the trees of an ancient
forest. It was a bright morning in early
summer, with the green leaves freshly
bursting in contrasted foliage; the sun
had just risen over the tops of the trees
in clouds of golden and crimson glory;
dewdrops were glittering like diamonds
on every twig and blade of grass ; and
the joyous birds carolling their loudest
song to greet the opening day.
He rode along musing on the heroic
legends of the past, and wishing that he
had been a knight of Arthur’s round
table to ride out with the blameless king
against invading heathen.
The second knight, whose face was
turned towards the rising sun, bore an
azure shield with a different device. On
it was depicted the good Sir James
Douglass charging the serried Paynim
army, and, as he charged, flinging before
) him into the hostile ranks the casket
�I IO
PRACTICAL POLARITIES
containing the heart of Robert Bruce,
and shouting for battle-cry :
“ Go thou aye forward, as was thy wont.”
As he rode his fancy wrought the fairy
web of a day-dream, in which he saw
himself delivering the fair princess
Liberty from the fiery dragon Prejudice
and the stolid giant Obstruction.
The knights met just where an ancient
oak of mighty bulk stretched overhead
a huge branch across the path, as some
aged athlete might stretch out an arm
rigid with gnarled and knotted muscles,
to show younger generations how
Olympian laurels were won when Pollux
or Hercules plied the cestus. From this
branch a shield hung suspended.
“ Good morrow, fair knight,” said he
of the primrose scarf; “ prithee tell me
if thou knowest what means this golden
shield suspended here.”
“ I marvel at it myself, good Sir
Knight,” responded the other; “ but
you mistake in calling the shield golden :
it is of silver.”
“Your eyes must be of the dullest,”
said the first knight, “if you mistake
gold for silver.”
“Not so dull as yours,” retorted the
other, “ if you mistake silver for gold.”
The argument waxed hot, and, as
usual in such cases, as tempers grew
weak adjectives grew strong. Soon, like
the old Homeric heroes when Greek
met Trojan
“ Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,”
winged words of fire and fury darted
from each mouth, and epithets were ex
changed, of which “ stupid old Tory ”
and “ low, vulgar Radical ” were among
the least unparliamentary. At length
the fatal words, “ You lie,” escaped
simultaneously from both, and on the
instant spears were couched, steeds
spurred, and, red with rage, they encoun
tered each other in full career. Such
was the momentum that both men and
horses rolled over, even as the Templar
went down before the spear of Ivanhoe
within the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
But, like the redoubted knight Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, each sprang to his feet
and drew his sword, eager to redeem the
fortune of war in deadly combat. Like
two surly boars with bristling backs and
foaming tusks quarrelling for the right of
way in Indian jungle, or tawny lions in
Numidian desert tearing one another topieces for the smiles of a leonine Helen,
the heroes clashed together, cutting,
slashing, parrying, foyning, and traversing,
until at length, bleeding and breathless,
they paused for a moment, leaning on
their swords to recover second wind.
Just then an aged hermit appeared on
the scene, drawn thither by the sound of
the combat.
“Pause, my sons,” he said, “and tell
me what is the cause of this furious
encounter.”
“ Yonder false villain protests,” said
the one, “that the shield which hangs
there is of gold.”
“ And that lying varlet persists that it
is of silver,” said the other.
The hermit smiled, and said : “ Hold
your hands, good sirs, for a single
moment, and use your remaining strength
to exchange places and look at the
opposite side of the shield.”
They obeyed his words, and found to
their confusion that they had been fight
ing in a quarrel in which each was right
and each wrong.
“ Father,” they said, “ we are fools.
Grant us thy pardon for our folly and
absolution for our sin.”
“ Absolution,” said the hermit, “ is
soon granted for faults which arise from
the innate tendency of poor human
nature. Wiser and older men than you
are prone to see only their own side of
a question. Come, then, with me to my
humble hermitage; there will I dress
your wounds and offer you my frugal
fare; happy if from this lesson you may
learn for the rest of your lives, before
indulging in vehement assertions and
proceeding to violent extremities, to
‘ look at the other side of the shield.’ ”
The application of this fable to the
polarity of politics will be obvious to
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
hi
every intelligent reader. As the earth is when they are placed in favourable con
ditions as in new countries, or in old
kept in its orbit by the due balance of
centripetal and centrifugal forces, so is countries where for ages
every civilised society held together by
“Freedom has widened slowly down,
the opposite influences of conservative
From precedent to precedent,
and progressive tendencies. .The con
that this happy ideal is most nearly
servative tendency may be likened to
the centripetal force which binds the realised. Hence it is that these races
mass together, while the progressive one are more and more coming to the front
resembles that centrifugal force which and surviving in the struggle for existence.
The contrast of English and French
prevents it from being concentrated in a
colonisation affords a striking instance of
rigid and inert central body without life
this difference of races. A century and
or motion. As Herbert Spencer truly
says, “ from antagonistic social tendencies a half ago France stood as well as
there always results not a medium state, England in the race for colonial supre
but a rhythm between opposite states. macy. She had the start of us in Canada,
Now the one greatly preponderates, and and her pioneers had explored the Great
presently, by reaction, their comes a Lakes, the Mississippi, and a large part
preponderance of the other.” So it is of the continent of North America west
with the antagonism of conservative and of the Rocky. Mountains. To-day there
liberal tendencies. In the societies of are sixty millions of an English-speaking
the ancient world, and to the present population in that continent, while French
day in the East, the conservative tendency is scarcely spoken beyond the single
unduly preponderates, and they crystal province of Quebec. Political events
lise into inert masses in the form of had doubtless something to. do with
despotisms, and of sacerdotal or ad this result; but it has been mainly owing
ministrative hierarchies. At times the to the innate qualities of the two races,
pent-up forces which make for change for even the genius of Chatham might
accumulate, and, as in the French have failed to establish our supremacy
Revolution, explode with destructive if it had not been backed by the superior
violence, shattering the old and bringing intelligence, energy, and staying power
in new eras. But unless the balance of the English colonists. The ultimate
between liberty and order is tolerably cause of the triumph of the English over
preserved in the individual citizens whose the French element in America, and
aggregate forms the society, after a period India is doubtless to be found in the
more or less prolonged of violent oscilla stronger individualism of the former.
tions, they crystallise anew into fresh The character of the French is eminently
forms, in which another military dynasty, social: they like to live in societies, and
or, it may be, administrative centralisa shrink from encountering the hardships,
tion under the name of a republic, again and still more the isolation, of the life of
asserts the preponderance of the centri early settlers. They like to be adminis
tered, and shrink from the responsibility
petal force.
The happiest nations are those in of hewing out, each for themselves, their
which the individual character of in own path in the relations of civil life or
dividual citizens supplies the requisite in the depths of primaeval forests.
It is so to the present day, and they
balance. An ideal society is one in
which every citizen is at the same time fail conspicuously in creating a large
liberal and conservative; law-abiding, French population even at their own
and yet with a strong instinct for liberty doors in Algeria; while in their more
of thought and action, for progress and distant colonies they conquer and annex,
for individual independence.
It is but to see their commerce fall into the
among the Teutonic races, especially hands of English, Germans, and Chinese,
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PRACTICAL POLARITIES
as in Cochin China, or to stagnate as in
New Caledonia. As a witty French
writer puts it, the trade of a remote
French colony may be summed up as—
imports, absinthe and cigars; exports,
stamped paper and red-tape. Individual
ism in this case has been fairly pitted
against Socialism, and has beaten it out
of the field by the verdict of Fact, which
is more conclusive than any amount of
abstract argument.
To return, however, to the field of
politics. Where the essential quality of
being law-abiding is wanting in individuals,
it is hopeless to look for real liberty.
The centripetal force in societies, as in
planets, must be supplied somehow, or
they would fly into dissolution; and if
not by the integration of the tendencies
of the individual units, then by external
restrictions. Socialists may be allowed
to make inflammatory harangues in a
non-explosive atmosphere, but hardly
to let off their fireworks in a powdermagazine. In order, however, that a
nation shall be law-abiding, it is essential
that the great majority should feel that,
on the whole, the law is their friend.
It is not in human nature to love that
which injures, or to respect that which
is felt to be unjust. The volcanic ex
plosion of the French Revolution was
due to the feeling of the French nation,
with the exception of a few courtiers,
nobles, and priests, that the existing
order of things was their enemy, and
law a tool in the hands of their oppressors.
Even among English-speaking races we
find, in the unfortunate instance of
Ireland, that under specially unfavourable
circumstances the same effects may be
produced by the same causes. What
has English law practically meant for
centuries to an average peasant of Kerry
or Connemara? It has meant an irre
sistible malevolent power, which comes
down on him with writs of eviction to
compel him to pay a high rent on his
own improvements. More that half the
population of Ireland consists of tenants
and their families occupying small hold
ings, paying less than ^io a year of rent.
Of an immense majority of these sm.dl
holdings two things' may be safely
asserted : first, that the total gross value
of the produce is insufficient, after paying
the rent, to leave a decent subsistence
for the cultivator. Secondly, that this
rent is levied to a great extent on the
improvements of the tenant or his prede
cessors. Throughout the poorer parts of
Ireland the greater part of the soil, in its
natural state of bog or mountain, is not
worth a rent of a shilling an acre; but
some poor peasant, urged by the earth
hunger which results from the absence
of other sources of employment, squats
upon it, builds a wretched cottage, delves,
drains, fences, and reclaims a few acres
of land, so as to bear a scanty crop of
oats and potatoes. When he has done
so the landlord or landlord’s agent comes
to him and says : “ This land is worth
ten or fifteen shillings an acre, according
to the standard of rents in the district,
and you must pay it or turn out and
the law backs him in saying so by writs
of eviction and police. Put yourself in
poor Pat’s place, and say if you would
love the law and be law-abiding.
It would take me too far from the
scope of this volume into the field of
contemporary politics if I attempted to
point out who is to blame for this state
of things, or what are the remedies. It
is enough to say that this is the real Irish
problem, and to point to it as an instance
of the calamitous effects which inevitably
follow when the instincts of a whole
population are brought by an unfavour
able combination of circumstances into
necessary and natural antagonism with
the laws which they are bound to obey.
Conservative legislation, by whatever
party it is introduced, really means making
the law correspond with the common
sense and common morality of all except
the criminal and crotchety classes, so
that the majority may feel it to be their
friend. For instance, the most truly
conservative measure of recent times was
probably that which legalised trades’
unions and gave working-men full liberty
to combine for an increase of wages.
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
The old legal maxim, that such combina
tions were illegal as being in restraint of
trade, was so obviously an invention of
the members of the upper caste who
wore horsehair wigs, to give their fellows
of the same caste who employed labour
an unfair advantage, that it could not
fail to cause feelings of discontent and
exasperation among the masses of working
men. By its repeal the sting has been
taken out of Socialism, and the British
working-man has come to be, in the main,
a reasonable citizen, on whom incitements
to violence in order to inaugurate Utopias
fall as lightly as the howlings of the
barren east wind on the chimney-tops.
It has led also to reasonable and peaceful
adjustment of disputes between employers
and labourers by arbitration and slidingscales instead of by strikes and lock-outs.
In the United States of America the lawabiding instinct is even stronger. We
find that strikes attended with violence
are almost always confined mainly to the
foreign element of recently-imported
immigrants, and that the native-born
American citizen considers the laws as
his own laws, and is determined to have
them respected.
The balance between the conservative
and progressive tendencies is, however,
at the best, always imperfect, and inclines
too much sometimes in one and some
times in the other direction. In England
the conservative tendency has had, on
the whole, too much preponderance. I
do not speak of political institutions, for
in these of late years the balance has
been pretty equally preserved ; but in
practical matters there is still a good
deal of old-fashioned stolid obstruction.
This is most apparent in law and in
education. The common or judge-made
law, though on the whole well-intentioned
and upright, is fettered by so many
technicalities and musty precedents that
it fails in a great many instances to be
what civil law ought to be—a cheap,
speedy, and intelligible instrument for
enforcing honest dealings as between
man and man. One of our greatest
railway contractors once said to me : “ If
113
I want to make an agreement which shall
be absolutely binding, I make it myself
on a sheet of notepaper; if I want to
have a loophole, I send it to my lawyer
to have it drawn up in legal language
and engrossed on sheets of parchment.”
Another man of large experience in com
mercial and financial matters laid down
this axiom : “ If you want to know what
is the law in a doubtful case, reason out
what is the common-sense view of it,
and assume that the direct opposite is
probably the law.”
These may be
extreme instances, as all such epigram
matic sentences generally are, but it is
undeniable that they have a considerable
basis of substantial truth; and that law,
with its dilatory processes, its enormous
expense, and its uncertain conclusions,
may be, and often is, not an instrument
of justice, but a weapon in the hands of
an unscrupulous adventurer or of a dis
honest rich man to extort blackmail or
to defeat just claims.
Again, what nation but England would
tolerate so long a system of land law,
so bristling with antiquated technicali
ties, so tedious, and so expensive, as
almost to amount to a prohibition of the
transfer of land in small quantities; or
would let the private interests of a mere
handful of professional lawyers stand in
the way of a codification of laws and a
registration of titles ?
Education is another subject which
shows how difficult it is to move the
sluggish ultra-conservative instincts of
the English mind in the direction, of
progress, when not stimulated by political
conflict.
What is education ?
The
word tells its own story; it is to draw
out, not to cram in; to unfold the capa
cities of the growing mind, strengthen
the reasoning faculty, create an interest
in the surrounding universe—in a word,
to excite a love of knowledge and impart
the means of acquiring it. For the mass
of the population education is neces
sarily confined in a great measure to the
latter object. The three R’s—-reading,
writing, and arithmetic—are indispens
able requisites, and the acquirement of
�H4
PRACTICAL POLARITIES
these, with perhaps a few elements of
history and geography, absorbs nearly
all the time and opportunity that can be
afforded for attendance at school. For
any culture beyond this the great
majority must depend on themselves in
after life. But there are a large number
of parents of the upper and middle
classes who can and do keep their
children at school for eight or ten years,
and spend a large sum of money in
giving them what is called a higher
education. What is there to show for
this time and money, even in the case
of the highest schools, which ought to
give the highest education? On the
credit side, a little Latin and less Greek,
plenty of cricket and athletics, good phy
sical training, and, best of all on the whole,
a manly, honourable, and gentlemanlike
spirit.
But on the debit side, abso
lute ignorance, except in the case of a
few unusually clever and ambitious boys,
of all that a cultivated man of the twen
tieth century ought to know. No French,
no German, and, what is worse, no
English. The average boy can neither
write his own language legibly nor gram
matically, and, if he goes straight from a
public school into a competitive examina
tion, stands an excellent chance of being
plucked for spelling. And, what is worst
of all, he not only knows nothing, but
cares to know nothing; his reasoning
faculty has never been cultivated, and
his interest in interesting things has
never been awakened. What is the first
lesson he has had to learn ? “Propria
qucn maribus dicantur mascula dicas ”—
that is, words appropriated to males are
called masculine—a lesson which elicits
as much reasoning faculty and creates as
much interest as if he had been made to
commit to memory that things made of
gold are called golden. Suppose instead
of this that the lesson had been that two
volumes of hydrogen combine with one
volume of oxygen to form water. The
exercise to the memory is the same; but
how different is the amount of thought
and interest evoked, especially if the
experiment is made before the class and
each boy has to repeat it for himself!
How many new subjects of interest woud
this open up in the mind of any lad of
average intelligence ! How strange that
there should be airs other than the
air we breathe, which can be weighed
and measured, and that two of them
by combining shall produce their exact
weight of a substance so unlike them
as water!
Or if the exercise of a
class were to look through a microscope
at the leaf of a plant or wing of an insect,
and try who could best draw what they
had seen and write a description of it in
a legible hand and in good English, how
many faculties would this call into play
compared with the dull routine of parsing
a Latin sentence or writing a halting
copy of Greek iambics 1 Even grammar,
the one thing which is supposed to be
taught thoroughly, is taught so unintelligently that it awakens no interest beyond
that of a parrot learning by rote. From
“propria qua maribus” the scholar passes
to “ as tn prasenti perfectum format in
avif without an attempt to explain what
language really means, how it originates
from root-words, and how these inflec
tions of “as” and “avi” are part of the
devices which certain families of man
kind, including our own, have invented
as a mechanism for attaching shades of
meaning, such as present and past, to
the primitive root. Even the alphabet,
intelligently taught, opens up wide fields
of interesting matter as to the history of
ancient nations, and their successive
attempts to analyse the component
sounds of their spoken words, and to
pass from primitive picture-writing to
phonetic symbols. But the instructors
of the budding manhood of the elite of
the nation, like Gallio, “ care for none
of these things,” and the organisation of
our higher schools seems to be stereo
typed on the principle that they are
made for teachers rather than for scholars,
and that the chief raison d'etre is to
enable a limited number of highly re
spectable gentlemen from the Universities
to realise comfortable incomes with a
maximum of holidays and a minimum of
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
115
gance and insolent ignorance I Reflected
trouble. And the parents support the
in the latter form from Paris, in hysterical
system because so many of them really
reverence rank more than knowledge, shouts now of “ A Berlin, a Berlin!
and are willing to compound for their and now “ A bas perfide Albion !. we
call it “ Chauvinism,” and recognise it
sons growing up ignorant, idle, and extra
as an unlovely exhibition. But call it
vagant, if by any chance they can count
“Jingoism,” and let it take the form of
a lord or two among their acquaintance.
Mr. Francis Galton, in the course of the bellowings of some stupid bull, as
the red rag, now of a French and now of
his interesting inquiries as to the effect
a Russian scare, crosses his line of vision,
of heredity and education on character
and attainments, took the very practical and we are blind to its deformity. Still
course of addressing a set of questions to there is another side to the shield, for even
“ Jingoism,” which is only another word
some hundred and eighty of our most
for patriotism run mad, is more respect
distinguished men as to the hereditary
able than the opposite extreme, of a
qualities of their ancestors, and the
sordid and narrow-minded parochialism,
various influences which they considered
had done most to promote or to retard which shrinks behind the “ silver streak,
measures everything by the standard of
their success in life. Of course, he re
pounds, shillings, and pence, and, with
ceived a variety of answers, “ quot. homines
tot sententice” but upon one point there what Tenhyson calls
“The craven fear of being great,”
was a striking unanimity. “ They almost
all expressed a hatred of grammar and groans over the responsibilities of ex
the classics, and an utter distaste for the tended empire. The growth.of such a
old-fashioned system of education. There spirit among prominent politicians of the
were none who had passed through this advanced Liberal school seems to me
old high and dry education who were one of the most alarming symptoms of
satisfied with it. Those who came from the day; but I take comfort when I
the greater schools usually did nothing reflect that the most democratic com
there, and have abused the system munity in the world—that of the United
heartily.”
States—is precisely the one which has
And yet the system goes on, and the shown most determination to maintain
Eton Latin grammar will probably be its national greatness, if necessary by the
taught, and hexameters written, for sword, and has made the greatest sacri
another generation. Surely the needle fices for that object. If the. “copper
swings here too strongly towards the heads ” were a miserable minority in
negative or obstructive pole.
America, why should we be afraid of
The instances are so numerous in our “ English copperheads ” ever be
social and practical life in which it is coming a majority in Old England? .
necessary to look at both sides of the
In this, as in all similar cases, it is
shield that the difficulty is in selection. evident that true statesmanship consists
Take the case of patriotism. Patriotism in hitting the happy mean, and doing
is beyond all doubt a great virtue—in the right thing at the right time; and
fact, the fertile mother of many of the that true strength stands firm in the
higher and heroic virtues. Who does middle between the two opposite poles,
not sympathise with the legends of while weakness is drawn, by one or other
Wallace and William Tell, and scorn of the conflicting attractions into
with Walter Scott
“ The falsehood of extremes.”
“the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said,
1 This is my own, my native land ’ ” ?
And yet how thin a line of partition
separates it from narrow-minded arro-
When Sir Robert Peel, some forty
years ago, announced his conversion by
the unadorned eloquence of Richard
Cobden, and free trade was inaugurated,
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
with results which were attended with foreign trade for the supplies to keep the
the most brilliant success, everyone ex other half alive. It is the best policy
pected that the conversion of the rest of also for a country which, owing to its
the civilised world was only a question mineral resources, its accessibility by sea
of time, and that a short time. Few to markets, its accumulated capital, and
would have been found bold enough to the inherited qualities, physical and
predict that forty years later England moral, of its working population, has
would stand almost alone in the world unrivalled advantages for cheap pro
in adherence to free trade principles, duction. Nor can any dispassionate
and that the protectionist heresy would observer dispute that in England, which
not only be strengthened and confirmed is such a country, free trade has worked
among Continental nations, such as well. It has not worked miracles, it has
France and Germany, but actually not introduced an industrial millennium,
adopted by large and increasing majorities the poor are still with us, and it has not
in the United States, Canada, Australia, saved us from our share of commercial
and other English-speaking communities. depressions. But, on the whole, national
Yet such is the actual fact at the present wealth has greatly increased, and, what
day. In spite of the Cobden Club and is more important, national well-being
of arguments which to the average has increased with it, the mass of the
English mind appear irresistible, free population, and especially of the working
trade has been steadily losing ground classes, get better wages, work shorter
for the last twenty years, and nation after hours, and are better fed, better clothed,
nation, colony after colony, sees its pro and better educated than they were forty
tectionist majority increasing and its free years ago.
trade minority dwindling.
This is one side of the shield, and it
It is evident there must be some real is really a golden and not an illusory
cause for such a universal phenomenon. one. But look at the other side. Take
In countries like France and Russia we the case of a country where totally oppo
may attribute it to economical ignorance site conditions prevail—where there is
and the influence of cliques of manu no surplus population, unlimited land,
facturers and selfish interests; but the limited capital, labour scarce and dear,
people of Germany, and still more of the and no possibility of competing in the
United States, Canada, and Australia, foreign, or even in the home, market
are as intelligent as ourselves, and quite with the manufactures which, with free
as shrewd in seeing where those interests trade, would be poured in by countries
really lie. They are fettered by no tradi like England, in prior possession of all
tional prejudices, and their political in the elements of cheap production. It
stincts rather lie towards freedom and is by no means so clear that protection,
against the creation of anything like an to enable native industries to take root
aristocracy of wealthy manufacturers. and grow, may not in such cases be the
And yet, after years of free discussion, wisest policy.
they have become more and more
Take as a simple illustration the case of
hardened in their protectionist heresies. an Australian colony imposing an import
What does this prove? That there duty on foreign boots and shoes. There
are two sides to the shield, and not, as is not a doubt that this is practically
we fancied in our English insularity, only taxing the immense majority of colonists
one.
who wear and do not make these articles.
Free trade is undoubtedly the best, or But, on the other hand, it makes the
rather the only possible, policy for a colony a possible field for emigration for
country like England, with forty millions all the shoemakers of Europe, and shoe
of inhabitants, producing food for less making a trade to which any Australian
than half the number, and depending on with a large family can bring up one of
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
J17
a larger life possible, it may be sound
his sons. Looking at it from the strict
point of view of the most rigid political policy to pay it, and the result seems to
economist, the maximum production of show that neither it nor free trade is
inconsistent with rapid progress j while,
wealth, which is the better policy ? The
production of wealth, we must recollect, on the other hand, neither of them
affords an absolute immunity from the
depends on labour, and productive labour
depends on the labourer finding his tools evils that dog the footsteps of progress,
and from the periods of reaction and
—that is, employment at which he can
work. A labourer who cannot find work depression which accompany vicissitudes
at living wages is worse than a zero j he is of trade.
Here, as in other cases, there are two
a negative quantity, as far as the accu
mulation of wealth is concerned. On sides of the shield, and true statesman
the other hand, every workman who ship consists in seeing, both, and doing
finds work, even if it may not be of the the right thing, at the right place, and at
ideally best description, is a wealth-pro the right time. If free trade .is, as we
believe, ultimately to prevail, it will be
ducing machine. What he spends on
himself and his family gives employment an affair of time. The real trial of pro
to other workmen, and the work must be tection comes when it has stimulated pro
poor indeed if the produce of a year s duction to a point which gluts the home
labour is not more than the cost of a market and leaves a surplus which must
Exports of articles the
year’s subsistence. The surplus adds to be exported.
the national capital, and thus capital and cost of which has been artificially, raised
population go on increasing in geo by protection cannot compete in the
metrical progression. The first problem, world’s market with the cheaper products
Vicissitudes,
therefore, for a new or a backward of free-trade countries.
country is to find “a fair day’s wages therefore, of prosperity and depression
for a fair day’s work ” for as many hands must tend to become more frequent and
as possible. The problem of making more severe, and, if production goes on,
that employment the most productive a point must be reached where, at what
possible is a secondary one, which will ever cost, it must either be ai rested or
solve itself in each case rather by actual made capable of competing in the wider
market. The United States are probably
practice than by abstract theory.
not far from such a point, and it would
This much, however, is pretty clear—
that, in order to secure the maximum of have been already reached but for the
employment, it must be varied. All are immense and unexhausted resources of
not fit for agricultural work, and, even if that vast continent. In France the point
they were, if the conditions of soil and has apparently been reached, and we
climate favour large estates and sheep find that, with a lower scale of wages
or cattle runs rather than small farms, a than in England, it is becoming more
large amount of capital may provide and more difficult every day to maintain
work for only a small number of that lower scale and the export trade
labourers. On social and moral grounds, of its manufactured goods to foreign
also, apart from dry considerations of markets.
Protection, leading to higher wages
political economy, progress, intelligence,
and a higher standard of life are more and profits than can be permanently
likely to be found with large cities, manu maintained, and artificially enhancing
factures, and a variety of industrial occu the cost of living to the working classes,
pations than with a dead level of a few threatens more and more every day to
millionaires and a few shepherds, or of introduce strained relations between
a few landlords and a dense population capital and labour in most countries of
of poor peasants. If protection is the Europe.
The relation between capital and
price which must be paid to render such
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PRACTICAL POLARITIES
labour affords a good instance of the: manufacturer or mine-owner’s profit may
inevitable error of applying hard-and- rise from five to twenty per cent, without
fast logical conclusions to the complex quadrupling the rate of wages; but, on
and ever-varying problems of actual life. the other hand, it may fall from twenty
- Ricardo and other distinguished writers per cent, to five, or even for a time below
on political economy have assumed that zero, without a proportionate diminution
the two constitute a fundamental antago in the price paid for labour. Capital is,
nistic polarity. Wealth, they say, is the in fact, the great insurer of labour, the
joint product of capital and labour, and, fly-wheel which regulates the motion of
as in the case of a cake which has to be the industrial machine. This will be
divided between C and L, the more C best illustrated by a practical instance.
gets the less is left for L, and vice versit,. The Brighton Railway Company for
The theory sounds plausible; but what several consecutive years paid no divi
says fact ? In the most unmistakeable dend, or only a trifling amount, on the
manner it pronounces, as the outcome of shareholders’ capital; but during the
practical experience, that the profits of whole of this time it gave steady employ
capital and the wages of labour rise and ment at good wages to upwards of ten
fall together. High profits mean high thousand workmen. The Blaenavon
wages, rising profits rising wages, falling Coal and Iron Company in South Wales
profits falling wages. It has been proved was for many years a losing concern, and
so in a thousand instances, and not one successive capitalists lost the best part of
can be quoted where the one factor has a million pounds in it, until at length it
varied in an inverse, and not in a direct, was reorganised with a small capital, and
ratio with the other. It is obvious that became a fairly prosperous concern.
there must be some fallacy in Ricardo’s During the whole of this time it gave
argument.
The fallacy is this : he employment at fair wages to several
assumes the cake to be of fixed dimen thousand workmen. Which had the
sions, whereas, in point of fact, it varies, better of it in these two cases, capital or
sometimes diminishing to zero, or even labour; and where would the workmen
to a negative quantity, at others expand have been on any communistic or co
ing to many times its original size. A operative system ? In fact, it will be
new goldfield is discovered in a remote apparent to anyone who will' study dis
country, and forthwith profits rise to passionately the statistics of any line of
cent, per cent., and wages to a pound a inquiry, such as the scale of wages, the
day; a bad season and depression of price of provisions, and the accumula
trade overtake an old country, and the tions of savings banks and provident
gross value of the produce of many a societies, etc., for the last twenty years,
farm is insufficient to cover expenses that the working classes have had the
and depreciation, even if the labourers lion’s share of the vast increase which has
worked for nothing. The polarity is taken place in the wealth and income of
therefore confined to the limited and the nation. I am glad that it is so, for
temporary case of the division of the it is better, both morally and politically,
profit, where there is a profit, in particular that the condition of the masses should
trades and in individual instances. And be improved and their standard of living
this is regulated mainly by the accus raised than that capital should accumu
tomed scale of wages and standard of late too exclusively in large masses.
living of the workmen, and their oppor
Still, there is a good deal to be said
tunities of finding employment elsewhere for such large accumulations. Let us
if dissatisfied with the terms offered to go to the United States of America for
them. On the whole, it may be said an illustration, where everything is on a
that capital has the best of it on a rising, large scale, and colossal fortunes have
and wages on a falling, market. A | been made in a few years. The modus
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
119
the continent—the Northern Pacificoperand! by which most of these fortunes j
ruined two successive sets of promoters,
have been made may be described ac
and is only now beginning to be mode
cording to the way we look at it, either
as a railway jobbing or as pioneering the rately successful.
But the final result has been that,
way in useful enterprise. The construc
while British India, which went on what
tion of the first railway across the conti
may be called the respectable system of
nent to California is a typical instance.
getting a pound’s worth of work for every
A clique or syndicate of wealthy specula
pound raised, has only 12,000 miles of
tors make surveys and estimates of a
railway, the United States, under the
line across deserts and over mountain
ranges, and ascertain pretty accurately speculative system, has got 120,000
miles. I cannot doubt that the national
what it will cost. They form a company
with a capital double that cost, and, by wealth of America is greater at the
present day than if there had been no
subventions from the Government, grants
of land, and sale of mortgage bonds, raise Jay Goulds or Vanderbilts, and the con
the half really required and hold the struction of her railways had been de
layed on the average for twenty years.
other half in shares as profit m paper.
The contrast between labour and
The line is made, and if the traffic turns
capital or free trade and protection is
out well, and there is a period of specula
tion in the money market, the paper is only a particular case of the larger
turned into dollars, and, if the line really polarity between what is called in scien
costs, say, ^10,000,000 or ^20,000,000, tific language egoism and altruism, or,
in more popular phraseology, individual
the promoters realise an equal amount
ism and socialism. According to one
as profit.
. .
theory, the best result is obtained by
This has two sides to it—it is doubt
leaving individuals as free as possible to
less bad for the public to have to pay
rates which give a return on twice the act on their own suggestions of their
actual cost, and the possession of a close duties and interests, and confining the
monopoly in the hands of a few mil intervention of the State to enforcing
lionaires may be abused to the detriment laws for the protection of life and pro
of individual traders. But, on the other perty, and such measures as are obviously
hand, the railway could not have been necessary for the safety of society.
made in any other way. If it had been According to the other theory, the State
necessary to wait until the slow growth ought to interfere wherever the results of
of population insured such a traffic as individual liberty lead to abuses, and
would induce the ordinary public, to should endeavour to create a society as
subscribe for shares at par, you might near to ideal perfection as possible, by
have waited for twenty years before administering and regulating the public
a single mile of railway was made west and private affairs of its citizens. It is
of the Mississippi. Nor is this all. The obvious that the question has two sides
enormous profit realised in the first, of —that extreme conclusions in either
these enterprises led to a rush of rich direction are, as is always the case, in
speculators into the lottery of. pushing variably false. Individualism carried too
railways ahead of traffic, in which there far would disintegrate society. It would
were such magnificent prizes. The con be impossible to leave it to the short
tinent was covered by new railways, built sighted selfishness of every citizen to say
to create new traffic rather than to pro whether an army and navy should be
vide for that which already existed. And maintained for national defence, and
the traffic was created—though, as. the taxes should be levied for their support.
Individualism also easily passes oyer
lottery contained blanks as well as prizes,
into a hard and cruel selfishness, which
many of the original promoters were
ruined. The second great line spanning recognises no obligation beyond the letter
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PRACTICAL POLARITIES
of the law, and acts practically on the
success
that
principle of “Every one for himself, there is to two conditions—first, mar
no marrying or giving in
and the devil take the hindmost.” It is riage; secondly, that a member invented
this phase of individualism which makes
a patent, rat-trap—conditions which are
enthusiasts and men of strong moral hardly likely to survive in the struggle
and religious sympathies declaim so for life and become a type for general
vehemently against laissez faire, and cry adoption.
aloud, like Carlyle, for a hero or bene . The nearest approach to Communism
volent despot who is to scourge humanity in practical operation on a large scale is
into the practice of all the virtues.
that of the village communities of Russia
On the other hand, Socialism, if not and parts of India, which certainly show
confined within rigid limits of experience no signs of being progressive types
and common sense, is even more des destined to gain ground. On the con
tructive. in its consequences. Civilised trary,. they fail to fulfil what is the first
society is based on the security of private condition of an agricultural community
property and the observance of contracts.
that of obtaining a fair average pro
If these are liable, not merely to be duce from the soil; and the more enter
regulated in extreme and exceptional prising and intelligent moujiks or ryots
cases,, but to be absolutely condemned invariably seek to obtain something
in principle, as by Socialists of the which they can call their own and are
Proudhon school, who declare, “ La not obliged to share with the idle and
propnete c'est le vol”-, or overruled and improvident. A conclusive objection to
set aside whenever they are thought to all schemes of socialism or communism
conflict with humanitarian scruples or is that they not only crush out all indivi
sentimental aspirations, society would be dual initiative and enterprise in material
dissolved into its elements, to crystallise life, but that they also destroy all incen
anew about some military dictator or tives to individual charity and bene
other strong form of repressive govern volence. Why make sacrifices to help
ment, who.could restore it to a state of others if they are already helped at your
stable equilibrium in accordance with expense by the State ? This is no theo
these fundamental laws.
retical objection, but has been proved
No society based on the community practically by the history, of the poor
of goods has ever existed, except on a laws. What scope for individual charity
very limited scale and for a very short was there, in a parish like that in Buck
time, under some strong temporary in inghamshire, where under the old poor
fluence, such as religious excitement. law the rate has risen to twenty shillings
In. the early Christian Church it only in.the pound, and the cultivation of the
existed as long as its members were a soil was abandoned ? Or even in less
handful of humble individuals who were extreme cases, any one who is acquainted
impressed with the idea that the end of with remote rural parishes inhabited by
the world was close at hand, and that cotters and small farmers must be aware
sacrifices made on earth would be repaid that the poor law operates strongly to
at an early day, with compound interest, destroy the feeling of manly indepen
in heaven. They acted on what was dence and family affection which induced
almost as much a principle of enlightened the poor to support their own aged and
selfishness as if they had placed their infirm relatives.
money on the best possible security at
In many parts of Scotland with which
the highest possible interest.
I am personally acquainted men who a
The only existing society, as far as I generation ago would have thought it a
am aware, which has everything in disgrace to ask for help to support an
common is a small sect of Shakers, in aged father or mother now think it only
the United States, which owes its limited fair play, after having contributed for
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
121
years to the poor rate, to try and get | dren, it is absurd to say that they are free
agents in contracting for the disposal of
something out of it in return.
Altruism, as Herbert Spencer_ well their labour, and the State properly
puts it, if carried to excess, defeats itself, interferes by Factory Acts to limit the
for in annihilating egoistic vices it anni number of hours for which they are to
hilates egoistic virtues, and the result is work. So in the relations between land-*
zero_a result which, as “nature abhors lord and tenant, whenever they meet on
a vacuum,” can happily never be at equal terms, and the tenant has an
tained, and the precepts of the Sermon option of either taking or refusing to
on the Mount must always remain take a farm at the rent asked, both sides
maxims of private morality rather than must be held to their bargain, however
disadvantageous it may turn out for
of State regulation.
It is of little use, however, to deal with either of them. But if the landlord is
such generalities; as long as we confine practically omnipotent, and the tenant
ourselves to extreme instances on either has no alternative but to promise to pay
side it is as easy as it is idle to refute an impossible rent or to be turned out
them. Profitable discussion only begins on the roadside and die of starvation, it
when we enter on the wide intermediate is by no means so clear that the State
space which lies between the extreme should enforce the bargain unless the
frontier provinces, and, instead of argu landlord submits to equitable terms. Or
ing for absolute conclusions, endeavour again, if the rent is not due to the in
to discover the happy mean in doubtful trinsic value of the land, but is a con
cases, where there really are limitations fiscation of the tenant’s improvements,
of time and circumstance and a. good it is far from being self-evident that the
deal which may be reasonably said on law should look only at landlords’ rights
and forget all about landlords’ duties.
each side of the question.
It is a question rather of fact than of
Take, for instance, the case of contract,
which has been so much discussed with argument or assertion whether such a
reference to the Irish question. Nothing state of things does or does not prevail
can be clearer than that the enforcement at any particular time in any particular
of contracts is one of the principal duties country. If the contracts were fair
of a Government. The principle caveat bargains entered into by free agepts,
emptor may occasionally lead to results they ought to be enforced whether prices
not altogether consistent with strict have risen or fallen, leaving it to the
morality; but there will always be fools humanity and self-interest of landlords
in the world, and it is better that they to make reasonable reductions. . But if
should pay for their folly than that the they were no more equal bargains than
State should be perpetually interfering in those of slaves or factory children, the
the vain attempt to protect them. The State might fairly interfere to attach
bargain may be a bad one, but it is far equitable conditions to the enforcement
better that men should be held to their of inequitable contracts.
The antithesis between the rights and
bargains than that every loser should
have a loophole provided to escape by duties of property, especially in the case
appealing to some legal quibble or State- of land, is one which raises many nice
and difficult questions. Some theorists,
provided tribunal of arbitration.
But there are limits to this salutary like Henry George, are for solving it by
principle. The contract must be a free ignoring the rights altogether. According
one, freely entered into by parties who to them, private property in land is the
meet on equal terms. If it is a com source of all the evils that afflict modern
pulsory one, which the weaker party has society; poverty, depressions of trade,
practically no option of refusing, the situa low profits, and low wages are caused by
tion is altered. Thus, in the case of chil the constant drift towards high rents,
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PRACTICAL POLARITIES
due to the possession by a small section
of the community of a monopoly in that
which is as much a necessity of existence
as air or water. Abolish private property
in land, and straightway you will have
the millennium.
In this extreme form the fallacy of the
argument is obvious. You cannot stop
at land, but must have the courage of
your opinion, and go the full length, like
Proudhon, of denouncing all property as
robbery. For if the right of individual
property is the first condition of civilised
society, you can hardly exclude that
form of it which, in all ages and all
countries, has been practically the most
powerful incentive to progress and civili
sation.
Compare the United States of America,
under their homestead laws, with Russia,
under a system of village communes; or
the California of to-day with that of fifty
years ago under the Jesuit padres; and
you will see that the desire to acquire
property in land has been what may be
called the high-pressure steam supplying
the motive power to reclaim continents
and multiply populations.
Nor in principle is there any argu
ment for the confiscation of land which
would not equally apply to the con
fiscation of any other sort of property,
when theorists, philanthropic at other
people’s expense, thought that the owner
had more than was good for him, or had
acquired it as an unearned increment,
without working for it. Suppose two
men, A and B, employed as engine
drivers on an American railway, have
each saved a hundred dollars. The rail
way has been a failure : intended to reach
a distant terminus, it has stopped half
way in a desert, for want of funds, and
for years has paid no dividend. The
hundred-dollar shares are only worth ten,
and the land at the distant terminus is
only worth ten dollars an acre. But A
and B are sharp fellows, and see that, if
speculation ever revives, the line will
probably be completed, and both shares
and land will become valuable. A buys
ten shares with his hundred dollars, and |
B ten acres of land. The boom comes,
the capital is found, the line completed,
and the shares rise to par, and the land
to a hundred dollars an acre. A and B
have each realised nine hundred dollars
by what may be described, as you like to
put it, either as an unearned increment
or as providence and foresight. On what
principle can you confiscate B’s nine
hundred dollars because it is in land, and
leave A’s untouched because it is in
shares ?
On the other hand, there is no doubt
that when we come to more complex
cases, in which land is held in large
masses, fenced in, not by the natural
right of a man to the produce of his own
exertions, but by artificial legal systems
of inheritance and settlement, we are on
neutral ground, where fair discussion is
possible as to the limitations and condi
tions under which the State may afford
its protection. Landed property is more
the creature of law, and runs greater
risks in case of revolution or communistic
legislation than personal property, which
is more easily concealed or transferred.
It is not unreasonable, therefore, that it
should pay a higher insurance in the
form of taxation, and especially when it
passes by inheritance or settlement, when
the new owner’s title is to a great extent
artificial and the creation of the law. No
one can dispute the abstract justice of a
succession duty on all property, landed
or personal, in proportion to its amount,
passing by operation of law : the only
question can be as to the amount, and
the expediency of confining it within
limits that shall not trench on confisca
tion or impair the desire to accumulate
capital. And in the case of land, there
is no doubt that there are a good many
instances in which the question of the
“ unearned increment ” is raised more
forcibly than in the case of ordinary pro
perty. Take a practical instance within
my own knowledge, for an illustration is
often better than an argument. There
was a mountain property in Wales which,
as a sheep or cattle farm, might be worth
at the outside ^800 a year. Coal and
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
123
iron were discovered under it, capitalists on the evils which arise from State inter
sank pits and erected works, two or three ference. There can be no doubt that it
sets losing their money; but the works is very undesirable that the State should
were carried on, a large amount of labour become a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, and
was employed, and in course of time a undertake branches of business which
town of some eight or nine thousand can be conducted by private enterprise.
inhabitants sprang up. The proprietor’s It is undesirable for two reasons : first,
^800 a year grew into ^8,000 from because the work is certain to cost more
fixed rents and royalties, which he has and be worse done; secondly, for the
enjoyed for the last thirty years, through still more important reason that it tends
good times and bad, without being called to extinguish individual enterprise,
on to contribute a penny towards schools, strangle progress with red-tape, and teach
churches, roads, sewers, water, or any of a nation to look, like children, to outside
the local objects necessary for the civilised guidance, rather than, like men, to their
existence of the population of eight own. Still, the question has two sides.
thousand, whose labour has added to his Whatever individual enterprise can do
wealth. I do not blame him *. the law should be left to it; but there are, in the
told him to do what he liked with his complex conditions of modem society,
own, and it probably never occurred to a number of things which cannot be
him that he was under any moral done by individuals, and which must
obligation to go beyond the law. But I either be left undone or done by the
do think that the law would have been State, or by some local authority, jointmore just, and better for the interests stock company, or other quasi-monopoly
of the community, if it had made some sanctioned by the State. Thus, if it
portion of this unearned increment, of were a question of bringing coals from
^■7,000 a year liable for a contribution Newcastle by sea, no one would suggest
towards the sanitary and other objects that the State should interfere with the
essential for the decent existence of the private enterprise of individual ship
town which had grown up on this property owners. But to bring them by land
and given it this increased value. I requires railways, and railways can only
cannot help thinking that centuries of be built by capital beyond the reach of
landlord legislation, and of a public private individuals. If the State had
opinion based mainly on that of the not delegated a portion of its powers to
wealthy and specially of the landed joint-stock companies, not a ton of coal
classes, have made our laws in many would ever have been brought by land
respects too favourable to the pre to London.
And if the State may thus occasionally
dominant interests, and that the swing
of the pendulum now is, and properly delegate its powers with advantage to the
is, in the direction of recognising the community, there are cases in which it
may, with equal advantage, undertake
duties as well as the rights of property.
We must take care, however, not to itself branches of the nation’s business.
let it swing too far in this direction, for For instance, the Postal Service. .The
of the two evils it is better to put up advantages of a cheap and uniform
with occasional cases of hardship and system for the collection and delivery of
oppression on the part of bad landlords letters throughout the whole kingdom
than to endanger the security of property are so great that they far outweigh, any
by reforms pushed to extremes at the theoretical objections to State inter
dictation of impulsive masses, design ference. Possibly some of the larger
ing demagogues, or sentimental philan towns might have been as well or better
served by private enterprise, but no non
thropists.
Herbert Spencer, in his works on paying district would have had a postSociology, often dwells with great force office, and the enormous commercial
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PRACTICAL POLARITIES
and educational benefits of the penny dozen telegrams asking him to quote
post would have been in a great measure special rates, one perhaps for beef from
lost to the community.
Chicago to London, another for emi
The case of telegraphs is not so clear. grants from Hamburg to New York via
Probably, on the whole, the advantages Liverpool, and all requiring telegraphic
of a uniform State management pre answers then and there, if the business is
ponderate, but there are drawbacks to be done at all.
which make it doubtful. Even at a six
Again, if railways had been in the
penny rate a great deal of the telegraphic hands of the State, I do not suppose
communication of the large towns and that we should have had half our present
active centres of business is taxed to mileage; for the Treasury would never
make up for the deficiency of the rest of have sanctioned the outlay of public
the kingdom. And invention and im money on lines which could not show
provement in telegraphy are no doubt the prospect of a fair return on the
checked to a considerable extent by capital, and it would have vetoed any
creating a State monopoly, whose first multiplication of trains or reduction of
duty it is to try to satisfy its masters at rates which threatened loss to the ex
the Treasury by making the system pay. chequer. I can speak with some autho
When we come to railways, we are on rity on this point, for I have been both
debateable ground, and it is fairly chairman of a railway company and
arguable that they should be worked by Secretary of the Treasury, and I am
the State for the public good. But the certain that, in the former capacity, I
objections here outweigh the advantages. have introduced important innovations,
Everyone who has any practical experi such as excursion trains and cheap
ence of the working of railways must be periodical tickets, by which the public
aware that the simplicity and uniformity have greatly benefited, which I should
of the penny postal system are totally have vetoed in the latter capacity.
inapplicable, and that the traffic of the
Still, there may be exceptional cases,
country requires, above all things, great as that of Ireland, where an unreason
freedom and elasticity in meeting, day able number of poor companies, in a
by day, the varying contingencies which poor country, wrangling among them
arise. Here is an illustration: In a selves, and giving a bad service at an
certain town in France, on a railway excessive cost, intensify social and
worked by the State, it was determined political evils, where the arguments in
to have a fete, in order to raise funds for favour of a State purchase may outweigh
a hospital, and, as an attraction, to bring the objections; and the extent and
down from Paris a small troop of actors nature of State control over British rail
and have a play in the evening. The ways is always a question fairly open to
question turned on the railway consent discussion.
ing to give them a reduced fare for the
In other departments the supply of
return journey. The manager of the articles such as water and gas, and the
railway was quite willing, but said that enforcement of sanitary conditions, are
he had no power to alter the tariff with probably best left to local authorities : in
out permission from the Minister of the latter case, under some central super
Public Works. The permission was vision, to see that the duty is not evaded.
applied for, and the result was that it Wherever neglect involves danger to
arrived exactly on the day twelve months others, as in the case of small-pox and
after the fete had been held.
other contagious epidemics, it is clear
Contrast this with the case of the that the decision cannot be left to indi
general manager of the London and viduals, and the State is bound to inter
North-Western Railway sitting in his fere to enforce rational precautions.
office at Euston and receiving half a
So also the State is bound to undertake
�PRACTICAL POLARITIES
trades which are essential for the pro
tection of the nation against foreign
enemies. Our dockyards and arsenals
may, and doubtless do, often make mis
takes and turn out expensive work ; but
we could not safely leave the building of
ironclads and supply of cannon solely to
private enterprise, for there is no such
large and steady demand for these articles
as would induce a number of private
firms to erect works and keep up estab
lishments adequate to supply the wants
which might arise in an emergency.. In
all such matters, therefore., of national
defence we must put up with a certain
amount of drawbacks incidental to State
management, and confine ourselves to
endeavouring to reduce them to a
minimum. And this is, to a great ex
tent, within the power of the nation and
its Parliament, by applying common
sense principles of business to national
expenditure, and seeing that, while on the
one hand we get as nearly as possible a
pound’s worth of work for every pound
spent, on the other hand we do not
spend nineteen shillings
uselessly,
because some Chancellor of the Ex
chequer wants to gain momentary popu
larity by the “ penny wise and pound
foolish ” economy of docking the extra
shilling off the necessary estimates. In
private life a man gets on by knowing
when to spend as well as when not to
spend, and true economy has no greater
foe than spasmodic parsimony alternating
almost certainly with spasmodic extrava
gance. It would be easy to multiply
instances, for there are few phases of
political and practical life to which the
principle of polarity does not apply,
where extremes are not false, and where
there is not a good deal to be said on
both sides of the question. But the very
obviousness of the principle makes it
difficult to deal with it generally without
degenerating into commonplace, while to
trace its application exhaustively in any
one instance would require a volume.
Those who wish to pursue the subject
125
further will do well to study the works of
Herbert Spencer, where they will find
the application of general principles to
all the problems of sociology treated
with a depth of philosophic insight and
an abundance and aptness of illustration
which I cannot pretend to equal. My
ambition is of a humbler nature. I do
not expect to set the Thames on fire, or
to produce a revolution in modern
thought; but I do hope that the views
which I have endeavoured to express
may do somewhat to make some readers
more tolerant and charitable in their
judgments, less bitter and one-sided in
controversy; and that whatever truth
there may be in my ideas will contribute
to form a small part, neither more nor
less than it deserves, of the great body
of truth which is handed down from the
present to succeeding generations, and
which becomes, long after I am there to
witness it, the inheritance of the human
race in the course of its evolution.
And now, before I take my final leave
of the reader, let me for a few moments
throw the reins on the neck of fancy, and
suppose myself standing with that group
of Parsees by the shore of the Indian
Ocean, listening to its murmured rhythm,
inhaling the balmy air, watching the
silver crescent of the new moon, and
musing on the wise sayings of the
ancient sage ; the sum of the reflections
which I have tried to embody in the
preceding pages would take form and
crystallise in the following sonnet:—
Hail 1 gracious Ormuzd, author of all good,
Spirit of beauty, purity, and light ;
Teach me like thee to hate dark deeds of night,
And battle ever with the hellish brood
Of Ahriman, dread prince of evil mood—
Father of lies, uncleanness, envious spite,
Thefts, murders, sensual sins that shun the light,
Unreason, ugliness, and fancies lewd—
Grant me, bright Ormuzd, in thy ranks to stand,
A valiant soldier faithful to the end ;
So when I leave this life’s familiar strand,
Bound for the great Unknown, shall I commend
My soul, if soul survive, into thy hand—
Fearless of fate if thou thine aid will lend.
�INDEX
Abraham, 91
Accumulator, the, 37, 38
Acids and alkalies, 40, 41
Aerobes, 49
/Eschylus, 101
Ahriman, 89, 98, 99
Ahura Mazda, 98
Albuminoid substances pro
duced, 48
Algae, 52, 53
Altruism, 121
Amoebae, 44, 46, 47, 56, 62
Amos, 92
Analogy and identity, 12
Angiosperms, 54
Animals and plants, distinction
between, 51, 52
Anquetil du Perron on Parsee
creed, 99
Anthropoid apes, when appear,
54
Anthropomorphism, true and
false, 73, 85
Arithmetic, origin of, 71
Arnold’s definition of First
Cause, 85
Aryans, division of the, 97
Asceticism in Christianity, 103
Asiatic religious ideas, 80
Astronomy, 13, 77
Atavism, 62
Atomic theory, the, 18
Atoms, 15, 16-20, 22,25, 33,39
----- size of, 19, 20
-—— structure of, 39
Automata, animals as, 28
Avesta, the, 97
Avogadro, the law of, 16
Axolotl, the development of, 64
Brain, size of the, 67
Descartes on the soul, 72
----- structure of the, 66
Design, argument from, 80, 81
----- weight of the, 67
Deutsch, Emmanuel, 85, 92
Buddhism in Shakespeare, 80, Devonian strata, the, 53
88
Diamond, the, 43, 44
Burial customs, 76
Dicotyledons, 54
Dionsea, the, 53
Calculus, the differential and Divisibility of matter, 15, 17
integral, 23-5
Drummond, Professor, on ana
Cambrian strata, the, 53
logy, 12
Captivity, the, 92
Dynamite, 31, 32
Carbon, 18, 41
Dynamo, the, 37
Carboniferous strata, the, 53
Carlyle on deity, 85
Earth, motions of the, 50
----- on truth, 92
Education, defects of, 113
Carnegie on Parsee worship, 106 Egyptian tombs, 76, 77
Cell, the, 45
Elasticity, 21
Centripetal
and centrifugal Electric currents, 35
forces, 50
----- engines, 37
Chaldaic legends, 77
----- - light, 35
Chalk, formation of, 52
----- railways, 37
Chastity, reasons for, 59
Electricity, n, 16, 33-8
Chemical affinity, 32-3, 40-3
----- forms of, 33
------ change, nature of, 16
—— induction of, 35
Chemistry, 13, 16
----- nature of, 34
Chinese religion, 78, 79, 80
----- production of, 33, 34
Chlorophyll, 52, 53
----- storage of, 37
Christian ethic separable from ----- velocity of, 35
dogma, 90
Electrons, 16, 17, 19,20,26,34,
----- virtues, 90
39
Christianity as an ethical reli Elementary substances, number
gion, 91, 92
of, 18
----- and poverty, 87
Embryo, the, 57, 64
----- practical, 89
Energy, 26-7, 39
Coelenterata, 52
----- - forms of, 31
Cohesion, force of, 32
----- indestructibility of, 27, 28
Colloids, 44
----- of motion and position, 26,
Colonisation,
English
and
31
French, hi
----- supposed dissipation of, 31
Communism, 120
----- - transformation of, 28
Babylon, influence of, on Conceptions and perceptions, 73 Eozoon Canadense, 54
Jews, 92
Conductors of electricity, 34
Ether, 20, 21, 22, 39
Bacteria, 46, 48, 49, 56
Conservatism, value of, in, 112 ----- density of, 21
Balkh, 98
Creation, impossibility of, 19, 71 ----- elasticity of, 21
Bivalent atoms, 42
Credulity in former ages, 82, 86 ----- - pervades all space, 22
Bombay, Parsees at, 97, 103
Cretaceous strata, the, 53
Evil, origin of, 85, 86, 88
Braid, Dr., and hypnotic cures, Crystals, 22
Evolution, alleged good tendency
82, 84
Cumming, Dr., 31
of, 86
Brain, the, 66
----- - of species, 54, 55, 63-4
----- - action of the, 68
Darwin, 62, 63
Expansion of bodies by heat, 29
------ convolutions of the, 66
Days of the week, whence
----- parts of the, 68
named, 78
Faust, the, 101
�INDEX
127
Monotheism, origin of, 78, 79,
80
Moral instinct, the, 93
Morality, evolution of, 91, 92,
Jackson, Professor, on Zoro
aster, 97
93
Japanese Bozu on design, 80-1 ----- origin of, 91-3
Murder, development of moral
Jehovah, moral evolution of, 91
censure of, 92
Jesus as Ormuzd, 89
Music in worship, 107
----- not an ascetic, 103
Jewish morality, development
Nationalisation of railways,
of, 91, 92
123, 124
Jingoism, 115
Nerves, functions of the, 67
Joule, Dr., 28
----- structure of the, 67
Jurassi strata, the, 53
----- varieties of, 67
Newman’s “ illative sense,” 74
Kant on the soul, 72
Newton, 71
Kelvin, Lord, 19, 20, 25, 34
Knowledge, limits of, 65, 66, Nirvana, 87
Nitrogen, 32, 41
7D 73
Nummulitic limestone, 52
----- nature of, 66-9, 70-1
Nutrition, 46
----- - of crystals, the, 46
Galileo, the condemnation of, Labour and capital, 118
Land nationalisation, 122
75> 82
Oersted, 36
Larmor, Dr., 25
Gal ton, Mr. F., 115
Old Testament, errors due to, 89
Laurentian strata, the, 53
Galvanometer, the, 27
----- evolution of ideas in the,
Law, conservatism of the, 113
Gas, nature of, 16, 30
Lichens, 52
79
Gathas, the, 98
Oligocene strata, the, 53
Liebig, 49
Genesis, 77
Optimism and pessimism, 87
Light, nature of, 20, 21
Geometry, or;gin of, 71
Organic and inorganic, how
George, Henry, criticised, 121 ----- polarisation of, 22
differ, 44-5
----- velocity of, 20
Germ-plasm, 63
Ghosts, belief in, a root of Light-waves, dimensions of, 21 Organic compounds, artificial
production of, 48
Locomotion, animal, 47
religion, 75
Lungs and gills, changes of, 64 Ormuzd, 89, 98, 99
----- savage beliefs about, 75
Ovary, the, 57
Gift of tongues, the, 83
Oxygen, 16, 17, 18, 41
Magnet, the, 11, 12, 35, 36
Globigerina, 52
Magnetic needle, the, 36
God, origin of the word, 97
Pangenesis, 62
Maimonides on God, 86
Gravitation, law of, 31
Pantheism, 78, 79> 80
Mammals, when appear, 54
Greek religion, 79
Parsee burial rites, 101
Marconi system, the, 37
Gymnosperms, 53
----- worship, 101
Marriage, 61
Parsees, the, 97
Materialism, 66
Haeckel, 63, 64
Matter, composition of, 17, 19, ----- and education, 104
Haug, Dr., 98, 100
—— and scientific advance, 100
25-6> 39
Heat, 28-31
----- indestructibility of, 19, 25 ----- morality of, 100, 103
----- conversion of, 29
—— philanthropy of, 104
Memory, 71
----- nature of, 29
Parthenogenesis, 57 ■
Menai Bridge, the, 32
Helmholtz, Professor, 25
Pasteur, 48, 49
Mercury, 17, 18, 29
Heredity, 61-3
Patriotism, 115
Metrical system, the, 29
----- nature of, 62
Pendulum, the, 26
Microbes, 48, 49
------- reality of, 62
Perception, 65, 66, 69
Milton, 101
Hermaphrodites, 57
----- brain-centres of, 69
Mind, nature of the, 65, 72
Hesperornis, 64
----- relation to brain, 65, 66, 72 ----- mechanism of, 69, 7°) 71
Hillel, 92
Perigenesis of plastids, the, 63
Miocene strata, the, 53
Hindoo religion, 79, 88
Permian strata, the, 53
Miracles, evidence for, 81-4
Hume on Miracles, 81
Personality of God, 85, 89
----- inutility of, 83, 86
Hydrates, 40
Pharisees, the, 84
----- of Jesus, 84
Hydrogen, 16, 17, 18, 41
Philanthropy in England, 105.
Missing link, the, 54
Hydrochloric acid, 18, 41
108
Mohammedanism, 79, 80
Hypnotism, 65, 69, 94
Molecules, 15, 16-20, 22, 25, Pithecanthropus, the, 54
----- cures by, 82-5
Pliocene strata, the, 53
33
Podmore, Mr., 70
----- weight of, 16, 17
Illusions, 83
Polarised light, 22
Monera, 45, 52, 56, 62
Indigotine, 48
Polarity, II, 15, 39, 40, 44, 49
Monocotyledons, 54
Individualism, 119
Ireland, land question in, 112,121 Monogamy, 58, 61
5°> 55
'Female characteristics, 57,58,61
Ferdousi. 98
Fermentation, 49
Fetish worship, 76
Fire, Parsee cult ot, 101
Fishes, fossilised, 54
Flechsig, discoveries of, 69
Fluidity, nature of, 32
Food of animals and plants, 5L
52
Force, 26
Freedom of the will, the, 28, 46
Free-will and morality, 94
■----- and the brain, 94
1—- and automatism, 94
----- in the animal, 95
Freezing, artificial, 30
Free trade, 116, 117
Friction, 33, 34
Fungi, 52
Isaiah, 92
Isomerism, 42
�128
INDEX
Semitic religion, 78
Sensation, how produced, 67
—— nature of, 46
Senses, brain-centres for the, 68
Sermon on the Mount, 92
Sermons, uselessness of, 107
Sex-distinction, the, 55
----- in mythology, 55
----- origin of, 57
Sexes, equality of the, 58, 61
Shakespeare, many-sidedness of,
102
Shield, story of the, 109
Silurian strata, the, 53
Singing of birds, 60
Snake, eggs of the, 64
Space and time unknowable, 95
Speech, brain-centre for, 68
Socrates on reason, 85
Solar myths, 77, 78
Socialism, 112, 120
Society, ideal form of, ill
Somnambulism, 65, 69, 94
Soul, opinions on the, 72
Sound, velocity of, 21
Spectrum, the, 22, 29
Spencer, Mr. H., 50, 58, 60, 81,
hi, 123
Quakers, fewness of, 103
Quantivalence of atoms, the, 41, Spiritism, examination of, 7°
Spiritualism, 66, 7°
42
Spontaneous generation, 47, 48,
Quaternary period, the, 53
49
Spores, 56, 57
Radiolaria, 52
St. Paul, crude theology of, 79
Radium, 17, 18, 26
----- ethic of, 90, 92
Railway enterprise, 119
St. Vitus’s dance, 83
Reflex action, Jo, 95
Stability of substances, 43
----- - motion, 47
Religion a working hypothesis, Stars, distance of, 20
Steam-engine, the, 30
12, 14
Strikes, 113
----- evolution of, 92
------ contrasted with science, 75 Sun, heat of the, 30
Supernaturalism, 81
----- development of, 75-80
Syndicates, 119
----- the nature of, 74
Synthesis, chemical, 49
----- origin of, 75, 76
----- varieties of, 77-80
Tait, Professor, 25
Reproduction, 47, 51, 56
Talmud, the, 92
Reptiles, extinct, 54
Telegraph, the, 36
>
Rhizopods, 54
Telepathy, 70
Rig-Veda, the, 97
Roman Catholic Church, its Telephone, the, 37
Temperature of earth at be
advantages, 107
ginning, 48
Rucker, Sir A., on atoms, 18
Temple, Dr., on evolution, 63,
84
Salt, composition of, 33
Tennyson on evil, 102
Salvation Army, the, 89
----- on woman, 58
Secondary period, the, 53
Polarity in art, ioi
----- in politics, hi
----- in the will, 95
----- of good and evil, 85, 87, 8g
Polygamy, 59
Polytheism, 78, 79
Postal service, the, 124
Poverty and population, 87
Pramantha, 28
Prayer, 108
Primary epoch, the, 53
Prometheus, legend of, 28
Propagation by budding, 56, 62
----- by sex, 57, 62
----- by splitting, 56, 62
----- by spores, 56, 62
Protection, 116,117
Protista, 52
Protoplasm, 45-7
----- composition of, 46
Protoplasm, properties of, 46,
47
----- production of, 47
Putrefaction, 49
Pyramids, the, 15
----- use of the, 77
Tertiary period, the, 53
Tobit, 92
Totems, 76
Trade unions, 112
Trance, phenomena of, 69
Triassic strata, the, 53
Triton, the, metamorphosis of,
64
Univalent atoms, 42
Urea, 48
Variation, 63
----- a factor in evolution, 63
----- causes of, 63, 64
Vendidad, the, 98
Vibratory movements in ether,
22, 27
Virgin-birth, the legend of the,
78
Vishtasp, King, 96
------------ , conversion of, 98
Voltaic battery, the, 34, 37
Vortex-theory, the, 25
Water, forms of, 33
----- how formed, 15, 17
Waves, nature of, 21, 27
Weismann, 63
Will, conscious and unconscious,
28, 32
Woman and Christianity, 58
---- - position of, 58, 59, 60
----- position of, among Parsees,
104
Wordsworth’s pantheism, 80
Worship, forms of, 106
Zend language, the, 97
Zodiac, the, 77
Zoroaster, 12, 96
----- birth of, 98
----- historical reality of, 96-7
----- teaching of, 98-9
----- work of, 98
Zoophytes, 52
Zoroastrianism, 14, 96-108
----- and art, 102
----- and miracles, 99
----- as a practical religion, 108
----- as a reconciling system, 88
----- ethical teaching of, 100
----- not weighted with dogmas,
99
----- teaching of, 99, 100
Zoroastrians, probity of the, 103
�
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A modern Zoroastrian
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Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 128 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
BY
SAMUEL LAING,
Author of “Modern Science and Modern ThoughtilA Modern
Zoroastrian,” “Problems of the Future,” etc.
ISSUED FOR THE
Jress OmmifteL
London :
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St.
Price One Penny.
�OUR PROPAGANDIST PRESS COMMITTEE.
This Committee has been formed for the purpose of assisting in
the production and circulation of liberal publications.
The members of the Committee are Mr. G. J. Holyoake, Dr.
Bithell, Mr. F. J. Gould, Mr. Frederick Millar, and Mr. Charles
A. Watts.
It is thought that the most efficient means of spreading the
principles of Rationalism is that of books and pamphlets. Many
will read a pamphlet who would never dream of visiting a lecture
hall. At the quiet fireside arguments strike home which might
be dissipated by the excitement of a public debate. The lecturer
wins his thousands, the penman his tens of thousands.
The aim of the various writers will be to obtain converts by
persuasiveness rather than undue hostility towards the popular
creeds.
All who are in sympathy with the movement are earnestly re
quested to contribute towards the expenses as liberally as their
means will allow. The names of donors will not be published
without their consent.
On the ist of January of each year a report and balance-sheet
will be forwarded to subscribers. The books of the Committee are
always accessible to donors.
Contributions should be forwarded to Mr. Charles A. Watts,
17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. Cheques should
be crossed “Central Bank of London, Blackfriars Branch.”
PUBLICATIONS ISSUED FOR THE COMMITTEE BY
MESSRS. WATTS & CO.
Agnostic Problems. Being an Examination of Some Questions
■of the Deepest Interest, as Viewed from the Agnostic Standpoint.
By R. Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D. Cheap Popular Edition, cloth, 2s. 6d.
post free.
Agnosticism and Immortality. By S. Laing, author of “ Modern
Science and Modern Thought,” etc. id., by post ij^d. Special
terms for quantities.
Humanity and Dogma. By Amos Waters, id., by post i%d.
.Special terms for quantities.
LIBERTY OF BEQUESTS COMMITTEE.
'This Committee has been formed for procuring the passing of a
law legalising bequests for Secular and Free Thought purposes.
As the law now stands, all legacies left for the diffusion and main
tenance of Secular or Free Thought principles can be confiscated.
Subscriptions in furtherance of the object of this Committee may
,be sent to Mr. Charles A. Watts, 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street,
London, E.C., or to the care of the Hon. Secretary, Mr. H. L.
Braekstad, 138, Loughborough Park, London, S.W.
�AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
a To be, or not to be, that is the question ”—a question
which has been asked before and after Hamlet, in all
ages and countries where mankind has risen from blank
savagery to thought and intelligence. The love of life,
the horror of annihilation, are instincts common to men
and to the whole animal creation. In civilised man
this instinct rises beyond the vague terror of death and
fear of the unknown. He “ looks before and after
his sense of justice longs for a future life to redress the
wrongs and sufferings of the present one; his affections
crave for a sight of faces which he has loved and lost;
all the feelings of his complex nature cry out for some
assurance of a continued existence. On the other hand,
all positive knowledge and experience fail to give him
this assurance, and rather tell him that, as his individual
existence began with birth, so it will terminate with
death.
How stands this most momentous of all problems in
the light of modern science, and of that development of
it which is fast invading modern thought under the
compendious term of “ Agnosticism ” ?
To attack a problem we must begin by clearly defining
its conditions. What do we mean when we talk of a
“ future life ” and of “ immortality ” ? Clearly, for all
practical purposes, we mean a life in which we retain
our personal identity and individual consciousness. To
be absorbed in some metaphysical essence, or soul of
the universe, as some tiny rivulet is in the pathless
ocean, is tantamount to annihilation. Extremes meet,
and the Nirvana, which is the ultimate goal of the most
�2
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
purely metaphysical religion, that of Buddhism, lands us
practically in the same conclusion as that of the Mate
rialist, to whom life and consciousness are but functions
of particular modes of cell-motions.
It is important to keep this distinction well in mind,
for it bears upon the next stage of the inquiry—viz.,
what are the historical facts of the problem ? What are
the views of it which have been entertained by different
nations and in different ages ? Do they show such a
general consensus of opinion as may establish at any
rate a frima facie case for any definite conclusion, and
show it to be a necessary product of the evolution of
the human mind ? Or are they so conflicting as to
neutralise one another, and show that no common con
clusion holds the field, which remains open for inquiries
conducted with all the latest resources of modern know
ledge ? The answer must be that the latter is undoubt
edly the true state of the case.
If we take immortality to mean the preservation of
conscious personal identity after death, the majority of
mankind have had no such belief. The countless
millions of Brahmins and Buddhists do not get nearer
to it than to assume some vague absorption into the
soul of the universe, after more or less transmigration
through other forms of life. Plato and his followers had
much the same idea, in a more refined and philoso
phical form, of an unconscious pre-existence in the
universal- spirit before birth, and return to it after death
—a speculation which we find in the creeds of almost
all our modern poets, and which is stated with much
force and precision by Wordsworth in his ode on
“Immortality.” Other nations, such as the Chinese
and Japanese, have no distinct ideas on the subject
beyond a vague veneration for departed ancestors, and
their educated classes accept either the Agnosticism,
pure and simple, of Confucius, or some vague concep
tion of Buddhistic philosophy. The lower classes, and
savage and semi-civilised races generally, have a sort of
rude faith in ghosts, which are scarcely distinguishable
from the evil spirits in which unknown or injurious
forces of Nature are personified.
The first dawn of a belief in a continued personal
�AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
3
existence after death is found in the interments of the
neolithic period, in which weapons and food were de
posited for the use of a departed chief in the happier
hunting-ground of another world, and slaves were sacri
ficed so as to give him an appropriate retinue.
From this germ arose the Egyptian creed, which was
for so many centuries by far the most powerful and
practical exemplification of a belief in a future existence
by a great civilised nation. They looked, as Herodotus
tells us, on their tombs as their permanent abodes, and
the homes in which they lived as mere temporary occu
pations. Their idea was that every existence, animate
or inanimate, consisted of two parts, the material body
and the seol, or incorporeal spirit, which could wander
about in dreams, and, after death, continue a shadowy
existence, living on shadowy food, and taking pleasure
in shadowy geese and kine and other belongings. But
this seol must have a corporeal body, or semblance of its
old material self, as a basis for its existence, and hence
the care and expense which were lavished on mummies
and on paintings on the walls of tombs.
It is remarkable that, wherever the faith in a personal
immortality of the soul has been at all strong, it has
been associated with an equally strong faith in the
resurrection of the body. The old Egyptians and the
early Christians equally shared this belief; and even in
the more shadowy mythology of the Greek and Roman
world due funeral rites to the body were considered
necessary to save the departed soul from wandering, as
a shivering, bodiless ghost, on the banks of the melan
choly Styx.
Another remarkable nation, the Jews, entirely ignored
the idea of a future existence—a most singular circum-,
stance, considering that they were so long in contact
with the Egyptians, with whom it was the pervading
fact of their daily life, and that the Jews were supposed
to be a chosen people, specially instructed by Jehovah.
And yet nothing can be clearer than that, from the time
of Moses down to that of Ecclesiastes—and even later,
as held by the Sadducees, the conservative aristocracy,
who clung most tenaciously by the old law—the pure
Jewish faith was that death was annihilation, and rewards
�4
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
and punishments were dispensed either to the individual
in this life or to his posterity.
Nothing can be more explicit than the words of
Ecclesiastes which are put in the mouth of the great
preacher, King Solomon, as the result of his long expe
rience and deep wisdom : “ A living dog is better than
a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die,
but the dead know not anything, neither have they any
more a reward.” And again : “ There is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither
thou goest.”
It is not a little surprising that a religion like Chris
tianity, in which eternal life and future rewards and
punishments are such essential elements, should have
originated from the matter-of-fact and almost Materialistic
creed of Mosaic Judaism. Orthodox theologians will,,
of course, say that it was because it pleased God to con
ceal these things from former generations, and to teach
them for the first time by a new revelation. The retort
is obvious : if Jehovah were a just and benevolent Deity,,
why should he mislead his own chosen people by allowing
Moses, Abraham, and other pious patriarchs after his
own heart, to believe and teach the direct opposite of
these essential truths ? But the retort, however obvious,
is effective only against the idolaters of the Bible; for
its sincere students it is more to the purpose to observe
that the assumption that these Christian dogmas are
taught by Divine inspiration is met at the very outset by
this staggering objection. What Jesus, St. Paul, and
the Apostles taught respecting the immortality of the
soul was this: that our personal identity after death
would be preserved by a resurrection of the body, which
was to take place in the lifetime of some of the existing
generation. This is stated over and over again in the
most distinct and positive terms, and, if the prophecy
failed, there is absolutely nothing in the New Testament
to teach us anything certain as to any future life. The
last judgment is, in like manner, inextricably mixed up
with the advent of Jesus in a cloud, with a trumpet and
angels, within the prescribed time.
Now, it is historically certain that the prophecy was a
mistake; 1800 years have elapsed, and the end of the
�AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
5
world, the bodily resurrection, and the Day of Judgment,
as described by Jesus and St. Paul, have not come. It
is equally certain that, scientifically, no resurrection of
the material body is possible. Death resolves the atoms
and energies of which it was composed into new and
simpler forms, which enter into totally different combi
nations. What becomes, then, of the superstructure
of a personal identity after death, when it is based on
two pillars which have crumbled into dust? It is.as
though it had never been made, and the fact remains
that in no religion of ancient or modern times can we
find any reliable information, or general consensus of
opinion, as to that greatest of all mysteries—what may
be “ behind the veil.” If from Theology we fall back
on Science, we have real and accurate information up to
a certain point; but the final step escapes us. We know
in the most precise and accurate manner that all we call
soul, spirit, thought, memory, will, perception, and con
sciousness are indissolubly connected with definite
motions of minute cells in the cortex or grey enveloping
matter of the brain. Given the motions of given cells,
and the corresponding effects will follow with the same
certainty as if we were nothing but an electric battery,
with nerves for conducting wires. And, conversely,
without the proper inducing motions of nerve-cells the
effects will not follow. This has been proved by such
innumerable experiments that I shall confine myself to
noticing a few which have the most direct bearing on
the question of soul or personal identity.
Memory is clearly at the bottom of this feeling of
personality. It links together past perceptions, and
makes us feel that they are not isolated phenomena, but
have an unity and connection, as having happened to
one and the same person—viz., ourselves. Now, it is
quite possible to obliterate portions of the memory by
destroying portions of the grey matter of the brain appro
priated for remembering that particular class of impres
sions. For instance, there is in the back part of the
brain a tract of grey matter, connected by a collection
of fine conducting wires, called the optic nerve, with the
retina, which enables us to see. Surrounding this is
another tract of grey matter, connected with the former,
�6
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
which serves as a sort of register office for messages sent
from the eye to the central telegraph office—or, in other
words, which is appropriated to the memory of visual
perceptions. Destroy the first or central office, and we
can no longer see. Leave it untouched, but destroy
the second or register office, and we can see, but no
longer remember what is seen.
In like manner with the sense of hearing: there is a
central office by which we hear, and a connected register
office by which we remember what we have heard.
Destroy the latter, and all memory of all we have ever
heard passes away from us. Memory, therefore, is
clearly proved to be not merely a general function of the
brain en masse, but a special function of special portions
of the brain, told off for the purpose of converting
mechanical impressions received from the outer world,
through the senses, into registered messages, which form
the raw material of what we call memory, which is
itself the substratum of consciousness.
The will is another faculty which is commonly attri
buted to personal identity, and yet it also is indissolubly
associated with brain motion. Nothing can well be
more mechanical than straining the eye to look at a
black wafer stuck on a white wall. And yet, by this
purely mechanical process, a state called hypnotism can
be frequently induced, in which the will is apparently
lost, and the will of another personality—that of the
operator—is substituted for it. Thus, in the well-known
experiment of Dr. Braid, a puritanical old lady, to whom
dancing was an invention of Satan, was sent capering
about the room to a reel tune, when told to do so by
the Doctor. Nay, further, it is shown, by the careful
experiments scientifically conducted at the Salpetriere
by eminent French physicians, that a suggestion to an
hypnotised patient may affect his or her brain move
ments in such a way as to give rise to the corresponding
actions of nerves and muscles weeks after the suggestion
was made and the hypnotic state had passed away.
Thus a moral person may be irresistibly impelled to
commit an atrocious crime on a specified person at a
specified date, which would have been utterly repugnant
to the patient’s normal nature.
�AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
7
In like manner, visible things may be rendered invis
ible, and invisible things visible, by this hypnotic sug
gestion. And, what is even more extraordinary and
more directly materialistic, these suggested emotions and
perceptions may be transferred into one another by the
action of a magnet. A case is recorded in Binet and
Fere’s volume on the Salpetriere experiments in which a
patient told to hate one of the doctors endeavoured to
strike him; but, on a magnet being held near the back
of her head, hate was changed into love, and she tried
to embrace him. Another case is interesting as bearing
on the question of personal identity. A female patient,
-On being told that she was one of the doctors, imme
diately assumed his gait and manner, and stroked an
imaginary moustache; and, being asked if she knew her
real self, replied : “ Oh, yes, there is an hysterical patient
of that name who is not over-wise.”
The same phenomenon of a dual personality is fre-quently found in persons who have received some injury
to the brain, and are subject to trances. They have two
personalities—one of a real, the other of a trance life,
which are quite distinct and each unconscious of the
•other; so that Smith may be alternately Jones or Smith,
.as he falls into or awakes from a succession of trances.
In other words, the brain is like a barrel organ, which
plays one tune in its normal state and a different one
when the stops have been altered by some abnormal
influence.
In short, the last word of physiological
science is that all which we call soul, mind, conscious
ness, or personality, are functions of matter and motion.
Observe, however, that, when we ticket the facts with
the word function, we explain nothing, but simply sum
up the results by affirming that, as far as human experi
ence goes, the two phenomena go necessarily and inevit
ably together.
There is another class of experiments recorded by the
eminent French physician, M. Binet, in the columns
of the Open Court, which bears very directly on this
.question of a conscious personality. It is not uncommon
with hysterical patients to find portions of the body or
particular limbs which are subject to what is called
.ansesthesia. That is, they are insensible to pain, as in
�8
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
the case of chloroform, and cut off from all connection
with the conscious self, as completely as if they were
external pieces of matter. But, if certain motions are
suggested to the paralysed limb, the same results will
follow as if they had been dictated by will and accom
panied by consciousness. Thus, if a pen be put in the
ansesthetic hand between the thumb and the index
finger, without the subject seeing or being in any way
conscious of it, he will seize it, and his other fingers and
arm assume the attitude necessary for writing. Suppose,
next, we make the pen write a familiar word, such as the
subject’s name ; after a short interval, the unconscious
and paralysed hand will write the word over again, some
times five or six times. And, what is still more extra
ordinary, if we purposely write the word with a wrong or
superfluous letter, when the subject repeats the word
the anaesthetic hand will hesitate when it comes to the
mistake, and, after several attempts, frequently end by
correcting it.
Now, in this experiment we have clearly proved, as
Binet says, an unconscious perception, an unconscious
reasoning and memory, and an unconscious volition. It
is clear, therefore, that, in such a case, the essential
elements, not merely of unconscious reflex movements
of nerve and muscle, but of all that we are accustomed
to consider as mind or spirit, have been reduced to un
conscious or mechanical conditions. As Huxley puts
it, you may suppress consciousness, and yet all physiolo
gical phenomena will continue to be performed auto
matically just as before; objects will continue to be
perceived, unconscious reasonings will develop, followed
by acts of adaptation. This is not “ Agnosticism,” but
science and hard fact, with which the orthodox believers
in soul or spirit have to reckon, just as much as those
who fail to discover in the problem anything that can be
solved by human faculty. In fact, no one can state this
more explicitly than one of the ablest of modern theo
logians, Principal Caird, in his sermon preached before
the British Medical Association in 1888, in which he
says : “ Of the thoughts, emotions, volitions, which in
endless multiplicity and variety constitute our conscious
life, there is not one which is not correlated to some
�AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
9
physical change or motion in the brain-matter of the
thinker; and, as far as we know, the growth, develop
ment, decline, the healthy or morbid action of the human
mind, is invariably connected with corresponding changes
of nervous or brain tissue.” But Dr. Caird, who is not
a mere commonplace theologian, but candid, sincere,
and. thoroughly acquainted with the latest discoveries of
science, falls back on two arguments to refute the con
clusions of Materialism—the first scientific, the second
metaphysical. The first invokes the principle of the
“ Conservation of Energy.” Dr. Caird argues that the
soul, as distinct from the body, is an energy, and, there
fore, indestructible. In the first place, if it were true,
it would point rather to the Brahminical and Buddhistic
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and ultimate
merger in the one universal and eternal energy. But
the premise involves the fallacy so common in all theo
logical arguments, that known to theologians as the
petitio principn. It assumes a soul which is at one and
the same time immaterial and material. That is, imma
terial as being subject to none of the ordinary laws of
matter, such as gravity, form, and extension; material
as being subject to the law of indestructibility, which is
known to us only as another attribute of ordinary matter
and energy. If there be a soul or spirit, how do we
know that this law applies to it; or, if it did, that it is not
transformed into some sort of dead or potential energy
after the active energy comes to an end with the disso
lution of the material frame, in association with which
we alone have any knowledge of it ? For there is no
fact more certain than that we have absolutely no know
ledge of any soul apart from this association. No man
of sane mind will assert that he has any recollection of
anything that occurred before he was born, or that he
has received any authentic message from any world of
spirits inhabited by the dead. The last word of science
is—“ Behind the veil.”
The second or metaphysical argument is that the very
existence of matter implies thought. We know nothing
of matter and motion in themselves, but only as they
appear to us, which is after they have been transfigured,
by something antecedent to and independent of them,
�IO
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
which we call thought or consciousness. It is argued,
therefore, that all phenomena require us to assume the
existence of an universal mind in which they are con
ceived, and that, to constitute the reality of the outward
world, the presence and the comparing, discriminating
and unifying activity of thought is pre-supposed. There
fore, there is an universal, eternal thought or soul of the
universe, which, expressed in anthropomorphic language,
is called God, of whom we may say, with St. Paul: “ Of
Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.”
This seems a stupendous superstructure of assertion
to raise on the slender foundation that, as a matter of
fact, according to the experience of the inhabitants of
our tiny planet, thought or consciousness, and brain or
nerve motion, do commonly, though, as we have seen,
not invariably, go together. It is not by any means
clear, even in man’s limited sphere of knowledge, which
of the two is the post hoc and which the propter hoc;
and no real assurance can result from the double guess
- first, that our own mind is the propter hoc, or originat
ing fact of our own existence; and, secondly, that, if
so, the same is true of all existence in the universe.
The fact is that these metaphysical solutions of the
mysteries of the universe never give any certain assur
ance even to the acutest philosopher, and to the great
mass of mankind they are not even intelligible. More
over, it is to be remarked that, even if philosophers
could establish the truth of their proposition as to mind
and thought, it would not take us one step further towards
proving what is the real object of our hopes and fears
—the continuance of our personal identity after death.
On the contrary, Dr. Caird’s whole argument tends to
the conclusion of Brahmins, Buddhists, and Platonists
that individual existences come from, and return to,
the great universal soul or energy of the universe, like
the waves which rise and fall, rippling for an instant the
surface of the pathless ocean. To carry this one step
further and arrive at a personal God, with intelligence
and feelings like those of a magnified man, even such
an acute reasoner as Dr. Caird has to fall back on wishes
rather than reasons. He finds that “ a God outside of
knowledge, the dark, impenetrable background of the
�AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
II
phenomenal world,” is not 11 the boon he wants,” and he
accordingly postulates something nearer to him and more
in accordance with his personal aspirations and feelings.
But wishes are not proofs, and there are many things
which, although we desire them ever so ardently, do not
come to pass. What can be more intense or more legi
timate than the longing of a mother to receive some
message from a lost child ?—and yet it has never been
gratified. How many lovers have been parted, how many
minds extinguished, in the full maturity of powers which
might have benefitted mankind, and where are their
hopes and fears, their ardent affections, their far-reaching
plans ? Buried in the grave, where there is “ no work,
nor device, nor knowledge ” beyond that “ undiscovered
bourne from which no traveller returns.”
And it is to be noticed that, even if we were to admit as
proved the arguments for a personal God and an inspired
revelation, we should not be one step advanced towards
any certain assurance of a personal immortality. For
what this personal God is assumed to teach us by His
inspired record in the Bible is this : Firstly, by the Old
Testament, that there is no future life; secondly, by the
New Testament, that there is a future life, but coupled
with the condition of a resurrection of the body within
the lifetime of a generation who have all been dead for
1800 years. Clearly there is nothing in this which
approaches within a hundred miles of anything like
certain and definite knowledge.
What, then, is the attitude of Agnosticism towards
this great question of personal immortality ? All gnostic
forms of religions and philosophies—that is, all systems
which teach that the question is knowable, and within
the range of human faculties, either with or without the
aid of revelation—break down under critical and candid
investigation. If I were placed in the position of a
conscientious juryman, who was told that the court is
competent and the case closed, and that I was bound to
deliver a verdict “Aye” or “No” upon the evidence as
it stands, I should feel constrained, however reluctantly,
to say “ No.” But this would not be my true deliver
ance. I should much prefer to return a verdict of “Not
proven,” or rather I should say the court has no jurisdic-
�12
AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY.
tion, and should walk out without giving any verdict at
all. This an Agnostic may do with perfect good faith.
He believes that our little knowable world is encircled
by a great Unknowable, in which all things are possible.
He stands, like the Ulysses of the poet, on the margin
of that great ocean beyond the setting sun, on which so
many millions of millions have embarked, and not one
has returned. He, too, like the rest, must soon follow,
and turn his prow westwards. What fate is in store for
him ? Shall the gulfs wash him down and merge forever
his frail bark of hopes in the fathomless depths of a
sleep where there are no dreams; or shall he perchance
arrive at some fortunate islands of the West where' he
may survive in some newer and better life,
“ See the great Achilles whom we knew,”
and, dearer than the great Achilles, once more behold
the faces of those whom he has loved and lost ? He
knows not: no voice on earth, no message from thq
dead, ever reaches him, and one thing only remains—
to possess his soul with patience, and to oppose “ one
equal temper of heroic hearts ” to the decrees of destiny
and of the irrevocable future. But in the meantime he
may dream his dreams and indulge in his visions without
fear of contradiction, and without vitiating his manhood
by pretending to believe as certain where there is no
certainty. Surely this is better than to pin his faith on
assurances of certainty which break down under the
first touch of the Ithuriel spear of candid and critical
investigation, and leave him either shivering in the cold
creed of “ dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return,”
or wrapped in an unhealthy mantle of prejudices and
prepossessions, impervious to the invigorating breezes of
truth, of candour, and of sincerity.
�WATTS & CO.’S LIST.
A Lay Sermon. By S.
Laing (Author of “ Modern Science and Modern Thought
and “A Modern Zoroastrian ”). This booklet is an impartial
and vigorous statement of the attitude of Agnosticism towards
Christianity, and sets forth the moral advantages likely to accrue
from the acceptance of Agnosticism. Single copies 6d, by post
7d; 13, 5s post free ; 50, 18s carriage paid.
Agnosticism and Christianity.
Thoughtful, lucid, practical, liberal in sentiment, and high in moral tone.
It is a delightful little book, which does the spirit and the temper good to read,
for it is large in charity, never offensive, and most welcome in counsel.........
full of thought most lucidly expressed.—Secular Review.
Agnostic Morality. By R. Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D. Single copies
6d, by post 7d ; 13, 5s post free ; 50s, 18s carriage paid.
“ Agnostic Morality ” is excellent....... Dr. Bithell has a fair grasp of the subject, and much perspicacity.—Progress.
By B. Russell. A Concise
and Popular Exposition, in Language Understanded of the
People. 4d, by post 5d.
The Case for Agnosticism.
The Popular Faith Exposed. By Julian. This is a critical
and scholarly examination of Orthodox Christianity, and is
strongly recommended. Single copies 6d, by post 7^5 13, 5s
post free ; 50, 18s carriage paid.
Bible Words: Human, not Divine. By Julian. This is
a pamphlet setting forth, in common-sense language, and free
from exaggeration and vituperation, the most glaring absurdities
and contradictions of the Bible. Price 3d, by post 3%d ; 13,
2s 6d post free ; 50, 9s carriage paid.
The Future of Morality, as Affected by the Decay of Prevalent
Religious Beliefs. By M. S. Gilliland, Single copies 4d, by
post 4%d; 13, 3s 6d post free ; 50, 12s carriage paid.
The Confession of Agnosticism. By G. M. McC. Chapter
I. Introductory. Chapter II. Misconceptions. Chapter III.
Fundamentals. Chapter IV. The Perfect Life. Chapter V.
The Other Side of Agnosticism. Chapter VI. Faith and
Manners. Single copies 6d, by post 7d ; 13, 5s post free ; 50,
18s carriage paid.
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tween Agnosticism, the Polar Theory of Being, and the Higher
Theism. By G. C. Griffith-Jones (Lara). Single copies 6d,
by post 7d ; 13, 5s post free 5'50, 18s carriage paid.
A Friendly Correspondence with Mr. Gladstone about
Creeds. By S. Laing. This pamphlet contains the Articles
of the Agnostic Creed drawn up at the request of Mr. Gladstone.
6d, by post 7d.
London : Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�Demy 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, price 2s. 6d. post free,
CHEAP POPULAR EDITION
OF
AGNOSTIC PROBLEMS.
BEING AN EXAMINATION OF SOME QUESTIONS OF
THE:
DEEPEST INTEREST, AS VIEWED FROM THE AGNOSTIC
STANDPOINT.
By RICHARD BITHELL, B.Sc., Ph.D.
The volume is fascinatingly interesting, remarkably complete, and sothoroughly explains the Agnostic position that the merest tyro in metaphysics
may grasp its contents....... “Agnostic Problems” has filled a gap that had
remained too long open ; and, without any desire to flatter Dr. Bithell, it may
be truthfully said that it has filled it with such solid material that it will re
quire more than all the united strength of the opponents of Agnosticism to
shatter one single stone of the substantial edifice thus put together. The work
is one that ought to be read by every thinking man, be he Christian, Jew,
Agnostic, or Atheist.—Secular Review.
Handsomely bound in cloth, price is. 6d., by post is. 8d.,
Stepping-Stones to Agnosticism.
By F. J. GOULD.
With Introduction by G. J. Holyoake.
Contents.—I. Ecce Deus; or, A New God. II. Miracles
Weighed in the Balances. III. Our Brother Christ. IV. The
Immortal Bible. V. The Noble Path. VI. Agnosticism Writ
Plain.
Bound in cloth, price 2s., by post 2s. 3d.,
AGNOSTIC FIRST PRINCIPLES.
Being a Critical Exposition of the Spencerian System of Thought.
By ALBERT SIMMONS (Ignotus).
With Preface
by
Richard Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D.
London : Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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Agnosticism and immortality
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Laing, Samuel [1812-1897]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Issued for the Propagandist Press Committee. Publisher's list inside and on back cover. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot (RPA, 2003), Appx. 1.
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[1890]
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Agnosticism
Immortality
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Agnosticism
Immortality
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HUMAN ORIGINS
�WORKS B y SAMUEL LAING
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.
A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN.
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PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE.
HUMAN ORIGINS.
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R. P. A. SIXPENNY NET BOOKLETS
THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL: A Question of Ethics.
Allanson Picton, M.A.
THE NEW MORALITY.
By James
By Geoffrey Mortimer.
FAITH : ITS FREAKS AND FOLLIES.
By Charles T.
Gorham.
ON THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY OF THOUGHT DURING
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�HUMAN ORIGINS
BY
SAMUEL LAING
Author of “Modern Science and Modern Thoughtf “Problems of the Fzituref
“A Modern Zoroastrianf etc.
Revised by EDWARD CLODD
[issued for the rationalist
press association, limited.]
WATTS & Co.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
I9°3
��CONTENTS
Introduction -
PART I.—EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
Egypt -------
9
CHAPTER II.
Chald.la
......
22
CHAPTER III.
Other Historical Records
30
CHAPTER IV.
Ancient Religions
-
43
CHAPTER V.
Ancient Science
and
Art -
-
-
-
52
....
68
CHAPTER VI.
Prehistoric Traditions
CHAPTER VII.
The Historical Element
in the
Old Testament
■
PART II.—EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE
CHAPTER VIII.
Geology and Palaeontology
94
CHAPTER IX.
Quaternary Man
105
CHAPTER X.
114
Tertiary Man
CHAPTER XI.
Races of Mankind •
132
�*
�INTRODUCTION
The reception which has been given to
ffiy former works leads me to believe
that they have had a certain educa
tional value for those who, not being
specialists, wish to keep themselves
abreast of the culture of the day, and
to understand the leading results and
pending problems of Modern Science.
Of these results the most interesting are
those which bear upon the origin and
evolution of the human race. Thus far, I
have treated this question mainly from the
point of view of geology and palaeontology,
and have hardly touched on the province
which lies nearest to us, that of history
and of prehistoric traditions. In this
province, however, a revolution has been
effected by modern discoveries, which
is no less important than that made by
geological research and by the general
doctrine of Evolution.
Down to the middle of the last
century, and the belief is far from
extinct, the Hebrew Bible was held to
be the sole and sufficient authority as
to the early history of the human race.
It was believed, with a certainty which
made doubt impious, that the first man
Adam was created in the year 4004
B,C., or not quite 6,000 years ago; and
that 1,656 years later all human and
Other life, with the exception of Noah
and his wife, their sons and their wives,
and pairs of all living creatures, by whom
the earth was repeopled from the moun
tain-peak of Ararat as a centre, were
destroyed by a universal Deluge.
The latest researches bring to light
the existence of uninterrupted historical
records, confirmed by contemporary
monuments, carrying history back fully
3,000 years before the supposed Creation
of Man, and showing even then no trace
of a commencement; but populous cities,
celebrated temples, great engineering
works, and a high state of the arts and
of civilisation already existing. This is
of the highest interest, both as bearing
on the dogma of the inspiration of
the Bible, and on the still more im
portant question of the true theory
of man’s origin and relations to the
universe. The so-called conflict between
Religion and Science is at bottom one
between two conflicting theories of
the universe—the first that it is the
creation of a personal God who constantly
interferes by miracles to correct His
original work; the second, that whether
the First Cause be a personal God or some
Power inscrutable to human faculties, the
work was originally so perfect that the
whole succession of subsequent events
has followed by Evolution acting by
invariable laws. The former is the theory
of orthodox believers, the latter that of
men of science, and of liberal theologians
who, like the late Archbishop Temple, find
that the theory of “ original impress ” is
more in accordance with the idea of an
Omnipotent and Omniscient Creator,
to whom “ a thousand years are
as a day,” than the traditional theory
of a Creator who constantly intervenes
�8
INTRODUCTION
to supplement and amend His original
Creation
by supernatural
interfer
ences.
It is evidently important for all who
desire to arrive at truth, and to keep
abreast of the culture of the day, to have
some clear conception of what historical
and geological records really teach, and
what sort of a standard or measur
ing-rod they supply in helping us to
carry back our researches into the
depths of prehistoric and of geological
time.
I have therefore in this work begun
with the historic period, as giving us a
standard of time by which to gauge
the vastly longer periods which lie
behind, and have advanced from this
by successive steps through the Neoli
thic and Palaeolithic ages, and the
Quaternary and Tertiary periods, so far
as the most recent discoveries throw
any light on the mysterious question of
Human Origins.
If I have succeeded in stimulating
some minds, especially those of my
younger readers, and of the working
classes who are striving after culture, to
feel an interest in these subjects, and to
pursue them further, my object will have
been attained. They have been to me
the solace of a long life, the delight of
many quiet days, and the soother of
many troubled ones; and I should be
glad to think that I had been the means,
however humble, of introducing to others
what I have found such a source of
enjoyment, and enlisting, if it were only
a few, in the service of that “ divine
Philosophy ” in which I have ever found,
as Wordsworth did in Nature,
“The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”
�/
HUMAN ORIGINS
PART I.—EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
EGYPT
Historical Standard of Time—Short Date incon
sistent with Evolution—Laws of Historical
Evidence—-History begins with Authentic
Records—Records of Egypt—Manetho’s Lists
—Confirmed by Hieroglyphics—Origin of
Writing—The Alphabet—Phonetic Writing—Clue to Hieroglyphics—The Rosetta Stone
—Champoilion—Principles of Hieroglyphic
Writings—Language Coptic—Can be read
with certainty—Confirmed by Monuments
—Old, Middle, and New Empires—Old
Empire to end of Sixth Dynasty—Break be
tween Old and Middle Empires—Works of
Twelfth Dynasty—Fayoum—Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Dynasties—Hyksos Conquests—Duration of Hyksos Rule—Their Expulsion
and Foundation of New Empire—Conquests
in Asia of Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Dynasties—Wars with Hittites and Assyrians
—Persian and Greek Dynasties—Period prior
to Menes—-Horsheshu—Sphinx—Stone Age
—Neolithic and Palaeolithic Remains—Horner,
Haynes, Pitt-Rivers, and Flinders Petrie.
In measuring the dimensions of space we
have to start from some fixed standard,
Such as the foot or yard, taken originally
from the experience of our ordinary senses
and capable of accurate verification. From
this we arrive by successive inductions at
the size of the earth, the distance of the
sun, moon, and planets, and finally at the
parallax of a few of the so-called “ fixed ”
Stars. So in speculations as to the origin
and evolution of the human race, history
affords the standard from which we start,
through the successive stages of pre
historic, neolithic, and palaeolithic man,
until we pass into the wider ranges of geo
logical time.
Any error in theoriginal standard becomes
magnified indefinitely, whether in space or
time, as we extend our researches back
wards into remoter regions.
Thus whether the authentic records of
history extend only for some 4,500 years
backwards from the present time to the
scriptural date of Noah’s flood, as was
universally assumed to be the case until
quite recently ; or whether, as these appear
to warrant, Egyptian and Chaldaean records
carry us back for 9,000 or 10,000 years, and
show us then a highly advanced civilisation
already existing, makes a wonderful differ
ence in the standpoint from which we view
the course of human evolution.
To begin with, a short date necessitates
supernatural interferences. It is quite im
possible that if man and all animal life
were created only about 4,000 years B.C.,
and were then all destroyed save the few
pairs saved in Noah’s ark, and made a
fresh start from a single centre some 1,500
years later, there can be any truth in
Darwin’s theory of evolution. We know
for a certainty, from the concurrent testi
mony of all history, and from Egyptian
monuments, that the different races of men
and animals were in existence certainly
7,000 years ago as they are at the present
day; and that no fresh creations or marked
changes of type have taken place during
that period. If, then, all these types, and
all the different races and nations of men,
sprung up in the interval of less than 1,000
years, which is the longest that can by any
possibility be allowed between the Biblical
date of the Deluge and the clash of the
mighty monarchies of Assyria and Egypt
in Palestine, the date of which is proved
both by the Bible and by profane historians,
it is obviously impossible that such a state
of things could have been brought about by
natural causes.
But if authentic historical records cany
us back not for 3,000 or 4,000, but for 9,000
or 10,000 years, and then show no trace of
a beginning, the case is altered, and we
may assume the lapse of vast periods,
through historical, prehistoric, neolithic,
and palaeolithic ages, during which evolu
tion may have operated. It is of the first
importance, therefore, to inquire what these
records really teach in the light of modem
�IO
HUMAN ORIGINS
research, and what is the evidence for the
longer dates which are now generally ac
cepted.
Furnished with such a measuring-rod, it
becomes easier to attempt to bring into
some sort of co-ordination the vast mass of
facts which have been accumulated in
recent years as to prehistoric, neolithic,
and palaeolithic man ; and also the facts
respecting the origin, antiquity, and early
history of the human race, which have
come in from other sciences, such as astro
nomy, palaeontology, zoology, and philology.
To do this exhaustively would be an en
cyclopaedic task, which I do not pretend to
accomplish; but I am not without hope that
the following chapters, connected as they
are by the one leading idea of tracing
human origins backward to their source,
may assist inquiry, and create an interest
in this most fascinating of all questions,
especially among the young who are
striving after knowledge, and the millions
who, not having the time and opportunity
for reading technical works, desire to keep
themselves abreast of modern thought and
of the advanced culture of the nineteenth
century.
Before examining these records in detail
it is well to begin with the general laws
upon which historical evidence is based.
History begins with writings. All experi
ence shows that what may be transmitted
by memory and word of mouth consists
mainly of hymns and portions of ritual,
such as the Vedas of the Hindoos ; and to
a certain extent of heroic poems and ballads.
Moreover, the capacity of the memory is
limited. Further, the historical element in
these is so overlaid by mythology and
poetry that it is impossible to discriminate
between fact and fancy. Thus the legend
of Hercules is evidently in the main a solar
myth, and his twelve labours are related to
the signs of the zodiac; but it is possible
that there may have been a real Hercules,
the actual or eponymic ancestor of the
tribe of Heraclides. So, at a later period,
the descent of the Romans from the pious
Himeas, and of the Britons from another
Trojan hero Brute, are obviously fabulous ;
and, at a still more recent date, our own
Arthurian legends are evidently a mediaeval
romance, though it is possible that there
may have been a chief of that name of the
Christianised Romano-Britons,whoopposed
a gallant resistance to the flood of Saxon
invasion.
But to make real history we require
somethingvery different; concurrent and un
interrupted testimony of credible historians;
exclusion of impossible and obviously fabui
lous dates and events ; and, above all, con
temporary records, written or engraved on
tombs, temples, and monuments, or preserved in papyri or clay cylinders.
Another remark is, that these authentic
records of early history begin to appear
only when civilisation is so far advanced as
to have established powerful dynasties and
priestly organisations. The history of a
nation is at first the history of its kings,
and its records are enumerations of their
genealogies, successive reigns, foundation
or repair of temples, great industrial works,
and warlike exploits. These are made and
preserved by special castes of priestly
colleges and learned scribes, and they are
to a great extent precise in date and accu
rate in statement. Before the establishment
of such historical dynasties we have nothing
but legends and traditions, which are vague
and mythical, the mythological element
rapidly predominating as we go backwards
in time, until we soon arrive at reigns of gods,
and lives of thousands of years. But as
we approach the period of historical dynas
ties the mythological element diminishes,
and we pass from gods reigning 10,000
years, and patriarchs living to 900, to later
patriarchs living 150 or 200 years, and
finally to mortal men living, and kings
reigning, to natural ages.
In fact, with the first appearance of
authentic records the supernatural dis
appears, the average duration of lives,
reigns, and dynasties, and the general
course of events, are much the same as at
present, and fully confirm the statement of
the Egyptian priests to Herodotus, that
during the long succession of ages of the
345 high priests of Heliopolis, whose statues
they showed him in the great temple of the
sun, there had been, no change in the
length of human life or in the course of
nature, and each one of the 345 had been a
ftiromiS'W. mortal man,the son of a piromis.
The first question is how far back these
authentic historical records can be traced,
and to this, if we except the less precise
evidence from the inscribed tablets un
earthed at Nippur in Northern Babylonia,
Egypt affords the first answer.
The first step in the inquiry as to Egyptian
antiquity is afforded by the history of
Manetho. Ptolemy Philadelphus, whose
reign began 286 B.C., was an enlightened
king. He founded the great Alexandrian
library, and was specially curious in col
lecting everything which bore on the early
�EGYPT
ir
history of his own and other countries. which had reached Ionian Greece of the
With this view he had the Greek trans perhaps over-vaunted splendours of the
lation, known as the Septuagint, made of nineteenth dynasty. Herodotus visited
the sacred books of the Hebrews, and he Egypt about 450 B.C., and wrote a descrip
commissioned Manetho to compile a history tion of it from what he saw and heard. It
of Egypt from the earliest times, from the contains a good deal of valuable informa
most authentic temple records and other tion, for he was a shrewd observer. But
sources of information. Manetho was he was credulous, and not very critical in
eminently qualified for such a task, being a distinguishing between fact and fable ; and
learned and judicious man, and a priest of it is evident that his sources of information
Sebennytus, one of the oldest and most were often not much better than vague
popular traditions, or the tales told by
famous temples.
The history of Manetho is unfortunately guides, while even the more authentic
■lost, being probably the greatest loss the information is so disconnected and mixed
world has sustained by the burning of the with fable that it can hardly be accepted
Alexandrian library; but fragments of it as material for history. As far as it goes,
have been preserved in the works of however, it tends to confirm Manetho, as,
Josephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and for instance, in giving the names correctly
Syncellus, among whom Eusebius and of the kings who built the three great
Africanus profess to give Manetho’s lists pyramids, and in saying that he saw the
and dates of dynasties and kings from the statues of 342 successive high priests of the
first king Menes down to the conquest of great Temple of Heliopolis, which corres
Alexander the Great in 332 B.c. With the pond very well with Manetho’s lists of 370
curious want of critical faculty in almost kings.
Diodorus gives us very much the same
all the Christian fathers, these extracts,
though professing to be quotations from narratives as those of Herodotus ; and, on
the same book, contain many inconsis the whole, we have to fall back on Manetho
tencies, and in several instances they have as the only authority for anything like
obviously been tampered with, especially precise dates and connected history.
Manetho’s dates, however, were so in
by Eusebius, in order to bring their
chronology more in accordance with that consistent with preconceived ideas based
of the Old Testament. But enough remains on the chronology of the Bible that they
to show that Manetho’s lists comprised were universally thought to be fabulous.
thirty-one dynasties and about 370 kings, They were believed either to represent the
whose successive reigns extended over a exaggerations of Egyptian priests desirous
period of about 5,500 years, from the of magnifying the antiquity of their country,
accession of Menes to the conquest of or, if historical, to give in succession the
Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 B.c., names of a number of kings and dynasties
making the date of the first historical king who had really reigned simultaneously in
who united Upper and Lower Egypt, about different provinces. So stood the question
4800 B.C. There may be some doubt as to until the discovery of reading hieroglyphics
the precise dates, for the lists of Manetho enabled us to test the accuracy of
have obviously been tampered with to some
Manetho’s lists by the light of contem
extent by the Christian fathers who quoted porary monuments and manuscripts. This
them ; but there can be no doubt that his discovery is of such supreme importance
■Original work assigned an antiquity to that it may be well to show how it was
Menes of over 5,500 B.c.
made, and the demonstration on which it
The only other documentary information
rests.
a-s to the history of Ancient Egypt was
Reading presupposes writing, as writing
gleaned from references in the works of presupposes speech. Ideas are conveyed
Josephus and of Greek authors, especially
from one mind to another in speech through
Homer, Herodotus, and Diodorus Siculus.
the ear, in writing through the eye. The
Josephus, in his Antiquity of the Jews,
origin of the latter method is doubtless to
quotes passages from Manetho; but they
be found in picture-Writing. The palaeolithic
extend only to the period of the Hyksos
savage who drew a mammoth with the
invasion, the Captivity of the Jews, and
point of a flint on a piece of ivory was
the Exodus, which are all comparatively
attempting to write, in his rude way, a
recent events in Manetho’s annals. Ho record of some memorable chase. And
mer’s account of hundred-gated Thebes
the accounts of the old Empires of Mexico
does not carry us back beyond the echo
and Peru which were extant at the time cf
�12
HUMAN ORIGINS
the Spanish Conquest show that a con
siderable amount of civilisation can be
attained and information conveyed by the
pictorial method. But for the purpose of
historical record more is required. It is
essential to have a system of signs and
symbols which shall be generally under
stood, and by which knowledge shall be
handed down unchanged to successive
generations. All experience shows that,
before knowledge is thus fixed and re
corded, anything that may be transmitted
by memory and word of mouth fades off
into myth, and leaves no certain record of
time, place, and circumstance. A few
religious hymns and prayers like those of
the Vedas, a few heroic ballads like those
of Homer, a few genealogies like those of
Agamemnon or Abraham, may be thus
preserved, but nothing definite or accurate
in the way of fact and date. History,
therefore, is secured by writing, and writing
begins with the invention of fixed signs to
represent words. A system of writing is
possible, like the Chinese, in which each
separate word has its own separate sign ;
but this is extremely cumbrous, and quite
unintelligible to those who have not a
living key to explain the meaning of each
symbol. It is calculated that an educated
Chinese has to learn by heart the meaning
of some 15,000 separate signs before he
can read and write correctly. We have a
trace of this ideographic system in our own
language, as where arbitrary signs such as
1, 2, 3, represent not the sounds of one,
two, and three, but the ideas conveyed by
them. But, for all practical purposes, in
telligible writing has to be phonetic—that
is, representing spoken words, not by the
ideas they convey, but by the sounds of
which they are composed. In other words,
there must be an Alphabet.
The alphabet is the first lesson of child
hood, and it seems such a simple thing that
we are apt to forget that it is one of the
most important and original inventions of
the human intellect. To some genius,
musing on the meaning of spoken words,
there came the wonderful conception
that they might all be resolved, into a
few simple sounds. To make this more
easily intelligible, I will suppose the illus
trations to be taken from our own language.
“Dog” and “dig” express very different
ideas ; but a little reflection will show that
the primary sounds made by the tongue,
teeth, and palate, viz. ‘d’ and ‘g,’ are
the same in each, and that they differonly
by a slight variation in the soft breathing
or vowel, which connects them and renders
them vocal. The next step would be to
see that such words as “ good ” or “ God
consisted of the same root-sounds, only
transposed and connected with a slight
vowel difference. Pursuing the analysis,
it would finally be discovered that the
many thousand words of spoken language
could all be resolved into a very small
number of radical sounds, each of which
might be represented and suggested to the
mind through the eye instead of the ear by
some conventional sign or symbol. Here
is the alphabet, and here the art of writing.
The mysterious and magical character
with which the written signs were invested
was associated with legends that writing
was an invention of some god or culture
hero. Thus in Egypt, Thoth the Second,
known to the Greeks as Hermes Trismegistus, a fabulous demi-god of the period
succeeding the reign of the great gods, is
said to have invented the alphabet and the
art of writing.
The analysis of primary sounds varies, a
little in different times and countries in
order to suit peculiarities in the pronuncia
tion of different races, and convenience in
writing ; but about sixteen primitive sounds,
which is the number of the letters of the first
alphabet brought by Cadmus, so the
tradition runs, from Phoenicia to Greece,
are always its basis. In our own alphabet
it is easy to see that it is not formed on
strictly scientific principles, some of the
letters being redundant. Thus the soft
sound of ‘ c ’ is expressed by. ‘ s,’ and the
hard sound by ‘k’ ; and ‘x’ is an abbre
viation of three other letters, ‘ eks.’ Some
letters also express sounds which run so
closely into one another that in some
alphabets they are not distinguished, as ‘ f ’
and ‘v,’ ‘d’ and ‘t,’ ‘1’ and ‘r.’ Then,
some races have guttural and other sounds,
such as ‘kh’ and ‘ sj,’ which occur so
frequently as to require separate signs,
while they baffle the vocal organs of other
races ; and in some cases syllables which
frequently occur, instead of being spelt out
alphabetically, are represented by single
signs. But these are mere details ; the
question substantially is this—if a collec
tion of unknown signs is phonetic, and we
can get any clue to its alphabet, it can
be read ; if not, it must remain a sealed
book.
.
To apply this to hieroglyphics : it had
been long known that the monuments of
ancient Egypt were carved with.mysterious
figures, representing birds, animals, and
�EGYPT
13
stration, a great deal of ingenuity and
patient research were required.
The
principle upon which all interpretation of
unknown signs rests may be most easily
understood by taking an illustration from
our own language. The first step in the
problem is to know whether these un
known signs are ideographic or phonetic.
Thus, if we have two groups of signs,
one of which, we have reason to know,
stands for “Ptolemy” and the other for
“ Cleopatra,” if they are phonetic, the first
sign in Ptolemy will correspond with the
fifth in Cleopatra ; the second with the
seventh, the third with the fourth, the
fourth with the second,
and the fifth with the
third; and we shall
have established five
letters of the unknown
alphabet, ‘p, t, o, 1,’
and ‘ e.’ Other names
will give other letters,
as if we know “ Arsinoe ” its comparison
with “ Cleopatra ” will
give ‘ a5 and ‘ r,’ and
confirm the former in
duction as to ‘o’ and
‘e.’
And it will be ex
tremely probable that
the two last signs in
Ptolemy represent ‘ m ’
and ‘ y ’; the first in
the Cleopatra ‘c’; and
the third, fourth, and
fifth in Arsinoe, ‘ s, i,’
and ‘ n.’ Suppose now
that we find in an in
TABLET OF SENEFERU AT WADY MAGERAH.
scription on an ancient
(The oldest inscription in the world, probably 6,000 years old. The king conquering temple at Thebes a
an Arabian or Asiatic enemy.)
°
name which begins
with our known sign
army, when the French were driven out of for ‘ r,’ followed by our known ‘ a,’ then
Egypt, and is now lodged at the British by our conjectural ‘ m,’ then by the
Museum. It bears three inscriptions, one sign which we find third in Arsinoe,
in hieroglyphics, the second in the demotic or ‘ s,’ then by our known ‘ e,’ and
Egyptian character employed for popular ending with a repetition of ‘ s,’ we have no
use, and the third in Greek. The Greek difficulty in reading “ Ramses,” and identi
inscription records a meeting of the Priests fying it with one of the kings of that name
at Memphis in honour of Ptolemy V. mentioned by Manetho as reigningat Thebes.
Epiphanes, B.c. 195.
It sets forth the The identification of letters was facilitated
many good deeds of that king, and a by the custom of enclosing the names of
decree that his statue be erected in every kings in what is called a cartouche or oval.
temple of Egypt. It was an obvious con
Seneferu is the name of the king of the
jecture that the two Egyptian inscriptions fourth dynasty, who reigned about 4,000
were to the same effect, and that the Greek B.c., or about a century before the building
was a literal translation of this. To turn of the Great Pyramids. The tablet was found
this conjecture, however, into a demon at the copper mines of Wady Magerah,
Other natural objects ; but all clue to their
meaning had been lost. It seemed more
natural to suppose that they were ideo
graphic ; that a lion, for instance, repre
sented a real lion, or some quality asso
ciated with him, such as fierceness, valour,
and kingly aspect, rather than that his
picture stood simply for our letter- ‘1.’
The long-desired clue was afforded by the
famous Rosetta stone. This is a mutilated
Mock of black basalt, which was dis
covered in 1799 by an engineer officer of the
French expedition, in digging the founda
tions of a fort near Rosetta. It was cap
tured, with other trophies, by the British
�14
HUMAN ORIGINS
in the peninsula of Sinai, and represents
the victory of the king over an Arabian or
Asiatic enemy.
The first step towards the decipherment
of the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta stone
was made in 1819 by Dr. Young, one of the
most ingenious and original thinkers of the
nineteenth century, and also famous as the
first propounder of the undulatory theory
of light. In both cases he indicated the
right path and laid down the correct prin
ciples, but the development of his theories
was reserved for two Frenchmen ; Fresnel
in the case of Light, and Champoilion in
that of Hieroglyphics. The latter task was
one which required immense patience and
ingenuity, for the hieroglyphic alphabet
turned out to be one of great complexity.
Many of the signs were not only phonetic,
but also ideographic or determinative;
some of them stood for syllables, not
letters ; while the letters themselves were
not represented, as in modern languages,
each by a single sign or at most by
two signs, as A and a, but by several dif
ferent signs. The Egyptian alphabet was,
in fact, constructed very much as young
children often learn theirs, by—
A was an apple-pie,
B bit it,
C cut it;
with this difference, that several objects,
whose names begin with A and other
letters, might be used to represent them.
Thus some of the hieroglyphic letters had
as many as twenty-five different signs or
homophones. It is as if we could write for
‘ a ’ the picture either of an apple, or of an
ass, archer, arrow, anchor, or any word
beginning with ‘ a.’
.
However, Champollion, with infinite
difficulty, and aided by the discovery of
fresh inscriptions, notably one on a small
obelisk in the island of P hilus, solved the
problem, and succeeded in producing a
complete alphabet of hieroglyphics com
prising all the various signs, thus enabling
us to translate every hieroglyphic sign into
its corresponding sound or spoken word.
The next question was, What did these
words mean, and could they be recognised
in any known language ? The answer to
this was easy. The Egyptians spoke
Egyptic, or, as it is, abbreviated Coptic, a
modern form of which is almost a living
language, and is preserved in translations
of the Bible still in use and studied by the
aid of Coptic dictionaries and grammars.
This enabled Champoilion to construct a
hieroglyphic dictionary and grammar,
which have been so completed by the
A.
B.
'A'.vS &
‘a'tfJ'W-.
a
A.ATOM
*•
s.
T
SPECIMEN OF HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET.
(From Champoilion’s Egypt.)
labours of subsequent Egyptologists that
it is not too much to say that any
inscription or manuscript in hieroglyphics
can be read with nearly as much certainty
as if it had been written in Greek or m
Hebrew.
.
-c- r u
The above illustrations from English
characters are only given as the simplest
way of conveying to the minds of those
who have had no previous acquaintance
with the subject, an idea of the nature of
the process and force of the evidence
upon which the decipherment of hiero
glyphic inscriptions is based. In reality
the process was far from being so simple.
Though many of the hieroglyphics are
phonetics, like our letters of the alphabet,
they are not all so, and many of them are
purely ideographic, as when we write 1, 2,
3, for one, two, and three. All writing began
with picture-writing, and each character
was originally a likeness of the object
which it was wished to represent. lhe
next stage was to use the character not
only for the material object, but as a
symbol for some abstract idea associated
with it. Thus the picture of a lion might
stand either for an actual lion, or for fierce
ness, courage, majesty, or other attribute
of the king of animals. In this way it
became possible to convey meanings to the
mind through the eye; but it involved both
an enormous number of characters and
the use of homophones—z.^., of single
characters standing for a number of
separate ideas. To obviate this, what are
called “determinatives” were invented—t.e.,
special signs affixed to characters or groups
of characters to determine the sense m
which they were to be taken. For instance,
the picture of a star (*) affixed to a group
of hieroglyphics may be used to denote
that they represent the name of a. god, o
some divine or heavenly attribute ; and the
picture of rippling water ~~----- t0„
that the group means something connected
�EGYPT
with water, as a sea or river. Beyond this
the Chinese have hardly gone, and it is
reckoned that it requires some 1,358
separate characters, or conventionalised
pictures, taken in distinct groups, to be
able to read and write correctly the 40,000
words in the Chinese language. Even for
the ordinary purposes of life a Chinaman,
instead of committing to memory twentysix letters of the alphabet, like an English
child, has to learn by heart some 6,000 or
7,000 groups of characters, often distin
guished only by slight dots and dashes.
Such a system is cumbrous in the extreme,
and involves spending many of the best
years of life in acquiring the first rudiments
of knowledge. Indeed, it is only possible
when not only writing but speech has been
arrested at the first stage of its development,
and a nation speaks a language of mono
syllables. In the case of Egypt and other
ancient nations the standpoint of writing
went further, and the symbolic pictures
came to represent phonograms—i.e., sounds
or spoken words instead of ideas or objects;
and these again were further analysed into
syllabaries, or the component articulate
sounds which make up words ; and these
finally into their ultimate elements of a few
simple sounds, or letters of an alphabet,
the various combinations of which will
express all the complex sounds or words of
a spoken language.
Now, in the hieroglyphic writing of
ancient Egypt, along with those pure
phonetics or letters of an alphabet, are
found numerous survivals of the older
systems from which they sprung; and
Champoilion, who first attempted the task
of forming a hieroglyphic dictionary and
grammar, had to contend with all the diffi
culties of ideograms, polyphones, determi
natives, and other obstacles.
Those who wish to pursue this interest
ing subject further will do well to read
Dr. Isaac Taylor’s History of the Alphabet,
and Sayce on the Science of Writing; but
for my present purpose it is sufficient to
establish the scientific certainty of the
process by which hieroglyphic texts are
read. With this key a vast mass of con
stantly accumulating evidence has been
brought to light, illustrating not only the
chronology and history of ancient Egypt,
but also its social and political condition,
its literature and religion, science and art.
The first question naturally was how far
the monuments confirmed or disproved the
lists of Manetho. Manetho was a learned
priest of a celebrated temple, who must
15
have had access to all the temple and royal
records and other literature of Egypt, and
who must have been also conversant with
foreign literature, to have been selected as
the best man to write a complete history
of his native country for the royal library
in Greek. Manetho’s lists of the reigns of
dynasties and kings, when summed up, show
a date of 5,867 B.c. for the foundation of
the united Egyptian Empire by Menes—a
date which is, of course, absolutely incon
sistent with those given by Genesis, not
only for the Deluge, but for 'the original
Creation.
It is evident that the monuments alone
could confirm or contradict these lists, and
give a solid basis for Egyptian chronology
and history. This has now been done to
such an extent that it may fairly be said
that Manetho has been confirmed, and it is
fully established that nearly all his kings
and dynasties are proved by monuments to
have existed, and that successively and not
simultaneously, so that in the case of Menes,
Professor Flinders Petrie is able to fix his
date at 4,777 B.c., “ with a possible error of
a century.”
Egyptian history is divided into three
periods—the Old, the Middle, and the
New Empires, the Old Empire dating
from the reign of Menes. But the result
of Professor Flinder Petrie’s excavations
in the Royal Tombs of the first Dynasties
has revealed the fact that there were kings
before Menes. It was no unimportant con
firmation of Manetho’s tables to have dis
covered the tomb and hieroglyph of that
monarch, but this yields in interest to Pro
fessor Petrie’s discovery of relics of at least
five predecessors. How far the historical
horizon in Egypt may yet be pushed, only
further diggings will show; but meantime
the Professor gives cogent reasons for belief
in the existence of no mean state of culture
many centuries before the time of Menes.
That ruler carried out a great work of
hydraulic engineering, by which the course
of the Nile was diverted, and a site ob
tained on its western banks for the new
capital of Memphis. His immediate suc
cessor is said to have written a celebrated
treatise on medicine; under Den-setui, the
fifth king of the first dynasty, art reached
to an extraordinary perfection ; while the
extremely life-like portrait-statues and
wooden statuettes, which were never
equalled in any subsequent Stage of
Egyptian art, and with which Chaldsea has
nothing to compare, date back to the fourth
dynasty.
�16
HUMAN ORIGINS
It is singular that this extremely ancient
period is the one of which, although the
oldest, we know most, for the monuments,
the papyri, and especially the tombs in the
great cemeteries of Sakkarah and Gizeh,
give us the fullest details of the political
and social life of Egypt during the fourth,
fifth, and sixth dynasties, with sufficient
information as to the first three dynasties
to check and confirm the lists of Manetho.
We really know the life of Memphis 6,000
years ago better than we do that of London
under the Saxon kings, or of Paris under
the descendants of Clovis.
The sixth dynasty was succeeded by a
period which seems to have been one of
civil war and anarchy, during which there
was a complete cessation of monuments.
If they existed, they have not yet been
discovered. The probable duration of this
PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH
eleventh dynasty the seat of empire is ]
established at Thebes, and the state of the
arts, religion, and civilisation is different
and much ruder than it was at the close
of the great Memphite Empire with the
sixth dynasty. Mariette says ? “When
Egypt, with the eleventh dynasty, awoke
from its long sleep, the ancient traditions
were forgotten. The proper names of the
kings and ancient nobility, the titles of the
high functionaries, the style of the hieroglyphic writing, and even the religion, all
seemed new. The monuments are rude,
primitive, and sometimes even barbarous,
and to see them one would be inclined to
think that Egypt under the eleventh dynasty
was beginning again the period of infancy*
which it had already passed through 1,500
years earlier under the third.” The tomb
I of one of these kings of the eleventh
and sphinx.
eclipse of Egyptian records is somewhat
uncertain, as we cannot be sure, in the
absence of monuments, that the four dynas
ties of short reigns assigned to the interval
between the sixth and the eleventh dynas
ties by Manetho, and the numerous names
of unknown kings on the tablets, weie suc
cessive sovereigns who reigned over united
Egypt, or local chiefs who got possession of
power in different parts of the Empire. All
we can see is that the supremacy of Mem
phis declined, and that its last great dynasty
was replaced, either in whole or in part, by
a rebellion in Upper Egypt which intro
duced two dynasties whose seat was at
Heracleopolis on the Middle Nile. In any
case the duration of this period must have
been very long, for the eclipse was veiy
complete, and when we once more find our
selves in the presence of records m the
(From Champollion’s Egypt.)
dynasty, Antef I., is remarkable as show-1
ing on a funeral pillar the sportsman-king ■
surrounded by his four favourite dogs,?
whose names are given. They are of dif
ferent breeds, from a large greyhound to &
small turnspit.
However, the chronology of this eleventh
dynasty is well attested, its kings are known,
and under them Upper and Lower Egypt
were once more consolidated into a single
State, forming what is known as the Middle
Empire. Under the twelfth dynasty, which
succeeded it, this Empire bloomed rapidly
into one of the greatest and most glorious
periods of Egyptian history. The dynasty
only lasted for 213 years, under seven kings,
whose names were all either Amenemna|
or Usertsen ; but during their reigns the
frontiers of Egypt were extended far; to the
south. Nubia was incorporated with thi
�EGYPT
17
Empire, and Egyptian influence extended firm the general accuracy of Manetho’s
over the whole Soudan, and perhaps nearly statements. A colossal statue of the twentyto the equator on the one hand, and over• fourth or twenty-fifth king, Sebekhetep VI.,
I Southern Syria on the other. But the found on the island of Argo near Dongola,
dynasty was still more famous for the arts1 shows that the frontier fixed by the con
of peace.
quests of Amenemhat at Semneh had not
One of the greatest works of hydraulic only been maintained, but extended nearly
j engineering which the world has seen was fifty leagues to the south into the heart of
carried out by Amenemhat III., who took Ethiopia; and another statue found at
advantage of a depression in the desert Tanis shows that the rule of this dynasty
limestone near the basin of Fayoum to was firmly established in Lower Egypt.
I form a large artificial lake connected with But the scarcity of the monuments, and the
L the Nile by canals, tunnelled through rocky inferior execution of the works of art, show
ridges and provided with sluices, so as to that this long dynasty was one of gradual
admit the water when the river rose too decline ; while the rise of the next, or four
high, and let it out when it fell too low, and teenth, dynasty at Xois, transferring the
I thus regulate the inundation of a great part seat of power from Thebes to the Delta,
■of Middle and Lower Egypt, independently points to civil wars and revolutions.
of the seasons. Connected with this Lake
Manetho assigns seventy-five kings and
Moerjs was the famous Labyrinth, which 484 years to the fourteenth dynasty, and it
I Herodotus pronounced to be a greater is to this period that a good deal of uncer
wonder than even the great Pyramid. It tainty attaches, for there are no monuments
was a vast square building erected on a and nothing to confirm Manetho’s lists’
Small plateau on the east side of the lake, except a number of unknown names of
. constructed of blocks of granite which must kings of the dynasty enumerated amon«have been brought from Syene ; it had a the royal ancestors in the Papyrus of Turin5
f facade of white limestone; and contained What is certain is that the Middle Empire
in the interior a vast number of small sank rapidly into a state of anarchy and
Square chambers and vaults—Herodotus impotence, which prepared the way for a
| says 3,000—each roofed with a single large great catastrophe. This catastrophe came
slab of stone, and connected by narrow m the form of an invasion of foreigners
• ’ passages, so intricate that a stranger enter who, about 2000 B.C., broke through the
ing without a clue would be infallibly lost. eastern frontier of the Delta, and apparently
The object Seems to have been to provide without much resistance conquered the
a safe repository for statues of gods and whole of Lower Egypt up to Memphis, and
kings and other precious objects. In the 1 educed the princes of the Upper Provinces
■ centre was a court containing twelve to a state of vassalage. There is consider
hypostyle chapels, six facing the south and able doubt as to what race these invaders
six the north, and at the north angle of the who were known as Hyksos, or Shepherd
- square was a pyramid of brick faced with Kings, belonged. They consisted, so some
f stone forming the tomb of Amenemhat III. conjecture, mainly of nomad tribes of
. In addition to this colossal work, the Canaanites, Arabians, and other Semitic
kings of this dynasty built and restored races ; but the Hittites seem to have been
many of the most famous temples, and associated with them, and the leaders to
erected statues and obelisks, among the have been Mongolian, judging from the
latter the one now standing at Heliopolis. portrait-statues of two of the later kings
It was also an age of great literary activity,' of the Hyksos dynasty which have
i and the biographies of many of the priests,
been recently
nobles, and high officers, inscribed on their Bubastis, and discovered by Naville at
which are unmistakably
tombs and recorded in papyri, give us the of that type. Our information as to
f most minute knowledge of the history and this Hyksos conquest is derived mainly
social life of this remote period.
from fragments of Manetho quoted by
I
The prosperity of Egypt during the Josephus, and from traditions repeated by
Middle Empire was continued under the Herodotus, and is very vague and imper
f thirteenth dynasty of sixty Theban kings, fect. But this much seems certain, that at
to whom Manetho assigns the period of first the Hyskos acted as savage bar
I, 453 years. Less is known of this period barians, burning cities, demolishing temples,
| than of the great twelfth dynasty which massacring part of the population and
I preceded it; but a sufficient number of reducing the rest to slavery. But, as in
monuments have been preserved to con the parallel case of the Tartar conquest of
�18
HUMAN ORIGINS
effaced, and those of later kings chiselled
over them ; but enough remains to show
that they were in the hieroglyphic character,
and the names of two or three Hyksos
kings can still be deciphered, among which
are two Apepis, the second probably the
last of the dynasty. It was perhaps under
one of these Hyksos kings that Joseph
came to Egypt and the tribes of I srael
settled on its eastern frontier. The dura
tion of the Hyksos rule is thus left m some ■
uncertainty; in fact, the history of the whole
period until the rise of the seventeenth
dynasty remains obscure. Manetho, if
correctly quoted by
Cr'
Josephus, says they
ruled over Egypt for
511 years (2098-1587
B.C.), though his lists
show only one dynasty
of 259 years, and then
the Theban dynasty,
which reigned over
Upper Egypt for 260
years contemporane
ously with Hyksos
kings in Lower Egypt.
We regain, however,
firm historical ground
with the rise of the
seventeenth Theban
dynasty of native
Egyptian kings, who
finally expelled the
Hyksos, after a IonJ
war, and founded what
is known as the New
Empire on the basis
of despotic rule. The
date of this event is
fixed by the best au
thorities at about 1587
B.C., and from this
time downwards we
FELLAH WOMAN AND HEAD OF SECOND HYKSOS STATUE.
have an uninterrupted
(From photograph by Naville in HarfieSs Magazine.-)
succession of un
doubted historical records, confirmed by
feature. At Bubastis two . colossal statues
contemporary monuments and by tne
of Hyksos kings, with their heads broken
annals of other nations, down to the
off, but one of them nearly perfect, were
Christian era. The reaction which fol
unexpectedly discovered by Naville m
lowed the expulsion of the Hyksos led
1887, and it was proved that they had
to campaigns in Asia on a great scale,
stood on each side of the entrance to an
in which Egypt came into collision with
addition made by those kings to the
powerful nations, and for a long time; was
ancient and celebrated temple of the the dominant power m Western Asia,
Egyptian goddess Bast, thus proving that
extending its conquests from the Per|ian|
the Hyksos had adopted not only the
Gulf to the Black Sea and Mediterranean,
civilisation, but also the religion of the
and receiving tribute from Babylon and
Egyptian nation. There are but few
Nineveh. Then followed wars,, waged on
inscriptions known of the Hyksos dynasty,
more equal terms, with the Hittites, who
for their cartouches have generally been
China, as time went on they adopted the
superior civilisation of their subjects, and
the later kings were transformed into
genuine Pharaohs, differing but little from
those of the old national dynasties. This
is conclusively proved by the discoveries
recently made at Tams and Bubastis,
which have revealed important monuments
of this dynasty. At Tanis an avenue of
sphinxes was discovered, resembling those
at Thebes and that of the Great Sphinx at
Gizeh, with lion bodies and human heads,
the latter with a different head-dress frorn
the Egyptian, and a different type o
�EGYPT
19
had founded a great empire in Asia Minor “Book of the Dead,” certainly date from
and Syria; and, as their power declined this period, and the great Temple of the
that of Assyria rose, with the long series
Sun at Heliopolis had been founded, for
of warlike Assyrian monarchs, who gradu we are told that certain prehistoric Helioally obtained the ascendancy, and not only politan hymns formed the basis of the
Stopped Egypt of its foreign conquests, sacred books of a later age. At Edfu the
but on more than one occasion invaded its later temple occupies the site of a very
territory and captured its principal cities. ancient structure, traditionally said to date
It is during this period that we find the back to the mythic reign of the gods, and
first of the certain synchronisms between to have been built according to a plan
Egyptian history and the Old Testament,
designed by Nuhotef, the son of Pthah.
(beginning with the capture of Jerusalem At Denderah an inscription found by
by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, and
Mariette in one of the crypts of the great
ending with the captivity of the Jews and
temple expressly identifies the earliest
temporary conquest of Egypt by Nebu sanctuary built upon the spot with the timechadrezzar. Then came
the Persian conquest by
Qambyses and alternate
periods of national inde
pendence and of Persian
rule, until the conquest of
Alexander and the estab
lishment of the dynasty of
the Ptolemies, which lasted
until the reign of Cleo
patra, and ended finally in
the annexation of Egypt
as a province of the Roman
Empire.
The history of this long
period is extremely in
teresting, as showing what
may be called the com
mencement of the modern
era of great wars, and of
the rise and fall of civi
lised empires ; but for the
present purpose I only
refer to it as helping to
establish the chrono
logical standard which I
am in search of as a
HYKSOS SPHINX.
measuring-rod to guage
(From photograph by Naville in Harpers Magazine.')
the duration of historical
time.
The glimpses of light into the pre of the Horsheshu. It reads: “There was
historic stages of Egyptian civilisation, found the great fundamental ordinance of
prior to the invasion of the country by the Denderah, written upon goat-skin in
Asiatic founders of the dynasties, are few ancient writing of the time of the Hor
and far between. We are told that before sheshu. It was found in the inside of a'
the consolidation of the Empire by Menes,
brick wall during the reign of King Pepi ”
Egypt was divided into a number of (z>., Pepi-Merira of the sixth dynasty).
separate nomes or provinces, each The name of Chufu or Cheops, the king of
gathered about its own independent city the fourth dynasty, who built the great
and temple, and ruled by the Shesu-Heru pyramid, was found by Naville in a
(or Horsheshu) or “Servants of Horus,” who restoration of part of the famous temple of
were apparently the chief priests of the Bubastis, and its foundation doubtless
respective temples, combining with the dates back to the same prehistoric period.
character of priest that of king, or local
But the most important prehistoric
ruler. Parts of the “Todtenbuch,” or monuments are those connected with the
�20
HUMAN ORIGINS
great Sphinx. An inscription of Chufu,
preserved, in the Museum of Boulak, says
that a temple adjoining the Sphinx, which
had been buried under the sand of the
desert, and forgotten for many generations,
was discovered by chance in his reign.
This temple was uncovered by Mariette,
and found to be constructed of enormous
blocks of granite of Syene and of alabaster,
supported by square pillars, each of a
single block of stone, without any mouldings
or ornaments, and no trace of hiero
glyphics. It is, in fact, a sort of transition
from the rude dolmen to scientific archi
tecture. But the masonry, and still more
the transport of such enormous blocks
from Syene to the plateau of the desert at
Gizeh, show a great advance already
attained in the resources of the country
and the state of the industrial arts. The
origin of the Sphinx is wrapped in mystery,
but it is mentioned on the above-named
inscription as being much older than the
great Pyramids, and as requiring repairs
in the time of Chufu. In addition to the
direct evidence for its prehistoric antiquity,
it is certain that, if such a monument had
'been erected by any of the historical kings,
it would have been inscribed with hiero
glyphics, and the fact recorded in
Manetho’s lists and contemporary records,
whereas all tradition of its origin seems to
have been lost in the night of ages.
It
is a gigantic work, consisting of natural
rock sculptured into the form of a lion’s
body with human head, this being the
incarnation which the Sun god Ra assumed
as protector of his friends and followers.
It is directed towards the east so as to face
the rising sun, and was an image of the
god Hormachis, the Sun of the Lower
World, the victor over darkness, the
approach to whose temple it guarded.
This appears to have been the object in
placing sphinxes before the temple
entrance.
In later centuries they were
placed near tombs for the same purpose.
Although there are no monuments of the
Stone Age in Egypt like those of the Swiss
lake villages and’ Danish kitchen-middens,
which enable us to trace in detail the
progress of arts and civilisation from rude
commencements through the neolithic and
prehistoric ages, there is abundant evi
dence to show that the same stages had
been traversed in the valley of the Nile
long prior to the time of Menes. _ Borings
have been made on various occasions and
at various localities through the alluvial
deposits of the Nile valley, from which
fragments of pottery have been brought up
from depths which show a high antiquity.
Horner sunk ninety-six shafts in four rows
at intervals of eight miles, across the valley
of the Nile, at right angles to the river
near Memphis, and brought up pottery
from various depths, which, at the known
rate of deposit of the Nile mud of about
three inches per century, indicate an
antiquity of at least 11,000 years. In
another boring a copper knife was brought
up from a depth of twenty-four feet, and
pottery from sixty feet below the surface.
This is specially interesting, as making it
probable that here, as in many other
countries, an age of copper preceded that
of bronze ; while a depth of sixty feet at the
normal rate of deposit would imply an
antiquity of 26,000 years.
Borings,
however, are not very conclusive, as it is
always open to contend that they may
have been made at spots where, owing
to some local circumstances, the deposit
was much more rapid than the average.
These objections, however, cannot apply
to the evidence which has been afforded
by the discovery of flint implements, both
of the neolithic and palaeolithic type,
in many localities and by various skilled
observers. Professor Haynes found, a few
miles east of Cairo, not only a number of
flint implements of the types usual in
Europe, but an actual workshop or manu
factory where they had been made, show
ing that they had not been imported, but
produced in the country in the course of
its native development. He also found
multitudes of worked flints of the ordinary
neolithic and palaeolithic types scattered oh
the hills near Thebes.
Lenormant and
Hamy saw the same workshop and remains
of the stone period; and various other finds
have been reported by other observers.
General Pitt-Rivers and Professor Haynes
found well-developed palaeolithic imple
ments of the St. Acheul type, not only on
the surface and in superficial deposits, but
from six and a half to ten feet deep in hard
stratified gravel at Djebel-Assas, near
Thebes, in a terrace on the side of one of
the ravines falling from the Libyan desert
into the Nile valley, which was certainly
deposited in early quaternary ages by a
torrent pouring down from a plateau wheie,
under existing geographical and climatic
conditions, rain seldom or never falls.
These relics, says Mr. Campbell, who
was associated with General Pitt-Rivers in
the discovery, are “beyond calculation
older than the oldest Egyptian temples
�EGYPT
21
and tombs,” and they certainly go far
to prove that the high civilisation of
Egypt at the earliest dawn of history
or tmlitron had been a plant of ex
tremely slow growth from a state of
brOvinciaiSaviigcr)-. Finally, on the
limestone plateau fourteen hundred feet
above the Nile, and situated thirty
iriilcs north of Thebes, Professor
Petrie found numbers of
btatlttfully*worked, and quite
unworn palaeoliths of exactly the same
as those found in the river
gravels K France and England.
The ethnology of Egypt is by no
^b-d, but authorities appear
tCftefipW- that the pre-dynastic race
akm to the Cushites, all of whom
ggWs a flight negro strain, infused at
a very remote date. We see these
ancient Egyptians depicted in wallpaintings as tall, spare, small-headed,
thick-lipped, and with high cheek-bones STATUE OF PRINCE RAHOTEP’s WIFE. (Refined type.)
(Gizeh Museum.—
•
, ,
and almond-shaped eyes: the men Meydoon.—AccordingDiscovered in
to the chronological table of
coloured dark red, and the women is 5,800 years old.-From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo.jj ’
coloured yellow. Then, at a period
whose date is ever being pushed back,
■teftWy by century, appear the invading
T6 b-eing sPelIed’ one bv
founders of the great and famous dynasties one°^nd
one, and their duration brought into harmony with the requirements
comparative chronology.
Phe language and system of
writing, when we first meet with
them, are fully formed and
apparently of native growth, nM
derived from any Semitic, Aryan
or Mongolian speech of any hi^
tori cal nation. It shows some
distant affinities with Scinitid
or rather with what may have
been a proto-Semitic, before it
had been fully formed, and is
perhaps nearer to what may
have been the primitive lan
guage of the Libyans of North'
Africa. But there is nothing in
the language from which we
can infer origin, and the pictures
from which hieroglyphics arederived are those of animals
and objects proper to the Nile
valley, and not like those of the
Akkadians and Chinese, which
point to a prehistoric nomad
existence on elevated plains.
For any further inquiries as to
the origin and. antiquity of
Egyptian civilisation we have to
KilUFV4N'Klt AND HIS SERVANTS—EARLY EGYPTIANS. '
fall back on the state of religion,
(Coarse type.)
science, literature, and art which
�22
HUMAN ORIGINS
inferred, except that it bore some general
resemblance to that of Genesis, until the
complete Chaldman Cosmogony was de
ciphered by Mr. George Smith from tablets
in the British Museum. These record a
mythical period of ten gods or demi-gods,
reigning for 432,000 years, in the middle of
which period the divine fish-man, Ea-Han
or Oannes, was said to have come-up out of
the Persian Gulf, and taught mankind
letters, sciences, laws, and all the arts of
civilisation. 259,000 years after Oannes,
under Xisuthros (the Greek translation of
Hasisastra), the last of the ten kings, a Deluge is said to have occurred, which is
described in terms so similar to the narra
CHAPTER II.
tive of Noah’s deluge in Genesis as to
leave no doubt that they are different
CHALD2EA
versions of the same legend, probably
derived from Akkadian sources.
Chronology—Berosus—His Dates mythical—
Prior to the appearance of Oannes, BeroDates in Genesis—Synchronisms with Egypt
sus relates “ that Chaldsea had been colo
and Assyria—Monuments-—Cuneiform In
nised by a mixed multitude of men of
scriptions—How deciphered -Behistan in
foreign race, who lived without order like
scription—Grotefend and Rawlinson Layard
animals,” thus carrying back the existence
—Library of Koyunjik—How preserved—
of mankind in large numbers to some date
Akkadian Translations and Grammars His
anterior to 259,000 years before the Deluge.
torical Dates — Elamite,. Conquest — Com
There is also a legend resembling that of
mencement of Modern History—-Ur-Ea and
the Tower of Babel and the confusion of
Dungi—Nabonidus—Sargon I., 3800. B.C.—
Ur of the Chaldees—Sharrukin’s Cylinder—
languages, recorded in another fragment
His Library—His son Naram-Sin—Semites
of Berosus. These accounts are all so
and Akkadians—Period before Sargon I.—
obviously mythical that no historical value
Patesi—De Sarzec’s find at Sirgalla—Gud-Ea,
can be attached to them, and they have
4000 to 4500 B.c.—Advance of Delta—
only been preserved because early Christian
Astronomical Records—Chaldaea and Egypt
writers saw in them some sort of distorted
give similar results—Historic Period. 8000 or
confirmation of the corresponding narra
9000 years—and no trace of a beginning.
tives in the Old Testament.
For anything like historical aates, there
■Chald/ean chronology has within the last
fore, the Bible remained the principal
few years been brought into the domain of
authority until the discoveries of monu
history, and carried back to a date as
ments of Chaldeea and Assyria. This
remote as that of Egypt. This has been
authority does not carry us very far back.
effected partly by the decipherment of an
The first event which can advance any
unknown language in inscriptions on
claim—and this is shadowy, because it as
ancient monuments, and partly by esti
sumes that the patriarchs are historical—to
mating the age of the deposits in which
serious attention is that of the migration of
inscribed tablets have been found. Until
Terah from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran,
recently the little that was known of . the
and the further migration of his son Abra
early history of Chaldma was derived
ham from Haran to Palestine. This is
almost entirely from two sources : the
said to have taken place m the ninth
Bible, and the fragments quoted by later
o-eneration after Noah, about 290 years
writers from the lost work of Berosus.
after the Deluge, and it presupposes the
Berosus was a learned priest of Babylon,
existence of a dense population and a num
who lived about 260 B.C., shortly after the
ber of large cities both in Upper and Lower
conquest of Alexander, and wrote in Greek
Mesopotamia. It mentions also an event
a history of the country from the most
as occurring in Abraham’s time—-viz., a
ancient times, compiled from the annals
campaign by Chedorlaomer, King of Elam,
preserved in the temples, and from the
with four allies, one of whom is. a King ot
oldest traditions. Among the fragments
Shinar, against five petty kings m Southein
of his work which have survived there is a
Syria. By some scholars Chedorlaomer
creation legend, from which little could be
we find prevailing in the earliest records
which have come down to us, and which I will
proceed to examine in subsequent chapters.
But before doing so I will endeavour to
exhaust the field of positive history, and
inquire how far the annals of other ancient
nations contradict or confirm the date of
about 4,700 years B.C., which has been
shown to be approximately that of the
accession of Menes,
�CHALDEA
has been identified from inscriptions with
Khuder-lagomer, one of the kings of the
I ^Elamite dynasty, who conquered Chaldaea
about 2300 B.C., and were expelled before
2000 B.C. But that equation has no
fr basis.
A long interval occurs during which the
scattered notices in the Bible relate mainly
to the intercourse of the Hebrews with
Egypt, with the races of Canaan, with the
Philistines, with the Phoenicians of Tyre,
Band with the Syrians of Damascus. Meso
potamia first appears after the rise of the
Assyrian Empire had united nearly the
whole of Western Asia under the warlike
kings who reigned at Nineveh, and when
Palestine had become the battlefield beBhveen them and the declining power of
Egypt, which under the eighteenth and
nineteenth Egyptian dynasties had extended to the Euphrates. The capture of
Jerusalem in the reign of Rehoboam by
fShishak has been referred to already as
■ affording the first certain synchronism
between sacred and profane history. The
date may be fixed within a few years at
! $70 B.C. Assyria first appears on the
scene two hundred years later in the reign
’ of Menahem King of Israel, when Pul,
better known as Tiglath-Pileser III., came
| against the land, and exacted a large
ransom from Menahem, whom he con
firmed as a tributary vassal.
From this time forward the succession of
I Assyrian kings is recorded more or less
accurately in the Bible. Tiglath-Pileser, who
had accepted vassalage and a large tribute
from Ahaz to come to his assistance
against Rezin King of Syria and Pekah
King of Israel, who were besieging
Jerusalem, captured and sacked Damascus.
Shalmaneser came up against Hosea
King of Judah, who submitted, but was
deposed for intriguing with Egypt; and
Shalmaneser then took Samaria and
carried the ten tribes of Israel away into
Assyria, placing them in the cities of the
Medes. Sennacherib, in the fourteenth
year of Hezekiah, took all the fenced cities
of Judah, and his general, Rab-shakeh,
besieged Jerusalem, which was saved by
the repulse of the main army under the
king when marching to invade Egypt.
The murder of Sennacherib by his two
sons and the succession of Esarhaddon
are next mentioned.
Nineveh then disappears from the scene
(about 600 B.c.), and the great Babylonian
Conqueror, Nebuchadrezzar, puts an end to
the kingdom of Judaea, by taking Jerusalem I
23
and carrying the people captive to Babylon.
This historical retrospect carries us back a
very short distance, and little can be
gathered in the way of accurate chronology
from the few vague references prior to this
date. So stood the question until the date
of Chaldaean history and civilisation was
unexpectedly pushed back at least 3,000
years by the discovery of its monuments.
When the first Assyrian sculptures were
found by Botta and Layard not fifty years
ago in the mounds of rubbish which
covered the ruins of Nineveh, and brought
home to Europe, it was seen that they
were covered with inscriptions in an
unknown character.’ It was called the
cuneiform, because it was made up of
combinations of a single sign, resembling
a thin wedge or arrow-head. This sign was
made in three fundamental ways—■/.<?., either
horizontal
vertical |, or angular^,
and all the characters were made up of
combinations of these primary forms,
which were obviously produced by im
pressing a style with a triangular head on
moist clay. They resembled, in fact, very
much the strokes and dashes used in
spelling out the words conveyed by the
electric telegraph, in which letters are
formed by oscillations of the needle.
This mode of writing had apparently
been developed from picture-writing, for
several of the groups of characters bore an
unmistakable resemblance to natural ob
jects. In the very oldest inscriptions
which have been discovered the writing is
hardly yet cuneiform, and the primitive
pictorial character of the signs is appa
rent.
But the bulk of the cuneiform inscrip
tions not being pictorial, there could be
little doubt that they were phonetic, or
represented sounds. The question was,
what sounds these characters signified,
and, when translated into sounds, what
words and what language did the groups
of signs represent ?
The first clue to these questions was, as
in the parallel case of Egypt, afforded by
a trilingual inscription. The kings of the
Persian Empire reigned over subjects of
various races and languages. The three
principal were the Persians, an Aryan race
who spoke an inflectional language which
has been preserved in old Persian and
Zend ; Semites, who spoke Aramaic, a lan
guage closely allied to Hebrew; and
descendants of the older Akkadian races,
whose language belonged to the Mongolic
group. Hence the necessity for the issue
�24
HUMAN ORIGINS
of edicts, and for the recording of inscrip
tions, in the three languages.
It is almost the same at the present day
in the same region,' where edicts or
inscriptions, to be readily intelligible to all
classes of subjects, would require to be
in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.
In the case of decipherment of the ancient
inscriptions the difficulty was, however,
great, for, though in different languages,
they were all written in the same cuneiform
characters, so that the aid afforded in the
case of the Rosetta stone by a Greek
translation of the hieroglyphic inscription
was not forthcoming.
The ingenuity of a German scholar,
Grotefend, furnished the first clue by dis
covering that certain groups of signs repre
sented the names of known Persian kings,
and thus identifying the component signs
in the Persian inscription as letters of an
alphabet.
A few years later Sir Henry. Rawlinson
copied, and succeeded in deciphering, a
famous inscription, high up in the face of a
precipice forming the.wall of a narrow defile
at Behistun. It was in old Persian, Susian
or Median, and Babylonian, and had been
engraved by order of the great Persian
monarch, Darius the First, the exploits of
whose reign it recorded. The clue thus
afforded was rapidly followed up by a host
of scholars, among whom the names of
Rawlinson, Burnouf, Lassen, and Oppert
were most conspicuous, and before long the
text of inscriptions in Persian and Semitic
could be read with certainty. The task
was one which required a vast amount
of patience and ingenuity, for the cuneiform
writing turned out to be of great complexity.
Though phonetic in the main, the charac
ters did not always represent the simple
elements of sounds, or letters of an alpha
bet, but frequently syllables containing one
or more consonants united by vowels, while
a considerable number were ideographic
or conventional representations of ideas, like
our numerals, i, 2, 3, which, as already re
marked, have no relation to spoken sounds.
Thus the simple vertical wedge J repre
sented “ man,” and was prefixed to proper
names of kings, so as to show that the signs
which followed denoted the name of a man ;
the sign
denoted country, and so on.
The difficulties were, however, surmounted,
and inscriptions in the two known languages
could be read, with considerable certainty.
The third language, however, remained
unknown until the finishing stroke to its
decipherment was given by the discovery
by Layard under the great mound of
Koyunjik near Mosul on the Tigris (the
site of the ancient Nineveh), of the royal
palace of Assurbanipal, or Sardanapalus, ’ 1
the grandson of Sennacherib, and one of
the greatest Assyrian monarchs, who Oved
about 650 B.C. This palace contained a
royal library like that of Alexandria or the
British Museum, the contents of which had •
been carefully collected from the oldest
records of previous libraries and temples,
and almost miraculously preserved. The
secret of the preservation of these Assyrian
and Ch aidman remains is that the district
contains no stone, all the great build
ings being constructed mainly of sun-dried
bricks, and built on mounds or platforms of
the same material to raise them above the
alluvial plain. These, when the cities were
deserted, crumbled, under the action of
the air and rains, which are torrential at
certain seasons, into shapeless rubbish
heaps of fine dry dust and sand, under
which everything of more durable material
was securely buried.
So rapid was the process that when
Xenophon, on the famous retreat of the ten
thousand, traversed the site of Nineveh only
two hundred years after its destruction, he
found nothing but the ruins of a deserted
city, the very name and memory of which
had been lost.
As regards the contents of the library, the
explanation of their perfect preservation is
equally simple. The books were written,,
not on perishable paper or parchment, but'
on cylinders of clay. It is evident that the
cuneiform characters were exceedingly well
adapted for this description of writing, and
probably determined by the nature of the
material. A fine tenacious clay cost nothing,
was readily moulded into cylinders, and
when slightly moist was easily engraved by
a tool or style stamping on it those wedge
like characters, so that when hardened by
a slow fire the book was practically inde
structible. So much so, indeed, that though
the palace, including the library with its
shelves and upper stories, had all fallen to
the ground, and the book-cylinders lay
scattered on the floor, they were mostly in a
state of perfect preservation. Other similar
finds have been made since, notably one of
another great library of the priestly college
at Erech, founded or enlarged as far back
as 2000 B.C. by Sargon II. But far sur
passing these in importance are the 26,000,
tablets unearthed by Mr. Haynes, from the
great mounds of Nuffar, the site of the
�CHALDEEA
sacred city of Nippur, whose foundations
were laid six or seven thousand years B.C.
Among the books recovered there are for
tunately translations of old Akkadian works
ihto the more modern Aramaic or Assyrian,
either interlined or in parallel columns, and
also grammars and dictionaries of the old
language to assist in its study. It appears
that as far back as 2000 years B.C. this old
language had already become obsolete, and
was preserved as Latin or Vedic Sanscrit
is at the present day, in ritual, and as the
language of the sacred books, historical
annals, and astrological and magical for
mulas. The ancient Akkadian writing
can now be read with almost as much
certainty as Egyptian hieroglyphics, and
the records are accumulating rapidly
with every fresh exploration. They
present to us a most interesting picture
of the religion, literature, laws, and
social life of a period long antecedent to
that commonly assigned for the destruction
of the world by Noah’s Deluge, or even to
that of the creation of Adam. To some of
these we shall have occasion subsequently
to refer ; but for the present I confine
myself to the immediate object in view,
that of verifying the earliest historical
dates.
The first certain date is fixed by the
annals of the Assyrian King Assurbanipal,
grandson of Sennacherib, who conquered
Elam and destroyed its capital, Susa, in the
year 645 B.C. The king says that he took
away all the statues from the great temple
of Susa, and, among others, one of the
Chaldasan goddess Nana, which had been
carried away from her own temple in the
city of Erech, by a king of Elam who con
quered the land of Akkad 1,635 years before.
This conquest, and the accession of an
Elamite dynasty which lasted for nearly
300 years, is confirmed from a variety of
other sources, and its date is thus fixed,
beyond the possibility of a doubt, at 2280
B.C.
This Elamite conquest of Chaldeea is a
memorable historical era, for it inaugurates
the period of great wars and of the rise
and fall of empires, w’hich play such a con
spicuous part in the subsequent annals of
nations. Elam was a small province
between the Kurdish mountains and the
Tigris, extending to the Persian Gulf; and
its capital, Susa, was an ancient and famous
city, which afterwards became one of the
principal seats of the Persian monarchs.
The Elamites were originally a race, like
the Akkads, with Mongolian affinities, and
25
spoke a language which was a dialect of
Akkadian; but, as in Chaldsea and Assyria,
the kings and aristocracy appear to have
been Semites from an.early period. It was
apparently an organised and civilised State,
and the conquest was not a passing irrup
tion of barbarians, but the result of a cam
paign by regular troops, who founded a
dynasty which lasted for more than 200
years. It evidently disturbed the equi
librium of Western Asia, and led to a
succession of wars. The invasion of Egypt
by the Hyksos followed closely on it.
Then came the reaction which drove the
Elamites from Chaldsea and the Hyksos
from Egypt. Then the great wars of the
eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, which carried
the arms of Ahmes and Thotmes to the
Euphrates and Black Sea, and established
for a time the supremacy of Egypt over
Western Asia. Then the rise of the Hittite
Empire, which extended over Asia Minor,
and contended on equal terms with Ramses
11, in Syria. Then the rise of the Assyrian
Empire, which crushed the Hittites and all
surrounding nations, and twice conquered
and overran Egypt. Finally, the rise of
the Medes, the fall of Nineveh, the short
supremacy of Babylon, and the establish
ment of the great Persian Empire. From
the Persian we pass to the Greek, then
to the Roman Empire, and find ourselves
on the threshold of modern history. It
may be fairly said, therefore, that modern
history, with its series of greatwars and revo
lutions, commences with this record of the
Elamite conquest of Chaldcea in 2280 B.C.
The next tolerably certain date is that of
Ur-ea and his son Dungi, two kings of
the old Akkadian race, who reigned at
Ur over the united kingdoms of Sumir
and Akkad. They were great builders
and restorers of temples, and have left
numerous traces in the monuments both at
Ur and at Larsam, Sirgalla, Erech, and
other ancient cities. Among other relics
of these kings there is in the British
Museum the signet-cylinder of Ur-ea him
self, on which is engraved the Moon-God,,
the patron deity of Ur, with the king and
priests worshipping him. The date of
Ur-ea is ascertained as follows ; Nabonidus,
the last king of Babylon, 550 B.C., was a
great restorer of the,old temples, and, as
Professor Sayce says, “a zealous anti
quarian who busied himself much with the
disinterment of the memorial cylinders
which their founders and restorers had
buried beneath their foundations.” The
results of his discoveries he recorded on
�26
HUMAN ORIGINS
special cylinders for the information of
posterity, which have fortunately been pre
served. Among others he restored the
Sun-temple at Larsa, in which he found
intact in its chamber under the corner
stone a cylinder of King Hummurabi or
Khammuragas, stating that the temple was
commenced by Ur-ea and finished by his
son Dungi, 700 years before his time.
Hummurabi was a well-known historical
king who expelled the Elamites, and made
Babylon for the first time the capital of
Chaldsea, about 2000 B.c. The date of
Ur-ea cannot, therefore, be far from 2700
B.c.
The royal custom of laying the founda
tion-stone, and of depositing some memento
beneath it, took the shape of placing,
in a secure chamber, a cylinder record
ing the fact. This has given us a still
more ancient date, that of Sharrukin or
Sargon I. The same Nabonidus repaired
the great Sun-temple of Sippar, and he
says “ that, having dug deep in its founda
tions for the cylinders of the founder, the
Sun-god suffered him to behold the founda
tion cylinder of Naram-Sin, son of Sharru
kin or (Sargon I.), which for three thousand
and two hundred years none of the kings
who lived before him had seen.” This
gives 3750 B.C. as the date of Naram-Sin,
or, allowing for the long reign of Sargon I.,
about 3800 B.C. as the date of that
monarch. This discovery revolutionised
the accepted ideas of Chaldsean chro
nology, and carried it back at one stroke
1,000 years before the date of Ur-ea,
making it contemporary with the fourth
Egyptian dynasty, who built the great
Pyramids. The evidence is not so conclu
sive as in the case of Egypt, where the
lists of Manetho give us the whole series
of successive kings and dynasties, a great
majority of which are confirmed by con
temporary records and monuments. The
date of Sargon 1. rests mainly on the
authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than
3,000 years later, and who may have been
mistaken ; but he was in the best position
to consult the oldest records, and had
apparently no motive to make a wilful mis
statement.
Moreover, other documents
have been found in different places con
firming the statement on the cylinder of
Nabonidus ; and the opinion of the best
and latest authorities has come round to
accept the date of about 3800 B.C. as
authentic. Professor Sayce, in his Hibbert
Lectures (1888), gives a detailed account
of the evidence which had overcome his
original scepticism, and forced him to
admit the accuracy of this very distant
date. Since the discovery of the cylinder
of Nabonidus there have been found and
deciphered several tablets containing lists
of kings and dynasties of the same char
acter as the Egyptian lists of Manetho.
One tablet of the kings who reigned at
Babylon takes us back, reign by reign, to
about 2400 B.c. Other tablets, though in
complete, give the names of at least
sixty kings not found in this record
of the Babylonian era, who presumedly
reigned during the interval of about 1,400
years between Khammuragas and Sargon I.
The names are mostly Akkadian, and if
they did not reign during this interval
they must have preceded the foundation
of a Semite dynasty by Sargon I., thus
extending the date of Chaldsean history still
further back. The probability of such a
remote date is enhanced by the certainty
that a high civilisation existed in Egypt
as long ago as 5000 B.c., and there is no
apparent reason why it should not have
existed in the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates as soon as in that of the Nile.
Boscawen, in a paper read at the Victoria
Institute in 1886, says that inscriptions
found at Larsa, a neighbouring city to Ur
of the Chaldees, show that from as early a
period as 3750 B.C. there existed in the
latter city a Semitic population speaking a
language akin to Hebrew, carrying on
trade and commerce, and with a religion
which, although not Monotheist, had at
the head of its pantheon a supreme god,
I lu or El, from whose name that of Elohim
and Allah has been inherited as the name
of God by the Hebrews and Arabs. There
can be no doubt that Sharrukin or Sargon
I. is a historical personage. A statue of
him has been found at Agade or Akkad,
and also his cylinder with an inscription
on it giving his name and exploits. It
begins, “ Sharrukin the mighty king am I,”
and goes on to say “ that he knew not his
father, but his mother was a royal princess,
who to conceal his birth placed him in a
basket of rushes closed with bitumen, and
cast him into the river, from which he was
saved by Akki the water-carrier, who
brought him up as his own child.” This
legend reappears in the story of Moses,
the finding of whom by Pharaoh’s daughter
lends romance to the incident. Similar
stories of rescue are told of Cyrus and
other great men, the chronicler thus
seeking to invest his subject with added
wonder. It is probable that Sargon was a
�27
CHALDEEA
military adventurer who rose to the throne;
but there can be no doubt that he was a
great monarch, who united the two
provinces of Sumir and Akkad, or of Lower
tajid Upper Mesopotamia, into one king
dom, as Menes did the Upper and Lower
Egypts, and extended his rule over some
Of the adjoining countries. He says “ that
i he had reigned for forty-five years, and
governed the black-headed (Akkadian)
race. In multitudes of bronze chariots I
Bode ©ver rugged lands. . I governed the
upper countries. Three times to the coast
Ef the sea I advanced.” If there is any
truth in this inscription, it would be very
interesting as showing the existence in
Western Asia of nations to be conquered
in great campaigns, with a force of horsechariots, at this remote period, 2,000 years
i earlier than the campaigns of Ahmes and
well known in the time of Berosus as to be
translated by him into Greek, was also com
piled for him.
Another king of the same name, known
as Sargon II., who reigned about 2000 B.C.,
either founded or enlarged the library of
the priestly college at Erech, which was one
of the oldestand most famous cities of Lower
Chaldma, and known as the “City of Books.”
It was also considered to be a sacred city,
and its necropolis, which extends over a
great part of the adjoining desert, contains
innumerable tombs and graves ranging
over all periods of Chaldaean and Assyrian
history, up to an unknown antiquity.
The exact historical date of Sargon I.
may be a little uncertain ; but, whatever its
antiquity may be, it is evident that it is
already far removed from the beginnings of
Chaldaean civilisation. That Sargon II. is
CYLINDER SEAL OF SARGON I., from agade.
Assyrians.)
Thotmes recorded in the Egyptian monu
ments of the eighteenth dynasty.
[ The reality of these campaigns is, moreover, confirmed by inscriptions and images
of this Sargon having been found in
Cyprus and on the opposite coast of Syria,
and by a Babylonian cylinder of his son
[Karam-Sin, found by Cesnola in the
Cyprian temple of Kurion.
In another
direction he and his son carried their arms
into the peninsula of Sinai, attracted
doubtless by the copper and turquoise
mines of Wady Maghera, which were
worked by the Egyptians under the third
dynasty. Sargon I. is also known to have
been a great patron of literature, and to
have founded the library of Agade, which
was long one of the most famous in Baby
lonia. A work on Astronomy and Astrology, in seventy-two books, which was so
(Hommel, Gesch. Babyloniens u.
historical, his library and the state of the
arts and literature in his reign prove con
clusively. He states in his tablets that 350
kings had reigned before him, and in such
a literary age he could hardly have made
that statement without some foundation.
If anything like this number of kings had
reigned before 2000 B.C., the date of Sar
gon II.’s Chaldaean chronology would have
to be extended to a date preceding that of
Egypt. Moreover, Sargon was a Semite,
who founded a powerful monarchy over a
mixed population, consisting mainly of the
older inhabitants of Mesopotamia, known
as the Akkadians, or, more correctly, the
Akkado-Sumerians, the Akkadians being
settled on the highlands (whence their
name), and the Sumerians on the plains of
that region. The racial affinities of either
are not definitely known, but they belonged
�HUMAN ORIGINS
to the Mongolian division of mankind.
They had immigrated into Chaldsea at an
unknown period, when they had probably
long passed the barbaric stage. For they
knew the use of metals ; they were skilful
architects, and, what was of great impor
tance in the marshy land where canals and
dams were indispensable, good engineers.
.ey were enterprising sailors ; their laws
evidence advanced social organisation; their
writing had become syllabic, and their
hteiature possesses great interest for us
because supplying the key to a religion
which deeply influenced the Babylonians,
through them the Hebrews, ultimately
affecting the whole of Christendom. That
religion was a blend of lower and higher
ideas—Shamanistic, that is, full of animistic
conceptions mixed with sorcery and magic,
and yet with vivid belief in spiritual beings,
to whom psalms and prayers, which equal
some of the finer utterances in the Hebrew
sacred books, were offered. A number of
verbal analogies, and certain correspond
ences in astronomical divisions and chro
nologies, have lent sanction to a theory of
very intimate connection between the Akka
dians and the Chinese in remote times.
But the evidence in support of a very
plausible and interesting hypothesis is at
present far from complete, and it may ulti
mately only prove an active intercourse
along old trading routes, when ideas as
well as merchandise were transported from
Western to Eastern Asia.
When the Semite Sargon I. founded the
united monarchy, the capital of which was
Agade in the upper province, he made no
change in the established state of things,
maintained the old temples, and built new
ones to the same gods. Before his reign
we have, as in the parallel case of Egypt
before Menes, little definite information
from monuments or historical records. We
only know that the country was divided
into a number of small states, each grouped
about a city with a temple dedicated to
some god ; as Eridhu, the sanctuary of
Ea, one of the trinity of supreme gods ;
Larsa, with its Temple of the Sun ; Ur, the
city of the Moon-god; Sirgalla, with
another famous temple. These small
states were ruled by patesi, or priest-kings,
a term corresponding to the Horsheshu of
Egypt > and a fortunate discovery by M.
de Sarzec in 1877 at Tell-loh, the site of
the ancient Sirgalla, has given us valuable
information respecting its patesi. To the
surprise of the scientific world, with whom
it had been a settled belief that no statues
were ever found in Assyrian art, M. de
Sarzec discovered and brought home nine
large statues of diorite, a very hard black
basalt of the same material as that of the
statue of Chephren, the builder of the
second pyramid, and in the same sitting
attitude. The heads had been broken off,
but one head was discovered which was of
unmistakably Mongolian type, beardless,
shaved, and with a turban for head-dress.
With these statues a number of small
works of art were found, of a highly artistic
design and exquisite finish, representing
men and animals, and also several cylinders.
Both these and the backs of the statues are
covered with cuneiform inscriptions in the
old Akkadian characters, which furnish
valuable historical information. The name
of one,of the patesi whose statues were
found was Gud-Ea, and his date is com
puted by some of the best authorities at
HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALD7EAN. FROM TELLLOH (SIRGALLA). SARZEC COLLECTION.
(Perrot and Chipiez.)
from 4000 to 4500 B.C., probably earlier
and certainly not later than 4000 B.c. This
makes the patesi of Sirgalla contemporary
with the earliest Egyptian kings, or even
earlier, and it shows a state of the arts and
civilisation then prevailing in Chaldseavery
similar to those of the fourth dynasty in
Egypt, and in both cases as advanced as
those of 2,000 or 3,000 years later date.
Before such a temple as that of Sirgalla
could have been built and such statues
and works of art made, there must have
been older and smaller temples and ruder
works, just as in Egypt the brick pyramids
of Sakkarah and the oldest temples of
Heliopolis and Denderah preceded the
�CHALDEA
great pyramids of Gizeh, the temple of
Pthah at Memphis, and the diorite statues,
wooden statuettes, and other finished works
of art of the fourth dynasty.
STATUE OF GUD-EA, WITH INSCRIPTION ; FROM
TEtL-LOH (SIRBURLA OR SIRGALLA). SARZEC
COLLECTION. (Hommel.)
r It is important to remark that in those
earliest monuments both the language and
art are primitive Akkadian, which must
have tollg prevailed before Sargon I. could
have established a Semitic dynasty over an
united papulation of Akkads and Semites
living together on friendly terms. The
nomad Semites must have settled gradually
»n Chaldeea, and adopted to a great extent
the higher civilisation of the Akkadians,
JMCh as the Tartars in later times did that
of the Chinese. It is remarkable also that
this pre-Semitic Akkadian people must have
had extensive intercourse with foreign regionSj for the diorite of which the statues of
Sirgalla are formed is exactly similar to
that of the statue of the Egyptian Chephren,
29
and in both cases is found only in the penin
sula of Sinai. In fact, an inscription on
one of the statues tells us that the stone was
brought from the land of Magan, which
was the Akkadian name for that peninsula.
This implies a trade by sea, between
Eridhu, the sea-port of Chaldma in early
times, and the Red Sea, as such blocks of
diorite could hardly have been transported
such a distance over mountains and
deserts by land ; and this is confirmed by
references in old geographical tablets to
Magan as the land of bronze from the
copper mines of Wady-Maghera, and to
“ ships of Magan ” trading from Eridhu.
In any case, it is certain that a very long
period of purely Akkadian civilisation must
have existed prior to the introduction of
Semitic influences, and long before the
foundation of a Semitic dynasty by Sargon I.
Combining these facts with quite recent
discoveries, there appears ample warrant
for assigning to Chaldaean civilisation as
old a date as that of Egypt.
This high antiquity is confirmed by other
deductions. The city of Eridhu, which was
generally considered to be the oldest in
Chaldsea, and was the sanctuary of the
principal god, Ea, appears to have been
a sea-port in those early days, situated
where the Euphrates flowed into the Per
sian Gulf. The ruins now stand far in
land, and Sayce computes that about 6,000
years must have elapsed since the sea
reached up to them.
Astronomy affords a still more definite
confirmation. The earliest records and
traditions show that, before the commence
ment of any historic period, the year had
been divided into twelve months, the
course of the sun mapped out among the
stars, and a zodiac, which has continued
in use to the present day, established of the
twelve constellations. The year began
with the vernal equinox, and the first
month was named after the “ propitious
•Bull,” whose figure constantly appears on
the monuments as opening.the year. The
sun, therefore, was in Taurus at the vernal
equinox when this calendar was formed,
which could be only after long centuries
of astonomical observation; but it has
been in Aries since about 2500 B.C., and
first entered in Taurus about 4700 B.C.
Records of eclipses were also kept in the
time of Sargon I., which imply a long pre
ceding period of accurate observation;
and the Ziggurat, or temple observatory,
built up in successive stages above the
alluvial plain, which gave rise to the
�3°
HUMAN ORIGINS
legend of the Tower of Babel, is found in
connection with the earliest temples. The
diorite statues and engraved gems found
at Sirgalla also testify to a thorough
knowledge of the arts of metallurgy at
this remote period, and to a commercial
intercourse with foreign countries from
which the copper and tin must have been
derived for making bronze tools capable of
cutting such hard materials.
The existence of such a commercial in
tercourse in remote times is confirmed by
the example of Egypt, where bronze im
plements must have been in use long
before the date of Menes ; and although
copper might have been obtained from
Sinai or Cyprus, tin or bronze must have
been imported from distant foreign coun
tries alike in Egypt and in Chaldaea.
Chaldeean chronology, therefore, leads
to almost exactly the same results as that
of Egypt. In each case we have a
standard or measuring-rod of authentic
historical record, of certainly not less than
8,000, and more probably 9,000 or 10,000
years, from the present time ; and in each
case we find ourselves at this remote
date, in presence, not of rude beginnings,
but of a civilisation already ancient and
far advanced. We have populous cities,
celebrated temples, an organised priest
hood, an advanced state of agriculture and
of the industrial and fine arts ; writing and
books so long known that their origin is
lost in myth ; religions in which advanced
philosophical and moral ideas are already
developed ; astronomical systems which
imply a long course of accurate observa
tions. How long this prehistoric age may
have lasted, and how many centuries it
may have taken to develop such a civilisa
tion, from the primitive beginnings of
neolithic and palaeolithic origins, is a
matter of conjecture. All we can infer is,
that it must have required an immense
time, much longer than that embraced by
the subsequent period of historical record.
And we can say with certainty that during
the whole of the historical period of 8,000
or 9,000 years there has been no change
in the established orderofnature. Theearth
has rotated on its axis and revolved round
the sun, the moon and planets have pursued
their courses, the duration of human life
has not varied, and there have been no
destructions of old forms, and creation of
new forms, or any other traces of miracu
lous interference. More than this, we can
affirm with absolute certainty that 6,000
years and more have not been enough to
alter in any perceptible degree the existing
physical types of the different races of men
and animals, or the primary linguistic
types. The Negro, the Mongolian, the
Semite, and the Aryan all stand out as
clearly distinguished in the paintings on
Egyptian monuments as they do at the
present day ; and the agglutinative lan
guages are as distinct from the inflectional,
and the Semite from the Aryan forms of
inflections, in the old Chaldaean cylinders as
they are in the nineteenth century.
For evolution neither implies nor involves
continuous development. Its keynote is
adaptation ; harmony between the race and
its environment; and only when this is dis
turbed does readjustment come into play J
CHAPTER III.
OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
China—Oldest existing Civilisation—but Re
cords much later than those of Egypt and
Chaldsea.
Elam—Very Early Civilisation—Susa, an old
City in First Chaldaean Records—Conquered
Chaldaea in 2280 B.c.—Conquered by Assy
rians 645 B.c.—Statue of Nana—Cyrus—
His Cylinder.
Phoenicia—Great influence on Western Civilisa
tion—but date comparatively late—Traditions
of Origin—First distinct mention in Egyptian
Monuments 1600 B.c.—Great Movements of
Maritime Nations—Invasions of Egypt by
Sea and Land, under Menepthah, 1330 B.C.,
and Ramses II., 1250 B.c.—Lists of Nations
—Show advanced Civilisation and Inter
course.
Hittites—Great Empire in Asia Minor and
Syria—Mongolian Race—Great Wars with
Egypt — Battle of Kadesh — Treaty with
' Ramses III. —Power rapidly declined—
but only finally destroyed 717 B.c. by
Sargon II.—Capital Carchemish—Great
Commercial Emporium—Hittite Hieroglyphic
Inscriptions and Monuments—Bilingual key
to them awaited.
Arabia — Recent Discoveries — Inscriptions —
Sabaeans—Minaeans—Thirty-two Kings known
—Ancient Commerce and Trade-routes—In
cense and Spices—Literature—Old Traditions
—Oannes—Punt—Seat of Semites—Arabian
Alphabet—Older than Phoenician—Bearing
on Old Testament Histories.
Troy, Mycena, and Crete—Dr. Schliemann’s
Excavations—Hissarlik — Buried Fortifications, Palaces, and Treasures of Ancient Troy
�3i
OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
_ Mycense and Tiryns—Proof of Civilisation
and Commerce—Tombs—Date of Mycenaean
Civilisation—School of Art—Type of Race
Crete—Mr. Arthur Evans’s Excavations—City
of Minos—Cretan Script—Cradleland of Euro
pean Civilisation.
CHINA.
from the mountains and plateaux of Tibet
to the fertile valleys of China.
Reference has been made already to
some remarkable identities in words and
in calendars between the Akkadian and
the Chinese, but,, although these must be
more than coincidences, they as yet form
no sufficient basis for theories of a common
origin. Possible early intercourse explains
much. We must remember that caravans do
travel, and have travelled from time imme
morial, over enormous distances, across
the steppes of Central and Northern Asia,
and that within quite recent historical
times a whole nation of Calmucks migrated
under every conceivable difficulty from
hostile tribes, pursuing armies, and the
extremes of winter cold and summer heat,
first from China to the Volga, and then
back again from the Volga to China. Nor
must we overlook the fact that Ur and
Eridhu were great seaports at a very
remote period, and that the facilities for
pushing their commerce to the far east
were great, owing to the regular monsoons
and the configuration of the coast.
We must be content, however, to take
the facts as we find them, and admit that
China gives us no aid in carrying back
authentic history for anything like the time
for which we have satisfactory evidence
from the monuments and records of Egypt
and Chaldaea.
The first country to which we might
naturally look for independent annals
approaching in antiquity those of Egypt
and Chaldaea is China, Chinese civilisation is in one respect the oldest in the
world; that is, it is the one which has
come down to the present day from a
remote antiquity with the fewest changes.
Its continuity borders on the marvellous.
What China is to-day it was more than
4,000 years ago : a populous empire with a
peaceful and industrial population devoted
to agriculture and skilled in the arts of
irrigation; a literary people acquainted
with reading and writing ; orderly and
obedient, organised under an emperor and
official hierarchy ; paying divine honours
to ancestors, and a religious veneration to
the moral and ceremonial precepts of sages
and philosophers; addicted to childish
superstitions, and yet eminently prosaic,
practical, and utilitarian. Their annals
tell of an epoch of “ Three Rulers,” when
wild and savage conditions prevailed,
corresponding to those of the Ancient
Stone Age in Europe. They tell also of
the epoch of “Five Emperors,” culture
heroes of the race. To these are attributed
the arts and sciences.. They taught the
people (here the utilitarian character of the
Chinese stamps itself) to make nets for
fishing and snares for hunting, to found
markets for the sale of produce, and
bequeathed treatises on the medicinal
virtues of plants, and the sciences of
astrology and astronomy. Fu-Hi, the
reputed founder of the Empire, is credited
with the institution of marriage, an allimportant state among a people where
the family is the social unit. Chinese
annals do not, however, go further back
than about 3000 B.C.—that is, to a period
some three or four thousand years later
than the epigraphic evidence furnished by
Egypt and Chaldaea. The times of the
Three Rulers may survive among the
barbaric hill tribes who are living at this
day in the southern and western border
lands, the remnant of descendants of the
races conquered by the ancient Chinese
who poured down in irresistible numbers I
ELAM.
As regards other nations of antiquity,
their own historical records are either
altogether wanting or comparatively recent,
and our only authentic information respect
ing them in very early times is derived
from Egyptian or Babylonian monuments.
One of the most important of them is Elam,
which was evidently a civilised State at a
remote period, contemporary probably with
the earliest Akkadian civilisation, and
which continued to play a leading part in
history down to the time of Cyrus.
Elam was a small district between the
Zagros mountains and the Tigris, extend
ing to the south along the eastern shore of
the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Its
capital was Shushan or Susa, an ancient
and renowned city,, the name of which
survives in the Persian province of Shusistan, as that of Persia proper survives in
the mountainous district next to the east of
Elam, known as Farsistan. The original
population had Mongolian affinities, speaking an agglutinative language, akin to,
�32
HUMAN ORIGINS
though not identical with, Akkadian, while
its religion and civilisation were apparently
the same, or closely similar. As in Chaldaea
and Assyria, a Semitic element seems to
have intruded on the Mongolian at an
early date, and to have become the ruling
race, while much later the Aryan Persians
to some extent superseded the Semites.
The name “ Elam ” is said to have the
same significance as “ Akkad,” both mean
ing “ Highland,” and indicating that both
races may have had a common origin in
the mountains and steppes of Central Asia.
The native name was Anshan, and Susa
was “the City of Anshan.” Elam was
always considered an ancient land, and
Susa an ancient city, by the Akkadians,
and there is every reason to believe that
Elamite civilisation must have been at
least as old as Akkadian. This much is
certain, that as far back as 2280 B.c. Elam
was a sufficiently organised and powerful
State to conquer the larger and more popu
lous country of Mesopotamia, and found
an Elamite dynasty which lasted for
nearly 300 years, and carried on campaigns
in districts as far distant as Southern Syria
and the Dead Sea.
The dynasty was subverted and the
Elamites driven back within their own
frontiers ; but there they retained their
independence, and took a leading part in
all the wars waged by Chaldsea and other
surrounding nations against the rising
power of the warlike Assyrian kings of
Nineveh. The statue of the goddess
Nana, which had been taken by the
Elamite conquerors from Erech in 2280
B.c., remained in the temple at Susa
for 1,635 years, until the city was . at
length taken by one of the latest Assyrian
kings, Assurbanipal, in the year 645
B.C.
We have already pointed out the great
historical importance of the Elamite con
quest of Mesopotamia in 2280 B.c. as
inaugurating the era of great wars between
civilised States, and probably giving the
impulse to Western Asia, which hurled the
Hyksos on Egypt, and by its reaction first
brought the Egyptians to Nineveh, and
then the Assyrians to Memphis. A still
more important movement at the very close
of what may be called ancient history
originated from Elam. To the surprise of
all students of history, it has been proved
that the account we have received, from
Herodotus and other Greek sources, of the
great Cyrus is to a large extent fabulous.
A cylinder and tablet of Cyrus himself, in
which he commemorates his conquest of
Babylon, were quite recently discovered by
Mr. Rassam and brought to the British
Museum. He describes himself as “ Cyrus
the great King,, the King of Babylon,
the King of Sumir and Akkad, the King of
the four zones, the son of Cambyses the
great King, the King of Elam ; the grand
son of Cyrus the great King, the King of
Elam ; the great-grandson of Teispes the
great King, the King of Elam ; of the
Ancient Seed-royal, whose rule has been
beloved by Bel and Nebo ”; and he goes on
to say how by the favour of “ Merodach
the great lord, the god who raises the dead
to life, who benefits all men in difficulty
and prayer,” he had conquered the men of
Kurdistan and all the barbarians, and also
the black-headed race (the Akkadians), and
finally entered Babylon in peace and ruled
there righteously, favoured by gods and
men, and receiving homage and tribute
from all the kings who dwelt in the high
places of all regions from the Upper to the
Lower Sea, including Phoenicia. And he
concludes with an invocation to all the gods
whom he had restored to their proper
temples from which they had been taken
by Nabonidus, “ to intercede before Bel and
Nebo to grant me length of days ; may
they bless my projects with prosperity ;
and may they say to Merodach my lord,
that Cyrus the King, thy worshipper, and
Cambyses his son deserve his favour.”
This is confirmed by a cylinder of a few
years earlier date, of Nabonidus the last
King of Babylon, who relates how “ Cyrus
the King of Elam, the young servant of
Merodach,” overthrew the Medes, there
called “Mandan” or barbarians, captured
their King Astyages, and carried the spoil
of the.royal city Ecbatana to the land of
Elam.
How many of our apparently most firmly
established historical dates are annihilated
by these little clay cylinders! It would seem
that Cyrus was not a Persian at all, or an
adventurer who raised himself to power by
a successful revolt, but the legitimate King
of Elam, descended from its ancient royal
race through an unbroken succession of
several generations.
He was a later
and greater Kudur-Na-hangti, like the
early conqueror of that name who founded
the first Elamite empire some 1,800 years
earlier. His religion was Babylonian, and
thus we must dismiss all Jewish traditions
of him as a Zoroastrian Monotheist, the
servant of the most high God, who favoured
the chosen race from sympathy with their
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
33
religion. On his own showing he was as
devoted a worshipper of Merodach, Bel,
and Nebo, and the whole pantheon of
local gods, as Nebuchadrezzar or TiglathPileser.1
What a lesson does this teach us as to
the untrustworthiness of the scraps of
ancient history which have come down
to us from traditions, but which are not
confirmed by contemporary monuments !
Herodotus wrote within a few generations
of Cyrus, and the relations of Greece to
the Persian Empire had been close and
uninterrupted. His account of its founder
Cyrus is not in itself improbable, and is
full of details which have every appearance
of being historical. It is confirmed to a
considerable extent by the Old Testament,
and by the universal belief of early
classical writers, and yet it is shown by the
testimony of Cyrus himself to be in essential
respects legendary and fabulous.
ancient Akkadians. According to their
own tradition, they came from the Persian
Gulf; and the island of Tyros, now Bahrein,
in that Gulf, is quoted as a proof that it
was the original seat of the people who
founded Tyre. There is no certain date
for the period when they migrated from
the East, and settled in the narrow strip of
land along the coast of the Mediterranean
between the mountain range of Lebanon
and the sea, stretching from the promontory
of Carmel on the south to the Gulf of
Antioch on the north. This little strip of
about 150 miles in length, and ten to
fifteen in breadth, possessed many advan
tages for a maritime people, owing to the
number, of islands close to the coast and
small indented bays, which afforded
excellent harbours and protection from,
enemies, and which were further secured
by the precipitous range of the Lebanon
sending down steep spurs into the Mediter
ranean, thus isolating Phoenicia from the
military route of the great Valley of CceloPHOENICIA.
Syria (between the parallel ranges of the
Phoenicia is another country which Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon), which was
exercised a great influence on the civilisa taken by armies in the wars between
Egypt and Asia. Here the Phoenicians
tion and commerce of the ancient world,
though its history does not go back to the founded nine cities, of which Byblos or
extreme antiquity of the early dynasties of Gebal was reputed to be the most ancient
and first Sidon and then Tyre the most
Egypt and of Chaldma. The Phoenicians
spoke a language which was almost important. They became fishermen,
identical with that of the Hebrews and manufacturers of purple from the dye
Canaanites, and closely resembled that of procured from the shell-fish on their
Assyria and Babylonia, after the Semite shores, and, above all, mariners and mer
language had superseded that of the chants. They established factories along
the coasts, of Asia Minor, Greece, and
Italy, and in all the islands of the ZEgean
1 Sayce, in his Fresh Light from Ancient
and the Cyclades. They founded colonies
Monuments, says: “ Both in his cylinder and in
in Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, and on the
the annalistic tablet, Cyrus, hitherto supposed
mainland of Greece at Boeotian Thebes.
to be a Persian and Zoroastrian Monotheist,
They mined extensively wherever metals
appears as an Elamite and a polytheist.” It is
were to be found, and, as Herodotus states,
pretty certain, however, that, although descended
from Elamite kings, these were kings of Persian
had overturned a whole mountain at
race, who, after the destruction of the old
Thasos by tunnelling it for gold. They
monarchy by Assurbanipal, had established a
even extended their settlements into the
new dynasty at the city of Anshan or Susa.
Black Sea, along the northern coast of
Cyrus.always traces his descent from Achsemenes,
Africa, and somewhat later to Spain, passed
the chief of the leaaing Persian clan of Pasargadae,
the Straits of Gibraltar, and appear to have
and he was buried there in a tomb visited by
finally reached the British Isles in pursuit
Alexander. But as regards religion, it is clear
of tin.
that Cyrus professed himself, and was taken by
. It is reasonably certain that this Phoe
his contemporaries to be, a devoted servant of
nician commerce was, a principal element
Merodach, Nebo, and the other Babylonian
in introducing not only an alphabet, but
deities. Zoroastrian Monotheism came in with
many of the early arts of civilisation,
Darius Hystaspes, the founder of the purely
Persian second dynasty, after that of Cyrus
among the comparatively rude races of
became extinct with his son Cambyses. (It
Greece, Italy, Spain, and Britain. It pro
should be stated that, in the article on “ Cyrus,”
bably dates from the destruction of Tiryns
in the Encyclopedia Biblica, his Persian origin
and Mycenae, about 1200 B.C., when Phoe
% reaffirmed.)
nicia established depots throughout the
©
*
�34
HUMAN ORIGINS
>Egean and secured supremacy in Mediter
ranean waters. But through her lack of
political unity, and her dependence on
mercenary aid when troubles came, she
finally succumbed to the powerful arm of the
re-invigorated Greek. And it was between
their rise and fall that the ingenious
“colossal pedlars” had put the alphabet
into practically its present form, and
secured its adoption by the Greeks.
Compared with Egypt and Chaldsea,
Phoenicia can have claimed no high
antiquity.
. .
The first distinct mention of Phoenician
cities in Egyptian annals is in the enumera
tion of towns captured by Thotmes III.,
B.C. 1600, in his victorious campaigns in
Syria, among which are to be found the
names of Beyrut and Acco ; and two cen-
SEA-FIGHT in the time OF ramses ill.
turies later Seti I., the father of Ramses
II., records the capture of Zor or Tyre,
probably the old city on the mainland.
The first authentic information, however,
as to the movements of the Mediterranean
maritime races is afforded by the Egyptian
annals, which describe two formidable in
vasions by combined land armies and fleets,
which were with difficulty repulsed. The
first took place in the reign of Menepthah,
son of the great Ramses II., of the
eighteenth dynasty, about 1330 B.C.; the
second under Ramses III., of the twen
tieth dynasty, about 1200 B.C. The first
invasion came from the West, and was
headed by the King of the Libyans, a white
race, who have been identified by some with
the Numidians and modern Kabyles. There
was formed a confederacy of nearly all the
Mediterranean races, who sent auxiliary
contingents both of sea and land forces.
Among these appear, along with Dardanians, Teucri and Lycians of Asia Minor,
who were already known as allies of the
Hittites in their wars against Ramses II.,
a new class of auxiliaries from Greece,
Italy, and the islands, whose names have
been identified by some Egyptologists as
Achaeans, Tuscans, Sicilians, and Sar
dinians.
The second and more formidable attack
came from the East, and was made by a
combined fleet and land army, the latter
composed of Hittites and Philistines, with
the same auxiliaries from Asia Minor, and
the fleet of the same confederation of
Maritime States as in the first _ invasions,
except that the Achaeans have disappeared
(From temple of Ammon at Medmet-Abou.)
as leaders of the Greek powers. The
Phoenicians alone of the Maritime States
do not seem to have taken any part
in these invasions, but, on the contrary, to
have lived on terms of friendly vassalage
and close commercial relations with Egypt
ever since the expulsion of the Hyksos,
and the great conquests of Ahmes and
Thotmes III. in Syria and Asia. It is
probably during this period that the early
commerce and navigation of Phoenicia
took such a wide extension.
The details of these two great invasions,
which are fully given _ in the Egyptian
monuments, together with a picture of the
naval combat, in which the invading fleet
was finally defeated by Ramses III., after
having forced an entrance into the eastern
branch of the Nile, are extremely inter-
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
esting. They show an advanced state of
civilisation already prevailing among
nations whose very names were unknown
or legendary. Centuries before the siege
of Troy it appears that Asia Minor and
the Greek mainland and islands were
already inhabited by nations sufficiently
advanced in civilisation to fit out fleets
which commanded the seas, and to form
political confederations, to undertake dis
tant expeditions, and to wage war on equal
terms with the predominant powers of Asia
and of Egypt.
HITTITES.
35
It is in Egyptian records, however, that
we meet with the first definite historical
data respecting this ancient Hittite ^Empire.
In these they are referred to as “ Kheta,”
and probably formed part of the great
Hyksos invasion ; but the first certain men
tion of them occurs in the reign of Thotmes
I., about 1600 B.c., and they appear as a
leading nation in the time of Thotmes III.,
who defeated a combined army of Canaan
ites and Hittites under the Hittite King of
Kadesh, at Megiddo, and in fourteen vic
torious campaigns carried the Egyptian
arms to the Euphrates and Tigris.
For several subsequent reigns we find the
Hittites enumerated as one of the nations
paying tribute to Egypt, whose extensive
Empire then reckoned Mesopotamia,
The history of another great but more
mysterious Empire, that of the Hittites
has been partially brought
’
to light. It was destroyed
In 717 B.c. by the progress
of Assyrian conquest, after
having lasted more than
1,000 years, and long exerQsing a predominant influ
ence over Western Asia.
The first mention of the
Hittites in the Old Testa
ment appears in Patriarchal
tipies, when we find them
in Southern Syria, mixed
with tribes of the Canaanites
and Amorites, and grouped
principally about Hebron.
They are represented as
on friendly terms with
Abraham, selling him a
piece of land for a sepul
chre, and intermarrying
with his family, Rebecca’s KING of the Hittites. (From photograph by Flinders Petrie,
from Egyptian Temple at Luxor.)
soul being vexed by the
contumacious behaviour of
her daughters-in-law, “the daughters of Assyria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Cyprus, and
Heth.” This, however, was only an out the Soudan among its tributary States.
lying branch of the nation, whose capital
Gradually the power of Egypt declined,
cities, when they appear in history, were
and in the troubled times which followed
further north at Kadesh on the Orontes,
the attempt of the heretic king Ku-en-Aten
and Catchemish on the Upper Euphrates,
to supersede the old religion of Egypt, by
commanding the fords on that river on the the. worship of the solar disc, the conquered
great commercial route between Babylonia nations threw off the yoke, and the frontiers
and the Mediterranean.
of Egypt receded to the old limits. As
The earliest mention of the Hittites is
Egypt declined, the power of the Hittites
found in the tablets which were compiled evidently increased, for when we next meet
for the library of Sargon I, of Akkad, in
with them it is as contending on equal terms
which reference is made to the Khatti,
in Palestine with the revival of the military
Which probably means Hittites, showing
power of Egypt under Ramses III., the
that at this remote period, about 3800 B.c.,
founder of the nineteenth dynasty, and his
they had already moved down from their
son Seti I.
northern home into the valley of the
The contest continued for more than a
Euphrates and Upper Syria.
century with occasional treaties of peace
�3®
HUMAN ORIGINS
and various vicissitudes of fortune, and at
last culminated in the great battle of
Kadesh, commemorated by the Egyptian
epic poem of Pentaur, and followed by the
celebrated treaty of peace between Ramses
II. and Kheta-Sira, “the great King of the
Hittites.” The alliance was on equal
terms, defining the frontier, and providing
for the mutual extradition of refugees, and
it was ratified by the marriage of Ramses
with the daughter of the Hittite King.
The peace lasted for some time ; but in
the reign of Ramses III., of the twentieth
dynasty, we find the Hittites again heading
the great confederacy of the nations of Asia
Minor and of the islands of the Mediterra
nean, who attacked Egypt by sea and land.
The Hittites formed th’e greater part of the
land army, which was defeated with great
slaughter after an obstinate battle at Pelusium, about 1200 B.c. From this time
forward the power both of the Hittites and
of Egypt seems to have steadily declined.
We hear no more of them as a leading
power in Palestine and Syria, where the
kingdoms of Judah, Israel, and Damascus
superseded them, until all were swallowed
up by the Assyrian conquests of the warriorkings of Nineveh. Finally, the Hittites
disappear altogether from history with the
capture of their capital Carchemish by
Sargon III. in 717 B.C.
The wide extent, however, of their
Empire when at its height is proved by the
fact that at the battle of Kadesh the Hittite
army was reinforced by vassals or allies
from nearly the whole of Western Asia.
The Dardanians from the Troad, the
Mysians from their cities of Ilion, the
Colchians from the Caucasus, the Syrians
from the Orontes, and the Phoenicians
from Arvad are enumerated as sending
contingents ; and in the invasion of Egypt
in the reign of Ramses III. the Hittites
headed the great confederacy composed,
with themselves, of Teucrians, Lycians,
Philistines, and other Asiatic nations, who
attacked Egypt by land, in concert with
the great maritime confederacy of Greeks,
Pelasgians, Tuscans, Sicilians, and Sar
dinians, who attacked it by sea.
The mere fact of carrying on such cam
paigns and forming such political alliances
is sufficient to show that the Hittites must
have attained to an advanced state of civili
sation. But there is abundant proof that
this was the case from other sources. They
were a commercial people, and their capital,
Carchemish, was for many centuries the
great emporium of the caravan trade
between the East and West. The products
of the East, probably as far as Bactria and
India, reached it from Babylon and Nine
veh, and were forwarded by two great com
mercial routes, one to the south-west to
Syria and Phoenicia, the other to the north
west through the pass of Karakol, to Sardis
and the Mediterranean. The commercial
importance of Carchemish is attested by
the fact that its silver maneh became the
standard of value at Babylon and through
out the whole of Western Asia. The Hit
tites were also great miners, working the
silver mines of the Taurus on an extensive
scale, and having a plentiful supply of
bronze and other metals, as is shown by the
large number of chariots attached to their
armies from the earliest times. They were
also a literary people, and had invented a
system of hieroglyphic writing of their own,
distinct alike from that of Egypt and from
the cuneiform characters of the Akkadians.
Inscriptions in these peculiar characters,
associated with sculptures in a style of art
different from that of either Egypt or Chaldsea, but representing figures identical in
dress and features with those of Hittites in
the Egyptian monuments, have been found
over a wide extent of Asia Minor, at Hamath
and Aleppo ; Boghaz-Keni and Eyuk in
Cappadocia ; at the pass of Karakol near
Sardis, and at various other places. Several
of those attributed by the Greeks to Sesostris, or to fabulous passages of their own
mythology, are held to be Hittite—as, for
instance, the figure carved on the rocks of
Mount Sipylos, near Ephesus, and said to
be that of Niobe, is held to be a sitting
figure of the great goddess of Carchemish.
Some details in the foregoing brief sketch
may be corrected or expunged as further
research into Hittite history yields more
definite results. For, in truth, although
some portly volumes on that subject have
appeared within recent years, we really
know no more about the Hittites than we
do about the Phoenicians, which means
that we know but little. We have glimpses
of a Hittite kingdom which was a formid
able power for centuries against Egypt and
Assyria, but as to who the Hittites were,
and what was their language, we can speak
with no certainty. Thirty years back not
a monumental remain of an empire whose
high place among ancient nations .is
established by documents had come to
light, and, now that the hieroglyphs which
are indubitably Hittite have been dis
covered, we sorely need the unearthing of
some bilingual relic which shall do for them
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
what the Rosetta stone did for Egyptian
hieroglyphs, and the inscribed rock at
Behistun for cuneiform writing.
ARABIA.
The best chance of finding records
which may vie in antiquity with those of
Egypt and Chaldaea has come to us quite
recently from an unexpected quarter.
Arabia has been from time immemorial
one of the least known and least accessible
regions of the earth. Especially of recent
years Moslem fanaticism has made it a
dosed country to Christian research, and
it is only quite lately that a few scientific
travellers, taking their lives in their hands,
have succeeded in penetrating into the
interior, discovering the sites of ruined
cities, and copying numerous inscriptions.
Dr. Glaser especially has three times
explored Southern Arabia, and brought
home no less than 1,031 inscriptions, many
of them of the highest historical interest.
By the aid of these and other inscrip
tions we are able to reduce to some sort of
certainty the vague traditions that had
come down to us of ancient nations and
an advanced state of civilisation and
commerce, existing in Arabia in very
ancient times. In the words of Professor
Sayce, “the dark past of the Arabian
peninsula has been suddenly lighted up,
and we find that long before the days of
Mohammed it was a land of culture and
literature, a seat of powerful kingdoms and
wealthy commerce, which cannot fail to
have exercised an influence upon the
general history of the world.”1
The visit of the Queen of Sheba to
Solomon affords one of the first glimpses
into this past history. It is evident that
she either was, or was supposed to be by the
compiler of the Book of Kings who wrote
not many centuries later, the queen of a
well-known, civilised, and powerful country,
which, from the description of her offerings,
could hardly be other than Arabia Felix,
the spice country of Southern Arabia, the
Sabaea or Saba of the ancient world,
and that her kingdom, or commercial
relations, may have extended over the
opposite coast of Abyssinia and Somali
land, and probably far down the east coast
of Africa. Assyrian inscriptions show that
1 The facts of this section are taken mainly
from two articles by Professor Sayce in the
Contemporary Review, entitled “ Ancient
Arabia” and “Results of Oriental Archeology.”
31
Saba was a great kingdom in the eighth
century B.C., when its frontiers extended
so far to the north as to bring it in contact
with those of the Empire of Nineveh
under Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon III. It
was then an ancient kingdom, and, as the
inscriptions show, had long since under
gone the same transformation as Egypt
and. Chaldsea, from the rule of priest-kings
of independent cities into an unified
empire. These priest-kings were called
“ Makarib,” or high-priests of Saba, show
ing that the original State must have been
a theocracy, and the name Saba, like Assur,
that of a god.
But the inscriptions reveal this unex
pected fact that, old as the kingdom of
Saba may be, it was not the oldest in this
district, but rose to power on the decay of
a still older nation, whose name of Ma’in
has come down to us in dim traditions
under the classical form of Minaeans.
We are already acquainted with the
names of thirty-two Sabaean or Minaean
kings, and as yet comparatively few in
scriptions have been discovered. Some
of these show that the authority of the
Minaean kings was not confined to their
original seat in the south, but extended
over all Arabia and up to the frontiers of
Syria and of Egypt. Three names of these
kings have been found at Teima, the Tema
of the Old Testament, on the road to
Damascus and Sinai ; and a votive tablet
from Southern Arabia is inscribed by its
authors, “in gratitude to Athtar (Istar or
Astarte), for their rescue in the war between
the ruler of the South and the ruler of the
North, and in the conflict between Madhi
and Egypt, and for their safe return to
their own city of Quarnu.” The authors of
this inscription describe themselves as
being under the Minaean King “ Abi-yadd.
Yathi,” and being “ governors of Tsar
and Ashur and the further bank of the
river.”
Tsar is often mentioned in the Egyptian
monuments as a frontier fortress on the
Arabian side of what is now the Suez
Canal, while another inscription mentions
Gaza, and shows that the authority of the
Minaean rulers extended to Edom, and
came into close contact with Palestine and
the surrounding tribes. Doubtless the pro
tection of trade-routes was a main cause of
this extension of fortified posts and wealthy
cities over such a wide extent of territory.
From the most ancient times there has
always been a stream of traffic between
East and West, flowing partly by the Red
�HUMAN ORIGINS
discoveries and researches have led to the
Sea and Persian Gulf, and from the ends of
result, which is principally due to Dr.
these Eastern waters to the Mediterranean,
Glaser, that the so-called Himyaritic in
and partly by caravan routes across Asia.
scriptions fell into two groups, one of which
The possession of one of these routes by
is distinctly older than the other, contain
Solomon in alliance with Tyre led to the
ing fuller and more primitive grammatical
ephemeral prosperity of the Jewish king
forms. These are Minsean, while the in
dom at a much later period ; and the wars
scriptions in the later dialect are Sabsean.
waged between Egyptians, Assyrians, and
It is apparent, therefore, that the Mina?an
Hittites were doubtless influenced to a
rule and literature must have preceded
considerable extent by the desire to com
those of Sab sea by a time sufficiently long
mand these great lines of commerce.
to have allowed for considerable changes
Arabia stood in a position oi great
both in words and grammar to have grown
advantage as regards this international
up, not by foreign conquest, but by evolu
commerce, being a half-way house between
tion among the tribes of the same race
East and West, protected from enemies by
within Arabia itself. Now, the Sabsean
impassable deserts, and with inland and
kingdom can be traced back with consider
sheltered seas in every direction. Its
able certainty to the time of Solomon, 1000
southern provinces also had the advantage
years B.C., and had in all probability
of being the chief, and in some cases the
existed many centuries before; while we
sole, producers of commodities of great
have already a list of thirty-two Mmsean
value and in constant request. Frank
kings, which number will probably be en
incense and other spices were indispensable
larged by further discoveries; and the oldest
in temples where bloody sacrifices formed
inscriptions point, as in Egypt, to an ante
part of the religion. The atmosphere of
cedent state of commerce and civilisation.
Solomon’s temple must have been that of a
It is evident, therefore, that Arabia must be
sickening slaughter-house, and the fumes
classed with Egypt and Chaldaea as one of
of incense could alone enable the priests
the countries which point to the existence
and worshippers to support it. This would
of highly civilised communities in an
apply to thousands of other temples
extreme antiquity ; and that it is by no
through Asia, and doubtless the palaces of
means improbable that the records of
kings and nobles suffered from uncleanliness
Southern Arabia may ultimately be carried
and insanitary arrangements, and required
back as far as those of Sargon I., or even
an antidote to evil smells to make them
of Menes.
endurable. The consumption of incense
This is the more likely as several
must therefore have been immense m the
ancient traditions point to Southern Arabia,
ancient world, and it is not easy to see
and possibly to the adjoining coast of
where it could have been derived from
North-eastern Africa, as the source of the
except from the regions which exhaled
earliest civilisations. Thus Oannes is said
to have come up from the Persian Gulf and
“ Sabsean odours from the shores of Araby
taught the Chaldseans . the first arts of
the blest.”
civilisation. The Phoenicians traced their
The next interesting result, however, of
origin to the Bahrein Islands in the same
these Arabian discoveries is that they dis
Gulf The Egyptians looked with rever
close not only a civilised and commercial
ence and respect to Punt, which is gene
kingdom at a remote antiquity, but that
rally believed to have meant Arabia Felix;
they show us a literary people, who had
and Somali-land; and they placed thetheir own alphabet and system of writing at
origin of their letters and civilisation, not
a date comparable to that of Egyptian
in Upper or Lower, but in Middle Egyptz.
hieroglyphics and Chaldman cuneiforms,
at Abydos, where Thoth and Osiris were said
and long prior to the oldest known inscrip
to have reigned, and where the Nile is only
tion in Phoenician characters. The first
separated from the Red Sea by a narrow;
Arabian inscriptions were discovered and
land pass, which was long one of the prin
copied by Seetzen in 1810, and were classed
cipal commercial routes between Arabia,
together as Himyaritic, from Himyar, the
and Egypt.
_
,
country of the classical Homerites. It was
The close connection between Egypt and
soon discovered that the language was
Punt in early times is confirmed by theSemitic, and that the alphabet resembled
terms of respect in which Punt is spoken
that of the Ethiopic or Gheez, and was a
of in Egyptian inscriptions, contrasting^
modification of the Phoenician written
with the epithets of “ barbarian ” and vile,'
vertically instead of horizontally, r urtiier
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
which are applied to other surrounding
nations such as the Hittites, Libyans, and
Megroes. And the celebrated equipment
of a fleet by the great queen Hatasu of the
nineteenth dynasty, to make a commercial
voyage to Punt, and its return with a rich
freight, the king and queen of that country
accompanying it with offerings, on a visit to
the Pharaoh, reminding one of the visit of
the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, shows that
the two nations were on friendly terms, and
that the Red Sea and opposite coast of
Africa had been navigated from a very
early period. The physical type also of
the chiefs of Punt as depicted on the '
CHIEF OF JUNT AND TWO MEN.
Egyptian monuments is very like that of
the aristocratic type of the earliest known
Egyptian portraits.
Evidence points to the conclusion that the
original seat of the Semites was in SouthWestern Asia, perhaps in Arabia. Every
where else, we can trace them as an immigrating or invading people, who found prior
populations of different race, but in Arabia
they seem to have been aboriginal. Thus,
in Chaldaea and Assyria the Semites are
represented in the earliest traditions
as coming from the South, partly by
the Persian Gulf and partly across the
39
Arabian and Syrian deserts, and by degrees
amalgamating with and superseding the
previous Akkadian population. In Egypt
the Semitic element was a late importation
which never permanently affected the old
Egyptian civilisation. In Syria and Pales
tine the Phoenicians, Canaanites, and
Hebrews were probably all immigrants
from the Persian Gulf or Arabian frontier,
either directly or through the medium of
Egypt and Assyria, who did not even pre
tend to be the earliest inhabitants, but
found other races, as the Amorites and
Hittites, in possession, whose traditions
again went back to barbarous aborigines
of Zammumim, who seemed to them to
stammer their unintelligible language. The
position of Semites in the Moslem world
in Asia and Africa is distinctly due to the
conquests of the Arab Mohammed and the
spread of his religion.
In Arabia alone we find Semitesj and
Semites only,from the very beginning; and
the peculiar language and character of the
race must have been first developed in the
growing civilisation which preceded the
ancient Minaean Empire, probably as the
later stone age was passing into that of
metal, and the primitive state of hunters
and fishers into the higher social level of
agriculturists and traders.
To return from these remote speculations
to a subject of more immediate interest, the
discovery of these Minaean inscriptions
shows the existence of an alphabet older
than that of the earliest known inscriptions
in Phoenician letters. The alphabets of
Greece, Rome, and all modern nations are
more or less directly derived from that of
Phoenicia, the probable varied sources of
which are dealt with in the last section of
this chapter. But the Minman script, re
vealing a more primitive form than the
oldest known Phoenician characters, has
caused some philologists to- ask whether
these may not be derived from Arabia.
The Minaean language and letters are
certainly older forms of Semitic speech and
writing, and it seems more likely that they
should have been adopted, with dialectic
variations, by other Semitic races, with
whom Arabia had a long coterminous
position and constant intercourse by cara
vans, than that these races should have
remained totally ignorant of letters until
Phoenicia borrowed them from Egypt.
Moreover, as Professor Sayce shows, this
theory gives a better explanation of the
names of the Phoenician letters, which in
many cases have no resemblance to the
�40
HUMAN ORIGINS
symbols which denote them.
Thus the
first letter Aleph, “ an ox,” really resembles
the head of that animal in the Minaean
inscription, while no likeness can be traced
to any Egyptian hieroglyph used for “ a.”
Should these speculations be confirmed,
they will considerably modify our concep
tions as to the early history of the Old
Testament. It would seem that Canaan,
before the Israelite invasion, was already
a settled and civilised country, with a dis
tinct alphabet and literature of its own,
older than those of Phoenicia ; and it may
be hoped that further researches in Arabia
and Palestine may disclose records, buried
under the ruins of ancient cities, which
may vie in antiquity with those of Egypt
and Chaldaea.
TROY, MYCEN2E, AND CRETE.
To the enthusiasm of one man—Dr.
Schliemann—is chiefly due the impetus to
exploration in South - Eastern Europe
which has resulted in the verification of a
history long held to be mythical, and in the
demolition of hitherto accepted theories of
the sources of Western civilisation.
Only once in his History of Greece does
Grote refer to the city of Mycenae, and
then in an incidental way as the seat of a
legendary dynasty. The Rev. Sir G. W.
Cox, in his Mythology of the Aryan
Nations, endorses Professor Max Muller’s
theory that “ the siege of Troy is a reflec
tion of the daily siege of the East by the
solar powers that every evening are robbed
of their brightest treasures in the West ”;
and he adds that this theory is “ supported
by a mass of evidence which probably
hereafter will be thought ludicrously
excessive in amount.” The laugh is on
the other side now. The Iliad and Odyssey
are no longer the shuttlecocks of solar and
meteorological battledores. For in 1870
Schliemann, making wise use of money
acquired in trade, went to the Troad to
find the bones of Priam and the cup from
which Nestor drank. His credulity caused
him to discover the relics for which he
looked, but none the less were his achieve
ments momentous.
In the mound of
Hissarlik he uncovered the traces of seven
towns superimposed one above another—
the lowest a settlement of. the late
Neolithic or early bronze period; and,
immediately above this, and most important
of all, the ruins of a fortress-city, the ram
parts of which enclosed the remains of a,
palace, and which had been destroyed by
fire. This, Schliemann believed, was the
veritable Troy of Homer which the
Achaeans had looted and then fired.
Notwithstanding the destruction and
probable plunder of the city, the quantity
of gold and silver found was very con
siderable, chiefly in the vaults of casemates
built into the foundations of the walls,
which were covered up with debris when
the citadel was burnt, and when the roofs and
upper buildings fell in. In one place alone
Dr. Schliemann found the celebrated
treasure (was it Priam’s own ?) containing
sixty articles of gold and silver, which
had evidently been packed together in a
square wooden box, which had disappeared
with the intense heat. The nature of these
citadels shows a high degree of wealth
and luxury, as proved by the skill and taste
of jewellers’ work displayed in the female
ornaments, which comprise three sump
tuous diadems, ear-rings, hairpins, and
bracelets.
There are also numerous vases and cups
of terra-cotta, and a few of gold and silver,
and bars of silver which have every
appearance of being used for money, being
of the same form and weight. The frag
ments of ordinary pottery are innumerable;
the finer and more perfect vases are
often of a graceful form, moulded into
shapes of animals or human heads, and
decorated with spirals, rosettes, and other
ornaments of the type which is more fully
illustrated as that of the pre-Hellenic
civilisation of Mycense.
The jealousy of the Porte, which looked
on Schliemann as a spy, drove him from
Hissarlik to Greek soil, where more
pregnant discoveries awaited his spade.
The result of explorations at Mycenae
showed that a still larger and more wealthy
city existed here, and that its art and
civilisation were widely diffused over the
whole of the eastern coast of Greece and
the adjoining islands. Specimens of that
art have been found on the opposite coasts
of Asia Minor, and in Cyprus and Egypt,
where they were doubtless carried by
commerce. The existence of an extensive
trade is proved by the profusion of gold
which has been found in the vaults and
tombs buried under the debris of the ruined
city, for gold is not a native product, but
must have been obtained from abroad, as
also the bronze, copper, and tin required
for the manufacture of weapons. As to
the Mycenaean religion, no sacred texts
exist as data for ascertaining its character,
but there are monumental remains that tell
us much—e.g., sacrificial pits or altars, tablets
�OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS
showing acts of sacrifice, human and
animal; rude images of women clasping
children—goddesses of generation—who
are varied manifestations of the great
Earth-Mother, of Aphrodite, with her
dove-emblem, and of gods with the aegis
or the thunderbolt.
From these and
other evidences there may be constructed
a picture, faint at the best, of the old
Mycenaean faith as expressed in the
worship of ancestors and of native deities—
a faith which had correspondences through
out the mainland and isles of ancient
Greece.
The city evidently owed its importance
to its situation on the Isthmus of Corinth,
commanding the trade route between the
Gulfs of Argos and of Corinth, and thus
connecting the Eastern Mediterranean
and Asia with the Western Sea and
Europe.
As a question of dates, we know that the
supremacy of Mycenae and its civilisation
came to an end with the invasion of the
Dorians, which is generally placed some
where near the middle of the twelfth cen
tury B.C.. The invaders, in their southward
march, reached Tiryns and Mycenae, and
sacked and burnt both cities. We know
also that it must have had a long existence,
but for anything approaching to a date we
must refer to the few traces which connect
it with Egypt. Mycenaean vases have been
found in Egypt and Egyptian scarabs in
Mycenaean deposits. They prove an inti
mate intercourse between the two countries
2500 B.C., and there was intercourse further
afield. The imitation of Babylonian cylin
ders, the sculptured palms and lions, the
figures of Astarte and her doves, show that
1,500 years before the date ascribed to the
Homeric poems Assyria and Greece had
come into contact. But these examples of
Oriental art which had found their way to
the soil of Argolis remained more or less
exotic, the independent features of Myce
naean art being retained unaltered.
We are pretty safe, therefore, in suppos
ing this Mycenaean civilisation to have
flourished between the limits of 2500 and
1200 B.C. The still older city of Tiryns, of
which Mycenae was probably an offshoot,
stood nearly on the shore of the eastern
gulf, while Mycenae was in the middle of
the isthmus about eight miles from either
gulf. Tiryns was also explored by Schlie
mann, and showed the same plans of
buildings and fortifications as Troy and
Mycenae, and the same class of relics, only
less extensive and more archaic than those
4i
of Mycenae, which was evidently the more
important city during the golden period of
this great Mycenaean civilisation.
Those who wish to pursue this interesting
subject further will find an admirable account
of it in the English translation of Schlie
mann’s works and essays, with a full descrip
tion of each exploration, and numerous
illustrations of the buildings and articles
found ; while for the results of more recent
explorations in Pre-Homeric Greece,
Tsountas’ and Manatt’s Mycencean Age
and Mr. Hogarth’s chapter on Pre-historic
Greece—A uthority andArcheology—should
be read. For my present object I refer to
it only as an illustration of the position that
Egypt and Chaldaea do not stand alone in
presenting proofs of high antiquity, but that
other nations, such as the Chinese, the
Hittites, the Minaeans of Southern Arabia,
the Mycenmans, Trojans, Lydians, Phry
gians, Cretans, and doubtless many others,
alsp existed as populous, powerful, and
civilised states at a time long antecedent
to the dawn of classical history. If these
ancient empires and civilisations became so
completely forgotten, or survived only in
dim traditions of myths and poetical
legends, the reason seems to be that they
kept no written records, or at any rate
none in the form of enduring inscriptions.
We know ancient Egypt from its hierogly
phics, and from Manetho’shistory; Chaldea
and Assyria from the cuneiform writing on
clay tablets ; China, up to about 3000 B.C.,
from its written histories ; but it is singular
that nearly all the other ancient civilisations
have left few or no inscriptions. This is
the more remarkable in the case of the
Mycenaean cities explored by Dr. Schlie
mann, for their date is not so very remote,
their jewellery, vases, and signet-rings are
profusely decorated, and their dead interred
in stately tombs with large quantities of
gold and silver. Yet, as Tsountas tells us,
of all the finds at Mycenae itself, only three
objects bear inscriptions. These, however,
as will presently appear, are of the highest
importance.
This Mycenaean civilisation had not
sprung, Minerva-like, into sudden efflores
cence and beauty. There were long stages
of development behind it; the eyes of
archaeologists have been opened to new
documents in ALgean lands, whether walls
or tombs, pottery or work in metals, gems,
ivory, sculptured stone or modelled clay,
and it was not long before the revelation,
first made by Schliemann at Hissarlik and
Mycenae, came to be extended far beyond
�42
HUMAN ORIGINS
the point contemplated by him or any one this latter constituting by far the larger
number. In Mr. Evans’s words, these
else in 1876.
The result is that, within the last few tablets “prove that a system of writing
years, further research in the Eastern existed on the soil of Greece at least 600
Mediterranean has brought to light the years before the introduction of the
existence of factors in civilisation very Phoenician alphabet into that country,” and
much older than the Mycenaean—factors that already at that remote date this
which, as already remarked, will revolution indigenous system had attained a most
ise long-accepted theories of the origin of elaborate development, the tablet inscrip
European culture. Egypt and Chaldaea will tions being the work of practised scribes
never lose their fascination for the student following conventional methods and
of the past, because both hold secrets arrangements which indicate traditional
which may never be wrested from their usage. This script is “neither Babylonian
tombs and temples. In each there are nor Egyptian, neither Hittite nor Phoe
numberless sites yet to explore, while in nician ; it is the work on Cretan soil of an
Asia Minor, notably in Elam and Armenia, ^Egean people, the true Eteocretans of the
Odyssey.”
•
undeciphered monuments of antiquity
Our alphabet comes from the Greek
abound. But the influence of these, al
though great and abiding, is less direct through the Latin, and is traceable to a
Semitic source, for to those “colossal
than has been thought ; their history
touches us less closely than that of lands pedlars,” the Phoenicians, belongs the
nearer home. We now know that44 far into credit of having highly perfected it. They
the third millennium B.C. at the very least, did not, as has hitherto been held, derive
and probably much earlier still, there was it from the Egyptian hieroglyphics, but
modified, with consummate
a civilisation in the ZEgean and on the selected andprimarily for commercial pur
shrewdness,
Greek mainland which, while it contracted poses, various characters,from divers sources.
many debts to the East and to .Egypt,
as
was able to assimilate all that it bor of Water is the birthplace of civilisation,the
life itself, and the original home of
rowed, and to reissue it in individual JEgean or Mycaenean civilisation is pro
form.” And, in this matter, interest bably to be found in the island of Crete.
centres round the island of Crete. The
It is crammed with remains of pre-Hellenic
discoveries made there since 1897 by culture. It is a big stepping-stone from
Mr. Arthur Evans establish the facts of an Greece to Asia Minor. It it m the line of
indigenous culture and of an active com communication with Cyprus, Syria, and
merce between Crete and Greece, Egypt,
the
Sicily and
Syria, and other lands, centuries before the Egypt onlines East, and with Mediterra
of the Western
Phoenicians appeared in the Mediterranean. the coast earliest Greek tradition looks
nean. The
The explorations at Cnossus, or Knossos, "back to Crete as “ the home of divinelycity of Minos, “have revolutionised our inspired legislation and the first centre of
knowledge of prehistoric Greece, and to
find even an approach to the results maritime dominion.” have enlarged treat
The subject cannot
obtained we must go back to Schliemann s ment here, but the reader may pursue it in
great discovery of the royal tombs at Mr. Evans’s Cretan Pictographs, published
Mycenae.” There has been disinterred a in 1895, and in subsequent numbers of the
palace beside which those of Tiryns and lournal of Hellenic Studies, while keeping
Mycenae sink in significance. It has great in mind the result of these discoveries in
courts and corridors, innumerable chambers, the ZEgean, which, in Mr. Hogarth’s words,
chief among which is the 44 actual Throne come to. this: That before the epoch at
Rooms and Council Chamber of Homeric which we are used to place the beginning
kings.” This apartment is enriched with of Greek civilisation—that is, the opening
frescoes, beautifully carved friezes, a centuries of the last millennial period B.C.
marble fountain, and an alabaster vase. _ we must allow for an immensely l^pg
But what surpasses all in significance was period of human existence, productivity
the discovery in this same palace, which going back into the neolithic age, and
Mr. Evans speaks of as a sanctuary of the culminating towards the close of the age
Cretan Zeus, of a number of clay tablets, of bronze in a culture more fecund and
somewhat like the Babylonian in form, but more refined than any we are to find again
inscribed with two distinct types of in the same lands till the age of iron was
indigenous prehistoric script, one hiero far advanced. Man in Hellas was more
glyphic or quasi-pictorial, the other linear,
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
highly civilised before history than when
history begins to record his state, and
there existed society in the Hellenic area,
organised and productive, to a period so
remote that its origins were more distant
from the age of Pericles than that age is
from our own. We have probably to deal
with a total period of civilisation in the
^Egean not much shorter than that in the
Mesopotamian and in the Nile Valleys—
that is to say, some seven thousand years
or more before Christ.
CHAPTER IV.
ANCIENT RELIGIONS
Egypt—Mystery investing its Religion—Book of
the Dead—Origins of Religions—Ghosts—
Animism—Astronomy and Astrology—Moral
ity—Ideas of Future Life and Judgment—
Triads, Solar, and other Gods.
Chaldaean Religion—Oldest Form Akkadian—
Shamanism—Akkadian Trinities—Anu, Mullil, Ea—Bel-Ishtar—Merodach—Assur—Pan
theism—Wordsworth—Magic and Omens—
Penitential Psalms—Conclusions.
As with the Egyptian race, so with its reli
gion, no clear and consecutive account is
possible. The more smoothly the expo
sition runs, the more is it to be sus
pected. We have to be ever on guard
against the danger of reading our own
ideas into ancient records, and the more so
when ignorant of the language, and, there
fore, at the mercy of translators who are
themselves not free from bias. It is. easy
enough to pick out passages here and there
which, detached from their context, have
quite a different meaning from that which
they convey when taken as parts of a creed
or cult; and the defect of most popular ex
positions of the Egyptians and of other reli
gions is the overlooking of this fundamental
principle.
As for the Egyptian, the old and new, the
gross and refined, are hopelessly inter
mixed. The Egyptians were a conservative
people, conservative in the art of which
they were most justly proud, and conserva
tive in their beliefs. Therefore the old,
and, presumably, the lower, was never
wholly superseded by the higher ; hence
the result was an incongruous amalgam, so
that while, as Wiedemann says, we may
-speak of the religious ideas of the Egyptians,
we must not speak of the Egyptian religion.
We cannot label it, or place it in any class,
43
as polytheistic, or monotheistic, or pan
theistic, although it most nearly approaches
this last. We find nature-worship, animal
and plant-worship, ancestor-worship, and
other cults. We find beliefs in sacred bulls
born of virgin cows, on which, as evidence
of the divine offspring they were to bring
forth, a ray of moonlight descended from
the deity ; we find nature-gods with heads
of hawks, jackals, and crocodiles, and, as if
there were not enough animals in the Nile
valley, an addition of fabulous monsters in
the shape of the phoenix and the sphinx ;
we find magic and sorcery, omens from
dreams and other phenomena, in full swing
through all the ages; and, side by side
with these, we have sacred writings rich in
exalting spiritual conceptions, charged with
ethical maxims, whose high, ennobling
features challenge comparison with the
teaching of the Hebrew prophets and of the
Sermon on the Mount. We are probably
near the explanation of such bewildering
materials in seeing in them the representa
tives of the cults that prevailed in the
small states or nomes which ultimately
became fused into one empire. For we
know that each nome had its own god, and
that cities and temples were also dedicated
to specific deities, while each month was
presided over by a special deity. And
each in his own domain was supreme, not
coming into collision with others, although
not excluding them. “ The god of a nome
was within it held to be Ruler of the Gods,
Creator of the World, Giver of all good
things, and it mattered little to his adher
ents that another deity played a precisely
similar part in some adjacent nome where
their own god was relegated to a subordinate
place.” It is in the misinterpretation of
these terms of address to this or that god
that the notions of the Egyptians as mono
theists instead of henotheists have found
currency. There was found at El Amarna,
in the tomb of Ai, a high official, a hymn
to the sun-god Atea (who, by the way, is
always represented under the form of the
solar disc, and never in human shape),
which for sublimity equals the higher
flights of Hebrew poetry. This, isolated
from other hymns to other gods, might
well have warranted the theory that the
Egyptians believed in One Supreme Being.
Of course, with the dominance of any one
nome, with its college of priests eager to
aggrandise their deity, it is obvious that
the deity would come to the front, and
establish a sort of supremacy, as in the
case of Amen-R^, whose prominence dates
�44
HUMAN ORIGINS
only when a high intellectual and moral
from the eighteenth dynasty, when the
standard is reached that the claims of
Hyksos were expelled by the Theban
women to an equality begin to be recog
kings. But the minor deities held their
own, as minor and local deities do else nised. Now, in the earliest records of
domestic and political life in Egypt we find
where, among the people, and the old
this equality more fully recognised than it
cults lost none of their influence among the
is perhaps among ourselves in the nine
uneducated.
Turning to the documents which, out teenth century. Quoting again from Birch:
side the wall-paintings and contents of “ The Egyptian woman appears always as
the equal and companion of her father,
tombs, throw light on the religious ideas
and practices of the Egyptians, the most brethren, and husband. She was never
secluded in a harem, sat at meals with
famous, as it is the most important and
them, had equal rights before the law,
venerable, is that known as tne 4 Chapters
served in the priesthood, and even mounted
of the Coming Forth by Day,” or, more
the throne.”
popularly, <l The Book of the Dead.”
The highly metaphysical nature of some
Its origin and age remain matters of
speculation, but its antiquity is such that features of the Egyptian creed is proof of
the antiquity of the religion, since such
the oldest copies known show that when
elements are among the later products of
they were made, some six thousand years
every theology. Among existing races we
ago, the exact meaning of parts of the text
find similar religions corresponding to
had become obscure to the transcribers. It
similar stages of civilisation. With the very
first existed as oral tradition ; then, set
rudest races, religion consists mainly of
down in writing, became -the subject of a
ghost worship and animism. Mr. Herbert
series of recensions, so that the text,
Spencer has shown how dreams lead to the
embodying the different ideas of different
belief that man consists of two elements, a
periods, typifies the religion which it more
body and a spirit, or shadowy self, which
or less expounds. It contains, among a
wanders forth in sleep, meets with strange
mass of trivialities, or what appear so to
be to us, the hymns, prayers, and magic adventures, and returns when the body
awakes. In the abiding sleep of death this
formulae against all opposing foes and evil
shadowy self becomes a ghost which haunts
spirits, to be rqcited by the dead Osiris (for
the soul was conceived to have such affinity its old abodes and former associates, mostly
with evil intent, and which has to be deceived
with the god Osiris as to be called by his
or propitiated, to prevent it from doing mis
name) in his journey to Amenti, the underchief. Hence the sacrifices and offerings, and
world that led to the Fields of the Blessed.
the many devices for preventing the return
It had already acquired such an authority
of the ghost by carrying the dead body by
in the times of Pepi and Teta, of the
devious paths to some safe locality. Hence
sixth dynasty, about 3800 B.C., that the
also the superstitious dread of evil spirits,
inner walls of their pyramids are covered
and the interment of food and implements
with hieroglyphics of chapters taken from
with the corpse to induce the ghost to
it. From this time forward, almost every
remain tranquilly in the grave, or to set
tomb and mummy-case contains quotations
out comfortably on its journey to another
from it, just as passages of the Bible are
world.
inscribed on our own gravestones.
Animism is another, and, probably, still
. Birch, in his Ancient History of Egypt
older, tap-root of the lower religions. As
from the Monuments, which I prefer to
quote from, as, being published by the the child sees life in the doll, so the savage
sees life in every object, animate or inani
Societyfor Promoting Christian Knowledge,
mate, which comes in contact with him, and
it cannot be suspected of any bias to dis
affects his existence. Animals, and even
credit orthodoxy, says that t£ in their moral
stocks and stones, are supposed to have
law the Egyptians followed the same pre
souls, and who knows that these may not
cepts as the Decalogue (ascribed to Moses
be the souls of departed ancestors, and
2,500 years later), and enumerated treason,
murder, adultery, theft, and the practice of have some mysterious power of helping or
of hurting him? In any case the safer
magic as crimes of the deepest dye.” The
plan is to propitiate them by worship and
position of women is one of the surest tests
sacrifice.
of an advanced civilisation ; for in rude
From these rude beginnings _ we see
times, and among savage races, force reigns
nations as they advance in civilisation rising
supreme, and the weaker sex is always the
to higher conceptions, developing, as in
slave or drudge of the stronger one. It is
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
some parts of India to this day, their
ghosts into gods, and confining their opera
tions to the greater phenomena of nature,
such as the sky, the earth, the sun,
the stars, seasons, and so forth. By
degrees the unity of nature begins to
be felt by the higher minds; priestly
castes are established in which there is
leisure for meditation; ideas are trans
mitted from generation to generation ; and
the vague and primitive nature-worship
passes into the phase of philosophical and
scientific religion. The popular rites and
superstitions linger on with the mass of the
population, but an inner circle of hereditary
priests refines and elevates them, and begins
to ask for a solution of the great problems
of the universe ; what it means, and how it
was created; the mystery of good and
evil; man’s origin, future life and destiny;
and all the questions which, down to
the present day, are asked though never
answered by the higher minds of the
highest races. In this stage of religious
development metaphysical speculations
occupy a foremost place. Priests of Helio
polis, magi of Eridhu and of Ur, reasoned
like Christian fathers and Milton’s devils
of
“ Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,”
and, like them
“ Found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”
Theories of theism and pantheism, of
creations and incarnations, of trinities and
atonements, of polarities between good and
evil, free-will and necessity, were argued
and answered, now in one direction and
now in another. Science contributed its
share, sometimes in the form of crude cos
mogonies and first attempts at ethnology,
but principally through the medium of
astronomy. An important function of the
priests was to form a calendar, predict the
seasons, and regulate the holding of reli
gious rites at the proper times. Hence the
course of the heavens was carefully watched,
the stars were mapped out into constella
tions through which the progress of the
sun and planets was recorded ; and myths
sprang into existence based on the sun’s
daily rising and setting, and its annual
journey through the seasons and the signs
of the zodiac. Mixed up with astronomy
was astrology, which, watching the sun,
moon, and five planets, inferred life from
motion, and recognised gods exerting a
divine influence on human events. The
sacred character of the priests was con
45
firmed by the popular conviction that they
were at the same time prophets and
magicians, and that they alone were able
to interpret the will of personified powers
of nature, and influence them for good or
evil.
Ethical codes are among the latest
to appear. It is only after a long
progress of civilisation that ideas of
personal sin and righteousness, of an over
ruling justice and goodness, of future
rewards and punishments, are developed
from the cruder conceptions and supersti
tious observances of earlier times. It was
a long road from the jealous and savage
local god of the Hebrew tribes, who smelt
the sweet savour of burnt sacrifices and
was pleased, and who commanded the
extermination of enemies, and the slaughter
of women and children, to the supreme
Jehovah, who loved justice and mercy
better than the blood of bulls and rams.
It is one great merit of the Bible, intelli
gently read, that it records so clearly the
growth and evolution of moral ideas, from
a plane almost identical with that of the
Red Indians, to the supreme height of the
Sermon on the Mount and St. Paul’s defini
tion of charity.
The elevated moral code of portions of the
Book of the Dead may be cited as another
proof of the great antiquity of Egyptian
civilisation. The prayer of the soul pleading
in the day of judgment before Osiris and
the Celestial Jury, which embodies the
idea of moral perfection entertained by the
contemporaries of Menes, contains the
following articles :—
“ I have told no lies; committed no
frauds ; been good to widows ; not over
tasked servants ; not lazy or negligent;
done nothing hateful to the gods ; been
kind to slaves ; promoted no strife ; caused
no one to weep; committed no murder;
stolen no offerings to the dead; made no
fraudulent gains ; seized no lands wrong
fully ; not tampered with weights and
measures ; not taken the milk from suck
lings ; not molested sacred beasts or birds;
not cut off or monopolised water courses ;
have sown joy and not sorrow ; have given
food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty,
and clothed the naked :
“ I am pure; I am pure.”
It is evident that such an ideal of life,
not imported from foreign sources, but the
growth of an internal civilisation, must be
removed by an enormous time from the
crude ideas and revolting customs of bar
baric ages.
�46
HUMAN ORIGINS
There is one phenomenon to be noted i mainly chronological, these vicissitudes in
religious beliefs are not important. If, at
in these ancient religions, that of degenera
the earliest date to which authentic history
tion.
After having risen to a certain
extends, we find a national religion which
height of pure and lofty conceptions they
has already passed from the primitive into
cease to advance, become corrupted by
the metaphysical stage, and which embodies
degrading myths, by cruel and immoral
abstract ideas, astronomical observations,
rites, and finally decay and perish. Thus
and a high and pure code of morals, it is a
do they prove that subjugation to the
legitimate inference that it is the outcome
law of birth, growth, maturity, decay, and
of a long antecedent era of civilisation.
death, which accompanies all sublunary
This is eminently the case with the
things.
ancient religions of Egypt and Chaldaea.
“ The old order changes, giving place to new.”
The ancient Egyptians were the most
religious people ever known.
Their
Environment changes, and religions, laws,
thoughts were so fixed on a future life
and social institutions must adapt them
that, as Herodotus says, they looked upon
selves thereto, or perish. Empires rise
their houses as temporary inns, and their
and fall, old civilisations disappear, old
tombs as their true permanent homes.
creeds become incredible, and often, for
The idea of an immediate day of judgment
a time, the course of humanity seems
to be retrograde.
But as the flowing , for each individual soul after death was so
JUDGMENT OF THE SOUL BY OSIRIS.—WEIGHING GOOD AND BAD DEEDS.
(From Champoilion’s Egypt.}
fixed in their minds that it exercised a
tide rises, though the successive waves on
constant practical influence on their life
the shore advance and recede, evolution,
and conduct. Piety to the gods, loyalty to
or the law of progress, in the long run pre
the throne, obedience to superiors, justice
vails, and, amid the many, oscillations of
and mercy to inferiors, and observance of
temporary conditions, carries the human
all the principal moral laws, and especially
race ever towards higher things.
that of truthfulness, were enforced by the
In the case of ancient religions it is easy
conviction that no sooner had the breath
to see how processes of degeneration are
departed from the body, which was forth
aided.
Priests who were the pioneers
with deposited as a mummy, with its
of progress and leaders of advanced
Ka or second shadowy self, in the tomb,
thought, became first conservatives, and
than the soul would appear before the
then obscurantists.
Pantheistic concep
supreme judge Osiris, and the forty-two
tions, and personifications of divine attri
heavenly assessors, to whom it would
butes, lead to polytheism. As religions
have to confess the naked truth, and be
become popular, and pass from the learned
rewarded or punished according to its
few to the ignorant many, they become
merits.
vulgarised, and the real meaning of myths
The theory was that man consisted of
and symbols is either lost or confined to a
| three or more parts : the body or ordinary
select inner circle.
.
.
But for my present purpose, which is I living man; the Ka or double, a sort
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
of shadowy self which came out of the
body and returned to it, as in dreams ; and
the soul, a still more subtle essence, which
at death went to the gods, was judged, and
either rewarded for its merits by living
with them in heaven, or punished for its
sins by being sent to the nether world of
torment. But this soul still retained such
a connection with its former body as to
come down from time to time to visit it ;
while the Ka or double retained the old
connection so closely as to live habitually
in it, only coming out to eat, drink, and
repeat the acts of its former life, but
incapable of existing without a physical
basis in the old body or some likeness of
it. The same doctrine of the double was
applied to all animated and even to inani
mate objects, so that the shadowy man
could come out of his mummy, live in his
own shadowy house, feed on shadowy food,
be surrounded by shadowy geese, oxen, and
other simulacra of his former possessions.
Hence arose the extraordinary care in pro
viding a fitting tomb and preserving the
mummy, or, failing the mummy, which in
course of time might decay, providing a
portrait-statue or painted likeness, which
might give a point d'appui for the Ka, and
a receptacle for the occasional visits of the
soul. . While these were preserved,
conscious personal life was continued
beyond the grave, and the good man who
went to heaven was immortal.
But if
these were destroyed and the physical
basis perished, the Ka and soul were left
without a home, and either perished also
or were left to flit like gibbering ghosts
through the. world of shadows without a
local habitation or a name. The origin of
this theory as. regards the Ka is easily
explained. It is, as Mr. Herbert Spencer
has conclusively shown, a natural inference
from dreams, and is found everywhere
from the stone period down to the
crude beliefs of existing savages. It
even survives among many civilised races
in the belief in ghosts, and the precautions
taken to prevent the Ka of dead men
from returning to haunt their former
homes and annoy their relatives. The
origin of the third element or soul is not so
clear. It may either be a relic of the
animism which among savage races attri
butes life to every object in nature, or a
philosophical deduction of more advanced
periods, which sees an universal spirit
underlying all creation, and recognising in
man a spark of this spirit which is indesJructibl^ and migrates either into fresh
47
forms or into fresh spheres of celestial or
infernal regions, and is finally absorbed in
the great ocean from which it sprang.
We. find almost the precise form of this
Egyptian beliefamong many existing savage
or semi-civilised men separated by wide
distances in different quarters of the world.
The Negroes of the Gold Coast believe in
the same three entities, and they call the
soul which exists independently of the man,
before his birth and after his death, the
Kra. The Navajos and other tribes of
Red Indians have precisely the same
belief. . It seems probable that, as we
find it in the earliest Egyptian records, it
was a development, evolved through ages
of growing civilisation by a succession of
learned priests, from the primitive fetichism
and fear of ghosts of rude ancestors ; and
in the animal worship and other supersti
tions of later times we find traces of these
primitive beliefs still surviving among the
mass of the population. Be this as it may,
this theory of a future life was firmly rooted
at the dawn of Egyptian history, and we
are indebted to the dryness of the
climate for the marvellous preservation
of records which give us such an intimate
acquaintance with the history, the religion,
the literature, and the details of a domestic
and social life which is distant from our
own by an interval of more than 6,000
years.
. No other nation ever attained to such a
vivid and practical belief in a future exist
ence as these ancient Egyptians. Taking
merely the material test of money, what an
enormous capital must have been expended
in pyramids, tombs, and mummies ; what
a large proportion of his income must every
Egyptian of the upper classes have spent in
the preparations for a future life; how
shadowy and dim does the idea of immor
tality appear in comparison among the fore
most races of the present day!
I return for a brief space to the Egyptian
pantheon (a summary of whose contents
would more than fill this chapter) to refer
to the honours paid by the one deity of nome
or temple to his two companion deities,
usually one god and one goddess, son and
wife respectively,because in this we have the
formulating of triads or, trinities, in which
Wiedemann sees “ the earlier outcome of
the effort after a systematic grouping of the
deities,” and because it is impossible for us
to see the figures of Isis and her son Horus
without being reminded of the Virgin Mary
and Jesus, a comparison giving emphasis
to the words of Scripture : ‘ Out of Egypt
�4»
HUMAN ORIGINS
horoscopes, and “ in the later papyri-,” so
have I called my Son.’ But the Christian
Wiedemann tells us, we find “ spheres ” or
Trinity is simplicity itself as contrasted
“ tables by which the fortune of a man
with the three-in-one groups of the Egyptian
could be calculated from certain data,
creed.' For its gods were mortal, and
such as the hour of his birth, and the like.
when the father died the son became the
From the Egyptians and the Chaldaeans,
father, and became the husband of his
who also held similar ideas, these practices
mother, and so on, in a pretty confusion
were passed on to the Greeks, and from
worse confounded when we arrive at the
them to the learned men (astrologers ?) of
expansion of triads into Enneads or
the Middle Ages, and in their last outcome
cycles of time, of which some of the
temples had two sets, ‘ the great and the —far removed indeed from their original
religious nature—they still play a great part
small.’ ”
The varying and the regular phenomena in modern books of prophecy.” The priests
of nature alike supplied conceptions of the had doubtless long studied astronomy;
functions of the several gods. The dif they had watched the stars, traced the
annual course of the sun, divided the year
ferent phases of the sun were studied and
received different names, as Horus, when into months and the circle into 360°, and
constructed calendars for bringing the civil
on the horizon rising or setting ; Ra in its
into correspondence with the sidereal year.
midday splendour; Osiris during its journey
They not only had intercalated the five
in the night through the underground world
supplemental days, bringing the duration
of darkness. Of these Ra naturally had
of the year from 360 to 365, but they had
the pre-eminence; the title of Pharaoh
invented a sothic cycle for the odd quarter
given to kings, t£ belief in whose divinity
of a day, by which at the end of every
was maintained throughout Egyptian
1,460 years a year was added, and the sun
history,” was probably derived, however,
not from Ra, but from Per-oa = great brought back to rise on the first day of the
first month of Thoth in the same place in
house—a title corresponding to Sublime
the heavens, determined by the heliacal
Porte. The Osiris myth, which was
risings of the brightest of the stars, Sothis
the basis of belief in a future life and
or Sirius.
. .
day of judgment, was clearly solar. This
It is to be observed that the religion of
barbaric cosmogony held its ground among
the Egyptians as tenaciously as the Mosaic ancient Egypt seems to be of native growth.
cosmogony among Western illiterates. To No trace is to be found, either in record, or
them the firmament was an ocean or a tradition, of any importation from a foreign
source, such as may be seen in the Chalcelestial Nile running through a metal sky,
on either of which the sun made passage dsean legend of Oannes and other religions
from his rising to his setting. Or the great of antiquity. On the contrary, all the
Egyptian myths and traditions ascribe the
vault was a celestial cow upheld by four gods
invention of religion, arts, and literature, to
(as in Hindu cosmogony the earth rests
Thoth, Osiris, Horus, and other native
upon an elephant), and it was over the
Egyptian gods.
surface of the cow’s body that the sun made
The development of the art of writing
his daily journey. His annual course through
from hieroglyphics affords strong confirma
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter,
tion of this view. It is native to the soil;
translated itself as applied to man into the
the symbols are taken from Egypt and not
ideas of birth, growth, manhood, decline,
and are essentially
and death, to be followed by a day of judg from foreign objects, the Chaldasan cunei
different from those of
ment, a sojourn in the under-world, and a
form, which is the only other form of writing
resurrection.
...
that might possibly compare in point of
In fact, the Egyptian religion seems to
antiquity with the Egyptian hieroglyphics
have concentrated itself mainly on the Sun.
and hieratic.
The planets and signs of the zodiac did not,
In all other ancient systems of writing,
as with the Chaldees, afford a principal
such as Chaldaean and Chinese, we see the
element of their sacred books and mytho development from the original picture
logies, star-worship being extremely rare.
writing into conventional signs, syllabaries,
Nevertheless, all the heavenly bodies were
and finally into ideographs and phonetics ;
believed to control the destiny of those
in the case
when we
born under them, although the fate of the but sight of it inof Egyptian, dynasties, first
get
the earliest
it is
individual was determined by laws which
already fully formed, and undergoes no
the stars and planets must themselves obey.
essential changes during the next 5,ooq
These were ascertainable by means of
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
49
years. . Even the hieratic, or cursive hier
oglyphic for ordinary purposes, was current
in the Old Empire, as is proved by the cele
brated Prisse papyrus, the date of which
is supposed to be about 3580 B.c.
so on. This character of magicians and
soothsayers clung to the Chaldsean priests
even down to a later period, and under the
Roman Empire Chaldaean rites were
identified with sorcery and divination.
From what may, speaking broadly, be
The Chaldaean religion went through
called early Akkadian times, we find a belief
more changes in the course of its evolution.
in great gods who are personifications of the
In the case of Egypt,. the influences of forces of nature. They are departmental
Semitic and other foreign conquests and
deities ; henotheistic, that is to say, each
intercourse left few traces, and the only is supreme in the element which he repre
serious attempt at a radical religious revo sents ; and, as already shown, the intense
lution by the heretic king who endeavoured language with which he is addressed has
to dethrone the old Egyptian gods, and sub led to the erroneous inference of One God
stitute a system more nearly monotheistic of Gods, and consequently to misleading
under the emblem of the winged solar-disc, theories of monotheism as a feature both
produced no permanent effect, and dis of Egyptian, as already noted, and of
appeared in one or two generations. But
Chaldaean theology. This applies es
in Chaldaea, Semitic influences prevailed pecially to the tutelary deities of the
from a very early period, and when we
several cities, who, within their own limits,
reach the historical periods of the great were regarded as supreme ; and the same
Babylonian and Assyrian empires, the
theory has to be extended to the guardian
kings, priests, and nobles were Semite,
god of each individual, who, in all times of
and the Akkadian had become a dead
trouble and peril, sought supernatural aid,
language, which could be read only as we repairing to priest and temple as vehicles
read Latin or Hebrew, by the aid of of help.
translations and . of grammars and dic
. The Chaldseans. invented a whole
tionaries. Still, its records remained, as hierarchy of Trinities, rising one above
the Hebrew Bible does to us, and the
the other, while below them were an
sacred books of the old religion and its indefinite number of minor gods and
fundamental ideas were only developed
goddesses taken for the most part from
and not changed.
astronomical myths of the sun, moon,
In the background of this Akkadian planets, and seasons. For the religion of
religion we perhaps make a nearer approach the Chaldees was, even more than that of
than in that of Egypt to the primitive the Egyptians, based on astronomy and
superstitions, peculiar to the Mongolian
race. To this day the religion of the semi- astrology, as may be seen in their national
epic of Gilgamesh,
barbarous races of that stock is “ Sha the passage of thewhich is a solar myth of
sun through the twelve
manism ” ; a fear of ghosts and goblins, a signs of the zodiac, the last chapter but one
belief that the universe swarms with being a representation of the passage
myriads of spirits, mostly evil, and that through the sign of Aquarius, in the legend
the only escape from them is by the aid of of a universal deluge.
conjurer-priests, who know magical rites
composed
and formulas which can baffle their of The first Akkadian triad was or Ana, is
Anu, Mull-il, and Ea. Anu,
malevolent designs. These incantations,
the word for
and the interpretation of omens and scribed as the heaven, and the god is de
Lord of
auguries occupy a great part of the oldest and “ the first-born, thethe starry heavens,”
oldest, the Father
sacred books, and more than 100 tablets
of the gods. It is the same idea as that
have been already recovered from the expressed by” the Sanscrit Varuna, the Greek
great, work on Astronomy and Astrology O.uranos. Mull-il, the next member of this
compiled from them by the priests of triad,
Ea is the god
Agade, for the royal library of Sargon I. of theis the earth-god, while and personifies
abyss or underworld,
Tliey are for the larger part of the most
absurd and puerile character; as, for the wise and beneficent side of the Divine
Intelligence,
order and
instance, “ if a sheep give birth to a lion harmony, thethe maintainer ofVery early,
friend of man.
there will be war”; “if a mare give birth
with the introduction of Semitic influences,’
r° -a £%.„there .wiI1 be disaster and
Mull-il dropped out of his
the
famine ; if a white dog enter a temple trinity, and was superseded place in who
by Bel,
its foundation will subsist; if a grey dog
was conceived as being the son of Ea, the
the temple will lose its possessions,” and*
personification of the active and combative
E
�5°
HUMAN ORIGINS
energy which carries out the wise designs
of Ea by reducing the chaos to order,
creating the sun and heavenly bodies, and
directing them in their courses, subduing
evil spirits and slaying monsters. His name
simply signifies “ the Lord,” and is applied
to other inferior deities as a title of honour,
as Bel-Marduk, the Lord Marduk or Merodach, the patron god of Babylon. In this
capacity Bel is associated with the mid-day
sun, as the emblem of a terrible yet bene
ficent power, the enemy of evil spirits and
dragons of darkness.
The next triad is more distinctly astrono
mical. It consists of Uruk the moon, Ud
the sun, and Mermer the god of the air, of
rain and tempest. These are the old
Akkadian names, but they are better known
by the Semitic translations of Sin, Samas,
and Ramman. The next group of gods is
purely astronomical, consisting of the five
planets, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and
Saturn, personified as Nergal, Nebo, Mar
duk, I star, and Nindar. The number of
gods was further increased by assigning a
wife to each male deity. Thus Belit, or
“ the Lady,” was the wife of Bel, he repre
senting the masculine element of nature,
strength and courage ; she the feminine
principle of tenderness and maternity. So
also Nana the earth was the wife of Anu,
the god of the strong heavens ; Annunit
the moon the wife of Samas the sun ; and
Istar (Astarte, Astoreth, or Aphrodite), the
planet Venus, the Goddess of Love and
War, though a great goddess in her own
right, was fabled to have wooed the youthful
lover Tammuz or Thammuz, at whose death
she descended to the underworld, that she
might bring him back. Their return sym
bolised the advent of spring. The worship
of Istar and Tammuz spread over the whole
of Western Asia ; and the beautiful myth
has its variant in the descent of Demeter in
search of Persephone in the realms of Pluto.
But of these only Belit and Istar were
admitted into the circle of the great gods,
consisting of the two triads and the planets,
who held the foremost place in the Chaldaean and Assyrian mythology. Of the
minor gods, Meri-dug or Marduk, the
Merodach of the Bible, is the most remark
able, for, according to some interpreters, he
represents the idea which, some 5)000 years
later, became the fundamental one of the
Christian religion — that of a Son of
God, who acts the part of mediator and
friend of man. He is the son of Ea and
Damkina, ?.<?. of heaven and earth, and an
emanation from the Supreme Spirit con
sidered in its attribute of benevolence.
The tablets are full of inscriptions on which
he is represented as applying to his father
Ea for aid and advice to assist suffering
humanity, most commonly by teaching the
spells which will drive away the demons
who are supposed to be the cause of all
misfortunes and illness. It is not surpris
ing, therefore, to find that he and Istar, the
lovely goddess, were the favourite deities,
and occupied much the same position as
Jesus and the Virgin Mary do in the
Catholic religion of the present day, while
the other deities were local gods attached
to separate cities where their temples stood,
and where they occupied a position not
unlike that of the patron saints and holy
relics of which almost every considerable
town and cathedral boasted in mediaeval
Christianity. Thus they rose and fell in
rank with the ascendancy or decline of
their respective cities, just as Pthah and
Ammon did in Egypt according as the seat
of empire was at Memphis or Thebes. In
one instance only in later times, in Assyria,
which had become exclusively Semitic, do
we find the idea of one supreme god, who
was national and not local, and who over
shadowed all other gods, as Jahve in the
later days of the Jewish monarchy, and as,
in the conception of the Hebrew prophets,
did the gods of the surrounding nations.
Assur, the local god of the city of Assur,
the first capital of Assyria, became, with
the growth of the Assyrian Empire, the
one supreme god, in whose name wars
were undertaken, cities destroyed, and
captives massacred or mutilated. In fact,
the resemblance is very close between
Assur and the ferocious and vindictive
Jahve of the Israelites during the rude
times of the Judges. They are both jealous
gods, delighting in the massacre and torture
of prisoners, women, and children, and
enjoining the extermination of nations who
insult their dignity by worshipping other
gods. We almost seem to see, when we
read the records of T. iglath-Pilesei and
Sennacherib and the Books of Judges and
of Samuel, the origin of religious wars, and
the spirit of cold-blooded cruelty inspired
by a gloomy fanaticism, which is so charac
teristic of the Semitic nature, and which
in later times led to the propagation of
Mohammedanism by the sword. With the
Hebrews this conception of a cruel and
vindictive J ahve was beaten out of them by
persecutions and sufferings, and that of a
one merciful god evolved from it; but
Assyria went through no such schooling,
�ANCIENT RELIGIONS
and retained its arrogant prosperity down to
the era of its disappearance from history
with the fall of Nineveh ; but it is easy to
see that the course of events might have
been different, and monotheism might have
been evolved from the conception of Assur.
These, however, are speculations relating
to a much later period than the primitive
religion with which we are principally con
cerned.
It is remarkable how many of our modern
religious conceptions find an almost exact
counterpart in those of this immensely
remote period. Incarnations, emanations,
atonements, personifications of Divine attri
butes, are all there, and also the subtle
metaphysical theories by which the human
intellect, striving to penetrate the mysteries
of the unknowable, endeavours to account
for the existence of good and evil, and to
reconcile multiplicity of manifestation with
unity of essence. If Wordsworth sings
of a
5i
confesses his sins, pleads ignorance, and
sues for mercy, almost in the identical words
of the “sweet singer of Israel.” In one
of these, headed “The complaints of the
repentant heart,” we find such verses as
these—
“ I eat the food of wrath, and drink the
waters of anguish.”
*****
“ Oh, my God, my transgressions are
very great, very great my sins.
‘ The Lord in his wrath has overwhelmed
me with confusion.”
*****
“ I lie on the ground, and none reaches
a hand to me. I am silent and in tears,
and none takes me by the hand. I cry
out, and there is none who hears me.”
*****
“ My God, who knowest the unknown,1
be merciful to me. My Goddess, who
knowest the unknown, be merciful.”
- “sense sublime
*****
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
“ God, who knowest the unknown, in the
And the round ocean and the living air,
midst of the stormy waters take me by the
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ;
hand ; my sins are seven times seven, for
A motion and a spirit that impels
give my sins !”
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
Another hymn is remarkable for its artis
And rolls through all things,”
tic construction. It is in regular strophes,
he conveys the fundamental idea which was the penitent speaking in each five double
at the bottom of these earliest religions, lines, to which the priest adds two, support
and which has been perpetuated in the ing his prayer. The whole is in precisely
East in the idea of Pantheism, or of the same style as the similar penitential
an universe which is one with its First psalms of the Hebrew Bible, as will
Cause, and not a mechanical work called appear from the following quotation of
into existence from without by a personal one _ of the strophes from the translation
of Zimmern:—
Creator.
Penitent. “ I, thy servant, full of sighs,
An ancient priest of Egypt or Chaldsea
might have written these verses of the call to thee. Whoso is beset with sin, his
philosophic poet of the nineteenth century, ardent supplication thou acceptest. If thou
only he would have written Horus or Bel lookest on a man with pity, that man liveth.
for the “ setting sun,” Ea for the “ round Ruler of all, mistress of mankind, merciful
ocean,” Anur for the “sky,” and so on. one to whom it is good to turn, who dost
Side by side with these intellectual and receive sighs.”
Priest. “ While.his god and- his goddess
philosophical conceptions of ancient reli
gions we find the element of personal are wroth with him he calls on thee. Thy
countenance turn on him, take hold of his
piety occupying a place which contrasts
wonderfully with the childish and super hand.”
These hymns are remarkable, both as
stitious idea of evil spirits, magical spells,
and omens. We read, in the same collec showing that the sentiments of personal
tions of tablets, of mares-bringing forth dogs piety and contrition for sin as a thing hate
and women lions ; and psalms which in ful to the god might be,as intense in a poly
their elevation of moral tone and in theistic as in a monothestic religion, and
tensity of personal devotion might readily as illustrating the immense interval of time
be mistaken for the Hebrew Psalms attri
buted to David. There is a large collection
of what are known as “the Penitential that Or, as some translators read,Who knowest
I knew not”—i.e., that I sinned in
Psalms,” in which the Chaldsean penitent ignorance.
�52
HUMAN ORIGINS
which must have elapsed before such senti
ments could have grown up from the rude
beginnings of savage or semi-civilised
superstitions. The two oldest religions of
the world, those of Egypt and Chaldaea,
tell the same story, that of the immense
interval which must have elapsed prior to
the earliest known historical date of 7000
B.C. to allow of such ideas and civilisation
having grown up from a state of things
which, perchance, prevailed even in the
neolithic period, and still prevails among
the races of the world who have remained,
isolated and unchanged, in the hunting or
nomad condition.
I have dwelt at some length on the
ancient religions, for nothing more tends to
open the mind and break down the narrow
barriers of sectarian prejudice than to see
how the ideas which we have believed to be
the peculiar possession of our own religion
are in fact the inevitable products of the
evolution of the human race from barbarism
to civilisation, and have appeared in sub
stantially the same forms in so many ages
and countries. And surely, in these days,
when faith in direct inspiration has been so
rudely shaken, it must be consoling to many
enlightened Christians to find that the funda
mental articles of their creed, as trinities,
emanations, incarnations, atonements, a
future life and day of judgment, are not the
isolated conceptions of a minority of the
human race in recent times, but have been
held from a remote antiquity, by other
nations which have taken a leading part in
civilisation.
To all enlightened minds also, whatever
may be their theological creeds, it must be
a cheering reflection that the fundamental
axioms of morality do not depend on the
evidence that the Decalogue was written
on a stone by God’s own finger, or that the
Sermon on the Mount is correctly reported,
but on the evolution of the natural instincts
of the human mind. All advanced and
civilised communities have had their Deca
logues and Sermons on the Mount, and it
is impossible for any dispassionate obseiver
to read them without feeling that in sub
stance they are identical, whether con
tained in the Egyptian Todtenbuch, the
Babylonian hymns, the Zoroastrian Zendavesta, the sacred books of Brahmanism and
Buddhism, the Maxims of Confucius, the
Doctrines of Plato and the Stoics, or the
Christian Bible.
None are absolutely perfect and com
plete, and of some it may be said that they
contain precepts of the highest practical
importance which are either omitted or
contradicted in the Christian formulas. For
instance, the praise of diligence, and the
injunction not to be idle, in the Egyptian
and Zoroastrian creeds, contrast favourably
with the behest, “ Take no thought for the
morrow,” of the Sermon on the Mount.
But in this, as in all summaries of moral
axioms, apparent differences arise not from
fundamental oppositions, but from truth
having two sides, and passing over readily
into
“The falsehood of extremes.”
Even the injunction to “take no thought
for the morrow ” is only an extreme way of
stating that the active side of human life,
strenuous effort, self-denial, and foresight,
must not be pushed so far as to stifle all
higher aspirations. Probably if the same
concrete case of conduct had been sub
mitted to an Egyptian, a Babylonian, or
Zoroastrian priest, and to the late Bishop
of Peterborough, their verdicts would not
have been different. Such a wide extension
does the maxim take, “ One touch of
Nature makes the whole world kin,” when
we educate ourselves up to the general
idea that civilised man has everywhere felt
and believed since the dawn of history
very much as we ourselves do at the close
of the nineteenth century.
CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
Evidence of Antiquity—Pyramids and Temples
— Arithmetic — Decimal and Duodecimal
Scales—Astronomy—Geometry reached in
Egypt at earliest Dates—Great PyramidPiazza Smyth and Pyramid Religion—Pyra
mids formerly Royal Tombs, but built on
scientific plans—Exact Orientation on Meri
dian-Centre in 30° N. Latitude—Tunnel
points to Pole—Possible use as an Observatory
—Proctor—Probably Astrological—Planetary
Influences—Signs of the Zodiac Mathema
tical coincidences of Great Pyramid —Chaldaenn Astronomy—Ziggurats—Tower. of
Babel—Different Orientation from Egyptian
Pyramids — Astronomical
Treatise
from
Library of Sargon I., 3800 B.C.—Eclipses
and Phases of Venus—Measures of Time
from Old Chaldsean—Moon and Sun—Found
among many distant Races—Implies Com
merce and Intercourse—Art and Industry
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
Embankment of Menes—Sphinx—Industrial
Arts—Fine Arts—Sculpture and Painting—
The Oldest Art the best—Chaldsean Art—De
Sarzec’s Find at Sirgalla—Statues and Works
of Art—Imply long use of Bronze—Whence
came the Copper and Tin—Phoenician and
Etruscan Commerce—Bronze known 200
years earlier—-Same Alloy everywhere—
Possible Sources of Supply—Age of Copper
—Domestic Animals—Horse—Ox and Ass—
Agriculture—All proves Extreme Antiquity.
The conclusion, drawn from the religions
of Egypt and Chaldsea, as to the existence
of a very long period of advanced civilisa
tion prior to the historical era, is fully
confirmed by the state of the arts and
sciences at the commencement of the
earliest records. A knowledge of astro
nomy implies a long series of observations
and a certain amount of mathematical
calculation. The construction of great
works of hydraulic engineering and of
such buildings as temples and pyramids,
also proves an advanced state of scientific
knowledge. Such a building, for instance,
as the Great Pyramid must have required
a considerable acquaintance with geometry,
and with the effects of strains and pressures;
and the same is true of the early temples
and ziggurats, or temple-towers or observa
tories, of Chaldaea. There must have been
regular schools of astronomers and archi
tects, and books treating on scientific sub
jects, before such structures could have
been possible.
The knowledge of science possessed by a
nation affords a more definite test of its
antecedent civilisation than its religion.
It is always possible to say that advanced
religious ideas may have been derived from
some supernatural revelation, but in the
case of the exact sciences, such as arith
metic, geometry, and astronomy, this is no
longer possible, and their progress can be
traced step by step by the development of
human reason. Thus there are savage
races, like the Australians at the present
day, who cannot count beyond “ one, two,
and a great number ” ; and some philolo
gists tell us that, from the prevalence of
dual forms which seem to have preceded
those of the plural, traces of this state can
be discovered in the origin of civilised
languages.
The next stage is that of counting by the
fingers, which gives rise to a natural
system of decimal notation, as shown by
such words as ten, which invariably means
two hands ; twenty, which is twice ten,
and so on. Many existing races, who are
53
a little more advanced than the Australians,
use their fingers forcounting, and canreckon
up to five or ten. Even the chimpanzee Sally
could count to five. But when we come to a
duodecimal system we may feel certain that
a considerable advance has been made, and
that arithmetic has come into existence as
a science; for the number 12 has no natural
basis of support like 10, and can only have
been adopted because it was exactly divis
ible into whole numbers by 2, 3, 4, 6.
The mere fact, therefore, of the existence of
a duodecimal system shows that the nation
which adopts it must have progressed a long
way from the primitive “ one, two, a great
many,” and acquired ideas, both as to the
relation of numbers and a multitude of
other things, such as the division of the
circle, of days, months, and years, of
weights and measures, and other matters,
in which ready division into whole parts
without fractions had become desirable.
And at the very first in Egypt, Chaldasa,
and among the Mongolian races generally,
we find this duodecimal system firmly
established. The circle has 360 degrees,
the year 360 days, the day 24 single or 12
double hours, and so on. But from this
point the journey is a long one to calcula
tions which imply a knowledge of geometry
and mathematics, and to observations of
celestial bodies which imply a long ante
cedent science of astronomy, and accurate
records of the motions of the sun, moon,
and planets, and of eclipses and other
memorable events.
The earliest records, both of Egypt and
Chaldasa, show that such an advanced
state of science had been reached at the
first dawn of the historical period, and we
read of works on astronomy, geometry,
medicine, and other sciences, written, or
compiled from older treatises, by Egyptian
kings of the old empire, and by Sargon I.
of Akkad from older Akkadian works. But
the monuments prove still more conclusively
that such sciences must have been long
known. The Great Pyramid of Cheops
affords a very definite proof of the progress
which must have been made in geometrical,
mechanical, and astronomical science at
the time of its erection. If we were to
believe Professor Piazzi Smyth, and the
little knot of his followers who have founded
what may be called a Pyramid-religion,
this remarkable structure contains a revela
tion in stone for future ages of almost all
the material scientific facts which have been
discovered since through 6,000 years of
unwearied research by the unaided human
�54
HUMAN ORIGINS
intellect. Its designers must have known
and recorded, with an accuracy surpassing
that of modern observation, such facts as
the dimensions of the earth, the distance of
the sun, the ratio of the area of a. circle to
its diameter, the precise determination of
latitude and of a true meridian line, and
the establishment of standards of measure
taken, like the metre, from a definite division
of the earth’s circumference. It is argued
that such facts as these could not have
been discovered so accurately in the infancy
of science, and without the aid of the
telescope, and therefore that they must
have been made known by revelation ; and
the Great Pyramid is looked upon, therefore,
as a sort of Bible in stone, which is, in
some not very intelligible way, to be taken
as a confirmation of the inspiration of the
Hebrew Bible, and read as a sort of supple
ment to it.
This is of course absurd. A supernatural
revelation to teach a chosen people the
worship of the one true God is at any rate
an intelligible proposition, but. scarcely
that of such a revelation to an idolatrous
monarch and people, to teach, details of
abstruse sciences, which in point of fact
were not taught, for the monument on which
they were recorded was sealed up by a
casing of polished stone almost directly
after it was built, and its contents were
discovered only by accident, long after the
facts and figures which it is supposed to
teach had been discovered elsewhere by
human reason. The only thing approach
ing to a revelation of religious import which
Piazzi Smyth professed to have discovered
in the Pyramid was a prediction, which is
now more than twenty years overdue, of the
advent of the millennium in 1881.
But these extravagances have had the
good effect of giving us accurate measure
ments of nearly all the dimensions of the
Great Pyramid, and raising a great, deal of
sober discussion as to its aim and origin. In
the first place, it is quite clear that its primary
object was to provide a royal tomb; a tomb
of solid masonry with a base larger than
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and 130 feet higher
than St. Paul’s. When the interior both
of this and other pyramids is explored
nothing is found but one or two small
sepulchral chambers containing the stone
coffins of a king or queen. The Great
Pyramid is not an exceptional monument,
but one of a series of some seventy
pyramid-tombs of kings, beginning with
earlier, and continued by later, dynasties
of the Old Empire. The reason of their
construction is obvious. It originates from
the peculiar ideas, which have been already
pointed out, of the existence of a Ka or
shadowy double, and a still more ethereal
soul or spirit, whose immortality depended
on the preservation of a material basis
in the form of a mummy or likeness
of the deceased person, preferably, no
doubt, by the
preservation of the
mummy. This led to the enormous
outlay, not by kings only, but by private
persons, on costly tombs, which, as
Herodotus says, were considered to be
their permanent habitations.
With an
absolute monarchy in which the divine
right of kings was strained so far that the
monarch was considered as an actual god,
it was only natural that their tombs should
far exceed those of their richest subjects,
and that unusual care should be taken to
prevent them from being desecrated, in
future ages by new and foreign dynasties.
Suppose a great and powerful monarch to
have an unusually long and prosperous
reign, it is quite conceivable that he should
wish to have a tomb which should not only
surpass those of his predecessors, but any
probable effort of his successors, and be
an unique monument defying the attacks
not only of future generations, but of time
itself.
This seems, without doubt, to have been
the primary motive of the Great Pyramid,
and in a lesser degree of all pyramids,
sepulchral mounds, and costly tombs.
But the pyramids, and especially the Great
Pyramid, are not mere piles of masonry
heaped together without plan or design,
and upon this matter we may, without
committing ourselves to acquiescence
of what now follows, refer to recent
theories. Each pyramid, it is argued, is
built on a settled plan, which implies an
acquaintance with the sciences of geometry
and astronomy, and which, in the case of
the Great Pyramid, is carried to an extent
showing very advanced knowledge of those
sciences, and going far to prove that it
may have been used, during part of the
period of its construction, as a national
observatory. The full details of this plan
are given by Proctor in his work on the
Great Pyramid, and, although the want of
a more accurate knowledge of Egyptology
has led him into some erroneous specula
tions as to the age and object of this
pyramid, his authority on the scientific
facts and the astronomical and geometrical
conclusions which are to be drawn from
them is not to be lightly set aside.
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
It appears that the first object of all
pyramid builders was to secure a correct
orientation ; that is, that the four sides
should face truly to the north, south, east,
and west, or, in other words, that a line
drawn through the centre of the base
parallel to the sides should stand on a true
meridian line. This, with our modern
instruments, would be a comparatively
easy task, but before the invention of the
telescope it must have required great
nicety of observation to obtain such
extremely accurate results in all the sides
and successive layers of such an enormous
building. There are only two ways in
of the Great Pyramid is correct, and the
centre of its base corresponds with the
thirtieth degree of north latitude within a
slight error which was inevitable, if, as is
probable, the Egyptian astronomers were
unacquainted with the effect of atmos
pheric refraction in raising the apparent
above the true place of celestial bodies,
or had formed an insufficient estimate
of its amount.
The centre of the
base is 2,328 yards south of the real
thirtieth parallel of latitude, which is 944
yards north of the position which would
have been deduced from the pole-star
method, and 3,459 yards south of that from
which it could be attempted—one by
observing the shadow cast by a vertical
gnomon when the sun was on the meridian,
and the other by keeping a standard line
constantly directed to the true north pole
of the heavens. In the case of the Great
Pyramid another object seems to have
been in view which required the same class
of observations—viz., to place the centre of
the base on the thirtieth degree of north
latitude, being the latitude in which the
pole of the heavens is exactly one-third of
the way from the horizon to the zenith.
Both these objects have been attained
with wonderful accuracy. The orientation
the shadow-method, by astronomers igno
rant of the effect of refraction. The
shadow-method could never have been so
reliable as the polar method, and it is
certain therefore a priori that the latter
must have been adopted either wholly or
principally; and this conclusion is confirmed
by the internal construction of the pyramid
itself, which is shown by the subjoined
diagram.
The tunnel A B c is bored for a distance
of 350 feet underground through the solid
rock, and is inclined at an angle pointing
directly to what was then the pole-star,
Alpha Draconis, at its lower culmination.
�56
HUMAN ORIGINS
As there is no bright star at the true pole, its this supposition is negatived by the fact
position is ascertained by taking the point that the grand gallery must have been shut
half-way between the highest and lowest up, and the building rendered useless for
positions of the conspicuous star nearest astronomical purposes in a very short time,
to it, which therefore revolves in the by the completion of the pyramid, which
smallest circle about it. This star is not was then covered over by a casing of
always the same on account of the preces polished stone, evidently with a view of
sion of the equinoxes, and Alpha Draconis concealing all traces of the passages which
supplied the place of the present pole-star led to the tomb. The solution seems to be
about 3440 B.c., and practically for several that suggested by Proctor, that the object
centuries before and after that date.
was astrological rather than astronomical,
Now, the underground tunnel is bored and that all those minute precautions were
exactly at the angle of 26° 17' to the horizon, taken in order to provide, not only a secure
at which Alpha Draconis would shine down tomb, but an accurate horoscope for the
it at its lower culmination when 30 42' from reigning monarch. Astrology and astro
the pole ; and the ascending passage and nomy were, in fact, closely identified in the
grand gallery are inclined at the same ancient world, and relics of the superstition
angle in an opposite direction, so that the still linger in the form of Zadkiel almanacks.
image of the star reflected from a plane When the sun, moon, and five planets had
mirror or from water at B would be seen
been identified as the celestial bodies pos
on the southern meridian line by an observer sessing motion, and therefore, as it was
in the grand gallery, while another very inferred, life, and had been converted into
conspicuous star, Alpha Centauri, would at gods, nothing was more natural than to
that period shine directly down it. The suppose that they exercised an influence on
passages therefore would have the double human affairs, and that their configuration
effect—(1) of enabling the builders to orient affected the destinies both of individuals
the base and lower layers of the pyramid and of nations. A superstitious people who
up to the king’s chamber in a perfectly saw auguries in the flight of birds, the
true north and south line ; (2) of making movements of animals, the rustling of
the grand gallery the equivalent of an leaves, and in almost every natural occur
equatorially-mounted telescope of a modern rence, could not fail to be impressed by the
observatory, by which the transit of heavenly higher influences and omens of those
bodies in a considerable section of the sky majestic orbs which revolved in such mys
comprising the equatorial and zodiacal terious courses through the stationary stars
regions, across the meridian, and therefore of the host of heaven. Accordingly, in the
at their highest elevations, could be observed very earliest traditions of the Akkadians
by the naked eye with great accuracy.
and Egyptians we find an astrological sig
Those who wish to study the evidence in
nificance attached to the first astronomical
detail should read Proctor’s work on the facts which were observed and recorded.
Problems of the Pyramids; but for the pre The week of seven days, which was doubt
sent purpose it may be sufficient to sum up
less founded on the first attempts to measure
the conclusions of that accomplished astro time by the four phases of the lunar month,
nomer. He says : “ The sun’s annual course became associated with the seven planets
round the celestial sphere could be deter in the remotest antiquity; and the names of
mined much more exactly than by any
their seven presiding gods, in the same
gnomon by observations made from the order and with the same meaning, have
great gallery. The moon’s monthly path descended unchanged to our own times,
and its changes could have been dealt with as will be shown more fully in a subsequent
in the same effective way. The geometric chapter.
paths, and thence the true paths of the
Observations on the sun’s annual course
planets, could be determined very accu led to the fixing of it along a zodiac of
rately. The place of any visible star along twelve signs, corresponding roughly to
the zodiac could be most accurately deter twelve lunar months, and defined by con
mined.”
stellations, or groups of stars, having a
If, therefore, the pyramid had only been fanciful resemblance to animals or deified
completed up to the fiftieth layer, which
heroes. Those zodiacal signs are of im
would leave the southern opening of the
mense antiquity and range. We find them
great gallery uncovered, the object might in the earliest mythology of Clialdasa and
have been safely assumed to be the erec Egypt, in the labours of Hercules, in the
tion of a great national observatory. But traditions of a deluge associated with the
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
sign of Aquarius, and even, though in a
somewhat altered form, in such distant
countries as China and Mexico. We have
so many examples of the origin of corre
sponding ideas among peoples between
whom there can have been no contact for
ages, that it is perilous to theorise about
the source whence these signs were derived.
But we know that the oldest records and
universal tradition show the primitive
Akkadians to have been astronomers, who
from time immemorial had made observa
tions on the heavenly bodies, .and who
remained down to the Roman Empire
the most celebrated astrologers.
Even if we admit, however, Proctor’s
suggestion that the pyramids had an astro
logical origin in addition to their primary
object as tombs, it is difficult to understand
how such enormous structures could have
been built. The Great Pyramid must have
been built on a plan designed from the
first, and not by any haphazard process of
adding a layer each year according to the
number of years the monarch happened to
reign. How could he foresee the exact
number of years of an unusually long life
and reign, or what security could he have
that, if he died early, his successor would
complete his pyramid in addition to erect
ing one of almost equal magnitude for him
self?
Herodotus has apiece of gossip, probably
picked up from some ignorant guides, which
represents Cheops and Chephren as detested
tyrants, who shut up the temples of the gods,
and which confounds the national hatred of
the shepherd kings, who conquered Egypt
some 2,000 years later, with that of these
pyramid-builders ; but this is confuted by
the monuments, which show them as
pious builders or restorers of temples of
the national gods in other localities, as, for
instance, at Bubastis, where the cartouche
of Chephren was lately found by M. Naville
on an addition to the Temple of Isis. All
the records also of the fourth or pyramid
building dynasty, and of the two next
dynasties, show it to have been a period
of peace and prosperity.
Although some matters relating to the
structure of the pyramids may thus warrant
conjecture, enough is certain from the
astronomical facts disclosed in their con
struction to show the advanced state of
this science at this remote period. Nor is
this all, for the dimensions of the Great
Pyramid, when stripped of fanciful coinci
dences and mystical theories, still show
enough to prove a wonderful knowledge of
57
mathematics and geometry. The following
may be taken as undoubted facts from the
most accurate measurements of their dimen
sions.
1st. The triangular area of each of the
four sloping, sides equals the square of the
vertical height. This was mentioned by
Herodotus, and there can be no doubt that
it was a real relation intended by the
builders.
2nd. The united length of the four sides
of the square base bears to the vertical
height the same proportion as that of the
circumference of a circle to its radius. In
other words, it gives the ratio, which under
the symbol ir plays such an important part
in all the higher mathematics. There are
other remarkable coincidences which seem
to show a still more wonderful advance in
science, though they are not quite so certain,
as they depend on the assumption that the
builders took as their unit of measurement
a pyramid inch and sacred cubit different
from those in ordinary use, the former being
equal to the 500,000,000th part of the earth’s
diameter, and the latter containing twentyfive of those inches, or about the 20,000,000th
part of that diameter. To arrive at such
standards it is evident that the priestly
astronomers must have measured very accu
rately an arc of the meridian or length of
the line on the earth’s surface which just
raised or lowered the pole of the heavens
by i°, and inferred from it that the earth
was a spherical body of given dimensions.
Those dimensions would not be quite accu
rate, for they must have been ignorant of
the compression of the earth at its poles
and protuberance at the equator ; but the
measurement of such an arc at or near 30°
of north latitude would give a close ap
proximation to the mean value of the earth’s
diameter. Proctor thinks, from the scientific
knowledge which must have been possessed
by the builders of the pyramid, that
it is quite possible that they may have
measured an arc of the meridian with con
siderable accuracy, and calculated from it
the length of the earth’s diameter, assum
ing it to be a perfect sphere. And if so
they may have intended to make the side of
the square base of the pyramid of a length
which would bear in inches some relation
to the length of this diameter; for it is
probable that, at this stage of the world’s
science, the mysterious or rather magical
value which was attached to certain words
would attach equally to the fundamental
facts, figures, and important discoveries of
the growing sciences. It is quite probable,
�58
HUMAN ORIGINS
could not have been known with any ap
proach to accuracy before the invention of
the telescope, it is forgotten that this height
had been already determined by a totally
unconnected consideration—viz., the ratio of
the diameter of a circle to its circumfer
ence. The coincidence, therefore, of the
sun’s distance must be purely accidental.
A still more startling coincidence has
been found in the fact that the two
diagonals of the base contain 25,824 pyra
mid inches, or almost exactly the number
of years in the precessional period. This
also must be accidental, for the number of
inches in the diagonals follows as a matter
of course from the sides being taken at
365% cubits, corresponding to the length
of the year ; and there can be no connec
tion between this and the precession of the
equinoxes, which, moreover, was unknown
in the astronomy of the ancient world
until it was discovered in the time of the
Ptolemies by Hipparchus.
But with all these doubtful coincidences,
and the many others
which have been dis
covered by devotees
of the pyramid religion,
quite enough remains
to justify the conclu
sion that between 5,000
and 6,000 years ago
there were astrono
mers, mathematicians^!
and architects in
Egypt who had car
ried their respective
sciences to a high
degree of perfection
corresponding to that
shown by their en
gineers and artists.
When we turn to
Chaldaea we find simi
lar evidence as to the
advance of science, and
especially of astrono
mical science, in the
earliest historical
times. Babylonia was
the birthplace of astro*!
nomy. Every impor
tant city had its temple,
and attached to its
temple its ziggurat,
which is in some
respects the counter
part of the pyramid,
being a pyramidal
structure built up in
THE TOWER OF BABEL.
therefore, that the sacred inch and cubit
may have been invented, like the metre,
from an aliquot part of the earth’s supposed
diameter, so as to afford an invariable stan
dard. But there is no positive proof of this
from the pyramid itself, the dimensions of
which may be expressed just as well in the
ordinary working cubit; and it must remain
open to doubt whether the coincidences
prove the pyramid inch, or whether the inch
was invented to prove the coincidences.
Assuming, however, for the moment that
these measures were really used, some of
the coincidences are very remarkable. The
length of each side of the square base is
365% of these sacred cubits, or equal to
the length of the year in days. The height
is 5,819 inches, and the sun’s distance from
the earth, taken at 91,840,000 miles, which
is very nearly correct, is just 5,819 thousand
millions of such inches. It has been
thought, therefore, that this height was in
tended to symbolise the sun’s distance. But
independently of the fact that this distance
ZIGGURAT RESTORED (Perrot and Chipiez),
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
successive stages or platforms super
imposed on one another and narrowing as
they rose, so-as to leave a small platform
on the top, on which was a small shrine or
temple, and from which observations could
be made. These ziggurats being built
entirely of bricks, mostly sun-burnt, have
crumbled into shapeless mounds of
rubbish; but a fair idea of their size and
construction may be obtained from the
descriptions and pictures of them pre
served in contemporary tablets and slabs,
especially from those of the great ziggurat
of the seven spheres or planets at Borsippa,
a suburb of Babylon, which was rebuilt by
Nebuchadrezzar about 500 B.C., on the site
of a much more ancient ruined con
struction. This, which was the largest
and most famous of the ziggurats, became
identified in after times with the tower of
Babel and the legend of the confusion of
tongues; but it was in fact an astronomical
building in seven stages dedicated to the
sun, moon, and five planets, taken in the
order of magnitude of their respective
orbits, and each distinguished by their
respective colours. Thus the lowest or
largest platform was dedicated to Saturn,
and coloured black ; the second to Jupiter
was orange ; the third to Mars red ; the
fourth to the Sun golden; the fifth to
Venus pale yellow ; the sixth to Mercury
an azure blue, obtained by vitrifying the
facing bricks ; and the seventh to the
Moon was probably coated with plates of
silver. The height of this ziggurat was 150
feet, and, standing as it did on a level allu
vial plain, it must have been a very impos
ing object.
It may be affirmed of all these ziggurats
that they were not tombs like the Egyptian
pyramids, but were erected for astrono
mical and astrological purposes. The
number of stages appears to have had re
ference to some religious or astronomical
fact, as three to symbolise the great triad ;
five for the five planets ; or seven for those
and the sun and moon; the number of
seven being never exceeded, and the order
being the same as that adopted for the days
of the week—viz., according to the magni
tudes of their respective orbits. They were
oriented with as much care as the pyramids,
which is of itself a proof that they were
used as observatories, but with this differ
ence, that their angles instead of their faces
were directed towards the true north and
south. To this rule there are only two ex
ceptions, probably of late date after Egyp
tian influences had been introduced; but the
59
original and national ziggurats invariably
observe the rule of pointing angles and not
sides to the four cardinal points. This is a
remarkable fact, as showing that the astro
nomies of Egypt and Chaldsea were not
borrowed one from the other, but evolved
independently in prehistoric times. An ex
planation of it has been found in the fact
recorded on a geographical tablet, that the
Akkadians were accustomed to use the
terms north, south, east, and west to denote,
not the real cardinal points, but countries
which lay to the N.W., S.E., and S.W. of
them. It is inconceivable, however, that
such skilful astronomers should have sup
posed that the North Pole was in the north
west, and a more probable explanation is to
be found in the meaning of ziggurat, which
is said to signify holy mountain.
• It was a cardinal point in their cosmo
gony that the heavens formed a crystal
vault, which revolved round an exceedingly
high mountain as an axis. The ziggurats
were miniature representations of this
sacred mountain of the gods. The early
astronomers must have known that this
mountain could be nowhere but in the true
north, as the daily revolutions of the
heavenly bodies took place round the North
Pole. It was natural, therefore, that they
should direct the apex or angle of a model
of this mountain rather than its side to the
position in the true north occupied by the
peak of the world’s pivot.
Be this as it may, the fact that the
ziggurats were carefully oriented, and cer
tainly used as observatories at the earliest
dates of Chaldaean history, is sufficient to
prove that the priestly astronomers must
have already attained an advanced know
ledge of science, and kept an accurate
record of long-continued observations. This
is fully confirmed by the astronomical and
astrological treatise compiled for the royal
library of Sargon I., date 3800 B.C., which
treats of eclipses, the phases of Venus, and
other matters implying a long previous
series of accurate and refined astronomical
observations.
The most conclusive proof, however, of
the antiquity of Chaldsean science is afforded
by the measures of time which were estab
lished prior to the commencement of his
tory, and have come down to the present
era in the days of the week and the signs
of the zodiac. There can be no doubt that
the first attempts to measure time beyond
the single day and night were lunar, and
not solar. The phases of the moon occur
at short intervals, and are more easily
�6o
HUMAN ORIGINS
discerned and measured than those of the
sun in its annual revolution. The beginning
and end of a solar year and the solstices
and equinoxes are not marked by any
decided natural phenomena, and it is only
by long-continued observations of the sun’s
path among the fixed stars that any tolerably
accurate number of days can be assigned
to the duration of the year and seasons.
But the recurrence of new and full moon,
and more especially of the half-moons when
dusk and light are divided by a straight
line, must have been noted by the first
shepherds who watched the sky at night,
and have given rise to the idea of the month,
and its first approximate division into four
weeks of seven days each. Hence “moon”
takes its name from a root which signifies
“the measurer,” while the sun is the
“ bright ” or shining one.
A relic of this superior importance of the
moon as the measurer of time is found in
the old Akkadian mythology, in which the
moon-god is masculine and the sun-god
feminine ; while with other nations of a later
and more advanced civilisation the genders,
with some few exceptions, are reversed.
For, as observations multiplied and science
advanced, it would be found that the lunar
month of twenty-eight days was only an
approximation, and that the solar year and
months defined by the sun’s progress through
the fixed stars afforded a much more accurate
chronometer. Thus we find the importance
of the moon and of lunar myths gradually
superseded by solar, which, connecting
themselves with the sun’s daily risings and
settings, his assumed death in winter and
resurrection in spring, and his passage
through the signs of the solar zodiac,
assumed a preponderating part in ancient
religions. Traces, however, of the older
period of lunar science and lunar mythology
survived, especially in the week of seven
days, and the mysterious importance
attached to the number seven. This was
doubtless aided by the discovery which
could not fail to be made with the earliest
accurate observations of the heavens, that
there were seven moving bodies, the sun,
moon, and five planets, which revolved in
settled courses, while all the other stars
appeared to be fixed. Scientific astrology,
as distinguished from a mere superstitious
regard of the flight of birds and other
omens, had its origin in this discovery. The
first philosophers who pondered on these
celestial phenomena shared the common
belief that motion implied life, and, in the
case of such brilliant and remote bodies,
divine life ; and that as the sun and moon
exerted such an obvious influence on the
seasons andother human affairs, so probably
did the other planets or the gods who pre
sided over them. The names and order of
the days of the week, which have remained
similar among a number of ancient and
modern nations, show how far these astro
logical notions must have progressed when
they assumed their present form, for the
order is a highly artificial one.
Why do we divide time into weeks of
seven days, and call the days Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday, and why are these
names of special planets, or of the special
gods associated with them, identical, and
present in the same order among so many
different nations? For whether we say
Thor’s-day or Jove’s-day,and call it “Thurs
day” or “Jeudi,” the same god identified
with the same planet is meant, and
so for the others.
It is clear that the
names of the seven days of the week were
originally taken from the seven planets—
e.,
i. from the seven celestial bodies which
were observed by ancient astronomers to
move, and, therefore, to be presumably
endowed with life, while the rest of the
host of heaven remained stationary.
These bodies are in order of apparent
magnitude
1. The Sun.
2. The Moon.
3. Jupiter.
4. Venus.
5. Mars.
6. Saturn.
7. Mercury.
And this is the natural order in which we
might have expected to find them appro
priated to the days of the week. But,
obviously, this is not the principle on
which the days have been named ; for, to
give a single instance, the nimble Mercury,
the smallest of the visible planets, comes
next before the majestic Jupiter, the ruler
of the heavens and wielder of the thunder
bolt.
Let us try another principle, that of
classifying the planets in importance, not
by their size and splendour, but by the
magnitude of their orbits and the length
of their revolutions. This will give the
following order :—
1. Saturn.
2. Jupiter.
3. Mars.
4. The Sun (?.<?., really the earth).
5. Venus.
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
6. Mercury.
7. The Moon.
We are now on the track of the right
solution, though there is still apparently
hopeless discord between this order and
that of the days of the week. The true
solution is such an artificial one that we
should never have discovered it if it had
not been disclosed to us by the clay tablets
exhumed from ancient royal libraries in
the temples and palaces of Chaldma.
These tablets are extremely ancient, going
back in many cases to the times of the old
Akkadians who inhabited Chaldasa prior to
the advent of the Semites. Some of them,'
in fact, are from the royal library of
Sargon I., of Akkad, whose date is fixed by
the best authorities at about 3800 B.c.
As has been said, these Akkadians were a
civilised people, well versed in astronomy,
but extremely superstitious, and addicted
beyond measure to astrology. To some
of their ancient priests it occurred that the
planets must be gods watching over and
influencing human events, and that, as
Mars was ruddy, he was probably the god
of war; Venus, the lovely evening star,
the goddess of love ; Jupiter, powerful ;
Saturn, slow and malignant; and Mercury,
quick and nimble. By degrees the idea
expanded, and it was thought that each
planet exerted its peculiar influence, not
only on the days of the week, but on the
hours of the day; and the planet which
presided over the first hour of the day was
thought to preside over the whole of that
day. But the day had been already
divided into twenty-four hours, because
the earliest Chaldseans had adopted the
duodecimal scale, and counted by sixes,
twelves, and sixties. Now, twenty-four is
not divisible by seven, and, therefore, the
same planets do not recur in the same
order, to preside over the same hours of
successive days. If Saturn ruled the first
hour, he would rule the twenty-second hour;
and, if we refer to the above list of the
planets, ranged according to the magnitude
of their orbits, we shall find that the Sun
would rule the first hour of the succeeding
day, and then in succession the Moon,
Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus, round
to Saturn again, in the precise order of our
days of the week. This order is so artificial
that it cannot have been invented sepa
rately, and wherever we find it we may feel
certain that it has descended from the
astrological fancies of Akkadian priestly
astronomers at least 6,000 years ago.
Now for the Sabbath. The same clay
61
tablets, older by some chiliads than the
accepted Biblical date of the creation of the
world, mention both the name and the in
stitution, not as a day of rest for man, but
as a day when the gods rested from their
wrath, and might be pacified. The “ Sab
bath ” was the day ruled over by the gloomy
and malignant Saturn, as shown by his
wider orbit, the oldest of the planetary gods,
but dimmed with age, and morose at having
been dethroned by his brilliant son Jupiter.
It was unlucky in the extreme, therefore, to
do any work, or begin any undertaking, on
the “ Sabbath ” or Saturday. Hence, long
centuries before Jewish Pharisees or Eng
lish Puritans, rules of Sabbatarian strict
ness were enforced at Babylon and Nine
veh, reminding one of the man who
“ Hanged his cat on Monday
For killing a mouse on Sunday.”
The king was not allowed to ride or walk on
the Sabbath, and, even if he fell ill, had to
wait till the following day before taking
medicine. This superstition as to the un
luckiness of Saturn’s day was common to
all ancient nations, including the Jews ; but
when the idea of a local deity, one among
many others, expanded, under the influence
of the later prophets and the exile, unto that
of one universal God, the compilers of the
Old Testament dealt with the Sabbath
as they did with the Deluge, the Creation,
and other myths. That is to say, they
revised them in a monotheistic sense,
wrote “ God ” for “ gods,” and gave them
a religious rather than an astronomical
or astrological meaning. Thus the origin
of the Sabbath, as a day when no work was
to be done, was transferred from Saturn to
Jehovah, and the reason assigned was that
“ in six days the Lord created the heaven
and the earth, and all that therein is, and
rested on the seventh day.”
One more step only remains to bring us
to our modern Sunday, and this also, like
the last, is to be attributed to a religious
motive. The early Christian Church wished
to wean the masses from Paganism, and
very wisely, instead of attacking old-estab
lished usages in front, turned their flank by
assigning them to different days. Thus
the day of rest, based on the legend of
the rising of Jesus from the tomb, was
shifted from Saturday to the first day
of the week, which was made the Chris
tian Sabbath, and the name changed
by the Latin races from the day of
the sun to the Lord’s Day, “Domi
nica Dies.” It has remained Saturday,
�62
HUMAN ORIGINS
however, with the Jews, and it is quite clear an organised society, we find the oldest
that it was on a Saturday, and not a Sun traces of it everywhere in the science of
astronomy. They watched the phases of
day, that Jesus walked through the fields
the moon, counted the planets, followed
with his disciples, plucking ears of corn,
the sun in its annual course, marking it
and saying, “ The Sabbath was made for
first by seasons, and, as science advanced,
man, and not man for the Sabbath.” It is
by its progress through groups of fixed
equally clear that our modern Sabbatarians
stars fancifully defined as constellations.
are much nearer in spirit to the Pharisees
Everywhere the moon seems to have been
whom Jesus rebuked, and to the old
Akkadian astrologers, than to the founder taken as the first standard for measuring
time beyond the primary unit of day and
of Christianity.
night. This is natural, for, as has been
It is encouraging, however, to those who
shown, the monthly changes of the moon
believe in progress, to observe how in this,
as in many other cases, the course of evolu come much more frequently, and are more
tion makes for good. The superstitions of easily measured, than the annual courses
Akkadian astrologers led to the establish of the sun. But, as observations accumu
late and become more accurate, it is found
ment of one day of rest out of every seven
that the sun, and not the moon, regulates
days—an institution which is in harmony
the seasons, and that the year repeats on a
with the requirements of human nature,
and which has been attended by most larger scale the phenomena presented by
day and night, of the birth, growth,
beneficial results. The religious sanctions
which attached themselves to this institu maturity, decay, and death of the sun,
followed by a resurrection or new birth,
tion, first as the Hebrew Sabbath, and
when the same cycle begins anew. Hence
secondly as transformed into the Christian
Sunday, have been a powerful means of the oldest civilised nations have taken from
the two phenomena of the day and year the
preserving this day of rest through so
same fundamental ideas and festivals. The
many social and political revolutions. Let
us, therefore, not be too hasty in condemn ideas are those of a miraculous birth, death,
and resurrection, and of an upper and lower
ing everything which, on the face of it,
world, the one of light and life, the other of
appears to be antiquated and absurd.
darkness and death, through which the sun
Millions will enjoy a holiday, get a breath
god and human souls have to pass to
of fresh air and a glimpse of nature, or go
emerge again into life. The festivals are
to church or chapel cleanly and respectable
those of the four great divisions of the year :
in behaviour and attire, because there were
Akkadian Zadkiels 6,000 years ago who the winter solstice, when the aged sun sinks
into the tomb and rises again with a new
believed in the maleficent influence of the
birth ; the spring equinox, when he passes
planet Saturn.
definitely out of the domain of winter into
When we find that these highly intricate
and artificial calculations of advanced that of summer ; the summer solstice, when
he is in full manhood, “ rejoicing like a
astrological and astronomical lore existed
at the dawn of Chaldtean history, and are giant to run his course,” and withering up
found in so many and such widely-separated vegetation as with the hot breath of a
races and regions, it is impossible to avoid raging lion ; and, finally, the autumnal
equinox, when he sinks once more into the
two conclusions.
wintry half of the year and amid storms
1st. That an immense time must have
and deluges fades daily to the tomb
elapsed since the Akkadians first settled in
and reclaimed the alluvial valleys and from which he started. Of these festivals,
Christmas and Easter have survived to the
marshy deltas of the Tigris and Euphrates.
2nd. That the intercourse between remote present day, and the last traces of the feast
of the summer solstice are still lingeringin
regions, whether by land or sea, and by
the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland in
commerce or otherwise, must have been
the Bel fires, which, when I was young,
much closer in prehistoric times than has
were lighted on Midsummer night on the
been generally supposed.
As in the days of the week, so in the highest hills of Orkney and Shetland. As
a boy, I have rushed, with my playmates,
festivals of the year, we trace their origin
through the smoke of those bonfires with
to astronomical observations. When
nations passed from the condition of out a suspicion that we were repeating the
savages, hunters, or nomads, into the homage paid to Baal in the Valley of
Hinnom.
agricultural stage, and developed dense
When we turn from science to art and
populations, cities, temples, priests, and
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
industry, the same conclusion of immense
antiquity is forcibly impressed on us. In
Egypt the reign of Menes, 4700 B.C., was
signalised by a great engineering work,
which would have been a considerable
achievement at the present day. He built
a great embankment, which still remains,
by which the old course of the Nile close to
the Libyan hills was diverted, and a site
obtained for the new capital of Memphis
oa the west side of the river, placing it
between the city and any enemy from the
east. At the same time this dyke assisted
fe regulating the flow of the inundation,
awl it may be compared for magnitude and
utility to the modern barrage attempted by
Liaant Bey and carried out by Sir Colin
Moncrieff. Evidently such a work implies
great engineering skill and great resources,
and it prepares us for what we have seen a
few centuries later in the construction of
the Great Pyramids.
Many of the most famous cities and
temples of Egypt also date their original
foundation to a period prior to that of
Menes. It has been shown already that
one of the most colossal and remarkable
monuments, the Sphinx, with the little
temple of granite and alabaster between its
paws, is older than the accession of Menes.
There is abundant proof that at the
dawn of Egyptian history, some 7,000
years ago, the arts of architecture, engi
neering, irrigation, and agriculture had
reached a high level corresponding to that
Shown by the state of religion, science,
and letters. A little later the paintings on
the tombs of the Old Empire show that all
the industrial arts, such as spinning,
weaving, working in wood and metals,
rearing cattle, and a thousand others,
which are the furniture of an old civilised
country, were just as well understood and
practised in Egypt 6,000 or 7,000 years
ago as they are at the present day.
This being the case, I must refer those
who wish to pursue this branch of the
subject to professed works on Egyptology.
F©? my present purpose, if the oldest
records of monuments prove the existence
df a long antecedent civilisation, it is superfltlOus to trace the proofs in detail through
the course of later ages.
When we turn to the fine arts we find
the same evidence. The difficulty is not
to trace a golden age up to rude beginnings,
but to explain the seeming paradox that
the oldest art is the best. A visit to the
Museum of Boulak, where Mariette’s
collection of works of the first six dynasties
63
is deposited, will convince any one that the
statues, statuettes, wall-pictures, and other
works of art of the Ancient Empire, from
Memphis and its cemetery of Sakkarah,
are in point of conception and execution
superior to those of a later period. None
of the later statues equal the four de force
by which the majestic portrait statue of
Chephren, the builder of the second great
pyramid, has been chiselled out from a
block of diorite, one of the hardest stones
known, and hardly assailable by the best
modern tools.
Nor has portraiture in
wood or stone ever surpassed the ease,
grace, and life-like expression of such
THE VILLAGE SHEIK, A WOODEN STATUETTE.
Boulak Museum, from Gizeh.—According to the
chronological table Oi Mariette, this statue is over 6,000
years old. From a photograph by Brugsch Bey.
statues as that known as the Village Sheik,
from its resemblance to the functionary
who filled that office 6,000 years later in
�64
HUMAN ORIGINS
the village where the statue was dis
covered ; or those of the kneeling scribes,
one handing in his accounts, the other
writing from dictation. And the pictures
on the walls of tombs, of houses, gardens,
fishing and musical parties, and animals
and birds of all kinds, tame and wild, are
equally remarkable for their colouring and
drawing, and for the vivacity and accuracy
with which attitudes and expressions are
rendered. In short, Egypt begins where
most modern countries seem to be ending,
with a very perfect school of realistic
art.
For it is remarkable that this first school
of art of the Old Empire is thoroughly
naturalistic, and knows very little of the
ideal or supernatural. And the tombs tell
the same story. The statues and paintings
represent natural objects and not theo
logical conventions ; the tombs are fac
simile representations of the house in
which the deceased lived, with his mummy
and those of his family, and pictures of his
oxen, geese, and other belongings, but no
gods, and few of those quotations from the
Book of the Dead which are so universal in
later ages. It would seem that at this early
period of Egyptian history life was simple
and cheerful, and both art and religion less
fettered by superstitions and conventions
than they were when despotism and priest
craft had been for centuries stereotyped
institutions, and when originality of any
sort was little better than heresy. War
also and warlike arms hardly appear on
these earliest representations of Egyptian
life, conflicts being probably confined to
frontier skirmishes with Bedouins and
Libyans, such as we see commemorated on
the tablet of Seneferu (p. 13).
In Chaldaea the evidence for great anti
quity is derived less from architectural
monuments and arts, and more from books,
than in Egypt, for the obvious reason that
stone was wanting and clay abundant in
Mesopotamia. Where temples and palaces
were built of sun-dried bricks, they rapidly
crumbled into mounds of rubbish, and
nothing was preserved but the baked clay
tablets with cuneiform inscriptions. In
like manner sculpture and wall-painting
never flourished in a country devoid of
stone, and the religious ideas of Chaldsea
never took the Egyptian form of the con
tinuance of ordinary life after death by the
Ka or ghost requiring a house, a mummy,
and representations of belongings. The
bas-relief and fringes sculptured on slabs of
alabaster brought home by Layard and
others belong mostly to the later period of
the Assyrian Empire.
Accordingly, the oldest works of art from
Chaldaea consist mainly of books and
documents in the form of clay cylinders,
and of gems, amulets, and other small
articles of precious stones or metals. But
the recent discovery of De Sarzec at
Sirgalla shows that in the very earliest
period of Chaldaean history the arts stood
at a level which is fairly comparable to
that of the Old Empire in Egypt. He
found in the ruins of the very ancient
Temple of the Sun nine statues of Patesi
or priest-kings of Akkadian race, who had
ruled there prior to the consolidation of
Sumir and Akkad into one empire by
Sargon I., somewhere about 3800 B.c. The
remarkable thing about these statues is
that they, like the statue of Chephren,
are of diorite, which is believed to be
found only in the peninsula of Sinai,
and is so hard that it must have taken
excellent tools and great technical skill to
carve it. The statues are much of the
same size and in the same seated attitude
as that of Chephren, and have the appear
ance of belonging to the same epoch and
school of art. This is confirmed by the
discovery along with the statues of a number
of statuettes and small objects of art which
are also in an excellent style, very similar
to that of the Old Egyptian dynasty, and
showing great proficiency both in taste and
in technical execution.
The discovery of these diorite statues at
such an early date, both in Egypt and
Chaldaea, raises an interesting question as
to the tools by which such an intractable
material could be so finely wrought. Evi
dently they must have been of the hardest
bronze, and the construction of such works
as the dyke of Menes and the Pyramids
shows that the art of masonry must have
been long known and extensively practised.
But this again implies a large stock of
metals and long acquaintance with them
since the close of the latest stone period.
Perhaps there is no test which is more
conclusive of the state of prehistoric civili
sation and commerce than that which is
afforded by the general knowledge and use
of metals. It is true that a knowledge of
some of the metals which are found in a
native state, or in easily fusible ores, may
co-exist with very primitive barbarism.
Some even of the cannibal tribes of Africa
are well acquainted with iron, and know
how to smelt its ores and manufacture tools
and weapons. Gold also, which is so
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
extensively found in the native state, could
not fail to be known from the earliest
times and in certain districts pure copper
presents itself in native and malleable
form.
But when we come to metals
which require great knowledge of mining
to detect them in their ores and to produce
them in large quantities, and to alloys
which require a long practice of metallurgy
to discover and mix in the proper pro
portions, the case is different, and the stone
period must be already far behind. Still
more is this the case when tools and
weapons of such artificial alloys are found
in universal use in countries where Nature
has provided no metals, and where their
presence can be accounted for only by the
existence of an international commerce
with distant metal-producing countries.
Iron was no doubt known at a very early
period, but it was extremely scarce, and
even as late as Homer’s time was so valu
able that a lump of it constituted one of
the principal prizes at the funeral games of
Patroclus. Noris there any reason to sup
pose that the art of making from it the best
steel, which alone could have competed
with bronze in cutting granite and diorite,
had been discovered. It may be assumed,
therefore, that bronze was the material
universally used for the finer tools and
weapons by the great civilised empires , of
Egypt and Chaldaea during the long in
terval between the neolithic stone age and
the later adoption of iron.
Evidently, then, both the Egyptians and
the Chaldaeans must have been well pro
vided with bronze tools capable of hewing
and polishing the hardest rocks. Now,
bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Copper
is a common metal, easily reduced from its
ores, and sometimes occurring, as remarked
above, in a metallic state, as in the
mines of Lake Superior, where the Red
Indians hammered out blocks of it from the
native metal. And we have proofs that the
ancient Egyptians obtained copper at a very
early date from the mines of Wady Magerah
in the peninsula of Sinai, and probably also
from Cyprus. But where did they get their
tin, without which there is no bronze ? Tin
is a metal which is found only in a few
localities, and in the form of a black oxide
which requires a considerable knowledge
of metallurgy to detect and to reduce.
The only considerable sources now known
are those of Cornwall, Malacca, Banca, and
Australia. Of these, the last was of course
unknown to the ancient world, but there
is significance in the fact that “kassiteros ”
65
the Greek name for tin, is derived from
“ kestira,” the Sanskrit name for that
metal; and the island Cassitera must have
been in the Straits of Malacca, whence tin
may have been brought by prehistoric sea
routes to India, thence to Egypt by the Red
Sea, and to Chaldaea by the Persian Gulf.
This is the conjecture of one of the latest
authorities in a very interesting work just
published on The Dawn of Ancient Art.
But the existence of tin in the Iberian
mainland and in Britain was known to
ancient traders at a remote period. In his
valuable summary on the various sources
of tin and on the trade-routes of the
Phoenicians given in his Origins of English
History, the late Mr. Charles Elton remarks
that the “knowledge of the tin-deposits
was the most valuable secret of Tyre and
Carthage. The Phoenician sailors busied
themselves in all known regions of the
world in seeking for the precious ore. The
seas were covered with their sails, and the
harbours full of their ships, which they
loaded with metal smelted from the tinbearing gravels of the Malayan Cassitara.”
The transfer of the name “ Cassiterides ”
(wrongly assumed to be the Scilly Isles)
to the islands off the Lusitanian coast shows
how their enterprise extended from the far
East to beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
In the celebrated 27th chapter of Ezekiel,
which describes the commerce of Tyre
when in the height of its glory, tin is
mentioned only once as being imported
along with silver, iron, and lead from
Tarshish—?>., from the emporium of
Gades or Cadiz. The only other refer
ence to tin is, that Javan, Tubal, and
Meshech—the Ionians, and tribes of
Asia Minor in the mountainous districts to
the south of the Black Sea—traded with
slaves and vessels of brass ; and if brass
meant bronze, this would imply a know
ledge of tin. Another considerable supply
of tin came from the Etruscans, who worked
extensive mines in Northern Italy. But
the evidence of these does not go back
farther than from 1000 to 1500 B.C., and it
leaves untouched the question how Egypt
and Chaldaea had obtained large stocks of
bronze, certainly long before 5000 B.c.; and
how they kept up these stocks for certainly
more than 2,000 years before the Phoeni
cians appeared on the scene to supply tin
by maritime commerce. It is in some
other direction that we must look, for it is
certain that neither Egypt nor Chaldaea
had any native sources of this metal. They
must have imported, and that from a
F
�66
HUMAN ORIGINS
distance, either the manufactured bronze,
or the tin with which to manufacture it
themselves by alloying copper. The latter
seems most probable, for the Egyptians
worked the copper mines of Sinai from a
very early date, and drew supplies of
copper from Cyprus, which could have
been made useful only by alloying it with
tin ; while, if they imported all the immense
quantity of bronze which they must have
used, in the manufactured state, the pure
copper would have been useless to them.
A remarkable fact is that the bronze
found throughout most of the ancient world,
from the earliest monuments downwards,
including the dolmens, lake villages, and
other prehistoric monuments in which metal
begins to appear, is almost entirely of
uniform composition, consisting of an alloy
of io to 15 per cent, of tin to 85 or 90 per
cent, of copper. That is for tools and
weapons where great hardness was required,
for objects of art and statuettes were often
made of pure copper, ox with a smaller
alloy of tin, showing that the latter metal
was too scarce and valuable to be wasted.1
Evidently this alloy must have been dis
covered in some locality where tin and
copper were both found, and trials could
be made of the proportions which gave the
best result; and the secret must have been
communicated to other nations along with
the tin which was necessary for the manu
facture. Where can we fix the precise
localities which supplied this tin, and the
knowledge how to use it, to the two great
civilised nations of Egypt and Chaldaea ?
Where can we say with certainty that
bronze was in common use prior to 5000
B.C. ? The knowledge both of bronze
and of other metals, such as iron and
gold, seems to have been universally
diffused among the Mongolian races who
were the primitive inhabitants of Northern
Asia. How could Egypt have got its tin
even from the nearest known source ?
Consider the length of the caravan route;
the number of beasts of burden required ;
the necessity for roads, depots, and
stations ; the mountain ranges, rivers, and
1 This normal alloy does not seem to have
been in general use in Egypt before the eighteenth
dynasty, and the bronze of earlier periods con
tains less tin. But evidently a very hard alloy
of copper must have been used from the earliest
times, to chisel out statues of granite and diorite;
and, although tin was too scarce for common use,
the tools for such purposes must have contained
a considerable percentage of it.
deserts to be traversed : such a journey is
scarcely conceivable either through dis
tricts sparsely peopled and without re
sources, or infested by savage tribes and
robbers. And yet if the tin did not come
by land, it must have come for the greater
part of the way by water, floating down the
Euphrates or Tigris, and being shipped
from Ur or Eridhu by way of the Persian
Gulf and Red Sea.
We are driven to the conclusion that
nations, capable of conducting extensive
mining operations, must have been in
existence in the Caucasus, the HindooKush, the Altai, or other remote regions ;
and that routes of international commerce
must have been established by which the
scarce but indispensable tin could be
transported from divers regions to the dense
and civilised communities which had grown
up in the alluvial valleys and deltas of the
Nile and the Euphrates.
It is very singular, however, that, if such
an intercourse existed, the knowledge of
other objects of what may be called the
first necessity should have been so long
limited to certain areas and races. For
instance, in the case of the domestic
animals, the horse was unknown in Egypt
and Arabia till after the Hyksos conquest,
when in a short time it' became common,
and these countries supplied the finest
breeds and the greatest number of horses
for exportation. On the other hand, the
horse must have been known at a very
early period in Chaldaea, for the tablet of
Sargon I., B.C. 3800, talks of riding in
brazen chariots over rugged mountains.
This makes it the more singular that the
horse should have remained so long
unknown in Egypt and Arabia, for it is
such an eminently useful animal, both for
peace and war, that one would think it
must have been introduced almost from the
very first moment when trading caravans
arrived. And yet tin would appear to have
arrived from regions where in all proba
bility the horse had been long domesti
cated before the time of Menes. The only
explanation I can see is, that the tin must
have come by sea ; but by what maritime
route could it have come prior to the rise
of Phoenician commerce ? Could it have
come down the Euphrates or Tigris and
been exported from the great sea-ports of
Eridhu or Ur by way of the Persian Gulf
and Red Sea?
This seems the more probable, as Eridhu
was certainly an important maritime port
at the early period of Chaldsean civilisation,
�ANCIENT SCIENCE AND ART
The diorite statues found at Tell-loh by
M. de Sarzec are stated by an inscription
on them to have come from Sinai, and
indeed they could have come from no other
locality, as this is the only known site of
the peculiar greenish-black basalt or diorite
of which those statues and the similar one
of the Egyptian Chephren of the second
pyramid are made. And in this case the
transport of such heavy blocks for such a
distance could have been effected only, by
sea. There are traces also of the maritime
commerce of Eridhu having extended as
far as India. Teak wood, which could
have' come only from the Malabar coast,
has been found in the ruins of Ur; and
“ Sindhu,” which is Indian cloth or muslin,
was known from the earliest times. It
seems not improbable, therefore, that
Eridhu and Ur may have played the part
which was subsequently taken by Sidon
and Tyre, in the prehistoric stages of the
civilisations both of Egypt and of Chaldaea;
and this is confirmed by the earliest
traditions of the primitive Akkadians,
which represent these cities on the Persian
Gulf as maritime ports, whose people were
well acquainted with ships, as we see in
their legend of the Deluge, which, instead
of the Hebrew ark of Noah, has a wellequipped ship with sails and a pilot.
The instance of the horse is the more
remarkable, as throughout a great part of
the stone period the wild horse was the
commonest of animals, and afforded the
staple food of the savages whose remains
are found in all parts of Europe. At one
station alone, at Solutre in Burgundy, it is
computed that the remains of more than
40,000 horses are found in the vast heap of
debris of a village of the stone period.
What became of these innumerable horses,
and how is it that the existence of the
animal seems to have been so long
unknown to the great civilised races? It
is singular that a similar problem presents
itself in America, where the ancestral tree
of the horse is most clearly traced through
the Eocene and Miocene periods, and
where the animal existed in vast numbers
both in the Northern and Southern
Continent, under conditions eminently
favourable for its existence; and yet it
became so completely extinct that there
was not even a tradition of it remaining at
the time of the Spanish conquest. On the
other hand, the ass seems to have been
known from the earliest times, both to the
Egyptians and the Semites of Arabia and
Syria, and unknown to the Aryan-speaking
peoples, whose names for it are all
borrowed from the Semitic. Large herds
of asses are enumerated among the
possessions of great Egyptian landowners
as far back as the fifth and sixth dynasties,
and no doubt it had been the beast of
burden in Egypt from time immemorial.
It is in this respect only—viz., the intro
duction of the horse—that we can discern
any foreign importation calculated to
materially affect the native civilisation of
Egypt, during the immensely long period
of its existence. It had no doubt a great
deal to do with launching Egypt on a
career of foreign wars and conquests under
the eighteenth dynasty, and so bringing it
into closer contact with other nations, and
subjecting it to the vicissitudes of alternate
triumphs and disasters, now carrying the
Egyptian arms to the Euphrates and Tigris,
and now bringing Assyrian and Persian
conquerors to Thebes and Memphis. But
in the older ages of the First and Middle
Empire the ox, the ass, the sheep, ducks
and geese, and the dog, seem to have been
the principal domestic animals. Gazelles
also were tamed and fed in herds during
the Old Empire, and the cat was domesti
cated from an African species during the
Middle Empire.
Agriculture was conducted both in Egypt
and Chaldsea much as it is in China at the
present day, by a very perfect system of
irrigation depending on embankments and
canals, and by a sort of garden cultivation
enabling a large population to live in a
limited area. The people also, both in
Egypt and Chaldaea, seem to have been
singularly like the modern Chinese, patient,
industrious, submissive to authority, unwar
like, practical, and prosaic. If, therefore,
the influence of any foreign race on a
relatively high plane of civilisation be
excluded, we have sufficing period from
prehistoric times to the dawn of history for
the conversion of the aborigines, who left
their rude stone implements in the sands
and gravels of these localities, into the
civilised and populous communities which
we find existing there long before the
reigns of Menes and of Sargon.
�HUMAN ORIGINS
68
CHAPTER VI.
PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
Short Duration of Tradition—No Recollection
of Stone Age—Celts taken for Thunderbolts
—Stone Age in Egypt—Palaeolithic Imple
ments—Earliest Egyptian Traditions—Extinct
Animals forgotten—Their Bones attributed to
Giants—Chinese and American Traditions—
Traditions of Origin of Man—Philosophical
Myths—Cruder Myths from Stones, Trees,
and Animals—Totems—Recent Events soon
forgotten — Autochthonous Nations — Wide
Diffusion of Myths — The Deluge — Im
portance of, as Test of Inspiration—More
Definite than
Legend of Creation—
Account of the Deluge in
Genesis
—Date—Extent—Duration—All Life des
troyed except Pairs preserved in the Ark—Such a Deluge impossible—Contradicted by
Physical Science—By Geology—By Zoology
'—By Ethnology—By History—How Deluge
Myths arise—Local Floods—Sea Shells on
Mountains—Solar Myths—Deluge of Parnapishtim—Noah’s Deluge copied from it—Re
vised in a Monotheistic Sense at a compara
tively Late Period—Rational View of Inspira
tion.
In passing from the historical period, in
which we can appeal to written records
and monuments, into that of palaeontology
and geology, where we have to rely on
scientific facts and reasons, we have to
traverse an intermediate stage in which
legends and traditions still cast a dim and
glimmering twilight. The first point to
notice is that this, like the twilight of
tropical evenings, is extremely brief, and
fades almost at once into the darkness of
night.
It is singular in how short a time all
memory is lost of events which are not
recorded in some form of writing or
inscription, and depend solely on oral tradi
tion. Thus it may be safely affirmed that
no nation which has passed into the metal
age retains any distinct recollection of that
of polished stone, and a fortiori none of
the palaeolithic period, or of the origins of
their own race or of mankind. The proof
of this is found in the fact that the stone
axes and arrow-heads which are found so
abundantly in many countries are every
where taken for thunderbolts or fairy arrows
shot down from the skies. This belief was
well-nigh universal throughout the world ;
we find it in all the classical nations, in
modern Europe, in China, Japan, and India.
Its antiquity is attested by the fact that
neolithic arrow-heads have been found
attached as amulets in necklaces from
Egyptian and Etruscan tombs, and palaeo
lithic celts in the foundations of Chaldaean
temples. In India many of the best speci
mens of palaeolithic implements were
obtained from the gardens of ryots, where
they had been placed on posts, and offer
ings of ghee duly made to them. Like so
many old superstitions, this still lingers in
popular belief, and the common name for
the finely-chipped arrow-heads which are so
plentifully scattered over the soil from Scot
land to Japan is that of elf-bolts, supposed
to have been shot down from the skies by
fairies or spirits.
Until the discoveries of Boucher-dePerthes were confirmed only half a century
ago, this ignorance as to the origin of stone
implements was shared by the learned men
of all countries, and many volumes have
been written to explain how the “ cerauni,”
or stone-celts, taken to be thunderbolts,
were formed in the air during storms.
They are already described by Pliny, and a
Chinese Encyclopaedia says that “ some of
these lightning stones have the shape of a
hatchet, others of a knife, some are made
like mallets. They are metals, stones, and
pebbles, which the fire of the thunder has
metamorphosed by splitting them suddenly
and uniting inseparablydifferent substances.
On some of them a kind of vitrification is
distinctly to be observed.”
The Chinese philosopher was evidently
acquainted with real meteorites and with
the stone implements which were mistaken
for them, and his account is comparatively
sober and rational. But the explanations
of the Christian fathers and mediaeval
philosophers, and even of scientific writers
down to a very recent period, are vastly
more mystical. A single specimen may
suffice which is quoted by Tylor in his
Early History of Mankind. Tollius in
1649 figures some ordinary palaeolithic
stone axes and hammers, and tells us that
“ the naturalists say they are generated in
the sky by a fulgurous exhalation conglobed
in a cloud by the circumfused humour, and
are as it were baked hard by intense heat,
and the weapon becomes pointed by the
damp mixed with it flying from the dry part,
and leaving the other end denser, but the
exhalations press it so hard that it breaks
out through the cloud and makes thunder
and lightning.”
But these attempts at scientific explana
tions were looked upon with disfavour by
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
theologians, the orthodox belief being that
the “cerauni” were the bolts by which
Satan and his angels had been driven from
heaven into the fiery abyss. These specula
tions, however, of later ages are of less im
portance for our present purpose than the
fact that in no single instance can anything
like a real historical tradition be found con
necting the stone age with that of metals,
and giving a true account of even the latest
forms of neolithic implements.
The fantastic theories of the causes of
the worked flints are paralleled by those as
to the origin of the remains of the great
extinct quaternary animals which are con
temporary with man. Everywhere we find
the fossil bones of the elephant and
rhinoceros explained as those of monsters
and giants.
St. Augustine denounces
infidels who do not believe that “ men’s
bodies were formerly much greater than
now,” and quotes, in proof of the assertion,
that he had seen himself “ so huge a molar
tooth of a man that it would cut up into a
hundred teeth of ordinary men ”—doubtless
the molar of a fossil elephant. Marcus
Scaurus brought to Rome from Joppa the
bones of the monster who was to have
devoured Andromeda.
The Chinese
Encyclopaedia, already referred to, describes
the “ Fon-shu, an animal which dwells in
the extreme cold on the coast of the
Northern Sea, which resembles a rat in
shape, but is as big as an elephant, and
lives in dark caverns, ever shunning the
light. There is got from it an ivory as
white as that of an elephant ” ; evidently
referring to the frozen mammoths found, in
Siberia. Similar circumstances gave rise
to the same myth in South America, and
the natives told Darwin that the skeletons
of the mastodon on the banks of the
Parana were those of a huge burrowing
animal, like the bizchaca or prairie-rat.
If fossil animals have thus given rise
everywhere to legends of giants, fossil
shells have played the same part as regards
legends of a deluge. These fossils are in
many cases so abundant at high levels that
they could not fail to be observed, and
to be attributed to the sea having
once covered these levels and inundated
all the earth except the highest peaks.
The tradition of an universal deluge is,
however, so important that I reserve it for
separate consideration at the end of the
present chapter.
If, then, all memory of a period so com
paratively recent as that of the neolithic
stone age and of the latest extinct animals
69
was completely lost when the first dawn of
history commences, it follows as a matter
of course that nothing like an historical
tradition of the immensely longer palaeo
lithic period and of the origin of man
survives anywhere. Man in all ages has
asked himself how he came here, and. has
indulged in speculations as to his origin.
These speculations have taken a form
corresponding very much to the stage of
culture and civilisation to which he had
attained. They are of almost infinite
variety, but may be classed generally under
three heads. Those nations which had
attained a sufficient degree of culture to
personify first causes and the phenomena
of Nature as gods, attribute the creation of
the world and of man to some one or more
of these gods; and, as they advance
further in philosophical reasonings, em
bellish the myth with allegories embody
ing the problems of human existence.
Thus, if Bel makes man out of clay, and
moulds him with his own blood; or J ehovah
(Jahve) fashions him from dust, and breathes
into his nostrils the breath of life ; in each
case it is an obvious allegory to explain the
fact that man ha& a dual nature, animal
and spiritual.
So the myth of the Garden of Eden,
the Temptation by the Serpent, the Trees
of Knowledge and of Life, and the Fall of
Adam, which we see represented on a
Babylonian cylinder, is obviously an alle
gorical attempt to explain the origin of
evil.
These philosophical myths are,
however, very various among different
nations.
Thus the orthodox belief of
200,000,000 of Hindoos is that mankind
were created in castes, the Brahmins by an
emanation from Brahma’s head, the
warriors from his chest, the traders and
artisans from his legs, and the sudras or
lowest caste from his feet; obviously an
ex post facto myth to account for the
institution of caste, and to stamp it with
divine authority.
But before reflection had risen to this
level, and among the savage and semibarbarous people of the present day, we
find much more crude speculations, which,
in the main, correspond with the kindred
creeds of Animism and Totemism. When
life and magical powers were attributed to
inanimate objects, nothing was more natural
than to suppose that stones and trees might
be converted into men and women, and con
versely men and women into trees and
stones. Thus we find the stone theory very
widely diffused. Even with a people so far
�70
HUMAN ORIGINS
advanced as the early Greeks, it meets us
in the celebrated fable of Deucalion and
Pyrrha peopling the earth by throwing
stones behind them, which turned into men
and women ; and the same myth, of stones
turning into the first men, meets us at the
present day in almost every barbaric
cosmogony brought home by missionaries
and anthropologists from Africa, America,
and Polynesia. In some cases trees take
the place of stones, and transformations of
men into both are among the commonest
occurrences. From Daphne into a laurel,
and Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, down to
the Cornish maidens transformed into a
circle of stones for dancing on Sunday, we
find everywhere that wherever natural
objects present any resemblance to the
human figure, such myths sprung up spon
taneously in all ages and countries.
Another great school of creation-myths
originates in the widespread institution of
the totem. It is a step in advance of the
pure fetich-worship of stocks and stones, to
conceive of animals as having thought and
language, and being in fact men under a
different form. From this it is a short step
to endowing them with magical attributes
and supernatural powers, adopting them as
patrons of tribes and families, and finally
considering them as ancestors. Myths of
this kind are common among the lower
races, especially in America, where many
of the tribes considered themselves as
descendants of some great bear or elk, or
of some extremely wise fox or beaver, and
held this belief so firmly that intermarriage
among members of the same totem was for
bidden as incestuous. The same system
prevails among most races at an equally
low or lower stage of civilisation, as in
Australia ; and there are traces of its having
existed among old civilised nations at
remote periods. The animal-worship of
Egypt may have been a survival of the old
faith in totems, differing among different
clans, which was so firmly rooted in the
popular traditions that the priests had to
accommodate their religious conceptions to
it, as the Christian fathers did with many
pagan superstitions. The division of the
twelve tribes of Israel may have been
originally totemic, judging from the old
saga in which Jacob gives them his bless
ing, identifying Judah with a lion, Dan with
an adder, and so on.
But in all these various and discordant
myths of the creation of man it is evident
there are no echoes of a possible historical
reminiscence of anything that actually
occurred ; and they must be relegated to
the same place as the corresponding myths
of the creation of the animal world and of
the universe. They are neither more or less
credible than the theories that the earth is
a great tortoise floating on the water, or the
sky a crystal dome with windows in it to let
down the rain, and stars hung from it like
lamps to illuminate a tea-garden.
Even when we come to comparatively
recent periods, and have to deal with
traditions, not of how races originated, but
how they came into the abodes where we
find them, it is astonishing how little we
can depend on anything prior to written
records. Most ancient nations fancied
themselves autochthonous, and took a pride
in believing that they sprang from the soil
on which they lived. And this is also the
case with ruder races, except where the
migrations and conquests recorded are of
very recent date. Thus Ancient Egypt
believed itself to be autochthonous, and
traced the origin of arts and sciences to
native gods. Chaldaea, according to
Berosus, was inhabited from time imme
morial by a mixed multitude, and, though
Oannes brought letters and arts from the
shores of the Persian Gulf, he taught them
to a previously existing population. This
is the more remarkable as the name of
Akkad and the form of the oldest Akkadian
hieroglyphics make it almost certain that
they had migrated into Mesopotamia from
the highlands of Kurdistan or of Central
Asia. The Athenians also and the other
Greek tribes all claimed to be autoch
thonous, and their legends of men spring
ing from the stones of Deucalion, and
from the dragon’s teeth of Cadmus, all
point in the same direction. The great
Aryan-speaking races also have no tradi
tions of any ancient migrations from Asia
into Europe, or vice versa, and their
languages seem to denote a common
residence during the formation of the
different dialects in those regions of
Northern Europe and Southern Russia in
which we find them living when we first
catch sight of them. The only exception
to this is in the record in the Zendavesta of
successive migrations from the Pamer or
Altai, down the Oxus and Jaxartes into
Bactria, and thence into Persia. But this
is not found in the original portion of the
Zendavesta, and only in later commentaries
on it, and is very probably a legend intro
duced to exemplify the constant warfare
between Ormuzd and Ahriman. The
Vedas contain no history, and the
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS.
inference that a people of Aryan speech
lived in the Punjaub when the Rig-Veda
was composed, and conquered Hindostan
later, is derived from the references con
tained in the oldest hymns which point to
that conclusion, rather than from any
definite historical record. Rome again had
no tradition of Umbrian pile-dwellers
descending from neolithic Switzerland,
expelling Iberians, and being themselves
expelled by Etruscans.
It may appear singular, considering the
almost total absence of genuine historical
traditions, how certain myths and usages
have been universally diffused, and come
down to the present day from a very remote
antiquity.'\ The identity of the days of the
week, based on a highly artificial and complicated.GftlGulation of Chaldsean astrology,
has been already referred to as a striking
instance of the wide diffusion of astrono
mical myths in very early times. Then,
too, many of the most popular nursery
tales also, such as Jack the Giant-killer,
Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella,
are found almost in the same form in the
most remote regions and among the. most
various races, both civilised and uncivilised.
■ One explanation of puzzling identities is
that the human mind, at the same level of
culture, explains like phenomena in the
same way, just as, in prehistoric times, man
everywhere made shift with similar tools
and weapons.
I come now to the tradition of a Deluge,
which is important both on account of its pre
valence among a number of different races
and nations, often remote from one another,
and because it affords the most immediate
and crucial test of the claim of the Bible to
be taken as a literally true and inspired
account, not only of matters of moral and
religious import, but of all the historical
and scientific statements recorded in its
pages. The Confession of Faith of an able
and excellent man, the late Mr. Spurgeon,
and adopted by fifteen or twenty other Non
conformist ministers, says :—
“ We avow our firmest belief in the verbal
inspiration of all Holy Scripture as origi
nally given. To us the Bible does not merely
contain the Word of God, but is the Word
of God.”
Following this example, thirty - eight
clergymen of the Church of England
put forward a similar Declaration. They
say:—
“ We solemnly profess and declare our
unfeigned belief in all the Canonical Scrip
tures of the Old and New Testaments, as
handed down to us by the undivided Church
in the original languages. We believe that
they are inspired by the Holy Ghost ; that
they are what they profess to be ; that they
mean what they say ; and that they declare
incontrovertibly the actual historical truth
in all records, both of past events and of
the delivery of predictions to be thereafter
fulfilled.”
It is perfectly obvious that for those who
accept these Confessions of Faith, not only
the so-called “ higher Biblical Criticism,”
but all the discoveries of modern science,
from Galileo and Newton down to Lyell
and Darwin, are simple delusions. There
can be no question that if the words of the
Old Testament are “ literally inspired,” and
“ mean what they say,” they oppose an in
flexible non possnmus to all the most certain
discoveries of Astronomy, Geology, Zoology,
Biology, Egyptology, Assyriology, and other
modern sciences. Now, the account of the
Deluge in Genesis affords the readiest
means of bringing this theory to the test,
and proving or disproving it, by the process
which Euclid calls the reductw ad absurdum.
Not that other narratives, such as those
of the Creation in Genesis, do' not contain
as startling contradictions, if we keep in
mind the assertion of the orthodox thirty
eight, that the inspired words of the Old
Testament ‘ mean what they say”—z.^., that
they mean what they were necessarily taken
to mean by contemporaries and long subse
quent generations ; for instance, that if th®
inspired writer says days defined by a
morning and an evening, he means natural
days, and not indefinitely long periods. But
this is just what the defenders of orthodoxy
always ignore, and all attempts at recon
ciling the accounts of Creation in Genesis
with the conclusions of science turn on the
assumption that the inspired writers do not
“mean what they say,” but something
entirely different. If they say “ days,” they
mean geological periods of which no reader
had the remotest conception until the
present century. If they say that light was
made before the sun, and the earth before
the sun, moon, and stars, they really mean,
in some unexplained way, to indicate
Newton’s law of gravity, Laplace’s nebular
theory, and the discoveries of the.spectro
scope. By using words, therefore, in a non
natural sense, and surrounding them with
a halo of mystical and misty eloquence,
they evade bringing the pleadings to a dis
tinct and definite issue such as the popular
mind can at once understand. But in the
�HUMAN ORIGINS
case of the Deluge no such evasion is pos
sible. The narrative is a specific statement
of facts alleged to have occurred at a com
paratively recent date, not nearly so remote
as the historical records of Egypt and
Chaldsea, and therefore must be either true
or false. If false, there is an end of any
attempt to consider the whole scientific
and historical portions of the Bible as
written by Divine inspiration; for the
narrative is not one of trivial importance,
but of what is really a second creation of
all life, including man, from a single pair or
very few pairs miraculously preserved and
radiating from a single centre.1
Consider, then, what the narrative of the
Deluge really tells us. First, as to date.
The Hebrew Bible, from which our own is
translated, gives the names of the ten
generations from Noah to Abraham, with
the precise dates of each birth and death,
making the total number of years 297 from
the Flood to Abraham. The Septuagint
version assigns 700 years more than that of
the Hebrew Bible for the interval between
Abraham and Noah ; but this is only done
by increasing the already fabulous age of
the patriarchs. Accepting, however, this
Septuagint version, though it has been
constantly repudiated by the Jews them
selves and by nearly all Christian authori
ties from St. Jerome down to Archbishop
Usher, the date of the Deluge cannot be
carried further back than to about 3000
B.C., a date at least 2,000, and more pro
bably 4,000, years later than that shown by
the records and monuments of Egypt and
Chaldasa, when great empires, populous
cities, and a high degree of civilisation
already existed in those countries. The
statement of the Bible, therefore, is that, at
a date not earlier than 2200 B.c., or at the
very earliest 3000 B.c., a deluge occurred
which “ covered all the high hills that
were under the whole heaven,” and pre
vailed upon the earth for 150 days before
it began to subside; that seven months
and sixteen days elapsed before the tops of
the mountains were first seen ; and that
1 The following arguments so closely resemble
those of Professor Huxley in a recent article in
the Nineteenth Century that it may be well to
state that they were written before I had seen
that article. I insert them not as attempting to
vie with one of the greatest masters of English
prose, but as showing that the same con
clusions inevitably force themselves on all
who understand the first rudiments of Modern
Science.
only after twelve months and ten days
from the commencement of the flood was
the earth sufficiently dried to allow Noah
and the inmates of the Ark to leave it.
Naturally all life was destroyed, with the
exception of Noah and those who were
with him in the Ark, consisting of his wife,
his three sons and their wives; and pairs,
male and female, of all beasts, fowls, and
creeping things ; or, as another account
has it, seven pairs of clean beasts and of
birds, and single pairs of unclean beasts and
creeping things. The statement is abso
lutely specific : “ All flesh died that moved
upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle,
and of beast, and of every creeping thing
that creepeth upon earth, and every man.”
And again : “ Every living substance was
destroyed which was upon the face of the
ground, both men and cattle, and the
creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven,
and they were destroyed from the earth ;
and Noah only remained alive, and they
that were with him in the Ark.” And
finally, when the Ark was opened, “ God
spake unto Noah and said, Go forth of the
Ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and
sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with
thee every living thing that is with thee,
of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and
of every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth, that they may breed abundantly
on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply
upon the earth.”
It is evident that such a narrative cannot
be tortured into any reminiscence of a
partial and local inundation. It might
possibly be taken for a poetical exaggera
tion of some vague myth or tradition of a
local flood, if it were found in the legends
of some early races, or semi-civilised
tribes.
But such an interpretation is
impossible when the narrative is taken, as
orthodox believers take it, as a Divinelyinspired and literally true account contained
in one of the most important chapters in
the history of the relations of man to God.
In this view it is a still more signal
instance than the fall of Adam, of God’s
displeasure with sin and its disastrous
consequences, of his justice and mercy in
sparing the innocent and rewarding
righteousness ; it establishes a new depar
ture for the human race, a new distinction
between the chosen people of Israel and
the accursed Canaanites, based not on
Cain’s murder of Abel, but on Ham’s
irreverence towards his father; and it
introduces a covenant between God and
Noah which continued through Abraham
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
and David, and became the basis of Jewish
nationality and of the Christian dispensa
tion. If in such a narrative there are
manifest errors, the theory of Divine
inspiration obviously breaks down, and the
book which contains it cannot be excepted
from the ordinary rules of historical
criticism.
Now, that no such Deluge as that
described in Genesis ever took place is as
certain as that the earth moves about the
sun. Physical science tells us that it never
could have occurred; geology, zoology,
ethnology, and history all tell us alike that
it never did occur. Physical science tells
us two things about water : that it cannot
be made out of nothing, and that it always
finds its level. In order to cover the
highest mountains on the earth and remain
stationary at that level for months, we must
suppose an uniform shell of water of six
miles in depth to be added to the existing
water of the earth. Even if we take
Ararat as the highest mountain covered,
the shell must have been three miles in
thickness over the whole globe. Where
did this water come from, and where did it
go to ? Rain is simply water raised from
the seas by evaporation, and is returned to
them by rivers. It does not add a single
drop of water to that already existing on
the earth and in its atmosphere. The
heaviest rains do nothing but swell rivers
and inundate the adjacent flat lands to a
depth of a few feet, which rapidly subside.
The only escape from this law of nature
is to suppose some sudden convulsion, such
as a change in the position of the earth’s
axis of rotation, by which the existing
waters of the earth were drained in some
latitudes and heaped up in others. But
any such local accumulation of water
implies a sudden and violent rush to. heap
it up in forty days, and an equally violent
rush to run it down to its old level when
the disturbing cause ceased, as it must
have done in 150 days. Such a disturbance
in recent times is not only inconsistent
with all known facts, but with the positive
statement of the narrative that the whole
earth was covered, and that the Ark floated
quietly on the waters, drifting slowly north
wards, until it grounded on Ararat. The
only other alternative is to suppose a sub
sidence of the land below the level of the
sea. But a subsidence which carried a
whole continent 15,000, or even 1,500 feet
down, followed by an elevation which
brought it back to the old level, both accom
plished within the space of twelve months,
73
is even more impossible than a cataclysmal
deluge of water. Such movements are now,
and have been throughout all the geological
periods, excessively slow, certainly not
exceeding, at the very outside, a few feet in
a century.
And, if physical science shows that no
such Deluge as that described in Genesis
could have occurred, geology is equally
positive that it never did occur. The drift
and boulders which cover a great part of
Europe and North America are beyond all
doubt glacial, and not diluvial. They are
strictly limited by the extension of glaciers
and ice-sheets, and of the streams flowing
from them. The high-level gravels in which
human remains are found in conjunction
with those of extinct animals are the result
of the erosion of valleys by rivers. They
are not marine, they are interstratified with
beds of sand and silt, containing often deli
cate fluviatile shells, which were deposited
when the stream ran tranquilly, as the
coarser gravels were deposited when it ran
with a stronger torrent. And the gravels of
adjacent valleys, even when separated by a
low water-shed, are not intermixed, but
each composed of the debris of its own
system of drainage, by which small rivers
like the Somme and the Avon have, in the
course of ages, scooped out their present
valleys to an extent of more than 100 feet
in depth and two miles in width. Masses
of loose sand, volcanic ashes, and other in
coherent materials of tertiary formation
remain on the surface, which must have
been swept away by anything resembling a
diluvial wave. And, above all, Egypt and
other flat countries adjoining the sea, such
as the deltas of the Euphrates, the Ganges,
and the Mississippi, which must have been
submerged by a slight elevation of the sea
or subsidence of the land, show by borings,
carried in some cases to the depth of 100
feet and upwards, nothing but an accumu
lation of such tranquil deposits as are now
going on, continued for hundreds of cen
turies, and uninterrupted by anything like a
marine or diluvial deposit.
Zoology is even more emphatic than
geology in showing the impossibility of
accepting the narrative of the Deluge as a
true representation of actual events. Who
ever wrote it must have had ideas of science
as infantile as those of the children who are
amused by a toy ark in the nursery. His
range of vision could hardly have extended
beyond the confines of his own country.
And, if a reductio ad absurdum were needed
of the fallacies to which reconcilers are
�74
HUMAN ORIGINS
driven, it would be afforded by Sir J. W.
Dawson’s comparison of the Ark to an
American cattle-steamer. Recollect that
the date assigned to the Deluge affords no
time for the development of new species
and races, since every “living substance
was destroyed that was upon the face of the
ground,” except the pairs preserved in the
Ark. It is a question, therefore, not of one
pair of bears, but of many—polar, grizzly,
brown, and all the varieties, down to the
pigmy bear of Sumatra. So of cattle :
there must have been not only pairs of the
wild and domestic species of Europe, but
of the gaur of India, the Brahmin bull, the
yak, the musk-ox, and of all the many
species of buffaloes and bisons. If we take
the larger animals only, there must have
been several pairs of elephants, rhinoce
roses, camels, horses, oxen, buffaloes, elk,
deer and antelopes, apes, zebras, and
innumerable others of the herbivora, to say
nothing of lions, tigers, and other carnivora.
Let any one calculate the cubic space
which such a collection would require for a
year’s voyage under hatches, and he will see
at once the absurdity of supposing that
they could have been stowed away in the
Ark. And this is only the beginning of the
difficulty, for all the smaller animals, all
birds, and all creeping things have also to
be accommodated, and to live together for
a year under conditions of temperature and
otherwise which, if suited for some, must
inevitably have been fatal for others. How
did polar bears, lemmings, and snowy owls
live in a temperature suited for monkeys
and humming-birds ?
Then there is the crowning difficulty of
the food. Go to the Zoological Gardens,
and inquire as to the quantity and bulk of
a year’s rations for elephants, giraffes, and
lions, or multiply by 365 the daily allow
ance of hay and oats for horses, and of
grass or green food for bullocks, and it will
soon be found that the bulk required for
food is far greater than that of the animals.
And what did the birds and creeping
things feed upon ? Were there rats and
mCce for the owls, gnats for the swallows,
worms and butterflies for the thrushes, and
generally a supply of insects for the lizards,
toads, and other insectivora, whether birds,
reptiles, or mammals? And of the humbler
forms which live on microscopic animals
and on each other, were they also included
in the destruction of “ every living sub
stance,” and was the earth repeopled with
•them from the single centre of Ararat ?
Here also Zoology has a decisive word to I
say. The earth could not have been
repeopled, within any recent geological
time, from any single centre, for in point of
fact it is divided into distinct zoological
provinces. The fauna of Australia, for
instance, is totally different from that of
Europe, Asia, and America. How did the
kangaroo get there, if he is descended
from a pair preserved in the Ark? Did
he perchance jump at one bound from
Ararat to the Antipodes ?
Ethnology again takes up a limited
branch of the same subject, but one which
is more immediately interesting to us—
that of the variety of human races. The
narrative of Genesis states positively that
“ every man in whose nostrils was the'
breath of life ” was destroyed by the Flood,
except those who were saved in the Ark,
and that “ the whole earth was overspread”
of the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham,
and Japheth. That is, it asserts distinctly
that all the varieties of the human race
have descended from one common ancestor,
Noah, who lived not more than 5,000 years
ago. Consider the vast variety and diver
sity of human races existing now, and in
some of the most typical instances shown
by Egyptian and Chaldaean monuments to
have existed before Noah was born—the
black and woolly-haired Negroes, the
yellow Mongolians, the Australians, the
Negritos, the Hottentots, the pygmies of
Stanley’s African forest, the Esquimaux,
the American Red Indians, and an immense
number of others, differing fundamentally
from one another in colour, stature,
language, and almost every trait, physical
and moral. To suppose these to have all
descended from a single pair, Noah and
his wife, and to have “spread over the
whole earth ” from Ararat, since 3000 years
B.C., is simply absurd. No man of good
faith can honestly say that he believes it to
be true ; and, if not true, what becomes of
inspiration ?
If anything were wanting to complete
the demonstration, it would be furnished
by history. We have perfectly authentic
historical records, confirmed by monu
ments, extending in Egypt to a date
certainly 3,000 years older than that
assigned for Noah’s Deluge ; an.d similar
records in Chaldaea going back as far.
In none of these is there any mention of
an universal deluge as an historical event
occurring within the period of time
embraced by those records. The only
reference to such a deluge is contained in
one chapter of a Chaldaean epic poem
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
based on a solar myth, and placed in an
immense and fabulous antiquity. In Egypt
the case is, if possible, even stronger, for
here the configuration of the Nile valley is
such that anything approaching an
universal deluge must have destroyed all
traces of civilisation, and buried the country
thousands of feet under a deep ocean.
Even a very great local inundation must
have spread devastation far and wide, and
been a memorable event in all subsequent
annals. When remarkable natural events,
such as earthquakes, did occur, they are
mentioned in the annals of the reigning
king, but no mention is made of any
deluge. On the contrary, all the records
and monuments confirm the statement
made by the priests of Heliopolis to
Herodotus when they showed him the
statues of the 360 successive high priests
who had all been “mortal men, sons of
mortal men,” that during this long period
there had been no change in the average
duration of human life, and no departure
from the ordinary course of nature.
When this historical evidence is added
to that of geology, which shows that
nothing resembling a deluge could have
occurred in the valleys of the Nile or
Euphrates without leaving unmistakable
traces of its passage which are totally
absent, the demonstration seems as con
clusive as that of any of the propositions of
Euclid.
It remains to consider why so many
traditions of a deluge should be found
among so many different races often so
widely separated. There are three ways in
which deluge-myths must have originated.
1. From tradition of destructive local
floods.
2. From the presence of marine shells
on what is now dry land.
3. From the diffusion of solar myths
like that of Izdubar.
There can be no doubt that destructive
local floods must have frequently occurred
in ancient and prehistoric times as they do
at the present day. Such an inundation
as that of the Yang-tse-Kiang, which
destroyed half a million of people, or the
hurricane wave which swept over the
Sunderbunds, must have left an impres
sion which, among isolated and illiterate
people, might readily take the form of an
universal deluge. And such catastrophes
must have been specially frequent in the
early post-glacial period, when the ice
dams, which converted many valleys into
lakes, were melting.
75
But I am inclined to doubt whether the
tradition of such local floods was ever pre
served long enough to account for deluge
myths. All experience shows that the
memory of historical events fades away
with surprising rapidity when it is not pre
served by written records. If, as Xenophon
records, all memory of the great city of
Nineveh had disappeared in 200 years after
its destruction, how can it be expected that
oral tradition shall preserve a recollection
of prehistoric local floods magnified into
universal deluges ?
And when the deluge-myths of different
nations are examined closely, it generally
appears that they have had an origin rather
in solar myths or cosmogonical specula
tions than in actual facts. For instance,
the tradition of a deluge in Mexico has
often been referred to as a confirmation of
the Noachian flood. But when looked into
it appears that this Mexican deluge was
only a part of their mythical cosmogony,
which told of four successive destructions
and renovations of the world by the four
elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The
first period being closed by earthquakes,
the second by hurricanes, the third by vol
canoes, it did not require any local tradition
to ensure the fourth being closed by a flood.
Again, deluge-myths must have inevitably
arisen from the presence of marine shells,
fossil and recent, in many localities where
they were too numerous to escape notice.
If palaeolithic stone implements and bones
of fossil elephants gave rise to myths of
thunderbolts and giants, sea-shells on
mountain-tops must have given rise to
speculations as to deluges. At the very
beginning of history, Egyptian and Chaldsean astronomers were sufficiently advanced'
in science to endeavour to account for such
phenomena, and to argue that where sea
shells were found the sea must once have
been. Many of the deluge-myths of anti
quity, such as that of Deucalion and Pyrrha,
look very much as if this had been their
origin. They are too different from the
Chaldaean and Biblical Deluge, as for
instance in repeopling the world by stones,
to have been copied from the same original,
and they fit in with the very general belief
of ancient nations that they were autoch
thonous.
In a majority of cases, however, I believe
it will be found that deluge-myths have
originated from some transmission, more or
less distorted, of the very ancient Chaldaean
astronomical myths of the passage of the
sun through the signs of the zodiac. For
�76
HUMAN ORIGINS
example, in the Hindoo mythology the
fish-god Ea-han, or Oannes, is introduced
as a divine fish who swims up to the Ark
and guides it to a place of refuge.
The legend in Genesis is much closer to
the original myth, and, in fact, almost iden
tical with that of the deluge of Parnapishtim (formerly read as Hasisadra) in the
Chaldaean epic, discovered by Mr. George
Smith among the clay tablets in the British
Museum. This poem was obviously based
on an astronomical myth. It was in twelve
chapters, dedicated to the sun’s passage
through the twelve signs of the zodiac. The
adventures of Gilgamesh (formerly read as
Izdubar), like those of Heracles, have
obvious reference to these signs, and to the
sun’s birth, growth, summer splendour,
decline to the tomb when smitten with the
sickness of approaching winter by the in
censed Nature-goddess, and final new birth
and resurrection from the nether world.
The Deluge is introduced as an episode
told to Gilgamesh during his descent to the
lower regions by his ancestor Parnapishtim,
one of the God-kings, who are said to have
reigned for periods of tens of thousands of
years. It has every appearance of being a.
myth to commemorate the sun’s passage
through the rainy sign of Aquarius, just as
the contests of Izdubar and Heracles with
Leo, Taurus, Draco, Sagittarius, etc.,
symbolise his passage through other
zodiacal constellations.
It forms the
eleventh chapter of the Epic of Gilgamesh,
corresponding to the eleventh month of
the Chaldaean year, which was the time of
heavy rains and floods.
Now, this deluge of Parnapishtim, as
related by Berosus, and still more distinctly
by Smith’s Izdubar tablets, corresponds so
closely with that of Noah that no doubt can
remain that one is taken from the other.
All the principal incidents and the order of
events are the same, and even particular
expressions, such as the dove finding no
rest for the sole of her foot, are so identical
as to show that they must have been taken
from the same written record. Even the
name Noah is that of Nouah, the Semitic
translation of the Akkadian god who pre
sided over the realm of water, and navi
gated the bark or ark of the sun across it,
when returning from its setting in the west
to its rising in the east. The chief differ
ence is the same as in the Chaldaean and
Biblical cosmogonies of the creation of the
universe—viz., that theformer is Polytheistic,
and the latter Monotheistic. Where the
former talks of Bel, Ea, and Istar, the I
latter attributes everything to Jehovah or
Elohim. Thus the warning to Parnapish
tim is given in a dream sent by Ea, who is
a sort of Chaldaean Prometheus, or kindly
god, who wishes to save mankind from the
total destruction contemplated by the
wrathful superior god, Bel; while in
Genesis it is “Elohim said unto Noah.”
In Genesis the altar is built to the Lord,
who smells the sweet savour of the sacrifice,
while in the Chaldaean legend the altar is
built to the seven gods, who “ smelt the
sweet savour of sacrifice, and swarmed like
bees about it.”
The Chaldaean narrative is more prolix,
more realistic, and, on the whole, more
scientific. That is, it mitigates some of the
more obvious impossibilities ofthe Noachian
narrative. Instead of an ark, there is a
ship with a steersman, which was certainly
more likely to survive the perils of a long
voyage on the stormy waters of an universal
ocean. The duration of the Deluge and of
the voyage is shortened from a year to a
little more than a month; more human
beings are saved, as Parnapishtim takes
on board not his own family only, but
several of his friends and relations ; and
the difficulty of repeopling the earth from a
single centre is diminished by throwing the
date of the Deluge back to an immense and
mythical antiquity. On the other hand,
the moral and religious significance of the
legend is accentuated in the Hebrew
narrative. It is no longer the capricious
anger of an offended Bel which decrees the
destruction of mankind, but the righteous
indignation of the one Supreme God
against sin, tempered by justice and mercy
towards the upright man who was “ perfect
in his generations.”
I have dwelt at such length on the Deluge
because it affords a crucial test of the dogma
of Divine inspiration for the whole of the
Bible. The account of the Creation may
be obscured by forced interpretations and
misty eloquence ; but there can be no mis
take as to the specific and precise state
ments respecting the second creation of
man and of animal life. They are either
true or untrue ; and the issue is one upon
which any unprejudiced mind of ordinary
intelligence and information can arrive at a
conclusive verdict. If there nevei" was an
universal Deluge within historical times ; if
the highest mountains were never covered ;
if all life was never destroyed, except the
contents of the Ark; if the whole animal
creation, including beasts, birds, and creeping things, never lived together for twelve
�PREHISTORIC TRADITIONS
months cooped-up in it ; and if the earth
was not repeopled with all the varieties of
the human race, and all the orders, genera,
and species of animal life, from a single
centre at Ararat, then the Bible is not in
spired as regards its scientific and historical
statements. This, however, in no way
affects the question of the inspiration (as
this is defined in the next chapter) of the
religious and moral portions of the Bible.
I have sometimes thought how, if 1 were
an advocate stating the case for the inspi
ration of the Bible, I should be inclined to
put it. I should start with Archbishop
Temple’s definition of the First Cause, a
personal God, with faculties like ours, but
so transcendentally greater that he had no
occasion to be perpetually patching and
mending his work, but did everything by
an “original impress,” which included all
subsequent evolution, as the nucleolus in
the primitive ovum includes the whole evo
lution and subsequent life of the chicken,
mammal, or man. I should go on to say
that the Bible has clearly been an important
factor in this evolution of the human race ;
that it consists of two portions—one of
moral and religious import, the other of
scientific statements and theories, relating
to such matters of purely human reason as
astronomy, geology, literary criticism, and
ancient history ; and that these two parts
are essentially different. It is quite con
ceivable that, on the hypothesis of a Divine
Creator, one step in the majestic evolution
from the original impress should have
been that men of genius and devout
nature should write books containing juster
notions of man’s relations to his Maker
than prevailed in the polytheisms of early
civilisations, and thus gradually educating
a peculiar people who accepted these
writings as sacred, and preparing the
ground for a still higher and purer religion.
But it is not conceivable that this, which
may be called inspiration of the religious
and moral teaching, should have been
extended to closing the record of all human
discovery and progress, by teaching, as it
were by rote, all that subsequent genera
tions have, after long and painful effort,
found out for themselves.
In point of fact, the Bible does not teach
such truths, for in the domain of science it
is full of the most obvious errors, and
teaches nothing but what were the primitive
myths, legends, and traditions of the early
races. It is to be observed also that, on
the theory of “ original impress,” those
errors are just as much a part of the
77
evolution of the Divine idea as the moral
and religious truths. Those who insist
that all or none of the Bible must be
inspired, remind me of the king who said
that, if God had only consulted him in his
scheme of creation, he could have saved
him from a good many mistakes. It is not
difficult to understand how even if we
assume the theory of inspiration, or of
original impress, for the religious portion
of the Bible, the other or scientific portion
should have been purposely left open to all
the errors and contradictions of the human
intellect in its early strivings to arrive at
some sort of conception of the origin of
things, and of the laws of the universe.
And also that a collection of narratives of
different dates and doubtful authorship
should bear on the face of them evidence
of the writers sharing in the errors and
prejudices, and generally adopting points
of view of successive generations of con
temporaries.
Assuming this theory, I can only say for
myself that the removal of the wet blanket
of literal inspiration makes me turn to the
Bible with increased interest. It is a most
valuable record of the ways of thinking,
and of the early conceptions of religion
and science in the ancient world, and a
most instructive chapter in the history of
the evolution of the human mind from
lower to higher things. _ Above all, it is a
record of the preparation of the soil, in a
peculiar race, for Christianity, which has
been and is such an important factor in
the history of the foremost races and
highest civilisations. With all the errors
"and absurdities, all the crimes and cruelties
which have attached themselves to it, but
which in the light of science and free
thought are rapidly being sloughed off, it
cannot be denied that the European, and
especially our English-speaking races,
stand on a higher platform than would have
been reached had the Saracens been vic
torious at Tours, with the result, in Gibbon’s
words, that “ perhaps the interpretation of
the Koran would now be taught at Oxford,”
while her pulpits demonstrated “ to a cir
cumcised people the sanctity and truth of
the revelation of Mohammed.”
�78
HUMAN ORIGINS
CHAPTER VII.
impress,” though possibly, with our limited
faculties. and knowledge, I might think
“ Evolution” a more modest term to apply
to that “increasing purpose” which the
poet tells us—
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE
OLD TESTAMENT
“ Thro’ the ages runs,
Ana the thoughts of men are widened with the
process of the suns.”
Moral and Religious distinct from Historical
Inspiration—Myth and Allegory—The Higher
Criticism—-Ancient History and Monuments
—Cyrus—Composite Structure of Old Testa
ment—Elohist and Jehovist—Priests’ CodeCanon Driver—Book of Chronicles—Methods
of Jewish Historians—Post-Exilic References
— Tradition of Esdras—Nehemiah and Ezra—
Foundation of Modern Judaism—Different
from Pre-Exilic—Discovery of Book of the
Law under Josiah—Deuteronomy—Earliest
Sacred Writings—Conclusions—Aristocratic
and Prophetic Schools—Triumph of Pietism
—Pre-Abrahamic and Patriarchal Period
mythical—Discordant Chronology—Josephus’
Quotation from Manetho—Doubtful Traces
of Egyptian Influence—Future Life—Legend
of Joseph—Moses—Osarsiph—Life of Moses
full of Legends—-His Birth—Plagues of
Egypt—The Exoci us — Colenso — Contradic
tions and Impossibilities •— Immoralities —
Massacres — Joshua and the Judges—Bar
barisms and Absurdities—Only safe Conclu
sion no Authentic History before the
Monarchy—David and Solomon—Compara
tively Modern Date.
But, admitting this, I do not see how
any one who is at all acquainted with the
results of modern science and of historical
criticism can doubt that the materials with
which this edifice was gradually built up
consist, to a great extent, of myths, legends,
and traditions of rude and unscientific ages
which have no pretension to be true state
ments or real history.
After all, this is only applying to the Old
the same principles of interpretation which
are applied to the New Testament. If the
theory of literal inspiration requires us to
accept the manifest impossibilities ofNoah’s
Deluge, why does it not equally compel us
to believe that there really was a rich man
who fared sumptuously every day, a beggar
named Lazarus, and that there are definite
localities of a Heaven and Hell within
speaking distance of one another, though
separated by an impassable gulf? The
assertion is made positively and without
any reservation. There was a rich man ;
Lazarus died, and was carried to Abraham's
bosom; and Dives cried to Abraham, who
answered him in a detailed colloquy. But
common-sense steps in and says all this
never actually occurred, but was invented
to illustrate by a parable the moral truth
that it is wrong for the selfish rich to
neglect the suffering poor.
Why should not common sense equally
step in, and say of the narrative of the
Garden of Eden, with its trees of Knowledge
and of Life, that here is an obvious allegory,
stating the problem which has perplexed so
many generations of men, of the origin of
evil, man’s dual nature, and how to recon
cile the fact of the existence of sin and
suffering with the theory of a benevolent
and omnipotent Creator? Or again, why
hesitate to admit that the story of the
Deluge is not literal history, but a version
of a chapter of an old Chaldaean solar epic,
revised in a monotheistic sense, and used
for the purpose of impressing the lesson
that the ways of sin are ways of destruc
tion, and that righteousness is the true path
of safety ? This is in effect what Conti
nental critics have long recognised, and
what the most liberal and learned Anglican
Divines of the present day are beginning
In dealing with the historical portion of
the Old Testament, it is important to keep
clearly in view the distinction between the
historical and the religious and moral
elements which are contained in the collec
tion of works comprised under that title. It
is open to any one to hold that there runs
through the whole of these writings a
certain moral and religious idea, which is
gradually developed from rude beginnings
into pure and lofty views of an Almighty
God who created all things, and who loves
justice and mercy better than the blood of
mules and rams. It is open to him to call
this inspiration, and to see it also in the
series of influences and events by which
the Jews were moulded into a peculiar
people, through whose instrumentality the
two great Monotheistic religions of the
world, Judaism and Mohammedanism, and
the quasi-Monotheistic (for it is in essence
Tritheistic) Christianity, superseded the
. older forms of polytheism.
With inspiration in this sense I have no
quarrel, any more than I have with Arch
bishop Temple’s definition of “original
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
to recognise; for we find Oxford Pro
fessors like Canon Driver and Canon
Cheyne insisting on “the fundamental im
portance of disengaging the religious from
the critical and historical problems of the
Old Testament.” We hear a great deal
about the “ higher criticism,” and those who
dislike its conclusions try to represent it as
something very obscure and unintelligible,
spun from the inner consciousness of
German pedants. But there is nothing
obscure about it. It is simply the criticism
of common sense applied from a higher
point of view, which embraces, not the
immediate subject only, but all branches of
human knowledge which are related to it.
This new criticism bears the same relation
to the old as Mommsen’s History of Rome
does to the school-boy manuals which used
to assume Romulus and Remus, Numa and
Tarquin, as real men who lived and reigned
just as certainly as Julius Caesar and
Augustus.
This criticism has now been so systema
tised by the labours of a number of earnest
and learned men in all the principal
countries of Europe that it has risen to the
dignity and security of a science; and,
although there are still differences as to
details, its leading theories are no more in
dispute than those of Geology or Biology.
The conclusions of enlightened English
divines like Driver, Sayce, and Cheyne are
practically the same as those of Kuenen,
Wellhausen, Dillmann, and Renan, and
any one who wishes to have any intelli
gent understanding of the Hebrew Bible
must take those conclusions into con
sideration.
Although the Old Testament does not
carry history back nearly as far as the
records of Egypt and Chaldasa, it affords
a very interesting picture of the ways of
thinking of ancient races, of speculations
about their origin and diffusion, of their
manners and customs, of their popular
legends and traditions, and of their first
attempts to solve problems of science and
philosophy.
It is with these historical matters only
that I propose to deal, and this not in the
way of minute criticism, but of the broad,
common-sense aspects of the question, and
in view of the salient facts which rise up
like guiding pillars in the vast mass of
literature on the subject, of which it may
be said, in the words of St. John’s Gospel,
that, if all that has been written were
collected, “ I suppose that even the world
itself could not contain the books.”
79
I may begin by referring to the extreme
uncertainty that attaches to all ancient
history unless it is confirmed by monu
ments, or by comparison with annals of
other nations which have been so confirmed.
The instance of Cyrus, which has been
already given, is a most instructive one, since
it teaches us to regard with considerable
doubt all history prior to the fifth or sixth
century B.c. which is not confirmed by
contemporary monuments.
The historical portion of the Old Testa
ment is singularly deficient in this essential
point of confirmation.
But we are
somewhat anticipating matters which fall
more fitly into place later on, and the first
thing necessary is to have some clear idea
of what this Old Testament really consists.
Until the recent era of scientific criticism,
it was assumed to constitute, in effect, one
volume, the earlier chapters of which were
written by Moses, and the later ones by a
continuance of the same Divine inspiration,
which made the Bible from Genesis to
Chronicles one consistent and infallible
whole, in which it was impossible that
there should be any error or contradiction.
Such a theory could not stand a' moment’s
investigation in the free light of reason.
It is only necessary to read the first two
chapters of Genesis to see that the book is
of a composite structure, made up of
different and inconsistent elements. We
have only to include in the first chapter the
first two verses printed in the second
chapter, and to write the original Hebrew
word “Elohim’’for “God,” and “Yahve”
or Jehovah for “Lord God,” to see this at
a glance.
The two accounts of the creation of the
heaven and earth, of animal and vegetable
life, and of man, are quite different. In
the first, man is created last, male and
female, in the image of God, with dominion
over all the previous forms of matter and
of life, which have been created for his
benefit. In the second, man is formed
from the dust of the earth immediately
after the creation of the heavens and earth
and of the vegetable world; and subse
quently all the beasts of the field and fowls
of the air are formed out of the ground, and
brought to Adam to name, while, last of all,
woman is made frorfi a rib taken from
Adam.
The two narratives, Elohistic and Jehovistic, thus distinguished by the different
names of God and by a number of other
peculiarities,run almost side by side through
a great part of the earlier portion of the
�8o
HUMAN ORIGINS
Old Testament, presenting often flagrant
contradictions.
Thus Lamech, the father of Noah, is re
presented in one as a descendant of Cain,
in the other, of Seth. Canaan is in one the
grandson of Adam, in the other the grand
son of Noah. The Elohistsays that Noah
took two of each sort of living things, a
male and a female, into the ark ; the Jehovist that he took seven pairs of clean, and
single pairs of unclean, animals.
The difference between these narratives,
the Elohistic and Jehovistic, is, however,
only the first and most obvious instance of
the composite.character of the Pentateuch.
These narratives are distinguished from
one another by a number of minute
peculiarities of language and expressions,
and they are both embedded in the much
larger mass of matter which relates mainly
to the sacrificial and ceremonial system of
the Israelites, and to the position, privi
leges, and functions of the priests and
priestly caste of Levites. This is com
monly known as the “ Priests’ Code,” and
a great deal of it is obviously of late date,
having relation to practices and ceremonies
which had gradually grown up after the
foundation of the Temple at Jerusalem.
A vast amount of erudition has been
expended in the minute analysis of these
different documents by learned scholars
who have devoted their lives to the subject.
I shall not attempt to enter upon it, but
content myself with taking the main results
from Canon Driver, both because he is
thoroughly competent from his knowledge
of the latest foreign criticism and from
his position as Professor of Hebrew, and
because he cannot be suspected of any
adverse leaning to the old orthodox views.
In fact he is a strenuous advocate of the
inspiration of the Bible, taken in the
larger sense of the religious and moral
purpose underlying the often mistaken
and conflicting statements of fallible
writers.
The conclusions at which he arrives, in
common with a great majority of competent
critics in all countries, are :—
1. That the old orthodox belief that the
Pentateuch is one work written by Moses
is quite untenable.
2. That the Pentateuch and Book of
Joshua have been formed by the combina
tion of different layers of narrative, each
marked by characteristic features of its
own.
3. That the Elohistic and Jehovistic
narratives, which are the oldest portion of I
the. collection, have nothing archaic in
their style, but belong to the golden period
of Hebrew literature, the date assigned to
them by most critics being not earlier than
the eighth or ninth century B.c., though of
course they may be founded partly on older
legends and traditions ; and, on the other
hand, they contain many passages which
could only have been introduced by some
post-exilic editor.
4. That Deuteronomy, which is placed.
almost unanimously by critics in the reign
of either Josiah or Manasseh, is absolutely
inconsistent in many respects with the
Priests’ Code, and apparently of earlier
date, before the priestly system had crystal
lised into such a definite code of minute
regulations as we find it in the later days
of Jewish history after the Exile.
5. There is a difference of opinion, how
ever, in respect to the date of the Priests’
Code, Kuenen, Wellhausen, and Graf hold
ing it to be post-Deuteronomic, and pro
bably committed to writing during the
period from the beginning of the exile to
the time of Nehemiah, while Dillmann
assigns the main body to about 800
B.c., though admitting that additions
may have been made as late as the time
of Ezra.
Being concerned mainly with the his
torical question, I shall not attempt to
pursue this higher criticism further, but
content myself with referring to the prin
cipal points which, judged by the broad
conclusions of common sense, stand out
as guiding pillars in the mass of details.
Taking these in ascending order of time,
they seem to me to be—
1. The Book of Chronicles.
2. The foundation of modern Judaism as
described in the Books of Ezra and Nehe
miah.
3. The discovery of the Book of the Law
or Deuteronomy in the reign of Josiah.
The Book of Chronicles is important
because we know its date—viz., about 300
B.c., and to a great extent the materials
from which it was compiled—viz., the Books
of Samuel and Kings. We have thus an
object-lesson as to the way in which a
Hebrew writer, as late as 300 B.c., or nearly
300 years after the exile, composed history
and treated the earlier records. It is totally
different from the method of a classical or
modern historian, and may be aptly de
scribed as a “ scissors and paste ” method.
That is to say, he makes excerpts from the
sources at his disposal; sometimes inserts
them consecutively and without alteration ;
�81
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
at other times makes additions and changes
of his own ; and, in Canon Driver’s words,
“does not scruple to omit wha^ is not
required for his purpose, and in fact treats
his authorities with considerable freedom.”
He also does not scruple to put into the
mouth of David and other historical
characters of the olden time speeches which,
from their spirit, grammar, and vocabulary,
are evidently of his own age and composi
tion.
If this was the method of a writer as late
as 300 B.C., whose work was afterwards
received as canonical, two things are evi
dent. First, that the canon of the earlier
Books of the Old Testament could not have
been then fixed and invested with the same
sacred authority as we find to be the case
two or three centuries later, when the Thora,
or Book of Moses and the Prophets, was
regarded very much as the Moslems regard
the Koran, as an inspired volume which it
was impious to alter by a single jot or tittle.
This late date for fixing the canon of the
Books of the Old Testament is confirmed
by Canon Cheyne’s learned and exhaustive
work on the Psalter, in which he shows that
a great majority of the Psalms; attributed
to David, were written in the time of the
Maccabees, and that there are only one or
two doubtful cases in which it can be
plausibly contended that any of the Psalms
are pre-exilic.
Secondly, that if a_writer, as late as 300
B.C., could employ this method, and get his
work accepted as a part of the Sacred
Canon, a writer who lived earlier, say any
time between the Chronicler and the founda
tion of the Jewish Monarchy, might pro
bably adopt the same methods. If the
Chronicler put a speech of his own compo
sition into the mouth of David, the Deuteronomist might well do so in the case of
Moses. According to the ideas of the age
and country, this would not be considered
to be what we moderns would call literary
forgery, but rather a legitimate and praise
worthy means of giving authority to good
precepts and sentiments.
A perfect illustration of the “scissors
and paste” method is afforded by the
first and second chapters of Genesis,
and the way in which the Elohistic
and Jehovistic narratives are so strangely
intermingled throughout the Pentateuch.
No attempt is made to blend the two narraifives into one harmonious and consistent
whole, but excerpts, sometimes from one and
sometimes from the other, are placed
together without any attempt to explain
away the evident contradictions, Clearly
the same hand could not have written both
narratives, and the compilation must have
been made by some subsequent editor, or
editors, for there is conclusive proof that
the final edition, as it has come down to us,
could not have been made until after the
Exile. Thus in Leviticus xxvi. we find, “ I
will scatter you among the heathen, and
your land shall be desolate, and your cities
waste,” and “ they that are left of you shall
pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’
land.” And in Deuteronomy xxix., “ And
the Lord rooted them out of their land in
anger, and in wrath, and in great indigna
tion, and cast them into another land, as it
is to this day.” Even in Genesis, which
professes to be the earliest Book, we find
(xii. 6), “ and the Canaanite was then in the
land.” This could not have been written
until the memory of the Canaanite had
become a tradition of a remote past, and
this could not have been until after the
return of the Jews from the Babylonian
Captivity, for we find from the Books of
Ezra and Nehemiah that the Canaanites
were then still in the land, and the Jewish
leaders, and even priests and Levites, were
intermarrying freely with Canaanite wives.
The Apocryphal Book of Esdras contains
a legend that, the sacred books of the Law
having been lost or destroyed when Jeru
salem was taken by Nebuchadrezzar, they
were re-written miraculously by Ezra dic
tating to five ready writers at once in a
wonderfully short time. This is a counter
part of the legend of the Septuagint being
a translation of the Hebrew text into Greek,
made by seventy different translators, whose
separate versions agreed down to the
minutest particular. This legend, in the
case of the Septuagint, is based on an
historical fact that there really was a Greek
translation of the Hebrew Sacred Books
made by order of Ptolemy Philadel/phus;
and it may well be that the legend of
Esdras contains some reminiscence of an
actual fact, that among the other reforms
introduced by Ezra a new and complete
edition of the old writings was made and
stamped with a sacred character.
These reforms, and the condition of the
Jewish people after the return from the
Captivity, as disclosed by the Books of
Nehemiah and Ezra, afford what I call the
second guiding pillar, in our attempt to
trace backwards the course of Jewish his
tory. Those books were indeed not written
in their present form until a later period,
and, as most critics think, by the same hand
G
�82
HUMAN ORIGINS
as Chronicles; but there is no reason to
doubt the substantial accuracy of the his
torical statements, which relate, not to a
remote antiquity, but to a comparatively
recent period after the use of writing had
become general. They constitute, in fact,
the dividing line between ancient and
modern Judaism, and show us the origin of
the latter.
Modern Judaism—that is, the religious
and social life of the Jewish people, since
they fairly entered into the current of
modern history, has been marked by many
strong and characteristic peculiarities.
The Jews have been zealously, almost
fanatically, attached to the idea of one
Supreme God, Jehovah, with whom they
had a special covenant inherited from
Abraham, and whose will, in regard to all
religious rites and ceremonies and social
usages, was conveyed to them in a sacred
book containing the inspired writings of
Moses and the Prophets. This led them
to consider themselves a peculiar people,
and to regard all other nations with aver
sion, as being idolaters and unclean, feel
ings which were returned by the rest of the
world, so that they stood alone, hating and
being hated. No force or persuasion was
required in order to prevent them from
lapsing into idolatry or intermarrying with
heathen women. On the contrary, they
were inspired to the most heroic efforts,
and ready to endure the severest sufferings
and martyrdom for the pure faith. The
belief in the sacred character of their
ancient writings gradually crystallised into
a faith as absolute as that of the Moslems
in the Koran; a canon was formed, and
although, as we have seen in the case of
the Chronicles and Psalms, some time
must have elapsed before this sacred cha
racter was fully recognised, it ended in a
theory of the literal inspiration of every
word of the Old Testament down even to
the commas and vowel points, and in the
establishment of learned schools of Scribes
and Pharisees, whose literary labours were
concentrated on expounding the text in
synagogues, and writing volumes of Tal
mudic commentaries of unsurpassed
tediousness.
Now, during the period preceding the
Exile all this was very different. So far
from being zealous for one Supreme God,
Jehovah was long recognised only as a
tribal.or national god, one among the many
gods of surrounding nations, but primus
inter pares, or “ first among equals.” When
the idea of a Supreme Deity, who loved
justice and mercy better than the blood of
bullocks and rams, was at length elaborated
by the later prophets, it received but scant
acceptance. The great majority of the
kings and people, both of Judah and Israel,
were always ready to lapse into idolatry,
worship strange gods, golden calves, and
brazen serpents, and flock to the alluring
rites of Baal and Astarte in groves and
high places. They were also always ready
to intermarry freely with heathen wives,
and to form political alliances with heathen
nations. There is no trace of the religious
and social repulsion towards other races
which forms such a marked trait in modern
Judaism. Nor, as we shall see presently,
is there any evidence, prior to the reign of
Josiah, of anything like a sacred book or
code of divine laws, universally known and
accepted. The Books of Nehemiah and
Ezra afford invaluable evidence of the time
and manner in which this modern Judaism
was stamped upon the character of the
people after the return from exile. We are
told that when Ezra came to Jerusalem
from Babylon, armed with a decree of
Artaxerxes, he was scandalised at finding
that nearly all the Jews, including the
principal nobles and many priests and
Levites,had intermarried with the daughters
of the people of the land, “of the Canaanites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites,
Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites.”
Backed by Nehemiah, the cup-bearer and
favourite of Artaxerxes, who had been
appointed governor of Jerusalem, he per
suaded or compelled the J ews to put away
these wives and their children, and to
separate themselves as a peculiar people
from other nations.
It was a cruel act, characteristic of the
fanatical spirit of priestly domination,
which, when these conflict with its aggran
disement, never hesitates to trample on the
natural affections and the laws of charity
and mercy. But it was the means of crystal
lising the Jewish race into a mould so rigid
that it defied wars, persecutions, and all
dissolving influences, and preserved the
idea of Monotheism which was to grow up
into the world-wide religions of Christianity
and Mohammedanism. So true is it that
evolution works out its results by un
expected means often opposed to what
seem like the best instincts of human
nature.
What is important, however, is to ob
serve that clearly at this date the popu
lation of the Holy Land must have
consisted mainly of the descendants of
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
the old races, who had been con
quered, but not exterminated, by the
Israelites. Such a sentence as “for the
Canaanites were then in the land” could
not have been written till long after the
time when the Jews were intermarrying
freely with Canaanite wives. Nor does it
seem possible that codes, such as those of
Leviticus, Numbers, and the Priests’ Code,
could have been generally known and
accepted as sacred books written by Moses
under Divine inspiration, when the rulers,
nobles, and even priests and Levites acted
in such apparent ignorance of them. In
fact, we are told in Nehemiah that Ezra
read and explained the Book of the Law,
whatever that may have included, to the
people, who apparently had no previous
knowledge of it.
By far the most important landmark,
however, in the history of the Old Testa
ment is afforded by the account in 2 Kings
xxii. and xxiii. of the discovery of the Book
of the Law in the Temple in the eighteenth
year of the reign of Josiah. It says that
Shaphan the scribe, having been sent by
the king to Hilkiah the high priest, to
obtain an account of the silver collected
from the people for the repairs of the
Temple, Hilkiah told him that he had
“ found the Book of the Law in the house
of the Lord.” Shaphan brought it to the
king and read it to him ; whereupon Josiah,
in great consternation at finding that so
many of its injunctions had been violated,
and that such dreadful penalties were
threatened, rent his clothes, and, being con
firmed in his fears by Huldah the pro
phetess, proceeded to take stringent
measures to stamp out idolatry, which,
from the account given in 2 Kings xxiii.,
seems to have been almost universal. We
read of vessels consecrated to Baal and to
the host of heaven in the Temple itself,
and of horses and chariots of the Sun at its
entrance ; of idolatrous priests who had
been ordained by the kings of Judah to
burn incense “unto Baal, to the Sun, and
to the Moon, and to the planets, and to all
the host of heaven and of high places
close to Jerusalem, with groves, images,
and altars, which had been built by Solo
mon to Ashtaroth, the goddess of the
Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moab
ites, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites,
and had apparently remained undisturbed
and places of popular worship ever since
the time of Solomon.
On any ordinary principles of criticism it
is impossible to doubt that, if this narrative
83
is correct, there could have been no pre
vious Book of the Law in existence,
and generally recognised as a volume
written by Divine inspiration. When even
such a great and wise king as Solomon
could establish such a system of idolatry,
and pious kings like Hezekiah, and Josiah
during the first eighteen years of his reign,
could allow it to continue, there could have
been no knowledge that it was in direct
contravention of the most essential pre
cepts of a sacred law dictated by Jehovah
to Moses. It is generally admitted by
critics that the Book of the Law discovered
by Hilkiah was Deuteronomy, or rather
perhaps an earlier or shorter original of the
Deuteronomy which has come down to us,
and which had already been re-edited with
additions after the Exile. The title
“ Deuteronomy,” which might seem to
imply that it was a supplement to an earlier
law, is taken, like the other headings of the
books of the Old Testament in our Bible,
from the Septuagint version, and in the
original Hebrew the heading is “ The Book
of the Law.” The internal evidence points
also to Deuteronomy, as placing the threats
of punishment and promises of reward
mainly on moral grounds, in the spirit
of the later prophets, such as Isaiah, who
lived shortly before the discovery of the
book by Hilkiah. And it is apparent that,
when Deuteronomy was written, the Priests’
Code, which forms such an important part
of the other books of the Pentateuch, could
not have been known, because so many of
the ceremonial rites and usages are clearly
inconsistent with it.
It is not to be inferred that there were
no writings in existence before the reign of
Josiah. Doubtless annals of the principal
events of each reign from the foundation
of the Monarchy had been kept, and many
of the old legends and traditions of the
race had been collected and reduced to
writing during the period from Solomon to
the later kings.
The Priests’ Code also, though of later
date in its complete form, was doubtless
not an invention of any single priest, but a
compilation of usages, some of which had
long existed, while others had grown up in i
connection with the Second Temple after
the return from exile. So also the civil
and social legislation was not a code pro
mulgated, like the Code Napoleon, by any
one monarch or high priest, but a compila
tion from usages and precedents which had
come to be received as having an established
authority. But what is plainly inconsistent
�84
HUMAN ORIGINS
with the account of the discovery of the
Book of the Law in the reign of Josiah is
the supposition that there had been, in
long previous existence, a collection of
sacred books, recognised as a Bible or
work of Divine inspiration, as the Old
Testament came to be among the Jews of
the first or second century B.c.
It is to be observed that, among early
nations, such historical annals and legisla
tive enactments never form the first stratum
of a sacred literature, which consists invari
ably of hymns, prayers, ceremonial rites,
and astronomical or astrological myths
Thus the Rig Veda of the Hindoos, the
early portions of the Vendidad of the
Iranians, the Book of the Dead of the
Egyptians, and the penitential psalms and
invocations of the Chaldaeans, formed the
oldest sacred books, about which codes and
commentaries, and in some cases historical
allusions and biographies, gradually accu
mulated, though never attaining to quite
an equal authority.
There is abundant internal evidence in
the books of the Old Testament which
profess to be older than the reign of Josiah,
to show that they are in great part, at any
rate, of later compilation, and could not
have been recognised as the sacred Thora
or Bible of the nation. To take a single
instance, that of Solomon. Is it conceiv
able that this greatest and wisest of kings,
who had held personal commune with
Jehovah, and who knew everything
il even unto the hyssop that springeth
out of the wall,” could have been ignorant
of such a sacred book if it had been
in existence? And if he had known
it, or even the Decalogue, is it conceivable
that he should have totally ignored its first
and fundamental precepts, “Thou shalt
have no other gods but me,” and “Thou
shalt not make unto thyself any graven
image”? Could uxoriousness, divided
among 700 wives, have turned the heart
of such a monarch so completely as to
make him worship Ashtaroth and Milcom,
and build high places for Chemosh and
Moloch ? And could he have done this
without the opposition, and apparently with
the approval, of the priests and the people ?
And again, could these high places and
altars and vessels dedicated to Baal and
the host of heaven have been allowed to
remain in the Temple, down to the
eighteenth year of Josiah, under a succes
sion of kings several of whom were reputed
to be pious servants of Jehovah ? And the
idolatrous tendencies of the ten tribes of
Israel, who formed the majority of the
Hebrew race, and had a common history
and traditions, are even more apparent.
In the speeches put into the mouth of
Solomon in 1 Kings, in which reference is
made to “ statutes and commandments
spoken by Jehovah by the hand of Moses,”
there is abundant evidence that their com
position must be assigned to a much later
date. They are full of references to the
captivity in a foreign land and return from
exile (1 Kings viii. 46-53 and ix. 6-9).
Similar references to the Exile are found
throughout the Book of Kings, and even in
Books of the Pentateuch which profess to
be written by Moses. If such a code of
sacred writings had been in existence in the
time of. Josiah, instead of rending his
clothes in dismay when Shaphan brought
him the Book of the Law found by Hilkiah,
he would have said, “ Why, this is only a
different version of what we know already.”
On the whole, the evidence points to this
conclusion. The idea of one Supreme
God who was a Spirit, while all other gods
were mere idols made by men’s hands ;
who created and ruled all things in heaven
and earth; and who loved justice and
mercy rather than the blood of rams and
bullocks, was slowly evolved from the crude
conceptions of a jealous, vindictive, and
cruel anthropomorphic local god, by the
prophets and best minds of Israel after it
had settled down under the Monarchy into ■
a civilised and cultured state. It appears
for the first time distinctly in Isaiah and
Amos, and was never popular with the
majority of the kings and upper classes, or
with the mass of the nation until the Exile;
but it gradually gained ground during the
calamities of the later days, when Assyrian
armies were . threatening destruction. A
strong opposition arose in the later reigns
between the aristocracy, who looked on the
situation from a political point of view and
trusted to armies and alliances, and what
may be called the pietist or evangelical
party of the prophets, who took a purely
religious view of matters, and considered
the misfortunes of the country as a conse
quence of its sins, to be averted only by
repentance and Divine interposition.
It was a natural, and, under the circum
stances of the age and country, quite a
justifiable, proceeding on the part of the
prophetic school to endeavour to stamp
their views with Divine authority, and re
commend them for acceptance as coming
from Moses, the traditional deliverer of
Israel from Egypt. For this purpose no doubt
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
numerous materials existed in the form of
legends, traditions, customs, and old records,
and very probably some of those had been
collected and reduced to writing, like the
Sagas of the old Norsemen, though without
any idea of collecting them into a sacred
volume.
The first attempt in this direction was
made in the reign of Josiah, and it had only
a partial success, as we find the nation
“ doing evil in the sight of the Lord ”—that
is, relapsing into the old idolatrous prac
tices, in the reigns of his three next suc
cessors, Jehoiachin, Jehoiachim, and Zedechiah. But the crowning calamity of the
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar,
and the seventy years’ exile, seems to have
crushed out the old aristocratic and national
party, and converted all the leading minds
among the Jews of the Captivity, including
the priests, to the prophetical view that the
essence of the question was the religious
one, and that the only hope for the future
lay in repentance for sins and in drawing
closer to the worship of Jehovah and the
Covenant between him and his chosen
people. Prophets disappear from this
period because priests, scribes, and rulers
had adopted their views, and there was no
longer room for itinerant and unofficial
missionaries. Under such circumstances
the religion, after the return from the Exile,
crystallised rapidly into definite forms.
Creeds, rituals, and sacred books were
multiplied down to the third century B.C.,
or later, when the canon was closed with
the Books of Chronicles and Daniel and
the later Psalms, and the era began of
commentaries on the text, every word of
which was held to be infallibly inspired.
The different crystals in solution have
now united into one large crystal of fixed
form, and henceforward we are in the full
age of Talmudism and Pharisaism.
It is not to be supposed, however, that
the books which thus came to be considered
sacred were the inventions of priests and
scribes of this later age. Doubtless they
were based to a great extent on old tradi
tions, legends, and written annals and
records, compiled perhaps in the reigns of
Solomon and his successors, but based
on still older materials. The very
crudeness of many of the representa
tions, and the barbarism of manners, point
to an early original. It is impossible to
conceive any contemporary of Isaiah, or of
the cultured court of Solomon, describing
the Almighty ruler of the universe as show
ing his hinder part to Moses, or as sewing
85
skins to clothe Adam and Eve; and the
conception of a jealous and vindictive
Jehovah who commanded the indiscriminate
massacre of prisoners of war, women and
children, must be far removed from that of
a God who loved justice and mercy. These
crude, impossible, and immoral representa
tions must have existed in the form of
Sagas during the early and semi-barbarous
stage of the people of Israel, and become
so rooted in the popular mind that they
could not be neglected when authors of
later ages came to fix the old traditions in
writing, and hence religious reformers used
them in endeavouring to enforce higher views
and a purer morality. It is from this jungle
of old legends and traditions, written and
re-written, edited and re-edited, many times
over, to suit the ideas of various stages of
advancing civilisation, that we have to pick
out as we best can what is really historical
prior to the foundation of the Monarchy,
from which time downwards we doubtless
have more or less authentic annals, which
meet with confirmations from Egyptian
and Assyrian history.
To the two accounts of the creation of
the universe and of man in Genesis, contra
dictory with one another, and each hopelessly
inconsistent with the best established con
clusions of astronomy, geology, ethnology,
and other sciences, there follows the story
of ten antediluvian patriarchs, who live on
the average 847 years each, and who
correspond with the ten gods or demi
gods in the Chaldaean mythology ; while
side by side with this genealogy is a
fragment of one which is entirely different,
mentioning seven only of the ten patriarchs,
and tracing the descent of Enoish and Noah
from Adam through Cain instead of through
Seth.
Then comes the Deluge, with all the
flagrant impossibilities which have been
pointed out in a preceding chapter ; the
building of the Tower of Babel, with the
dispersion of mankind and confusion of
languages, equally opposed to the most
certain conclusions of history, ethnology,
and philology. The descent from Noah to
Abraham is then traced through ten other
patriarchs, whose ages average 394 years
each; and similar genealogies are given for
the descendants of the other two sons of
Noah, Ham and Japheth. It is evident
that these genealogies are not history,
but ethnology of a very rude and
primitive description, by a writer with im
perfect knowledge and a limited range of
vision. A great majority of the primitive
�86
HUMAN ORIGINS
races of the world, such as the Negroes
and the Mongolians, are omitted altogether,
and Semitic Canaan is coupled with Hittite
as a descendant not of Shem but of Ham.
It is unnecessary to go into details, for
when we find such an instance as that
Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, it is
evident that this does not mean that two
such men really lived. It is an Oriental
way of stating that the Phoenicians were of
the same race as the Canaanites, and that
Sidon was their earliest sea-port on the
shore of the Mediterranean.
The whole Biblical literature to the
time of the Exodus is clearly myth and
legend, and not history ; and whoever will
compare it dispassionately with the much
older Chaldaean myths and legends known
to us from Berosus and the tablets can
hardly doubt that both are derived from a
common source, and revised at a later date
—that of the Hebrew in a monotheistic
sense. The cuneiform tablets discovered
at Tel-el-Amarna in Egypt in 1887, evi
dencing the use of the Babylonian language
in Canaan at a date not later than 1700
B.C., warrant the inference that Babylonian
legends may have been imported thither,
and that on the settlement of the Israelites
in that country these legends were incor
porated with their traditions, and, abiding
among them, were woven into the Penta
teuch when priestly and prophetic hands
gave it final shape. As an example of the
changes which the materials underwent,
where the Chaldaean solar epic of Izdubar,
in the chapter on the passage of the sun
through the rainy sign of Aquarius, which
describes the Deluge, says that “ the gods
smelt the sweet savour of the sacrifice
offered by Parnapishtim on emerging from
the ark, and flocked like flies about the
altar,” Genesis says simply that “ the Lord
smelled a sweet savour”; and where the
mixture of a divine and animal nature in
man is symbolised in the Chaldaean legend
by Bel cutting off his own head and knead
ing the clay with the blood into the first
man, the Jehovist narrative in Genesis ii.
says that “ the Lord God formed man from
the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life.”
When we arrive at Abraham we feel as if
we might be treading on really historical
ground. There is the universal tradition of
the Hebrew race that he was their ancestor,
and his figure is very like what in the un
changing East may be met with to the
present day. We seem to see the dignified
sheik sitting at the door of his tent dis
pensing hospitality, raiding with his retainers
on the rear of a retreating army and cap
turing booty, and much exercised by
domestic difficulties between the women of
his household. Surely this is an historical
figure. But when we look closer, doubts
and difficulties appear. In the first place,
the name “ Abram ” suggests that of an
eponymous ancestor, like Shem for the
Semites, or Canaa-n for the Canaanites.
Abram, Sayce tells us, is the Babylonian.
Abu-ramer or “ exalted father,” a name
much more likely to be given to a mythical
ancestor than to an actual man. This is
rendered more probable by the fact that, as
we have already seen, the genealogy of
Abraham traced upwards consists mainly of
eponyms, while those which radiate from
him downwards are of the same character.
Thus two of his sons by Keturah are Jokshan and Midian; and Sheba, Dedan, and
Assurim are among his descendants. Again,
Abraham is said to have lived for 175
years, and to have had a son by Sarah when
she was ninety-nine and he was one hun
dred ; and a large family by Keturah, whom
he married after Sarah’s death. Figures
such as these are a sure test that legend
has taken the place of authentic history.
Another circumstance which tells strongly
against the historical character of Abraham
is his connection with Lot, and the legend
of Lot’s wife. The history of this legend
is a curious one. For many centuries, in
fact, down to quite modern times, the vol
canic phenomena of the Dead Sea were
appealed to as convincing confirmations of
the account in Genesis of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrha, and hundreds of
pious pilgrims saw, touched, and tasted the
identical pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife
was changed. It is now certain that the
volcanic eruptions were of an earlier geo
logical age, and that the story of Lot’s wife
is owing to the disintegration of a stratum
of salt marl, which weathers away under
the action of wind and rain into columnar
masses, like those in a similar formation in
Catalonia described by Lyell. Innumer
able travellers and pilgrims from early
Christian times down to the seventeenth
century returned from Palestine testifying
that they had seen Lot’s wife, and this was
appealed to by theologians as a convincing
proof of the truth of the Scripture narra
tive. Some saw her big, some little, some
upright, and some prostrate, according to
the state of disintegration of the pillars,
which change their form rapidly under the
influence of the weather ; but no doubt was
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
entertained as to the attestation of the
miracle. It turns out, however, to be one
of those geological myths of precisely the
same nature as that which attributed the
Devil’s Dyke near Brighton to an arrested
attempt of the Evil One to cut a trench
through the South Downs, so as to let in the
sea and submerge the Weald. The episode
of Lot and his daughters is also clearly a
myth to account for the aversion of the
Hebrews to races so closely akin to them
as the Moabites and Ammonites, and it
could hardly have originated until after the
date of the Book of Ruth, which shows no
trace of such a racial aversion.
(
Many of the events recorded ofAbraham s
life, though not so wildly extravagant as
those attributed to Noah, are still clearly
unhistorical. That a woman getting on
towards one hundred years old should be
so beautiful that her husband passes her oft
as his sister, fearing that, if known to be
his wife, the king would kill him in order to
take her into his harem, does not seem to
be very probable. But when precisely the
same thing is said to have occurred twice
over to the same man, once at the court of
Pharaoh and again at that of Abimelech ;
and a third time to his son Isaac, at the
* same place, Gerar, and to the same king
Abimelech, the improbability becomes im
possibility, and the. legendary character
is obvious. Nor is it very consistent with
the character of the pious patriarch, the
father of the chosen people, to have told
such lies, and apparently connived at his
wife’s prostitution, so that he could save his
own skin, and grow rich on the . sheep and
oxen, asses, manservants, maidservants,
and camels ” given him by the king on the
supposition that he was Sarah s brother.
Nor can we take as authentic history
Abraham talking with the Lord, and hold
ing a sort of Dutch auction with him, in
which he beats down from fifty to ten the
number of righteous men who, if found in
Sodom, are to save it from destruction.
On the whole, I do not see that there is
anything in the account of Abraham and
his times which we can safely assume to be
historical, except the general fact that the
Hebrews were descended from a Semitic
family or clan, who migrated from the dis
trict of Ur in Lower Chaldma. probably
about the time, and possibly in conse
quence, of the Elamite conquest, about
2200 B.C., which set in motion so many
wars, revolutions, and migrations in
Western Asia. But it is needless to further
pursue this matter, since we have admis
Sy
sions as to the mythical character of the
patriarchal age by every orthodox scholar
whose name carries weight. Animadvert
ing on the assumptions of pseudo-concessionists of the type of Professor Sayce,
Canon Driver says : “ Mr. Tomkins and
Professor Sayce have produced works on
The Age of Abraham and Patriarchal
Palestine, full of interesting particulars,
collected from the monuments, respecting
the condition, political, social, and religious,
of Babylonia, Palestine, and Egypt, m the
centuries before the age of Moses; but
neither of these volumes contains the
smallest evidence that either Abraham or
the other patriarchs ever actually existed.
Patriarchal Palestine, in fact, opens with a
fallacy. Critics, it is said., have taught
4 that there were no Patriarchs and no
Patriarchal age, but, the critics notwith
standing, the Patriarchal age has actually
existed,’ and ‘ it has been shown by modern
discovery to be a fact.’ Modern discovery
has shown no such thing. It has shown,
indeed, that Palestine had inhabitants
before the Mosaic age; that Babylonians,
Egyptians, and Canaanites, for instance,
visited it, or made it their home ; but that
the Hebrew patriarchs lived in it there is
no tittle of monumental evidence whatever.
They may have done so ; but our know
ledge of the fact depends at present entirely
upon what is said in the Book of Genesis.
Not one of the many facts adduced by Pro
fessor Sayce is independent evidence that
the Patriarchs visited Palestine, or even
that they existed at all.”
To the like effect writes Dr. G. A. Smith
in his Modern Criticism and the Preaching
of the Old Testament: “While archaeology
has richly illustrated the main outlines of
the Book of Genesis from Abraham to
Joseph, it has not one whit of proof to offer
for the personal existence or characters of
the Patriarchs themselves. This is the
whole change archaeology has wrought; it
has given us a background and an atmo
sphere for the stories of Genesis ; it is
unable to recall or to certify their
heroes.”
The legendary character of the patri
archal age, which may be compared with
the heroic age in Greece, was demonstrated
by Kuenen, Knappert, and other Conti
nental scholars thirty years ago.
Actual
ancestors are never distinctly traceable,
says Dillmann—a sound statement pushed
to extremes by Goldziher, who, following
the late Professor Max Muller’s philological
methods, resolved Abraham, Isaac, and
�88
HUMAN ORIGINS
Jacob into sun and sky myths, Jacob’s
twelve sons being the moon and eleven
stars. Steinthal, with more warrant, con
verted Samson, the “ shining one,” into a
solar hero whose labours correspond to
those of Hercules. But such specula
tions are of slight importance, since the
major fact of the unhistorical founda
tion of the early Hebrew narratives is
admitted.
There is no period of Jewish history so
obscure as that of the sojourn in Egypt.
The long date is based entirely on the dis
tinct statement in Genesis xii., that the
sojourning of the children of Israel was
430 years, and other statements that it was
400 years, all of which are hopelessly
inconsistent with the genealogies. Gene
alogies are perhaps more likely to be pre
served accurately by oral tradition than by
dates and figures, _ which Oriental races
generally deal with in a very arbitrary way.
But there are serious difficulties in the way
of accepting either date as historical.
There is no mention of any specific event
during the sojourn of the Israelites in
Egypt between their advent in the time of
Joseph and the Exodus, except their
oppression by a new king who knew not
Joseph, and the building of the treasure
cities, Pi-thom and Ramses, by their
forced labour. But there is no confirma
tion, from Egyptian records or monuments,
of any of the events related in the Penta
teuch, until we come to the passage quoted
from Manetho by Josephus, which describes
how the unclean people and lepers were
oppressed ; how they revolted under the
leadership of a priest of Hieropolis, who
changed his name from Osarphis to
Moyses; how they fortified Avaris and
called in help from the expelled Hyksos
settled at Jerusalem ; how the Egyptian
king and his army retreated before them.
into Ethiopia without striking a blow, and
the revolters ruled Egypt for thirteen
years, killing the sacred animals and dese
crating the temples; and how, at the end
of this period, the king and his son returned
with a great army, defeated the rebels and
shepherds with great slaughter, and pursued
them to the bounds of Syria.
This account is evidently very different
from that of Exodus, and does not itself
read very like real history, nor is there
anything in the Egyptian monuments to
confirm it, but rather the reverse. Menepthah certainly reigned many years after he
was said to have been drowned in the Red
Sea, and his power and that of his imme
diate successors, though greatly diminished,
still extended with a sort of suzerainty over
Palestine and Southern Syria. It is said
that the Egyptians purposely omitted all
mention of disasters and defeats, but this
is distinctly untrue, for Manetho records
events such as the conquest of Egypt by
the Hyksos without a battle, and the
retreat of Menepthah into Ethiopia for
thirteen years before the impure rebels,
which were much more disgraceful than
would have been the destruction of a pur
suing force of chariots by the returning
tide of the Red Sea.
The question therefore of the sojourn of
the Israelites in Egypt and the Exodus has
to be considered solely by the light of the
internal evidence afforded by the books of
the Old Testament. The long period of
430 years is open to grave objections. It
is inconceivable that a people who had
lived for four centuries in an old and highlycivilised empire, for part of the time at any
rate on equal or superior terms under the
king who “knew Joseph,” and who appear
to have been so much intermixed with the
native Egyptians as to have been borrow
ing from them as neighbours before their
flight, should have been influenced so
little, if at all, by Egyptian manners and
beliefs. And where the positive evidence
is scanty, the negative appears to be
conclusive. This is most remarkable
in the absence of all belief in a resur
rection of the body, future State, and
day of judgment, which were the car
dinal axioms of the practical daily life
of the Egyptian people. Temporal rewards
and punishments to the individual and his
posterity in the present life are the sole
inducements held out to practise virtue and
abstain from vice, from the Decalogue down
to the comparatively late period of Eccle
siastes, where Solomon the wise king is
represented as saying, “ There is no work,
nor device, nor knowledge in the grave
whither thou goest.” Even down to the
Christian era the Sadducees, who were the
conservative aristocracy standing on the
old ways and on the law of Moses, and
from whose ranks most of the high priests
were taken, were opposed to the new
fangled Pharisaic doctrine of a resurrec
tion. How completely foreign the idea
was to the Jewish mind is apparent from
the writings of the Prophets and the
Book of Job, where the obvious solution
of the problem why goodness was not
always rewarded and wickedness punished,
afforded by the theory of a judgment after
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
death and future lire, was never even
hinted at by Job or his friends, however
hardly they might be pressed in argu
ment.
.
If the sojourn in Egypt really lasted for
430 years, it must have embraced many of
the greatest events in Egyptian history.
The descendants of Jacob must have wit
nessed a long period of the rule of the
Hyksos, and lived through the desolating
thirty years’ war by which these foreign
conquerors were gradually driven back by
the native armies of Upper Egypt. They
must have been close to the scene of the
final campaigns, the siege of Avaris, and
the expulsion of the Hyksos. They must
have been subjects of Ahmes, Thotmes,
and the conquering kings of the eigh
teenth dynasty, who followed up the
fugitive Hyksos, and carried the con
quering arms of Egypt not only over
Palestine and Syria, but up to the
Euphrates and Tigris, and over nearly the
whole of Western Asia. They must have
witnessed the decline of this empire, the
growth of the Hittites, and the half-century
of wars waged between them and the
Egyptians in Palestine and Syria.
The victory of Ramses II. at Kadesh
and the epic poem of Pentaur must have
been known to the generation before the
Exodus as signal events. And if there is
any truth in the account quoted by
Josephus, they must have been aware that
they did not fly from Egypt as a body of
fugitive slaves, but as retreating warriors
who for thirteen years had held Egypt up
to Ethiopia in subjection. And yet of all
these memorable events there is not the
slightest trace in the Hebrew annals which
have come down to us.
An even greater difficulty is to under
stand how, if the children of Israel had
lived for anything like 400 years in such a
civilised empire as Egypt, they could have
emerged from it at such a plane of low
civilisation, or rather of ferocious savagery
and crude superstitions as are shown by
the books of the Old Testament, where
they burst like a host of Red Indians, on
the settlements and cities of the Amorites
and other more advanced nations of Pales
tine. The discoveries at Lachish already
referred to show that their civilisation
could not have exceeded that of the rudest
Bedouins, while their myths and legends are
so similar to those of the North American
Indians as to show that they must have
originated in a very similar stage of mental
development.
89
If we adopt the short date of the
genealogies, we are equally confronted by
difficulties. If the Exodus occurred in the
reign of Menepthah, 180 years back from
that date would take us, not to the Hyksos
dynasty, where alone it would have been
possible for Joseph to be a vizier and for a
Semitic tribe of shepherds to be welcomed
in Egypt, but into the midst of the great
and glorious eighteenth dynasty who had
expelled the Hyksos, and carried the
dominion of Egypt to the Euphrates.
Nor would there have been time for
the seventy souls, who, we are told, were all
of the family of Jacob that migrated into
Egypt, to have increased in three genera
tions into a nation numerous enough to
alarm the Egyptians and conquer the
Canaanites.
The legend of Joseph is very touching
and beautiful, but it may just as well be
romance as history; and this suspicion is
strengthened by the fact that the episode
of Potiphar’s wife is almost verbatim the
same as in one of the chapters of the
Egyptian novel of the Two Brothers.
Nor does it seem likely that such a seven
years’ famine and such a momentous
change as the conversion of all the land
of Egypt from freehold into a tenure held
from the king subject to payment of a rent
of one-fifth of the gross produce, should
have left no trace in the records. Again,
the age of no years assigned to Joseph,
and 147 to his father, are a sufficient proof
that we are not upon strictly historical
ground ; so that, on the whole, this narra
tive does not go far, in the absence of any
confirmation from monuments, in assisting
us to fix dates, or enabling us to form any
consistent idea of the real conditions of
the sojourn of the people of Israel in
Egypt. It places them on far too high a
level of civilisation at first, to have fallen
to such a low one as we find depicted in
the Books of Exodus, Joshua, and Judges.
Further excavations in the mounds of
ruined cities in Judaea and Palestine, like
those of Schliemann on the sites of Troy
and Mycenae, can alone give us anything
like certain facts as to the real condition of
the Hebrew tribes who destroyed the older
walled cities of the comparatively civilised
Amorites and Canaanites. If the con
clusions of Mr. Flinders Petrie, from the
section of the mound of Lachish, as to the
extremely rude condition of the tribes who
built the second town of mud-huts on the
ruins of the Amorite city, should be conI firmed, it would go far to negative the idea
�90
HUMAN ORIGINS
that the accounts of their having been
trained in an advanced code of Mosaic
legislation have any historical founda
tion.
We come next to Moses. It is difficult
to refuse an historical character to a
personage who has been accepted by
uniform tradition as the chief who led the
Israelites out of Egypt, and as the great
legislator who laid the foundations of the
religious and civil institutions of the
peculiar people. And if the passage from
Manetho is correctly quoted by Josephus,
and was really taken from contemporary
Egyptian annals, and is not a later version
of the account in the Pentateuch modified
to suit Egyptian prejudices, Moses is clearly
identified with Osarsiph, the priest of Hieropolis, who abandoned the worship of the
old gods, and headed the revolt of the
unclean people, which probably meant the
heretics. It may be conjectured that this
may have had some connection with the
great religious revolution of the heretic
king of Tel-el-Amarna, which for a time
displaced the national gods, worshipped in
the form of sacred animals and symbolic
statues, by an approach to Monotheism
under the image of the winged solar disc.
Such a reform must have had many
adherents to have survived as the State
religion for two or three reigns, and must
have left a large number of so-called
heretics when the nation returned to its
ancient faith ; and it is quite intelligible
that some of the more enlightened priests
should have assimilated to it the doctrine
of one Supreme God, which, as has been
shown, without sufficient warrant, some
authorities detect in the religious meta
physics of the earliest ages in Egypt.
This, however, must remain purely a con
jecture, and we must look for anything
specific in regard to Moses exclusively to
the Old Testament.
And here we are at once assailed by
formidable difficulties. As long as we con
fine ourselves to general views it may be
accepted as historical that the Israelites
really came out of Egypt under a great
leader and legislator; but when we come
to details, and to the events connected with
Moses, and to a great extent supposed to
have been written by him or taken from
his journals, they are for the most part,
more wildly and hopelessly impossible than
anything related of the earlier patriarchs,
Abraham and Joseph. As already noted,
the story of his preservation in infancy, as of
an infant hero or god, is a variation of the
myth common among many nations. When
grown up he is represented first as the
adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and
then as a shepherd in the wilderness of
Midian talking with the Lord in a fiery
bush, who for the first time communicates
his real name of Jehovah, which he says
was not known to Abraham, Isaac, or
Jacob, although constantly used by them,
and although men began to call him by
that name in the time of Enos, Adam’s
grandson. At Jehovah’s command Moses
throws his rod on the ground, when it
becomes a serpent from which he flies,
and when he takes it up by the tail
it becomes a rod again; and as a
further sign his hand is changed from
sound to leprous as white as snow, and
back again to sound, in a minute or two
of time.
On returning to Egypt, Moses is repre
sented as going ten times into the presence
of Pharaoh, demanding of him to let the
Hebrews depart, and inflicting on Egypt a
succession of plagues, each one more than
sufficient to have convinced the king of the
futility of opposing such supernatural
powers, and to have made him only too
anxious to get rid of the Hebrews from the
land at any price. What could have been
the condition of Egypt if for seven days
“the streams, the rivers, the ponds and
pools, and even the water in the vessels of
wood and of stone, through all the land
of Egypt,” had been really turned into
blood ? And what sort of magicians must
they have been who could do the same with
their enchantments ?
The whole account of these plagues has
distinctly the air of being an historical
romance rather than real history. Those
repeated interviews, accompanied by taunts
and reproaches of Moses, the representa
tive of an oppressed race of slaves’, in the
august presence of a Pharaoh who, like the
Inca of Peru or the Mikado of Japan, was
half monarch and half deity, are totally
inconsistent with all we know of Egyptian
usage.
The son and successor of the
splendid Ramses II., who has been called
the Louis XIV. of Egyptian history, would
certainly, after the first interview and
miracle, either have recognised the super
natural power which it was useless to resist,
or ordered Moses to instant execution.
It is remarkable also how the series of
plagues reproduce the natural features of
the Egyptian seasons. Recent travellers
tell us how at the end of the dry season,
when the Nile is at its lowest, and the
�the historical element in the old testament^
9i
and other matters, which are involved
adjacent plains are arid and lifeless^ < the supposition that a population, half as
suddenly one morning at sHn^se *7 It j large as that of London, wandered about
the river apparently turned into blood, it
under tents from camp to camp for forty
s the phenomenon of the red Me, which
.years in a desert. No attempt has ever
is caused by the first flush of the Abyssinian
been made to refute him, except by vague
highland flood, coming from banks o: red
suppositions that the deserts of Sinai and
marl After a few days the real use com
Arabia may then have been m a very
mences, the Ni\res?m%\VSthe “Lnks
different condition, and capable of support
percolates its banks, fills *he /an
ing a large population. But this is impos
and ponds, and finally overflows and satu
sible in the present geological age and
rates^the dusty plains. The first signal
under existing geographical conditions.
the renewal of life is the cro£f a°e
These deserts form part of the great rain
innumerable frogs, and soon the plains^are
less zone of the earth between the north
alive with flies, gnats, and all manner o
tropical and south temperate zones, where
creeping and hopping insects, as if the
cultivation is only possible when the means
dust had been turned into lice. Then, afte
of irrigation are afforded by lakes, rivers,
the inundation, there foUow *e
or melting snow. But there aJe no“eJ"
ulagfues which in the summer and autumn
these in the deserts of Sinai and Northern
seasons frequently afflict the young. crop
Arabia, and therefore no water and no
and the inhabitants—local hah-storms,
vegetation sufficient to support any popula
locusts murrain among the cattle, boils and
tion No army has ever invaded Egypt
other sicknesses while the stagnant wa
from Asia, or Asia from Egypt, except by
are drying up. It reads like what some
the short route adjoining the Mediterranean
Rider Haggard of the Court of Solonio
between Pelusium and Jaffa, and with the
mifflit have written in workmg-up the tales
command of the sea and assistance of
of travellers and old popular tra/ffions
trains to carry supplies and water. And
into an historical romance of the deliver
the account in Exodus itself confirms this,
ance of Israel from Egypt.
.
for both food and water are stated to have
When we come to the Exodus the impos
been supplied miraculously, and there is no
sibilities of the narrative are even more
mention made of anything but the present
obvious. The robust c0™7°n’se/athearid and uninhabited desert in the various
Bishop Colenso, sharpened by a mathe
encampments? and marches. In fact, the
matical education, submitted P1//
Bible constantly dwells on the inhospitable
these to the convincing test of .arl*™et1^
barrenness of the “ howling wilderness
The host of Israelites who left Egyp
Accordingly, reconcilers have been reduced
said to have comprised 603,550 fighti g
to the supposition that ciphers may have
men above the age of twenty; exc:la/1Y
been added by copyists, and that the real
of the Levites and of a mixed multitude
number may have been 6,000, or even, as
who followed. This implies a total populasome writers think, 600. But this is incon
tion of at least 2,500,000, who are said to
sistent with the detailed numeration by
have wandered for forty years /
twelve separate tribes, which works out to
desert of Sinai, one of the most and
the same figure of 603,550 fighting men1 for
wildernesses in the world, destitute alike
the total number. Nor is it consistent
of water, arable soil, and pasture, and
with the statement that the Hebrews did
where a Bedouin tribe of even 600> souls
evacuate Egypt in sufficient numbers and
would find it difficult to exist. They are
sufficiently armed to burst through the
said to have been miraculously fed during
frontiers, and capture the walled cities of
these forty years on manna, a swee?s“’
considerable nations like the Amontes and
gummy exudation from the scanty foliage
Canaanites, who had been long settle/
of certain prickly desert plants, which is
the country. The narrative of Manetho
described as being “as small as the
quoted by Josephus, seems much more like
hoar frost,” and as so imbued with
real history : that the Hebrews formed part
of an army^ which, after having held Lower
Sabbatarian qualities as to keep fresh•
only for the day it is gathered, but tor ; Egypt for thirteen years, was fina ly defeated,
two days if gathered on a Friday, so as
and retreated by the usual military route
to prevent the necessity of Sabbath labour
across the short part of the desert from
Pelusium to Palestine; the Hebrews, for
in Bishop Colenso points out with irresistible
some reason, branching off, and-taking to a
force the obvious impossibilities in regar
Bedouin life on the outskirts of the desert
to food, water, fuel, sanitation, transport,
�92
HUMAN ORIGINS
and cultivated land, just as many Bedouin
tribes live a semi-nomad life in the same
regions at the present day. Too much
emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that
to the present time, not a single monu
mental notice of the Hebrews, as dwellers
m the land of Egypt and the house of
bondage, is forthcoming. In narrating the
results of his excavations in 1896, Professor
Minders Petrie reported the discovery of
the upper part of a black granite colossus
Ox Amenhotep III., on which was inscribed
an account of wars carried on by that king in
Syria, apparently Northern Palestine, with
the people of Israel, whom he spoiled.
hat was the first time that any mention
of tne Israelites in any form had been
found in Egypt, and, obviously, it throws
no light upon the statements of the Old
Testament, which remain the sole, and not
unquestioned, authority upon the events
gathering round the reputed Exodus.
The Books of the Pentateuch ascribed to
Moses are full of the most flagrant con
tradictions and absurdities. It is evident
that, instead of being the production of
some one contemporary writer, they have
been compiled and edited, probably many
times over, from old documents and tradi
tions, these being pieced together in juxta
position or succession, without regard to
their being contradictory or repetitions.
Thus in Exodus xxxiii. 2o#God says to
Moses : “ Thou canst not see my face and
live ; for there shall no man see me and
live”; and accordingly he shows Moses
only his cc back parts while in verse 11 in
the very same chapter we read : “And the
Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a
man speaketh unto a friend.” Again, in
Exodus xxiv. the Lord says to Moses,
that he alone shall come near the Lord ”
(verse 2); while in verses 9-11 of the same
chapter we are told that “ Moses, Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the
elders of Isiael, went up ; and they saw the
God of Israel, and there was under his feet
as it were a paved work of a sapphire
stone,” and, although they saw God, were
none the worse for it, but survived and “ did
eat and drink.” Is it possible to believe
that these excessively crude representations
of the Deity, and these flagrant inconsis
tencies, were all written at the same time,
by the same hand, and that the hand of a
man who, if not a holy inspired prophet,
was at any rate an educated and learned
ex-priest of Hieropolis, skilled in all the
knowledge of the Egyptians ?
The contradictions in the ideas and pre
cepts of morality and religion are even more
startling. These oscillate between the two
extremes of the conception of the later
prophets of a one Supreme God, who loves
justice and mercy better than sacrifice, and
that of a ferocious and vindictive tribal god
whose appetite for human blood is as
insatiable as that of the war-god of the
Mexicans. Thus we have, on the one
hand, the commandment, “Thou shalt do
no muider,” and, on the other, the injunc
tion to commit indiscriminate massacres.
A single instance may suffice. The “ Book
of the Law of Moses ” is quoted in 2 Kings
xiv. as saying: “The fathers shall not be put
to death for the children, nor the children
for the fathers ; but every man shall be put
to death for his own sin.” In Numbers
xxxi., Moses, the “meekest of mankind,” is
represented as extremely wrath with the
captains who, having warred against Midian
at the Lord’s command, had only slaughtered
the males, and taken the women of Midian
and their little ones captives ; and he
commands them to “kill every male among
the little ones, and every woman that hath
known man by lying with him ; but all the
women children that have not known man
by lying with him, keep alive for your
selves ”—these M idianites, be it remembered,
being the people whose high priest Jethro
had hospitably received Moses when he
fled for his life from Egypt, and gave him
his daughter as a wife, by whom he had
children who were half Midianites ; so that,
if the zealous Phinehas was right in slaying
the Hebrew who had married a Midianite
woman, Moses himself deserved the same
fate.
The same injunction of indiscriminate
massacre in order to escape the jealous
wrath of an offended Jehovah is repeated,
over and over again, in Joshua and Judges;
and even as late as after the foundation of
the Monarchy we find Samuel telling Saul,
m the name of the Lord of Hosts, to “ go
and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy
them, slaying both man and woman, infant
and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and
ass,” and denouncing Saul, and hewing
Agag in pieces before the Lord, because
this savage injunction had not been literally
obeyed. Even David, the man after the
Lord’s own heart, tortures to death the
prisoners taken at the fall of Rabbah, and
gives up seven of the sons of Saul to the
Gibeonites to be sacrificed before the
insatiate deity as human victims. It is
one of the strangest contradictions of
human nature that such atrocious violations
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
of the moral sense should have been
received for so many centuries as a divine
revelation, rather than as instances of what
may be more appropriately called “ devil
worship.”
Nor is it a less singular proof of the
power of cherished prepossessions that
such a medley of the sublime religious
ideas and lofty poetry of the prophetic
ages, with such a mass of puerile and
absurd legends, such obvious contradictions,
and such a number of passages obviously
dating from a later period, should be
received by many men of intelligence, even
to the present day, as the work of a single
contemporary writer, the inspired prophet
Moses.
When we pass from the Pentateuch to the
succeeding Books of Joshua and of Judges
the same remarks apply. The falling of
the walls of Jericho at the sound of the
trumpet, and the defeat of an army of
135,000 men of Midian and Amalek, with a
slaughter of 120,000, by 300 men under
Gideon, armed with pitchers and trumpets,
are on a par with the wandering of 2,500,000
Israelites in the desert for forty years, fed
with manna of the size of hoar-frost. The
moral atmosphere also continues to be that
of Red Indians down to the time of David,
for we read of nothing but murders and
massacres, sometimes of other races, some
times of one tribe by another ; while the
actions selected for special commendation
are like those of Jael, who drove a nail into
the head of the sleeping fugitive whom she
had invited into her tent; or of Jephthah,
who sacrificed his daughter as an offering
to the Lord in obedience to a vow.
The only safe conclusion seems to be
that authentic annals of Jewish history
begin with the Monarchy, and that every
thing prior to David and Solomon, or pos
sibly Saul and Samuel, consists of myth,
legend, and oral tradition, so inextricably
blended, and so mixed up with successive
later additions, as to give no certain infor
mation as to events or dates.
All that it is safe to assume is that, in a
general way, the Hebrews were originally a
Semitic tribe who migrated from Chaldsea
into Palestine, and perhaps thence into
Egypt, where, assuming the Exodus story
to be genuine, they remained for an uncer
tain time and were oppressed by the
national dynasty which expelled the
Hyksos ; leaving Egypt in the reign
of Menepthah, and as a consequence
of the rebellion recorded by Manetho;
that they then lived for an unknown
93
time as wandering Bedouins on the frontier
of Palestine in a state of very rude bar
barism; and finally burst in like the horde of
Aztecs Who conquered the older and more
civilised Mayas. For a long period after
this, perhaps for 200 or 300 years, they
lived in a state of chronic warfare with one
another, and with their neighbours, mas
sacring and being massacred with the alter
nate vicissitudes of war, but with the same
rudeness and ferocity of superstitions and
manners. Gradually, however, they ad
vanced in civilisation, and something of a
national feeling arose, which led to a partial
consolidation under priests, and a more
complete one under kings.
The first king, Saul, was opposed by
priestly influence and defeated and slain in
battle; but a captain of condottieri, David,
arose, a man of great energy and military
genius, who gradually formed a standing
army and conquered province after pro
vince, until at his death he left to his suc
cessor, Solomon, an empire extending from
the frontier of Egypt to Damascus, and
from the Red Sea almost to the Mediter
ranean.
This kingdom commanded two of the
great commercial routes between the East
and West, the caravan route between Tyre
and Babylon, wiA Damascus and Tadmor,
and the route from Tyre to the terminus at
Ezion-Gebir, of the sea-routes to Arabia,
Africa, and India. Solomon entered into
close commercial relations with Tyre, and
during his long and splendid reign Jeru
salem blossomed rapidly into a wealthy and
a cultured city, and the surrounding cities
and districts shared in the general pros
perity. The greatness of the kingdom did
not last long, for the revolt of the ten tribes
and the growth of other powers soon re
duced Judaea and Samaria to political in
significance ; but Jerusalem, down to the
time of its final destruction by Nebuchad
rezzar—z>., for a period of some 400 years
after Solomon—never seems to have lost its
character of a considerable and civilised
city. It is evident from the later prophets
that it was the seat of a good deal of wealth
and luxury, for their invectives are, to a
great extent, what we should call at the
present day Socialist denunciations of the
oppression of the poor by the rich, land
grabbing by the powerful, and extravagance
of dress by the ladies of fashion. There
were hereditary nobles, organised colleges
of priests and scribes, and no doubt there
was a certain amount of intellectual life and
literary activity. But of a sacred book
�HUMAN ORIGINS
94
there is no trace until the discovery of one
in the Temple in the reign of Josiah ; and
the peculiar tenets of modern Judaism had
no real hold on the mass of the people
until after the return from Exile and the
reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The history, therefore, contained in the
Old Testament is comparatively modern.
There is nothing which can be relied on as
authentic in regard to events and dates
prior to the establishment of the Monarchy,
and even the wildest myths and the most
impossible legends do not carry us back
within 2,000 years of the time when we
have genuine historical annals attested by
monuments both in Egypt and Chaldaea.
PART II.—EVIDENCE FROM SCIENCE
CHAPTER VIII.
GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
Proved by Contemporary Monuments—Sum
mary of Historical Evidence — Geological
Evidence of Human Periods — Neolithic
Period — Palaeolithic or Quaternary — Ter
tiary — Secondary and Older Periods —
The Recent or Post-Glacial Period—LakeVillages— Bronze Age— Kitchen-Middens—
Scandinavian Peat-mosses—Neolithic Remains
comparatively Modern—Definition of PostGlacial-Period—Its Duration—Mellard Read’s
Estimate—Submerged Forests—Changes in
Physical Geography — H uxley — Obj ections
from America—Niagara—Quaternary Period
—Immense Antiquity — Presence of Man
throughout—First Glacial Period—Scandi
navian and Laurentian Ice-caps—Immense
Extent — Mass of Dbbris — Elevation and
Depression—In Britain—Inter-Glacial and
Second Glacial Periods—Antiquity measured
by Changes of Land—Lyell’s EstimateGlacial Dbb'ris and Loess—Recent Erosion—
Bournemouth —• Evans—Prest wich—W ealden
Ridge and Southern Drift—Contain Human
Implements—Evidence from New World—
California.
We have now to take leave of historical
records and fall back on the exact sciences
for further traces of human origins. Our
guides are still contemporary records, but
these are no longer stately tombs and
temples, massive pyramids and written
inscriptions. Instead of these we have flint
implements, incised bones, and a few rare
specimens of human skulls and skeletons,
the meaning of which has to be deciphered
by skilled experts in their respective depart
ments of science.
Still, these records tell their tale as con
clusively as any hieroglyphic or cuneiform
writings in Egyptian manuscripts or on
Babylonian cylinders. The celt, the knife,
the lance and arrow-heads, and other
weapons and implements, can be traced in
an uninterrupted progressive series from
the oldest and rudest palaeolithic specimens,
to the highly-finished ones of polished
stone, and through these into the age of
metals, and into historic times and the
actual implements of existing savage races.
It is impossible to doubt that one of the
palaeolithic celts from St. Acheul or St.Prest is as truly a work of the human hand,
guided by human intelligence, as a modern
axe ; and that an arrow-head from Moustier
or Kent’s Cavern is no more an elf-bolt, or a
lusus nature^ than is a Winchester rifle.
Before entering on this new line of in
vestigation, it may be well to sum up briefly
the evidence as to the starting-point from
history and tradition. The commencement
of the strictly historical period takes us
back certainly for 7,000 years in Egypt,
and probably for 9,000 years in Chaldsea.
In each case we find populous cities,
important temples, and public works,
writing and other advanced arts and indus
tries, and all the signs of an old civilisation,
already existing. Other nations also then
existed with whom these ancient empires
had relations of war and of commerce,
though the annals of even the oldest of
them, such as China, do not carry us back
further than from 4,000 to 5,000 years.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
Traditions do not add much to the infor
mation furnished by monuments, and fade
rapidly away into myths and legends. The
oldest and most authentic, those of.Egypt,
confirm the inference of great antiquity as to
its civilisation prior to Menes, but give no
clue as to its origin. They neither trace it
up to the stone age, which we know existed
in the valley of the Nile, nor refer it to
any foreign source. The Egyptian people
thought themselves autochthonous, and
attributed their arts, industries, and sciences
to the inventions of native gods, or demi
gods, who reigned like mortal kings, in a
remote and fabulous antiquity. We can
gather nothing, therefore, from tradition
that would enable us to add even 1,000
years with certainty to the date of Menes ;
but from the high state of civilisation
which had been evolved prior to his acces
sion from the primitive conditions of the
stone period whose remains are found in
the Nile Valley, it is not extravagant to add
10,000 or 20,000 years to his date of 5004
years B.C., as a matter of probable conjec
ture for the first dawn of historical civilisa
tion. In any case we shall be well within
the mark if we take 10,000 years as our first
unit, or standard of chronological measure
ment, with which to start in our further
researches.
It may be well also to supplement this
statement of the historical standard by a
brief review of the previous geological
periods through which evidences of man’s
existence can be traced. Immediately
behind the historic age lies the recent
period during which the existing fauna and
flora, climate and configuration of seas and
lands, have undergone no material change.
It is characterised generally as the neolithic
period, in which we find polished stone
superseding the older and ruder forms of
dripped stone, and passing itself into the
copper, bronze, and iron ages of early
history. It may also be called the recent
or post-glacial period, for it coincides with
the final disappearance of the last great
glaciation, and the establishment of condi
tions of climate resembling those of the
present day.
Behind this again lies the quaternary or
pleistocene period, so called from its fauna,
which, although containing extinct species,
shows along with them many existing forms,
some of which have migrated and some
remain. This also may be called the glacial
period, for, although the commencement,
termination, and different phases of the two
great glaciations and intermediate and
95
inter-glacial periods cannot . be exactly
defined, nor hard-and-fast lines drawn
between the later pliocene at one end and
the post-glacial at the other, there is no
doubt that in a general way the quater
nary and glacial periods coincide, and that
the changes of climate were to a consider
able extent the cause of the changes of flora
and fauna.
Behind the quaternary lies the tertiary,
with its three main divisions of Pliocene,
Miocene, and Eocene, each containing
numerous subdivisions, and all showing a
progressive advance in forms of life, from
older and more generalised types towards
newer and more specialised ones, and a
constant approach towards genera and
species now existing. Behind the tertiary
lies the secondary period, into which it is
unnecessary to enterfor the present purpose,
for all is different, and even mammalian
life is known to be present only in a few
forms of small and feeble marsupials. Nor
is it necessary to enter on any detailed con
sideration of the Eocene or earlier tertiary,
for the types of mammalian life are so
different from those of later periods that it
cannot be supposed that any animal so
highly organised as man had then come
into existence. The utmost we can suppose
is that, as in the case of the horse, some
ancestral form from which the quadrumana
and man may possibly have been developed
may be found.
My present object being not to write a
book on geology, but on human origins, I
shall not attempt to trace back the geological
evidence beyond the Miocene, or to enter
on any details of the later periods, except
so far as they bear on what may be called
geological chronology—i.e., on the probable
dates which may be assigned to. the first
appearance and subsequent evolution of the
human race.
Beginning with the recent or post-glacial
period, the Swiss and Italian lake-villages
supply clear evidence of the progress of
man in Western Europe through the neo
lithic into the historical period. They afford
us an unbroken series of substantially the
same state of society, existing down to the
time of the Romans, in the shape of com
munities living in lake-villages built upon
piles, like the villages in Thrace described
by Herodotus, or those of the present day
in New Guinea. Some of these have been
occupied continuously, so that the debris, of
different ages are stored in consecutive
order like geological strata, and afford an
unerring test of their relative antiquity. It
�96
HUMAN ORIGINS
is clear that many of those lake-villages
were founded in the age of stone, and passed
through that of bronze into the age of iron.
The oldest settlements belong to the neo
lithic age, and contain polished stone imple
ments and pottery ; but they show a state
of civilisation not yet very far advanced.
The inhabitants were only just emerging
from the hunting into the pastoral stage.
They lived principally on the produce of the
chase, the bones of the stag and wild boar
being very plentiful, while those of ox and
sheep are rare. Agriculture and the cereals
seem to have been unknown, though stores
of acorns and hazel nuts were found which
had been roasted for food.
By degrees the bones of wild animals
became scarce, and those of ox and sheep
common, showing that the pastoral stage
had been reached; and the goat, pig, and
horse were added to the list of domestic
animals—the dog being included from the
first, and the horse only at a later period.
Agriculture follows next in order, and con
siderable proficiency was attained, barley
and wheat being staple articles of food, and
apples, pears, and other fruit being stored
for winter consumption. Flax also was
grown, and the arts of spinning and weaving
were introduced, so that clothing, instead
of being confined to skins, was made of
coarse linen and woollen stuffs.
The most important advance, however,
in the arts of civilisation is afforded by the
introduction of metals. These begin to
appear about the middle of the neolithic
period, at first very sparingly, and in a few
districts, such as Spain, Upper Italy, and
Hungary, where native copper was found
and was hammered into shapes modelled
on the old stone implements ; but as a
general rule, and in all the later settlements,
bronze, in new and improved shapes, super
sedes stone and copper. For the most part
these bronze implements seem to have been
obtained by foreign commerce from the
Phoenicians, Etruscans, and other nations
bordering on the Mediterranean, though in
some cases they were cast on the spot from
native or imported ores. The existence of
bronze, however, must go back to a far
greater antiquity than the time when the
neolithic people of Europe obtained their
first supplies from Phoenician traders.
Bronze, as we have seen in a former chapter,
is an alloy of two metals, copper and tin,
and the hardest and most serviceable alloy
is to be obtained only by mixing the
two in a definite proportion. Now, it is to
be noted that nearly all the prehistoric
bronze found in Europe is an alloy in this
definite proportion. Clearly all this bronze,
or the art of making it, must have originated
from some common centre.
The neolithic period which preceded
that of metals is of longer duration, but
still comparatively recent. Attempts have
been made to measure it by a sort of
natural chronometer in the case of the lake
villages,. by comparing the amount of silt
ing-up since the villages were built with the
known rate of silting-up since Roman
times. The calculations vary very much,
and can be taken as only approximative ;
but the oldest dates assigned do not exceed
5000 B.C., and most of them are not more
than 2000 or 3000 B.c. It must be remem
bered, however, that the foundation of a
lake-village on piles implies a long
antecedent neolithic period to have
arrived at a stage of civilisation which
made the construction of such villages
possible.
The civilisation coincides wonderfully
with that of the primitive Aryan groups, as
shown by linguistic palaeontology. The
discussion as to the origin of these has
thrown a great deal of light on this ques
tion, and has gone far to dispel the old
notion that they radiated from some centre
in Asia, and overran Europe in successive
waves. On the contrary, all the evidence
and all the best authorities point to their
having occupied, when we first get traces
of them, pretty much the same districts of
the great plain of Northern Europe and
Southern Russia as we now find them in,
and developed there their distinct dialects
and nationalities ; while the words common
to all or nearly all the Aryan-speaking
families point to their having been pastoral
nomads, in a state of civilisation very like
that of the earlier lake-villagers, before this
separation took place.
The Scandinavian kitchen-middens, or
shell-mounds, carry us further back into
this early neolithic period. The shell
mounds which are found in great numbers
along the Baltic shore of Denmark are
often of great size. They are formed of an
accumulation of shells of oysters, mussels,
and other shell-fish, bones of wild animals,
birds, and fish, all of existing species, with
numerous implements of flint or bone, and
occasional fragments of coarse pottery.
They are decidedly more archaic than the
lake-dwellings, showing a much ruder
civilisation of savages living like the
Fuegians of the present day, in scanty
tribes on the sea-shore, supported mainly
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
by shell-fish, supplemented by the chase of
wild animals.
The dog was their only domestic animal,
and their only arts the fabrication of rude
pottery and implements of stone and bone,
unless it can be inferred, from the occa
sional presence of bones of cod and other
deep-sea fish, that they possessed some
form of boat or canoe, and had hooks and
lines or nets. These mounds must have
taken an enormous time to accumulate, for
they are very numerous, and often of great
bulk, some of them being 1,000 feet long,
200 feet wide, and io feet thick.
How
long such masses must have taken to accu
mulate must be apparent when we consider
that the state of civilisation implies a very
scanty population. It has been calculated
that, if the neolithic population of Denmark
required as many square miles for its sup
port as the similar existing populations of
Greenland and Patagonia, their total
number could not have exceeded 1,000, and
. each mound must have been the accumula
tion of perhaps two or three families.
Ancient, however, as these mounds must
be, they are clearly neolithic. They are
sharply distinguished from the far older
remains of the palaeolithic period by the
knowledge, however rude, of pottery and
polished stone, and still more by the fauna,
which is entirely recent, and from which
the extinct animals of the quaternary period
have disappeared ; while the position of the
mounds shows that only slight geological
changes, such as are now going on, have
occurred since they were accumulated.
Similar mounds, on even a larger scale,
occur on the sea-coasts of various districts
in Europe and America, but they afford no
indication beyond that of great antiquity.
The peat-mosses of Denmark have been
appealed to as supplying something like a
conjectural date for the early neolithic
period in that country. These are formed
in hollows of the glacial drift, which have
been small lakes or ponds in the midst of
forests, into which trees have fallen, and
which have become gradually converted
into peat by the growth of marsh plants.
It is clearly established that there have
been three successive ages of forest growth,
the upper one of beech, below it one of
oak, and lowest of all one of fir. The
implements and relics found in the beech
stratum are all modern, those in the oak
stratum are of the later neolithic and bronze
ages, and those in the lowest, or fir-horizon,
are earlier and ruder neolithic, resembling
those found in the older lake-villages and
97
shell-mounds. Now, beech has been the
characteristic forest tree of Denmark cer
tainly since the Roman period, or for 2,000
years, and no one can say for how much
longer. The stages of oaks and firs must
equally have been of long duration, and
the different stages could only have been
brought about by slow secular variations of
climate during the post-glacial period. Still,
this affords no reliable information as to
specific dates, and we can only take Steenstrup’s calculation of from 4,000 to 16,000
years for the formation of some of these
peat-bogs as a very vague estimate, carrying
us back perchance to a time when Egypt
and Chaldaea must have been already
densely peopled, and far advanced in
civilisation.
On the whole, it seems that the neolithic
arrow-heads found in Egypt, and the frag
ments of pottery brought up by borings
through the deposits of the Nile, are the
oldest certain human relics of the neolithic
age which have yet been discovered, and
these do not carry us back further than
a possible date of 15,000 or 20,000 years
B.c.
Nor is there any certainty that any of
the neolithic remains found in the newer
deposits of rivers and the upper strata of
caves go further, or even so far, back as
these relics of an Egyptian stone period.
All that the evidence really shows is, that
while the neolithic period must have lasted
for a long time as compared with historical
standards, its duration is almost infinitesi
mally small as compared with that of the
preceding palaeolithic period. Thus in
Kent’s Cavern neolithic remains are found
only in a small surface layer of black earth
from three to twelve inches thick ; while
below this palaeolithic implements and a
quaternary fauna occur in an upper stalag
mite one to three feet thick, below it in red
cave earth five to six feet thick, then in a
lower stalagmite in places ten or twelve feet
thick, and below it again in a breccia three
or four feet thick. This is confirmed by the
evidence of all the caves explored in all
parts of the world, which uniformly show
any neolithic remains confined to a super
ficial layer of a few inches, with many feet
of palaeolithic strata below them. And
river-drifts in the same manner show neo
lithic remains confined to the alluvia and
peat-beds of existing streams, while palaeo,
lithic remains occur during the whole series
of deposits while these rivers were exca
vating their present valleys. If we say feet
for inches, or twelve for one, we shall be
�98
HUMAN ORIGINS
well within the mark in estimating the com
parative duration of the palaeolithic and
neolithic periods, as measured by the thick
ness of their deposits in caves and river
drifts ; and, as we shall see hereafter, other
geological evidence from elevations and
depressions, denudations and depositions,
point to even a higher figure.
In going back from the neolithic into the
palaeolithic period, we are confronted by
the difficulty to which I have already re
ferred, of there being no hard-and-fast lines
by which geological eras are clearly sepa
rated from one another. Zoologically there
seems to be a very decided break between
the recent and the quaternary. The in
stances are rare and doubtful in which we
can see any trace of the remains of palaeo
lithic man, and of the fauna of extinct
animals, passing gradually into those of
neolithic and recent times. But geologi
cally, outside the British Isles (I am speak
ing now only of Europe) there is no such
abrupt break. We cannot draw a line at
the culmination of the last great glacia
tion and say, Here the glacial period ends
and the post-glacial begins. Nor can we
say of any definite period or horizon, This
is glacial and this recent.
A great number of palaeolithic remains
and of quaternary fossils are undoubtedly
post-glacial, in the sense of being found in
deposits which have accumulated since the
last great glaciers and ice-caps began to
retreat. Existing valleys have been exca
vated to a large extent since the present
rivers, swollen by the melting snows and
torrential rains of this period of the latest
glacial retreat, superseded old lines of
drainage, and began to wear down the sur
face of the earth into its present aspect.
This phase is more properly included in
the term glacial, for both the coming-on
and the disappearance of the periods of
intense cold are as much part of the pheno
menon as their maximum culmination, and
very probably occupied much longer inter
vals of time. In like manner, we cannot
positively say when this post-glacial period
ended and the recent began. Not, I should
say, until the exceptional effects of the last
great glacial period had finally disappeared,
and the climate, geographical conditions,
and fauna had assumed nearly or entirely
the modern conditions in which we find
them at the commencement of history.
And this may have been different in dif
ferent countries, for local conditions might
make the glacial period commence sooner
and continue later in some districts than in
others. Thus in North America, where the
glaciation was more intense, and the ice
cap extended some ten degrees further
south than in Europe, it might well be that
it was later in retreating and disappearing.
The elevation of the Laurentian highlands
into the region of perpetual snow was evi
dently one main factor of the American ice
cap, just as that of Scandinavia was of that
of Europe; and it by no means follows that
their depression was simultaneous. It would
be unwise, for instance, to take the time
occupied in cutting back the Niagara gorge
by a river which began to run only at some
stage of the post-glacial period, as an abso
lute test of the duration of that period all
over the world. Indeed, the glacial period
cannot be said to have ended or the post
glacial to have begun at the present day in
Greenland, if the disappearance of the ice
cap over very extensive regions is to be
taken as the test.
Any approximation to the duration of the
post-glacial period in any given locality
can be obtained only by defining its com
mencement with the first deposits which lie
above the latest glacial drift, and measur
ing the amount of work done since.
This has been done very carefully by the
officers of the Geological Survey and other
eminent authorities in England and Scot
land, and the result clearly shows that, since
the last glaciation left the country buried in
a thick mantle of boulder-clay and drift,
such an amount of denudation and such
movements of elevation and depression
have taken place as must have required a
great lapse of time. The most complete
attempt at an estimate of this time is that
made by Mr. Mellard Read, of the Geo
logical Survey, from the changes proved to
have occurred in the Mersey valley.
In this case it is shown that the valley,
■ almost in its present dimensions, must have
been first carved out of an uniform plain of
glacial drift and upper boulder-clay by sub
aerial denudation ; then that a depression
let the sea into the valley and accumulated
a series of estuarine clays and silts; then that
an elevation raised the whole into a plain
on which grew an extensive forest of oak
rooted in the clays. This again must have
subsided and let-in the sea for a second
time, which must have remained long
enough to leave a large estuarine deposit,
and finally the whole must have been raised
to the present level before historical times.
The phenomenon of the submerged forest
is a very general one, being traced along
almost all the sea-coasts of Western Europe,
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
where shelving shores and sheltered bays
favour the preservation of patches of this
primaeval forest. It testifies to a consider
able amount of elevation and subsequent
depression, for its remains can be traced
below low-water mark, and are occasionally
dredged up far out to sea, and stately oaks
could not have flourished unless more or
less continental conditions had prevailed.
It is evident that in this age of forests
the land now covered by the German
Ocean must have been a river valley,
the continent of Europe extending
beyond the Orkneys and Hebrides, pro
bably to the hundred fathom line. . Such
movements of elevation and depression, so
far as we know anything of them, are ex
tremely slow. There has been no change
in the fords of rivers in Britain since
Roman times, and the spit connecting St.
Michael’s Mount with Cornwall was dry at
ebb and covered at flood, as at the present
day, when the British carted their tin across
it to trade with the Phoenicians. Mr. Read
goes into elaborate calculations based, on
the time required for these geological
changes, and arrives at the conclusion that
they point to a date of not less than 5o>o°°
or 60,000 years ago for the commencement
of the post-glacial period. These calcula
tions are disputed, but it seems certain that
several multiples of the historical standard
of, say, 10,000 years must be required to
measure the period since the glacial age
finally disappeared, and the earth, with its
existing fauna, climate, and geographical
conditions, came fairly into view. This is
confirmed by the great changes which have
taken place in the distribution of land and
water since the quaternary period. Huxley,
in an article on “ The Aryan question,”
points out that in .recent times four great
separate bodies of water—the Black Sea,
the Caspian, the Sea of Aral, and Lake
Balkash—occupied the southern end of the
vast plains which extend from the Arctic
Sea to the highlands of the Balkan penin
sula, of Asia Minor, of Persia and Afghan
istan, and of the high plateaux of Central
Asia, as far as the Altai. But he says,
“This state of things is comparatively
modern. At no very distant period the land
of Asia Minor was continuous with that of
Europe, across the present site of the Bos
phorus, forming a barrier several hundred
feet high, which dammed-up the waters of
the Black Sea. A vast extent of Eastern
Europe and of west-central Asia thus
became one vast Ponto-Aralian Mediterra
nean, into which the largest rivers of
99
Europe and Asia, the Danube, Volga,
Oxus, andjaxartes, discharged their waters,
and which sent its overflow northwards
through the present basin of the Obi.” The
time necessary for such changes goes far to
confirm Mellard Read’s estimate for the long
duration of the recent or post-glacial period.
In fact, all the evidence from the Old
World goes to confirm the long duration of
the post-glacial period, and the immensely
greater antiquity of the glacial period taken
as a whole. It is only from the New World
that any serious arguments are forthcoming
to abridge those periods, or rather the post
glacial period, for that alone is affected by
the facts adduced. It is said that recent
measurements of the recession of the Falls
of Niagara show that, instead of requiring
35,000 years, as estimated by Lyell, to cut
back the gorge of seven miles from Lewis
ton to the Falls, 10,000 years at the outside
would have been amply sufficient; and that
this is confirmed by the gorges of other
rivers, such as that of the Mississippi at St.
Paul’s. The evidence is not conclusive, for
it depends on the rate of erosion going on
for the last twenty or thirty years, which
may obviously give a different result from
the true average ; and, in fact, older esti
mates, based on longer periods, gave the
rate adopted by Lyell. But if we admit the
accuracy of the modern estimates, it does
not affect the total duration of the glacial
period, but simply that of a late phase of
the post-glacial, when the ice-cap which
covered North America to a depth often of
2,000 or 3,000 feet had melted away and
shrunk back 400 miles from its . original
southern boundary, so as to admit of the
waters of the great lakes finding an outlet
to the north-east instead of by the old
drainage to the south. Nothing is more
likely than that, as the great Laurentian
ice-cap of America was deeper and ex
tended further than the Scandinavian ice
cap of Europe, it may have taken longer to
melt the larger accumulation of ice, and
thus postponed the establishment of post
glacial conditions and river-drainage to a
later period than in the warmer and more
insular climate of Europe. It is a matter
of every-day observation that the larger a
snowball is the longer it takes to melt, and
that when the mass is large it requires a
long time to make -it disappear even after
mild weather has set in.
The only other argument for a short
glacial period is drawn from the rate of
advance of the glaciers in Greenland, which
is shown to be much more rapid than that
�TOO
HUMAN ORIGINS
of the glaciers of Switzerland, from which
former calculations had been made. But
obviously the rate at which the fronts of
glaciers advance when forced by a mass of
continental ice down fiords on a steep
descending gradient into a deep sea, where
the front is floated off in icebergs, affords
no clue as to that of an ice-cap spread,
with a front of 1,000 miles, over half a
continent, retarded by friction, and sur
mounting mountain chains 3,000 feet high.
Nor does the rate of advance afford the
slightest clue to the time during which the
ice-cap may have remained stationary,
alternately advanced and retreated, and
finally disappeared.
We have now to adjust our time-telescope
to a wider range, and see what the Quater
nary or glacial period teaches us as to the
antiquity of man. The first remark is that,
if the post-glacial period is much longer
than that for which we have historical
records, the glacial exceeds the post-glacial
in a far higher proportion. The second is,
that throughout the whole of this glacial
period, from its commencement to its close,
we have conclusive evidence of the exist
ence of man, and that not only in a few
limited localities, but widely spread over
nearly all the habitable regions of the
earth.
The first point has been so conclusively
established by all geologists of all countries,
from the time of Lyell down to the present
day, that it is unnecessary to enter on any
detailed arguments, and the leading facts
may be taken as established. It may be
sufficient, therefore, if I give a short
summary of those facts, and quote a few
of the instances which show the enormous
period of time which must have elapsed
between the close of the tertiary and the
commencement of the modern epoch.
The glacial period was not one and
simple, but comprised several phases'.
During the Pliocene the climate was
gradually becoming colder; and either to
wards its close or at the commencement
of the Quaternary this culminated in a
first and most intense glaciation. Ice-caps
radiating from Scandinavia crept outwards,
filling up the North Sea, crossing valleys
and mountains, and covering with their
boulders and moraines a wide circle,
embracing Britain down to the Thames
valley, Germany to the Hartz mountains,
and Russia almost as far east as the Urals.
In North America a still more massive
ice-cap overflowed mountain ranges 3,000
feet high, and covered the whole eastern
half of the continent with an unbroken
mantle of ice as far south as New York and
Washington.
At the same time every great mountain
chain and high plateau' sent out enormous
glaciers, which, in the case of the Alps,
filled up the valley of the Rhone and the
Lake of Geneva, buried the whole of the
lower country of Switzerland under 3,000
feet of ice, and left the boulders of its
terminal moraine, carried from the Mont
Blanc range, at that height on the opposite
range of the Jura. Nor is this a solitary
instance. We find everywhere traces ofenormous glaciers in the Pyrenees and
Carpathians, the Atlas and Lebanon, the
Taurus and Caucasus, the highlands of
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; in the Rocky
Mountains and Sierra Nevada; in the
Andes and Cordilleras of South America ;
in South Africa and in New Zealand.
These may not have all been simultaneous,
but they certainly all belong to the same
period of the great glaciation, and show
that it must have been affected by some
general cause, and not have been entirely
due to mere local accidents.
How this first great glacial period came
on, or how long it lasted, we do not know,
unless a clue be afforded—and authorities
differ as to this—by Dr. Croll’s theory, which
explains the great variations in climate as
due to periodic changes in the eccentricity
of the earth’s orbit, the periods of greatest
cold coinciding with those of greatest
eccentricity. But we know generally from
the amount of work done and the changes
which took place that the Ice Age must have
lasted for an immense time. The ice, which
covered so great a portion of the northern
hemisphere, was not a polar ice-cap, but,
as is proved conclusively from the direction
of the striae which were engraved by it on
the subjacent rocks, spread outwards in all
directions from great masses of elevated
land. This land must have been more
elevated than at present, so as to rise, like
Greenland, far into the region of perpetual
snow, where all rain falls and accumulates
in the solid form ; and also to supply the
enormous mass of dlbris which the ice-caps
and glaciers left behind them. It is not
too much to say that a million of square
miles in Europe, and more in North
America, were covered by the debris of
rocks ground down by these glaciers, and
often to great depths. Most of the debris
of the first glaciation have been removed
by denudation, or ploughed out by the
second great advance of the ice, leaving
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
only the larger and harder boulders to
testify to their extent ; but enough remains
to show that the first series of boulder-clays
and drifts must have been on a scale larger
than those of the second and subsequent
glaciations, which now form the superficial
stratum of so much of the earth’s surface,
and often attain a depth of several hundred
feet. Wright, in his Ice Age in North
America., estimates that “not less than
1,000,000 square miles of territory in North
America is still covered with an average
depth of fifty feet of glacial dlbnsP
However, this first period of elevation
and of intense glaciation passed away, and
was succeeded by one of depression and
of milder climate. Whether or no the
depression was due, as some think, to the
weight of the enormous mass of ice weigh
ing down the yielding crust of the earth,
and whether or no the milder climate .was
partly occasioned by this depression letting
in the sea, the fact is certain that the two
coincided, and were general and not merely
local phenomena. Marine shells at the
top of what are now high, hills, which
during the preceding glaciation were pro
bably higher, attest the fact that a large
amount of land must have sunk below the
sea towards the close of this first glacial
period. It is equally clear that a long
inter-glacial period ensued, during which
many changes took place in the geographi
cal conditions and in the fauna and flora,
requiring a very long time. Thus Britain,
which had been reduced to an Arctic
Archipelago, in which only a few of the
highest mountain peaks emerged as frozen
islands, became united to the continent,
and the abode of a fauna consisting in
great part of African animals. At one time
boreal shells were deposited, at the bottom
of an Arctic ocean, on what is now the top
of Moel-Tryfen in Wales, a hill i,3°° feet
above the present sea-level; while at
another the hippopotamus found its way,
in some great river flowing from the south,
as far north as Yorkshire, and the remains
of African animals such as the hyena
accumulated in our caves. In Southern
France we had at one time a vegetation of
the Arctic willow and reindeer moss, at
another that of the fig-tree and canary
laurel. When we consider that little
if any change has occurred, either in
geographical conditions or in fauna or
flora, within the historical period, it is
difficult to assign the time which would be
sufficient to bring about such changes by
any known natural causes. And yet it
lot
comprises only a portion of the glacial
period, for after this inter-glacial period
had lasted for an indefinite time the climate
again became cold, and culminated in a
second glaciation, which, if not equal to
the first, was still of extreme severity, and
brought back ice-caps and glaciers almost
to their former limits, passing away slowly
and with several vicissitudes and alternate
retreats and advances.
It is not always easy to determine the
position of each individual phase of the two
glacial and the inter-glacial periods, for
they must often have been intermixed, while
the results of the last glaciation and of
subsequent denudation have to a great
extent obscured those of the earlier periods.
But taking a general view of the glacial
period as a whole, there are a few leading
facts which testify conclusively to its
immense antiquity. First, there is the
amount of elevation and depression. We
have seen that marine Arctic shells have
been found on the top of Moel-Tryfen,
1,300 feet above the present sea-level.
Nor is this an isolated instance, for marine
drifts apparently of the same character
have been traced on the mountains of
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to a height
of between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. In
Norway, also, old sea beaches are found
to a height of 800 feet. Nor are these
great movements confined to the Old World
or to limited localities. According to
Professor Le Conte, at a meeting of
the Geological Congress at Washington, a
great continental movement, commencing
in the later tertiary and terminating in the
beginning of the quaternary, caused
changes of level amounting to 2,500 or
3,000 feet on both sides of the continent of
North America.
Now, elevation and depression of large
masses of land are, as far as we know
anything certain about them, very slow
processes, especially in countries unaffected
by recent volcanic action, which is the case
with nearly all the regions in North
America and Europe once covered by the
great ice-sheets. There has been little or
no perceptible change anywhere since the
commencement of history, and the only
accurate measurements of changes now
going on are those in Sweden, where
it appears that in some cases elevation,
and in others depression, is taking place
at the rate of about two and a half feet in a
century. In volcanic regions earthquakes
have occasionally caused movements of
greater amount in limited areas, but there
�lol
HUMAN ORIGINS
is no trace of anything of the sort in these
movements of the glacial period which
have apparently gone on by slight secular .
changes in the earth’s crust, as they are now
doing in Scandinavia.
But in this case a depression of 2,000
feet, followed by an elevation of equal
amount, at Lyell’s rate of two and a half
feet per century, would require 160,000
years, without allowing for any pauses
during the process. And this embraces
only part of the whole glacial period, for
the depression did not begin until after the
climax of the first great glaciation, when
the land probably stood higher than at
present. Of course, the actual movements
may have been more rapid; but, unless
we resort to the exploded theories of
cataclysms and catastrophes, the time
for such movements must have been very
great.
An equally conclusive proof of the im
mense antiquity of the glacial period is
afforded by the formation known as the
loess, which fills up so many of the valley
systems of Europe, Asia, and America to
great depths, and spreads over the adja
cent table-lands. It is the moraine mud
of glaciers, deposited by the water
which inundated the country when great
rivers from glaciated districts ran at higher
levels, and began to excavate their present
valleys. Lyell estimates the thickness of
this deposit in the Rhine valley at 800 feet,
and it is found at much higher levels on
upland plains. Now, this loess , is not a
marine or lacustrine deposit, as is proved
by the shells it contains, which are all of
land species ; nor is it a deposit of running
water, for there are no sands or gravels ;
but distinctly such a deposit from tranquil
sheets of muddy water like those accumu
lated in Egypt by the inundations of the
Nile. When the Rhine brought down such
volumes of muddy water from the glaciers
of the Alps as to overflow the upland plains,
it must have flowed at a level many hun
dred feet higher than its present valley,
which must have been since scooped out
by sub-aerial denudation. The rate of de
position of the Nile mud is about three
inches per century, and there seems no
reason why that of the fine glacial mud
should have been more rapid, charged as
the Nile is every year with mud from the
torrential rains of the Abyssinian high
lands. At this rate it would have required
320,000 years to accumulate the 800 feet of
loess of the Rhine valley. Here again the
rate may have been faster, but it is suffi
cient to show that an immense time must
have elapsed, and the loess is a distinctly
glacial deposit, containing palaeolithic
human remains and a pleistocene fauna,
and embracing only a portion of the quater
nary period. Nor is it an isolated pheno
menon confined to Europe, but is found
over the whole world wherever rivers have
flowed from regions which were formerly
buried under ice and snow.
Loess is
found in the valleys of the Yang-tseKang and the Mississippi; and Sir Charles
Lyell, referring to the fossil human bone
discovered at Natchez, says : “My reluc
tance in 1846 to regard the fossil human
bone as of post-pliocene date arose, in part,
from the reflection that the ancient loess of
Natchez is anterior in time to the whole
modern delta of the Mississippi. The table
land was, I believe, once a part of the
original alluvial plain or delta of the great
river before it was upraised. It has now
risen more than 200 feet above its pristine
level. After the upheaval, or during it, the
Mississippi cut through the whole fluviatile
formation, of which its bluffs are now
formed, just as the Rhine has in many
parts of its valley excavated a passage
through its ancient loess. If I was right
in calculating that the present delta of the
Mississippi has acquired, as a minimum of
time, more than 100,000 years for its
growth, it would follow, if the claims of
the Natchez man to have co-existed with
the mastodon are admitted, that North
America was peopled more than a thousand
centuries ago by the human race. But,
even were that true, we could not presume,
reasoning from ascertained geological
data, the Natchez bone was anterior
in date to the antique flint haches of
St. Acheul.”
Human remains have since been found m
the United States, both in the loess, and
in drifts, which are presumably older ; but
even if this were doubtful, the evidence
would remain the same for the immense
time required for such a deposit, and there
is abundant proof in Europe that human
implements, and even skulls and skeletons,
have been unearthed at considerable depths
the loess, along with remains of the mam
moth and other extinct animals.
It must be remembered also that the
loess is only one part of the work due to
glacial erosion. It is, in fact, only the
deposit of the fine mud ground from the
rocks by glaciers, the streams issuing
from which carry it beyond the coarser
debris, which, as wehave seen, cover 1,000,000
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY
square miles to an average depth of fifty
feet in North America alone. _ The volumes
of the loess and of the debris tell the same
story of enormous erosion requiring im
mense periods of time.
Even in comparatively recent times
striking proofs of immense antiquity are
afforded by the amounts of denudation and
erosion which have taken place since the ice
disappeared and the lands and seas assumed
substantially their present contours and
levels. I will give one instance which,
although comparatively modern, will come
home readily to most British readers. Sir
John Evans, in his Ancient Stone Imple
ments, referring to those found at Bourne
mouth ioo feet above the present sea-level
in the gravels of the old Solent river,
which then ran at that height, says
“Who, standing on the edge of the
lofty cliff at Bournemouth, and gazing over
the wide expanse of waters between the
present shore and a line connecting the
Needles on the one hand and the BallardDown Foreland on the other, can fully
comprehend how immensely remote was
the epoch when what is now that vast bay
was high and dry land, and a long range of
chalk down, 600 feet above the sea, bounded
the horizon on the south ? And yet this
must have seen the sight that met the eyes
of those primaeval men who frequented
that ancient river, which buried their handi
works in gravels that now cap the cliffs, and
of the course of which so strange but indu
bitable a memorial subsists, in what has
now become the Solent Sea.”
And the same may be said of the still
wider strait which separates England from
France. No geologist could look either at
the Needles and Ballard Foreland, or at
Shakespear’s Cliff and Cape Grisnez, with
out a conviction that the chalk ridge was
once continuous, and has been worn away,
inch by inch, by the very same process as
is now going on. Nor can the action of
ice or river floods be evoked to accelerate
the process, for evidently it has throughout
been a case of marine erosion. The
only question is whether this dates back
even into the later phases of the glacial
period, for the opposite cliffs show no sign
of having been either depressed beneath
the sea or elevated above it, but rather
appear to have stood at their present level
since the erosion began. In any case, it
can only have occupied a comparatively
short and recent phase of the glacial
period, for there is abundant evidence that
the British islands have been connected
103
with the Continent in, geologically speak
ing, comparatively recent times.
Great, however, as is the antiquity shown
by these relatively modern instances, they
sink into insignificance compared with that
evidenced by a recent discovery, which I
quote the more readily because it rests on
the high authority of the late Professor
Prestwich, who has been foremost among
modern geologists in reducing the time
required for the glacial period and for the
existence of man. It. is afforded by the
upland gravels in Kent and Surrey, which
are scattered over wide areas of the chalk
downs and green-sand, at elevations far
above existing valleys and water sheds, and
which could have been deposited only
before the present rivers began to run,
and when the configuration of the
country was altogether different. Mr. Har
rison, a shopkeeper at Ightham in Kent,
who is an ardent field-geologist, recently
discovered what have been named eolithic,
or pre-palaeolithic, implements, in consider
able numbers and in various localities, in
these gravels of the great southern drift,
at an elevation of 75° fee^ above the sea
level. These discoveries, which have since
been repeated by other observers, led
Professor Prestwich to institute an exhaus
tive inquiry as to these upland drifts ; and
the startling conclusion he arrives at is
that the oldest of them, the great southern
drift, in which the implements are found,
could have come only from a mountain
range 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, which
formerly ran from east to west in the line
of the anticlinal axis which runs down the
centre to the present Weald of Kent,
between the north and south chalk downs,
and which has been since worn down to
the present low forest ridge by sub-aerial
denudation. The reasoning by which this
inference is supported seems irresistible.
The drift could not have been deposited by
the present rivers or during the present
configuration of the country, for it is found
at levels 300 or 400 feet higher than the
highest watersheds between the existing
valleys. It consists not only of chalk flints,
but to a great extent of cherts and sand
stones, such as are found at present in the
forest-ridge of the Wealden and nowhere
else. It must have been brought by water,
for the gravels are to a considerable
extent rounded and water-worn. Judging
from the size of the rolled stones, this
water must have travelled with consider
able velocity ; and it must have come from
the south, because the cherts and grits are
�i&4
HUMAN origins
found only there, and because the levels at
which the gravels are found are in that
direction. By following these levels as far
as the present surface extends, which is to
the southern edge of the green sand, it is
easy to plot out what must have been the
continuation of this rising gradient to the
south, and what the elevation of the southern
range in which these northward-flowing
streams took their origin. Prestwich has
gone into the question in full detail, and
his conclusion is that the height of this
Wealden ridge must have been at least
2,800 feet, or, in other words, that about
2,000 feet must have disappeared by
denudation. This is the more conclusive
because, as remarked above, Prestwich
approached the subject with a bias towards
shortening rather than lengthening the
periods commonly assigned for the glacial
epoch and the antiquity of man.
The present average rate of denudation
of continents has been approximately
measured by calculating the amount of
solid matter brought down by rivers. It
varies a good deal, according to the nature
of the area drained ; but the average is
about one foot in 3,000 years. At this rate
the time required for the removal of 2,000
feet of the Wealden ridge would be no less
than 6,000,000 years ; but of course this
would be no fair test, as denudation would
be vastly more rapid than the present
average rate on hilly ranges and under
glacial conditions of climate. It is enough
to say that the period required must have
been extremely great, and quite ample to
fit in with the most extended time required
by Croll’s theory of the varying eccentricity
of the earth’s orbit.
It is to be noted also that Prestwich pro
nounces part of this high level or southern
drift to be older than the Westleton pebble
drift which forms part of the Upper Plio
cene series in Suffolk and Norfolk, and
which he has traced over many of our
southern counties. If this conclusion is
correct, it solves the problem of tertiary man
by showing numerous palaeolithic imple
ments in a deposit older than an undoubted
Pliocene bed. The implements found in
these high-level southern drifts are all of a
very rude type, and the discovery is con
firmed by similar implements having been
found at corresponding elevations on the
chalk downs of Hertfordshire and on the
South Downs.
I will mention only one other instance,
which shows that the New World confirms
the conclusion as to the antiquity of the
quaternary age. The auriferous gravels of
California consist of an enormous mass of
debris washed down by pre-glacial or early
glacial rivers from the western slopes of the
great coast range. During their deposition
they became interstratified with lavas and
tuffs from eruptions of volcanoes long since
extinct, and finally covered by an immense
flow of basalts, which formed a gently
inclined plane from the Sierra Nevada to
the Pacific. This plane was attacked by the
denudations of the existing river-courses,
and cut down into a series of flat-topped
hills, divided by steep canons and by the
valleys of the present great rivers. In one
case, that of the Colombia river, this denu
dation has been carried down to a depth of
over 2,000 feet, and the river flows between
precipitous cliffs of this height. The pre
sent gold-mining is carried on mainly by
shafts and tunnels driven through super
ficial gravels and sheets of basalts and tuffs,
which are brought down in great masses by
hydraulic jets to the gravels of the pre
glacial rivers. In a large number of these
cases stone implements of undoubted
human origin have been found at great
depths under several successive sheets of
basalts, tuffs, and gravels. Mr. Skertchley,
an eminent English geologist, who visited
the district, says of these gravels : “ What
ever may be their absolute age from
a geological standpoint, their immense
antiquity historically is beyond question..
The present great river system of the Sacra-*
mento, Joaquin, and other rivers has been
established; canons 2,000 feet deep have
been carried through lava, gravels, and
into the bed rock; and the gravels, once
the bed of large rivers, now cap hills 6,000
feet high. There is ample ground for the
belief that these gravels are of Pliocene
age, but the presence of objects of human
formation invests them with a higher inte
rest to the anthropologist than even to the
geologist.”
I will return to this subject more fully in
the chapter on “ Tertiary Man ” when deal
ing with the question of the human remains
found in these Californian gravels.
Those who wish to pursue the subject
further will find abundant evidence in the
works of Lyell, Geikie, Evans, Boyd Daw
kins, and other modern geologists, and a
popular summary of it in my Modern
Science and Modern Thought.
It is sufficient for my present purpose to
have shown that, even taking the quater
nary period alone, geology proves that
there is an abundant balance in the
�Q UA TERNAR Y MAN
bank of.Time to meet any demands that
may be made upon it by the kindred
sciences.
CHAPTER IX.
QUATERNARY MAN
No longer doubted—Men existed in '-numbers
and widely spread — Palaeolithic Imple
ments of similar Type found everywhere
— Progress shown—Tests of Antiquity —
Position of Strata—Fauna—Oldest Types—
Mixed Northern and Southern Species—Rein
deer Period — Correspondence of Human
Remains with these Periods—Advance of
Civilisation—Clothing and Barbed Arrows—
Drawing and Sculpture—Passage into Neo
lithic and Recent Periods—Corresponding
Progress of Physical Man—Distinct Races
—How tested—Tests applied to Historical,
Neolithic, and Palaeolithic Man — Long
Heads and Broad Heads — Aryan Contro
versy — Primitive European Types—Canon
Taylor—Huxley—Preservation of Human
Remains depends mainly on Burials—About
forty Skulls and Skeletons known from
Quaternary Times—Summary of Results—
Quatrefages and Hamy—Races of Cannstadt
I *s»Cro-Magnon — F urfooz—Truchere—Skele
tons of Neanderthal and Spy—Cannstadt
Type oldest — Cro-Magnon Type next—
Skeleton of Cro-Magnon—Broad-headed and
Short Race resembling Lapps—American
Type—Negroes and Negritos—Summary of
Results.
The time is past when it is necessary
to go into any lengthened argument to
prove that man existed throughout the
Quaternary period. Little more than half
a century has elapsed since the confirma
tion of Boucher de Perthes’s discovery of
palaeolithic implements in the old gravels
of the Somme, and now the proofs have
multiplied to such an extent that they are
reckoned, not by scores or hundreds, but
by tens of thousands. Stone tools and
weapons have been found not in one locality
npr in one formation only, but in all the
deposits of the Quaternary age, from the
earliest to the latest, and in association with
the fauna of the Quaternary period, from
the extinct mammoth, woolly rhinoceros,
and cave-bear, to the reindeer, horse, ox,
and other existing animals. No geologist or
palaeontologist, who approaches the subject
105
with anything like competent knowledge,
and without theological or other pre
possessions, doubts that man is as much a
characteristic member of the Quaternary
fauna as any of these extinct or existing
animals, and that reasonable doubt only
begins when we pass from the Quaternary
into the Tertiary ages. I will content
myself, therefore, instead of proving facts
which are no longer disputed, with show
ing what bearing they have on the question
of human origins.
The first fact to note is that at this
palaeolithic celt (type of St. Acheul).
From Quaternary deposits of the Nerbudda,
India.
remote period man existed in considerable
numbers, and was already widely spread
over nearly the whole surface of the habit
able earth.
Implements and weapons of the palaeo
lithic type, such as celts or hatchets, lance
and arrow-heads, knives, borers, and
scrapers of flint, or, if that material be
wanting, of some hard stone of the district,
fashioned by chipping without any grinding
or polishing, have been found in the sands
and gravels of most of the river valleys
of Southern England, France, Belgium,
�io6
HUMAN ORIGINS
Germany, Spain, and Italy. Still more
numerously also in the caves and glacial
drifts of these andother European countries.
Nor are they confined to Europe. Stone
implements of the same type have been
found in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Natal,
South Africa, Greece, Syria, Palestine,
Hindostan, and as far east as China and
Japan, while in the New World they
have been found in Maryland, Ohio,
California, and other States in North
America, and in Brazil, and the Argentine
probability that it will eventually be proved
that, with a few exceptions, wherever man
could have existed during the Quaternary
period, there he did exist. The northern
portions of Europe which were buried
under ice-caps are the only countries where
considerable search has failed to discover
palaeolithic implements, while vast areas
of Asia, Africa, and America remain un
explored.
The next point to observe is that through-
PALAEOLITHIC CELT IN ARGILLITE.
From the Delaware, United States (Abbott).
pampas in the South. And this has been
the result of the explorations of little more
than forty years, prior to which the co
existence of man with the extinct animals
was almost universally denied; explora
tions which, except in a few European
countries, have been very partial.
In fact, the area over which these evi
dences of man’s existence have been found
may be best defined by the negative, where
they have not been found, as there is every
(type of St. Acheul).
From Algeria (Lubbock).
PALAEOI.ITHIC FLINT CELT
out the whole of the Quaternary period
there has been a constant advance in
human intelligence. Any theory of human
origins which says that man has fallen and
not risen is demonstrably false. How
do we know this? The time-scale of
the Quaternary, as of other geological
periods, is determined partly by the super
position of strata, and partly by the changes
of fauna. In the case of existing rivers
�quaternary man
107
modern as we descend in the one case or
ascend in the others.
This is practically confirmed by. tne
coincidence of innumerable observations.
The oldest Quaternary fauna is character
ised by a preponderance of three species—
the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), the
woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros tichormus),
and the cave-bear (Ursus spelmus).
There are a few survivals from the Plio
cene, as the gigantic elephant (Elephas
antiquus), and a few anticipations of later
forms, as the reindeer, horse, and ox; but the
three mentioned are, with relics of palaeo
lithic man, the most characteristic. Then
comes a long period when a strange mixture
of northern and southern forms occurs. Side
by side with the remains of Arctic animals,
such as the mammoth, the glutton, the
musk ox, and the lemming, are found those
of African species adapted only for a warm
climate—the lion, panther, hyena, and, above
all, the hippopotamus, not distinguishable
from the existing species, which could
certainly not have lived in rivers that were
frozen in winter.
The intermixture is difficult to explain.
No doubt Africa and Europe were then
united, and the theory of migration may be
invoked. The Arctic animals may, it is
said, have moved south in winter and the
African animals north in summer, and
this was doubtless the case to some extent.
But there are some facts which militate
against this theory ; for instance, the hyena
caves, which seem to show a continuous
occupation by the same African species for
long periods. Nor is it easy to conceive
how the hippopotamus could have travelled
every summer from Africa to Yorkshire,
and retreated every autumn with the ap
proach of frost. Such instances point
rather to long inter-glacial periods with
vicissitudes of climate, enabling now a
northern, and now a southern, fauna to in
habit permanently the same region.
Be this as it may, the fact is certain that
palaeolithic celt of quartzite from
this strange intermixture of northern and
NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA.
southern species is found in almost all the
(Quatrefages.)
European deposits of the Quaternary age
until towards its close with the coming-on
lower. In the case of deposits in caves
of the second great glacial period, when
or in still water, or where glacial moraines
the southern forms disappear, and the rein
and debris are superimposed on one
deer, with an Arctic or boreal flora and
another, the case is reversed : the
fauna, become preponderant, and extend
lowest are the oldest, and the highest the
themselves over Southern France and Ger
most recent.
many up to the Alps and Pyrenees.
In like manner, if the fauna has changed,
The Quaternary period is therefore
the remains found in the highest deposits
roughly divided into three stages: 1st,
of rivers and the lowest deposits of caves
that of the mammoth and cave-bear, there
will be the oldest, and will become more
which have excavated their presentgalleys
in the course of ages, it is evident that th
highest deposits are the oldest. It the
Somme, Seine, or Thames left remains of
their terraces and patches of their silts and
gravels at heights 100 feet or more above
their present level, it is because they once
ran at these higher levels, and gradual y
worked their way downwards, leaving
traces of their floods ever lower and
�108
HUMAN ORIGINS
being some difference of opinion as to
which came first, though they may have
been simultaneous ; 2nd, the middle stage
of the mixed fauna ; 3rd, the latest stage,
that of the reindeer.
Now, to these stages there is striking
correspondence in the associated character
of the human implements. In the earliest,
those of the oldest deposits and of the
oldest animals, we find the rudest imple
ments. They consist almost exclusively
of native stones, chipped roughly into a few
primitive shapes ; celts, which are merely
lumps of flint or other hard stone with a
little chipping to supplement natural frac
tures in bringing them to a point or edge,
while the butt-end is left rough to be grasped
by the hand ; scrapers with a little chipping
to an edge on one side ; very rude arrow
heads without the vestige of a barb or
socket; and flakes struck off at a blow,
which may have served for knives. As we
ascend to later deposits, we find these
primitive types constantly improving. The
celts are chipped all over and the butt-ends
adapted for haftings; so with the other
implements and weapons, the arrow-heads
being barbed. And a great advance
occurs in the use of bone, which seems to
have been as. important a civilising agent
for palaeolithic as metals were for neo
lithic man. This again may be due to the
increasing preponderance of the reindeer,
whose horns afforded an abundant and
easily manipulated material for working
into the desired forms by flint knives.
At any rate, the fact is that, as we trace
palaeolithic man upwards into the later half
of the Quaternary period when the reindeer
became abundant, we find a notable advance
in civilisation. Bone needles appear, show
ing that skins of animals were stitched
together with sinews to provide clothing.
Barbed arrows and harpoons show that the
arts of war and of the chase had made a
great advance on the primitive unhafted
celt. . And finally we arrive at a time when
certain tribes showed not only an advance
in the industrial arts, but a really marvel
lous proficiency in the arts of sculpture and
drawing. In the later reindeer period,
when herds of that animal and of the wild
horse and ox roamed over the plains of
Southern France and Germany, and when
the mammoth and cave-bear, though not
extinct, were becoming scarce, tribes of
palaeolithic savages who lived in the caves
and rock shelters of the valleys of Southern
France and Germany, and of Switzerland
and Belgium, drew pictures of the animals
by which they were surrounded with the
point of a flint on pieces of bone or of
schist. They also carve'd bones into
images of these animals, to adorn the
handles of their weapons, or perhaps for
use as idols or amulets. Both drawings and
sculptures are in many cases admirably
executed, so as to leave no doubt as to the
animal intended, especially in the case of
the wild animals. Most of them represent
the reindeer in various attitudes; but the
mammoth, the cave-bear, the wild horse,
the Bos primigenius, and others, are
also represented with wonderful fidelity.
Portraits of the human figure are rare
and very roughly done.
With the close of the reindeer age we pass
into the Recent period, and from palaeolithic
to neolithic man. . Except in the British
Isles, whose geological detachment explains
the gap, there is no physical break, and we
cannot draw a hard-and-fast line as to where
one ends and where the other begins. All
we can say is that there is general evidence
of constantly decreasing cold during the
whole post-glacial period, from the climax
of the second great glaciation until modern
conditions of climate are fairly established
and the existing fauna has completely
superseded that of the Quaternary, the
older characteristic forms of which having
either become extinct or migrated. How
does this affect the most characteristic of
all Quaternary forms, that of man ? Can
we trace an uninterrupted succession from
the earliest Quaternary to the latest modern
times, or is there a break between the
Quaternary and Recent periods which with
our present knowledge cannot be bridged
over? And did the division of mankind
into widely different races, which is such
a prominent feature throughout human
history, exist in the palaeolithic age?
These are questions which can be an
swered—and that imperfectly—only by the
evidence of skulls and skeletons. I mplements
and weapons may have altered with the lapse
of ages, and new forms may have been intro
duced by commerce and conquest, without
any fundamental change in the race using
them. Still less can language be appealed
to as a test of race, for experience shows
how easily the language of a superior race
may be imposed on populations with which
it has no affinity in blood. To establish
distinction of races we consult the physical
anthropologist rather than the archaeologist
or philologist.
On what are the distinctions of the
human race founded ? Mainly on colour,
�Q UA TERNA RY MAN
stature, hair, and anatomical characters.
These are wonderfully persistent, and
have been so since historical times,
intermediate characters appearing only
where there has been intercrossing be
tween different races. But the primitive
types have continued unchanged ; no
one has ever seen a white race of
Negroes, or a black one of Europeans.
And this has certainly been the case during
the historical period, for the paintings on
old Egyptian tombs show us the types of
the Negro, the Libyan, the Syrian, and the
Copt as distinct as at the present day ; and
the Negroes especially, with their black
colour, long heads, projecting muzzles, and
woolly hair growing* in separate tufts, might
pass for typical photographs of the African
Negro of the nineteenth century.
Of these indications of race we are
practically reduced to the anatomical
in any finds in Quaternary gravel or caves
Even, then, a number of causes, which will
be indicated later on, combine to make
human remains few and scanty, and to
become constantly fewer and more imper
fect as we ascend the stream of time to
earlier periods. It must be remembered
also that even these scanty specimens of
early man are confined almost entirely to
one comparatively small portion of the
earth, that of Europe, and that we have
hardly a single palaeolithic skull or skeleton
of the black, the yellow, the olive, the
copper-coloured, or other typical race into
which the population of the earth is
divided.
We are confined, therefore, in the
main, to Europe for anything like positive
evidence of these anatomical characters of
prehistoric man, and can draw inferences
as to other habitable portions of the earth
and other races only from implements. For
tunately these racial characters are very
persistent, especially those of the skull and
. stature, and they exist in ample abundance
throughout the historic, prehistoric, and
neolithic ages to enable us to draw trust
worthy conclusions. At present, and
as far as we can see back with certainty,
the races which have inhabited Europe
may be classified as tall and short, long
headed and broad-headed, and as of
intermediate types, which latter, though
constituting a majority of most modern
countries, may be dismissed for the present,
as they are almost certainly not primitive,
but the result of intercrossing. _
Colour, complexion, and hair are also
very persistent, though, as we have pointed
109
out, we have no certain evidence by which
to test them beyond the historical period.
But the form of skulls, jaws, teeth, and
other parts of the skeleton remains wonder
fully constant in races where there has been
little or no intermixture.
The first great division is in the form of
the skull. Comparing the extreme breadth
of the skull with its extreme length from
front to back, if the breadth does not exceed
three-fourths or 75 per cent, of the length,
the skull is said to be dolicocephalic or
long-headed ; if it equals or exceeds 83 per
cent., it is called brachycephalic—z>., short
or broad-headed. Intermediate indices
between 75 and 83 per cent, are called
sub-dolicocephalic, or sub-brachycephalic,
according as they approach one or the other
of these extremes.
The prognathism of the jaws, the form
of the eye-orbits and nasal bones, the
superciliary ridges, the proportion of the
frontal to the posterior regions of the skull,
the stature and proportions of the limbs,
are also characteristic and persistent
features, and correspond generally with the
type of the skulls.
The controversy as to the origin of the
Aryans—a term which, strictly speaking,
denotes linguistic affinities—has led to a
great deal of argument as to these ethno
logical traits in prehistoric and neolithic
times; and Canon Taylors interesting
volume on the Origin of the Aryans, and
Professor Huxley’s article on the same
subject in the Nineteenth Century for
November, 1890 (reprinted in his Collected
Essays}, give a summary of the latest
researches on the subject. We shall have
to refer to these more fully in discussing
the question as to the place or places of
human origins ; but for the present it is
sufficient to state the general result at
which the latest science has arrived.
While not denying the specific unity of
the human race, the theory of a common
Asiatic centre from which all the _ four
main divisions of mankind—the Ethiopic,
the Mongolic, the American, _ and the
Caucasic—contemporaneously migrated, is
given up as unsupported by evidence.
When we first know anything of the early
European races, we find them occupying
substantially very much the same regions
as at present. Of the European types
already named, one, apparently the oldest
in Western Europe and in the Mediterra
nean region, probably represented by the
Iberians, and now by the Spanish Basques,
was short, dark, and long-headed ; a second,
�no
HUMAN ORIGINS
short, dark, and broad-headed, type, was
probably represented by the ancient Ligu
rians, and survives now in the Auvergnats
and Savoyards ; a third, tall, fair, and
long-headed, had its original seat in the
regions of the Baltic and North Sea, and
was always an energetic and conquering
race ; while the fourth, like the third, was
tall and fair, but broad-headed, and possibly
not a primitive race, but the result of
some ancient intermixture of the third or
Northern type with some of the broad
headed races.
Now, as far back as human remains
exist in sufficient numbers to enable us
to form some conclusion—that is, up to
the early neolithic period—we find similar
race-types already existing, and to a
considerable extent in the same localities.
In modern and historical times we find,
according to Canon Taylor, “all the
anthropological tests agreeing in exhibit
ing two extreme types—the African, with
long heads, long eye-orbits, and flat hair;
and the Mongolian, with round heads, round
orbits, and round hair. The European
type is intermediate—the head, orbits, and
sections of hair are oval. In the east of
Europe we find an approximation to the
Asiatic type ; in the south of Europe to the
African.”
More specifically, we find in Europe the
four races of tall and short long-heads, and
tall and short broad-heads, mentioned above.
The question is, how far back can any of
these races be identified ?
The preservation of human remains
depends mainly on the practice of burying
the dead. Until the corpse is placed in a
tomb, protected by a stone coffin or dolmen,
or in a grave dug in a cave, or otherwise
sheltered from rains, floods, and wild beasts,
the chances of its preservation are few and
far between. It is not until the neolithic
period that the custom of burying the
dead became general, and even then it
was not universal; in many nations, even in
historical times, corpses being burnt, not
buried. It was connected, perhaps, with
ideas of a future existence, which either
required troublesome ghosts to be put
securely out of the way, or to retain a
shadowy existence by some mysterious
connection with the body which had once
served them for a habitation. Cremation,
as Professor Ridgeway suggests, may have
originated in the idea of securing the soul
from any chance of pollution by contact
with the corpse. Such ideas, however, only
come with some advance of civilisation,
and it is questionable whether in prehistoric
times the human animal had any more
notion of preserving the body after death
than the bodies of other animals by which
he was surrounded.
The neolithic habit of burying, though it
preserves many relics of its own time, in
creases the difficulty when we come to deal
with those of an earlier age. A great
many caves which had been inhabited by
palaeolithic man were selected as fitting
spots for the graves of their neolithic suc
cessors, and thus the remains of the two
periods became intermixed. It is never
safe to rely on the antiquity of skulls and
skeletons found in association with palaeo
lithic implements and extinct animals,
unless the exploration has been made with
the greatest care by some competent scien
tific observer, or unless the circumstances of
the case are such as to preclude the possi
bility of later interments. Thus the famous
cavern of Aurignac had been long a
palaeolithic station, and many of the human
remains date back to this period; but
whether the fourteen skeletons which were
found in it, and lost owing to the pietistic
zeal of the Mayor who directed their burial,
were really palaeolithic, or part of a secon
dary neolithic interment, is a disputed
point.
But to return to undoubted neolithic
skulls, we have evidence that the four
distinct European races already existed.
Thus in Britain we have two forms of
barrows or burial tombs, one long, the other
round, and it has become proverbial that
long skulls go with long barrows, and round
skulls with round barrows. The long
barrows are the older, and belong entirely
to the stone age, no trace of metal, accord
ing to Canon Greenwell, having ever been
found in them. The skulls and skeletons
are those of a short, long-headed race,
who may be identified with the Iberians.
The round barrows contain bronze and,
finally, iron, and the people buried in
them were the tall, fair, round-headed
Gauls or Celts of early history, inter
mediate types between these and the
older race. Later came the tall, fair, and
long-headed Anglo-Saxon and Scandina
vian races, so that we have three out of the
four European types clearly defined in the
British islands and traceable in their des
cendants of the present day. But when we
attempt to go beyond the Iberians of the
neolithic age in Britain, we are completely
at fault. We have abundant remains of
palaeolithic implements, but scarcely a
�Q UA TERNAR Y MAN
single undoubted specimen of a palaeolithic
skeleton, and it is impossible to say whether
the men who feasted on the mammoth and
rhinoceros in Kent’s cavern, or who left
their rude implements in the high-level
gravel of the chalk downs, were tall or
short, long-headed or round-headed. On
the contrary, there seems a great hiatus
between the neolithic and the palaeolithic
periods in Great Britain, although, so far
as the Continent is concerned, there is
evidence of continuity. It would almost
seem that in these islands the old era had
disappeared with the last glacial period,
and that a new one had been introduced.
But, although the skulls . and bones of
palaeolithic races are wanting in Britain
and are scarce everywhere, enough have
been found in other European countries
to enable anthropologists not merely to say
that different races already existed at this
immensely remote period, but to classify
them by their types, and see how far these
correspond with those.of later times. This
has been done especially in France and
Belgium, where the discoveries of palaeo
lithic skeletons and skulls have been far
more frequent than elsewhere. Debierre in
his HHomme avant I'histoire. published in
the Bibliotheque Scientifique of 1888, enu
merates upwards of forty instances of such
undoubted Quaternary human remains, of
which at least twenty consisted of. entire
skulls, and others of jaws and other impor
tant bones connected with racial type.
The inference drawn from these remains
will be found in this work of Deb.ierre’s, and
in Y&xrrfs Palceontologie Humaine, Quatrefages’s Races Humaines^ and Topinard’s
Anthropologic; and it will' be sufficient to
give a short summary of the results., always
premising that doubt must attach itself to
the neolithic or palaeolithic character of
remains where the determination of their
exact place in any deposit is. unsettled.
Quaternary fossil man is divided, in
the Crania Ethnica of Quatrefages and
Hamy, into four races : 1st, the Cannstadt
race; 2nd, the Cro-Magnon race; 3rd, the
races of Grenelle and Furfooz ; 4th, the
race of Truchere.
The Cannstadt race is so called from the
first skull presumably of this type, which
was discovered two centuries ago in the
loess of the valley of the Neckar near
Wurtemberg. But the type is more cer
tainly represented by the celebrated
Neanderthal skull, which gave rise to
much discussion, and which was pronounced by some to be that of an idiot,
hi
and by others the most pithecoid specimen
of a human skull yet known.
A later discovery has set at rest all
doubt as to the Neanderthal skull being the
oldest Quaternary human type known in
Western Europe. In the year 1886 two
Belgian savants, Messrs. Fraipont and
Lohest—one an anatomist, the other a geo
logist—discovered in a cave at Spy near
Namur two skeletons with the skulls com
plete, which presented the Neanderthal
type in an exaggerated form. They were
found under circumstances which leave.no
doubt as to their belonging to the earliest
Quaternary deposit, being at the bottom of
the cave, in the lowest of three distinct
strata, the two uppermost of which were
full of the usual palaeolithic implements of
stone and bone, while the few found in the
lowest stratum with the skeletons were of
the rudest description. Huxley pronounces
the evidence such as will bear the severest
criticism, and he sums up the anatomical
characters of the skeletons in the following
terms :—
“ They were short of stature, but power
fully built, with strong, curiously curved
thigh-bones, the lower ends of which are so
fashioned that they must have walked with
a bend at the knees. Their long-depressed
skulls had very strong brow-ridges; their
lower jaws, of brutal depth and solidity,
sloped away from the teeth downwards and
backwards, in consequence of the absence
of that especially characteristic feature of
the higher type of man, the chin promi
nence.”
M. Fraipont says: “We consider our
selves in a position to say. that, having
regard merely to the anatomical structure
of the man of Spy, he possessed a greater
number of pithecoid characters than any
other race of mankind.”
And again he says :—
“The distance which separates the man
of Spy from the modern anthropoid ape is
undoubtedly enormous; but we must be
permitted to point out that, if the man of the
Quaternary age is the stock whence exist
ing races have sprung, he has travelled a
very great way. From the data now ob
tained, it is permissible to believe that we
shall be able to pursue the ancestral type
of man and the anthropoid apes still
further, perhaps as far as the Eocene and
even beyond.”
This Cannstadt or Neanderthal type was
widely diffused early in . the Quaternary
period, being detected in a skull from
the breccia of Gibraltar, and in skull?
�112
HUMAN ORIGINS
from Italy, . Spain, Austria, Sweden,
France, Belgium, and Western Germany ;
in fact, wherever skulls and skeletons
have been found in the oldest deposits
of caves and river-beds, notably in the
alluvia of the Seine valley near Paris,
where three distinct superimposed strata
are found, each with different human
types, that of Cannstadt being the oldest.
Hence it seems certain that the oldest
race of all in Europe was dolicocephalic,
and probable that it was of the Cannstadt
type, the skulls of.which are all low and
long, the length being attained by a great
development of the posterior part of the
head, which compensates for a deficient
forehead.
This type is also interesting because,
although the oldest, it shows occasional
signs of survival through the later palaeo
lithic and neolithic ages down to recent
times. The skulls of St. Manserg, a
mediaeval bishop of Toul, and of Lykke, a
scientific Dane of the last century, closely
resemble the Neanderthal skull in type, and
can scarcely be accounted for except as
instances of that atavism, or reversion to
old ancestral forms, which occasionally
crops up both in the human and in animal
species. It is thought by many that these
earliest palaeolithic men may be the
ancestors of the tall, fair, long-headed race
of Northern Europe; and Professor Vir
chow states that in the Frisian islands off
the North German coast, where the original
Teutonic type has been least affected by
intermixture, the F risian skull unmistakeably
approaches the Neanderthal and Spy type.
But if this be so, the type must have per
sisted for an immense time, for, as Huxley
observes, “ the difference is abysmal
between these rude and brutal savages and
the comely, fair, tall, and long-headed races
of historical times and of civilised nations.”
At the present day the closest resemblance
to the Neanderthal type is afforded by the
skulls of certain tribes of native Australians.
Next in antiquity to the Cannstadt type,
though still in the early age when the
mammoth and cave-bear were abundant,
and the implements and weapons still very
rude, we have that of the Cro-Magnon
type. The name is taken from the
skeleton of an old man, which was found
entire in the rock shelter of Cro-Magnon
in the valley of the Vezere, near the
station of Moustier, wherein occur the
types of some of the oldest and rudest
stone implements.
The skeleton was
found in the inner extremity of the
shelter, buried under a mass of debris and
fallen blocks of limestone, and associated
with bones of the mammoth and imple
ments of the Moustier type, so that there
appears to be no doubt of its extreme
antiquity.
. The skull, like that of the Cannstadt type
is dolichocephalic, but in all other respects
it is different. The brow-bridges and
generally bestial characters have disap
peared the brain is of fair or even large
capacity ; the stature tall; the forehead
fairly high and well rounded ; the face large;
the nose straight, the jaws prognathous,’
and the chin prominent.
This type is found in a number of locali
ties, especially in the south-west of France,
Belgium, and Italy, and it continued
through the Quaternary into the neolithic
period, being found in the caves of the rein
deer age and in dolmens. It is thought
by some ethnologists to present analogies
to the Berber type of North Africa, and to
that of the extinct Guanches of the Canary
Islands.
Co-existent with, or a little later than, this
type is one of a totally different character
viz., that of a brachycephalic race of very
short stature, closely resembling the modern
Lapps. This has been subdivided into the
several races of Furfooz, Grenelle, and
Truchere, according to the degree of
brachycephaly and other features; but
practically we may look on these as the
results of local variations or intercrossings,
and consider all the short, brachycephalic
races as forming a third type sharply
opposed to those of Cannstadt and CroMagnon.
We have thus evidence that the Qua
ternary fauna in Europe comprised three
distinct races of palaeolithic men, and
there is a good deal of evidence for
the existence of a fourth distinct race in
America with features differing from any
of the European races, and resembling
those of the native American in recent
times. But this affords no clue as to the
existence of other palaeolithic types in
Asia, Africa, India, Australia, and other
countries, forming quite three-fourths of
the inhabited world, in which totally
different races now exist or have existed
since the commencement of history; races
which cannot possibly have been derived
from any of the European types during
the lapse of time comprised within the
Quaternary period.
The Negro race is the most striking in
stance of this, for it differs essentially from
�Q UA TERNAR Y MAN
any other in many particulars, aU of which
are in the direction of approximation
towards the pithecoid or ape-like type.
The size of the brain is less, and a larger
proportion of it is in the hinder half; the
muzzle is much more projecting, and the
nose flatter; the fore-arm longer ; while
various other anatomical peculiarities all
point in the same direction, though the type
remains human in the main features. It
diverges, however, from the known types of
Quaternary man in Europe and from the
American type, as completely as. it does
from those of modern man, evidencing
that it is not derived from them, or they
from it, in the way of direct descent. If
there is any truth in evolution, the Negro
type must be one of the oldest, as
nearest to the animal ancestor, and this
ancestor must be placed very far back
beyond the Quaternary period, to allow
sufficient time for the development of
entirely different and improved races.
This will be the more evident if we con
sider the case of the pygmy Negritos, who
probably represent the earlier, perhaps pri
mitive, type of which the Negro were off
shoots, and who are spread over a wide tropi
cal belt of half the circumference of the
earth, from New Guinea to Western Africa.
They seem originally to have occupied
a large part of this belt, and to have
been driven to dense forests, high moun
tains, and isolated islands, by taller and
stronger races, such as the true Negro,
the Melanesian, and the Malay. But they
had already existed long enough to develop
various sub-types, for, although always
approaching more to the Negro type than
any other, the Negrito type differs in the
length of skull, colour, hair, prognathism,
and other particulars. They all agree in the
one respect which makes it impossible to
associate them with any known Quaternary
type, either as ancestors dr descendant^-—
viz., that of dwarfish stature. As a rule,
the Bushmen and Negritos do not average
above four feet six inches, and the females
three inches less ; while in some cases they
are as low as four feet—?>., they are quite
a foot shorter than the average of the
higher races, and nearly a foot and a half
below that of the Quaternary Cro-Magnon
and Mentone skeletons, and of the modern
Swedes and Scotchmen. They are small
and slightly built m proportion, but they
are by no means deformed specimens of
humanity. Professor Flower suggests that
they may be “the primitive type from which
the African Negroes on the one hand, and
113
the Melanesians on the other, have sprung.”
In any case they must certainly have existed
as a distinct type in the Quaternary period,
and probably earlier. It is remarkable
also that the oldest human implements
known get continually smaller as they
get older, until those from the Miocene beds
of Thenay and Puy Courny are almost
too small for the hands even of Stanley’s
pygmies. There is evidence that some of
these Negritos migrated into Europe not
later than the Neolithic age, Dr. Kollmann,
a Swiss anthropologist, having unearthed
skeletons of about four feet eight inches in
height in a neolithic deposit near Schaff
hausen, while an under-sized folk is still
found in Sicily and Sardinia, which islands
are surviving blocks of the ancient land
connection between Europe and Africa.
In concluding this summary of the
evidence as to Quaternary man, I must
remark on the analogy which it presents
to that of the historical period dealt with
in the earlier chapters. In each case we
have distinct evidence carrying us a long
way back : in that of the historical period
for 9,000 years ; in that of the Quaternary
for a vastly longer time, which, if the effects
of high eccentricity, postulated by Croll’s
theory, had any influence on the two last
glacial periods, cannot be less than 200,000
years. In each case also the positive
evidence takes us back to a state of things
which gives the most incontrovertible proof
of long previous existence ; In the historical
case the evidence of a dense population
and high civilisation already long prevailing
when written records began ; in the case
of palaeolithic man, that of his existence in
the same state of rude civilisation in the
most remote regions, and over the greater
part of the habitable earth, his almost
uniform progression upwards from a lower
to a higher civilisation, and his existing at
the beginning of the Quaternary period
already differentiated into races as remote
from one another as the typical races of
the present day. These facts of themselves
afford an irresistible presumption that the
origin of the human race must be sought
much further back, and it remains to con
sider what positive evidence has been
adduced in support of this presumption.
I
�114
HUMAN ORIGINS
culminate in the Lias, and become so
nearly extinct in the Secondary that the
crocodilia are their sole remaining repre
sentatives.
CHAPTER X.
And this applies when we attempt to
take our first step backwards in tracing the
TERTIARY MAN
origin of man, and follow him from the
Quaternary into the Pliocene. When did
Definition of Periods—Passage from Pliocene to
the Pliocene end andthe Quaternary begin?
Quaternary—Scarcity of Human Remains in
Within which of the two did the first great
Tertiary—Denudation—Evidence from Caves
glacial period fall ? Does pre-glacial mean
wanting—Tertiary Man a necessary inference
Pliocene, or is it included in the Quater
from widespread existence of Quaternary Man
—Both equally inconsistent with Genesis—
nary ? and to which do the oldest human
Was the first great Glaciation Pliocene or
remains such as the skeletons of Spy belong?
Quaternary ?—Section of Perrier—Supports
The difficulty of answering these ques
Croll’s Theory—Elephas Meridionalis—Mam
tions is increased because, as we go back
moth—St. Prest—Cut Bones—Instances of
in time, the human remains which guide us
Tertiary Man—Halitherium — Balseonotus —
in the Quaternary age necessarily become
Puy Courny—Thenay—Proofs of Human
scarcer. Mankind must have been fewer in
Agency — Latest Conclusions — Gaudry’s
number, and their relics to a great extent
Theory — Dryopithecus — Type of Tertiary
removed by denudation or destroyed by
Man—Skeleton of Castenedolo—Shows no
other causes, as, eg., devoured by carni
approach to the Missing Link—This must be
vora. The evidence from caves, which
sought in the Eocene—Evidence from the
affords by far the most information as to
New World—Glacial Period in America—
Palaeolithic Implements—Quaternary ManQuaternary man, entirely fails us as to the
Similar to Europe—California—Conditions
Pliocene and earlier periods. This may be
different—Auriferous Gravels—Volcanic Erup
readily accounted for when we consider the
tions—Enormous Denudation—Great Anti
great amount of the earth’s surface which
quity-Flora and Fauna—Point to Tertiary
has been removed by denudation. In fact,
Age—Discovery of Human Remains—Table
we have seen that nearly 2,000 feet of a
Mountain—Latest Finds—Calaveras Skullmountain range must have disappeared
Summary of Evidence—Other Evidence—
from the Weald of Kent, since the streams
Tuolumne—Brazil—Buenos Ayres—N ampa
from it rolled down the gravels with con
Images—Take us farther from First Origins
tained human implements, scattered over
and the Missing Link—If Darwin’s Theory
the North Downs as described by Professor
applies to Man, must go back to the Eocene.
Prestwich. What chance would Tertiary
The first difficulty which meets us in this caves have of surviving such an extensive
question is that of distinguishing clearly denudation ? Moreover, if any of the
between the different geological periods. present caves existed before the glacial
No hard-and-fast line separates the Quater period, their original contents must have
nary from the Pliocene, the Pliocene from been swept out, perhaps more than once,
the Miocene, or the Miocene from the before they became filled by the present
Eocene. They pass from one into the other deposits. We have evidence of this in
by insensible gradations, and the- names small patches of the older deposit being
given to them merely imply that such con found adhering to the cave-roof, as at
siderable changes have taken place in the Brixham and Maccagnone in Sicily. In
fauna as to enable us to distinguish one the latter place Dr. Falconer found flakes
period from another. And even this only of chipped stone and pieces of carbon in
applies when we take the periods as a whole, patches of a hard breccia.
There is another consideration also which
and see what have been the predominant
types, for single types often survive through must have greatly diminished the chance
successive periods. The course of evolu of finding human remains in Tertiary
tion seems to be that types and species, like deposits. Why did men take to living in
dark and damp caves ? Presumably for
individuals, have their periods of birth,
growth, maturity, decay, and death. Thus protection against cold. But in the Miocene
and the greater part of the Pliocene there
fish of the ganoid type appear sparingly in
was no great cold. The climate, as shown
the Silurian, culminate in the Devonian,
by the vegetation, was mild, equable, and
while the majority gradually die out in the
later formations. So also the gigantic ranged from semi-tropical to south-tempe*
rate, and the earth was to a certain extent
Saurians appear in the Carboniferous,
�TERTIARY MAN
covered by forests sustaining many fruit
bearing trees. Under such conditions men
would have every inducement to live in the
open air, and in or near forests where they
could obtain food and shelter, rather
than in caves. A few scattered savages,
thus living, would leave exceedingly few
traces of their existence. If the pygmy
races of Central Africa, or of the Andaman
Islands, became extinct, the chances would
be exceedingly small of a future geologist
finding any of their stone implements,
which alone would have a chance of sur
viving, dropped under secular accumula
tions of vegetable mould in a wide forest.
It is the more important, therefore, where
instances of human remains in Tertiary
strata, supported by strong primA facie
evidence, and vouched for by competent
authorities, do actually occur, to examine
them dispassionately, and not dismiss them
with a sort of scientific non possumus, like
that which was so long opposed to the
existence of Quaternary man and the dis
coveries of Boucher de Perthes. It is per
fectly evident from ‘the admitted existence
of man throughout the Quaternary period,
over a great part of the earth’s surface,
and divided into distinct types, that,
if there is any truth in evolution, he
must have had a long previous exist
ence. The only other possible alterna
tive would be the special miraculous
creations of men of different types, and
in many different centres, at the particu
lar period of time when the Tertiary
was replaced by the Quaternary. In other
words, that while all the rest of the animal
creation have come into existence by
evolution from ancestral types, man alone,
and that not merely as regards his spiritual
qualities, but physical man, with every bone
and muscle having its counter-part in the
other quadrumana, was an exception to
this universal law, and sprang into exist
ence spontaneously or by repeated acts of
supernatural interference.
As long as the account of the creation
in Genesis was held to be a divinelyinspired. narrative, and no facts contra
dicting it had been discovered, it is con
ceivable that such a theory might be held ;
but to admit evolution for Quaternary and
refuse to admit it for Tertiary man is an
extreme instance of “ straining at a gnat
and swallowing a camel,” for a duration of
even 10,000 or 20,000years is just as incon
sistent with Genesis as one of 100,000 or
half a million.
In attacking the question of Tertiary
ns
man, the first point to aim at is some clear
conception of where the Pliocene ends and
the Quaternary begins. These are, after
all, but terms applied to gradual changes
through long intervals of time ; still, they
require some definition, or otherwise we
should be beating the air, and ticketing in
some museums as Tertiary the identical
specimens which in others were labelled as
Quaternary. The distinction turns very
much on whether the first great glaciation
was Pliocene or Quaternary, and it must be
decided partly by the order of superposition
and.partly by the fauna. If we can find a
section where a thick morainic deposit is
interposed between two stratified deposits—
a lower one characterised by the usual fauna
of the Older Pliocene, and an upper one by
that of the Newer Pliocene—it is evident
that the glacier or ice-cap which left this
moraine must have existed in Pliocene
times. We know that the climate became
colder in the Pliocene, and rapidly colder
towards its close, and that in the cliffs of
Cromer the forest bed with a temperate
climate had given place to Arctic willows
and mosses, before the first and lowest
boulder-clay had bi ought blocks of Scandi
navian granite to England. We should be
prepared, therefore, for evidence that this
first. period of greatest cold had occurred
within the limits of the Pliocene period.
Such evidence is afforded by the valleys
which radiate from the great central boss of
France in the Auvergne. The hill of
Perrier had long been known as a rich site
of fossil remains of the extinct Pliocene
fauna, and its section has been carefully
studied by some of the best French geolo
gists, whose results are summed up as
follows by Hamy in his Palceontologie
Humaine:—
“ The bed-rock is primitive protogine,
which is covered by nearly horizontal lacus
trine Miocene, itself covered by some
metres of fluviatile gravels. Above comes
a bed of fine sand, a mfetre thick, which
contains numerous specimens of the wellknown mammalian fauna of the Lower Plio
cene, characterised by two mastodons (AT.
Armenicus and M. Borsonif Then comes
a mass of conglomerates 150 metres thick,
consisting of pebbles andboulders cemented
by yellowish mud ; and above this a dis
tinct layer of Upper Pliocene characterised
by the Elephas Meridionalis.
“The boulders, some of which are of
great size, are all angular, never rounded or
stratified, often scratched, and mostly con
sisting of trachyte, which must have been
�HUMAN ORIGINS
transported twenty-five kilometres from the
Puy de Dome. In short, the conglomerate
is absolutely indistinguishable from any
other glacial moraine, whether of the
Quaternary period or of the present day.
It is divided into three sections by two
layers of rolled pebbles and sands, which
could only have been caused by running
water, so that the glacier must have ad
vanced and retreated three times, leaving
each time a moraine fifty metres thick ; and
the whole of this must have occurred before
the deposit of the Upper Pliocene stratum
with its Elephas Meridionalis and other
Pliocene mammals.”
The importance of this will presently be
seen, for the Elephas Meridionalis is one of
the extinct animals which is most directly
connected with the proofs of man’s exist
ence before the Quaternary periodi
The three advances and retreats of
the great Perrier glacier also fit in well
with the calculated effects of precession
during high eccentricity, as about three
such periods must have occurred in the
period of the coming on, culminating,
and receding of each phase of maximum
eccentricity.
This evidence from Perrier does not
stand alone, for in the neighbouring
valleys, and in many other localities,
isolated boulders of foreign rocks, which
could have been transported only by ice,
are found at heights considerably above
those of the more recent moraines and
boulders which had been supposed to
mark the limit of the greatest glaciation.
Thus, on the slopes of the Jura and the
Vosges, boulders of Alpine rocks, much
worn by age, and whose accompanying
drifts and moraines have disappeared by
denudation, are found at heights 150 or 200
metres above the more obvious moraines
and boulders, which themselves rise to a
height of nearly 4,000 feet, and must have
been the front of glaciers from the Alps
which buried the plain of Switzerland under
that thickness of solid ice.
The only possible alternative to this
evidence from Perrier would be to throw
back the duration of the Quaternary and
limit that of the Pliocene enormously, by
supposing that all the deposits above the
great glacial conglomerate or old moraine
are inter-glacial, and not Tertiary. This
is, as has been pointed out, very much a
question of words, for the phenomena and
the time required to account for them
remain the same by whatever name we
elect to call them.
But it has its
importance, for it involves a fundamental
principle of geology, that of classifying
eras and formations by their fauna. If the
Elephas Meridionalis is a Pliocene and
not a Quaternary species, we must admit,
with the great majority of Continental
geologists, that the first and greatest
glaciation fell within the Pliocene period.
If, on the other hand, this elephant is, like
the mammoth, part of the Quaternary
fauna, we may believe, as many English
geologists do, that the first glacial period
coincided with and probably occasioned
the change from Pliocene to Quaternary,
and that everything above the oldest
boulder-clays and moraines is not Tertiary,
but inter-glacial.
As bones of the Elephas Meridionalis
have been frequently found in connection
with human implements, and with cuts on
them which could have been made only by
flint knives shaped by the human hand, it
will be seen . at once what an interest
attaches to this apparently dry geological
question of the age of the great southern
elephant.
The transition from the mastodon into
the elephant took place in the Old World
(for in America the succession is different)
in the Pliocene period. In the older
Pliocene we have nothing but mastodons,
in the newer nothing but elephants ; and
the transition from the older to the newer
type is distinctly traced by intermediate
forms in the fossil fauna of the Sewalek
hills. The Elephas Meridionalis is the
oldest known form of true elephant,
and it is characteristic of all the different
formations of the Upper Pliocene, while it
is nowhere found in cave or river deposits
which belong unmistakeably to the Quater
nary. It was a gigantic animal, fully four
feet higherthan the tallest existing elephant,
and bulky in proportion. It had a near
relation in the Elephas Antiquus. which
was of.equal size, and different from it
mainly in a more specialised structure of
the molar teeth. The remains of this
elephant have been found in the lower strata
of some of the oldest bone-caves and river
silts, as to which it is difficult to say
whether they are older or younger than the
first glacial period. The remains of a
pygmy elephant, no bigger than an ass,
have also been found in the Upper Pliocene,
at Malta and Sicily, and those of the exist
ing African elephant in Sicily and Spain.
It would seem, therefore, that the Upper
Pliocene was the golden age of the ele
phants, when they were most widely
�TERTIARY MAN
diffused, and comprised most species and
most varieties, both in the direction of
gigantic and of diminutive size. But in
passing from the Pliocene into the Quater
nary period, they all, or almost all, disap
peared, and were superseded by the Elephas
Primigenius, or mammoth, which appeared
in the latest Pliocene, and became the
principal representative of the genus
Elephas in Europe and Northern Asia
down to comparatively recent times.
This succession is confirmed by that of
the rhinoceros, of which several species
were contemporary with the Elephas Meridionalis, while the Rhinoceros tichorinus,
or woolly rhinoceros, who is the inseparable
companion of the mammoth, appeared and
disappeared with him.
In these matters, those who are not
themselves specialists must rely on autho
rity, and when we find Lyell, Geikie,
and Prestwich coinciding with modern
117
tion in calling it a Pliocene river; but,
in the judgment of some, it is old
Quaternary. Its age might never have
been disputed if the question of man’s
antiquity had not been involved, for in
these sands and gravels have been found
numerous specimens of cut bones of the
ElephaS Meridionalis, together with the
flint knives which made the cuts, and other
stone implements, rude, but still unmistakeably of the usual palaeolithic type.
The subjoined plate will enable the
reader to compare the arrow-head, which is
the commonest type found at St. Prest,
with a comparatively recent arrow-head
from the Yorkshire wolds, and see how
illogical it seems to concede human agency
to the post-glacial and deny it to the
Pliocene specimen.
In this and other instances cut bones
afford one of the most certain tests of the
presence of man. The bones tell their own
tale, and their geolo
POST-GLACIAL.
gical age can be gene
rally identified. Sharp
cuts could be made
on them only while
PLIOCENE.
the bones were fresh;
and the state of fossilisation,andpresence
of dendrites or minute
crystals alike on the
side of the cuts and
on the bone, negative
any idea of forgery.
ARROW-HEAD—ST. PREST.
ARROW-HEAD—YORKSHIRE WOLDS.
The cuts can be com
(Hamy, Pahzontologie Humaine.}
(Evans, Stone Implements.}
pared with those on
thousands of un
French, German, Italian, and Belgian geo
doubted human cuts on bones from the
logists, in considering Elephas Meridionalis reindeer and other later periods, and with
as one of the characteristic Upper Pliocene cuts now made with old flint knives on
fauna, we can have no hesitation in adopt fresh bones. All these tests have been
ing their conclusion.
applied by some of the best anthropologists
In this case the section at St. Prest, near of the day, who have made a special study
Chartres, appears to afford a first abso of the subject, and who have shown their
lutely secure foothold in tracing our way caution and good faith by rejecting numerous
backwards towards human origins beyond
specimens which did not fully meet the
the Quaternary. The sands and gravels of most rigorous requirements. Their con
a river which ran on the bed-rock without
clusion is that there could be no reason
any underlying glacial debris are here able doubt that the cuts were really
exposed. The river had no relation to the
made by human implements guided by
Eure, the bed of which it crosses at human hands. The only possible alterna
an angle, and it must have run before that tive suggested is that they might have been
river had begun to excavate its valley, and made by gnawing animals or fishes. But,
when the drainage of the country was quite as Quatrefages observes, even an ordinary
different. The sands contain an extra carpenter would have no difficulty in dis
ordinary number of bones of the Elephas tinguishing between a clean cut made by a
Meridionalis, associated with old species of sharp knife, and a groove cut by repeated
rhinoceros and other Pliocene species.
strokes of a narrow chisel; and how much
Lyell, who visited the spot, had no hesita more would it be impossible for a Professor
�HUMAN ORIGINS
trained to scientific investigation, and armed
still denied by competent authorities.
with a microscope, to mistake a groove
Among these ought to be placed the
gnawed out by a shark or rodent for a cut
example from Portugal, for, although
made by a flint knife. No one who will refer
a large celt very like those of the
to Quatrefages’sAAwjw^fossiles, and look at the figures
of cut bones given there from
actual photographs, can feel
any doubt that the cuts there
delineated were made by flint
knives held by the human
hand.
In addition to this instance
of St. Prest, Quatrefages in
his Histoire des Races Humaines, published in 1887,
and containing the latest
summary of the evidence
generally accepted by French
geologists as to Tertiary man,
says that, omitting doubtful
cases, the presence of man
has been signalised in de
posits undoubtedly Tertiary
in five different localities—
viz., in France by the Abbe
Bourgeois, in the Lower Mio
cene of Thenay near Pontlevoy (Loir-et-Cher); by M.
Rames at Puy Courny near
Aurillac (Cantal), in the
Upper Miocene ; in Italy by
M. Capellini in the Pliocene
of Monte Aperto near Sienna,
and by M. Ragazzoni in the
Lower Pliocene of Castelnedolo near Brescia ; in Por
tugal by M. Ribiero at Otta,
in the valley of the Tagus, in
the Upper Miocene.
To these may be added the
cut bones of Halitherium, a
Miocene species, from Pouance (Maine et Loire), by M.
Delaunay; and those on the
tibia of a Rhinoceros Etruscus, and on other fossil bones
from the Upper Pliocene of
the Vai d’Arno. In addition CUTS WITH FLINT KNIFE ON RIB OF BAL^EONOTUS—PLIOCENE.
to these are the numerous
From Monte Aperto, Italy.
remains, certainly human and
(Quatrefages, Histoire des Races Humaines.}
presumably Tertiary, from
North and South America,
which will be referred to
later, and a considerable
number of cases where there
is a good deal of primd
facie evidence for Tertiary
human remains, but the
CUT MAGNIFIED BY MICROSCOPE.
authenticity of which is
�TER.TIAR Y MAN
ng
oldest palaeolithic type was undoubtedly tent geologist, were interstratified with
found in strata which had always been tuffs and lavas of these older volcanoes,
considered as Miocene, the Congress of and no doubt as to their geological age
Palaeontologists who assembled at Lisbon was raised by the Congress of French
were divided in opinion as to the conclu archaeologists to whom they were sub
mitted. The whole question turns, there
siveness of the evidence.
I have already discussed this matter so fore, on the sufficiency of the proofs of
fully in a former work {Problems of the human origin, as to which the same
Future, ch. v. on Tertiary Man) that I do Congress expressed themselves satisfied.
The specimens consist of several wellnot propose to go over the ground again,
but merely to refer briefly to some of the known palaeolithic types, celts, scrapers,
more important points which come out in arrow-heads, and flakes, only ruder and
the above six instances. In three of them— smaller than those of later periods. They
were found at three different localities in
those of the Halitherium of Pouance, the
Balasonotus of Monte Aperto, and the the same stratum of gravel, and comply
rhinoceros of the Vai d’Arno—the evidence with all the tests by which the genuineness
of Quaternary implements is ascertained,
depends entirely on cut bones, and in the
case of St. Prest on that of cut bones of such as bulbs of percussion, conchoidal
Elephas Meridionalis combined with paleo fractures, and, above all, intentional chip
ping in a determinate direction. It is
lithic implements.
evident that a series of small parallel chips
The evidence from cut bones is, for the
reasons already stated, very conclusive; and or trimmings, confined often to one side
when a jury of four or five of the leading
authorities, such as Quatrefages, Hamy,
Mortillet, and Delaunay, who have devoted
themselves to this branch of inquiry, and
have shown their great care and conscien
tiousness by rejecting numbers of cases
which did not satisfy the most rigid tests,
arrive unanimously at the conclusion that
many of the cuts on the bones of Tertiary
animals are unmistakeably of human origin,
there seems no room left for any reasonable
scepticism. I cannot doubt, therefore, that
we have positive evidence to confirm the
existence of man, at any rate from the
Pliocene period, through the long series
FLINT SCRAPER FROM HIGH LEVEL DRIFT,
of ages intervening between it and the
rent. (Prestwich.)
Quaternary.
But the discovery of flint implements at
Puy Courny in the Upper .Miocene, and only of the flint, and which have the effect
at Thenay in the Lower Miocene, carries us of bringing it into a shape which is known
back a long step further, and involves such from Quaternary and recent, implements
important issues as to the origin of the to be adapted for human use, imply, intelli
human race that it may be well to recapitu gent design, and could not have been pro
late the evidence upon which those dis duced by the casual collisions of pebbles
rolled down by an impetuous torrent.
coveries rest.
The first question is as to the geological Thus the annexed plate of an implement
age of the deposits in which these chipped from the high level drift on the North
implements have been found. In the case Downs, shown by Professor Prestwich to
of Puy Courny this appears to be beyond the Anthropological Society, is rude enough,
dispute. In the central region -of the but no one has ever expressed doubt as
Auvergne there have been two series of to its human origin.
The chipped flints from Puy Courny
volcanic eruptions, the later towards the
close of the Pliocene or commencement also afford another conclusive proof of
of the Quaternary period, while the earlier intelligent design. The gravelly. deposit
is proved by its position and fossils to in which they are found contains five
belong to the Upper Miocene. The different varieties of flints, and of these all
gravels in which the chipped flints were that look like human implements are con
discovered by M. Rames, a very compe fined to one particular variety, which from
�120
IlUMAN ORIGINS
ks nature is peculiarly adapted for human
use. As Quatrefages says, no torrents or
other natural causes could have exercised
such a discrimination, which could have
been made only by an intelligent being
selecting the stones best adapted for his
tools and weapons.
The general reader must be content to
rely to a great extent on the verdict of
experts, and in this instance of Puy Courny
need not perhaps go further than the con
clusion of the French Congress of archaeo
logists, who pronounced in favour both of
their Miocene and human origin. It may
'
be well, however, to
UPPER MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS.
PUY COURNY.
annex a plate showing
in two instances how
closely the specimens
from Puy Courny re
semble those of later
periods, of the human
origin of which no
doubt has ever been
entertained. It is cer
tainly carrying scien
tific scepticism to an
unreasonable pitch to
doubt that whatever
cause fashioned the
two lower figures, the
same
cause must
equally have fashioned
the upper ones ; and,
if that cause be human
intelligence in the
SCRAPER, OR LANCE-HEAD.
Quaternary period, it
Puy Courny. Upper Miocene
Puy Courny. Upper Miocene
must have been human
(Rames).
__ .
(Rames).,
(Quatrefages, RacesHumaines, p. 95.) (Quatrefages, Races Humaine, p.95.) or human-like intelli
gence in the Upper
Miocene.
The evidence for the
still older implements
of Thenay is of the
same nature as that
for those of Puy
Courny.
First as
regards the geological
horizon. Subjoined is
the section at Thenay
as made by M. Bour
geois, verified by MM.
Vibraye, ■ Delaunay,
Schmidt,
Belgrand,
and others, from per
sonal inspection, and
given by M. Hamy
in his Palceontologie
Humaine.
It would seem that
there could be little
doubt as to the geo
logical position of the
strata from which the
alleged chipped flints
come.
The Faluns
are a well - known
marine deposit of a
�TERTIARY MAN
121
shallow sea spread over a great part
of Central and Southern France, and
identified by its shells as Upper Miocene.
The Orleans Sands are another Miocene
deposit perfectly characterised by its
mammalian fauna, in which the Mastodon
Angustidens first appears, with other
peculiar species. The Calcaire de Beauce
is a solid fresh-water limestone formed
in the great lake which in the Miocene
age occupied the plain of the Beauce
and extended into Touraine. It forms
a clear horizon or dividing line between
the Upper Miocene, characterised by the
Mastodon, and the Lower Miocene, of
which the Acrotherium, a four-toed and
hornless rhinoceros, is the most charac
teristic fossil.
fessor Prestwich, who visited the section a
good many years ago in company with the
Abbe Bourgeois, and who is one of the
highest authorities on this class of questions,
remained unconvinced that the flints shown
him really came from the alleged strata
below the Calcaire de Beauce, and thought
that the specimens which appeared to show
human manufacture might have been on
the surface, and become intermixed with
the natural flints of the lower strata.
The geological horizon, however, seems
to have been generally accepted by French
and Continental geologists, especially by
the latest authorities, and the doubts which
have been expressed have turned mainly
on the proof of human design shown by
the implements. This is a question which
The supposed chipped flints are said to
appear sparingly in the upper deposits,
to disappear in the Calcaire de Beauce,
and to reappear, at first sparingly and
then plentifully, in the lacustrian marls
below7 the limestone. They are most
numerous in a thin layer of greenishyellow clay, No. 3 of section, below which
they rapidly disappear. There can be no
question, therefore, that if the flints really
came from the alleged deposits, and really
show the work of human hands, the savages
by w'hom they were chipped must have
lived on the shores or sand-banks of this
Miocene lake. As regards the geological
question, it is right to observe that Pro-
must be decided by the authority of experts
for it requires special experience to be able
to distinguish between accidental fractures
and human design in implements of the
extremely rude type of the earlier forma
tions. The test is mainly afforded by the
nature of the chipping. If it consists of a
number of small chips, all in the same
direction, with the result of bringing one
face or side into a definite form, adapted
for some special use, the inference is strong
that the chips were the work of design.
The general form might be the result of
accident, but fractures from frost or colli
sions simulating chipping could hardly be
all in the same direction, and confined to
�122
HUMAN ORIGINS
existing savages, which are beyond all
doubt products of human manufacture.
Tried by these tests, the evidence stands
as follows :—
When specimens of the flints from Thenay
were first submitted to the Anthropological
Congress at Brussels, in
1867, their human origin was
MIDDLE MIOCENE IMPLEMENTS.
admitted by MM. Worsae,
de Vibraye, de Mortillet, and
Schmidt, and rejected by
MM. Nilson, Hebert, and
others, while M. Quatrefages
reserved his opinion, thinking
a strong case made out, but
not being entirely satisfied.
M. Bourgeois himself was
partly responsible for these
doubts, for, like Boucher de
scraper, OR borer. Thenay.
SCRAPER FROM THENAY.
Perthes, he had injured his
(Showing bulb of percussion.
(Hamy, Palceontologie
case by overstating it, and
Humaine, p. 49.)
Quatrefages, Races Humaines,
including a number of small
p. 92.)
flints, which might have been,
and probably were, merely
natural specimens. But the
whole collection having been
transferred to the Archaeo
logical Museum at St.
Germain, its director, M.
Mortillet, selected those
which appeared most demon
strative of human origin, and
placed them in a glass case,
side by side with similar
types of undoubted Quater
nary implements. This re
moved a great many doubts,
and later discoveries of still
better specimens of the type
of scrapers have, in the words
of Quatrefages, “ dispelled
his last doubts,” while not a
single instance has occurred
of any convert in the opposite
direction, or of any opponent
who, after an equally careful
and minute investigation, has
adduced facts contradicting
the conclusions of Quatre
fages, Mortillet, and Hamy.
BORER, or awl.
KNIFE, OR SCRAPER.
In order to assist the
Thenay. Miocene.
Thenay. (Gaudry.
reader in forming an opinion
(Congres Prehistorique,
Quatrefages, p. 92.)
as to the claim of these
Bruxelles, 1872.)
flints from Thenay to show
such as would be made by scraping bones
clear traces of human design, I subjoin
or skins, while nothing of the sort is seen some illustrations of photographs in which
on the other natural edges, though they
they are compared with specimens of later
may be sharper. But, above all, the surest
date, which are undoubtedly and by
test is afforded by a comparison with other universal consent the work of human
implements of later dates, or even of hands.
one part of the stone. The inference is
strengthened if the specimen shows bulbs
of percussion where the blows had been
struck to fashion the implement, and if the
microscope discloses parallel stride and
other signs of use on the chipped edge,
�TERTIARY MAN
123
those fabricated by palaeolithic men of the
These figures seem to leave no reasonable
valley drift times.”
doubt that some at least of the flints from
In fact, we have only to look at the
Thenay show unmistakeable signs of human
figures which accompany Prestwich’s
handiwork, and I only hesitate to accept
essay1 to see that their types resemble
them as conclusive proofs of the existence
those of Puy Courny and Thenay, rather
of man in the Middle Miocene, because
than those of St. Acheul and Moustier.
such an authority as Prestwich retains
The following remarks of the Professor
doubts of their having come from the
would apply almost as well to the Miocene
geological horizon accepted by the most
implements as to those of the plateau :—
eminent modern French geologists.
“Unlike the valley implements, the
The evidence of the authenticity of these
implements from
COMPARE QUATERNARY IMPLEMENTS.
Thenay is, more
over,
greatly
strengthened
by
the discovery of
other Miocene im
plements at Puy
Courny, which have
not been seriously
impugned, and by
the essay of Pro
fessor Prestwich,
confirming the dis
covery of numerous
flint implements in
the upper level
gravels of the North
Downs, which could
have been deposit
ed only by streams
flowing from a
mountain ridge
along the anticlinal
of the Weald, of
which 2,000 feet
must have dis
appeared by sub
aerial denudation
since these rivers
flowed northwards
from its flanks.
How far back such
a denudation may
Carry us is a matter
of speculation.
QUATERNARY. Mammoth Period.
quaternary.
Chaleux, Belgium.
Certainly, as Prest
River Drift, Mesvin, Belgium.
Reindeer Period. (Congres
wich admits, into
(Congr^s Prehistorique, Bruxelles, 1872.)
Prehistorique, Bruxelles, 1872.)
the pre-glacial or
very early glacial
plateau implements are, as a rule, made of
ages, and possibly into the Tertiaries; but,
the fragments of natural drift flints that are
'at any rate, to a period which, by whatever
found scattered over the surface of the
name we call it, must be enormous accord
ground, or picked up in gravel-beds and
ing to any standard of centuries or millen
merely roughly trimmed. Sometimes the
niums. And what is specially interesting in
work is so slight as to be scarcely apparent;
these extremely ancient implements is that,
at others, it is sufficient to show a distinct
in Prestwich’s words, “ these plateau imple
ments exhibit distinct characters and types
such as would denote them to be the work
1 Journal of Anthropological Institute, Feb.,
1892, p. 262.
of a more primitive and ruder race than
�124
HUMAN ORIGINS
design and object. It indicates the very
infancy of the art, and probably the ear
liest efforts of man to fabricate his tools
and weapons from other substances than
wood or bone. That there was an object
and design is manifest from the fact that
they admit of being grouped according to
certain patterns. These are very simple,
but they answered to the wants of a primi
tive people.
“With few exceptions, the implements
are small, from 2 to 5 inches in length, and
mostly such as could have been usedin the
hand, and in the hand only. There is, with
the exceptions before named, an almost
entire absence of the large massive spear
head forms of the valley drifts, and a large
preponderance of forms adapted for chip
ping, hammering, and scraping. With
these are some implements that could not
have been used in the hand, but they are
few and rude. The difference between the
plateau and the valley implements is as
great or greater than between the latter and
the neolithic implements. Though the work
on the plateau implements is often so slight
as scarcely to be recognisable, even the
tools and weapons of modern savages—for
example, those of the Australian natives—
show, when divested of their mounting,
an amount of work no more distinct than
do these early palaeolithic specimens.
“ Some persons may be disposed to look
upon the slight and rude work which these
flints have received as the result only of the
abrasion and knocking about caused by
collision during the transport of the drift.
This belief prevailed for a time even in the
case of the comparatively well-fashioned
valley implements. A little practice, and
comparison with natural drift flints, will
show the difference, notwithstanding the,
at first, unpromising appearance of these
early specimens of man’s handicraft. . It is
as such, and from their being the earliest
with which we are acquainted, that they
are of so great interest, for they give us
some slight insight into the occupation
and surroundings of the race by whom
they were used. A main object their
owners would seem to have had in view was
the trimming of flints to supply them with
implements adapted to the breaking of
bones for the sake of the marrow, scraping
skins, and round bodies such as bones or
sticks, for use as simple tools or poles.
From the scarcity of the large massive im
plements of the pointed and adze type, so
common in the valley drifts, it would seem
as though offensive and defensive weapons
of this class had not been so much needed,
whether from the rarity of the large mam
malia, so common later on in the low-level
valley drifts, or from the habits and
character of those early people.”
Last, but not least, there is the discovery,
made by Dr. Dubois in 1892, of part of a
skull and thigh bone in the upper Pliocene
beds at Trinil, on the banks of the river
Bengawan, in Java. These remains, he
assumed, belonged to an animal named by
him Pithecanthropus erectusor “ upright
ape-man,” and they are of the greater
significance as occurring in a region where
it seems probable that man and ape diverged
from their common pithecoid ancestor.
The positive evidence is therefore
extremely strong that man existed in the
Tertiaries, and if we add to it the irresis
tible inference that he must have done so
to develop so many different races, and
leave his rude implements in so many and
such remote regions as are found early in
the Quaternary, I do not see how it is
possible to avoid accepting it as an estab
lished fact.
In using the term Tertiary Man, I do
not venture to define the exact meaning of
“ man,” or the precise stage in his evolution
which had been attained at this enormously
remote period. M. Gaudry, an excellent
authority, while admitting that the flints
fromThenay showed evidence of intentional
chipping, thought that they might have
been the work of the Dryopithecus, a fossil
ape, supposed to be nearer man than any
existing anthropoid, whose remains had
been found at Sausan in the Middle Mio
cene. But the Dryopithecus has been
deposed from his pride of place by the
subsequent discovery of a more perfect
jaw,1 and he is now considered, though
1 Having applied to Professor Flower, as the
highest authority, to inform me of the actual
position of the evidence as to the Dryopithecus,
he was good enough to reply to me as follows:—
“ Dryopithecus (Middle Miocene of France)
is an undoubted anthropoid, allied to gorilla and
chimpanzee; but the recent discovery of a more
complete jaw than that first found shows that it
is rather a lowerform than the two just mentioned,
instead of higher as once thought. (See Gaudry,
Mem. Soc. Geol. France—Palaontologie, 1890.)
The animal called Pliopiihecus, from the same
formation, is now generally considered to be
not distinguishable from the genus Hylobates
(Gibbon). So there is no doubt about the exist
ence of anthropoid apes in the Miocene of
Europe, but not of a higher type than the present
African or Asiatic species.”
�TERTIARY MAN
undoubtedly an anthropoid ape, to be of a
lower type than the chimpanzee or gorilla.
The strongest argument, however, for the
essentially human character of the artificers
of the flints of Thenay and Puy Courny is
that their type continues, with no change
except that of slight successive improve
ments, through the Pliocene, Quaternary,
and even down to the present day. ’ The
scraper of the Esquimaux and the Andaman
islanders is but an enlarged and improved
edition of the Miocene scraper, and in the
latter case the stones seem to have been
split by the same agency—viz., that of fire.
The early knowledge of fire is also con
firmed by the discovery, reported by M.
Bourgeois in the Orleans Sand at Thenay,
with bones of mastodon and dinotherium,
of a stony fragment mixed with carbon, in
a sort of hardened paste, which, as we can
hardly suppose pottery to have been known,
must be the remnant of a hearth on which
there had been a fire.
There must always, however, remain a
doubt as to the nature of this ancestral
Tertiary man, until actual skulls and skele
tons have been found under circumstances
which preclude doubt, and in sufficient
numbers to enable anthropologists to speak
with the same confidence as to types and
races as they can of his Quaternary
successors. This, again, is difficult from
the rarity of such remains, and from the
fact that, after burial of the dead was intro
duced, graves must often have been dug
down from the surface into older strata,
with which, in course of time, their contents
become intermixed. No case, therefore,
can be safely admitted where the find was
not made by well-known scientific authori
ties under circumstances which preclude
the possibility of subsequent interment,
and vouch for the geological age of the
undisturbed deposit. This test disposes of
all the alleged discoveries of human remains
in the Tertiaries of the Old World, except
one; and, although it is quite possible that
some maybe genuine among those rejected,
it is safer not to rely on them. There is
one, however, which is supported by ex
tremely strong evidence, and the dis
cussion of which I have reserved for the
last, as, if accepted, it throws a new and
unexpected light on the evolution of the
human race.
The following is the account of it, taken
from Quatrefages’s Races Humaines:—
11 The bones of four individuals—a man, a
woman, and two children—were found at
Castenedolo, near Brescia, in a bed identi
125
fied by its fossils as Lower Pliocene. The
excavations were made with the utmost
care, in undisturbed strata, by M. Ragazzoni, a well-known scientific man, assisted
by M. Germani, and the results confirmed
by M. Sergi, a well-known geologist, after a
minute personal investigation. The deposit
was removed in successive horizontal
layers, and not the least trace was found of
the beds having been mixed or disturbed.
The human bones presented the same
fossilised appearance as those of the extinct
animals in the same deposit. The female
skeleton was almost entire, and the frag
ments of the skull were sufficiently perfect
to admit of their being pieced together so
as to show almost its entire form.”
The first conjecture naturally was that it
must have been a case of subsequent inter
ment—a conjecture which was strengthened
by the fact of the female skeleton being so
entire ; but this is negatived by the undis
turbed nature of the beds, and by the fact
that the other bones were found scattered
at considerable distances throughout the
stratum.
M. Quatrefages concisely sums up the
evidence by saying “ that there exists no
serious reason for doubting the discovery,
and that, if made in a Quaternary deposit,
no one would have thought of contesting
its accuracy. Nothing can be opposed to
it but theoretical a priori objections similar
to those which so long repelled the exist
ence of Quaternary man.”
But if we accept this discovery, it leads
to the remarkable conclusion that Tertiary
man not only existed, but has undergone
little change in the thousands of centuries
which have since elapsed. The skull is of
fair capacity, very much like what might be
expected from a female of the Cannstadt
type, and less rude and ape-like than the
skulls of Spy and Neanderthal, orthose of
modern Bushmen and Australians. And
the other bones of the skeleton show no
marked peculiarities.
This makes it difficult to accept the
discovery unreservedly, notwithstanding
the great weight of positive evidence in its
favour. The principal objection to Tertiary
man has been that, as all other species bad
changed, and many had become extinct two
or three times over since the Miocene, it
was unlikely that an animal so highly
specialised as man should alone have had
a continuous existence. And this argument,
of course, becomes stronger the more it can
be shown that the oldest skeletons differed
little, if at all, from those of the Quaternary
�126
HUMAN ORIGINS
and Recent ages. Moreover, the earlier
specimens of Quaternary man which are so
numerous and authentic show, if not any
thing that can be fairly called the “missing
link,” still a decided tendency, as they get
older, towards the type of the rudest exist
ing races, which again show a distinct
though distant approximation towards the
type of the higher apes. The oldest Qua
ternary skulls are dolichocephalic, very
thick, with enormous frontal sinuses, low
and receding foreheads, flattened vertices,
prognathous jaws, and slight and receding
chins. The average cranial capacity is
about 1,150 cubic centimetres, or fully onefourth less than that of modern European
man ; and of this smaller brain a larger pro
portion is in the posterior region. The
other peculiarities of the skeletons all tend
in the same direction, and, as we have
seen in Huxley’s description of the men
of Spy, sometimes go a long way in the
pithecoid direction, even to the extent of
not being able to straighten the knee in
walking.
It would, therefore, be contrary to all our
ideas of evolution to find that some 100,000
or 200,000, or more probably 400,000 or
500,000, years prior to these men of Spy
and Neanderthal, the human race had
existed in higher physical perfection nearer
to the existing type of modern man.
Quatrefages meets this by saying that
Tertiary men with a larger brain, and there
fore more intelligence than the other Ter
tiary mammals, might have survived, where
these succumbed to changes and became
extinct. This is doubtless true to some
extent, but it hardly seems sufficient to
account for the presence of a higher and
more recent type, like that of Castenedolo
in the Lower Pliocene, that is, a whole geo
logical period earlier than that of the
Lower Quaternary. It is more to the pur
pose to say with Gaudry that the changes
on which the distinction of species are
founded are often so slight that they might
just as well be attributed to variations of
races ; and to appeal to instances like that
of the Hylobates of the Miocene, one of
the nearest congeners of man, in which no
genuine difference can be detected from
the Hylobates or Gibbon of the present
day ; and if the discovery, already referred
to, of anthropoid primates in the Eocene
of Patagonia, should be confirmed, it
would greatly strengthen the argument
for the persistence of the order to which
man belongs through several geological
I
periods.
In any case, we require more than the
evidence of this one discovery before we
can assume the type of Tertiary man as a
proved fact with the same confidence as we
can the existence of some anthropoid animal
in those remote ages, from the repeated
evidence of chipped stones and cut bones,
showing unmistakeable signs of being the
work of human intelligence. And, in the
meantime, the only safe conclusion seems
to be that it is very probable that we may
have to go back to the Eocene to find the
“ missing link,” or the ancestral animal
which may have been the common pro
genitor of man and of the other quadrumana.
I turn now to the evidence from the New
World. I have kept this distinct, for there
is no such proof of synchronism between
the later geological phases of this and of
the Old World as would warrant us in
assuming that what is true in one is neces
sarily true in the other. Thus, in Europe,
the presence of the mastodon is a conclu
sive proof that the formation in which its
remains are found is Upper Miocene or
Pliocene, and it has completely disappeared
before the glacial period and the Quater
nary era. But in North America it has sur
vived both these periods, and it is even a
question whether it is not found in recent
peat-mosses with arrow-heads of the his
torical Indians.
The glacial period also, which in the Old
World affords such a clear demarcation
between Tertiary and Recent ages, and such
manifest proofs of two great glaciations
with a long inter-glacial period, presents
different conditions in America, where the
ice-caps radiated from different centres,
and extended further south and over wider
areas. There is no proof whether the great
cold set in sooner or later, and whether
the elevations and depressions of land
synchronised with those of Europe. The
evidence for a long inter-glacial period is
by no means so clear, and the best
American geologists differ respecting it.
And, above all, the glacial period seems to
have lasted longer, and the time required
for post-glacial or recent denudation, and
erosion of river-gorges, to be less than is
required to account for post-glacial phe
nomena on this side of the Atlantic.
The evidence, therefore, from the New
World, though conclusive as to the
existence of man from an immense
antiquity, can hardl} be accepted as equally
so in an attempt to prove that antiquity
to be Tertiary in the sense of identifying
�TERTIARY MAN
it with specific European formations.
With this reservation I proceed to give a
short account of this evidence as bearing
on the question of the oldest proofs of
man’s existence. The first step or proof
of the presence of man in the Quaternary
deposits which correspond with the oldest
river-drifts of Europe has been made
quite recently. Mr. Abbott was the first
to discover implements of the usual
palaeolithic type in Quaternary gravels of
the river Delaware, near Trenton, in New
Jersey; and since then, as described by
Dr. Wright in his Ice Age in America,
they have been frequently found in
Ohio, Illinois, and other States, in the
old gravels of rivers which carried the
drainage of the great lake district to
the Hudson and the Mississippi, before
the present line of drainage was estab
lished by the Falls of Niagara and
the St. Lawrence. So far the evidence
merely confirms that drawn from similar
finds in the Old World of the existence of
127
the Secondary Age, though doubtless it
stood much higher before it was so greatly
denuded. All along its western flank and
far down into the great valley is an enormous
bed of auriferous gravel, doubtless derived
from the waste of the rocks of the Sierra
during an immense time by old rivers now
buried under their own deposits. While
these deposits were going on, a great out
burst of volcanoes occurred on the western
slope of the Sierra, and successive sheets
of tuffs, ashes, and lavas are interstratified
with the gravels, while finally an immense
flow of basalt covered up everything. The
country then presented the appearance of
a great plain, sloping gradually downwards
from the Sierra according to the flow of
the basalt and lavas. This plain was in
its turn attacked by denudation and worn
down by the existing main rivers into
valleys and gorges, and by their tributary
streams into a series of flat-topped hills,
capped by basalt and divided from one
another by deep and narrow canons.
SECTION OF GREAT CALIFORNIAN LAVA STREAM, CUT THROUGH BY RIVERS.
a, a, basalt; b, b, volcanic ashes; c, c, tertiary; d, d, cretaceous rocks; R, R, direction
of the old river-bed ; R, R, sections of the present river-beds.
(Le Conte, from Whitney.)
man in the early glacial or Quaternary
times, already widely diffused, and every
where in a similar condition of primitive
savagery, and chipping his rude stone
implements into the same forms. But if
we cross the Rocky Mountains into
California, we find evidence which
apparently carries us further back and
raises new questions.
The whole region west of the Rocky
Mountains is comparatively recent. The
coast range which now fronts the Pacific
is composed entirely of marine Tertiary
strata, and, when these were deposited, the
waves of the Pacific beat against the flanks
of the Sierra Nevada. At length the coast
range was upheaved, and a wide valley
left between it and the Sierra of over 400
miles in length, and with an average breadth
of seventy-five miles. The Sierra itself is old
land, the lower hills consisting of Triassic
slates and the higher ranges of granite;
and it has never been under water since
The immense time required for this latest
erosion may be inferred when it is stated
that, where the Columbia river cuts through
the axis of the Cascade Mountains, the pre
cipitous rocks on either side, to a height of
from 3,000 to 4,000 feet, consist of this late
Tertiary or Post-Tertiary basalt, and that
the Deschutes river has been cut into the
great basaltic plain for 140 miles to a depth
of from 1,000 to 2,500 feet, without reach
ing the bottom of the lava. The American
and Yuba valleys have been lowered from
800 to 1,500 feet, and the gorge of the
Stanislas river has cut through one of these
basalt-covered hills to the depth of 1,500
feet.
The enormous gorge of the Colorado has
cut its canons for hundreds of miles from
3,000 to 6,000 feet deep through all the
orders of sedimentary rocks from the Tertiaries down, and from 600 to 800 feet into
the primordial granite below, thus draining
the great lakes which in Tertiary times
�128
HUMAN ORIGINS
occupied a vast space in the interior of
America, which is now an arid desert.
Evidently the gravels which lie below the
basalt, and interstratified with the tuffs and
lavas, or below them, and which belong to
an older and still more extensive denuda
tion, must be of immense antiquity, an
antiquity which remains the same whether
we call it Quaternary or Tertiary. It is in
these gravels that gold is found, and in the
search for it great masses have been re
moved in which numerous stone imple
ments have been discovered.
The great antiquity of those gravels and
volcanic tuffs is further confirmed by the
changes in the flora and fauna which are
proved to have occurred. The animal
remains found beneath the basaltic cap are
very numerous, and all of extinct species.
They belong to the genera rhinoceros,
felis, canis, bos, tapirus, hipparion,
elephas (primigenius), mastodon, and
auchenia, and form an assemblage
entirely distinct from any now living in any
part of North America. Some of the
genera survived into the Quaternary age as
in Europe; but many, both of the genera
and species, are among those most charac
teristic of the Pliocene period.
The flora also, which is well preserved in
the white clays formed from the volcanic
ash, comprises forty-nine species of decidu
ous trees and shrubs, all distinct from those
now living, without a single trace of the
pines, firs, and other conifera which are
now the prevalent trees throughout Cali
fornia.
Tried by any test, therefore, of fauna,
flora, and of immensely long deposit before
the present drainage and configuration of
the country had begun to be established,
Professor Whitney’s contention that the
auriferous gravels are of Tertiary origin
seems to be fully established. It can only
be met by obliterating all definite distinc
tion between the Quaternary and the Plio
cene, and adding to the former all the time
subtracted from the latter. And even if we
apply this to the physical changes, it would
upset all our standards of geological for
mations characterised by fossils, to suppose
that a fauna comprising the elotherium,
hipparion, and auchenia could be properly
transferred to the Quaternary. In fact, no
one would have thought of doing so if
human implements and remains had not
been found in them.
The discovery of such implements was
first reported in 1862, and since then a
large number have been found, but their
authenticity has been hotly contested. The
most common were stone mortars, very
like those of the Indians of the present
day, only ruder; and it was objected, first,
that they were ground and not chipped,
and therefore belonged to the neolithic
age; secondly, that they might have slipped
down from the surface or been taken down
by miners. The difficulty in meeting these
objections was that the implements had
been found not by scientific men in situ,
but by ignorant miners, who were too keen
in the pursuit of gold to notice the location
of the find, and only knew that they
had picked them out in sorting loads of
the gravels, and generally thrown them
aside. They had occurred in such a
number of instances, over such wide
areas, and with such a total absence of
any motive on the part of the miners to
misrepresent or commit a fraud, that the
cumulative evidence became almost irresis
tible ; and we cannot sum it up better than
in the words of the latest and best authority,
Professor Wright, in an article in the
Century of April, 1891, which is the more
important because only two years pre
viously, in his Ice Age in North America,
he had still expressed himself as retaining
doubts.
He says : “ But so many of such dis
coveries have been reported as to make it
altogether improbable that the miners were
in every case mistaken ; and we must
conclude that rude stone implements do
actually occur in connection with the bones
of various extinct animals in the undis
turbed strata of the gold-bearing gravel.”
Fortunately, the mo^c important human
remains have been found in what may be
considered as a test case, where it was
physically impossible that they could have
been introduced by accident, and where
the evidence of a common workman as to
the locality of the find is as good as that
of a professed geologist.
During the deposition of the auriferous
gravel on the western flanks of the Sierra
there were great outbursts of volcanoes
near the summits of that range. Towards
their close a vast stream of lava flowed
down the shallow valley of the ancient
Stanislas river, filling up its channel for
forty miles or more, and covering its exten
sive gravel deposits. The modern Stanislas
river has cut across its former bed, and
now flows in a gorge from 1,200 to 2,000
feet deeper than the old valley which was
filled up by the lava stream, the surface of
which appears as a long flat-topped ridge,
�TERTIARY MAN
129
A second object exhibited was a pestle
known as Table Mountain. In many places
the sides of the valley which originally found by Mr. King, who was at one time
General Director of the United States
directed the course of the lava have been
Geological Survey, and is an expert whose
worn away, so that the walls on either side
present a perpendicular face one hundred judgment on such matters should be final,
and who had no doubt that the gravel in
feet or more in height.
The gravel of the ancient Stanislas river which he found the object must have lain
being very auriferous, great efforts have in place ever since the lava came down and
been made to reach the portion of it which covered it. The third object was a mortar
lies under Table Mountain. Large sums taken from the old gravel at the end of a
have been spent in sinking shafts from the tunnel driven diagonally 175 feet from the
top through the lava cap, and tunnelling western edge of the basalt cliff, and ioo
into it from the sides. Great masses of feet or more below the surface of the flat
gravel have been thus quarried and re top of Table Mountain, as supported by
evidence entirely satisfactory to Professor
moved, and a considerable amount of gold
Wright, who had just visited the locality
obtained, though in most cases not enough
to meet the expenses, and the workings have and cross-examined the principal witnesses.
This may prepare us to consider the case of
been mostly discontinued.
the celebrated Calaveras skull as by no means
It is evident that objects brought from a
an isolated or exceptional one, but antece
great depth below this lava cap must have
dently probable from the number of human
remained there undisturbed since they were
implements found in the same gravels, under
deposited along with the gravels, and that
the same beds of basalt and lava, at Table
the evidence of the simplest miner, who
Mountain and numerous other places.
says he brought them with a truck-load
of dirt from the
bottoms of shafts,
or ends of tunnels
pierced for hun
dreds of feet
through the solid
lava, is, if he speaks
the truth, as good
as if a scientist
SECTION ACROSS TABLE MOUNTAIN, TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
had found them
in situ. And this
b, lava; G, gravel; S, slate ; R, old river-bed ; R', present river-bed.
evidence, together
(Le Conte.)
with that of mining
Professor Wright, in the article already
inspectors and respectable residents who
referred to, which is the latest on the sub
took an interest in scientific subjects,
has been forthcoming in such a large ject, and made after his visit to California
number of instances as to preclude any in 1890, which he says enabled him to add
supposition of mistake or fraud. Three of some important evidence, sums up the facts
the latest of these discoveries were reported as follows :—“In February, 1866, Mr. Mattenson, a
at the meeting of the Geological Society of
America on the 30th December, 1890, and blacksmith living near Table Mountain, in
the county Calaveras, employed his spare
they seem to be supported by very firstearnings in driving a tunnel under the por
class evidence.1 Mr. Becker, one of the
staff of the United States Geological Sur tion of the Sierra lava flow known as Bald
vey, to whom has been committed the re Hill. At a depth of 1.50 feet below the sur
face, of which 100 feet consisted of solid
sponsible work of reporting upon the goldbearing gravels of California, exhibited to lava, and the last fifty of interstratified beds
of lava, gravel, and volcanic tuffs, he came
the Society a stone mortar and some arrow
or spear-heads, with the sworn statement upon petrified wood, and an object which he
from Mr. Neale, a well-known mining at first took for the rpot of a tree, thickly
encased in cemented gravel. But seeing
superintendent, that he took them with his
own hands from undisturbed gravel in a that -what he took for one of the roots was a
lower jaw, he took the mass to the surface,
mine of which he had charge under the
and gave it to Mr. Scribner, the agent of
lava of Table Mountain.
an express company, and still living in the
1 Professor Wright in Century, April, 1891.
neighbourhood, and highly respected. Mr.
K
�13°
HUMAN ORIGINS
Scribner, on perceiving what it was, sent it
“ Even these Californian remains do not
to Dr. Jones, a medical gentleman of the exhaust the proofs of man’s great antiquity
highest reputation, now living at San in America, since we have the record of
Francisco, who gave it to Professor Whitney, another discovery which indicates that he
who visited the spot, and after a careful may, possibly, have existed at an even more
inquiry was fully satisfied with the evidence. remote epoch. Mr. E. L. Berthoud has
Soon afterwards Professor Whitney took described the finding of stone implements
the skull home with him to Cambridge, of a rude type in the Tertiary gravels of
where, in conjunction with Dr. Wynam, he the Crow Creek, Colorado. Some shells
subjected it to a very careful investigation, were obtained from the same gravels,
to see if the relic itself confirmed the story which were determined by Mr. T. A.
told by the discoverer, and this it did to
Conrad to be species which are ‘ certainly
such a degree that, to use ProfessorWright’s not older than Older Pliocene, or possibly
words, the circumstantial evidence alone
Miocene.’ ”
places its genuineness beyond all reason
I do not dwell on the discoveries which
able question.”
have been made of human implements and
This is not a solitary instance, for the skeletons in the cases of Minas Geraes in
Professor reports, as the result of his
Brazil, and in the drift or loess of the
personal inquiries only a year ago in the pampas of Buenos Ayres; for, although
district, that “the evidence that human associated with extinct animals usually
implements and fragments of the human considered as Pliocene, there is a differ
skeleton have been found in the stratum ence of opinion among competent geolo
of gravel underneath the lava of Table
gists whether the deposits are really
Mountain seems to be abundantly Tertiary or only early Quaternary.
sufficient”; among others a fragment of a
_ There is, however, one discovery, made
skull which came up with a bucketful of since the date of these above recorded, of
dirt from 180 feet below the surface of human work below the great basalt cap of
Table Mountain at Tuolumne.
North-Western America, brought up from
Dr. Wallace, in an article on “The a great depth of underlying gravels and
Antiquity of Man in North America,” in sands of a silted-up lake, formerly forming
the Nineteenth Century of November, 1887, part of the course of the Snake river at
thus enumerates some of the principal Nampa in Idaho, which is as-startling in its
instances :—
way as that of the Calaveras skull. The
“ In Tuolumne county from 1862 to 1865 following account of it is given on the
stone mortars and platters were found in authority of Professor Wright, who, having
the auriferous gravel along with bones and visited the locality in the summer of 1890,
teeth of mastodon ninety feet below the states that he found “ abundant confirma
surface, and a stone muller was obtained tory evidence”:—
in a tunnel driven under Table Mountain.
The Nampa image was brought up in
In 1870 a stone mortar was found at a boring an Artesian well, at Nampa in Ada
depth of sixty feet in gravel under clay and county, Idaho, through a lava-cap fifteen
‘ cement,’ as the hard clay with vegetable feet thick, and below it about 200 feet of
remains (the old volcanic ash) is called by the quicksands and clays of a silted-up
the miners. In Calaveras county- from lake, formed in a basin of the Snake river,
i860 to 1869 many mortars and other stone which joins the Columbia river, and flows,
implements were found in the gravels into the Pacific, forming part, therefore, of
under lava beds, and in other auriferous the same geographical and drainage system
gravels and clays at a depth of 150 feet. as the Californian gravels. At this depth
In Amador county stone mortars have been the borers came upon a stratum of
found in similar gravel at a depth of forty coarse sand, mixed with clay balls at the
feet. In Placer county stone platters and top, and resting at the bottom on an
dishes have been found in auriferous gravels ancient vegetable soil. The image was
from ten to twenty feet below the surface. found in the lower part of this coarse sand.
In Nevada county stone mortars and The borer, or liner of the well, was a sixground discs have been found from fifteen inch iron tube, and the drill was only used
to thirty feet deep in the gravel. In Butte in piercing the lava, while the sands below
county similar mortars and pestles have it were all extracted by a sand pump. Mr.
been found in the lower gravel beneath
King, a respectable citizen of Nampa, who
lava beds and auriferous gravel; and many was boring the well, states that he had
other similar finds have been recorded........ been for several days closely watching the
�TERTIARY MAN
progress of the well and passing through
his hands the contents of the sand pump
as they were brought up, so that he had
hold of the image before he suspected what
it was. Mr. Cumming, superintendent of
that portion of the Union Pacific Railway,
a highly-trained graduate of Harvard
College, was on the ground next day and
fiftw the image, and heard Mr. King’s
account of the discovery ; and Mr. Adams,
the president of the railway, happening to
pass that way about a month later, he
brought it to the notice of some of the
foremost geologists in the United States.
The image was sent to Boston by Mr.
King, who gave every information, and it
was found to be modelled from stiff clay,
like that of the clay balls found in the
jsand, slightly, if at all, touched by fire, and
^©Crusted like those balls with grains of
oxide of iron, which Professor Putnam
FRONT VIEW.
BACK VIEW.
THE NAMPA IMAGE—ACTUAL SIZE.
{Drawn from the object by J. D. Woodward.)
considers to be a conclusive proof of its
great antiquity. Mr. Emmons, of the
State Geological Society, gives it as his
■Opinion that the strata in which this image
is said to have been found is older by far
than any others in which human remains
have been discovered, unless it be those
taider Table Mountain, in California, from
•which came the celebrated Calaveras skull.
So much for the authenticity of the dis
covery, which seems unassailable; but now
-comes the remarkable feature of it, which,
■to a great extent, revolutionises our con
ception of this early palaeolithic age. The
image, or rather statuette, which is scarcely
an inch and a-half long, is by no means a
rede object, but, on the contrary, more
.artistic, and a better representation of the
human form than the little idols of many
comparatively modern and civilised people,
such as the Phoenicians. It is, in fact, very
like the little statuettes so abundantly found
in the neighbourhood of the old temple
pyramids of Mexico, which are generally
believed to be not much older than the
date of the Spanish Conquest.
In the face of this mass of evidence, from
both the Old and New Worlds, there
appears to be no warrant for further
question as to the existence of man in
Tertiary times. But we must accept with
it conclusions which are much opposed to
preconceived opinions. In the two bestauthenticated instances in which human
skulls have been found in presumably
Tertiary strata—those of Castenedolo and
Calaveras—it is distinctly stated that they
present no unusual appearance, and do not
go nearly as far in a brutal or pithecoid
direction as the Quaternary skulls of
Neanderthal and Spy, or as those of many
existing savage races. The Nampa image
also appears to show the existence of
considerable artistic skill at a period which,
if notTertiary, must be of immense antiquity.
How can this be reconciled with the theory
of evolution and the descent of man from
some animal ancestor common to him and
the other quadrumana ? Up to a certain
point—-viz., the earliest Quaternary period,
the evidence of progression seems fairly
satisfactory. _ If we take the general
average of this class of skulls as compared
with modern skulls, we find them of smaller
brain-capacity, thicker and flatter, with
prominent frontal sinuses, receding fore
heads, projecting _ muzzles, and weaker
chins. The brain is decidedly smaller, the
average being 1,150 cubic centimetres as
compared with 1,250 in Australians and
Bushmen, and 1,600 in well-developed
Europeans ; and of this smaller capacity a
larger proportion is contained in the
posterior part.1 Other parts of the skeleton
will tell the same story, and in many of the
earliest and most extreme instances, as
those of Neanderthal and Spy, a very
decided step is made in the direction of the
“ missing link.”
But if we accept the only two specimens
known of the type of Tertiary man, the
skulls of Castenedolo and Calaveras, which
are supported by such extremely strong evi
dence, it would seem that as we recede in
time, instead of getting nearer to the
“missing link,” we get further from it.
This, and this alone, throws doubt on evi
dence which would otherwise seem to be
1 Quatrefages and Hamy, Crania Ethnica.
�HUMAN ORIGINS
132
irresistible, and without a greater number
of well-authenticated confirmations we must
be content to hold our judgment, as to the
existence of man in the Tertiary period in
either hemisphere, to a certain extent in
suspense. But this extends only to the type
of man as shown by these two skulls, and
does not at all affect the fact that an ances
tral type of man did exist in the Pliocene
and Miocene periods. This is established
beyond reasonable doubt by the numerous
instances in which chipped implements and
cut bones have been found by experienced
observers, and pronounced genuine by the
highest authorities.
All we can say with any certainty is that,
if the Darwinian theory of evolution applies
to man, as it does to all other animals, and
specially to man’s closest kindred, the other
quadrumana, the common ancestor must be
sought very much further back in the
Eocene, which inaugurated the reign of
placental mammalia, and in which the
primitive types of so many of the later
mammals have been found. Nor will this
appear incredible when we consider that
man’s cousins, the apes and monkeys, first
appear in the Miocene, or even earlier in
the Eocene, and become plentiful in the
later Pliocene, and that even anthropoid
apes, and one of them, the Hylobates,
scarcely if at all distinguishable from the
Gibbon of the present day, have been found
at Sansan and other Miocene deposits in
the south of France, at (Eningen in Swit
zerland, and Pikermi in Greece.
CHAPTER XI.
RACES OF MANKIND
Monogeny or Polygeny — Darwin — Existing
Races—Colour—Hair—Skulls and Brains—
Dolichocephali and Brachycephali—Jaws and
Teeth—Stature—Other Tests—Isaac Taylor
— Prehistoric Types in Europe— Huxley’s
Classification—Language no Test of Race—■
Egyptian Monuments—Human and Animal
Races unchanged for 6,000 years—Neolithic
Races—Palaeolithic—Different Races of Man
as far back as we can trace—Types of Canstadt, Cro-Magnon, and Furfooz—Oldest
Races Dolichocephalic—Skulls of Neander
thal and Spy—Simian Characters—Objections
—Evidence confined to Europe—American
Man—Calaveras Skull—Tertiary Man—Skull
of Castenedolo—-Leaves Monogeny or Poly
geny an Open Question—Arguments on each
side—Old Arguments from the Bible and
Philology exploded—What Darwinian Theory
requires—Animal Types traced up to the
Eocene—Secondary Origins-—Dog and Horse
—Fertility of Races—Question of Hybridity
—Application to Man—Difference of Consti
tution^—Negro and White—Bearing on Ques
tion of Migration—Apes and Monkeys—
Question of Original Locality of Man—Asiatic
Theory— Eur-African —American —Arctic —
None based on sufficient Evidence—Mere
Speculations—Conclusion—Summary of Evi
dence as to Human Origins.
The immense antiquity of man upon earth
having been established, other questions
of great interest present themselves as to
the races of mankind. These questions
no longer depend on positive facts of
observation, like the discovery of palaeo
lithic remains in definite geological deposits,
but on inference and conjecture from these
and other observed facts, most of which are
of comparatively recent date and hardly
extend beyond the historical period.
Thus, if we start with the existing state
of things, we find a great variety of human
races actually prevailing, located in different
parts of the world, and of fundamental
types so dissimilar as to constitute what in
animal zoology would often be called sepa
rate species,1 and yet fertile among them
selves, and so similar in many physical and
mental characters as to infer an origin from
common ancestors. And we can infer from
history that this was so to a great extent
6,000 years ago, and that the length of time
has been insufficient to produce any marked
changes, either in physical or linguistic
types, of the different fundamental races.
Was this always so, and what inference
can be drawn as to the much-disputed ques
tion between monogeny and polygeny—that
is, between the theory of descent from a
single pair in a single locality, and that of
descent from several pairs, developed in
different localities by parallel, but not
strictly identical, lines of evolution ?
1 Topinard, one of the latest and best authori
ties, says in his book on Anthropology : “We
have seen the marked difference between woolly
and straight hair, between the prognathous and
the orthognathous, the jet black of the Yoloff
and the pale complexion of the Scandinavian,
between the ultra-dolichocephalic Esquimaux or
New Caledonian and the ultra-brachycephalic
Mongolian. But the line of separation between
the European and the Bosjesman, as regards
these two characters, is, in a morphological
point of view, still wider, as much so as between
each of the anthropoid apes, or between the dog
and the wolf, the goat and the sheep.”
�RACES OF MANKIND
This is a question which cannot be
decided off-hand by a priori considerations.
No doubt Darwinism points to the evolu
tion of all life from primitive forms, and
ultimately, perhaps, from the single
simplest form of life in the cell. But
this does not necessarily imply that the
more highly specialised, and what may be
called the secondary, forms of life, have all
originated from single secondary centres,
at one time and in one locality.
On the contrary, we have the authority
of Darwin himself for saying that this is
not a necessary consequence of his theory.
In a letter to Bentham he says : “ I dispute
whether a new race or species is necessarily
or even generally descended from a single
or pair of parents. The whole body of
individuals, I believe, became altered
together—like our race-horses, and like all
domestic breeds which are changed through
unconscious selection by man.”
The problem is, therefore, an open one,
and can be solved (or rather attacked, for in
the present state of our knowledge a com
plete solution is probably impossible) only
by a careful induction from ascertained
facts, ascending step by step from the
present to the past, from the known to the
unknown.
The first step is to have a clear idea of
what actually exists at the present moment.
There are an almost endless number of
minor varieties of the human race, but
none of them of sufficient importance to
imply diversity of origin, with the excep
tion of four, or at the most, five or six
fundamental types, which stand so widely
apart that it is difficult to imagine that
they are all descended from a common
pair of ancestors. These are the white,
yellow, and black races of the Old World,
the copper-coloured of America, and
perhaps the olive-coloured of Malaysia
and Polynesia, and the pygmy races of
1 Africa and Eastern Asia. The difficulty of
supposing these races to have all sprung
from a single pair will at once be apparent
if we personify this pair under the name of
Adam for the first man and Eve for the
first woman, and ask ourselves the ques
tion : What do we suppose to have been
their colour ?
But colour alone, though an obvious,
is by no means the sole, criterion of
difference of race.
The evidence is
cumulative, and other equally marked and
persistent characters, both of physical
Structure and of physiological and mental
peculiarities, stand out as distinctly as
133
differences of colour in the great typical
races. For instance, the hair is a per
sistent index of race. When the section
of it is circular, the hair is straight and
lank ; when flattened, woolly; and when
oval, curly or wavy. Now these characters
are so persistent that many of the best
anthropologists have taken hair as the
surest test of race. Everywhere the lank
and straight hair and circular section go
with the yellow and copper-coloured races ;
the woolly hair and flat section with the
black ; and the wavy hair and oval section
with the white races.
The solid framework of the skeleton
also affords very distinctive types of race,
especially where it is looked at in a general
way as applicable to great masses of pure
races, and not to individuals of mixed race,
like most Europeans. The skull is most
important, for it affords the measure of the
size and shape of the brain, which is the
highest organ, and that on which the
differentiation of man from the lower
animals mainly depends. The size of the
brain alone does not always afford a con
clusive proof of mental superiority, for it
varies with sex, height, and other indi
vidual characters, and often seems to
depend more on quality than on quantity.
Still, if we take general averages, we find
that superior and civilised races have
larger brains than inferior and savage
ones. Thus the average brain of the
European is about 1,500 cubic centimetres,
while that of the Australian and Bushman
does not exceed 1,200.
The shape as well as the size of the
skull affords another test of race which is
often appealed to. The main distinction
taken is between dolichocephalic and
brachycephalic, or long and broad skulls.
Here also we must look at general averages
rather than at individuals, for there is often
considerable variation within the same
race, especially among the mesocephalic,
or medium between the two extremes,
which is generally the prevalent form
where there has been much intermixture
of races. But, if we take widely different
types, there can be no doubt that the long
or broad skull is a characteristic and
persistent feature. The formation of the
jaws and teeth affords another important
test. Some races are .what is called prog
nathous—that is, the jaws project, and the
teeth are set in sockets sloping outwards,
so that the lower part of the face approxi
mates to the form of a muzzle ; others are
orthognathous, or have the iaws and teeth
�134
HUMAN ORIGINS
vertical. And the form of the chin seems
to be wonderfully correlated with the
general character and energy of the race.
It is hard to say why, but as a matter of
fact a weak chin generally denotes a weak,
and a strong chin a strong, race or individual.
Thus the chimpanzee and other apes have
no chin; the negro and lower races generally
have chins weak and receding. The races
who, like the Iberians, have been conquered
or driven from plains to mountains have
had poor chins ; while their successive
conquerors of Aryan-speaking race—-Celts,
Romans, Teutons, and Scandinavians—
might almost be classified by the pro
minence and solidity of this feature of the
face. The use of the term “Aryan” as
denoting race is misleading. As Professor
Keane remarks in his valuable treatise on
Man, Past and Present, there is no trace
whatever of the group of communities thus
named, since this has long been merged in
the countless other races on which its
language was imposed. “We can and
must speak of Aryan tongues, and of an
Aryan linguistic family; but of an Aryan
race there can be no further question, since
the absorption of the original stock in a
hundred other races in remote prehistoric
times.” Wherever the term is used through
out this book, it must be thus understood.
Stature is another very persistent feature.
The pygmy races of Equatorial Africa
described by Stanley have remained the
same since the early records of Egypt,
while the races of the north temperate
zone, Gauls, Germans, and Scandinavians,
have from the first dawn of history amazed
the shorter races of the south by their tall
stature, huge limbs, blue eyes, and yellow
hair. Here and there isolated tall races
may be found where the race has become
thoroughly acclimatised to a suitable
environment, as among some negro tribes,
and the Araucanian Indians of Patagonia ;
but, as a rule, the inferior races are short,
the bulk of the civilised races of the world
of intermediate stature, and the great
conquering races of the north temperate
zone decidedly tall.
Other tests are afforded by the shape of
the eye-orbits and nasal bones, and other
characters, all of which agree, in the words
of Isaac Taylor in his Origin of the
Aryans, in “ exhibiting two extreme types
—the African with long heads, long orbits,
and flat hair; and the Mongolian with
round heads, round orbits, and round hair.
The European type is intermediate, the
head, the orbit, and the hair being oval.
In the East of Europe we find an approximation to the Asiatic type ; in the South of
Europe to the African.”
Taking these prominent and already
noted characters as tests, we find four
distinct types among the earliest inhabitants
of Europe, which can be traced from
historic to neolithic times. They consist
of two long-headed and two short-headed
races, and in each case one is tall and
the other short. The dolichocephalic are
recognised everywhere throughout Western
Europe and on the Mediterranean basin,
including North Africa, as the oldest race,
and they are thought still to survive in the
original type in some of the people of
Wales and Ireland and the Spanish
Basques ; while they doubtless form a
large portion, intermixed with other races,
of the blood of the existing populations of
Great Britain and Ireland, of Western and
Southern France, of Spain, Portugal, Sicily,
Sardinia, North Africa, and other Mediter
ranean districts. This is known as the
Iberian race, and it can be traced clearly
beyond history and the knowledge of
metals into the neolithic stone age, and
may possibly be descended from some of
the vastly older palaeolithic types such as
that of Cro-Magnon. The type is every
where a feeble one, of short stature,
dolichocephalic, narrow oval face, orthog
nathic teeth, weak chin, and swarthy
complexion. We have only to compare a
skull of this type with one of ruder and
stronger races, to understand how the
latter must have survived as conquerors in
the struggle for existence in the early ages
of the world, before gunpowder and military
discipline had placed civilisation in a better
position to contend with brute force and
energy. Huxley sums up the latest evidence
as to the distinctive types of these historic
and prehistoric races of Europe as follows:—
1. Blond long-heads of tall stature who
appear with least admixture in Scandinavia,
North Germany, and parts of the British
Islands.
2. Brunette broad-heads of short stature
in Central France, the Central European
Highlands, and Piedmont. These are
identified with the Ligurian race, and their
most typical modern representatives are
the Auvergnats and Savoyards.
3. Mongoloid brunette broad-heads of
short stature in Arctic and Eastern Europe,
and Central Asia, represented by the Lapps
and other tribes of Northern Russia, pass
ing into the Mongols and Chinese of
Eastern Asia.
�RACES OF MANKIND
4. Brunette long-heads of short stature
—the Iberian race.
Huxley adds : “ The inhabitants of the
regions which lie between these five present
the intermediate gradations which might
be expected to result from their inter
mixture. The evidence at present extant
is consistent with the supposition that the
blond long-heads, the brunette broad-heads,
and the brunette long-heads—the Scan
dinavian, Ligurian, and Iberian races—have
existed in Europe very nearly in their
present localities throughout historic times
and very far back into prehistoric times.
There is no proof of any migration of
Asiatics into Europe west of the basin of
the Dnieper down to the time of Attila.
On the contrary, the first great movements
of the European population of which there
is any conclusive evidence are that series
of Gaulish invasions of the East and South
which ultimately extended from North Italy
to Galatia in Asia Minor.” I may add that
in more recent times many of the principal
movements have been from west to east—
viz., of Germans absorbing Slavs, and Slavs
absorbing or expelling Fins and Tartars.
The next question is, how far can we
trace back the existence of the present
widely different fundamental types of man
kind by the light of ascertained and certain
facts ?
The most important of these facts is that
the figures on Egyptian monuments
enable us to say that the existing diver
sities of the races of mankind are not
of recent origin, but have existed un
changed from the dawn of history. The
Egyptians themselves have come down
from the Old Empire, through all the
vicissitudes of conquests, mixtures of races,
changes of religion and language, so little
altered that the fellah of to-day is often the
image of the Egyptians who built the pyra
mids. The wooden statue of an officer of
Chephren, who died some 6,000 years ago
(see Ulus., p. 63), was such a striking por
trait of the village magistrate of to-day
that the Arab workmen christened it the
Sheik-el-Beled.” And these old Egyp
tians knew’ from the earliest times three at
least of the fundamental types of mankind :
the Nahsu, or negroes to the south, who are
represented on the monuments so faithfully
that they might be taken as typical pictures
of the modern negro; the Lebu to the west,
a fair-skinned and blue-eyed white race,
whose descendants remain to this day as
Kabyles and Berbers, in the same localities
of North Africa; and to the east various
135
tribes of Arabs, Syrians, and other Asiatics,
who are always painted of a yellowishbrown colour, and whose features may often
be traced in their modern descendants.
The same may be said of the wild and
domestic animals of the various countries,
which are the same now, unless where sub
sequently imported, as when they were first
known to the ancient Egyptians.
We start, therefore, with this undoubted
fact, that a period of 6,000 or 7,000 years
has been insufficient to make any percep
tible change in the types of pure races,
whether of the animal or of human species.
And doubtless this period might be greatly
extended if we had historical records of the
growth of Egyptian civilisation in the times
prior to Menes, for in the earliest records
we find accounts of wars both with the
Nahsu and the Lebu, implying large popu
lations of those races already existing both
to the south and west of the valley of the
Nile.
These positive dates carry us back so far
that it is of little use to investigate minutely
the differences of races shown by the
remains of the neolithic period. They were
very marked and numerous, but we have no
evidence to show that they were different
from those of more recent times, or that
their date can be confidently said to be much
older than the oldest Egyptian records.
All we can infer with certainty is that,
whether the neolithic period be of longer
or shorter duration, no changes have taken
place in the animal fauna contemporary
with man which cannot be traced to human
agency or other known causes. No new
species have appeared, or old ones disap
peared, in the course of natural evolution,
as was the case during the Quaternary and
preceding geological periods.
The neolithic is, however, a mere drop in
the ocean of time compared with the earlier
periods in which the existence of palaeo
lithic man can be traced by his remains ;
and as far back as we can go we find our
selves confronted by the same fact of a
diversity of races. As we have seen in the
chapter on Quaternary man, Europe, where
alone skulls and skeletons of the palaeo
lithic age have been discovered, affords at
least three very distinct types—that of Cannstadt, of Cro-Magnon, and of Furfooz.
The Cannstadt type, which includes the
men of Neanderthal and Spy, and which
was widely diffused, having been found as
far south as Gibraltar, is apparently the
oldest, and certainly the rudest and most
savage, being characterised by enormous
�HUMAN ORIGINS
136
brow-ridges, a low and receding forehead,
projecting muzzle, and thick bones with
powerful muscular attachments. It is very
dolichocephalic, but the length is due
mainly to the projection of the posterior
part of the brain, the total size of which is
below the average. The Cro-Magnon type,
which is also very old, being contemporary
with the cave-bear and mammoth, is the
very opposite of that of Cannstadt in many
respects. The superciliary ridges are
scarcely marked, the forehead is elevated,
the contour of the skull good, and the
volume of the brain equal or superior to
that of many modern civilised races. The
stature was tall, the nose straight or pro
jecting, and the chin prominent. The only
resemblance to the Cannstadt type is that
they are both dolichocephalic chiefly on
the posterior region, and both prognathous;
but the differences are so many and pro
l’homme
AVANT l’histoire.
(From
found that no anthropologist would say that
one of these races could have been derived
directly from the other. Still less could he
say that the small round-headed race of
Furfooz could have been a direct descen
dant of either of the two former. It is
found in close vicinity with them over an
extensive area, but generally in caves and
deposits which, from their geological situa
tion and associated fauna, point to a later
origin. In fact, if we go by European
evidence alone, we may consider it proved
that the oldest known races were dolichoce
phalic, that the brachycephalic races came
later, and that as long ago as in neolithic
times considerable intercrossing had taken
place, which has gone on ever since, pro
ducing the great variety of intermediate
types which now prevail over a great part
of Europe.
This inference of the priority of the
Cannstadt type is strengthened by its un
doubted approximation to that of the most
savage existing races and of the anthropoid
apes. If we take the skulls and skeletons
of Neanderthal and Spy, and compare them
with those of modern civilised man, we
find that, while they are still perfectly
human, they make a notable approximation
towards a savage and simian type in all
the peculiarities which have been described
by anthropologists as tests. The most
important of all, that of the capacity and
form of the brain, is best illustrated by the
subjoined diagram of the skulls of the
European, the Neanderthal, and the chim
panzee placed in superposition.
It will be seen at a glance that the
Neanderthal skull, especially in the frontal
part, which is the chief seat of intelligence,
is nearer to the chimpanzee than to modern
man. And all the other
characters correspond to
this inferiority of brain.
The enormous super
ciliary ridges; the greater
length of the fore-arm ;
the prognathous jaws,
larger canine teeth, and
smaller chin; the thicker
bones and stronger mus
cular attachments; the
rounder ribs ; the flatter
tibia, and many other
characters described by
palaeontologists, all point
in the same direction, and
take us some considerable
way towards the missing
Debierre.)
link 'which is to connect
the human race with animal ancestors.
Still, there are other considerations
which must make us pause before asserting
too positively that in following Quaternary
man up to the Cannstadt type we are on
the track of original man, and can say with
confidence that by following it up still
further wfc shall arrive at the earlier form
from which man was differentiated. In
the first place, Europe is the only part of
the world where this Cannstadt type has
hitherto been found. We have abundant
evidence from palaeolithic stone implements
that man existed pretty well over the whole
earth in early Quaternary times, but have
hitherto no sufficient evidence from human
remains outside of Europe from which we
can draw any inference as to the type of
man by whom these implements were made.
It is clear that in Europe the oldest races
�RACES OF MANKIND
were dolichocephalic, but we have no
certainty that this was the case in Asia,
in so many parts of which round-headed
races exclusively prevail, and have done so
from the earliest times. Again, we have
no evidence as to the origin of another
of the most strongly-marked types, that
of the Negro, or of the Negrito,
Bushmen, Australian, or other existing
races who approach most nearly to the
simian type. The only evidence we have
of the type of races who were certainly
early Quaternary, and may very possibly
go back to an older geological age than
that of the men of Neanderthal and Spy,
comes from the NewWorld,from California,
Brazil, and Buenos Ayres, and points to a
type not so savage and simian as that of
Cannstadt, but rather to that which charac
terises all the different varieties of American
man, though here also we find evidence of
distinct dolichocephalic and brachycephalic
races from the very earliest times. Another
difficulty in the way of considering the
Cannstadt type as a real advance towards
primitive man and the missing link arises
from the totally different and very superior
type of Cro-Magnon being found so near
it in time, as proved by the existence in
both of the cave-bear, mammoth, and
■other extinct animals. We can hardly
suppose the Cro-Magnon _ type to have
sprung by slow evolution in the ordinary
way of direct succession, from such a very
different type as that of Cannstadt, during
such a short interval of time as a small
portion of one geological period. Again,
it is very perplexing to find that the only
Tertiary skulls and skeletons for which we
possess really strong evidence, those of
Castenedolo, instead of showing, as might
be expected, a still more rude and simian
aspect than that of Cannstadt, show us the
Cannstadt type, indeed, but in a milder and
more human form.
All that can be said with certainty is
that, as far as authentic evidence carries
us back, the ancestral animal, or missing
link, has not been discovered, but that man
already existed from an enormous antiquity,
extending certainly through the Quaternary
into the Pliocene, and probably into the
Miocene period, and that at the earliest
date at which his remains have been found
the race was already divided, as at present,
into several sharply distinguished types.
This leaves the question of man’s ultimate
origin completely open to speculation, and
enables both monogenists and polygenists
to contend for their respective views with
137
plausible arguments, and without fear of
being refuted by facts. Polygeny, or plural
origins, would at first sight seem to be the
most plausible theory to account for the
great diversities of human races actually
existing, which can be shown to have
existed from such an immense antiquity.
And this seems to have been the first guess
of primitive nations, for most of them
considered themselves as autochthonous,
sprung from the soil, or created by their
own native gods. But by degrees this
theory gave place to that of monogeny,
which has been for a long while almost uni
versally accepted by the civilised world.
The cause of this among Christians, Jews,
and Mohammedans hasbeen the acceptance
of the narratives in Genesis, first of Adam
and secondly of Noah, as literally true
accounts of events which actually occurred.
This is an argument which has completely
broken down, and no competent and dis
passionate thinker any longer accepts the
Hebrew Scriptures as a literal and conclu
sive authority on facts of history and
science which lie within the domain of
human reason. The question, therefore,
became once more an open one; but, as the
old orthodox argument for monogeny faded
into oblivion, a new and more powerful one
was furnished by the doctrine of Evolution
as expounded by Darwin. The same argu
ment applies to man as to the rest of the
animal world, that if separate species imply
separate creations, these supernatural crea
tions must be multiplied to such an extent
as to make them altogether incredible ; as,
for instance, 150 separate creations for the
land shells alone of one of the group of
Madeira islands ; while, on the other hand,
genera grade off into species, species into
races, and races into varieties, by such in
sensible degrees as to establish an irresis
tible inference that they have all been deve
loped by evolution from common ancestors.
No one, I suppose, seriously doubts that
this is in the main the true theory of life,
though there may still be some uncertainty
as to the causes and mode of operation,
and of the different steps and stages of this
evolution. Monogeny, therefore, in this
general sense of evolution from some primi
tive mammalian type, may be accepted as
the present conclusion of science for man
as it has come to be for the horse, dog, and
so many other animals which are his con
stant companions. Their evolution can in
many cases be traced up, through succes
sive steps, to some more simple and general
ised type in the Eocene ; and it may be per-
�IJS
HUMAN ORIGINS
mitted to believe that if the whole geological
record could be traced as far back as that
of the horse, in the case of man and the
other quadrumana, their pedigree would be
as clearly made out. This, however, does
not conclude the question, for it is quite
permissible to contend that in the case of
man, as in that of the horse, though the
primary ancestral type in the Eocene may
be one, the secondary types from which
existing races are more immediately derived
may be more than one, and may have been
evolved in different localities. Thus in the
case of the dog it is almost certain that
some of the existing races have been
derived from wolves, and others from jackals
and foxes ; but this is quite consistent with
the belief that all the canine genus have
been evolved from the marsupial Carnivora
of the Eocene, through the Arctocyon, who
was a generalised type, half dog and half
bear. In fact, we have the authority of
Darwin himself, as quoted in the beginning
of this chapter, for saying that this would
be quite consistent with his view of the
origin of species.
Now the controversy between monogenists and polygenists has turned mainly
on these comparatively recent developments
of secondary types. It has been fought to
a great extent before the immense antiquity
of the human race had been established,
and it had become almost certain that its
original starting-point must be sought at
least as far back as in the Eocene period.
The main argument for monogeny has
been that the different races of mankind
are fertile among themselves. This is
doubtless true to a great extent, and shows
that these races have not diverged very
far from their ancestral type. But the
researches of Darwin and his successors
have thrown a good deal of new light on
the question of hybridity. Species can no
longer be looked upon as separated' from
one another and from races by hard-andfast lines, on one side of which is absolute
sterility and on the other absolute fertility;
but rather as blending into one another by
insensible gradations from free intercross
ing to sterility, according as the differences
from the original type became more pro
nounced and more fixed by heredity.
To revert to the case of dogs, we find
free interbreeding between races descended
from different secondary ancestors, such as
wolves, jackals, and foxes, though freer, I
believe, and more permanent as the races
are closer ; but as the specific differences
become more marked the fertility does not
abruptly cease, but . rapidly diminishes.
Thus Buffon’s experiment shows that a
hybrid cross between the dog and the wolf
may be produced and perpetuated for at
least three generations ; on the other hand,
the leporine cross between the hare and
rabbit has no established results ; and we
see in the mule the last expiring trace
of fertility in a cross between species which
have diverged so far in different directions
as the horse and the ass.
The human race repeats this lesson of
the animal world, and shows a graduated
scale of fertility and permanence in crosses,
between different types according as they
are closely or distantly related. Thus, if
we take the two extremes, the blond white
of North temperate Europe and the Negro
of Equatorial Africa, the disposition to
union is almost replaced by repugnance,
which is only overcome under special
circumstances, such as slavery, and by an
absence of women of their own race ; while
the offspring, the mulatto, is everywhere a
feeble folk, with deficient vitality,diminished
fertility, and prone to die out, or revert to
one or other of the original types. But
where the types are not so extremely diver
gent the fertility of the cross increases, as
between the brunette white of Southern
Europe and the Arab or Moor with the
Negro, and of the European with the
native Indian of America.
Perhaps the strongest argument for
polygeny is that derived from the different
constitutions of different races as regards
susceptibility to climatic and other influ
ences.
At present, and as far back as history
and tradition enable us to trace, mankind
has, as in the case of other animals, been
very much restricted to definite geological
provinces. Thus, in the extreme case of
the fair white and the Negro, the former
cannot live and propagate its type south
of the parallel of 40°, or the latter north of
it. This argument was no doubt pushed
too far by Agassiz, who supposed the whole
world to be divided into a number of limited
districts, in each of which a separate
creation both of men, animals, and plants
had taken place suited to the environment.
This is clearly inconsistent with facts, but
there is still some force in it when stripped
of exaggeration, and confined to the three
or four leading types which are markedly
different. Especially it bears on the argu
ment, on which monogenists mainly rely,
of the peopling of the earth by migration
from one common centre. No doubt migra-
�RACES OF MANKIND
139
white, or the white from the Negro. _ To
tion has played a very great part in the
deny the extension of human origins into
diffusion of all animal and vegetable
the Tertiaries is practically to deny
species, and their zoological provinces are
determined very much by the existence of Darwin’s theory of evolution altogether,
or to contend that man is an exception to
insurmountable barriers in early geological
the laws by which the rest of the animal
times. No doubt also man is better
creation have come into existence in the
organised for migration than most other
course of evolution.
terrestrial animals, and history and tradi
The question of the locality in which the
tion show that in comparatively recent times
human species first originated depends also
he has reached the remotest islands of the
very materially on the date assigned for
Pacific by perfectly natural means. But this
human origins. The various speculations
does not meet the difficulty of accounting,
which have been hazarded on this subject
if we place the origin of man from a single
are almost all based on the supposition
pair anywhere in the northern hemisphere,
that this origin took place in comparatively
for his presence in palaeolithic times in
recent times, when geographical and other
South Africa and South America. How
causes were not materially different from
did he get across the equatorial zone, in
those of the present day. It was for ages
which only a tropical fauna, including the
the accepted belief that all mankind were
tropical Negro, can now live and flourish?
descended primarily from a single pair of
Or vice versd, if the original Adam and
ancestors, who were miraculously created
Eve were black, and the Garden of Eden
in Mesopotamia, and secondarily from three
situated in the tropics, how did their
pairs who were miraculously preserved in
descendants migrate northwards, and live
the ark in Armenia. This, of course, never
on the skirts of the ice-caps of the glacial
had any other foundation than the belief
period? Or how did the yellow race, so
in the inspired authority of the Bible ; and
tolerant of heat and cold and of insanitary
when it came to be established that this, as
conditions, and so different in physical and
regards its scientific and prehistoric specu
moral characters from both the whites and
lations, was irreconcilable with the most
the blacks, either originate from them or
certain facts of science, the orthodox
give rise to them ? The nearest congeners
account of the Creation fell with it. The
of man, the anthropoid apes and monkeys,
theory of Asiatic origin was, however, taken
are all catarrhinein the Old World, and all
up on other grounds, and still lingers in
platyrrhine in South America. Why, if all
are descended from the same pair of ances some quarters, mainly among philologists,
who, headed by Max Muller, thought they
tors, and have spread from the same spot by
had discovered in Sanscrit and Zend the
migration ? We can only reconcile the
nearest approach to a common Aryan lan
fact that it is so with the facts of evolution,
guage. Tracing backwards the lines of
by throwing the common starting-points
migration of these people, the Sanscrit
or points of the lines of development much
speaking Hindoos and the Zend-speaking
further back into the Eocene, or even
Iranians, they found them intersecting
further; and if this be true for monkeys,
somewhere about the Upper Oxus, and
why not for man ?
One point seems quite clear, that jumped at the conclusion that the great
elevated plateau of Pamir, the “ roof of the
monogeny is only possible by extending
world,” had been the birthplace of man, as
the date of human origins far back into
it was of so many of the great rivers which
the Tertiaries. On any short-dated theories
flowed from it to the north, south, east, and
of man’s appearance upon earth—-as, for
west. This theory, however, has pretty
instance, that of Prestwich, that palaeolithic
well broken down, since it has been shown
man probably only existed for some
that other branches of the Aryan languages,
20,000 or 25,000 years before the neolithic
specially the Lithuanian, contain more
period—some theory like that of Agassiz,
archaic elements than either Sanscrit or
of separate creations in separate zoological
Zend ; that language is often no conclusive
provinces, follows inevitably.
If the
test of race; that migrations of peoples
immense time from the Miocene to the
have been from . west to east as well
Recent period has been insufficient to
as from east to west ; and that all
differentiate the Hylobates and Dryohistory, prehistoric traditions, and lin
pithecus very materially from the existing
guistic palaeontology point to the prin
anthropoid apes, a period such as 40,000
cipal Aryan-speaking races as having been
or 50,000 years would have gone a very
located in Northern and Central Europe
little way in deriving the Negro from the
�140
HUMAN ORIGINS
and in Central and Southern Russia verymuch as we find them at the present day..
The whole question of place of origin is
very much one of guess-work. The immense
antiquity which on the lowest possible esti
mate can be assigned for the proved exist
ence of man carries us back to a period
when geological, geographical, and climatic
conditions were so entirely different that all
inferences from those of the present period
are useless. For instance, certainly half
the Himalayas, and probably the whole,
were under the sea ; the Pamir and Central
Asia, instead of being the roof of the world,
may have been fathoms deep under a great
ocean; Greenland and Spitzbergen were
types of the north temperate climate best
suited for the highest races of man.
In like manner, language ceases to be an
available factor in any attempt to trace
human origins to their source. It is doubt
less true that at the present day different
fundamental types of language distinguish
the different typical races of the human
family. Thus the monosyllabic type, con
sisting of roots only without grammar,
characterises the Chinese and its allied
races of the extreme east of Asia; the
agglutinative, in which different shades of
meaning were attached to roots by definite
particles glued on to them, as it were, by
prefixes or suffixes, is the type adopted by
most of the oldest and most numerous
races of mankind in the Old World as their
means of conveying ideas by sound; while
in the New World the common type
of an immense variety of languages is
polysynthetic, or an attempt to splutter out
as it were a whole sentence in a single
immensely long word made up of fragments
of separate roots and particles—a type
which in the Old World is confined to the
Euskarian of the Spanish Basque. And at
the head of all, as refined instruments, for
the conveyance of thought, there stand the
two inflectional languages,.the Aryan and
Semitic, by which, though in each case by
a totally different system, roots acquire
their different shades of meaning by
particles, no longer mechanically glued on
to them, but melted down as it were with
the roots, and incorporated into new words
according to definite grammatical rules.
But this carries us back a very little way.
Judging by philology alone, the Chinese,
whose annals go back only to about 3000
B.C., would be an older race than the
Egyptians or Akkadians, whose languages
can be traced at least 2,000 years further
back. And if we go back into prehistoric
and geological times, we are absolutely
ignorant whether the neolithic and palaeo
lithic races spoke these languages, or
indeed had the gift of articulate speech at
all. Some palaeontologists have held that
there was evidence for the oldest palaeo
lithic race being speechless, and have
christened it “Homo alalus”; but this is
based on the fact that a single human
jaw, that of La Naulette, lacks the genial
tubercle, to which one of the muscles of
the tongue is attached, and which is absent
also in anthropoid apes.
It is, however, certain that from the first
man had a certain faculty, like other
animals, of expressing his meaning by
sounds and gestures; but at what particular
stage in the course of human evolution this
faculty ripened into what may be properly
called language is a matter of conjecture.
It may have been in the Tertiary, the
Quaternary, or not until the Recent period.
As Professor Cunningham expounds the
matter in his address at a recent meeting
of the British Association : “In the solu
tion of this vexed' question we have little
solid ground to go upon beyond the material
changes produced in the brain. The struc
tural characters which distinguish the
human brain in the region of the speech
centre constitute one of the leading pecu
liarities of the human cerebral cortex.
They are totally absent in the brain of the
anthropoid ape, and of the speechless
microcephalic idiot.”
All we can say is that, when we first
catch sight of languages, they are already
developed into the present distinct types,
arguing, as in the case of physical types,
either for distinct miraculous creations, or
for such an immensely remote ancestry as
to give time for the fixation of separate
secondary types before the formation of
language. Thus, if we confine ourselves
to the most perfect and advanced, and
apparently therefore^most modern, form of
language of the foremost races of the
world, the inflectional, we find two types,
the Semitic and Aryan, constructed on such
totally different principles that it is im
possible for one to be derived from the
other, or both to be descended from a
common parent. The Semitic device of
expressing shades of meaning by internal
flexion—that is, by ringing the changes of
vowels between three consonants, making
every word triliteral—is fundamentally dif
ferent from the Aryan device for attaining
the same object by fusing roots and added
particles into one new word in which equal
�RACES OF MANKIND
value is attached to vowels and consonants.
We can partly see how the latter may have
been developed from the agglutinative, but
not how the stiff and cramped Semitic can
have been derived either from that or from
the far more perfect and flexible type of the
Aryan languages. It has far more the ap
pearance of being an artificial invention
implying a considerable advance of intel
lectual attainment, and, therefore, of com
paratively recent date. In any case, we
may safely accept the conclusion that there
is nothing in language which assists us in
tracing back human origins into geological
times, or, indeed, much further than the
commencement of history.
.
We are reduced, therefore, to geological
evidence, and this gives us nothing better
than mere probabilities, or rather guesses,
as to the original centre or centres of
human existence upon the earth. . The in
ference most generally drawn is in favour
of the locality where the earliest traces of
human remains have been found, and where
the existence of the nearest allied species,
the apes and monkeys, can be carried back
furthest. This locality is undoubtedly EurAfrica, that is the continent which existed
when Europe and Africa were united by
one or more land connections. And in this
locality the preference must be assigned to
Western Europe and to Africa north of the
Atlas ; in fact, to the portion of this ancient
continent facing the Atlantic and Western
Mediterranean, then an island sea. Thus
far, Central and South-Western France,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Algeria, to which
may now be added Java, have afforded the
oldest proofs of the existence of man, and
of the co-existence of anthropoid ages.
Darwin inclined to the view that North
Africa was probably the scene of man’s first
appearance ; and a later authority on the
subject, Brinton, in his Races and Peoples^
gives at length reasons for assigning this to
somewhere in Eur-Africa.
. .
But it must be remembered that this in
ference rests entirely on the fact that the
district in question has been more or less
explored, while the rest of the earth can
hardly be said to have been explored at all
for anything prior to those Quaternary
palaeolithic implements, which prove the
existence of man, already spread over
nearly the whole of the habitable globe.
The foregoing summary of the matter
shows that in our present state of know
ledge all theories of the place, time, and
manner of human origins must remain
speculations. We have proof positive that
141
man was already spread over most parts
of the world in the Quaternary period; and
the irresistible inference that he must have
existed long before is confirmed by con
clusive evidence as to the finding of his
remains and implements in the earliest
Quaternary and latest Pliocene periods, and
by very strong evidence for carrying them
back into the Miocene. Anthropoid apes,
which are similar to man in physical
structure, and, in their limits, are as highly
specialised from any more general and
primitive ancestral form as man himself,
undoubtedly did exist in the Miocene
period, and have come down to us with
comparatively little change. It puzzles the
best anatomists to find any clear distinction
between the present Hylobates and the
Hylobates of the Middle Miocene, while
that between the white man and the Negro
is clear and unmistakeable. Why, then,
should “ Homo ” not have existed as soon
as “ Hylobates,” and why should any pre
possession in favour of man’s recent crea
tion, based mainly on exploded beliefs in
the scientific value of. the myths and
guesses of the earliest civilised nations of
Asia, stand in the way of accepting the
enormous and rapidly-increasing accumu
lation of evidence, tracing back the evolu
tion of the mammal man to the same
course of development as other mammals ?
As regards the course of th is . evolution,
all we know with any certainty is that, as
far as we can trace it back, the human
species was already differentiated
distinct races, and that in all probability
the present fundamental types were already
formed.
In conclusion, I may remark that the
questions as to monogeny or polygeny, and
as to the place of man’s fiist appearance
on earth, lose most of their importance
when it is realised that human oiigms must
be pushed back at least as far as the
Miocene, and probably into the Eocene
period. As long as it was held that no
traces of man’s existence could be found,
as Cuvier held, until the Recent period ; or
even, as some English geologists still con
tend, until the post-glacial, or, at any rate,
the glacial or Quaternary periods, it wasevident that the facts could only be
explained by the theory of a series of
supernatural
interferences..
Agassiz s
theory, or some modification of it, 01
numerous special creations of life at special
centres, as of the Esquimaux and polarbear in Arctic regions, the Negro and
gorilla in the troDics, and so forth.
�142
HUMAN ORIGINS
must be adopted. This theory has
been completely given up as regards
animals, in favour of the Darwinian theory
of evolution by natural causes; and no one
now believes in a multiplicity of miracles
to account for the existence of animal
species. Is man alone an exception to
this universal law, or is he, like the rest of
creation, a product of what Darwinians
call “ Evolution,” and enlightened theo
logians “ the original impress”?
The existing species of anthropoid apes—
the orang, the chimpanzee, and the _goriUn
do not differ more widely from one another
than do many of the extreme types of the
human species. In colour, hair, volume of
brain, form of skull, stature, and a hundred
other peculiarities, the Negro and the
European stand further apart than those
anthropoids do from one anothei'; and no
naturalist, say, from Mars or Saturn, inves
tigating the human family for the first time,
and free from prepossession, would hesitate
to class the white, black, yellow, red, and
perhaps five or six other varieties, as dif
ferent species.
In the case of these anthropoid apes no
one supposes that they were miraculously
created in recent times. On the contrary,
we find their type already fully developed
in the Miocene, and we infer that, like
the horse, camel, and many other existing
mammals, their origin may be traced step
by step backwards to some lower and
generalised type in the Eocene. Who can
doubt that physical man, an animal con
structed almost exactly on the same ana
tomical ground-plan as the anthropoids,
came into existence by a similar process ?
The only answer would be, if it could be
proved, that his existence on earth had
been so short as to make it impossible that
so many and such great specific variations
as now exist, some o'f which have been
proved to have existed early in the Quater
nary period, could have been developed by
natural means and by the slow processes of
evolution. But this is just where the evi
dence fails, and is breaking down more and
more every year and with every fresh dis
covery.
Recent man has given place to Quater
nary man ; post-glacial to inter-glacial and
pre-glacial; and now the evidence for the
existence of man, or of some ancestral form
of man, in the Tertiary period, has accu
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few competent anthropologists who any
longer deny it.
But with this extension of time the story
of Human Origins, instead of being an
anomaly and a discord, falls in with the
sublime harmony of the universe, and, there
fore, takes its place in the universal order.
The next R. P. A. Cheap Reprint will be Cotter Morison’s SERVICE OF
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Human origins
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Laing, Samuel [1812-1897]
Clodd, Edward [1840-1930]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 144 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: No. 8
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Published for the Rationalist Press Association. Publisher's advertisements on last two pages. RA 1803 does not have the last two pages. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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KJ 4^
MODERN SCIENCE
AND MODERN THOUGHT
BY
S. LAING
AUTHOR OF “PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE," »A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN,” “HUMAN ORIGINS,’’ ETC.
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE AUTHOR BY
EDWARD CLODD
*
■
*
(ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Ltd.)
LONDON
WATTS AND CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
��INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The career of the author of this book was long, varied, and distinguished.
His father, Samuel Laing, after service in the Peninsular War, became, on the
death of an elder brother, Malcolm Laing, who was author of a meritorious
“ History of Scotland,” owner of the family estates in Orkney, where, for a time,
he developed the kelp industry with success. He is remembered as the author of
“Travels in Sweden and Norway,” which may still be read with advantage for its
trustworthy sketches of the general conditions of life in Scandinavia sixty years
ago. But, from the standpoint of scholarship, he did more valuable work in
translating the “ Heimskringla,” or chronicles of the kings of Norway, compiled in.
the twelfth century by an Icelandic poet-historian, Snorri Sturleson. The lyrical
portions of this old saga were translated by the subject of this brief notice.
After some vicissitudes of fortune, the father settled in Edinburgh, where
Samuel Laing was bom on 17th December, 1811. That is the date given by his
friend Mr. C. C. Macrae, in a privately-printed memoir issued in 1899, and may
be accepted as against the date 12th December, 1812, which is given in the
“ Dictionary of National Biography.”1 His education.was begun at Houghton-leSpring Grammar School, whence he passed as a “ pensioner” (the term means one
who pays for his commons out of his own income) to St. John’s College, Cambridge.
He graduated as second wrangler and second Smith’s prizeman, and in 1834 was
elected a Fellow of his College. For three years he was a mathematical “ coach,” and
in June, 1837, was called to the bar, where his acumen seized an opening as counsel
in connection with the many railway schemes then agitating the community. The
place and prominence which he thus secured led to his start in political life as
secretary to Mr. Henry Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton) who was then
(1839) President of the Board of Trade, and in the following year he was appointed
Counsel to the newly created Railway Department of that Board. Insistence on
the detail of the enormous volume of work which this involved is needless here,
but an example of its onerous nature may be cited from Mr. Macrae. “ In one
session, 1845, the Board reported on 331 separate Bills for various railways, and
on these no less than 240 separate reports were presented, each of which, supplying
’In the ninth edition of “ Men of the Time” (1875) the date 1810 is given.
�vi
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
exhaustive analyses and criticisms, was entirely drafted by Mrs Laing.” His
reputation as a great railway administrator was yet to be made, but his influence
was manifest in many ways, notably in securing the daily running of the
“ Parliamentary ” or penny a mile trains, and it is admitted that had his counsels
been heeded, the results of the crisis which followed the wild railway speculation!
of that time would have been less disastrous.
In 1848, he accepted the Chairmanship and Managing Directorship of the
London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, a position which, in the first instance,
he held till 1855. Three years before his retirement therefrom he entered Parliament
as Liberal member for Wick, but in 1857 his farsighted and creditable opposition
to the war against China cost him his seat. Two years afterwards he regained it,
becoming in June, 1860, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, a position which was
exchanged for the important post of Finance Minister of India, in succession to
the eminent economist James Wilson, father-in-law of Walter Bagehot, a man
never to be named without words of regret for the grievous loss to literature and
economics which his early death involved. Wilson had been carried-off by
dysentery in August, 1860, and Samuel Laing’s reputation marked him as the
fittest man to continue the task of reform rendered necessary by the financial
disorganisation into which the Mutiny and other serious causes had thrown the
revenue and expenditure of India. By prudent economies and readjustment of
taxes, Laing converted a deficit into a surplus, but the laborious work so told upon
his health that his return to England was compulsory. In 1865 he re-entered
Parliament, and in 1867 resumed his old position as Chairman of the Brighton
Railway, from which he retired only three years before his death, which occurred on
the 6th August, 1897. He lost his seat in 1868, and four years passed before he
was back at St. Stephen’s; this time as representative of Orkney and Shetland, for
which constituency he sat until his final retirement from political life in 1885.
It was then, when most men have warrant for margin of rest as fringe to
an active career, that Samuel Laing began the writing of a series of volumes
popularising the discoveries of modern science and the conclusions based on
those discoveries. Of these, “ Modern Science and Modern Thought ” was the
earliest, and remains the most acceptable. The veteran author wrote with no
prentice hand. .From time to time he had published pamphlets on political and
social questions ; his long training in the drafting of reports, and in the clear and
compendious presentment of abstruse matters, was enviable qualification for the
self-imposed task of his old age. Hence his skilful disentanglement of essentials
from accidentals, and of the general from the particular, rendered his books as
useful as they were opportune. Some twenty years before this he had done good
and original work in science. Under the title of “ Prehistoric Remains in
Caithness,” he published, in 1866, an account of stone implements, rude pottery,
human and other bones found in “kists ” in burial mounds, and in “middens ” or
shell-refuse heaps, in the neighbourhood of Keiss Castle. To this Professor Huxley
�INTRODUCTORY NOTE
vii
added a supplement of fifty pages, describing and illustrating the human skulls,
nine in all, and other portions of skeletons, some of which were grouped as
Thaymn or pre-Celtic. Mr. Laing expressed an opinion, warranted by the split
bones discovered among miscellaneous witnesses of feasting, that “ these aboriginal
savages were occasionally cannibals.
His interest in science was, therefore, no new-born thing, and the prominence
given to the human theme in all his books was the sequence (interrupted by
the claims of important commercial undertakings on his time) of years of
observation, of reading, and of reflection.
The main part of the book now
reprinted deals with man physically and psychically, and the titles of three out of
its four successors—namely, “A Modern Zoroastrian ” (1887), Antiquity of
Man” (1891), and “Human Origins” (1892)—evidence what a foremost place
the large question of man’s evolution and destiny filled in his mind.
The first part of “ Modern Science and Modern Thought ” is now sub
jected only to such revision as is required by the advance of knowledge during
the last seventeen years. The portions thus affected are those dealing with the
continuity of Palaeolithic and Neolithic man in Continental Europe; with the
recent discovery of remains, probably of an intermediate form between man and
ape, in Java ; and with the remarkable discoveries in Babylonia, which appear to
accord to that empire an earlier civilisation than that of Egypt. But the general
conclusions, as stated by the venerable author, are strengthened by the newer
evidence. In the second part, only a few verbal corrections have been made,'
since the arguments which are therein advanced against the theory of the
supernatural origin of the several documents making-up the New Testament, and,
consequently, against the claims as to revelation advanced on its behalf, need
neither addition or revision. And for the rest, we have the author’s confession of j
faith, and sage remarks on motives to right conduct, making appeal to minds of
the most opposite beliefs in a spirit which must ensure sympathy, if it does not
win assent.
The writer of this note had not the advantage of Samuel Laing’s personal
acquaintance, and it is, therefore, permissible to draw upon Mr. Macrae’s memoir
for some presentment of the man.
“He had the healthy body as well as the healthy mind; from youth till
advanced age he delighted in all field sports. He was fond of good art and music ;
his tastes in both were classical and old-fashioned.
Beethoven and the Italian
Operatic composers were his favourites; ‘ but he could not tolerate the formless
ness of the modern school led by Wagner.’ His conversation had distinction; he
detested gossip and idle talk. He had a retentive memory, and- ‘his accuracy,
even to historical details, was astonishing.’ His favourite authors were Scott and
Tennyson; in latter life, however, his reading was mainly restricted to scientific
books. His charities, always unostentatious, ‘ were, in proportion to his means,
liberal,’ and their variety manifested his toleration. Open-minded, he harboured
�INTRODUCTORY NOTE
viii
never a prejudice : nor was his equanimity ever ruffled, ‘ so that the idea of a Stoic
sage had become with him a habit of daily life and conduct.’ ... ‘He believed
in the people—in the masses—in their broad common-sense and honest judgment on
large questions which they understood, and it was mainly to their instruction
that he looked in the books that he wrote. His ideals were a plain, simple manner
of life, manly conduct and honest- work. His own long life was throughout an
example of these things, and as he had lived, so he continued to the end.’ ”
Edward Clodd.
June 21 st, 1902.
�AUTHOR’S PREFACE
The object of this book is to give a clear and concise view of the principal
Jesuits of Modern Science, and of the revolution which they have effected in
Modern Thought. I do not pretend to discover fresh facts or to propound new
theories, but simply to discharge the humbler though still useful task of present
ing what has become the common property of thinking minds, in a popular shape,
which may interest those who lack time and opportunity for studying special
subjects in more complete and technical treatises.
I have endeavoured also to give unity to the subjects treated of, by connecting
them with leading ideas; in the case of Science, that of the gradual progress
from human standards to those of almost infinite space and duration, and the
prevalence of law throughout the universe to the exclusion of supernatural inter
ference; in the case of Thought, the bearings of these discoveries on old creeds
and philosophies, and on the practical conduct of life. The endeavour to show
how much of religion can be saved from the shipwreck of theology has been the
main object of the second part. Those who are acquainted with the scientific
literature of the day will at once see how much I have been indebted to Darwin,
Lyell, Lubbock, Huxley, Proctor, and other well-known writers. In fact, the
first part of this book does not pretend to be more than a compendious popular
abridgment of their works. I prefer, therefore, acknowledging my obligations to
them once for all, rather than encumbering each page by detailed references.
The second part contains more of my own reflections on the important sub.
jects discussed, and must stand or fall on its own merits rather than on authority.
I can only say that I have endeavoured to treat these subjects in a reverential
spirit* and that the conclusions arrived at are the result of a conscientious and
dispassionate endeavour to arrive' at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth.”
��CONTENTS
PART I
MODERN
SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
PAGE
1
Comets, and Meteors—Has acted through all Time.
CHAPTER II
8
Modern Thought.
CHAPTER III
19
Sd Motion-Conservation of Energy-Electricity, Magnetism, and Chemical Action
_ Dissipation of Heat—Birth and Death of Worlds.
CHAPTER IV
29
L
-n
f
t
<51Tnr>lpqt Form Protoplasm—Monera and Protista—Animal and
VeZabh°f ?'ri“
'T’f or
Supernatural Theory-Zoological Provinces-Separate Creations-Law ’::
OpHs
MSde-DarwSn Theory-Struggle for Life-Survival of the Fittest-Development
and Design—The Hand—Proof required to establish Darwin s Theory as a Law
Species—Hybrids—Man subject to Law.
CHAPTER V
39
ANTIQUITY OF MAN..........................................................................................................
.
„
„
a
,
■Rplipf in Man’s Recent Origin—Boucher de Perthes’ Discoveries—Confirmed by
moth, etc.—Human Types—Neanderthal, SPY’^^^^Dwdfings^lacia^
—Bronze Age—Neolithic—Danish Kitchen-middens—Swiss Lake-Dwellings Glacial
Period—Traces of Ice—Causes of Glaciers-Croll’s Theory-Gulf Stream-Dates of
Glacial Period-Rise and Submergence of Land-Tertiary Man-Eocene PenodMiocene—Evidence for Pliocene and Miocene Man—Conclusions as to Antiquity.
�xii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
man’s place in nature...............................................
Origin of Man from an Egg—Like other Mammals—Development of the EmbryoBackbone—Eye and other Organs*of Sense—Fish, Reptile, and Mammalian Stages—
Comparison with Apes and Monkeys—Germs of Human Faculties in Animals—The
Dog-Insects—Helplessness of Human Infant-Instinct-Heredity and EvolutionThe Missing Link—Races of Men—Leading Types and Varieties—Common Origin
Distant-Language-How formed-Grammar-Chinese, Aryan, Semitic, etc.-Con
clusions from Language-Evolution and Antiquity-Religions of Savage RacesGhosts and Spirits—Anthropomorphic Deities—Traces in Neolithic and Palaeolithic
limes—Development by Evolution—Primitive Arts—Tools and Weapons-Fire—
Hint Impiements—Progress from Paleolithic to Neolithic Times—Domestic Animals
—Clothing—Ornaments—Conclusion, Man a Product of Evolution
PASS
65
<
PART II
MODERN
THOUGHT
CHAPTER VII
MODERN THOUGHT
....................................................................
83
Lines from Tennyson-The Gospel of Modern Thought—Change exemplified by
Carlyle, Renan, and George Eliot—Science becoming Universal—Attitude of
Orthodox Writers—Origin of Evil—First Cause unknowable—New Philosophies and
Religions—Herbert Spencer and Agnosticism—Comte and Positivism—PessimismMormonism—Spiritualism—Dreams and Visions—Somnambulism—Mesmerism.
CHAPTER VIII
Q2
MIRACLES..............................................
Origin of Belief in the Supernatural—Thunder—Belief in Miracles formerly Universal
—St. Pauls Testimony—Now Incredible—Christian Miracles—Apparent Miracles—
Beal Miracles—Absurd Miracles—-Worthy Miracles—The Resurrection and Ascension
mK tU/^e °* ®v’^ence required—Inspiration—Prophecy—Direct Evidence—St Paul
—The Gospels—What is Known of Them—The Synoptic Gospels—Resemblances and
Differences—Their Origin—Papias—Gospel of St. John—Evidence rests on Matthew,
Mark, and Luke—What each states—Compared with one another and with St John
—Hopelessly Contradictory—Miracle of the Ascension—Silence of Mark—Probable
Early Date of Gospels—But not in their Present Form.
CHAPTER IX
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES........................................................................................................................
Practical and Theoretical Christianity—Example and Teaching of Christ—Christian
Dogma—Moral Objections—Inconsistent with Facts—Must be accepted as Parables—
Fall and Redemption—Old Creeds must be Transformed or Die—Mahometanism_
Decay of Faith—Balance of Advantages—Religious Wars and Persecutions_ In
tolerance—Sacrifice—Prayer—Absence of Theology in Synoptic Gospels—Opposite
Pole to Christianity—Courage and Self-reliance—Belief in God and a Future LifeBased mainly on Christianity—Science gives no Answer—Nor Metaphysics—So-called
Intuitions—Development of Idea of God—Best Proof afforded by Christianity—
Evolution is Transforming it—Reconciliation of Religion and Science.
CHAPTER X
PRACTICAL LIEB........................................................................................................................................................................
Conscience—Right is Right—Self-reverence—Courage—Respectability—Influence of
Press—Respect for Women—Self-respect of Nations—Democracy and Imperialism—•
Self-knowledge—Conceit—Luck—Speculation—Money-making—Practical Aims of
Life—Self-control—Conflict of Reason and Instinct—Temper—Manners—Good Habits
in Youth—Success in Practical Life—Education—Stoicism—Conclusion.
113
�MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
PART I.—MODERN SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
SPACE
Ideas—Natural Standards—Dimensions of the Earth— Of Sun and Solar
System—Distance of Fixed Stars—Their
Order and Size—Nebulae and other Universes—The Telescope and the Infinitely
Great—The Microscope and the Infinitely
Small—Uniformity of Law—Law of Gravity
-«-Acts through all Space—Double Stars,
Comets, and Meteors—Has acted through
all Time.
The first ideas of space were naturally
taken from the standard of man’s own
impressions. The inch, the foot, the cubit,
the fathom, were the lengths of portions
of his own body, obviously adapted for
measuring objects with which he came in
direct contact. The mile was the dis
tance traversed in 1,000 double paces; the
league the distance walked in an hour.
The visible horizon suggested the idea
that the earth was a flat, circular surface
like a round table; and as experience
shewed that it extended beyond the
limits of a single horizon, the conception
was enlarged and the size of the table
increased so as to take in all the countries
known to the geography of successive
periods.
In like manner the sun, moon, and
stars were taken to be at the distance at
which they appeared ; that is, first of the
•visible horizon, and then of the larger
circle to which it had been found neces:sary to expand it. It was never doubted
that they really revolved, as they seemed
to do, round this flat earth circle, dipping
under it in the west at night, and re,appealing in the east with the day. The
conception of the universe, therefore,
was of a flat, circular earth, surrounded
by an ocean stream, in the centre of a
crystal sphere which revolved in twenty*
four hours round the earth, and in which
the heavenly bodies were fixed as lights
for man’s use to distinguish days and
seasons. The maximum idea of space was
therefore determined by the size of th#
earth circle which was necessary to takein all the regions known at the time, with
a little margin beyond for the ocean
stream, and the space between it and the
crystal vault, required to enable the latter
to revolve freely. In the time of Homer,
and the early Greek philosophers, this
would probably require a maximum of
space of from 5,000 to 10,000 miles. This
dimension has been expanded by modern
science into one of as many millions, or
rather hundreds of millions, as there were
formerly single miles, and there is no sign
that the limit has been reached.
How has this wonderful result been
attained, and how do we feel certain that
it is true ? Those who wish thoroughly
to understand it must study standard
works on Astronomy, but it may be
possible to give some clear idea of the
processes by which it has been arrived
at, and of the cogency of the reasoning
by which we are compelled to accept
facts so contrary to the first impressions
of our natural senses.
The fundamental principle upon which
all measurements of space, which are
beyond the actual application of human
standards, depend, is this : that distant
objects change their bearings for a given
change of base, more or less in propor
tion as they are less or more distant.
�2
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
Suppose I am on. board a steamer’ sailing
down the Thames, and I see two churches
on the Essex coast directly opposite to
me, or bearing due north, the first of
which is one mile, and the other ten miles,
distant. I sail one mile due east and
again take the bearings. It is evident
that the first church will now bear north
west, or have apparently moved through
45 , i.e., one-eighth part of the circumfer
ence of a complete circle, assuming this
circumference to be divided into 360 equal
parts or degrees ; while the more distant
church will only have altered its bearing
by a much less amount, easily determined
by calculation, but which may be taken
roughly at 5° instead of 45°.
The branch of mathematics known as
Trigonometry enables us in all cases,
without exception, where we know the
apparent displacement or change of bear
ing of a distant object produced by taking
it from the opposite ends of a known base,
to calculate the distance of that object
with as much ease and certainty as if we
were working a simple sum of rule of
three. The first step is to know our base,
and for this purpose it is essential to
know the size and form of the earth on
which we live. These are determined by
very simple considerations.
If I walk a mile in a straight line, an
object at a vast distance like a star will
not change its apparent place perceptibly.
But if I walk the same distance in a semi
circle, what was originally on my left
hand will now be on my right, or will
have changed its apparent place by 180°.
If I walk my mile on the circumference
of a circle of twice the size, I shall have
traversed a quadrant or one-fourth part
of it, and changed the bearing of the
distant object exactly half as much, or
90°, and so on, according to the size of
the circle, which may therefore be readily
calculated from the length that must be
travelled along it to shift the bearing of
the remote object by a given amount,
say of 1°.
’
If, for instance, by travelling 65 miles
from north to south we lower the ap
parent height of the Pole star 1°, it is
mathematically certain that we have
travelled this 65 miles, not along a flat
surface, but along a circle which is 360
times 65, or, in round numbers, 24,000
miles in circumference and 8,000 miles in
diameter. And if, whenever we travel
the same distance on a meridian or line
drawn on the circumference from north
to south, we find the same displacement
of 1°, we may be sure that our journey
has been in a true circle, and that the
form of the earth is a perfect sphere of
these dimensions.
�SPACE
Now, this is very nearly what actually
occurs when we apply methods of scientific accuracy to measure the earth. The
true form of the earth is not exactly
spherical, but slightly oval or flatter at the
poles, being almost precisely the form it
would have assumed if it had been a fluid
XftMS rotating about a north and south
axis. But it is very nearly spherical, the
true polar diameter being 7,899 miles,
and the true equatorial diameter 7,926
miles, so that for practical purposes we
may say roughly that the earth is a
spherical body, 24,000 miles round and
8,000 miles across.
This gives us a fresh standard from
which to start in measuring greater
distances. Precisely as we inferred the
distance of the church from the steamer
in our first illustration, we can infer the
distance of the sun from its displacement
caused by observing it from two opposite
ends of a base of known length on the
garth’s surface. This is the essential
principle of all the calculations, though
when great accuracy is sought for, very
refined methods of applying the principle
are required, turning mainly on the
extent to which the apparent occurrence
of the same event—such as the transit of
Venus over the sun’s disc—is altered by
observing it from different points at
known distances from one another on
the earth’s surface. The result is to show
that the sun’s distance from the earth is,
in round numbers, 93,000,000 miles. This
is not an exact statement, for the earth’s
orbit is not an exact circle, but the sun
and earth really revolve in ellipses about
the common centre of gravity. The sun,
however, is so much larger than the earth
that this centre of gravity falls within
the sun’s surface, and, practically, the
earth describes an ellipse about the sun,
the 93,000,000 miles being the mean distance, and the eccentricity or deviation
irom the exact circular orbit, being about
one-sixtieth part of that mean distance.
This distance, again, gives us the size of
the sun, for it is easily calculated how
large the sun must be to look as large as it
does at a distance of 93,000,000 miles.
The result is, that it is a sphere of about
865,000 miles in diameter. Its bulk, there
fore, exceeds that of the earth in the pro
portion of 1,300,000 to 1. Its density, or
the quantity of matter in it, may be
calculated from the effect of its action on
the earth under the law of gravity at the
3
distance of 93,000,000 miles. It weighs
as much as 332,000 earths.
The same method gives us the distance,
size, and weight of the moon and planets;
and it gives us a fresh standard or base
from which to measure still greater dis
tances. The distance of the earth from the
sun being 93,000,000 miles, and its orbit
an ellipse nearly circular, it follows that
it is in mid-winter, in round numbers,
186,000,000 miles distant from the spot
where it was at midsummer. What
difference in the bearings of the fixed
stars is caused by traversing this enor
mous base ?
The answer is, in the immense majority
of cases, no difference at all; i.e., their dis
tance is so vastly greater than 186,000,000
miles that a change of base to this extent
makes no change perceptible to the most
refined instruments in their bearings as
seen from the earth. But the perfection
of modern instruments is such, that a
change of even one second, or g/g^th part
of one degree, in the annual parallax, as
it is called, of any fixed star, would
certainly be detected.
This corresponds to a distance of 206,265
times the length of the base of 186,000,000
miles, or of 20,000,000,000,000 miles,
a distance which it would take light)
moving at the rate of 186,000 miles per
second, three years and eighty-three days
to traverse. There is only one star in
the whole heavens, a bright star called
Alpha, in the constellation of the Centaur,
which is known to be as near as this. Its
annual parallax is 0'976", or very nearly
1", and therefore its distance very nearly
20 millions of millions of miles. All the
other stars, of which many millions are
visible through powerful telescopes, are
further off than this.
There are about eight other stars which
have been estimated by astronomers to
give indications of an annual parallax of
less than half a second, and therefore
whose distances may be somewhere from
twice to ten times as great as that of
Alpha Centauri. From the quantity of
light sent to us from these distances,
some approximation has been made to
their intrinsic splendour as compared
with our sun. That of Alpha Centauri
is computed to be nearly 2| times ; that
of Sirius, the brightest star in the
heavens, 393 times ; greater than that of
the sun. These figures may or may not
represent greater size or greater intensity
B 2
�4
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
of light, and they are quoted only to give
some idea of the vastness of the scale of
the universe of which our solar system
forms a minute part.
Nor does even this nearly fathom the
depth of the abysses of space. Telescopes
enable us to see a vast multitude of stars
of varying size and brilliancy. It is com
puted by astronomers that'there are at
least one hundred millions of stars within
the range of the telescopes used by
Herschel for gauging the depth of space,
and a thousand millions within the range
of the great reflecting telescope of Lord
Bosse. As many as eighteen different
orders of magnitude have been counted,
and the more the power of telescopes is
increased the more stars are seen. Now,
as there is no reason to suppose that this
extreme variety of brilliancy arises from
extreme difference of size of one star
from another, it must be principally
owing to difference of distance, so that a
star of the eighteenth magnitude is pre
sumably many times further off than any
of the first magnitude, the distance of
the nearest of which has been proved to
be something certainly not less than
20,000,000,000,000 miles. In fact, these
stellar distances are so great that in
order to bring them at all within the
range of human imagination we are
obliged to apply another standard, that
of the velocity of light. Light can be
shown to travel at the rate of about 178
millions of miles in 16 minutes, for this
is the difference of the time at which we
see the same periodical occurrence, as for
instance the eclipses of Jupiter’s satel
lites, according as the earth happens to
be at the point of its orbit nearest to
Jupiter, or at that farthest away. The
velocity of light is therefore about
186,000 miles per second, a velocity which
has been fully confirmed by direct ex
periments made on the earth’s surface.
These enormous distances are reckoned,
therefore, by the number of years which
it would take light to come from them,
travelling as it does at the rate of
186,000 miles a second. The nearest fixed
star, Alpha Centauri, is seen by a ray
which left it three years and eighty-three
days ago, and has been travelling ever
since at the rate of 186,000 miles per
second. Sirius, the brightest of the fixed
stars, if the determination of its annual
parallax, is correct, is six times further
off, and is seen, not as it exists to-day,
but as it existed nearly twenty years
ago ; and the light we now see from some
of the stars of the eighteenth magnitude
can hardly have left them less than 2,000
years ago.
Even this, however, is far from ex
hausting our conception of the magnitude
of space. Beyond the stars which are
near enough to be seen separately, power
ful. telescopes show a galaxy in which the
united lustre of myriads of stars is only
perceptible as a faint nebulous gleam.
And in addition to stars the telescope
shows us a number of nebulae, or faint
patches of. light, sometimes globular,
sometimes in wreaths, spiral wisps, and
other fantastic shapes, scattered about
the heavens. Some of these are resolved
by powerful telescopes into clusters of
stars inconceivably numerous and re
mote, which appear to be separate
universes, like that of which our sun and
fixed stars form one. Others again
cannot be so resolved, and are shown by
the spectroscope to be enormous masses
of glowing gas, or cosmic matter, out of
which other universes are in process of
formation.
We are thus led, step by step, to enlarge
our ideas of space from the primitive
conception of miles and leagues, until
the imagination fails to grasp the infinite
vastness of the scale upon which the
material universe is really constructed.
If the telescope takes us thus far
beyond the standards of unaided sense in
the direction of the infinitely great,
the microscope, aided by calculations as
to the nature of light, heat, electricity,
and chemical action, takes us as far in
the opposite direction of the infinitely
small. The microscope enables us actu
ally to see magnitudes of the order of
Too&ooJh of an inch as clearly as the
naked eye can see those of Wth. This
introduces us into a new world, where we
can see a whole universe of things both
dead and alive of whose existence our
forefathers had no suspicion. A glass of
water is seen to swarm with life, and be
the abode of bacteria, amoebae, rotifers,
and other minute creatures, which dart
about, feed, digest, and propagate their
species in this small world of their own,
very much as jelly-fish and other humble
organisms do in the larger seas. The air
also is shown to be full of innumerable
germs and spores floating in it, and ready
to be deposited and spring into life,
�SPACE
5
wherever they find a seed-bed fitted to periods, in obedience to the same law.
receive them. Given a favourable soil in Clouds of meteoric dust revolve in fixed
the human frame, and the invisible seeds orbits, determined by the law of gravity
of scarlet fever, cholera, and small-pox as surely as the moon revolves round the
ripen into full crops, just as the germs of earth, and the earth round the sun.
This is a conclusion of such funda
a fungus invade the potato crops of a
whole district, and lead to Irish famines mental importance that it is desirable to
fejMt the extermination of more than a give the uninitiated reader some clear
idea of what it means, and how it is
yaillion of human beings.
The microscope also enables us to see arrived at. Newton’s great discovery,
the very beginnings of life and watch its the law of gravity, is this—that all
primitive element, protoplasm, in the matter acting in the mass attracts other
form of a minute speck of jelly-like matter directly as the amount of attract
matter, through which pulsations are ing matter, and inversely as the square
constantly passing, and we can watch the of the distance. That is, 2 or 2,000,000
transformations by which an elementary tons attract with twice the force of 1 OF
cell of this substance splits up, multi- 1,000,000 tons at the same distance, but
plies, and by a continued process of with only one-fourth, of the same force
development builds up with these cells at double, and one-ninth at triple _thfe
all the diversified forms of vegetable and distance.
How is this law proved 1 This will be
animal life.
But far as the microscope carries us best answered by explaining how. it was
Sown to dimensions vastly smaller than discovered. The force of gravity^ or
those of which the ordinary senses can attraction of the earth on bodies at the
take cognizance, the modern sciences of earth’s surface, is a known quantity^
light, heat, and chemistry carry us as The whole matter in a spherical body
much farther downwards, as the telescope attracts exactly as if it were all collected
parries us upwards beyond the boundaries at the centre. The force of gravity at the
of our solar system into the expanses of earth’s surface is, therefore, that of the
stars and nebulae. We are transported earth’s mass exerted at a distance of
Into a world of atoms, molecules, and about 4,000 miles, and this can be easily
iight-waves, where the standard of measured by observing the space fallen
Measurement is no longer in feet or through, and the velocity acquired,
Inches, oreven in one-hundred-thousandth by a falling body in a given tim^ such
part of an inch, but in millionths of as 1".
Does the same force act at the distance
Millimetres, i.e., in
of an
inch. The dimensions are such that, as of the moon, or 238,850 miles 1 This was
we shall see when we come to deal with the question Newton asked himself, and
matter, if the drop of water in which the the answer was got at in the following
Microscope shows us living animalcula way. If we swing a stone in a sling round
were magnified to the size of the earth, our head, it describes a circle as long.aS
the atoms of which it is composed would we keep the string tight, and its pull in
appear of a size intermediate between wards just balances the pull of the stone
to fly outwards, i.e., to use scientific
that of a rifle-bullet and a cricket-ball.
This, then, is Nature’s scale of space, language, as long as the centripetal just
from millionths of a millimetre up to balances the centrifugal force. But if
millions of millions of miles. Through we let go the string the stone darts off in
out the whole of this enormous range of the direction in which, and with the vel®^
city with which, it was moving when the
space the laws of Nature prevail.
Mattei’ attracts matter by the same law centripetal force ceased to act.
The moon is such a sling-stone re
of gravity in the case of double stars revolving about each other at a distance at volving about the earth. At each instant
which a base of 186,000,000 miles has it is moving in the direction of a tangent
long since become a vanishing point, and to its orbit, and would move on m a
in the case of atoms which form the sub- straight line along this tangent if it were
stance of a gas, as in that of an apple not deflected from it by some other force.
falling from a tree at the earth’s surface. That is, if the moon were now at Mt, it
Comets, darting off into the remote would, after a given interval of time, be
regions of space, return after long at M2 if no force had acted on it. But
�6
modern science and modern thought
in point of fact it is not at M2 but at M3.
Therefore it has been pulled down from
M2 to M3, or, if you like, fallen through
the space M2 M3 in the
time in which it would
have travelled over Mx
M2 with its velocity at
Mj. How does this space
correspond with the
space through which a
heavy body would have
fallen in the same time
at the earth’s surface ?
It corresponds exactly,
assuming the law of
gravity to be that it
. decreases with
the
square of the distance.
This may be taken as the first appro
ximation, but the more accurate and
universal proofs of the law are derived
from mathematical calculations of what
the nature of the attractions must be, in
the case of the sun, earth, moon, and
planets, to. make them describe such
elliptic orbits and observe such laws, as
from Kepler s observations we know
actually to be the case. The answer here
again is the law of gravity, and no other
possible law, and this is confirmed in
piactice. by tlie fact that we are able, by
calculations based on it, to satisfy the
requisite of safe prophecy—that of know
ing beforehand, and to predict eclipses,
comets, transits, and occultations, and
generally to.compile Hautical Almanacs,
by which ships know their whereabouts
in pathless oceans.
. This, then, affords us a first firm stand
ing-point in any speculations as to the
nature of the universe. One great law,
at any rate, is universal throughout all
space, and, as we shall see later, suns,
stars, and nebulae are composed of the
same matter as the earth and its in
habitants.
In like manner comets and meteors,
though presenting in other respects
phenomena not yet fully understood, are
proved to obey the same laws and to
consist . of the same matter. Comets
are bodies which revolve round the sun,
and are attracted by it and by the
planets, in obedience to the ordinary law
of gravity, though their density is so
slight, that although often of enormous
volume, they produce no perceptible
effect on the planets, even when en
tangled amidst the satellites of a planet,
as Lexell’s comet was amongst those of
Jupiter.
Their dimensions may be judged of
when it is stated that the comet of 1811
had a tail 120 millions of miles in length
and 15 millions of miles in diameter at
the widest part, while the diameter of the
nucleus was about 127,000 miles, or more
than 15 times that of the earth. In order
that bodies of this magnitude, passing
near the earth, should not affect its
motion or change the length of the year
by even a single second, their actual
substance must be inconceivably rare.
If the tail, for instance, of the comet of
1843 had consisted of the lightest sub
stance known to us, hydrogen gas, its
mass would have exceeded that of the
sun, and every planet would have been
dragged from its. orbit. As Proctor says :
“A jar-full of air would probably have
outweighed hundreds of cubic miles of
that vast appendage which blazed across
the skies to the terror of the ignorant
and superstitious.”
. The extreme tenuity of a comet’s mass
is also proved by the phenomenon of the
tail, which, as the comet approaches the
sun, is thrown out sometimes to a length
of 90 millions of miles in a few hours.
And what is remarkable, this tail is
thrown out against the force of gravity
by some repulsive force, probably elec
trical, so that it always points away from
the sun. Thus a comet which approaches
the sun with a tail behind it, will, after
passing its perihelion, recede from the
sun with its tail before it, and this
although the tail may be of the length of
200 millions of miles, as in the comet of
1843. In the course of a few hours,
therefore, this enormous tail has been
absorbed and a new one started out in an
opposite direction. And yet, thin as the
matter of comets must be, it obeys the
common law of gravity, and whether the
comet revolves in an orbit within that of
the outer planets, or shoots off into the
abysses of space and returns only after
hundreds of years, its path is, at each
instant, regulated by the same force as
that which causes an apple to fall to the
ground; and its matter, however atten
uated, is ordinary matter, and does not
consist of any unknown elements. The
spectroscope shows that comets shine
partly by reflected sunlight and partly
by light of their own, the latter part
being gaseous, and this gas, in most
�SPACE
comets, contains carbon and hydrogen,
■possibly also oxygen, in the form of
Kydrocarbons or marsh gas, cyanogen
and possibly oxygen compounds of carbon. One comet has recently given the
line of sodium, and the presence of iron
is strongly suspected.
As regards meteors, which include
shooting stars and aerolites, it has been
long known, from actual masses which
have fallen on the earth, that they are
composed of terrestrial matter, princi
pally of iron, which has been partially
fused by the heat engendered by the
friction of the rapid passage through the
air. The recurrence of brilliant displays
at regular intervals, as for instance those
of August and November, when the whole
sk'y often seems alive with shooting stars,
had also been noticed ; but it was re
served for recent times to prove that
these«meteor streams are really composed
of small planetary bodies revolving round
the sun in fixed orbits by the force of
gravity, and that their display, as seen
by us, arises from the earth in its revolu
tion round the sun happening to intersect
some of these meteoric orbits, and the
friction of our atmosphere setting fire to
and consuming the smaller meteors which
appear as shooting stars. This shows
the enormous number of meteors by
which space must be tenanted. It is
proved that the earth encounters more
than a hundred meteor systems, but the
chance of any one ring or system being
intersected by the earth is extremely
small, as the earth is such a minute speck
in the whole sun-surrounding space of
the solar system. On a scale on which
the earth’s orbit was represented by a
circle of 10 feet diameter, the earth itself
would be only about T|oth of an inch in
diameter, so that if, as astronomers say,
the earth encounters about a hundred
meteor systems in the course of its
annual revolution, space must swarm
with an innumerable number of these
minute bodies all revolving round the
sun by the force of gravity.
Has this law of gravity been uniform
through all time as it undoubtedly is
through all space ? We have every
reason to believe so. The law of gravity,
which is the foundation of most of what
we call the natural laws of geological
action, has certainly prevailed, as will be
shown later, through tin enormous periods
of geological time, and far beyond this
we can discern it operating in those
astronomical changes by which cosmic
matter has been condensed into nebulae,
nebulae into suns throwing off planets,
and planets throwing off satellites, as
they cooled and contracted. Double stars
at a distance exceeding 20 millions of
millions of miles revolve round their
common centre of gravity by this Jaw.
Atoms and molecules almost infinitely
smaller than millionths of millimetres
derive from it their specific weights with
as much certainty as if they were pounds
or hundredweights.
We cannot speak with quite the same
certainty of infinite time as we can
of infinite space, for we have.no tele
scopes to gauge the abysses of time, and
no certain standards, like those of th©
known dimensions of our solar system,
to apply to periods too vast for the
imagination.
But we can say this with certainty,
that the present law of gravity must
have prevailed when the outermost
planet of our system, Neptune, was con
densed into a separate body and began
revolving in its present orbit, and that it
has continued to act ever since; while,
as a matter of probability, it is as nearly
certain as anything can be, that the law
by which the apple falls to the ground is
an original condition of matter.
What space and matter really may be,
we do not know, and if we attempt to
reason about the limits of the one and th©
origin of the other, if origin it had, we
get into the misty realms of metaphysics,
where, like Milton’s fallen angels, we
Find no end in wandering mazes lost.
�&
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
boulders and coarse gravel, sometime!
shingle, sand, or fine mud, and, carrying
CHAPTER II
this material sometimes to a greater and
* TIME
sometimes to a less distance, according
to the velocity of the stream.
Evidence of Geology—Stratification—Denu
Ages hence, when the lake has been
dation—Strata identified by Superposition
converted into dry land, it will be as
—By Fossils—Geological Record shown by ceitain, whenever a pit is dug or a well
Upturned Strata—General Result—Palaeosunk in it, that it was the work of a
ane and Primary Periods—Secondary—
river flowing into a lake, as it is to-day,
lertmry—Plme required-Coal Formation
—Chalk-Elevations and Depressions of when we can see them at work.
Band—Internal Heat of Earth—Earth T 1 nd 7r!at is tr^e of the Rhone and the
quakes and Volcanoes-Changes of Fauna if+ k of Geneva, is true on a larger scale
®md P lora—Astronomical Time—Tides and of the Ganges, the Mississippi, and of
every sea or ocean, with every river or
the Moon—Sun’s Radiation—Earth’s Cooltorrent pouring into it.
\nrSrGem?Sy and Astronomy-BearingS on
Modern Thought.
Again, the sea is perpetually wearing
the
of
Geology has done for time what as- awaycliff's coasts soft all lands, and, where
the
are
and the tides and
ti onomy has for space—it has expanded currents strong, at a very rapid rate,
the limited ideas derived from natural
lhe materials swallowed-up are rolled as
impression and early tradition into those shingle, ground into sand, or floated as
of an almost infinite duration. This 1
Jnud, an
result is so important that it is desirable laid down at d all finallyofassorted and
the bottom
the sea, not
that all educated persons, without being in a confused heap, but in regular sucprofessed geologists, should have some
clear idea of the nature of the con ^^n- Gn some of them generations
of shell-fish and other marine creatures
clusions and of the evidences on which live and die, and their remains are
they rest.
covered over by fresh sands or clays, and
This I will endeavour to give.
preserved for future geologists. All this
When we come to examine the struc is
examine
ture of the earth-or rather of the outer thegoing on now, and when we the same
find that precisely
erust of the earth which we inhabit— sort rocks we has been going on from the
of
with the care and precision of scientific newest thing
to
methods, we find that it is not of uniform exception the oldest strata. With the
Composition, but consists mainly of dis amount of of a comparatively small
igneous rock, which has
tinct layers, or strata, lying one over the
other. This is true not only of the boiled-up from deep sources of molten
larger beds, or distinct formations, but matter, and been poured-out in sheets of
lava, or
porphyry,
°! ,. details of each formation, many granite, masses of trap,the amountand
according to
of
of which are built up as regularly as the pressure it has undergone and the time
layers of the Great Pyramid, while others it has taken to cool and crystallise, all the
are made up of layers no thicker than e&rth s surface may be said to consist of
the leaves of a book.
Now consider what this fact of strati stratified matter, showing clear signs of
fication implies. In the first place it having been deposited from water. Some
implies deposit from water, for there is of the oldest rocks, such as gneiss, may
no other agency by which materials can be a little doubtful, as they have clearly
be sorted out and thrown down in hori been subjected to great heat under great
zontal layers, while this agency is now pressure, until they became plastic
doing the same thing every day and all enough to crystallise as they cooled, and
over the world. The Rhone flows into thus destroy any fossils embedded in them
the Bake of Geneva a turbid stream, and and obliterate most of the ordinary signs
tiows out of it as clear as crystal. AU of stratification. But the opinion of the
the matter it brings in is deposited at best geologists is that they were originthe bottom of the lake, and in course of a iT stratified, and have become what is
time will fill it up. This deposit varies called metamorphic,” or changed by
with every alternation of flood and heat and pressure into the semblance of
igneous rocks. But even
drought; the river depositing sometimes included, enough remains if these are not
to justify the
�TIME
general assertion that th® outer crust of
the earth, as known to us, is made up
mainly of stratified materials which have
been deposited from water.
Now this implies another most im
portant fact, viz., that there must, have
been waste or denudation of existing
land corresponding to the deposit of
Stratified materials under water. Water
cannot generate these materials, and
every square mile of such strata, say 10
feet thick, implies the removal of 10 feet
from a square mile of land surface by
rains and rivers, or of an equivalent
amount of cubical content in some other
way, as by the erosion of a coast line.
This is a very important consideration
wThen we come to estimate the time re
quired for the formation of such a thick
ness of stratified beds as we find existing.
There must have been a fundamental
crystalline rock as the earth cooled-down
from a fluid state and acquired a solid
©rust, and this rock must have been worn
down by primeval seas and rivers as the
progressive cooling admitted of the con
densation of aqueous vapour into water.
The waste of this primitive crust must
have been deposited in strata at the
bottom of those seas in thick masses,
covering the original rock, and these
again must have been partly crystallised
by heat and pressure, and over and over
again upheaved and submerged, and
themselves worn down by fresh erosion,
forming fresh deposits which underwent
a repetition of the same process.
A third important inference from the
fact of stratification is that all strata
must have been originally deposited
horizontally, or very nearly so, and in
such order that the lowest is the oldest.
Suppose we fill a jar with water, and
put some white sand into it, and when
that has subsided to the bottom and the
water is clear, some yellow sand, and
again some red sand, it is clear that we
shall have at the bottom of the jar three
horizontal deposits or strata, one white,
one yellow, and one red, and that by no
conceivable means can the order in which
they were deposited have been other
than first white, secondly yellow, and
lastly red. This law, therefore, is invari
able, that wherever it is possible to trace
a series of strata lying one above the
Other, the lowest is the oldest, and the
highest the youngest in point of time.
If, therefore, all the great formations,
9
from the old Lauren tian up to the newest
Tertiary, had been deposited uniformly
all over the world, and had remained
undisturbed, and we could have seen
them in one vertical section in a dift
twenty-five miles high—for that is about
their total known thickness—we should
have been able without further difficulty
to determine their order of succession
and respective magnitudes.
But this is plainly impossible, for the
deposits going on at any one time are of
very different character. For instancy
we have at present the Globigerina ooze
gradually filling the depths of the
Atlantic with a deposit resembling chalk;
the Gulfs of Bengal and Mexico silting
up with fine clay from river deposits;
vast tracts in the Pacific, Indian Ocean,
and Red Sea, covered with coral and tire
debris of coral-reefs. How could these, if
upheaved into dry land and explored.by
future geologists, be identified as having
been formed contemporaneously 1.
Suppose that coins of Victoria had
been dropped in each of them, the geo
logist who discovered these coins would
have no difficulty in concluding that th®
strata in which they, were found were
all formed in the nineteenth century,
The petrified shells and other remains
found in geological strata are such coins.
Every great formation has had its own
characteristic fauna and flora, or aggre
gate of animal and vegetable life, vary
ing slowly from one geological age to
another, and linked to the past and
future by some persistent types and,
forms, but still with such a preponder
ance of characteristic fossils as to enable
us to assign the rocks in which they
occur to their proper place in the volume
of the geological record. Innumerable
observations have shown that we can
rely, with absolute confidence, on the
fossils embedded in the different strata
of the earth’s crust as tests of the period
to which they belong, however different
the strata may be in mineral composi
tion.
The next question is how we can ascer
tain the thickness and order of succes
sion of these strata. We have seen that
all stratified rocks are due to the action
of water, and therefore were originally
deposited horizontally. Had they remained so, in the first place, the process
of forming stratified rocks must long ago
have come to an end, for all the land
�modern science and modern thought
surface must have been worn down to
the sea level, and, with no more land to
be denuded, deposition must have ceased
at an early period of the earth’s history.
In the second place, we could have known
nothing more of the earth’s crust than
we saw on the surface, and in the shallow
pits and borings which we could sink
below it. But earthquakes and volcanoes
and the various fractures and pressures
due to subterranean heat and secular
contraction and cooling, have been at
work counteracting the effects of denu
dation, and causing elevations and de
pressions by which the inequalities of
s
have been renewed
thp balance between sea and land maintained, and strata, originally horizontal
at the bottom of the ocean, upheaved
until sea-shells are found at the top of
high mountains, so that we can walk for
miles over their upturned edges.
Any one who wishes to understand
how geologists have been able to measure
such a thickness of the earth’s crust has
only to take a book open at page 1 and
lay it flat before him. He can see
nothing but that one page; but if he
turns up the pages on the right-hand side
of the book until their edges become
horizontal, he can pass over them and
count perhaps 500 pages in the space of
a couple of inches.
This is precisely what geologists have
been able to do at various points of the
earth s surface where the upturned edges
°* j n PaSes
history are exposed,
and they come out, one behind the other
in the due succession in which they were
written by Nature. For instance, in
travelling from east to west in England
we pass continually from newer to older
formations—Chalk comes in from below
tertiary ; Oolite and Lias from below
Chalk; then Permian or New Red
Sandstone ; Carboniferous, including the
Coal Measures; Devonian or Old Red
bandstone ; Silurian, Cambrian, and in
xv ®^Ireme north-west of Scotland and
the Hebrides, oldest of all, the Laurentian.
There are some omissions and inter
polations, but, in a general way, it may
be said that within the bounds' of the
British Empire we have such a view of
Nature’s volume as would be got, in the
case I have supposed, by travelling over
its upturned edges from page 1 to page
500. And if each of the great formations
be taken as a separate chapter, each
chapter will be found to be made-up of
a number of pages, each with its own
letterpress and illustrations, though con
nected with the pages before and after
it by the thread of the continuous com
mon subject of their proper chapter; as
the chapters again are connected by the
continuous common subject-matter of the
complete volume. It must not be sup
posed that the volume is anything like
perfect. We have to piece it together
irom the fragments found in the limited
number of countries which have thus far
been scientifically explored, and which
do not constitute more than a small part
of the earth’s surface. We know nothing
of what is below the oceans which cover
m°re
three-fourths of that surface,
and there are great gaps in the record
during the times when portions of the
surface were dry land, and when, con
sequently, no deposit of strata or
preservation of fossils was possible. Still
a great deal lias been accomplished, and
the general result, as given by common
consent of the best geologists, is as
follows :
The total thickness of known strata is
about 130,000 feet or twenty-five miles,
or the iJoth part of the distance from the
earth’s surface to its centre. Of this,
about 30,000 feet belong to the Laurentian, which is the oldest known stratified
deposit; 18,000 to the Cambrian, and
22,000 to the Silurian. These earliest
formations, which are grouped as the
Primary or Palaeozoic Epoch, have been
so changed by slow crystallisation under
great heat and pressure that all fossils
and nearly all traces of stratification
have been well-nigh obliterated.
In the Cambrian and Lower Silurian
traces of life become more frequent,
especially of low forms of seaweeds, and
in the Upper Silurian we find an abun
dance of fossils, consisting of Crustacea,
shell-fish, and a few true fish in the
upper strata. Some of the shells, as the
Lingula, have continued without much
change up to the present time ; and on
the whole we find ourselves in the Silu
rian period, if not earlier, in presence of
a state of things in which substantially
present causes operated and present con
ditions were in force. Rains fell, winds
blew, rivers ran, waves eroded cliffs,
shell-fish lived and died, and crabs and
sand-worms crawled about on shores left
�TIME
dry by each tide, very much as is the
case at present.
. .
.
.
The next great division, to which the
nam® of Primary, was given before the
existence of fossils was known m the
older or Palaeozoic division, comprises
the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone ;
the Carboniferous, which includes the
coal; and the Permian or New Red Sand
stone. The average thickness of these
three systems, taken together, is about
42 000 feet. It may be called the era of
Fern Forests and of Fish, the former
being the principal source of our supplies
of coal, and the latter being extremely
abundant within the Devonian and Per
mian formations.
The third great division is formed by
the Secondary group, which includes the
Triassic, the Jura, and the Cretaceous or
Chalk systems, and has an average thick
ness of about 15,000 feet. This epoch is
emphatically the age of Reptiles as the
preceding one was that of Fish, and the
prevailing vegetation is no longer one of
ferns and mosses, but of Gymnosperms,
or plants having naked seeds, the most
important class of which is that of the
Coniferae or Pine tribe. During this pe
riod the Plesiosauri, Ichthyosauri, and
other gigantic sea-dragons abounded in
the oceans ; colossal land-dragons, such
as the Dinosauri, occupied the continents,
and Pterodactyls, a remarkable form of
carnivorous flying lizards, ruled the air.
Swarms of other reptiles, nearly related
to the present lizards, crocodiles, and
turtles, abounded both in the sea and
land. A few traces of mammals and birds
show that these orders had then come
into existence, just as a few traces of
reptiles are found in the Primary, and of
fish in the Palaeozoic, strata, but the few
mammalian remains found are of small
animals of the marsupial or lowest type,
and the birds are of a transition type
between reptiles and true birds. This
epoch concludes with the Chalk forma
tion, which is one of relatively deep-sea
deposit, where no trace of terrestrial life
can be expected.
Above this comes the Tertiary epoch,
when the present order, both of veget
able and animal life, is fairly inaugur
ated ; mammals predominate over other
forms of vertebrate animals; existing
orders and species begin to appear and
increase rapidly ; and vegetation consists
mainly of Angiosperms, or plants with
n
covered seeds, as in our present forests.
The total thickness of these strata, from
the lowest, or Eocene, to the end of the
uppermost, or Pliocene, is about 3,000 feet.
Above this comes the Quaternary, or re
cent period, which comprises the super
ficial strata of modern formation,.and is
characterised by the undoubted existence
of man, and of animals which either now
exist, or which have become extinct m
quite recent geological times.
The details of this and of the Tertiary
Epoch will be more fully considered when,
we come to treat of the antiquity of man,
with which they are closely connected^!
But for the present object, which is that
of ascertaining some standard of time for
the immense series of ages proved by geol
logy to have elapsed since the earth as
sumed its present condition, became sub
ject to existing laws and fitted to be the
abode of life, it will be sufficient to refefif
to the older strata.
.
The best idea of the enormous intervals
of time required for geological changes
will be derived from the coal measures.
These consist of part only of one geo
logical formation known as the Carbon
iferous. They are made up of sheets, or
seams, of condensed vegetable matter,
varying in thickness from less than.an
inch to as much as thirty feet, and lying
one above another, separated by beds of
rock of various composition. As a rule,
every seam of coal rests upon a bed of
clay, known as the “under-clay, and is
covered by a bed of sandstone or shale.1
These alternations of clay, coal, and rockJ
are often repeated a. great ma,ny times,
and in some sections in South Wales and
Nova Scotia there are as many as eighty
or a hundred seams of coal, each with its
own under-clay below and sandstone or
shale above. Some of the coal seams are
as much as thirty feet thick, and the
total thickness of the coal measures is,
in some cases, as much as 14,000 feet.
Now consider what these facts mean.
Every under-clay was clearly once a sur
face soil on which the forest vegetation
grew, whose accumulated dsbi is forms the
overlying seam of coal. The under-clays
are full of the fibres of roots, and the
stools of trees which once grew on them
are constantly found in situ, with their
roots attached just as they stood when
the tree fell, and added to the accumula
tion of vegetable matter, which in modern
times forms peat, and in more ancient
�12
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
days, under different conditions of heat
and pressure, took the more consolidated
form of coal.
When these vegetable remains are ex
amined with the aid of the microscope it
is found that these ancient forests con
sisted mainly of trees like gigantic club
mosses, mares’-tails, and tree ferns, with
a few resembling yews and firs. But in
many cases the bulk of the coal is com
posed of the spores and seeds of these
ferns and club-mosses, which were ripened
and shed every year, and gradually ac
cumulated into a vegetable mould, just
M fallen leaves, beech-mast, and other
Mbris, gradually form a soil in our exist
ing forests.
The time required must have been
very great. to accumulate vegetable mat
ter, principally composed of fine spore
dust, to a, depth sufficient under great
compression to give even a foot of solid
coal. Sir J. W. Dawson, who has devoted
great attention to the coal-fields of
America, says : “ We may safely assert
that every foot, of thickness of pure
bituminous coal implies the quiet growth
least fifty generations of
Sigillaria, and therefore an undisturbed
condition of forest growth, enduring
through many centuries.” But this is
only the first step in the measure of the
time required for the formation of the
coal measures. Each seam of coal is as
we have seen, covered by a bed of sand
or shale, t.e., of water-borne materials.
Dow can this be accounted for? Evi
dently m one way only—that the land
8uDace in which the forest grew sub®ded gradually until it became first a
marsh, and. then a lagoon or shallow
estuary, which silted up by degrees with
deposits of sand or mud, and, finally was
upraised until its surface became dry
land, in which a second forest grew
whose debris formed a second coal seam.’
And so on, over and over again, until
the whole series of coal measures had
been, accumulated, when this alternation
of slight submergences and slight rises
Came to an end, and some more decided
movement of the earth’s surface in the
locality brought, on a different state of
things. . This is in fact exactly what we
see taking place on a smaller scale in
recent times in such deposits as those of
the delta of the Mississippi, where a well
sunk at New Orleans passes through a
succession of cypress swamps and forest
growths, exactly like those now growing
on the surface, which are piled one above
the other, and separated by deposits of
river silt, showing a long alternation of
periods of rest when forests grew, fol
lowed by periods of subsidence when they
were flooded and their remains were
embedded in silt.
Starting on the foregoing assumption
tnat one root of coal represents fifty
generations of coal plants, and that each
generation of coal plants took ten years
p^me to maturity, an assumption
which is certainly very moderate; and
taking the actually measured thickness
or the coal measures in some localities at
\2’°P2 Jeet’. Professor Huxley calculates
that the time represented by the Coal
formation alone would be six millions
of years. Such a figure is, of course
only a rough approximation, but it is
sufficient to show that when we come to
deal with geological time, the standard
by which we must measure is one of
which the unit is a million of years.
This standard is confirmed by a variety
N °™er1 considerations. Take the case of
the Chalk formation.
Chalk is almost entirely composed of
the microscopic shells of minute organ
isms, such as now float in the upper strata
of our great oceans, and by their subsld®llc1e> in Die form of an impalpable
shell-dust, accumulate what is called the
Globigerina ooze,” which is brought up
by soundings in the Atlantic and Pacific
from great depths. . In fact, we may say
that a chalk formation is now going on in
the depths of existing oceans, and con
versely that the old chalk, which now
forms hills and elevated downs, was
certainly deposited at the bottom of
Cretaceous seas. The rate of deposit
must have been extremely slow, certainly
much slower than that of the deposit of
the much grosser matter brought down
by the Nile in. its annual inundations, the
growth of which has been estimated from
actual measurement at about three inches
per century. If one inch per century
were the rate of accumulation of this
microscopic shell-dust, subsiding slowly
to depths of two or three miles over
areas as large as Europe, it would take
1,200 years to form a foot of chalk, and
1,200,000 years to form 1,000 feet. Now
there are places where the thickness of
the Cretaceous formation, exposed by
the edges of its upturned strata, exceeds
�TIME
5,000 feet, so that this gives an approxima
tion very similar to that furnished by the
coal measures.
We have thus, on a rough approximation, a
period of about 6,000,000
year’s for ^©accumulation of a singlememtoar ofone of the separate formations into
'vrilidh the total 130,000 feet of. measured
strata are subdivided. But this takes.no
of the long periods during which
no accumulation took place at the
legalities in question, and of the long
pauses which must have ensued between
each movement of elevation and sub
mergence, and especially between the dis
appearance of an old, and the appearance
of an almost entirely new, epoch, with
different forms of animal and vegetable
life. We may be certain also that. we
ar® far from knowing the total thick
ness of strata which will be disclosed
when the whole surface of the earth
comes to be explored. All we can say
is that we have fragmentary pages
left in the geological record, speaking
broadly, for 100 millions of years, and
that probably the lost pages are quite as
numerous as those of which we have an
imperfect knowledge.
Sir Charles Lyell, the highest authority
on the subject, is inclined to estimate
the minimum of geological time at 200
millions of years, and few geologists , will
say that his estimate appears excessive.
Another test of the vast duration of
geological time is afforded by the oscil
lations of the earth’s surface. At first
sight we are apt to consider the earth
as the stable and the sea as the un
stable element. But in reality it is
exactly the reverse. Land has. been
perpetually rising and falling while the
level of the sea has remained the same.
This is easily proved by the presence
of sea-shells and other marine remains
in strata which now form high moun
tains. In the case of chalk, for instance,
there must have been in England a
change of relative level of sea and land
of more than two miles of vertical
height, between the original formation
of the chalk at the bottom of a deep ocean
and its present position in the North
and South Downs. In other cases the
change of level is even more conspicuous.
The Num mul ite lim eston e, which is formed
like, chalk from an accumulation of the
minute shells of low organisms floating
in the oceans of the early Tertiary
n
period, is found in mountain masses, and b
has been elevated to a height of 10,000
feet and more in the Alps »d Hima
layas.
,
On a smaller scale, and in mor® went
times, raised beaches with existing shells I
and lines of cliffs and caves, are found I
at various heights above the existing 1
sea-level of many of the coasts of Britain, 1
Scandinavia, Italy, South America
I
other countries.
Now the first question is, were these
changes caused by the land rising or by
the sea falling? The answer is, by toe
land rising. Had they been caused by
the sea standing at a higher level it must
have stood everywhere at this level, at
any rate in the same hemisphere and
anywhere near the same latitude. But
there are large tracts of land which have
never been submerged since remote geo
logical periods ; and in recent times thgya
is conclusive evidence that the changes
of level of sea and land.have been parUal
and not general. Thus in the well-known,
instance of the columns of the ruined
temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli in the Bay
of Naples, which forms the illustration
on the title-page of Lyell’s “ Principle# of
Geology,” there can be no doubt that
since the temple was built, either the
sea must have risen and since fallen, OF
the land sunk and since risen, at least
twenty feet since the temple was built
less than 2,000 years ago, for up to this
height the marble columns are riddled by
borings of marine shells, whose valyw
are still to be seen in the holes they
excavated. But an elevation of the level
of the Mediterranean of twenty feet
would have submerged, a great part of
Egypt, and other low-lying lands on the
borders of that sea, where we klWW
that no such irruptions of . salt, water
have taken place within historical, Or
even within recent geological, times.
The conclusion is therefore certain, that
the land at this particular spot must have
sunk twenty feet, and again risen as
much, so as to bring back.the floor of the
temple to its present position, which stood,
one hundred years ago just above the
sea-level, and that so gradually as not
to throw down the three columns which
are still standing. A slow subside®®®
has since set in and is now going on, so
that the floor is now two or three feet
below the sea-level.
Similar proofs may be multiplied to
�14
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
any extent. Along the coasts of the
British.Islands we find, in some places
submarine forests showing subsidence, in
others raised beaches showing elevation,
but they are not continuous at the same
level. Along the east coast of Scotland
there is a remarkable raised beach at
a level of about twenty-four feet above
the present one, showing in many places
lines of cliff, sea-worn caves, and outlying
stacks and skerries, exactly like those of
the present coast, though with green
fields or sandy links at their base, instead
of the waves of the German Ocean. But
as we go north this inland cliff gets lower
and gradually dies out, and when we get
into the extreme north, among the Orkney
and Shetland Islands, there are no signs
of raised beaches, and everything points
towards the recent period having been
one of subsidence.
Again, in Sweden, where marks were
cut in rocks in sheltered situations on the
well-nigh tideless Baltic more than a
century ago, so as to test the question of
an alleged elevation of the land, it has
been clearly shown that in the extreme
north of Sweden, the marks have risen
nearly seven feet, while in the central
portion of the country they have neither
risen nor fallen, and in the southern
province of Scania they have fallen.
This would be clearly impossible if the
sea and not the land had been the un
stable element, and apparent elevations
and depressions had been due to a gene
ral fall or rise in the level of all the seas
of the northern hemisphere.
In fact, the more we study geology the
more we are impressed with the fact that
the normal state of the earth is, and has
always been, one of incessant changes.
Water, raised by evaporation from the
seas, falls as rain or snow on land, wastes
it away and carries it down from higher
to lower levels, to be ultimately deposited
at the bottom of the sea. This goes on
constantly, and if there were no compen
sating action, as the seas cover a much
larger area than the lands, all land would
ultimately disappear, and one universal
ocean cover the globe. But inward heat
supplies the compensating action, and
new lands rise and new mountain chains
are upheaved to supply the place of those
which disappear.
This inward heat of the earth is an
ascertained fact; for as we descend from
the surface in deep mines or borings, we
find that the temperature actually does
increase at a rate which varies somewhat
in different localities, but which averages
about 1° Fahrenheit for every 60 feet of
depth. At this rate of increase water
would boil at a depth of 10,000 feet, and
iron and all other metals be melted before
we reached 100,000 feet. What actually
occurs at great depths we do not know
with any certainty, for we are not suffi
ciently acquainted with the laws under
which matter may behave when under
enormous heat combined with enormous
pressure. But we do know from volca
noes and earthquakes, that masses of
molten rocks and of imprisoned gases
exist in certain localities, at depths below
the surface which, although large com
pared with our deepest pits, are almost
infinitesimally small compared with the
total depth of 4,000 miles from that sur
face to the earth’s centre.
This much is clear, that, in order to
account for observed facts, we must con
sider the extreme outer crust, or surface
of the earth as known to us, as resting on
something which is liable to expand and
contract slowly with variations of heat,
and occasionally, when the tension be
comes great, to give violent shocks to the
outer crust, sending earthquake waves
through it, and to send up gases and
molten lava through volcanoes, along
lines of fissure, and at points of least
resistance. It is clear, also that these
movements are not uniform, but that
one part of the earth’s surface may be
rising while another is sinking, and
portions of it may be slowly tilting over,
so that as one end sinks the other rises.
The best comparison that can be made
is to a sheet of ice which has been much
skated over and cracked in numerous
directions, so as to have become a sort
of mosaic of ice fragments, which, when
a thaw sets in and the ice gets sloppy,
rise and fall with slightly different mo
tions as a skater, gliding over them,
varies the pressure, and occasionally
give a crack and let water rise through
from below in the line of fissure. The
difficulty will not seem so great if we
consider that the rocks which form the
earth’s crust are for the most part elastic,
and that an amount of elevation which
seems large in itself does not necessarily
imply a very steep gradient. Thus, if
the elevation which towards the close of
the Glacial period carried a bed of exist-
�TIMB
jpgaaMhells of Arctic type to the top or
the hill, Moel Tryfon, in North Wales,
which is 1,200 feet high, were, say, one
of 1,500 feet, this would be given by a
gradient of 15 feet a mile, or 1 m 333
for 100 miles. Such a gradient would not
be perceptible to the eye, and would certainly not be sufficient to cause any ten
sion likely to rupture rocks or disturb
Such movements are as a. rule ex
tremely slow. In volcanic regions thei e
a» occasionally shocks which raise ex
tensive regions a few feet at a blow, and
partial elevations and subsidences which
throw up cones of lava and cinders, or
let mountains down into chasms, in a
single explosion. The most noted of
these are the instances of Monte Nuovo,
near Naples, 800 feet high, and Jorullo,
in Mexico, thrown up in one eruption,
and the disappearance of a mountain
2,000 feet high in the Straits of Sunda
during an earthquake. The largest rise
recorded of an extensive area from the
shock of an earthquake, is that wdiich
occurred in South America in 1835, when
a range of coast of 500 miles from
Copiapo to Chiloe was permanently raised
five or six feet by a single shock, as was
shown by the beds of dead mussels and
other shells which had been hoisted, up in
some places as much as ten feet. It is pro
bable that the great chain of the Andes,
whose highest summits reach 27,000
feet, has been raised in a great measure
by a succession of similar shocks.
But for the most part these move
ments, whether of elevation or depression,
go on so slowly and quietly that they
escape observation. Scandinavia is ap
parently now rising and Greenland
sinking, but most countries have re
mained appreciably steady, or nearly
so, during the historical period. St.
Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall, is still
connected with the mainland by a spit,
dry at ebb tide and covered at flood, as
it was more than 2,000 years ago when
the old Britons carted their tin across to
Phoenician traders. Egypt, during a
period of 7,000 years, has preserved the
same level, or at the most has sunk as
slowly as the Nile mud has accumulated.
Parts of the English and Scotch coast
have risen perhaps twenty feet since the
prehistoric period, when canoes were
wrecked under what are now the streets
of Glasgow, and whales were stranded in
15
the Carse of Stirling. There is even
some evidence that the latest rise may
have occurred since the Roman wall was
built from the Forth to the Clyde. In
any case, however, the movements have
been extremely slow, and there have
been frequent oscillations, and long
pauses when the level of land and sea
remained stationary. The evidence,
therefore, from the great changes which
have occurred during each geological
period, points to the same conclusion as
that drawn from the thickness of forma
tions, such as the coal measures and
chalk, which must have been accumulated
very slowly, viz., that geological, time
must be measured by a scale of millions
of years.
Another test of the vast duration of
geological time is afforded by the change^
which have taken place in animal life as
we pass from one formation to another,
and even within the limits of the same
formation. The fauna, or form of exist
ing life at a given period, changes with
extreme slowness. During the historical
period there has been no perceptible
change, and even since the Pliocene
period, which cannot be placed at a less
distance from us than 200,000 years, and
probably at much more, the change has
been very small. In the limited class of
large land animals it has been con
siderable ; but if we take the far more
numerous forms of shell-fish and other
marine life, the old species which have
become extinct and the new ones which
have appeared, do not exceed five per
cent, of the whole. This is the more re
markable as great vicissitudes of climatri
and variations of sea-level have occurred,
during tlie interval. The whole of the
Glacial period has come and gone, and
Britain has been by turns an archipelago
of frozen islands, and part of a continent
extending over what is now the German
Ocean, and pushing out into the Atlantic
up to the one hundred fathom line.
Reasoning from these facts, assuming
the rate of change in the forms of life to
have been the same formerly, and sum
ming up the many complete changes of
fauna which have occurred during the
separate geological formations, Lyell has
arrived at the conclusion that geology
requires a period of , not less than 200
millions of years to account for the
phenomena which it discloses.
Long as the record is of geological
�16
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
time, it is only that of one short chapter three hours. In this state of things the
in , the volume of the history of the moon is supposed to, have been thrown
universe. Geology only begins when the ofi from the earth, either by one great
earth had cooled down into a state re convulsion, or, more probably, by small
sembling the present; when winds blew, masses at a time forming a ring like that
rains fell, rivers and seas eroded rocks of featurn, which ended by coalescing
and formed deposits, and when the con
single satellite. With
ditions were such that life became into a is the principal cause of the moon ’
which
the tides
possible by the remains of which those so much nearer the earth, their rise and
deposits can be identified.
enormous
But before this period began, which tall must have been somethingbore
may be called that of the maturity or and huge tidal waves like the500 orof the
Bay of Fundy, but perhaps
1,000
middle age of our planet, a much vaster feet high, must have swept twice during
time must be allowed for the contraction each revolution of the earth on its axis
and cooling of the vaporous matter of i.e., twice every, three or four hours, along
which it is formed, into the state in all the narrower seas and channels and
which the phenomena of geology became over all except the mountainous lands
possible. And if vast in the case of the adjoining.
earth, how much vaster must be the life
Now these conclusions
be true or
periods of the larger planets, such as not as regards phases of mayearth’s life
the
Jupiter, which from their much greater prior to the Silurian period, from which
size cool and contract much more slowly, downwards geology
unmistakably
and are not yet advanced beyond the that nothing of the showsor in the least
sort,
stage of intense youthful heat and
to it, has occurred
glowing luminosity which was left behind degree approaching point out is that ali
But
by our earth a great many tens of this, what I wish to of theory rests on a
millions of years ago ! And how vastly basissuperstructure
which, really does admit of definite
vaster must be that of the sun, whose
mass and volume exceed those of Jupiter demonstration and calculation.
Halley found
when
in a far higher ratio than Jupiter sur sun, recorded thatancienteclipses of the
in
annals, are
passes the earth !
compared
a
And beyond all this in a third degree discrepancywith recent observations of
is discovered in the rate
of vastness come the life-periods of those the moon’s motion, which must have been
stars or distant suns, which we know to slightly slower then than it is now
be in some cases as much as three Laplace apparently solved the difficulty
hundred times larger than oui*sun, and by showing
was an inevitable
not nearly so far advanced as it in the result of thethat this gravity, when the
law of
process of emergence from the fiery varying eccentricity of the earth’s orbit
nebulous into the solar stage.
To give some idea of the vast intervals was properly taken into account; and
of time required for these changes, a few the calculated amount of the variation
cause was shown to be exactly
facts and figures may be given.
what was
obser
One of, the latest speculations of vations. required to reconcile themathe
great
mathematical science is that the rotation matician, But our havingEnglish gone
Adams,
recently
or the earth is becoming slower, or, in over Laplace s calculations anew, dis
other words, that the day is becomin°' covered that some factors in the problem
longer, owingtotheretardingaction of the had been omitted, which reduced Laplace’s
tides, which act as a brake on a revolving acceleration of the moon’s motion by
wheel. If so, the effect of the reaction
to
on the moon of this action of the moon about one-half, leaving the other halfthe
be explained by a real
on the earth, must be that as the length of the sidereal day,increase in one
or time
earth rotates more slowly, the moon complete revolution of the earth of
about
recedes to a greater distance. And its axis.
required
viceversd, when the earth rotated more sufficient The retardation the total is one
to account for
accu
rapidly the moon was nearer to it
of an hour and a
until at length, when the process is mulated loss or, in other words, quarter in
the length
carried back far enough, we arrive at a 2 000 years,; now
time when the moon was at the earth’s of the day is than more by about Arth part
a
it was 2,000 years ago.
surface and the length of the day about of At second
this rate it would require 168,000
�TIME
years to wake a difference of 1 second in
lhelength of the day; 10,080,000 years for
a tlifferencs of 1 minute: and 604,800,000
years for a difference of 1 hour. The
r&towould not be uniform for the past,
for as the moon got nearer it would cause
higher tides and more retardationstill,
the abyss of time seems almost incon
ceivable to get back to the state in which
the earth could have rotated in three
hours and thrown off the moon.
It is right, however, to state that all
mathematical calculations of time, based
on the assumed rate at which cosmic
matter cools into suns and planets, and
these into solid and habitable globes, are
in the highest degree uncertain. If the
original data are right, mathematical
calculation inevitably gives right conclu
sions. But if the data are wrong, or,
what is the same thing, partial and im
perfect, the conclusions will, with equal
certainty, be wrong also. Now in this
■case we certainly do not know “the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth” respecting these processes.
Take what is perhaps the most difficult
problem presented by science—how the
sun keeps up so uniformly the enormous
amount of heat which it is constantly
radiating into space. This radiation is
going on in every direction, and the solar
heat received by the earth is only that
minute portion of it which is intercepted
by our little speck of a planet. All the
planets together receive less than one
230,000,000th part of the total heat ra
diated away by the sun and apparently
lost in space. Knowing the amount of
heat from the sun’s rays received at the
earth’s surface in a given time, we can
calculate the total amount of heat ra
diated from the sun in that time. It
amounts to this, that the sun in each
second of time parts with as much heat
as would be given out by the burning of
16,436 millions of millions of tons of the
best anthracite coal. And radiation cer
tainly at this rate, if not a higher one,
has been going on ever since the com
mencement of the geological record, which
must certainly be reckoned by a great
many tens of millions of years.
What an illustration does this afford of
that apparent “ waste of Nature ” which
made Tennyson “ falter where he firmly
trod” when he came to consider “her
secret meaning in her deeds ” 1
Yet there can be no doubt that vast as
17
these figures are, they are all the result of
natural laws, just as we find the law of
gravity prevailing throughout space at
distances expressed by figures equally
vast. The question is, what laws ? The
only one we know of at present at all
adequate to account for such a generation
of heat, is the transformation into heat
of the enormous amount of mechanical
force or energy, resulting from the con
densation of the mass of nebulous matter
from which the sun was formed, into a
mass of its present dimensions. This is
no doubt a true cause as far as it goes.
It is true that as the mass contracts, heat
would be, so to speak, squeezed out of it,
very much as water is squeezed out of _a
wet sponge by compressing it. But it is
a question whether it is the sole and
sufficient cause. Mathematicians have
calculated that even if we suppose the
original cosmic matter to have had an
infinite extension, its condensation into
the present sun would only have been
sufficient to keep up the actual supply of
solar heat for about 15 millions of year®;
Of this a large portion must have been
exhausted before the earth was formed
as a separate planet,and had cooled down
into a habitable globe. But even if we
took the whole it would be altogether in
sufficient. All competent geologists are
agreed in requiring at least 100 millions
of years to account for the changes which
have taken place in the earth’s surface
since the first dawn of life recorded in
the older rocks.
Various attempts have been made to
reconcile the discrepancy. For instance,
it has been said that the constantly re
peated impact of masses of meteoric and
cometic matter falling into the sun must
have caused the destruction of a . vast
amount of mechanical energy whhA
would be converted into heat. This is
true as far as it goes, but it is impossible
to conceive of the sun as a target kept at
a perpetual and uniform white heat for
millions of years by a rain of meteoric
bullets constantly fired upon it. More
plausibly it is said that we know nothing
of the interior constitution of the sun,
and that its solid nucleus may be vastly
more compressed than is inferred from
the dimensions of its visible disc, which
is composed of glowing flames and
vapours. This also may be a true cause,
but, after making every allowance, we
must fall back on the statement that the
c
�18
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THONGUT
continuance for such enormous periods of
such an enormous waste of energy as is
given out by the sun, though certainly
explainable by laws of Nature, depends
on laws not yet thoroughly understood
and explained.
Even in the case, comparatively small
and near to us, of the earth, the condition
of the interior and the rate of secular
cooling afford problems which as yet wait
for solution. The result of a number of
careful experiments in mines and deep
sinkings shows that the temperature, as
we descend below the shallow superficial
crust which is affected by the seasons, i.e.,
by the solar radiation, increases at the
average rate of 1° Fahrenheit for every
60 feet of depth. That is the average
rate, though it varies a good deal in dif
ferent localities. Now, at this rate we
should soon reach a depth at which all
known substances would be melted.
But astronomical considerations, de
rived from the Precession of the Equi
noxes, favour the idea that the earth is a
solid and not a fluid body, and require
us in any case to assume a rigid crust of
not less than ninety miles in thickness.
And if the whole earth below a thin
superficial crust were in an ordinary
state of fluidity from heat, it is difficult
to see how it could do otherwise than
boil, that is, establish circulating cur
rents throughout its mass with disen
gagement of vapour, in which case the
surface crust must be very soon broken
up and melted down, just as the super
ficial crust of a red-hot stream of lava is,
if an infusion of fresh lava raises the
stream below to white heat, or as a thin
film of ice would be if boiling water were
poured in below it.
All we can say is, that the laws under
which matter behaves under conditions
of heat pressure, chemical action, and
electricity so totally different. as must
prevail in the interior of the earth, and
a fortiori in that of the sun, are as yet
very partially known to us. In the
meantime the safest course is to hold by
tliose conclusions of geology which, as far
as they go, depend on laws really known
to us. For instance, the quantity of mud
carried, down in a year by the Ganges or
Mississippi, is a quantity which can be
calculated within certain approximate
limits. We can tell with certainty how
much the deposit cf this amount of mud
would raise an area, say of 100 square
miles, and how long it would take, at this
rate, to lower the area of India drained
by the Ganges a sufficient number of feet
to give matter enough to fill up the Gulf
of Bengal. And if among the older for
mations we find one, like the Wealden
for instance, similar in character to that
now forming by the Ganges, we can ap
proximate from its thickness to the time
that may have been required to form it.
In calculations of this sort there is no
theory, they are based on positive facts,
limited only by a certain possible amount
of error either way In short, the con
clusions of geology, at any rate up to the
Silurian period, when the present order
of things was fairly inaugurated, are
approximate facts and not theories, while
the astronomical conclusions are theories
based on data so uncertain, that while in
some cases they give results incredibly
short, like that of 15 millions of years for
the whole past process of the formation
of the solar system, in others they give
results almost incredibly long, as in that
which supposes the moon to have been
thrown off when the earth was rotating
in three hours, while the utmost actual
retardation claimed from observation
would require 600 millions of years to
make it rotate in twenty-three hours in
stead of twenty-four.
To one who looks at these discussions
between geologists and astronomers not
from the point of view of a specialist in
either science, but from that of a dis
passionate spectator, the safest course, in
the present state of our knowledge, seems
to be to assume that geology really proves
the duration of the present order of
things to have been somewhere over 100
millions of years, and that astronomy
gives an enormous though unknown time
beyond in the past, and to come in the
future, for the birth, growth, maturity,
decline, and death of the solar system of
which our earth is a small planet now
passing through the habitable phase.
So far, however, as the immediate
object of this work is concerned, viz., the
bearings of modern scientific discovery
on modem thought, it is not very
material whether the shortest or longest
possible standards of time are adopted.
The conclusions as to man’s position in
the universe, and the historical truth or
falsehood of old beliefs, are the same
whether man has existed in a state of
constant though slow progression for the.
�MATTER
last 50,000 years of a period of 15 millions,
or for the last 500,000 years of a period of
millions. It is a matter of the deepest scientific interest to arrive at the
truth, both as to the age of the solar
system, the age of the earth as a body
capable of supporting life, the successive
orders and dates at which life actually
appeared, and the manner and date of
the appearance of the most highly organ
ised form of life endowed with new capa
cities for developing reason and con
science in the form of Man. Those who
wish to prove themselves worthy of their
great good luck in having been born in
a civilised country of the nineteenth
century, and not in Palaeolithic periods,
will do well to show that curiosity, or
appetite for knowledge, which mainly
distinguishes the clever from the stupid
and the civilised from the savage man,
by studying the works of such writers as
Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall, and Proctor,
where they will find the questions which
here are only briefly stated, developed at
fuller length with the most accurate
Science and in the clearest and most
attractive style. But for the moral,
philosophical, and religious bearings of
these discoveries on the current _ of
modern thought, there is such a wide
margin that it becomes almost immaterial
whether the shortest possible or longest
possible periods should be ultimately
established.
CHAPTER III
MATTER
Matter and Motion—Light, Colour, and Heat
—Matter and its Elements—Molecules and
Atoms—Spectroscope—Uniformity of Mat
ter throughout the Universe—Force and
Motion—Conservation of Energy—Elec
tricity, Magnetism, and Chemical Action—Dissipation of Heat—Birth and Death of
Worlds.
The contents of the material universe
may be expressed in terms of Matter and
of Motion. Matter exists in the three
fold and interrelated states known as
solid, liquid, and gaseous, and it is con
venient to include with these the appa
rently fourth state called the ethereal.
The existence of this last-named is an
If)
hypothesis by which alone can we
account for the phenomena of light and
heat, and, as the marvellous researches of
Hertz have shown, of the electro-magnetic
waves which confirm the theory of con
nection between electricity, magnetism,
light, and radiant heat. More than this
we cannot assume regarding ether, for all
ponderable matter,—solids, liquids, gases
-—consists of ultimate molecules, and w®
do not know whether ether is nonmolecular or imponderable.
Dealing with Motion, it has been shown
that light radiates in all directions from
a luminous centre, travelling at the rate
of 186,000 miles per second. Now what
is light ? It is a sensation produced on
the brain by something which has been
concentrated by the lens of the eye on
the retina, and thence transmitted along
the optic nerve to the brain, where it sets
certain molecules vibrating. What is the
something which produces this effect ? Is
it a succession of minute particles, shot
like rifle-bullets from the luminous body
and impinging on the retina as on a tar
get ? Or is it a succession of tiny waves
breaking on the retina as the waves of
the sea break on a shore 1 Analogy sug
gests the latter, for in the case of the
sister sense, sound, we know as a fact
that the sensation is produced on the
brain by waves of air concentrated by
the ear, and striking on the auditory
nerve. But we have a more conclusive
proof. If one of a series of particles shot
out like bullets overtakes another, the
force of impact of the two is increased ;
but if one wave overtakes another when
the crest of the pursuing wave just coin
cides with the hollow of the wave before
it the effect is neutralised, and if the two
are of equal size it will be exactly
neutralised and both waves . will be
effaced. In other words, two lights will
make darkness. This, therefore, affords
an infallible test. If two lights can
make darkness, light is propagated, like
sound, by waves. Now two lights do
constantly make darkness, as is proved,
every day by numerous experiments.
Therefore light is caused by waves.
But to have waves there must be a
medium through which the waves are
propagated. Without water you could
not have ocean waves ; without air you
could not have sound-waves. Waves are
in fact nothing but the successive forms
assumed by a set of particles whichf
c 2
�20
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
when forced from a position of rest, tend
to return to that position, and oscillate
about it. Place a cork on the surface of
a still pond, and then throw in a stone ;
what follows 1 Waves are propagated,
which seem to travel outwards in circles,
but if you watch the cork, you will see
that it does not really travel outwards, but
simply rises and falls in the same place.
This is equally true of waves of sound and
waves of light. But the velocity with
which the waves travel depends on the
nature of the medium. In a dense
medium of imperfect elasticity they
travel slowly, in a rare and elastic
medium quickly. Now the velocity of a
sound-wave in air is about 1,100 feet a
second, that of the light-wave about
186,000 miles a second or about one
million times greater. It is proved by
mathematical calculation that, if the
density of two media are the same, their
elasticities are in proportion to the
squares of the velocities with which a
wave travels. The elasticity of ether,
therefore, would be a million million
times greater than that of air, which, as
we know, is measured by its power of
resisting a pressure of about 15 lbs. to
the square inch. But the ether must in
fact be almost infinitely rare, as well as
almost infinitely elastic, for it causes no
perceptible retardation in the motions of
the earth and planets. It must be almost
infinitely rare also because it permeates
freely the interior of substances like
glass and crystals, through which light
waves pass, showing that the atoms or
ultimate particles of which these sub
stances are composed, minute as they
are, must be floating in ether like
buoys floating on water or balloons in
the air.
The dimensions of the light-waves
which travel through this ether at the
rate of 186,000 miles a second can be
accurately measured by strict mathe
matical calculations, depending mainly
on the phenomena of interferences, i.e.,
of the intervals required between suc
cessive waves for the crest of one to
overtake the depression of another
and thus make two lights produce
darkness.
These calculations are much too intri
cate to admit of popular explanation,
but they are as certain as those of the
"Nautical Almanac, based on the law of
gravity, which enable ships to find their
way across the pathless ocean, and they
give the following results :
Dimensions
of
Light-Waves,
Colours.
Number of
Waves in One
Inch.
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet
39,000
42 000
44,000
47,000
51,000
54,000
57,000
Number of
cillations in
Second.
Os
One
477,000,000,000,000
506,000,000,000,000
535,000,000,000,000
575,000,000,000.000
622,000,000,000,000
658,000.000,000,000
699,000,000,000,010
These are the colours whose vibrations
affect the brain through the eye with the
sensation of light, and which cause the
sensation of white light when their
different vibrations reach the eye simul
taneously. But there are waves and
vibrations on each side of these limits,
which produce different effects, the longer
waves with slower oscillations beyond
the red, though no longer causing light
causing heat, while the shorter and
quicker waves beyond the violet cause
chemical action, and are the most effec
tive agents in photography.
We must refer our readers to works
treating specially of light for further
details, and for an account of the vast
variety of beautiful and interesting ex
periments with polarised light, coloured
rings, and otherwise, to which the theory
of waves propagated through ethsf
affords the key. For the present purpose
it is sufficient to say that modern science
compels us to assume such an ether ex
tending everywhere, from the faintest
star seen at a distance which requires
thousands of years for its rays, travelling
at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, to
reach the earth, down to the infini
tesimally small interspace between the
atoms of the minutest matter. And
throughout the whole of this enormous
range law prevails, ether vibrates and has
always vibrated in the same definite
manner, just as air vibrates by definite
laws when the strings of a piano are
struck by the hammers.
I now return to the consideration of
matter.
What is matter 1 In the most general
sense it is that which has weight, or is
subject to the law of gravity, and, as
shown above, it exists, as ponderable
stuff, in the three forms of solid, liquid,
�MATTER
Or gas, according to the amount of heat.
Diminish heat, and the particles approach
closer and are linked together.by mutual
attraction, so as not to be readily parted ;
this is a solid. Increase the heat up to a
certain point, and the particles recede.
until their mutual attractions m the
interior of the mass neutralise one an
other, SO that the particles can move
fredy, though still held together as a
mass by the sum of all these attractions
acting as if concentrated at the centre of
gravity ; this is the liquid state. Increase
the heat still more, and the particles
Separate until they get beyond the sphere
of their mutual attraction and tend to
dart off into space, unless confined by
some surface on which they exert pres
sure ; this is a gas.
. .
The most familiar instance of this is
afforded by water, which, as we all know,
SKists in the three forms of ice, water,
and vapour or steam, according to the
dose of heat which has been incorporated
with it.
Pursuing our inquiry further, the next
great fact in regard to matter fs that it
is not all uniform. While most of the
jfommon forms with which we are con
versant are made up of mixed materials,
^vhich can be taken to pieces and shown
separately, there are, as at present ascer
tained, some seventy-six substances which
defy chemical analysis to decompose
them, and must therefore be taken as
elementary substances. A great majority
of these consist of substances existing
in minute quantities, and hardly known
Outside the laboratories of chemists
The world of matter, as known to the
senses, is mainly composed of combina
tions, more or less complex, of a few
elements. Thus, water is a compound of
two simple gases, oxygen and hydrogen ;
air, speaking broadly, of oxygen and
nitrogen; the solid framework of the
Mrtli, mainly of combinations of oxygen
With carbon, calcium, aluminium, silicon,
and a few other bases ; salt, of chlorine
^nd sodium ; the vegetable world directly
and the animal world indirectly, mainly
of complex combinations of oxygen,
hydrogen, and nitrogen with carbon, and
With smaller quantities of silicon, sulphur,
(potassium, sodium, and phosphorus. . The
ordinary metals, such as iron, gold, silver,
stopper, tin, lead, mercury, zinc, nearly
complete the list of what may be called
Ordinary elements.
21
Now let us push our analysis a step
further. How is matter made up of
these elements ; Up to and beyond the
furthest point visible by aid of the microscope, matter is divisible. We can break
a crystal into fragments, or divide a drop
into drops, until they cease to be visibly
though still retaining all the properties
of the original substance. Can we carry
on this process indefinitely, and is matter
composed of something, that can b®
divided and subdivided into fractional
parts ad infinitum? The answer is, No,
it consists of ultimate but still definite
particles which cannot be further sub*
divided. How is this kno wn ? Becaus®
we find by experience that substances 1
will only combine in certain definite pro I
portions either of weight or measure,*
For instance, in forming water exactly
eight grains by weight of oxygen combine with exactly one grain of hydrogen,
and if there is any excess or fractional
part of either gas, it remains over , in
its original form uncombined. In like
manner, matter in. the form of gag
always combines with other matter in
the same form by volumes which, bear
a definite and very simple proportion to
each other, and the compound formed
bears a definite and very simple ratio to
the sum of the volumes of the combining
gases. Thus two volumes of hydrogen
combine with one of oxygen to form two
volumes of water in the state of vapour.
From these facts certain inferences can
be drawn. In the first place it is clear
that matter really does consist of minute
particles, which do not touch and form a
continuous solid, but are. separated by
intervals which increase with increase of
temperature. This is evident from the
fact that we can pour a second or third
gas into a space already occupied by a
first one. Each gas occu pies the enclosed
space just as if there were no other gas
present, and exerts its own proper pres
sure on the containing vessel, so that the
total pressure on it is exactly the sum of
the partial pressures. It is easy to see
what this means. If a second regiment
can be marched into a limited.space of
ground on which a first regiment is
already drawn up, it is evident that the
first regiment must be drawn up in loose
order, i.e., the soldier-units of which it is
composed must stand so far apart that
other soldier-units can find room be
tween them without disturbing the for-
�22
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
mation. But the effect will be that the
fire from the front will be increased, as
for instance if a soldier of the second
regiment, armed with a six-shooter re
peating rifle, takes his stand between two
soldiers of the first regiment armed with
single-barrelled rifles, the effective fire
will be increased in the ratio of 8 to 2.
And this is precisely what is meant by
the statement that the pressure of two
gases in the same space is the sum of the
separate pressures of each. It is clearly
established that the pressure of a gas on
a containing surface is caused by the
bombarding to which it is subjected from
the impacts of an almost infinite number
of these almost infinitely small atoms,
which, when let loose from the mutual
attractions which hold them together in
the solid and fluid state, dart about in all
directions, colliding with one another
and rebounding, like a set of little
billiard-balls gone mad, and producing a
certain average resultant of momentum
outwards which is called pressure.
Another simile may help us to conceive
how the indivisibility of atoms is inferred
from the fact that they only combine in
definite proportions. Suppose a number
of gentlemen and ladies promenading
promiscuously in a room. The band
strikes up a waltz, and they at once pro
ceed to group themselves in couples
rotating with rhythmical motion in defi
nite orbits. Clearly, if there are more
ladies than gentlemen, some of them will
be left without partners. So, if instead
of a waltz it were a threesome reel, in
which each gentleman led out two ladies,
there must be exactly twice as many
ladies as gentlemen for all to join in the
dance. But if a gentleman could be cut
up into fractional parts, and each frac
tion developed into a dancing gentleman,
as primitive cells split up and produce
fresh cells, it would not matter how many
ladies there were, as each could be pro
vided with a partner.. Now this is
strictly analogous to what occurs in
chemical combination. Water is formed
by each gentleman atom of oxygen
taking out a lady atom of hydrogen in
each hand, and the sets thus formed com
mence to dance threesome reels in defi
nite time and measure, any surplus
oxygen or hydrogen atoms being left
out in the cold. Wonderful as it may
appear, science enables us not only to
say of these inconceivably minute atoms
that they have a real existence, but to
count and weigh them. This fact has
been accomplished by mathematical cal
culations based on laws which have been
ascertained by a long series of experi
ments on the constitution of gases.
It is found that all substances, when in
the form of gas, conform to three laws :
1. Their volume is inversely propor
tional to the pressure to which
they are subjected.
2. Their volume is directly proportional
to the temperature.
3. At the same pressure and tempera
ture all gases have the same num
ber of molecules in the same
volume.
From the last law it is obvious that if
equal volumes of two gases are of different
weight, the cause must be that the mole
cules of the one are heavier than those of
the other. This enables us to express the
weight of the molecule of any other gas
in some multiple of the unit afforded by
the weight of the molecule of the lightest
gas, whiqfi is hydrogen. Thus, the density
of watery vapour being nine times that of
hydrogen, we infer that the molecule of
water weighs nine times as much as the
molecule of hydrogen, and that of oxygen
being eight times greater, we infer that
the oxygen molecule is eight times heavier
than that of hydrogen.
These weights are checked by the other
law which has been stated, that chemical
combination between different substances
always takes place in certain definite pro
portions. Thus, whenever in a chemical
process the original substances or the pro
duct are or might exist in the state of gas,
it is always found that the definite pro
portions observed in the chemical process
are either the proportions of the densities
of the respective gases or some simple
multiple of these proportions. Thus, the
weight of hydrogen being 2, which com
bines with a weight of oxygen equal to 16
to form a weight of watery vapour equal
to 18, the density of the latter is to that
of hydrogen as 9 to 1, i.e., as 18 to 2.
But to get to the bottom of the matter
we must go a step further, and as we have
decomposed substances into molecules,
we must take the molecules themselves
to pieces and see what they are made of.
The molecule is the ultimate particle into
which any substance can be divided re
taining its own peculiar qualities. A mole
cule of water is as truly water as a drop
�MATTER
or a tumblerful. But when chemical de
composition takes place, instead of the
molecule of water we have molecules of
two entirely different substances, oxygen
and hydrogen. Nothing can well be more
unlike than the product water and the
component parts of which it is made up.
Water is a fluid, oxygen a gas ; water ex
tinguishes fire, oxygen creates it. Water
is a harmless drink, oxygen the base of
the most corrosive acids. It is evident
that the water-molecule is a composite,
and that its qualities depend, not on the
essential qualities of the atoms which
have combined to make it, but on the
manner of the combination, and the new
modes of action into which these atoms
have been forced. In his native war-paint
oxygen is a furious savage ; with a hydro
gen atom in each hand he is a polished
gentleman.
Our theory, therefore, leads beyond
molecules to atoms, and we have to con
sider these particles of a still smaller
order than molecules, as the ultimate
indivisible units of matter of which we
have been in search. And even these we
must conceive of as corks, as it were,
.floating in an ocean of ether, causing
waves in it by their own proper move
ments, and agitated by all the successive
waves which vibrate through this etherocean in the form of light and heat.
Working on these data, a variety of
refined mathematical calculations made
by Clausius, Clerk Maxwell, Sir W. Thom
son (now Lord Kelvin), and other eminent
mathematicians, have given us approxi
mate figures for the actual size, weight,
and velocities of atoms and molecules.
The results are truly marvellous. A mil
limetre is the one-thousandth part of a
metre, or roughly one twenty-fifth of an
inch. The magnitudes with which we
have to deal are all of an order where the
standard of measurement is expressed by
the millionth part of a millimetre. The
volume of a molecule of air is only a small
fraction of that of a cube whose side would
be the millionth of a millimetre. A cubic
centimetre, or say a cube whose side is
between one-third and one-half of an inch,
contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
molecules. The number of impacts re
ceived by each molecule of air during
one second will be 4,700 millions. The
distance traversed between each impact
averages 95 millionths of a millimetre.
It may assist in forming some concep
23
tion of these almost infinitely small mag
nitudes, to quote an illustration given by
Sir W. Thomson as the result of mathe
matical calculation. Suppose a drop of
water were magnified so as to appear of
the size of the earth or with a diameter
of 8,000 miles, the atoms of which it is
composed, magnified on the same scale,
would appear of a size intermediate
between that of a rifle-bullet and of a
cricket-ball.
These figures show that space and mag
nitude extend beyond the standards of
ordinary human sense, such as miles, feet,
and inches, as far downwards into the
region of the infinitely small as they do
upwards into that of the infinitely great.
And throughout the whole of this enor
mous range law prevails. The same law
of gravity gives weight to molecules and
atoms, makesan apple fall to the ground,
and causes double stars to revolve round
their centre of gravity in elliptic orbits.
The law of polarity which converts ironfilings into small magnets under the in
fluence of a permanent magnet or electric
current, animates the smallest atom.
Atoms arrange themselves into molecules,
and molecules into crystals, very much
as magnetised iron-filings arrange them
selves into regular curves. And the great
law seems to prevail universally through
out the material, as it does also through
out the moral world, that you cannot
have a North without a South Pole, a
positive without a negative, a right with
out a wrong; and that error consists
mainly in what the poet calls, “the false
hood of extremes ”—that is, in allowing
the attraction of one pole, oi* of one
opinion,- so to absorb us as to take no
account of its opposite.
The universality of law has received
wonderful confirmation of late years from
the discovery made by the spectroscope
that the sun, the planets, and the re
motest stars are all composed of matter
identical with that into which chemical
analysis has resolved the constituent
matter of the earth. This has been proved
in the following way :
If a beam of light is admitted into a
darkened room through a small hole or
narrow slit, and a triangular piece of
glass, called a prism, is interposed in its
path, the image, thrown on a screen is
a rainbow tinted streak, intersected by
numerous fine dark lines, whieh is called
a spectrum. If, instead of solar light, light
�24
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
from other luminous sources is similarly
treated, it is found that all elementary
substances have their peculiar spectra.
Light from solid or liquid substances
gives a continuous spectrum, light from
gases or glowing vapours gives a spect
rum of bright lines separated from each
other, but always in definite positions
according to the nature of the substance.
The next great step in the discovery was
that these bright lines become dark lines
when a light of greater intensity, coming
from a solid nucleu s, is transmitted through
an atmosphere of such gases or vapours.
We can thus photograph the spectrum of
glowing hydrogen, sodium, iron, or other
substances, and placing it below a photo
graph of a solar or stellar spectrum, see
if any of the dark lines of the latter are
coincident in position with the bright
lines of the former. If they are, we may
be.certain that these substances actually
exist in the sun or star. It is, in fact,
just the same thing as if we had been able
to bring down a jar-full of the solar or
stellar matter and analyse it in our labo
ratories.
It is difficult to convey any adequate
description of these grand discoveries
made by the new science of spectroscopy
without referring to special works on the
subject; but it may be possible to give
some general idea of the principles on
which they are based.
As has been shown, light consists of
waves propagated through ether. These
waves are started by the vibrations of
the ultimate particles of matter, which,
whether in the simplest form of atoms,
in the more complex form of molecules,
or in the still more complex form of com
pound molecules, have their own peculiar
and ciistinct vibrations. These vibrations
are increased, diminished, or otherwise
modified by variations of heat and by the
collisions which occur between the par
ticles from their own proper motions. If
we take the simplest case, that of matter
in the form of a gas or vapour composed
of single atoms, at a temperature just
sufficient to become luminous and at a
pressure small enough to keep the atoms
widely apart, the vibrations are all of one
sort, viz., that peculiar to the elementary
substance to which they belong, and one
set of waves only is propagated by them
f hrough the ether. The spectrum, there
fore. of such a gas is a single line of light,
in the definite position which is due to its
refrangibility, i.e., to the velocity of the
particular wave of light which the par
ticular vibration of those particular atoms
is able to propagate.
When pressure is increased so that the
particles are brought closer together,
their vibrations made more energetic
and their collisions more frequent, more
waves, and waves of different qualities
are started, and more lines appear in the
spectrum and the lines widen out, until
at length when the gas becomes very
dense, some of the lines overlap and an
approach is made towards a continuous
spectrum. Finally, when the particles
are brought so near together that the
substance assumes a fluid or solid state,
the number of wave-producing vibrations
becomes so great that a complete system
of different light-waves is propagated,
and the lines of the spectrum are multi
plied until they coalesce and form a con
tinuous band of rainbow-tinted light. If
the particles of the gas, instead of being
single atoms, are more complex, as mole
cules or compound molecules, the vibra
tions are more complex and the different
resulting light-waves more numerous, so
that the lines in the spectrum are more
numerous, and in some cases they coalesce
so as to form, shaded bands, or what are
called fluted lines, instead of simple lines.
Moreover, whatever light-waves are
originated by the vibrations of the par
ticles of gas are absorbed into those
vibrations and extinguished, if they
originate from the vibrations of some
more energetic particles of another sub
stance outside of it, whose light-waves,
travelling along the ether, pass through
the gas, and are thus shown as dark lines
in the spectrum of the other source of
light.
. We can now understand how the asser
tion is justified that we can analyse the
composition of the sun and stars as cer
tainly as if we had a jar full of their
substance to analyse in our laboratory.
The first glance at a spectrum tells us
whether the luminous source is solid,
fluid, or gaseous. If its spectrum is con
tinuous it is solid or fluid ; we know this
for certain, but can tell nothing more.
But if it consists of bright lines, we know
that it comes direct from matter in the
form of luminous gas, and knowing from
experiments in the laboratory the exact
colours and situations of the lines formed
by the different elements of which earthly
�MATTER
matter is composed, we can see whether
the lines in the spectra of heavenly matter
do or do not correspond with any of them.
if bright lines correspond we are sure
that the substances correspond, both as
to their elementary atoms and their con
dition as glowing gas. If dark lines in
the spectrum of the heavenly body corre
spond with bright lines in that of . a
known earthly substance, we are certain
that the substances are the same and in
the same state of gas, but that the solar
or stellar spectrum proceeds from an
Intensely heated interior solid or fluid
nucleus, whose waves have passed through
an outer envelope or atmosphere of this
gas.
Applying these principles, although the
science is still in its infancy and many
interesting discoveries remain to be made,
this grand discovery has become an
axiomatic fact—Matter is alike every
where. The light of stars up to the ex
treme boundary of the visible universe
is composed mainly of glowing hydrogen,
the same identical hydrogen as we get by
decomposing water by a voltaic battery.
Of the 76 elementary substances enu
merated by chemists, 36 are known cer
tainly to exist in the sun’s atmosphere.
The elements whose presence is proved
comprise many of those which are most
common in the composition of the earth,
as hydrogen, carbon, iron (represented
by about 2,000 lines in the. solar spec
trum), lead, calcium, aluminium, magne
sium, sodium, potassium, etc.; and if
others, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and
chlorine have not yet been found, the
explanation is that when a mixture of
the incandescent vapours of the metals
and metalloids (or non-metallic elemen
tary substances, to which class both oxy
gen and nitrogen belong), or their com
pounds, is examined with the spectroscope,
the spectra of the metalloids always yield
before that of the metals. Hence the
absence of the lines of oxygen and other
metalloids, carbon and silicon excepted,
among the vast crowd of lines in the solar
spectrum. Then, too, in extreme states
of rarefaction of the sun’s absorbing layer,
the absorption of the oxygen is too small
to be sensible to us. The main fact is
firmly established that matter is the same
throughout all space, from the minutest
atom to the remotest star.
Thus far we have been treating of
matter only, and of force and motion but
25
incidentally. These, however, are equally
essential components of the phenomena
of the universe. What is force ? In the
last analysis it is the unknown causa
which we assume for motion, or the term
in which we sum up whatever produces
or tends to produce it. The idea of foreej
like so many other of our ideas, is take©
from our own sensations. If we lift a
weight or bend a bow, we are conscious
of doing so by an effort. Something
which we call will produces a motion in
the molecules of the brain, which is trans
mitted by the nerves to. the muscles
where it liberates a certain amount of
energy stored up by the chemical com
position and decomposition of. the atoms
of food which we consume. This contracts
the muscle, and the force of its contrac
tion, transmitted by a system of pulleys
and levers to the hand, lifts the weighty
If we let go the weight it falls, and th®
force which lifted it reappears in th®
force with which it strikes the ground.
If we do not let go the weight but. plac®
it on a support at the height to which we
have raised it, it does not fall, no motion!
ensues, but the lifting force remain
stored-up in a tendency to motion, and
can be made to reappear as motion at
any time by withdrawing the support^
when the weight will fall. It is evident
therefore, that force may exist in two
forms, either as actually causing motion^
or as causing a tendency to motion.
In this generalised form it has been
agreed to call it energy, as less liable to
be obscured by the ordinary impressions
attached to the word force, which are
mainly derived from experiences of actual
motion cognizable by the senses.
speak, therefore, of energy as of some
thing which is the basis or primum mobiii
of all motion or tendency to motion,
whether it be in the grosser forms of
gravity and mechanical work, or in the
subtler forms of molecular and atonii®
motions causing the phenomena of heat,
light, electricity, magnetism, and chemi
cal action. This energy may exist either
in the form of actual motion, when it is
called energy of motion, or in that of
tendency to motion, when it is called
energy of position. Thus the bent bow
has energy of position which, when , the
string is let go, is at once converted into
energy of motion in the flight of the arrow.
Respecting this energy modern science
has arrived at this grand generalisation^
�26
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
that it is one and the same in all its
different manifestations, and can neither
be created nor destroyed, so that all these
varied manifestations are mere transfor
mations of the same primitive energy
from one form to another. This is what
is meant by the principle of the “Con
servation of Energy.”
It was arrived at in this 'way. Speak
ing roughly, it has long been known that
heat could generate mechanical power, as
seen in the steam-engine ; and conversely
that mechanical power could generate
heat, as is seen when a sailor, in a chill
north-easter, claps his arms together on
his breast to warm himself. But it was
reserved for Dr. Joule to give this fact
the scientific precision of a natural law,
by actually measuring the amount of heat
that was added to a given weight of water
by a given expenditure of mechanical
power, and conversely the amount of
mechanical work that could be got from
a given expenditure of heat.
A vast number of carefully-conducted
experiments have led to the conclusion
that if a kilogramme be allowed to fall
through 424 metres and its motion be
then suddenly stopped, sufficient heat
will be generated to raise the tempera
ture of one kilogramme of water by 1°
Centigrade ; and conversely this amount
of heat would be sufficient to raise one
kilogramme to a height of 424 metres.
If, therefore, we take as our unit of
work that of raising one kilogramme
one metre, and as our unit of heat that
necessary to raise one kilogramme of
water 1° Centigrade, we may express
the proportion of heat to work by saying
that one unit of beat is equal to 424 units
of work ; or, as it is sometimes expressed,
that the number 424 is the mechanical
equivalent of heat.
But the question may be asked, what
does this mean, how c^n mechanical work
be really transformed into heat or viceversa 1 The answer is, the energy which
was supplied by chemical action to the
muscles of the man or horse, or to the
water converted into steam by combus
tion of coal, which originated the me
chanical work, was first transformed into
its equivalent amount of mechanical
energy of motion, and then, when that
motion was arrested, was transformed
into heat, which is simply the same
energy transformed into increased mole
cular motion.
we wish to carry our inquiry a step
further back and ask where the original
energy came from which has undergone
these transformations, the answer must
be, .mainly from the sun. The sun’s rays,
acting on the chlorophyl or green matter
of the plants of the coal era, rore asunder
the atoms of carbon and oxygen which
formed the carbonic acid in the atmosphere, and locked up a store of energy
in the form of carbon in the coal which
is burned to produce the steam. In
like manner it stored-up the energy in
the form .of carbon in the vegetable pro
ducts winch, either directly, or indirectly
after having passed through the body of
some animal, supplied the food, whose
slow combustion in the man or horse
supplied the energy which did the work.
But where did the energy come from
which the sun has been pouring forth for
countless ages in the form of light and
heat, and of which our earth only inter
cepts the minutest portion 1 This is a
mystery not yet completely solved, but
one real cause we can see, which has
certainly operated and perhaps been the
only one, viz., the mechanical energy of
the. condensation by gravity of the atoms
which originally , formed the nebulous
matter out of which the sun was made.
If . we ask, how came the atoms into
existence endowed with this marvellous
energy, we have reached the furthest
bounds of human knowledge, and can
only reply in the words of the poet:
“Behind the veil, behind the veil.”
We can only form metaphysical con
ceptions, or I might rather call them the
vaguest guesses. One is, that they were
created and endowed with their ele
mentary properties by an all-wise and
all-powerful Creator. This is Theism.
Another, that thought is the only
reality, and that all the phenomena of
the universe are thoughts or ideas of one
universal, all-pervading Mind. This is
Pantheism.
Or again, we may frankly acknow
ledge that the real essence and origin of
things are “ behind the. veil,” and not
knowable or even conceivable by any
faculties with which the human mind is
endowed in its present state of existence.
This is Agnosticism.
There is another conception, of which
we may certainly say that it is not ten
able.—that is Atheism. For it is the
spirit that denies without warrant for
�MATTER
denial, and pronounces a verdict which
fen arrived at without evidence*
But these speculations lead us into the
misty regions where, like Milton’s fallen
angels, “we find no end in wandering
mazes lost.” Let us return to the solid
ground of fact, on which alone the
human mind can stand firmly, and, like
Ant-mu s, gather fresh vigour every time
it touches it for further efforts to enlarge
the boundaries of knowledge and extend
the domain of Cosmos over Chaos.
The transformation of energy which
we have seen to exist in the case of
mechanical work and heat, is not con
fined to those two cases only, but is a
universal law applicable to all actions
<nd arrangements of matter which in
volve motions of atoms, molecules, or
masses, and therefore imply the existence
of energy. In heat we have had an
Example of energy exerted in molecular
Biotion and molecular separation. In
chemical action we have energy exerted
in the separation of atoms, severing
them from old combinations and mutual
attractions, and bringing them within
the sphere of new ones.. In electricity,
and magnetism, which is another form
of electricity, we have energy of position
which manifests itself in electrical
separation, by which matter becomes
charged with two opposite energies,
positive and negative, which accumulate
at separate poles, or on separate surfaces,
with an amount of tension which may be
reconverted into the original amount of
energy of motion when the spark, passing
between them, restores their electrical
equilibrium. Of this we have an ex
ample in the ordinary electrical machine,
where the original energy comes from the
mechanical force which turns the.handle,
and is given back when the electric spark
brings things back to their original
state.
We have also energy of motion, when
Instead of electrical separation and
tension we have a flow or current of
electricity producing the effect of the
electric spark in a slow, quiet, and con
tinuous manner. Thus, in the voltaic
battery, the free energy created by the
difference of chemical action of an acid
on plates of different metals, is trans
formed into a current which charges two
poles with opposite electricities, and
when the poles are brought together and
the circuit is closed, flows through it in
a continuous current. This current is
an energetic agent which produces
various effects. It deflects the magnetic
needle, as is seen in the electric telegraph.
It creates magnetism, as is seen whoa the]
poles of the battery are connected by a
wire wrapped round and round a cylinder
of soft iron, so as to make the current
circulate at right angles to the axis
formed by the cylinder. In fact, all
magnetism may be considered as the
summing up at the two opposite ex
tremities or poles of an axis, of the
effects of electric currents circulating!
round it; as, for instance, the earth is a
great magnet because currents caused by
the action of the sun circulate round it
nearly parallel to the equator. Electric
currents further show their energy by
attracting and repelling one another,]
those flowing in the same direction at
tracting, and those in opposite di
rections repelling, the same effect show
ing itself in magnets, which are in sub
stance collections of circular currents
flowing from right to left or left to right
according as they are positive or negative.
Again, currents produce an effect by
inducing currents in other bodies placed
near them, very much as the vibrations!
of a tuning-fork- induce vibrations and
bring out a corresponding note from the
strings of a piano or violin ready to
sound it. When a coil of wire W con
nected with a battery and a current
passes through it, if it is brought near toj
another isolated coil it induces a CfUmnil
in an opposite direction, which, when it
recedes from it, is changed into a cur
rent in the same direction.
These principles are illustrated by the
ordinary dynamo, by which the energy
of mechanical work exerted in making
magnets revolve in presence of currents,
and by various devices accumulating!
electric energy, is made available either ’
for doing other mechanical work, such as
driving a wheel, or for doing molecular
or atomic work by producing heat and
light.
Another transformation of the energy
of electric currents is into heat, light, or
chemical action. If the two poles.of a
battery are connected by a thin platinum
wire it will be heated to redness in ft few
seconds, the friction or resistance to the
current in passing through the limited;
section of the thin wire producing;
great heat. If the wire is thicker heat
�28
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
will equally be produced, but more
slowly.
If the poles of the battery are made of
carbon, or some substance the particles
of which remain solid during intense
heat, when they are brought nearly to
gether the current will be completed by
an arc of intensely brilliant light, and
the carbon will slowly burn away. This
is the electric light so commonly used when
great illuminating power is wanted.
Again, the electric current may employ
its energy in effecting chemical action.
If the poles of a battery, instead of being
brought together, are plunged into a
vessel of water, decomposition will begin.
Oxygen will rise in small bubbles at the
positive pole, and hydrogen at the
negative. If these two gases are col
lected together in the same vessel, and
an electric current, in the intense and
momentary form of a spark, passed
through them, they will combine with
explosion into the exact amount of
water which was decomposed in their
formation.
Everywhere, therefore, we find the
same law of universal application.
Energy, like matter, cannot be created
or destroyed,. but only transformed. It
is therefore, in one sense, eternal. But
there is another point of view from which
this has to be regarded.
Mechanical work, as we have seen,
can always be converted into heat, and
heat can, under certain conditions, be
reconverted into mechanical work ; but
not under all conditions. The heat
must pass from something at a higher
temperature into something at a lower.
If the condenser of a steam-engine were
always at the same temperature as
the boiler, we should get no work out of
it. It is.easy to understand how this is
the case if we figure to ourselves a river
running down into a lake. If the stream
is dammed up at two different levels,
each dam, as long as there is water in it,
will turn a mill-wheel. But if all the
water runs down into the lake and,
owing to a dry season, there is no fresh
supply, the wheels will stop and we can
get no more work done. So with heat,
if it all runs down to one uniform tem
perature it can no longer be made
available to do work. In the case of
the river, fresh water is supplied at the
higher levels, by the sun’s energy rais
ing it by evaporation from the seas to
the clouds, from which it is deposited
as rain or snow. But in the case of
heat there is no such self-restoring process,
and. the. tendency is always towards its
dissipation;. or in other words, towards
a more uniform distribution of heat
throughout all existing matter. The
process is very slow ; the original fund
of high-temperature heat is enormous,
and as long as matter goes on condens
ing fresh supplies of heat are, so to
speak, squeezed out of it.
Still there is a limit to condensation,
while there is no limit to the tendency
of heat to diffuse itself from hotter to
colder matter until all temperatures are
equalized. The energy is not destroyed ;
it is still there in the same average
amount of total heat, though no longer
differentiated into greater and lesser
heats, and
therefore
no
longer
available for life, motion, or any other
form of transformation. This seems to
be the case with the moon, which, being
so much smaller, has sooner equalised its
heat with surrounding space, and is ap
parently a burnt-out and dried-up cinder
without air or water. And this, as far as
we can see, must be the ultimate fate of
all planets, suns, and solar systems.
Fortunately the process is extremely
slow, for even our small earth has en
joyed air, water, sunshine, and all the
present conditions necessary for life for
the whole geological period, certainly
from the Silurian epoch downwards, if
not earlier, which cannot well be less
than 100 millions of years, and may be
much more. Still time, even if reckoned
by hundreds of millions of years, is not
eternity; and as, looking through the
telescope at nebulae which appear to be
condensing about central nuclei, we
perchance dimly discern a beginning, so,
looking at the moon and reasoning from
established principles as to the dissipa
tion of heat, we can dimly discern an
end. What we really can see is that
throughout the whole of this enormous
range of space and time law prevails •,
that, given the original atoms and
energies with their original qualities,
everything else follows in a regular and
and inevitable succession; and that the
whole material universe is a clock, so
perfectly constructed from the beginning
as to require no outside interference
during the time it has to run to keep
it going with absolute correctness.
�LIFE
CHAPTER IV
LIFE.
Essence of Life—Simplest Form, Protoplasm
—Monera and Protista—Animal and Vege
table Life—Spontaneous Generation—De
velopment of Species from Primitive Cells
-—Supernatural Theory—Zoological . Pro
vinces-—Separate Creations—Law or Miracle
—Darwinian Theory—Struggle for LifeSurvival of the Fittest—Development and
Design—The Hand—Proof required to es
tablish Darwin’s Theory as a Law—Species
—Hybrids—Man subject to Law.
The universe is divided into two worlds
—the inorganic, or world of dead matter;
and the organic, or world of life. What
is life 1 In its essence it is a state of
matter in which the particles are in a
continued state of flux, and the indi
vidual existence depends, not on the same
particles remaining in the same definite
shape, but on the permanence of a definite
mould or form through which fresh par
ticles are continually entering, forming
new combinations and passing away. It
may assist in forming a conception of this
if we imagine ourselves to be looking at
a mountain the top of which is enveloped
in a driving mist. The mountain is dead
matter, the particles of which continue
fixed in the rocks. But the cloud-form
which envelops it is a mould into which
fresh particles of vapour are continually
entering and becoming visible on the
windward side, and passing away and
disappearing to leeward. If we add to
this the conception that the particles do
not, as in the case of the cloud, simply
enter in and pass away without change,
but are digested, that is, undergo chemical
changes by which they- are partly assimi
lated and worked-up into component
parts of the mould, and partly thrown off
in new combinations, we shall arrive at
something which is not far off the.ulti
mate idea of what constitutes living
matter, in its simplest form of the pro
toplasm, or speck of jelly-like substance,
which is shown to be the primitive basis
or raw material of all the more, complex
forms both of vegetable and animal life.
Digestion, therefore, is the primary attri
bute. A crystal grows from without, by
taking on fresh particles and building
them up in regular layers according to
fixed laws, just as the pyramids of Egypt
were built up by layer upon layer of
squared stones upon surfaces formed of I
regular figures, and inclined to each other
at determinate angles.
The living plant or animal grows from U
within by taking supplies of fresh matter
into its inner laboratory, where it is
worked up into a variety of comptoj^l
products needed for the existence and
reproduction of life. After supplying •]
these, the residue is given back in various
forms to the inorganic world, and the
final residue of all is given back by death,
which is the ultimate end of all life.
The simplest form of life, in which it I
first emerges from the inorganic into the J
organic world, consists of protoplasm, or,
as it has been called, the physical basis Of I
life. Protoplasm is a colourless semi-fluid!
or jelly-like substance, which consists of I
albuminoid matter, or in other words, of
a heterogeneous carbon-compound of very
complex chemical composition. It exist^J
in every living cell, and performs the
functions of nutrition and reproductlcy.^
as well as of sensation and motion. In^|
its simplest form, that of the microscopic
monera or protista, the lowest of living
beings, we find an apparently homo
geneous structureless piece of protoplasm,
without any differentiation of parts. The
monera are simple living globules of
jelly, without even a nucleus or any sort
of organ, and yet they perform all the
essential functions of life without any
different parts being told off for par
ticular functions. Every particle or mole
cule is of the same chemical composition.
and a facsimile of the whole body, as in
the case of a crystal. They are, there
fore, the first step from the inorganic
into the organic world, and if spontaneow
generation takes place anywhere, it is
in the passage of the chemical elements!
from the simple and stable combinations
of the former into the complex and plastic
combinations of the latter.
The next step upwards is to the cell in
which the protoplasm is enclosed in a
skin or membrane of modified protoplasm,
and a nucleus, or denser spot, is developed
in the enclosed mass. This is the primary
element from which all the more coni’
plicated forms of life are built-up. Each
cell seems to have an independent life of
its own, and a faculty of reproduction by
splitting into fresh cells similar to itself,
which multiply in geometrical progres
sion, assimilating the elements of their
�30
MODERN SCIENCE’ AND MODERN THOUGHT
substance from the inorganic world so
rapidly as to provide the requisite raw
material for higher structures.
The first organised living forms are
extremely minute, and can only be re
cognised by powerful microscopes. A
filtered infusion of hay, allowed to stand
r for two days, will swarm with living
r tilings, a number of which do not exceed
of an inch in diameter. Minute
as these animalcula are, they are tho
roughly alive. They dart about and
digest; the smallest speck of jelly-like
subalance shoots out branches or processes
to.seize food, and if these come in collision
with other substances they withdraw
them. They exist in countless myriads,
and perform a very important part in the
£ economy of nature. They are the scav
engers of the universe, and remove the
remains of living matter after death,
which would otherwise accumulate until
they choked-up the earth. This they do
by the process of putrefaction, which is
due mainly to the multiplication of little
rod-like creatures known as bacteria,
which work up the once living, now dead,
matter into, fresh elements, again fitted
to play their part in the inorganic and
organic worlds.
One of the simplest of these forms is
the amoeba, which is nothing but a naked
little , lump of cell-matter, or plasma,
containing a nucleus ; and yet this little
Jfcpeck of jelly moves freely, it shoots out
tongues or processes and gradually draws
itself up. to them with a sort of wave
like motion; it eats and grows, and in
I growing reproduces itself by contracting
in the middle and splitting up into two
Bndependent amoebae.
Th© germs of these various animalcula
swarm in the air, and carry seeds of
infection wherever they find a soil fitted
to receive them; and thus assist the
survival of the fittest in the struggle of
life, by eliminating weak and unhealthy
individuals and species. Thus when the
potato, the vine, or the silkworm has had
its constitution enfeebled by prolonged
artificial culture, there are germs always
ready to revenge the violation of natural
laws, and bring the survivors back to a
more heathy condition. In like manner
the germs of cholera, typhoid, and scarlet
fever, enforce the observance of sanitary
principles.
In this simple form the lowest forms of
life are not yet sufficiently differentiated
to enable us to distinguish clearly between
animal and vegetable, and they have been
called by some naturalists Protista, while
Amceba.
Amceba dividing into two.
others designate them as Protozoa or
Protophyta, according as they show more
resemblance to one or the other form of
life.. But it is often so doubtful that in
looking at the same organism through a
microscope, Huxley was inclined to
consider it as a plant, while Tyndall
exclaimed that he could as soon believe
that a sheep was a vegetable.
In the next stage upwards, however, life
subdivides itself into two great kingdoms,
that of the vegetable and of the animal
world. Alike in their general definition
as contrasted with inorganic matter, and
in their common origin from an embryo
cell, which divides and subdivides until
cell-aggregates are formed, from which
the living form is built up by a process
of evolution, the plant differs from the
animal in this : that the former feeds
directly on inorganic matter, while the
latter can only feed on it indirectly, after
it has been manufactured by the plant
into vegetable substance.
This is universally true, for if we dine
on beef, we dine practically on the grass
which the ox ate ; that is, on the carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen, and other simple ele
ments which the grass, under the stimulus
of light and sunshine, manufactured into
complex compounds ; and which the ox
again, by a second process, manufactured
from these compounds into others still
more complex, and more easily assimilated
by us in the process of digestion. But in
no case can we dine, as the plant does,
on the simple elements, and thrive on a
diet, of air and water, with a small
admixture of nitrate of ammonia, and of
phosphates, sulphates and chlorides, of
a few primitive metals. Vegetable life,
�LIFE
f-herefora, is the producer, and animal
life the consumer, of the organic world.
Practically the plant derives most of
its substance from the carbonic acid gas
in the atmosphere, which green leaves
under the stimulus of light and heat have
the faculty of decomposing, and abstract
the carbon giving out the oxygen ; while
the animal, by a reverse process, burns
up the compounds manufactured by the
plant, principally out of this carbon, by
the oxygen obtained from the air by the
process of respiration, exhaling the sur
plus carbon in the form of carbonic
acid gas.
The balancing effect of these two pro
cesses may be seen in any aquarium,
where animals and vegetables live to
gether in water which is kept pure, while
it would become stagnant and poisonous
in a few hours, if one of the two forms of
life were removed. All that the animal
requires therefore for its existence—ma
terials with which to build up its frame
and supply waste ; heat with which to
maintain its circulating fluids and other
substances at a proper temperature;
motive power or energy to enable it to
move, feel, and, in the case of the higher
animals, to think—are all proceeds of
the slow combustion of materials derived
from the vegetable world in the oxygen
breathed from the air, just as the work
done by a steam-engine is the product of
a similar combustion, or chemical com
bination of the oxygen of the air with
the coal shovelled into the fire-box. These
distinctions, however, between animals
and vegetables are not quite absolute,
for, even in the more highly-organised
forms of life, there is a border-land where
some plants seem to perform the functions
of animals, as in those which catch, and
consume flies and eat and digest pieces
of raw meat.
Those who wish to pursue this interest
ing subject further will do well to read
the Chapter on Living Matter in Huxley’s
“ Physiography,” where they will find it
toore fully explained, with the inimit
able clearness which characterises all the
writings of an author who was at the same
tirna one of the first scientific authorities
and one of the greatest masters, of
English prose. But my present, object
is not to write a scientific treatise, but
shortly to sum up the ascertained results
of modern science, with a view to their
bearings on modern thought; and from
3f
this point of view the immediate question,
is, how far unbroken sequence, which
has been shown to prevail universally
throughout space, time, and inorganic J
matter, can be shown to prevail equally
throughout the world of life..
Up to a certain point this admits of
positive proof. It is as certain that all
individual life, from the most elementary
protoplasm up to the highest organism,
Man, originates in a minute or embryo
cell, as it is that oxygen and. hydrogen,
combined in certain proportions make
water. But if we try to go back one step
further, behind the cell, we are stopped.
In the inorganic world we can reason OUT
way beyond the microscopic matter to the
molecule, and from the molecule to the
atom, and are only arrested when we
come to the ultimate form of matter, and
of energy, out of which the universe is
built up. But, in the case of life, we are
stopped two steps short of this, and can*
not tell how the cell containing the germ d
of life is built up out of the simpler 1
elements.
Many attempts have been made to
bridge over this gulf, and to show how life
may originate in chemical compound#,
but hitherto without success. Experi
ments have been made which, for a time,
seemed to show that spontaneous genera
tion was a scientific fact, i.e., that the
lowest forms of life, such as bacteria arid
amoebae, really did originate in infusion#
containing no germs of life; but they
have been met by counter experiments
confirmingHarvey’s dictum, “Omnevivttm
ex ovo,” or, all life comes from an egg,
i.e., from antecedent germs of life, and the
verdict of the best authorities, sueh as
Pasteur, Tyndall, and Huxley is, thatspontaneous generation has been “defeated
along the whole line.” This verdict is
perhaps too unqualified, for it appear®
that, on the assumption with which both
sides started, all organic life wag de
stroyed by exposure to a heat of 212'’, or
the boiling-point of water, the advocate®
of spontaneous generation had the best
of it, as low forms of life did appear in
infusions which had been exposed to this
heat, and then hermetically sealed, So as
to prevent any germs from entering.
But it was replied that, as a hard pea
takes more boiling than a soft one, it
might very well be that heat sufficient to
destroy life in any moist organism of
sufficient size to be seen by the microscope,
�32
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
• might not destroy the germinating power
of ultra-microscopic germs in a very dry
state. And this position seems to have
been confirmed by various experiments,
showing that such ultra - microscopic
germs really do exist, and are given forth
in the last life stage of the bacteria which
cause putrefaction ; and that if they are
absent or destroyed by repeated applica
tions of heat, infusions will keep sweet
for ever in optically pure air.
Above all, the germ theory has re
ceived confirmation from the brilliant
practical results to which it has led in
the hands of Pasteur, enabling him to
detect, and to a great extent eradicate,
the causes which had led to the oidium
of the vine and the pebrine of the silk
worm, thereby saving millions to the
industries of France. The germ theory
has also led to important results in
medical science, and is pointing towards
the possibility of combating the most
fatal diseases by processes analogous to
that by which vaccination has almost
freed the human race from the scourge of'
small-pox.
On the whole, therefore, we must be
content to accept a verdict of “Not
proven ” in the case of spontaneous
generation, and admit that as regards
the first origin of life, science fails us,
and that there is at present no known
law that will account for it.
Should spontaneous generation ever be
proved to be a fact, it will doubtless be in
creating living protoplasm from inorganic
elements at its earliest stage, before it
has been differentiated even into the
primitive form of a nucleated cell or that
of an amoeba. This is what the doctrine
of evolution would lead us to expect, for
it would be in contradiction to it to
suppose that the starting-point could be
interpolated at any stage subsequent to
the lowest. It may be also that this step
could only be made under conditions of
heat, pressure, and otherwise, which
existed in the earlier stage of the earth’s
existence, but have longed since passed
away.
This, however, is only a small part of
the difficulty we have to encounter in
reducing life to law.
These primeval embryo cells, like as
they are in appearance, contain within
them the germs of an almost infinite
diversity of evolutions, each running its
separate course distinct from the others.
The world of life is not one and uniform,
but consists of a vast variety of different
species, from the speck of protoplasm up
to the forest tree, and from the humble
amoeba up to man, each one, at any rate
within long intervals of time, breeding
true and keeping to its own separate
and peculiar path along the line of
evolution.
The first germ, or nucleated cell, of a
bacterium develops into other bacteria
and nothing else, thatof a coral into corals,
of an oak into oaks, of an elephant into
elephants, of a man into man. In the
latter case we can trace the embryo in
its various stages of growth th rough forms
having a certain analogy to those of the
fish, the reptile, and the lower mammals,
until it finally takes that of the human
infant. But we have no experience of a
fish, a frog, or a dog, born of human
parents, or of any of the lower animals
ever producing anything resembling a
man.
How can this be explained ? Naturally
the first attempt at explanation was by
miracle. At a time when everything
was explained by miracle, when all
unusual occurrences were attributed to
supernatural agency, and men lived in
an atmosphere of providential inter
ferences, witchcraft, magic, and all sorts
of divine and diabolic agencies, nothing
seemed easier than to say that the beasts of
the field, the birds of the air, and the fishes
of the sea, are all distinct after their
kind, because God created them so.
But as the supernatural faded away
and disappeared in other departments
where it had so long reigned supreme,
and science began to classify, arrange,
and accumulate facts as they really are,
it became more and more difficult, or
rather impossible, to accept this simple
explanation. The very first step de
stroyed the validity of all the traditional
myths which described the origin of life
from one simultaneous act of creation at
a single centre. The earth is divided
into separate zoological provinces, each
with its own peculiar animal and vege
table world. The kangaroo, for instance,
is found in Australia and there only. By
no possibility could the aboriginal kan
garoo have jumped at one bound from
Mount Ararat to Australia, leaving no
trace of his passage in any intermediate
district. This isolation of life in separate
provinces applies so rigidly, that we may
�83
sum it up by saying generally that there
art no forms of life common to two
provinces unless where migration is
possible, or has been possible in past
geological periods.
In islands at a distance from conEnents, we find common forms of marine
life, for the sea affords a means of com
munication ; and often common forms of
bird, insect, and vegetable life, where
they may have been wafted by the winds ;
(but forms which neither in the adult nor
germ state could swim, or fly, or be
transported by something which did
Swim or fly, are invariably wanting.
&ew Zealand affords a most conspicuous
Instance of this. Here is a large country
with a soil and climate exceptionally well
Adapted to support a large amount of
animal life of the higher orders, and yet,
with the exception of two species of bats,
it had absolutely no mammal before they
were introduced by man, the dog being
probably introduced by the Maoris. If
special creations took place to replenish
the earth as soon as any portion of its
surface becomes fit to. sustain it, why
were there no animals in New Zealand ?
Or, in the Andaman Islands, in the Gulf
of Bengal, which are as large as Ireland,
covered with luxuriant vegetation, and
within 300 miles of the coast of Asia, where
similar jungles swarm with elephants,
tigers, deer, and all the varied forms of
mammalian life, there are no mammalia
except a pigmy black savage and a pigmy
©lack pig, the latter probably introduced
by man.
The sharpness of the division between
Zoological provinces is well illustrated by
that drawn by the Straits of Lombok,
Kvhere a channel, not twenty miles wide,
separates the fauna of Asia and Australia
so completely that there are no species of
land animals, and only a few of birds and
insects, common to the two sides, of a
channel not so wide as the Straits of
Dover.
There is no possibility of accounting
for this, except by supposing that the
deep water fissure of the Straits of
Eombok has existed from remote geo
logical periods, and barred the migration
southwards of those Asiatic animals,
which, as long as they found dry land,
migrated northwards and westwards till
they were stopped by the Polar and
Atlantic Oceans. This difficulty of re
quiring special creations for separate
provinces is enormously enhanced if we
look beyond the existing condition of
things, and trace back the geological
record. We must suppose separate crea
tions for all the separate provinces of
the separate successive formations from
the Silurian upwards. And the more w«
investigate the conditions of life either
under existing circumstances or in tliOSO
of past geological epochs, the mor®
are we driven to enormously multiply
the number of separate creations wliida
would be necessary to account for the
diversity of species. We find life shading
off into an infinite variety of almost im
perceptible gradations from the highest
organism, man, to the lowest, or speck of
protoplasm, and we can draw no hard
and fast line and say, up to this point
life originated by natural processes, and
beyond it we must have recourse
miracle. Either all life or none is a
product of evolution acting by defined
law, and the affirmation of law is the
negation of miracle.
Every day brings us an account of
some new discovery linking forms of life
nearer together and bridging over
tervals thought to be impassable. Tho
discovery of insectivorous plants, which
also devour and digest pieces of raw
meat, has added to the difficulty which
has been long felt, particularly, in the
humbler forms of life, of drawing any
clear line of demarcation between th®
animal and vegetable worlds.
Microscopic research brings to light
fresh facts confounding our fixed ideas
as to the permanence of particular modes
of reproducing life, and showing that
the same organism may run through
various metamorphoses in the course of
its life-cycle, during some of which it
may be sexual and in others asexual,
i.e., it may reproduce itself alternately
by the co-operation of two beings, of
opposite sex, and by fissure or budding
from one being only which is of no sex.
These, and a multitude of other similar
facts, complicate enormously the pro
blems of life and its developments,
whether we attempt to solve.it by calling
in aid a perpetual series of innumerable
miraculous interpositions, or by ap
pealing to ordinary known laws of
Nature.
Is the latter solution possible, and can
the organic world be reduced, as the
inorganic world has been with all its
�S4
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
mysteries and the infinities of space, time,
and matter, from chaos into cosmos, and
shown to depend on permanent and
harmonious laws 1 Is the world of life,
like that of matter, a clock, so perfectly
constructed from the first that it goes
without winding up or regulating ? or is
it a clock which would never have started
going, or having started would soon
cease to go, if the hand of the watch
maker were not constantly interfering
with it ? This is the question which the
celebrated Darwinian theory attempts to
answer, of which I now proceed to give a
short general outline.
The varieties among domestic animals
are obvious to every one. The race-horse
is a very different creature from the
dray-horse; the short-horned ox from
the Guernsey cow; the greyhound from
ths Skye terrier. How has this come to
pass ? Evidently by man’s intervention,
causing long-continued selection in breed
ing for certain objects. The English
race-horse is the product of mating
animals distinguished for speed for some
fifteen or twenty generations. The grey
hound is a similar dog-product by breed
ing for a longer period with the same
object: as the Skye terrier is of selection
in order to _ get a dog which can
follow a fox into a cairn of rocks and
fight him w’hen he gets there. In all
these cases it is evident that the final
result was not attained at once, but by
taking advantage of small accidental
variations and accumulating them from
one generation to another by the princi
ple of heredity, which makes offspring
reproduce the qualities of their parents.
The most precise and scientific experi
ments on this power of integrating, or
summing up, a progressive series of
differentials, or minute differences, be
tween successive generations, are those
conducted by Darwin on pigeons. He
has shown conclusively that all the races
of domestic pigeons, of which there are
two or three hundred, are derived from
one common ancestor, the wild or blue
rock pigeon, and that the pigeon-fancier
can always obtain fresh varieties in a few
generations by careful interbreeding. Of
the existing varieties many now differ
widely from one another, both in size,
appearance, and even in anatomical
structure, so that if they were now
discovered for the first time in a fossil
state or in a new country, they would
assuredly be classed by naturalists as
separate species.
This is the work of man ; is there any
thing similar to it going on in Nature 1
Yes, says Darwin, there is a tendency in
all life, and especially in the lower forms
of life, to reproduce itself vastly quicker
than the supply of food and the existence
of other life can allow, and the balance
of existence is only preserved by the
wholesale waste of individuals in what
may be called the “ struggle for life.” In
this struggle, which goes on incessantly
and on the largest scale, the slightest
advantage must tell in the long run, and
on the average, in selecting the few who
are to survive, and such slight advantages
must tend to accumulate from one gener
ation to another under the law of heredity.
The cumulative power of selection exer
cised by man in the breeding of races is
therefore necessarily exercised in Nature
by the struggle for life, and in the course
of time, by the cumulation of advantages
originally slight, small and fluctuating
variations are hardened into large and
permanent ones, and new species are
formed.
Darwin illustrates this principle of the
“struggle for life” with a vast variety
of instances, showing how the balance of
animal and vegetable life may be pre
served or destroyed in the most un
expected manner. For instance, the
fertilisation of red clover is effected by
humble-bees, and depends on their
number ; the number of bees in a given
district depends mainly on the number
of field-mice which destroy their combs
and nests ; the number of mice depends
on the number of cats; and thus the
presence or absence of a carnivorous
animal may decide the question whether
a particular sort of flora shall prevail
over others or be extirpated.
The countless profusion with which any
one species, unchecked by its natural foes,
may multiply in a given district, is
illustrated by the potato disease, which
in a few days invades whole countries ;
and by the rabbit plague in Australia and
New Zealand, where, in less than twenty
years, the descendants of a few imported
pairs have rendered whole provinces
useless for sheep pasture, and stoats are
now being imported to restore the balance
of life. The tendency in species to pro
duce varieties which by selection may
become exaggerated .and fixed, is illus-
�SB
LIEF
trated by the case of the Ancon herd of
sheep A ram lamb was born in Massa
chusetts in 1791, which had short crooked
legs and a long back like a turnspit dog.
Being unable to jump over fences like the
ordinary sheep, it was thought to possess
certain advantages to the farmer, and the
breed was established by artificial
selection in pairing this ram with its
descendants who possessed the. same
peculiarities. The introduction of the
Merino superseded the Ancon by giving
a tame sheep not given to jump fences,
with a better fleece, and so the breed was
not continued, but it is certain that it
might have been established as a per
manent variety differing from the
ordinary sheep as much as the turnspit
or Skye terrier differs from the ordinary
dog. The tendency of Nature to variation
is apparent in the fact that of the many
hundred millions of human beings living
on the earth, no two are precisely alike,
and varieties often appear, as in giants
and dwarfs, six-fingered or toed children,
hairy and other families, which might
doubtless be fixed and perpetuated by
artificial or natural selection, until they
became strongly marked and permanent.
It is evident that if the theory of
development is true it excludes the old
theory of design, or rather, it thrusts it
back in the organic, as it has been thrust
back in the inorganic, world, to the first
atoms or origins which were made so
perfect as to carry within them all
subsequent phenomena by necessary
evolution. Design and development lead
to the same result, that of producing
organs adapted for the work they have
to do, but they lead to it in totally
different ways. Development works from
the less to the more perfect, and from
the simpler to the more complicated, by
incessant changes, small in themselves,
but constantly accumulating in the re
quired direction. Design supposes that
organisms were created specially on a
predetermined plan, very much as the
sewing-machine or self-binding reaper
were constructed by their inventors.
Until quite recently all adaptations of
m eans to ends were considered as evidences
of design. A series of treatises, for which
prizes were left by a late Duke of Bridge
water, was published some thirty years
ago, to illustrate this theme. Among these
one by Sir Charles Bell on the Hand at
tracted a good deal of attention. It was
shown what an admirable machine the
human hand is for the various purposesfor
which it is used, and the inference was
drawn that it must have been created so
by a designer who adapted means to ends
in much the same way as is done by a
human inventor. But more complete
knowledge has dispelled this idea, and
shown that the design, if there be any,
must be placed very much farther back,
and is in fact involved in the primitive
germ from which all vertebrate life
certainly, and probably all life, animal or
vegetable, has been slowly developed.
The human hand is in effect the last
stage of a development of the vertebrate
type, or type of life in which a series of
jointed vertebrse form a backbone, which
protects a spinal cord containing the
nervous centres, gives points of attach
ment for the muscles, and forms an axis
of support for the looser tissues. Certain
of these vertebrse throw out bony spines
or rays ; at first, by a sort of simple
process of vegetable growth, which
formed the fins of fishes; then some of
these rays dropped off and others coalesced
into more complex forms, which made
the rudimentary limbs of reptiles ; and
finally, the continued process of develop
ment fashioned them into the more
perfect limbs of birds and mammals. In
this last stage a vast variety of combin
ations was developed. Sometimes the
bones of the extremities spread out, so as
to form long fingers supporting the
feathered wings of birds and the mem
braneous wings of bats ; sometimes they
coalesced into the solid limbs supporting
the bodies of large animals, as in the
case of the horse ; and finally, at the end
of the series, they formed that marvellous
instrument, the hand, as it appears in
the allied genera of monkeys, apes, and
man.
Any theory of secondary design and
special miraculous creation must evi
dently account for all the intermediate
forms as well as for the final result. We
must suppose not one but many thous
ands of special creations, at a vast
variety of places and over a vast extent
of time ; we must take into acount not
the successes only, but the failures, where
organs appear in a rudimentary form
which are perfectly useless, or in some
cases even injurious, to the creature in
which they are found. For instance, in
the case of the so-called wingless birds,
D 2
�36
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
like the dodo of the Mauritius, and the
apteryxof New Zealand, which werefound
in oceanic islands, evolution accounts
readily for the atrophy or want of develop
ment of organs which were not wanted
where the birds had no natural enemies
and found their food on the ground ; but
why should they have been created with
rudimentary wings, useless while they
remained isolated, and insufficient to
prevent their extermination as soon
as man, or any other natural enemy,
reached the islands where they had lived
secure ?
If we are apt to adopt the theory of
design and special creation, we must be
prepared to take Burns’s poetical fancy as
a scientific truth, and believe that Nature
had to try its “prentice hand,” and grope
its way through repeated trials , and fail
ures from the less to the more perfect.
Again, the theory of special creation
must account not only for the higher
organs and forms of life, but for the lower
forms also. Are the bacteria, amoebae,
and other forms of life which the micro
scope shows in a drop of water all in
stances of a miraculous creation ? And
still more hard to believe, is this the
origin of the whole parasitic world of life
which is attached to and infests each its
own peculiar form of higher life ? Is the
human tape-worm a product of design, or
that wonderful parasite the trichina,
which oscillates between man and the pig,
being capable of being born only in the
muscles of the one, and of living only in
the intestines of the other ?
These are the sort of difficulties which
have led the scientific world, I may say
universally, to abandon the idea of separ
ate special creations, and to substitute
for it that which has been proved to be
true of the whole inorganic world of
stars, suns, planets, and all forms of
matter ; the idea of an original -creation
(whatever creation may mean and behind
which we cannot go) of ultimate atoms or
germs, so perfect that they carried within
them all the phenomena of the universe
by a necessary process of evolution.
This is the idea to which the Darwinian
theory _ leads up, by showing natural
causes in operation which must inevit
ably tend to originate and to accumulate
slight varieties, until they become large
in amount and permanent, thus develop
ing new races within old species, new
species within old families, new families
within old types, and new and complex
types from old and simple ones.
The theory is up to a certain point
undoubtedly true, and beyond that point
in the highest degree probable, but scien
tific caution obliges us to add that it is
still to a considerable extent a “ theory,”
and not a “law.” That is, it is not like
the law of gravity, a demonstrated cer
tainty throughout the whole universe,
but a provisional law which accounts for
a great number of undoubted facts, and
supplies a framework into which all other
similar facts, as at present ascertained,
appear to fit with a probability not ap
proached by any other theory, and which
is enhanced by every fresh discovery
made, and by the analogy of what we
know to be the laws which regulate the
whole inorganic world.
To enable us to talk of the “ Darwinian
law,” and not of the “ Darwinian theory,”
we require two demonstrations :
1. That living matter really can origi
nate from inorganic matter.
2. That new species really can be formed
from previously existing species.
As regards the first, we have seen that
the efforts of science have hitherto failed
to produce an instance of spontaneous
generation, and all we can say is that it
is probable that such instances have oc
curred in earlier ages of our planet, under
conditions of light, heat, chemical action,
and electricity, different from anything
we can now reproduce in our laboratories.
This, however, falls short of demonstra
tion and for the present we must be con
tent to leave the origin of life as one of
the mysteries not yet brought within the
domain of law.
As regards the second point, we are
farther advanced towards the possibility
of proof. But here also we are met by
two difficulties. If we appeal to historical
evidence, we are met by the fact that a
much greater time than is embraced by
any historical record is almost necessarily
required for the dying out of any old
species and introduction of any new one,
by natural selection. And if we appeal
to fossil remains we are met by the im
perfection of the geological record. As
to this, it must be remembered that only
a very small portion of the earth’s surface
has been explored, and of this a very
small portion consists of ancient land
surfaces or fresh water formations, where
alone we can expect to meet with traces
�hips
R the higher forms of animal life. And
even these have been so imperfectly exthat where we now meet with
thousands and tens of thousands of undoubted human remains in the shape of
rudely-fashioned stone tools and weapons
lying almost under our feet, it is only
Kithin the last thirty years that their
(existence has even been suspected. Cuvier,
the greatest authority of the last genera
tion, laid it down as an incontrovertible
fact that neither men nor monkeys had
existed in the fossil state, or in anything
more ancient than the most superficial
and recent deposits. We have now at least
twenty specimens of fossil monkeys, from
bne locality alone of the Miocene period,
that of Pikermi, near Athens, and many
thousands of human remains, contem
porary with extinct animals of the Qua
ternary period, if not earlier. We must be
Content, therefore, with approximate
solutions pointing up to but not abso
lutely demonstrating the truth.
What is a species ? Speaking generally
it is an assemblage of individuals who
maintain a separate family type by
breeding freely among themselves, and
refusing to breed with other species.
There can be no doubt that this repre
sents what, at the first view and for a
limited range of time, is in accordance
with actual facts. The animal and vege
table worlds are practically mapped-out
into distinct species, and do not present
the mass of confusion which would result
from indiscriminate cross-breeding. It
is clear also that this state of things has
lasted for a considerable time, for the
paintings on Egyptian tombs and monu
ments carry us back more than 4,000
years, and show us the most strongly
marked varieties of the human race,
such as the Semitic, the Egyptian, and
the Negro, existing just as they do at
the present day. They show us also such
extreme varieties of the dog species as
the greyhound and the turnspit, then in
Existence ; and the skeletons of animals
SUch as the ox, cat, and crocodile, which
have been preserved as mummies, show
no appreciable difference from those of
their modern descendants.
When we come to look closely, however,
into the matter, our faith in this absolute
rule of the entire independence of species
is greatly modified. In the lower grades
of life we see everywhere species shading
off into one another by insensible grada
$7
tions, and every extension of our know
ledge, both of the existing animal, v®g<e»
table, and microscopic worlds, and of
those of past geological periods, multiplies instances of intermediate forms,
differing from one another far less than
do many of the individual varieties of
recognised species. In the case of sponges,
for instance, the latest conclusion of
scientific research is this: that if you
rely on minute distinctions as consti
tuting distinct species, there are at least
300 species of one family of. sponges,
while if you disregard slight differences,
which graduate into one another, and ana
found partly in one and partly in another
variety, you must designate them all as
forming only one species. Even in higher
grades, as species are multipled, it be
comes more and more difficult to say
where one ends and the other begins,
Take the familiar instance of the grouse
and ptarmigan. The red grouse is believed
to be peculiar to the British Island^
while the ptarmigan is a very wid^W
spread inhabitant of. Arctic regions and
high mountains. Which is more probable
—that the grouse was specially created
in the British Islands, apparently for
the final cause of bringing sessions of
Parliament to wind-up business in August,
or that, as the rigour of the Glacial period
abated, and heather began to grow, cer
tain ptarmigan by degrees modified their
habits and took to feeding on heather
tops instead of lichens, and by so doing
gradually became larger birds and as
sumed the colour best adapted for pro
tection in their new habitation ? In point
of fact, grouse showing traces of this
descent in smaller size and much whiter
plumage are still to be met with. It would
be easy to multiply instances, but this
consideration seems conclusive.
If we reject the Darwinian theory aim
adopt that of independent species de
scended from a specially created ancestor
or pair of ancestors, we are driven by
each discovery of intermediate or slightly
modified forms, into the assumption of
more and more special acts of creation,
until the number breaks down under its
own weight, and belief becomes impos*
sible.
For instance, in the Madeira Islands
alone, 134 species of air-breathing land
snails have been discovered by naturalists,
of which twrenty-one only are found in
Africa or Europe, and 113 are peculiar to
�38
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
this small group of islands, where they
are mostly confined to narrow districts
and single valleys. Are we to suppose
that each of these 113 species was sepa
rately created ? Is it not almost certain
that they are the modified descendants
of the twenty-one species which had
found their way there in a former geolo
gical period, when Madeira was united
to Africa and Spain ?
There remains only the argument from
the fertility of species inter se and their
refusal to breed with other species.
This also, when closely examined, ap
pears to be a prima facie deduction, rather
than an absolute law. Different species
do, in fact, often breed together, as is
seen in the familiar instance of the horse
and ass. It is true that in this case the
mule is sterile and no new race is estab
lished. . But this rule is not universal,
and quite recently one new hybrid race,
that of the leporine, or hare-rabbit, has
been created, which is perfectly fertile.
The progeny of dog and wolf has also
been proved to be perfectly fertile during
the four generations for which the expe
riment was continued. In the case of
cultivated plants and domestic animals,
thore can be little doubt that new races,
which breed true and are perfectly fertile’
have been created within recent times
from distinct wild species. The Esquimaux dog is so like the Arctic wolf
that there can be little doubt he is either
a direct descendant, or that both are
descendants from a common stock. The
same is true of the jackal and some
breeds of dogs in the East and Africa,
and other races of dogs are closely akin
to foxes. But all dogs breed freely to
gether, and can with difficulty be mated
with the wild species which they so
closely resemble. The modern Swiss
cattle are pronounced by Rutimeyer to
show undoubted marks of descent from
three distinct species of fossil oxen, the
Bos primigenius, Bos longifrons and Bos
frontosus.
. There is n°w1 in the Zoological Gardens,
in Regent s Park, a hybrid cow, whose
sire was an American bison and its
mother a hybrid between a zebu and a
gayal. This animal is perfectly fertile,
and has bred again to the bison; but
what is singular is, that this hybrid
resembles much more an ordinary domes? 1888.
tic English cow than it does any of its pro
genitors. It is totally unlike the bison,
both in appearance and disposition, and
except in having a projecting ridge
over the withers, it might be mistaken
for a coarse, bony, common cow. If a
hybrid bull had been born of the same
type, and mated with this hybrid cow,
there is little doubt that a new race
have been established, extremely
different from its ancestors.
In fact, nearly all the domesticated
animals have the essential characters of
new races. We cannot point to wild pro
genitors existing in any part of the world
which they are descended, and when
they run wild they do not revert to any
common ancestral form.
In the vegetable world instances of
fertile hybrids are still more abundant,
and the introduction and establishment
of new varieties is a matter of very-day
occurrence.
Now, whatever artificial selection can
do in a short time, natural selection can
certainly do in a longer time, and noth
ing short of absolute proof of the im
possibility of species coming into ex
istence by natural laws should induce us
to fall back on the supernatural theory
with all its enormous difficulties of an
innumerable multitude of special
creations, most of them obviously im
perfect and tentative—or rather, useless
and senseless on any supposition except
that of a necessary and progressive
evolution. In fact, if it were not for its
bearing on the nature and origin of man,
few would be found to maintain the
theory of miraculous creations, or to
doubt that the world of life is regulated
by fixed laws as well as the world of
matter. But whatever touches man
touches us closely, and brings into play a
host of cherished aspirations and beliefs,
which are too powerful to be displaced
£eacW by calm, scientific reasoning,
phall man, who, we are told, was created
in God’s image and only “ a little lower
than the angels,” be degraded into relationship with the brutes, and shown to
be. only the last development of an
animal type which, in the case of apes
and .monkeys, approaches singularly near
to him in physical structure ? Are the
saints and heroes whom we revere,
and. the beautiful women whom we
admire, descended, not from an allglorioiis Adam and all-lovely Eve, ag
�ANTIQUITY OF MAN
portrayed in Milton’s u Paradise Lost,
but ftoin Palaeolithic gavages, more rude
and bestial than the lowest tribe of
Bushmen or Australians ? Is the ac
count of man’s creation and fall in the
Hebrew Scriptures as pure a myth as
that of Noah’s ark, or of Deucalion and
Pyrrha ?
The only answer to these questions is
that truth is truth, and fact is fact, and
tW it is always better to act and to
believe in conformity with truth and
fact, than to indulge in illusions. There
are many things in Nature which jar on
our feelings and seem harsh and dis
agretable, but yet are hard facts, which
we have to recognise and make the best
of. Childhood does not pass into man
hood without exchanging much that is
innocent and attractive for much that is
stern and prosaic. Death, with its pro
digal waste of immature life, its sudden
extinction of mature life in the pleni
tude of its powers, its . heart-rendinr
separations from loved objects, is a most
disagreeable fact. But it would not im
provematters to keep grown-up lads in
nurseries for fear of their meeting with
accidents, or of becoming hardened by
contact with the world. Progress, not
happiness, is the law of the world ; and to
improve himself and others by constant
struggles upwards is the true destiny of
man.
.
e
.
In working out this destiny the tear
less recognition of truth is essential.
Facts are the spokes of the ladder by
which we climb from earth to heaven,
and any individual, nation, or religion,
which, from laziness or prejudice, re
fuses to recognise fresh facts, has ceased
to climb and will end by falling asleep
and dropping to a lower level.
“ Prove everything, hold fast that
which is true,” is the maxim which has
raised mankind from savagery to civi
lisation, and which we must be prepared
to act upon at all hazards and at all
sacrifices, if we wish to retain that civi
lisation unimpaired and to extend it
further.
3f
CHAPTER V
ANTIQUITY OF MAN
Belief in Man’s Recent Origin—Boucher de
Perthes’ Discoveries—Confirmed by Prestwich—Nature of Implements—Celts, Scra
pers, and Flakes—Human Remains in River
Drifts—Great Antiquity—Implements from ||
Drift at Bournemouth—Bone Caves—Kent’s
Cavern—Victoria, Creswell, and other j
Caves—Caves of France and Belgium— J
Ages of Cave Bear, Mammoth, and Rata*
deer—Artistic Race—Drawings of Ma®.moth, etc.—Human Types—Neanderthal—- 1
—Attempts to fix Dates—History—-Spy,
Trinil — Bronze Age — Neolithic — Danish
Kitchen-middens—Swiss La ke- Dwellings-—- J
Glacial Period—Traces of Ice—Causes of
Glaciers—Croll’s Theory—Gulf StreamDates of Glacial Period—Rise and Sub
mergence of Land—Tertiary Man—Eooeo®
Period—Miocene—Evidence for Pliocene 1
and Miocene Man—Conclusions as to
Antiquity.
Great as the effect has been of the
wonderful discoveries of modern science of
which I have attempted to give a general
view in the preceding chapters, there ]
remains one which has had the greatest !
effect of all in changing the . whole cur
rent of modern thought, viz., the dis
covery of the enormous antiquity of man!
upon earth, and his slow progress Op
wards from the rudest savagery to in»j
telligence, morality, and civilisation. It
is needless to point out in what flagrant
and direct opposition this stands to the
theory that man is of recent miraculous
creation, and that he was originally en
dowed with a glorious nature and high
faculties, which were partially forfeited
by an act of disobedience. It is im
portant, therefore, to understand clearly
the evidence upon which rests a con
clusion so startling and unexpected as
that which traces the origin of man back
into the remote periods of geological
time.
It had been long known that a stona
period preceded the use of metals. Flints
arrow-heads, stone axes, knives, and
chisels, rude pottery, and other human
remains lie scattered almost everywhere,
on or near the existing surface, and are
found in the. sepulchral mounds and
monuments which abound in all countries
I until they are destroyed by the pro-
�40
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
gress of agriculture. These are certainly
fuel, and afford many remains of the
ancient, for their origin was so com
pletely forgotten that the stone hatchets■ wallo-Koman and pre-Boman or Celtic
or celts (from the Latin celtis, or chisel)‘ Peri<ld-n Hipher UP> on the slopes of the
were universally believed to be thunderi low hills which bound the wide vallev
bolts which had fallen from heaven. are numerous beds of gravel, sand, and
brick-earth, winch
But there was no proof that they were worked for road andare also extensively
building materials,
very ancient, they were always found at
or. near the present surface, and if in these pits remains of the mammoth,
animal remains were associated with rhinoceros, and other extinct animals are
frequently found, and the workmen had
them, they were those of the dog ox
occasionally . certain
sheep, red deer, and other wild ’ and noticed flints, to which they curiouslygave the
domestic species, now found in the same shaped
district. Historical record was not sup name of langues du chat,” or cats’
posed to extend beyond the 4,000 or 5 000 tongues. Some of these were taken to
Monsieur Boucher de Perthes as curiJ
years assigned to it by Bible chronology
and it was thought that this might be osities for his museum, and he at once
sufficient to account for all the changes recognised them as showing marks of
which had occurred since man first be human workmanship. This put him on
came an inhabitant of the earth. Above the track, and in the year 1841 he him
all, the negative evidence was relied self discovered, in situ, in a seam of sand
on, that geologists had explored far and containing remains of the mammoth, a
wideband although they had found fossil flint rudeiy but unmistakably fashioned
remains which enabled them to restore by human hands into a cutting instru
ment. During the next few years a
the characteristic fauna of so many dif large quantity of gravel was removed
ferent formations, they had found no trace
of man or his works anywhere below the to form the Champ de Mars at Abbeville
and
these
or hatchets
present surface. This seemed so con were many ofIn 1847,celts Boucher de
found.
M.
clusive that Cuvier, the greatest Perthes published his “Antiquites
authority of the day, pronounced an emphatic verdict that man had not existed Celtiques et Antediluviennes,” giving an
contemporaneously with any of the ex account of these discoveries, but no one
tinct animals, and probably not for more would, listen to him. The united
than 5,000 or 6,000 years. Here, then, authority of theologians and geologists
opposed
infallible
appeared to be an edifice based on ception ansuch ideas, veto on the re
and
scientific fact, in which geologists and admittedofthat M. Boucher it must be
de Perthes
theologians could dwell together com himself did his best to discredit his own
fortably, and the weight of their united discoveries by associating them with
authority was sufficient to silence all
objections, and ignore or explain away visionary speculations about successive
the instances which occasionally cropped deluges and creations of pre-Adamite
up, of human remains found in situations men. At length Dr. Falconer, the wellknown paleontologist, who had brought
implying greater antiquity.
Suddenly, I may almost say in a single to light so many wonderful fossil remains
dajq this edifice collapsed like a house of from the Sewalik hills in India, happened
through Abbeville and
cards, and the fact became apparent that ™
visited
the duration of human life on the earth He was M. Boucher de Perthes’ collection.
he saw
must be measured by periods of tens, if that on so much struck by whatspoke to
arriving in London he
not of hundreds of thousands of years
It happened thus: A retired French Mr- f re^twl<?h, the first living authority
On > i?
physician, Monsieur Boucher de Perthes and Mr.Tertiary and Quaternary strata,
whose
residing at Abbeville, in the valley of authority(now Sir John) Evans, every
was equally great on
tfie. Somme, had a hobby for antiquar thing relating to the stone implements
ian ism as decided as that of Monkbarns found m such numbers in the more
mm.self. Abbeville afforded him a
recent
He urged
capita.! collecting-ground ror the indul them toor Neolithic period. examine for
go to Abbeville and
gence of his tastes, as the sluggish themselves whether there was anything
feomme flows through a series of peat m these alleged discoveries. They did
mosses, which are extensively worked jso, and the result was that on their
�ANTIQUITY OF NAN
return to England Air. Prestwick read a
paper to the Royal Society on the 19th
Aiay, 1859, which conclusively and for
fever established the fact that flint imple
ments of unmistakable human workman
ship had been found, associated with the
remains of extinct species, in beds of the
Quaternary period deposited at a time
when the Somme ran at a level more
than 100 feet higher than at present, and
Flint HAche,
41
have been found from Western Europe to
Tibet; in Africa, and Central Australia j
in fact wherever they have been lookedfor, except in northern countries which
were buried under ice during the Glacial
period. The ea rliest known authentic wit
ness to man’s presence in Britain are som<
rudely-worked flints which were founds
mingled with bones of huge extinct anti*
mals, at a great depth in brick-earth at
Flint IIAchk,
From St. Aclieul, Valley of the Somme.
From Moulin Quignon, Abbeville.
(Half the actual size.)
(Half the actual size.)
(From Lubbock's ‘ Prehistoric Times.”)
was only beginning to excavate its
valley.
The spell once broken, evidence poured
in from all quarters, and although twentyfive years1 only have elapsed since Mr.
Prestwich’s paper was read, the number
of stone and other implements worked
by man, deposited in museums, is already
counted by tens of thousands, and they
Written in 1884.
Hoxne, in Suffolk. Some idea of the im
mense number of these rude implements
may be formed from the fact that the
valley system of one small river, the
Little Ouse, which rises near Thetford
and flows into the Wash after a course of
twenty-five miles, has within little more
than ten years yielded about 7,000 speci
mens.
They have been found in great abun
dance also in the valley gravels of the
�42
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
Thames, Ouse, Wiltshire Avon, and in
fact in all the river-gravels and brick
earths of the south and south-east of
England; and in those of the Somme,
Flint HAchb,
From Hoxne.
(Half the actual size.)
From Lubbock’s “ Prehistoric Times.”)
Oise, Seine, Loire, and all the principal
river systems of France ; and only in less
numbers, probably because they have
been less looked-for, in similar .situations
over an area extending from Central and
Southern Europe to the Far East. It is
a remarkable fact about these river-drift
implements that they are all nearly of the
same type and found under similar cir
cumstances, that is to say, in the gravels,
sands, brick-earths, and fine silt or loess
deposited by rivers which have either
ceased to run, or which ran at levels
higher than their present ones and were
only beginning to excavate their present
valleys. . Also they are always found in
association with remains of what is known
as the Quaternary (as distinguished from
recent or existing fauna) represented by
the mammoth or woolly-haired elephant,
thethick-nosed rhinoceros, and other wellknown types of extinct animals. The
general character of these implements is
very rude, implying a social condition
at least as low as that of the Australian
savages of the present day. They consist
mainly of the flake ; the chopper, or peb
ble roughly chipped to an edge on one
side ; the scraper, used probably for pre
paring skins ; pointed flints used for bor
ing ■ and by far the most abundant and
characteristic, of all, the hdche or celt, a
sharp or oval implement, roughly chipped
from flint or, in its absence, from any of
the hard stones of the district, such as
chert or quartzite, and intended to be
held in the hand and used without any
haft or handle.
These ketches are evidently the first rude
type of human tools from which the later
forms of the axe, adze, chisel, wedge, etc.,
have been derived by a very slow and
lengthened process of evolution. They
differ, however, in many essential re
spects, from the more perfect stone celts
of later periods and of modern savages.
The chipping is very rude, they are never
ground or polished, the pointed end is
that intended for use, the butt end being
left blunt, showing
that the hdche was
not hafted but held
in the hand; while
the converse is al
ways the case with
the finely-chipped or
polished stone celts
and hatchets of the
Neolithic period,
which, in its later
stages, are to all in
tents and purposes
similar to modern im
plements, only made
of stone instead of
metal.
But these
Palaeolithic laches are Polished Stone Axe.
only one step in ad
Neolithic.
vance of the rude (Half the actual size.)
(From Lubbock’s
natural stone which
an intelligent orang “ Prehistoric Times.”)
or chimpanzee might
pick up to crack a cocoa-nut with, or to
grub up a root from the earth, or an
insect from a rotten tree.
At the same time there is not the r§-
�43
ANTIQUITY OF MAN
mo test doubt as to their being the work
of human hands. When placed side by
side with the rudest forms of stone batchets actually used by the Australian and
otiler savages, it is difficult to detect any
difference. If placed in an ascending
series, from the oldest and rudest, to the
finely-finished axes and arrow-heads of
the period immediately preceding the use
of metal, the progress may be clearly traced
by insensible gradations. The blows given
to bring the block to the desired shape by
intentional chipping have left distinct
marks; and archaeologists have succeeded,
ferith a little practice, in fashioning sim
ilar implements from modern flints In
Flint Adze,
From Danish Kitchen-middens.
(From Lubbock’s
fact, forgeries have been made by work
men in localities where collectors were
eager and credulous, though fortunately
such forgeries are easily distinguished
from genuine antiquities by the different
appearance of the old and recent frac
tures, and other signs which make it
almost impossible to deceive an experienced eye. The conclusion, therefore,
of one of our best archaeologists may be
safely accepted, that it is as impossible
to doubt that these rude stone flakes and
hatchets are works of human art, as it
would be if we had found clasp-knives
and carpenters’ adzes.
The remains of human skeletons are,
as might be expected, very rare in these
river drifts, since they have been formed
under conditions where the preservation
of such remains would be very unlikely.
In fact, as Sir John Lubbock (now Lord
Avebury) points out, the bones found, in
the river-gravels are almost invariaoly
those of animals larger than man, such
as the mammoth and rhinoceros. Still a
few human bones have been found, suffi
cient to show that these river-drift iuen
were probably a dolichocephalic or long
and narrow-headed race, with prominent
jaws, massive bones, and great muscular
strength, but still, although rude ana
savage, of an essentially human type,
and going a very little way towards bridg-
Modern Stone Adze,
New Zealand.
Prehistoric Times.”)
ing over the gap between the savage and
the ape.
A more complete view, however, of the
conditions of human life at these remoto
periods is afforded by the evidence given
by caves, where naturally the remains of
man are more abundant and much better
preserved. Before entering, however, on
the examination of this class of evidence,
it may be well to give an instance which
may help to familiarise the imagination
with the vast periods of time which must
have elapsed since Palaeolithic man left
these rude implements within reach of
river floods.
Among the gravels in which Palaeolithic
hdches have been found, are some which
��ANTIQUITY OF MAN
the cliff at Bournemouth at a height
of about 130 feet above the sea. This
gravel can be traced in a gradual fall
from west to east, along the Hampshire
coast and the shores of the. Solent to
beyond Spithead, and was evidently de
posited by a river which carried the
drainage of the Dorsetshire and Hamp
shire downs into the sea to the eastward,
and of which the present Avon, Test, and
Itchen were tributaries. But for such a
river to run in such a course the whole of
Poole and Christchurch bays must have
been dry land, and the range of chalk
downs now broken through at the Needles
must have been continuous. To borrow
the words of Evans in his “Ancient Stone
Implements,” “Who, standing on the
edge of the lofty cliff at Bournemouth,
and gazing over the wide expanse of
waters between the present shore and a
line connecting the Needles on the one
hand and the Ballard Down Foreland on
the other, can fully comprehend how
immensely remote was the epoch when
what is now that vast bay was high and
dry land, and a long range of chalk
downs, 600 feet above the sea, bounded
the horizon on the south ? And yet this
must have been the sight that met the
eyes of those primeval men who fre
quented the banks of that ancient river
which buried their handiworks in gravels
that now cap the cliffs, and of the course
of which so strange but indubitable a
memorial subsists in what has now be
come the Solent Sea.”.
Any attempt to assign a more precise
date than the vague one of immense
antiquity to these early traces of primeval
man, had better be postponed until we
have examined the more detailed and
extensive body of evidence which has
been afforded by the exploration of caves,
to which the great discovery at Abbeville
at once gave an immense impulse, and
which has since been prosecuted in
England, France, Belgium, and Germany,
with the greatest ardour and success.
The caves in which fossil remains are
found occur principally in limestone
districts. They are due to the property
which water possesses, when. charged
with a small quantity of carbonic acid, of
dissolving lime. Rain falling on the
earth’s surface takes up carbonic acid
from contact with vegetable matter, and
a portion of it finds its way through
cracks and crevices in the subjacent rock
48
to lower levels, where it comes out in
springs of hard water charged with carb
onate of lime from the rock which it has
dissolved. It has been calculated that
the average rainfall on a square mile of
chalk thus carries away about 140 tons
of solid matter in a year. In this way
underground channels are formed, some
of which become large enough to admit
of streams flowing through them, and
even rivers, as is seen in the limestone
district of Carinthia, where considerable
rivers are swallowed up and run for miles
beneath the surface. In this way caverns
are formed, or sometimes a series of
caverns, which represent the pools of the
rivers which formerly flowed through
them. Accumulations of whatever may
have been brought down by the stream
were formed at the bottom of these pools,
and when, owing to changes in level or
denudation of the gathering grounds, the
rivers ceased to flow in the old channel,
the pools became dry and were converted
into caves, in which wild beasts and man
found shelter and left their remains. . The
debris thus formed accumulated with a
mixture of blocks which fell from the
roof, and of red loamy earth consisting
of the residue of the limestone rock in
soluble in water, and of dust and mud
brought in by winds and floods, and
occasionally interstratified by beds of
stalagmite, composed of thin films of
crystalline carbonate of lime, deposited
drop by drop by drippings through the
rock forming the roof of the cave. These
drippings form what are called stalactites,
which hang like pendent icicles from the
roof of caves, and as the drip falls from
these it forms a corresponding deposit,
known as stalagmite, on the floor below.
The formation of this deposit is neces
sarily extremely slow, and it only goes
on when the drops of water charged with
a minute excess of carbonate of lime
come in contact with the air; so that
whenever the floor of the cave was under
water no stalagmite could be formed.
The alternations, therefore, of deposits of
stalagmite represent alternations of long
periods during which the cave was
generally dry or. generally flooded.
During the dry periods, when the cave
happened to be inhabited, the treadings
on the floor would prevent the accumula
tion of an unbroken deposit of pure
stalagmite, and the crystalline matter
would be employed in forming a solid
�46
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
cement of the various dtbris into what is
known as a breccia.
Another class of caves, or rock-shelters,
has been formed along the sides of
valleys bounded by cliffs, where the
stratification is horizontal or nearly so
but the different beds vary much in
hardness and permeability to water.
The softer strata weather away more
rapidly than the others, and thus form
shallow caves or deep recesses in the face
of the cliffs, with a floor of hard rock
below and a roof of hard rock above,
which afford dry and commodious shelters
tor any sort of animal, including man.
In other respects they resemble the first
cmss of caves in having their contents
cemented into a breccia by the dripping
of water charged with carbonate of lime
from the roof, and, if the cave happened
to be deserted, for a long period, this
deposit would in the same way form a
bed of stalagmite and seal up securely
everything below it. In some cases, also,
the roof would fall in, and thus preserve
everything previously existing in the
ca"ve for the investigation of future
geologists.
^iese general remarks readers
will be able to understand the evidence
afforded by the remains of man found in
caverns. I will begin by taking as a
typical case that of Kent’s Cavern, near
lorquay, because it is one of the earliest
and best known, and all the facts con
cerning it have been verified by explora
tions, carefully conducted by a committee
appointed by the British Association in
1864, which comprised, the names of the
most eminent authorities in geology and
paleontology, including those of Sir
Charles Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, Mr.
Evans, Mr. Boyd Dawkins, Mr. Pengellv
and others.
65
Hie cave is about a mile east from
lorquay harbour, and runs into a hill of
Devonian limestone in a winding course,
expanding into large chambers connected
by narrow passages. The following is a
series of deposits in descending order in
the large chamber near the entrance :
1. Large blocks of limestone which
have fallen from the roof.
2- A layer of black, muddy mould,
three inches to twelve inches thick.
3. Stalagmite one foot to three feet
thick.
4. Red cave-earth with angular frag
ments of limestone of variable
thickness, but in places five to six
feet thick.
In the black earth above the stalagmite
were found a number of relics of the
Neolithic or polished stone period, with
a few articles of bronze and pottery,
some of which appear to be of a date as
late as that of the Roman occupation of
Britain. Associated with these are bones
of ox, sheep, goat, pig, and other ordinary
forms of existing species, and there is an
entire absence of any older fauna, or of
any of the ruder forms of Paleolithic
implements.. When we get below the
stalagmite into the underlying cave
earth, the case is entirely reversed. Not
a single specimen of polished or finelywrought stone, or of pottery, is to be
found j a vast number of celts or haches,
scrapers, knives, hammer stones, and
other stone implements, are met with
which are all of the rude Palaeolithic type
found in river drifts, with a few bone
implements such as harpoon-heads, a pin,
an awl, and a needle, like those frequently
met with in the caves of France and
Belgium. Associated with these are a
vast number of bones and teeth, all of
which belong to the old Quaternary fauna,
of which many species have become
extinct and others have migrated to
distant latitudes.
The following is a list of the mam
malian remains which have been found
in this cave-earth below the stalagmite : •
Abundant.
The Cave Lion, a large extinct species of
lion.
Cave Hyaena, a large extinct species of
hyaena.
Cave Bear, a large extinct species of bear.
Grizzly Bear.
Mammoth (Elephas primigenius}.
Rhinoceros (Tichorinus), woolly or thicknosed extinct species.
Horse.
Bison.
Irish Elk.
Red Deer.
Reindeer.
Scarce.
Wolf.
Fox.
Glutton.
Brown Bear.
Urus.
Hare.
Lagomys, tailless Arctic hare.
Water Vole.
«
Field Vole.
�ANTIQUITY OF MAN
Bank Vole.
Beaver.
And one specimen of the Machairodus, or
Great Sabre-toothed Tiger, which is one
of the characteristic species of the upper
Miocene and Pliocene formations.
These constitute a fauna which is char
acteristic of the Pleistocene, Quaternary,
or Palaeolithic period, and essentially
different from that of the prehistoric or
Neolithic period, which is practically the
same as that now existing, Wherever
remains of the mammoth, woolly rhino
ceros, and cave bear are found, Paleo
lithic implements may be expected, and
conversely. In fact Paleolithic man is
as essentially part of the characteristic
fauna of the Quaternary period, as the
Paleotherium is of the Eocene, or the
Deinotherium and Hipparion of the
Miocene.
A large number of other caves have
been explored in England, notably the
Victoria Cave near Settle, in Yorkshire,
the Cresswell Caves in Derbyshire, the
Gower Caves in South Wales, the~ Brixham Cave in Devonshire, the Woking
Cave in Somersetshire, and King Arthur’s
Cave in Herefordshire, and the results
have been everywhere practically the
same as those at Kent’s Cavern. The
same class of implements have been
found and the same fauna, with the oc
casional addition of a few species, among
which the hippopotamus and Eleplias
antiquus are the most remarkable.
So far as the river drifts and British
caves are concerned, all that we could, say
of the Palaeolithic period is that it is of
vast antiquity, and must have lasted for
an immense time, as it was in force for
the whole time requisite for rivers like
the Somme or Avon, which drain small
areas, to cut down their present valleys,
often two or three miles wide, from the
level of their upper gravels, which are in
many places 100 to 150 feet above the
level of the highest floods of the present
rivers.
But the caves of France and Belgium
supply us with more evidence, and enable
us to trace the history of long periods of
Palaeolithic time, and study in detail the
succession of changes that have occurred,
and the habits, arts, and industries of the
various tribes of primitive men who
occupied these caves and rock-shelters at
these remote periods. In fact, it may be
said with truth that we know more about
47
the men who chased the mammoth and
reindeer in the South of France perhaps
50,000 years ago, than we do about those
who lived there immediately before the'
classical era, or less than 5,000 years ago.
In certain provinces of France and
Belgium it happens fortunately that
there are extensive districts of limestone,
in which caverns and rock-shelters are
extremely abundant and full of Palaeo
lithic remains in an excellent state of
preservation. The abundance of such
caves may be estimated from the fact
that the cliffs, bounding one small river,
the Vezere, in the department of Dor
dogne in the South of France, contain
in a distance of eight or ten miles no
fewer than nine different stations, each
of which has given a vast variety of
remains embedded in the breccias and
cave-earths of their respective. floors ;
and the small river Lesse in Belgium has
been scarcely less prolific. Of the abun
dance of the human and animal remains
found in such caverns it may be sufficient
to say that one alone, that of Chaleux in
the valley of the Lesse, is computed by
Dumont to have yielded not less than
40,000 distinct objects.
The great abundance of remains thus
collected, both of human bones and im
plements, and of animals contempora
neous with them, have made it possible
to classify and arrange, in relative order
of time, a good many of the subdivisions
of the Palaeolithic period. This has been
done partly by the order of superposition
and partly by the greater or less rude
ness of the implements of stone and
bone, and by the greater or less abund
ance of those animals of the Quaternary
fauna which appeared first and disap
peared soonest. The result has been to
show that the period when vast herds
of reindeer roamed over the plains of
Southern France up to the Pyrenees was
not the earliest, but was preceded by a
long period when the reindeer was scarce,
and the remains of the mammoth, cave
bear, and cave hysena were more abun
dant than in the following ages. The
implements of this period are of the
earlier river-drift type and extremely
rude, and there is an almost entire
absence of instruments of bone.
Gradually as we pass upwards, the
more Southern forms of elephant, rhino
ceros, antelopes, and great carnivora dis
appear, and the mammoth and cave bear
�48
MODERN SCIENGE AND MODERN THOUGHT
become scarcer, while the reindeer be be added rock-carvings in Denmark, and
comes more and more abundant until at ngures on limestone cliffs in the Maritime
length it furnishes the chief source of Alps, while if, as some authorities, among
food, and its horns one of the principal them Arthur Evans and Sergi, think,
materials for the manufacture of imple
ments. Concurrently with this change they point to a primitive script, still
we find a progressive improvement in the more important are the characters
arts of life, as shown by stone imple painted m peroxide of iron on pebbles
ments more carefully chipped into a discovered by Piette in the Mas-d’Azil
greater variety of forms, and arrow and cave, in the South East of France. these
We do not, however, depend on
lance-heads, barbed harpoons, awls, and
needles for sewing skins, made chiefly drawings for evidence of the sort of men
who inhabited these caves in Paleolithic
from the antlers of the reindeer.
large number
. At length we arrive at one of the most days A skeletons have of skulls and
complete
interesting facts disclosed by these re dinerent caves, some ofbeen found in
which have
searches, that during one of the later or
served as sepulchral vaults for families
reindeer periods of the Paleolithic era
many of the caves in the South of France’ and tribes, while in others -individuals
and also in Switzerland and Southern have been crushed by falls of rock, or
otherwise
and in a
Germany were occupied by a race who, skulls and interred,have been few cases
bones
found at
like the Esquimaux of the present day
great depths in river drifts, and in
had a strong artistic tendency, and were loess, or fine glacial mud which fills the
up
constantly drawing with the point of a
flint on stone or bone, or modelling with the valley of the Rhine and other areas
over which the
flint knives from . horns and bones, melting poured great Swiss glaciers when
their turbid streams.
sketches of the animals they hunted
From
more
scenes of the chase, or other objects coveries among the of manimportant dis
of remains
himself, there
which struck their fancy. These are ex
]VaX_, e c^osen as typical: 1. those from
ceedingly well done, so that there is no
difficulty in recognising the animals in the Spy cavern ; 2. from the Neanderthal
tended to be represented, among which c^VmV-a .’,a3. from the pliocene deposits
of Trinil, Java.
are the mammoth, cave bear, reindeer,
t. The Betche . aux Roches cavern at
wild horse, and wild ox. The sketch of
b>py,
two nearly com
the mammoth which is engraved on a • plete. Belgium, yieldedmale and female
skeletons of a
piece of ivory, from the cave of La
number
Madeleine m the valley of the Vezere, is associated with a large somewhatof im
plements
particularly interesting, as it corresponds those of of a character The skullsabove
the Drift.
had
exactly with the mammoth whose body
enormous superciliary (eyebrows) ridges,
was found entire in frozen mud on the receding foreheads, massive jaws, and
ba x
a rV,er *n Liberia, and it sets at other
to which the
rest all possible question of man having generalapelike featuresthe rest of the
been really contemporary with this ex skeletonscharacter of
approximated. These remains
tinct animal m the South of France.
The drawings and carvings of other were discovered in 1886.
•
years earlier there
animals, especially of the reindeer, are m a Quaternary deposit in the was found
often extremely spirited, and. one es- cave of the Neander Valley,Feldhofen
Rhenish
P®c*a-*-V of a reindeer engraved on a bit Prussia, a calvaria, or brain-cap, in
Q 1
^rom a Cr,ve. at Thayngen, near dicating similar features to those of the
Schaffhausen m Switzerland, would do
credit to any modern animal painter. A opy skulls, and pronounced by Huxley
as
very few.human figures are found amono1 that the most apelikeyet discovered to
time,
these primeval drawings, but strangely, the. assumedalthough not approaching
special features of the
while the animals are so well drawn,
missing link.”
those of men are very inferior and
3. More, remarkable than either of
almost infantine in execution. They are
sufficient, however, to show that the naked these specimens are the brain-cap, thigh
in
savage of. Perigord, armed with a stone bone, and two molar teeth, found the
1891-92 by Dr. Eugene Dubois in
lance or javelin, pursued and slew the upper pliocene , beds at Trinil, on the
formidable aurochs. To these may banks of the river Bengavan, in Java,
�Portrait of Mammoth.
Drawn with a flint on a piece of Mammoth’s ivory ; from Cave of La Madeleine, Dordogne, France.
Earliest Portrait
of a
Mast, with Serpent
From Grotto of Les Eyzies.
and
Horses’ Heads.
Reindeer Period.
Reindeer Feeding.
From Grotto of Tliayngen, near Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
�50
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
which he holds to be the fragments of an
animal named by him Pithecanthropus
Erectus, or “upright ape-man.” The
several portions were found adjacent, but
at different times, so that their identity
as parts of the same individual has been
questioned. But although anthropolo
gists are not in agreement as to the
remains being positively human, the
majority hold that opinion, and it is not
without significance to note that the
bones were found in that part of the
globe where it is highly probable that
man and ape became differentiated. A
comparison of the cranium with that of
Neanderthal shows that it is of decidedly
lower type, and that it may be classified
as between the Neanderthal man and the
gorilla.
In trying to fix anything like definite
dates for man’s existence upon earth, we
must reverse the process by which we
have proved the enormous antiquity of
his earliest remains, and ascend step by
step from the known to the unknown.
The first step is that supplied by
history.
Until very recently, the palm of an
tiquity, limiting that term to the historic
period, rested with Egypt. Its chron
ology started with Menes, its reputed ear
liest king, whose date Professor Flinders
Petrie fixes at 4777 B.c. “ with a possible
error of a century.” The old scepticism
as to the actual personality of the ancient
Pharaohs is dispelled by modern research,
Professor Petrie having found traces of
kings before Menes, while there appears
good reason for accepting Dr. Borchardt’s
claims to have discovered the actual
tomb and personal relics of that king at
Nagada, a little north of Thebes.
.But it would seem that Egypt must
yield priority to Babylonia. For in
recent excavations at Nuffar or N ippur,
in Northern Babylonia, Dr. -Hilprecht
has unearthed from the deepest human
deposits in the ruins of the temple of
Bel a number of tablets which he
contends justify him in dating the
founding of that temple, and the first
settlement of the city, “somewhere be
tween 7,000 and 6,000 B.c. and possibly
earlier.” .And as the tablets are in
scribed with cuneiform characters, which
are the slow outcome of picture-writing,
as are. all other alphabetic and syllabic
signs, it may yet be proved that Babylonia
possessed a script at least 1,300 years
before the earliest known Egyptian
hieroglyphs. It is true that their love of
the decorative and their veneration for
what is old may explain the persistence
of the use of primitive modes of writing
among the Egyptians, but this cannot
weigh against the argument that the
more central position of Mesopotamia
gave her advantages which quickened
culture within her borders.
Nor do these two great empires mono
polise the story of antiquity. Explor
ations in Greece and the surrounding
archipelago have brought to light a third
venerable centre, perchance an indigenous
centre of civilisation, whose relics show
that “ we have probably to deal with a
total period of civilisation in the Aegean
not much shorter than that in the Nile
Valley.” So that centuries before the
Phcenicians launched their craft upon
the Midland Sea, or sailed beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, and at a period when
the Iliad and Odyssey were not in
existence, there was active intercourse
between East and West, intercourse, as
evidenced by the discovery of a com
mercial script, even between Arabia and
Iberia. Thus does the epigraphic and
other material which the spade of the
antiquarian has upturned and the skill
of the philologist deciphered, push ever
farthei’ back the horizon of history.
But beyond that receding marge lie the
vast domains of man’s past which it is
the province of the prehistoric archae
ologist, the palaeontologist, and the geol
ogist to explore.
Here, then, we. take leave of the one
and follow the guidance of the other.
The earliest historical civilisations were
all acquainted with metals, chiefly in the
form of bronze, which is an alloy of
copper and tin, very hard, easily cast,
and well adapted for every description of
tool and weapon. Indeed, it has only
been superseded by iron within recent
historical times. But the Bronze Age
was preceded by a long Neolithic period,
when stone, finely wrought and often
ground or polished, was used for the
purposes to which metal was afterwards
applied: The men of this Neolithic
period, who reached Europe from the
east or south, probably from both regions,
were comparatively civilised; they had
all the common domestic animals, the
dog, horse, ox, sheep, goat, and pig; also
some of the cultivated cereals and fruits ;
�51
ANTIQUITY OF MAN
they knew the arts of cooking, spinning,
weaving, and pottery, they were grouped
into clans and tribes, and lived in villages.
Some think the Iberian or Basque people
may be a remnant of this Neolithic race,
who were driven westward by the later
wave of Celtic migration just as the
Celts were driven by the still later waves
of Teutonic and Slavonic immigrants. Be
this as it may, it is certain that a
Neolithic people were spread very widely
over the globe, as -their remains of very
' similar character are found almost every
where in Europe, Asia, and America, and
always in association with the existing
or most recent fauna and configuration
of the earth’s surface.
The difficulty in assigning any precise
date for these remains arises very much
from the fact that the Neolithic passed
into the Bronze or historical civilisation,
at different times in different countries.
The Australians, the Polynesians, and the
Esquimaux were or are still in the. Stone
period, while steam-engines are spinning
cotton at Manchester, and the most
famous cities of Egypt and the East have
been for centuries buried under shapeless
mounds of their own ruins. It is probable
that all Europe remained in the Neolithic
stage for many centuries after the his
torical date of the commencement of the
Egyptian empire.
Still there are some remains which may
enable us to form an approximate con
jecture of the time during which this
Neolithic period may have lasted.
The two principal clues are furnished :
1. By the Danish mosses and kitchen
middens.
2. By the Swiss lake-dwellings.
In Denmark there are a number of peat
mosses varying in depth from ten to thirty
feet, which have been formed by the
filling-up of small lakes or ponds in
hollows of the Glacial drift. Around
the borders of these mosses, and at vari
ous depths in them, lie trunks of trees
which have grown on their margin. At
the present surface are found beech-trees,
which are now, and have been throughout
the whole historical period of 2,000 years,
the prevalent form of forest vegetation
in Denmark. Lower down is found a
zone of oaks, a tree which is now rare
and almost superseded by the beech. And
still lower, towards the bottom of the
mosses, the fallen trees are almost en
tirely Scotch firs, which have been long
unknown in Denmark and when intro
duced will not thrive there. It is evident
therefore, that there have been three
changes of climate, causing three entire
changes in the forest vegetation in Den
mark, since these mosses began to be
formed. The latest has lasted certainly
for 2,000 years, and we cannot tell how
much longer, so that some period of more
than 6,000 years must be assumed for the
three changes.
Now, it is invariably found that remains
of the Iron Age are confined to the pre
sent or beech era, while bronze is found
only in that of oak, and the Age of Stone
coincides with that of the Scotch fir.
The kitchen-middens afford another
memorial of the prehistoric age in Den
mark. There are mounds found all along
the sheltered sea-coasts of the mainland
and islands, consisting chiefly of shells of
the oyster, cockle, limpet, and other shell
fish, which have been eaten by the ancient
dwellers on these coasts. Mixed-up with
these are the bones of various land ani
mals, birds, and fish, and flint flakes,
axes, worked bones and horns, and other
implements, including rude hand-made
pottery. The relics are very much the
same as those found in the fir zone of the
peat mosses, and although old as com
pared with the Iron or historical age,
they do not denote any extreme antiquity.
The shells are all of existing species,
though the larger size of some of those
found on the shores of the Baltic shows
that the salt water of the North Sea had
then a freer access to it than at present.
The bones of animals, birds, and fish are
also all of existing species, and no re
mains of extinct animals, such as the
mammoth, or even of reindeer, have been
found. By far the most common are the
red deer, roe-deer, and wild boar. The
dog was known, and appears to have
been the only domestic animal among the
earliest Neolithic peoples.
Most of the stone implements are rude,
but a few carefully-worked weapons have
been found, and a few specimens of
polished axes, which, with the presence
of pottery and the nature of the fauna,
show conclusively that these Danish re
mains are all of the Neolithic age’ and
subsequent to the close of the Glacial
period. In fact, similar shell mounds are
found in almost all quarters of the globe
where savage tribes have lived on the
sea-coast, subsisting mainly on shell-fish,
£ 2
�52
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
and they are probably still being formed
on the shores of the Greenland and Arctic
Seas, and in Australia, and remote islands
of the Pacific.
Human remains are scarce in these
Danish deposits, but numerous skulls
and skeletons have been found in tumuli
which, from their situation and from
stone implements being buried with the
dead, may be reasonably inferred to be
those of the people of the peat mosses
and shell mounds. They denote a short
race with small and very round heads, in
many respects resembling the present
Lapps, but with a more projecting ridge
over the eye.
On the whole, all we can conclude from
these Danish remains is that at some
period, not less than 6,000 or 7,000 years
ago, when civilisation had already been
long established in the valley of the Nile,
rude races resembling the Lapps or Es
quimaux lived on the shores of the Baltic,
who, although so. much more recent,
and acquainted with the domestic dog,
pottery, and the art of polishing stone,
had not advanced much beyond the con
dition of the later cave-men of the South
of France ; and that this race was suc
ceeded by one which brought in the much
higher civilisation of the Bronze Age.
The lake-dwellings of Switzerland give
still, more detailed and interesting infor
mation as to Neolithic times.
During a very dry summer in 1854, the
Lake of Zurich fell below its usual level
and disclosed the remains of ancient piles
driven into the mud, from which a numof deer-horns and other implements were
dredged up. This led to farther researches,
and the result lias been that a large
number of villages built on these piles
has. been discovered in almost all the
Swiss lakes, as well as in those of Italy
and other countries. On the whole, more
than 200 have been discovered in Swit
zerland, and fresh ones are being con
stantly brought to light. They range
over a long period, a few belonging to
the. Iron Age and even to Boman times ■
while the. greater number are almost
equally divided between the Age of
Bionze and that of Stone. Some of them
are of large size, and must have been
long inhabited and supported a numerous
population, from the immense number of
implements found, which at one station
alone, that of Concise on the Lake of
Neufchatel, amounted to 25,000. These
implements consist mainly of axes, knives
anow-heads, saws, chisels, hammers, awls
and needles, with a quantity of broken
pottery, spindle-whorls, sinkers for nets
and other objects.
’
In the oldest stations, where no trace
of metal is found, and the decay of
the piles to a low’er level shows the
greatest antiquity, the implements are
all of. the Neolithic type, and the animal
remains associated with them are all of
the recent fauna. There are no mam
moths, rhinoceroses, or reindeer; the
wild animals are the red deer and roe, the
urus, bison, elk, bear, wolf, wild cat, fox,
badger, wild boar, ibex, and other exist
ing species ; and of domestic animals, the
uogf, pig, horse, goat, sheep, and at least
two varieties or oxen. Birds, reptiles,
and . fish were all of common existing
species. Carbonised ears of wheat and
barley have been found, as also pears and
apples, and the seeds, stones, and shells
of raspberry, blackberry, wild plum,
hazel-nut, and beech-nut. Twine, and
bits of matting made of flax, as well as
the occurrence of spindle-whorls, show
that the pile dwellers were acquainted
with the art of weaving.
On the whole, these pile-villages show
i
r ^arSe population lived in Switzer
land for a long time before the dawn of
history, and that they had already attained
a considerable amount of civilisation at
their , first appearance, which went on
steadily increasing down to the time of the
Boman conquest. Various attempts have
been made to fix an approximate date for
the earliest of these pile-villages, but they
have not been very successful. They
have been based. mainly on the amount
of silting up which has taken place in
some of the smaller lakes since the piles
were driven in, as compared with that
which has occurred since the Roman
period. The best calculations appear to
show that 6,000 or 7,000 years ago
Switzerland was already inhabited by
men who used polished stone implements,
but how long they had been there we
have no distinct evidence to show
Perhaps 10,000 years may betaken as the
outside limit of time that can be allowed
for the Neolithic period in Switzerland,
Denmark, or any known part of Europe.
In Egypt, however, there is evidence of
a much greater antiquity. Fragments
of pottery, which was entirely unknown
in the Palaeolithic age, have been brought,
�ANTIQUITY OF MAN
53
up by borings in the Nile Valley from it is possible to fix any approximate dates
forthe commencement and durationot the
depths ■which, at the average rate ot ac
cumulation there during the las^ 3,000 Glacial period. place, how do we know
In the
years of three inches and a halt in a that therefirst been any such period ?
has
century, would denote an age of
In England we are more familiar with
13,000 to 18,000 years.. Looking at the water than with ice; we therefore recog
dense population and high civilisation ot nise at once the signs of the action ot
Egypt at the commencement of bistory, water. If we come across a dry channel,
7,000 years ago, it is highly probable that
in alternating curves between
this time at least must have .elapsed windingbanks, and showing deposits, ot
since the country was first occupied by a eroded and silt, we say without hesitation,
settled agricultural population as tar gravel a river formerly ran.’ But it we
“ Here
advanced in the arts of life as the lake had lived in Switzerland, we should
dwellers of Switzerland.
Any calculation, however, of N eolith.ic recognise with equal certainty the signs
Suppose any one
time takes us back a very short step in of glacial action. walks up the valley
visiting Chamouni
the history of the human race, I he to .the foot of the Mer de Glace where
Paleolithic period must evidently have the Arve issues from the glacier, let us
been of vastly longer duration.
Here it is convenient to note that the say in autumn, when the front, of the
back some
theory of an absolute break, through geo glacier has shrunkRounded and distance,
polished
logical changes and subordinate causes, what does he see 1 as. if they had been
between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic rocks, whicha seem
gigantic plane
Ages which long held the field, has dis planed by over them, and on working
downwards
these a
appeared (except in Great Britain) before mass of miscellaneous rubbish shot down
the evidence against tenantless intervals as if from a dust-cart, consisting ot
in prehistoric times. The tools and
weapons found in certain caves, as at stones of all sizes, some of them boulders
house, scattered
Solutr6, in the Ma^on district, and at as big as a of clay and sand. irregulaily
When he
Mentone, show an overlapping of earlier on a mass closely he will see that these
and later specimens, which witness to looks morenot rounded as they would be
fusion in more or less degree between stones are water, but blunted. at then
prehistoric peoples. Doubtless in the by runninga slow grinding action ; and
more northerly parts of the Continent angles bycases, both the stones and the
there were local migrations and retreats, in many which they rest are. scratched
on
but there was no wholesale withdrawal rocksstriated in a direction which is that
or extermination of the . ruder races, andthe glacier’s motion. At the bottom
leaving vacant areas fortheir conquerors. of this rubbish-heap he will find the clay
Europe has been continuously inhabited of which the rock has been ground by
by man since he first set his foot in it, and into full weight of the glacier, very stifi
the proofs of this, ever increasing, come the compact; while if he looks down the
in the shape of the rude specimens of and he will see, on a hot day, a swollen,
art which link Northern with Southern valley,
turbid
Europe, and, what is of the deepest and ice andriver issuing from the melt
flooding the.
interest, both regions with the Eastern ing it will leave a depositmeadows, on
of fine mud.
Mediterranean. For these and other which are effects actually produced by
These
materials, more advanced in character, ice; and wherever he sees them he can
are revolutionising the old theories of infer the former presence of a glacier, as
European civilisation, which held it to certainly as when he sees a bed ot
be a wholly imported product, and are
pebbles, he infers
showing how indigenous that culture rounded of running water. the former
was, originating, mayhap, as shown presence commonly knownIhe planed
as rochet
already, in the islands of the JEgean, and rocks are om a fancied resemblance ot
mo utonnees,fr
diffusing itself, not without Oriental their smooth, rounded hummocks to the
influences upon it, in westerly directions. backs of a flock of sheep lying down;
In carrying our. researches further
back, the possibility of assigning any the rubbish heaps are called moraines ;
clay with
thing like a definite date for the existence and the stiff bottom called theboulders
g^wdof man depends on the question whether embedded in it is
�MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
moraine, till, or boulder clay ; while the
blunted and scratched stones are said to
be glaciated.
These tests, therefore, roches moutonnees,
moraines, boulders, and glaciated stones,
are infallible proofs that wherever we
find them there has been ice-action,
either in the form of glaciers, or of ice
bergs, which are only detached portions
of glaciers floated-off when the glacier
ends in the sea. blow, if our inquirer
extends his view., he will find that these
signs, the meaning of which he has
learned at the head of the valley of
Chamouni, are to be found equally in
every valley and over the whole plain of
Switzerland, up to a height of more than
3,000 feet on the slope of the opposite
Jura range, while on the Italian side the
Glacial drift extends far into the plains
of Piedmont.
Extending our view still more widely,
we find that every high mountain range
m the Northern hemisphere has had its
system . of glaciers; and one great
mountain mass, that of Scandinavia, has
been the nucleus of an enormous ice-cap,
radiating to a distance of not less than
1,000 miles, and thick enough to block up
with solid ice the North Sea, the German
Ocean, the Baltic, and even the Atlantic
up to the 100 fathom line. This ice-cap,
coalescing with local glaciers from the
higher lands of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, swept over their surface, regard
less of minor inequalities of hill and valley,
as far south as to the present Thames
Valley, grinding-down rocks, scattering
drift and boulders, and, in fact, doing
the first rough sub-soil ploughing which
prepared most of our present arable
fields for cultivation. The same ice-sheet
spread masses of similar drift over
Northern Germany, Sweden, Denmark,
and the northern half of European
Russia, and left behind it numerous
boulders which must have travelled all
the way from Norway or Lapland.
If we cross the Atlantic we find the
same thing repeated on a still larger
scale in North America. A still more
gigantic, ice-cap, radiating from the
Laurentian ranges, which extend to
wards the Pole, from Canada, has
glaciated all the minor mountain ranges
to the. south up to heights sometimes
exceeding. 3,000 feet, and coalescing with
vast glaciers thrown off by the Rocky
Mountains from their eastern flanks, has
swept over the whole Continent, leaving
its record in the form of drift and
boulders, down to the 40th parallel of
, latitude. It is difficult to realise the
existence of such gigantic glaciers, but
the proofs they have left are incontro
vertible, and we have only to look to
Greenland to see similar effects actually
in operation. The whole of that vast
country, where at former periods of the
earth’s history, fruit-trees grew and a
genial climate prevailed, is now buried
deep under one solid ice-cap, from
which only a few of the highest
peaks protrude, and which discharges
its surplus accumulation of winter
snow by huge glaciers filling all the
fiords and pushing out into the sea
with a,n ice-wall sometimes forty or fifty
miles in length, from which icebergs are
continually breaking off and floating
away. A still more gigantic ice-wall
surrounds the Southern Pole, and in a
comparatively low latitude presented
an insuperable barrier to the further
progress of the ships of Sir J. Ross’s
expedition.
A. still closer examination of the
Glacial period shows that it was not one
single period of intense cold, but a pro
longed period, during which there were
several alternations, the glaciers having
retreated and advanced several times with
comparatively mild inter-glacial periods,
but finally with a tendency on each suc
cessive advance to contract its area, until
the ice shrank into the recesses of high
mountains, where alone we now find it.
Another noteworthy point is that during
this long Glacial period there were
several great oscillations in the level of
sea and land.
Such, was the Glacial period, and to
assign its date is to fix the date when we
know with certainty that man already
existed, and had for some long though
unknown time previously been an in
habitant of earth. Is this possible ? To
answer this question we must begin by
considering what are the causes, or com
bination of causes, which may have given
rise to such a Glacial period. When we
look at. the causes which actually pro
duce existing glaciers, we find that ex
treme cold alone is not sufficient. In the
coldest known region of the earth, in
Eastern Siberia, there are no glaciers, for
the land is low and level and the air dry.
On the other hand, in New Zealand, in
�AifTIQUITt OF maf
sistent with the general laws of Nature j
and with the leading facts of the actual
generation of glaciers at the present day.
Astronomers believe that they have
discovered such a cause in the theory
first started by Mr. Groll, that the glacia
tion of the Northern hemisphere was due
to a secular change in the shape of th® I
earth’s orbit, combined with the shorter
changes produced by the precession of the
equinoxes. The latter cause is due to the
fact that the earth is not an exact sphere,
but slightly protuberant at the equator,
and that the attraction of the sun on this I
protuberant matter prevents the axis
round which the earth rotates, from re
maining exactly parallel with itself, and
makes it move slowly , round its mean I
position just as we see in the case of a I
schoolboy’s top, which reels round an
imaginary upright axis while spinning
rapidly. This revolution in the* case ot
the earth completes its circle in about
21,000 years, so that if summer, when th|
pole is turned towards the sun, occurred
in the Northern hemisphere when the
earth was in perihelion., or nearest the
S6When the two conditions of high land
sun, and consequently winter when it was
and moist winds are combined, low
in aphelion, or furthest away from the
temperature increases their effect, and
sun, after 10,500 years the position would
the snow-fall consolidates into a great
be exactly reversed, and winter would
ice-cap, from which only, the tops of tne
occur in perihelion and summer in
highest mountains project, and which
aphelion ; the Southern, hemisphere then
pushes out gigantic glaciers far. over
enjoying the same conditions as those, oi
surrounding countries and into adjacent
the Northern one 10,500 years earlier
seas. Such is now the case in Green
And in another 10,500 years things would
land, and was formerly the case in
come back to their original position.
Scandinavia, where a huge sheet of ice
Now if the earth’s orbit were an exact
radiated from it over Northern Germany
circle this would make no difference, all
as far as Dresden, filled up the North
Sea, and, coalescing with smaller ice the four seasons would, be of the same
duration and would receive the same solar
caps from the highlands of Scotland,
heat in both hemispheres, and if the
England, and Wales, buried the British
orbit were nearly circular, so that the
Islands up to the Thames under massive
difference between the perihelion and
ice. At the same period glaciers from
the Alps filled the whole plain of aphelion distances was small, the effect
would be small also. But if the orbit
Switzerland, and in North America the
flattened out or became more eccentric,
icecap extended from Labrador to
the effect would be increased. The fiM
Philadelphia.
of traversing the aphelion portion oi the
The first remark to be made is . that,
annual orbit would become longer and
as these phenomena depend primarily on
that of traversing the perihelion portion
moist winds, and only secondarily on
shorter, as the orbit departed from the
cold, and as moist winds imply great
form of a circle and became more elliptic.
evaporation and therefore great solar
Whenever, therefore, the North Pole was
heat over extensive surfaces of water, all
explanations are worthless which suppose turned away from the sun in aphelion,
the winters would be longer than the
a general prevalence of cold, either from
summers in the Northern hemisphere,
less solar radiation, passage through a
and conversely, the summers would be
colder region of space, or otherwise.
longer than the winters when, after an
We must seek for a cause which is con
the latitude of England and with a
mean annual temperature very similar
to that of the West of Scotland, enormous
glaciers descend to within 700 feet ot the
sea-level. The reason is obvious ; the
Alps of the South Island rise to the height
of 11,000 feet above the sea, and the pre
valent westerly winds strike, on them
laden with moisture from their passage
over a wide expanse of ocean. In like
manner, in the case of the Swiss Alps,
the Himalayas, and other great mountain
ranges, high land and moist winds
everywhere make glaciers. Given the
moist wind, any great depression of
temperature, whether
arising H'om
elevation of land or other causes, wbl
make it deposit its moisture in the form
of snow, and the accumulation of snow
on a large surface of elevated land must
inevitably relieve itself by pushing down
rivers of ice to the point where it melts,
just as the rain-fall relieves itself by
pouring down rivers to the point .where
the surplus water finds its level in the
�56
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
interval of 10,500 years, precession in their operation and given us a constant
brought about the opposite condition of succession of
things, in which winter occurred in commencementGlacial periods since the
of geological time, when
perihelion.
ever the
. At present the earth’s orbit is nearly occurs at eccentricity became great, which
irregular periods, but
circular, and the Northern hemisphere is about three times in everypractically
3,000 000
nearest the sun in winter and furthest years. The answer is
from it in summer, but the difference is would only occur whenthat the effects
the other con
only . about 3,000,000 miles, or a small
fraction of the total mean distance of ditions were present, viz., high land, moist
an absence
93,000,000 miles, which makes the winter winds, andwater like of oceanic currents
of warm
the Gulf Stream,
i
year shorter than the summer lne latter is one of the main causes which
half by nearly eight days.
But mathematical calculations show affect temperature. The difference of
1 un(^er ^ie complicated attractions temperature between the equatorial and
of the sun, moon, and larger planets, the polar regions causes a constant overflow
of heated
eccentricity of the earth’s orbit slowly is replacedair from south to north, which
an indraught of colder air
changes at long.and irregular intervals ri om north by south, which, owing to the
to
but always w.ithin^xed limits, increasing greater velocity of the earth’s rotation
up to a certain point and then diminish towards the equator, takes the form of
ing till it approaches the circular form
trade-winds blowing constantly from a
when it again increases. The maximum more
These
limit of eccentricity makes the difference winds, or less easterly direction. Ocean,
sweeping
the Atlantic
between the greatest and least distances raise its level at overwestern barrier, and
its
of the earth from the sun range between
the
12,000,000 and 14,000,000 miles, which is flowsaccumulation deflected by America
off in
which
tour or five times as great as at present • the western a currentEurope extends to
and with this eccentricity, and winter in mildwintersshores of extreme and carries
into the
North In
aphelion in the Northern hemisphere, the the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which
winter half of the year in Northern are nearly m the same latitude as Cape
latitudes would be twenty-six days longer
than the summer half, instead of eight farewell m Greenland, there is so little
ice
accomplishment
days shorter as at present. In this state of andthat skating is a rare game which is
curling, the roaring
things the quantity of heat received daily popular some degrees further south, so
is
from the sun in winter would be such as quite unknown.
to lower the temperature of the whole diverted, and the Ii the Gulf Stream were
highlands of
Northern hemisphere by 35° Fahrenheit, upheaved to the height of the Scotland
Alps of
and reduce the average January tem New
perature of England from 39 to 4°, while I againZealand, the whole conntry would
be buried under glaciers pushing
the mean summer temperature would be
t into
ar*d German Ocean.
about 60° higher than at present. But oathese ^ie
considerations may show
this summer heat, derived from solar every period of great eccentricity why
was
radiation, would not counteract the cold not necessarily a Glacial period,
of .winter, for all moisture during winter under certain conditions it must though
inevit
1I?3 accumulated in ice and snow, most ably have been so, and geologists are
ot the solar heat of summer would be generally agreed that the last period of the
expended in supplying latent heat to melt
have been one of the main
a portion of this frozen accumulation, sort mustthe great refrigeration which
causes
and dense fogs would intercept a large set m of
over the whole Northern hemiamount of the solar radiation.
sphere
the Pliocene
jer lb,500 years this state of things period, towards the close of recent times.
and continued until
would be entirely reversed, and with But in this case we can fix the date with
twenty-six days more of summer, and
calculation shows that
the earth 12,000,000 miles nearer the sun +k"ea^ accuracy> f°r of great eccentricity
the last period
m winter, the Northern hemisphere would began 240,000 years ago, and lasted
enjoy something like perpetual spring, 160,000 years. For the last 50,000 years
v here can be no doubt that these are real the departure of the earth’s orbit from
causes, and the only difficulty is to account the circular form has been exceptionally
tor their not having been more invariable ;small. We may suppose the Glacial
�ANTIQUITY OF MAN
period, therefore, to have commenced
240,000 years ago, come to its height
160,000 years ago, and finally passed
away 80,000 years before the present
time.
These dates receive much confirmation
from conclusions drawn from a totally
different class of facts. A bed of existing
marine shells of Arctic type, apparently
belonging to one of the latest phases of
the Glacial period, has been found on the
top of a hill in North Wales which is now
1,100 feet above the sea-level, and the
same marine drift seems to extend to a
height of upwards of 2,000 feet. There
must, therefore, have been a depression
of the land sufficient to carry it many
fathoms below the sea, and a subsequent
elevation sufficient to carry the sea
bottom up to a height of certainly 1,100
and probably over 2,000 feet. In all pro
bability, these movements were very
slow and gradual, like those now. going
on in Greenland and Scandinavia, for
there are no signs of earthquakes or
volcanic eruptions in the district; and it
is probable that pauses occurred in the
movements, and a long pause when sub
sidence had ceased before elevation
began. Without taking these pauses
into account, and assuming the elevation
only just completed, and that Sir C.
Lyell’s average of two and a half feet a
century is a fair rate for these slow
movements, it would have required 50,000
years of continued elevation to bring
these shells, and 80,000 years to bring the
marine drifts, up to their present height
above the sea; and a similar period
previously must be allowed for their
submergence. We may fairly conclude,
therefore, that upwards of 100,000 years
have elapsed since these shells lived and
died at the bottom of the sea towards the
close of the Glacial period, which corre
sponds very well with the date assigned
by astronomical calculations.
Again, another attempt to fix a date
for the close of the Glacial period has
been made by Monsieur Forel, a Swiss
geologist, from actual measurements of
the quantity of suspended matter
poured into the Lake of Geneva by the
Rhone, and the area of the lake which
has been silted up since it was filled by
ice. It is evident that this silting up
at the head of the lake could only begin
when the great Rhone glacier, which
once extended to the Jura Mountains,
had shrunk back into its valley far
enough to pour its river into the lake.
M. Forel’s calculations give . 100,000
years as the probable time required for
the river to silt up so much of the lake
as is now converted into dry land. The
data are somewhat vague, as on the one
hand the rate of deposition may have!
been greater when a large mass of
ice and snow was being melted, while
on the other hand it may have been
less, while the glacier still occupied the
valley almost to the head of the lake,
and the Rhone had only a course of a
few miles. All that can be said, there
fore, is that it gives an approximate
date for the close of the Glacial period
which, like that derived from rates
of depression and elevation, corresponds
wonderfully well with the date required
by Croll’s theory.
Now, whether the date be a little
more or a little less, it is clear that man
existed on earth throughout a great
part, if not the whole, of the Glacial
period. He had existed a long while
in conjunction with a fauna of morel
Southern and African aspect, before
the reindeer migrated in vast herds into
Southern France. His remains are found
in caves and river drifts associated with
those of the hippopotamus, an animal
which could by no possibility have lived
in rivers which for half the year were
bound hard in ice. Such remains must
therefore of necessity date either from a
period before the great cold had set. in, or
from some inter-glacial period prior to
the great cold which drove the reindeer,
musk ox, glutton, and Arctic hare as
far south as the slopes of the Pyrenees.
In England we can trace distinctly
at least four successions of boulder clays,
that is of the ground moraines of land
ice, separated by deposits of drifts, sands,
and brick-earths, formed while . the
glaciers were retreating and melting;
and a number of the Palaeolithic imple
ments have been found in what was
undoubtedly part of the period of the
second or great chalky boulder clay,
which overspreads the southern and
eastern counties of England up to the
Thames Valley.
The discovery * of
Palaeolithic remains in the deposit oi St,
Prest, near Chartres, makes it probable
that some at least of the ruder instru
ments date back to the very beginning
of the Glacial period, and a good body
�58
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
of evidence points to the conclusion that
man was living during the many alter
nations of climate of that period, and
whenever the glaciers retreated, followed
them up closely.
In seeking to trace back human origin
to more remote periods, we must begin
by describing shortly the geological
periods during which the existence of
man may have been possible. It is use
less to go back beyond the Chalk, which
was deposited in a deep sea and forms
a great break between the modern and
the Secondary period, in which latter
reptiles predominated, and mammalia
are only known by a few remains of
small insectivorous and
marsupial
animals.
The inauguration of the present state
of things commences with the Tertiary
period. This has been divided into three
stages : the Eocene, in which the first
dawn appears of animal life similar in
type to that now existing ; the Miocene,
in which there is a still greater approxi
mation to existing forms of life; and
the Pliocene, in which existing types and
species become preponderant.
Then
comes the Pleistocene or Quaternary,
including the great Glacial period,
during which the whole marine and
nearly the whole terrestrial fauna are of
existing or recently extinct species,
though very different in their geographi
cal distribution from that of the present
day. And finally we arrive at the recent
period, when the present climate and the
present configuration of lands, seas,
and . rivers prevail with very slight
modifications, and no changes have
taken place either in the specific
character or geographical distribution
of life, except such as can be clearly
traced to existing causes such as the
agency of man.
This is the geological frame-work into
which we have to fit the history of man’s
appearance upon earth. We have traced
him through the recent and Quaternary ;
can we trace him further into the
Tertiary ? Speaking generally, we may
say that the Eocene period was that in
which Europe began to assume some
thing like its present configuration, and
in which mammalian life, of the higher
or placental type, began to supplant the
lower forms of marsupial life which had
preceded. But these higher types were
for the most part of a more primitive
or generalised character than the more
specialised types of later periods, and
u* highest order, that of the primates,
which includes man, ape, and lemur, was,
as far as is yet known, represented only
by two or three extinct lemurian forms.
_ The plan on which Nature has worked
in the evolution of life seems always to
have been this: she begins by laying
down a sort of ground plan, or general
ised sketch of a particular form of life,
say, first of vertebrata, then of fish, then
of reptiles, and finally of mammalian life.
I his sketch resembles the simple theme
of a few notes on which a musician pro
ceeds to work out a series of variations,
each surpassing the other in complication
and . specialised development in some
particular direction. No w, in the Eocene
period we are in the stage of the theme and
first simple variations of the mammalian
melody. It hardly seems likely, there
fore, that a creature so highly specialised
as man, even in his most rudimentary
form, should have existed, and in the
absence of any direct evidence to the
contrary, it is safe to assume that his
first appearance must have been of later
date.
But when we come to the Miocene and
Pliocene periods, the case is different. It
is true that in the Miocene the speciali
sation of certain families, as for instance
that of the horse, had not been carried
out to the full extent, and that all the
species of Miocene land-mammals and
several of the genera are now extinct.
But there were already true apes and
baboons, and even two species of anthro
poid ape, one of which, the Dryopithecus,
whose fossil remains were found in the
South of France, was as large as a man.
Now, wherever anthropoid apes lived
it is clear that, whether as a question of
anatomical structure or of climate and
surroundings, man, or some creature which
was the ancestor of man, might have lived
also. Anatomically speaking, apes and
monkeys are as. much special variations
of the mammalian type as man, whom
they resemble bone for bone and muscle
for. muscle, and the physical animal man
is simply an instance of the quadrumanous
type specialised for erect posture and a
larger brain. The larger brain, implying
greater intelligence, must also have given
him advantages in contending with out
ward circumstances, as for instance, by
fire and clothing against cold, which might
�AMNffllUt OP MAN
enable him to survive when other species
succumbed and became extinct.
If he could survive, as we know he did,
|3ie adverse conditions and. extreme vicissitudes of the Glacial period, there is no
reason why he might not have lived in
the semi-tropical climate of the Miocene
period, when a genial climate extended
even to Greenland and Spitsbergen, and
when ample forests supplied an abundance
of game and edible fruits. The same rea
sons apply, with still greater force, to the
Pliocene period, when existing types and
species had become more common and
feen a mild climate still prevailed. The
JEstence of Tertiary man must antecedently be pronounced highly probable;
but probabilities are not proofs, and the
near Chartres, which were always con
sidered to be Pliocene. Since the dis
covery, however, some geologists have
contended that these strata are not Plio
cene, but of the earliest Quaternary, or
perhaps a transition period between Plio
cene and Quaternary. This evidence canl
not, therefore, be accepted as conclusive for
anything more than proof that man’s ex
istence extends at any rate over the whole
Quaternary period, comprising the vast
glacial and inter-glacial ages which have
effected such changes in the earth’s surface*
Less disputable evidence is supplied by
the Pliocene of Monte Aperto, near Siena,
Italy, where bones of the Bakenotus, a
sort of Pliocene whale, which bear marks
of incisions which to all appearance must
Incised Bones of Bal^notus. Pliocene. From Monte Aperto.
Figured by Quatrefages, <( Homines Fossiles et Homines Sauvages, p. 93.
fact of such existence must be determined
by the evidence. All that can be said is
that while there ought to be great caution
in admitting as established a fact of such
gnportance, there ought to be no.deter
mined predisposition to disbelieve it, like
ghii.t which for so many years retarded
the acceptance of the evidence for Palaeo
lithic man. On the contrary, the fact that
man existed in such numbers and. under
such conditions as have been, described in
theQuaternary period, establishes a strong
foresumption that his first appearance must
date from a much earlier period.
Let us see how the evidence stands.
Undoubted stone implements, and bones
faring traces of cuttings by flint knives,
UKie been found in strata at St. Prest,
have been made by flint knives emplojw
in hacking off the flesh. Doubts
thrown at first on this, as it was thought
that possibly fish, or somegnawing anim^
like the beaver, might have cut the groovw
with their teeth. But later specimens have
been found on which the cuts have a regtt^
lar curvature which could not have been
made by any teeth, and present precisely
the same appearance as the cuts winch
are so commonly found on the bon® of
reindeer and other animals in hundreds
of Palaeolithic caves.
M. Quatrefages, who is a very eminent
and at the same time very cautious autho
rity, says, in his last work on the subject
published in 1884, “Homines Fossiles st
Hommes Sauvages,” that 11 the most in*
�60
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
credulous must be convinced. Had they who appointed a commission of fifteen
been found in Quaternary beds no one
European authori
would have hesitated to regard them as of the most eminent to report upon it
such matters
intentionally caused. The hand of man ties mreported that some of the flints
Nine
armed with a cutting instrument could showed undoubted
alone have left marks of this sort on a traces of human
plain surface. It is evident that some workmanship, five
horde of savages of these remote times were of an opposite
had found the carcase of this great ceta opinion, and one
cean stranded on the shore, and cut the was neutral. Since
flesh off with stone knives just as the sav then fresh obj ects
ages of Australia do at the present day.” have been found,
If these bones of the Baleenotus really and M. Quatrefages,
bear marks of human tools, the spectacle who had formerly
which might have been witnessed on the been doubtful, says
shore of the Pliocene sea perhaps 500,000 in his recent work :
years ago, must, have closely resembled “These new objects,
Flint Scraper.
that given by Sir John Lubbock from a and especially a
description by Captain Grey of a recent scraper which is one From Thenay. Miocene
whale feast in Australia. “ When a whale of the most dis Figured by Quatrefages,
“ Hommes Fossiles et
is washed on shore it is a real godsend to tinctly character Hommes Sauvages," p. 92.
them. Fires are immediately lit, to give ised of that class of
notice of the joyful event. Then they implements, have removed my last
rub themselves all over with blubber, doubts.” And certainly, if the figures
and anoint their favourite wives in the given at Paoe 92 of his “Hommes
same way; after which they cut down I ossiles et Hommes Sauvages ” correctly
through the blubber to the beef, which represent the original implements, and
they sometimes eat raw and sometimes they really came from Miocene strata,
broil on pointed sticks. As other natives doubt.is no longer possible. The evidence
arrive they ‘ fairly eat their way into the of design in chipping into a determinate
whale, and you see them climbing in and shape is quite as clear as in the similar
about the stinking carcase, choosing tit class of implements from Kent’s Cavern
bits.’ For days ‘ they remain by the car or the Cave of La Madeleine. They must
case, rubbed from head to foot with stink either have been chipped by man, or as
ing blubber, gorged to repletion with Mr. Boyd Dawkins supposes, by the
putrid meat—out of temper from indi Dryopithecus or some other anthropoid
gestion, and therefore engaged in con ape which had a dose of intelligence so
stant frays suffering from a cutaneous much superior to the gorilla or chim
disorder by high feeding—and altogether panzee as. to be able to fabricate tools.
a disgusting spectacle. There is no sight But in this case the problem would be
m the.world, Captain Grey adds, ‘ more solved and the missing link discovered,
revolting than to see a young and grace for such an ape might well have been
fully-formed native girl stepping out of the ancestor, of Palaeolithic man.
the carcase of a putrid whale.’ ”
The next instance is from Otta, in the
The evidence for Miocene man is much valley of the Tagus, where flint imple
of the same character: very strong and ments were alleged to have been dis
conclusive as far as it goes, but resting covered by an eminent Portuguese geolo
on too few instances to be universally gist, Senor Kibeiro, in Miocene strata. The
accepted. In 1868 the Abb£ Bourgeois subject was fully discussed on the spot,
laid before the Anthropological Congress at a meeting of the Anthropological Con
at Paris certain flints which he had gress at Lisbon in 1880. The general
found in situ in undoubted Miocene strata opinion seemed to be that some of the
at Thenay, in the Beauce, near Blois, implements showed undoubted traces of
they were received with general incre human design, but some good authorities
dulity, and the traces of human design remained sceptical ; and although there
were denied. The Abbe, however, per was no doubt that they were found in
sisted, and having made fresh discoveries Miocene strata, it was thought possible
the subject was referred to the next that flints of Quaternary age might have
meeting of the Congress at Brussels, fallen into fissures, or been mixed up with
�f™QUATE0^^^^
Miocene.
Borer, of. Awl.
Thenay. Miocene.
Congrfes Prihistorique,
Bruxelles, 1872.
J'C
Quaternary. Chaleux,
Belgium. Reindeer Period.
Congres Prehistorique,
Bruxelles, 1872.
Scraper, or Rude
Knife. Thenay. Mio
cene. Quatrefages,
p. 92.
Scraper. Thenay. Miocene
Quatrefages, p. 92.
Quaternary. Slammoth Period.
River Drift, Mesvin, Belgium.
Congres Prehistorique, Bruxelles, 18.2.
�62
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
Miocene sands by floods at some very
remote period, and thus become encrusted
in a Miocene matrix.
The verdict as to Miocene man in
Europe remains “Not proven.” Leaving
with bones of the extinct Mastodon and
Megalonyx. But, although undoubtedly
of great antiquity, there is no proof that
it does not belong to the Quaternary
period, especially as the mastodon seems
to have lived until comparatively recent
times in America, its remains being often
found in recent bogs and peat mosses.
The same remark will apply to the
skull which was found, in digging a well
at New Orleans, under six distinct layers
of cypress forests such as are now grow
ing on the surface, showing as many
periods of successive subsidences, subse
quent elevations, and stationary periods
long enough to allow of a forest growth
of many generations of large trees. Here
again the antiquity must be very great,
but we have no reason to carry it back
into Tertiary periods, or beyond the
recent periods when the Mississippi began
to flow in its present course and form its
present delta.
Human remains have also been dis
covered in caves in Brazil and Mexico
associated with bones of extinct animals,
but we have no clear information as to
the^ time when these animals became
extinct, or as to the exact order of super
position in which the human skulls and
implements were found, and the occur
rence of a polished stone celt in the same
cave throws still more doubt on their
extreme antiquity.
Although the instances cited might be
multiplied, it must be remembered that
remains of Tertiary man are not likely
to be abundant. . If man was then living,
it was probably in fewer numbers and in
Tertiary Hachb.
more limited areas. The pressure of
From Miocene Strata of TagU3 Valley.
(Half the actual size.)
population had not yet driven wandering
Quatrefages, “ Hommes Fossiles et Homines
hordes to follow sea-coasts and cross rivers
Sauvages. ”
and mountains in pursuit of food. Pro
bably at this early period man lived
the Old World for the Nev/, the same will more on fruits, and therefore required
aPply to the alleged discovery of a human fewer implements, and his intelligence
skull in Calaveras County, California was less, so tnat he had less power of
buried under six distinct layers of har fashioning them. For the purposes for
dened volcanic ashes, and, presumably which his Palaeolithic descendants chipped
of Pliocene date, if not earlier. Whitney stones into shape, he may have used nat
the Director of the Geological Survey of ural stones which would often answer the
the United States, and other American purpose, but which, when thrown away,
geologists, believe this skull to be Plio would leave nothing by which they could
cene, but doubts have been thrown on be recognised.
its authenticity, and European geologists
If the forests now inhabited by the
do not generally accept it.
gorilla and chimpanzee were submerged
A human bone is described by Lyell and again elevated, no trace would be
which was found near Vicksburg in a found of the existence of animals which
side valley of the Mississippi, associated had built rude nests, used broken branches
�ANTIQUITY OF MAN
of trees as clubs, and cracked cocoa-nuts
with hammer stones.
But above all, the surface of these older
strata has been so much denuded, that
the situations in which alone we might
expect to find remains of man have almost
entirely disappeared. Ninety-nine hun
dredths of our Quaternary implements
come from river drifts or caves. Where
are the Pliocene or Miocene rivers or
caves? They have disappeared amidst
the revolutions of the earth’s surface and
the constant denudation which wastes
continents away. The negative evidence
would be strong if we could point to
caves filled with bone-breccias of a Plio
cene or Miocene fauna, in which no
trace was found of human remains. . But
it is weak as against even, a single
well-ascertained instance, if it . merely
amounts to such remains not being fre
quently found where we could hardly
expect to find them. And it . is weak
against the strong presumption that
when Quaternary man is found in such
numbers and under such. conditions,
spread over wide areas in inhospitable
climates, he must have had his first origin
in earlier times. The cradle of that origin
remains undiscovered, perhaps undis
co verable. For in seeking for evidence
about Tertiary man in Europe, we are
off the scent. He must be searched for in
the region or zone where Dr. Dubois found
the fragments already described, and the
search may, nevertheless, be in.vain. For
perchance the area of the parting of the
ways between the ape-like man and the
man-like ape, as lateral descendants of
a pithecoid ancestor, is in some Indo
African land which has long been covered
by the sea, and from which, in the warm
climates of inter-glacial periods, when a
temperate flora grew in northern lati
tudes, the earliest human beings spread
themselves over the then habitable globe,
migrating by way of Africa into Europe,
and by way of both Europe and Asia into
America, while the ancient land-extensions
led him dry-footed, to Australia.
With these high probabilities, is it
possible to assign any approximate date
to man’s appearance ?
Reckoning by the thickness, of the
different stratified deposits which make
up the earth’s crust, and assuming the
average rate of their deposition, or what
is the same thing, the average rate of
waste of land surface, to have been the
63
same throughout, the whole Tertiary
period carries us back barely onetwentieth part of the way towards the
first beginnings of fossil-bearing strata.
That is, if 100,000,000 years have elapsed
since the earth became sufficiently
solidified to support vegetable and
animal life, the Tertiary period may have
lasted for 5,000,000 years;
or for
10,000,000 years, if the life-sustaining
order of things has lasted, as Lyell sup
poses, for U least 200,000,000. years.
Even if we take the shorter period, the
time is ample for the enormous changes
which have taken place since the com
mencement of the Eocene period. The
average rate of denudation over the
globe has been taken at about one foot
in 3,000 years, from actual calculations
of the average amount of solid matter
carried down by the Mississippi and
other great rivers. Now at this rate it
would take only 2,000,000 years to wear
the whole of Europe down to the sea
level, and, in the absence of any com
pensating movements of elevation, the
whole of North America would be washed
away and deposited in strata at the
bottom of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans in less than 3,000,000 years.
If, therefore, the origin of man. could
be traced down to the middle Miocene,
or even to the date of the great anthro
poid Dryopithecus of Southern France
(an ape approximating nearest to the
chimpanzee), we should have to assume a
period for his existence of probably
between one and two millions of years, a
mere fraction of the time since the earth
became the abode of life amd existing
causes operated to bring about geological
formations.
As regards the habits and manners of
Quaternary man we know very little
that is positive., and can only gather
some vague indications from the relics
in caves and river drifts. These, how
ever, are sufficient to establish with
certainty that the law of his existence
has been one of continued progress.
The older the remains, the ruder are
the implements and the fewer.the traces
of anything approaching to civilisation.
As already shown, Neolithic man is
comparatively civilised. He has domestic
animals and cultivated plants ; he. has
clothing and ornaments, well-fashioned
tools and pottery,. and. permanent
dwellings. He lives in societies, builds
�64
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
villages, buries his dead, and shows his
faith in a future life by placing with
them food and weapons. As we ascend
the stream of time these indications of
an incipient civilisation disappear.
The first vestige of the domestic animals
is found in the dog which gnawed the
bones of the Danish kitchen-middens,
and of the earliest Swiss lake-dwellings.
When fairly in Palaeolithic times, even
the dog disappears, and man has to
trust to his own unaided efforts in
hunting wild animals for food.
Weapons and implements become
more and more rude until, in the oldest
deposits, wo find nothing but roughlychipped hatchets, arrow-heads, flakes,
and scrapers. Implements of bone,
such as barbed harpoons, borers, and
needles, which are abundant in the
middle Paleolithic or reindeer period, be
come ruder and then disappear. Pottery
which is extremely abundant in the
Neolithic period, either disappears alto
gether or becomes so scarce that it is
a moot question whether a few of the
rudest fragments found in caves are
really Palaeolithic. If so, they clearly
date from the later Palaeolithic, and
pottery was unknown in the earlier
Palaeolithic times.
Judging from the portraits engraved
on bone . during the reindeer period,
Palaeolithic man pursued the chase in
a state of nature, though from the pre
sence of bone needles it is probable
that the skins of animals may have
been occasionally sewed together by
split sinews to provide clothing. There
can be no doubt that his habitual
dwelling was in caves or rock-shelters.
Here was his home, here he took his
meals and allowed the remains of his
food, to accumulate. His staple diet
consisted of the contemporary wild
animals, the mammoth, the rhinoceros,
the caA e bear, the horse, the aurochs, and
the reindeer. Even the great cave lion
was occasionally killed and eaten, and
the fox and other smaller animals were
not despised ; while among tribes skilled
m the use of the bow and arrow, birds
were a common article of food, and fish
were harpooned by those who lived near
rivers. Wild fruit and roots were also
doubtless consumed, and from the forma
tion of their teeth and intestines it is pro
bable that if we could trace the diet of the
earliest races of men we should find them
to have been frugivorous, like their con
geners the anthropoid apes.
The abundance of wild animals and the
•
for which hunting savages
inhabited the same spots may be inferred
fkat at one station alone
that of Solutr6 in Burgundy, it is com
puted that the remains of no less than
40,000 horses have been found. All the
long bones of the larger animals have
been split to extract the marrow, which
was, as with the modern Eskimos and
other savages, a great delicacy, and seems
also to have been used for softening skins
tor the purpose of clothing.
Among the split bones a sufficient
number of human bones have been found
to make it certain that Palaeolithic man
was, occasionally at least, a cannibal;
and m several caves, notably that of
Chaleux, in Belgium, these bones, in
cluding those of women and children
have been found charred by fire, and in
such numbers as to indicate that they
had been the scene of cannibal feasts.
It is a remarkable fact that cannibalism
seems to have become more frequent as
man advanced in civilisation, and that
whne its traces are frequent in Neolithic
times, they become very scarce or alto
gether disappear in the age of the mam
moth and the reindeer.
As regards religious ideas they can
only be inferred from the relics buried
with the dead, and these are scarce and
uncertain for the earlier periods. The
caves in which Palaeolithic man lived on
the flesh of the Quaternary animals,
have been so often used as buryingplaces in long-subsequent ages, that it is
extremely difficult to ascertain whether
the skeletons found in them are those of
the original inhabitants.
Thus the
famous cave of Aurignac, in which Lartet
thought he had discovered the tomb of
men at whose funeral feast mammoths
and rhinoceroses were consumed, is now
generally considered to be a Neolithic
burying-place superimposed on an
abandoned Palaeolithic habitation.
There are not more than five or six
well authenticated instances in which
entire Palaeolithic skeletons have been
found . under, circumstances in which
there is a fair, presumption that they
may have been interred after death, and
these afford no clear proof of articles
intended for use in a future life having
been deposited with them. All we can
�MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE
say, therefore, is that from the commence
ment of the Neolithic period downwards,
there is abundant proof that man had
ideas of a future state of existence very
similar to those of most of the savage
tribes of the present day ; such proof is
wanting for the immensely longer Palaeo
lithic period, and we are left to con
jecture. The only arts which can with
certainty be assigned to our earliest
known ancestors are those of fire and
of fashioning rude implements from stone
by chipping. Everything beyond this is
the product of gradual evolution.
CHAPTER VI.
man’s place in nature
Origin of Man from an Egg—Like other
Mammals—Development of the EmbryoBackbone—Eye and other Organs of Sense
—Fish, Reptile, and Mammalian Stages—
Comparison with Apes and Monkeys—
Germs of Human Faculties in Animals—The
Dog—Insects—Helplessness of Human In
fant—Instinct—Heredity and Evolution—
The Missing Link—Races of Men—Leading
Types and Varieties—Common Origin Dis
tant—Language—How Formed—Grammar
—Chinese, Aryan, Semitic,etc.—Conclusions
from Language—Evolution and Antiquity
—Religions of Savage Races—Ghosts and
Spirits—Anthropomorphic Deities—Traces
in Neolithic and Palaeolithic Times—De
velopment by Evolution—Primitive Arts—
Tools and Weapons—Fire—Flint Imple
ments—Progress from Palaeolithic to Neo
lithic Times—Domestic Animals—Clothing
—Ornaments—Conclusion, Man a Product
of Evolution.
Although the establishment of the
great antiquity of the human race has
attracted more immediate attention,
being a fact at once intelligible to the
general public, the researches of ana
tomists and physiologists, aided by the
microscope, have brought to light results
quite as remarkable as regards the
individual man and his place in Nature.
Until recently it was taken for granted
that man was a special miraculous
creation, altogether superior to and
distinct from the rest of the. animal
world. This assumption, gratifying alike
to our vanity, and our laziness in the
laborious search for truth, has been to a
65
great extent disproved and replaced ny
the Law of Evolution.
The most striking proof of this is found
when we trace scientifically the growth
of each individual man from his first
origin to his final development. Man,
like all other animals, is born of an egg.
The primitive egg, or ovum, which was
the first germ of our existence, is a small
cell about the one-hundred-and-twentyfifth of an inch in diameter, consisting of
a mass of semi-fluid protoplasm enclosed
in a membrane, and containing a small
speck or nucleus
of more con
densed
proto
plasm. This nu
cleated cell is it
self the first form
into which a
mass of simple
jelly-like proto
plasm is differen
tiated in the
course of its evo
Human Egg.
lution from its
Magnified 100 times.
original uniform
composition. The
nucleated cell is the starting-point of
all higher life, and.by splitting up and
multiplying repetitions of itself in geo
metrical progression, provides the cell*
material out of which all the complicated
structures of living things are built up.
In sexual generation, which prevails in
all the higher forms of life, this process
requires, in order to start it, the co*
operation of two such cells or germs of
life, one male, the other female.
The first remarkable fact is that the
human egg is, at its commencement, undistinguishable from that of any other
mammal, and remains so for a long period
of its growth, going through its earlier
stages of development in precisely the
same way. At first the egg behaves
exactly as any. other single-celled
organism, as for instance that of the
amoeba, which is considered the simplest
form of organised life. It contracts in
the middle and divides into two cells,
each with its nucleus and each an exact
counterpart of the original cell. These
two subdivide into four, the four into
eight, and so on, until at last a cluster of
cells is formed which is called a morula
from its resemblance to the fruit of the
mulberry-tree. Development goes on,
a.n4 the globular lump of cells changes
i
F
�66
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
into a globular bladder whose outside
skin is built up of flattened cells. Then
condensation takes place, from the more
rapid growth of cells at particular points,
and the foundation is laid of the actual
body of the germ or embryo, the other
cells of the germ-bladder serving only for
its nutrition. Up to this point the germs
not only of all mammals, including man,
but _ of all vertebrate animals, birds,
reptiles, and fishes, are scarcely dis
tinguishable.
In the next stage the outer surface of
the embryo develops three distinct layers,
the outer one of which, or epidermis, is
modified into the skin, sense-organs, and
nervous system; the inner one, of
epithelium, into the mucous membrane
or lining of all the intestinal organs ;
while the intermediate layer is the raw
material of muscles, bones, and blood
pression in the outer skin extends until
the edges close and form a hollow space
in which the eye is formed- At first it is
a mere black pigment mark on the in
terior surface of the enclosed space,
which develops into the retina, with a
wonderful apparatus of optic nerves for
conveying impressions photographed on
it to the brain. The enclosed space itself
is filled with a fluid, or vitreous humour,
from which a lens is condensed for
collecting the rays of light and con
centrating them on the retina, and by
degrees all the beautiful and complicated
organs are evolved for perfecting the
work of the eye and protecting’it from
injury. But this fact must* be kept
clearly in view : the process is identically
the same as that by which the eyes of
other animals are formed, and its various
stages represent those by which the
Mammalian Egg.
First Stage.
Second Stage.
vessels. The embryo is now contracted
in the middle and assumes the form of a
violin-shaped disc, and a slight longi
tudinal furrow appears, dividing it into
two equal right and left parts, which is
gradually converted into a tube con
taining the spinal marrow, to protect
which a chain of bones or vertebrae is
developed, forming the back-bone.
And now comes what is the most
marvellous part of the process, viz., the
development of the brain, eye, ear, and
other organs of sense, from these simple
elements. The brain begins as a
swelling of the foremost end of the
cylindrical marrow-tube. This divides
itself into five bladders, lying one behind
the other, from which the whole com
plicated structure of the brain and skull
is subsequently developed.
The eye, ear, and other sense-organs,
begin in the same way. A slight de- |
Third Stage.
organs of vision have gradually risen to
the development of a complete eye, in
advancing from the lowest to the higher
forms of life. Thus in the lowest, or
Protista, the eye remains a simple pig
ment spot, which probably perceives
light by being more sensitive to variations
of temperature than the surrounding
white cells. The next higher family
develop a lens, and so on in ascending
order, different families developing dif
ferent contrivances for attaining the same
object, but all starting from the same
origin, development of the cells of the
epidermis, and leading up to the same
result, organs of vision adapted for the
ordinary conditions of life of the creature
which uses them. I say the ordinary
conditions, for there are curious instances
of the eye persisting, dwindling from
disuse, and finally disappearing, in
animals which live underground like the
�MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE
mole, or in subterranean waters like
some fish in the Mammoth Cave of
Kentucky and underground lakes of
Carinthia, where the stimulus of light is
no longer felt for many generations.
The history of the ear and other organs
of sense is the same as that of the eye.
They are all developments of the cell
system of the outer skin, and all pass
through stages of development identical
with those at which it has been arrested
in the progression from lower to higher
forms of life. The same principles apply
to the development of the inner organs,
such as the heart, lungs, liver, etc., a
striking illustration of which is found in
67
of development remains the same as that
of other mammalia. The rudimentary
limbs are exactly similar, the five fingers
and toes develop in the same way, and
the resemblance after the first four
weeks’ growth between the embryo of a
man and a dog is such that it is scarcely
possible to distinguish them. Even at
the age of eight weeks the embryo man is
an animal with a tail, hardly to be
distinguished from an embryo puppy.
As evolution proceeds, the embryo
emerges from the general mammalian
type into the special order of Primates
to which man belongs. This order, be
ginning with the lemur, rises through
Dog (six weeks).
Man (eight weeks).
From Haeckel’s “ Schdpfungsgeschichte.”
the fact that the gill arches, or bones
which support the gills by which fishes
breathe, exist originally in man and all
other vertebrate animals above the ranks
of fish, but, in the development of the
embryo, they are superseded by the air.breathing apparatus of lungs, and con
verted to other purposes in the formation
of the jaws and organ of hearing. In
fact, we may say that every human being
passes through the stage of fish and
reptile before arriving at that of mammal,
and finally of man.
If we take him up at the more ad
vanced stage, where the embryo has
already passed the reptilian form, we
find that for a considerable time the line
the monkey, the baboon, and tailed ape,
up to the anthropoid apes, the chim
panzee, gorilla, orang, and gibbon, which
approach nearest to the human type.
The succession is gradual from the lower
to the higher forms up to the anthropoid
apes, but a considerable gap occurs be
tween these and man. It is true that in
his physical structure man resembles
these apes closely, every bone and muscle
of the one having its counterpart in those
of the other. But even at its birth the
human infant is already specialised by
considerable differences. The brain is
larger, its convolutions more complex, the
spine has a double curvature, adapting it
for an erect posture, and the legs, with a
F 2
�68
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
corresponding object, are longer and
stronger, while the arms are shorter and
less adapted for climbing. The thumb
also is longer, making the hand a better
instrument for all purposes, except that
of clasping the branches of trees, for
which the long, slender fingers of the ape
are more available. The great toe also is
less flexible, and the foot more adapted
for giving the body a firm support and
less for being used as a hand.
As growth proceeds after birth these
differences become more and more ac
centuated. The infant chimpanzee is
not so very unlike the infant negro, but
after a certain age the sutures of the
skull close in the former, making the
skull a solid box, which prevents further
expansion of the brain, and the growth
of the bone is directed towards the lower
part of the face, giving the animal a
projecting muzzle, massive jaws, and a
generally bestial appearance, while at
the same time its intelligence is arrested
and its ferocious instincts become more
prominent. Still these higher apes re
main creatures of very considerable in
telligence and warm affections, as may
be seen in the behaviour of those which
have been caught young and brought up
under the influence of kind treatment.
There is a chimpanzee now1 in the Zoo
logical Gardens at Regent’s Park, which
can do all but speak, which understands
almost every word the keeper says to it,
and when told to sing will purse out its
lips and make an attempt to utter con
nected notes. In the native state they
form societies, obey a chief, and often
show great sagacity in their manner of
foraging for food and escaping from
danger.
Even in lower grades of life than the
anthropoid apes we can see plainly many
of the germs of human faculties in an
undeveloped state. Those who are fond
of dogs, and have lived much with them
and understood their ways, must have
been struck by the many liuman-like
qualities they possess, and especially by
the very great resemblance between
young dogs and young children. They
both like and dislike very much the same
people and the same mode of treatment.
They like those who take notice of them,
caress them, talk to them, and, above all,
those whom they can approach with per1 1888.
feet confidence of receiving uniform kind
treatment. They dislike those who have
no sympathy with them, or whose treat
ment of them is either cold or capricious.
Their great delight is to play with one
another, and often to tease and make a
pretence of quarrelling and fighting.
Both have an instinct for mischief, and
are constantly trying it on how far
they can go without getting into serious
difficulties.
Later in life, and in more serious
matters, the dog has certainly the germs
of higher intelligence, and does a number
or things which require a certain exercise
of reasoning power. He has a good
memory, and imagination enough to
be excited at the prospect of a walk
where there is a chance of finding a rat
or a rabbit, and to dream of chasing
imaginary rabbits when he is lying curledup on the hearthrug. Every dog has
an individual character of his own as
clearly defined as that of an individual
man, nor can the rudiments of reason
ing be denied to the hound who, in a
kennel of twenty others, knows perfectly
well that he is Rover, and not Rattler or
Ranger, and waits till his name is called
to come forward for a biscuit. When he
has got it, his sense of property makes
him appropriate it as his own, and respect
the biscuits appropriated to other dogs,
at any rate to the extent of knowing per
fectly well that he is doing wrong if he
takes them by force or steals them.
In moral qualities the dog approaches
even more closely to man. His fidelity,
affection, and devotion even to death,
are proverbial. He feels shame and re
morse when he has departed from the
canine sense of right and wrong or from
the canine standard of honour, and is
happy when he feels that he has done his
duty. What is this but the working of
an elementary conscience ? Even in the
higher’ sphere of religious feeling, the
dog feels unbounded love and reverence
for the master who is the highest being
conceivable to him, or in other words,
his God ; and he shudders as that master
does in the presence of anything weird
and supernatural. Every good ghost
story begins by describing how the
dogs howled and cringed at their master’s
feet when the first shadow of super
natural presence was cast on the haunted
castle.
Capacity for progressive improvement
�MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE
09
ER hardly be denied to a race which young of other animals, viz., in. the
for which
a
has developed such qualities from ances long period of utter it remains m In
condition
helplessness.
tors who, like the wild and half-wild dogs many of the lower forms of lite the
of Asia and America, had not even learned young creature emerges into the world
to bark, and were as unlike the civilised with many of its necessary faculties com*
and affectionate collie as Palaeolithic
man to his modern successor. In fact, the plete, and has to learn comparatively
The chicken runs
progress of the dog seems only to be little from education.food on the day it
about and picks up
limited by the want of organs of speech,
egg, and the
and of an instrument like the hand by escapes from thefragments of 'the shell
which to place himself in closer relation flycatcher, while
still adhere to it, will peck at flies.
with the outer world.
The same remarks apply to the elephant, As we rise in the scale of creation,
these instinctive aptitudes become fewer*
whose great sagacity seems clearly at and more time is required before, the
tributable to the possession, of such an
instrument in the trunk, inferior .no young animal can shift for itself ; till, at
doubt to the hand, but still very superior length, in the human infant, we arrive
at a stage where for some time it can do
to the paw of the dog or to the hoot- little to preserve its existence except to
enclosed fore-foot of the horse. In all
breathe and suck.
animals the greater or less perfection of
The reason of this is doubtless to be
the instruments by which they act upon found in the higher development which
and are acted upon by the outer world, it is destined to attain. The facul
seems to be the principal factor in deter ties of every animal depend on two
mining the quality of the brain as an causes—first, heredity, or those which have
organ of intelligence.
been evolved from the type, and become
In the insect world we find still more
wonderful exemplifications of the 1 esem fixed by succession through a long series
of ancestors; secondly, adaptation,, or
blance between animal and human in
those which are acquired by education,
telligence.
Ants . live in organised including in the term everything that is
societies, build cities, store-up food for
winter, keep aphides as milk-cows, cariy requisite to place the animal m harmony
on slave-hunting raids, and push the with its surrounding environment, IhB
first are what are called instincts, which
division of labour to such an extent that exist from the birth, and are preserved
some tribes are all workers, others all unconsciously and without an effort.
warriors
and
slave-owners.
These
and reference
actions are not all merely mechanical The last involve an effort, of the senses
from the outer stations
and instinctive, for ants can to a con along the telegraph wires called nerves,
siderable extent adapt themselves to cir to the central office of the brain, wherg
cumstances, and alter their habits and
mode of life when it becomes neces the message is recorded and the reply
considered and transmitted along another
sary in the “struggle for existence.
The same is true of bees, beetles, and set of nerves to the muscles, where it
other insects, but it. is useless to dwell on translates itself into action. In eithfit
case the fundamental fact seems to re
these, for the organisation of the insect
solve itself into a tendency of molecular
world is so different from that of the
follow beaten rather,
mammalian, to which man belongs, that motion to paths. What the brainthan
unknown
has
no safe analogy can be drawn from one once thought or perceived, it will think
to the other. It is from the higher
mammalian types that we can fairly or perceive more readily a second
draw the inference that, if like effects and in like manner, a message which has
transmitted
read
are produced by like causes, the more once beenfrom muscle andbrain off along
a nerve,
to
or from
perfect intelligence and morality of man
brain to muscle, will be transmitted and
must be the same in kind though higher
in degree than the less perfect manifest read off more readily by practice, until
ations of the same qualities in animals at length it ceases to require conscious
of similar though less perfect physical effort and becomes instinctive. We may
see an illustration of this in the facility
organisation.
.
.
with which a piano player, who began
There is one respect m which trie
human infant differs greatly from the by learning the notes with difficulty,
�70
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
acquires such aptitude that the execution
of rapid passages becomes mechanical,
and can be carried on without a mistake,
even when the performer is thinking of
something else or talking to a bystander.
The outer world with which every
animal has to deal from its birth upwards
may be compared to a dense forest or
jungle through which it has to find its
way. A certain number of paths have
been cut by its ancestors, and it finds
them ready made by heredity ; others it
constructs for itself by repeated efforts
until they become as broad and easy as
those which. it inherited ; and finally,
if the forest is thick and its area exten
sive, it can only be. explored by leaving
the beaten paths of inherited or acquired
instinct, and groping the way painfully
by conscious effort and attention.
We can now see why the lower the
animal, or in other words the less exten
sive the forest, the whole vital energy
may be concentrated on the few beaten
paths opened by heredity, and a few
necessary actions may be performed from
the first, instinctively and with great
perfection, while in higher organisms the
vital energy is employed in developing a
great mass of future possibilities rather
than a small number of inferior present
realities. The baby cannot run about the
room and feed itself like the chicken,
because the baby has to growinto a man or
woman, while the chicken has only to
grow into a fowl which can do very little
more in its adult than in its infant state.
w^en we come to analyse the
sum of faculties of the adult man, we find
that they are derived to a surprisingly
small extent from heredity as compared
with education. In saying this, however,
it must be understood that the term
heredity” is limited to that direct
heredity which transmits characters by
instinctive necessity, and not to the far
larger sphere of indirect heredity by
which faculties, arts, modes of thought,
and rules of conduct, are accumulated
m. civilised societies, and become the
principal instrument of education in its
larger sense. If it were possible to
suppose a human infant, born of civilised
parents, left entirely to itself, what would
®?*OY into'? It would have the
physical characters and advantages of
its human ancestry which heredity transP11*8,’ bipedal movement, large, convo
luted brain with potential capacities;
aptness of hand and opposable thumb •
but its solitariness would be fatal to its
progress. It would not learn to speak,
in the sense of using any articulate
language; its arts might not extend
beyond recognising a few articles of food,
and perhaps using stones to crack nuts
and constructing some rude shelter
from branches of trees. It would know
nothing of fire, and on the whole it would
not be so far advanced as its oldest
1 alagolithic ancestor.
As regards a moral sense, and all that
we are accustomed to think the highest
attributes of humanity, it is clear that
its mind would be a blank. Even at a
much more advanced stage, such ideas
evidently come .from education, and are
not the results either of inherited instinct
or of supernatural gift. An English child
kidnapped at an early age by Apache
Indians or head-hunting Dyaks, would,
to a certainty, consider murder one of
• ie«.n® ar^s> and the slaughter of an
inoffensive stranger, especially if accom
plished with a treachery that made the
°n1e
^le risk, an achievement
ot the highest manhood. If brought up
among Mahometans he would consider
polygamy, if among the Todas polyandry,
as the natural and proper relation of the
sexes. All that can be said is, that if
recaptured and brought back to civilised
society, he would perhaps be assisted by
heredity in adopting its ideas more
readily than would be the case if he had
been.born a savage.
It is clear, therefore, that the history
of the individual man tells the same
story of evolution from low beginnings
as is told by that of the human race as
traced from Palaeolithic, through Neo
lithic, into modern times. His law is
progress, worked out by conscious effort
called forth by the environment of out
ward circumstances, and accelerated from
time to time, by the successful efforts of
a few superior men, whose greater sum
of energy or happier organisation for
development, enables them to pioneer
new paths through the vast unexplored
forests of science, art, and morality.
The difficulty of accounting for the
development of intellect and morality by
evolution is not so great as that presented
by the difference in physical structure
between man and the highest animal.
Given a being with man’s brain and man’s
hand and erect stature, it is easy to see
�MANS PLAOE IN NATURE
71
the time is insufficient, and if man and
how intelligence must have been gradually the ape had a common ancestor that
evolved, and rules of conduct best adapted 1 as a highly developed anthropoid ape
for his own good and that of the society certainly, and man probably, already
in which he lived must have been formed <existed in the Miocene period such an
and fixed by successive generations
<cestor must be sought still further back,
according to the Darwinian laws of the at a distance compared with which the
“ struggle for life ” and the survival of ■ whole Quaternary period sinks into in
^ButMt is not so easy to see how this significance. It is said also that the is
covery of man’s antiquity is ot quite
difference of physical structure arose, recent date, and that fifty years ago
and how a being who had such a biam the same negative evidence was quoted
and hand, and such undeveloped capa as conclusive against his existence in
bilities for an almost ^limited pro timesand places which now afford his
gress, came into existence. The difficulty remains by tens of thousands. Ail this
is this: the difference in structure be is true, and it may well make us hesi
tween the lowest existing race of man and tate before we admit that man, whose
the highest existing ape is too great to structure is so analogous to that ot the
admit of the possibility of one being the animal creation, whose embryonic growth
direct descendant of the other. The negro is so strictly accordant with that ot
in some respects makes a slight approxi other mammals, and whose higher
mation towards the Simian type. His skull faculties of intelligence and morality
is narrower, his brain less capacious, his are so clearly not miraculous instincts
muzzle more projecting, his arm longer but the products of evolution and
than those of the average European man. education, is alone an exception to the
Still he is essentially a man, and separated general law of the universe, and is the
bv a wide gulf from the chimpanzee or creature of a special creation.
gorilla Even the idiot or cretin, whose
This is the more difficult to believe,
brain is no larger and intelligence no as the ape family, which man so closely
greater than that of the chimpanzee, is resembles in physical structure, con
an arrested man and not an ape.
tains numerous branches which graduate
If, therefore, the Darwinian theory into one another, but the extremes ot
holds good in the case of man and ape, which differ more widely than man does
we must go back to some common from the highest of the ape series. If a
ancestor from whom both may have special creation is required for man,
originated by pursuing different lines ot must there not have been special
development. But to establish this as a creations for the chimpanzee, the gon a,
fact and not a theory we require to find the orang, and for at least 100 different
that ancestral form, or, at any rate, some species of apes and monkeys which are
intermediate forms tending towards it. all built on the same lines 1
We require to find fossil remains proving
What are the facts really known to us
for the genus man what the Hipparion as to man, his nature, and his origin
and Anchitherium have proved for the
Man is one of a species of which there
genus horse, that is, gradual progressive are in round numbers, according to the
specialisation from a simple, ancestral computations of Wagner and bupan, some
type to more complex existing forms. 1,480 millions of individuals living at the
In other words, we require to discover present time on the earth. Taking thir y
the “ missing link.” Now it must be years as the average duration of each
admitted that hitherto, not only have generation there are thus over 3,600
no such missing links been discovered, millions who are born and die per cen
but the oldest known human skulls and tury, and this has gone on more or less
skeletons show no very decided ap during the period embraced by history,
proximation towards any such pre which extends for a great part of the Old
human type. On the contrary, one oi World over thirty centuries, m the case
the oldest types, that of the men oi of Babylonia perhaps over ninety, and in
the sepulchral cave of Cro-Magnon, Egypt, certainly over seventy centuries.
is that of a fine race, tall in stature,. At the commencement of these historical
large in brain, and on the whole! periods population was dense, probably in
superior to many of the existing races■ Eo-ypt and Western Asia denser than at
of mankind. The reply of course is that
�72
modern science and modern thought
present, and civilisation far advanced. predict with much confidence that they
Ine 1 yramids, which are among the oldest would either not cross, or, if they did,
and the largest buildings in the world
a hybrid ~
prove this conclusively, both from the
mechanical skill and astronomical science
But here he would be wrong, for, in
shown in their construction, and from
tact the
opposite
the great accumulation of capital and together,most produce araces breed freely
and
fertile progeny.
highly artificial arrangements of society
Moreover, when we extend our view
which could alone have rendered such beyond the clearly distinguished types of
works possible. The great mass of the
population in these times lived in what the white, yellow, and black, as seen in
Caucasian
is known as the Old World, and was ac we find Mongoloid, and Negro races
types
into
cumulated mainly in the great valley sub-typesthese shadingbreaking off each
and
off towards
systems of the Nile, and of the various
riversand irrigated plains of the southern other, while a large proportion of the
halt ot the continent of Asia. Northern human race consists of brown, red olive
Asia and Europe were thinly inhabited and copper-coloured people, who may
• by ruder tribes. Of America and the either be original varieties, or descended
interior of Africa we know little until a from crosses between the primitive
much later date, but the population was races. Small _ isolated groups differing
in all probability sparse and savage : in from the mam races also crop un of
Australia, it was still scantier and more whom it is hard to say from whom they
savage-while in New Zealand and are descended or how they got there • as
most of the Pacific Islands it has been tor. instance the Hottentots, in South
introduced by migration only within Africa ; the pigmy b'ack Negritos of the
Andamans and other South Asiatic
comparatively recent times.
The next leading fact we have to islands ; the Papuans and Australians ;
observe is that the human race is not the so-called hairy Ainos of Japan, and
everywhere the same, but is divided some of the aboriginal races of India.
io a certain extent climate seems to
into several well-marked varieties. The
most obvious distinction is that of have had an influence in creating or de
colour In the Old World there are veloping the main typical differences.
hus
line of black races lies
three distinct and clearly characterised . along the mamtropical belt of the earth
the hot
groups-the white the yellow, and the from Old to New Guinea. But the rule
black, these are found mainly in three
separate zoological provinces : the white is not universal, there is no similar type
America, where a
m the temperate and north-temperate m tropical of type and colour singular
prevails
zones of Europe and Western Asia, the uniformity
yellow in those of Eastern Asia, and the throughout the whole continent. Even
black in the tropical zone, principally of m Africa we find the Negro type, while
Central Africa. Where they are pure and retaining its black colour, shading off
unmixed, these race-types differ from one towards higher types and losing its more
another not in coiour only but in many animal-like characteristics. Again, colour,
other important and permanent charac the origin of which remains a perplexing
ters. lhe average size of the brain, the problem to the physiologist, becomes
complexity of its convolutions, tlie shape generally lighter as we pass from tropical
of the skull, the bones of the face and to south-temperate and from south to
jaws, the comparative length of the north-temperate regions, probably be
cause the skin needs less protection from
imbs, the structure of the hair and skin
the characteristic odour, the suscepti the suns rays which the pigmentation
bilities to various diseases, are all es affords. The exceptions supplied bv the
sentially different, so that no observant Esquimaux may be due to their having
naturalist, or even observant child or six months unbroken sunlight, and by
dog, could ever mistake a Chinaman for the now extinct Tasmanians to their
migration from tropical regions.
a £egro, or a Negro for an Englishman.
Even within great and well-defined races
ouch a naturalist, seeing for the first
time typical specimens of the three races, themsel ves there are clearly marked varie
would pronounce them without hesita ties. thus the white race consists of
tion to be distinct species, and would the two distinct types of the fair-whites
and dark-whites, the former prevailing in
�MAN’S PLAGE IN NATURE
Northern Europe and the latter in South
ern Europe, Western Asia, and North
Africa; the contrast between a fair Swede
with flaxen hair and blue eyes, and a
swarthy Spaniard with black hair and
eyes, being almost as marked as between
the latter and some of the higher black
or brown races. Throughout a great part
of Europe, including specially England,
it is evident that the existing population
is derived mainly from repeated crosses
of these two races with one another and
probably with earlier races.
In the existing state of things also it is
evident that if the different races of man
kind ever really did pass into one another
under influences like those of climate, the
time of their doing so is long past. A
colony of English families transported to
tropical Africa would to acertainty dieout
long before they had taken even the first
step towards acquiring the black velvety
skin, the woolly hair, the proj ecting muzzle,
and the long narrow skull of the typical
Negro, while a Negro colony transported
to Scotland or Scandinavia would as cer
tainly disappear from diseases of the chest
and lungs, long before they began to vary
towards the European type. The yellow
race seems to be on the whole the best
fitted to withstand climate and other ex
ternal influences, and it certainly shows
no signs anywhere of passing over either
into the Caucasian or the Negro type.
On the whole, therefore, if the fact of
fertile inter-crossing is to be • taken as
proving the unity of the human race and
their probable descent from a common
ancestor, and we are to assume that all
the great varieties which we find existing
are the result of modifications gradually
introduced by climate and surrounding
circumstances, it is evident that the point
of divergence must be put at an immense
distance.
This is the more certain, as when we
look back for a period of more than 4,000
years, we find from the Egyptian monu
ments that some of the best-marked ex
isting types have undergone no sensible
change. The portraits of negroes and of
Semitic dark-whites painted on the walls
of temples and tombs of the 12th dynasty,
about 2,000 B.C., might be taken as charac
teristic portraits of the negro and Jew of
the present day, and the modern Egyp
tian fellah reproduces with little or no
change the features of the ancient Egyp
tians of the days of Raineses and Ameno-
73
phis. It is evident, therefore, that where
no great change has taken place from
crossing of races, they will maintain their
special characters unaltered for more than
100 generations. Indeed we might say
for 200 generations, for the statues and
wooden statuettes from the tombs, of Sakkara, the ancient Memphis, which cer
tainly date back for more than .5,0.00
years, show us the Egyptian type in its
highest perfection, and with a more intel
lectual and I might say modern expression
than is found 1,000 or 2,000 years later,
when the type of the higher classes had
evidently deteriorated somewhat from a
slight infusion of African elements.
The same conclusion of the great dis
tance at which any common point of
divergence of the various races of man
kind must be placed, is confirmed by a
totally different line of inquiry, that into
the origin of language.
Philologists have clearly proved that
languages did not spring into existence
ready made, like Minerva from the brain
of Jupiter, but have followed the general
law of Nature, and have had their pe
riods of birth, growth, and evolution from
simple into complex organism. Now there
is a vast variety of languages, some say
more than a thousand. A large propor
tion of these are, of course, only what may
be called dialects of the same original lan
guage, as in the case of the whole IndoEuropean family, includingSanscrit, Zend,
Greek, Latin, Teutonic, Celtic, and Sla
vonic, with all their offshoots and derived
branches, as well as many others. . Any
one who wants to be convinced of this has
only to refer to Max Muller’s works and
trace the history of one verb, viz., that
used to denote individual existence.
Asmi in Sanscrit has become eimi in
Greek, sum in Latin (whence sono, suis,
and all the modern derivatives of . Latin
races), and “ am ” in English ; while the
Latin est, the Greek esti, and the German
1st, are clearly akin to the . original asti.
It may help in understanding how lan
guage has been formed if we point out that
“ I am ” originally meant “ I breathe,” and
“ he is ” is the more general and abstract
form of “ he stands.”
But there are a number of languages
between which no such relationship can
be traced, which are constructed on radi
cally different principles, and have no
resemblance with one another in their
roots, or primitive sounds used to express
�74
modern science and modern thought
objects and simple ideas, except in the few
cases where it can be traced to importation
from abroad, or to imitation of naturallysuggested sounds, such as those which
have led so many nations to express the
idea of “mother” by a sound resembling
the bleating of a lamb. Obviously, simi
larity of sound in such words as are used
for the ideas of father, mother, cow, crow,
thunder, crack, splash, and so on, sug
gests no common origin, and as most, or
at any rate a great many roots, were prob
ably derived originally in this manner,
though long since, diverted to express
other ideas by associations which it is im
possible to trace, the wonder rather is
that we should find so many languages
with so few roots in common. The best
authorities tell us that a list of fifty to
one hundred languages could be made
of which no one has been satisfactorily
shown to be related to any other.
The main distinction between lan
guages, however, is. to be found in
their inner .mechanism, or grammar,
rather than in the mere difference of
root-sounds. The result of years of
mechanical training in barbarous Latin
and Greek grammars in our English
public schools has been to leave the
average Englishman completely ignor
ant of the real meaning of the word
“grammar,” and almost incapable of
comprehending that it can mean any
thing else than a string of arbitrary
rules to be learned by heart for the
vexation of small boys.
And yet grammar is really most
interesting, as showing the modes by
which the dawning human intellect has
proceeded, at remote periods and among
different races, in working out the great
problem of articulate speech, by which
man rises into the higher regions of
thought and is mainly distinguished from
the brute creation. Consider first what
the problem is, and then some of the
principal modes which have been in
vented to solve it.
Suppose some primitive race to have
accumulated a certain stock of root
words, or simple sounds to signify definite
objects and simple ideas, they must soon
find that these alone are not sufficient to
convey briefly and clearly to other minds
the ideas which they wish to express.
For instance, suppose a tribe had got
root-words to express the ideas of “man,”
bear,’ and “ kul.” What one of the I
tribe wants to convey from his own mind
to that of his neighbour may be, “ The
man has killed the bear,” or “The bear
has killed the man,” or “The” (or “A)
man has killed a bear,” or “bears,” or
will ” or “ may have ” killed, and so on
through, a vast number of variations on
the original three-note theme. Up to a
certain point, a man might succeed in
making himself understood by using his
three root-sounds in a certain order, aided
by the pantomime of accent and gesture ;
and the Chinese, though one of the oldest
civilised peoples of the world, have
scarcely got beyond this stage. But the
process would be difficult and uncertain,
and. at length it would occur to some
genius that such modifications as those of
definite and indefinite, past and present,
singular, and plural, etc., were of general
application, not to the particular three or
four roots which he wished to connect,
but to all roots. The next step would be
to invent a set of sounds which, attached
in some way to the root-sounds, should
convey, to the hearer the sense in which
it was intended that he should take them.
This is the. fundamental idea of
grammar, but it has been worked out
by different races in the most different
manner. The Chinese and other allied
races in the South-east of Asia, such as
the Burmese and Siamese, have solved it
in the simplest manner. Their languages
are what is called monosyllabic—that is,
each, word consists of a single syllable,
and is a. root expressing the fundamental
idea, without distinction of noun from
verb, active from passive, or other modi
fications. They have to trust, therefore,
to express their meaning, mainly to
syntax, or the order in which words
succeed one another, which, up to a
certain point, is the simplest method,
and is largely adopted in modern English.
Thus, “ Man kill bear,” “ Bear kill man,”
convey the meaning just as clearly as the
classical languages do by cases, when they
distinguish whether, the man is the killer
or the killed by saying homo or hominem.
But. the monosyllabic system limits the
nations who use it to an inconveniently
small number of words, and fails in
expressing their more complex relations,
so that we find the same word in Chinese
or Siamese often expressing the most
different ideas, and the meaning can only
be conveyed by supplementing the root
words and syntax by accent and other
�MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
conventional signs which are akin to the
primitive devices of gesture language.
Thus, in Siamese, the syllable ha, according to the note in which it is intoned,
may mean a pestilence, the number five,
or the verb “ to seek.”
This very primitive and almost in
fantine form of language is confined to
one family, that of the Chinese and IndoChinese, who, it may be observed, are by
no means simple or primitive in other
respects, but stand and have stood for
centuries at a comparatively high level
of civilisation. All other races, including •
the most savage, have adopted some form
or other of grammar, i.e., of modifying
original root-sounds by additional generic
sounds of definite determination ; but
the devices on which they have hit for
this purpose are most various. Thus, the
grammar of the Aryan family of languages
has been formed by reasoning out such
general categories of thought as articles,
pronouns, and prepositions, coining
sounds for them and prefixing these
sounds to the root-sounds as separate
determinating signs.
More complex
shades of meaning are conveyed prin
cipally by inflections, i.e., by adding
certain generic new sounds to the original
root-word, and incorporating them with
it so as to form modifications which area
sort of secondary words. Thus the ideas
of present, past, and future love, loving,
and being loved, lovely, and so on, are
formed by transforming the root amo into
such modifications as amor, amavi, amabo,
amans, amabilis, etc. We can see this
process in the course of formation in the
change which converted the old English
form “Caesar his” into the modern
genitive “ Caesar’s.”
Other families again obtain the same
results by very different processes. The
Semitic languages, for instance, including
Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian, and Phcenician,
are what is called “triliteral,” i.e., they
consist of roots mostly of three con
sonants, and express different shades of
grammatical meaning by altering the
internal vowels. Thus, from the root
m-l-k are derived melek, a king ; malak,
he reigned, and so on.
The so-called Turanian family, com
prising Huns, Turks, Finns, Lapps, and
other Mongolian races of Northern Asia,
all speak agglutinative languages, i.e.,
languages in which the root is put first
and is followed by suffixes strung on to
7b
it, but not incorporated, with it and
remaining distinct. Thus in Turkish,, the
root sev, to love, is. expanded into
sevishdirilmedeler, meaning “ incapable of
being brought to love one another.
These are only given as specimens of
some of the most marked of the vast
varieties of language which have been
examined and classified by philologists.
They suggest a great many interesting
reflections, but I confine myself to those
which bear more immediately on the
subject of man’s origin and development.
It is evident that . they imply great
antiquity for the existence, not of man
only, but of separate races of men speak
ing separate languages.
Babylonian inscriptions, estimated by
Dr. Hilprecht to be 9,000 years old, show
that the characteristic features of the
Semitic languages were as clearly estab
lished then as they are now; and the hiero
glyphics of Egyptian monuments, 7,000
years old, show the Coptic language essen
tially the same as modern Coptic, and al
though presenting some points of analogy
with Semitic, too different to be classed
with it. If these are descended from a com
mon ancestor, clearly their origin must be
extremely remote. And even with un
limited time it is difficult to conceive how
such radical differences in the structure of
languages could have arisen unless the dif
ferent races had branched off before any
clear form of articulate speech had be
come fixed. Could a race accustomed
for generations to the free-flowing inflec
tional Aryan, have deserted it for the
cramped forms of the Semitic, or, vice
versa, could the Semite have adopted the
modes of thought and expression of
Sanscrit ? And the same difficulty would
apply in at least twenty or thirty cases
of other families of language.
It must be recollected that language is
not merely the conventional instrument
of thought, but to a great extent, its
creator, and the mould in which it is
cast. The mould may be broken, and
races abandon old and adopt new lan
guages by force of external circumstances,
such as conquest or contact with and
absorption by superior races, but there
is no instance of its being so transformed
from within as to pass into a totally
different type. Nor can we very well
see how root-words once attached to
fundamental ideas, such for instance as
the simpler numerals, should come to be
�76
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
forgotten and new and totally diCerent
words invented.
Of course, the explanation was easy in
the olden days, when everything was
referred to miracle. Languages were
different because God, to baffle the at
tempt of united mankind to build a tower
high enough to reach to heaven, had made
them so. But the theory of special
miraculous creation for each language
cannot stand a moment’s investigation.
As in the. case of the animal world,
special creations, if admitted at all, must
be multiplied to an extent which becomes
absurd. Is every petty tribe of savages
who speak a language unintelligible to
others to be supposed to have had it
conferred upon it as a miraculous gift ?
Was the language of the extinct Brazilian
tribe, of which Humboldt tells us that a
very old parrot spoke the last surviving
words, one of the languages used to
scatter the builders of the Tower of
Babel ? Or, still more conclusively, where
we know and can prove that one part of
a language is the product of natural
laws, can we assume that another part of
the same language is the result of miracle ?
Did it require Divine inspiration to
make the old Egyptians call a cat miaou,
or to teach so many nations to ex
press the idea of mother by imitating
the bleating of a lamb? If not, why
should half the words in a dictionary be
miraculous and half natural ?
And if Caesar is correctly reported to
have been more proud of discovering a
new case than of conquering Gaul, ought
we not to “render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s,” and assign
grammar as well as words to human
invention ? In short, no reasonable man
who studies the subject can doubt that
language is just as much a machine of
human invention for communicating
thought, as the spinning jenny is for
spinning cotton.
8eneral conclusion, then, to be
a'rawn from the study of language points
m the same direction as that of all other
branches of science, viz., that their true
history is that of evolution from simple
origins by the operation of natural laws
over long periods of time into forms of
greater complexity and higher develop
ment. What language really does for us
is to take up the thread where the oldest
history fails us, and show that even at
this date it is impossible to doubt that
the human race must have been already
in existence for a very long period, and
in existence as at the present day in
several sharply distinguished varieties,
so that the common origin, if there be
one, must be placed still further back.
As history verified by the Babylonian
monuments extends over a period of, say
nearly 9,000 years, this, is equivalent to
saying that such a period can only be a
very small part of the total time which
has. elapsed since man became an in
habitant of the earth.
The origin and development of re
ligions have been much discussed, but
too often with a. desire to make theories
square with .wishes. The subject also
does not admit of such precise determina
tion as in treating of arts and languages,
which have left traces of themselves in
the form of primitive implements and
primitive roots.
The history of religions really begins
with written records, or, at the earliest,
. with the older myths which are embodied
in these records. But these are all com
paratively modern, and imply a con
siderable progress in civilisation before
they could have existed. If we wish to
form some idea of what may have been
the primitive elements from which re
ligion was evolved during the long
Neolithic and still longer Palaeolithic
periods which preceded history, we must
look at what are actually the religious
ideas of contemporary savage and semibarbarous races.
As we rise above the level of the lowest
savagery we find ideas of religion be
ginning to grow from two main tap-roots.
One is the idea of ghosts or spirits,
which arises naturally from dreams and
visions and develops itself into ancestor
and hero-worship, and belief in a world
of spirits, good and evil, influencing men’s
lives and fortunes, and in many forms of
sickness taking possession of their bodies.
This spirit-worship also necessarily leads
to some dim perception of a future life.
The. other tap-root is the inevitable
disposition to account for the phenomena
of nature, when men first began to reflect
on. them, by the agency of invisible
beings like themselves ; in other words, of
anthropomorphic gods. Perhaps this is a
higher and later stage of religious belief
than the former, for it implies a certain
disposition to inquire into the causes of
things and a certain amount of reasoning
�MAN'S PLAGE IN NATURE
power to infer like causes from like
results.
But the two often blend together, as m
the religions of the Aryan-speaking
peoples, in which we see deified heroes
and ancestors crowding the courts of
Olympus, with a multitude of anthropoSnorphic gods, who are often merely
obvious personifications of natural pheno
mena or astronomical myths. Thus,
Varuna, Ouranos, or Uranus, are said to
be personifications of the vault of heaven ;
Phoebus, the shining one, of the sun;
Aurora, of the dawn; while Hercules is
half deified hero and half solar myth.
Sometimes, however, of the two stems of
religion one only has flourished, and the
other has either never existed, or been
overshadowed by the first and relegated
to a lower sphere. Thus the great
Chinese civilisation, comprising such a
large portion of the human race, has
apparently developed its popular religion
from the idea of spirits and spirit
worship. The worship of ancestois is its
main feature, and its sacred books are, in
effect, treatises on ethics and political
economy, with rules for rites and cere
monies to enforce decent and decorous
behaviour, rather than what we should
call works of religion.
With other races again, and specially
the Hebrew, the idea of a tribal anthropo
morphic God has gradually swallowed
up that of other gods, developed into
that of one Almighty Being, and dwarfed
that of ghosts and spirits. Their primi
tive God was anthropomorphic,. and
modelled on the idea of an Oriental
sultan—sometimes good and beneficent,
but sometimes cruel and capricious, and
above all jealous of any disrespect and
enraged by any disobedience. Morality
seems at first to have had little or nothing
to do with these conceptions, and there
is not the remotest trace in. the early
history of any religion, of its having
been bom ready-made from the necessary
intuition of one Almighty God of love,
mercy, and justice, which is so. con
fidently assumed by many metaphysicians
and theologians. On the contrary, con
science had to be first evolved, and the
process may be followed step by step by
which, as manners became milder and
ideas purer, the grosser attributes of
Deity gradually yielded to the idea of a
just and merciful God.
These considerations, however, lead us
far from the question of the first dawn
of religion among primitive man. Judg
ing from the earliest facts of history, and
the analogy of modern savage races,
we might look for the first traces of
religious ideas from the contents . of
tombs and from idols. When a tribe
had attained to some definite idea of a
future life it would almost certainly bury
weapons and implements with its dead,
as is the case with modern savages. When
it had reached the stage of worshipping
anthropomorphic deities, it would prob
ably frame images of them, some of which
would be found in their tombs and dwell
ingsThe latter test soon fails us. In the
early Egyptian tombs, and in the remains
of the prehistoric cities excavated by
Dr. Schliemann, images of owl and ox
headed goddesses, and other symbolical
figures or idols, are found in abundance.
But when we ascend into Neolithic times,
such idols are no longer found, or,, if
• found, it is so rarely that archaeologists
still dispute as to their existence. Cer«
tain crescents found in the Swiss lake
dwellings were at one time thought to
indicate a worship of the moon, but the
better opinion seems to be that they were
used as rests for the head during sleep, as
we find similar objects now used in many
parts of the world. Among the many
thousand objects recovered from these
Swiss lake-dwellings and other Neolithic
abodes, there are only a very few which
may possibly have been rude idols or
amulets, and the only ones which may be
said with some certainty to have been
idols, are one or two discovered by Mons,
de Braye in some artificial caves of the
Neolithic period, excavated in the chalk
of Champagne, which appear to be in
tended for female figures of life size with
heads somewhat resembling that of the
owl-headed Minerva.
When we pass to Palaeolithic times the
evidence of idols becomes more faint, and
rests solely on the slender conjecture that
some of the figures carved by the Reindeer
men of La Madeleine.and other caves, may
probably have been intended for amulets.
As they were skilful carvers, and fond of
drawing whatever impressed itself on their
imagination, the presumption is strong
that they had not advanced to the stage
when the worship of gods symbolised by
idols had come into existence, as other
wise more undoubted idols must have
�78
MODERN SGIENGE AND MODERN THOUGHT
been found in the caves which were so viduals, and it may be doubted whether
long their habitations, and which have they were buried there, or merely died in
yielded such a number of remains of works the caves in which they lived, in which
of art.
case any implements found with them
The evidence for a belief in a future ex do not necessarily imply that they were
istence and in spirits is more conclusive. placed there for use in a future life. On
Throughout the whole Neolithic period we the whole it seems doubtful whether any
find objects which were evidently intended certain proofs of burials denoting know
for use in a future life buried with the ledge of a future life can be found in
dead. Wefind alsoinmany Neolithic tombs Palaeolithic times, and if there are, they
a singular fact which points to the exist are certainly few and far between, and
ence of a very long belief in evil spirits. C0^.ned
ie W'er stages of that period.
Many of the skulls, especially of young
All we can say is, that religion certainly
people, have been trepanned, that is, a did not descend ready-made among these
piece of the skull has been cut out, making aboriginal savages, butthat, like language,
a hole, apparently, to let out the evil spirit it was slowly developed from beginnings
which was supposed to be causing epilepsy as rude as those we now find among the
or convulsions ; and where the patient had lowest races of savages.
recovered and the wound healed, when he
It may be well, however, to say here,
died long afterwards, a piece of the skull, once for all, what is applicable to many
including this trepanned portion, was other. passages in this book, that the
sometimes cut out and used apparently question of the origin of any religion is
as an amulet. The objects deposited in entirely different from that of its truth
graves show that the idea of a future life, or falsehood. To explain a thing is not
as with most savages of the present day’ to disprove it; on the contrary, a thing
was that of a continuation of the same only really becomes true to us when we
life as he had led here, though perhaps in understand it. A stately oak, with widehappier hunting-grounds. In some cases spreading branches, that give shade and
a great chief seems to have had wives shelter to the cattle of the fields, is not
and slaves slaughtered and buried with the less a fact because we know that it
him, though the proofs of this are did not drop ready-made from heaven,
more clear and abundant in later times but grew from, an acorn. The intrinsic
than during the Neolithic period. Can truth of a religion must be tested by the
nibalism, however, seems to have occasion conformity which, in a given stage of its
ally prevailed both in Palaeolithic, Neo evolution, it bears to the facts of the
lithic, and prehistoric times, as it did so universe as disclosed by science, and to
extensively among modern savage races the feelings and moral perceptions which
before they came under civilising influ have been equally developed by evolution
ences. This is clearly proved by the num in the contemporary world.
ber of human bones, chiefly of women and
All I contend for is, that all religions
young persons, which have been found have grown and been developed from
charred by fire and split open for extrac humble origins, and that their history,
tion of the marrow.
impartially considered, does not contra
The evidence of belief in a future life dict, but on the contrary greatly confirms
becomes more rare and uncertain in Palaeo the law of natural evolution.
lithic times. Perhaps it may be because
Of the two faculties by which man is
we have so few authentic discoveries of commonly distinguished from the brute
Palaeolithic burying-places, and so many creation, viz., that, of being the speaking
instances of caves, once inhabited by and, the tool-making animal, the former
Palaeolithic races, being used long after attribute has been shown to be the pro
wards as Neolithic sepulchres. After the duct of evolution from origins long
famous cave of Aurignac it is difficult to since lost in the far-off distance of remote
trust any evidence as to the discovery of a ages.
real Palaeolithic sepulchre which has not
The same remark is even more certainly
been subsequently disturbed.
true.as regards the other attribute of tool
In the few cases also where Palaeolithic making, or, in its widest sense, adapting
skeletons have been found, as in that of natural laws and. natural objects to the
the men of Neanderthal and Mentone, arts of life by intelligent application.
they have often been those of single indi The primitive roots, so to speak, of this
�MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE
industrial language, which in the case of
spoken language for the most part elude
our search, are here furnished by the
Palaeolithic remains found so abundantly
in river drifts and caves. There can be no
doubt whatever that the modern wood
cutter’s axe and carpenter’s adze are the
lineal descendants of the rudely-chipped
haches, or celts, which are dug out of the
gravels of St, Acheul, or from below the
stalagmite of Kent’s Cavern. The regu
lar progression can be traced from the
mass of flint rudely chipped to a point,
with a butt-end left rough to grasp in
the hand, up to more symmetrical and
carefully-chipped forms ; to implements
intended to be hafted or fastened to
a handle; to implements ground and
polished to a sharp edge and pierced for
the handle; and finally to the finished
specimens of the later Neolithic period,
which exactly represent the adze and
battle-axe, and are almost identical with
those used quite recently by the Polyne
sians and other semi-civilised races who
had no access to metals. From these the
transition to metals is easily traced, the
first bronze implements and weapons be
ing facsimiles of those of polished stone
which they superseded, and the gradual
development of bronze, and from bronze
to the cheaper and more generally use
ful metal, iron, being a matter of quite
modern history.
In like manner, the development of
the knife, sword, and all cutting instru
ments, from the primitive flint-flake,
can be traced step by step, and is
beyond doubt; and equally so the
development of all missiles, from the
primitive chipped flint, used as a javelin
or arrow-head, up to the modern rifle.
When we catch the first glimpse of the
beginnings of human art or industry, the
furniture or stock-in-trade of Palaeolithic
man appears to have been as follows :
He was acquainted with fire. This
seems to be clearly established by the
charred bones, charcoal, and other traces
of fire which are found in the oldest
Palaeolithic caves, and even in the. far
distant Miocene period, if we can believe
in the flints discovered by the Abbe Bour
geois in the strata of Thenay, some of
which appear to have been split by the
action of fire.
This is a remarkable
fact, for a knowledge of the means of
kindling fire is by no means a very
simple or obvious attainment. Apes
79
and monkeys will sit before a fire and
enjoy its warmth, but no monkey has yet
developed intelligence enough even to
put fresh sticks on to keep up the fire,
much less to rekindle it when extinct.
Primaeval man must often have had
experience of fire from natural causes,
as from forests and prairies scorched by
a tropical sun being set on fire by light
ning, or from volcanic eruptions ; but
how he learned from these to kindle
fire for himself is not so obvious. Savage
races, as a rule, do so by converting
mechanical energy into heat, by. the
friction of a stick twirled round in a
hole, or rubbed backwards, and forwards
in a groove in another piece of wood ;
and there are old observances among
civilised nations which show that this
was the mode practised by their an
cestors, as when the sacred fire, in the
Temple of Vesta was relighted in this
manner by the old Romans if. it had
chanced to be extinguished. It is prob
able, therefore, that . this was the
original mode of obtaining fire, but if so,
it must have required a good deal of
intelligence and observation, for. the dis
covery is by no means an obvious one,
nor is it easy to see any natural process
that might suggest it.
Neither ancient history nor the
accounts of existing savage races throw
much light on the question.
The
narratives of the discovery of fire con
tained in the oldest records are obviously
mythical, like the fable of Prometheus,
which is itself a version of the older
Vedic myth of the god Agni (cognate
with Latin ignis or fire) having been
taken from a casket and given to the
first man, Manou, by Pramantha, which
in the old Vedic language means taking
forcibly by means of friction. Of the
same character are the mythical legends
of savage races of fire having been first
brought by some wonderful bird or
animal; and there is nowhere anything
like an authentic tradition of the fact
of its first introduction. There have
been reports of savages who were unac
quainted with'"fire., but they have never
been well authenticated, and the nearest
approach to such a state of things was
probably furnished by the aborigines
of Van Diemen’s Land, of whom it is said
that in all their wanderings they were
particularly careful to bear in their hands
the materials for kindling a fire, in the
�80
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
shape of a firebrand, which it was the
duty of the women to carry, and to keep
carefully refreshed from time to time
as it became dull.
On the whole, traditions all point to fire
having been first obtained from friction,
and it is possible that the first idea may
have been derived from the boughs of
trees, or silicious stalks of bamboos, having
been set on fire when rubbed together by
the action of the wind, or by the rubbing
of the hands together.
It is easier to see the origin of the
remaining equipment of primitive man,
viz., chipped stones, for flints splintered
by frost or fire often take naturally the
forms of sharp-edged flakes and rude
hatchets or hammers, and very little
invention was required to improve these
specimens, or endeavour to imitate them
by artificial chippings. It is rather
surprising that this art did not improve
more rapidly, for it is evident that the
old Palaeolithic period must have lasted
a long time before any decided progress
began to show itself. And during this
long period a singular uniformity
appears to have prevailed throughout
the Palaeolithic world. The rude form of
the celt or hache, with a blunt butt and
chipped roughly to a point, is found in
the oldest river gravels and caves wher
ever they have been investigated, and
the forms of the Somme and the Thames
specimens are repeated in the quartzite
implements of the Madras laterite.
In the very oldest caves and river
deposits the tool-equipment of man seems
to have been very much limited to these
rude celts, used probably for smashing
skulls in war and the chase, and splitting
bones to get at the marrow; sharpedged flakes for cutting ; rude javelin
heads ; and stones chipped to a rounded
edge, very like those used by the Esqui
maux for scraping bones and skins. As
we ascend in time we find arrow-heads
of stone and bone, at first unbarbed and
gradually becoming barbed, showing that
the bow had been discovered ; harpoons
of bone and fish-hooks; bone pins and
needles; and a much greater variety
and more carefully-chipped forms of
flint tools and weapons ; until we finally
reach the upper reindeer stage of caves
like that of La Madeleine, where artistic
drawings and carvings are found, and
the equipment generally is superior to
that of many existing savage tribes, and |
not much inferior to that of the Esqui
maux and other Arctic races.
We then pass into Neolithic times,
when many of the chief elements of
civilisation are already in full force.
Man has emerged in many localities
from the hunter into the pastoral stage,
the principal domestic animals are
known, and in some of the later lake
dwellings he has advanced a stage
further, and has become an agriculturist
living in villages.. From this to the
Bronze and early historical periods, there
is no great break, and the ruder tribes of
barbarians described by Caesar and
Tacitus may well have. been the lineal
descendants of the Neolithic men whose
polished axes and finely-shaped arrow
heads lie scattered over the surface of
Europe and are found in innumerable
burial-mounds and dolmens.
But in Palaeolithic times, though we
can see constant progress, mankind is
still.in a state of unmitigated barbarism.
Agriculture was clearly unknown, for
the. hand mills, pestles, and mortars,
which are among the most enduring and
abundant relics where grain was used for
food, are never met with. Pottery was
unknown in. all the earlier periods, and
it is questionable whether even the
rudest forms of baked clay, moulded by
hand, are found where there is no inter
mixture of a subsequent Neolithic habi
tation. The dog was clearly not a
companion of man prior to the era of
the Danish kitchen-middens, for the
spongy parts of bones which are always
gnawed by dogs when dogs are present,
are invariably preserved in the debris
of Palaeolithic caves, and the few bones
of dogs, wolves, and foxes found with
human remains in these caves almost
always show that the animals had formed
part of the food of the inhabitants.
Other. domestic animals were, in all
probability, equally unknown, although
it has been thought possible that some of
the tribes of the reindeer period may
have had herds of the half-tame deer,
like the modern Laplanders. This con
jecture, however, appears to rest solely
on the large number of bones and horns
found at certain stations, which may
have arisen from their having been occu
pied for a very long period, and as the
dog was unknown, it seems probable that
no other animals had been domesticated.
As regards clothing, the first certain
�DEVELOPMENT OE THE ARROW.
Flint Arrow
in
Vertebra
of
Reindeer.
Palaeolithic. La Madeleine.
Mammoth Period. Le Moustier.
Palaeolithic.
Reindeer Period.
Palaeolithic.
Reindeer Period.
First vestige of barb.
Palaeolithic
Reindeer Period.
Neolithic.
Recent.
Denmark.
Esquimaux.
a
�82
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
proofs of its use are afforded by the bone
pins and needles, which were evidently
employed for fastening the skins of
animals together, while the scrapers
were used for scraping these skins
and fashioning the bone implements. It
is probable, therefore, that the use of
skins as a protection against the cold of
the Glacial period, was known at a very
early period.
Ornaments, also, are of very early date.
Perforated shells, sometimes fossil, and
pierced teeth of the bear and other ani
mals are frequently found under circum
stances which show that they must have
been strung together as necklaces. The
skeleton found in a cave at Mentone had
a number of perforated shells of Nassa,
and a few stags’ teeth also perforated,
dispersed about the skull, evidencing
that they had formed some sort of head
ornament. Lumps of red hematite, also,
probably used for paint, have been found
in some of the caves of the reindeer
period.
Captain Cook’s description of the sav
ages of Tierra del Fuego would have ap
plied to the men of that period, “although
content to be naked, they were very am
bitious to be tine; ” and probably like
these poor Fuegians, they adorned them
selves with streaks of red, black, and
white, and wore bracelets and anklets of
shell and bone.
If we wish to form some ideas of the
manners and customs of our Palaeolithic
ancestors, we must look for them among
existing savage races whose mode of
life, and equipment of tools and weapons,
most nearly resemble those of the earliest
cave-dwellers. The Australians, the Bush
men of South Africa, the Mincopies of
the Andaman Islands, and the Fuegians
are probably the lowest specimens of the
human race known in modern times ; but
even these are in some respects further
advanced in the arts than Palaeolithic
man. The Bushmen are skilled in the
use of the bow, and have discovered
the art of poisoning their arrows. The
Australians, Mincopies, and Fuegians
have canoes, harpoons, and fish-hooks.
The latter approach more nearly to the
conditions of life of the savages who ac
cumulated the kitchen-middens on the
coasts of Denmark at a much later
period, and the Bushmen probably re
present _ those of the cave-men who
lived principally on the produce of the
chase of large animals, such as the mam
moth, rhinoceros, cave bear, horse, and
deer. The pigmy Bushman will attack
the elephant, the rhinoceros, and even
the lion, and often succeed in killing
them by pitfalls or poisoned arrows.
The inferences, therefore, to be drawn,
alike from the physical development of
the individual man, and from the origin
and growth of all the faculties which
specially distinguish him from the brute
creation—language, religion, arts, and
science—point to the conclusion that he
is a product of laws of evolution, and
not of special or miraculous creation.
Still, granting this, we must admit on
the other hand, that until more of the
“ missing links ” are discovered, and the
origin of man thus placed on a basis of
scientific certainty, there is an opening
left for the belief that here, if nowhere
else, there was some supernatural inter
ference with the laws of Nature, and
that the finger of the clock-maker did
here alter the hands of the clock from
the position which they would have occu
pied under the original law of its con
struction. But if this were so, it must
equally in candour be admitted that the
miracle did not consist in placing man
and woman upon earth, at any recent
period, or with faculties in any way de
veloped, but could only have consisted in
causing a germ or germs to come into
existence, different from any that could
have been formed by natural evolution,
and containing within them the possi
bilities of conscious and civilised man, to
be developed from the rudest origins by
slow and painful progress over countless
ages.
�PART II.—MODERN THOUGHT
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deedsj
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares,
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope thro’ darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
CHAPTER VII
MODERN THOUGHT
Lines from Tennyson—The Gospel of Modern
Thought—Change exemplified by Carlyle,
Renan, and George Eliot—Science becom
ing Universal—Attitude of Orthodox Writ
ers—Origin of Evil—First Cause unknow
able—New Philosophies and Religions—
Herbert Spencer and Agnosticism—Comte
and Positivism—Pessimism—Mormonism—
Spiritualism—Dreams and Visions Som
nambulism-Mesmerism.
LVI.
“ So careful of the type ? ” but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, “ A thousand types are gone :
I care for nothing, all shall gof
“ Thou makest thine appeal to me :
I bring to life, I bring to death :
The spirit does but mean the breath :
I know no more.” And he, shall he,
LIV.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete ;
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
That not a worm is cloven in vain ;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.
Who trusted God was love indeed,
And love Creation’s final law—
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—
Behold, we know not anything.
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills ?
So runs my dream : but what am I ?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
No more ? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him.
LV.
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul ?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams ?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
0 life as futile, then, as frail !
0 for thy voice to soothe and bless 1
What hope of answer, or redress ?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
Tennyson, Tn Jifemoriam.
I
(By kind permission of Lord Tennyson.
G 2
�Si
modern science and modern thought
These noble and solemn lines of a great
poet sum up in a few words what may be
called “ the Gospel of Modern Thought.”
They describe what is the real attitude
of most of the thinking and earnest
minds of the present generation. On
the one hand, the discoveries of science
have so far established the universality
of law, as to make it impossible for sin
cere men to retain the faith of their an
cestors in dogmas and miracles. On the
other, larger views of man and of history
have shown that religious sentiment is
an essential element of human nature,
and that many of our best feelings, such
as love, hope, conscience, and reverence,
will always seek to find reflections of
themselves in the unseen world. Hence
faith in dogma has diminished and charity
increased. Fewer believe old creeds, and
those who do, believe more faintly ; while
fewer denounce them, or are insensible to
the good they have done in the past and
to the truth and beauty of the essential
ideas that underlie them.
On the Continent, and especially in
Catholic countries, where religion inter
feres more, with politics and social life,
there is still a large amount of active
hostility to it, as shown by the massacre
of priests by the French Communists;
but, in this country, the old Voltairean
infidelity has died out, and no one of
ordinary culture thinks of denouncing
Christianity as an invention of priest
craft. On the contrary, many of our lead
ing minds are at the same time sceptical
and religious, and exemplify the truth
of another profound saying of Tennyson:
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
The change which has come over modern
thought cannot be better exemplified
than by. taking the instance of three
great writers whose workshave produced
a powerful influence—Carlyle, Eenan,
and George Eliot. They were all three
born and brought up in the very heart
of different phases of the old beliefs—
Carlyle, in a family which might be taken
as a type of the best qualities of Scottish
Presbyterianism, bred in a Lowland farm
house, under the eye of a father and
mother whom he loved and revered, w*ho
might have been the originals of Burns’
“Cotter’s Saturday Night,” or the de
scendants of the martyrs of Claverhouse.
His own temperament strongly inclined to
a stern Puritanical piety; his favourite
heroe? were Cromwell and John Knox;
his whole nature was antipathetic to
science. As his biographer, Froude, re
ports. of him, “He liked ill men like
Humboldt, Laplace, and the author of
the ‘Vestiges.’ He refused Darwin’s
transmutation of species as unproved;
he fought against it, though I could see
he dreaded that it might turn out true.”
And yet the deliberate conclusion at
which he arrived was that “He did not
think it possible that educated honest
men could even profess much longer to
believe in historical Christianity.”
The case of Eenan was equally remark
able. He was born in the cottage of
Breton peasants of the purest type of
simple, pious, Catholic faith. Their one
idea of rising above the life of a peasant
was to become a priest, and their great
ambition for their boy was that he might
be so far honoured as one day to become
a country curd. Young Eenan, accord
ingly, from the first day he showed
cleverness, and got to the top of his class
in the village school, was destined for the
priesthood. He was taken in hand' by
priests, and found in them his kindest
friends ; they sent him to college, and in
due time to the Central Seminary where
young men were trained for orders.' All
his traditions,, all his affections, all his
interests, led in that direction, and yet
he gave up everything rather than sub
scribe to what he no longer believed to
be true. His conversion was brought
about in this way. Having been ap
pointed assistant to a professor of Heb
rew he became a profound scholar in
Oriental languages; this led to his
studying the Scriptures carefully in the
original, and the conclusion forced itself
upon him that the miraculous part of the
narrative had no historical foundation.
Like Carlyle, the turn of his mind was
not scientific, and while denying miracles
he remained keenly appreciative of all
that was beautiful and poetical in the
life and teaching of Jesus, which he has
brought more vividly before the ’world in
his writings than had ever been done by
orthodox commentators.
George Eliot, again, was brought up
in yet another phase of orthodox Chris
tianity—that of middle-class nonconform
ist Evangelicalism. She embraced this
creed fervently, and, as we see in her
“Dinah,” retained a keen appreciation
�MODERN TH OUGHT
of all its best elements. But as her
intellect expanded and her knowledge
widened, she too found it impossible to
rest in the old belief, and, with a painful
wrench from a revered father and loving
friends, she also passed over from the
ranks of orthodoxy. She also, after a life
of profound and earnest thought, came
.to the conclusion recorded of her by an
intimate friend and admirer, M”. Myers :
“I remember how at Cambridge, I
walked with her once in the Fellows’
Garden of Trinity, on an evening of
rainy May; and she, stirred somewhat
beyond her wont, and taking as her text
the three words which have been used so
often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of
men—the words God, Immortality, Duty—pronounced, with terrible earnestness,
how inconceivable was the first, how un
believable the second, and yet how per
emptory and absolute the third. Never,
perhaps, had sterner accents affirmed the
sovereignty of impersonal and unrecom
pensing law. I listened, and night fell;
her grave, majestic countenance turned
toward me like a Sibyl’s in the gloom ; it
was as though she withdrew from my
grasp, one by one, the two scrolls of pro
mise, and left me the third scroll only,
awTful. with inevitable fates.”
Such instances as these cannot be the
result of mere accident. As long as scep
ticism was confined to a limited number
of scientific men it might be possible to
think that it was merely the exaggera
tion of a particular train of thought pur
sued too exclusively. But when science
has become the prevailing mode of
thought, and has been brought home to
the minds of all educated persons, it is
no longer possible to represent it as an
exceptional aberration. And where the
bell-wethers of thought lead the way, the
flock will follow. What the greatest
thinkers think to-day, the company of
thinkers will think to-morrow, and the
great army of non-thinkers will treat as
self-evident the day after. This is very
nearly the case at the present day ; the
great thinkers have gone before, the mass
of thinkers have followed, and the still
greater mass of non-thinkers are waver
ing and about to follow. It is no longer,
with those who think at all. a question
of absolute faith against absolute dis
belief, but of the more or less shade of
“ faintness ” with which they cling to the
“ larger hope,”
85
This is nowhere more apparent than
in the writings of those who attempt to
stem the tide which sets so strongly
against orthodoxy. They resolve them
selves mainly into one long wail of “oh
the pity of it, the pity of it 1 ” if th®
simple faith of olden times should dis
appear from the world. They show
eloquently and conclusively that science
and philosophy cannot satisfy the as
pirations or afford the consolations of
religion. They expose the hollowness of
the substitutes which have been pro
posed, such as the worship of the un
knowable, or the cult of humanity.
They win an easy triumph over the ex
aggerations of those who resolve all the
historical records of Christianity into
myths or fabulous fulfilment of pro
phecies, and they wage fierce battles over
minor points, as, for example, whether
the first quotations from the Gospels are
met with in the first or second half of the
second century. But they nowhere at
tempt to grapple with the real diffi
culties, or to show that the facts and
arguments which converted men like
Carlyle and Kenan are mistaken facts
and unsound arguments. Attempts to
harmonise the Gospels and to prove the
inspiration of writings which contain
manifest errors and contradictions, have
gone the way of Buckland’s proof of a
universal deluge, and of Hugh Miller’s
attempt to reconcile Noah’s ark and the
Genesis account of creation with the
facts of geology and astronomy. Not a®
inch of ground that has been conquered
by science has ever been reconquered in
fair fight by theology
This great scientific movement _ is
of comparatively recent date. Darwin’s
“ Origin of Species ” was published only
in 1859, and his views as to evolution,
development, natural selection, and the
prevalence of universal law, have already
annexed nearly the whole world of
modern thought and become the founda
tion of all philosophical speculation and
scientific inquiry.
Not only has faith been shaken in the
supernatural as a direct and immediate
agent in the phenomena of the worlds of
matter and of life, but the demonstration
of the “ struggle for life ’’ and “ survival
of the fittest ” has raised anew, and with
vastly augmented force, those questions
as to the moral constitution of the uni
verse and the origin of evil, which have
�MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
so long exercised the highest minds. Is
it true that “ love ” is “ Creation’s final
law,” when we find this enormous and
apparently prodigal waste of life going
on; these cruel internecine battles be
tween individuals and species in the
struggle for existence; this cynical in
difference of Nature to suffering ? There
are, approximately, 3,600 millions of
deaths of human beings in every century,
of whom at least 20 per cent., or 720
millions, die before they have attained
to clear self-consciousness. What be
comes of them ? Why were they born ?
Are they Nature’s failures, and “cast as
rubbish to the void ” ?
To such questions there is no adequate
answer. We are obliged to admit that
as the material universe is not, as we once
fancied, measured by our standards and
regulated at every turn by an intelligence
resembling ours ; so neither is the moral
universe to be explained by simply mag
nifying our own moral ideas, and explain
ing everything by the action of a Being
who does what we should have done in
his place. If we insist on this anthropo
morphic conception we are driven to this
dilemma. Carlyle bases his belief in a
God, “the infinite Good One,” on this
argument: “All that is good, generous,
wise, right—whatever I deliberately and
for ever love in others and myself, who
or what could by any possibility have
given it to me but One who first had
it to give 1 This is not logic; this is
axiom.”
But how of the evil 1 No sincere man
looking into the depths of his own soul,
or at the facts of the world around, can
doubt that along with much that is good,
generous, wise, and right, there is much
that is bad, base, foolish, and wrong. If
logic compels us to receive as an axiom a
good author for the former, does not the
same logic equally compel us to accept
the axiom that the author of the latter
must have been one who “ first had it in
himself to give ” ? That is, we must ac
cept the theory of a God who is half
good, half evil; or adopt the Zoroastrian
conception of a universe contested by an
Ormuzd and Ahriman—a good and evil
principle, whose power is, for the present
at any ratoj equally balanced.
From this dilemma there is no escape,
unless we give up altogether the idea
of an anthropomorphic God, and adopt
frankly the scientific idea of an “ Infinite |
and Eternal Energy,” inscrutable and
past finding out; and of a universe whose
processes we can trace, but of whose ulti
mate essence we know nothing, only
suspecting, or faintly discerning, a funda
mental law which may make the polarity
of good and evil a necessary condition of
existence. This is a more sublime as well
as more rational belief than the old
orthodox conception ; but there is no
doubt that it requires more strength of
mind to embrace it, and that it appears
cold and cheerless to those who have
been accustomed to see special provi
dences in every ordinary occurrence, and
to fancy themselves the special objects
of supernatural. supervision in all the
details of daily life. Hopes and fancies,
however, are powerless against facts; and
the world is as surely passing from the
phase of orthodox into that of scientific
belief as youth is passing into manhood ;
and as the planet which we inhabit is
passing from the more fiery state into
that of temperate heat, progressive cool
ing, and final extinction as the abode of
life. In the meantime, what can we do
but possess our souls in patience, follow
truth wherever it leads us, and trust, as
Tennyson advises, that in the long run
everything will be for the best, and
“every winter turn to spring ” ?
The decay of old religious beliefs, and
the introduction of new conceptions
based on scientific discovery, have given
rise to many attempts to found new
philosophies, and in some cases hew sects
and religions, of some of the principal of
which a short account may be given.
, One of the greatest thinkers of modern
times, Herbert Spencer, has expanded
the theories of modern science, especially
those of the conservation of energy and
of Darwinian evolution, into a general
ised philosophy, embracing not only
the phenomena of the material and liv
ing universe, but also history, religion,
politics, and all the complex relations of
social life. He starts from the principle
that throughout the universe, in general
apd in detail, there is an unceasing re
distribution of matter and motion. This
shows itself as evolution where there
is a predominant aggregation of matter
and diminution of motion, and as dissolu
tion where matter is disintegrated and
motion increased. Thus, in the formation
of coal, the motion of the sun’s rays is
fixed in the condensed matter of the
�MODERN THOUGHT
chemical products of vegetation, and is
dissipated when, after, countless ages,
the coal is burned and its substance dis
solved into its elements. . These changes
constitute a transformation of the uni
form or homogeneous into the differenti
ated or heterogeneous, as seen in rhe con
densation of nebulous or cosmic matter
into suns and planets; in the varied
elements of the inorganic world ; in
each organism, vegetable or animal , in
the aggregate of organisms, thought and
geologic time ; in the mind ; in society ;
in all products of social activity.” These
changes are all in the direction of
passage from an indefinite whole to de
finite parts, and they are inevitable, un
less the original substance were so absolutely uniform as to Bo absolutely stable.
Once started, this process of differen
tiation tends necessarily to go on, the sur
rounding conditions being ever at work,
whether by aggregation or dissolution,
by joining like to like, or separating un
like from unlike, to sharpen and make
more definite existing differences.
This is in effect a generalised conception
of Darwin’s laws of the “ struggle for life
and “survival of the fittest.” J inally, however, the result of all these changes is that
an ultimate equilibrium will be reached,
which is rest in the inorganic and death
in the organic world ; as when the sun
with all its planets shall have parted
with all its heat, and all its energy shall
have run down to one uniform level.
From this state it can only be roused by
some fresh shock from without, dissipat
ing it again into a mass of diffused matter
and unbalanced motions.
Hence we come to the final statements
of the Spencerian philosophy, as given in
the words of its author
11 This rhythm of evolution and dissolu
tion, completing itself duringshortperiods
in small aggregates, and in the vast aggre
gates distributed through space com
pleting itself in periods which are im
measurable by human thought, is, so far
as W0 can. sec, universal and eternal, each
alternating phase of the process predo
minating, now in this region of space and
now in that, as local conditions determine.
All these phenomena, from their great
features even to their minutest details,
are necessary results of the persistence
of force under its forms of matter and
motion.
Given these as distributed
through space, and their quantities being
8?
unchangeable either by increase or de
crease, there inevitably result the con
tinuous redistributions distinguishable as
evolution and dissolution, as well as those
special traits above enumerated. That
which persists, unchanging in quantity,
but ever changing in form, under these
sensible appearances which the universe
presents to us, transcends human know
ledge and conception, is an unknown
and unknowable power,. which we are
obliged to recognise as without limit in
space and without beginning or end in
time.”
This is, in its highest form, the philo
sophy of Agnosticism. A very different
thing, be it observed, from Atheism, for
it distinctly recognises an underlying
power which, although “ unknown and
unknowable,” may be anything harmon
ising with the feelings and aspirations
in which all religious sentiment has its
origin, so long as it fulfils tne condition
of not, by too precise definition, coming
into collision with something which is
not “ unknown ” but “ known ” and irre
concilable with it.
For instance, there is nothing in Agnos
ticism to negative the possibility of a
future state of existence. Behind tae
veil there may be a-nything, and no
one can say that individual conscious
ness may not remain or be restored
after death, and that our condition may
not be in some way better or worse, ac
cording to the use we have made of the
opportunities of life. But if any one at
tempts to define this future state and say
we shall have spiritual bodies, live in
the skies, sing psalms, and wave palm
branches, we say at once, “This is partly
unknowable and partly known to be im
possible.”
.
That which has given the philosophy
of Spencer a wide influence is the manner
in which he applies it to the subjects
which more immediately concern the
mass of thinking minds, such as history,
politics, and the problems of social life.
What Darwin shows in animal life and
the origin of species, Spencer traces in
the rise and fall of empires, the growth
and decline of religions, the increasing
complexity of social relations, the con
flicting forces of evolution and dissolution
at work around us in our every-day life
in the relations of science and theology,
capital and. labour, state socialism and
lai&s.sz-faire. For instance, the decline of
�8»
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
the Roman Empire and its overthrow by homely proverb that “ charity begins at
the barbarians is analogous to the de home, and as we widen the sphere of
cay of a planet from loss of internal heat patriotism or philanthropy we are very
and its dissipation into matter capable of apt to diminish their intensity and find
fresh evolution, by the shock of a comet. them evaporate in a mist of high-sound
The ever-increasing gulf between wealth ing phrases. The “ friend of man ” is
and poverty, science and superstition, very apt to be the friend of no one man
resembles the process by which the one in particular, and to make universal
toed ho rsebecame gradually differentiated philanthropy an excuse for neglecting
more and more from the common five-toed individual charity.
type of its remote ancestor.
Apart, however, from this objection
These speculations of Spencer, pursued and granting that with increased inter
with vast acuteness and research through course and increased culture “Humanity”
all branches of social science, though they might become a more practical idea, we
have not founded a new religion or es
be.
tablished a new sect, have undoubtedly it the .basis of a a l°ng waY from making
new religion. It is here
exercised a great influence on modern that Comte has laid himself open to such
thought, especially among the rising criticism as that of Huxley, who defined
generation.
Positivism as “Catholicism without Chris
Another “ism” which, although it has tianity.” With the narrow systematising
exercised a much narrower influence than logic so characteristic of the French inthe philosophy of Spencer, has founded a tellect Comte has worked out a complete
sect.and put forward more definite claims scheme of ritual, hierarchy, and all the
to give the world a new religion is that apparatus of an old religion. A supreme
which is known as “Positivism,” or pontiff at its head, associated with a
“ Comtism,” from the.name of its founder, supreme priestess to represent the female
Auguste Comte. It is not easy to under element; for saints, the distinguished
stand, but its essence seems to be this :— men of philosophy, theology, art and
Admitting that science has killed theo science ; for days of worship, fete days of
logy, and that the old forms of super these saints, and meetings to commemo
natural religion, inevitable in the child rate their merits, and to observe certain
hood of the world, have become incredible,
sacraments.”
Comte cast about for some idea which
All this savours too much of the “ God
should be at the same time “ positive,” dess of Liberty,” and of the theo-philanor based on ascertained fact, and fervid thropy of the French Revolution, when
enough to satisfy the cravings of re the disciples of Rousseau cut off heads
ligious sentiment. He thought he found in the name of universal benevolence, to
it in “ Humanity ; ” that is, in love and find much acceptance in a sceptical age
veneration for the abstract idea of the and among, a practical people. Robuster
human race, taken collectively, and con intellects,, like George Eliot, even where
sidered in its past, present, and future they incline to accept Humanity as an
relations. As patriotism, a very ardent ennobling idea, and to recognise Comte
feeling, is the love of a limited section as an original thinker, reject all the con
of the human race; and as it has been structive and ceremonial part of his new
gradually enlarged from the limits of a religion as unworthy of notice; while
tribe to those of a city, and from those to the mass of thoughtful persons the
of a city to those of a country or nation whole thing appears unreal and para
ality, he conceived that it might be still doxical.
further enlarged so as to embrace all
One more “ ism ”—Pessimism, the
mankind. . So far it may be admitted gospel of feebleness and failure—has had
that there is a germ of truth in Comte’s a considerable effect on the Continent,
idea, and. that elevated minds may en though little in this country. It is based
large their view beyond the narrow on.the fact that, in accordance with the
bounds of a particular country at a par universal law of polarity, progress is not
ticular period, and may derive fresh an unmixed good, but develops a corre
incentives to action, and fresh sub sponding negative of failure. In simple
jects for ennobling thought, from a con forms of society the distinctions between
templation of the past progress, present wealth and poverty, capital and labour,
condition, and future possibilities of the culture and ignorance, are not so sharply
collective human race. But there is a defined, and the lot of those who fail in
�MODERN THOUGHT
the battle of life is not so hard as when
men are congregated in crowded cities,
exposed to temptations, and tantalised
by the sight of wealth and luxury before
their eyes and yet beyond their reach.
A mass of misery and discontent is thus
created, which in lower natures.translates
itself into anarchism and fanatical hatred
of all above them, while in higher ones it
takes the form of theories for the re
generation of the world by levelling
everything that exists, and .building
anew on fresh foundations. Still higher
minds see the futility of these theories,
and take refuge in a philosophy which
pronounces the world a mistake, life an
evil, and universal suicide the only possible
solution of what is radically bad. This
is, in substance, the philosophy of Scho
penhauer and the school of Continental
Pessimists. It has something in common
with Buddhism, which regards all personal
existence as a painful dream or illusion,
and places supreme happiness in escape
from it by annihilation of individuality.
To understand how such a doctrine can
have found acceptance, we must remem
ber that the tendency of modem civil
isation is to throw more and more work
on the brain and nervous system and less
on other organs. This of itself tends, to
produce more ill-health both of mind
and body, especially of those digestive
organs upon which the sensation of
health and well-being so mainly depends.
A dyspeptic man is of necessity an un
happy and desponding man. Moreover,
in ruder states of society such weaklings
were got rid of by the summary process
of being killed off, while with the more
humane and refined arrangements of
modern times they live on and “ weary
deaf heaven with their fruitless cries.”
It is among such men, with cultivated
intellects, sensitive nerves, and bad
digestion, that we find the prophets and
disciples of the gospel of Pessimism.
They feel, and feel truly,. that as far as
they are concerned life is an evil, the
pains of which far outweigh its pleasures,
and, having lost faith in a future life
where the balance will be redressed, they
see no remedy for the miseries of the
world but that of ceasing to be, or
annihilation.
This affords another illustration of the
extent to which religions and philoso
phies are, like the spectre of the Brocken,
reflections of our own selves on dissolving
mists, clothed with our own clothes and
89
repeating our own gestures.
To a
healthy man or to a strong man the
pessimist view of the universe is simply
impossible. If he has experienced, a fair
average of happiness and success in life,
he instinctively rejects a creed which
tells him that there are no lights as well
as shadows. If he has a mind of average
strength, he feels that suffering is a thing
to be avoided prudently, borne stoically,
or grappled with courageously, and not
to be run away from by moral or physical
suicide.
Accordingly Pessimism is not a creed
which is ever likely to exert much in
fluence on the strong, practical AngloSaxon race, and we can discern some
faint traces of it only in the tendency of
certain very limited cliques of so-called
fiEstheticism to admire morbid and selfconscious ideals, both in poetry and
painting.
.
It is a very curious and remarkable
fact, that while so many highly intellec
tual attempts have been made in vain in
modern times to found new sects and
religions, the only one which has had any
real success is that which is based on the
most gross and vulgar imposture—Mor
monism. Mormonism is a fact which,
without the vestige of a reasonable argu
ment to show for itself, originating in
the vulgar ravings and forgeries of a
vulgar Yankee, and violating the first
instincts of the family and of. society
by polygamy, still flourishes, in spite
of persecutions and prohibitions, llie
reason seems to be that, instead of being
a theory in the air or over the heads of
the masses, it is, with all its faults, a prac
tical system in contact with the actual
realities of life. Its success is mainly
owing to its being an organised system
of emigration, and a faith which places
its Paradise here on earth and not in the
skies. A poor ignorant labourer in Wales
or Norway, who becomes a convert to
Mormonism, is taken in hand at once,
forwarded to his destination, and when
he arrives there looked after and put in
a way of earning an honest livelihood and
probably becoming a landed proprietor.
The ideal set before him is not a very
high one, that of becoming a sober,
industrious, respectable, narrow-minded
citizen of the State of Utah, and a cre
ditable member of the community of
Latter Day Saints. But to a poor
labourer from the slums of Liverpool, to
lead such a life, in the pure mountain air
�90
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
in the valley of the Salt Lake, and see
his flocks and herds increasing and his
family growing up, without care for the
future, is indeed the realisation of an
earthly Paradise. The moral to draw
from this is, that the success of a religion,
under the conditions of modern society,
does not depend so much on its theory as
on the way in which it takes hold of the
practical problems of life and shows an
aptitude for grappling with them.
Another wide-spread modern delusion,
that of Spiritualism, is akin to Mormonism, as showing how little reason has to
do with the beliefs which are most readily
propagated among large classes of the
community.
Nothing but the most
morbid appetite for the supernatural,
combined with the most absolute ignor
ance of the laws of evidence, could induce
sane people to believe that, if a corner
of that mysterious and awful veil were
lifted which separates the living from
the dead, we shall discover what? —
spirits whose vocation it is to turn tables
and talk twaddle.
In vain, medium after medium is de
tected, and the machinery by which
ghosts are manufactured exposed in
police-courts ; in vain, the manifestations
of the so-called spirits are repeated by
professional conjurors like Maskelyne
and Cooke, who disclaim any assistance
from the unseen world. People are still
found to believe the unbelievable because
it gratifies their taste for the marvellous,
and enables them to fancy themselves
the favoured recipients of supernatural
communications.
The explanation that Spiritualism has
received a certain amount of acceptance
from men of a very different order, like
Crookes and Wallace, may be found in
the phenomena associated with it, such
as mesmerism and clairvoyance, which
have a certain basis of fact, and open up
interesting fields for scientific investi
gation. The working of the nervous
apparatus in certainabnormal conditions,
and the physical effects of imagination,
are subjects imperfectly understood, but
well deserving accurate inquiry.
Take, for instance, dreams, which
afford the first certain starting-point
towards a theory of visions and appari
tions. It is as certain that we dream as
that we sleep, and that in our sleeping
state we often live a sort of second life,
which is different from our ordinary
waking life. Dreams are made up of im
pressions which have been recorded by
the brain in its waking state, and which
are revived in new combinations and
imaginary scenes, when consciousness is
suspended. These impressions are thus
0-ten worked, up into a succession of
dreams so vivid as to be scarcely distin
guishable from reality. It happened to
mo, about th© middle period of my life,
to be sent, almost at a day’s notice, to
India, where for more than two years I
had a period of intensely hard work and
great responsibility, as Finance Minister,
this naturally leit a number of strong
impressions on my brain, which for
years afterwards kept reviving in a
series of connected dreams, in which I
fancied myself back in India. I had
thus a dream life as well as a real life of
Indian experiences, and the former was
so vivid that, if I were writing remini
scences, I should sometimes find it difficult to distinguish between the two.
This enables me to realise how dreams
may reaclily pass into visions. If I had
dozed oft" in an arm-chair after dinner,
and fallen into one of my Indian dreams,
I might have seen Lord Canning, who
had been dead for years, walk into the
room as distinctly as if he had been
present in person. In a less critical age,
and with a less sceptical turn of mind, I
might readily have been convinced that
I had seen his ghost.
There can be no doubt that, in this way,
dreams must often, in pre-scientific ages,
have originated a bona fide belief in
spirits. Herbert Spencer traces to this
cause the origin of all religious belief.
Perhaps this may be carrying it too far,
but doubtless it was one of the main
causes, especially of that portion of
religion which took the form of offerings
to the dead, and ancestor-worship.
But a still further step may be taken
from the ordinary dream to the waking
dream or vision. It is a well-established
fact that under peculiar and rare circum
stances. the brain may dream, that is,
revive impressions where there is no
corresponding reality, without losing its
consciousness. There was a celebrated
case of a Berlin bookseller in the last
century, who, having fallen into bad
health, lived formore than a year in the
company of ghosts—that is, he constantly
saw men and women, with every
appearance of being alive, enter the
�MODERN THOUGHT
room and come and go as. if they had
been ordinary visitors. Being a man of
a scientific turn of mind he never sup
posed that these were really ghosts, but
reasoned on them and recorded his ex
periences.
Instead of sending for a
priest and resorting to exorcisms, he
called in a physician and took a course of
medicine, with the result that after a
considerable time the ghostly visitors
gradually became dim and finally disappeared.
.
Numerous other cases are recorded m
which there is no doubt that visions have
been seen, especially under the influence
of religious excitement, and a large
number of so-called miraculous appear
ances and ghost stories are probably
owing to this cause rather than to con
scious imposture.
When we consider the enormous num
ber of dreams, and probably considerable
number of visions, which occur, instead
of being surprised at occasional coinci
dences, the wonder rather is that they
are not more frequent. If only one per
cent, of the 30,000,000 inhabitants of the
British Isles dream every night, that
would give 109,500,000 dreams per
annum, a large proportion of which are
made up of vivid impressions of actual
persons and events. It is impossible that
some of the combinations of these im
pressions should not form pictures which
are subsequently realised, and we. may
be sure that the successes only will be
noted, and the failures forgotten. It is
strange, therefore, that the researches of
the Psychical Society should not have
brought to light more instances of death
warnings and other remarkable coinci
dences. To take the vulgar instance of
horse-racing. A number of minds are
greatly exercised over the problem of
picking out winners, and doubtless a vast
number of dreams show colours flashing
past winning-posts, and numbers hoisted
on the telegraph board. And yet I re
member only two tolerably well-authenti
cated instances in the last half-century,
in which any one is said to have backed
a winner on the faith of a dream. . .The
only positive result of dreams and visions
is that they frequently occur under cir
cumstances where they are almost certain
to be mistaken, by unscientific persons
in unscientific ages, for actual super
natural appearances.
Another field of inquiry is opened out
91
by the effects which are undoubtedly
produced under certain abnormal con
ditions of the brain and nervous system,
as in epilepsy, somnambulism, and mes
merism.
In the simplest case, that of epilepsy,
the effect is mainly shown by a more
intense action of nerve-currents, causing
convulsive motions and an unnatural
increase of muscular strength and
rigidity, so that two strong men may be
scarcely able to hold one weak woman.
In somnambulism, the effects are more
complex. The reception of outward im
pressions seems to be limited, so that the
whole consciousness and vital energy are
concentrated on particular actions, which
are thus performed safely, while in the
ordinary waking state they would be im
possible. Thus a somnambulist walks
securely along a plank spanning an abyss,
because the impressions of surrounding
space do not reach the brain and confuse
it with a sense of danger. In this state
also past impressions photographed on
the brain, which in the ordinary waking
state are obscured by other impressions,
seem to come out occasionally .as in
dreams, enabling the somnambulist to
do and remember things which would
otherwise be beyond his faculties.
Mesmerism is closely akin to somnam
bulism. Apart from delusion and char
latanism the fact seems to be established
that it is possible, by artificial means,, to
induce a state resembling somnambulism
in persons of a peculiar nervous tempera
ment. As regards the means, the essen
tial point seems to be to throw the brain
into this abnormal state partly by keep
ing an unnatural strain on the attention,
and partly by acting on it through the
imagination. The experiments of Dr.
Braid showed that the mesmeric sleep
could be induced just as well by keeping
the eye strained on a black wafer stuck
on a white wall, as by the manipulations
of an operator. This experiment dis
poses of a great deal of mysterious non
sense about magnetic fluids, overpower
ing wills, and other supposed attributes
of professional mesmerisers, and reduces
the question to the plain matter-of-fact
level of the relations between the brain,
will, imagination, and nervous system,
which exist in natural and in artificial
somnambulism. These are undoubtedly
very curious, and open up a wide field for
physiological and mental research. As
�92
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
far as I have seen or read, they seem to
turn mainly on the reflex effects of an
excited imagination on other organs and
faculties. I do not believe that any one
could be mesmerised who was absolutely
ignorant of the subject and unconscious
that any one was operating. On the
other hand, any one who had frequently
been mesmerised would fall into the sleep1
if led to believe that an operator was1
at work when there was really not one.
And the peculiar effects shown in the
mesmeric state are attributable mainly,
to the imagination acting
with, morbid activity on the slightest
hint or suggestion of what is expected,
ihus the will disappears in the more
powerful suggestion of the imagination
that the patient has to obey the will of
the operator, or do certain things which
are. m the programme. I can readily
believe also that in this state the imagination can perform feats which would be
impossible to it in a natural state when
it is kept in check by other faculties, and
that a good deal of what is called clair
voyance may be explained by the way
in which the slightest hint from expresSi.?n’ involuntary muscular motion, or
otherwise, is taken advantage of as a
substitute for the ordinary modes of com
munication. Such a faculty may also
doubtless be cultivated by practice, and
thus explain many of the phenomena of
what are called spiritual communications
and thought-reading. But that imp ressions can be made on the brain, or that
one mind can communicate with another
without some physical medium between
object and subject, is unproved and
remains incredible.
CHAPTER VIII
MIRACLES
Origin of Belief in the Supernatural—Thunef in Miracles formerly Universal
—bt. Paul s Testimony—Now Incredible—
Christian Miracles—Apparent Miracles—
Real Miracles—Absurd Miracles—Worthy
Miracles—The Resurrection and Ascension
—.Nature of Evidence required—Inspiration
—Prophecy—Direct Evidence—St. Paul—
lhe Gospels—What is Known of Them—
® Synoptic Gospels—Resemblances and
th Terences—Their Origin—Papias—Gospel
of St. John—Evidence rests on Matthew,
Mark, and Luke—What each states—Com*
pared with one another and with St. John
— Hopelessly Contradictory—Miracle of
the Ascension-Silence of Mark-Probable
i» their
When men began to reason on the phenoplena of the world around them, it was
inevitable that they should begin bv
referring all striking occurrences to
supernatural causes. Just as they mea
sured space by feet and inches, and time
by days and years, they referred unusual
events to. personal agencies. They knew
by experience that certain effects were
produced by their own wills, muscular
energies, and .passions ; and when they
saw effects which seemed to be of a like
nature, they inferred that they must
have been produced by like causes.
lo take the familiar instance of
thunder. The first savage who thought
about it must have said : “The sound is
very like the roar with which I spring on
a wild beast or an enemy ; the flash of
lightning, is very like the flash of the
arrow or javelin with which I strike him :
the effect is often the same, that he is
killed. Surely there must be some one
m the clouds, very strong, very angry,
very able to do me harm, unless I can
propitiate him by prayers or offerings.”
But aiter long centuries, science steps in
An elderly gentleman at Philadelphia,
.Benjamin Franklin by name, sends up a
silk kite during a thunder-storm, and
behold . the lightning is drawn down
tiom the skies, tamed, and made to emit
harmless sparks, or to follow the course
of a conducting wire, at our will and
pleasure. There is no more room left for
the supernatural in. the fiercest tropical
-storm than there is in turning
the handle of an electrical machine, or
sending-in a tender to light the streets of
London by electricity. And the result
is absolutely certain. In the contest
between the natural and the super
natural, the latter has not only been re
pulsed but annihilated. The most ortho
dox believer in miracles, if his faith
were, brought to. the practical test of
.backing his opinions by his money,
would, rather insure a gin-palace or
gambling saloon protected by a light
ning-conductor than a chapel protected
by the prayers of a pious preacher.
�MIRACLES
This instance of thunder is a type of
the revolution of thought which has been
brought about by modern science in the
whole manner of viewing the phenomena
of the surrounding universe. Former
ages saw miracles everywhere, the age
in which we live sees them nowhere,
except possibly in the single instance of
the miracles recorded in the. Bible. In
the annals of grave Roman historians,
In every page locutus bos.
Not a Caesar or a Consul died, without
an ox speaking, or a flaming sword in the
skies predicting portents. If the moon
happened to pass between the sun and
the earth the dim eclipse
With fear of change perplexes monarchs.
If the winds blow it is because tEoIus
releases them from the cave ; if the rains
fall it is because Jupiter opens the win
dows of heaven, or Indra causes the
cloud-cows to drop their milk on the
parched earth. Perhaps no better proof
can be afforded of the universal belief
that miracles were considered matters of
every-day occurrence than is given by
the passage in St. Paul’s Epistle to the
Corinthians, in which he enumerates the
principal Christian gifts, and assigns, as
it were, their comparative order and the
number of marks that should be given
to each in a competitive examination.
The power of “ working miracles ”
comes low in the list. “.First apostles,
secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings,
helps,
governments, ' diversities of
tongues.” And he goes on to say, in
words that come home to every heart in
all centuries, that all those things are
worthless as compared with that true
Christian charity which “suffereth long,
and is kind ; envieth not; vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own,, is
not easily provoked, thinketh.no evil;
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
the truth ; beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things.”
This is in the true spirit of modern
thought, which, when the externals of
religion fail, strives to look below them
at its essence, and to retain wha,t is
eternally true and beautiful as the ideal
of a spiritual and the guide of a practi
cal life, while rejecting all the outward
apparatus of metaphysical creeds and
93
incredible miracles, which had only a
temporary value, and can no longer be
believed without shutting one’s eyes to
facts and becoming guilty of conscious
or unconscious insincerity.
But to return to miracles. Almost the
entire world of the supernatural fades
away of itself with an extension of our
knowledge of the laws of Nature, as surely
as the mists melt from the valley before the
rays of the morning sun. We have seen
how, throughout the wide domains of space,
time, and matter, law, uniform, universal,
and inexorable, reigns supreme; and there
is absolutely, no room for the interference
of any outside personal agency to sus
pend its operations. The last remnant
of supernaturalism, therefore, apart from
the Christian miracles which we shall
presently consider, has shrunk into that
doubtful and shady border-land of ghosts,
spiritualism and mesmerism, where vision
and fact, and partly real, partly imagin
ary, effects of abnormal nervous condi
tions, are mixed up in a nebulous haze
with a large dose of imposture and
credulity.
Even this region is being contracted
every day by every fresh revelation in a
police-court; in every fresh discovery, of
the laws which regulate the transmission
of nervous energy to and from the brain ;
and in the abnormal state which con
stitutes epilepsy and somnambulism, and
which enables an excited imagination to
produce physical effects, such as those
of drastic drugs on a patient who has
actually taken nothing but pills of harm
less paste.
.
.
The question of Christian miracles,
however, rests on a different and more
serious ground. They have been accepted
for ages as the foundation and proof of
a religion which has been for. nineteen
centuries that of the highest civilisation
and purest morality, and for this reason
alone they deserve the most reverent
treatment and the most careful con
sideration.
Of a large class of these miracles it
may be said that there is no reason to
doubt them, but none to consider them as
violations of law, or anything but . the
expression, in the language of the time,
qf natural effects and natural causes.
When a large class of maladies were
universally attributed to the agency of
evil spirits which had taken possession of
the patient’s body, it was inevitable that
�04
Modern science and modern thought
many cures would be effected, and that
these cures would be set down as the
casting-out of devils. In many cases also
a strong impulse communicated to the
brain may send a current along a nerve
which may temporarily, or even per
manently, restore motion to a paralysed
limb, or give fresh vitality to a paralysed
nerve. Thus, the lame may walk, the
dumb speak, and the blind see, with no
more occasion to invoke supernatural
agency than if the same effects had been
produced by a current of electricity from
a voltaic battery. There is no reason to
doubt that miracles of this sort have been
frequentlj wrought by saints and relics,
and that even at the present day they
may possibly be wrought at Lourdes and
other shrines of Catholic faith. Only at
the present day we scrutinise the evi
dence and count the failures, and admit
nothing to be supernatural which can be
explained as within a fair average result
of exceptional cases under the operation
of natural laws. In like manner we set
down all visions or apparitions as having
. no objective reality if they can be ex
plained by the known laws of dreams or
other vivid revivals of impressions, on the
brain of the person who perceives them.
There remains the class of really super
natural miracles, or miracles which could
by no possibility have occurred as they
are described, unless some outward agency
had suspended or reversed the laws of
Nature. As regards such miracles, a
knowledge of these laws enormously in
creases the difficulty in believing in them
as actual facts. Take for instance the
conversion of water into wine. When
nothing was known of the constitution
of water or of wine, except that they
were both fluids, it was comparatively
easy to accept the statement that such a
conversion really took place. But now
we know that water consists of oxygen
and hydrogen combined in a certain
simple proportion, and of these and
nothing else; while wine contains in
addition nitrogen, carbon, and other ele
ments combined in very complicated
proportions. If the water was not really
changed into wine, but only seemed to
be so, it was a mere juggling trick, such
as the Wizard of the North can show us
any day for a shilling. But if it was
really changed, something must have
been created out of nothing to supply
the elements which were not in the
original water and were not put into it
from without.
Again, those who have followed the
question of spontaneous generation, and
witnessed the failure of the ablest
chemists to produce the lowest forms of
protoplasmic life from inorganic ele
ments, will hardly believe that such a
highly organised form of life as a serpeilt
could have been really produced from a
wooden rod. And this, be it observed,
not only by Moses the prophet of God,
but by the jugglers who amused the
court of Pharaoh by their conjuring
tricks ; and for an object of no greater
moment than to persuade a king to allow
some of his subjects to emigrate, which
object, moreover, notwithstanding the
miracle, entirely failed, as the king
simply “hardened his heart” and per
sisted in his refusal.
But passing from this class of grotesque
and incredible miracles, let us examine
those which may be called worthy
miracles; that is, miracles disfigured by
no absurd details, and wrought for ob
jects of sufficient importance to justify
supernatural interference, if ever such
interference were to take place. At the
head of such miracles must undoubtedly
be placed those of the Kesurrection of
Jesus. The appearances to the Apostles,
and above all the bodily Ascension to
heaven in the presence of more than 500
witnesses, were a fitting termination to
the drama of his life and sufferings, and
afforded a conclusive test of the fact
which was the foundation-stone of the
new religion.
“If Christ be not risen, then is our
preaching vain,” says St. Paul; and he
proceeds to argue that the whole ques
tion of the reality of a future life hinges
on the fact that Christ really rose from
the dead. His theory is that death came
into the world by the sin of the first
man, Adam, and has been destroyed and
swallowed up in immortality by the
victory of the second man, Christ. This
theory has, from that day to this, been
the key-stone of Christian theology.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that
if any miracle is true this must be the
one, and, on the other hand, if this
miracle cannot be established by suffi
cient proof, it is idle to discuss the evi
dence for other miracles. In order to go
to the root of the matter therefore, it
is necessary to consider, in a calm and
�MIRACLES
judicial spirit, the evidence upon which
this-miracle of the Resurrection really
In the first place we must consider
what sort of evidence is required to prove
a miracle. Clearly it must be evidence
of the most cogent and unimpeachable
character, far more conclusive than would
be sufficient to establish, an ordinary
occurrence. The discoveries of modern
science have shown beyond the possi
bility of doubt that the miracles which
former ages fancied they saw around
them every day had no real existence,
and that, except possibly in the solitary
instance of the Christian miracles, there
has been no supernatural interference
with the laws of Nature throughout the
enormous ranges of space, time, and
matter. It may be going too far to say
with Hume that no amount of evidence
can prove a miracle, since it must always
remain more probable that human testi
mony should be false than that the laws
of Nature should have been violated.
But it is not going too far to say that
the evidence to establish such a viola
tion must be altogether overwhelming
and open to no other possible construc
tion.
Consider, now, the significance of the
statement that a dead man rose in the
body from the grave, ate, drank, and
held intercourse with . living persons.
There are some 1,500 millions of human
beings living in the world, and somewhat
more than three generations in each
century, that is, there are some 3,600
millions of deaths per century, and this
has been going on for some forty or fifty
centuries, or longer. It is certain, there
fore, that at least 150,000 millions of
deaths must have taken place, and a
large proportion of these under circum
stances involving the most heart-rending
separations, and the most intense longing
on the part of the dying to give, and of the
living to receive, some token of affection
from beyond the grave. And yet no such
. token has ever been given, and the veil
which separates the dead from the.living
has never been lifted, except possibly in
one case out of this 150,000,000,000. Surely
it must require very different evidence
to establish the reality of such an excep
tion, from that which would be sufficient
to prove the signature to a will or the
date of a battle.
But just when the new views opened
95
up by modem science made it more diffi
cult "to believe in miracles, and more
exacting in the demand for stronger evi
dence to support them, the old evidence
became greatly weakened. The main evi
dence which satisfied our forefathers was
that the Bible was inspired, and that it
asserted the reality of the miracles. This,
when critically examined, was really no
evidence at all, for how did we know that
the Bible was inspired ? Because it was
proved to be so by miracles. The argu
ment was therefore in a circle, and re
sembled that of the Hindoo mythology,
which rested the earth on an elephant
and the elephant on a tortoise. But what
did the tortoise rest on ?
To examine the matter more closely,
what is the meaning of inspiration ? It
means that a certain book was not
written, as all other books in the world
have been written, by writers who were
fallible, and whose statements and opi
nions, however admirable in the main
and made in perfect good faith, inevit
ably reflected the views of. the age in
which they lived and contained matters
which subsequent ages found to be
obsolete or erroneous, but that this
particular book was miraculously dic
tated by an infallible God, and there
fore absolutely and for all time true.
But, as a chain cannot be stronger than
its weakest link, if any one of these
statements was proved not to be true, the
theory of inspiration failed, and human
reason was called on to decide by the
ordinary methods, whether any, and if
any, what parts of the volume were
inspired and what uninspired.
Now it is absolutely certain that
portions of the Bible, and those import
ant portions relating to the creation of
the world and of man, are not true, and
therefore not inspired. It is certain that
the sun, moon, stars, and earth, were not
created as the author of Genesis supposed
them to have been created, and that the
first man, whose Paleolithic implements
are found in caves and river gravels of
immense antiquity, was a very different
being from the Adam who was created in
God’s likeness and placed in the Garden
of Eden. It is certain that no universal
deluge ever took place since man existed,
and that the animal life existing in the
world, and shown by fossil remains to
have existed for untold ages, could by no
possibility have originated from pairs of
�96
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
animals living together for forty days in
the ark.
Another test of inspiration is afforded
by the presence of contradictions. If
one writer says that certain events
occurred in Galilee, while another says
that they took place at Jerusalem, they
cannot both be inspired. They may be
both reminiscences of real events, but
they are obviously imperfect and not in
spired reminiscences, and require to be
tested by the same process of reasoning
as we should apply in endeavouring to
unravel the truth from the confused
and contradictory evidence of conflicting
historians.
Inspiration is clearly as much a miracle
as any of the miracles which it relates,
and there is only one way conceivable by
which it could be proved, so as to afford
a solid basis for faith and give addi
tional evidence in support of the super
natural occurrences said to have taken
place ; that would be if it carried with
it internal evidence of its truth. Such
evidence might be afforded in one
way, and in one only—by prophecy. If
any volume written many centuries ago
contained a clear, definite, and distinct
prophecy of future events, which the
writer could by no possibility have known
or conjectured, such a prophecy must
have been dictated, by some agency
different from anything known in the
ordinary course of nature; and future
ages, seeing the fulfilment of the pro
phecy, could scarcely doubt that the
volume which contained it was inspired.
But such a prophecy must be quite de
finite, so that there could be no doubt as
to whether it had been fulfilled or not,
and must not consist of vague and mystic
utterances, in which future believers
might find meanings, probably never
thought of by the /prophets themselves,
confirming the faith which, from other
considerations, they thought it a sin to
disbelieve. Nor must it consist of pas
sionate aspirations for deliverance, and
predictions of the downfall of cruel con
querors, wrung from the hearts of an
oppressed people in times of imminent
danger and crushing despair; because
such predictions have been partly veri
fied and partly transformed in future
ages, so as to receive a new and spiritual
significance.
There is one prophecy which affords a
test by which to judge of the value of all
others as a proof of inspiration, for it is
perfectly distinct and definite, and comes
from the highest authority—that of the
approaching end of the world contained
in the New Testament.
St. Matthew reports Jesus to have said :
“ For the Son of man shall come in the
glory of his Father with his angels ; and
then he shall reward every man according
to his works.
“Verily I say unto you, There be some
standing here, which shall not taste of
death, till they seethe Son of man coming
in his kingdom.”
It is certain that all standing there did
taste death without seeing the Son of
Man coming with his angels. The con
clusion is irresistible, that either Jesus
was mistaken in speaking these words,
or else Matthew was mistaken in sup
posing that he spoke them.
St. Paul predicts the same event in
still more definite terms. He says :
“For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are
alive and remain unto the coming of the
Lord shall not prevent them which are
asleep.
“For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of
God : and the dead in Christ shall rise
first:
“Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the
air.”
Here is the most distinct prediction
possible, both of the event which was to
happen, and of the limit of time within
which it. was to take place; and, to give
it additional force, it is specially de
clared to be an inspired prophecy uttered
as “ the word of God.”
The time is distinctly stated to be in
the lifetime, of some of the existing
generation, including Paul himself, who
is to be one of the “ we which are alive,”
who are not to “ prevent,” or gain any
precedence over, those who have “ fallen
asleep,” or died, in the interval before
Christ’s coming. By no possibility can
this be construed to mean a coming at
some indefinite future time, long after all
those had died who were to remain and
be caught up alive into the clouds. St.
Paul doubtless meant what he said, and
firmly believed that he was uttering an
inspired prophecy which would certainly
�MIRACLES
be fulfilled. But it is certain that it was
not fulfilled. Paul and all Paul’s con
temporaries have been dead. for 1,800
years, and the shout, the voice of the
archangel, and the trump .of God, have
never been heard. What is this but an
absolutely irresistible demonstration that
prophecy not only fails to prove inspira
tion, but, on the contrary, by its failure
disproves it, and shows that St. Matthew
and St. Paul were as liable to make mis
takes as any of the hundreds of religious
writers who, in later times, have prophe
sied the approaching end of the world or
advent of the millennium.
Turning to the evidence for miracles,
this must be taken on its own merits,
without aid from any preconceived theory
that it is sinful to scrutinise it because
the books in which it is contained are
inspired. Applying to it impartially the
ordinary rules of evidence, let us see
what it amounts to for that which is
really the test case of all other miracles,
that of the Resurrection.
The witnesses are St. Paul and the
authors of the four Gospels according to
St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St.
John. Of these, St. Paul is in some
respects the best. When a witness is
called into court to give evidence, the
first question asked is, “Who are you?
Give your name and description.’' St.
Paul alone gives a clear answer to this
question. There is no doubt that he was
an historical personage, who lived at
the time and in the manner described in
the Acts of the Apostles, and that the
Epistle to the Corinthians is a genuine
letter written by him. In this Epistle
he says :
“For I delivered unto you first of all
that which I also received, how that
Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures ;
“ And that he was buried, and that he
rose again the third day according to the
scriptures :
“ And that he was seen of Cephas, then
of the twelve :
“ After that, he was seen of above five
hundred brethren at once ; of whom the
greater part remain unto this present, but
some are fallen asleep.
“After that, he was seen of James ;
then of all the apostles.
“ And last of all he was seen of me also,
as of one born out of due time.”
This is undoubtedly very distinct
97
evidence that the appearances described
by St. Paul were currently believed in
the circle of early Christians at Jerusalem
within twenty years of their alleged
occurrence.
This is strong testimony, but it is
weakened by several considerations. In
the first place, we know that Paul’s
frame of mind in regard to miracles was
such as to make it certain that he would
take them for granted, and not attempt
to examine critically the evidence on
which they were founded, and this was
doubtless the frame of mind of those
from whom he received the accounts.
Again, he places all the appearances on
the same footing as that to himself,
which was clearly of the nature of a
vision, or strong internal impression,
rather than of an objective reality.
Upon this vital point, whether the
appearances which led to the belief in
Christ’s resurrection were subjective or
objective—-that is, were visions or phy
sical realities—Paul’s testimony therefore
favours the former view, which is quite
consistent with the laws of Nature and
with experience in other cases.
And finally, St. Paul’s account of the
appearances is altogether different from
those of the other witnesses, viz., the four
Evangelists.
When we come to consider the testi
mony of the four Gospels we are con
fronted by a first difficulty : Who and
what are the witnesses ? What is really
known of them is this : Until the middle
of the second century they are never
quoted, and were apparently unknown.
Somewhere about 150 A.D., for the exact
date is hotly disputed, we find the first
quotations from them, and from that
time forwards the quotations become
more frequent and their authority in*
creases, until finally they superseded all
the other narratives current in the early
Church, such as the “Gospel of the
Hebrews,” and the “ Pastor ” of Hermas,
and are embodied in the New Testament
canon. From the earliest time where
there is any distinct recognition of them,
they appear to have been attributed to
the Evangelists whose names they bear,
viz., Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
When we look to internal evidence to
give us some further clue as to their
authorshipand date, we at oncemeet with
a great difficulty. The three Gospels of
SS. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called
H
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MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN INOUGHT
“Synoptic,” because they give what is
substantially the same narrative of the
same facts arranged in the same order,
and the same sayings and parables giving
the same view of the character and teach
ing of Jesus. In whole passages this
resemblance is not merely substantial
but literal, so that w’e cannot suppose it
to arise merely from following the same
oral tradition, and cannot doubt that the
authors must have copied verbatim either
from one another or from some common
manuscript. But then comes-in this per
plexing circumstance.. After passages
of almost literal identity we have state
ments which are inconsistent with those
of the other Gospels, and narratives
of important events which are either
altogether wanting or quite differently
described in them.
Thus, in the vital matter of the Resur
rection, Matthew says that the disciples
were especially commanded to “ go into
Galilee ; there shall you see him,” and
that they did go accordingly, and there
saw Jesus on a mountain where he had
appointed them to meet him ; while Luke
distinctly says that “he commanded
them that they should not depart from
Jerusalem,” and describes them as remain
ing there and witnessing a number of
appearances, including the crowning
miracle of the Ascension (the same,
doubtless, as that which St. Paul describes
as having taken place in the presence of
more than 500 witnesses), of which Mat
thew, Mark, and John apparently know
nothing. And yet the final injunction
of Jesus to preach the gospel in his name
to all nations is given in almost the same
words in Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
showing that they must have had before
them some common tradition describing
the course of events after the Crucifixion.
So in minor matters, Mark mentions
the cure of one blind man, Bartimseus,
who sat by the roadside begging; in
Matthew there are two blind men, and
yet the dialogue that passed—“ What will
ye that I shall do unto you?” “Lord,
that our eyes may be opened ”—is almost
word for word the same. It would seem
that if they did copy from an original
manuscript, they felt themselves free to
take any liberties with it they liked, in
the way of omission and alteration.
The only light thrown on this per
plexing question of the origin of the
Gospels Is that afforded by the celebrated
passage from Papias quoted by Eusebius.
Papias was Bishop of Hieropolis, in Asia
Minor, and suffered martyrdom, when an
aged man, about the year 164. He was
therefore brought-up in personal con
tact, not with the Apostles themselves,
but with those who, like Polycarp and
others, had been their immediate dis
ciples, and had known and conversed
with them. In the passage quoted he
states his preference for oral tradition
over written documents, and his reasons
for it. He says : “ If I found some one
who had followed the first presbyters, I
asked him what he had heard from them :
what said Andrew or Peter, or Philip,
Thomas, James, John, or Matthew ; and
what said Andrew and John the Presbyter,
who were also disciples of the Lord; for
I thought I could not derive as much
advantage from books as from the living
and abiding oral tradition.” And he goes
on to give his reasons for not attaching
more weight to the two written sources
of information which were evidently best
known and looked upon as of most
authority in his time, viz., the Gospels
according to St. Matthew and St, Mark.
He says that Matthew wrote down in
Hebrew the Logia, or principal sayings
and discourses of the Lord, “ which every
one translated as he best could,” evidently
implying that these numerous trans
lations were, in his opinion, loose, in
accurate, and unreliable. As regards
Mark, he says that “ Mark, who had not
known the Lord personally, and had
never heard Him, followed Peter later as
his interpreter ; and when Peter, in the
course of his teaching, mentioned any of
the doings or sayings of Christ, took care
to note them down exactly, but without
any order, and without making a con
tinuous narrative of the discourses of the
Lord, which did not enter into the inten
tion of the Apostle. Thus Mark let
nothing pass, jotting down a certain
number of facts as Peter mentioned them,
but having no other care than to omit
nothing of what he heard, and to change
nothing in it.”
This testimony of Papias is very valu
able and very instructive. In the first
place, it seems conclusive that the Gospel
of St. John was not known to him, and
not received in the early Christian
Churches of Asia Minor as a work of
authority. Had it been so received,
Papias must have known of it, brought
�MIRACLES
up as he was at the feet of men who had
been John’s disciples, and bishop of a
Church closely connected with those of
which, if there is any faith in tradition,
John had been the patriarch and principal
founder. And if he had known of such
a written Gospel as that of St. John, and
believed it to have been really written
by the “ beloved disciple ; ” the Apostle
second only, if second, to St. Peter; it is
inconceivable that he should nave ex
pressed such an unqualified preference
for oral tradition, and made such an
almost contemptuous reference to written
documents. He must have said: “lor,
with the exception of the Gospel of the
blessed John, I found that little was to be
got from books?'
It seems clear, therefore, that although
the Gospel of St. John may contain
genuine reminiscences of an early date,
and possibly some which really came
from the Apostle himself, the work in its
present form could not have been written
by him, and must have been compiled at
such a late date as to have been unknown
in the Christian Churches of the East in
the time of Papias.
The same remark applies to the
Gospel of St. Luke, of which Papias has
equally no knowledge, and which, from
internal evidence, appears to be a later
edition of the two earlier Gospels, or of
the original manuscripts from which they
were taken, altered in places to meet
objections of a later date, as where the
injunction to “go into Galilee; there
shall ye see him,” is changed into “as he
spake unto you when he was yet in
Galilee,” obviously to reconcile the state
ment with the subsequent belief that the
Ascension took place at Jerusalem.
There remain the two original Gospels
according to St. Matthew and St. Mark.
Volumes of erudition have been written
to try and reconcile them with one
another, and with the other two Gospels,
and to explain the extraordinary resem
blances and no less extraordinary differ
ences. Translations have been heaped on
translations, and successive editions and
revisions piled on one another until the
edifice toppled over by its own weight, but
after all, we have nothing better to rely on
than the statement of Papias, which there
is no reason to mistrust. The basis of the
three Synoptic Gospels was probably a
collection of facts and anecdotes written
down in Greek by Mark, and of discourses
99
wi-itten in Hebrew by Matthew. These
have been worked up subsequently, at
unknown dates, and by unknown authors,
aided possibly by oral traditions, into
connected narratives or biographies of
the life and teachings of the Founder of
the religion.
Possibly, though by no means certainly,
we have in the present Gospel according
to St. Matthew the nearest approach to
the original Logia or doctrinal discourses,
and in the present Mark the nearest
approach to the original notes recorded
by Mark from the dictation of St. Peter.
As regards the Gospel according to St.
John, it appears perfectly clear, both
from the silence of Papias, the absence
of any reference to it by other early
Christian Fathers until the end of the
second century, and still more from
internal evidence, that it could not
possibly have been, written by the
Apostle whose name it bears. John, as
we know from St. Paul’s Epistles, was
one of the pillars of the Christian Church
of Jerusalem, whose doctrine was in all
respects Hebraic, and who opposed the
larger idea that a man could be a
Christian without first becoming a Jew.
The writer of the Gospel is not only
ignorant of matters which must have
been well known to every Jew, but he is
positively prejudiced against Judaism,
and represents it in an unfavourable
light. His narrative of the events of the
life of Jesus, including the miracles, is
totally different from that of the Synop
tics, and his view of his character and
report of his speeches wide as the poles
asunder. To the Synoptics Jesus is the
man-Messiah foretold by the prophets ; to
the author of John he is the “Logos,”
the incarnation of a metaphysical attri
bute of the Deity.
The terse and simple clearness of his
sayings recorded by the first, is exchanged
in the latter for an involved and cumbrous
phraseology reminding one of a Papal
Encyclical. The amiablity and “sweet
reasonableness” of the Jesus of the
Synoptics, have become acrimonious un
reasonableness and egotistical self-glori
fication in many of the long harangues
which are introduced on the most
unlikely occasions in the fourth Gospel.
It is evident, therefore, that this
Gospel can afford no aid towards a
critical examination of contemporary
I evidence, and that for this we must look
1
H 2
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MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
almost entirely to such remains of early
records as are preserved in the Gospels of
St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke.
With these data, how does the evidence
stand as regards the miracle of the
Resurrection which is the test case of all
alleged miracles ?
It is important to observe that the
oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of St.
Mark stop at the Sth verse of the last
chapter, and that the subsequent verses,
9—20, have every appearance of being
a later addition made to reconcile this
Gospel better with the prevailing belief
and with the other Gospels. Comment
ators discover a difference in the style
and language, and the appearances of
Jesus after his resurrection are described
in vague and general language, very
different from the distinct details given
of them in the other Gospels, and in
consistent with the formal statement
twice repeated in the genuine Mark
that they were to take place in Galilee.
Moreover, if these verses were really in
the original Gospel, it is inconceivable
how they should have dropped-out in
the oldest manuscripts, while it is per
fectly conceivable how they should have
been added at a later period, when the
Fathers of the Church began to occupy
themselves with the task of harmonising
the different Gospels.
But if the genuine Mark really termin
ated with the Sth verse, not only is there
no confirmation of the four miraculous
appearances, including the Ascension,
recorded by St. Paul as being currently
believed by the early Christians within
twenty years, of their occurrence, but
there is positively no mention of any ap
pearance at all. A young man, clothed
in white, tells three women who went
to the tomb that Jesus is risen, and that
they were to tell his disciples and Peter
that they would see him in Galilee; an
injunction which was not carried out, for
the women “were afraid, neither said they
anything to any man.”
in St. Matthew the young man has be
come an angel, and as the women return
from the tomb Jesus met them and said,
“All hail,” repeating the injunction to
tell the disciples to go into Galilee, where
the eleven accordingly went into a moun
tain where Jesus had appointed them,
and “when they saw him they worshipped
him : but some doubted.” This is the
whole of Matthew's testimony.
St. Luke, again, in his Gospel and Acts,
amplifies the miraculous appearances
almost up to the extent described by
St. Paul, though with considerable dif
ferences both of addition and omission.
The three women become a number of
women ; the one angel or young man
in shining clothes, two; the appearance
to the women disappears; Peter is
mentioned as running to the sepulchre
but departing without seeing anything
special except that the body had been
removed; the first appearance recorded
is that to the two disciples walking
from Emmaus, who knew him not until
their eyes were opened by the breaking
of bread, when he vanished; the next
appearance is to the eleven sitting at
meat with closed doors; and finally
there is the crowning miracle of the
Ascension, stated somewhat vaguely in
the Gospel, but with more detail in the
Acts, describing how he was taken up
to heaven and received in a cloud, in
the sight of numerous witnesses. This
is probably the same miracle as that
mentioned by St. Paul as having occurred
in the presence of “ more than five hun
dred brethren at once, of whom the
greater part remain alive unto this
present; ” though he mentions two sub
sequent appearances—one to James and
a second to all the Apostles—of which
no trace is found in any other canonical
narative. . It is to be noted that all St.
Luke’s miracles are expressly stated to
have occurred at Jerusalem, where Jesus
had commanded his disciples to remain,
and are, therefore, in direct contradic
tion with the statements of Matthew
and Mark, that whatever occurred was
in Galilee, where the disciples were ex
pressly enjoined to go.
When we come to St. John, we find
the first part of the narrative of the
other . Gospels repeated with several
variations and a great many additional
details. Mary Magdalene is alone, and
finds the stone removed from the sepul
chre. She tells Peter and John, who
run together to the tomb • John outruns
Peter, but Peter first enters and sees the
napkin and linen grave-clothes, but
nothing miraculous, and they return to
their homes. Mary remains weeping and
sees, first two angels, and then Jesus him
self, whom she at first does not recognise,
and mistakes for the gardener. The walk
to Emmaus is not mentioned, and the
�MIRACLES
next appearance is to the disciples sitting
with closed doors. Another takes place
after eight days, for the purpose of con
vincing Thomas of the reality of the
resurrection in the actual body, and here
apparently the narrative closes with the
appropriate ending, “That these things
are written that ye may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of. God ; and
that believing ye might have life through
his name.” But a supplementary chapter
is added, describing a miraculous draught
of fishes and appearance to Peter, John,
and five other disciples at the Sea of
Tiberias in Galilee, in which the com
mand is given to Peter to “Feed my
sheep,” and an explanation is introduced
of what was doubtless a sore perplexity
to the early Christian world, the death
of St. John before the coming of the
Messiah.
These are the depositions of the five
witnesses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,
and Paul, in which the verdict “ proven”
or “ not proven ” must rest in regard to
the issue “miracle” or “no miracle.”
The mere statement of them is enough
to show how insufficient they are . to
establish any ordinary fact, to say nothing
of a fact so entirely opposed to all ex
perience as the return to life of one who
had really died. Suppose it were a
question of proving the signature of a
will, what chance would a plaintiff have
of obtaining a verdict who produced
five witnesses, four of whom could give
no certain account of themselves, while
the fifth spoke only from hearsay, and
the details to which they deposed were
hopelessly inconsistent with one another
as regards time, place, and other par
ticulars ? The account of the Ascension
brings this contradiction into the most
glaring light. According to St. Luke and
St. Paul this miracle took place at Jeru
salem, in the presence of a large number,
St. Paul says over 500 persons, before
whose eyes Jesus was lifted-up in the
body into the clouds, and more than half,
or over 250 of these witnesses, remained
alive for at least twenty years afterwards
to testify to the fact. Consider what this
implies. Such an event occurring
publicly in the presence of 500 wit
nesses is not like an appearance to a
few chosen disciples in a room with
closed doors : m
have been the talk
of all Jerusalem.
The prophet who had shortly before
101
entered the city in triumphal procession
amidst the acclamations of the multi
tude, and who, a few days afterwards,
by some sudden revolution of popular
feeling, had become the object of mob
hatred ; who had been solemnly tried,
condemned, and executed; that this
prophet had been restored to life and
visibly translated in the body to
heaven in the presence of more than 500
witnesses, must inevitably have caused
an immense sensation. However prone
the age might be to believe in miracles,
such a miracle as this must have startled
every one. The most incredulous must
have been converted ; the High Priest
and Pharisees must, in self-defence, have
instituted a rigid inquiry ; the Proconsul
must have reported to Rome ; Josephus,
who, not many years afterwards, wrote
the annals of the Jews during this
period with considerable detail, must
have known of the occurrence and men
tioned it.
And above all, Matthew, Mark, and
John must have been aware of the oc
currence ; and in all probability, Mat
thew, John, and Peter, from whom Mark
derived his information, must have been
among the 500 eye-witnesses. How then
is it possible that, if the event really
occurred, they not only should not have'
mentioned it, but partly by their silence,
and partly by their statement that they
went into Galilee, have virtually contra
dicted it. The Ascension, if true, was a
capital fact, not only crowning and com
pleting the drama of Christ’s life which
they were narrating with its most tri
umphant and appropriate ending, but
confirming, in the strongest possible
manner, the doctrine for which they were
contending, that he was not an ordin
ary man or ordinary prophet, but th®
Messiah, the Son of God, who. had
redeemed the world from its original
curse and conquered sin and death,
One might as well suppose that any
one writing the life of Wellington
would omit the Battle of Waterloo as
that any one writing the life of Christ
would knowingly and wilfully omit all
mention of the Ascension. It must be
evident that whoever wrote the original
manuscripts from which the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and John were compiled,
must either never have heard of the
Ascension, or having heard of it did not
believe it to be true. This must algo
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MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
apply to the other miraculous appear
ances said to have occurred at Jerusalem.
How was it possible for writers who knew
of them to make no mention of them,
and virtually contradict them by assert
ing that they did not remain at Jeru
salem, but went to Galilee in obedience
to a command to that effect, and that
the final parting of Jesus from his dis
ciples took place there ?
The. most unaccountable fact is the
total silence of Mark, who was nearest
the fountain-head if he derived his infor
mation from St. Peter, as to these mira
culous appearances. If his Gospel ended
with verse 8 of chapter, xvi., as the oldest
manuscripts and the internal evidence
of the postscripts afterwards added
appear to prove, there is absolutely no
statement of a,ny such appearance at all.
Nothing is said but that three women
found the tomb empty and saw a young
man clothed in white, who told them
that Jesus had risen and gone into
Galilee. Now, if there is one fact more
certain than another about miraculous
legends, it is that as long as they have
any vitality at all, they increase and
multiply and do not dwindle and dimi
nish.. We have an excellent example of
this in the way in which a whole cycle of
miracles grew up in a short time about
the central fact of the martyrdom of St.
Thomas a Becket.
If, therefore, Matthew and Mark knew
nothing of the series of miracles, which
from St. Paul’s statement we must assume
to have been currently believed by the
early Christians twenty years after the
death of Christ, the only possible ex
planation is that their Gospels were com
piled from narratives which had been
written at a still earlier date, before these
miracles had been heard of.
We must suppose that Mark really
wrote down what he heard from Peter,
and that Peter, being a truthful man,
though he probably had a sincere general
belief that Christ had risen, declined to
state facts which he knew had never
occurred. This is in entire accordance
with what we find in the whole history
of ecclesiastical miracles, from those
recorded in Scripture down to those
of St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth
century, and of St. Francis Xavier in the
sixteenth. Innumerable as are the ac
counts of miracles said to have been
wrought by relics or by other holy per
sons, there is no instance of any state
ment by any credible person that he
had himself worked a real miracle. St.
Augustine describes in detail many won
derful miracles, including resurrections
from the dead, which he said had been
wrought to his own knowledge, within
his own diocese of Hippo, by the relics
of the martyr Stephen. In fact, he says
that the number of miracles thus wrought
within the last two years since these
relics had been at Hippo, was at least
seventy. This testimony is far more
precise than any for the Gospel miracles,
for it comes from a well-known man of
high , character, who was on the spot at
the time,, and speaks of these and many
other miracles having occurred to his
own knowledge. But he never asserts that
he himself had ever wrought a miracle.
In like manner Paulinus relates many
miracles of his master, St. Ambrose, in
cluding one of raising the dead ; but
Ambrose himself never asserts that he
performed a miracle. Neither does St.
Francis of Assisi, or any of the 25,000
saints of the Roman calendar to whom
miracles are attributed.
Even Jesus himself seems, on several
occasions, to have disclaimed the power
of working miracles, as when he refused
to comply with the perfectly reasonable
request of the Jews to attest his Messiahship by a sign, if he wished them to
believe in it.
There is every reason, therefore, to
believe that when we find narratives
making no mention of important miracles
which were afterwards commonly re
ceived, they must be taken from records
of an earlier date, and proceeding directly
from those who, if the miracles were true,
would have been the principal eye-wit
nesses to vouch for them. But, if this be
so, how near to the fountain head do
these narratives carry us 1 We lose the
miracles, but in compensation we get
what may be considered fresh and lively
narratives of the life and conversation
of . Jesus, and confirmation both of his
being an historical personage, and of the
many anecdotes and sayings which de
pict his character, and bring him before
us as he really lived, the mythical
theory cannot stand which found in every
saying and action an ex post facto attempt
to show that. he. fulfilled prophecies and
realised Messianic expectations. We can
see him walking through the fields on a
�MIRACLES
Sabbath afternoon with his disciples,
plucking ears of corn, and rebuking the
Pharisees for their puritanical adherence
to the letter of the observance of that
day : we can see him taking little
children in his arms, and talking fami
liarly at the well with the woman of
Samaria ; we can hear him preaching the
Sermon on the Mount, and dropping
parables from his mouth, like precious
pearls of instruction in love, charity, and
all Christian virtues. We can sympathise
with the agony in the garden as with a
real scene, and hear the despairing cry,
My God, my God, why hast thou for
saken me?”
...
...
It seems to me that faith m the reality
of scenes like these is worth a good deal
of faith in the metaphysical conundrums
of the Athanasian Creed, or in the actual
occurrence of incredible miracles.
Another argument in favour of the
early date and genuine character of the
primitive records which have been worked
up in the Synoptic Gospels, is afforded by
the sayings attributed to Jesus. It is
impossible to imagine that these could be
the invention of a later age, when theo
logical questions of faith and doctrine
had absorbed almost the entire attention
of the Christian world. We have already
seen how wide is the difference, both as
regards style and phase of thought, be
tween the discourses reported in the
fourth Gospel and those of the Synoptics.
No one writing in the second or towards
the end of the. first century, or even
earlier in the religious atmosphere of St.
Paul’s Epistles, could have composed the
Sermon on the Mount or the Lord s
Prayer. The parables and maxims, in
stead of teaching nothing but a pure and
sublime morality in simple language,
must have contained references to the
doctrine of the Logos, and the disputes
between the Jewish and the Gentile
Christians. Even if these discourses had
passed long through the fluctuating
medium of oral tradition, they must,
when finally reduced to writing, have
shown many traces of the theological
questions which agitated the Christian
world. The only explanation is that
Apostles like St. Matthew, and St. Peter
through Mark, really recorded these say
ings in writing while they were fresh in
memory, and that their authority secured
them from adulteration.
At the same time it must be borne m
103
mind that while portions of the original
narrative appear to carry us back very
near to the fountain-head, a large part
of the Gospels in their present form is
evidently of much later date and of un
certain origin. It is clear that Papias,
writing about the year 150, knew nothing
of the Gospels of Luke and John^ and
nothing of those of Matthew and Mark
in their present form. The discourses of
Matthew and the disconnected notes, of
Mark, to which he refers, were something
very different from the complete histories
of the life and teaching of Jesus con
tained in the present Gospels. It is
equally clear that Justin Martyr , and
Hegesippus, who wrote about the middle
of tiie second century, and made frequent
quotations of the sayings and doings of
the Lord, made them, not from the pre
sent canonical Gospels, but from. other
sources relating the same thing’s in dif
ferent order and different language. ‘ A
Gospel according to the Hebrews ” and
“ Memoirs of the Apostles ” seem to have
been the principal sources from which
they quoted.
.
It is evident however, that during the
first two centuries there were a great
number of so-called Gospels and Apos
tolic writings floating about in the
Christian world along with oral tradi
tions. The author of Luke tells us this
expressly, and later writers refer to a
number of works now unknown or classed
as apocrypha], and complain of forged
Gospels circulated by heretics. None of
these writings, however, seem to have
had any peculiar authority or been con
sidered as inspired Scripture, winch term
is exclusively confined to the Old Testa
ment, until the middle of the second
century.
At length, by a sort of law of the
survival of the fittest, the present.Gospels
acquired an increasing authority and
superseded the other works which had
competed, with them; but the selection
was determined to a great extent, not by
those principles of criticism which would
now be applied to historical records, but
by doctrinal considerations of the sup
port they gave to prevalent opinions. In
other words, orthodoxy and not authen
ticity was the test applied, and it is pro
bable that no Christian Father of the
second or third century would have hesi
tated to reject an early manuscript trace
able very clearly to an Apostle, in favour
�104
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
of a later compilation of doubtful origin,
if the former contained passages which
seemed to favour heretical views, while the
latter omitted those passages, or altered
them in a sense favourable to orthodoxy.
To sum up the matter, it appears that
apart from the fact that the antecedent
improbability of miracles has been enor
mously increased by the constant and
concurrent proofs of the permanence of
the laws of Nature, the evidence for
tnose recorded in the New Testament,
with which alone we are concerned is
rendered null and void by the discordant
reports of hearsay witnesses.
CHAPTER IX.
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES
Practical and Theoretical Christianity—Ex
ample and Teaching of Christ—Christian
.
Moral Objections — Inconsistent
with Tacts—Must be accepted as Parables
- t ail and Redemption—Old Creeds must
be Transformed or Die—Mahometanism—
Decay of Faith—Balance of Advantages—
Religious Wars and Persecutions—Intoler
ance—Sacrifice—Prayer—Absence of Theo
logy hi Synoptic Gospels—Opposite Pole to
Christianity—Courage and Self-relianceBelief in God and a Future Life—Based
mainly on Christianity—Science gives no
Answer—Nor Metaphysics—So-called In
tuitions—Development of Idea of GodBest Proof afforded by Christianity—Evo
lution is Transforming it—Reconciliation
of Religion and Science.
their own proof with them, and such
parables as that of the Good Samaritan
require no support, either from historical
evidence or from supernatural signs to
come home to every heart whether in the
hrst or m the nineteenth century. The
tact that the son of a Jewish mechanic
Loin in a small town of an obscure pro
vince, without any special aid from posi
tion, education, or other outward circum
stance, succeeded, by the sheer force of
the purity and loveliness of his life and
teaching, m captivating all hearts and
founding a religion which for nineteen
centuries has been the main civilising
influence of the world and the faith of
its noblest men and noblest races : this
tact I say, is of itself so admirable and
wonderful as not to require the aid of
vulgar miracles and metaphysical puzzles
in order to be recognised as worthy of
the highest reverence. And when such a
lite was crowned by a death which re
mains the highest type of what is noblest
m man, self-sacrifice in the cause of truth
and for the good of others, we may well
call it divine, and not quarrel with any
language or any forms of worship which
tend to keep it in view and hold it up to
life W°rld aS an inducement to a higher
Miracles are not only unnecessary for
a faith of this description, but are a
positive hindrance to it. To put it at
the lowest, miracles, in an age which has
learned the laws of Nature, must always
be open to grave doubts, and thus throw
doubt on the reliability of the narratives
which are supposed to depend on them.
Can Christianity continue to exist with Moreover, the touching beauty and force
of example of the life of Jesus are almost
out miracles ?
. Io answer this question we must dis lost it he is evaporated into a sort of
supernatural being, totally unlike any
tinguish between practical and theoreti conceivable member of the human family
cal Christianity. The essence of practical
W e may strive to model our conduct at
Christianity consists in such a genuine
a humble distance on that of the man
acceptance of its moral teaching, and
love and reverence for the life and char Jesus, the carpenter’s son, whose father
and mother, brothers and
acter of its Founder, as may influence familiar figures in the streetssisters, were
of Nazareth
conduct, and be a guide and support
put hardly on that of a “Logos,” the
m life. Theoretical Christianity is that
metaphysical conception
which professes to teach a complete incarnation of aof the Deity, who existed
o. an attribute
theory of the creation of the world and
before all worlds and by whom all things
P.an’ °* khe relations between man and
were made.
his Creator, and of his position and
But, on the other hand, miracles are in
^e^-ny.la a future state of existence.
dispensable for the dogma, or theoretical
The former needs no miracles. The
side of Christian theology. Let us con
bermon on the Mount, and St. Paul’s
sider frankly what this dogma is, and
description of Christian charity? parry
now tar it is trite—that is, consistent or
�CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES
inconsistent with known and indisput
able facts.
The Christian dogma cannot be better
stated than in the words of St. Paul, who
was its first inventor, or, at any rate, the
first by whom it was elaborated into a
complete theory.
“For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive.”
This may be expanded into the follow
ing propositions :
1. That the Old Testament is miracu
lously inspired, and contains a literally
true account of the creation of the world
and of man.
2. That, in accordance with this ac
count, the material universe, earth, sun,
moon, and stars, and all living things on
the earth and in the seas, were created in
six days, after which God rested on the
seventh day.
3. That the first man, Adam, was
created in the image of God and after
His own likeness, and placed, with the
first woman, Eve, in the Garden of Eden,
where they lived for a time in a state of
innocence, and holding familiar converse
with God.
4. That by an act of disobedience they
fell from this high state, were banished
from the Garden, and sin and death were
inflicted as a penalty on them and their
descendants.
5. That after long ages, during which
mankind remained under this curse, God
sent His Son, who assumed human form,
and by His sacrifice on the cross appeased
God’s anger, removed the curse, and de
stroyed the last enemy, death, giving a
glorious resurrection and immortal life
to those who believed on Him.
This theory is a complete one, which
hangs together in all its parts, and of
which no link can be displaced without
affecting the others. It is the theory
which has been accepted by the Christian
world since its first promulgation ; and,
although expounded with metaphysical
refinements in the Athanasian Creed,
and set forth with all the gorgeous sur
roundings of poetical imagination in
Milton’s “ Paradise Lost,” it remains in
substance St. Paul’s theory, that “as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive.’’
It is obvious that this theory is open to
grave objections on moral grounds. It
is more in the character of a jealous
Oriental despot than of a loving and
105
merciful Father, to inflict such a punish
ment on hundreds of millions of un
offending creatures for an act of dis
obedience on the part of a remote
ancestor. And it is still more incon
sistent with our modern ideas of justice
and humanity to require the vicarious
sacrifice of an only Son as the condition
of forgiving the offence and removing the
curse.
Nevertheless it must be admitted that,
notwithstanding these objections, and
harsh as the theory is, it has had a
wonderful attraction for many of the
highest intellects and noblest nations.
It was the creed of Luther, Cromwell,
and Milton; and the inspiring spirit, of
Scotch Presbyterianism and English
Puritanism. It has inspired great men
and great deeds, and although responsible
for a good deal of persecution and
fanaticism, it must always be spoken
of with respect, as a creed which has had
a powerful effect in raising men’s minds
from lower to higher things, and has on
the whole done good work in its time.
But the question of its continuance as
a creed which it is possible for sincere
men to believe, as literally and his
torically true, depends not on wishes and
feelings, nor on reverence for the past,
but on hard facts. Is it or is it not con
sistent with what are now known to be
the real truths respecting the constitu
tion of the universe and the origin of
life and of man ?
To state this question is to answer it.
There is hardly one of the facts shown in
the preceding chapters to be the un
doubted results of modern science which
does not shatter to pieces the whole
fabric. It is as certain as that two and
two make four that the world was not
created in the manner described in
Genesis ; that the sun, moon, and stars
are not lights placed in the firmament
or solid crystal vault of heaven to give
light upon the earth ; that animals were
not all created in one or two days, and
spread over the earth from a. common
centre in Armenia, after having been
shut up in pairs for forty days in an ark,
during a universal deluge. And finally,
that man is not descended from an. Adam
created quite recently in God’s image,
and who fell from a high state by an act
of disobedience, but from a long series of
Palaeolithic ancestors, extending back
certainly into the Glacial and probably
�106
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
into the Tertiary period, who have not
fallen but progressed, and by a slow and
painful process of evolution have gradu
ally developed intelligence, language,
arts, and civilisation, from the very
rudest and most animal-like beginnings.
Belief in inspiration, the very key
stone of the system, becomes impossible
when it is shown that the accounts given
of such important matters in the writings
professing to be inspired are manifestly
untrue ; and when the ordinary rules of
criticism are brought to bear upon these
writings it is at once seen that they
are compilations of different ages from
various and uncertain sources.
The improbability of miracles is enor
mously increased by the proof of
the uniform operation of natural law
throughout the vast domains of space,
time, matter, and life; and where the
supernatural was formerly considered to
be a matter of every-day occurrence, it
has vanished step by step, until only the
last vestige of it is left in a possible
belief in some of the more important
and impressive miracles of the Christian
dispensation. Even this faint belief is
manifestly founded more on reverence
for^ tradition, and love of the religion
which the miracles are supposed to sup
port, than on any dispassionate view of
the evidence on which they rest. Tried
by the ordinary rules of evidence, it is
apparent that it is contradictory and
uncertain, and not such as would be
sufficient to establish in a court of law
any ordinary fact, such as the execution
of a deed. It is apparent also that the
evidence for the most crucial and import
ant of all miracles, that of the Ascension,
is not nearly so precise and cogent as
that for. a number of early Christian
and mediaeval miracles which we reject
without hesitation.
What follows? Must we reject these
venerable traditions as old wives’ fables ?
I answer, No; but we can accept them
as parables.
A great deal of the best teaching of the
New Testament is conveyed in the form
of parables. Take for instance that of
Lazarus and Dives. No one supposes
that this.is an historical narrative ; that
this particular Jew, out of the millions
poor and good Jews who have lived
and died, was actually taken up into
Abraham’s bosom j and that the remark
able dialogue across the gulf is a literal
transcript of an actual conversation.
But the moral is taught for all time,
that it is bad for the rich to indulge in
selfish luxury and take no thought of the
mass of poverty and misery weltering
around them ; and that the condition of
the poorest of the poor, borne with piety
and resignation, may really be better
and higher than that of the selfish rich.
Apply the same principle to the dogma of
the.fall and redemption, and we may see
in it a parable of the highest meaning.
Every one of us must be conscious of
having fallen by yielding to temptation
and giving way to animal passions. We
may have fallen so low that without
some redemption, or friendly influence
from without, we cannot raise ourselves
from the lower level and regain our lost
place. We can see that there are thous
ands round us, who, from poverty or
other adverse circumstances, have got
immersed in evil conditions from which
it is hopeless to extricate themselves
without friendly aid. We can see also
that there is nothing more noble and
divine than to make sacrifices in order to
be the redeemer who saves as many souls
as. possible from this entanglement of
pvil, and gives them a chance of rising
into a happier and better life. We may
feel this, and use as an incentive to
attempt some- humble imitation of it,
the parable which presents it to us in its
highest aspect, and has been the efficient
means of stimulating so many good men
to do good works. This is surely better
than paltering with. the truth, and
enervating our conscience and intel
ligence by professing to believe in the
literal historical accuracy of things which
Note.—Since writing this chapter, I have
seen with much pleasure an article entitled
“ Christmas,” by Matthew Arnold, in a recent
number of the Contemporary Review, which
takes exactly the same view of the allegorical
or parabolic sense of miraculous narratives.
He takes the instance of the Immaculate
Conception and Birth of Jesus, and shows
that it was a myth which grew up, almost
inevitably, from the strong impression made
on the minds of early Christians by the idea
of purity set forth by the life and teaching of
Jesus, which stood in such striking contrast
with the corruption of the heathen world.
The same idea led to ,a similar myth in the
case of Gautama, the pure and self-sacrificing
founder of the Buddhist religion, and it
teaches an eternal truth to all who can look
below the letter to the spirit of the parable,
�CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES
have become incredible to all thinking
and educated minds. Of course, I do not
mean that these dogmas and miraculous
narratives were intended by the original
writers to be parables, but only that they
have become so to us .; and the alternative lies between rejecting them altogether or accepting them as having an
allegorical meaning or latent truth, or,
it may be added, as recording the state
of intelligence and knowledge of the age
which produced the stories.
.
At any rate, whether we like it or not,
this is what we shall have to do, for the
conclusions of science are irresistible,
and old forms of faith, however venerable
and however endeared by a thousand
associations, have no more chance m
a collision with science than George
Stephenson’s cow had if it stood on the
rails and tried to stop the progress of a
locomotive. It is not enough to say that
a thing is lovely and amiable, and that
its loss will leave a blank, to ensure its
continuance. The law of Nature is progress and not happiness. Stars, suns,
planets, human individuals, and human
races have their periods of youth,
maturity, and decay, and are continually
being transformed into new phases.
The old order changes, giving place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways.
Childhood, with its innocence and
engaging ways, passes into the sterner
and more prosaic attributes of the grown
up man ; fancy decays as reason ripens ;
simple faith is replaced by larger know
ledge ; and the smooth brow of infancy
becomes often marred by wrinkles of
strife and suffering, impressed during the
more or less successful struggle in the
battle of life ; and yet we could not if we
would, and would not if we could, arrest
the progress of Nature, and say that the
child shall never grow into a man.
Such also is the fate of creeds. They
must be transformed or die ; and the
best test of the vitality and intrinsic
truth of a religion is just that capacity
for transformation against which theo
logians exclaim as sacrilege. In this
respect Christianity has a great ad
vantage over other religions. The pious
souls who are shocked at any denial of
the inspiration of Scripture may console
themselves by considering what has been
the fate of other religions which have been
107
imprisoned too closely within the limits
iof a sacred book. Mahometanism, the
<religion of one God and a succession of
iprophets or great men who have taught
]
his doctrines, is not in theory . incon
Jsistent with progress and civilisation.
►But Mahomet unfortunately, wrote a
book, the Koran, which, while, it con
I
tained much that to the Arab mind was
sublime and beautiful, was of necessity
f
}impregnated with the ideas of the age
he
of much
1in which and lived; an age imperfect
ignorance
superstition, of
isocial arrangements, and of barbarous
s
and ferocious manners. This book came
<
to be accepted as the inspired word of
1Allah, which it was impious to question,
to which nothing could be added, and
•from which nothing could be taken
away. Hence Mahometanism has be
come what we see it—a narrow and
1
fanatical creed, incompatible with pro
:gress and free thought, and stereotyping
•
institutions, such as polygamy and
slavery, which are fatal to any advance
>
towards a higher civilisation. From this
fate Christianity has been saved by the
fortunate circumstance that its. sacred
books are collections of a variety of
writings of different authors and dif
ferent ages, reflecting such various and
often conflicting phases of thought and
belief that of necessity their interpreta
tion was very elastic, and lent itself
readily to the changes required by the
spirit of successive periods and of dif
ferent nationalities. Wherever for a
time a system of infallibility was en
forced, as in Spain by the Inquisition,
Christianity became cruel, barbarous,
unprogressive, and really very little
better than the religion of Islam, to
which it closely approximated. Decay
of faith, therefore, in dogmatic Christi
anity is, like other great revolutions of
thought, a question, not of absolute gain
nor absolute loss, but of a balance between
conflicting advantagesand disadvantages.
The loss is evident enough, and is set
forth with much eloquence and force by
the few remaining champions, of ortho
doxy. The simple, undoubting faith,
which has been for ages the support and
consolation of a large portion ot mankind,
especially of the wTeak, the humble, and
the unlearned, who form an immense
majority, cannot disappear without a
painful wrench, and leaving, for a time,
a great blank behind. But, on the other
�108
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
hand, there are a great many real and
important advantages which have to be
set on the credit side of the account.
Intolerance is the shadow which dogs
the footsteps of faith, and in many cases
more than obscures its benefits. When
we. consider the mass of human misery
which has been occasioned by religious
wars and persecutions ; as in the ruth
less extirpation of the Albigenses ; the
slaughter of the saints
whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ;
the Thirty Years’ War, which desolated
Germany and threw civilisation back for
a century ; the civil wars of France ; the
Spanish Inquisition; and a thousand
other instances of the baleful effects of
religious hatreds, we can almost sympa
thise with those who pronounce religion
an invention of priests for the promotion
of evil, and exclaim with the Roman
poet:
Religio tantum potuit suadere malorum.
Athanasian Creed less, but we practise
Christian charity more, in the present
than in any former age.
Another great advantage is that as
freer thought has been brought to bear on
the mysteries of religion, we have purged
off the grosser ideas, and arrived at much
more enlarged and spiritual conceptions,
lake, for instance, prayer and sacrifice.
In its crude form, sacrifice was a sort of
bargain struck with an unseen Power, by
which we noped to obtain some favour
which we greatly desired, in exchange
for giving up something which we
greatly valued. ■ This is the form in
which sacrifice appears in the Old
Testament, in Abraham’s offer to kill
his son Isaac, and in the record of the
Moabitish stone, how the king, when
besieged in his capital, sacrificed his son,
and by so doing obtained the favour of his
God and defeated his enemies. In an
other form, sacrifice was considered as a
propitiation to appease the anger of an
offended Deity, pictured as a sort of
Oriental despot, who must have some
one for a victim, and was not particular
who. it might be; and even in the
Christian dogma the merit of the sacrifice
is very closely analogous to that of the
Mayor of Calais who went out to King
Edward with a halter round his neck,
ready to be hanged, so that he might save
the lives of his fellow-citizens.
Nowadays, 'no one thinks of sacrifice
as anything but the sacrifice of lower
instincts, and passing temptations to a
higher ideal, and the voluntary re
nunciation of selfish ease and pleasure
for the good of others.
In like manner, the original idea of
! prayer was that, of obtaining a request
by flattery or importunity, just as a
courtier might do at the court of some
earthly king of kings or sultan. It is
now spiritualised into the conception
that its effect is entirely subjective ; that
it never really obtains any reversal of the
laws of Nature, but that it often exalts the
mind to a frame in which things otherwise
impossible become possible. A German
regiment marches to battle singing
Luther’s grand old hymn—
To this must be added the misery
caused by the belief in demonology and
witchcraft, and the tortures inflicted on
innumerable innocent victims by pre
judices inspired by a literal construction
of passages of the Old Testament. Nor
is it a small matter to have escaped from
the nightmare dreams which must have
oppressed so many minds, especially of
the young and imaginative, in an age
when such a book as Dante’s “Inferno”
could be written, and accepted as a gleam
of prophetic insight into the horrors of
the invisible world.
. Even in more recent and humane
times, intolerance remained as a general
mode of thought, inspiring hatred of
those whose form of belief differed from
that which was generally adopted. It is
only within the present generation that
true tolerance has come to be established
as the law of modern thought, and that
men have learned to live together and
love one another, without reference to
intellectual differences of creed and doc
trine. Surely this is a great advantage,
and.we are nearer to the true spirit of
Christianity than in the days when a
Em feste Burg ist unser Gott.
Birmingham mob sacked Priestley’s house
because he professed his belief in the Half the regiment may be freethinkers,
saying of Jesus, that “my Father is but it is nevertheless true that they are
greater than I.” We may read the more likely to stand firm and win the
�CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES
victory if they chant the hymn, than if
they march in silence.
taking all these things into account,
there is no reason to despair because the
irresistible progress of science has made us
Falter where we firmly trod,
and changed a great deal of what was
once fixed and certain faith into vague
aspirations and less definite, though
larger and more spiritual, conceptions.
There is next to no theology in the
Christianity of the Synoptic Gospels,
which give us by far the nearest and
most authentic record of what its
founder actually taught; and it may be
that in sloughing-off the mythical legends
®nd metaphysical dogmas which have
grown up around it, we shall be, . in
reality, not banishing the Christian
religion from the world, but making it
revert to its more simple and spiritual
ancestral type, in which form all that is
really valuable in its pure and elevated
morality may be incorporated more
readily with practical life, and assimi
lated without difficulty with the pro
gressive evolution of modern thought
and science.
At the same time we must bear in
mind that even Christianity in its purest
form does not escape from the universal
law of polarity, and presents, not the
whole truth, but only one very important
side of truth. It is the religion of love,
purity, gentleness, and charity ; im
portant virtues, but not all that con
stitute the perfection of men or nations.
In fact, if carried to the “falsehood of
Extremes,” its very virtues become vices.
It would not work in practice, if smitten
on one cheek to turn the other ; and any
one who attempted to follow literally the
precept of “taking no thought for the
morrow,” and trusting to be fed like the
sparrows, would, in modern society, come
dangerously near being what we call in
Scotland a “ne’er-do-weel,” that is to
say, a soft, molluscous sort of creature,
who is a burden on his friends, and ends
his days as a pensioner on charity or a
writer of begging letters. The foremost
men and foremost races of modern society
are precisely those who act on the opposite
principle, and do look ahead and steer
wisely and boldly amidst dangers and
difficulties for distant and definite ends.
In one of the old Norse sagas there is a
109
saying which has always impressed me
greatly. An aged warrior, when asked
what he thought of the new religion,
replied: “ I have heard a great deal of talk
of the old Odin and of the new Christ,
but whenever things have come to a real
pinch, I have always found that my
surest trust was in my own right arm
and good sword.”
This strong self-reliance and hardy
courage to do or to endure is, beyond all
doubt, the solid rock foundation upon
which the manly character of individuals
and of nations must be built up. The
softer virtues and graces which are to
refine and adorn, and convert the man
into the gentle man, or one of Nature’s
true gentlemen, come afterwards. But
without the harder gifts of courage and
self-help, a man is not a man, and the
raw material is not there out of which to
fashion a Gordon or Christian hero.
This may be called the Norse pole
as contrasted with the pole of Chris
tianity, and the perfect man is he who
can stand firmly between the two oppo
sites, controlling both while controlled
by neither.
While I have thought it right, however,
to call attention to this counter-pole to
Christianity, I should add that with the
strong, practical Teutonic races there is
not much danger of erring on the side of
too much weakness, humility, or asceti
cism, and therefore the influence of the
Christian religion makes mainly for good.
Modern civilisation has been formed, to
a great extent, by grafting the gentler
virtues of the Gospel on the robust
primitive stock of the barbarians who
overthrew Rome. It is the example and
teaching of Jesus, the son of the car
penter of Nazareth, which have been
mainly instrumental in diffusing ideas of
divine love, charity, and purity through
out the world, and humanising the iron
clad and iron-souled warriors, whose
trust was in their stout hearts and strong
right arms, and who knew no law but
The simple plan,
That he should take who has the power,
And he should keep who can.
In another respect it is most important
that the world should, as far and as long
as possible, hold on to Christianity and
struggle to save its essential spirit from
the shipwreck of its theology, and from
�110
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
the sheer impossibility of believing in been dissolved by death and no longer
the literal and historical truth of many exist. We know as little in the way of
of its dogmas.
accurate and demonstrable knowledge of
The highest and most consoling beliefs our condition after death as we do of our
of the human mind are to a great extent existence—if we had an existence—before
bound up with the Christian religion. birth.
If we ask ourselves frankly how much,
If we turn for an answer to these
apart from this religion, would remain of questions from science to metaphysics,
faith in a God and in a future state of we find ourselves in cloud-land. Mists
existence, the answer must be, very of fine phrases and plausible conjectures
little. Science traces everything back condense into philosophies, and dissolve?
to primeval atoms and germs, and there away again without leaving a vestige
it leaves us. How came these atoms and of positive knowledge. Take Descartes’
energies there, from which this wonderful famous fundamental axiom, “ Cogito,
universe of worlds has been evolved by ergo sum,”—I think, therefore I am. Is
inevitable laws ? What are they in their it really an axiom 1 Does it take us any
essence, and what do they mean ? The nearer to what thought really is, and
only answer is, it is unknowable. It is what is the true meaning of existence ?
“ behind the veil,” and may be anything. If the fact that I am conscious of think
Spirit may be matter, matter may be ing proves the fact that I exist, is the
spirit. We have no faculties by which converse true, that whatever does not
we can even form a conception, from any think does not exist ? Am I existent
discoveries of the telescope or microscope, or non-existent during the seven or
from any experiments in the laboratory, eight hours of dreamless sleep out of
or from any facts susceptible of real every twenty-four, when to a certainty
human knowledge, of what may be the I am not thinking? Does a child only
first cause underlying all these phe begin to exist when it begins to think ?
nomena.
If “Cogito, ergo sum,” is an intuition
In like manner we can already to a to which we can trust, why is not
great extent, and probably in a short “ Non cogito, ergo non sum,” an equally
time shall be able to the fullest extent, good foundation on which to build a
to trace the whole development of life system of philosophy, and spin out of
from the lowest to the highest; from the brain an ideal system of God, man,
protoplasm, through monera, infusoria, and the universe 1
mollusca, fish, reptile, and mammal, up i The so-called intuitions of metaphysics
to man—and the individual man from I seem really to amount to little more than
the microscopic egg, through the various translations into philosophical language
stages of its evolution up to birth, of our own earnest wishes and aspirachildhood, maturity, decline, and death. I tions. We shudder at the notion of anWe can trace also the development of the ! nihilation ; we revolt at the idea that all
human race through enormous periods of the high faculties of the mature and cultime, from the rudest beginnings up to tivated mind are to be extinguished by
its present level of civilisation, and show death ; we long for a future life, in. which
how arts, languages, morals, and religions we may again see beloved faces, and,
have been evolved gradually by natural pondering on these things, we have a
laws from primitive elements, many of strong impression that it must not and
which are common in their ultimate form cannot be, which presently takes the
to man and the animal creation.
form, in some minds of a philosophical
But here also science stops. Science turn, of what is called an intuition, on
can give no account of how these germs which they proceed to build up a demon
and nucleated cells, endowed with these stration of God and immortality.
marvellous capacities for evolution, came
But, again, what do they really know
into existence or got their intrinsic more than science has already told us?
powers. Nor can science enable us to The essence of all spiritual existence, as
form the remotest conception of what far as we know anything of it, is per
will become of life, consciousness, and sonal consciousness. This clearly depends
conscience, when the material conditions on, or is indissolubly associated with, a
with which they are always associated certain condition of a material organ—
while within human experience, have i the brain. With a less active condition
�CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT MIRACLES
of this organ, as in sleep, personal con
sciousness is suspended. In. the case of
a man recovered from drowning by arti
ficial means, it is gone, and the man is to
all intents and purposes dead for per
haps a quarter of an hour, and would
remain dead if warm blankets and arti
ficial respiration did not recall him. to
life. Where and what was he. during
this interval ? and, if his personal identity
and conscious existence were gone for
that quarter of an hour, why and when
did they return ? and, if the Humane
Society’s men had been less prompt,
would they ever have returned 1
These are questions to which no meta
physical system that I have ever seen
can return the semblance of an answer.
Again, how is it possible for philosophy
to lay down as an axiom that man has
an intuitive perception of a Deity, in the
face of the fact that whole races of savage
men have no such perception, and have
not got beyond rude fetichism and a vague
superstitious fear of ghosts and evil
spirits, while others, further advanced,
have made their own anthropomorphic
gods, obviously from reflections of their
own faculties and passions on the distant
mists of the unknown, like the spectres
of the Brocken ? We can trace the idea
of Deity, step by step, from early attempts
to explain phenomena of nature, astro
nomical, legendary, and linguistic myths,
and reverence for departed ancestors ana
heroes, up to the philosophical concep
tions of a Plato or a Marcus Aurelius.
In the same way we can trace, step by
step, the transformation of the tribal
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into
the national God of Israel, who was
at first only better and stronger than the
gods of the surrounding nations, but
finally became the sole God of the uni
verse, degrading the other gods to the
category of dumb idols. So, also, we can
see the first crude anthropomorphic con
ceptions of this Deity gradually giving
way to purer and nobler ideas. The God
who required rest on the seventh day
becomes the Almighty one at whose word
all things were created. The jealous and
cruel God who withdrew His favour from
the chivalrous Saul, because he would
not hew his captives in pieces before the
Lord, is transformed into the God who
“loves mercy and not sacrifice.” The
God who found after His own heart the
man whose depraved mind could con
111
ceive such an act of foul villainy as David
practised towards Uriah, and who not
only condoned the crime, but rewarded
it by giving the succession to the son of
the adulterous intercourse with Bath
sheba, has become the God of holy love
and purity of the New Testament. At
which of these stages entered that, philo
sophical intuition of God which is said
to be an innate faculty of the human
mind, and the surest base of all our know
ledge of the universe? Where is the
inevitable intuitive perception of a per
sonal Deity in the minds of some of the
deepest thinkers and purest livers of the
present day, who, like Herbert Spencer,
can discern nothing behind the veil but
a great unspeakable and unknowable ?
After all, we must fall back on Chris
tianity for any grounds upon which to
trust, more or less faintly, in the “ larger
hope.” The Christian religion, apart from
auy question of miracles, is an existing
fact. It is a fact which for nineteen cen
turies has proved, on the whole, in accord
ance with other facts and with the deepest
feelings and highest aspirations of the
noblest men and women of the foremost
races in the progressive march of civili
sation. Why do we say that its moral
teachings, such as we find in the Sermon
on the Mount, and in St. Paul’s definition
of Christian charity, carry conviction
with them and prove themselves ? Be
cause they accord with, and. give the
best expression to, feelings which, in the
course of evolution of the human mind
from barbarism to civilisation, have be
come instinctive. We may be able to
trace their origin and development, we
may be able to see that they are not
primary instincts, implanted, at birth,
like those of the lower animals, but
secondary instincts, formed by the action
of a civilised environment on hereditary
aptitudes. Still, there they are, and being
what they are, and living in the age and
society in which we actually live, they
are inevitable and necessary instincts,
and it requires no train of reasoning or
laboured reflection to make us feel that
“ right is right,” and that it is better for
ourselves and others to act on such pre
cepts as those of “ loving our neighbours
as ourselves,” and “doing as we would
be done by,” rathei’ than to reverse these
rules and obey the selfish promptings of
animal nature Of the same order, though
less clear and cogent, are the teachings of
�112
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
the Gospel respecting God and immorta
lity. They are less clear and less cogent,
because the only evidence by which they
could be demonstrated from without, that
of miracles, has broken down and failed
us; and because we cannot verify them
experimentally by an appeal to facts, as
we can in regard to the working of moral
laws and precepts. But it still remains
that they are ideas which have arisen
inevitably in the course of the evolution
of the human mind ; and that they fit in
with and satisfy, in a way which no other
ideas can do, many of the best and deepest
feelings which have equally been deve
loped in that mind, in the course of its
progressive ascent from lower to higher
things.. It remains also true that science,
while it can add nothing to this proof,
takes nothing from it, and that while
it excludes miracles and supernatural
interference after the order of the uni
verse has been once established, it leads
us back step by step to a great Unknown,
in which, from the very fact that it is
unknown, everything is possible.
Further than this it is not possible to
carry the proof. If we are to believe at
all in a God, we must be content to believe
that He knows better than we do what
is right and consistent with the conditions
of our own existence and that of the
universe ; and that part of the scheme is
that at a certain stage of the develop
ment of our race we should have to
exchange the certainty , of simple and
limited faith for the fainter trust in a
larger hope. We may, perhaps, dimly
discern something analogous in the
progress of each individual from child
hood to manhood. He has to part with
many a «simple belief and unhesitating
trust, and climb the hill of life staggering
under many a burden of doubt and
difficulty; and yet it is better for him
to “set a stiff heart to a steep brae,”
and struggle upwards while life is in him
rather than to remain an innocent child
playing at its foot.
Anyhow, whether we like it or not, this
is. the fact we have to accept; but the
hill is steep, the burden heavy, and we
may well be grateful to anything which,
however vaguely, helps and cheers us
on the way. From this point of view,
the ideas of God and of a future life
taught by the Christian religion, ac
cepted by so many good men, and
hallowed by so many venerable traditions
and. sacred associations, should be
cherished, as far as it is possible to do
so without shutting our eyes to facts
and indulging in conscious insincerity.
For the same reason we shall do well
to be tender with the forms and creeds
2* religion, even when they appear
to be getting obsolete, and their strict
and literal interpretation becomes no
longer consistent with known truths.
It is far better, that the transformation
requisite to bring them into accordance
with the evolution of modern thought
caused by the discoveries of science,
should take place gradually and spon
taneously from within, ratherthanforcibly
and abruptly from without. Evolutionists
specially ought to trust to the healing
influences of time, and the inevitable
though gradual survival of that which
is. most in harmony with its existing en
vironment.
Already a great deal has been quietly
done in this direction. Intolerance and
fanaticism have almost disappeared from
cultured minds. Even in the ranks
of the. clergy themselves, many, in all
denominations, are devoting themselves
more and more to good works, and less
to theological disputes and sectarian
wranglings.
The metaphysical side of Christian
dogma is fast receding into the far
distance. The Athanasian Creed, which
once convulsed, empires and occupied a
foremost place in the thought of the age,
has become a mere form, read once or
twice a year by lukewarm preachers to
indifferent or scandalised audiences, who
would be only too glad to have a decent
excuse for dropping it out of sight alto
gether. Let any sincere Christian put to
himself candidly the question what part
the “Holy Ghost,” or the definition of
the. Logos,”really has in the living faith
which guides his actions, and he will be
astonished to find into what infinitesimal
proportions these once vital dogmas
have actually faded. It will be the same
with all dogmas which, in their literal
and historical interpretation, contradict
established facts. They will be either
forgotten, or, if they contain a kernel of
spiritual meaning, will be transformed
into truths taught by parables.
In the meantime, it behoves those who
see more clearly than others the absolute
certainty of the conclusions of science,
and the inevitably fatal results to
�PRACTICAL LIFE
Wigion of staking its existence on literal
interpretations which have become flatly
incredible, to do their best to assist the
■ransformation of the old dogmatic theo
logy into a new “ Christianity without
jtoiracles,” which shall retain the essential
spirit, the pure morality, the consoling
beliefs, and, as far as possible, the vener
able forms and sacred associations of the
old faith, while placing them in thorough
accordance with freedom of thought, and
with the whole body of other truths,
d&covered and to be discovered, respect
ing the universe and man.
CHAPTER X
PRACTICAL LIFE
Conscience—Right is Right—Self-reverence
—Courage—Respectability—Influence of
Press—Respect for Women—Self-respect of
Nations—Democracy and Imperialism—Self - knowledge—Conceit— Luck— Specula
tion—Money-making—Practical Aims of
Life—Self-control—Conflict of Reason and
Instinct—Temper—Manners—Good Habits
in Youth—Success in Practical Life—Edu
cation—Stoicism—Conclusion.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear ;
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.
Tennyson, (Enone.
In these lines, which he puts into the
mouth of the goddess of wisdom, Tenny
son, the.same poet who has already con
densed the essence of modern thought
in the lines already quoted from “In
Memoriam,” gives us what may be well
palled “ the Gospel of practical life.” It is
clearly our highest wisdom to follow right,
Hot from selfish calculation or hope of
reward, but because “ right is right ” ; in
other words, because we have a standard
pvithin us which tells us, in an unmis
takable voice, what to do and what to
refrain from doing. For practical pur
poses, it is comparatively unimportant
how this standard got there ; whether,
Recording to old creeds, by direct inspira
113
tion or, as modern science tells us, by
the slow evolution of primitive faculties,
and the accumulation through countless
generations of hereditary influences
tending towards the survival of the
fittest, both of individuals and of
societies, in the struggle for life. In either
case the standard is there, not as a vague
and theoretical, but as an absolute and
imperative, rule, and the difficulty is not
to discern it, but to act up to it.
It may be that it is to a great extent
the product of education, and depends on
the environment in which we are brought
up. It is pretty certain that if I had bees
kidnapped when a child by Comanche
Indians, I should have grown up with a
very different moral standard touching
the taking of scalps and the practice of
treacherous murder. But I have not
been so kidnapped, and having been
born and brought up in a civilised country
of the nineteenth century, it is inevitable
that outward influences combined with
inward capacities should give me a con
science, which tells me in clear enough
accents whether I am doing right or
wrong. And it is equally certain that by
acting in accordance with this conscience^
I shall, on the whole, be doing better for
myself and better for others than by
disregarding it. It is none too easy to
make our life even a tolerable approxi
mation towards doing right for the sake
of right, and it would be folly to
allow any theoretical considerations as
to the origin of the idea of right to be an
excuse for relaxing any of the constant
and strenuous effort which is requisite to
keep our feet from straying from the
straight path. It is much wiser to cast
around us for influences and inducements
to strengthen the inward law, and to en*
deavour by clear insight to .bring reason
to the aid of faith, and enable us to see
intelligently the main causes both of our
weakness and of our strength.
This is what the poet does for us in the
lines above quoted. Rightly considered,
“self-reverence, self-knowledge, and self
control ” are the three pillars which sup
port the edifice of a wise and well-ordered
practical life.
Self-reverence, in its widest meaning,
includes the faculty of forming some
ideal standard superior to the lower
nature of animal man, and recognising
in ourselves some power of approximat
ing to it. The higher the standard the
I
�114
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
nobler will be the man who cherishes it
and tries to attain to it, but it is by no
means a rare gift confined to a few select
natures. On the contrary, it is the com
monest and most universal incentive to
good conduct. Even in the rudest and
simplest form of admiration for physical
courage, it makes heroes of many a
common soldier and sailor. If poor
Tommy Atkins, fresh from the plough
tail, stands firm in the shattered squares
of Waterloo, or on the bloody ridge of
Inkermann, it is because he has been
brought up in the fixed idea that a Briton
must not run away from a Frenchman or
a Russian.
In civil life the idea of respectability,
though not a very elevated one and apt
to degenerate into narrowness, and that
which Carlyle and Arnold sneer at as
“ Gigmanity ” and “ Philistinism,” is yet
one of universal and, on the whole, bene
ficial influence. A large majority of the
middle and upper working classes lead
decorous lives very much because they
feel it incumbent on them to be “re
spectable ” in their own eyes and those
of their neighbours. In the case of one
half of the human race, the female half,
the feeling of self-respect and the desire
to be what is called respectable afford the
strongest and most constantly present
securities both for good morals and good
manners. The immense majority of
British women are modest maidens and
faithful wives, not so much from any
cold calculation of the balance of ad
vantages, or from fear of consequences,
as from an instinctive feeling that they
cannot be otherwise without losing caste
and forfeiting their own self-respect and
that of their neighbours.
From these common and universal
forms of “ self-reverence ” we rise, step
by step, to the higher ideals, which, in
every rank and every condition of life,
give us among gifted natures what may
De called the “salt of the earth,” and the
shining examples which guide the world
to higher things—noble men and noble
women. A Sidney, dying on the field of
Zutphen, hands over the cup of water
to a wounded soldier because his soul,
nourished on noble thoughts, and his
fancy, fed by the old ballads which, like
that of “ Chevy Chase,” stirred him like
a trumpet-blast, had led him to conceive
an ideal of a perfect knight which would
have been tarnished by any shade of a
selfish action. Gordon sacrifices his life
at Khartoum, not only cheerfully but
almost instinctively, because the sugges
tion that he might save himself by
abandoning those who had trusted in
him seems an absolute impossibility.
It is a great advantage of the present
day that education and the press bring
such instances of devoted heroism vividly
before millions who would never other
wise have heard of them. The influence
of the press, both in the way of books
and newspapers, is happily in this country
almost entirely one which makes for
good. There is not a noble act done
throughout the world, by high or low, by
private or officer, by soldier or civilian,
which is not held up for praise and
admiration ; while any signal instance of
cowardice or selfishness is held up to
contempt. Newspaper correspondence
and leading articles have, to a great ex
tent, superseded sermons, and do the prac
tical moral work of the world in asserting
the right and rebuking wickedness in
high places. In like manner all the
higher works of poetry, fiction, and
biography, have a good tendency, and are
read by an ever-increasing number of
readers. Enid and Elaine, Jeanie Deans,
Laura Pendennis, Lucy Roberts, are the
sort of models set before girls ; while
boys who have any heroic fibre in their
nature are fed with such lives as those
of Lawrence and Gordon. For all, but
especially for the young, there is no help
to self-improvement so great as to read
good, books in a generous spirit; and
nothing which dwarfs the mind so much
as to debauch it by frivolous reading, and
by the moral dram-drinking of sensational
rubbish, until it loses all natural and
healthy appetite for the pure and ele
vated. An affectation of narrow know
ingness is also a very fatal tendency in
the youthful mind. A man from whose
mouth such words as “rot’’and “hum
bug” are constantly heard is, in nine
cases out of ten, a very poor, rotten
creature himself.
Among the many advantages of selfrespect, not the least important is that it
teaches respect for others. The petty
jealousies and suspicions, the senseless
quarrels, theslanderings and backbitings,
which so often turn sour the wine of life,
disappear of themselves when a proper
standard of self-respect has been firmly
established, and a high ideal of human
�PRACTICAL LIFE
life has become part of our nature. As
Tennyson says:
Like simple noble natures credulous
Of what they wish for, good in friend or
foe;
while on the other hand • '
The long-necked geese of the world
Are always hissing dispraise, because their
natures are little.
There are some who delight in running
down everything and everybody, and
whose appetite for scandal is so great
that they are positively unable to re
frain from believing and spreading an
ill-natured tale, if it affects some emi
nent man, and still more if it affects
a well-known woman. Such are as
suredly not the sort of persons whom we
should like to resemble ourselves, or to
see our sons and daughters resemble. I
have always found through life, a safe
rule to go by was, if you hear an illnatured story of a man, discount ninetenths of it as a lie, and if of a woman,
don’t believe a word of it.
Perhaps the best test of the amount of
real “self-reverence” in an individual or
a nation, is to be found in the tone and
manner in which women are treated. A
low toneinvariablybespeaks a low nature,
and testifies to innate coarseness and
snobbishness, however high may be the
rank and polished the outward varnish
of the person who indulges in it. On the
other hand the roughest miner or back
woodsman is already more than half a
gentleman, if his attitude towards women
is one of chivalrous courtesy. Nothing
looks more hopeful for the future of the
human race than to see that the female
half of it are constant gainers by the
progress of freedom and education. It
goes a long way to reconcile one to the
dangers of democracy, to find that in the
newest and most democratic countries of
the world, such as the United States and
British colonies, women can travel alone
without fear of insult, and have far more
innocent liberty and freedom of thought
and action than they have in older
societies. Whatever may be the case as
regards men, for women there can be no
doubt that there is a progressive scale
upwards from East to West, from despot
ism to freedom, from Turkey to America.
What has been said of individuals is
115
even more true of nations. Self-respect
is the very essence of national life. A great
nation may suffer great disasters, and
survive them, if the spirit of its people
remains intact. England survived the
war of American independence, and
Prussia recovered from the defeat of Jena.
But if a nation loses its vigour and selfrespect, if it begins to groan under the
burdens of extended empire, and to pre
fer comfort to honour, ignoble ease to
noble effort, the hour of its decline has
sounded. Imperial Rome did not long
survive when she began to contract her
frontiers and buy off barbarians. The
most fatal thing any Government can do
for a country is to destroy its sense of
self-respect and teach it to acquiesce in
what is felt to be dishonourable.
Looking forward to the future of the
great British Empire, this is evidently a
turning-point of its destinies. The tri
umph of democracy is an inevitable fact;
for knowledge is power, and whether
for good or evil, the masses have either
acquired, or are fast acquiring know
ledge, and with equal political rights
numbers will tell. How will this demo
cracy of the future affect Imperial
interests, and what will be its attitude
in regal’d to foreign and colonial policy ?
On the one hand it may be hoped
that by making our institutions more
popular, and going down to the heart of
the masses, our policy will acquire fresh
energy and our public men fresh vigour.
The working classes are very patriotic,
and, on the whole, more open to the in
fluence of generous ideas than the class
immediately above them. In the recent
instance of the great civil war in the
United States, we have seen a democracy
making greater sacrifices of men and
moneyfor theideaof maintaining national
greatness, than was probably ever volun
tarily made by any monarchical or aristo
cratic country. The Copper-heads, who
preached peace where there was no
peace, and advised letting the erring
sisters go their way rather than spend
lives and money in the attempt to coerce
them, found no response from a nation
who felt that the union was their union,
and its greatness the separate personal
possession of each individual citizen.
But, on the other hand, demagogues
will never be wanting to flatter the
people, and angle for power by appeal
ing to their lower instincts and advoi 2
�116
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
eating measures of present ease and
popularity. If a necessity arises for
maintaining by the sword an empire
which has been won by the sword, the
army of parochial politicians who gauge
everything by the standard of pounds,
shillings, and pence, will be reinforced
by the far more respectable body of
sentimentalists and humanitarians, who
shrink from the shedding of blood in
wars the abstract justice of which is not
absolutely demonstrated. A large num
ber, perhaps a majority, of platform
orators will therefore be found now, as
it was in the days of Demosthenes, to de
nounce armaments, ridicule precautions,
minimise responsibilities, and look upon
India, the Colonies, and extended empire
generally, as troublesome encumbrances
rather than as glorious possessions. The
t wo conflicting ideals constantly set be
fore our future political rulers, the four
millions whose votes decide the fate of
policies and of ministries, will be, on the
one hand, that our first duty is to hand
down the British Empire to our sons no
less great and glorious than we received
it from pur fathers ; on the other, that
it is better to stay at home, mind our
own affairs, avoid entanglements, con
tract responsibilities, pass reform bills,
and reduce taxes, trusting to the “silver
streak ” and the chapter of accidents to
protect us from invasion. It is the old
story of the fable of Hercules, which pre
sents itself constantly to each individual
and to every nation. Shall we follow the
strait and narrow path which leads up
wards, or the broad and easy one which
leads, with a pleasant slope, to a lower
level 1 Would it have been better for'
Paris to give the golden apple to Minerva,
counselling “ self-reverence, self-know
ledge, self-control,” or to Venus, promising
pleasure ?
SELF-KNOWLEDGE
Oh wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us !
Burns.
A gift -which is unfortunately as rare
as it is necessary. Without self-know
ledge to see our faults how shall we
correct them ? How shall we become
wise if insensible to our follies ? How shall
we achieve success if we learn no lessons
from cur failures ? There are some men
so blinded by vanity that they go through
life committing ungentlemanly actions
while fancying themselves perfect gentle
men ; who are convinced that all men
admire them and all women are in love
with them, while in reality every one
sees through them and laughs at them.
A thoroughly impervious vanity is like
a waterproof, which throws off the
wholesome rain on the outside, while on
the inside it is soaked with unhealthy
exhalations.
Fortunately this type of vanity is not
a common one with our English race,
who are too proud and self-reliant to feel
the petty anxiety of the really vain man
to be always shining in the eyes of others.
With us it takes more the form of priding
ourselves on artificial distinctions, and
attaching an exaggerated importance to
matters of trivial importance. Your
commonplace English swell, for instance,
is apt to class all mankind under two
categories—those who associate with lords
and wear clothes of a fashionable cut,
and those who do not, and to set down all
the former as the “ right sort,” and all
the latter as “ brutes.”
It is a sign of narrowness to make a
fetich of these or any other arbitrary
distinctions between an upper ten and the
rest of mankind, and self-knowledge is
never more required than to show the
hollowness of adventitious advantages
which are not supported by intrinsic
merit. A true gentleman feels
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man’s the gowd for a’ that,
and feeling this, he holds out the hand of
hearty human sympathy to peasant as
well as to peer. If born to rank and
riches, self-knowledge tells him that he
is simply placed on a pedestal, where,
if he fails to act on the maxim that
“ noblesse oblige,” the failure will be the
more conspicuous. No man who really
knows himself can ever be conceited, for
he must be aware how far he has fallen
short in practice ofhisown idealstandard,
and how constantly “ he has done things
he ought not to have done, and left un
done things he ought to have done ”
On the other hand, there is an opposite
extreme from which self-knowledge will
save a man : that.of undue despondency
and want of proper confidence and selfreliance, There are men who fail ip
�PRACTICAL LIFE
everything they undertake because they
have not the heart to undertake it
resolutely, and who at last sink down into
the hopeless condition of querulous men
tal invalids, who cherish their ailments
rather than combat them, and are rather
proud than otherwise to be considered as
interesting victims of untoward circum
stances.
For all the relations of practical life the
one essential requisite of success is to see
things as they really are, and not as we
wish them to be ; and for this purpose
self-knowledge is the foundation of clear
insight. If the focus of the glass is
wrongly adjusted it will show only dis
torted images, but if a clear eye looks
through a properly focussed glass, out
ward objects will be truly represented.
Perhaps the commonest of all delusions
is that of being born under a lucky star.
A man gambles, bets, or speculates be
cause he thinks he is lucky and sure to
win. Now, there is in reality no such
thing as luck, it is all a question of
averages. The only approach to what
may be called luck is, that a fool will
probably have more of it than a wise
man, for as the fool foresees nothing,
whenever fortune’s die turns up in his
favour he sets it down to luck, while the
wise man, who has schemed and worked
for the event, calls it foresight. But the
actual average of events, which depend
entirely on chance, will be the same.
If a man plays at rouge et noir with
one chance in a hundred in favour of the
bank, it is certain that if he plays often
enough, he will lose his capital once at
least for every hundred times he plays.
Or, if he speculates on the Stock
Exchange, the turn of the market and
broker’s commission will, in the long run,
certainly swallow up his original capital.
And yet men will gamble and speculate,
because they cannot resist the pleasing
illusion that they are lucky, and that it
would be very nice to win a large stake
without having had to work for it.
There is nothing for which self-know
ledge is more indispensable in practical
life than to enable a man to steer a
straight course between opposite ex
tremes, and to discern clearly the boun
dary line between right and wrong. The
law of polarity, by which things good in
themselves if pushed to extremes become
bad, and every truth develops a corre
II?
sponding error, is of daily and universal
application in practical affairs.
Take, for instance, the much-debated
question of the pursuit of money. Poets
and novelists are never tired of denounc
ing the “ Auri sacra fames,” and there is
no doubt that, when carried to excess, it
is the fertile source of crime ; and even
in a less degree, it leads to meanness and
dishonesty, and has a degrading influence
on the individual or the nation who give
themselves up too exclusively to the
worship of the “almighty dollar.” But,
on the other hand, the desire, or rather
the necessity under the conditions of
civilised society, of making money, is by
far the most powerful and all-pervading
influence of practical life. And, within
due bounds and under proper conditions,
it is a healthy and beneficial influence.
At the lowest stage it obliges men to
work instead of being idle, and this is
an immense advantage both to the com
munity and to the individual. An idle
man, in every grade of society, is
generally a worthless and often a bad
man; while an honest working man,
whether the work be of the head or
hand, is far more likely to be happy
and respectable.
Again, the necessity of earning money
is a wonderful test of the real value of
a man in the world’s market. We should
be all very apt to become pretentious
wind-bags of conceit, if we were not
brought to our senses by the wholesome
douche of having to work for a livelihood.
Many a man who fancies himself intended
for a poet or politician, and some who by
accident of birth or fortune are pitchforked into prominent positions, would
find it difficult to point out any occupa
tion in which they are honestly worth a
couple of hundred a year.
Even in the higher departments of art
and literature, it may be questioned
whether the healthy, natural desire to
turn an honest penny has not inspired
greater works than a morbid appetite
for fame. Shakespeare’s ambition was
to retire to his native town with a
moderate competency ; Walter Scott’s to
become a laird, with a family estate, in
the border-land of the chief of his clan
—“the bold Buccleuch.” And, in the
present day, literature is becoming more
and more an honourable profession,
which men take to, as they do to law
�118
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
or medicine, as a means of earning a
livelihood.
It must always be borne in mind that
under the practical conditions of modern
civilisation, money means not only the
possibility of bare existence, but nearly
all that makes existence tolerablehealth, recreation, culture, and independ
ence. The number and locality of the
rooms a man lives in, the number of cubic
feet, and purity of the air he and his
family breathe, are questions of rent ;
the food they eat, the clothes they wear,
the books they read, the holidays they
enjoy, are all questions of money. And
above all, without money there is no in
dependence. An absolutely penniless
man has to fall back on crime or the
workhouse; a poor man is at the mercy
of a thousand accidents ; sickness, fluc
tuations of trade, caprice of employers,
pressure of creditors, may at any mo
ment reduce him and those who depend
on him to want. It admits of no ques
tion, that the first duty of every one is
to endeavour to raise himself above this
level of ignoble daily cares, and plant
himself in a position where he can face
the present and look forward to the
future with tolerable equanimity. As
we rise in the scale of society the
problem becomes more difficult. Money
making is very apt to be pushed to
excess and lead to gambling and dis
honesty ; while the worship of wealth,
which is perhaps the besetting sin of the
age, is distinctly the cause of much lax
morality and snobbish vulgarity. But
on the other hand, money is power, and
a large fortune honestly acquired and
well spent, gives its possessor unrivalled
opportunities for doing good. He can
assist charities, patronise art, and if
gifted with force of character and fair
abilities may become a legislator and
statesman, and enrol his name in the
annals of his country. It is hard to say
that if a man has an opportunity of
making a large fortune honestly, and
feels that he has it in him to use it nobly,
he should refrain from doing so because
moralists cry “Sour grapes,” and tell
him that riches are deceitful.
But for nothing is “self-knowledge”
more requisite than to enable a man to
see clearly how high he can safely aim,
and what sort of stake he can prudently
play for. The immense majority of man
kind have neither the opportunities nor
the faculties for playing for very high
stakes, and must be contented with the
safe game for moderate and attainable
ends. One such end is within the reach
of almost every one :
To make a happy household clime
For weans and wife,
Is the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
So says Burns, who has a rare faculty
of hitting the right nail on the head ;
and the ideal he sets before us in these
simple lines is at once the truest and the
most universal. The man who fails in
this is himself a failure; while the man
who by his industry and energy supports
a family in comfort and respectability
according to their station, and who, at
the same time, by control of temper,
kindness, unselfishness, and sweet
reasonableness makes his household a
happy one, may feel, even though fortune
may not have placed him in a position
of higher responsibilities, that he has
not lived in vain, that he has performed
the first duties and tasted the truest
pleasures of mortal existence, and that,
whatever there may be behind the im
penetrable veil, he can face it with head
erect, as one of “Nature’s gentlemen.”
SELF-CONTROL
This is, after all, the vitally import
ant element of a happy and successful
life. The compass may point truly to
the pole, the chart may show the right
channel amidst shoals and rocks, but the
ship will hardly arrive safely in port
Unless the helmsman stands at his post
in all weathers, ready to meet any sheer
of the bow by a timely turn to starboard
or to port. So self-reverence and selfknowledge may point out ever so clearly
the path of duty, unless self-control is
constantly present we shall surely stray
from it. . At every moment of our lives
natural instinct tells us to do one thing,
while reason and conscience tell us to do
another. It is by an effort that we get
up in the morning and go about our
daily work. It is by an effort that we
refrain from indulgences and forego
pleasures, control our passions, restrain
our tempers. The uncultured man is
�PRACTICAL LIFE
violent, selfish, childish ; it is only by the
inherited or acquired practice of self
control that he is transformed into the
civilised man—courteous, considerate,
sensible, and reliable.
The necessity of self-control in all the
more important relations of moral and
practical life is so obvious that it would
be only repeating commonplaces to
enlarge on it. But there is often danger
of its being overlooked, in those minor
morals of conduct which make up the
greater part of life, and determine the
happiness or misery of oneself and
others.
For instance, control over the temper.
A man never shows his cousinship to the
ape so much as when he is in a passion.
The manifestations are so exactly similar
—irrational violence, nervous agitation,
total loss of head, and abdication of all
presence of mind and reasoning power.
To see a grown-up man reduced to the
level of a spoiled child, or of a monkey
who has been disappointed of a nut, is a
spectacle of which it is hard to. say
whether it is more ridiculous or painful.
Even worse than occasional violence is
the habitual ill-temper which makes
life miserable to those who are obliged
to put up with it. We call a man who
strikes a woman or child with his fist a
brute ; what is he if he strikes them
daily and hourly, ten times more cruelly,
with his tongue 1 A ten times greaterbrute. And yet there are men., calling
themselves gentlemen, who do this, either
from sheer brutality of nature, or oftener
from inconsiderateness, coarseness of
fibre, and inability to exercise self
control in minor matters.
There is one very common mistake
made, that of considering relationship
an excuse for rudeness. The members of
a family may relax something of the
stiffness of company manners among
themselves, but they should never forget
that it is just as much ill-breeding to say
a rude thing to a wife, a sister, or a
brother, as it would be to say it to any
other lady or gentleman. In fact, it is
worse, for the other lady can treat you
with contempt and keep out of your way,
while the poor woman who is tied to you
feels it keenly, and has no means of
escape from it. Good manners are, in
practical life, a great part of good
morals ; and there is something to be
119
said for religions which, like the Chinese,
lay down rules of politeness, and make
salvation depend very much on. the ob
servance of rites and ceremonies intended
to ensure courtesy and decorum in the
intercourse of all classes of the com
munity in daily life.
Although not so bad as the indulgence
of a violent or morose temper, a great
deal of unhappiness is caused by a fussy
and fidgety disposition, which makes
mountains out of molehills, and keeps
every one in hot water about trifles. This
is one of the common faults of idleness,
as genuine work both strengthens the
fibre to resist and leaves no time to brood
over petty troubles.
The excuse one commonly hears from
those who give way to these petty
infirmities is, “that they cannot help
it, they are born with thin skins and
excitable tempers.” This is the excuse
of sloth and weakness. If, as the poet
says,
Man is man, and master of his fate,
what sort of an unmanly creature must
he be who cannot master even the
slightest impulse or resist the slightest
temptation, and allows himself to. be
ruffled into a storm by every passing
breath, like a shallow roadside puddle?
If he will not try he certainly will not
learn; but if he will honestly try to
correct faults, he will find it easier
every time, until the fancied impos
sibilities fade away and are forgotten.
A man who is so much afraid of
tumbling off that he will never mount
a horse, may fancy that Nature has dis
qualified him for riding; but for all
that, nine men out of ten, if obliged to
try—say as recruits in a cavalry regi
ment—though they may not all turn out
accomplished horsemen, will all learn to
ride well enough for practical purposes.
It is peculiarly important for the young
to set resolutely about correcting bad
habits and forming good ones, while the
faculties are fresh and the brain supple ;
for, in obedience to the law by which
molecular motions travel by preference
along beaten paths, every year cuts
deeper the channels of thought and
feeling, whether for good or evil. A brain
trained to respond to calls of duty soon
does so with ease and elasticity, just as
�120
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT
the muscles of the blacksmith’s arm or of
the ballet-dancer’s leg acquire strength
and vigour by exercise; while, on the
other hand, motion is a pain and selfcontrol an effort to the soft and flabby
limb or brain which has been weakened
by self-indulgence.
It is scarcely necessary to say-that for
success in practical life, self-control is
the one thing most needful. To take
the simplest case, that of a young
working man beginning life with health,
knowledge of a trade, or even without it
with good, thews and sinews, he is the most
free and independent of mortals, on one
condition—that he has saved £10. With
this, he is a free agent in disposing of his
labour, he can make his contract with an
employer on equal terms, he can carry
his goods to the best market, and is
practically a citizen of the world, ready
to start for San Francisco or Melbourne
if . he thinks he can better himself.
Without it, he is a serf tied to the soil,
he cannot move from place to place, he
must take whatever wages are offered
him or starve.
But how to save the £10? That is a
question of daily and weekly recurrence ;
whether to spend an extra shilling in the
pleasant way of going to a public-house
and sitting with a pipe and a jug of ale
by the fireside among jolly companions,
or. to forego the pleasure and save the
shilling. A shilling a week saved will,
in four years, give him the £10, and go a
good way to establish habits which, if he
is enterprising and goes to a colony, or
is clever and has any luck at home, may
readily make the ten a hundred, or even
a thousand pounds. So in every class of
life, the man who gets on is the man who
has schooled himself never to ask whether
a thing is pleasant, but whether it is
right and reasonable ; who always keeps
a bright look-out ahead, and who does
his best at the task, whatever it may be,
that is set before him.
Education really resolves itself very
much into teaching the young to acquire
this indispensable faculty of self-control.
The amount of positive knowledge, useful
in after life, acquired at our English
public schools, is really very little beyond
the three B’s. A boy who could teach
himself French or German irrfive months
spends five years over Latin and Greek,
and in nine cases out of ten forgets them
as soon as he leaves school or college.
Almost everything we know that is worth
knowing we teach ourselves in after life.
But the discipline of school is invaluable
in teaching the lesson of self-control.
Almost every hour of the day a boy at
school has to do things that are dis
agreeable and abstain from doing things
that nature prompts, under pain of
getting a caning from the master or a
thrashing from other boys. The memory
also is exercised, and the faculty of
fixing the mind on work is developed, by
useless almost as well as by useful studies.
In this point of view even that ne plus
ultra of technical pedantry, the Latin,
grammar, with its “Propria quse maribus’’ and “As in presenti,” may have its
use in teaching a boy that no matter how
absurd or repulsive a task maybe, he has
got to tackle to it or worse will befall
him.
But it is in a moral sense that the
influence of a good school is most valu
able. The average boy learns that he
must not tell lies, he must not be a sneak
or a coward, he must take punishment
bravely, and conform to the school
master’s standard of discipline and the
school-boy’s standard of honour. In this
way the first lesson of life, stoicism,
becomes with most English lads a sort of
instinct or second nature.
For stoicism, after all, is the foundation
and primary element of all useful and
honourable life. Whether as Carlyle’s
“Everlasting No,” or as George Eliot’s
advice, to take the pains and mishaps of
life without resorting to moral opium,
the conclusion of all the greatest minds
is that a man must have something of
the Red Indian in him and be able to
suffer, silently, and burn his own smoke,
if he is to be worth anything. And still
more a woman, who has to bear with and
make the best of a thousand petty an
noyances without complaint. Men can
bear on great occasions, but in the
innumerable petty trials of life women
as a rule show more self-control and
moral fortitude. What would the life of
a woman be who could not stand being
bored with a smiling face, put up with
the worries of children and servants with
cheerful fortitude, and turn away an
angry word by a soft answer ?
There is much more that might be
said, but my object is not to preach or
�PRACTICAL LIFE
moralise, but simply to record a few. of
the practical rules and reflections which
have impressed themselves on me in the
course of a long and busy life. I do so
in the hope that perchance they may
awaken useful thoughts in some, es
pecially of the younger readers, who may
happen to glance over these pages. This
much I may say for them, I have tried
them and found them work well. I have
lived for more than the Scriptural span
of threescore and ten years, a life of
varied fortunes and many experiences. . I
may say, in the words which my favourite
poet, Tennyson, puts into the mouth of
Ulysses:
For ever roaming with a hungry heart,
Much have I seen and known, cities of men,
And councils, climates, governments.
121
And the conclusion I come to is, not that
of the Preacher, “ Vanity of vanities, all
is vanity,” but rather that life, with all
its drawbacks, is worth living ; and that
to have been born in a civilised country
in the nineteenth century is a boon for
which a man can never be sufficiently
thankful. Some may find it otherwise
from no fault of their own; more by
their own fault; but the majority of
men and women may lead useful,
honourable, and on the whole fairly
happy lives, if they will act on the
maxim which I have always en
deavoured, however imperfectly, to
follow—Frar NOTHING ; MAKE THE BEST OE
EVERYTHING.
�THE
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Modern science and modern thought: with a biographical note on the author by Edward Clodd
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Laing, Samuel [1812-1897]
Clodd, Edward [1840-1930]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: xii, 121 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from introductory note. First published, London: Chapman and Hall, 1885. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd. Printed in double columns. Publisher's advertisements on back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts and Co.
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[1902]
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N430
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Religion
Science
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Science
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Q-
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
PROBLEMS OF THE
FUTURE
BY
S. LAING
AUTHOR OF “ MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT,”
“A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN,” ETC.
Revised and brought up to date by Joseph MeCabe
[issued for
the rationalist press association, limited]
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1905
��CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION .
*
7
CHAPTER I.
9
SOLAR HEAT
Difference between Astronomers and Geologists—The former say twenty, the latter two
hundred millions of years—Argument of Astronomers—Amount of Heat received from
Sun—How Supply kept up—Meteorites—Gravity—-Method of Calculation—Result:
Supply of Heat cannot have lasted more than ten to fifteen millions of years—Case of
Geologists—-Progress of the Science—Theological—Theologic-Scientific—Scientific
Uniformity of Conditions—Proved by Fossil Remains—By Temperature and Atmosphere
—Assuming Uniformity, Time required—Instances—-Solent River—Eocene Lake—Lake
of Geneva—Coal Measures—Geology based on Facts—-Mathematical Conclusions on
Theory—If Heat comes from Gravity, where does Gravity come from ?—Gravity really
unknown—Different Theories as to Solar Heat—Lockyer and Crookes—Sun-spots—
Magnetic Storms—Conservation of Energy.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
.
.
.
.
.
•
•
.21
Shooting Stars: their number, velocity, size—Connection with Comets—Composition—
Spectra—Meteorite Theory—Genesis of Stars and Nebulae—Further stage of Theory
Impact Theory—Dark Suns in Space—Temperature of Visible Stars—Their proper
Motions—New Stars—Variable Stars—Facts better explained by Impact Theory—Laplace’s
Theory—Based solely on Gravity—Not inconsistent, but insufficient—Even Impact Theory
not last step—Stony Masses made of Atoms—-What are Atoms ?—Chemical Elements—
Attempts to reduce them to one—Hydrogen—Helium—Mendelejeffs Law—Atoms
Manufactured Articles—All of one Pattern—Vortex Theory—Theory of Electrons—What
behind Atoms ?—The Unknowable.
CHAPTER III.
CLIMATE
29
Conflict between Geology and Astronomy—Geology asserts Uniformity of Climate until
Recent Times—Astronomy asserts Inclination of Earth’s Axis to be invariable, and
therefore Climates necessary—-Evidence for Warm and Uniform Climates—Greenland
—Spitzbergen—Impossible under Existing Conditions—-Heat, Light, and Actinism—
Invariability of Earth’s Axis—Causes of Higher and more Uniform Temperature—
Cooling of the Earth—More Heat from the Sun—Warmer regions of Space—More
Carbonic-dioxide—Would not explain Uniformity of Temperature—Excess of Oxygen—
Modification of Species—Configuration of Sea and Land—Croll’s Theory—Displacement
*of Earth’s Axis—Inclination of Axis of Planets and Moon—Unsolved Problems of the
Future.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GLACIAL PERIOD ..........
Importance of Date of Glacial Period-—Its Bearing on Origin of Man—Short Date
Theories—Prestwich says 20,000, Lyell 200,000, years—Croll’s Theory—Prestwich’s
Arguments—Solar Heat—Human Progress—Shown by Palaeolithic Remains—Geological
Evidence—Advance of Greenland Glaciers—Denudation—-Erosion of Cliffs and Valleys—
Deposition—Loess—Elevation and Depression of Land—All Show Immense Antiquity—
35
�CONTENTS
4
Post-Glacial Period—Prestwich says 8,000 to 10,000 years—Mellard Reade 60,000—His
Reasons—Inconsistent with Short-Date Theories—Causes of Glacial Period—Cooling of
Earth—Cold Regions of Space—Change of Earth’s Axis—More Vapour in Atmosphere—
Lyell’s Theory—Different Configuration of Sea and Land—Conditions of GlaciationProblems Pressing for Solution.
PAGE
CHAPTER V.
TERTIARY MAN
..........
47
Antiquity of Man—Man part of Quaternary Fauna—What this Implies—Historical and
Neolithic Periods—Palaeolithic—Caves and River Gravels—Glacial and Inter-Glacial
Deposits—Wide Distribution of Palaeolithic Implements in Early Quaternary Deposits—
Origin of Species—Evolution and Migration—Diversity of Human Types—Objections to
Tertiary Man—Specialisation of Type—Survival through Vicissitudes .of Climate—
Positive Evidence for—-St. Prest—Thenay—Tagus Valley—Monte Aperto—Cuts in Bones
of Balaeonotus—Elephas Meridionalis and Halitherium—Auvergne Worked Flints in
Pliocene Tuffs—Castelnedolo—Human Bones in Pliocene—Olmo—Evidence from America
—Californian Auriferous Gravels—Tuolumne and Calaveras Skulls—Age of Gravels—
Skertchley’s Stone Implements—The Nampa Image—Brazilian Caves—Pamprean Strata—
Summary of Evidence.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSING LINK
..........
65
Human Origins—-Evolution or Miracle—First Theories Miraculous—Conception of
Natural Law—Law Proved to be Universal in Inorganic World—Application to Life
and Man—Darwin and Evolution—Struggle for Life and Survival of the Fittest—Con
firmed by Discovery of Missing Links—Professor Cope’s Summary—M. Gaudry—
Instances of Missing Links—Bears and Dogs—Horse—Pedigree of the Horse from
Palseotherium and Eohippus—Appearance and Disappearance of Species—Specialisation
from Primitive Types—Condvlarthra—Reptiles and Birds—Links between other Genera
and Orders—Marsupials and Mammals—-Monotremata—Ascidians and Fish—Evolution
of Individuals and Species from Primitive Cell—Question of Missing Links Applied to
Man—Man and Ape—Resemblances and Differences—Specialisation of Human Type—
For Erect Posture—How Man Differs from Animals—Mental and Moral Faculties—
Language—Tools—-Progress—Mental Development—Lines of Research for Missing Links
—Inferior Races—Fossil Remains—The Pithecanthropus—Point in Direction of Tertiary
Origin.
CHAPTER VII.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
.
.
.
.
.
•
«
79
Binet and Fere’s Volume—School of Salpetriere—Dr. Braid—Hypnotism—How Produced
—Effects of—Lethargy—Catalepsy—Somnambulism—Hallucination—Dreams—-Hypnotic
Suggestion—Instances of—-Visible Rendered Invisible—Emotions Excited—Acts Dictated
— Magnet — Trance — Alternating Identity —• Thought - Reading —■ Clairvoyance —
Spiritualism — Slate-Writing—Scybert Commission—-Ail Gross imposture—Dancing
Chairs and Tables—Large Field Opened up by French Investigations—Point to
Materialistic Results.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
.
.
-9°
PART I.
Are they Reconcilable?—Definitions of Agnosticism and Christianity—Christian Dogma
—Rests on Intuition, not Reason—Descartes, Kant, Coleridge—Christian Agnostics—#
Tendency of the Age—Carlyle, George Eliot, Renan—Anglican Divines, Spurgeon.
CHAPTER VHL—
PART II.
1
Effect on Morals—Evolution of Morality—Moral Instincts—Practical Religion—Herbert
Spencer and Frederic Harrison—Positivism and the Unknowable—-Creeds and Doctrines
—Priests and Churches—Duty of Agnostics—Prospects of the Future.
�5
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER VIII.—(continued)
PART III.
Practical Philosophy—Zoroastrian Theory—Emerson on Compensation—Good and Evil—
Leads to Toleration and Charity-Matthew Arnold and Philistinism-Salvation ArmyConflict of Theology and Science—Creed of Nineteenth Century.
CHAPTER IX.
. 108
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
•
•
•
Huxley and Dr. Wace-Sermon on the Mount, and Lord’s Prayer—English and German
Biblical Criticism—Papias—His Account of O^gm the Gospels-Confirmed ^ Inter^
Evidence - Common-sense Conclusions - Miracles a Question of Faith -^vMence
Required—The Ascension—Early Christian and Mediaeval Miracles—St Thoma a
Becket—Faith—Historical Element—Virgin Mary—Guiding Principles of Histor cal
Inquiry—Minimum of Miracles—Admissions which Tell Against—Jesus an Historica
Person-Born at Nazareth-Legends of Nativity-St, John the Baptist-Kingd om of Go Socialistic Spirit-Pure Morality-Nucleus of Fact in
Disputes with Scribes and Pharisees-Jesus a Jew—Messiahship—Dying Words Passion
and” Crucifixion —Improbabilities —Pilate—Resurrection—Contradictions—Growth of
Te£rend—Probable Nucleus of Fact—Riot in the Temple—Return of Disciples to Galilee
—Conflicting Accounts of Resurrection—Return of Apostles to Jerusalem and Foundation
of Christian Church.
CHAPTER X.
128
SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
Carlyle—Causes of Pessimism—Decay of Faith—A Prosaic Future-Denial of’ these
Charges—Definition of Scepticism—Demonology—Treatment of Lunatics WJ*chcra
Heresy—Religious Wars—Nationality has Superseded Religion—Wars
Humane
Originality of Modern Events and Characters-Louis Napoleon-Bismarck-GladstoneAbraham Lincoln—Lord Beaconsfield—Darwin—Huxley—Poetry—Fiction Painting
A Happier World.
CHAPTER XI.
CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
...••
••
’
14K
What is a Great Poet ?—Ancient and Modern Poets—Byron, Shelley, Swmbuije,
Browning, Pope, Dryden, Coleridge, Spenser—Chaucer—Wordsworth-Nature-Worship
—Ode on 'immortality—Byron and Shelley—Burns—Gospel of Practical Life—Shakespeare
—Self recorded in Hamlet and Prospero—The Sonnets—\ lews of Death—Behind the
Veil—Prospero—Views identical with Goethe’s Faust—And with the Maya qr Musiar ot
Buddhism—Pantheism—Ignoring of Religion—Patriotism and Loyalty his Ruling Motives
—Practical Influence of Religion Exaggerated—Religious Poets—Dante Milton
Contrast between Greek Tragedy and Modern Poetry—Tennyson—Poet of Modern
Thought—In Hemoriam^—Practical Conclusions.
INDEX
4
•
I5S
��INTRODUCTION
“ Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever
reaping something new,
That which they have done but earnest of the
things that they shall do.”
—Tennyson’s Locksley Hall.
The traveller in the Alps, after struggling
up through dense fir woods, in which his
view is limited to a few yards, emerges
on grassy slopes, where swelling ridges
and rocky peaks appear to bound the
horizon. Weary and scant of breath, he
thinks if he can surmount these his
labour will be ended, and a free view
enjoyed, with nothing but the vault of
heaven above him. But, no ! When
these heights are scaled he sees before
him ridge behind ridge of loftier summits,
and, in the background of all, the glitter
ing peaks of Jungfraus and Matterhorns,
standing out white and seemingly inac
cessible, against the deep blue sky.
But, if he is a practical mountaineer, he
knows that, grim as are the glaciers and
precipices which girdle their icy for
tresses, they are not invincible to human
effort; and, as the foot of man has stood
on some of the loftiest summits, he feels
assured that it will stand on those which
remain unsealed.
So it is with modern science. For
centuries it had to grope its purblind
way through dense jungles of superstitious
ignorance, where misty shapes of theo
logical and metaphysical speculation
obscured the real facts of the universe,
or were mistaken for them. At length,
and comparatively quite recently, the
human intellect emerged into the light of
day, and, gaining the first heights, began
to acquire accurate ideas of the true laws
and constitution of the universe. The
progress, once begun, went on at an
accelerated • rate, until in the last halfcentury it has carried with it in an
impetuous torrent old creeds and
cherished convictions, like so much
drift-wood floating on the surface of
Lake Erie, when caught by the current
which hurries it down the Falls of
Niagara.
So irresistible and so widespread has
been the advance of science that at first
sight we are perhaps disposed to overrate
it, and to fancy, like Alexander, that no
more worlds remain to conquer, or that,
at most, a few unimportant territories are
still unannexed. But the true man of
science knows differently. He sees ridge
still rising behind ridge, and at every
step wider horizons opening, with distant
peaks that still baffle the boldest climber.
But he no longer gazes at them with
aimless wonder, or, if he fails to under- •
stand them, invents a high-sounding
phrase to disguise his ignorance. His
faith is firm in the laws of Nature, and
he feels assured that whatever lies within
their domain is discoverable, and will,
sooner or later, and probably sooner
rather than later, be discovered.
In former works I have attempted to
give some popular view of what modern
�8
INTRODUCTION
science has actually accomplished in the
domains of Space, Time, Matter, Energy,
Life, Human Origins, and other cognate
subjects. In this I will endeavour to
point out some of the “Problems of
the Future” which have been raised
but not solved, and are pressing for
solution.
In both cases I address myself to what
may be called the semi-scientific reader.
The advanced student of science will find
little which he does not already know.
Ihose who are ignorant of the first
elements of science, and, like Gallio,
care for none of these things, will
scarcely understand or feel an interest in
the questions discussed. But there is a
•large, and I believe rapidly increasing,
class, who have already acquired some
elementary ideas about science, and who
desire to know more. Curiosity and
culture are in effect convertible terms:
the wish to know is the first condition of
knowing. To many who are in this
stage of culture, but who have neither
the time nor faculty for following up
closely the ever-widening circle of
advanced thought, it may be interesting
to get some general and popular idea of
a few of the unsolved problems which
have been raised by modern science, and
are occupying the thoughts of the men
who lead its van.
In selecting a few among the many
questions which have been thus raised, I
have been guided by this principle. In
the course of nature, I must have left
this earth before they have been solved.1
If the option were given me of paying it
a short visit fifty or a hundred years
hence, what are the questions which I
should ask with the most eager curiosity,
and to which I should expect to get a
satisfactory reply ?
They are partly scientific questions,
respecting the age of the earth, the con
stitution of the sun and solar system; the
ultimate nature of matter and energy, the
beginnings of life, the origin and anti
quity of man; partly religious, social, and
political questions which are looming on
the horizon and engaging the attention of
thinking men.
I do not pretend to have exhausted
the list, but I hope I may have done
something to give definiteness and pre
cision to the ideas of some of the edu
cated public who are not specialists upon
various questions which are now pressing
forward and waiting for solution.
S. L.
1 Mr. Laing died in 1903.
�PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE
Chapter
I.
SOLAR HEAT
Difference between Astronomersand Geologists—
The former say twenty, the latter two hundred
millions of years—Argument of Astronomers—
Amount of Heat received from Sun—How Sup
ply kept up—Meteorites—Gravity—Method
of Calculation—Result: Supply of Heat can
not have lasted more than ten to fifteen millions
of years—Case of Geologists—Progress of the
Science—Theological—Theologic-Scientific—
Scientific—Uniformity of Conditions—Proved
by Fossil Remains—By Temperature and
Atmosphere—Assuming uniformity, time re
quired — Instances — Solent River—Eocene
Lake—Lake of Geneva—Coal Measures—
Geology based on Facts—-Mathematical Con
clusions on Theory—If Heat comes from
Gravity, where does Gravity come from ?—
Gravity really unknown—Different Theories
as to Solar Heat—Lockyer and Crookes—
Sun-spots—Magnetic Storms—Conservation
of Energy.
One of the most interesting and per
plexing scientific problems of the day is
that raised by the conflict between phy
sicists and geologists as to the duration
of solar heat.
Leading mathematicians, such as Lord
Kelvin and Helmholtz, assign twenty, or
more probably ten, millions of years as
the outside possible past duration of a
supply of heat from the sun, sufficient to
maintain the earth under conditions
enabling it to support life. Lyell, and a
majority of the best geologists, consider
that one hundred to two hundred millions
of years are required to account for the
undoubted facts of geology since life
began. Each side support their case by
arguments which, taken by themselves,
seem conclusive. And yet the gap
between the two is so wide that it cannot
be bridged over by mutual concessions,
and it is evident that there must be some
fundamental error in the assumed data
on one side or the other.
The mathematicians base their argu
ment on the supply of solar heat. They
say the present amount of heat radiated
by the sun is a measurable quantity ; the
principle of the conservation of energy
shows that this heat cannot J>e self
supplied, but must be a transformation
of pre-existing energy; the only sufficient
energy we know of is that of the mechan
ical force generated by the contraction
of the sun as it cools. This, again, is a
measurable quantity, and the outside
amount of mechanical power generated
by contraction of the sun’s mass to its
present volume by gravity would not
supply the present amount of heat for
more than twenty millions, or more pro
bably for more than ten or fifteen millions
of years.
This forms a chain of reasoning, every
link of which seems to be solidly welded.
Let us examine each link in detail. The
amount of solar heat received at the
earth’s surface has been carefully measured
by Herschell, Pouillet, and other eminent
observers, the principle being to intercept
a beam of sunshine of known dimen
sions, and make it give up its heat
to a known mass of water or other sub
stance, measuring accurately the rise of
A*
�IO
SOLAR HEAT
temperature produced in a given time.
The result is this: the heat, measured
by calorics, or units of heat sufficient to
raise the temperature of one kilogramme
of water one degree Centigrade, received
per minute by one square metre exposed
perpendicularly to the sun’s rays at the
upper surface of the atmosphere, ranges
from Pouillet’s estimate of 17.6 to that
of Forbes’s 28.2 calorics, the difference
arising mainly from the different allow
ance made for absorption by the atmo
sphere. Langley’s observations at a high
altitude increased the figure, and more
recent observations have raised it to
about 40 calorics.
From this it is easy to calculate the
amount of heat received by the earth
from the sun in a given time. Herschell
puts it in this striking way. The amount
of heat received on the earth’s surface,
with the sun in the zenith, would melt an
inch thickness of ice in two hours and
thirteen minutes. But, if it be assumed
that the sun radiates heat equally in all
directions, the earth intercepts only an
almost infinitesimally small amount of
this heat—in fact, only the proportion
which the earth’s surface bears to the
surface of a sphere whose centre is in the
sun, and its radius the distance of the
earth from the sun, or about ninety-three
millions of miles. This proportion is
a.To'o.o^o.ooo- . But even this minute frac
tion is sufficient to melt yearly, at the
earth’s equator, a layer of ice of more than
one hundred and ten feet thick. So, as
Lord Kelvin puts it, if the sun were a
mass of solid coal, and produced its heat
by combustion, it would burn out in less
than six thousand years. In the light of
the most recent calculations, it is said
that “the sun’s heat reaching the out
skirts of our atmosphere is capable of
doing, without cessation, the work of an
engine of four horse-power for each
square yard of the earth’s surface,” Of
course, this calculation depends on the
assumption that the sun radiates heat
equally in all directions into space. It is
difficult to conceive how this can be other
wise, for, as far as we know, all heated
bodies at the earth’s surface do so,
and all impulses which cause waves in
an elastic medium, such as we know to
be the case with heat and light, propa
gate these waves in all directions.
Assuming, therefore, that the sun gives
out this enormous amount of heat, where
does it come from, and how is the supply
kept up, uniformly, or nearly so, for
millions of years ? The law of the con
servation of energy says, in effect, that
something cannot be made out of
nothing, and that all special forms of
energy, such as heat, light, electricity, and
mechanical power, are convertible into
one another, and are simply transforma
tions of one original fund of energy. If
so, the sun’s heat must be kept up by
energy transformed into heat from some
other form.
It cannot be from com
bustion, which is a chemical action, for
we have seen that a sun of solid coal
would be burned out in six thousand
years. It must be from mechanical force,
which we know as a fact to be* con
vertible into heat in a definite and
ascertained proportion.
Now, what are the sources of mechani
cal power known in the case of the sun ?
Two—the impact of aerolites, and the
shrinkage of the sun as it contracts,
which latter resolves itself into ap effect
of gravity.
Both are real causes. Aerolites fall on
the earth and generate heat, the smaller
ones, or shooting stars, being set on
fire and burnt up by the friction
of the atmosphere; the larger ones
reaching the earth in masses of stone,
singularly like those ejected from
deep-seated volcanoes, and with their
surfaces glazed by intense heat. If such
meteors fall on the earth, it is reasonable
to suppose that far more must fall on the
sun, with its vastly greater surface and
attracting power. And it is to be noted
that comparatively small masses might
generate large amounts of heat, for the
amount of mechanical force, and there
fore of heat generated by arrested
motion, increases with the square of
the velocity. A body weighing 8.339
�SOLAR HEAT
kilogrammes, falling from a height which
gave it a velocity of one metre per second,
would generate one caloric of heat, or
enough to raise the temperature of one
kilogramme of water by i° Centigrade.
But the same body moving with the
velocity of a cannon-ball, or 500 metres
per second, would generate 250,000
times as much heat; and if moving
with a velocity of 700,000 metres per
second, which is about the velocity
with wffiich a body would fall into the
sun from the distance of the earth,
the heat produced would be nearly two
million times as great.
Lord Kelvin has calculated that a
quantity of matter equal to about onehundredth of the mass of the earth falling
annually with this velocity on the sun’s
surface would maintain its present radia
tion indefinitely. It is clear, therefore,
that, if this amount of meteoric matter
really falls on the sun, its heat might be
maintained. But many objections have
been raised to such a supposition.
To explain the sun’s helt we must
have a cause that is not only sufficient
to generate its total amount, but also one
which generates it uniformly. If the sun
were a target kept at an intense white
heat by showers of meteoric small shot
peppering into it, how is it that this
stream of small shot is incessant and
uniform ?
Only small portions of the total
meteoric mass revolving round the sun
can be captured by it gradually, as their
orbits are contracted. An extra supply,
as some solid body or enormous comet
with its attendant meteoric train falling
into the sun, would raise its temperature
above, while a deficient supply would
depress it below the average, and a com
paratively slight variation in the sun’s
temperature would destroy existing con
ditions of life on the earth.
Another objection to the meteoric
theory is that it would require such a
large mass of meteoric matter revolving
in space as might be expected to exercise
a perceptible effect on the motions of
the planets, both by the law of gravity
11
and by the retardation due to a resisting
medium. And this is specially true of'
the orbits of comets which approach the
sun very closely. As meteors do not fall
from a state of rest straight into the sun,
but revolve round it with planetary velo
cities, they can only fall into it by being
drawn inwards in gradually contracting
spirals, until they reach a point where
they impinge on the sun or its atmo
sphere. Hence a vastly greater amount
of meteoric matter must be revolving
round the sun in the space near it than
can be captured and generate heat in
any single year. But several comets are
known to have almost grazed the sun’s
atmosphere, and emerged from it to
continue to describe their elliptic orbits
and return true to time, as predicted by
calculations based on the known laws of
gravity acting on them from the sun and
planets alone, in a non-resisting medium.
Consider what this means. Comets
are bodies of such immense volume and
extreme rarity that one of them got
entangled among Jupiter’s satellites and
thrown out of its course, without affecting
in the slightest perceptible degree the
motions of those satellites. How could
such comets, rushing closely round the
sun with enormous velocities, avoid
showing perturbations, if they encoun
tered any considerable mass of meteoric
matter ?
The theory of meteorites, to which
reference will be made in a future chap
ter, meets many of these difficulties, and
strengthens the case for a meteoric origin
of a large part of solar heat, but it hardly
accounts for the uniformity of the supply,
and is hardly yet so generally accepted
as to supersede the older theory that the
main source of the sun’s heat is to be
sought in the transformation of the
mechanical energy of gravity, as its
volume contracts.
Assuming this theory, the principle on
which the supply of solar heat is calcu
lated is the following. We know the
amount of heat given out by each square
metre of the sun’s surface, and we know
the height from which a given weight
�12
SOLAR HEA T
must fall to generate this heat when its
motion is arrested. We know also that
this heat will be the same whether the
motion is suddenly or gradually arrested.
Now, in this case, the given weight is that
of a long narrow cone of matter, whose
base is one square metre at the sun’s
surface, and its apex a point at the sun’s
centre. Knowing the sun’s diameter and
mean density, it is easy to calculate the
weight of such a cone if we suppose it to
be solid. Its weight is equivalent to that
of 244,000,000 tons of solar heaviness at
the sun’s surface. To reduce this to
terrestrial tons, and their equivalent in
horse-power, we must allow for the differ
ence of weight or gravity at the respec
tive surfaces of the sun and earth.
Reduced to terrestrial figures, in which
one horse-power is 270 metre-tons per
hour—i.e., a ton lifted 270 metres in an
hour—the horse-power at the sun’s sur
face is ten metre-tons. But the radiation
from each square metre of the solar sur
face in heat per hour is equivalent to
78,000 horse-power in energy, or to that
of 780,000 metre-tons. An easy calcu
lation shows that, to supply energy at this
rate for a year, our supposed cone of
244,000,000 tons must fall one metre in
313 hours, or about thirty-five metres in
a year. Refined mathematical calcula
tions are requisite to show how this result
is effected, if we suppose, as is probable,
that the mass of matter forming the sun,
instead of being solid, existed first in the
nebulous or gaseous state, and gradually
contracted into a fluid mass in which
convection currents are constantly carry
ing down surface layers which have
become cooler by radiation, and replacing
them by ascending currents from the
hotter and denser interior. These cal
culations have been made by mathema
ticians of undoubted competence, with
the result that the dynamical equivalent
of the heat radiated from the sun in a
given time is practically the same as if it
were solid.
This result shows that if the sun has
contracted to its present size, from a
volume extending far beyond the orbit
of the remotest planet, Neptune, it has
furnished about eighteen million times
as much heat as it now supplies in a year ;
and that with its present dimensions it
must contract at the rate of thirty-five
metres per year, or one per cent, of its
radius in 200,000 years. Recent astro
nomers give a contraction of a mile in
twenty-five years.
Allowing for the increasing density of
the sun as shrinkage proceeds, the
problem works out that, if the sun’s
radiation of heat has been uniform for
the last fifteen millions of years, the solar
radius must then have been four times
greater than it is now; and that, if the
present supply were maintained by
shrinkage alone, for the next twenty
millions of years, the sun must have
shrunk to half its present size. But
these figures must be greatly reduced by
several considerations. They are based
on Herschell’s and Pouillet’s figures for
the total activity of solar radiation; but
Forbes and Langley have shown that the
allowance made for absorption of solar
heat by the earth’s atmosphere was
insufficient, and that the real amount of
heat radiated by the sun is greater than
was supposed by Pouillet in the ratio of
1.7 to 1 ; and Angstrom has more
recently fixed the amount higher still.
This diminishes the past and future
periods of solar radiation in the same
proportion. Moreover, when the sun’s
surface was four times larger, it must
have given out more heat than at present,
and more than existing conditions of life
in geological times could support. If,
therefore, the sun’s shrinkage from gravity
has been the sole or principal source of
its supply of heat, it is difficult to see
how life and the existing order of things
on the earth can have lasted for more
than eighteen millions of years at the
outside.
So far the mathematicians seem to
have it all their own way, and, as often
happens when the plaintiff’s case only
has been heard, it seems to be conclusive.
But what say the defendants—the geolo
gists ? They also base their case on an
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undoubted principle, and on undeniable
facts. The principle is that of the
uniformity of existing causes ; the facts,
those of actual experiment and observa
tion.
Geology, in the pre-Lyellite days,
passed through two stages, the theological
and the theologico-scientific. The theo
logical, which prevailed universally until
the present century, was based on the
belief that the book of Genesis, instead
of being a sort of poetical prelude to a
collection of ancient writings of religious
and moral import, was a strictly literal
and scientific narration of what actually
took place, every word of which was
imparted by a Divine revelation, which
it was impious to explain away or to dis
pute. Geology was therefore confined
very much to searching for facts in
Nature confirming this narrative. Thus,
when fossil-shells were observed on
mountain-tops, they were adduced as
incontrovertible proofs of Noah’s deluge;
and even a sceptical and encyclopaedic
mind like that of Voltaire could only
attempt to palliate this proof by suggest
ing that the shells were dropped from
pilgrims’ hats while crossing the Alps on
their way to Rome. The period when
such a ridiculous suggestion could be
made by an accomplished scholar seems
thousands of years from us, and yet it
occurred in the 18th century. The naive
and infantile narrative of the Noachian
deluge is now taken no more seriously
than are the little wooden arks, with
their contents of pigmy animals, which
with other toys amuse the nursery.
The next stage was what may be called
the theologico-scientific, when the facts
and laws of Nature began to be recog
nised; but the old dogmatic faith was
still so prevalent that these facts and
laws were viewed through a theological
medium, and attempts were made to
reconcile the Bible and science by dis
torting the conclusions of science, and
giving the statements of Genesis a general
and allegorical, rather than a literal,
meaning. This was the era when days
were expanded into periods, universal
13
deluges contracted into local floods, and
when miraculous catastrophes and crea
tions were invoked ad libitum,. to bring
geological and zoological facts into some
sort of possible accordance with the
non-natural versions of plain words into
which Scriptural texts were evaporated.
This school included, in its time, some
eminent men, such as Buckland and
Hugh Miller, and it lingered long on the
outskirts of science, as may be seen by
Mr. Gladstone’s essay on the Proem to
Genesis. But with all the leaders of
science it is quite extinct, and the pre
vailing tone of thought has become
Darwinian, as universally as a century
ago it was theological. Differences may
exist as to the details of Darwin’s theory,
and the extent of its application in some
of the more recondite causes of variation ;
but no one of any authority in science
doubts that evolution, under fixed laws,
is the key to the secrets of the universe,
and that one original impress, and not per
petual miracle, or secondary interference,
has been the real course of Nature.
In geology this conviction has been
embodied in what is known as Lyell’s
Law of Uniformity. If anyone wants to
get a clear idea of what this means, let
him go to the British Museum and look
at a slab of sandstone from the Silurian
formation. He will see precisely what
he may see to-day on the sands of South
end or Margate.
Ripple marks of a
gently flowing or ebbing tide, worm
castings, or even little pits showing
where rain-drops had fallen on the wet
sand, and these pits higher on one side
than the other, showing the size of the
drops, the force of the wind, and the
direction from which it was blowing.
The inference is irresistible that at this
immensely remote period the winds blew,
the rain fell, the tides ebbed and flowed,
sand-banks were formed, and worms or
sand-eels burrowed in them, as they do
at the present day. Or look at a piece
of chalk through a microscope, and you
will find it mainly composed of the
microscopic shells of a minute form of
animal life, the Globigerina, which,
�14
SOLAR HEA T
gradually falling to the bottom of a deep
ocean like the finest dust, have accumu
lated strata more than a thousand feet in
thickness. Precisely the same thing is
going on in the Atlantic to-day, where
deep-sea dredgings bring up a Globigerina ooze, which affords a safe bed
for the submarine telegraph. Or take
another instance. A shell called the
Lingula, about the size of a small mussel,
is found abundantly in the Silurian, and
even in the earlier Cambrian, formations;
and another shell, theTerebratula, in the
Devonian. Both are found living at the
present day, not only of the same genus,
but identically of the same species. It
is evident that no great change can have
taken place in the conditions of oceanic
life since these mollusks lived and
flourished in Silurian and Devonian seas.
Nor can the condition of the atmo
sphere have greatly changed since the
time of the air-breathing
Silurian
scorpion, whose fossil remains show him
to be scarcely distinguishable from the
present scorpion.
In fact, the atmosphere affords one of
the most conclusive proofs of the un
interrupted maintenance of existing con
ditions during an enormous period.
When we say enormous time, the term
is used with reference to any recent or
historical standard as applicable to the
period when geology practically com
mences ; that is, with the first dawn of
life disclosed by fossils in the Cambrian
era, or beyond that with formations like
the Laurentian, which can be clearly
proved to be sedimentary and meta
morphic. But no geologist ventures to
extend this doctrine of uniformity beyond
the date when fossils appear, or to deny
that, though the laws of Nature are the
same, the conditions must have been
totally different in the earlier stages of
the planet, when it was cooling and
condensing into its present form. • Nor
could he deny that, even within this
comparatively recent period, there may
have been changes of existing conditions,
as we know indeed from the alternations
between the Glacial period and those of
higher and more uniform temperature.
But his position is that such changes
have been of the same order, and owing
to similar causes as those which now
prevail; and that when a known cause,
given a sufficient time, will produce an
effect, it is unphilosophical to assume
miracles, catastrophes, or a totally dif
ferent order of things, in order to reduce
the time to some procrustean standard
of theoretical prepossession.
To Sir C. Lyell belongs the credit of
having established this doctrine of uni
formity on an unassailable basis, and
made it the fundamental axiom of
geological science. By an exhaustive
survey of the whole field of geology,
from the earliest formations in which
life appears down to the present day,
he has shown conclusively that while
causes identical with, or of the same
order as, existing causes, will, if given
sufficient time, account for all the facts
hitherto observed, there is not a single
fact which proves the occurrence of a
totally different order of causes. This,
of course, applies only to the geological
record commencing with the commence
ment of organic life on the earth, and
not to the earlier astronomical period
when the planet was condensing from
nebulous matter, and slowly cooling and
contracting. Nor does it imply absolute
uniformity with existing conditions, for
changes in climate, temperature, distri
bution of sea and land, and otherwise,
have doubtless occurred from the slow
operation of existing causes.
But it
excludes all fanciful theories of cata
clysms, annihilating each successive era
with its life, and introducing a new one ;
earthquakes throwing up mountain chains
at a shock; deluges sweeping over the
face of the earth, and so forth, in which
even eminent geologists used to indulge
thirty or forty years ago. While no
competent geologist of the present day
would like to affirm positively that there
may not have been, in past ages, explo
sions more violent than that of Krakatoa,
lava streams more extensive than that
of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes mors
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powerful than that which uplifted five or
six hundred miles of the Pacific coast of
South America six or seven feet, it may
be doubtful if he could point out a single
instance since the Silurian epoch where
such was demonstrably the case..
Assuming the principle of uniformity,
the time requisite to explain the facts of
geology becomes a matter for approxi
mate calculation. Not readily in years
or centuries, for our historical measuring
yard does not extend beyond seven
thousand years, when we find a dense
population and high civilisation already
existing in Egypt; but in periods of
which we can form some approximate
idea.
To understand the full force of the
evidence, it is necessary to study care
fully the works of Lyell, Croll, Geikie,
and other authorities on geology; but
some idea of the sort of periods which
are required for gauging Time back to
the commencement of life may be arrived
at from a few instances.
The tests of geological time are derived
mainly from two sources—denudation
and deposition. The present rate of
denudation of a continent is known with
considerable accuracy, from careful
measurements of the quantity of solid
matter carried down by rivers. The
Mississippi affords the best test, both
because the measurements have been
made with the greatest accuracy, and
because the conditions of the vast area
drained by it and its tributary rivers
afford a better average of the rate of
continental denudation, including as it
does a great variety of climates and
geological formations, and being singu
larly free from exceptional influences.
The rate thus deduced is one foot from
the general surface of the basin in six
thousand years. Now, the measured
thickness of the known sedimentary
strata is about 177,000 feet.
The
proportion of sea to land is three
to one, and the bulk of the deposi
tion of the waste of land must have
been laid down within a compara
tively narrow margin of the sea nearest
15
to land. On these data Wallace calcu
lates that the time required to deposit
this 177,000 feet would be 28,000,000
years, taking the rate of denudation at
one foot in 3,000 years, or 56,000,000
years, taking the rate deduced from the
Mississippi. But it must have been
much more than this, for the stratified
rocks are to a great extent composed of
the debris of older strata, which have
been deposited, upheaved, and again
denuded. Most of the known stratified
rocks must have been in this way denu
ded and deposited many times over.
Nor is there any good reason for suppo
sing that the rate of denudation was
materially greater in former than in
recent geological eras. On the contrary,
the recent Glacial period, by grinding
down solid rock into loose materials,
and, as the ice and snow melted, causing
more torrential inundations of rivers,
must have tended to accelerate denuda
tion.
Another proof of the enormous amount
of solid rock which has been removed
by denudation is afforded by the faults
or cracks in the earth’s crust, which have
in many cases displaced strata by
thousands of feet, all traces of which
displacement have been subsequently
planed down to one uniform surface.
Thus the great fault which separates the
Silurian of the south of Scotland from
the Devonian and Carboniferous region
to the north of it is estimated by the
Geological Survey at 15,000 feet. A
mountain mass of this height, termi
nating in a steep cliff at the fault, must
have existed to the south of it, composed
mainly of the Devonian strata which
now stop abruptly at the north edge of
the fault. At present there is no in
equality of the surface at the fault, and
therefore 15,000 feet or nearly three
miles of rock must have been removed
by denudation.
And, what is most
important, the time in which this denu
dation was effected is fixed as having
occurred in the interval between the
Devonian and Carboniferous periods,
for, while no trace of the former
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formation is found south of the fault,
the limestones and coal-measures of the
latter lie directly on the Silurian rocks.
At the rate of denudation deduced from
the Mississippi observations of one foot
in 6,000 years, the removal of those
three miles of rock would have required
90,000,000 years for the interval between
two of the geological formations.
Croll, in his work on Stellar Evolution,
gives a number of similar instances, one
in the Appalachian Mountains, in which
the vertical displacement is not less than
20,000 feet, bringing the upper Devonian
strata on one side opposite to the lowest
Cambrian on the other. Of course, we
cannot assume these enormous intervals
of time to have actually occurred; but
they are quite sufficient to show the
absolute impossibility of reconciling
geological facts with any estimate of the
duration of solar heat derived from the
theory of contraction by gravitation.
Take another instance from a more
recent period. There is a dried-up
Eocene lake in North America, which
once occupied an extensive area in the
States of Wyoming and Nebraska,
formed by streams running down from
the Wahsatch, Uintah, and other moun
tain ranges, which are gastern outliers
of the great backbone of the continent—
the Rocky Mountains. It was gradually
silted up by a deposit of more than 5,000
feet, or a mile thick of clays and sands,
a portion of which has since been carved
by the rain and weather into the singular
formation of isolated castle-like bluffs
and pyramids, known as the “ bad lands.”
It is full of remains of Eocene animals,
often of huge size and of a peculiar type.
How long must it have taken to silt up
a lake larger than Lake Superior, with
tranquil deposits of fine mud and sand ?
The nearest approximation towards such
a calculation is afforded by the silting
up of the Lake of Geneva. Swiss geo
logists have calculated, from the rate of
advance of the delta in historical times,
that it may have taken 90,000 or 100,000
years since the silting process began,
which could only be after the first Rhone
glacier, which once extended to the
Juras, had shrunk back to the head of
the lake. This calculation may be right
or wrong, but certainly a vastly longer
time must have been required to silt up
a vastly larger lake to a depth of 5,000
feet. And, if anything, one would expect
the process of silting up to have been
slower, for in the Eocene period there
were no glaciers, or melting snow-fields,
to accelerate the denudation which must
have gone on pari passu with the deposit.
If we consider the geological evidence
more in detail, we find it all pointing
to the same conclusion of immense
antiquity.
Thus, let us take the coal-measures
which form only a part of one formation
—the Carboniferous. Each seam of
coal consists of the consolidated debris
of a forest. With every seam there is
an under-clay in which the trees and ferns
grow; and a roof of shale or sandstone
deposited on it when this floor was sub
merged. The bulk of the coal is fre
quently composed of the microscopic
spores of the ferns and club-mosses
which formed the principal vegetation of
these forests. The time required is,
therefore, that for the accumulation of
vegetable matter, consisting mainly of
fine spore-dust, to a depth sufficient,
under great compression, to give the
seam of solid coal. In Nova Scotia and
other localities the coal-measures have a
thickness of 12,000 feet, made up of
seam upon seam of coal, each with its
under-clay and roof, implying a separate
growth, submergence, and elevation.
Sir J. Dawson and Professor Huxley,
who have studied the subject minutely,
calculate that the time represented by
the coal-measures alone would be six
millions of years. In other words, the
time required for this one subordinate
member of one geological formation
would be half the total time assigned by
Kelvin and Helmholtz for the total
possible past duration of the present
supply of solar heat.
Those who fully consider and appre
ciate any one of these instances will not
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be astonished to hear that Sir C. Lyell,
after carefully going over and summing
up the various lines of evidence afforded
by the 100,000 feet of stratified and
fossiliferous formations above the Cam
brian, came to the conclusion that two
hundred millions of years was the pro
bable, and one hundred millions the
minimum possible, duration of the exist
ing order of things that would explain
the facts. And all subsequent discoveries,
and the best geological opinions, go to
confirm this estimate. Thus, when Lyell
made his estimate, the great Laurentian
system of gneissic and other rocks which
underlie the Cambrian was scarcely
known, or assumed to be a primitive
portion of the earth’s crust of Plutonic
origin. But it is now clearly proved to
be bedded, and therefore an aqueous
deposit from the denudation of older
rocks, though the minor signs of strati
fication have disappeared, owing to
metamorphism under heat and pressure.
This at once adds 30,000 feet to the
known thickness of deposited strata. It
is not positively known to have contained
life, for, with the doubtful exception of
the Eozoon Canadiense, the fossils, if
any, have disappeared during this pro
cess of metamorphism; but it contains
indirect evidence of life on the most
extensive scale. Thus great quantities
of graphite or plumbago are found in it,
and, as ordinary coal can be traced first
into anthracite and then into graphite,
the inference is strong that the Lauren
tian graphite must, like coal, have origi
nated from masses of vegetable matter.
It contains also great beds of limestone,
similar to those which, in later forma
tions, are known to have originated from
the remains of corals and other hard
parts of marine animals, which derived
their skeletons from calcareous matter
dissolved in sea-water. Large beds of
iron ore are also found, which, in later
formations, owe their origin to the solu
tion of peroxide of iron and its deoxida
tion by organic agency. There is thus,
therefore, evidence of the existence of
life on a vast scale in this lowest of all
17
formations, which of itself adds more
than a fourth to the thickness of the
whole of the previously known deposited
strata of the earth’s crust, and therefore
to the time presumably required for their
deposit.
And yet, as we have seen, mathema
ticians affirm with equal confidence that
Lyell’s figures must be divided by at least
ten, or probably by twenty, to arrive at
the ten millions of years, which is their
estimate of the time for which the sun has
given out its present life - sustaining
amount of light and heat; and this short
period has to provide not only for geo
logical time, but for the far larger time
during which the earth was passing
through its earlier stages, and condensing
from a gaseous vapour.
It is evident that there must be some
fundamental error on one side or the
other, which some day will be detected,
for the laws of Nature are uniform, and
there cannot be one code for astronomers
and another for geologists. I am inclined
to think that the error will be found in
some of the assumptions of the physicists.
The data of geology seem more certain
and more capable of verification by an
appeal to facts. Thus, the rate at which
rocks waste away, and lakes silt up ; the
amount of solid matter carried down by
rivers, and the number of feet or inches
per square mile thus denuded in a given
time, are all matters of approximate and
tolerably accurate observation and calcu
lation. But of the nature and constitu
tion of the sun we really know very little,
and are only beginning to get some
glimpses of them during the past ten or
twenty years by the aid of the spectro
scope. The sun, as we see it, is not
fluid, for if it were its rotation must make
it protuberant at the equator, which it is
not. It is not solid, for if it were its
equatorial region could not rotate, as it
does, more rapidly than that nearer the
pole. We know its apparent volume
and its mean density; but we do not
know how this density is distributed.
The conditions of matter under such
extreme temperature and pressure are
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quite conjectural. For aught we know
to the contrary, the sun may have a
nucleus much smaller and much heavier
than we are in the habit of assuming.
Above all, what makes me distrust
these mathematical calculations respect
ing the sun’s heat is that they do not
really solve the problem, but only remove
it one step further back. Heat, they say,
can be nothing but transformed mechani
cal power; but where does the mechani
cal power come from ? From gravity.
And where does the gravity come from ?
They cannot tell. It is the old Hindoo
cosmogony over again. The world rests
on aft elephant; the elephant on a
tortoise. But what does the tortoise rest
on ?
We are accustomed to speak of gravity
as the one well-known and established
fact of the universe. And so it is as
regards the various motions which result
from it, and the fact of its being an
attribute of all matter from atoms to
stars. But of its real essence and modus
operandi we know nothing; less even
than in the case of some of the other
forms of energy into which it can be
transformed. In the case of light, for
instance, we know that it is caused by
waves or vibrations of an exceedingly
elastic and imponderable medium or
ether diffused through space. We can
measure and count these vibrations, and
know the velocity with which the light
wave travels, and trace its effects from
impact on the eye, through the retina and
optic nerve up to the cells of the brain.
But in the case of gravity we know
none of these things, and cannot even
form a conception of how one mass of
matter can act upon another, without
connection and apparently without re
quiring time for the transmission of the
impulse. Is it a pulling or a pushing
force ? We do not even know this, and
are not one whit advanced beyond the
saying of Newton that he could not con
ceive how one body could act on another
without some physical connection be
tween them.
It seems to me that Lord Kelvin starts
from the assumption that gravity is the
one fundamental form of energy from
which all other forms, such as light and
heat, are derived by transformation. But
what a mere drop in the ocean is the
energy of gravity compared with the
atomic and molecular energies, which
now in a latent and now in an active form
build up the universe of matter • How
incalculably small must the gravity of the
sun be, compared with the sum of the
energies of the atoms of which its mass
is composed.
If it were permissible to hazard a con
jecture where there is no proof, it would
be that gravity may turn out to be one,
and that by no means the most impor
tant, manifestation of the primitive fund
of energy, which underlies the atoms of
which all matter is composed.
Various ingenious attempts have been
made to explain the cause of gravity, as
that of strain or stress of some inter
vening medium, or space-filling, incom
pressible fluid; or by Le Sage’s theory
of infinite impacts of ultramundane cor
puscles, partially screened in the direction
in which gravity acts by the bodies which
attract one another. But Clark Maxwell
and other accomplished mathematicians
have shown serious objections to all these
theories, and Tait, in his Properties op
Matter, sums up the latest results almost
in the identical words used by Newton
in his letter to Bentley: “ In fact, the
cause of gravitation remains undis
covered.”
Again, who can tell what is the con
stitution of the infinite space through
which our solar system and the universe
of visible stars are travelling, with a
velocity which has been estimated in
some cases as high as 200 or even 300
miles per second ?
These facts of the proper motions of
the stars, and especially of what are
known as the “ runaway stars,” seem
conclusive against the assumption that
gravity is the sole and primitive form of
energy, from which all other forms, such
as heat and light, are derived by trans
formation. These star-motions are
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apparently in straight lines in a variety
of directions, and the velocities are such
that it is impossible to account for them
by any conceivable action of the force
of gravity. Professor Newcomb has
shown by mathematical calculation that
the gravitation of the whole universe,
assuming it to contain 100,000,000 of
stars, each on the average five times
larger than the sun, would require to be
sixty-four times greater than it really is,
to have given one star (1830 Groom
bridge) the velocity of 200 miles per
second which it actually possesses, or to
be able to arrest its flight through space.
Of course, this applies with greater force
to a star like Arcturus, moving with a
velocity of 300 miles per second. The
amount of energy of a star like this,
whose volume has been computed to be
eleven times greater than that of the sun,
moving with a velocity of 300 miles per
second, must be enormously greater
than any energy exerted by it in the
form of gravitation; and, if its motion
were arrested, the heat engendered must
be in an even larger proportion, seeing
that it depends on the square of the
velocity, than any heat which could be
supplied by its gradual contraction, on
the theory applied by Kelvin and Helm
holtz to solar heat.
After all, what do we really know of
the contents of space except this, that
it contains a vast number of stars which
are suns like ours, scattered at enormous
distances from one another, and in
numerable meteorites? And also this,
that the phenomena of light and heat
prove the existence of waves of known
dimensions, vibrating with known veloci
ties, and transmitted at a known rate;
which waves compel us to assume a
medium or ether with certain calculable
qualities. But these qualities are so
extraordinary that it may almost be
doubted whether such an ether has a
real material existence, and is anything
more than a sort of mathematical entity.
Its elasticity must be a million million
times that of air, which, as we know, is
equal to a pressure of about fifteen
19
pounds to the square inch; the number
of its oscillations must be at least
700,000,000,000,000 in one second of
time; and it must be destitute of any
perceptible amount of the ordinary
qualities of matter, for it exerts no
gravitating or retarding force, even on
the attentuated matter of comets moving
through it with immense velocities.
Beyond this we are now aware
that space contains a number . of
larger meteors or dark suns, rushing
through it in all directions, and possibly
in the state of dissociated atoms the
elements of substances such as carbon
and oxygen, which are locked up in the
earth’s crust through the medium of life
and vegetation, in vastly greater quan
tities than could be afforded by any con
ceivable supply derived from the atmos
phere. And it may be conjectured also
that variations of temperature may exist
in different regions of space, helping to
account for the secular variations of
temperature at the earth’s surface, such
as are shown by the Glacial period or
periods.
Even if we confine ourselves to the
sun itself, leaving these cosmic specula
tions to be discussed in a subsequent
chapter, we find the greatest uncertainty
prevailing as to the conditions under
which it exerts and generates heat.
Thus, Professor Young says: “ The sun’s
mass, dimensions, and motions are, as a
whole, pretty well determined and under
stood ; but when we come to questions
relating to its constitution, the cause and
nature of the appearances presented
upon its surface, the periodicity of its
spots, its temperature, and the mainte
nance of its heat, the extent of its atmos
phere, and the nature of the corona, we
find the most radical differences of
opinion.”
Take the case of the spots. These
were originally attributed by Herschell
to cyclones in the sun’s atmosphere,
showing us glimpses, as through a
funnel, of a cool and dark solid body
below; by others they have been
thought to be splashes caused by the
�20
SOLAE HEAT
downfall of large masses of meteoric
matter; by some to be volcanic erup. tions throwing up vast scoriae; and
finally, as the most probable solution, to
be great whirlwinds, or cyclonic convec
tion currents, by which the cooler gases
of the sun’s atmosphere are sucked down
and replaced by hotter gases from the
interior. But none of these theories
gives an explanation of the observed fact
that these sun-spots have a regular
maximum and minimum period of about
eleven years. Nor do they give the
slightest clue to the other remarkable
fact that the outburst of large sun-spots
often produces an apparently instanta
neous effect on the earth’s magnetism,
causing electric telegraphs to write with
a tongue of fire, magnets to oscillate
violently, the Aurora Borealis to appear,
and otherwise indicating what is known
as a magnetic storm.
It is pretty clearly established that the
spots are cooler than the sun’s general
surface, but not sufficiently so as to
affect its general temperature, or the
course of the seasons upon the earth;
but the far more inexplicable effect upon
terrestrial magnetism is attested by too
many observations to be at all doubtful.
This opens up a new’ and quite unex
plained field of speculation as to the
sun’s electric energy. The physicists,
who treat the attractive form of gravity
as the sole cause of the sun’s energy,
and convert it all into heat, take no
account of the energy which manifests
itself as a repulsive force, and takes the
form of electricity. And yet electricity
is one of the transformable manifesta
tions of energy as much as heat or
mechanical power, and the phenomena
of comets’ tails are sufficient to show
that, under certain conditions, the sun
can exercise an enormous repulsive
force. The question also may be
raised whether, after all, it is certain that
heat is radiated out in all directions, so
that out of 1,000,000 units of the life
giving energy of the sun 999,999 are
absolutely wasted in space, and one only
is utilised. Electricity, so far as we
know, cannot exist without two opposite
poles, implying reciprocal action. Do
the sun-spots, which affect the earth’s
magnetism, radiate out an equal amount
of magnetic energy in all directions into
space ? If not, how can we be sure that
heat, into and out of which electricity
and magnetism can be transformed,
does so ?
As Professor Young observes, “per
haps we assume with a little too much
confidence that in free space radiation
does take place equally in all directions,”
and he asks “ whether the constitution
of things may not be such that radiation
and transfer of energy can take place
only between ponderable masses; and
that, too, without the expenditure of
energy upon the transmitting agent (if
such exist) along the line of transmis
sion, even in transitu? If this were the
case, then the sun would send out its
energy only to planets, meteors, and
sister-stars, wasting none in empty space;
and so its loss of heat would be enor
mously diminished, and the time-scale of
the planetary system would be corres
pondingly extended.”
The same difficulty applies in the
case of gravity. We only know it as
an attractive force reciprocally exerted
between two bodies in the proportion of
their masses and inverse squares of dis
tances. Is it radiated out in all direc
tions into empty space, where it meets
with no reciprocally attracting body?
This affects not only the permanent
maintenance of the supply of gravity,
but goes even deeper to the fundamental
axiom of all modern conceptions,
whether scientific or philosophical, of
the universe—viz., the Conservation of
Energy. You cannot make something
out of nothing; you cannot create
energy or matter, but only transform
them. Good; but how about that
which is one of the principal manifesta
tions of energy in the universe—that of
gravity ? You can catch limited portions
of it, transform them into mechanical
power, and then backwards and forwards
as you like into heat, light, chemical
�WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
action, electricity, and magnetism, neither
losing nor gaining a particle of the original
energy by any of these transformations.
A water-wheel may turn a dynamo, which
generates electricity that may be stored
in accumulators, and turn a wheel a
hundred miles off; and, if you could
eliminate waste and friction, the second
wheel would give out exactly what the
weight of the falling water put into the
first one. But whence came the gravity
which made the waterfall and the wheel
turn ? Was it itself a transformation of
heat or electricity ? If not, what was it,
and how came it there? If Kelvin
and Helmholtz assume an infinite fund
of energy in the form of gravity to
account for heat, why do they not as
well assume an infinite fund of heat to
account for gravity? And if heat is
dissipated by use until it is exhausted,
or reduced to one stationary average of
temperature, and worlds and suns die,
why should gravity be gifted with per
petual youth, and escape the general law
of birth, maturity, and death ?
These are problems which the present
cannot answer. Possibly the future may;
but in the meantime we shall do well to
keep a firm footing on solid earth, and
rely on conclusions based on ascertained
facts and undoubted deductions from
them, rather than on abstract and
21
doubtful theories, even if they are pre
sented to us in the apparently accurate
form of mathematical calculation. Or,
to bring this chapter to a practical
result, we shall be more likely to arrive
at just views respecting the constitution
of the earth and its inhabitants by
following Darwin and Lyell as our
guides, than by accepting astronomical
theories which would so reduce geo
logical time as to negative the idea of
uniformity of law and evolution, and
introduce once more the chaos of catas
trophes and supernatural interferences.
As a matter of fact, the most recent
and revolutionary discoveries in the
domain of physics itself seem to be
cutting the ground from under the feet
of the opponents of the geologists.
The phenomena of radium have opened
out a new source of energy which
scientists have not hesitated to apply to
this problem of the sun’s heat. It has
been proved that, if we assume the
matter 'of the sun to be radio-active, its
vast expenditure of heat could be sus
tained for an enormous period beyond
that hitherto allowed by physicists. It
remains to be seen if the solution of the
problem lies here. Meantime the mere
suggestion of this new energy bids us
put our trust rather in the solid calcula
tions of the geologist.
Chapter
II.
WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
Shooting Stars: their number, velocity,. size—
Connection with Comets—Composition—
Spectra—Meteorite Theory—Genesis of Stars
and Nebulae—Further stage of Theory—
Impact Theory—Dark Suns in Space—Tem
perature of Visible Stars—Their proper
Motions—New Stars—Variable Stars—Facts
better explained by Impact Theory—Laplace’s
Theory— Based solely on Gravity—N ot incon
sistent but insufficient—Even Impact Theory
not last step—Stony Masses made of Atoms
—What are Atoms ?—Chemical Elements—
Attempts to reduce them to one—Hydrogen—
Helium—Mendelejeff’s Law—Atoms Manu
factured Articles—All of one PatternVortex Theory—Theory of Electrons—What
behind Atoms?—The Unknowable.
What is the universe made of? Such
is the question which has been asked in
many ages and countries by earnest men
�22
WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
looking u’p at the starry vault of heaven
and down into the recesses of their own
minds. One of the latest replies of
science is that it is made of shooting
stars. The idea may seem paradoxical
to those whose only knowledge of shoot
ing stars is derived from an occasional
glimpse on a clear night when they have
seen something like a small rocket flash
across the sky, apparently close to the
earth, out of darkness into darkness,
reminding them of some human life—
“ Qui file, qui file et disparait.”
And yet it is now presented to us
by eminent authorities, and supported
by a long array of serious scientific argu
ments.
What do we know as certain facts with
regard to shooting stars ?
i. They are vastly more numerous
than any one has an idea of who has
not watched them continuously for many
nights. Astronomers who have kept a
record for many years assure us that the
average number seen by one observer at
one place on a clear moonless night is
fourteen per hour, which is shown by
calculation to be equivalent to twenty
millions daily for the whole earth. But
the number of meteorites met with by
the earth can only be the minutest
fraction of those circulating in space.
The orbits of those we see do not'
coincide with the ecliptic, but lie in
planes inclined to it at all sorts of angles,
and apparently having no relation to the
plane in which the earth travels round
the sun, or to the solar system. The
chances are almost infinite against our
minute speck of a planet encountering
any single meteor, or stream of meteors,
thus traversing space in all directions;
and, as we do encounter some seven
thousand millions of these small bodies
in the course of each year, their total
number must be an almost infinite
multiple of this large figure. Moreover,
the pun, with its attendant system, is
rushing through space with a velocity of
some twenty miles per second, and there
fore carrying us into new regions of the
universe at the rate of some six hundred
millions of miles per annum; and yet
meteorites are met with everywhere.
Granting, therefore, that each separate
meteorite may be very small, not exceed
ing on the average a fraction of an ounce
in weight, and that even in meteor
streams they may be, as some astronomers
have calculated, 200 miles apart, the
aggregate amount of this meteoric matter
in space must be practically almost
infinite.
2. They are not terrestrial phenomena
moving in the lower atmosphere, but
celestial bodies moving in orbits and
y^ith velocities comparable to those of
planets and comets. Their velocities
are seldom under ten miles a second or
over fifty, and average about thirty, the
velocity of the earth in its orbit round
the sun being eighteen.
3. They are of various composition,
comprising both a large majority of
smaller particles which are set on fire by
the resistance of the earth’s atmosphere,
and entirely burned up and resolved
into vapour long before they reach its
surface; and a few larger ones, known
as meteors, which are only partially
fused or glazed by heat, and reach the
earth in the form of stony or metallic
masses.
4. They are not uniformly distributed
through space, but collect in meteoric
swarms or' streams, two at least of which
revolve round the sun in closed rings
which are intersected by the earth’s
orbit, causing the magnificent displays
of shooting stars which are seen in
August and November.
5. They are connected with comets,
it having been demonstrated by Schia
parelli that the orbit of the comet of
1866 is identical with that of the
August swarm of meteors known as the
Perseids, and connections between
comets and meteor streams have been
found in at least three other cases.
The fact is generally believed that
comets are nothing but a condensation
of meteorites rendered incandescent by
the heat generated by their mutual
�WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
collision when brought into close proxi
mity.
6. Their composition, as inferred from
that of the larger meteors which reach
the. earth, is identical, or nearly so, with
that of matter brought up from great
depths by volcanic eruptions. In each
case they consist of two classes : one,
composed mainly of native iron alloyed
with nickel, the other of stony matter
consisting mainly of compounds of silicon
and magnesium. Most meteorites con
sist of compounds of the two classes, in
which the stony parts seem to have
broken into fragments by violent collision,
and become embedded in iron which
has been fused by heat into a plastic or
pasty condition.
At this point our positive knowledge
of meteorites from direct observation
ceases, and we have to be guided by the
spectroscope in further researches. This
marvellous instrument enables us, by
analysing the light transmitted to us by
all luminous objects, however composed
and however distant, to ascertain their
composition as accurately as if portions
of them had been brought down to earth
and could be analysed in our laboratories.
We can tell whether they are gaseous,
liquid, or solid; whether they shine by
intrinsic or reflected light; and, by com
paring the lines in their spectra with
those of known terrestrial elements,
whether they contain those elements, or
are made up of matter in a state unknown
to us. The first result of spectroscopic
discoveries was to establish the fact that
the sun, stars, nebulse, comets, . and
meteorites all show such an identity in
their spectra with some one or more of
those of terrestrial elements as to leave
no doubt that the composition of matter
is uniform throughout the universe.
Further experiments, of which Sir
Norman Lockyer’s paper, read to the
Royal Society, affords the most complete
summary, carry this knowledge farther.
They show that spectra are not fixed and
invariable, but change according to the
conditions of heat, pressure, and other
wise, affecting the bodies from which the
23
spectra are given out. Thus the spec
trum of a comet in perihelion, when its
component parts are crowded together
and intensely heated by the sun, is very
different from that of the same comet
when it is at a great distance from the
sun, either in advancing towards it or
receding from it. Thus the spectrum of
the great comet of 1882, when nearest
the sun, exhibited many of the lines
obtained in the laboratory from the
vapours of sodium, iron, and magnesium
at the temperature of the Bunsen
burner. As it receded the lines gradually
died out until a very few were left; and
in the'comet of 1886-7, when last seen,
all had died out except one line . of
magnesium. Thus carbon also, which
is such an important ingredient in
organic life, appears and disappears in
cometary spectra according to the con
ditions of pressure and temperature.
What Sir N. Lockyer has done is to
show that all the varied spectra and
classes of spectra, given out by suns,
stars, nebulae, comets, and shooting
stars, can be reproduced from actual
meteorites which have fallen to the
earth, by experiments in the laboratory,
with the exception only of those of
stars which, like Sirius, are glowing at a
transcendental temperature far exceed
ing that of our sun, and which cannot
be approached by the electric arc in any
form of intense heat which can be
obtained in our present earth. Thus
the “ spectrum of the sun can be very
fairly reproduced (in some parts almost
line for line) by taking a composite
photograph of the arc spectrum of
several stony meteorites between iron
meteoric poles.”
We are now in a position to under
stand the meteorite theory of the uni
verse.
Granted that the. number . of
meteorites in space is practically infinite,
and that they tend to coalesce into
streams, their collisions supply an
equally unlimited fund of heat upon
which we can draw at pleasure. The
amount of heat developed by each
collision is the transformed energy of the
�24
WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
mechanical force. This force, and con
sequently this heat, increases with the
square of the velocity. Thus, if a tropical
hurricane, moving at the rate of ioo
miles an hour, uproots trees and levels
houses, the same mass of air, moving
with the mean meteoric velocity of
33% miles per second, would exert a
force of 144,000,000 times greater. We
know from the explosion of dynamite
that, when a gas expands very much
quicker than the air can get out of its
way, the effect is as if the blow of a
tremendous steam-hammer were inflicted
on an unyielding anvil; arid we can
readily conceive, therefore, how meteo
rites are almost invariably burnt up and
dissipated, even in the rare air of the
upper atmosphere, and how their re
peated collisions in space might generate
any required amount of heat.
Suppose, therefore, in the beginning
of things, space filled by an innumer
able multitude of these little stony
masses, composed of the one, or pos
sibly two or three, primitive elements of
matter, moving in all directions, with
immense though different velocities,
coalescing into streams and colliding;
we have a basis out of which suns, stars,
planets, satellites, nebulae, and comets
might be formed. The looser aggrega
tions, giving fewer collisions and less
heat, form comets and nebulae, and the
clash of two mighty streams gives us
suns like Sirius in a state of intense
luminosity and temperature. As these
cool and contract by radiating out their
heat, they pass into the second stage of
stars of which our sun is one, still
glowing with heat and light, but cooled
down to a point at which the primitive
elements can combine and form secon
dary ones, which can be detected by
the spectroscope, and identified with
those with which we are familiar as
chemical elements upon earth. As
cooling proceeds, they pass from the
white-hot into the red-hot stage, and,
finally, into the cold and lifeless nonluminous stage of burnt-out suns. Not,
however, necessarily to die, for in the
chances of infinite time these dead and
invisible masses may collide together,
and at a blow regain their youth, and
commence the cycle anew as suns of the
first order.
There is grandeur in the idea which,
to a certain extent, reproduces what the
kinetic theory of gases teaches as to the
clash of innumerable atoms darting
about in all directions, producing the
temperature and pressure of a gas in a
confined space. Only here, instead of
atoms—so small that one of them is of
the size of a rifle bullet, compared to
the earth—we have stony masses for
atoms, stars and nebulae for molecules,
and, instead of glass jars or bladders, the
whole universe.
This, however, is only the first stage
of the theory. What are these little
stony bodies, and how did they come
there ? The only answer we can give
is derived from the constitution of those
larger meteor-stones which actually fall
on the earth and can be examined.
They have invariably the appearance of
fragments torn from larger bodies by
collisions or explosions, and there is
no reason for doubting that what they
appear to be they are.
This carries us back to the impact
theory of which a full account is given
in the work published by Dr. Croll on
Stellar Evolution. It supposes that, for
an almost infinite time, an almost infinite
number of dark stars, or cold and nonluminous solid bodies of stellar magni
tude, have been rushing about in an
unlimited space in all directions, and
with enormous velocities. Occasionally
they collide, and, as mechanical prin
ciples show, generate an intense heat,
more than sufficient to convert their
whole mass into glowing gas, at a tem
perature which may possibly dissociate
its atoms, with the exception of some
fragments from the shattered surfaces
which are thrown off into space by the
sudden generation of explosive gas.
That there really are such dark suns
rushing through space is certain from
what we know respecting the constitution
�WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
of the visible stars. We find them
exhibiting all ranges of temperature,
from the intense heat of the white stars
like Sirius to that of the duller red stars
like Aldebaran, our own sun occupying
an intermediate position; while our
moon affords an example of a dead
world, which from its smaller size has
cooled more rapidly. As the moon is,
so must the red stars inevitably become
in a sufficient number of millions of
years, if the laws of nature continue
uninterrupted. And their proper motions,
rushing through space in different direc
tions with velocities ranging up to 400
miles per second, must continue after
they have become dark, as long as the
first law of motion holds good, that
bodies in motion cannot generate
changes of motion of themselves, but
must continue to move forward in their
orbits (the majority following a circular
direction under the control of their
neighbours) or, in a few cases, in a straight
line.
Among bodies thus rushing in different
directions collisions must occasionally
occur, and it is a matter of simple calcu
lation that the mechanical force converted
into heat by such collisions is amply
sufficient to produce any temperature
that may be required to create new suns
and nebulre, and to account for all the
phenomena which are actually observed.
Moreover, the existence of such dark
bodies is established by direct observa
tion. That fragmentary masses, weigh
ing several hundredweights, come in from
space and fall upon the earth is a fact.
So also is it a fact that bright stars, some
of them like the famous new star in
Cassiopsea, brighter than stars of the first
magnitude, suddenly blaze out and
gradually disappear. The impact theory
accounts for this, while the nebular
theory, or any hypothesis based solely on
the contraction of a mass of nebulous
vapour under the law of gravity, entirely
fails to do so. Again, the phenomena of
variable stars can best be explained by
assuming that in some cases such stars
pass periodically through dense streams
25
of meteoric matter, increasing their light,
and that in others large dark bodies are
periodically interposed between us and
the stars, and thus diminish it. Modern
astronomers are, in fact, disposed to think
that the dark stars are more numerous
than the light ones. In some cases,
indeed, we have become so far acquainted
with these dark stars as to weigh and
measure them. The constitution also of
comets, and of many nebulae, as disclosed
by the spectroscope, is far better explained
by the impact than by the nebular theory.
In fact, it is inconsistent with the latter
theory in its narrow form, since this can
give no account of comets, meteorites,
or other phenomena, which imply small
dissociated portions of matter, moving in
streams or aggregating in nebulas, and
rushing with immense velocities in paths
inclined to each other at different angles,
and which have no relation to the rotating
plane of the solar or any other system.
Even within the limits of the planetary
system there are many facts which are
better explained by the theory of impact
than by that of contraction—for instance,
the great differences in the inclination of
the axes of rotation of many planets and
satellites to the plane in which they
revolve about the sun and their primaries.
But, after all, there is no real inconsistency
between the impact theory and that of
Laplace. The former takes up the history
of the universe at an earlier stage, and
supplies a mass of gas or cosmic matter
at a higher temperature, and with that
temperature longer maintained by re
peated collisions and indraught of
meteorites than is assigned to it by the
nebular hypothesis; but ultimately a great
deal of this gas must resolve itself into
such a medium as Laplace supposes,
contracting and forming whirls under the
operation of gravity. The triumphs of
mathematical science deduced from
Newton’s law of gravity were so signal
that it is not surprising that it should
have been assumed that gravity, and
gravity alone, was the fundamental law
which would explain everything. But,
as often happens, increasing knowledge
�26
WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
has rendered many things uncertain
which appeared to be certain. Problems
which seemed simple have grown com
plex, and it has become apparent that
the universe contains many forms of
motion and many manifestations of
energy which cannot be explained by
the laws of gravity—for instance, the
runaway stars, the world of meteorites,
the proper motions of molecules and
atoms, and the requisite duration of solar
heat to account for the undoubted facts
of geology. The law of gravity and the
nebular theory made a great step towards
reducing the phenomena of the universe
to one great uniform law; but the theory
of impact takes up the history at an
earlier stage, and carries us one step
further towards infinity and eternity. If
the whole stellar universe is not, so to
speak, the crop of a single season, but
an indefinite succession of crops, stars
being born and dying, dying and being
renewed, without appearance of a
beginning or an end, the vista of exist
ence is vastly enlarged.
But even this is not the last step
towards the unknowable. Granted that
these dark suns are facts, they are not
ultimate facts. They are matter, and
matter is made up of molecules, and
molecules of atoms. Judging from the
fragments which reach the earth, and the
teachings of the spectroscope, meteoric
matter is composed of a few atoms iden
tical with those which are the most
common elementsof terrestrial chemistry.
Hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, iron, nickel,
calcium, silicon, and aluminium are the
principal, if not the sole, constituents of
meteoric stones; and the lines of one or
more of these appear in the spectra of
stars, nebulas, meteors, and comets,
according to their conditions of tempera
ture and pressure. What, then, are
these atoms ? There are some seventy
eight of them known to chemists as
ultimate elements—that is to say, which
are not further resolvable by any means
available in our laboratories. But no
one can suppose that this is really the
ultimate fact, and that original matter
consists of seventy-eight indivisible units,
ranging in weight from the one of
hydrogen to the 240 of uranium, and
more than half of them consisting of
exceedingly rare elements, which play no
appreciable part in the construction of
any form of matter. The mind refuses
to accept the conclusion that such little
mole-hills as yttrium, zirconium, and
gallium, only known as minute products
of a few of the rarest minerals, really
present insurmountable obstacles to the
science which has scaled Alps, measured
light-waves, and weighed stars.
Accordingly, constant attempts are
being made to reduce atoms to one
simple element, and to one comprehen
sive law. The problem is not yet
solved; but it is being attacked on
various sides, and . almost every day
brings us nearer to a solution. Hydrogen
first put in a claim to be the primitive
element, as being the lightest, and it is
remarkable that the weight of a very
large proportion of the other elementary
atoms is an exact multiple of that of the
hydrogen atom. The spectral lines of
hydrogen are also the last seen in those
of the hottest stars, where all secondary
combinations may be supposed to be
dissociated.
This hydrogen theory,
which was first proposed by Prout,
proved to be only a provisional step.
Later researches seemed to show that
by halving the hydrogen atom—that is,
supposing this atom to be composed of
two-linked atoms—the deviations from
the law might be reduced within limits
which could be fairly attributable to
errors in the delicate operations requisite
for fixing atomic weights. Sir W.
Crookes suggested that helium, which
seemed to be lighter than hydrogen,
might be this half-hydrogen-atom, and
thus be the ultimate element out of
which all other atoms are manufactured.
It was, in fact, certain that some rela
tion existed among them, for the Russian
chemist Mendelejeff had shown that, if
the atomic weights of the known elements
are arranged in a consecutive order,
they show what is called a periodical
�WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
law. That is, the other qualities _ of
atoms, such as specific heat, . affinity,
atomicity, etc., rise with the weights up
to a certain point, then fall, then rise
again, and so describe a sort of zig-zag
line like those we see of the readings of
the barometer on a weather chart. Only
this atomic zig-zag seems to follow a
certain law, so that groups of elements
which have similar qualities recur at
nearly fixed intervals. The meaning of
this law is not yet clear, but it _ is so
certain that it enabled Mendelejeff to
predict the discovery of three new
elements, which have since been found,
filling up gaps in the series which his
law required.
The nearest approach to a mathe
matical explanation of this law is afforded
by the discovery that if the cube roots of
the atomic weights were used as ordinates
instead of the weights themselves, which
is equivalent to taking volumes instead
of lines to represent the atomic weights,
the zig-zag line resolves itself into a
regular curve, which is identical with, or
very closely resembles, the logarithmic
curve well known to mathematicians.
All these facts pointed towards the
conclusion that the atoms which we call
elementary are all really manufactured
out of some one atom or sub-atom,
which is the primary element of matter.
Where are they manufactured ? Crookes
said, on the outside of the universe,
wherever that might be, and that they
were destroyed or dissociated when they
reached the position of the lowest
potential energy, which is in the centres
of the largest stars. Whatever sort of
manufactured articles the atoms may be,
they are manufactured to the same
pattern, like the nuts and screws of a
large locomotive or gun factory. The
hydrogen-atom gives the same spectral
lines, which means that it vibrates and
starts or absorbs ether-waves precisely
in the same manner whether it exists in
Sirius, in the nebula of Orion, or in a jar
of gas in a laboratory.
Until recently the most generally
received theory of the formation of the
27
atom was the vortex theory of Helm
holtz and Kelvin, which assumed
atoms to be revolving rings of a perfect
fluid pervading space. The general idea
is given by the rings of smoke which
occasionally escape from the lips of
smokers. These rings persist for a long
time, glide before the knife so as to be
indivisible, and when two of them collide
they rebound and vibrate. In a word,
they behave in many respects very like
atoms ; and refined mathematical calcu
lations show that if we could suppose
them formed and rotating, not in air,
but in what is called a perfect fluid, in
compressible, possessing inertia, and yet
offering no resistance whatever to motion
through it in any direction, such vortex
rings would be indeed indivisible and
indestructible, and might well be what
we call atoms.
Another important
theory, that of Dr. Larmor, conceived
the atom, or the component of the
atom, to be a sort of strain-centre in
ether. But the latest researches of
physicists and chemists have opened out
a line of inquiry which marks a consider
able advance in attacking the problem.
We have now actual proof that small
particles are chipped off the atom in
certain electrical experiments. More
over, when radium was discovered, and
the same kind of radio-action was
detected in a less striking degree in
other forms of matter, it was clear that
we had before us actual instances of
the breakdown, or disintegration, of the
atom. The small particles emitted from
the atom were then identified with the
particles of electricity called electrons,
and the theory has gained ground that
the atoms of all ponderable substances
are built up of these electrons. It is
calculated that one thousand of these
tiny sub-atoms go to the making of a
single atom of hydrogen. They are
infinitesimally small—hardly one-hun
dred-thousandth of the diameter of the
atom—and are believed to form a
whirling system of forces, occasionally
breaking loose from the control of the
cluster and being shot forth, as in the
�28
WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
emanations of radium. The conclusion
is almost irresistible that these are the
real atoms—the ultimate particles—of
the whole solid fabric of the universe.
As yet, however, speculation is pre
carious, and is apt to run in advance of
the known facts. It remains for the
future to tell us more of the nature of
these wonderful electrons, their relation
to ether, and the way in which they are
drawn together to form the great variety
of the chemical elements. Recently a
distinguished Swedish chemist has put
forward a theory that the meteors, which
we have taken to be, as it were, the
bricks of the universe, are themselves
formed by the electrons poured out into
space from the stars. If that were so,
we should be approaching some explana
tion of the “perpetual motion” of the
universe. But it is premature to pro
nounce on these matters.
Thus it will be seen that the problem
of atoms, involving that of the ulti
mate constitution of matter, is fast
advancing towards some definite solu
tion ; but it is not yet solved, and is
a problem of the future. Seeing, how
ever, the wonderful advances which have
been made in the last half-century, and
especially in the last few years, it is im
possible to doubt that, as in the case of
gravity, some future Newton will sum
up in a comprehensive law all the
scattered facts which point in the same
direction towards the unity of the
universe, and the persistence of evolu
tion from the simplest to the most
complex.
But even when this triumph of science
has been attained, the question remains
as insoluble as ever—Whence came
this primeval ' matter and primeval
energy ?
I recollect as a boy looking up at the
stars, and asking myself what does all
this mean ? Where did it come from,
and what is beyond it ? The only answer
was a sort of painful ache, as of straining
the eyes to see in the darkness. And
now that, thanks to the discoveries of
modern science, I can see so much
beyond the visible stars, far off into the
.infinitely great, far down into the
infinitely small, far back into infinite
Time—at the end of all I am not one
whit advanced beyond that feeling of
boyhood. I gaze with straining eyes
into the Unknowable, and gaze in vain.
Others may see, or fancy they see, some
thing behind the knowable phenomena
of the universe, linked together by in
variable laws. Some a personal God,
others a design like human design, a
living whole, ideas in a Universal Mind,
illusion, Maya Nirvana, what not. For
my own part, if I candidly confess the
truth to myself, I can only say with
Tennyson,
“ Behold ! I know not anything,”
and content myself with the only creed
which seems to me certain—that of trying
to do some little good in my generation,
and leave the world a little better rather
than a little worse for my individual unit
of existence.
�CLIMA TE
29
Chapter III,
CLIMATE
Ichthyosauri have been met with in
Greenland and Spitzbergen.
Lyell,
Dana, and all modern geologists agree
that in primordial times there were “ no
zones of climate,” “ no marked difference
between life in warm and cold latitudes
“warm Arctic seas all the year round.” _
This continued until what is, geologi
cally speaking, quite the other day, the
close of the Tertiary period. In Spitz
bergen, latitude 78°. 56', are found the
remains of a luxuriant Miocene flora,
comprising species like the common
cypress, which now grow in the Southern
United States and California. Magnolias
and zamias are found in Miocene strata
Geology and astronomy are in conflict in Greenland in latitude 70 .
These species, it must be observed,
on other questions as well as that of the
time during which a sufficient supply of require not only a warm but an equable
solar heat has rendered the earth habit climate. They would be killed by a
able. The conditions of that supply are single severe night’s frost, and yet they*
as important as the -total quantity, and grew and flourished where the winter
these conditions depend mainly on night now lasts for four months, and
climate. Geology seems to show that, where the thermometer has registered
during the vast lapse of time embraced more than ioo° below freezing-point.
by fossil records from the Cambrian to The difference between summer and
the close of the Tertiary period, there winter temperature in high Arctic lati
were no well-marked zones of climate, tudes exceeds 100° Fahrenheit, and, what
and the conditions of life were uniform, ever may have been the initial tempera
or nearly so, throughout the whole earth. ture, this difference of heat, due to solar
On the other hand, the astronomical radiation, must have been added and
theory of precession asserts that the subtracted every year, as long as the
vicissitudes of the seasons, with their earth’s axis of rotation preserved its
corresponding zones of climate, must present obliquity to the plane of the
have existed from the beginning as they ecliptic in which the earth revolves round
now are. Geology relies on undoubted the sun. If the temperature of Spitz
facts. Coral formations, which require bergen was from ■ any cause high enough
both a warm and an equable climate, to prevent the thermometer from falling
and cannot live in a temperature below below zero in winter, it must have risen
66° Fahrenheit, were found by Captain in summer far above the extremest
Nares in Greenland, in latitude 8i° 40'. tropical temperature at which life and
Ammonites of the same genera and even vegetation are possible.
Nor is it a question of temperature
of the same species are found alike in
Melville’s Island and in India; and only, but of light and the actinic rays of
Conflict between Geology and Astronomy— |
Geology asserts Uniformity of Climate until 1
Recent Times—-Astronomy asserts Inclination
of Earth’s Axis to be invariable, and therefore
Climates necessary—Evidence for Warm and
Uniform Climates—Greenland—-Spitsbergen
—Impossible under Existing Conditions Heat, Light, and Actinism—-Invariability of
Earth’s Axis—Causes of Higher and more
Uniform Temperature—Cooling of the Earth
—More Heat from the Sun—Warmer regions
of Space—More Carbonic-dioxide—Would
not explain Uniformity of Temperature
Excess of Oxygen—-Modification of SpeciesConfiguration of Sea and Land—- .Crolls
Theory—-Displacement of Earth’s Axis—In
clination of Axis of Planets and Moon—Un
solved Problems of the Future.
�30
CLIMATE
the solar beam, which are Equally essen
tial for vegetation. A luxuriant forest
vegetation, including such forms as the
magnolia and cypress, could no more
flourish under any conditions now known
to us in Spitzbergen than they could if
shut up for four months in a dark cellar.
And yet, with the present obliquity of the
axis, the sun must have been below the
horizon in those latitudes from November
till March.
At present, as we go north from the
equator towards the Arctic circle, we
find species changing to accommodate
themselves to the change of environment.
Palms are succeeded by oaks and
beeches; these again by pines and
birches, and these by dwarf willows and
lichens, until all vegetation, except of
the very humblest forms, dies out as we
approach the pole. But in the geological
records of earlier periods no such changes
are discernible. The Miocene magnolia
of Spitzbergen is not even a greatly
modified magnolia, but of the same
species as the magnolia of the present
day. The Miocene cypress is the common
cypress. If there were no such science
as astronomy, geology would point to
the conclusion that until after the
Miocene period climate was uniform;
there were no distinct zones or seasons,
and therefore no obliquity of the earth’s
axis, or at any rate nothing like the
present amount. With these conditions
there would have been perpetual spring,
and all we should require would be a
higher average temperature for the whole
earth. But to this conclusion astronomy
opposes an inflexible non possumus. If
there is one thing more certain than
another, it is that mathematical calcula
tions, based on Newton’s law of gravity,
explain all the movements of the solar
system. They do so 'with a certainty
that enables us to predict the places of
the earth, moon, and planets years before
hand with absolute accuracy. And if
there is one thing more certain than
another in these calculations, it is that no
permanent change is possible in the
inclination of the earth’s axis. The earth j
now spins, in twenty-four hours, round
an axis inclined at an angle of 66}4° to
the plane on which it revolves round the
sun in a year. It must always have so
spun, for there is no cause known to
science by which, when this rotation
was once established, the inclination of
the axis could have been permanently
altered. The plane of the equator shifts
its position slowly on that of the ecliptic,
owing to various minor actions of the
force of gravity, the principal one being
the precession of the equinoxes, due to
the protuberant matter at the earth’s
equator; and thus in 22,000 years it
makes a complete circuit, returning to
its original position. But during this
circuit its inclination to the plane of the
ecliptic remains practically constant, and
the effect on the seasons is unchanged,
except that they come at different posi
tions of the earth in its orbit round the
sun, so that summer and winter alter
nately come when we are farthest from
the sun or nearest to it. At present we
are nearer the sun in winter than in
summer, and the winter half of the year
is shorter than the summer half in the
Northern hemisphere. In 11,000 years
this position will be reversed, and the
winter will be shorter than summer in
the Southern hemisphere; but there is
nothing in these slight changes to affect
the general course of the seasons, and
as we happen to be now nearer the sun
in winter the effect of any slight change
due to precession would rather be to
increase the difference between summer
and winter heat in high northern lati
tudes, and so aggravate the difficulty of
reconciling the conclusions of the two
conflicting sciences. And yet there must
be some way of reconciling them. Truth
cannot speak with two voices, and the
laws of Nature cannot give contradictory
results.
Let us consider first what the un
doubted facts of geology require us to
assume. Two things—firstly, that the
general temperature of the earth was
higher in former times than now;
secondly, that it was more uniform. As
�CLIMA TE
regards the first condition, astronomy
interposes no obstacle, but affords no
aid, and it must be admitted that we
are still in the region of conjecture
rather than of certainty. The first
obvious guess is that the earth was
formerly hotter, and has been gradually
cooling. But this guess is contradicted
by mathematical calculations as to the
cooling of heated bodies, which show
that after the earth had cooled down to
the point of forming a solid crust, many
miles in thickness, of non-conducting
rock, internal heat could have had little
or no effect on surface temperature.
This is confirmed by what we know of
the climates of areas where large reser
voirs of internal heat lie comparatively
near the surface, as in Iceland and other
volcanic districts. In the celebrated
Comstock lode the heat of the earth
increases so rapidly that it becomes im
possible to work the mines below a very
moderate depth. Yet in all these cases
the temperature at the surface remains
the same as that of other regions on the
same isotherm, and is determined by the
same circumstances of latitude, elevation,
aerial and ocean currents, and other
known conditions. Nor, if the internal
temperature of the earth was a factor in
the problem, would it be easy to account
for our recovery from the cold of the
Glacial period, in the face of a con
tinued and progressive diminution of the
planet’s heat.
A more important conjecture is that
there may have been variations in the
amount of heat given out by the sun.
Generally considered, theory points to
the paradoxical conclusion that, as the
sun has cooled, it has got hotter—that
is, that a volume of gas, in cooling,
developes rather more heat by contract
ing than it loses by radiating. But
recent research is held by some scientific
writers to have shown that “ compara
tively small changes in solar activity
produce rather important meteorological
e-ffects,” and it is claimed that there are
indications of such changes having taken
place. Dr. Sven Hedin discovered proof
31
that important changes of climate have
occurred in Central Asia during the
Christian era. It is for future investiga
tion to follow up this clue, and determine
its value in the estimation of changes of
climate.
Thepassageof the solar system through
warmer and colder regions of space is
another explanation which has been
invoked. But this—though by no
means improbable—is as yet a mere
possibility, and based on nothing ap
proaching to actual knowledge.
Of existing known causes there is one
which seems, as far as it goes, to be a
vera causa which might have given the
earth’s surface a warmer temperature in
early ages. Its reality may be proved by
the very simple experiment of sleeping
on a cold night without a blanket.
Evidently, other circumstances being the
same, such as the reading of the thermo
meter and blood heat of the body, the
question of blanket or no blanket makes
an immense difference in the resulting
temperature. Why is this the case ?
Because the blanket keeps the heat in,
or, in other words, radiates ■ it back to
the body instead of letting it radiate out
into space. There are other things
which do this even more effectually than
a woollen blanket, for they let the heat
of the sun’s rays in, and, having let it in,
catch it as in a trap, and do not let it
out again. Glass, for instance, in a con
servatory, is such a trap, and, as we all
know, will keep the temperature inside
much warmer than it is outside, even
without the aid of artificial heat. Many
other substances have the same property,
and among them two which are essential
elements of the earth’s atmosphere,
water in the form of vapour, and carbonicdioxide. Tyndall, in his Heat Con
sidered as a Mode of Motion, has shown
clearly what an immense part these
gases have in maintaining the tempera
ture of the earth’s surface. If the cold
is more intense, especially at night, on
high mountains, it is not because less
heat is received from the sun’s rays
during the twenty-four hours, but
�32
CLIMATE
because half the atmosphere is left below,
and so the heat-retaining blanket is thin
and threadbare. So in deserts where the
air is dry and there is little aqueous
vapour, the heat by day may be exces
sive and yet the cold by night well-nigh in
tolerable. “The removal,” says Tyndall,
“ for a single summer’s night of the
aqueous vapour which covers England
would be attended by the destruction of
every plant which a freezing temperature
could kill.” And such a removal on a
winter’s night would send the thermo
meter down far below zero.
This property of retaining heat is not
confined to water in the form of vapour ;
it is common to other gases, and often
in a higher degree. Among these is
one which is always present in the
atmosphere—carbonic-dioxide, a gas
formed by the combination of two
atoms of oxygen with one of carbon.
The percentage of this gas in the air
is very small, only a fraction of one per
cent., and yet it constitutes the sole
source of supply of the carbon required,
directly for vegetable and indirectly for
animal life. At present the balance
between the two sorts of life seems to
be kept up, as in an aquarium, by
animals restoring to the air, in the form
of carbonic-dioxide, the carbon which
has been abstracted from it by plants.
But when we look at the enormous
amount of carbon which has been
locked up in coal, limestone, and other
carboniferous formations of the earth’s
crust, it is evident that it must be vastly
greater than could be derived from such
a small percentage of carbonic-dioxide
as now exists in the atmosphere. It has
been estimated by experienced geologists
at many hundred times greater. Where
all this carbon could have come from is
a question not yet solved. Some have
thought that it may have been supplied
from the interior of the earth by volcanoes;
but, although it is certain that some
volcanic vents do emit carbonic-dioxide,
as in the case of Lake Avernus, and the
Grotto-del-cane, near Naples, the quan
tity is small, and the better opinion
seems to be that it is only given out
when subterranean fires come in con
tact with limestone, or some other form
of previously deposited carbon. Did
the carbon, then, come from the air?
If so, there must have been more than
one hundred times as much carbonicdioxide in it in early geological times as
there is at present.
This would go some way towards
explaining the difficulty of the higher
temperature prevailing in past ages, for
more carbonic-dioxide would undoubtedly
be equivalent to an additional blanket to
protect the earth from cold; and the
higher temperature thus caused would
enable the air to hold more aqueous
vapour in solution, and thus increase
the thickness of the water-blanket.
It is conceivable that under such con
ditions a warm and humid climate may
have prevailed over a great part of the
earth’s surface, though this would hardly
meet the difficulty of the uniform exist
ence of such a climate in latitudes where
the supply of heat from the sun must
have been so very different in winter
and summer. Nor would this difficulty
be removed even if we were to suppose
that the earth’s axis might have been
nearly vertical to the plane of the ecliptic.
This might meet the difficulty as to
light and actinic rays, for there would
be everywhere twelve hours of day
throughout the year; but it would not
meet the difficulty as to temperature, for
if the air-blanket was sufficient to retain
heat enough in the Arctic Circle to
prevent frosts, from a sun which never
rose much above the horizon, it must
have retained far too much heat for
existing life and vegetation in latitudes
nearer to the equator.
There are, however, many grave
objections to considering this to be the
sole or even the principal cause of the
warmer climates of early ages. It is by
no means certain that either animal or
vegetable life, in anything like known
forms, could exist in an atmosphere so
surcharged with carbon. Nor is carbon
all; we must account also for oxygen.
�33
CLIMA TE
If the whole of the carbon now fixed
in the different strata of the earth’s
crust was derived from carbonic-dioxide
originally present in the atmosphere,, so
also must have been the oxygen, which
in various form of oxides now forms
an even larger constituent of that crust.
Oxygen is a very active element, which,
under moderate conditions of heat , and
moisture, combines readily with iron,
silicon, calcium, aluminium, and all. the
metallic bases. Many hundred times
more oxygen must have been withdrawn
from the air than now exists in it. to
form the rocks which are the principal
part of the earth’s crust. But an excess
of oxygen is as fatal to life as an excess
of carbonic-dioxide. Terrestrial life, as
known to us, depends on a very delicate
adjustment of the quantities of oxygen
and nitrogen in the air. A very little
excess or deficit of either would, destroy
all air-breathing animals. With too
much oxygen we should be burned up
even more rapidly than the drunkard is
by too much alcohol; with too little, the
fire of life would be choked by ashes
and refuse. If there was formerly a
hundred, or even ten, times more oxygen
in the atmosphere than there is now,
there must have been a corresponding
excess of nitrogen to neutralise it, and,
if so, what has become of the nitrogen ?
Nitrogen is an inert element which enters
sparingly into combinations, and does
not, like oxygen and carbon, get locked
up in great masses of the earth’s solid
crust. Once in the atmosphere, it would
seem that it must have remained there;
and, if so, as oxygen was withdrawn in
continually increasing quantities, how
could the life-sustaining proportion of
the two gases have been maintained and
continued down to the present day ?
It has been said that life may have
been so differently organised in past
geological ages as to have existed under
very different conditions ; the mammoth
is appealed to as an instance of an
elephant modified so as to resist Arctic
cold; and the result of deep-sea dredg
ings shows that molluscs, crustaceans,
and other low forms of life may exist in
ice-cold water and without light. But
we can hardly suppose such profound
modifications of existing genera and
species of highly-organised plants and
animals as would enable them to breathe
air of a very different composition.
For we must remember that the evi
dence for an elevated and uniform tem
perature is not confined to remote geo
logical ages, but comes down to the
close of the Tertiary period, when
existing forms, both of animal, and
vegetable life, were firmly established,
and several species have survived to the
present day without perceptible change.
Thus, when the magnolia was growing in
Spitzbergen, the dryopithecus was living
in Southern France. Can it be supposed
that this anthropoid ape breathed a
different air from his congeners, the
chimpanzee and gorilla; and yet, if his
lungs required the same air, how could
excess of carbonic-dioxide have supplied
the extra warm blanket to protect the
Spitzbergen magnolia ?
A different configuration of sea and
land is the explanation which many geo
logists, following Lyell, have advanced
for different conditions of climate. And
no doubt aerial and oceanic currents,
such as now cause the trade-winds and
Gulf Stream, are responsible for great
variations of climate, while low lands in
low and high lands in high latitudes
must always have had a considerable
influence in raising or depressing tem
perature. But changes of this descrip
tion can more readily account for the
cold of the Glacial than for the heat of
the Tertiary and preceding periods. We
have now got the trade-winds and the
Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, and
although the diversion of the latter might
bring the ice-cap back to London and
New York, and make the climate of Scan
dinavia and Scotland the same as that of
Greenland and Labrador, its presence
takes us a very short way towards enabling
magnolias to flourish in Spitzbergen.
In like manner, even if Croll’s theory
were established, which it is far from
B
�34
CLIMATE
being, and the effect of the obliquity of
the earth’s axis combined with preces
sion, though imperceptible while the
earth’s orbit was nearly circular, became
great in the two hemispheres alternately,
when the orbit was approaching its maxi
mum eccentricity, this would not explain
the high and uniform temperature of past
geological ages. If this theory were true,
what we should look for would be two or
three Glacial periods in the course of
each geological epoch; for the least time
required for any of the great geological
formations must have been long enough
to include two or three secular variations
of the earth’s orbit, from minimum to
maximum eccentricity. And each of
these Glacial periods must have included
several changes, alternating, at intervals
of 11,000 years, between severe cold and
genial heat, owing to the effect of the
precession of the equinoxes combined
with great eccentricity.
Instead of uniform warmth there must
have been more than one hundred
Glacial periods during the immense
lapse of time between the dawn of life
in the Cambrian and the last of such
periods in the Quaternary. It is a moot
point with geologists whether traces of a
single one of such periods, prior to the
last one, have been found. There are a
few conglomerates which look very like
consolidated boulder-clays, and every
now and then we hear of some formation,
supposed to be glaciated, being found in
the Permian and in other formations in
India, South Africa, and Australia; but
there is no evidence hitherto which com
mands the general assent of geologists
for a single Glacial period prior to the
recent one which closed the Tertiary
period. And there is abundant evidence
that during many formations, such as the
Carboniferous and Coal-measures, which
must have taken millions of years to
accumulate, there were no vicissitudes of
climate such as must have inevitably
occurred if any astronomical cause, such
as precession or eccentricity, had been
sufficient to bring about great vicissitudes
of heat and cold. And what is still more
conclusive, the evolution of vegetable
and animal life, as shown by fossils,
affords no trace of the repeated modifica
tions which must have taken place within
the limits of the same geological forma
tion if there had been such vicissitudes of
heat and cold as the theory requires.
It remains to be considered whether
any change in the direction of the earth’s
axis may have been possible. Clearly
no such change can have taken place
within the earth itself, for its shape is
that of an oblate spheroid, revolving
round its present axis. Any displace
ment of the poles must displace the
present equator, and tend to establish a
new one on a different plane. But the
equatorial diameter of the earth is twentysix miles longer than the polar diameter,
so that any displacement of the poles
must have tended to displace this
enormous mass of protuberant matter,
and send such portion of it as was fluid
in a diluvian wave, miles in height,
towards the new position of equilibrium;
while the solid portion remained in a
plane no longer coincident with that of
the earth’s rotation. There is no trace
of anything of the sort having ever
occurred, and, if the axis has shifted, the
whole earth has shifted with it, which is
just what astronomers declare to be
impossible by any known laws.
But are the whole of the laws really
known ? There is nothing more difficult
than to account for the varying inclina
tions of the axes of rotation of the diffe
rent bodies of the solar system. On the
older conception of the nebular hypo
thesis, which traced the sun, planets,
and satellites back to the condensation
of a revolving disc-like mass of nebulous
matter, one might have expected to find
the planes of rotation and revolution of
planets and satellites, not only in the
same general direction from west to east,
but nearly coincident.1 Jupiter, however,
* The tendency in astronomy now is to con
ceive the primitive nebula in a rough spiral form,
instead of the disk-shape which was earlier
imagined.
�THE GLACIAL PERIOD
is the only one of the planets which
fulfils this condition. Its axis of rotation
is inclined at an angle of 87°, or very
nearly at right angles, to the plane of its
revolution round the sun. But there is
no certain rule. That of Saturn, which
comes next in order on the outside of
Jupiter, has an inclination of 64°, while
that of the next planet on the inside,
Mars, is 6i° 18'. The earth’s axis is
inclined at 66° 33', while we find its
satellite, the moon, rotating like Jupiter
in a plane inclined only i° 30'; and the
axis of Venus, on the other hand, is so
oblique that in its winter the Arctic
Circle almost extends to the equator.
The case of the moon is most difficult
to understand, for on any theory of its
origin, whether as a condensed ring left
behind as the nebulous matter of the
earth contracted, or whether it was
ejected from the earth in some eruption
of its fiery stages, it might have been
expected to retain nearly the same rota
tory motion as its parent orb. But, if
so, clearly some unknown force must
have intervened, either to make the
earth’s axis more, or that of the moon
less, oblique than they were originally.
No such force is known, nor has any
plausible guess been made as to what
might have occasioned it; but the same
observation applies to many of the phe
nomena of the solar system. How has
35
the supply of solar heat been kept up for
the time required by geology ? How
does the energy we call gravitation act
across space from atom to atom, and
from star to star, and how is its supply
maintained? Why is the axis of the
earth inclined at an angle of 66° 30' to
the ecliptic, while that of Jupiter is
almost perpendicular to it, and that of
Venus oblique to the extent of nearly
two-thirds of a right angle ?
These are all problems which depend
on natural laws, and must lie within the
limits of human reason; but they are
pebbles which have not yet been picked
up on the shore of the ocean of truth.
It may bring home to us the force of
Newton’s saying that we are but as
children picking up such pebbles, when
we see what a multitude of the deepest
problems, as to the constitution of the
earth and of the universe, are raised by
the simple fact that Captain Nares
brought back a specimen of coral from
latitude 81° 40' in Greenland, and that
luxuriant forests, of a sub-tropical or
warm temperate vegetation, flourished in
Spitzbergen as lately as the period when
an anthropoid ape of the stature of man
was living in the south of France, and
when man himself, or his savage progeni
tors, were possibly, or even probably,
already chipping flints into rude imple
ments.
Chapter IV.
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
Importance of Date of Glacial Period Its
Bearing on Origin of Man—Short Date
Theories—Prestwich says 20,000, Lyell
200,000, years—Groll’s Theory—Prestwich’s
Arguments—Solar Heat—Human ProgressShown by Palaeolithic Remains—Geological
Evidence—Advance of Greenland Glaciers—
Denudation—Erosion of Cliffs and Valleys—
Deposition—Loess—Elevation and Depres
sion of Land—All Show Immense Antiquity—
Post-Glacial Period—Prestwich says 8,000 to
10,000 years—Mellard Reade 60,000—His
Reasons — Inconsistent with Short - Date
Theories—Causes of Glacial Period—Cooling
�36
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
of Earth—Cold Regions of Space—Change of
Earth’s Axis—More Vapour in Atmosphere—
Lyell’s Theory—Different Configuration of
Sea and Land—Conditions of Glaciation—
Problems Pressing for Solution.
The date and duration of the Glacial
period present a problem which is in
many respects of the highest interest.
It comes nearest to us as inaugurating
the recent period in which we live, and
for which we have historical data. It
affords the best chance of obtaining an
approximate standard by which to
measure geological times in years or
centuries. And it touches directly on
the great question of the Origin of Man.
For man is like the mammoth and
cave bear—an essential part of the
Quaternary fauna; and, whatever doubts
may.be entertained as to his existence in
Tertiary times, there can be none as to
the fact that his remains are found in
great numbers, and widely scattered over
the four quarters of the globe, in con
junction with those of the mammoth and
other characteristic Quaternary mammals,
in deposits which date, probably, from
the earlier, and certainly from the inter
mediate and later, stages of the Glacial
period. A short date, therefore, for that
period shortens that for which we have
positive proof of the existence of man,
and a very short date reduces it to a
length during which it is simply impos
sible that such a state of things as is
found existing in Egypt 7,000 years ago
could have grown up by natural laws and
evolution, and therefore brings us back
to the old theories of repeated and
recent acts of supernatural interference,
which, since the works of Lyell and of
Darwin, have been generally considered
to be completely exploded.
. The question, therefore, is one of the
highest theological as well as scientific
importance, and as such it has too often
been approached with theological pre
possessions. An extreme instance of
this is afforded by Sir J. Dawson, who,
in his work on Fossil Man, assigns 7,000
years as the probable date for the first
appearance of man upon earth, ignoring
the fact that at this date a dense and
civilised. population already existed in
Egypt with a highly-developed language
and system of writing and religion, and
that the types of the various races of
mankind, such as the Negro, the Copt,
the Semitic, and the Arian, are as clearly
distinguished in the paintings in Egyp
tian tombs 5,000 years ago as they are at
the present day.
Sir J. Dawson, however, though an
excellent geologist as long as the older
formations are concerned, is so domi
nated by the desire to square facts with
the account of creation in Genesis that
he becomes totally unreliable when the
human era is approached.
More recently, a very different autho
rity, Professor Prestwich, reasoning on
strictly scientific grounds, concludes
“ that the Glacial period, or epoch of
extreme cold, may not have lasted longer
than from 15,000 to 25,000 years, and
the Post-Glacial period of the melting
away of the ice-sheet to from 8,000 to
10,000 years or less ; giving to palaeo
lithic man no greater antiquity than,
perhaps, about 20,000 to 30,000 years,
while, should he be restricted to the socalled Post-Glacial period, his antiquity
need not go farther back than from
10,000 to 15,000 years before the time
of neolithic man.”
Prestwich cannot be accused of theo
logical bias, and, in fact, this estimate is
as inconsistent with theological theories
of Adam and Noah as if the figures
were multiplied tenfold. But he was
influenced by the wish to make geological
time accord with the short-date estimates
of Lord Kelvin, as to the possible
duration of solar heat. Be this as it
may, the fact that an authority like
Prestwich reduces to 20,000 years a
period to which Lyell and modern
geologists generally have assigned a
duration of more like 200,000, shows in
what a state of uncertainty we are as
to this vitally important problem. For
even the longest period for man’s anti
quity assigned by Prestwich would be
clearly insufficient to allow for the
�THE GLACIAL PERIOD
37
development of Egyptian civilisation as earth’s orbit was nearly circular as at
it existed 7,000 years ago, from savage present, they might become very powerful
and semi-animal ancestors, and still less when they coincided with one of the
for the evolution of the human race long periods at which the earth’s orbit
from earlier types, as is proved to have became flattened out into an ellipse of
been the case with the horse, stag, maximum eccentricity. He showed by
elephant, ape, and other mammals, with calculation that one such period began
whom man is so intimately connected, 240,000 years ago, attained its maximum
both in physical structure and in geo in 80,000 years, and passed away about
80,000 years before the present era.
logical association.
It is highly important, therefore, to These figures fitted in so well with those
consider the grounds on which the deduced by Lyell and other eminent
various theories are based of the pro geologists from geological data that
bable cause and duration of the Glacial Croll’s theory received very general
period. The first natural guess was to acceptance. But it is open to the same
attribute it to the precession of the objection, though in a less degree, that
equinoxes. Owing to this cause, the it requires us to assume a periodical
North Pole is alternately turned towards succession of Glacial epochs. The oscil
the sun every summer and away from it lations of the eccentricity of the earth’s
every winter, the reverse being the case orbit, about its maximum and minimum
in the Southern hemisphere. But, owing limits, though slow as measured by cen
to the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, turies, are not so slow according to the
the duration of the seasons is not exactly standards of geological time. Croll’s
equal, and summer and winter may occur calculations have shown that another
either when the earth is nearest to or position, such as is assumed to have
farthest away from the sun. At present caused the latest Glacial period, must
winter occurs in the Northern hemi have occurred 500,000 years earlier.
sphere when the earth is nearest the sun The calculations have not been carried
and moving with the greatest velocity, further back ; but it is tolerably certain
so that it is shorter by some days, and that, if Croll’s theory be correct, at least
summer longer, than in the Southern two or three Glacial periods must have
hemisphere. Now, it is a fact that what occurred during each of the great geo
This is opposed to
may be called a Glacial period prevails logical epochs.
at present in the Southern hemisphere, geological evidence. The Permian is
while corresponding latitudes in the the only formation in which what look
Northern hemisphere enjoy a temperate like traces of glacial action have been
climate. It might be thought that this unmistakeably found, and even these are
fact afforded an explanation of the considered doubtful by many geologists.
Glacial period; but this conjecture is Still more doubtful are the proofs of
negatived when it is considered that this older Glacial epochs deduced, from
revolution of the earth’s axis is periodical, isolated cases of boulders, as in the
and completed in about 22,000 years, Miocene conglomerate of Monte Superga,
so that, if it were the sole or principal near Turin, the Flysch of Switzerland,
cause of Glacial epochs, they must have and in some of the conglomerates of the
“Not proven” is the
recurred from the beginning of geological old Devonian.
time at this short interval, which is verdict which most geologists would
altogether inconsistent with the evidence return on the few alleged instances of
earlier Glacial periods; while, if Croll’s
of facts.
Croll expanded this crude theory into theory were true, we might expect to
one which had vastly more plausibility— find them frequently. Above all, it is
viz., that, although the effects of preces difficult to conceive how two or three
sion might be imperceptible while the great changes of temperature could have
�38
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
occurred during each geological forma advance of the glaciers of Greenland is
tion without showing unmistakeable traces found to be much more rapid than that
in the fauna, and still more distinctly in of the Swiss glaciers upon which previous
the flora, of the epoch. Ferns must theories had been based of the time
have died out and been succeeded by required for the advance of the Scandi
mosses j and these in their turn given navian and Laurentian ice-fields over
place to ferns two or three times over or Northern Europe and America.
more, during the growth of the coal. The two considerations may be briefly
measures, if any changes of climate had discussed. The first, as I have already
occurred at all resembling those of the shown, is based on a theory as to solar
recent Glacial period.
heat which is in the highest degree
The confidence, therefore, with which uncertain, which is being shaken by the
Croll’s theory was at first received has latest discoveries in physics, and which
been a good deal shaken, and, although requires rather to be tested by the posi
many geologists still believe that it may tive facts of geology than accepted as
have been one among other causes of an admitted conclusion to which those
the last great refrigeration, it can no facts must be squared. To allow it to
longer be considered as affording a distort those facts, or even to influence
reliable standard by which to measure us in interpreting them, is a preposses
the time in historical years, either of the sion only one degree less mischievous
Quaternary or still less of any previous than the theological prepossession which
geological epoch.
so long retarded the progress of true
We have to fall back, therefore, on science.
the geological evidence of deposition
The second consideration, as to the
and denudation, of the rise and fall of rate of human progress, is a mere ques
continents, of the erosion of rivers, tion of what each individual inquirer
valleys, and so forth, in any attempt to may think probable estimates, which will
decide between the 200,000 years of depend very much on his habit of mind
Lyell and the 20,000 years of Prestwich. and previous bias. There are positively
The former period, based on the minute no facts on which to base a conclusion
and careful investigations of Lyell, Geikie, as to the rate of progress of isolated
Croll, and other eminent geologists, held salvage tribes living in the hunter stage,
the field until the recent attempts of without contact with more civilised races.
Prestwich and others to reconcile geo The Australian savages, the South African
logy with Lord Kelvin’s theory of bushmen, the Negritos of the Andaman
solar heat, by reducing geological time Islands, may have lived as they were first
to about one-tenth of the accepted found by Europeans any time you like
amounts.
from 1,000 to 100,000 years, for aught
Prestwich, in his recently-published we know to the contrary. There is, in
works on geology, states that he has fact, no record of any such savage race
been influenced mainly by two con emerging into comparative civilisation
siderations :—
by any effort or natural progress of its
1. The wish to bridge over the wide own. Even much more advanced races
chasm between geologists and physicists trace back their knowledge of the higher
as to the possible duration of the supply arts and civilisation to some divine
of solar heat.
stranger, like the Peruvian Manco-Capac,
2. The difficulty of conceiving that or Chaldasan Oannes, who lands on their
man could have existed for a period of shores; or else, like the Egyptians,
80,000 or 100,000 years without change assign these inventions to gods, which
and without progress.
means that they are lost in the mists of
And the principal, or rather the sole, antiquity. The neolithic men of Europe
fact on which he relies is that the were clearly invaders, who brought a
�THE GLACIAL PERIOD
39
higher civilisation with them from Asia, decided change has taken place in the
and the knowledge of polished stone fauna, which in the Neolithic age corre
sponds closely with that of recent times
and metals was diffused by commerce.
It is incorrect, however, to say that in the same locality.
It is impossible, therefore, to deny
palaeolithic man shows no signs of change
or progress. On the contrary, the evi that both change and progress have
dence of palaeolithic deposits shows existed from the first appearance of man,
everywhere a progress which, although and there are absolutely no data to
it may have been extremely slow, is enable us to say what may have been
uniformly in the same direction—viz., the intervals of time required for the
upwards; There is no exception in the successive stages of this progress. All
hundreds, or rather thousands, ofinstances we can say is that, the more nearly
in which palaeolithic implements have primitive man approximated to a state
been found, to the law that the rudest of semi-animal existence, the slower
implements are found in the lowest must have been the steps by which he
deposits, and that improvements are emerged from it into comparative civili
traced in an ascending scale with sation.
We must fall back, therefore, on
ascending strata. This is most markedly
the case in caves, where, as in Kent’s geology for anything like reliable data on
Cavern, deposits of different ages have which to base any estimate of the time
been kept distinct and securely sealed required for the Quaternary or any
under separate sheets of stalagmite. In preceding geological epoch. Here, at
the rock-shelters, also, and river gravels, any rate, we are on comparatively certain
in which the relative antiquity is proved ground. So many feet of deposition, so
by their higher or lower levels, the same many of erosion, so many of elevation or
law prevails. In the oldest, where the depression; these are measurable facts
cave bear and mammoth are the cha which have been ascertained by compe
racteristic fossils, the stone axes, knives, tent observers. How much time is re
and scrapers are of the rudest description. quired to account for them ? This can
The celts or hatchets are mere lumps of only be an approximation, based on our
stone, roughly chipped, and with a blunt knowledge of the time in which similar
butt-end, evidently intended to be held results, on a smaller scale, have been
in the hand. In the next stage we find produced by existing natural laws within
finer chipping, and celts adapted for the Historical period. Still, if we argue
hafting; while arrow and javelin heads from natural causes, and ignore imaginary
appear, at first rude, but gradually cataclysms and supernatural interferences,
becoming barbed and finely wrought. we may arrive at some sort of maximum
Still later, with the advent of the reindeer and minimum limits of time within which
in large herds, affording in their horns a the observed results must lie.
This was the process by which Lyell
softer material than stone, a remarkable
improvement takes place, and eyed and his school of geologists arrived at
needles, barbed harpoons, and in some their estimates of geological time, and
cases engraved and sculptured portraits it is only by a careful study of their
of animals of the chase, testify to a works that it is possible to see how
decided advance in the arts of civilisa closely the chain is woven, and what a
tion. Above all these come the weapons mass of minute investigations support
and implements of the Neolithic age, their conclusions. The one solid fact
which, as already stated, are separated which Prestwich opposes to them is the
by a sharp line from the earlier records rapid advance of the glaciers of Green
of palaeolithic man. No polished stone land. Recent observations by Rink and
has ever been found in deposits belonging other explorers have shown that the
clearly to the Palaeolithic period, and a fronts of these glaciers advance much
�40
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
more rapidly than the rate which had
been assumed from the advance of the
Swiss glaciers.
The average rate of advance of the
great glaciers which discharge themselves
into Baffin’s Bay is about thirty-five feet
daily, or two and three-quarter miles
yearly. Calculating from these data,
Prestwich arrives at the conclusion that
the old ice-sheets which radiated from
the Scandinavian and Canadian moun
tains to a distance of about 500 miles
might have been formed in from 4,000 to
6,000 years. The great changes which
have taken place since the retreat of the
ice-sheets he accounts for by supposing
that, with a greater rainfall, these changes
went on much more rapidly than they
have done during the Historical period.
These views, however, did not command
the assent of other eminent geologists
who were present when Professor Prestwich’s paper was read, and they are open
to very obvious objections.
The rate of advance of a glacier thrust
outwards by such an immense mass of
ice as caps Greenland, through a narrow
fiord, on a steep descending gradient,
into a deep sea which floats off its front
in icebergs, affords little test of the
advance of an ice-sheet spread out with
a front of 1,000 miles over a whole con
tinent, unaided by gravity, and obstructed
by ranges of mountains 2,000 or 3,000
feet high, which it has to surmount.
Nor does the rate of advance of such a
sheet afford any clue to the time during
which it may have remained stationary
or been receding. The two latter condi
tions evidently depend on the climate at
the extremity of the ice-sheet, when the
ice pushed forward by it is melted by the
summer heat. As long-as the climate of
Switzerland remains the same, the Swiss
glaciers will remain at their present level
with slight local and temporary varia
tions ; and this must have been equally
true of the great Scandinavian and Cana
dian glaciers. They may have advanced
in 5,000 years, remained stationary for
50,000 years, and taken 100,000 years to
retreat, for anything we know to the con- |
trary, from the Greenland glaciers. Nor
is it a question of one advance and retreat
only, for there is distinct evidence of
several advances and retreats, and of
prolonged Inter-Glacial periods.
In the cliffs of the east of England
four boulder-clays are found, separated
by sands and gravels deposited as each
ice-sheet successively receded and melted;
and in France there is evidence of at
least one Inter-Glacial period, sufficiently
warm and prolonged to allow the Canary
laurel and fig--tree to supplant the lichen
and Arctic willow. The only real test of
time is from the amount of geological
work that has been done in the way of
denudation, deposition, elevation, and
depression since Northern Europe and
Northern America were covered by such
an ice-cap as now covers Greenland.
Tried by these tests, the conclusions
point uniformly to a longer rather than
a shorter duration of the Quaternary,
including the Glacial, period. If we take
denudation, we may refer to the fact that,
since palaeolithic man left his implements
on the banks of the old Solent river
above Bournemouth, the level of its
valley and of the adjacent land has been
denuded by that small stream to a depth
of 150 feet, and the erosion of the sea
now going on at the Needles has eaten
away a wide range of chalk downs which
were then continuous from the Isle of
Wight to Dorsetshire. The same action
of waves and tides as is now eroding
Shakespeare’s Cliff has removed the
chalk ridge between that cliff and Cape
Grisnez, and made England an island.
The valleys of the Thames, the Somme,
and other rivers of the south of England
and north of France have been excavated
to a depth of more than one hundred
feet and a width of miles by streams
which have produced no perceptible
change since the Roman period. And
a still more striking proof of the immense
time which has elapsed since the Glacial
period is afforded by the fact, stated in
Prestwich’s Geology, that the great basaltic
plateau of the Cascade Range in British
Columbia, which is cut through by the
�THE GLACIAL PERIOD
4i
argument from the disappearance of
Columbia river to the depth of 2,000 to e
the downs between the Isle of Wight and
3,000 feet, is underlain by the Northern t
Boulder-drift. Consider what a lapse of Dorsetshire, and between France and
time this requires. Since the Boulder- England, would remain the same. . Lord
1
Avebury estimates the rate of erosion of
drift, and therefore since the Glacial .
period, vast sheets of basalt must have a perpendicular cliff of solid chalk. at
<
only a few inches per century, at which
been poured out by volcanoes now <
extinct, and those sheets of hard rock rate it must have taken an enormous
1
time to wear away the chalk ridge
cut down by river action to the levels at 1
between the Needlesand Ballard downs;
which the relics of the old ice-cap now
but even if we read yards instead of
appear.
As regards the erosion of valleys, it is inches it must have taken a far longer
said that there may have been a much time than Prestwich assigns for the
whole Glacial period. There is nothing
greater rainfall formerly than in historical
times, and therefore erosion may have upon which reliable data are more
wanted than as to the rate of erosion of
gone on much more rapidly. Doubtless
there may have been more extensive inun solid cliffs by the action of the sea, for
dations while great masses of ice and here the hypothesis of a larger rainfall
and greater floods could not be invoked
snow were melting under the summer
to accelerate the rate, as in the case of
heat of an improving climate; but there
seems no adequate reason to account the erosion of valleys.
If from denudation we turn to deposi
for a much greater rainfall. The maxim
ex nihilo nihil fit applies to rain as to the tion, we find equally conclusive evidence
of the immense duration of the Glacial
other operations of nature, and more
rainfall
implies
more evaporation, period. The deposit known as loess
brought by warm winds blowing over is universally admitted to be one of fine
warm oceans, and deposited when it glacial mud, deposited tranquilly from
comes in contact with land at a lower sheets of inundation water, which have
overflowed wide tracts during the melt
temperature. We already have these
conditions in Western Europe, and the ing of the ice and snow, as the climate
improved and glaciers retreated. It is,
Gulf Stream and prevalent westerly
winds make the climate more moist and in fact, just such a loam as the Arve
genial than is due to the latitude. To deposits every summer on the meadows
have had it still more moist these condi of Chamouni, when the turbid river
tions must have been intensified, and issues in a swollen stream from the
there is no reason to suppose that in bottom of the mer-de-glace^ and overflows
recent times, and with the present con its banks. Now, this loess covers, as
with a mantle, the valley systems of all
figuration of sea and land, the Gulf
the great rivers of the Northern hemi
Stream could have been much warmer
than it now is. If the land had extended sphere, whose upper courses lie within
farther to the westward, the effect must the area which was covered by ice and
have been to diminish rather than snow during the Glacial period. The
increase the rainfall in the districts Rhone, the Rhine, the Danube, the
where the Somme and the Thames were Mississippi, the Yang-tse-kiang, all run
excavating their valleys ; and with more through cliffs of loess, which also fills
extensive forests and morasses rain-water their tributary valleys and spreads to a
would be absorbed as in a sponge, and considerable height up the slopes of the
descend more gradually and less in hills and over the adjoining plateaux.
It lies thickest in the valleys, dying off as
tumultuous floods.
But, even if a greater rainfall were; it ascends the slopes, though it can often
l
granted, it would not affect the erosion be traced to a height of 2,000 or 3,000
>
of solid chalk cliffs by the sea, and the feet. The thin beds of loess at these
,
�42
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
heights and on the plateaux are probably There is distinct evidence that since the
the result of the melting of frozen snow; first epoch of intense cold a great part of
but the great masses in the valleys are Britain has been submerged, until only a
evidently the accumulations of mud from, few of the highest mountains stood out
the overflows of the existing rivers as from the Arctic Sea as an archipelago of
they gradually cut their valley-systems frozen islands, and has been since
down from higher to lower levels.
elevated, with several minor fluctuations,
These accumulations invariably corres to its present height. Marine shells of
pond to the configuration of the existing an Arctic character have been found on
valleys, and overlie coarser sands and Moel-Tryfane, a hill in North Wales, in
gravels, showing that they have been glacial drift 1,392 feet above the level of
made since the rivers lost the transport the sea; and similar drift is traced con
ing power which they possessed when tinuously, both in Wales and Scotland,
they ran with a more rapid current to a height of over 2,000 feet. It rests
during the earlier stages of the retreat on rocks which had been already
of the glaciers. The thickness of this rounded and polished by glaciers.
accumulation of fine mud is stated by
It is evident, therefore, that sufficient
Lyell to be 800 feet or more above the time must have elapsed during an inter
existing alluvial plain of the Rhine, and mediate phase of the Glacial period for a
in other rivers it is even greater. It is depression of more than 2,000 feet,
impossible that such a thickness could followed by a re-elevation of an equal
have been accumulated in anything like amount. Consider what this means.
the shorter time assumed by some geolo All we know of these secular movements
gists for the duration of the whole of large masses of land shows them to be
Glacial period.
And yet it represents excessively slow. Even the small local
only one phase of its concluding period ; elevations and depressions, like those of
and it not only contains human remains, the temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli, which
but is itself clearly posterior to many of have taken place principally in volcanic
the sands and gravels in which remains districts, have not exceeded a few feet in
of man and his associated Quaternary historical times.
fauna have been undoubtedly found.
The deltas of rivers have increased,
It is difficult to suppose that the loess and the sea has sometimes eroded and
can have accumulated much more sometimes added to the outline of coasts;
rapidly than the alluvium of the Nile, but there has been no change for more
which has been proved to raise the soil than 2,000 years in the general level of
of Egypt at the rate of about three inches sea and land in any of the districts known
in a century. At this rate it would to the ancient world. The spit of shingle
require 320,000 years to accumulate the which connects St. Michael’s Mount with
800 feet assigned by Lyell to the loess Cornwall is still covered at flood and dry
of the Rhine valley. Making every at ebb tide, as when the ancient Britons
allowance for a quicker rate of deposition, carted their tin across it to barter with
it seems impossible that this deposit, Tyrian merchants. Marseilles is a sea
which is only an interlude in one of the port, as it was when the Phenician galleys
later stages of the Glacial period, can entered its harbour. In Egypt it is
have been accumulated in anything like evident that no considerable change of
the time assigned by Prestwich for the level, either of the land or of the Medi
whole of that period.
terranean, can have occurred since
If we consider the elevations and Menes embanked the Nile 7,000 years
depressions of land which have taken ago.
place since the commencement of the
The only authentic records we have of
Glacial period, the evidence all points to the rise or fall of masses of land as ascer
the same conclusion of immense antiquity. tained by actual measurement are those
�THE GLACIAL PERIOD
43
of Scandinavia and South America. The and Post-Glacial periods, of which this
Pacific shore of the latter was upheaved was only one of the intermediate phases,
five or six feet for a distance of 500 or within anything like the limits of from
600 miles by the shock of a single earth 25,000 to 35,000 years assigned to them
quake, and remains of human art, such by Professor Prestwich. On the con
as plaited rushes and string, have been trary, all the evidence from existing
found in a bed of marine shells near known facts points rather to an exten
Callao, showing that this part of the sion than to a contraction of the times
continent had been elevated eighty-five assigned by Lyell and Croll; and, if the
feet since it was inhabited by man. This, theory of the latter is correct, it would
however, gives no clue to the rate of almost seem as if his first period of
elevation, since we know nothing of the maximum refrigeration, 700,000 years
date of man’s appearance in Peru, and ago, was that of the formation of the first
the whole area is one of volcanic dis great ice-cap. And, whatever the time
turbance, which has been raised by may be, it is clear that in its earlier
successive earthquake shocks, and not stages man was already widely distri
buted over the earth, while there is the
by gradual elevation.
In the case- of Scandinavia, however, strongest probability that his origin must
where raised beaches up to the height of have taken place very much further back
600 feet above the sea level afford proof in the Pliocene, or even in the Miocene,
of much recent elevation, and where period.
It must always be remembered that,
there are no signs of volcanic action,
attempts have been made to measure the while the date of human origins in years
rate accurately by marks cut on rocks. or centuries is a question of great
The results, carefully considered by Sir scientific interest, it makes little difference,
C. Lyell, show a slow, uniform rate of as regards the religious and philosophical
elevation of two or three feet in a century, aspects of the question, whether it
where the rate is at its maximum at extends over 50,000 or 500,000 years.
Gefle, ninety miles north of Stockholm, In any case, the fact is beyond question
which dies out towards the North Cape that it is one of immense antiquity, far
and is converted into a slow depression transcending any period recorded by
in the south of Sweden. At this rate of history or tradition, and that during
three feet per century, the depression this immense period the course of
which carried the hills of Wales and humanity has been upward, and not
Man has not fallen, but
Scotland 2,000 feet down would have downward.
required 66,666 years, and its elevation risen, and arts, morals, societies, and
an equal period, so that, without any civilisation have been slowly developed
allowance for the time the sea-bottom from an animal-like condition of the
may have remained stationary, this inter lowest savagery.
Perhaps the issue between the long
lude of the Glacial period would have
required 133,333 years. Of course, it is and short dates of the Glacial period can
not implied that this was the real time, be most closely joined if we take that
or that the rate both of elevation and portion of it which comes nearest to
depression may not have been faster; historical times, and is known as the
but all the evidence points to its having Post-Glacial. Prestwich assigns to this
been gradual and not paroxysmal, as period a duration of “ 8,000 to 10,000
there are no traces of any contempora years or less ”—that is, a duration of not
neous earthquakes or volcanoes in Wales more than 2,000 or 3,000 years before
or Scotland. And, whatever the rate may the time when we know for certain that
have been, it is scarcely possible to sup a dense population and high civilisation
pose that it can have been such as to already existed in Egypt and Chaldaea.
enable us to compress the whole Glacial I I am not aware that he assigns any
�44
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
reason for this highly improbable date,
except the conjecture that the erosion of
river valleys may have gone on more
rapidly, owing to a greater rainfall.
Now, the duration of this Post-Glacial
period is a question, not of conjecture
or theory, but of a vast number of
definite and measurable facts. In the
British Islands these facts have been
carefully examined and ascertained with
great accuracy, mainly by the labours of
the Geological Survey. An eminent
officer of this Survey, Mr. T. Mellard
Reade, who has worked for many years
at these beds in Lancashire and Cheshire,
and is one of the best authorities
on the subject, read, in February,
1888, a paper before the Geological
Society, in which he gave a minute des
cription of the successive changes in
Post-Glacial times, by which the Mersey
valley and estuary were brought into
their present condition, with an estimate
of the time they may have required.
His estimate is “ that in round figures
60,000 years for Post-Glacial time is a
reasonable one, and, as represented by
these changes, well within the mark.”
This is not a random estimate, but
based on a careful calculation of the
different changes which are shown by
sections and borings to have actually
taken place. At the close of the Glacial
period the district was submerged, and
the valleys of the old Pre-Glacial rivers
were levelled up to a height of at least
200 feet by marine boulder-clay. The
land then rose until its surface became
an undulating upland plain, through
which the present rivers began to cut the
existing valleys. A mass of boulder
clay 200 feet in depth, and several miles
in width, must thus have been removed
by sub-aerial denudation before the next
stage, which consisted of a general
depression of the area, as is proved by
the fact that borings show a series of
estuarine deposits with marine shells in
places fifty feet thick, overlying the
boulder - clay, and levelling up the
inequalities of its surface due to sub
aerial erosion.
Above these silts and
clays is a peat-bed, containing stumps of
trees with their roots running down into
the clays below. This is a remarkable
deposit, for a similar submerged forest
bed is to be traced all round the shores
of the British Islands, from Devonshire
to the Orkneys. Evidently at a recent
period, geologically speaking, there has
been an age of forests which flourished,
and in their decay formed great beds of
peat, in localities where no trees have
grown within the Historical period.
Before these forests could have grown,
the marine silts and clays must have
been elevated above the sea to a suffi
cient height to become dry land and
covered with trees, and the climate must
have been very different from that at
present prevailing. It must have been
more of a continental and less of an
insular climate, and in all probability
the German Ocean was then dry land,
and the British Islands were connected
with an Europe which extended west
ward up to the ioo-fathom line. In no
other way can the existence of submerged
forests, and vast masses of peat with
remains of trees, be accounted for in
such isolated islands as those of Orkney
and Shetland, now swept by ocean blasts,
where no vestige of a tree has grown
for at least 2,000 years, when a Roman
author described them as “ carentes
sylva.”
But, at whatever height the land may
have stood during this Forest period, it
is evident that it must have subsided, at
any rate to the extent necessary to bring
the submerged forests to their present
level of some feet below low-water mark.
Or, indeed, some twenty-four feet more,
for there is evidence that a rise to this
extent has taken place, quite recently,
along a considerable portion of the
British coast, as shown by raised beaches.
When I say recently, I mean in geological
time, for in historical time there has
been no appreciable change of level
since the occupation of Britain by the
Romans, or for nearly 2,000 years.
In other regions, however, we have
still more conclusive evidence of the
�THE GLACIAL PERIOD
45
like the hippopotamus—which is found
great length of time which has elapsed
as far north as Yorkshire—-could by no
since any appreciable change has taken
possibility have lived in a country where
place in the physical geography of Europe,
the lakes and rivers were bound m ice
and in the present relative levels of sea
for a great part of the year. And still
and land. The localities described by
more conclusively by the presence in the
Homer in the Odyssey can be identified,
and the very cave and beach pointed south of France of a vegetation compris
ing the fig-tree and delicate Canary
out in Ithaca, on which Ulysses was
laurel in the region over which, at
landed by the Phoenician mariners. The
another period of the Glacial age,, herds
annals of Egypt carry us back . still
of reindeer roamed, feeding on lichens
farther, and show that no appreciable
and Arctic-willows, and accompanied, by
change can have taken place in the
the musk-ox, the glutton, the lemming,
levels of sea and land in the Eastern
and other exclusively Arctic animals.
Mediterranean for at least 7>oo° Years’
But, although the evidence for the
and probably for much longer.
great antiquity of the Glacial period
With these facts, even if we had no
other evidence than that of the sub seems to be conclusive, it must be con
merged forests, Professor Prestwich’s fessed that we are as far as ever from
estimate of 8,000 to 10,000 years for being able to assign any reliable explana
tion of the causes which produced it.
the whole Post-Glacial period down to
It came on suddenly, for the interval
the present time seems totally inadequate,
between the temperate Pliocene and the
and Mr. Mellard Reade’s of 60,000 years
extreme rigour of the first great ice-sheet
much more probable. In fact, it seems
is, geologically speaking, very short.
impossible that changes, such as. those
demonstrated to have occurred in the Only a few feet of clay and sand separate
the Cromer forest, in which the great
Mersey valley, can have been accom
southern elephant, the Elephas Meriplished within a period shorter than that
dionalis, and other Southern mammalia
which is shown by historical records to
roamed, from the boulder-clay of the
have elapsed in Egypt without perceptible
Scandinavian ice-sheet, which carried
change.
.
But, whether the duration of the Post- rocks from Lapland and Norway across
the North Sea and over hills and valleys
Glacial period be more or less, it is
almost to the centre of Europe. This
evidently a small fraction of the time
first period was the coldest, and after
which is required to account for the
several oscillations of heat and cold, each
work done during the preceding Glacial
period, or rather periods, for there is apparently less intense than its pre
decessor, the climate of the Northern
distinct evidence that there were several
advances and retreats of the ice-sheets, hemisphere finally settled down to its
_
and alternations of climates, during some present conditions.
These facts seem to negative most, ot
of which the winter temperature of
the theories, or rather guesses, which
Western Europe must have been higher
have been hazarded to account for this
than it is at present. The succession of
great and sudden refrigeration. It could
ice-sheets is clearly shown . by the
not be due to any cooling of the earth,
sections afforded by the coast cliffs of the
east of England, where four successive for this must have been gradual and pro
gressive, and the great cold of the first
boulder-clays are shown, separated, by
masses of sand and gravel deposited period, instead of decreasing, and dis
during the melting and retreat of each appearing, must have gone on increasing.
ice-sheet.
The alternation. of mild It has been supposed that the solar
Inter-Glacial with severe Glacial periods system on its journey through space may
is shown by the frequent presence, in have entered into, and emerged from,
regions very much colder than those of
caves of a Southern fauna, some of which,
�46
THE GLACIAL PERIOD
former ages or at present; but such a
When we inquire under what con
cause is at present little more than a con ditions great glaciers are now formed,
jecture. Nor is it possible that any we find them to be mainly heavy snow
alteration in the position of the earth’s falls combined with low temperature.
axis can have occurred within the earth, Thus the snow-fall is very heavy on the
for this would have disarranged its Pacific slope of the Sierra Nevada and
equatorial protuberance, which is pre coast range of Northern California and
cisely that of a fluid mass, rotating about British Columbia; but it does not, as
the present axis, and could not be formerly, produce glaciers, because the
altered without producing a complete temperature is not low enough to convert
cataclysm. No one can suppose that an the winter snow into the frozen “neve”
equatorial protuberance of more than which is the source of glaciers, and to
twenty miles can have been shifted produce the conditions under which the
through many degrees of latitude during accumulation finds its way to lower
the short interval between the close of levels by solid rather than by fluid rivers.
the Pliocene and the commencement of Again, extreme cold does not of itself
the Glacial period.
produce glaciers, as is seen in Northern
Neither can the theories which have Russia and Siberia. The influence of
been applied to earlier geological epochs ocean-currents is also apparent from the
of a warmer blanket of watery vapour effects of the Gulf Stream, which gives
and carbonic-dioxide in the atmosphere open winters to the coasts and islands
account for such a sudden refrigeration of Western Europe, in a latitude as high
and its gradual disappearance. The as that of the southern extremity of
conditions under which the Pre-Glacial Greenland.
Cromer forest flourished and those at
Here, then, are real causes which may
present existing in the same locality account for such a Glacial period as
cannot have been so different as to has been experienced, without invoking
imply a new order of cosmic or telluric utterly unknown and conjectural theories.
causes.
But there are considerable difficulties in
There remain only two at all plausible the way of accepting Lyell’s' theory as
theories—the astronomical one of Croll, the sole and sufficient explanation. The
and that of I,yell, who explains every suddenness with which the intense cold
thing by a different configuration of sea came on is one of them. It is difficult
and land. Croll’s theory explains many to suppose that such a great elevation
of the facts admirably, but, as we have of land in the North Atlantic as
seen, it cannot be accepted with con would be required took place, almost at
fidence, in the absence of proof that a once, in the short interval in which the
succession of Glacial periods has occurred Pliocene passed almost continuously
in previous geological epochs. Nor is it into the Quaternary. We are tolerably
very consistent with the fact that the certain, from the similarity of the fauna
cold period came on suddenly, and was and flora, that America was connected
greatest at first; while, if due to the with the Old Continent during the
eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, it ought Miocene period by a land passage across
to have come on gradually, and only . the North Atlantic, and yet there are
attained its maximum simultaneously no traces of a rigorous climate. On the
with that of the eccentricity. Lyell’s contrary, a climate almost sub-tropical
theory is, on the whole, most generally prevailed then in Greenland and Spitzaccepted, as actual experience shows bergen, far within the Arctic Circle.
that high land in high latitudes is a
Again, the Gulf Stream must always
cause of glacial conditions, and also have been an important factor in deter
that oceanic currents are a main factor mining the climate; but recent theories
in producing climate.
I as to the great geological antiquity of
�tertiary man
the Atlantic Ocean make it difficult to
conceive how this Stream can have een
greatly diverted from its present course,
in recent geological times. And t e
fact that the ice-cap extended much
farther to the south in North America
than in Europe makes it almost certain
that the influence of the warm Gulf and
cold Polar streams must have been felt
during the Glacial period, as they are
now. How otherwise can we account
for the fact that the difference of tem
perature between Europe and America
seems to have been almost the same
during the period of extreme cold m
both as it is now under temperate con
ditions? And the diversion of the
Gulf Stream would certainly tend to
produce less evaporation in the North
47
Atlantic, and therefore less fall of rain
or snow on Northern lands, whereas the
contrary is required to account for the
ice-caDS. We must conclude, therefore,
that, while Lyell’s theory affords the most
probable explanation, we are still in a
state of great uncertainty as to.the causes
which may have co-operated in bringing
about the last and greatest vicissitude of
climate, the Glacial period, which is so
interesting to us from its close connec
tion with the origin of man. The causes
and duration of the last Glacial period,
and whether there have been several,
and, if so, how many, of such periods
in former geological ages, are among the
problems of the future which are pressing
for solution.
Chapter V.
TERTIARY MAN
Antiquity of Man—Man part of Qu.atfna7
Fauna—What this Implies—Historical and
Neolithic Periods—Palaeolithic—Caves and
River Gravels—Glacial and Inter-Glacial
Deposits—Wide Distribution of Paleolithic
Implements in Early Quaternary Deposits—
Origin of Species—Evolution and Migration
—Diversity of Human Types—Objections o
Tertiary Man—Specialisation of type
Survival through Vicissitudes of Climate
Positive Evidence for—St. Prest—Thenay
Tagus Valley—Monte Aperto—Cuts in Bones
of Baleonotus—Elephas Meridionalis and
Halitherium—Auvergne Worked Flints; 1
Pliocene Tuffs-Castelnedolo-Human bones
in Pliocene—Olmo—Evidence from America
—Californian Auriferous Gravels—Tuolumne
and Calaveras Skulls—Age of GrayelsSkertchley’s Stone Implements—The Nampa
Image—Brazilian Caves—Pampiean Strata
Summary of Evidence.
geology, which only indirectly affect the
unscientific mass of mankind. It shatters
at a blow what had been for centuries
the axioms of the whole Christian world
respecting the origin of man,.his place
in creation, and the course of his develop
ment. A literal acceptance of the dates
and narrative of Genesis was assumed
to be the sole basis of knowledge on the
subject, and to question what was told
bv a Divine revelation was universally
considered to be alike ridiculous and
As far as science had a word to say it
was thought to confirm theology, for did
not Cuvier himself lay down as an axiom
that no human remains had been found
in a fossil state, or in conjunction with
the remains of any of the extinct animals
Of all the discoveries of modern science, And although a few scientific men here
that of the antiquity of man has been
and there, basing their ideas mainly on
the most startling. It is not like the
the dates of Egyptian monuments,
abstract discoveries of astronomy and
�48
TERTIARY MAN
pleaded for a somewhat longer period
than the date assigned by Archbishop
Usher, there may fairly be said to have
been a universal consensus of opinion
among all men, learned or unlearned,
that the existence of the human race on
our planet had not lasted longer than
some 6,000 or 7,000 years before the
present period. This was the universal
opinion only forty years ago, when in
1859 Mr. Prestwich read his memorable
paper to the Royal Society, confirming
the discoveries of M. Boucher de
Perthes, and proving beyond a possi
bility of doubt that flint implements,
fashioned by human hands, were found
in Quaternary gravels and brick-earths of
the valley of the Somme in juxtaposition
with remains of the mammoth and other
extinct animals, which must have been
deposited when the river ran at more
than one hundred feet above its present
level. The careful exploration of the
Devonshire caves of Brixham and Kent’s
Hole by committees of competent geolo
gists removed the last doubts on the
subject, and since then evidence has
accumulated so rapidly from all quarters
of the world that the existence of
Quaternary man has become as certain
a fact as that the earth revolves round
its axis.
Consider what this implies.
The
Tertiary epoch, in which mammalian life
for the first time appears prominently
and an approximation is made to existing
conditions, is itself but a small fraction
of the succession of geological ages since
our planet became the abode of animal
and vegetable life. At the outside, its four
divisions of Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene,
and Pliocene may together represent onetwentieth part of the thickness of fossiliferous strata from the Cambrian to the
Cretaceous. The Quaternary period
again is but a fraction of the Tertiary;
and the recent or existing epoch, includ
ing the Historic and Pre-Historic, is but
a fraction of the Quaternary. The recent
or Historical epoch, characterised by the
existing fauna, and, in the main, by the
existing climate and disposition of sea
and land, is certainly not less than 7,000
years old, when Egyptian records and
monuments show us a populous and
highly civilised nation already existing
in the valley of the Nile and civilised
empires of almost as early a date in
Chaldaea and China. The Pre-Historic
period, characterised by the existing
fauna and by neolithic man, must have
lasted much longer before such empires
could have been developed from the
rude and primitive civilisation shown by
the Scandinavian Kjokken-middens, the
Swiss Lake-dwellings, and other early
records of the Neolithic period. Borings
in the Nile valley have everywhere
brought up rude pottery and other
neolithic remains from depths below
the foundations of the oldest historical
monuments, which, at the present rate
of silting up by the annual inundations
of the river, imply an antiquity of about
26,000 years. This may not be quite
accurate as a chronological standard in
years, but undoubtedly this, and other
similar calculations from physical changes
during the Neolithic period, all point to
the conclusion that 15,000 or 20,000
years is the shortest time that can have
elapsed since its commencement.
Then comes a long break.
The
climate, geographical and physical con
ditions, and fauna have undergone great
changes when we next meet with traces
of man, and the Quaternary period
stretches back into the Pliocene, through
an immense though unknown duration
of time. This much, however, is known,
that it embraces two, if not more, great
Glacial periods, during the first and most
severe of which the northern halves of
Europe and America were buried under
an ice-cap, in places 5,000 or 6,000 feet
thick, resembling that of modern Green
land, and driving all terrestrial life before
it into more southern regions. These
Glacial periods alternated with long
Inter-Glacial ages, when the ice retreated,
and vegetation and animal life again
returned to their old abodes, and again
advanced and retreated, finally occupy
ing their present stations when the
�TER T1A R Y MA N
49
glaciers had shrunk into the valleys of and flint flakes and scrapers, are almost
identically of the same type.
the loftier mountains.
These facts have such an important
It is certain, also, that vast changes in
the physical geography and configuration bearing on the origin of the human race
of sea, land, and rivers. occurred during that it is desirable to consider them in
this period. The British Islands, or a some detail.
The discoveries, both of implements
large portion of them, were at one time
submerged to a depth of certainly i,5oo> and of human skulls and skeletons, have
and probably 2,000 or 2,500, feet beneath now been so numerous, especially in the
an Arctic sea, presenting nothing above caves of France, England, Germany, and
it but an archipelago of what are now Belgium, that it has enabled_ geologists
mountain peaks while at another time not only to prove the existence of
they were part of an European continent, Quaternary man, but to a considerable
then connected with Africa, and across extent to analyse and classify the succes
which huge extinct lions, tigers, bears, sive stages of his progress.
The earliest is that known as the Cave
elephants, and rhinoceroses roamed, and
left their remains in the caves of lime bear epoch, which occupies the lowest
stone districts and the sands and gravels position in the oldest caves, and in
of rivers when they flowed 100 feet which the rudest human implements are
or more above their present level. found associated with a preponderance
During part of this period a southern of bones belonging to this formidable
fauna, and even the hippopotamus, found animal. Thus, in Kent’s Cavern, in
their way as far north as Yorkshire, Devonshire, we have in descending
testifying to the existence of great rivers order:—
1. A layer of black mould, near the
flowing from the south across this
entrance, from three to twelve inches
Quaternary continent.
Now, three facts have come out clearly thick, containing successively relics of
the Historical and Neolithic periods,
from the latest research.
1. That man is a characteristic mem and bones of existing species of animals.
2. A bed of granular stalagmite from
ber of this Quaternary fauna just as
much as any of these extinct animals ; one to three feet thick, securely sealing
or, in other words, that, wherever you all below it.
3. Red cave earth, in places five to six
find the mammoth, cave bear, or woolly
rhinoceros, you may expect to find man j feet thick.
4. A bed of older crystalline stalagmite,
and where you find man in old deposits
you may expect to find the mammoth, in places twelve feet thick.
5. Breccia of angular stones; red-clay
cave bear, and rhinoceros.
2. That the man whom you thus find and bones to the rock floor of the cave.
In the lower deposits (4 and 5) the
is “ Palaeolithic man ”—that is,' man in
such a rude and savage state that he has bones are numerous, but almost exclu
not yet attained the art of polishing sively those of the cave-bear, and a few
stones, and uses implements roughly human implements have been found,
fashioned by chipping from flints or other including a flint hache or celt in the
breccia, which is the oldest deposit of
hard stones of the district.
3. That these rude implements are all. In the upper stalagmite, and cave
found in the caves and gravels of the earth beneath it, were found numerous
Quaternary period in Europe, Asia, human implements of various sorts,
Africa, and America—in fact, throughout including a bone needle and barbed
the whole world, so far as it has been harpoon, associated with remains of lion,
hitherto explored; and, wherever they cave-bear, mammoth, rhinoceros, hyena,
are found, the rudest and earliest imple reindeer, Irish elk, and other usual
ments, such as stone hatchets or celts, animals of the Quaternary fauna,
�5o
TERTIARY MAN
including one tooth of the Machairodus
or sabre-toothed tiger, which is charac
teristic of the Pliocene fauna.
Similar facts have been recorded in
such a multitude of caves in France,
Belgium, and Germany, especially in
those of the South of France, that it is
a perfectly well-established fact that the
Palaeolithic period may be divided
roughly into three, groups—an upper
one, in which the reindeer was very
abundant, and
human implements
showed a considerable advance in
civilisation; a middle stage, in which
the reindeer was scarcer and the
mammoth more abundant, with ruder
human implements, though still showing
considerable design; and the lowest of
all, with fewer remains of the mammoth
and more of the cave-bear, and with
fewer implements, and those exclusively
of stone of a very rude type.
This is exactly what might be expected
if the theory of evolution applies to the
human race. The first dawn of intelli
gence when primitive man emerged
from the animal state would show itself
by picking up natural stones to use as
tools or weapons of offence. He would
naturally select stones of the type of the
hache, with a sharp point for crushing in
the skull, and a blunt butt-end to give
weight to the blow and a firm grasp for
the hand. This would hardly require
more intelligence than that of the
gorilla, who, living in forests, uses
branches of trees as clubs; or of apes,
who throw stones at enemies. The next
stage would be to improve natural
stones, or supply them if deficient, by
chipping, so as to give a sharper and
more solid point or edge, and a similar
process would apply to flint chips used
as knives or scrapers.
After a while, some genius would dis
cover that, by hafting the hache and
attaching it as a lance to a long handle,
he could kill without coming to such
dangerous close quarters as was neces
sary when striking with the hand. This
would lead to finer chipping, both to
ensure penetration at the point, and to
fit the butt-end for attachment. And
finally the invention of the bow would
lead to diminished size and still finer
chipping for the arrow-head. From this
point the progress can be readily traced
to the invention of barbs for arrows and
harpoons, and the occasional substitution
of bone for stone as being more easily
scraped into the desired form; and from
these the evolution is uninterrupted up
to the beautifully finished weapons of
the Neolithic and Bronze periods. But
the starting-point is the rude stone
hache, such as is universally found in
the oldest deposits of caves and river
gravels.
There has been a good deal of discus
sion as to the purposes for which these
implements were employed; but there
can be little doubt that their primary
use was for killing large game and
human enemies.
The bushmen of
South Africa, who represent most nearly
this primitive savage state, use for this
purpose implements so closely resem
bling those of the river drifts that some
of those exhibited at the Colonial Exhi
bition, and labelled “pourle gros gibier,”
might have been specimens from Amiens
or St. Acheul.
A good deal of discussion has also
taken place among British geologists as
to the exact place, with reference to the
great Glacial periods, occupied by the
earliest drift and cave implements which
have been found in this country. Most
of them are Post-Glacial—that is, later
than the retreat of the last of the two or
more great ice-caps which extended over
all except a few of the southern counties
of England, during the Quaternary
period.
Some, however, are clearly
proved to be either Inter-Glacial or
Pre-Glacial, being overlaid by boulder
clay, as at Brandon, and in the caves of
Cae Gwyn in North Wales ; while as to
the lowest deposits of many caves, as,
for instance, the lower stalagmite and
bone breccia of Kent’s Cavern, there is
no distinct evidence except of extreme
antiquity, though the presumption is
strong that they are either Pre-Glacial or
�TER T1A R Y MA N
Inter-Glacial. Mr. Pengelley, who has
devoted years of research to Kent’s
Cavern, expresses an unhesitating opinion
that the lowest deposits are Pre-Glacial.
As fresh evidence accumulates, it all
points towards the existence of man on
British soil in Pre-Glacial, or very early
Glacial, times, and therefore seems, to
carry it back far beyond the period
assigned to it by Post-Glacial geologists.
Thus, quite recently, rude palseolithic
implements of unmistakeable human
design have been found near Wye, in
Kent, at an elevation of upwards of 300
feet, in a gravel which does not corres
pond with the existing valleys, but which
overspreads the chalk plateau of the
North Downs, and was drained by rivers
running southwards in a directly oppo
site course to that of the present streams.
Professor Prestwich, whose bias, as we
have seen, is towards shortening the
period of man’s antiquity, after a per
sonal examination of the locality, came
to the conclusion that this drift was
immensely older than the ordinary highlevel gravels of existing rivers, and in all
probability was Pre-Glacial.
Since Professor Prestwich’s paper was
read, similar palseolithic implements have
been found by Mr. Worthington Smith,
on the Chalk downs near Dunstable, up
to a height of 759 feet above Ordnance
datum, and some of them embedded in
the brown clay which, with gravel, covers
the chalk. But the question of the evi
dence afforded by England is compara
tively unimportant, for the wider induc
tion of continental experience settles
conclusively the general relations of
palseolithic man to the Quaternary
period. It is absolutely certain that in
the later stages of the Palaeolithic record,
when man had already made consider
able progress, and was able to draw and
carve figures of the contemporary animals
with a good deal of artistic skill, vast
herds of reindeer roamed over the plains
of Southern France and Germany, accom
panied by a group of Arctic animals,
such as the musk-ox and the lemming,
which are found even on the Italian side
gi
of the Alps. When this was the case in
Southern Europe, it is evident that all
its northern portion and higher, moun
tains must have been covered by ice and
frozen snow, and one of the great Glacial
periods must have been in full force.
All earlier deposits, therefore, in which
ruder implements and a more temperate
or even African fauna are found must of
necessity have been either Inter-Glacial
or Pre-Glacial, and there is no reason
able doubt that the earliest of such
deposits date back at least to the earlier
stages of the Quaternary period. We
must recollect that, when we talk of
geological periods, there was no real
break in the succession of time. We
merely use a convenient expression to
distinguish those formations between
which the evidence of the regular pro
gression of development has been lost
for such a long period, that when we
find it again the characteristic fauna and
flora have undergone a marked change.
But the idea of cataclysms and of re
peated destructions and miraculous
renovations of the whole vegetable and
animal worlds is completely exploded,
and every day affords fresh evidence of
the gradual process of transition from
one so-called epoch or formation to the
succeeding one. Thus types and even
species appear sparingly in one forma
tion, become abundant in another, and
finally die out and disappear, or persist
with slight modifications, as we see. in
the first appearance of fish in the Silurian
and of reptiles in the Carboniferous eras,
in each case in one or two geological
periods before they became the pre
dominant type. This applies specially
to the relation of the Quaternary to the
Pliocene and Miocene periods. It is
difficult to say definitely where one
begins and the other ends. Thus not
only do most of the great Mammalian
genera persist from the Miocene, through
the Pliocene and Quaternary, down to
the recent periods, but some specific
forms, such as the tapir, have continued
unchanged; while the ox, bear, horse,
wild boar, and other species first found
�52
TERTIARY MAN
in the Pliocene survive through the
Quaternary to the present day.
The gravels and sands of St. Prest,
the forest bed of Cromer and other Pre
Glacial formations, contain such a mix
ture of characteristic mammals that
some geologists have considered them
to be Pliocene, while others have pro
nounced them to be Quaternary.
What we really can affirm with certainty
is that as soon as we find a Quaternary
fauna firmly established we find man
forming an essential and characteristic
part of it. Can he be traced further
back into the Tertiary? The question
involves points of the highest interest,
for, as in the issue between short-time
and long-time geologists as to the dura
tion of the Glacial period, the issue really
is between evolution and miracle.
Even if the Glacial or Quaternary
periods were extended to the 200,000
years assigned to them by Lyell, Croll,
Geikie, and other leading geologists, the
difficulty as to man being a product of
evolution would be only postponed, and
not removed. By no possibility could
such conditions of the human race as
are found at the commencement of the
Quaternary period have been produced
by the natural laws applicable to the rest
of the animal creation, unless man can
be carried back into the Tertiaries.
For under what circumstances do we
find undoubted traces of the existence of
man upon the earth early in the Quater
nary period? Not in small numbers, or
in some limited locality, in which we
may suppose the human species to have
originated, and from which we can trace
the different races slowly developing and
radiating out to more distant regions.
No; when we find them lowest in the
Quaternary, we find them in large num
bers and practically all over the world,
from China to Peru, and from Northern
Europe to South Africa. This is so
important that I proceed to state the
facts in some detail, and specify the
localities in which stone hatchets and
knives of the rude type of the oldest
river drifts and lowest cave deposits have
been found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and
America.
The list is doubtless incomplete, and
every day is adding to it, but it is already
amply sufficient to prove the general
proposition.
In England they have been found in
the river drifts and deposits of the
Thames, the old Solent river, and all
the existing and Quaternary valley
systems south of a line drawn across it,
a little to the north of the Bedford Ouse;
and in the caves of all the limestone
districts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, North
and South Wales, Somersetshire, and
Devonshire; and they are absent only
in those northern districts which were
covered with ice during the successive
phases of the Glacial period. In France
and Belgium they are met with in the
oldest drifts of the valleys of the Seine,
Somme, Meuse, Loire, Rhone, Garonne,
and other rivers, and in almost innumer
able caves and rock-shelters in all the
limestone districts, from Liege and
Maestricht to the Pyrenees, and on the
Mediterranean coast at Mentone. In
Spain and Portugal they appear in the
drifts of the Tagus and Ebro, and in
Italy in those of the Tiber and Arno.
In Central and Southern Germany and
Switzerland they are found in numerous
caves and river drifts, often deeply buried
under thick beds of the loess, or fine
glacial mud, which was deposited during
the melting of the great ice-fields.
In Asia these palaeolithic implements
associated with extinct animals have
been found almost everywhere where
search has been made for them. They
have been found in Asia Minor and
Syria, in the Caucasus, in Mongolia,
China, and Japan. India, which has
been examined by competent geologists,
affords the most authentic and complete
record. Here they have been found in
large numbers, both in the river drifts of
the Nerbudda, Godavery, and other
rivers, and in the laterite of Madras and
other places, which is a loamy land
deposit similar to that of the loess of
Europe and China. Implements almost
�TERTIARY MAN
53
exactly of the type of those of St. Acheul, twenty feet deep, in an old bed of gravel,
1
though made of quartzite, as. flints were with large boulders, which is exposed in
wanting, have been found, in Bengal, 1the cliffs of the river’s banks. A portion
Orissa, the Deccan, Scinde, Assam, and of a human lower jaw was found at a
<
other provinces; and some of them in depth of sixteen feet in the gravel, and
■
deposits which, from the extinct animals also a human skull of a peculiar type,
associated with them, experienced.geolo being small, long, and very thick.
We are able, therefore, to affirm as an
gists are doubtful whether to consider as
upper Pliocene or as the lowest Quater undoubted fact that, at the earliest stage
of the Quaternary period, the human
nary.
In Africa well-characterised palaeolithic species not only existed, but was already
implements have been found in Algeria widely diffused over four continents, and
and in the valley of the Nile; and at the occupied nearly the whole surface of the
other extremity of the continent, in habitable globe. How did man get
there ? Evidently by the same process
Natal and at places in Cape Colony.
America furnishes some of the most by which other fauna become distributed
conclusive proofs, both of the extreme over wide distances and extensive zoo
antiquity and of the wide diffusion of logical provinces—that is, by migration
man. Human implements, human skulls from one or more centres, where the
and bones, have been found associated different species were first developed in
with the mastodon and other extinct the course of evolution. In the case of
animals over nearly the whole area of land mammals this implies that there
the United States; in Mexico, Brazil, has been an uninterrupted land connec
and in the pampas of Buenos Ayres and tion within recent geological periods.
There is no fact better established by
Patagonia; associated in South America
geological and zoological research than
with the Glyptodon and other extinct
mammals of its peculiar fauna. In one that the existing fauna are not uniformly
instance, in Buenos Ayres, a human alike throughout the world, but are
skull was found under a huge carapace located in separate provinces, bounded
of this extinct armadillo, which it was by some barrier of sea, mountain, or
conjectured might have been used as a desert, insurmountable by the ordinary
roof for a hut. In these South American animal species. The most signal instance
cases, however, as well as in those which of this is that of the absolute separation
will presently be referred to from Cali of the two totally dissimilar faunas of
fornia, the geological age is uncertain, Southern Asia and Australia, by the
and they are considered by some to be narrow strait of Lombok, not above
evidences of Pliocene, by others of early twenty miles wide, which is a deep sea
Quaternary, man; while in other instances fissure or channel, dating back to very
they are probably Post-Glacial, or, at remote geological times. On the other
latest, Inter-Glacial. In one typical hand, in the north temperate zone of
case, that of the discoveries of Mr. Europe and Asia one may travel from
Abbott in the drift of the Delaware the Atlantic coast of Western Europe to
valley at Trenton, in New Jersey, there the Eastern coast of China without
can be little hesitation in referring them observing any marked change in the
to the same early Quaternary period as familiar fauna and flora, the extension of
the corresponding finds in the oldest which to the British Islands and Japan
river drifts of Europe and Asia, though leaves no doubt that they recently formed
it is not yet fully admitted. The Trenton part of the same continent; while the
implements are of a granular argillite,, existence of so many of the same forms
closely resembling in size and form the: in North America makes it certain that
flint implements of the valley of the: there was a land connection, at no
Somme; and they are found sometimes> distant geological date, between the Old
l
�TERTIARY MAN
and New Worlds, by what is now the the exception of the Esquimaux and
North Atlantic, and probably also by Fuegians, there is little doubt that they
Behring’s Straits. The familiar instance would creep onwards along the sea-coast,
of the absence of snakes in Ireland accumulating their Kjokken-middens as
shows clearly how this extension of a they went, until they had occupied the
fauna was accomplished by gradual whole continent. But the process must
migration. Ireland was connected with necessarily have been a very slow one,
England and with continental Europe and there must have been already a con
long enough to enable most forms of the siderable population and pressure on
European fauna to occupy it. Herds of the means of subsistence, before these
Irish elk, deer, oxen, wolves, and other Quaternary men could have spread over
animals roamed over it; but some of the nearly the whole habitable globe, and
slower-moving reptiles had not had time left their remains where we now find
to reach it before it became finally them. . The fact that they are so found
separated from England by St. George’s makes it certain that they must have had
Channel.
a long series of ancestors, and that the
The only alternative to migration is first origins of the human race must be
the special miraculous creation of every sought in a vastly more remote antiquity.
separate species which has ever existed The immense time required for such
throughout the vast range of geological migrations will be apparent when we
time, and this idea is as thoroughly consider that it is not only a question of
exploded as that of the absence of traversing such great distances, but much
snakes in Ireland being due to the prayers more of becoming gradually acclimatised
of St. Patrick in the seventh or eighth during the passage from Arctic, or tem
century. It breaks down under the perate, through tropical regions. Evi
weight of the innumerable instances of dently the existing Esquimaux or Lap
special miracles, which must be invoked landers could not reach Patagonia or
on the most trivial occasions. Thus it South Africa without passing through a
has been shown that more than 160 wide extentof hot andpestilential country,
miraculous creations must have taken in which the northern immigrants could
place to account for the separate species only live by the gradual survival of new
of land-shells alone which are peculiar types adapted to the altered conditions.
to the little group of the Madeira Islands.
Another well-established fact points
Admitting, then, evolution to be the to the great antiquity of the human race
cause of the origin of species, and when those early palaeolithic implements
migration for their diffusion, it must be were so widely distributed. A sufficient
observed that the human species is number of skulls and skeletons have
specially organised for extensive migra been found associated with these imple
tion. . The structure of man, and his ments to enable ethnologists to classify
intelligence, even in the most rudi them as belonging to essentially different
mentary form, enable him to overcome races. Thus the skulls found in America
obstacles and resist changes of climate all present distinctive characters of the
and environment, which would be fatal high and narrow type now existing among
to most of the brute creation. And, as the various native races of that continent.
a matter of fact, in historical times we In Europe those of the Canstadt type,
know that New Zealand and the Pacific which is considered to be the oldest,
Islands have been peopled by migration; and of which the celebrated Neander
and that races like the Bushmen, thal skull is an extreme instance, are
Esquimaux, and Australians, which come very dolicocephalic, or long-headed, with
nearest to the state of primitive men, markedly projecting brows, differing
are essentially migratory. If the popu essentially from those of the Cro-Magnon
lation of America were annihilated, with type, which represent an exceptionally
�TERTIARY MAN
tall race with a good cranial development,
equal to that of many modern European
races j while the Furfooz type, again, is
that of a dwarfish race, with small round
heads, resembling the modern Lap
landers. This diversity of race argues
for a long departure from the original
type, involving development through a
long series of ages. We know from the
Egyptian monuments that a period of
5,000 years has been insufficient to pro
duce any perceptible change in the type
of the Negro, the Copt, the Semite, and
other races of Africa and Western Asia.
It is remarkable, however, that, while
this diversity of race type is thus early
found, there is almost perfect identity
among the early palaeolithic implements
found in regions the most distant from
one another. Rude stone hatchets,
knives, and scrapers are of the same
form and fabricated in the same way
whether they come from the gravels of
the Delaware, the Thames, the lagus,
the Godavery, or the Yang-tse-Kiang;
from the caves of Devonshire, the deserts
of Mongolia, or the plains of Patagonia
and South Africa. The only apparent
exception is afforded by the stone imple
ments found in the auriferous gravels of
California, which consist mainly of rude
stone mortars and pestles, resembling
those used for pounding acorns by
modern tribes of Digger Indians,
inhabiting the same districts. This
uniformity of industrial type over such
wide spaces shows that the peopling of
the earth by migration must have been
effected while the human race was still
in that uniform state of rudimentary
intelligence which had not got beyond
the first stage of supplementing natural
stones by rude chipping.
Thus far we have been going on
ascertained facts, admitted by all com
petent geologists ; but in taking the next
step, and carrying man back into the
Tertiary period, we enter on new ground,
where positive evidence is scanty and
disputed, and where probabilities and
theoretical preconceptions are, to a great
extent, invoked to supply its want.
55
Among English geologists especially
there still remains a strong desire to
abridge as much as possible the time of
man’s existence upon earth. The evi
dence furnished by England, which has
been almost entirely covered during
recent geological times by two or more
successive ice-sheets, is comparatively
weak to carry back the evidence for
palaeolithic man, even into Pre-Glacial
times, and some good authorities still
contend for all such remains in this
countrybeingPost-Glacial. Others, again,
of less weight, and the general public who
have a smattering of science, have a
vague fear that every extension of man’s
antiquity carries them further away from
the old theological standpoint, and
brings them nearer to the proof that
man is the product of evolution from
an animal ancestry. The evidence of
facts has, however, become too strong
to maintain this ground, and, the Qua
ternary line of defence being broken
through, the defenders of old ideas
have fallen back on their next entrench
ment, and insist that man, if not I ostDiluvian or Post-Glacial, is, at any rate,
Post-Tertiary.
We pass here from the region of facts
universally admitted into that of proba
bilities, and statements of facts which,
although probable in themselves, and
apparently well authenticated, . are still
disputed by competent authorities. Let
us first deal with the probabilities. for
and against the existence of Tertiary
man. It is objected that an animal so
highly organised and specialised as man
can hardly have come into existence in
geological periods characterised by a
fauna, so much nearer the primitive and
generalised type of Mammals, as those
of the Pliocene, and still more of the
Miocene and Eocene eras. The answer
to this is that such a highly specialised
specimen of the anthropoid type as the
Pliopithecus undoubtedly did exist in
the Middle-Miocene. This, which was
an anthropoid ape, as highly organised
as the chimpanzee or gorilla, and of a
stature equal to that of man, has been
�56
TERTIARY MAN
found in that formation in the South of man in the Quaternary period, sprung
France and in Germany. A slightly suddenly into life along with him by
lower form, the Dryopithecus, has also some act of miraculous creation, in the
been discovered. Now, looking at man teeth of all the accumulated and irre
simply as an animal, the anthropoid ape sistible evidence which shows them
is just as much a specialised develop existing in the upper Tertiary, and traces
ment of the primitive quadrumanous their ancestry and lines of progressive
type, as man. Monkeys and apes are development through the Miocene into
specialised for life in forests and climbing the earliest Eocene period.
trees, as man is for life on the earth and
Having thus cleared the ground of
walking; but in their anatomical struc probabilities, I proceed to state the
ture they correspond bone for bone and positive evidence for discoveries of
muscle for muscle. If there is any human remains in Tertiary formations,
truth in evolution, they must have premising that it is nearly all the result
descended, not necessarily one from the of the last few years, and is rapidly
other, but both from a common ancestor. accumulating; and that there is no
Again, it is said that man could not reason to expect that it will ever be
have survived for such a succession of abundant, as the more nearly we approach
geological periods during which so many to the time and place of man’s origin,
other species have died out and dis the narrower must be the area, and the
appeared. But here, again, the answer fewer the stations, at which we can hope
is that many of the animals which are to find his traces, and the greater the
associated with man as part of the effect of denudation in obliterating those
Quaternary fauna have, in fact, survived traces.
unchanged from the Pliocene, and with
The first well-authenticated instance
slight modifications from the Miocene is that of St. Prest, near Chartres, on
periods, and that man’s larger brain, and the Eure, one of the tributaries of the
consequently greater intelligence, must Seine. Here the lowest gravels of the
have given him a better chance of present river rest on gravels of what
survival than in the case of elephants, Lyell, after personal examination, con
rhinoceroses, oxen, and horses. If man sidered to be an earlier Pliocene river,
could survive, as we know he did, the and which are characterised by the
severe and extreme fluctuations of the older forms of elephant and rhinoceros—
different Glacial, Inter-Glacial, and Post- the Elephas Meridionalis and Rhinoceros
Glacial periods, what was there in the Leptorhinus, instead of by the Quater
milder and more equable conditions of nary Mammoth and Rhinoceros Tichothe Pliocene and Miocene to have pre rinus. In these older gravels have been
vented his existence ?
found stone implements, and bones of
The theoretical objections, therefore, the Elephas Meridionalis with incisions
to Tertiary man seem to be of the evidently made by a flint knife worked
weakest and vaguest character, while, on by a human hand. This was disputed
the other hand, the probabilities in its as long as possible, but Quatrefages, a
favour are so cogent as almost to amount very cautious and competent authority,
to demonstration. How could man, states in his latest work, published in
early in the Quaternary period, have 1887, that it is now established beyond
already found his way to the remotest the possibility of doubt. It is con
regions of the globe, and developed a tended, however, by some geologists,
varie.ty of types and races, if his first that this formation, though always con
appearance on earth lay within the sidered to be Pliocene until human
limits of that period? One might as remains were found in it, is in reality
well suppose that elephants, horses, and a very low stage of the Quaternary, or
all the other mammals associated with a transition bed between it and the
�TERTIARY MAN
57
Pliocene. The instance, therefore, been deceived by workmen, and mis
cannot be accepted as absolutely con taken in supposing that flints, which
clusive for anything more than tne really came from overlying Quaternary
existence of man at the earliest com strata, were found in the Miocene
mencement of the Quaternary period, deposit. This hardly seems probable in
though the evidence all points to the the case of such an experienced observer,
gravels being really Pliocene. The and, had it been so, the implements
same uncertainty applies to the cele might have been expected to show, the
brated discovery by the Abbe Bourgeois, usual Quaternary types of celts, knives,
of flint knives and scrapers in the and arrow-heads fashioned by percussion,
Miocene strata of Thenay, near Blois. whereas the specimens found all bear a
When these were first produced, the distinct type, being scrapers and borers
opinion of the best authorities was very of small size, and partly fashioned by
equally divided as to their being the fire. The other supposition is based on
work of human hands; but subsequent no evidence, and contrary to all we
discoveries have produced specimens as know of the limited intelligence of
to which it is impossible to entertain any any anthropoid ape. If it were, true,
doubt, especially the flint knife and two we might at once say that the missing
small scrapers figured by M. Quatre- link had been discovered, as a Dryo
fages' at p. 92 of his work on Races pithecus, able to do what the Mincopics
humaines. They present all the charac are now doing, might well have been the
teristic features by which human design ancestor of man. On the whole, the
is inferred in other cases—viz.,. the bulb evidence for these Miocene implements
of percussion and repeated chipping, by seems to be very conclusive, and the
small blows all in the same direction, objections to have hardly any other
round the edge which was intended for ground than the reluctance to admit the
great antiquity of man, which so long
use.
The human origin of these implements opposed itself to the recognition of the
has been greatly confirmed by the dis discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes.
covery that the Mincopics of the A similar later discovery of flints at. Puy
Andaman Islands manufacture whet Courny strongly confirms this position.
The same class of objection applies to
stones or scrapers almost identical with
those of Thenay, and by the same the palaeolithic hatchets found by M.
process of using fire to split the stones Ribiero in beds of the valley, of the
into the requisite size and shape. Tagus, at Oita, in Portugal, which have
These Mincopics are not acquainted always been considered as being of the
with the art of chipping stone into celts Upper Miocene. It is thought possible
or arrow heads, but use fragments of that they may have fallen at some distant
large shells, of which they have a great period from overlying Quaternary gravels,
abundance, or of bone or hard wood; and and become mixed up with the upper
the scrapers are employed in bringing bed of the Miocene. The congress of
these to a sharper point or finer edge. geologists, therefore, who met at Lisbon
The main objection, therefore, at first a few years ago, thought it wise, to
raised to the authenticity of these relics suspend their opinion as to the Tertiary
of Miocene man, that they did not afford age of M. Ribiero’s implements.
Other discoveries, however, of the
conclusive proof of design, may be con
sidered as removed, and the objectors same nature .seem to be absolutely
have to fall back on the assumption conclusive for man’s existence, at least
either that the implements were fabri as far back as into the Pliocene era. An
cated by some exceptionally intelligent Italian geologist, M. Capellini, has found
Dryopithecus, or that, as Prestwich in the Pliocene strata of Monte Aperto,
supposed, the Abbe Bourgeois may have near Sienna, bones of the Balaeonotus, a
�58
TERTIARY MAN
well-known species of a sort of Pliocene had found in a Miocene deposit a* Billy.
whale, which are scored by incisions
The only incisions on bones from very
obviously made by a sharp-cutting instru early strata which these experts have
ment, such as a flint knife, guided by admitted as undoubtedly made by sharp
design and by a human hand. At first cutting instruments held by a human
it . was contended that these incisions hand are those above mentioned—viz.,
might have been made by the teeth of on the Elephas Meridionalis of St. Prest,
fishes, but as specimens multiplied, and and the Pliocene Bateeonotus of Monte
were carefully examined, it became evi Aperto, and in the humerus of a Halident that no such explanation was therium from the Upper Miocene of
possible. The cuts are in regular curves, Pouance (Maine et Loire). This shows
and sometimes almost semi-circular, such with what caution and scrupulous good
as a sweep of the hand could alone have faith the experts have worked who bear
caused, and they invariably show a clean- testimony to facts which, if admitted,
cut surface on the outer or convex side, are a conclusive demonstration of the
to which the pressure of a sharp edge existence of Tertiary man.
was applied with a rough or abraded
But, in addition to these instances
surface on the inner side of the cut. from cut bones, there are others equally
Microscopic examination of the cuts certain and well-authenticated. In the
confirms this conclusion, and leaves no region of the extinct volcanoes of
doubt that they must have been made Auvergne, in which the celebrated fossil
by such an instrument as a flint knife, man of Denise was discovered under a
held obliquely and pressed against the stream of lava, embedded in a volcanic
bone while in a fresh state with con tuff, which, however, was considered to
siderable force, just as a savage would be probably Quaternary, there are older
do in hacking the flesh off a stranded lava streams overlaying tuffs and gravels,
whale. Cuts exactly similar can now be which, from the fossils contained in them,
made on fresh bone by such flint knives, are undoubtedly Tertiary. From one of
and in no other known or conceivable these Tertiary gravels at Puy Courny, M.
way. It seems, therefore, more like Rames, a competent geologist, assisted
obstinate prepossession than scientific by MM. Badoche, Chibret, and Grandscepticism to deny the existence of vaux, obtained at three different points a
Tertiary man if it rested only on this considerable number of flint implements,
single instance.
which, if found in any Quaternary deposit,
As regards the evidence from cut would have been accepted without hesi
bones, it is very conclusive, for expe tation as of human origin. They com
rienced observers, with the aid of the prise small and rude specimens of the
microscope, have no difficulty in distin types found in the lowest Quaternary
guishing between cuts which may have gravels, such as celts, knives, and scrapers,
been made accidentally or by the teeth and present all the characters by which
of fishes and those which can only have artificial are distinguished from natural
been made in fresh bone by a sharp flints in those formations—viz., bulbs of
cutting instrument such as a flint knife. percussion, and chippings in a deter
In fact, the best authorities on the minate direction on the sides and points
subject, such as M. Mortillet, the intended for use; while no such chip
Curator of the Museum at St. Germain, pings appear on other parts of the flint,
M. Hamy, and M. Quatrefages, while as must have been the case if they had
admitting the authenticity of the cuts been the result of casual blows on natural
submitted to them in a few cases, have flints.
rejected it in numerous others, as in the
M. Quatrefages, by whom the subject
well-known instance of the grooves on is fully discussed, and the objects
the bones of a rhinoceros which Delaunay figured in his recent work, lays great
�TERTIARY MAN
stress on the fact that, while the beds
contain five different sorts of flints, those
which present traces of design are con
fined exclusively to one description of
flint, which is most easily manufactured,
and best adapted for human use. He
observes with much force that a torrent
capable of tearing flints from their bed
and rolling them on, with collisions
violent enough to imitate artificial chip
ping, could not have exercised a selec
tion and confined its operations to one
only out of five different descriptions of
flints. He shows also that the worked
edges exhibit, when closely examined,
both intentional chipping and fine
parallel striae, as from repeated use in
cutting or scraping, while nothing of the
sort is to be seen on the sides left in the
natural state, though they are often as
sharp, or even sharper.
It only remains to add that these
specimens were submitted by M. Rames
to two Congresses of French geologists—
the first at Blois, when doubts were
expressed in some quarters ; the second
one at Grenoble, when the Congress
decided that the existence of Tertiary
man was in this case fully established.
Italy supplies the next instance, and
it is a very remarkable one, for here
competent geologists have found, not
merely implements or cut bones showing
human design, but man himself, includ
ing skeletons of several individuals. The
discovery was made on the flank of the
hill of Castelnedolo, near Brescia, in a
bed which is identified by its fossils as
belonging to the Lower Pliocene. The
excavations were made with the utmost
care, in undisturbed strata, by M.
Ragazzoni, a scientific man of good
reputation, assisted by M. Germani, and
the results confirmed by M. Sergi, a
well-known geologist, who visited the
spot and inquired minutely into all
the circumstances. According to their
united statement, some human bones
were found in this deposit by M. Ragaz
zoni as far back as i860. This led to
further excavations, made at different
times, and with all the precautions
59
pointed out by experience. The deposit
was removed in successive horizontal
layers, and nowhere was the least trace
found of the beds having been mixed or
disturbed. At a considerable depth in
it were found the bones of four indivi
duals—a man, a woman, and two chil
dren, which presented the same appear
ance of fossilisation as the bones of
extinct animals found in the same
deposit. The female skeleton was almost
entire, and the fragments of the skull
were sufficiently perfect to admit of their
being pieced together so as to show
almost its whole form.
This preservation of the entire skeleton
might lead to the conjecture that it had
come there as the result of a subsequent
burial; but this supposition is negatived
by the undisturbed nature of the beds,
and by the fact that the other bones
were found scattered in the same stratum,
at considerable distances from the per
fect skeleton. M. Quatrefages sums up
the evidence by saying, “that there exists
no serious reason for doubting the dis
covery of M. Ragazzoni, and that, if made
in a Quaternary deposit, no one would
have thought of contesting its accuracy.
Nothing, therefore, can be opposed to it
but theoretical a priori objections, similar
to those which so long repelled the exist
ence of Quaternary man; objections which
have long since been refuted, and shown
to be absolutely inconsistent with a
multitude of established facts.”
If we accept this conclusion, this
remarkable consequence follows: that
man, so far back as the Early Pliocene
period, was perfectly human, for the
skull and bones present no marked
peculiarity, or approximation to an
animal type. The skull is of fair capa
city, and very much what might be
expected of a female of the Canstadt
race. But, if this be so, it necessarily
puts back the origin of the human species
to a vastly more remote antiquity, which
can hardly be less than that of the Early
or Middle Miocene, in which the remains
of the great anthropoid Dryopithecus
have been found.
�6o
TERTIARY MAN
A skull very similar to the above has
also been found in Italy, in a lacustrine
deposit at Olmo, near Arezzo, on the
flank of the Apennines; but, although it
was found at a depth of nearly fifty feet
from the surface, and some feet lower
than a layer of clay containing a tooth of
the Elephas Meridionalis, a species which
in Northern Europe scarcely survived
the Pliocene period, the whole forma
tion is considered, from other remains
found in it, as probably belonging to an
early Quaternary age, and therefore not
affording satisfactory evidence of Ter
tiary man. It can only be quoted as
affording some corroboration of the dis
coveries of Capellini and Ragazzoni, by
showing that man has existed in Italy
for an immense period, and is found
in deposits between which and the
Pliocene there is no abrupt line of de
marcation.
This completes the evidence from the
Old World. Turning to the New World,
we find, both in North and South
America, numerous proofs of the exist
ence of man from a very remote anti
quity; but there is some difficulty in
arriving at definite conclusions as to
their Tertiary date, from the fact that the
succession of geological periods does not
exactly correspond on the two sides of the
Atlantic. America has been said to be,
in some respects, a whole period behind
Europe and Asia in this succession.
Thus the mastodon, which in the Old
World is a characteristic Miocene and
Pliocene species, and did not survive
into the Quaternary, is found in America
in the latest drifts, and even in peat
mosses associated with neolithic flint
arrows, and not impossibly survived into
the Historical period. The bear family,
on the other hand, which is so conspic
uous in the old formations of Europe,
is not found in America until the Quater
nary. The extinct fauna also of South
America is, like the present, that of a
distinct zoological province from either
North America or Europe, so that we
cannot assume that the Zenglodon and
other huge ancestral types of armadillos
and ant-eaters were necessarily of an
age corresponding to our Tertiary.
With this reservation, I proceed to
state some of the leading instances which
have been referred to by American geo
logists as establishing the existence of
Tertiary man on that continent.
The most important case is that of the
skulls and stone implements which have
been found in the auriferous gravels of
California, the evidence for which, and
for other ancient remains in North
America, has been very carefully summed
up by the distinguished naturalist, Mr.
Alfred Wallace, in an article in the
Nineteenth Century of November, 1887.
These gravels are the result of an enor
mous denudation of the Sierra Nevada,
which has filled up all the great valleys
on its Pacific slope with thick deposits
of debris, forming in some cases detached
hills, and even mountains, of consider*
able height. While this was going on
there were repeated volcanic eruptions
in the higher range, giving rise to beds
of lava, tuff, and ashes, which are fre
quently inter-stratified with the gravels;
and, finally, the close of the volcanic
period was marked by a great flow of
basaltic lava, which spread in a nearly
level capping over the whole surface of
the country. This, and the subjacent
beds of gravels and tuffs, has since been
cut down by the action of the present
rivers, to a depth of sometimes 1,500 or
2,000 feet, leaving a series of isolated,
tabular hills composed, on the upper
part, of a horizontal layer of basalt,
varying from 50 to 200 feet in thickness,
and, in the lower part, of 800 to 1,500
feet of gravels, lava-beds, and tuffs.
Thus what was once a single lava stream,
or succession of lava streams, is now a
series of detached hills, the tops of
which form parts of one gently-inclined
plane, sloping from the mountains
towards the plains, and now, in some
cases, 1,000 feet or more above the
adjacent valleys.
The present rivers have in some places
cut down the lavas and gravels to the
beds of ancient rivers, which flowed in,
�TERTIARY MAN
different courses from the existing ones ;
and it is in the beds of these ancient
rivers that the principal accumulations
of gold are found. Hence an enormous
amount of the oldest gravels has been
excavated in working for gold, and . in
some of these workings human remains
have been found, associated with animal
remains, which are all of extinct species,
entirely distinct from those that now
inhabit any part of the North American
continent. Some of the genera, such as
Hipparion, Auchenia, and Elotherium,
would, if found elsewhere, undoubtedly
be taken to denote a Pliocene, if not a
Miocene, formation.
The vegetable
remains also indicate a totally different
flora from that now prevailing in Cali
fornia, and which Professors Lesqueraux
and Whitney—the latter the geologist of
the State, and well-known from his
Report on the Auriferous Gravels of the
Sierra Nevada—consider to be of Plio
cene age, with some affinities to Miocene.
Numerous stone implements have been
found associated with this extinct fauna
and flora in nine different counties, and
human bones in five widely-separated
localities. The two most remarkable
instances of the latter are :—
1. The Tuolumne skull. A fragment
brought up from a shaft in Table Moun
tain, at a depth of 180 feet below the
surface, beneath a bed of three feet of
consolidated volcanic tuff, with fossil
leaves and branches, over which is a
deposit of seventy feet of clay and
gravel.
2. The Calaveras skull. This was
found in 1866, under four beds of lava,
and in the fourth bed of gravel from the
surface, embedded in a rounded mass
of earthy and stony matter containing
bones.
The cemented gravel was
removed with great difficulty, and dis
closed a human skull, nearly entire, with
several bones of the human foot and
other parts wedged into the cavity of the
skull, the whole being in a fossilised
condition, like that of the animal bones
in similar formations. Human bones
have been found in two other instances
61
—one by an educated observer, under a
bed eight feet thick of lava; and more
recently a discovery has been announced
ofy rude stone implements in Tertiary
gravels of Stone Creek, Colorado, asso
ciated with shells which are considered
by conchologists to be not later than of
the older Pliocene.
The Calaveras case is, however, the
typical one, owing to its having been
extracted from the matrix by Professor
Wyman, and all the circumstances of the
find thoroughly investigated by Professor
Whitney. When the discovery was first
announced, it was objected that the skull
was possibly taken by the miners from
some Indian grave. But this objection
disappears before the fact that it was
fossilised, and embedded in a matrix
which no forger could have counterfeited,
and even more conclusively from the
great number of instances in which
human bones and implements have been
discovered at different localities . in
similar formations. Even the polemical
imagination of the Duke of Argyll could
hardly invent a conspiracy of so many
groups of Californian miners, at different
times, and in different localities, to hoax
scientists, or to supply proofs for or
against the Darwinian theory of the
descent of man. Nor would men intent
on such a fraud have buried fragments
instead of whole skulls, and stone imple
ments of a type different from that which,
if they had known enough on these sub
jects to conceive the fraud, they must
have been aware would have been
expected.
For the nature of these
implements is an exception to the general
rule, that the oldest type found through
out the world, from South Africa . to
China, is everywhere the same, consist
ing of rudely-chipped celts, knives, and
scrapers, the Californian implements
consisting of stone plates or mortars, and
pestles or pounding stones, very like
those used by some living tribes of
Indians for crushing acorns.
Quatrefages, assuming that these im
plements were used for pounding corn,
justly considers it highly improbable that.
�62
TERTIARY MAN
agriculture could have been known at
such an early period, and that Pliocene
man in California could have been so far
in advance of his Quaternary brother on
the Atlantic side of the continent, as
shown by the rude celts and knives of
the Trenton gravels. But if they were
used for crushing acorns, the argument
is not so clear, for a tribe of primitive
savages, living among oak forests, might
use flat stones and pounders for the pur
pose, while hunting tribes might-use rude
celts, as the bushmen do at the present
day. Either form seems equally within
the range of the early dawn of human
intelligence, and not much in advance of
that of the gorilla or chimpanzee.
Equally futile is Sir J. Dawson’s sur
mise that the skull may have been
dropped into some old mining shaft.
There is no evidence for any prehistoric
mining for gold in California, such as is
found in the copper region of Lake
Superior; and it is certain that, if any
such had existed, it must have been con
fined to the superficial deposits. Noth
ing but an intrepid determination to
ignore facts could have led to such a
supposition. The Calaveras skull is not
a solitary instance, but one of several
human bones, and hundreds of human
implements, which have been found, at
wide distances apart, in these auriferous
gravels, and often underneath beds of
dense basalt, which could by no pos
sibility have been pierced without the
aid of metal tools and blasting powder.
Objections like these prove nothing
except that the objector is in the theologico-scientific frame of mind, which
sees everything relating to the origin of
man through the medium of the first
chapter of Genesis.
The only serious objection to assum
ing these Californian discoveries to be a
conclusive proof of the existence of
Tertiary man arises from the fact that
several good American geologists dispute
Professor Whitney’s conclusion that these
auriferous gravels are of Tertiary origin.
They consider that such an enormous
accumulation could only have been
formed during a Glacial period, when
frost and ice were grinding down the
mountains, and swollen rivers, from
melting snow and glaciers, sweeping the
debris down the valleys into the plains.
This leaves doubt as to their origin in
the comparatively mild and equable
climate of the Pliocene period, but as
regards the question of the great anti
quity of man it does not much signify
to which period we assign them. Any
time subtracted from the Pliocene has to
be added to the Quaternary, for the fact
remains _ unquestioned that, since man
existed in California, valleys have been
filled up by drifts from the waste of moun
tains toadepth in some casesof 1,500 feet;
these covered by a succession of tuffs^
ashes, and lava streams, from volcanoes
long since extinct, and finally cut down
by the present rivers through beds of
solid basalt, and through this accumula
tion of lavas and gravels. Such an
operation corresponds in time with that
by which the great river systems of the
Old World were sculptured out from a
table-land, standing, in some cases, many
hundred feet higher than at present, as
shown by the deposit of the loess, which
is universally recognised to be an
accumulation of fine glacial mud.
A later contribution towards the anti
quity of human remains in California is
contained in a paper read to the Anthro
pological Society by Mr. Skertchley, the
well-known geologist, to whom we are
indebted for the discovery of palaeolithic
implements beneath the chalky boulder
clay at Thetford, in Norfolk.
During a visit to the Spring Valley
gold-mine, in one of the tributary valleys
of the Sacramento River, he ascertained
the following facts: This mine is worked
by hydraulic jets directed on the sands
and gravels of an old river which once
flowed in an impetuous course down a
steep gradient from the Sierra Nevada.
It has long since ceased to flow, and the
bed of the old river is now buried under
500 feet of its own deposits, capped in
places by 100 feet of basalt, which has
flowed in wide sheets from long-since
�TERTIARY MAN
63
variety of other sources as to the frequent
discovery of human implements, and
even, in a few instances, of human
1. Basalt cap
...
... 25 to 100 feet.
skulls, from similar auriferous . gravels
2. White sands and gravels
45° >>
over a wide range of country in Cali
3. Blue gravel, with boulders 2 to 15 >>
fornia. Whether Tertiary or not, it is
4. Blue gravel, with large
evident that they must carry back the
boulders
...
•••
5° »
5. Bed rock —metamorphoid
date of man’s existence in the north
cretaceous slates.
west of America to a period vastly older
Stone mortars, rudely chipped, occur than that of 25,000 or 30,000 years
abundantly in the white sand (No. 2), assigned to him by the latest guess of
about 300 having been found; and one Professor Prestwich.
is said to have occurred in No. 3. ' Another recent discovery in connec
There can be no question of their occur tion with the great basalt cap of Northring in situ, as they are washed out of Western America presents a similar
the gravel by powerful hydraulic jets, difficulty to that of M. Ragazzoni. In
from the working face of the mine, which boring for an artesian well at Nampa, in
forms an artificial cliff of 400 to 600 feet Ada County, Idaho, a small clay image
of a human figure was brought up from
in height.
Nor can there be any doubt as to their a depth of 215 feet. The borer had
human origin, for the specimen produced cut through a lava-cap fifteen feet thick,
by Mr. Skertchley to the Anthropological and then penetrated through some 200
Society was universally admitted to have feet of sand and clay. Mr. Emmons, of
been artificially wrought. Their use was the State Geological Society, gave the
probably for pounding acorns, which opinion that the stratum from which the
then afforded a great part of the food of Nampa image was taken is older by far
the savages who inhabited the district, than any others from which human
as they did recently of the Digger remains have been taken. The little
statuette, however, evinces a relatively
Indians.
The question, therefore, is entirely one high degree of artistic skill in modelling,
of the age of the gravels, as to which and thus seems to indicate a fairly
American geologists differ, some assign developed brain in the man of this most
ing the upper or white gravels to the distant period. We await, however, a
Pliocene, others to the early Quaternary closer determination of the age of the
period. As Mr. Skertchley says : “ If the American formations.
The other instances from America are
human remains had not been found in
them, geologists would never have open to the same doubt as to their
doubted their Tertiary age. At any geological age. The cavern of Semirate, they must be of immense antiquity. douro, in the plateau of Lagoa-Santo, in
Since they were deposited the present Brazil, has yielded sixteen human skulls,
river system of the Sacramento, Joaquim, associated with bones of extinct species,
and other large rivers has been estab such as Glyptodon, Machserodus, Hydrolished ; canons 2,000 feet deep have chserus, Scalidotherium, and others,
been excavated by these later rivers which, if found in Europe, would un
through lava, gravels, and into the bed doubtedly be taken to imply a Tertiary
rock; and the gravels, once the bed of fauna. But there remains the doubt
a large river, now cap hills 6,000 feet as to the real succession of geological
periods in America; and if the Mastodon
high.”
This definite information, conveyed lived on there until recent times, for
by an experienced geologist like Mr. which there is a good deal of evidence,
Skertchley, gives confirmation and preci there is no conclusive reason why the
sion to what has been stated from a Machserodus and other Tertiary forms
extinct volcanoes. The section given by
Mr. Skertchley is :—
�64
TERTIARY MAN
might not have survived from the Plio human remains in the presumably
cene or Miocene into the Quaternary. Pliocene auriferous gravels of California;
The human implements also found in and in South America, in the pampean
these Brazilian caves seem, in many remains of Buenos Ayres. Of these,
cases, of too advanced a type to be the discoveries at Puy-Courny, Monte
readily accepted as of such extreme Aperto, St. Olmo, and Castelnedolo
antiquity.
seem to be undoubted, both as regards
The same doubt also applies to the the human nature of the remains and
numerous human remains found by two the Tertiary character of the deposits.
competent observers, M. Ameghino and Those of St. Prest and of the Californian
M. Burmeister, at different points in the gravels are doubtful only as regards the
pampas of Buenos Ayres. They both question whether the deposits may not
recognise two distinct beds in this be of the earliest Glacial or Quaternary
pampean formation—an upper one, in period, rather than Tertiary, the evidence
which these remains have been found, from the associated fossil remains being
and a lower one, in which nothing of strongly in favour of their Tertiary origin.
human origin has yet been discovered. There remain three cases of alleged
Ameghino, relying on the fossil remains discoveries in the Miocene—viz., at
of extinct animals, considers the upper Thenay, Pouance, and in Portugal—the
bed to be Tertiary; while Burmeister evidence for which, especially for the
considers the lower one only to be Pre two former, is extremely strong and
Glacial and the upper one to be Quater almost conclusive, while the objections
nary. While these doubts continue we to them are obviously based on a reluc
must hold our judgment in suspense as tance to admit such an extension of
to the evidence from America, though human origins, rather than on scientific
undoubtedly it tends as far as it goes to evidence.
confirm the rapidly accumulating evi
In none of these cases, as further
dence from the Old World of the evidence has accumulated, has it tended
existence of Tertiary man; and the to shake the conclusions of the first
discovery of his traces at so many discoverers as to the human character of
widely-separated places, at such a remote the implements and the Miocene age of
antiquity, adds to the irresistible force of the formations. On the contrary, the
the conclusion that his first origin, and most cautious authorities, such as M.
subsequent diffusion by migration, must Quatrefages, who held their judgment in
be sought in one of the geological forma suspense when the first implements were
tions preceding the Quaternary,
produced, have been converted by sub
To sum up the evidence, there are at sequent discoveries, and expressed their
least ten instances of the alleged dis conviction that doubt is no longer pos
covery of human remains in Tertiary sible. . And a recent Congress of French
strata, of each of which it may be safely geologists has expressed the decided
said that, if the remains had been those opinion that the existence of Tertiary
of any other Mammalian species, no man is fully proved. In the next
doubt would have been entertained of chapter we shall learn of a remarkable
their Tertiary origin by any geologist. discovery of a semi-human form which
Four of these are in France, those of St. adds great force to all these earlier
Prest and of Puy-Courny in the Pliocene, evidences.
and of Thenay and Pouance in the
On the whole, we may say with con*
Miocene; three in Italy, in the Pliocene fidence of the problem of Tertiary man
of Monte Aperto, St. Olmo, and Castel- that, if not completely solved, it is
nedolo; one in Portugal, in the Miocene very near solution, and that there is
of the Tagus; in North America, the little doubt what the solution will be.
skull of Calaveras and other numerous
The next generation will probably
�THE MISSING LINK
accept it as an obvious fact, and wonder
at the doubts now entertained, very
much as we wonder at the incredulity
with which the discovery of palaeolithic
65
implements in the Quaternary gravels of
the Somme by M. Boucher de Perthes
was received by the scientific world
when it was first announced.
Chapter VI.
THE MISSING LINK
Human Origins—Evolution or Miracle First
Theories Miraculous—Conception of Natural
Law—Law Proved to be Universal in Inor
ganic World—Application to Life and Man—
Darwin and Evolution—Struggle for Life and
Survival of the Fittest—Confirmed by Dis
covery of Missing Links—Professor Cope’s
Summary—M. Gaudry—Instances of Missing
Links—Bears and Dogs—Horse—Pedigree of
the Horse from Palseotherium and Eohippus—
Appearance and Disappearance of Species—
Specialisation from Primitive Types—Condylarthra—Reptiles and Birds—Links between
other Genera and Orders—Marsupials and
Mammals — Monotremata — Ascidians and
Fish—Evolution of Individuals and Species
from Primitive Cell—Question of Missing
Links Applied to Man—Man and Ape—
Resemblances and Differences—Specialisation
of Human Type—For Erect Posture—How
Man Differs from Animals—Mental and Moral
Faculties — Language — Tools— Progress—
Mental Development—Lines of Research for
Missing Links — Inferior Races —Fossil
Remains—The Pithecanthropus—Point in
Direction of Tertiary Origin.
Of all the problems which have been
raised, but not solved, the most impor
tant is that of the origin of man. It is
important not only as a question of the
highest scientific interest, but from its
bearings on the deepest mysteries of
philosophy and religion. Is man, like
the rest of the animal creation, a product
of evolution acting by natural laws, or is
he an exception to the general rule, and
the product of some act of secondary
supernatural interference? Or, to put
it in theological language, is man a con
sequence of that “ original impress ”
which Dr. Temple considered to be more
in accordance with the idea of an
omniscient and omnipotent Creator, to
whom “a day is as a thousand years, and
a thousand years as a day,” than the
tiaditional theory of a Creator con
stantly interposing to supplement and
amend his original creation by miracles?
Or is he an exceptional supplement and
amendment to such original creation,
miraculously introduced at one of its later
stages ? It is a question which has to
be solved by facts, and not by theories
or prepossessions.
As regards the physical universe, and
the whole of the world of lii$ with the
possible exception of man, it may be
taken as already solved in the sense of
evolution and original impress. But in
the case of man there are still a few men
of science who question whether the
human mind, at least, has been formed
by natural evolution. The problem is
of such importance that it may be well
to state its conditions in some detail.
When I say that evolution has become
the accepted law of the whole animate
and inanimate universe, with the possible
exception of man, why do I say this?
The old theory of special miraculous
interpositions to account for all unex
plained phenomena was the most natural
and the most obvious. It was, in fact,
the inevitable result of the first attempts
of the human mind to connect effects
with causes, or, in other words, to
reason. Take the case of thunder.
What could the first savage who reasoned
c
�66
THE MISSING LINK
on the subject infer except that the noise,
being like the roar of an angry wild
beast or enemy, and the flash like that
of the darting of an arrow or javelin,
there was probably a sort of magnified
man like himself in the clouds full of
wrath and very capable of doing him an
injury ? The savage who reasoned thus,
and the early priests and astronomers
who, whenever they saw motion in the
sun and planets, inferred life, were
natural philosophers, who reasoned
correctly from their premises, only their
premises were wrong. In the course of
time it came to be demonstrated that
phenomena formerly supposed to be
isolated miraculous acts of an anthropo
morphic power were linked together by
that invariable sequence which we call
law, and that their real first cause or origin
must be pushed vastly further back in
space and time, and relegated more and
more from the known to the unknown.
The establishment of Newton’s law of
gravity as the pervading principle of all
celestial movements gave the first great
blow to the old miraculous theory, and
introduced the conception of Natural Law.
Geology did for time what astronomy
had . done for space; and since the
publication of Lyell’s .Principles no
serious thinker has doubted that the
successive stages by which the earth
was brought to its present state were
due to evolution, acting by natural
laws over immense periods of time. The
discoveries of modern chemistry have
confirmed the impression of the uni
formity and invariability of Law by show
ing it extending from the infinitely great
to the infinitely small, from stars to atoms;
while the spectroscope shows the identity
of matter and energy throughout this
extreme range. Above all, the establish
ment of the laws of the indestructibility
of matter and energy, and their mutual
transformation into new forms and new
modes of action, have placed special
causes altogether out of court, and
reduced all the phenomena of the inor
ganic universe to one law of universal
simplicity and generality. Instead of
speculating with ancient sages who may
be the . God who flashes lightnings from
the skies, or drives the chariot of the
sun, or even as late as Kepler, assigning
a spirit to each planet to direct its
harmonious movement, the question for
modern science is reduced to the
ultimate stage of—What mean these
atoms and energies into which everything
can be resolved? Whence came they,
and how did they become endowed with
those laws which have enabled them to
build up the universe by an irresistible
evolution ?
But the miraculous theory died hard.
Based as it wras on popular apprehension
and on theological prepossession, when
driven from the outwork of the inorganic
universe, it held out stoutly in the
inner citadel of life. Were not species
distinct, and, if so, how could they have
come into existence unless by a series of
special acts of miraculous creation ?
Above all, was not man a miracle, with
his high faculties, “only a little lower
than the angels
and did not all records
and traditions describe him as a recent
creation, who had fallen from a high
state of perfection by an act of original
sin ? Nay, more. Did not science itself
confirm this view, and had not Cuvier
laid down the axiom that no human
remains had been found in connection
with any extinct animals, or in any but
the most superficial deposits ? The dis
covery of innumerable human imple
ments and remains in all quarters of the
globe, in caves and river drifts of
immense antiquity, and associated with
extinct animals, has shattered this theory
into fragments, and it is now as impos
sible to believe in man’s recent origin
and fall as it is in the sun’s daily journey
round the earth, or the notion that it
might be as big as the Peloponnesus.
Still, the difficulty as to the creation
of distinct species remained, and until
the publication of Darwin’s celebrated
work on The Origin of Species the
miraculous theory, though driven back,
could hardly be said to be routed. But
evolution was in the air, and Darwin’s
�THE MISSING LINK
book produced the effect of a fragment
of crystal dropped into a saturated
solution. In an incredibly short time
all the floating elements crystallised
about it, and the speculations of science
took a definite form, the evidence for
which has gone on strengthening and
increasing from that day to this, until, as
I have said, with the solitary exception
of human origins, evolution or original
impress has become the axiom of science,
and is admitted by every one who has
the slightest pretensions to be considered
a competent authority.
This predisposition to accept Darwin’s
views arose from various causes. The
establishment of evolution as a fact in
the material universe had familiarised
men’s minds with the idea of Natural
Law, and the discoveries of astronomy
and geology had proved to demonstra
tion that the accounts of creation, for
merly taken to be inspired truths which
it was impious to question, could only be
considered as vague poetical versions of
the ideas which were current among
Eastern nations in the infancy of Science.
The last remnant of respect for these
narratives as literal records of actual
events vanished when the discoveries of
M. Boucher de Perthes were confirmed,
and it became apparent that man was
not a recent creation who had fallen
from a high estate, but the descendant
of palaeolithic savages, who had struggled
slowly up to civilisation through immense
periods of time. As a knowledge of
natural history increased, it became
apparent that the earth had not been
peopled recently from a single centre,
but that it was divided into numerous
vegetable and zoological provinces, each
with its own separate flora and fauna;
and a better acquaintance with the
zoological record showed that this had
been the case for millions of years, and
through the vast succession of strata of
which the earth’s crust is composed.
Finally, the multiplication of species,
both now existing and in past geological
ages, reached a point which, on any
theory of separate supernatural creations,
67
required an amount of miracle which
was plainly absurd and impossible.
When it came to this, that 160 separate
miracles were required to account for
the 160 species of land shells found, to
exist in the one small island of Madeira,
and that 1,400 distinct species of a single
shell, the Cerithium, had been described
by conchologists, the miraculous theory
had evidently broken down under its
own weight and ceased to be credible.
In this state of things Darwin not
only supplied a vast number of instances,
drawn from his own observation, of
graduation of species into one another,
and the wide range of varieties produced
and rendered permanent by artificial
selection, but, what was more important,
he showed the existence of a vera causa
operating in nature, which could not
fail to produce similar effects. If a
pigeon fancier could, by pairing .birds
which showed a tendency to variation in
a particular direction, produce in a few
generations races as distinct from the
original blue-rock as the fantail or the
pouter, it is evident that nature could do
the same in a longer period. Nay, not
only that nature could., but that nature
must, do this, for in the struggle, for
existence variations, however slight,
which gave an advantage to individuals,
must tend to survive and become extended
and fixed by the operation of heredity.
This was the famous theory of “ Natural
Selection ” and “ Survival of the Fittest,”
which at once converted the chaos of
life into a cosmos, and extended the
domain of harmonious law to the organic
as well as the inorganic universe. At
tractive, however, as the theory was from
the first to thinking men, its universal
acceptance at the present day is due
mainly to the immense amount of con
firmation which it has since received.
This confirmation has come from two
independent sources—the discovery of
Missing Links and Embryology.
When Darwin’s theory was first pro
pounded the objection was raised that,
if species were not created. distinct, but
gradually evolved from one another by
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THE MISSING LINK
slight variations, geology ought to show
radius, femurs, feet, etc., of the one,
us the intermediate forms which must
side by side with those of the other, the
have existed before the permanent types
sum of the likenesses will appear so
were established. The objection was much greater than that of the differences
reasonable, and Darwin was the first to that, the idea of family relationship
admit it j but he pleaded the imperfec
will impose itself on the mind. In vain
tion of the geological record, and pre
would sceptics try to throw doubts on
dicted that with fuller knowledge of it
this relationship by pointing out some
the gaps would be filled up and the slight shades of difference. We see
missing links discovered. The truth or
too many points of resemblance to
falsehood of his theory was thus staked
admit that they can be all fallacious.”
on the discovery of missing links. The And, again, he says: “ Where our pre
case was almost similar to that of the decessors. saw ten or one hundred dis
truth of Halley’s calculations as to the tinct beings, we see only one; and
orbit of his comet being staked on its
instead of creations thrown, as it were,
return at the predicted period. The into the world at haphazard, without
comet did return, and the missing links law and without connection, we follow
have been discovered, or so many of
the trace of a few types whose essential
them that no doubt remains in the
characters are so similar as to enable us
minds of scientific men that evolution
to comprehend them in still simpler
has been the real law of the animal and
types, and thus hope to arrive some day
vegetable kingdoms.
at understanding the plan which God
In fact, the discovery of missing links
has followed in producing and developing
has gone so far that Professor Cope, one
life in the world.”
of the latest and highest authorities on
This is almost identical with Dr.
the subject, who has done so much for
Temple’s profession of faith, “that it
it by hisWdiscoveries of the wonderfully
seems something more majestic, more
rich fossil fauna of the Tertiary forma
befitting of Him to whom a thousand
tions of the Rocky Mountains and
years are as one day, thus to impress His
California,. says: “We have attained
will once for all on His creation, and
the long-since extinct ancestor of the
provide for all its countless varieties by
lowest vertebrates. We have the ancestor
this one original impress than by special
of all the reptiles, of the birds, and of
acts of creation to be perpetually modi
the mammals. If we consider the
fying what He had previously made.”
mammals separately, we have traced up
A clear, popular conception of this
a great many lines to their points of question of “ missing links ” is so impor
departure from very primitive types.
tant for all who desire to understand the
Thus we have obtained the genealogical
latest, conclusions of modern science
trees of the deer, the camel, the musk, that it may be well to illustrate it by a
the horse, the tapir, and the rhinoceros;
homely example. Fifty years ago the
of the cats and dogs, of the lemurs and
popular belief respecting the animal
monkeys, and have important evidence creation was summed up in the simple
as to the origin of man.”
words of Dr. Watts’s hymn :—
M. Gaudry, the celebrated discoverer
“ Let dogs, delight to bark and bite,
of the fossil treasures of the Upper
For ’tis their nature to ;
Miocene of Pikermi, repeats the same
And bears and lions growl and fight,
thing. He says : “ If we take a skeleton
For God has made them so.”
of a fossil mammalian species, and com Science could only shrug its shoulders
pare it with one of an analogous living and say: “ So it seems; I have no better
species ” as, for instance, a Mammoth explanation to give.”
or Mastodon with a modern elephant—
How different are the terms in which
“ placing the heads, vertebrae, humerus, science would now reply: “Made, if
�THE MISSING LINK
69
you like, but how made? As individuals, and masticating grass were better than
each from a cell not distinguishable from the more millstone-like tubercular teeth
any other microscopic cell of the lowest adapted for grinding down shrubs and
animal and vegetable organisms, but branches of trees. Accordingly, we find
endowed with such an impress of evolu the evolution of the horse constantly
tion that it developes through the stages following this line. In Europe, the
of fish, reptile, and mammal into the Hipparion, who is the immediate ancestor
special mammalian form of its parents. of the horse, whom it closely resembles,
As species, traceable through a similar has already the two lateral toes so rudiprogression backwards from the living mental as to have become wholly useless;
form, through intermediate ancestral in the Anchitherium the tips of the outer
forms graduating by slight distinctions toes just touch the ground, while the
into one another up to the generalised Palseotherium is a distinctly three-toed
Eocene type of the Placental mammal, animal, though the middle toe is larger
and thence backwards by less definite than the two side toes. We have thus a
but still traceable variations to the types complete progression from a slow, heavy
of the marsupial, the reptilian, the fish, animal, adapted for living on marshy
the vertebrate, and so up to the primitive ground, like the tapir, to the courser of
cell in which the individual living animal the plains, whose latest development,
under artificial selection, is seen in a
originated.”
Thus the dog and bear, now so dis Ladas or a Sceptre.
In America, the links in the pedigree
tinct, can be traced up to Amphicyon
and Hysenarctus, which combined the of the fossil horse are still more numerous,
qualities of both; the former being rather and the transitions closer. The line
more dog than bear, the latter rather begins in the Early Eocene with the
more bear than dog; and these again, Eohippus, an animal of the size of a
either through the Creodonta to the fox, which, in addition to four wellBunodonta of the early Eocene, or developed toes of the forefoot, had the
through the Ictitherium to the Cyno- remnants of the hoofed fifth toe. In
dictis, or weasel-like dog of the same the Upper Eocene, the Eohippus was
formation, which is clearly a descendant replaced by the Orohippus, in which the
of the insectivorous Marsupials of the rudimentary first digit had disappeared,
and the fifth was reduced to a splint.
Secondary age.
The horse affords the best example of In the Lower Miocene the Mesohippus,
this progressive evolution, the specialisa which was about as large as a sheep, had
tion from the generalised Eocene type only three toes with a rudimentary splint
of a five-toed and tubercular-toothed on the foreleg, and in its teeth and other
mammal being clearly traced, step by particulars approached more closely to
step, down to the present one-toed horse. the horse. In the Upper Miocene,
The evolution took the course of adapt Mesohippus is replaced by Miohippus,
ing the original form to the requirements which approaches closely to the Anchi
of an animal which had to live on wide therium of Europe ; while in the Lower
prairies or desert plains, where a bulky Pliocene this gives way to the Proto
body had to be transported at high hippus, which approached the horse
speed, by leaps and bounds, over great very closely, and was about the size of
distances, both to find food and to escape an ass. Like the Hipparion of Europe,
from enemies by flight. For this purpose, which in many respects it resembles, it
evidently, one solid toe, protected by a had three toes, of which only the middle
single enlarged nail or hoof, was prefer one reached the ground. In the Middle
able to five or three weak toes terminating Pliocene we have the Pliohippus, which
each in a separate nail or claw; and in has lost the small hooflets on the rudi
like manner teeth adapted for cutting mentary toes, and is in all respects very
�7°
THE MISSING LINK
like a horse; and, finally, in the Upper accidental variations in this direction, or
Pliocene we have the true horse. This partly by this and partly by heredity
progression gives rise to two important fixing variations induced by use and
remarks. First, that size cannot be disuse of organs in stretching to reach
accepted as of much importance in the branches of palms, in no way affects
tracing lines of descent, as might, the question whether the animal is a
indeed, have been anticipated from the product of evolution or a miraculous
wide variations in the size of dogs and creation.
other domestic animals introduced by
To return to the pedigree of the
artificial selection. Secondly, that the horse, which may be taken as the typical
extinction of widespread and apparently instance of descent traced by progressive
unexhausted races of animals is a fact specialisation. What is a horse ? It is
which has to be reckoned with. The essentially an animal specialised for a
total disappearance of the horse in particular object—that of the rapid pro
America, where it and its ancestors had gression of a bulky body over open
existed in such numbers from the Early plains or deserts. When mammalian
Eocene down to quite recent times, is a life first appears abundantly in the lower
most perplexing problem. There is no Tertiaries,it is in the primitive generalised
appearance of any great change of type, in which nature seems always to
environment since the horse roamed in make its first essays, as if it were trying
countless numbers over the continent of its ’prentice hand on a simple sketch, to
America; and we know, from the experi be gradually developed into a series of
ence of Europe, that it was a hardy finished pictures. The primitive sketch
animal, capable of resisting both the in this instance took the form of what
torrid heat of Arabia and the intense Professor Cope calls a “ pentadactyle,
cold of the Glacial period. And so plantigrade, bunodont,” by which for
many other species survived in America, midable collocation of words we are to
from the Pliocene to the Quaternary understand an animal which had five
and recent periods, as to show that the toes at the extremities of each of its
extinction of the horse was an isolated limbs; which walked on the flat of its
phenomenon. And as of extinction, so feet, and whose molar teeth presented a
of creation. We do not fully under flat surface, with four, or in the very
stand the exact process by which types earliest form three, little cones or
and species have either appeared or dis tubercles, to assist in grinding its food.
appeared, and this affords the only It may give some idea of the precision
ground left to those who, from theo and certainty to which such researches
logical or other prepossessions, are have attained to say that this primitive
hostile to Darwinism. They say his form was predicted by Professor Cope
theory of natural selection from spon in 1874, from the progress towards it
taneous variations does not account for traced in following backwards various
everything, and does not explain fully lines of later descent; and that seven
all the laws of these variations. This years later, in 1881, the prophecy was
may be partly true; but it in no way fulfilled by the discovery that such a
affects the truth of evolution, which is a type of mammals, now known as the
fact and not a theory, and is quite inde Condylarthra, actually existed in large
pendent of the subsidiary question numbers in North America in the early
whether natural selection can account Eocene period.
for all or only for a principal part of
Consider now what the specialisation
the facts which, in some way or other, from this original type to the horse
have to be accounted for. Thus, whether implied. The first step was to walking
the long neck of the giraffe was developed on the toes instead of on the flat of the
by natural selection taking advantage of foot—a change which, whether owing
�THE MISSING LINK
or not to the lady Condylarthra having
adopted the modern fashion of wearing
high-heeled boots, became general in
most lines of their descendants. . For
galloping on hard ground it is evident
that one strong and long toe, protected
by a solid hoof, was more serviceable
than four short and weak toes, protected
by separate nails. Accordingly, coales
cence of the toes is the fundamental
fact in the progress of structural changes
through successive species, by which the
primitive Bunodont was converted into
the modern horse. Corresponding with
this are other progressive changes in the
articulation of the joints, especially those
of the bones corresponding to the ankle
and wrist joints, which are modified from
a contact of plane surfaces into a system
of tongues and grooves, which give
freedom of action in direct progression,
but secure them against the dislocations
from shocks and strains to which they
would be exposed in galloping or jumping.
So in other types the specialisation takes
different forms, but always towards the
sharper distinction of species formerly
more united and generalised. Thus the
half-bear, half-dog, and half-cat original
type of the Eocene becomes differen
tiated into the three distinct types of the
wholly bear, dog, and cat of later forma
tions.
Nor is this tracing back of existing
mammalian species to ancestral forms in
the Early Tertiary all that recent science
has accomplished.
The course of
palaeontological discovery for the last
twenty, and specially for the last ten,
years may almost be summed up as
that of the discovery of “ missing links,”
until gap after gap, which seemed to
separate not only species, but genera
and orders, by insurmountable barriers,
has been bridged over by intermediate
forms. Thus, to take one of the most
striking instances, what can, at first
sight, appear more unlike than reptile
and bird, and who would have ventured
to predict that any relationship could be
traced between a tortoise and a swallow?
And yet nothing is more certain than
71
that the Reptilia pass over into the Aves
by successive gradations which make it
difficult to pronounce where one ends
and the other begins. The pterodactyl,
or flying dragon of the lias, approaches
in structure and habits towards the bird
type; the ostrich retains some resem
blance to the pterodactyl, but the com
plete transitional type, or “ missing link,”
has been found in those feathered
reptiles, or birds with reptilian heads
and teeth, whose remains have fortunately
been preserved in a fossil state. The
Archaeopteryx, from the CEningen slate
of the Upper Oolite, in the museum of
South Kensington, is a beautiful specimen
of such a missing link, and would cer
tainly be taken for a bird by any casual
observer, though comparative anatomists
find many of its essential features to be
reptilian.
The Archaeopteryx and other transi
tional types, which have been discovered
in Europe and America between birds
and reptiles, afford perhaps the most
obvious and universally intelligible in
stances of what recent palaeontology has
done in the way of the discovery of
“missing links,” between genera and
orders now widely separated ; but similar
discoveries have gone a long way towards
establishing the continuity of life from
the earliest periods in which it appears
down to the present day, and showing
the kind and progress of the changes in
structure which in the course of evolu
tion have linked the various orders and
species of living forms together. Thus
the higher form of Placental mammals
which became predominant in the Early
Tertiary differs from the Marsupials,
which extend into the trias of the
Secondary period, by the greater exten
sion of the allantois or membrane which
surrounds the foetus. In the Placentals
this completely surrounds it, so that the
foetus remains part of the mother until
birth; while in the Marsupial the young
are born incomplete, and take refuge for
a time in a pouch which is attached to
the mother’s stomach. But there are
fossil animals in the Eocene which
�72
THE MISSING LINK
combine the two characters, showing a
Marsupial brain and dentition, with a
Placental development. They are, in
effect, Marsupials in which the allantois,
instead of being arrested at an early
stage, has continued to grow.
Again, the Marsupials are linked on to
still lower forms of animal life through
the Monotremata, of which a few speci
mens survive in Australia, typified by
the Ornithorynchus, or water-mole, which
has the bill of a duck, and lays eggs.
This order has only one opening, called
the cloaca, for the purposes which, in
higher orders,' are performed by separate
organs; and it is remarkable that this
stage is passed through by man and the
higher mammals in the course of their
embryonic development.
Going still further back, the lines of
demarcation between orders are, as in
the case of birds and reptiles, more and
more broken down every day by the dis
covery of intermediate forms, and we
can almost trace the evolution from the
Ascidian or lowest vertebrate type into the
fish, the amphibia, the reptile, and so
upwards. And it is remarkable that this
course of evolution invariably corresponds
with the general progressive evolution
of types through geological ages, and
with the embryonic evolution of indi
vidual life from the primitive cell. It
is not too much, therefore, to assume
evolution to be the demonstrated law of
the world of life as well as of that of
matter, and to confine ourselves to the
question whether man is or is not a
solitary exception to this law.
We are now in a position to examine
more closely the bearing of this question
of “ missing links ” on that of human
origins. Geologically speaking, man is
one of the order of Primates, which
includes also the catarrhine apes and
monkeys of the Old World, the platyrhine
apes and monkeys of America, and the
lemurs or half-monkeys which are found
principally in Madagascar and a few
districts of continental and insular Asia
and Africa. Of these, the anthropoid
apes—the chimpanzee, gorilla, and orang
—approach most closely to man in their
structure.
In fact, considered as mere machines,
the resemblance between them and man
is something wonderful. It is much
closer than is suggested by a mere com
parison of outward forms. One must
have read the results arrived at by the
most distinguished comparative anato
mists. to understand how close is the
identity. Not merely does every bone,
every muscle, and every nerve in the
one find its analogue more or less
developed in the other, but even in such
minute particulars as the direction of the
hairs on the forearm converging towards
the elbow there is an absolute corre
spondence.
It is in the brain, however, which is
the most important organ, as being that
on .which the specially human faculty
of intelligence depends, that the close
- physical resemblance between man and
the other quadrumana is most striking.
The brain of all quadrumanous animals is
distinguished from that of quadrupeds by
certain well-defined characters. Those
of lemurs, monkeys, baboons, and apes
show a progression of these characters
from the lemurs, whose brain differs little
from that of rodents, up to the anthro
poid apes, the chimpanzee, the gorilla,
and the orang, who have a brain which
in its most essential particulars closely
resembles that of man. In fact, the
brain of these apes bridges over much
more than half the interval between the
simplest quadrumanous form of the
lemur and the most advanced—that of
man; while, in like manner, the brains of
some of the inferior races of mankind,
and of idiots, where the development of
the brain has been arrested, bridge over
the interval between man and ape, and,
in some extreme cases, approach more
nearly to the latter than to the former
type both in size and structure.
Attempt after attempt has been made
to find some fundamental characters in
the human brain on which to base a
generic distinction between man and the
brute creation; but such attempts have
�THE MISSING LINK
invariably broken down under a close
investigation. Thus, in the celebrated
controversy between Owen and Huxley,
the former distinguished anatomist
thought that he had found such a
distinction in the hinder part of the
human brain, but it turned out that he
had been misled by relying on the plates
in the work of the Dutch anatomists,
Camper and Vrolik; and Huxley, con
firmed by them, proved by actual dis
section that all the characters on which
Owen relied were to be found equally in
the brain of the chimpanzee and other
higher quadrumana.
The distinction also on which the
very term “ quadrumana ” is founded is
proved to be fallacious, for Huxley has
shown that the termination of the hinder
limbs of the anthropoids is really a foot
with a prehensile great toe, and not a
hand; and there are many instances,
both of human individuals and races,, in
which this toe has considerable flexibility,
and is used in climbing trees or picking
up small objects. And so in innumerable
other cases in which anatomical observa
tions, supposed to be specifically human,
have either been found wanting in some
individual men, and present in some
individual quadrumana, or have been
traced in both in some undeveloped or
foetal condition.
And yet with this close identity of
anatomical conditions there is, as Huxley
emphatically asserts, a wide gap between
man and the highest ape, which has
never been bridged over, and which pre
cludes the idea of direct lineal descent
from one to the other, though it implies
close relationship. The differences are
partly physical and partly intellectual.
Of the former, it may be said that they
may be all summed up in the fact that
man is specialised for erect posture.
Speaking broadly, it may be said that
man is a member of the order of Primates,
specialised for erect posture; while mon
keys are specialised for climbing trees;
and anthropoid apes are a sort of inter
mediate link, specialised mainly for
forest life, but with a certain amount of
73
capability for walking erect and on the
ground.
Thus, to begin at the foundation of
the human structure, the foot, with its
solid heel bone, arch of the instep, and
short toes, is obviously better adapted
for walking and worse for climbing than
that of monkeys. The upright basis of
the foot corresponds with longer, stronger,
and straighter bones of the leg, and a
greater development of muscles to move
them. The erect posture determines
the shape of the pelvis and haunch
bones, which have to support the weight
of the vertebral column and intestines
in a vertical direction. The vertebral
column, again, is arranged with a slight
double curvature, so as to enable the
body to maintain an upright posture, and
to afford a vertical support for the head.
And, finally, the larger brain is rendered
possible by its weight being nicely
balanced on a vertical column, instead
of hanging down and being supported
by powerful muscles requiring strong
processes for lateral attachment in the
vertebrse of the neck.
Again, the fore-limbs being entirely
relieved from the necessity of being used
as supports, acquire the marvellous
flexibility and adaptability of the human
arm and hand; a specialisation which
has doubtless a good deal to do with
man’s superior intelligence, for, as we
see in the case of the elephant, the
intelligence of an animal depends not
merely on the mass of the brain, but
very much on the nature of the organs
by which it is placed in relation with
the surrounding environment.1 In this
respect there is no animal organ com
parable to the human hand, and we may
probably trace its influence in other
divergencies of the human from the
bestial type. Thus, the greater develop
ment of the jaws and bones of the face
in animals, giving rise to a projecting
1 At a recent Congress of the British Associa
tion the theory was put forward, on high autho
rity, that this setting free of the arms may have
reacted on the brain and occasioned man’s great
mental progress.
�THE MISSING LINK
muzzle, is no longer requisite when the
arm and hand afford so much better an
instrument than the mouth for seizing
objects, and for attack or defence; while
from the same cause the canine teeth
tend to diminish. In fact, the specialisa
tion of improved types from the early
generalised type takes very often the
form of a reduction of the number of
teeth to that required for the relations of
the new types to their environment.
Thus, in the pure carnivora, like the
cats, the molars disappear and the
canines and sectorial premolars assume
a great development. In the herbivora,
on the other hand, the molars are
developed at the expense of the flesh
cutting teeth ; and in civilised man there
is a progressive diminution in the size of
the jaws, which hardly leaves room for
the normal number of teeth, some of
which are probably destined to dis
appear, as the so-called wisdom-teeth
have already almost done.
Thus, from the single point of view of
specialisation for erect posture, we arrive
at all the physical characteristics which
distinguish man from the monkeys and
anthropoid apes. At the same time, it
is a difference only of adaptation, and
not of essence. The machine man
differs from the machine ape, much as
the modern railway locomotive differs
from the old-fashioned pumping steamengine. The essential parts—boiler,
pistons, cylinders, valves—are the same,
but differently modified; those of the
locomotive being vastly better adapted
for condensed energy and rapid motion
in a smaller compass. Still, no one can
doubt their affinity and common origin,
or suppose that, while the Newcomen
engine owed its existence to human
invention, the Wild Irishman or Flying
Scotchman could only be accounted
for by invoking supernatural agency.
This is precisely the case as regards
man in his physical aspect. It is diffi
cult to imagine that the combination of
bones, muscles, and nerves, which make
a man, originated in any different manner
than did the combination of the same I
identical bones, muscles, and nerves
which make a chimpanzee or gorilla. If
one originated by evolution, the other
must have done so also; and conversely,
if. one came into being by special
miraculous creation, so also must the
other, and not only the other, but all
the innumerable varieties of distinct
species, now, and in past geological
times, existing upon earth.
It is only when we come to the higher
intellectual and moral faculties that the
wide gulf appears between man and the
animal creation, which it is so difficult
to bridge over. It is true that all or
nearly all of these faculties appear in a
rudimentary state in animals, and that
not only apes and monkeys, but dogs,
elephants, and others of the higher
species, show a certain amount of
memory, reasoning power, affection, and
other human qualities; while, on the
other hand, some of the inferior races of
mankind show very little of them. The
chimpanzee Sally, in the Zoological
Gardens, and Lord Avebury’s dog
Van, can count up to five; while it is
said that three is the limit of the count
ing power of some of the Australian
tribes. The gorilla, in his native forests,
according to the accounts of travellers,
lives respectably with a single wife and
family, and is a better husband and
parent than many of our upper ten who
figure in Divorce Courts. Still, there is
this wide distinction—that even in the
highest animals these faculties remain
rudimentary, and seem incapable of
progress, while even in the lowest races
of man they have reached a much higher
level, and seem capable of almost un
limited development. No human race
has yet been discovered which, however
savage, is entirely destitute of speech,
and of the faculty of tool-making in the
widest sense of adapting natural objects
and forces to human purposes.
As
regards speech, no animal has advanced
beyond the first rudimentary stage of
uttering a few simple sounds, which by
their modulations and accent give ex
pression to their emotions. They are in
�THE MISSING LINK
the first stage of what Max Muller calls
the “ bow-wow and pooh-pooh theory,”
and even in this they have advanced but
a little way. They have a very few root
sounds, and those are all emotional. A
dog or an ape can express love, hatred,
alarm, pain, or pleasure, but has. not
risen even to the height of coining
roots imitating sounds of nature, such as
“crack” and “splash,” and still less to
that which all human races have attained,
of multiplying these primitive roots
indefinitely, by extending them by some
sort of mental analogy to more abstract
ideas ; and connecting ' them by some
sort of grammar, by which they are
made to express a variety of shades of
meaning and modifications of human
thought. Animals understand their own
simple language perfectly well, and to a
certain extent some of the higher orders,
such as dogs and monkeys, can be
taught to understand human language;
but no animal has ever learned to speak
in the sense of using a series of articulate
sounds to convey meaning, though, as
in the case of the parrot, the vocal organ
may be there, capable of uttering imita
tion words and sentences.
As regards tool-making, no human
race is known which has not shown some
faculty in this direction. The rudest
existing tribes, such as Bushmen or
Mincopies, chip stones, and are acquain
ted with fire and with the bow and arrow,
spear, or some corresponding weapon
for offence and defence. The highest
apes have not got beyond the stage of
using objects actually provided for them
by nature for definite purposes. Thus
monkeys enjoy the warmth of a fire and
sit over it, but have never got the length
of putting on coals or sticks to keep it
up, much less of kindling it when extin
guished. Sally and Mafuca perfectly
understood the use of the keeper’s key,
and would steal and hide it, and use it
to let themselves out of their cage; but
no chimpanzee or gorilla has ever been
known to fashion any implement, or do
more than use the sticks and stones
provided by nature, for throwing at
75
enemies or cracking nuts. Their nearest
approach to invention is shown in con
structing rude huts or nests from branches
and leaves, for shelter and protection ;
an art in which both apes and savages
are very inferior to most species of birds,
to say nothing of insects. The difference
is a very fundamental one, for in the
case of man we can trace a constant
progression, from the rudest form of
palaeolithic chipped stones up to the
steam-engine and electric telegraph; but
in the ape we can discern no signs of
progress, or of a capacity for progress.
It is conceivable that by taking a certain
number of Bushmen or Australians when
young, placing them in a favourable
environment, and breeding selectively
for intelligence, as we breed race-horses
for speed or short-horns for fat, we might,
in a few generations, produce a race far
advanced in culture ; but it is not readily
conceivable that we could do the same
with orangs or chimpanzees. It would
be a most interesting experiment, to try
how far we could go with them in this
direction, but unfortunately it cannot be
tried, as we have no sufficient number
of specimens to begin with, and the race
cannot be kept alive, much less per
petuated, in our climate. Even if it
could, there is no reason to expect that
it would succeed up to the point of
making a race of apes or monkeys who
could speak a primitive language or
make primitive tools. For the funda
mental difference between them and
man may be summed up in the words,
“arrested development.”
At an early age the difference between
a young chimpanzee and a young negro
is not very great. The form and capa
city of the skull, the convolutions of the
brain, and the intellectual and moral
characters are within a measurable dis
tance of one another; but as age
advances the brain of the negro child
continues to grow, and its intelligence
to increase up to manhood; while in the
case of the ape the sutures of the skull
close, the growth of the brain is arrested,
and development takes the direction of
�76
THE MISSING LINK
bony structure, giving rise to a projecting
muzzle, protuberant crests and ridges,
and generally a more bestial appearance;
while the character undergoes a corre
sponding change and becomes less
human-like.
It is evident, therefore, that these two
branches of the Primates, man and ape,
follow diverging lines of development,
and can never be transformed into one
another, and that the “missing links”
to connect the human species with the
common law of evolution of the animal
kingdom are to be sought in other direc
tions than that of direct descent from
any existing form of ape or monkey.
There are three lines of research
which may be followed in looking for
traces of such missing links.
1. We may compare the higher with
the lower varieties of the existing human
species, and see if we can discover any
tendency towards a lower form of ances
tral development.
2. We may observe the results in the
cases of arrested development which
occur in those unfortunate beings who
are born idiots or microcephali—that is,
with deficient brains.
3. We may explore the records of the
past, of which we have now numerous
remains preserved in the fossil state.
. The first and second of these lines
give us a certain amount of clear and
positive result.
Comparing civilised
man with the Negro, Australian, Bush
man, and other inferior races, we invari
ably find differences which all tend in
the direction of the primitive “pentadactyle, plantigrade, bunodont.” The
brain is of less volume, its convolutions
less clearly marked, the bony develop
ment of the skull, face, and muzzle more
pronounced, the legs shorter and frailer,
the arms longer, the stature less. The
most primitive savage races known to us
are apparently those Pygmies who, like
the Akkas and Bushmen of Africa, the
Negrillos of Asiatic islands, some of the
hill tribes of India, and the Digger
Indians of North America, have been
driven everywhere into the most inacces
sible forests and mountains by the inva
sion of superior races.
The average
stature of many of these does not exceed
four feet, and in some instances falls as
low as three feet six inches; and in
structure, as well as in appearance and
intelligence, there is no doubt that they
approximate towards the type of monkeys.
In the case of idiots the resemblance
to an animal type is carried much further,
so far, indeed, that they may be almost
described as furnishing one of the missing
links. As Vogt says, “we need only
place the skulls of the negro, chimpanzee,
and idiot side by side to show that the
idiot holds, in every respect, an inter
mediate place between them.”
Thus the average weight of the brain
of Europeans is about 49 oz., while that
of Negroes is 44^oz.; and in some of
the inferior races it is still lower, descend
ing to about 35 oz. in the case of some
skulls of Bushwomen. This approaches
very closely to the limit of 32 oz. which
Gratiolet and Broca assign as the lowest
weight of brain at which human intelli
gence begins to be possible; but in many
cases of small-headed idiots the weight
descends much lower, and has even been
observed as low as 10 oz. The average
weight of the brain of the large anthro
poid apes is estimated at about 20 oz.,
and in some cases is even higher, so that
the brains of some of the inferior human
races stand about half-way between those
of the superior races and of the anthro
poids, which latter again differ more
from those of the lemurs and inferior
monkeys than they do from those of
man.
The approximation towards primitive
conditions shown by a comparison of
superior with inferior races, and of nor
mally developed men with idiots and
apes, might have been expected to derive
further confirmation from tracing back
to the third line of inquiry, that of fossil
remains.
And yet it is just here, where we might
expect to find conclusive evidence, that
we meet with least success. The number
of skulls and skeletons dating back to
�THE MISSING LINK
77
early Quaternary times, distant from us the muscle of the tongue is attached, and
1
certainly not less than 50,000 years, and is said to be necessary for the movements
i
probably much more, is now so great as 1of the tongue which render speech pos
to enable us to speak confidently as to sible. It is absent in the monkey and
1
their character, and even to classify their .all non-speaking animals ; and Mortillet
different types. The oldest is that known asserts that in the Naulette skull the
as the Canstadt type, the next oldest bone is absent, and its place shows a
that of Cro-Magnon. Now, the Cro- hollow. He argues that the primitive
Magnon type is not only not a degraded men of the Neanderthal or Canstadt
one, but, physically speaking, that of a type were incapable of speech, and his
fine race—tall in stature, with large and conclusion is thought probable by several
symmetrical brain-structure, and, on the good authorities. But the induction
whole, on a par with some of the best seems too wide to be drawn from a single
instance, and, as far as I am aware, it
modern races.
The Canstadt type is somewhat more has not been confirmed by any other
rude, and in extreme cases, like that of undoubted specimen of early palaeolithic
the celebrated Neanderthal skull, so man.
But a far greater advance was made
simious in the low forehead and massive
by the discovery of a few fragments of
bony ridges that at first sight it was
thought that one of the missing links what is now known as the pithecanthro
had really been discovered. But further pus erectus. In 1894 a Dutch military
inquiry showed that this was only an physician, Dr. Eugene Dubois, found in
■ extreme instance of a type which is Java the skull-cap, a femur, and two
presented by numerous other skulls of a teeth of some man-like animal. They
character entirely human, certainly not were submitted to the International
inferior to that of existing savages, and Zoological Congress at Leyden; and,
which may be traced as surviving among although they naturally gave rise to a
many of the best European races. Even heated discussion at first, they are now
in the extreme case of the Neanderthal generally recognised to be relics of some
skull, the brain was of fair capacity; and ancestral form, almost midway between
a modern skull, that of Lykke, a Dane man and his Simian progenitors. The
of distinguished intellectual capacity, is form to which they belonged is computed
preserved in the museum at Copenhagen, to have stood, when erect, five feet six
which closely resembles it in all its inches high, and to have had a skull
with a cranial capacity little more than
principal peculiarities.
If the Tertiary skulls of Olmo, Cas- half that of the native Australian or
telnedolo, and Calaveras are accepted Veddah woman. The bones rested upon
as genuine, they carry us back much a conglomerate which lies upon a bed of
further in the same direction. Every marine marl and sand of Pliocene age.
thing about these remains is entirely Professor Haeckel claims that we have
human, and in the female skull of Castel- in these remains “ the long-searched-for
nedolo, M. Quatrefages thinks he can missing link,” or “ a Pliocene remainder
discover a specimen of one of the milder of that famous group of highest Catarrand less savage forms of the Canstadt hines which were the immediate pithe
coid ancestors of man.” And as a writer
type,
. .
d
A nearer approach to positive data (Professor Keabley) in the Popular
seemed to be provided by a human jaw Science Monthly (February, 1902) says :
found in the Cave of La Naulette, inl “These remains have been subjected to
Belgium, in which Mortillet and other• the strictest scientific scrutiny and progood authorities assert that the genal[ nounced genuine.”
No further discoveries of intermediate
tubercle is wanting. This is a small[
bony excrescence on the chin, to whichl forms have yet been reported, but the
�78
THE MISSING LINK
evidence for at least the bodily evolution origins of man are to be sought as far
of man is now no longer seriously dis back as the Miocene, we can hardly
puted, and further investigation can only expect to find many specimens of the
serve the purpose of filling the gap in missing link. If we find such an abun
our galleries of palaeontology. No doubt dance of palaeolithic remains early in the
this gap will be supplied as the search Quaternary period, it must be because
proceeds, but the circumstances forbid the human race had long existed, and
us to hope to find these intermediate been driven by the pressure of increasing
forms in any abundance.
population to diffuse themselves over
From the wide diffusion of mankind nearly the whole of the habitable globe.
over nearly the whole of the habitable But this radiation from the original birth
globe in early Quaternary times, it is place must have been extremely slow,
clear that, if the race originated, like and immense periods must have elapsed
other animal races, from evolution, the before it reached the countries which have
origin must be sought in a much more been the fields of scientific research.
remote antiquity. The existence of the Again, great geological changes have
Dryopithecus and other anthropoid taken place since the Miocene period,
apes in the Middle Miocene shows that and it is quite probable that the earliest
the development of another branch, so scene of man’s development may be now
closely allied to man in physical structure, submerged beneath the Indian or Pacific
had been completed in the first half of Ocean.
the Tertiary period. Unless we assume
In Miocene times, when Greenland
direct descent, and not parallel develop and Spitzbergen supported a luxuriant
ment, for the two species, why should vegetation, such a continent would be
the starting-point of man be later than found to the north, possibly in that sub
that of the Dryopithecus ? The horse, merged northern continent which afforded
whose ancestral pedigree is the best a bridge for the passage of so many forms
established of any of the existing of animal life between the Old and New
mammals, was already in existence in Worlds. In fact, many geologists incline
the Pliocene period; and the Hipparion, to the conclusion that the more recent
which is the first of the links connecting forms of animal and vegetable life have
him with the primitive mammal, is first migrated southwards from this circum
found in the Miocene and not later than polar Miocene land, and not northwards
the Pliocene. Why should the develop from tropical regions.
ment of man have begun later, and
We can, therefore, draw no conclusion
followed a more rapid course than that from this scarcity of the remains of
of the horse ? Man, as M. Quatrefages intermediate forms. Science can only
observes, must, from his superior intelli continue to probe the crust of the earth
gence and knowledge of fire and clothing, wherever it is opened, and trust that
have been more able to resist changes of some lucky chance may again add to
climate and environment than many of our knowledge of them. The problem
the animals which undoubtedly outlived is one of the greatest theoretical interest,
the change from the Tertiary to the though we can now happily state that the
Quaternary period, and even survived admission of the fact of man’s animal
the excessive rigour of the Glacial epoch. descent no longer depends on such dis
If, as seems almost certain, the first coveries.
�ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
79
Chapter VII.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
Binet and Fere’s Volume—School of Salpetri^re could do just as much as a Mesmer with
his flowing robes and magic wand. This
_ .Dr. Braid—Hypnotism—How Produced
Effects of—Lethargy—Catalepsy—Somnam led to the further conclusion that any
bulism — Hallucination—Dreams—Hypnotic thing that strained the attention, or, in
Suggestion—Instances of—Visible Rendered
Invisible—Emotions Excited—Acts Dictated other words, excited certain sensory
—Magnet—Trance—Alternating Identity- centres of the brain abnormally, threw
Thought - Reading—Clairvoyance—Spiritual it, so to speak, out of gear, an<i caused
ism—Slate-Writing—Scybert _ Commission- both sensory and motor nervous centres
All Gross Imposture—Dancing Chairs and to behave in a very extraordinary and
Tables—Large Field Opened up by French
Investigations—-Point to Materialistic Results. unusual manner.
.
The volume by Messrs. Binet and. Fere,
published in the International Scientific
Series, gives a lucid view of the recent
researches by which the mysterious sub
jects comprised under the cognate heads
of animal magnetism, hypnotism, som
nambulism, catalepsy, hallucination, and
spiritualism have been,. to a consider
able extent, brought within the domain of
experimental science. The existence of
extraordinary phenomena in this misty
region had been known since the time
of Mesmer, and at times professors. of
what seemed to be something very like
the black art had excited a temporary
sensation, which died out as their tricks
were exposed, or as folly changed its
fashion. But there was such an atmos
phere of imposture, delusion, and super
stitious credulity about the whole subject
that rational men, and especially men of
science really competent to make experi
mental inquiries, turned fromit in disgust.
The first step towards a really scientific
inquiry was made by Dr. Braid, a wellknown surgeon in Manchester, about
forty-five years ago. He proved conclu
sively that the state known as mesmerism,
or artificial somnambulism, could be
produced by straining the eyes for a short
time to look at a given object.
A black wafer stuck on a white wall
Thus it produced a state of anaesthesia,
and, if chloroform had not proved a more
generally efficacious and manageable
agent, hypnotism would probably have
been employed to this day in surgical
operations. Healing effects also were
produced, which bordered very closely
on what used to be considered as
miraculous cures; and in several cases
Braid literally made the blind to see and
the lame to walk, by directing a stream
of vital energy to a paralysed nerve.
Still more extraordinary were the
effects produced in exalting the faculties
and paralysing the will. Muscular force
could in certain cases be so increased
that a limb became as rigid as a bar of
iron, and memory so stimulated that
words and scenes scarcely noticed at the
time, and long since forgotten, started
into life with wonderful vividness and
accuracy.
Thus, in one of Dr. Braid’s experi
ments, an ordinary Scotch servant-girl
startled him by repeating in Hebrew a
passage from the Bible.. It turned out
that she had been maid to a Scotch
minister who was learning. Hebrew, and
who used to walk about his study recit
ing passages from the Hebrew text.
Another instance shows the remark
able obliteration of the will in hypnotised
subjects. A puritanical old lady, to
�8°
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
whom dancing was an abomination, was process is repeated may be soon brought
sent capering about the room by playing into a state in which the slightest hint or
a reel tune on a piano, and telling her to suggestion is sufficient to produce the
join in the dance.
abnormal condition. Thus a highly
Dr. Braid’s experiments, however, did sensitive patient may be hypnotised if
not carry the subject much farther than led to believe that an operator is making
to make believe that there was really passes in an adjoining room, although
something in it; and the subsequent rise he is not really there; while, on the
of spiritualism, with its vulgar machinery other hand, the weight of evidence is
of table-turning and spirit-rapping, and against any effect being produced by
frequent exposures in police-courts, once real passes if the patient is totally
more repelled rational men and consigned unaware of anything of the sort going on,
the subject to oblivion.
or being expected.
But within the last few years a school
But with the class of patients at the
has arisen of French medical men, con Salpetriere the various effects can, in
nected with the hospital of Salpetriere, many cases, be produced with as much
at Paris, who have taken up the subject precision and certainty as when a bar of
in a thoroughly scientific spirit, and iron is magnetised or de-magnetised by
have arrived at truly wonderfully results. turning on or off an electric current
This hospital, affording as it does a con through a coil of copper wire surround
stant supply of hysterical and epileptic ing it.
patients, presents peculiar facilities for
These effects may be classed under
conducting a series of experiments. In two heads — physical and mental or
cases of individual experiments there is psychical. . Not but that the latter
always danger of error from simulation depend ultimately on mechanical move
on the part of the patient, or delusion ments of nerve-centres of the brain, but
on that of the operator. But here the they are connected with will, conscious
experiments were conducted by a body ness, and other phenomena which we
of scientific and sceptical men, selected are accustomed to consider as mental.
from the flower of French surgeons and The purely physical efforts, again, may
physicians; and the patients were so be classified under three heads—viz.,
varied and numerous that, by proper those of lethargy, catalepsy, and som
precautions, it was possible to eliminate nambulism.
The divisions shade off
the element of conscious imposture. into one another, but the typical states
This supply of a large number of patients, are sufficiently distinct to justify this
suffering from hysteria and other nervous classification, which is due to M. Charcot,
disorders, was an essential element for the Director of the Salpetriere.
success, for it is with this class of patients,
In lethargy the patient appears to be
and especially of female patients, that in the deepest sleep. In fact, all the
the phenomena can be produced with functions of mind and body, except the
most completeness and certainty. It is bare life, seem to be suspended. The
a moot point whether all human organ eyes are closed, the body is perfectly
isms are subject more or less to the helpless; the limbs hang slackly down,
influence of hypnotism; but it is certain and, if they are raised, they drop heavily
that with healthy adults not more than into the same position. The charac
one out of every five or six subjects can teristic feature of this state is that any
be hypnotised at the first attempt, and excitement of the muscles, either direct
a great majority of those who can are or through a stimulus applied to the con
only so in a slight degree.
necting motor nerve, produces what is
The liability, however, to hypnotic called a contracture. Thus, if the ulnar
influence increases rapidly by practice, nerve is pressed, the third and fourth
so that nervous patients on whom the fingers of the corresponding hand are
�ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
forcibly contracted, and so for every
other nerve and corresponding muscle
of the body. This evidently affords a
perfect security against simulation, for no
one who was not a skilled anatomist
would know what muscles were con
nected with a particular nerve.
One of the most remarkable pheno
mena connected with these contiactures
is that they may be produced by a
magnet not in physical contact with the
nerve or muscle excited, and, still more
wonderful, that it may be transferred by
a magnet from one side of the body to the
other. Thus, if the fingers of the right
hand have been contracted by pressure
on the ulnar nerve of the right arm, and
a magnet is brought close to that nerve,
both hands become agitated with slight
jerking movements, and soon the con
tracture of the right fingers ceases, and
is transferred to the same fingers of the
left hand. We shall see later that in
more advanced stages of hypnotism still
more marvellous effects are produced by
the magnet, even to the extent of transfer
ring moral emotions into their opposites,
as love into hatred, or hatred into love.
In the meantime, it may be sufficient
to observe that these experiments with
the magnet seem to point out the most
likely way of bringing these mysterious
phenomena within the domain of accurate
science, and here the researches of the
Salpetriere school seem to be deficient.
We are merely told that the magnet pro
duces certain effects, but we want to
know at what distance does it produce
these effects. Do the effects and distance
vary with the power of the magnet ? are
they produced differently by the pre
sentation of the positive or negative pole?
are they produced by an electro-magnet
or by electric currents? is there any and
what reaction by the nerve or muscle on
the magnet ? and other similar questions.
When these are certainly known and
can be expressed in terms of weight and
movement, we shall have made the first
solid and secure step in advance towards
a solution of the more complicated
problems.
81
The next stage is that of catalepsy,
into which lethargy may be made to pass
by simply opening the eyelids. But,
although so closely allied to lethargy,
the states are very different. In catalepsy
all power of movement, or of resistance
to movement, is absolutely suspended,
and the body is like a lump of plastic
clay, which may be moulded into, and
will retain, any form given to it by the
operator. In fact, the subject becomes
a lay figure, with this sole difference,
that he remains so only for some ten or
fifteen minutes, after which the con
strained positions give way to natural
ones. But that he is a bona fide lay
figure for the time is proved by registering
the movements of the extended arm and
the regularity of the respiration, by means
of tracing instruments, and comparing
them with those of a healthy man volun
tarily assuming the same position. The
contrast of the tracings is most remark
able. That of the arm extended by
catalepsy is a straight line showing abso
lutely no tremors; while that of the arm
voluntarily extended shows such a series
of abrupt and increasing oscillations as
to make it quite conceivable how
thought-reading may be possible by con
tact between persons of exceptionally
delicate nervous organisation.
Another remarkable feature in cata
lepsy is that the position in which the
body is placed seems to react on the
mind, and call up the emotions, and
their reflex muscular motions, which are
habitually associated with the attitude.
Thus, if the head is depressed, the face
assumes the expression of humility; if
elevated, that of pride.
The most extraordinary phenomena
known are those of somnambulism, and
of the artificial somnambulism which is
produced by animal magnetism or
hypnotism. These are of various stages,
graduating from that of, ordinary waking
dreams to that of profound hypnotism,
in which will, consciousness, _ memory,
and perception are affected in a way
which at first sight appears to be truly
I magical or supernatural. The symptoms
�82
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
may be classed for convenience as nation and suggestion that the results
physical or psychical, although the latter are most startling and most opposed to
are really physical, depending ultimately ordinary experience. What is an hallu
on movements of nerve-centres.
cination? It may be described in one
The direct physical effect seems to be word as seeing the invisible and not
the exact opposite of that of lethargy— seeing the visible. And the same of the
viz., that the senses, instead of being other senses. They not only deceive us,
asleep, have their sensibility exalted in but give evidence directly contradictory
an extraordinary degree. Thus, subjects of that of the waking senses. We hear
feel the heat or cold produced by the inaudible, and are deaf to the audible;
breathing from the mouth at a distance we touch the intangible, and lose touch
of several yards. The hearing is so of the tangible; bitter tastes sweet, and
acute that a conversation may be over sweet bitter.
The fundamental fact
heard which is carried on in the floor seems to be that, if certain conditions or
below.
molecular movements of certain sensory
The amount of this exaltation of the nerve-centres of the brain are caused, no
senses can almost be measured. There matter how, the corresponding percep
is a familiar experiment in which the tions, with their train of associated ideas
impression of two points, as of separate and reflex movements, inevitably follow.
pencils near one another, is felt as one ; In. the normal waking state these con
and an instrument has been constructed, ditions are created by real objects con
known as Weber’s compasses, which veyed to the brain through the senses.
measures the amount of deviation neces We see a man, and we conclude him to
sary to produce a two-fold sensation. be a real man because our other senses
This deviation appears to be six times confirm the testimony of sight. If he
greater in the waking than in the som speaks, we hear him; if we touch him, we
nambulistic state, whence it may be in feel him ; and the evidence of all other
ferred that the sensibility of the sense people who see and hear him confirms
of touch has been exalted sixfold.
our experience. But in dreams we have
A similar exaltation is produced in the commencement of a different experi
the faculty of memory, as shown in the ence, for we see and hear distinctly for
instance already quoted, in which an the time, though in a fleeting and imper
ignorant servant-girl recited a long passage fect manner, scenes and persohs which
in Hebrew. As in dreams, perceptions have no real objective existence. In
long since photographed on the brain hallucinations we have the same thing,
and completely forgotten seem to be only in a waking or partially waking
revived with all the vividness of actually state, and the impressions made are
present perceptions when recalled by vastly more vivid and permanent.
some association with the dominant idea
Take the following as instances of
which has taken possession of the mind. positive hypnotic hallucinations, or seeing
This arises doubtless, in a great measure, the invisible, recorded by Messrs. Binet
from the mind being closed against the and Fere from their experience at the
innumerable other impressions which, in Salpetriere. A patient told to look at a
the waking state, wholly or partially butterfly which had just alighted on the
neutralise any one suggested idea, and table before her immediately said, “ Oh,
weaken its impression. Thus, a som what a beautiful butterfly,” and proceeded
nambulist walks securely along a narrow cautiously to catch it and impale the
plank, because no other outward impres imaginary butterfly with a pin on a piece
sions of surrounding objects confuse his of cardboard. Another patient, being
mind with suggestions of danger.
shown a photographic plate with an
It is, however, when we come to the impression of a scene in the Pyrenees,
partly psychical phenomena of halluci and told that it was a portrait of herself
�ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
83
in a very unbecoming dress, or rather in the waking mind, and produce the
want of dress, immediately saw it so, and effects corresponding to the idea as by
was so enraged that she threw the plate an inevitable piece of machinery. This
on the ground and stamped on it. And brings the subject within the domain
what is remarkable, as showing the of criminal jurisprudence, for there is
intensity and persistency of these hallu abundant evidence that a normally moral
cinations, for nearly two months after person may obey a hypnotic suggestion
wards, when shown in her waking state which had been totally, forgotten, even
photographs of this landscape which had to the extent of committing the greatest
been taken from the plate, she saw her crimes, as attempting to stab or adminis
own portrait and fell into fits of passion. ter poison. Thus M. Fere relates that,
In another case a patient, being told that having ordered a subject in a state of
one of the hospital doctors would be somnambulism on awakening to. stab
present at a ball to be given, next night M. B------ with the pasteboard knife he
among the inmates of Salpetriere, saw, put into her hand, as soon as she awoke
conversed, and walked about with this she rushed on him and struck him in
imaginary doctor, who was not really the region of the heart. M. B-——•
present, and when she saw the real man feigned to fall down. The subject,
the day after could not recognise him being asked why she had killed him,
until she had been again hypnotised and replied with an expression of ferocity,
“He is an old villain, and wished to
the hallucination dispelled.
The negative experiences of making insult me.”
It is evident that, if these phenomena
the visible invisible are even more extra
are real, hypnotism ought to be regulated
ordinary. Take the following case:—
“ We suggested to a hypnotised patient by law as much as the far less dangerous
that when she awoke she would be unable practice of vivisection. The practice of
to see F----- •. She could not see him, it should be confined to licensed medical
and asked what had become of him. . practitioners, and under conditions re
We replied, 1 He has gone out; you may quiring the presence of at least two or
return to your room.’ She rose, said more witnesses, one of whom, especially
good morning, and, going to the door, in the case of females, should be some
knocked up against F------ , who had respectable friend or relative. I prefer,
placed himself before it. We next took however, not to dwell on this branch of
a hat, which she saw quite well, and the question, but to return to its purely
touched it so as to be sure that it was scientific and philosophical aspects.
The purely mechanical origin of these
really there. We placed it on F------’s
head, and words cannot express her hallucinations is shown by a number of
surprise when she saw the hat apparently interesting experiments. An hallucina
suspended in the air. F------ took off tory image can be reflected, refracted, or
the hat and saluted her with it several made to appear double, in precisely the
times, when she saw it, without any same manner as a real one. Thus, in
support, describing curves in the air. in what is known as Brewster’s experi
She declared the hat must be suspended ment, where an image is duplicated by
by a string, and even got on a chair to a slight lateral pressure on one eye
throwing it out of focus with the other,
feel for it.”
Numerous other instances equally the same effect is produced. A case is
remarkable are recorded, and there is a recorded where an hysterical patient, who
whole class of cases in which suggestions had a vision of the Virgin Mary appear
impressed on the subject’s mind in a ing in great glory, saw two Virgins
state of hypnotism may long afterwards, directly this lateral pressure was applied.
and when totally forgotten, be revived at Complementary colours also appear to
predicted periods, with irresistible force, an hallucinatory image of a red or green
�84
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
spot on a sheet of white cardboard, just: really displaced by F------ , who had been
as they would in the waking state if the: rendered invisible by suggestion. It is
spot were real. The magnet also, by’ evident that, if there is any real residue
a purely mechanical action, transfers of facts in the phenomena of spiritualistic
unilateral hallucinations which affect one; seances, after deducting what is due to
eye only, from the right to the left eye, legerdemain and imposture, the above
and vice versa, and it may be made to experiments would go a long way to
destroy an hullucination, as when X------ account for them. The preliminaries of
was made invisible to an hypnotic a seance, such as darkened rooms, con
subject; on applying a magnet to the tact of hands, and excited imagination,
back of the head, X------ again became are almost identical with those employed
visible.
by Mesmer, and it would be contrary to
And what is still more wonderful, the experience if they did not frequently
magnet is capable of transferring emo produce, on susceptible subjects, hyp
tions. Thus the idea was impressed on notic effects which made them suscep
a hypnotised subject that on awaking tible to hallucinating suggestions. If so,
she would feel a desire to strike F
—. there is no doubt that they might see
A magnet was placed near her right foot. tables move and Mr. Home float in the
On awaking, she jumped up and tried air, with a full conviction that they were
to give F----- - a slap, saying, “ I do not awake all the time and in possession of
know why, but I feel a desire to strike their ordinary senses.
him.” In another moment her face
This much I would observe, that all
assumed a gentle and endearing ex these attempts to escape from the inexor
pression, and she said, “ I want to able laws of nature invariably fail.
embrace him,” and tried hard to do so. Spiritualism is grasped at by many
Consecutive oscillations between love because it seems to hold out a hope of
and hatred were then observed.
escaping from those laws and proving
Another most remarkable phenomenon the existence of disembodied spirits.
is recorded. It was suggested to a sub But, when analysed by science, spiritual
jected X----- r that she had become M. ism leads straight to materialism. What
F------•. On awaking, she was unable to are we to think of free will if, as in the
see M. F------ , who was present, but she case of Dr. Braid’s old lady, it can be
exactly imitated his gestures, put her annihilated, and the will of another brain
hands in her pockets, and stroked an substituted for it, by the simple mechani
imaginary moustache. When asked if cal expedient of looking at a black wafer
she was acquainted with herself, X------ , stuck on a white wall ? Or what becomes
she replied with a contemptuous shrug, of personal consciousness and identity
“Oh, yes, an hysterical patient. What if, as in the case above quoted, a young
do you think of her? She is not too woman can be brought to refer to herself
wise.”
with contemptuous pity as a strange girl
There are two experiments recorded who “was not over wise ”? These cases
which throw a good deal of light on the of an alternating identity are most per
phenomena of what is known as spiritual plexing. Smith falls into a trance and
ism. In slight hypnotism, the subjects believes himself to be Jones. He really
assert, on awaking, that they have never is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger
for a moment lost consciousness, and to him while the trance lasts; but when
that they have been present as wit he awakes he is himself, Smith, again,
nesses at the phenomena of suggestion ;and forgets all about Jones. He falls
developed by the magnetisers.
In into another trance, and straightway he
another case the furniture of the room 1forgets Smith and takes up his Jones
seemed to the subject to be noisily <existence where he dropped it in the
moved about by invisible hands, being ]previous trance, and so he may go on
�ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM______
ments. These are transmitted, in the
r
case of hearing, by sound-waves of air ;
c
in that of sight by light-waves of ether,
1
to the nerve-endings of B, and along
t
those nerves to his brain, where they
t
originate cell-movements corresponding
Jto the original movements in the brain
t
of A, and which are accompanied by the
(
same train of ideas and perceptions. In
s
the sense of touch, there is no interme
1
diate medium between the nerve-endings
<
of A and B, and the movements of the
<
former are communicated directly to
those of B by contact. The senses of
taste and smell are hardly used by the
human species as means of communicat
ing ideas, though in many animal species,
as in the dog, the latter, sense is greatly
used in placing them in relation with
their environment.
This also may be affirmed respecting
the different senses, that they are capable
of being brought to an exceptional degree
of susceptibility by necessity and practice,
as is well illustrated by the facility with
which the blind substitute the sense of
“We are such stuff as dreams are made of,”
touch for that of sight, and read fluently
he enunciated what has become a scien books printed with raised letters. The
tific fact. The “stuff” is in all cases sense of sight also may be brought to a
the same—vibratory motions of nerve degree of unusual acuteness, enabling
the observer to read indications in the
particles.
The researches of the French school face and expression so slight as to be
of physiologists throw a good deal of invisible to the ordinary sense, and of
light on the mysterious regions of pheno which the person observed is . himself
mena, or alleged phenomena, which unconscious. A remarkable instance
are classed under the general heads of of this is given by Lord Avebury, of a
thought-reading, clairvoyance, and spirit dog who could pick out from a series of
ualism. Those of thought-reading and numbers on cards laid on the floor the
clairvoyance may be summed up in the; correct answer of sums in arithmetic,
question whether or no it is possible for and even extract cube-roots,. doubtless
one brain to communicate with another■ by observing unconscious indications in
otherwise than through the ordinary- his master’s face when he touched the
medium of the senses. It is certain that; correct card.
This, no doubt, goes a long way towards
in the immense majority of cases it is5
not possible. Consider how the ideas5 explaining the phenomena of what is
or perceptions of A are communicated1 called thought-reading. It is quite conto B. Certain movements of the brain- ceivable that, with contact, an exception
cells of A which are, if not the cause,, ally delicate sense of touch, exceptionally
j
the invariable concomitants of those cultivated, may enable a man to read
s
ideas and perceptions, send currents the insensible tremors which are unalong the nerves, which at their extre- consciously transmitted to nerve-ends
mities contract muscles and cause move and superficial muscles, the existence of
alternating between Smith and Jones,
I often ask myself the question—If he
died during one of his trances, which
would he be, Smith or Jones ? and I
confess that it takes some one wiser than
I am to answer it.
Again, what can be said of love and
hate if, under given circumstances, they
can be transformed into one another by
the action of a magnet ? It is evident
that these phenomena all point to the
conclusion that all we call soul, spirit,
consciousness, and personal identity are
indissolubly connected with mechanical
movements of the material elements of
nerve-cells, and that, if we want any
further solution, we must go down deeper
and ask what this matter, and what these
movements, or rather the energy which
causes them, may really mean. Can the
antithesis between soul and body, spirit
and matter, be solved by being both
resolved into one eternal and universal
substratum of existence ? When Shake
speare said,
�86
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
which is a necessary consequence of all
different. Here we find ourselves on
brain-motion or thought, and which is
less firm ground, and opinions vary
proved to exist as a matter of fact by the
considerably. Mr. Frank Podmore, who
irregularities in the line traced by a
was for many years the secretary of, and
pencil under suitable conditions. And
an indefatigable and critical worker in,
it is to be remarked that keeping the
the above society, believes that there
mind fixed on the idea—in other words,
making the corresponding brain-motions remain a large number of facts after the
keenest analysis which point to the
and nerve-currents stronger and more
persistent — is the condition usually existence of telepathy and a kind of clair
required for a successful experiment in voyance. He has discussed the matter
fully m his Apparitions and Thoughtthought-reading.
Transference and later works. Professor
Thus far—and Mr. Cumberland, the
Charles Richet has also conducted a
most successful thought-reader of the number of experiments which lead him
day, carries it no farther—there is nothing
to the same conclusion. In their theory
impossible, or even a priori improbable, the active particles in the brain cause
in the assertion that thought may be
waves in the surrounding ether, and
thus read. It is a question of evidence,
these are received and interpreted by a
and here the weight of the negative
sympathetic brain, much as in the pro
evidence is so great that it requires
cess of wireless telegraphy. But other
extremely strong proof to establish ex scientific men consider that coincidence
ceptions. It is a matter of notoriety is not inadequate to explain the few
that persons, even of delicate tempera
phenomena which can be demonstrated
ments, may lie in the closest contact, to be free from fraud or hallucination.
clasped in each other’s arms, without
Consider the enormous number of
either having the remotest idea of what
dreams, 300,000,000 at least, of civilised
is passing. in the mind of the other, human beings dreaming for most nights
unless it is conveyed by the ordinary of the year, and these dreams all made
channels of sight or hearing. On the
up of fragments of actual scenes and
other hand, the evidence for a few rare
persons, which have been photographed
exceptions is strong, especially in the
on the brain. The wonder is not that
case of some of Mr. Cumberland’s ex there should be occasional coincidences
periments, which are all the stronger
between dreams and contemporaneous
because he does not pretend to any
or subsequent occurrences, but that there
supernatural power, and shows none of should be so few of them. How many
the ordinary signs of an impostor. All
anxious brains must have dreamt of
we can say, therefore, is that where there absent friends or relations dying or in
is contact, or where unconscious indi
danger, and in how many millions of
cations may be read by the eye, there is
cases must the dream not have been
nothing in thought-reading inconsistent verified. And how many vivid dreams,
with the known laws of Nature ; but that or dreams in a dozing state, between
the evidence, though strong, is hardly sleeping and waking, must have passed
strong enongh to enable us to accept it into the stage of hallucination, and been
as an established fact.
taken for actual visions. And how weak
Yet when we come to thought-reading is memory, and how strong the myth
at a distance, and to the analogous making propensity of the human mind
alleged phenomena of clairvoyance,
to convert these dreams and visions into
fulfilled dreams and visions, and com waking realities. Of the many cases of
munications across the globe, mostly distant communications collected by the
from the dead and dying, such as are so Psychical Research Society, I do not
plentifully recorded in the annals of the know of one which may not be thus
Psychical Research Society, the case is
accounted for; and in some the proof is
�ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM_________ 87
what the answer was I The “m” of
conclusive, as where visions have been
seen or impressions felt of events before “mother” had been written not very
'
they occurred, owing to the difference of legibly, with the first stroke too long, so
1
that at a hasty glance in a constrained
time due to longitude.
. .
1
In the case of spiritualism it is re- position it might be easily read as
i
And sure enough the
markable that it is only the more vulgar “brother.”
and grotesque forms which there is any answer came, “ Your brother’s spirit not
•
difficulty in explaining. We understand being here, we do not know his Christian
This was my first and last
how spirits are materialised, for the name.”
apparatus has been frequently exposed experience of omniscient spirits, and it
in the police-courts; there is. nothing was perfectly apparent that it was only a
very mysterious in the way in which piece of very simple and very clumsy
No doubt things more
slight hints and clues are followed up by legerdemain.
professional mediums. And there is this marvellous are done by superior legerde
conclusive consideration—that the spirits main, but nothing that I have ever heard
never say or know anything which has of that is beyond the resources of leger
not passed through the mind of the demain, or which is so wonderful as the
medium. If he is illiterate, the spirits mango and other tricks of Indian
would be plucked for their spelling; if jugglers. No one who has not studied
he is weak in his h’s, so are they; if he the art of legerdemain can be aware how
makes a mistake or is entrapped into a great its resources are, and how com
contradiction, they follow suit. In no pletely the senses may be deceived by a
single instance has any communication skilful operator. Nor is it at all difficult
of the slightest use or novelty been made to understand how slight clues may .be
used by an experienced operator, to give
by these visitors from another world.
In short, the whole affair is obviously what are apparently astounding answers.
legerdemain in rapping or writing on Thus, if a medium happens to know that
slates, answers to questions known to the a death has at any time occurred in the
medium, supplemented by any hints or family of the questioner, the answer
clues he may possess, and in the absence wrapped or written out is sure to profess
of these by such commonplaces as “We to come from the spirit of the deceased
are happy,” “ We are with you.” I saw relative.
If any doubt had remained as to the
a conclusive proof of this in the only
experience I ever had with a professional nature of these spiritualistic experiences,
medium, one of great repute.
The it would have been removed by the
question put was, “ What was my report made in 1887 by the Scybert
mother’s Christian name?” This was Commission. In this case Mr. Scybert,
written on a slate out of sight of the an enthusiastic spiritualist in the United
medium, and turned down, and ap States, bequeathed a considerable sum of
parently held by one of his hands under money to the University of Philadelphia,
a table, while the other hand was held by on the condition that it should appoint
the questioner. Nothing occurred for a a Commission to investigate modern
while, but then began a series of groans spiritualism. Ten Commissioners were
and twistings by the medium, which I appointed, including several professors
took to be part of the usual conjurer’s and well-known men of science j some
patter to divert attention; but, looking of whom, including their chairman, Dr.
closely, I distinctly saw a corner of the; Furness, confessed “ to a leaning in
slate reversed under the table, with the: favour of the substantial truth . of
writing on it uppermost, followed by the: spiritualism.” They took . great pains
scratching of a pencil, after which the: with the investigation, which was conanswer was produced, alleged to have; ducted wiih scrupulous fairness, and
been written by the spirits. But mark; examined many of the most famous
�88
ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM
mediums, among whom was the well- are produced. There is a deal of eviknown Dr. Slade.
Their unanimous dence from persons whose good faith
5
report was that the whole thing was based cannot be doubted that they have seen
1
on “gross, intentional fraud.” They1 pieces of furniture move at the end of a
saw distinctly how the tricks were; room, without any contact or apparent
effected, and a professional conjurer,, cause, and that this took place in private
Mr. Kellar, who had been at first baffled houses, where there was no possibility of
by the phenomena of slate - writing,, prepared machinery.
having turned his attention more closely
The mediums say it is done by spirit
to this branch of conjuring, was able not hands. This is obviously absurd, for it
only to repeat the processes of the best is not a case which lies outside of known
mediums, but to do so with far greater laws of Nature, but one which radically
skill, and _ produce effects which they
conflicts with them. As long as the law
could not imitate; while he has given a of motion holds “that action and reaction
challenge to the spiritualistic world that
are equal and opposite,” there can be no
he will reproduce by sleight-of-hand any action without a solid point of resistance.
alleged spiritualistic phenomena which Archirnedes said that he could move the
he has witnessed three times. Slade world if you gave him a irov trra, or
himself was later condemned to prison fulcrum, on which to rest his machinery;
in London for fraud.
and the ghost of Archimedes, if sum
This report is so conclusive to any moned from the Elysian fields at the
reasonable mind that it is scarcely bidding of a seedy professional medium,
necessary to refer to the mass of corro could say no more. Spirit-hands must
borative evidence to the same effect; be attached to a solid spirit body, stand
such, for instance, as the confession of ing on solid feet on a solid floor, to lift a
the Fox family, that the rappings, in weight. And the same thing applies to
which the spiritualistic faith originated, any supposed magnetic or psychic force
were produced by a knack they had of enacted by the medium. If the medium
half-dislocating toe and knee joints, and pulls the chair, the chair must pull the
replacing them with a sudden snap— medium, and it becomes a case of “pull
a knack which, singularly enough, is also devil, pull baker.” If a magnet lifts an
possessed by Professor Huxley; the iron bar, it is because the magnet is fixed
confessions of Home and other exposed to some point of attachment.
mediums; and the experiences of Mr.
The question, therefore, resolves itself
Davy, Mrs. Sedgwick, and others, related into one either of hallucination or
in a volume of the Psychical Research legerdemain. Do the chairs and tables
Society.
really move, or only seem to move?
Those who are not convinced by such There appears to be no trustworthy
proofs as these are impervious to reason, evidence as to this fundamental point,
and it would be a waste of words to argue and yet it is one easily determined.
the matter any farther. It may be Does the housemaid when she comes
assumed as a demonstrated fact that all :into the room next morning, or anyone
the phenomena which profess to be based ■who has not been under the influence
on a communication with a spiritual <of the seance, find the furniture where it
world are, in the words of the Scybert 1was originally, or where it seemed to be
Report, simple instances of vulgar leger- jplaced. If it was really moved, who moved
demain and of human credulity.
jit? Here, also, hallucination might come
It is only when we come to what may i
into play in another form, for if, as
be called the tomfoolery of spiritualism, <
described in the experiment of Binet and
such as unmeaning tricks of dancing ]
Fere, already mentioned, the medium
chairs and tables, that we are left in c
could release his hands without being
doubt how some of the appearances I [
perceived, and render himself invisible
�ANIMAL MAGNETISM AND SPIRITUALISM_________ 89
by suggestion, or perform the trick in a apparent contact. Nor do they seem to
dark room, he could easily move the have thoroughly studied and mastered
chairs himself without being seen. ^his the resources of legerdemain, which are
seems the more probable, as in all the obviously one of the principal causes,
accounts I have read the articles moved and in many cases the sole cause, of the
do not exceed the weight which the so-called spiritualistic manifestations, and
medium might move, either in his natural without a knowledge of which no one
is really competent to form an opinion.
condition, or with his muscular strength
excited by hypnotism. Assuming a state Indeed, it is questionable whether, when
all the more refined tricks of spiritualistic
of hypnotism to be induced in the spec
mediums have been so thoroughly
tators, the explanation would be easy,
and, in fact, identical with many of the exposed, it is worth while to seek for
scientifically-recorded experiments of any other hypothesis than that of ordi
Binet and Fere. And it is remarkable nary conjuring to account for those
that the preliminary conditions of the mere childish and unmeaning manifesta
stance, such as darkened rooms, clasped tions, the modus operandt of which has
hands, and strained attention, are identi not yet been fully explained.
It is evident, however, from the wellcal with those employed, from Mesmer
attested experiments of the French school,
downwards, in producing real hypnotism.
At the same time, it would seem that that there really is opening up a most
the hypnotism (if it be so) introduced at interesting field of inquiry as to the
stances differs from ordinary hypnotism. relations of mind to matter under certain
The subjects retain the fullest convic exceptional conditions, and the extent
tion that they have been wide awake all to which illusions may appear as realities
the time, and in full possession of their under the influence of excited imagi
Hypnotism, somnambulism,
ordinary senses. Can there be a state of nation.
semi-hypnotism in which the brain, while dreams, and hallucinations are becoming
retaining its full consciousness, is rendered exact sciences; and researches pursued
susceptible to suggested hallucinations ? in the same manner into the alleged
If so, the whole matter is explained. If phenomena of spiritualism and thought-’
not, it is very singular that the same reading would end either in exposing
preliminary operations which produce imposture, or in reducing such residuum
hypnotism, where hypnotism is expected, of truth as they may contain to known
should make chairs and tables dance, laws analogous to those which prevail
and bodies float in the air, where that is in other branches of physiological and
what the spectators expect to see. But psychological investigation.
In the meantime, I conclude by saying
the problem could easily be solved, so
that, so far as we have yet gone, the whole
far as the medium is concerned, by
connecting him with an electric current, of what is called “ spiritualism. seems
which would be broken and ring a bell to be quite dreadfully “materialistic.”
if he moved hand or foot, and seeing The one fact which comes out with
whether, under such circumstances, the demonstrated certainty is that definite
ideas are indissolubly connected with
furniture could be moved.
It is singular that the men of really definite vibrations of brain-cells; and
scientific attainments who profess a belief that, however these vibrations are
in spiritualism, such as Sir W. Crookes induced, the corresponding ideas and
and Mr. Wallace, do not seem to have perceptions inevitably follow. In the
proceeded in this way of accurate experi ordinary course of things, these vibrations
ment pursued by the French school of are induced by what are called realities
Salpetriere, even as regards the first acting through the senses, and by the
rudimentary alleged facts of moving normal action of the brain-cells on the
heavy bodies at a distance without perceptions thus received and stored up.
�90
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
But this applies only to about twothirds of our existence—viz., the waking
state. In sleep and dreams the vibra
tions set up are from former perceptions,
photographed on the brain, and grouped
together in unreal and often fantastic
pictures.
In somnambulism this is
carried to a further point, and we act
our dreams. In hypnotism it is carried
still farther, and the vibrations are excited
by a foreign will and by foreign sugges
tions. In the ultimate state, madness,
the hallucinations have become per
manent. But what strange questions
does it raise when we find that, in
certain abnormal conditions, all that is
most intimately connected with what we
call soul, individuality, and conscious
ness can be annihilated, or exchanged
for those of another person, by the
mechanical process of exciting their
corresponding brain-motions in another
way. What are love and hate, if a
magnet applied to a hypnotised patient
can transform one into the other? What'
is personal identity if the suggestion of
a. third person can make an hysterical
girl forget it so completely as to make
her talk of herself as a distant acquaint
ance “ who is not over wise ” ? What is
the value of the evidence of the senses
if a similar suggestion can make us see
the hat, but not the man who wears it,
or dance half the night with an imaginary
partner? Am I “I myself, I,” or am I
a barrel-organ, playing “ God save the
Queen, if the stops are set in the normal
fashion, but the “ Marseillaise ” if some
cunning hand has altered them without
my knowledge? These are questions
which I cannot answer. All I can say
is that practically the wisest thing I can
do is to keep myself, as far as possible,
in the sphere of normal conditions, and
assume its conclusions to be real; avoid
ing, except as a matter for strict scientific
investigation, the various abnormal paths
which, in one way or other, all converge
towards the ultimate end of insanity.
Chapter VIII.
THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. AGNOSTICISM
AND CHRISTIANITY
PART I.
Are they Reconcilable ?—Definitions of Agnosti
cism and Christianity—Christian Dogma—
Rests on Intuition, not Reason—Descartes,
Kant, Coleridge—Christian Agnostics—Ten
dency of the Age—Carlyle, George Eliot,
Renan—Anglican Divines, Spurgeon.
we know nothing of what may be beyond
phenomena,” and “ that a man shall not
say he knows or believes that which he
has no scientific grounds for professing
to know or believe.” This is not a
positive or aggressive creed, and is recon
Is Agnosticism reconcilable with Chris cilable with any . form of moral, intel
tianity, orare theyhopelesslyantagonistic? lectual, or religious belief which is not
That depends on the definition we give dogmatic—/.<?., which does not attempt
to the two terms. That of Agnosticism to impose on us some hard-and-fast
is very simple. It is contained in the theory of the universe, based on attempts
sentence of Professor Huxley’s, “ That to define the indefinable and explain
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
the unknowable.
The definition of
Christianity is by no means so simple.
Practical Christianity resolves itself very
much, and more and more every day,
into a sincere love and admiration of the
life and teaching of Jesus, the son of the
carpenter of Nazareth, as depicted in the
narratives which have come down to us
respecting them, mainly in the Synoptic
Gospels. This love and admiration
translates itself into a desire to imitate as
far as possible this life, and to act upon
these precepts; to be good, pure, loving,
charitable, and unselfish even to the
death.
With this form of Christianity the
Agnostic has no quarrel; on the contrary,
if he is not dwarfed and stunted in his
faculties, if he has a heart to feel and
an imagination to conceive, he recognises
as fully as the most devout Christian all
that is good and beautiful in the true spirit
of Christianity and its Author. Nay,
more, he will not quarrel with the mass of
humble and simple-minded Christians
who show their love and admiration by
piling up adjectives until they reach the
supreme one of “ divine,” and who, in
obedience to the ineradicable instinct of
the human mind to personify abstract
ideas and emotions, make Jesus of
Nazareth their Ormuzd, or incarnation
of the good principle, and author of all
that is pure, righteous, and lovely in the
universe.
But there is another definition of
Christianity of a totally different char
acter—the dogmatic or theological defini
tion, which, commencing with St. Paul
and St. John, and culminating in the
Athanasian Creed, has been accepted
from the early ages of Christianity,
almost until the present day, as the
miraculous revelation of the true theory
of the universe. It teaches how a
personal God created the universe, how
he deals with it and sustains it, how
he formed man in his own image, and
what relations he has with him. It pro
fesses to explain mysteries such as the
origin of evil, man’s fall and redemption,
his life beyond the grave, the conditions
9i
of his salvation, and a variety of other
matters which, to ordinary human percep
tion, and human reason, are absolutely
and certainly hidden “ behind the veil.”
With this definition of Christianity
Agnosticism has nothing in common.
It cannot be both true that we know
certain things and that we do not and
cannot know anything about them.
Theology asserts that we are quite
capable of knowing the truth respecting
these mysteries, and that, in point of fact,
we do know it, either by intuition or
by historical evidence.
Philosophy
traverses the assertion that we know it
by intuition; Science shatters into frag
ments the scheme assumed to be taught
historically by a miraculous revelation.
To begin with intuition. It rests on
Cardinal Newman’s celebrated theory of
the “Illative sense,” or a. complete
assent of all the faculties, which gives a
more absolute proof than any that can
be attached to proofs of science, which
are only deductions from certain limited
faculties, such as experience and reason.
This was very clearly put by Father
Dalgairns in the discussion on “The
Uniformity of Laws of Nature ” at the
Metaphysical Society. He said: “I
believe in God in the same sense in
which I believe in pain and pleasure, in
space and time, in right and wrong, in
myself. If I do not know God, then
I know nothing whatever.” That is, the
idea of such a being as the God of
theology, a personal creator of the uni
verse, with faculties like, though trans
cendently like, those of man, appeared
to him a necessary postulate, or rather a
fundamental instinct or mould of thought,
as universal and imperative as those of
space and time. Now, is this so? It is
at once refuted by the fact that it is not
universal and not imperative. The im
mense majority of mankind, both now
and in all past ages, have had no such
intuition. It is the refined product of
an advanced civilisation, confined to a
few exceptional minds of high culture,
acute intellect, and tender conscience.
Even in Christian countries it is an
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AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
affair of education and authority, rather the attempted definitions are mere
than of necessary intuition; and even juggles with words which convey no real
those who assert most loudly that it meaning. We talk of creation; but when
is a fundamental category of thought it comes to the point we find that we
complain that ninety-nine men out of really mean transformation, and that of
every hundred in modern England live creation, properly speaking, we have no
practically as if there were no God. Not more idea than the babe unborn. We
so with the real categories of thought and talk of immortality; but what we were
perception. No man, past or present, before we were born, or what we shall
in Monotheistic, Pantheistic, or Poly be after we die, what soul, consciousness,
theistic countries, has ever lived practi personal identity really are, how they
cally as if there were no such things as came to be indissolubly connected with
space and time, or as if such primary matter, and what they will be when
perceptions as those of pain and pleasure that union is dissolved, are mysteries as
had no real existence. These have to which we can only make guesses, like
never deceived us ; but the instances are the Brahmins and Buddhists, whose
innumerable in which the “illative guess is transmigration, or the Red
sense,” the complete, earnest, and con Indians, whose guess is a happy hunting
scientious assent of all the faculties, has ground beyond the setting sun.
deceived us, and has led to conclusions
The greatest philosophers have come
which a wider knowledge has shown to to this as the ultimate fact of their meta
be not only erroneous, but, in many physical reasonings.
Descartes says
cases, absurd and noxious.
“ that by natural reason we can make
When closely analysed, the theological many conjectures about the soul, and
idea of God may be clearly seen to be have flattering hopes, but no assurance.”
an attempt to define the indefinable. Kant confesses that reason can never
The primary idea is that of a creator. prove the existence of a God. Even
But what is creation ? Making a thing, great theologians, in the midst of their
in the sense in which alone man makes dogmatic definitions, let drop admissions
anything—that is, transforming existing which show that, at the bottom of their
matter and energy into new forms—we hearts, they feel their ignorance of the
can understand. As we make a watch high mysteries of which they talk so con
or a steam-engine, we can conceive how fidently. The Athanasian Creed, the
a Being, with faculties like our own, but very essence and incarnation of dogma
indefinitely magnified, might make a tism, says “the Father incomprehen
universe out of atoms and energies, and sible” in the midst of a long series of
make it so perfectly that it would go for articles, every one of which is absolutely
ever. But how he could make some devoid of meaning unless on the assump
thing out of nothing, which is what tion that he is comprehensible, and that
creation really implies, altogether passes the writer rightly comprehended him.
our understanding. We have absolutely St. Augustine writes, “ God is unspeak
no faculties which enable us to form even able,” and then proceeds, in a long
the remotest conception of what those treatise on “ Christian Doctrine,” to
atoms and energies really are, how they speak of him as if he knew all about
came there, or what will become of them. his personality, attributes, and ways of
The more closely we examine, the dealing with the world and man. Even
clearer it will appear that these theo St. Paul says, “ O the depths of God 1
logical intuitions are, in effect, nothing how unsearchable are his judgments, and
but aspirations; or reflections, like how inscrutable are his ways !”
Brocken spectres, of our earnest longings,
What more have Huxley and Herbert
fears, and hopes on the back-ground Spencer ever said ? Only they have said
mists of the Unknowable; and that all it deliberately, consistently, and knowing
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
93
things is regulated by a special personal
the reason why; while theologians,
providence, frequently interfering by
admitting the premises, have preferred to
miracles with the course of evolution and
act and argue as if a totally different set
the uniformity of the laws of Nature.
of premises were true. The cause is The cause of miracles may be considered
obvious: Reason failing, they have as out of court when even enlightened
fallen back on Revelation. They had an
advocates who hold a brief for them,
• assured belief that an inspired volume,
like Dr. Temple, an Archbishop of the
attested by miracles, . taught things
Anglican Church, throw it up . and
respecting these mysteries which other
declare “ that all the countless varieties
wise must have remained, unknown.
of the universe were provided for. by an
Thus Coleridge, who occupies a fore
original impress, and not by special acts
most place among those who have
of creation modifying what had pre
attempted to base Christian theology on
abstract reason, arrives at this conclusion, viously been made.”
Dogmatic theology, therefore, having
that “aChristian philosophy or theology
no solid foundation either in abstract
has its own assumptions, resting.on three
ultimate facts—namely, the reality of the reason or in historic facts, and. being in
law of conscience, the existence of a hopeless conflict with science, is bound
responsible will as the subject of that law, to disappear; and even now, in address
ing enlightened and impartial men, it
and, lastly, the existence of God. The
first is a fact of consciousness; the may be taken as “ une quantite negligesecond, of reason necessarily concluded able.” This being the. case, the barrier
which separates Agnosticism from Chris
from the first; the third, a fact of history
tianity is to a great extent removed.
interpreted by both.” He clearly sees
The term “Christian Agnostic” is
that any certain knowledge respecting the
coming more and more to the front in
existence of God, and the various. con
clusions deduced from it by Christian the thoughts and utterances, of en
theology (such as the creation of man, lightened Christian men. I notice these
his fall and redemption, the origin of sin with pleasure, for it is always more
and evil, atonement, grace, and pre profitable to find points of . agreement
destination), if a fact at all, is a fact. of rather than of difference with sincere
A Professor of
history—that is, depends on a conviction and reasonable men.
that these mysteries were . actually Divinity, preaching in the University of
revealed as recorded by the Bible, and Oxford a short time ago, said : “ The field
that the Bible is an inspired, book of speculative theology may be regarded
attested by historical facts; that it con as almost exhausted: we must be. con
tains prophecies which really were ful tent henceforward to be Christian
filled, and describes miracles which Agnostics.” Canon Freemantle, in an
article in the Fortnightly Review, quotes
actually occurred.
This assumption has turned out to be this with approval. In the course of a
a broken reed.
In face of the dis very able argument on the changed con
coveries of recent science, no reasonable ditions of theology, he says that “ theo
man doubts that, beautiful, and admirable logians, in defiance of Aristotle s axiom,
as the Bible, and especially the New that you must not expect demonstration
Testament, may be in many parts,, it is from a rhetorician, have begun with
not a true, and therefore not a Divine, axioms and definitions and proceeded to
They have said or
revelation of the scheme of the universe. demonstrations.
1 proved ’ that God is just or. good, God
It is not true that the world was created
as described by Genesis; that man is a is personal, God is omniscient and
recent creation made in God’s image, omnipotent; and they have used these
who fell from his high estate by an act phrases, not in a literary, but in a quasiof disobedience; or that the course of scientific, manner, and have proceeded to
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AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
draw strict inferences from them. But,
in doing this, they have not only acted
in the way of unwarrantable assump
tions; they have often produced what
St. Paul termed the vain janglings of a
science falsely so-called; have enslaved
the Divine to their own puny conceptions,
and have provoked violent revolt.”
This is precisely what Agnostics con
tend for. They do not deny that, in the
course of evolution, certain feelings and
aspirations have grown up and come to
be part of the mental furniture of civi
lised nations, which find a poetical
expression in the ideas of God and of
immortality. They simply deny that we
have, or ever can have, any certain,
definite, and scientific knowledge respect
ing these mysteries.
To take an
instance—that of the pre-existence of
the soul before birth; we recognise a
certain poetical truth in Wordsworth’s
noble ode when he asserts this pre
existence, and tells us that in infancy—
“ Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.”
But we do not accept it as a known or
knowable fact. We have absolutely no
experience of any consciousness or
personal identity before birth, or as
existing otherwise than in association
with the matter and energy of our cor
poreal body. No more have we of any
continuance of that identity after death.
It is “behind the veil,” in that great
region of the “ Unknowable ” where
nothing is known, and therefore all
things are possible. Here Agnosticism
comes in as a powerful auxiliary to those
emotions and aspirations which consti
tute what is called “religion.” It is the
best of all arguments against Atheism
and Materialism, for, if we cannot prove
an affirmative, still less can we prove a
negative.
No man who understands
what knowledge really means can affirm
that any conception of what may exist in
the great Unknowable which compasses
us about on every side is impossible.
He can only call it impossible when it
conflicts with known facts and laws; but
as long as it remains in the region of
poetical imagination or moral emotion
he cannot disprove it, and may even, if
he finds consolation or guidance from
it, give it a sort of provisional assent.
Thus, no Agnostic can deny that, if he
had faculties to see him, there might be
in the Unknowable a Divine spirit or *
substratum bearing some resemblance
to what enlightened men understand by
the term “God”; that there maybe a
Divine eye watching his every thought
and recording his every action ; and he
will not be. acting unwisely if he endea
vours to mould his life as if this were a
true supposition.
Only he does not
pretend to know this as a dogma or
certain truth, and therefore he does not
quarrel with any brother-man who thinks
differently, or who fancies that he has
more certain assurance.
Christian
morality he recognises fully, not as
taught by the later inventions of Churches
and casuists, but as displayed in the life
and teachings of Jesus, the son of the
carpenter of Nazareth, as they stand out,
when stripped of their mythical and
supernatural attributes, in the narrative
of the Gospels.
He looks on these
moral precepts as the results of a long
process of evolution in the best minds of
the best races, and not as arbitrary rules,
invented for the first time, and imposed
from without by miraculous teaching;
and he sees in Jesus simply the brightest
example and best model of a large class
of the virtues which are most needed to
make practical life pure, lovely, and of
good repute. In this sense may we not
all shake hands in the near future and be
“ Christian Agnostics ” ?
The tide is already running breasthigh in this direction. During the last
half-century how many of the foremost
men of light and leading have drifted
towards orthodox Christianity, and how
many away from it? Darwin, Herbert
Spencer, Huxley, Carlyle, Mill, all the
great thinkers who have influenced the
currents of modern thought, are men
who had renounced all belief in the
traditional theories of miracles and
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
inspiration, and who, a few centuries
earlier, would have been burned as
heretics. The conversions have been
all one way; Romanes expressly stating
that his late acceptance of Theism rested
on non-rational grounds. Darwin, greatest
of all, was an orthodox believer in his
early life, and had even contemplated
taking orders before he embarked on his
mission of naturalist to the expedition
of the Beagle. In his case no violent
impulse or sudden crisis changed his
views; but the theological mists simply
melted away as the sun of Science rose
higher above his horizon. Patiently he
worked out his great book, guided solely
by his unswerving allegiance to truth,
until his conception of the universe as
the product, not of innumerable super
natural interferences, but of evolution by
natural law, became the creed of all men
of all countries who are able to appreciate
scientific facts and evidence.
But Darwin and men of scientific
training are not the only ones who have
exchanged the old for the new stand
point. Conversions have been even
more remarkable among eminent leaders
in literature and philosophy who were
brought up in the strictest traditions of
the old religious beliefs. In another
work1 I have called attention to the fact
that, if ever there were three minds
trained under the strongest influences
binding them to typical though different
forms of faith in Christian theology, they
are Carlyle, George Eliot, and Renan.
Carlyle was a Puritan of the Puritans,
bred in a farmhouse, whose inmates
might have been Covenanters who
fought against Claverhouse at Drumclog;
George Eliot was, in her surroundings
and early life, a typical representative
of middle-class English Evangelicalism ;
Renan of the simple Catholic piety of
Breton peasants, developed in an eccle
siastical seminary. How came they, all
three, to break away, with a painful
wrench, from old ideas and associations,
and become leaders of advanced thought?
1 Modern Science and Modern Thought.
95
How, indeed, except that they were
sincere searchers after truth, and that
truth compelled them ? If the case for
miracles and the inspiration of the Bible
had been convincing or even plausible,
is it conceivable that Carlyle, George
Eliot, and Renan should have all three
rejected it ? Where are the conversions
that can be shown in the opposite direc
tion? Where the leading minds which,
bred in the doctrine of Darwinism, have
abandoned it for the doctrine of St.
Athanasius or of Calvin ? The few
eminent men who literally adhered to
the old theology late in the last century,
such as Cardinal Newman and. Mr.
Gladstone, were of a generation which is
passing away. Where are their succes
sors? Where are the rising naturalists
who are to refute Darwin? where the
young geologists who are to dethrone
Lyell ? where the Biblical critics who are
to answer Strauss ? Such men as Lord
Kelvin and Sir O. Lodge are quoted,
but how slender and unorthodox is the
theology they profess 1.
Perhaps the best proof of the irresist
ible force of the movement is afforded
by the attitude of those who still remain
within the pale of the Church, and are
among its most distinguished members.
Three eminent Bishops of the Anglican
Church preached sermons in Manchester
Cathedral, during the meeting of the
British Association there in 1887, which
were published in a pamphlet, under the
title of The Advance of Science. They
adopt the doctrine of Evolution and the
conclusions of modern science so frankly
that Huxley, reviewing them in the Nine
teenth Century, says that “theology, acting
under the generous impulse of a sudden
conversion, has given up everything to
science, and, indeed, on one point, has
surrendered more than can reasonably
be asked.” Other bishops, it is true,
denounce this as “an effort to get up a
non-miraculous invertebrate Christianity, ”
and assert that “Christianity is essen
tially miraculous, and falls to the ground
if miracles never happened.” Perfectly
true of the old theological Christianity;
�g6
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
but, if this is the only Christianity, it is
its sentence of death, for it is becoming
more and more plain every day that it is
as impossible for sincere and educated
men to believe in Scripture miracles as
it is to believe that the sun stood still in
the Valley of Ajalon, or that the world
was peopled from pairs of animals shut
up, a few centuries ago, in Noah’s Ark.
These truths are rapidly passing from
the schools into the streets, and becom
ing the commonplace possessions of the
rank-and-file of thinkers. Thus, in a
lower plane of thought and among the
strictest sect of believers, we find Spur
geon complaining that, whereas “ twenty
years ago there was no question of
fundamental truth (brethren used to
controvert this or that point; but they
were at least agreed that whatever the
Scripture said should be decisive), now,
however, it did not matter what Scripture
said; it was rather a question of their
own inner consciousness.” And, again,
that “the position of sitting on the fence
is the popular one. There are two or
three very learned men who are trying
to get down on both sides of the fence
at once.”
There is something touching in the
spectacle of a man like Spurgeon thus
finding the solid earth giving way and
heaving under his feet, and even the
preachers of his own persuasion lapsing
into views inconsistent with his own
rigid orthodoxy. But did it never occur
to him to ask himself why the landmarks
were thus drifting steadily past him all
in one direction? Is it a question of
inner consciousness and human perver
sity, or is it not rather that a flood-tide
of advancing knowledge and allegiance
to truth is really setting in and running
with increasing velocity ?
Chapter VIII.—fcontinued)
PART II.
Effect on Morals—Evolution of MoralityMoral Instincts—Practical Religion—Herbert
Spencer and Frederic Harrison—Positivism
and the Unknowable—Creeds and Doctrines
—Priests and Churches—Duty of Agnostics
—Prospects of the Future.
Assuming, as I do, that some form of
liberal and reverent Agnosticism is
certain to supersede old theological and
metaphysical creeds in our conceptions
of the universe, it remains to consider
how this will practically affect the
machinery and outward form of religion,
and, what is of more importance, the
interests of morality.
In stating the results of my reflections
on this subject I am far from wishing to
dogmatise, or, like Comte, to build up
any positive religion of the future, which,
like his, might be comprehensively
summed up as “ Catholicism without
Christianity.” I know too well that
religions, like other social institutions,
are evolved and not manufactured, and
that religious rites and institutions only
flourish when they are a spontaneous
growth. Nevertheless, I think the time
has come when the intellectual victory
of Agnosticism is so far assured that it
behoves thinking men to begin to con
sider what practical results are likely to
follow from it.
The first question is as to the effect
on morals. Those who cling to old
creeds make great use of the argument
that religion is the best of policemen,
and that, if faith in a future state of
rewards and punishments, as taught by
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
an inspired Bible, were once shaken, all
security for life and property would be
at an end. This, if it were true, would
be no argument, any more than the fact
that a nurse may occasionally quiet a
naughty child by the threat of a bogey
would prove the existence of a black
man with horns and a tail in the
cupboard. But it is distinctly untiue.
The foundations of morals are fortunately
built on solid rock, and not on shifting
sand; they are based on ideas and
feelings which, in the course of the
evolution of the human race, have
gradually become instinctive in civilised
communities, and passed beyond the
sphere of abstract reasonings or specu
lative criticisms. So far from morality
being a thing altogether apart from
human nature, and which owes its obli
gation solely to its being a revelation of
God’s will, it may be truly said, in a
great many cases that, as individuals
and nations become more sceptical, they
become more moral. Thus, for instance,
an implicit belief in the inspiration of
the Old Testament perverted the moral
sense to such an extent that the. most
monstrous cruelties were inflicted in the
name of religion. Murders, adulteries,
witchcraft, religious wars and persecu
tions, all found their origin and excuse
in texts either expressly enjoining them,
or showing that they formed part of the
character and conduct of men “after
Jehovah’s own heart.” We no longer
burn heretics, torture old women, or
hew captives in pieces before the Lord.
Why? Because we have become scep
tical, and no longer believe in the Bible
as an infallible record of God’s word.
When we find anything in it contrary
either to the facts of science or to the
moral instincts of the age in which we
live, we quietly ignore it; and, instead
of trying science and morality, as our
forefathers did, at the bar of inspiration,
we reverse the process, and bring religion
before the bar of reason.
Is the world better or worse for this
latest phase of its evolution? Is it
more or less tolerant, humane, liberal-
97
minded, charitable, than it was in the
ages of superstitious faith ? The answer
is not doubtful, and it confirms my posi
tion that, as a matter of fact, as we have
become more sceptical we have become
more moral.
If there is one fact more certain than
another in the history of evolution, it is
that morals have been evolved by the
same laws as regulate the development
of species. They were no more created,
or taught supernaturally, than .were the
various successive forms of animal and
vegetable life. Take, for instance, the
simplest case—the abhorrence of murder.
It is not an implanted and universal
instinct, for even at the present day we
find sections of the human race among
whom murder is honourable. The Dyak
maiden scorns a lover who has not taken
a head ; the Indian squaw tests a suitor’s
manhood by the number of scalps in his
wigwam, and the more they were taken
by stratagem and treachery the more
honourable are they esteemed. The
priest and prophet of ancient Israel
considered it an act of duty towards
Jehovah to hew Agag to pieces before
the Lord ; and Jael was famous among
Hebrew women because she drove a
nail into the head of the sleeping refugee
who had sought shelter within her tent. •
David, the man after God’s own heart,
committed the most treacherous and
cold-blooded murder in order to screen
a foul act of adultery. Where in those
cases was either the implanted instinct
or the recognition of a divine precept
commanding “ Thou shalt do no
murder ”? Millions of Brahmins and
Buddhists, who never heard of Moses
or of the Commandment inscribed on
the table of stone at Sinai, have carried
the abhorrence of murder to such an
extreme as to shrink from destroying
even the humblest form of animal life,
while millions of savages have killed and
eaten strangers and captives without
scruple or remorse.
Evidently moral ideas are, like other
products of evolution, the result of the
interaction of the two factors, heredity
D'
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AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
and environment, determined in the
course of ages by natural selection.
They may be seen in the simplest form
in the instinct of all social animals, from
ants and bees up to man, which makes
them abstain from injuring those of the
same nest or herd, and prompts them to
act together for the common good.
Those who had this instinct strongest
would be most likely to survive in the
struggle for existence, and each succes
sive generation would tend to fix the
instinct more strongly by heredity.
What is instinct ? In the last analysis
it is motion, or tendency to motion, of
certain nerve-cells, which have become
so fixed, by frequent practice or by
heredity, that they become unconscious,
and follow necessarily on impulses from
without, as in the act of breathing or
swallowing. The simpler instincts, as
in the case of animals, are the most
spontaneous and inevitable. The duck
ling swims, to the alarm of the mother
hen, because it is the descendant of
generations of ducks which have taken
to the water as their natural element.
The sight of water sets up certain
motions in the duckling’s brain which,
by reflex action, impel it to swim.
But, in higher organisations and more
complicated instincts, what is inherited
is not so much absolute motion as
tendency to motion. The almost in
finitely complex moleciiles of the higher
brain do not move mechanically, so as
to produce a definite result from a definite
impulse, but they move more readily in
certain directions than in others, those
directions being determined partly by
the ancestral channels in which they
have run for generations, and partly by
the action of the surrounding environ
ment. Thus it may be accepted as
certain that a child born and educated
in England in the nineteenth century
will, as a rule, grow up with an instinctive
abhorrence of murder; but it is not so
certain as that it will breathe and eat.
A very violent outward impulse, such as
greed or revenge, may overcome the
instinct; and if the child had been kid
napped in infancy and brought up among
Dyaks or Indians, its notions would
probably have been the same as theirs as
to the taking of heads or scalps. But,
speaking generally of modern civilised
societies, there is such an enormous pre
ponderance in favour of the fundamental
rules of morality that with each succes
sive generation theresults both of heredity
and environment tend more and more to
make them instinctive. The lines which
Tennyson, the great poet of modern
thought, puts into the lips of his Goddess
of Wisdom—
“ And because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence ”—
are becoming more and more every day
the instinct, not of higher minds only,
but of the mass of the community.
Such a foundation for morals is clearly
both more certain and more comprehen
sive than one based on doubtful revela
tions. It is more certain, for it does not
depend on evidence which, with the
progress of science, is fast becoming
incredible. The command not to murder
is not weakened by proof that the book
of unknown origin and date which con
tains it gives a totally erroneous account
of the creation, and is therefore not
inspired ; nor does adultery cease to be
a crime because the narrative of Noab’s
deluge is shown to be fabulous. It is
also more comprehensive, for no hardand-fast written code can long conform
to the conditions of an ever-varying
society. It will err both by enjoining
things which have become obsolete, and
by omitting others which have become
imperative.
Thus the Mosaic code
classes sculptors with murderers and
thieves, and makes Canova and Thorwaldsen as great offenders against Divine
commands as the last criminal who was
convicted at the Old Bailey. On the
other hand, there is no injunction against
slavery or polygamy, but, on the contrary,
an implied sanction of them, from the
example of the patriarchs who are held
up as patterns of holiness. The feeling
against slavery is a conspicuous instance
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
of the development of a moral instinct
in quite recent times. It is the result of
advancing civilisation leading to more
humane ideas, and to a clearer recog
nition of the intrinsic sacredness and
dignity of every human soul.
In like manner, a multitude of moral
ideas have come to be part of our mental
furniture which had no place in the early
code of the Jews, or even in the more
advanced period of early Christianity.
The Christian ideal, to a great extent,
ignored courage, hardihood, self-reliance,
foresight, providence, and all the sterner
and harder qualities that make the man,
for the softer and more feminine virtues
of love, patience, and resignation. The
aesthetic side of life also, the recognition
and love of all that is beautiful in art
and nature, was not only ignored, but, to
a great extent, condemned by it, owing to
an exaggerated and one-sided antithesis
between the flesh and the spirit.
Among the modern ideas which are
fast becoming moral instincts is that of
the duty of following truth for its own
sake. Doubt is no longer regarded as a
crime, but as a duty, when there are real
ground's for doubting. We may parody
the words of the poet, and say
“ And because truth is truth, to follow truth
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.”
And this allegiance to truth carries with
it the virtue of sincerity. A man must
not palter with his convictions, and pro
fess to hold one set of opinions because
■they are expedient, while he holds others
because they are true. If it be a fact
that the human race has risen by evolu
tion through long ages from palaeolithic
savagery, he has no right to admit the
fact and at the same time profess to
believe that he is a fallen creature
descended from the Biblical Adam.
His duty is to use his reason to ascer
tain which statement is true, and, having
done so, to the best of his ability and
without bias or prejudice, to cleave with
his whole heart to the truth, and not
remain a miserable, half-hearted Mr.
Facing-both-ways.
99
So far, therefore, as morality is con
cerned, we need not much concern our
selves about the future of religion.
Morality can take care of itself, and,
with or without theological creeds, it
will go on strengthening, widening, and
purifying its instinctive hold on the
character and conduct of civilised com
munities. As regards conduct, which
is, after all, the practical test of the
goodness or badness of theoretical
opinions, a system which can produce a
life like that of Darwin is good enough
for anything. Conduct is, fortunately,
not dependent on creeds, and good men
and women can be found plentifully
among all classes of belief, from Ortho
doxy to Agnosticism. But it cannot, I
think, be denied that the leaders of
scientific thought, such as Darwin,
Herbert Spencer, Lyell, Huxley, and
other honoured names, have led, on the
whole, simple, noble lives, and present
characters worthy of imitation. Nor is
there any reason to believe that the vast
and increasing number of the rank-andfile, who have more or less adopted the
views of these great leaders, are in any
respect below the average type, or lead
worse lives than those who walk in the
narrower paths of pre-scientific tradi
tions.
Thus far the religion of the future
has been comparatively plain sailing.
Intellectually, it is clear that evolution
has become the mould of thought, and
that the lines of Agnostic Christianity
and of Agnosticism pure and simple,
but recognising Christianity as one of
the forces of evolution, have converged
so closely that the difference between
them is almost reduced to a name.
What Herbert Spencer calls the infinite,
eternal energy, which underlies all phe
nomena, and of whose existence we feel
certain, though we can never know or
define it, Bishop Temple calls “ God.”
Accurate thinkers may prefer the former
definition, for the term “ God ” has come
to be associated with a number of anthro
pomorphic and other ideas, which imply
knowledge of the Unknowable; but
�IOO
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
practically the bishop and the philosopher
mean much the same. thing, and the
converging lines of science and religion
approach so nearly that they may be said
to coincide. Morally, it is equally clear
that there is nothing to fear from such a
view of religion, and that the moral
instincts are based on something much
more permanent and certain than intel
lectual conceptions or antiquated tradi
tions. But when we come to practical
religion there is a great deal comprised
in the word which it is not so easy to
dispose of.
In the recent controversy between
Herbert Spencer and Frederic Harrison
the latter reproached the former with
offering to the world the mere ghost of
a religion. Religion, he says, must be
something positive; it must have a
“ creed, doctrines, temples, priests,
teachers, rites, morality, beauty, hope,
consolation”; and these, he adds, can
be found only in a religion which is
intensely anthropomorphic. “You can
have no religion without kinship, sym
pathy, relation of some human kind
between the believer, worshipper, servants,
and the object of his belief, veneration,
and service.”
As Mr. Harrison not only admits, but
asserts strongly, that science has upset
all existing anthropomorphic creeds and
theories, his logical conclusion apparently
ought to be that there can be no more
any religion. But he escapes from his
dilemma by offering us a new religion—
Positivism, or the religion according to
Comte. For the dethroned Deity of
the Christians, who has been, by the
confession of his own theologians,
“ defecated to a pure transparency,” we
are to substitute “ Humanity,” the symbol
of the new Divinity being a woman of
the age of thirty, with her son in her
arms; and Christian worship is to be
replaced by an elaborate series of rites
and ceremonies, evolved from the inner
consciousness of the French philosopher,
and which, to the apprehension of an
ordinary observer, are for the most part
puerile and ridiculous. Thus among
the Positivist saints, who are to be
canonised in order of merit, Gall, who,
in conjunction with Spurzheim, wrote an
obsolete book on phrenology, gets a
week, while Kepler gets only a day;
Tasso is assumed to be a seven-times
greater poet than Goethe, and Mozart
a seven-times greater musician than
Beethoven; while in politics Louis XI.,
the crafty and sinister French king, de
picted by Walter Scott in Quentin Durward, is to be worshipped as a seven
times greater saint than Washington.
Of the only two new forms of positive
religion which have been started in my
recollection, Positivism and Mormonism,
I may be excused if, barring the plurality
of wives, I give the preference to the
latter, which has, at any rate, proved its
vitality by laying hold, not without a
certain amount of success, of colonisa
tion, temperance, and other problems of
practical life. Herbert Spencer had little
difficulty in answering this attack. He
showed that his definition of the “ Un
knowable” was very different from the
mere negation, or algebraical symbol,
which Harrison assumed it to be, and
that it was distinctly the assertion of
something positive and actually existing,
though beyond our faculties. In fact,
it is very much the same as Words
worth’s—
“ Sense sublime,
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round earth, and in the mind of man.”
And if such a feeling can inspire noble
poetry, why not a noble religion ? The
retort was obvious that, if the Unknow
able were too refined an idea on which
to base a religion, at any rate it was
better than humanity; for the first is
based on a fact, while the second has no
foundation but a phrase.
It is an undoubted fact that, when we
trace phenomena back to their source,
we arrive at a substratum, or first cause,
which we cannot understand, or even
form any conception of. But what is
Humanity ? It is but a convenient
expression, like gravity or electricity, by
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
IOI
and sordid asceticism. Hope would, as
which we sum up a number of separate, a
at present, find its field in the possibili
individual facts, which have certain a
ties which lie behind the veil, and time,
attributes in common. The only thing t
real about gravity is, that individual the one great consoler of human sorrows,
t
would still exert its beneficent influence
bodies attract one another directly as v
to assuage the poignancy of recent afflic
the mass and inversely as the. square of t
the distance. Annihilate the individual tions.
t
But what will become of the “creed,
masses, and you cannot anthropomoidoctrines, temples, priests, teachers, and
phise the law of gravity; for instance, c
rites,” which constitute what may be
following the example of Comte, under r
called the machinery or practical side of
the symbol of a woman with a child. (
No more can you individualise and existing religions? Is the creed the key
f
anthropomorphise “ Humanity,’ apart stone of the fabric, and will it crumble
s
from the individual human beings, good, to pieces if this creed ceases to be
1
credible ? In other words, if the creeds
bad, and indifferent, of whom the aggre- <
gate has been, is, and will be composed. of Christian Churches, instead of .being
<
“ Parturiunt monies ”—the mountains definite doctrines, as embodied in the
i
Thirty-nine Articles, or the dicta of
labour to produce a new religion; and
infallible Popes and Councils, are sub
the result of Positivism is to make a
limated into such vague and remote
fetish of a phrase.
.
.
At the same time, it must be admitted conceptions as enable Huxley to say
that the three bishops have conceded
that, while Positivism is no more likely
than Mormonism to become the world’s all he asks, and Mivart to remain so long
a good Catholic while admitting all the
religion of the future, the new creed to
most advanced conclusions of. Darwinian
which we are tending, whether we call
it Agnostic Christianity or Christian science and of Biblical criticisms, can
sincere men become Christian priests and
Agnosticism, places in jeopardy a great
deal of what has hitherto been included officiate in Christian churches ?
I judge no one, and can appreciate
under the word “religion.” Mr. Harrison’s
definition is not an unfair one, that the the reasons which may induce enlight
ened and excellent men to cleave to old
term includes “creed, doctrines, temples,
priests, teachers, rites, morality, beauty, creeds and remain in positions when
hope, consolation.” Of these, the last they feel that they are doing good, as
long as it is possible for them to allegorise
four may be called spiritual, and the first
six practical elements of religion. As or explain away accepted doctrines,
regards the spiritual elements, they will without feeling that they are consciously
remain unaffected, and, in some cases, insincere. But I confess that it is not
will be strengthened. Morality, as we> easy to understand how this can go even
the length it has, and, still more, how it
have seen, depends on rules of conduct,
; can go further and become general, withwhich have, to a great extent, become
instinctive; and it would be strengthened,, out degenerating into hypocrisy and
f
Take, for instance, the
rather than impaired, by getting rid of insincerity.
1
the Calvinistic conceptions of a cruel Apostles’ Creed, which, I suppose, con1
and capricious Deity, condemning untold tains the minimum of doctrine that is
s
millions to eternal punishment for the generally considered consistent with a
y
offence of a remote ancestor, and only profession of Christianity. I can unders
partially appeased by the sacrifice of his stand how, by an allowable latitude, of
y
only son. Beauty, again, would certainly construction, a Broad Church divine
fl
gain by getting rid of the idea that all may adopt the first Article and confess
e
But when we come
pleasant things are of the domain of the a belief in God.
n
flesh and the devil, and substituting an to the subsequent, more precise and
iv
enlightened aestheticism for a narrow definite Articles, which profess a belief
�102
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
in the miraculous conception, birth, and a class, much better than they were in
resurrection of Jesus, the carpenter’s1 former ages. . Few exercise an influence
son of Nazareth, I fail to see how actively injurious, many are respectable
anyone can subscribe to them who and harmless, and a considerable number
believes in the permanence of Natural set a good example of virtuous lives, and
Law and the Darwinian theory of devote themselves to the promotion of
Evolution. Even in the form of Dr. works of charity and benevolence. They
Temples theory.of original impress, as have, no doubt, to a considerable extent,,
opposed to special acts of supernatural lost touch with the masses of population
interference, it must be admitted that in large towns and industrial centres;
miracles, if not impossible, are in the and where they have preserved it, chiefly
highest degree improbable, and that it among dissenting congregations, it is
would require an immense amount of too often exerted towards narrowness, of
the clearest possible evidence to admit views and sectarian prejudices. Still, on
occurrences which are so entirely opposed the whole, it is exerted for good; and in
to all we know of the real facts of the many rural parishes and poor districts,
universe, and which, in so many cases, like the East-end of London, the priest
have been shown to be mere delusions is a powerful factor in organising charities,
of the imagination. And the slightest visiting the sick, rescuing the fallen, and
acquaintance with Biblical criticism is giving consolation to the suffering. To
sufficient to show how weak the evidence take an extreme case, what would a poor
really is, and how utterly unfounded are parish, in the West of Ireland be without
the claims of the various books of the its. priest ? He is the sole centre of
Old.and New Testament to anything like civilisation in a district of, perhaps,
Divine inspiration. But, if the creeds twenty square miles ; he is not only the
go, what becomes of the priests? and, spiritual guide of his flock, but, to a
without priests, where are the Churches, great extent, their Education Board and
rites, and ceremonies? And, if these Poor Law Guardian ; he is their friend
disappear, what an immense gap does it and adviser in all their difficulties, and,
make in the whole framework of existing in case of need, their “ Village Hamp
society ! Consider the priests, including den,” who fights their battles with
in the word all ministers of all denomina tyrannical landlords, and negotiates the
tions. It is easy to denounce priestcraft, compromises by which they are enabled
and to show by a thousand examples to retain their humble roofs over their
that wherever priests have had power heads. . He is worth all the magistrates
they have done infinite mischief. They and policemen put together in repressing
have too often been cruel persecutors crime and preventing outrages. It will
and narrow-minded bigots; and, even at be long before a population like that of
the best, have been opposed to freedom rural Ireland can dispense with priests.
of thought and progress. But, for all
Again, priests and Churches go to
this, the question has another side, and gether ; and, although Church services
there is a good deal to be said for the have to a great extent become a repetition
existence of a special class, set aside of formulas, and sermons an anachron
from the ordinary pursuits of life, for ism, still there is a good deal in institu
spiritual instruction and works of mercy tions which bring people together on
and charity.
one day in the week, cleanly in dress
In countries like England, where and. decorous in behaviour, to join in
priests have long since ceased to possess services and listen to discourses which
any temporal power, and where they live .appeal, however faintly and drearily, to
more and more every day—in an higher things than those of ordinary
atmosphere of free and liberal thought, prosaic life. Especially to the female
there can be no doubt that they are, as ;half of the population attendance at
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
IO3
Barnardo,and thousands of other devoted
church or chapel is, in many cases, a men and women who fight in the fore
great pleasure; and, if it were only to see
most ranks against sin and misery.
and be seen and criticise one anothei s
With such as these all men can sym
bonnets, it is a relief from the monotony pathise ; and a more intellectual creed
of life, gives them topics of interest, and ought to be no obstacle in giving aid and
promotes a feeling of decency and
co-operation, but rather an incentive to
respectability. Those, therefore, who
show that a belief in the truths of science
hold larger views, and feel that they
is not inconsistent with active charity
cannot without insincerity subscribe to
creeds which to them have become and benevolence. which Agnostics would
Another point
incredible, would do well to be liberal
do well to attend to is to cultivate a love
and tolerant towards traditional opinions of Nature and Art, so as to keep alive
and traditional practices, and trust with
the imaginative and emotional faculties
cheerful faith to evolution to bring about which might wither in the too exclusive
gradually such changes of form as may atmosphere of pure reason. A prosaic
be required to embody changes of spirit. life is a dwarfed and stunted life, which
In the meantime, the course of those has been more than half a failure ; and,
who worship Truth above all other con as old dogmatic religions fail to supply
siderations is plain. There are abun
the spiritual stimulus, it is the more
dance of duties clear enough for men ot necessary to find it in the wonders o
all creeds : the difficulty is to live up to the universe, the beauties of nature, and
them. But for those who hold the in communion with great minds through
larger views the first duty is to be doubly
music, painting, and books. These are
careful as to conduct. It would be too
now brought, to a great extent, .within t e
great a scandal if the larger creed were
reach of every one, and there is no more
made the excuse for a looser life. Those
hopeful symptom of the times than to
who are Darwinians in theory ought to
find that really good books by great
try to be like Darwin in practice—like
authors, when brought out in cheap
him, high-minded, modest, gentle, patient,
editions, circulate by the millions.
honourable in all relations of life, loving
Shilling and even sixpenny editions ot
and beloved by friends and family. Shakespeare, Scott, Carlyle, and other
This, at least, is within the reach of every
standard authors, are continually brought
one, high or low, rich or poor, if not to out, and must be sold in tens of thousands
attain to, at any rate to aim at, as an to make them a paying, speculation.
ideal. Nor do I think that Freethinkers
Who buys them ? Certainly not the
will be wanting in this passive side of
upper classes, who, in former days, were
conduct. On the contrary, as far as my
the only buyers of books. They must
experience has gone, while more liberal
circulate widely among the masses, and
and large-minded, they lead lives quite
especially among the more thoughtful
as good, on the average, as those which
members of the working-classes, and the
are more directly under the traditional
rising generation of all classes who. are
influences of religion. But what the
earnestly seeking to improve their, minds
Agnostic must beware of is, not to be
and widen their range of sympathies and
content with the passive side of virtue,
culture. To read good books rather
but to cultivate also its active side, and
not let himself be surpassed in works of than silly novels is a practical measure
within the reach of every one, and it is
charity and benevolence by those whose
supplying, more and more every day, a
intellectual creeds are narrower than his
larger and more liberal education than
own. There is no doubt that the evan
was ever afforded by theological con
gelical faith in Jesus has been and. is
a powerful incentive with men like troversies and conventional sermons.
Another hopeful symptom is to see
Lord Shaftesbury, General Gordon, Dr.
�104
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
the growing demand among the working
classes for schools, libraries, museums,
music-halls, excursion trains, and all
manner of clubs and societies for
mutual help, instruction, and amuse
ment. These are the plastic cells multi
plying and forming new combinations,
out of which, in due time, will be evolved
the “ priests and temples, the rites and
ceremonies,” and other institutions requi
site to give life and form to the demon
strated truth of the “Great Unknowable,”
and leave the magnificent conception of
Darwin and Herbert Spencer no longer
the ghost of a religion, but the founda
tion of a rational, lovable, and, on the
whole, happy existence, useful and
honourable while its little span of life
lasts, and looking forward with hope and
manly fortitude to whatever may await
it behind that veil which no mortal hand
has ever lifted.
Chapter VIII. —(continued)
PART III.
Practical Philosophy — Zoroastrian Theory —
Emerson on Compensation—Good and Evil—
Leads to Toleration and Charity—Matthew
Arnold and Philistinism—Salvation Army—
Conflict of Theology and Science—Creed of
Nineteenth Century.
The philosophy which I have found
work best, both in reconciling intel
lectual difficulties and as a guide in prac
tical life, is that which I have described
elsewhere1 at some length as “ Zoroas
trianism,” or “ Polarity.” It amounts to
this—that the infinite, eternal, and incon
ceivable essence of all phenomena, which
theologians call God, and philosophers
the Unknowable, manifests itself to
human apprehension under conditions
or categories which are equally certain
and equally incomprehensible.
We
know that it is so, or so appears to us;
but we do not know why. Thus Space
and Time are fundamental moulds of
thought, or, to use the phraseology of
Kant, imperative categories. Another
of such categories is that of Polarity:
no action without reaction, no positive
without a negative, no good without evil.
1 A Modern Zoroastrian,
In the physical world this is a demon
strated fact. Matter is made of mole
cules j molecules are made of atoms;
atoms are little magnets which link
th^piselves together and form all the
complex creations of an ordered cosmos,
by virtue of the attractive and repulsive
forces which are the results of polarity.
Ordered and regular motion also —
whether it be of planets round suns, of
an oscillating pendulum, or of waves of
water, air, or ether, vibrating in rhythmic
succession—is a result of the conflict
between energy of motion and energy of
position.
As Emerson well says in his essay on
“Compensation”: “Polarity, or action and
reaction, we meet in every part of nature :
in darkness and light; in heat and cold;
in the ebb and flow of waters ; in male
and female; in the inspiration and
expiration of plants and animals ; in the
undulations of fluids and of sound; in
the centrifugal and centripetal gravity;
in electricity, galvanism, and chemical
affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one
end of a needle, the opposite magnetism
takes place at the other end. If the
South attracts, the North repels. To
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
10$
cruel, unjust, and even devilish, in the
empty here you must condense there.
case of a human despot become merci
An inevitable dualism besets nature, so
ful and righteous if done by an Almighty
that each thing is a half, and suggests
Ruler in Heaven. Such a dogma is, to
another to make it whole; as spirit,
all intents and purposes, devil-worship,
matter; man, woman; odd, even; sub
and degrades man into a slave crouching
jective, objective; in, out; upper, under;
under the lash of a harsh master. How
motion, rest; yea, nay.” This principle,
infinitely superior was the ideal of the
applied to the higher problems of religion
old Roman poet of the “justum. el
and philosophy, leads to results singularly
tenacem propositi virum”; the upright
like those which, if we may believe the
and firm-minded man, whom no threats
sacred books of the Parsees, were taught
of a frenzied mob or raging tyrant could
3,000 years ago by the ancient Bactrian
sage, Zoroaster. His religion was one of shake from his purpose, or induce to
palter with his convictions; nay, not
pure reason. He disclaimed all preten
even though the earth and sky fell in
sion to found it on miracles, or to define
ruins about his head, could the convul
the indefinable by dogmas; but, taking
sion of nature daunt his steadfast soul.
natural laws and human knowledge as
his basis, he asserted, in the identical “ Victrix causa Deis placuit sed victa CatoniT
words used by Emerson thirty centuries But, with a Polar theory of existence,
later, that an “ inevitable dualism besets the difficulty is relegated to the realm, of
nature,’’and embodied the two conflicting the unknown, and, instead of sinking
principles under the names of Ormuzd with Cowper into the despairing depths
and Ahriman. To Ormuzd belong all of religious madness, we may hold with
things that are bright, beautiful,, pure, Wordsworth—
lovely, and of good repute, both in the
The cheerful faith that all which we behold
material and moral universe; to Ahriman,
Is full of blessings.”
all that is foul, ugly, and evil.. Apart A serene and cheerful faith is, of itself,
from certain archaisms of expression and
one of the greatest blessings, and. it is
ritual observances which have become
specially needed in an age in which so
obsolete, the Zendavesta might have been
many gospels of pessimism are abroad,
compiled to-day from the writings of
and so many failures in the struggle for
Herbert Spencer and Huxley. This con
existence tell us that society is a sham, civi
ception of the universe has the enormous
lisation an imposture, and life a, mistake.
advantage over all those which rest on
Another advantage. of this Polar
the idea of an anthropomorphic Creator
theory of the universe is that it teaches
that it does not make religion a means
us to take a large and tolerant view of
of perverting the fundamental instincts
men and of events. The true charity
of morality by making an Omnipotent
which “ suffereth long and is kind ” is
Creator the conscious author of evil.
scarcely compatible with a bigoted and
This is a dilemma from which no
one-sided adherence to a particular set
anthropomorphic form of religion can
escape : either its God is not omnipo of opinions. Whether in politics or in
religion, if we believe that all those who
tent or he is not benevolent. Sin and
differ from us have a double dose of
suffering are facts, as much as virtue and
original sin, we can scarcely comprehend
happiness; and, if the good half of crea
tion argues for a good Creator, it is an or love them. Good natures may pity
them, bad natures hate them, conscien
irresistible inference that the bad half
tious natures feel it a duty to stamp
argues for one who is evil.
them out; but we can never really feel
Theologians, in attempting to escape
towards them as brothers and sisters,
from this dilemma, have been only too
apt to confuse the instincts of morality who have gone a ‘c a kenning wrang,
by arguing that actions which would be and been drawn a little too far by the
�io6
AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
attraction of the opposite polarity to that commoners; if of religion, they are sons
under the influence of which we ourselves of perdition.
To the narrow-minded
live and have our being.
Thus, in Tory all Irish are dynamiters, all Radicals
politics, the cosmos of an ordered rebels, and Gladstone is Antichrist. To
society can only be maintained, as in the narrow-minded Radical all landlords
the orbit of a planet, by a due balance are robbers and all parsons hypocrites.
between the centripetal and centrifugal Socialists seek to regenerate society by
forces. If we were all Conservatives, abolishing capital; capitalists, to save it
society would condense into a sluggish by ignoring that property has duties as
and inert mass ; if all Radicals, it would well as rights. It is all Philistinism, and
be apt to fly off into space. Evolution incapacity to see that there are two sides
will surely bring about in their appro to every question,, and that one thing
priate time the results which are fittest only is certain—that falsehood lies in
to survive.
Why quarrel, then, and extremes. Half the difficulties which
entertain hard and bitter thoughts be perplex us would disappear if we could
cause our own individual atom is acting enlarge our minds, so as, in the words of
in one direction, while that of our Burns,
neighbour is acting in another? Act
“ To see ourselves as others see us”;
strenuously in that direction which, after
conscientious inquiry, seems to be the and to act on the precept of the wise
best; do the duty which lies most nearly old Rabbi Hillel, now 1,900 years old :
and plainly to our hands ; and trust to “ Never to judge another man till you
what religious men call Providence, and have stood in his shoes.”
scientific men Evolution, for the result.
Another advantage of this Polar philo
A large-minded and. large-hearted sophy is that it enables us more readily
creed is the more needful, as the weak to assimilate with those who hold dif
part in the otherwise admirable British ferent forms of belief. What matters it
nature is a tendency to that peculiar whether the Parsee embodies his good
form of narrowness which is commonly principle in an Ormuzd, the Christian in
called Philistinism. Why the Philistine, a Jesus, the Stoic in a Marcus Aurelius,
or dweller in the land of palms on the or the philosopher finds no need for any
border of the Mediterranean, should personification at all?
The essential
have been taken as the type of strait thing is that they are all soldiers fighting
laced and narrow-minded convention together in the cause of goodness and
ality, is hard to see. But the fact is light, against evil and darkness. Practi
there, and the word expresses it; and it cally, a great many modern Christians
is beyond doubt that there is a great are Zoroastrians, with Jesus for their
deal of truth in Matthew Arnold’s in Ormuzd. They care little for dogmas,
dignant diatribes, and that the average except as exalting the character of the
well-meaning and respectable citizen is object of their veneration and giving
apt to be an awful Philistine. It is not expression to their transcendental love
confined to classes; in fact, there is and adoration for his person and char
probably more of it in the upper and acter. Listen to the simple preaching
middle classes than among workmen. of the Salvation Army, and you will find
But whether it be the cut of a coat, or of how exclusively it turns upon the one
a creed, and whether going to a court or element of the love of Jesus.
You
to a chapel, the essence of the thing is would never discover that Christianity
the same—viz., that some class or coterie had been identified with mysterious
fences itself in behind some narrow con dogmas and metaphysical puzzles, and
ventionality, and ignores the great outer that salvation depended on holding the
world. If the pale be one of fashion, Catholic faith as defined by St. Athana
those not within it are outsiders, cads, sius. But sinners are exhorted to give
�AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
up drink and evil ways for the love of logical theory is based entirely on the
the dear Redeemer who died for them , assumption that the Bible is an inspired
and if this touches simple natures, and record of Divine truth, attested by
if calling themselves soldiers, .marching miracles. The scientific theory rests on
in ranks, and beating drums, aid in the the evidence of a vast and ever-accumu
work, why should anyone object to it ? lating mass of facts, which admit of no
We are nearer to these simple souls than doubt or contradiction. It seems to me
we are to the divines who beat the drum that an unlearned man need not go
ecclesiastic, and tell us from pulpits that, farther than to contrast , the theories of
unless we believe all the articles of the man’s descent. Let him go to the
Catholic faith, without doubt we shall British Museum and look at the imple
ments of flint and bone which have been
perish everlastingly.
To sum up, the duty of a man of the found in conjunction with remains, of
twentieth century is clear. He has to extinct animals, in caves and river
follow truth at all hazards. Questions gravels of immense antiquity. How
of the highest importance have . been can the theological theory hold water,
raised which he cannot shirk without unless it could be proved that these, and
narrowing his whole nature, and shutting the hundreds of thousands of similar
himself up in an ever-contracting circle human remains, including skulls and
of ignorance and prejudice. There aie skeletons, which have been discovered
two theories of the universe, and two of in similar deposits over the four quarters
man, which are in direct conflict. Of of the earth, were placed there by a
the universe, one, the theological, that it conspiracy of scientific men who wished
was created and is upheld by miracles— to discredit the Bible ? Even the Duke
that is, by a succession of secondary of Argyll, who has conspiracy on the
supernatural interferences by a Being brain, would hardly contend for such a
who is a magnified man, acting from conclusion, or maintain that the narrative
motives and with an intelligence which, of Noah’s deluge gives a true. account of
however transcendental, are essentially the manner in which animal life has been
human; the other, the scientific, that it diffused over the different zoological
is the result of original impress, or of provinces in which it is actually divided.
The more he extends his researches
evolution acting by natural laws on a basis
of the Unknowable. In like manner, of and enlarges his knowledge, the more
man, one theory, the theological, is that will every honest and conscientious
he is descended from the Biblical Adam, inquirer find that the scientific theory is
created quite recently in a state of high victorious along the whole line. . If he
moral perfection, from which he fell by is a lover of truth, therefore, he will find*
an act of disobedience, entailing on his himself constrained to adopt the larger
descendants the curse of sin and death, creed. But, in doing so, let. him show
from which a portion were redeemed by that it is not merely a speculative creed or
the sacrifice of the Creator’s own son, an intellectual deduction ; that the larger
incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth; the other, creed leads to a larger life; that it makes
the scientific theory, that man is a him more liberal and tolerant, more pure
product of evolution from palaeolithic and upright, more loving and unselfish,
ancestors, who lived for innumerable more strenuous, as becomes a soldier
ages in a state of savagery, but always fighting in the foremost ranks in the
gradually progressing upwards in arts and campaign against sin and misery; . so
that, when the last day comes which
civilisation.
Both theories cannot be true; they comes to all, it may be recorded of him
are in direct contradiction upon funda that his individual atom of existence left
mental facts, which are a question of the world, on the whole, a little better,
evidence. The evidence for the theo- rather than a little worse, than he found it.
�io8
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
Chapter IX.
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
Huxley and Dr. Wace—Sermon on the Mount,
and Lord’s Prayer—English and German
Biblical Criticism—Papias—His Account of
Origin of the Gospels—Confirmed by Internal
Evidence —• Common-sense Conclusions —
Miracles a Question of Faith — Evidence
Required—The Ascension—Early Christian
and Mediaeval Miracles — St. Thomas it
Becket—F aith—Historical Element—Virgin
Mary — Guiding Principles of Historical
Inquiry—Minimum of Miracles—Admissions
which Tell Against—-Jesus anHistorical Person
—Born at Nazareth—Legends of Nativity—
St. John the Baptist—Kingdom of God—Socialistic Spirit—Pure Morality—Nucleus of
Fact in Miracles—Precepts and Parables—
Disputes with Scribes and Pharisees—Jesus a
Jew—Messiahship—Dying Words—Passion
and Crucifixion —• Improbabilities — Pilate —
Resurrection —- Contradictions — Growth of
Legend—Probable Nucleus of Fact—Riot in
the Temple—Return of Disciples to Galilee—
Conflicting Accounts of Resurrection—Return
of Apostles to Jerusalem and Foundation of
Christian Church.
Professor Huxley, in an article in the
Nineteenth Century, refers to the great
difficulty he has felt in his efforts to
define “the grand figure of Jesus as it
lies in the primary strata of Christian
literature. What did he really say and
do? and how much that is attributed
to him in speech and action is the
embroidery of the various parties into
which his followers tended to split them
selves within twenty years after his death,
when even the threefold tradition was
only nascent ? ”
I have felt the same difficulty myself,
and after reading a mass of critical litera
ture, both English and German, I must
confess to having found myself more
than ever perplexed. In English Biblical
criticism the tone is almost invariably
that of advocates rather than of judges.
The opponents of Orthodoxy insist too
much on finding arguments against
inspiration in every text, while its sup
porters are almost always guilty of
the fallacy which is known to logicians
as the petitio principii, and begin by
assuming the very points which they
profess to prove. Thus Dr. Wace, in
his reply to Huxley, starts with the
assumption that the Sermon on the
Mount and the Lord’s Prayer prove the
divinity of Jesus and the inspiration of
the Gospels; and, this being proved, it
follows that we must believe everything
we find recorded in these Gospels as
true, down even to the miracle of the
Gadarene swine, under pain of making
Jesus out to be a liar. Of course we
must, if we admit the theory of divine
inspiration; but this is the very point
to be proved. How does Dr. Wace
attempt to prove it? By lengthened
arguments to show that the omission
of all mention of the Sermon on the
Mount and Lord’s Prayer by Mark is
not a fatal objection; that the Synoptic
Gospels, or parts of them, were probably
written not later than from 70 to 75 a.d.,
and other doubtful points of really very
little importance. But he totally ignores
what is the real difficulty in the way of
accepting his fundamental axiom that
the Sermon on the Mount and Lord’s
Prayer compel us to admit inspiration.
The difficulty is this—that their precepts,
admirable as they are, are not original.
There is scarcely one which is not to be
found, identical in substance and often
almost in the exact words, in the older
writings of earlier religions and philo
sophies. Thus the cardinal precepts,
such as to “ Love your neighbour as your
self,” to “Do as you would be done by,”
to “ Return good for evil,” etc., are found
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
io9
in the old Egyptian ritual, the Vedic ordinary men using their reasoning
faculties, and either refuse to reason and
literature, the maxims of Confucius, and
still more conspicuously in the oldest appeal to faith, or battle about minor
;
writings of the Buddhist and Zoroastrian points which hardly touch the real
objections.
_ . .
religions.
When I turned to German criticism,
And what is even more important,
I found it less obscured by theological,
the Talmudic or Rabbinical literature
of the age immediately preceding that but more by theoretical, prepossessions.
of Jesus is full of them; the writings Every professor had his own theory to
of Jesus, the son of Sirach, of Hillel, establish, and that of his predecessors
to demolish, and in doing so applied an
and of Philo, contain many of the same
enormous amount of erudition to points
precepts, almost verbatim, and they were
the common possession of the Jewish which, for the most part, seemed to me
to remain doubtful, or to be of minor
world at the time when the Sermon on
the Mount is supposed to have been importance. The effect produced on
my mind by critics such as Strauss,
preached.
.
. .
These facts are undeniable, and it is Baur, Volckmar, and Reuss was to leave
a sort of blurred and hazy image, as of
equally undeniable that, if so, the bottom
a landscape in which the essential
is knocked out of Dr. Wace s assump
features are lost in the multitude of
tion ; for, if these precepts and this code
of morality could be evolved in other details.
For instance, it seemed to me that
ages and countries by natural means,
why should they require the miracle of the enormous mass of literature which
Divine Inspiration to account for them has been written to assign the precise
in the New Testament ? The Sermon, date of each Gospel, their respective
no doubt, has its value in bringing to a priorities, how many successive editions
focus a number of excellent precepts, they went through, and how far each
and helping to form the ideal of Jesus copied from the others or from older
and his teaching which has become the manuscripts, might have been greatly
fundamental fact of Christianity ; but as abridged if the learned authors had
anything like reasonable proof of miracu been content to take the simple, straight
lous inspiration it is worthless. Nor is forward evidence of the earliest Christian
writer who gives any account of their
there anything in the Lord’s Prayer
which might not have been the prayer origin—viz., Papias.
Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis, one
of any pious Jew of the time, or, for
the matter of that, of any pious Gentile, of the Churches in Asia Minor, which
for “Our Father which art in heaven” was reputed to have been founded by
is a literal translation of Jupiter, or St. John, and who suffered martyrdom
Dyaus-piter, the father of gods and men for his faith when an aged. man, about
identified with the vault of the sky. 160 a.d. He was certainly in a position
And it cannot be reasonably denied to know what was accepted as of authority
that the omission of all mention of it in by the early Christian Church of his
Mark tells strongly against its authen period. He had been in close personal
ticity, for, if really taught by Jesus, it communication with Polycarp and others
would have been the very thing to be of the generation preceding his own, who
committed to memory, and taught to all had been themselves disciples of the
Apostles, and his information was, there
converts by his immediate disciples.
I refer to this argument of Dr. Wace’s fore, only removed by one degree from
to illustrate what I find to be the great being that of a contemporary and eye
fault of English theologians—viz., that witness. His work is unfortunately lost;
they shirk the obvious difficulties which but Eusebius, who was a great collector
present themselves to the minds pf' of information respecting the Gospels
�no
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
in the fourth century, happily preserves
the most important part of it in a long
quotation.
What does Papias say? Practically
this—that he preferred oral tradition to
written documents, of which he expresses a
somewhat contemptuous opinion, assign
ing as a reason that there were only two
written records which possessed any real
authority : one a collection of anecdotes
or reminiscences, taken down without
method or order from the mouth of St.
Peter by.Mark, his interpreter; the other
a collection of logia, or sayings of Jesus,
written by St. Matthew in Hebrew, and
badly translated into Greek by various
writers.
This statement of Papias, if correct,
proves several things :—
1. The Gospel of St. John could not
have been known to Papias, or he, a
bishop of a Church reputed to have
been founded by that Apostle and a
friend of Polycarp and others who had
known him personally, could never have
expressed an almost contemptuous pre
ference for oral tradition over any written
records, and made no mention of what
has been always considered the most
important and spiritual of all the Gospels,
proceeding direct from the Apostle whom
Jesus loved.
2. The same remark applies to the
Gospel and Acts of St. Luke, which
contain by far the most precise details of
the crowning miracles of the Resurrec
tion and Ascension.
3. It is equally clear that he could not
have known the Gospels of Mark and
Matthew as they now exist, for they are
connected biographies of the life and
teachings of Jesus, and not fragmentary
anecdotes and sayings such as Papias
describes.
4. It is evident, however, that two
written records—one attributed to Mark,
and the other to Matthew—were known
in the time of Papias, and received as of
sufficient authority to make him refer
to them in his general depreciation of
written as compared with oral testimony.
Ibis is a perfectly clear and intel
ligible statement, made apparently in
good faith, without any dogmatic or other
prepossession; and it is confirmed by all
the. evidence we possess of this obscure
period — whether it be the external
evidence that the Gospels in their
present form are not quoted or referred
to as an authority by any Christian
writer earlier than the second century,
or the internal evidence derived from the
Gospels themselves. That of Mark has
exactly the appearance of having been
compiled into a biography from a series
of such reminiscences as Papias describes.
It is full of little life-like touches which
have no special significance, but seem to
have come from the recollection of an
eye-witness.
For instance, that the
throng was so great to hear Jesus that
not only the room but the doorway was
crowded, and that the hurry and bustle
were such that they had not time even
to eat.
It is. true that such touches are not
conclusive, and may have been added to
give local colour and a life-like character
to the narrative, a remarkable instance
of which is afforded by the episode of
the woman taken in adultery, in St.
John, which is not found in the oldest
manuscripts, and is doubtless an inter
polation.
This episode has every ap
pearance of being taken from the life :
the abstracted air, the writing with the
finger on the sand, the exact words
spoken, all give it an air of reality; and
yet it must have been interpolated at a
comparatively late date after several
manuscripts of the Gospel were already
in existence.
Such an instance may
make us hesitate in judging of similar
passages from internal evidence, but it
hardly applies to Mark, whose character
istic traits are much shorter and simpler,
and whose level of culture and literary
ability is much lower than that of the
compiler—whoever he may have been—■
of the Gospel according to St. John.
The Gospel of Matthew, again, has
exactly the appearance of having been
compiled from such a collection of logia
as Papias describes, woven into a
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
biography by the aid of the original Mark
and other early traditions, and embel
lished by the addition of much mythical
matter intended to show the fulfilment
of Messianic prophecies, and to meet
objections.
It has always seemed to me, therefore,
that all theories as to the date and origin
of the Canonical Gospels were com
paratively worthless which did not take
into account the fundamental fact of this
statement of Papias. It is either true or
false. If true, it is worth a hundred
theories evolved, like the ideal camel,
from the inner consciousness of German
professors, and is conclusive of the fact
that the Gospels in their present form
were not known, or not accepted as an
authority, by the early Christian Churches
of the East in the first half of the second
' century, though this is quite consistent
with their containing passages and tradi
tions which may date back to the siege
of Jerusalem, or even to a much earlier
period. If, on the other hand, Papias is
to be rejected, let us know the reason why,
and give us some sort of an intelligible
explanation of how such a passage came
to be quoted from his work by Eusebius.1
ni
I give this as an illustration of the way
in which, the more I studied these pro
fessional works of Biblical criticism, the
more confusion became worse con
founded. At length, after having aban
doned the subject for a time, I resolved,
almost in despair, to see what conclusion
I could form for myself by the applica
tion of common sense and the ordinary
rules of evidence. I succeeded thus in
forming a tolerably clear and consistent
view of what might be the real, historical
element in the origin of Christianity and
the personality of its Founder. I do not
pretend to impose on others my own
origin: and therefore that the silence of Eusebius
is no proof that there may not have been refer
ences to and quotations from these Gospels in
the writings of Papias.
But this, which is in itself a very far-fetched
supposition, is contradicted by the words of
Eusebius himself, who says, “ As my history
proceeds, I will take care. to indicate what
Church writers from time to time have made use
of any of the disputed books, and what has
been said by them concerning the Canonical ana
acknowledged Scriptures.”
2. That when Papias says, I thought I could
not derive so much advantage from books as from
the living and abiding oral tradition, he meant
books which were not Gospels, but commentaries
on Gospels.
.
Here again this far-fetched supposition is con
1 The difference to which I have referred
tradicted by Papias himself, who says books
between the conclusions of common sense and
without any qualification, and refers to written
those of erudite ingenuity acting under the records—viz., the notes of Mark and the logia
influence of theological prepossession is well,
of Matthew, which assuredly were not commen
illustrated by the attempt of Bishop Lightfoot,
taries or interpretations of existing Gospels, but
in his Essays on Supernatural Religion, to
historical records of the sayings and doings oi
answer the obvious inference from this passage the Founder of the religion as much as the
of Papias. Common sense says, if the Canonical Canonical Gospels themselves; or rather they
Gospels, and especially that of St. John, had
were the primary matter and first forms of the
beenextant in their present form.and accepted Synoptic Gospels, and could not have been so
as an authority by the early Christian Church, referred to if the Gospels, in their more complete
Papias must have known them. If he had
and elaborate form, and especially that according
known them, he could not have referred in such
to St. John, had been known to Papias and
contemptuous terms to written records as inferior
to oral tradition, and could not have mentioned received as authorities.
The closer the connection is drawn between
the disconnected anecdotes of Mark and the
Papias and the Apostle John through Polycarp—
Hebrew logia. of Matthew as the only records of
importance. Nor could Eusebius.have quoted and the Bishop insists greatly on this m his
Essays—the more impossible does it become
this passage alone from Papias, which obviously
that, if Papias had known of such a Gospel as is
tells against his own views, without quoting other attributed to John, he could have written such
passages which refer to the Canonical Gospels,
as is quoted from
y
if any such had existed in other portions of the a sentencesaying that he could his lost worprofit
Eusebius,
get “little
work of Papias. The Bishop replies
i. That the design of Eusebius may have been from books,” and have referred, as he does, to
to quote only references to the Apocryphal Matthew and Mark, without saying a word of
John, or of the Gospel which is pre-eminently
writings, and. in the case of the Canonical
Gospels anything which threw light on their the foundation-stone of Christian theology.
�112
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
solution of this extremely difficult and■ life. You wish to establish some five or
obscure question, but I think it may Six exceptions to this rule, or rather one,
perhaps aid some sincere inquirers in for, if the return to life of Jesus cannot
giving clearness and precision to their be proved, few would be disposed to
ideas, and defining the boundaries rest their faith in miracles on any other
between what may be accepted by the of the alleged cases of resurrection.
ordinary rules of reason and that which And the historical truth of the appear
lies outside the province of reason, and ances of a living and tangible Jesus after
can only be accepted as an article of faith. death hinges mainly on the account of
. To begin with, I believe that miracles the Ascension given by St. Luke in the
lie entirely within the domain of faith. Acts of the Apostles. This is the
I mean real miracles, for a large number crowning miracle of all, the appropriate
of those narrated by the Gospels may conclusion of his mission on earth, and
well be natural occurrences described in strongest proof of his Divine nature;
the language of the day. For instance, and it . is described in the fullest detail
casting out devils, faith-healing, or curing as having occurred in the presence of a
paralytic affections of the nerve or will by large.number of witnesses. St. Paul says
a strong impulse; and the effects of reli of this, or of some other appearance not
gious excitement, the sympathy of crowds, recorded in any of the Gospels, that there
dreams, visions, and hallucinations, are were five hundred witnesses, many of
all well-known causes of the present day, whom remained alive till his day, and in
of effects which in former ages would a definite and well-known locality close
undoubtedly have been considered as to . the large city of Jerusalem. If the
miraculous. These may very well have evidence for this miracle fails us, how
actually occurred, and be as historical as can we believe in others more obscure
any other part of the narrative.
and less well authenticated ?
But when we come to such miracles
Surely the evidence for an event which
as raising the dead, or permanently is a solitary exception to i55ooo,ooo,ooo
curing organic diseases, they require a experiences requires to be proved by
special supernatural interference with testimony far stronger than would be
the laws of nature.. Now, what does required to prove an ordinary occur
reason say to such miracles ? It tells us rence.. But how stands the evidence for
that in thousands of such cases of alleged the miracle of the Ascension ? Of the
miracles, alike in Pagan, early Christian, four witnesses called into court, one,
and mediaeval ages, once firmly believed Mark, the. oldest of all, and probably
in and attested by what seems strong deriving his information direct from St.
contemporary evidence, not one now Peter, makes no mention whatever (if we
holds the field and is seriously accepted, omit the last verses, which are an obvious
with the possible exception of some half addendum, and, as the authors of the
dozen which are accepted solely on the revised edition tell us, are not found in
authority of the New Testament.
the oldest manuscripts) of the Ascension,
Take, as an illustration, the statement or of any other supernatural event con
that one who was really dead returned nected with the Resurrection. Matthew
to life.
There are some thousand says distinctly that the message sent by
millions of people living in the world Jesus to his Apostles was to “depart
who are renewed by death and birth at into Galilee,” and that they went there
least three times in every century, and accordingly, where they saw him, but
this has been going on for some fifty cen
some doubted,”and makes no reference
turies. That makes some 15,000,000,000 to. any. Ascension. John describes cer
human beings who have died, and of •tain miracles occurring at Jerusalem, but
whom it may be said with certainty that places the concluding scene of the
;
not one has ever returned in the body to \Resurrection, when Jesus took his final
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
113
farewell of his disciples, in Galilee, and, comply with the perfectly reasonable
request of the Pharisees to prove his
like Mark and Matthew, makes no men
Messiahship by a sign from heaven—a
tion of any Ascension.
Observe that Luke says distinctly that refusal which, if he possessed the power,
was unfair to men who, if narrow and
Jesus charged the Apostles “not to
depart from Jerusalem,” and that all the fanatical, were doubtless many of them
miraculous appearances, including the sincere and zealous for their country and
Ascension, occurred there. There can religion.
I do not see how it can be doubted
not be a more flagrant contradiction than
that the evidence for many early Christian
that between Matthew and Luke. Con
sider now what would be the chance of and mediaeval miracles, which no one
establishing, not a stupendous miracle, any longer believes, is much stronger
but such a commonplace event as the than for those of the Gospels. St.
signature of a will, if the first witness Augustine, a perfectly historical and
called was a solicitor who said that the leading personage of his day, testifies
testator in his last illness asked him to that in his own time, and in his own
remain in London to draw and attest bishopric of Hippo, upwards of seventy
his will, which he did, while the second miracles had been wrought by the relics
of St. Stephen. The friend and bio
witness was another solicitor, who swore
that the testator told him he was going grapher of St. Ambrose relates numerous
down to his place in Yorkshire, on the miracles, one a resurrection from the dead,
chance that the air of the country might which had been notoriously wrought at
Milan by the saint during his lifetime.
revive him, and asked the witness to
follow him there by the next day’s train, Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne,
in order to complete his will, which who was a well-known historical char
instructions he accordingly carried out. acter, relates, as from his own experience,
And let any candid and dispassionate a number of miracles wrought by the
person say how, if tried by the ordinary relics of two Christian martyrs which an
rules of reason, this differs from the emissary of his had purloined from
direct contradiction between Matthew Rome, and which he was transporting to
Heiligenstadt. To come to later times,
and Luke.
With this conclusive proof of the im St. Thomas a Becket was as well known
possibility of establishing the greatest of an historical character as King Henry,
and no miracles were attributed to him
all miracles by the ordinary rules of
evidence, it is almost superfluous to in his lifetime; but after his niurder,
refer to the many other circumstances under circumstances causing universal
which, on the showing of the Gospels horror and excitement, a whole crop of
themselves, lead to the same result. For miracles sprung up about his shrine at
instance, the next greatest miracle to Canterbury. Any one who will consult
those of the Resurrection, the raising of the authorities cited by Freeman will be
Lazarus, is related only in one Gospel, astonished to find how very precise and
and that the latest and least authentic; circumstantial is the evidence for. many
while, if it really occurred, it must have of these miracles. One instance is that
been known to and recorded by the of the attestation of the mayor and
three other evangelists. Or what can be several burgesses of a northern borough
said of the admission that even the to the fact that a fellow-townsman of
minor miracles of casting out devils and theirs, blind from his youth, had gone to
faith-healing depended . on faith, and the shrine and returned with perfect
could not be performed in the sceptical sight. There is nothing in the account
atmosphere of Nazareth, where Jesus of any miracle in the New Testament at
and his family and surroundings were all approaching this in what constitutes
well known j or of the refusal of Jesus to the force of evidence, precision of date,
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THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
place, persons, and circumstance. And
yet, for millions who believe on the
weaker evidence, there is scarcely one
who retains any belief in such miracles
as those related of St. Thomas a Becket.
The reason is obvious : miracles are
in a totally distinct province—-that of
faith. What is faith ? St. Paul tells us
it is “ the assurance of things hoped for,
the proving of things not seen.” Hardly
of “things not seen,” for, in that case,
mathematicians and chemists who believe
in atoms and molecules would, of all
men, have the largest faith. But say of
“things not proven,” and it is a very
accurate definition. There can be no
doubt that there are men, often of great
piety and excellence, who have, or fancy
they have, a sort of sixth sense, or, as
Cardinal Newman calls it, an “illative
sense,” by which they see by intuition,
and arrive at a fervid conviction of the
truth of things unprovable or disprovable
by ordinary reason. The existence of a
personal God, the divinity of Christ, the
inspiration of the Bible, and consequent
reality of .miracles, appear to them to be
fundamental and necessary truths beyond
the scope of reason. They feel that, if
their belief in these were shaken, their
whole life would be shattered, and they
would lose what Wordsworth says
Nature was to him—
“ The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”
With such men I have no quarrel.
Let them hold to their faith, and leave
reason to poor ordinary mortals, who,
like myself, have no such transcendental
intuitions. Only do not let them confound
the two provinces, and try to ride on two
horses at the same time. Faith is either
a delusion or something which is above
and beyond reason. If the latter, they
only weaken it by seeking to prop it up
by weak and sophistical arguments. If,
for instance, a man tells me that he
believes in the miracle of the Ascension
by faith, I have no more to say; but if
he proceeds to back up his assertion by
arguing that there is no contradiction
between Luke’s account of it and that of
the other evangelists, I say : “This man
is either insincere or illogical.” His
motto is, “ Believe if you can; if you
can’t, cant.”
I do not, therefore, so much deny the
truth of the Christian miracles as affirm
that they are altogether outside the
province of reason, and have no place
in such an historical resume as I am
attempting to give in this essay.
Another reservation I have to make is
that, if the historical element in the life
of Jesus may seem to be reduced to very
slender proportions, this does not neces
sarily affect the vital truth of the
Christian religion.
This religion has
always been to a considerable extent,
and is becoming more and more every
day, not so much a question of external
evidence, or of dogma, as of a sincere
love and reverence for the ideal which
has come to be associated with the name
of Jesus. This ideal is a fact, and has
long been, and will continue to be, an
important factor in the progress of human
evolution from lower to higher things.
How the ideal grew up and came to be
established is of far less importance than
what it is. Love, charity, purity, com
passion, self-sacrifice, are not the less
virtues because the Jdeas and emotions
of so many good men and women, for
nineteen centuries, have taken form and
crystallised about a comparatively small
nucleus of historical fact.
My meaning will be best explained by
an illustration. In Catholic countries
there is a figure 'which competes with, if
indeed it does not often supersede, that
of Jesus—-the figure of the Virgin Mary.
Now, here we can trace the historical
nucleus down to a minimum. What do
we really know of the mother of Jesus as
an historical fact?
That she was a
Jewish matron, the wife of a mechanic
in a small provincial town, the mother of
a large family, for four brothers of Jesus
are mentioned as well as sisters. Apart
from the legends of the .Nativity, which
are obviously mythical, nothing else is
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
ii5
known of her, except that she was pro historical evidence ? I tell you it is a
bably one of the sceptical friends and fact, far more certain and more impor
kindred at Nazareth whose want of faith tant than nine-tenths of the events
prevented the working of miracles there, related in history. If you doubt it, look
and whose impression seems to have at Raffaelle’s Madonna di San Sisto,
been that Jesus was not altogether in his or Murillo’s Immaculate Conception ; or
right mind. Her relations with her Son listen to Mozart’s Ave Maria, or
do not appear to have been very cordial, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and you will
from his refusal to go out to her when see that this ideal worship of the car
she came to the door asking to see him, penter’s wife of Nazareth has produced
and his emphatic assertion that those works which will remain for ever as highwho believed in him were dearer to him water marks which have been reached in
the evolution of modern art. You will
than his blood-relations.
The only other mention of Mary by say with Byron :—
St. John, who describes her as sitting at
“ Ave Maria, oh, that face so fair,
Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty
the foot of the Cross, is apocryphal, being
dove.
directly contradicted by the very precise
Ave Maria, may our spirits dare
statement in the three other Gospels, that
Soar up to thee and to thy Son above.”
the Mary who was present on that occa
And so of Jesus; the historical figure,
sion was a different woman, the mother
of Salome. The motive of this intro though a good deal more certain and
duction of Mary, the mother of Jesus, definite than that of his Mother, is but
by the author of the fourth Gospel is a small matter compared with the ideal
obvious—viz., to exalt the character of which has grown up, in the course of
St. John, as is apparent throughout this ages, about it. It is but as the fragment
Gospel, in which the “ Boanerges,” the which, dropping into a saturated solu
violent and narrow-minded John of the tion, attracts molecule after molecule,
other Gospels, is converted into the until it grows into a large and lovely
gentle and amiable Apostle whom Jesus crystal which all eyes admire.
With these reservations, which may
loved.
What is the sort of figure which, if we go some way to mitigate the scruples of
relied on historical evidence only, we orthodox readers, if I should happen to
should draw from these scanty records ? have any—viz., that miracles are a ques
That of a plain, motherly Jewish woman, tion of faith, and that the historical
who did her own scrubbing and washing, element does not materially affect the
and was probably too much oppressed vital truth of Christianity—I fall back
by household cares, and those of a large on my own humble province of reason,
family, to know or care much for the and attempt to show what can be
spiritual aspirations and prophetical gathered by it from the earliest records
as to the personality and teaching of
pretensions of her eldest son.
And yet from this homely figure -what Jesus.
I begin by stating the two principles
a world of beautiful ideas and associa
tions have flowered into life.
The by which I have been mainly guided in
Madonna has become an embodiment the research. The first is what I may
of all female virtues carried to a point call the “Minimum of Miracle.” Of
where they become divine.
Love, different biographies of the same person,
purity, innocence, maternal affection, that which contains the fewest miraculous
human suffering, have all found their legends is almost certain to be the
highest ideal in the “ Mother of God,” earliest and most authentic. It is far
the “ mild and merciful Madonna,” the more likely that such legends should be
“ Blessed Virgin.” Do you tell me this added or invented than that, if they
is not a fact because it is not based on actually occurred, or were generally
�116
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
accredited, they should be designedly
omitted. As an illustration of what I
mean by this, take the case, already
referred to, of St. Thomas a Becket. If
newspapers had existed in his time which
published a biography of eminent men
on the day after their death, such a
biography would have contained no
miracles; one written a few weeks later
would have doubtless contained some
reference to the miraculous vision of the
monk who watched by his remains, and
some of the miracles said to have
occurred at his shrine; while still later
accounts would have multiplied the
miracles into scores and hundreds.
There can be no doubt here that the
succession in point of time would have
been—No miracles, few miracles, many
miracles. And the same holds good of
all biographies of eminent men, saints,
and martyrs. The outlines of their
historical figures are almost lost in the
accumulation of myths and legends,
which in uncritical times have grown up
about them. Even . in the nineteenth
century we have had a most significant
illustration of this. When the life of
the Bab, a great religious reformer of
modern Persia, was published shortly
after his death, it contained no miracles.
But in thirty years it came to be packed
with miracles.
The second even more important
principle is, that admissions of events
and sayings which tell against the point
of view of the writer are far more likely
to be historical than those which have
the appearance of being introduced to
show the fulfilment of prophecies, to
answer objections, or to support dogmatic
views. Thus, if Jesus is described as
being born and bred at Nazareth, the
son of a carpenter whose family and
surroundings were well known there, the
statement is far more likely to be true
than one which describes him as having
been born at Bethlehem, and attributes
to. him a whole series of marvellous and
miraculous incidents.
Tried by both these tests, the Gospel
of Mark has every appearance of being
the earliest and most authentic record;
and when this is confirmed by the clear
and explicit statement of Papias, I have
no hesitation in assuming it to be the
surest basis of our historical knowledge,
and in all probability mainly derived
from the reminiscences of Peter himself,
or of other contemporary witnesses of
the events described.
Starting from this basis, I assume, as
beyond all doubt, that Jesus was an
historical personage. There is nothing
in Mark which would lead to the sup
position that any considerable portion of
his Gospel was legend or myth. The
time is too modern, and the narrative
too precise, to allow us to suppose that
the whole story had been elaborated by
later theologians from Oriental myths
and Messianic prophecies. The age
was long past when religions could
originate in solar myths and misunder
stood personifications of natural pheno
mena. Every great religious movement
which comes fairly within the historical
period, from Buddha and Zoroaster down
to Mohammed, had some real personality
as its starting-point, about whom myths
and dogmas accumulated, until almost
obscuring the historical nucleus. So
also was doubtless the case with Jesus.1
The next point I consider to be quite
certain is, that he was born of humble
parents at the little town of Nazareth in
Galilee. The legends of the Nativity
and Infancy may all be dismissed as
purely mythical. The two accounts
and genealogies in Matthew and Luke
do not agree, and are each hopelessly
inconsistent with the evidence of the
other Gospels. It is plain that during
his life and afterwards Jesus was supposed
to have been born at Nazareth, that this
was cast in his teeth as being irrecon
cilable with any claim to be the Messiah,
and that neither he nor his Apostles ever
attempted to deny it, or made any claim
J. The reader who desires to study the more
critical position, which calls into question the
historical reality of Jesus, will do well to read
Mr. J. M. Robertson’s Christianity and Mytho
logy and Pagan Christs,
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
117
to his having been born at Bethlehem. heroes and gods of antiquity, and is
If such a series of startling events as almost certainly derived from a solar
are described by Matthew had really myth of the sun rising in the constella
occurred, the inhabitants of Nazareth tion of Virgo. The story of the massacre
could hardly have ignored his claims as of the innocents is related of Krishna;
a prophet on the ground that he was a and, if we accept the narrative of Matthew,
mere ordinary fellow-townsman, “the we have to suppose that there were two
Son of the carpenter, whose brothers wicked kings, one in India and another
in Judaea, separated by an interval of
and sisters are with us every day.’'
The accounts of the nativity, infancy, many centuries, who both adopted the
arid early manhood of Jesus may be same expedient, of a massacre of all
dismissed as purely legendary. I do male children under two years of age,
not say so merely because they contain to destroy a Divine Incarnation who was
so many miracles, but on the ordinary Lorn in one of their cities. The escape
grounds of historical criticism. In the by flight, owing to a miraculous warning,
first place, the two accounts of Matthew and other particulars, are almost word
and Luke are contradictory. The second for word the same in the two legends;
admits that Nazareth was the abode of and we may fairly assume that both are
Joseph and Mary, and accounts for the alike unhistorical. We know that a
birth of Jesus at Bethlehem by the sup whole crop of such legends grow up in
posed necessity of Joseph’s going there early Christian tradition, for we have
to be taxed, as being of the family of the Gospel of the Infancy, which is full
David; while the first assumes that of the most childish and absurd magical
Bethlehem was the abode of the parents, tricks, supposed to have been performed
and says that they only went to Nazareth during the boyhood of the Messiah.
The first firm historical ground is
some years later from fear of Archelaus,
who had succeeded to his father Herod. afforded by the Gospel of St. Mark, who
Matthew describes the Massacre of the begins with the visit of Jesus to John the
Innocents at Bethlehem, and says that Baptist. This is very likely to be true,
Jesus escaped it by flying into Egypt; for we know from Josephus that the time
while Luke omits all mention of the was one of great religious and political
massacre, the miraculous star, and the excitement, and that there were several
wise men of the East, and says that the such preachers or prophets as John the
parents took the babe straight to Jeru Baptist is described to have been, who
salem. In both cases all the events are went about holding what may be called
described as happening in fulfilment of camp-meetings, and in some cases caus
prophecies. The other two evangelists, ing local insurrections, which had to be
Mark and John, make no mention of repressed by the Roman soldiery. Noth
any such occurrences, and begin their ing is more likely than that a young man
biographies with the visit of Jesus, when of original genius and strong religious
a grown-up man, to John the Baptist. sentiment should go to one of such
It is now recognised by prominent theo meetings, not far from his home, to hear
logians, such as Dr. Loofs, that the a celebrated preacher. That such a
account given in Luke is a late interpola young man was not altogether satisfied
with the narrow and fierce denunciations
tion in the text.
But the most conclusive fact is that of a rude ascetic, and did not enrol him
these legends are identical, both in their self as one of his disciples, was also very
general tenour and in many minute details, probable; but that John really did make
with similar legends of earlier religions. a considerable impression on him is
Thus the miraculous birth from a virgin evident from the fact that he left his
is related of Horus, of Krishna, of home immediately afterwards, assumed
Buddha, and of many of the celebrated the character of a wandering missionary,
�ii8
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
and began to preach identically the same
the New Testament. They supply a
gospel as that of John: “Repent ye, for
motive-power which may explain the
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
early conversions and the rapid spread
Let us pause for a moment to consider
what was meant by the kingdom of heaven of the new religion. Evidently the hope
eing at hand. It did not mean such a of a large and .immediate reward was
millennium as certain enthusiasts may present in the minds of the Apostles,
now suppose, after nineteen centuries of these humble peasants and fishermen
unfulfilled expectation—thatis, the advent we're to sit on twelve thrones judging
of an era of purer morals and better laws the twelve tribes of Israel,” and “every
—but the literal end of the world and last one who has left houses, or brethren, or
judgment, to take place within the life sisters, or children, or lands, for My
Name’s sake shall receive a hundred
time of some of the existing generation.
fold.” And this not in a remote future,
1 he sun was to be darkened, the moon
but m the lifetime of the existing genera
not to give her light, and the stars fall
tion. It is conceivable also that many
rom heaven. And then they were to
see the “ Son of Man coming in clouds educated Jews, who despaired of an
with great power and glory,” and his armed resistance to the overwhelming
angels to gather all mankind from the power of Rome, might be inclined to
four winds of heaven before the judgment view with favour the idea of a spiritual
Messiah who should bring about the
seat, where the tares are to be separated
advent of an end of the world and last
from the wheat, the goats from the sheep,
judgment, in which the elect children of
the good rewarded and the wicked cast
God should be rewarded and the heathen
into everlasting fire. Nothing can be punished.
more explicit than the assurance that this
Another element which must have
event would come to pass in the lifetime
contributed largely towards the reception
of the present generation. “Verily I say
of the Gospel by the poorer classes is
unto you, This generation shall not pass
the extreme socialistic spirit which is
away until all these things are accom uniformly displayed. For “rich’’write
plished.”
Such was evidently the current opinion “capital,” and for “poor” “wages,” and
the preaching of Jesus is almost identical
among the Apostles and early Christians: with that of modern socialists. The
and even the cultured and educated Paul,
poor are to be rewarded and the rich
some twenty years later, repeats it with punished in the kingdom of God, irre
the fullest conviction, and describes how
the Lord shall descend from heaven spective of any merit or demerit. Thus,
blessed are ye poor,” “woe unto you
with a shout, with the voice of an arch
that are rich.” Even the rich young
angel, and with the trump of God”; and
how “the dead shall rise first; then we man, who had kept all the Command
that are alive, that are left, shall together ments, is told that he cannot be saved
unless he “sells all his possessions and
with them be caught up in the clouds, to gives to the poor”; and the remark of
meet the Lord in the air.”
Jesus is, that it is “ easier for a camel to
It is clear that, according to all rules
go through a needle’s eye than for a rich
of ordinary reason, predictions thus con
man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
fidently made and conclusively refuted For anything that appears to the contrary,
are an irresistible argument against the Lazarus may have been a loafing vaga
possession of any inspiration or special bond, who had brought poverty and dis
foresight on the part of the prophets, and
ease upon himself by his own misconduct;
that prophecies, like miracles, must be and Dives a man who, having inherited
relegated to the province of faith. But,
a large estate, spent it hospitably in
on the other hand, they bring us nearer
entertaining his neighbours; but no moral
to the human and historical element in is inculcated. It is enough that Lazarus
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
is poor and Dives rich, to place one in
Abraham’s bosom and the other in eternal
fire.
It is evidently neither in these falsified
prophecies, nor in this exaggerated social
ism, that we are to find the fascination
which the ideal of Jesus has exercised
over so many minds for so many centuries.
It is rather in the interpretation which he
gave to the first words of the Baptist’s
formula, “ Repent ye, for the kingdom of
God is at hand.” Repentance, as taught
by Jesus, meant not merely an outward
obedience to formal laws and abstinence
from direct breaches of moral command
ments, but such a spiritual conversion as
embraced the whole sphere of human
life and made the very idea of sin insup
portable. Men were to be good, pure,
merciful, compassionate, and charitable,
because the principle of “loving God and
thy neighbour as thyself” was so wrought
into the soul that it became a second
nature. The law was to be observed, but
in a liberal, tolerant, and comprehensive
spirit, and the intention was to be looked
to rather than the outward act. The
widow’s mite was of more value than the
rich man’s offering, and the publican’s
remorseful prayer was more acceptable
than the formal and lengthened devotions
of the strait-laced Pharisee.
It is remarkable, when we come to
consider it, how much more the ideal of
Jesus, which is the central fact of Chris
tianity, is founded on the precepts and
parables by which this spiritual religion
is taught, and by the human incidents of
his life which illustrate it, than it is on
the alleged miracles. The Sermon on
the Mount, the Parable of the Good
Samaritan, the tenderness to children,
the affectionate and “sweetly reason
able ” intercourse with his humble
followers—these and such as these are
the traits which build up the ideal char
acter that draws all hearts.
The miracles, on the other hand, are
at best but capricious instances of a
supernatural power, healing one and
leaving thousands unhealed, and failing
when most required as evidences, as in
119
the case of the incredulous Nazarenes
and the Pharisees who asked for a sign;
while, at the worst, some of them are
wholly inconsistent with the historical
character of the just and gentle Jesus.
Thus the miracle of the Gadarene swine,
if true, obviously detracts from this char
acter. It is an act of cruelty to animals
(for what had the poor swine done to
deserve death?), and it is a wanton
destruction of property cruel. to the
owners. Doubtless these swine had
owners, perhaps some poor Galilean
peasants, who, like those of Donegal or
Galway, depended on the pig to pay
their rent and save them from eviction.
It was a wanton and a cruel act to send
their humble property to destruction m
order to please a pack of devils. Again,
the miracle of the fig-tree reads rather
like the hasty curse of a passionate fool
than the act of a gentle, long-suffering,
and sweetly reasonable man.
But, to return to the historical narative,
I find no difficulty in believing that the
accounts of the commencement of the
mission of Jesus, of his comings and
goings among the small towns of Galilee,
of his camp-meetings, and of most of
his preachings, parables, and sayings, are
substantially accurate. There is nothing
improbable in them, except in some of
the miracles taken literally, and these
may readily be explained, or indeed
were inevitable, in such a medium of
excited crowds of poor and ignorant
men, where everyone believed in miracles
as events of daily occurrence, and where
many natural acts of faith-healing and
casual coincidences had given a popular
prophet the reputation of being a worker
of mighty works.
Indeed, many of the miracles appear
as if they had a nucleus of historical fact,
which became expanded into legend.
Thus, the legends of Jesus and Peter
walking on the sea appear to be based
on the first simple narrative, how a
sudden squall having overtaken the boat
in which they were crossing at night,
they awoke Jesus, who was asleep, and
the squall passed over.
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THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
Those, again, of the “ loaves and fishes ” nent . makes a desperate thrust by a
may have readily arisen from the recol puzzling question; it is parried by an
lection of some occasion when a scanty adroit answer, both leaving the root of
supply of food had lasted out longer than the matter untouched. Thus the cele
was expected, owing very probably to brated answer, “ Render unto Csesar the
many of those who attended the camp things that are Caesar’s, and unto God
meeting having brought their own provi the things that are God’s,” is clever, but
sions—a conjecture which is confirmed no answer to the real question whether a
by the abundance of baskets, in which conscientious servant of Jehovah could
to collect the fragments, and which could voluntarily pay taxes to a heathen power
not have been required to carry seven or which had usurped his place. The posi
five loaves.
tion was precisely that of a conscientious
These, however, are mere conjectures, Dissenter in our own days, who was in
and not to be taken as facts, and I only doubt whether to pay Church rates or
mention them to show that a good many let his chattels be seized. He would
of the miraculous legends need not have got little enlightenment from being
necessarily detract from the general told to pay King Edward VII. the things
historical value of Mark’s simple narra that were his, and render to God what
tive of this early part of the career of was God’s. The question was, what
Jesus in Galilee.
things were Caesar’s and what God’s.
And I think the sayings and parables
Again, the puzzle of the Sadducee,
may generally be taken .as authentic. It whose wife she would be in heaven who
is true that most of both may be found had been married successively to seven
in the literature of the Talmud and of brothers, remains a puzzle to this day.
older religions, but this does not negative It is no question of marrying in the
the probability that Jesus may have used kingdom of heaven, but of marriages
them in his popular addresses, and at which have taken place on earth. Shall
any rate they afford a view of what his we preserve our personal identity after
doctrine and style of preaching really death, so that two souls which have been
were ; and . many of the parables and united by the holiest and closest ties
shorter sayings are just such things as while living shall be united in a future
would be readily retained in the memory life ? Shall we know and recognise those
and transmitted by oral tradition. Many whom we have loved and lost—
of the details also of the incidents and
“ See every face we feared to see no more ” ;
wanderings to and fro of this Galilean
or is Arthur’s last wish, that Guinevere
period are very like what might be
expected from the reminiscences in old should cling to him and not to Launcelot,
age of an Apostle like Peter, who had when they meet before “ the fair father
accompanied Jesus from the first, though Christ,” a vain dream ? If it be not,
we must always recollect that the author who can answer the Sadducee’s question,
who worked up these reminiscences, as or say more than our greatest poet:
“ Behind the veil, behind the veil ”?
described by Papias, into a connected
biography may have added a good deal What Jesus might have said, but did
from other sources.
not, is : The rule is an abominable one;
I am inclined also to accept as it degrades the sanctity of marriage, and
authentic a good many of the contro reduces woman to a mere chattel, who is
versies between Jesus and the Scribes to be handed over like an ox or an ass—
and Pharisees. They are exactly in the they to bear burdens, she to bear chil
style of the verbal conflicts which were dren—for their master, man.
so common in the East, and which sur
Up to this point, therefore, I see no
vived down to the scholastic tourna difficulty in accepting the Synoptic narra
ments of the Middle Ages. An oppo tive, best told in the earliest and simplest
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
121
Gospel of Mark, as being in the main and Pharisees had introduced in later
historical. And if so, the best picture I times. Thus, he strolled through the
can form of it fs something very like the fields on a Sunday afternoon with his
Salvation Army of the present day. The disciples, plucking ears of corn, and
movement had evidently no political declared that “ the Sabbath was made
significance, and attracted little notice, for man, not man for the Sabbath,” a
or Josephus must have mentioned it; and saying in respect of which our modern
there is no trace of any interference with Pharisees have generally sided with those
it, in the earlier stages, on the part of of old rather than with the liberal-minded
the authorities. In fact, the modern and tolerant Jesus.
What did Jesus believe respecting his
Salvationists have suffered more from
provincial Bumbles and Justice Shallows own Messiahship ? This is a very per
than Jesus and his disciples seemed to plexing question, aggravated by the
have done while they remained in Galilee. tendency, after the doctrine was firmly
But, like the Salvation Army, there was established, to invent or adopt traditions
a loose organisation of a general, twelve showing that he had fulfilled the condi
principal officers, and a body of disciples tions attached to such a character by the
or professed adherents, who went about prophecies of the Old Testament, and by
holding camp-meetings, and preaching the prevailing expectations.
But it is tolerably clear that in the
the advent of the kingdom of God and
a new and better life to excited crowds, early part of his career he advanced no
who listened eagerly, and on the whole such pretension. The Gospels all agree
sympathised with them. The only dif in describing the remarkable persistency
ference was in the superior genius, with which he endeavoured to suppress
eloquence, and attractiveness of the all evidence which tended to support
personality at the head of the movement, such a claim. The evil spirits who
and the purity, spirituality, and general recognise him, the patients whom he
miraculously cures, Peter when he calls
excellence of his doctrine.
There are one or two points in this him the Christ, are all enjoined to “ tell
doctrine which it is interesting to con no man anything.” When the little
sider. Did Jesus regard himself as a damsel is supposed to have been raised
Jewish reformer, or as the founder of a from the dead, his first care is to “ charge
new religion ? Decidedly the former. them much that no man should know
The declarations are quite explicit : this.” In any ordinary case the inference
“Think not that I come to destroy the would be that he did not wish miracles,
law or the prophets, but to fulfil ”; “Till which passed muster with ignorant dis
heaven and earth pass away, one jot or ciples, to be investigated by impartial
one tittle shall in no wise pass away from and educated critics. If this explanation
the law ”; “ I was not sent but unto the be negatived as inconsistent with his
lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He pure and holy character, the only other
was as far as possible from Paul’s doc that can be suggested is that he did not
trine, that he was sent to liberate the wish it to be supposed that he was a
Jews from the bondage of the law,, and supernatural being attested by miracles,
to introduce a new and universal religion believing miracles to be vulgar things
for Jews and Gentiles alike. But in a of which even false prophets might be
few exceptional cases he healed Gentiles capable, but that he preferred to rely on
who had shown extraordinary faith, and the excellence of his doctrine and his
his interpretation of the law was a large own powers of eloquence and persuasion.
It would seem, however, that later in
and liberal one, looking to the spirit
rather than the letter of the Mosaic his career the conviction began to dawn
commandments, and rejecting the trifling on him that he might be the Messiah of
and vexatious rules which the Scribes . the prophecies, and that he stood in
�122
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
some peculiar relation to God, and would any other record. It is evident that, if
be His vicegerent in inaugurating His Luke s version had represented the words
kingdom and holding the assizes of the really spoken, they could never have been
last judgment.
altered by eye-witnesses or by early tradi
The most distinct assertion of this is tion into words conveying such a totally
found after he had gone to Jerusalem, in different impression as “My God, my
his reputed reply to the adjuration of the God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
high priest to say whether he was “ the
We come now to the concluding scene
Christ, the Son of the Blessed,” to which at Jerusalem, when it becomes more
he replied, according to one version, “ I than ever difficult to distinguish between
am,” and to another, “ Thou sayest.”
fact and legend. The narratives of the
It is evident, however, that he never three Synoptic Gospels are fairly consis
thought of equalling himself to God, or tent up to the Crucifixion, when they
representing himself in the literal sense become hopelessly discordant. That of
as being “of one substance with the John is apparently founded on the same
Father,” and he would probably have torn tradition, though, after the fashion of the
his clothes and shouted “blasphemy ” if author, dealt with in a very freehand
he had heard the articles of the Athana- way, altered, transposed, so as to make it
sian Creed. To the last he uses the the ground-work for several dogmatical
term “ Son of Man ” in speaking of him speeches and visits to Jerusalem, and
self, even in his answer to the high embellished by various amendments and
priest j and he never adopts the language details. But the primitive narrative is
of the evil spirits who address him as clear enough. Jesus and his Apostles go
“Jesus, thou Son of the Most High up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover ;
God,” or as “ the Holy One of God.” they are received there with a triumphal
He never doubts that" “my Father is procession; Jesus clears the Temple of
greater than I,” or that God alone knows the money-changers; the authorities
things which he does not know.
become alarmed, but are afraid to arrest
. The best clue to his conception of him openly, as the people are in his
himself is, to my mind, afforded by the favour ; one of the Apostles betrays his
pathetic dying words, “ Eloi, Eloi, lama hiding-place, and he is arrested at night;
sabachthani ?” These, if any, must be he is tried and condemned by the Sanhe
historical, for they tell against the drim and by the Roman Governor;
orthodox view, and could never have Pilate believes him to be innocent, and
been invented, while they are just the tries to save him, but the Jews clamour
sort of thing which would impress itself, for his blood; Pilate yields, and he is
in the actual words spoken, on the crucified.
memory of his affectionate disciples.
Thus far the story is consistent, and it
But if these words were really spoken, involves nothing that is impossible. But
they show that he really believed himself it is full of the gravest improbabilities.
to be the promised Messiah, and trusted Why should the Jews, who one day are
up to the last in some signal miraculous so much in his favour that the authorities
act of deliverance, such as the advent of are afraid to arrest him, be converted in
the last day, or the descent from heaven a single day into a furious crowd clamour
of “ more than twelve legions of angels.” ing for his execution ? Why should an
It is worthy of remark that the author appeal to Pilate be necessary for a reliof Luke seems to have felt the force of gious offence against the Mosaic law,
this objection, for he transforms the when Stephen, under precisely similar
expression into “My God, into thy circumstances, was publicly stoned to
ha ids I commend my spirit,” and inserts death, and Paul made havoc of Chris
“ Forgive them, for they know not what tians without any Roman mandate ? Why
they do,” which words are not found in • should false witnesses, whose testimony
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
123
was inconsistent, be required to prove any one written document or from any
an offence which Jesus avowed in open fixed tradition. Thus, Judas’s death is
differently described. Herod is intro
court ?
But the portion of the narrative which duced by Luke, and not mentioned by
relates to Pilate is that which is open to the others. Jesus carried his own cross
the gravest suspicion. It is opposed in one account, while Simon of Cyrene
alike to human nature and to Roman bore it in another. Jesus gave no answer
practice that a high functionary should to Pilate, says Matthew; he explained
first publicly proclaim his belief in the that “his kingdom was not of this world,”
innocence of a prisoner whom he was says John. Mary his mother sat at the
trying, and go through the solemn act of foot of the cross, according to John; it
washing his hands to show that he would was not his mother, but another Mary,
not be guilty of his blood, and immedi the mother of Salome, who “beheld from
ately afterwards condemn him to a cruel afar,” according to Mark and Matthew.
and ignominious death. Nor is it con There was a guard set to watch the tomb,
ceivable that such a Governor, if forced says Matthew; there is no mention of one
to yield by the threat of being reported by the others.
These, however, are minor discrepan
to Csesar for disloyalty, should insist,
against the remonstrances of the Jewish cies which are only important as showing
rulers, in placing an inscription on the that there was no clearly fixed historical
cross, which proclaimed Jesus to be “ the tradition, except of the general outline of
the course of events, when the different
king of the Jews.”
In fact, the whole episode of Pilate Gospels were compiled; and subsequent
has very much the air of being an inter to the Crucifixion there is, as we have
polation of much later date, when the seen, a hopeless discordance.
In some cases it is almost possible to
feeling of hatred between Christians and
Jews had become intense. The object trace, step by step, how the legends grew
evidently is to show that this hatred was with each successive repetition. Thus,
justified by the Jews having imprecated according to Mark, two women went to
the blood of Jesus on their own heads the tomb, found the stone rolled away
and those of their sons, and to represent and the tomb empty, and saw a young
the heathens as having been better than man clothed in white, who gave them a
the Jews, inasmuch as Pilate tried to save message to Peter and the disciples that
Jesus, and to a certain extent believed in Jesus had risen and gone before them to
him. It is difficult to credit that such Galilee, where they would see him—a
a narrative could have come from men message which they never delivered,
like Peter, John, and James, who re being afraid. In Matthew the young
mained devout Jews, zealous for their man has become an angel who rolled the
stone away and sat on it, delivering the
faith and country.
Nor, again, is it easy to see how, if the same message to go to Galilee, where his
events had really assumed the publicity disciples would see him, which they ran
and importance assigned to them, there and delivered. In Luke there are the
should be no mention of them by Jose same two Marys, with another woman
phus, or any contemporary writer, espe named Joanna, and several others, and
cially if there was, as the Gospels say, a they saw not one but two men in dazzling
miraculous darkness over the land, an apparel; “Go to Galilee” is changed
earthquake, the veil of the Temple rent, into “ As he spoke unto you while yet in
and ghosts walked about the streets. Galilee,” which in the Acts is enlarged
The Gospel narratives also, though con into a positive injunction “ Not to depart
sistent in the main outlines, contain a from Jerusalem ”; and Peter is intro
number of discrepancies in details which duced as running to the tomb and finding
show that they were not derived from it empty. In John there are two angels;
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THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
John runs along with Peter to the tomb;
and Mary Magdalene has a miraculous
vision of Jesus, whom she at first mistakes
for the gardener. No one who reads
these narratives by the ordinary light of
reason can doubt that the simple story
of Mark is nearest to the original fact or
tradition, and that the successive amplifi
cations of one into two, men into angels,
the introduction of Peter, and finally of
Peter and John, and the miraculous
vision of Mary Magdalene, have grown
up about it. If the facts had really
happened as described by Luke and
John, no one could have subsequently
cut them down into the bald statement
of Mark, while the opposite process is
what we know to be historically true in
the case of so many early Christian
martyrs and mediaeval saints. It is the
clearest possible case of the application
of.the principle of the “Minimum of
Miracle.”
I may here remark, however, that, as
I said before, the historical nucleus is of
minor importance compared with the
fact that the belief in the Resurrection
did somehow come to be entertained,
and became the chief agent in the estab
lishment and evolution of the new reli
gion, and that there is no reason to doubt
that it was honestly entertained by sincere
men, who, if they did not see it with their
bodily eyes, saw it with the eyes of faith,
and to whom visions, dreams, hallucina
tions, and subjective impressions were as
much facts as objective realities.
In trying to disentangle the historical
nucleus from these legends, the best ray
of light I can discover is afforded by the
account of the riot in the Temple, and
assault on the traders who changed money
and who sold doves and other objects of
sacrifice. This is found in all the Gospels,
and could hardly be an invention; while,
if true, it must have been followed by
immediate consequences. Prompt and
stern repression must have been exercised
both by the Jewish and the Roman
authorities.
. We must recollect that their point of
view would not be that of later Christians,
when the faith in the Divine character of
Jesus had been established for centuries,
but that of contemporaries who knew
nothing of him but as the provincial
prophet of an obscure sect. To recur to
the simile of the Salvation Army, it
would be as if a body of Salvationists,
who had preached without interruption
in some remote province of Russia, came
to Moscow, and in a fit of religious
enthusiasm invaded the cathedral, and
broke the windows of the shopkeepers
in its vicinity who exhibited ikons and
other sacred objects of the Greek ritual.
Undoubtedly the Metropolitan would
complain to the Governor, and the
leader of the rioters would be summarily
arrested, and, if not crucified, sent to
Siberia.
Supposing this narrative to be true, it
affords a natural explanation of many
of the incidents recorded. A disciple
might well be bribed to disclose the
hiding-place of his Master; the arrest
might be made under the circumstances
described; the disciples might disperse
in alarm, and Peter deny his connection
with them; Jesus might be taken before
the high priest, and by him referred to
the Roman Governor. The incredible
legends about his trial and Pontius
Pilate might resolve themselves into the
fact that Jesus had no defence to make,
and was condemned, not on theological
grounds, or on the charge of having
proclaimed himself as a temporal king of
the Jews, but on the simple charge of
having been the ringleader in a serious
riot. Crucifixion would, as we know
from numerous instances in Josephus,
have been a common Roman method of
dealing with such leaders, and its various
incidents, such as the brutality of the
soldiers and the procession to Golgotha,
are only what might be expected. The
historical part of the narrative can hardly
be carried farther than that Jesus came
up to Jerusalem with a body of his
followers, that a riot took place in the
Temple, and that he was arrested, tried,
and executed by the Roman Governor
at the request of the Jewish authorities.
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS________
125
might well have come from an enemy of
His entombment and the finding of the
tomb empty rest, according to Mark, who the new faith, but hardly from an
Apostle. On the other hand, at a subse
is the best authority, on the testimony of
quent period, when the eye-witnesses
two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary
were dead, and the original records and
the mother of James, who are alone
traditions were obscured by time, and
mentioned as seeing where the body
when the dogmas of the Resurrection
was laid, and as afterwards, with
and Divine nature of Jesus were firmly
Salome, finding the tomb empty, but,
established, nothing is more likely than
being afraid, said nothing at the time to
that the birthplace of the new religion
anv one.
.
.
should be transferred to Jerusalem, and
The next historical question is one of
the vague statements of occurrences in
great importance. Did the Apostles, as
directly asserted by Matthew, and in Galilee should be transformed into, a
series of stupendous miracles occurring
directly by Mark, return immediately to
at the sacred city in the presence of a
Galilee, where the belief in. the Resur
rection took form; or did they, as large number of witnesses.
The probabilities of the case, also, are .
asserted with equal positiveness by Luke,
all in favour of the return to Galilee.
remain at Jerusalem, where a series of
startling miraculous appearances took The disciples had come to Jerusalem on
a special pilgrimage to keep the Passplace ?
.
There can be little doubt in consider over there, which was over j there was
no intimation of any intention to remain,
ing the Galilean tradition to be the true
nor could they well have brought with
one. Independently of the great weight
them any sufficient resources for a long
of authority for considering the narrative
stay. They were in mortal fear of the
of Mark, which is substantially the same
Jews, and several of them had wives and
as that of Matthew, to be the earliest and
families at home, to whom they would
most authentic, it is inconceivable that,
hasten to return. If we could believe
if events had really occurred as described
by Luke, any author or compiler of any John, they not only returned, but
resumed their original occupation as
other Gospel should have ignored them
fishermen ; but I lay little stress on this,
and transferred the scene to Galilee.
as the author of John, whoever he was,
However simple-minded such an author
was evidently a man of considerable
may have been, he could not but have
seen that he was weakening immensely literary attainments and dramatic genius,
which he displayed in writing a Gospel,
the evidence for the cardinal fact of the
great parts of which may be most aptly
Resurrection if, instead of referring to
such precise and definite statements of described as a theological romance.
But it is useless to dwell on details, as
miracles, including the. Ascension, occur
the conclusive argument is that Mark
ring in or near the capital city Jerusalem,
and Matthew could by. no possibility
in the presence of numerous witnesses,
many of whom survived to attest their have written as they did if the course of
events immediately after the death of
truth twenty or more years afterwards,
he either omitted all mention of such Jesus had really been, or even had been
generally supposed to be, as described
occurrences like Mark, or like Matthew
transferred the scene to a remote pro by Luke.
With the return of the disciples to
vince and to a select few of his own
disciples, and whittled down the evi Galilee the curtain falls on what may be
fairly called the historical drama of the
dence to the vague statement that these
went into the “ mountain where Jesus life of Jesus, and we enter on a region
had appointed them,” where “some where all is conjecture and uncertainty.
The belief in the Resurrection evidently
worshipped him and some doubted.”
It probably
Such a perversion of Luke’s narrative grew up in Galilee.
�126
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
originated with the women, for they are
mentioned in all the accounts as the first
to have seen the risen Jesus, or to have
brought a message from him or from
angels, and this is hardly likely to have
been invented.
If at first they were afraid to tell any
one, nothing is more natural than that,
when they found themselves in their
own country, and among friends, their
tongues would have been loosened, and
they would begin to talk of the wonderful
things they had seen, or fancied they
had seen, at Jerusalem. '
The only thing certain is that the
belief in the Resurrection, once started,
grew rapidly, but that the various
accounts of how it grew are so vague
and contradictory that it is hopeless to
attempt to draw any certain conclusion
respecting them. This will be apparent
if we simply place in juxtaposition the
five different records which have come
down to us in the New Testament.
The most certain and authentic record
is that related by St. Paul in his Epistle
to the Corinthians. It is true that Paul
was not an eye-witness, or at all likely to
have examined the evidence critically,
and he places the appearance to himself,
which, whether supernatural or not, was
obviously in the nature of a vision, on
precisely the same footing as the others.
Still, it is good evidence that, some
twenty years after the event, the appear
ances he mentions were currently believed
by the early Christian community at
Jerusalem.
They are six in number, and, presum
ably, though he does not mention the
place, all at Jerusalem, except that to
himself on the road to Damascus.
Viz.
1. To Peter.
2. To the twelve.
3.
4.
56.
To above 500 brethren at once.
To James.
To all the Apostles.
To himself.
Compare this with the other accounts,
beginning with that of Mark, which
probably came direct from St. Peter.
In the genuine Mark of the oldest
manuscripts :—
Miraculous appearances. None.
Only a message from a young man in
white delivered to the two Marys and
Salome.
In the addition to Mark, introduced
later than the date of the oldest manu
scripts :—
/
Three. 1. To Mary Magdalene.
2. To the two walking from Em
maus.
3- T° the eleven.
i and 2 being distinctly stated not to
have been believed by those to whom
they were told, at the time of their
alleged occurrence.
According to Matthew :—
Miraculous appearances. Two.
1. To Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary at Jerusalem.
2. To the eleven on a mountain in Gali
lee, when some worshipped and
“some doubted.”
According to Luke :—
Miraculous appearances. Four — all at
Jerusalem.
1. Messages of tWo men in dazzling
apparel, probably angels, to the two
Marys, Joanna, and other women.
2. To the two disciples walking from
Emmaus, who at first did not recog
nise him.
3. To the eleven, when he eat the broiled
fish.
4. The Ascension, when he was bodily
taken up in a cloud to-heaven in the
presence of the eleven.
According to John :—
Miraculous appearances. Four—first three
at Jerusalem, fourth in Galilee.
1. To Mary Magdalene alone, who at first
took him for the gardener.
2. To the disciples sitting in a room with
closed doors.
3. A second time to the disciples, to re
move Thomas’s doubts.
4. By the sea of Galilee, when Peter and
six other disciples caught the miracu
lous draught of fishes, when at first
none of them recognised him.
And John expressly states that this
last was the third appearance to the dis
ciples after Jesus had risen from the
dead, thus excluding all others except
1, 2, and 3.
�THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS
It will be remarked that, of the five
miraculous appearances recorded by St.
Paul as being the current belief at Jeru
salem twenty years after the event, three
—those to Peter, James, and above 500
brethren at once—are not even men
tioned in any other account. The latter
can hardly be the same as Luke’s Ascen
sion, which comes in its natural place as
the concluding scene of the great drama
of the life and resurrection of Jesus, and
the spectators are confined to the eleven
Apostles.
Paul’s No. 5, or second appearance to
all the Apostles, may refer either to that
described by John to convince Thomas,
or to Luke’s Ascension; but Paul makes
no mention either of Thomas or of the
Ascension, which would be very strange
if the bodily Ascension to heaven was a
cardinal article of faith when Paul visited
Jerusalem, which it must have been if it
really happened as described by Luke.
There remains, therefore, only the vague
tradition that Jesus had appeared to the
twelve, as to which the enumeration by
Paul of five miraculous appearances
receives not the slightest confirmation
from any of the Gospels.
The Gospel accounts, again, vary so
much that there is not a single case in
which any one is confirmed by any of
the others. The nearest approach to it
is in the appearances to women; but
here John says distinctly it was to Mary
Magdalene alone, while Matthew says
it was to the two Marys ; Luke, that the
vision was to the two Marys, Joanna,
and other women, and was one of angels,
and not of Jesus; Mark, that the message
was given to the two Marys and Salome
by a young man. Evidently the tradi
tion as to the women was very vague.
Again, the Ascension at Jerusalem,
the greatest of all the miracles, rests on
Luke alone, and is negatived by the
testimony of Matthew and John that
the Apostles returned to Galilee, and
that the final scene, whatever it may
have been, took place there; and still
more significantly by their silence, and
that of Mark, respecting an event which,
if it took place as described by Luke,
must have been known and mentioned.
The appearance to the two disciples
returning from Emmaus rests also on
the sole authority of Luke, and that to
convince Thomas on that of John. The
miraculous draught of fishes is mentioned
by John, and by John alone. The appear
ance to the eleven is the only event
mentioned by three of the Evangelists;
but of these, two place it in a room at
Jerusalem, while one places it on a
mountain in Galilee.
It is evident that it would be futile to
attempt to form any historical estimate
from such accounts as these ; they must
be left, with miracles generally, to the
province of faith rather than that of
reason. All we can rationally infer is,
that, as in the case of St. Thomas a
Becket and so many other saints and
martyrs, the growth of miraculous myths
was very rapid, and that probably those
records which contain the fewest of
them must date back very closely to the
original events, and to the actors who
took a principal part in them. I have never
been able to see any explanation of the
silence of the Gospel according to St. Mark
respecting any miraculous appearances
after the Resurrection, and the brief and
vague reference to them in St. Matthew,
except in the supposition that the account
given by Papias is true, and that they are
really based on written notes taken down
by Mark from Peter, whose authority
was sufficient to prevent later compilers
and editors from adding to them legends
and traditions which were floating about
in the early Christian world, unsupported
by any direct Apostolic authority.
Here, then, the curtain falls on any
attempt to realise the historical element
in what Huxley so appropriately terms
“the grand figure of Jesus as it lies
embedded in the primary strata of
Christian literature.” We see him cruci
fied at Jerusalem, his disciples returning
to Galilee, and the faith in his Resurrec
tion growing up there, and soon becom
ing an assured conviction, though with
no agreement as to the facts on which it
�128
SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
was founded, and rapidly becoming
surrounded with an atmosphere of myths
and miracles.
The next stage is even more obscure.
We have no information as to when and
how the Apostles returned from Galilee
to Jerusalem, and became, as we find
them twenty years later, pillars of the
Church there, and leaders of a great
religious movement. The Acts of the
Apostles may contain some authentic
records of their proceedings at a later
period, after they had established them
selves at Jerusalem, and exchanged the
profession of fishermen for that of
missionaries of the new religion; but
Luke’s account is discredited by the
obvious fact that his earlier narrative of
what occurred during the first period of
the Crucifixion is unhistorical. It is
clear that some time must have elapsed,
and considerable changes taken place at
Jerusalem, during the interval between
the departure of the disciples for Galilee,
in mortal fear of the Jews, and their
return to the capital, where they seem
to have preached publicly, and made
numerous converts, without any serious
interference by the populace or the
authorities.
The narrative of this early period in
the Acts, up to the date of Paul’s appear
ance on the scene, is full of improbabili
ties. The miracles attributed to Peter,
his deliverance from prison by angels, the
gift of tongues by the Holy Ghost, which
did not enable Peter to dispense with an
interpreter, these and many other inci
dents have rather the air of legends than
of genuine history.
They stand in
marked contrast with the naive and
natural incidents recorded by Mark—how
the crowd overflowed into the street, how
the bustle was such that they had no time
to eat, how Jesus slept through a night
squall which endangered the boat. I can
find no solid historical ground until Paul
met the pillars of the Church at Jerusalem,
except the general fact that the Apostles
returned there from Galilee, preached
publicly, made numerous converts, and
that Peter probably played a leading part.
But with the death of Jesus and the
flight of his disciples to Galilee the first
chapter ends, and the second opens with
the history of the early Christian Church,
when the preoccupations of the principal
actors were doctrinal rather than his
torical, and we enter on a new and wider
phase of religious controversies and
metaphysical speculations. It requires
all the erudition of the most learned
divines and professors to find any clue
through this labyrinth, and takes us far
from that which is the sole object of this
essay—to endeavour to form some con
ception of what may be the historical
element in the records of the life and
death of the Founder of the religion.
Chapter X.
SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
Carlyl e—Causes of Pessimism—Decay of Faith
—A Prosaic Future—Denial of these Charges
—Definition of Scepticism—Demonology—
Treatment of Lunatics—Witchcraft—-Heresy
—Religious Wars—Nationality has Super
seded Religion—Wars More Humane—Origi
nality ot Modern Events and Characters—
Louis Napoleon — Bismarck — Gladstone —
Abraham Lincoln — Lord Beaconsfield —
Darwin — H uxley —Poetry— Fiction—Paint
ing—A Happier World.
Carlyle was a great genius, but he was
a dreadful croaker. Barren, brainless,
soulless, faithless, were the epithets he
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
129
commonly applied to the age in which passing over to the masses. And above
]
he lived; and his favourite simile for his all there are the orthodox divines, and
;
contemporaries was that of apes chatter- good but narrow-minded religious public,
j
ing on the shores of the Dead Sea. In whose one idea of religion is that it
the case of Carlyle, the cause of this consists of adherence to traditional
<
pessimism is not far to seek. He <dogmas and an unbroken belief in the
suffered from chronic dyspepsia. If, truth of every word of the Bible as the
1
with the many other excellent qualities inspired word of God, and the ne plus
:
of his peasant progenitors, he had in- ultra of human knowledge.
;
With prejudices such as these it would
herited some share of the dura messorum
be a waste of time to attempt argument;
ilia, and been able to eat his three
square meals a day and feel all the but there are a certain number of
better for it, his views of the age and earnest and thoughtful men who hold
of his contemporaries would have been what are substantially the same views
materially altered. He would have seen upon different grounds, which deserve
an age which is one of the most marked more careful consideration. They are
chapters in the history of human evolu not confined to social swells, would-be
tion ; an age of great events and marvel superior persons and orthodox theolo
lous progress—progress not material gians, but even a man of light and lead
only, but fully to an equal extent ing like Mr. Frederic Harrison can see
social, political, moral, and intellectual. no salvation except in the exceedingly
The shores of the Dead Sea would have improbable contingency of the world
blossomed with verdure, and, instead of adopting the cult of humanity as evolved
chattering apes, he would have seen by the inner consciousness of M. Auguste
human faces, “ men my brothers, men Comte. What they say is substantially
the workers,” with a great deal of human this: Science is killing faith; scepticism
nature in them, good and bad, weak and and democracy are advancing on old
strong, joyous and sad, healthy and creeds and old institutions, like the lion
suffering, but on the whole working up of the desert, who, in Tennyson’s splendid
to a level which, if not necessarily happier, simile—
“ Drawing nigher,
is at any rate higher.
Glares at one who nods and winks behind a
For such dyspeptic pessimists there is
slowly-dying fire.”
an excuse. Pessimism is probably as
Religion, they say, is becoming extinct,
inevitably their creed as optimism is for
the more fortunate mortals who enjoy not only in the simple, old-fashioned
the mens sana in corpore sano. But sense of belief in creeds and cate
there are a large number of our modern chisms, but in the higher sense of
pessimists for whom no such excuse can doubting the truth of the essential
principles on which the Christian
be pleaded.
There are the would-be superior scheme of theology, and ultimately all
persons, who think their claim to supe spiritual faith and all religions, depend.
riority is best established by affecting a A God who, according to one eminent
lofty air of superfine disdain for the rude Anglican divine, has been “ defecated to
realities of real life; the critics who, as a pure transparency,” and, according to
Lord Beaconsfield wittily says, are the another, removed behind the primaeval
failures; the minor poets, painters, and atoms and energies into an “original
writers, who, in their own opinion, would impress ” acting by unvarying laws, is,
have been shining lights if their tapers; they tell us, practically equivalent to no
■
had burned in a more congenial atmos God at all, and instead of Agnostics we
phere; the prejudiced politicians and1 ought to call ourselves Atheists. Witharistocratic classes who feel that know out a lively faith in such a personal, everledge, and with it political power, is> present Deity, who listens to our prayers,
E
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SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
modifies the course of events, records deliveis his verdict, and, if the evidence
our. actions, and finally rewards or is insufficient, makes him return one of
punishes us after death according to our
not proven.” Doubt of doubtful things
deserts, there can be, they say, no real is to such a one as sacred a duty as
religion; and they hold, and I think affirmation of what is true and denial of
rightly hold, that the only support for what is false. His cardinal maxim is
such a religion is to be found in the that of Dr. Johnson, “ Clear your mind
assumed inspiration of the Bible and the of cant.
Don’t say you believe when
divinity of Christ.
you really disbelieve, or only half believe,
Destroy these, and they think the and try to hide your misgivings from
world will become vulgar and materialised, yourself and from the world by loudness
losing not only the surest sanction of of asseveration or bitterness of denuncia
morals, but, what is even more important, tion.
the spiritual aspirations and tendencies
But to this general meaning of the
which lift us above the sordid realities of
word “ scepticism ” a more limited and
daily existence, and give poetry to the precise significance has come to be
prose of life. The Muses will take their attached, and it is commonly used to
flight with their sister Theology to denote disbelief in the inspiration of the
happier spheres ; imagination, idealism, Bible and the dogmas of theological
heroism, and originality will disappear, Christianity. In this sense I accept it,
leaving the world to a barren and prosaic and proceed to join issue with those who
sort of Chinese civilisation. In short, deny my assertion that the world is a better
their forecast of human existence is very place to live in on account of scepticism.
similar to that which astronomers make
I will begin by taking a specific instance
of the planet upon which the human —the treatment of lunatics. Ever since
race live—viz., that, as its inner heat the establishment of Christianity there
radiates away in the course of ages, it has been a controversy between doctors
will become, like its satellite the moon, and theologians. Theologians, and the
a barren and burnt-up cinder.
public generally, relying on texts of Scrip
To these gloomy forebodings I venture ture, held that lunacy, with its kindred
to return a positive and categorical diseases of epilepsy and nervous affec
denial; to assert, on the contrary, that tions, were caused by demons, or evil
scepticism has been the great sweetener and unclean spirits, taking bodily posses
of modern life, has not only given us sion of the unfortunate patients. Doctors,
truer and juster views of the realities of who for a long time alone represented
the universe, but has made us more the cause of science, relying on fact and
liberal-minded, tolerant, merciful, charit experiment, and the teachings of great
able,. than in the hard, cruel days of physicians of pre-Christian times, such
mediceval superstition; and, in a word, as Hippocrates and Galen, held that
that almost in exact proportion as we such diseases were simply cases of
have drifted away from the letter, we pressure on the brain and over-wrought
have approached nearer to the spirit of nervous systems. This was held to be
true Christianity.
so contrary to the truths of revealed
This, I am aware, will appear to many religion that doctors were looked upon
a strong assertion, and I must be pre as infidels of the worst sort, and the
pared to justify it by specific instances, saying became general, “ Ubi tres medici
which I proceed to do. But first let me duo Athei ” ; Atheist being the polite
define what I mean by the term “scepti appellation with which every one was
cism.” In a general way it means alle pelted who dared to appeal from Scrip
giance to truth; the habit of mind which ture to reason and think for himself.
makes a man, like a conscientious
This radical divergence of view respect
juryman, require evidence before he ing the cause of lunacy led naturally to a
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
i3i
Here, then, was a distinct issue joined
corresponding difference in the mode of
between the Doctors of Divinity and the
treatment. From the orthodox point of
view the lunatic was a loathsome and Doctors of Medicine, between the
repulsive object, whose body, probably “theologici” and the “athei.” If the
question were to be decided by. texts,
for sins of his own or of his ancestors,
had been taken possession of by an evil the “theologici” had it all their own
way, and the “athei” were nowhere.
spirit. The only hope of cure was, so to
speak, to bully the demon out of him by Nothing can be clearer than that Jesus
portentous exorcisms in ecclesiastical over and over again asserted the theory
of demoniacal possession. The demons
latin, and, worse still, by ill-treatment
knew him, he knew them, they con
amounting often to the most horrible
versed together; and he was so well
torture. Bedlam, with its row of raving
acquainted with their ways that, he could
madmen chained like wild beasts to the
wall, was a type of the usual mode of tell what sort could only be ejected by
prayer and fasting. In the famous
treatment.
instance of the Gadarene swine, a raging
Even such a great and good man as Sir
Thomas More ordered acknowledged madman was cured by evicting a legion
lunatics to be publicly flogged; and of devils, and, instead of leaving them
homeless on the roadside, as if they had
throughout rural England there were
many what were called bowsening-places, been Irish peasants, allowing them to
for curing of madmen, consisting of deep occupy as caretakers the bodies of more
walled cisterns full of water, into which, than two thousand unfortunate pigs.
Nothing can be more.explicit. . Ortho
as Carew describes it in his Survey of
Cornwall, “the lunatic was suddenly dox Christians were quite right in strug
gling to the last against a theory of
plunged by a blow on his breast, tum
bling him headlong into the pond, where lunacy which was in such direct con
tradiction with the express words of
a strong fellow, kept for the purpose,
dragged him about till he was quite Scripture and of Jesus himself. We
cannot wonder at Bossuet preaching his
exhausted”; when he was taken to
two great sermons, “Sur les Demons,”and
church, masses said over him, and, if he
John Wesley insisting that “ most lunatics
did not recover, he was “bowsened
again and again while there remained are really demoniacs,” and that “ to give
up witchcraft is to give up the Bible, and
any hope of life in him.”
to take ground against the fundamental
This simple picture of what was going
on every day in remote country parishes truths of theology.”
There cannot be a clearer illustration
of England enables us to realise the
practical consequences of the theory of of the logical strength of Dr. Wace’.s
demoniacal possession better, perhaps, formula that, if you believe in the inspi
than an enumeration of the Papal bulls ration of the Bible and in the Divine
and sermons of eminent divines, which nature of Jesus, you must believe, these
urged the civil to unite with the eccle things, or make him out to be a liar I
siastical authorities and the Inquisition in may add, a liar of the worst description,
for, if he were Divine and Omniscient,
rooting out the bond-servants of Satan.
The medical men, on the other hand, he must have known not only that he
was fostering a delusion, but that this
of whom two out of every three were
reputed to be Atheists, took the opposite delusion would be in future ages the
view—that madness was nothing but a cause of misery and torture to thousands
form of brain disease, that its. victims of the most helpless of the human race.
were rather objects for compassion than But I reply, not without some little tone
for aversion, and that gentle treatment of indignation : “ It is you, not I, who
was far more likely to effect cures than make J esus out to be a liar ; it. is your
assumption of Divine inspiration and
exorcisms and tortures.
�132
SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
Divine nature which defaces the pure and, with Galileo, Newton, and the
and noble image of the Man Jesus, and triumphs of modern science, created the
places us in the alternative of either purer sceptical and scientific atmosphere
believing incredible things, or making of the present age, in which the monsters
him out to be an utterer of falsehoods. of mediaeval theology simply die out like
As a man, no taint of falsehood or insin the Saurians of the secondary period,
cerity attaches to him in admitting that leaving a few fossil remains and degenerate
he used the language and shared the descendants.
mistakes of his age and country. But
Witchcraft affords another test-case
as a God, there is; and a God who in which the humanising influence of
teaches theories which are demonstrably scepticism is most apparent. Down to
false, and which lead to barbarous and a comparatively recent period the belief
revolting practices, is an incarnation, not in witchcraft was universal, and whole
of goodness, but of evil.”
hecatombs of miserable victims were
For the theory of demoniacal posses sacrificed to a superstition which is no
sion is demonstrably false. If, instead less barbarous and degrading than that
of appealing to texts, the appeal is made which exists to the present day in
to facts, the verdict is reversed ; it is the Dahomey and among the cannibals of
“athei” who hold the field, and the Central Africa. Why ? Because the
“ theologici ” who are nowhere.
texts of what was supposed to be the
Which cure or alleviate the larger inspired Word of God explicitly asserted
number of cases of lunacy—exorcisms the reality of witchcraft, and contained
and tortures or gentle treatment? Which the command—“Ye shall not suffer a
is most in harmony with the best instincts witch to live.”
of human nature—love, charity, mercy,
The case is the same as that of the
and compassion, Hanwell, with its harm belief in demoniacal possession as the
less and happy inmates; or Bedlam, cause of lunacy, except that the treat
with its row of chained wild beasts ? If ment of witches was even more cruel
a Doctor of Divinity says of a lunatic than that of lunatics, being founded
that he is possessed by a devil, while a more on texts of the Old Testament,
Doctor of Medicine says he is suffering dating back to a barbarous age. It was
from a lesion of the brain; if the lunatic a form of cruelty also for which Pro
dies, and his brain is dissected, which testants were even more responsible than
do you find, the devil or the lesion ? Catholics, its worst excesses occurring in
Nay, has not medical science gone so Protestant countries after the Reforma
far that you can often predict the exact tion. In Germany alone it is estimated
spot where the pressure on the brain is that, in the great age of witch-burning
taking place, and by an operation remove which followed that event, more than
the tumour, and restore the patient to 100,000 persons perished by an excru
reason ?
ciating death in the course of a single
If these things are true, and if the century.
modern treatment of madness is really
On a smaller scale, one of the worst
an improvement on the old one, it is and latest outbreaks of the witch-burning
quite clear that we are indebted for the epidemic occurred in Puritan Massachu
change to scepticism, for it was impos setts at the close of the seventeenth
sible as long as the authority of Scripture century, incited and fanned into a flame
was held to be the supreme tribunal, by the efforts of the Mathers and other
superior to fact and reason, and whose leading Calvinistic divines. Hundreds
dicta it was impious to dispute. Mon of innocent men and women of good
taigne, Hume, Voltaire, and a host of characters were tortured into confessions,
what used to be called infidel writers, or convicted on the testimony of private
were the precursors of Pinet and Tuke; enemies and professional witch-hunters,
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
133
remarkable Creed. What right have we
and perished in the flames, as was clearly to rail against Torque mada, or blame
proved when the epidemic subsided, and Calvin for burning Servetus, if we really
reason began to resume its sway thoug 1 believe this to be true? They were
divines like Cotton Mather held out to simply carrying out, conscientiously and
the last, and groaned over the evil spin logically, the principles to which all
of unbelief which had thwarted the orthodox Christians profess to adhere.
glorious work of freeing New England Surely, if it is right to stamp out the
from demons.
.
cattle plague, it must be still more right
Nobody now believes in witchcraft, to stamp out a moral cattle plague, which
and foolish old women and hysterical is eminently contagious, and which beyond
young ones may talk as much nonsense all doubt causes those who contract the
as they like without fear of being burned disease “to perish everlastingly.” There is
alive. Surely the world is the better for no possible answer to this, except that we
this • but how has it been brought about? do not believe the Creeds; that we feel
Not" that the texts have become more the burning of men for differences, of
ambiguous, but that people have ceased opinion to be cruel, and the suppression
practically to believe in them. I say of freedom of thought to be mischievous.
practically. for there are a good many who In short, that our attitude has become
still retain a sort of half-belief, and who
would be shocked either to confess that that of the poet who says
“ There is more truth in honest doubt,,
the Bible is not inspired, or to say, with
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
Tohn Wesley, that “to give up witchcraft
is to give up the Bible”; but as the If this is not “scepticism,” I do not
Ichthyosauri died out, and left harmless know what the meaning of the word is.
lizards as their successors in the purer air
We live, fortunately, in an age when
of the Tertiary era, so this, with other scepticism has so effectually killed . the
barbarous superstitions, has lost all real class of ideas which led to persecutions
hold on the minds and consciences 01 for heresy that we have almost forgotten
those who, happily for themselves, live what the Inquisition and the fires of
in the atmosphere of a scientific and Smithfield really were. From first to last
sceptical age.
.
,
hundreds of thousands of victims perished
If the idolatry of Scriptural texts has in horrible tortures for the crime of think
caused so much human misery in the ing for themselves. There is hardly a
case of lunacy and witchcraft, the same man of light and leading of the present
idolatry, expanded from texts into dogma century who would not have been sent
tical creeds and confessions, has been• to the stake if Spain had conquered
even more destructive in the case ot• England, and the integrity of the Catholic
heresy. Heresy, or the holding of different■ faith had been enforced by the civil
beliefs from those of the Church, is either. power, or if Calvin had ruled in England
a harmless and necessary incident m the as he did in Geneva. Darwin, Huxley,
use of human reason, or it is an act of and Herbert Spencer would certainly
pernicious and contagious wickedness have been burned; Carlyle, George Eliot
' which it is the duty of the State to aid Byron, and Shelley would have shared
the Church in stamping out. This the same fate; and Dean Stanley, Dr.
depends on whether we do or do not Temple, and the whole Broad Church
believe the Creeds. If we believe the would have been in imminent peril.
Athanasian Creed, which contains the Spain, where the Inquisition so long
fullest summary of the articles of the reigned supreme, is an instance, not only
Catholic faith, and which is still retained of the devilish cruelty which a misplaced
in the Anglican ritual, all men will “with religious earnestness can inspire, but
out doubt perish everlastingly ” who do of the inevitable political and social
not believe in every single article of that
�134
SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
decrepitude which follow from successful mate and exhaustive record written by
attempts to stamp out freedom of God’s finger has vanished, never to return,
thought.
and has quite lost its power as a practical
Religious wars were only an outcome, factor in the life of nations. We retain
on a larger scale, of the ideas which our affection and reverence for it, from
inspired religious persecutions.
At old associations, and as containing many
bottom, it was a firm conviction by those beautiful and excellent things; but we
who held one set of opinions that those no longer make it an idol. We criticise
who held different ones were miscreants, it freely, and find it to be a collection
enemies of the human race, who ought of various writings of various ages,
to be forcibly converted or exterminated. by unknown or doubtful authors,
Given the conviction, the persecutions and containing, with much that is
and wars followed as a matter of course, of the highest truth and highest
or rather of conscience. Destroy it, and interest, much that bears evident traces
the persecutions and wars cease. We no of the ignorance, superstition, ferocity,
longer persecute and go to war in the and immorality of the rude and bar
name of religion. Why ? Because the barous ages over which its traditions
age has become too liberal, enlightened, extend. No one now would think of
tolerant, and humane. And why has it appealing to every single text of Scrip
become so ? Because scepticism has ture as an ultimate tribunal from which
triumphed over orthodoxy. That the there was no appeal, or, like the Caliph
age has become more sceptical, and that Omar, burning all the other books in the
faith in the old hard-and-fast lines of world because, if they agreed with the
orthodox religion has declined, are facts Bible, they were superfluous, and, if they
which all acknowledge, though some disagreed with it, mischievous.
deplore. It is evident, moreover, that
A better proof cannot be afforded of
these two facts are not merely concurrent, the extent to which ecclesiastical religion
but stand to one another in the relation has ceased to be a motive-power in
of cause and effect. It is a case not human affairs than by a reference to the
merely of post hoc, but of propter hoc. great wars of the last half-century. By
Voltaire, who may be taken as the an irony of fate, the first great exhibition
representative of the literary scepticism in Hyde Park, which was thought to
of the last century, was inspired in his have inaugurated an era of peace, has
attacks on orthodoxy by his indignation been, like opening the temple of Janus,
at one of the last autos-da-fe, or acts of the signal for a series of the greatest
faith, in the burning of a heretic. His wars recorded in history—wars great not
shafts of ridicule wounded the monster only in the magnitude of the scale on
to death more effectually, perhaps, than which they were waged, but in the
could have been done by solid argu momentous importance of the issues
ments. The name of Darwin, again, may involved. In all these wars the element
be taken as the representative of the of religion was entirely absent, and its
scientific scepticism which has effected place was supplied by the new element
the greatest revolution of thought in the of Nationality. The net result of these
history of the human race, and substi wars has been the consolidation of a
tuted the idea of original impress, acting great Germany, a great Italy, and a great
by unvarying law, for that of secondary United States. Everywhere people of
supernatural interferences with the course the same race, speaking the same lan
of Nature. No educated man any longer guage, and having a common literature
accepts the Bible in the sense in which and common interests, however broken
our forefathers accepted it, and in which up and divided into fragments by
Mohammedans still believe in the Koran. internal dissensions or foreign foes,
The assured faith in the Bible as an ulti have tended with irresistible force to
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
135
ally herself to heretic Prussia. France
consolidate themselves into great nations.
,, | has for more than a century been
Even the weaker races—the Greeks, intensely national, and very httle
Roumanians, Servians, and Bulgarians—- i
Even"?n Spain a dominant
gsgof
and Chili are entering on a career of
A they have emancipated themselves
ideas.
. .
given them a free Press and Parliamen modern this change from religious to
Has
STyctolninc^
I £a^al ™
iTceffain-Jha^wa;
and recognition of their separate nation- | ficial? One thing is certain
among civilised States has become infi
ality, which we hesitate to concede,
nitely more humane. Compare the
because we fear that it would destroy picture by a military correspondent of
the old system of English ascendancy,
and subvert many of the settled prin the advance of the Crown Prince s army
through France with the details of the
ciples of English law. . If we have saved
Thirty Years’ War as given in Schiller’s
our colonial empire, it is only by con history. In the one case you see French
ceding with the freest hand to Canada, peasant girls standing at the doors of
Australia, New Zealand, and South , their cottages to see the brilliant staff
nee conrenueu. ivb
Africa all that we once contended for,
he fullest scope to ride by, and exchanging nods and smiles
and giving them the _ as independent with the German soldiers ; in the other
■ uesuui«
work out their destinies as
communities, attached to interests and you have Tilly’s the points of their pikes
— the mother heretic babies on pappenhei^^^
country oy
uf
country by ties of common
r:CrOnSo?±rer£XS the hard'“d’ at
si^S LtlU perhaps, of
fast linesin all fhese force. movements it the humanising influence"
of superior great
No“
is remarkable that ecclesiastical religion ideas is afforded by the actip
“ on!; not been an appreciable United States after the close of the great
factor but that in many cases they have
rone on in the teeth of whatever influfn?e ff might be supposed to have
remaining In Italy, [he headquarters
of Tcdefiastical authority, the4 Pope,
though still the venerated head of
Sus of Catholics, has been utterly
powerless when opposed to the idea ot
Italian nationality. The Catholics of
South Germany fought as stoutly at
Gravelotte and Sedan, shoulder to
shoulder with the Protestants of the
North, to make a great Germany, as
their ancestors did under Tilly and
Wallenstein against the ancestors of the
same Protestants to secure the ascen
dancy of their respective creeds. Austria
has to forget the traditions of the Thirty
Years’ and the Seven Years’ Wars and
I
Civil War. A
P
magnitude, costing tens of thousands of
lives and millions of money had been
fought out with unexampled determmation. The yanqutshed had begun the
war, and tn the view of the victors were
rebelsbut not a smglehauyrfjhe.r
heads was touched after the contest was
over, not a single political prisoner was
brought to trial. Jeff Davis was not
hanged on a sour-apple tree, and. the
leading generals and politicians on either
side for the most part returned quietly
to civil occupations. I sometimes
wonder what an historian writing a
century hence will think of this record
compared with our English one of
twenty-five members of Parliament
imprisoned as common felons for
�136
SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
political offences. To pursue this
S
further would, however, lead me too far
r
towards the burning region of contem
porary politics, and I content myself byz
drawing this conclusion. If the spiritt
of the age be really sceptical and demo
cratic, as all admit and many deplore,,
then scepticism and democracy must be:
included among those “ingenuas artes”
of which the Roman poet says :—
“ Girt by friends or foes,
A man may speak the thing he will.”
That world-old though newly-named
institution, the “ boycott,” is no longer
applied to differences of opinion, but
confined to conspicuous offenders against
the unwritten laws of a nation’s conscience; to respondents in divorce
courts, exceptionally bad landlords, and
heartless profligates. The poor are
always with us, but we no longer pass
“ Emolht mores nec sinit esse faros.”
them by on the other side like the
Nor is it in war only that milder Pharisee, muttering our ecclesiastical
manners and a more humane and charit texts and economical formulas. We
able spirit have accompanied, if they feel for them; our consciences are
have not been created by, the develop touched; a daily diminishing number
ment of these two great principles of ignore them, and an increasing number
modern society. The air is full of try, in their, respective spheres, to assist
projects, visionary or otherwise, which them by active effort, or sympathise with
are all based on the spirit, if not on the those who do.
letter, of true Christianity, of assisting
The truth is that morals are built on
the poor and suffering, and sweetening a far surer foundation than that of
the conditions of life. Bismarck and creeds, which are here to-day and gone
the German Emperor adopt large to-morrow. They are built on the solid
schemes of State socialism, and aim at rock of experience and of the “sur
a universal insurance of workmen against vival of the fittest,” which, in the long
poverty and old age. Trades Unions, evolution of the human race from
Provident Societies, and Savings Banks primeval savages, have by “natural
do the same on an ever-widening scale selection ” and “ heredity ” become
in English-speaking communities. The almost instinctive. Every day of civi
old harsh principles of English law, lised society, working in an atmosphere
which always sided with the strong of free discussion and free thought,
against the weak, with man against tends to make the primary rules of
woman, with landlord against tenant, morality more and more instinctive, and
with capital against labour, are being to extend and widen their application.
broken down in all directions. The
The other charge against the spirit of
rigid conclusions of political economy the age is still more easily refuted. It
are no longer accepted as axioms. The is said that scepticism has killed spiri
duties of property, so long ignored, are tualism, and stripped life of its poetry
coming into formidable antagonism with and higher aspirations, while democracy
its rights.
has reduced everything to a dead level
So far from impairing the sanctions of of prosaic mediocrity. Those who say
morality, moral considerations are coming so see the reflection of their own souls.
more and more to the front in this age The man must be, indeed, hopelessly
of material progress.. Slavery, long <commonplace and prosaic who fails to
sanctioned by Bible texts and im recognise the grandeur, splendour, and
memorial usage, offends the public con- idramatic interest of the events of the
science and disappears. We began by ;age in which we live, and the striking
burning heretics; then burning softened <originality of its principal characters.
into boycotting; and finally this last 1Was there ever in classic or mediaeval
vestige of intolerance has disappeared, ttimes such a tragic drama of human life
and we live in an England where,
a is afforded by the career of Louis
as
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
B7
Napoleon ? See him in his early years, a his power: “ The world will some day
dreamy youth, dabbling in obscure con discover that the man has a better heart
spiracies, and musing over vague ideas and a worse head than it gives him credit
and destinies connected with the name for.”
I have mentioned Bismarck. There
he bore. Then comes the attempt at
Strasburg ; the life in London, half is a man, indeed; a man such as Europe
Bohemian, half on the outskirts of has not produced since Luther and
fashionable society ; the ludicrous fiasco Cromwell. Think of his career from a
at Boulogne; the romantic escape from wild student, a provincial Tory squire,
the prison at Ham. The curtain falls training himself by degrees to be first a
on the first act, and when it rises we diplomatist, and then a statesman;
find the obscure adventurer clearing the startling the starched representatives of
streets of Paris with grape-shot, imprison the German Confederation at Frankfort
ing all that is noblest and most respect by lighting his cigar without the per
able in the public life of France, and, mission of the Austrian Envoy, with the
finally, firmly seated on the Imperial same cool courage and happy audacity
throne. He proclaims the Empne to which led him to Sadowa and Sedan;
be at peace, and he plunges France into and, finally, the founder of the German
four great wars—the Crimean, the Italian, Empire, the great Chancellor, the arbiter
of the peace of Europe. What made
the Mexican, and the Franco-German
all alike senseless in the view of any him what he was ? His solid strength
possible French interest. He inaugurates of character, his sagacious sincerity, his
the system of armed peace and excessive keen insight, glancing through the out
armaments, and for a quarter of a century ward show of things into their, real
is the disturbing element in European essence, and, above all, his indomitable
politics. The attitude of all other courage, which never quailed before hostile
nations is, to use the expression of the parliaments or vacillating emperors, and
witty Frenchman, that of spaniels watch led him to stake his head on the success
ing the eye of their master at the of the Prussian needle-gun and Prussian
Tuileries. Then comes the collapse, discipline against the veteran legions of
and in the closing scene we see a Austria and the showy prestige of imperial
wretched creature driving out in a hack France.
At the opposite pole from Bismarck
carriage from Sedan to give up his
sword to the German Emperor, and was our own “ Grand Old Man.”
sitting on a wooden chair with Bismarck, Opinions may differ as to Mr. Gladstone’s
in front of a little wayside cabaret, to policy, and whether his powerful per
discuss the terms of the surrender as sonality was an element for good or for
prisoners of war of his last army of evil in English history; but no one who
120,000 men. What must have been is not a purblind political partisan can
the emotions on that fatal day, hid deny that, whether for good or evil, he
under the mask of an imperturbable was a grand and striking figure. Where
countenance and an eternal cigar ? And will you find a man of such universal
all the time the man was essentially the attainments, wide sympathies, and per
same. Kind-hearted, easy-going, utterly suasive eloquence ? Where look for an
unprincipled, vague, moony, idealistic; intellect which combined such scholastic
easily influenced by those about him, subtlety with such argumentative power,
and twisted round his finger by a strong such a grasp of details, such juvenile
and practical nature like that of Bismarck. energy, and such a fervid white heat of
As his best counsellor and most intimate passionate conviction. What a rich and
friend, the shrewd, cynical, polished, and complex nature must it have been, which
worldly De Morny once said to me, had in it the evolution from the ecclesias
when the Emperor was in the height of tically-minded Oxford student who was
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
the rising hope of the Tories to the great
financier of Free Trade, the disestablisher
of the Irish Church, the statesman at
the head of all Liberal movements, the
man whose eager sympathies side with
liberty and with the masses “of our
own flesh and blood,” from Ireland to
Italy. His mind was like the steam
hammer, which can either crack nuts or
mould masses of stubborn iron.
Again, there is Abraham Lincoln, one
of the greatest, as he was certainly one
of the most original and interesting, of
modern statesmen. Wise, far-seeing,
steadfast, simple, and noble, as Wash
ington, he had a fund of genial humour,
and a touch of the quaintness and eccen
tricity of the old Illinois rail-splitter,
which endears his memory to the affec
tionate respect of all classes of Englishspeaking men, and makes him a bright
example for all time of the height of
heroism to which a self-taught working
man of the new democracy may attain.
If we turn from what may be called
the epic of modern history to its romance,
what figure can be more original and
interesting than that of Lord Beacons
field? What a career, from a secondrate novelist and dandy about town,
seeking notoriety by resplendent small
clothes, to become the minister of a
great country, the favourite of sovereigns,
the superior of dukes, the champion and
hero of a proud aristocracy and of a
great historical party. And yet, as the
novel of his last years shows, essentially
the same man throughout. Brilliant,
audacious, a master of phrases, and
believing in them as stronger than facts.
A sort of glorified Gil Blas, or hero of a
Spanish comedy ; and yet with qualities
which endeared him to friends, captivated
the popular imagination, and enabled
him to play his part to perfection in all
the varied vicissitudes of his extraordinary
career. Infinite cleverness, infinite
courage, infinite self-possession, and at
bottom a genial and artistic tempera
ment, which made him always, whatever
else he might be, a finished gentleman.
No one ever heard of him, whether as
leader of a Government or as leader of
an Opposition, doing a coarse, vulgar,
or ungentleman-like thing. He never
lost his temper ; he fought, like a courtly
duellist of one of Dumas’ romances, with
the keen rapier of polished sarcasm and
pungent epigram; but he fought fairly,
and left the coarser work, the flouts and
jeers, to titled subordinates. His ideas,
if vague and visionary, were always
grandiose, and, according to his lights,
imperial and patriotic. He had no pre
judices, and although the leader of
bucolic squires and favoured guest of
ducal drawing-rooms, he was fully con
vinced that Toryism could only survive
by becoming democratic. Here surely
was a product of the age as piquant and
original as any to be met with in the
romance of history.
I turn gladly to the serener regions of
science and art. Here also, while we
find everywhere the influence of the
spirit of the age, we find everywhere
genius and originality of character. It
is the age of science; its marvellous
triumphs have given man an undreamt
of command over the forces of nature,
and revolutionised his ideas both of the
material and of the spiritual universe.
But what I wish principally to remark
for the present purpose, these triumphs
have been achieved, not by a mechanical
process of second-rate specialists working
each in his separate groove like wheels
and pulleys in the mill of progress, but
by a succession of great men, worthy
leaders of great events. Take Darwin,
the greatest of all. Who, in the school
boy scolded by his master for wasting
the time which should have been devoted
to hexameters in trying rude chemical
experiments and collecting beetles, could
have foreseen the great philosopher who
was to revolutionise the whole course of
modern thought ? At college he was,
like many another careless student,
thinking more of partridge-shooting than
of books, and looking forward to taking
orders, and becoming a college don, or
vicar of a country parish. But his
beetle-hunting saved him; it brought
�SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
him into connection with men of science
at the University like Henslow, and the
merest accident led to his being appointed
as naturalist to accompany Captain Fitzroy in the exploring voyage of the Beagle.
He saw new lands and new races of
men, and his mind, rapidly expanding,
acquired a storehouse of new facts and
ideas which were the germ.of his future
greatness. See him next a martyr to
ill-health in his quiet cottage in a
secluded Kentish village, thinking out
his ideas, trying simple experiments,
clipping out extracts, and patiently col
lecting informaticta, until one day he
woke to find himself famous, and to
have his name associated with the
greatest revolution ever known in man’s
conception of the universe. In less
than forty years “ Darwinism ”—that is,
evolution by unvarying law—-superseded
“ Supernaturalism,” or the theory of a
world created and maintained by a suc
cession of secondary interferences, as
completely as the Copernican theory
superseded that of Ptolemy.
Before he died he could see all edu
cated thought, all men of light and lead
ing in all countries, converts, if not to all
the details, to the leading ideas and factsof his world-wide theory. And what a
simple, noble character he was 1 Patient,
candid, magnanimous, modest, loving,
and beloved in all intercourse with family
and surroundings down even to his little
dog, faithful friend, single-minded wor
shipper of truth; one might say that,
apart from his fame, here was a model
man of the nineteenth century, and, if
scepticism can give us more like him,
we may well be content to take what the
outcome of a sceptical age has in store
for us without much apprehension.
And if Darwin was the Napoleon of
science, what a brilliant array of mar
shals marched under him at the head of
its various divisions—men not of one
idea and cramped intellects, but largeminded men of genius and originality,
men such as Lyell, Huxley, Herbert
Spencer, and a host of others.
Take Huxley as a typical instance.
139
If he had never made a discovery in
science, he would go down to posterity
as the greatest master of style and best
writer of English prose in the whole
range of modern literature. To a wit
keen as that of Voltaire he added a far
greater range of accurate knowledge and
force of pungent logic; his. grave irony
and undercurrent of genuine humour
are delicious, and every sentence goes
straight to the mark like a rifle-bullet.
In controversy he was like a sun-god
shooting his arrows of light through the
thickest cuirass of ignorance and preju
dice. Given something to say on a
theme of science or philosophy, I know
of no writer who could say it as well as
Huxley.
Of all these, and of the hundred other
names which might easily be . added to
the list of generals and captains of the
army of modern science, it may safely
be said that, as a rule, they lived true,
simple, and noble lives, giving no cause
of scandal or offence to the world, and
showing that the high priests of truth
need not fear a comparison as regards
character and conduct with those of any
stereotyped and formalised religious
creed or caste.
The remaining complaint of the pes
simists, that the world is becoming
uninteresting and prosaic, is easily dis
posed of.
I reserve for another time
what I have to say as to the creeds of
the great poets; but, for the present, it
is enough to ask whether Byron and
Shelley were believers or sceptics, and
whether their poems show any falling-off
in the poetic faculty ? Swinburne, what
ever we may think of him otherwise, has
the gift of word-music and of brilliant
imagination in an eminent degree; and
Victor Hugo, though too turgid and
rhetorical for an English taste, strikes a
powerful lyre whose chords resound
loudly in the souls of his sceptical
countrymen. Above all, Tennyson, the
great poet of modern thought, attained
a height of inspiration which has been
seldom if ever equalled. Whatever his
creed may have been, he was thoroughly
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SCEPTICISM AND PESSIMISM
the man of his age, imbued with its
science, from which many of his noblest
similes are drawn, and a sharer in its
strength and weakness, its hopes and
fears, its grandest aspirations and its
blankest misgivings. The stanzas in
In Memoriam, which conclude with the
solemn words, “Behind the veil,” are
the profoundest expression of the deepest
thoughts of the most earnest minds of
the nineteenth century.
In fiction we have a hundred writers
and a thousand readers, of works of a
fairly high standard of excellence, for
one of former centuries. Nothing gives
me more hope for the future of that
inevitable democracy which is advancing
on us with such rapid steps than the
multitude of standard works which are
circulated in cheap editions. Shake
speare, Walter Scott, Dickens, Thackeray,
George Eliot, as well as works on history,
philosophy, andart, like thoseof Macaulay,
Carlyle, and Ruskin, are published in
ever-increasing numbers and at ever
lower prices. Who reads them ? They
must be bought by hundreds of thou
sands, or it would not pay to publish
them. They must be read by millions
who never read before, but who now
read with intelligent interest for educa
tion and self-culture.
If we turn to painting, we find the
same phenomenon. It is becoming
more popular and more democratic.
Prints and chromo-lithographs hang on
the walls of every cottage ; illustrations,
often admirable, like those of the modern
school of wood-cut, adorn the pages of
pictorial newspapers and magazines, and
have become almost a necessary accom
paniment of every work of wide circula
tion. And how has this affected the
higher class of painting? Has it be
come more prosaic ? Distinctly the
reverse; it is far more poetical—-that is
to say, it aims far more at expressing the
real essence and typical spirit of the
varying moods, whether of external or
of human nature. The contrast between
the modern French school and that of
conventional classicism affords the best
instance for my present purpose, for
Prance is par excellence the country
whose scepticism and democracy may
be supposed to have killed poetry.
Compare a landscape of Corot’s with a
landscape of Poussin; which is the
more poetical? Or take Millet, who
has caught for all time the type of the
true French peasant, with his simple or
even sordid surroundings, his narrow
horizon as he bends with an almost
ferocious intensity of labour over his
paternal clods, yet illumined by gleams
of humble poetry, as in the Angelas, or
of pure domestic affection, as in Teaching
the Baby to Walk. Surely this is real
poetry, and worth a thousand of the
academic pictures of the school of
David.
In the English school of art the same
tendency is manifest. All the great
modern masters aim at representing
types and ideas rather than traditional
conventionalities or prosaic realities.
Thus Millais’s “North-West Passage”
and “ Boyhood of Raleigh ” give us the
essence of that spirit of maritime adven
ture which has made Britannia rule the
waves ; Faed’s pictures of humble Scot
tish life are as tender and true as if they
were poems of Burns transferred to
canvas; Peter Graham, Brett, and Hook
paint the sea as it never was before
painted, in all its moods of strength,
repose, and of the joyous freshness of
its rising flood. And so of a host of
others. They aim at and often succeed
in painting pictures which are really
poems, true and touching phases of
human characters, types of nature which
speak to the varying emotions of the
human soul, and their masterpieces find
a ready response in the hearts of mil
lions.
All this does not look like the advent
of a drab-coloured age of prosaic medioc
rity ; or as if the fresh bracing breeze of
modern science and free thought, sweep
ing through the confined air of mediaeval
cloisters, were going to do otherwise than
sweeten and purify the atmosphere, and
make the blue of heaven more blue, the
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
141
grass greener, and the earth, on the whole, filling the lungs with ozone, bracing the
a better and more genial place for man nerves and brightening the eye.
to live in. Blow, brave North-Wester!
“ Who loves not Knowledge, who shall rail
sweeping over the free and boundless
Against her beauty ? may she mix
ocean of Truth, chilling to _ worn-out
With men and prosper, who shall fix
Her pillars ; may her cause prevail.”
creeds and decrepit superstitions, but
Chapter XI.
CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
What is a Great Poet—Ancient and Modern
Poets—Byron, Shelley, Swinburne, Brown
ing, Pope, Dryden, Coleridge, Spenser—
Chaucer — Wordsworth — Nature-Worship—Ode on Immortality—Byron and Shelley—
Burns—Gospel of Practical Life—Shakespeare
—Self recorded in Hamlet and Prospero—
The Sonnets—Views of Death—Behind the
Veil—Prospero—Views identical with Goethe’s
Faust—And with the Maya or Musair of
Buddhism—-Pantheism—Ignoring of Religion
—Patriotism and Loyalty his Ruling Motives
—Practical Influence of Religion Exaggerated
—Religious Poets—Dante—Milton—Contrast
between Greek Tragedy and Modern Poetry
—Tennyson—Poet of Modern Thought—In
Memoriam—Practical Conclusions.
or even a considerable poet; but to make
,
a great poet something more is required.
To this fine susceptibility and musical
nature must be added a great intellect;
an intellect capable of casting flashes of
insight into the varying phases of human
character, and the deepest problems of
man’s relations to the universe; an in
tellect so imbued with the spirit of the
age and abreast of the knowledge of the
day as to be able to sum them up in a
few glowing lines which embody their
inmost essence. Such poets are ex
tremely rare. Of the ancient world,
Homer, JEschylus, Sophocles, and Eu
What is a poet, and what is a great ripides of the Greeks, Lucretius and
poet ? A poet I take to be one whose Virgil of the Romans, still shine as stars
nature is exceptionally susceptible to of the first magnitude among the “ stars
impressions from the surrounding uni of mortal night,” though dimmed by
verse, especially those of a character distance and seen under greatly altered
which comes within the domain of art, conditions. Of moderns, I hardly know
and who unites with this a certain that the very first class can be assigned
musical faculty and command of lan to othernames than those of Shakespeare,
guage, which enables him to translate Dante, Milton, Goethe, Burns, Words
these impressions into apt and harmo worth, and Tennyson. Many come near
nious verse. The poet’s brain may be it from exceptional excellence in some
compared to a photographic plate which of the qualities which are most essential
is extremely sensitive and retentive of to true poetry. Shelley, for instance, is
images which flash across it; or to a equal to the very greatest in the exquisite
delicate LEolian harp which vibrates susceptibility to all that is beautiful in
responsive to harmonies of nature, un nature, and the faculty of reproducing it
heard, or only half-heard, by the coarser in the loveliest and most musical of lyrics.
His Skylark and Cloud may well stand
fibres of ordinary mortals.
This of itself, where it exists in an as the high-water mark to which lyrical
exceptional degree, may make a pleasing poetry has ever attained. But he was
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CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
cut off at an early age, before his intellect
had got over the stage of youthful effer
vescence, and settled down into the sober
and serene wisdom requisite to reflect
truly the spirit of an age, and guide a
world towards better and higher things.
He and Keats have given us “things of
beauty” which are “joys for ever,” but
scarcely wise counsels and consoling
words, to enable us better to live our
lives and face our destinies. The same
may be said of Byron, the vigour of
whose verse and vividness of feeling and
description are unsurpassed, but whose
ideal of life and character, be it real or
be it affected, is about the last any one
would do well to follow.
Of more recent poets Tennyson alone
comes up to the highest standard. Others
approach it on different sides, but on
special sides only, and fail as conspicu
ously in many of the attributes of the
highest poetry as they excel in others.
Swinburne, for instance, almost equals
Shelley in the exquisite musical suscepti
bility of rhythm and language; but the
ideas behind the words are, for the most
part, rhetorical and exaggerated, like
those of his prototype, Victor Hugo.
Browning, again, has intellect and insight,
but his style is so rugged and obscure
that to read his poetry is almost like
trying to solve chess-problems. He is
to Shelley or Tennyson what Wagner is
to Rossini or Beethoven; caviare to the
multitude, and almost outside the range
of the true art which is based essentially
on the beautiful.
Of other well-known poets, Pope is a
great master of the art of weaving appro
priate words into harmonious verse, and
his ideas are, for the most part, clear
and sensible. . But they are not profound,
and in his chief philosophical work, the
Essay on Man, he rather reflects, with
point and precision, the somewhat con
ventional and commonplace views of the
average intellect of his age than gives
flashes of insight drawn from his own
inward struggles .and experiences. The
same may be said of Dryden, who had
a singular gift of terse and vigorous
expression, which has made so many of
his lines survive in the form of standard
quotations. But he was hardly a deep
and original thinker, and, however much
we may admire his poetry, we learn little
from it.
Coleridge I hardly mention as a poet,
for his principal work, as a religious
philosopher influencing to a certain
extent the spirit of his age, was done in
prose and in conversation. His Aids to
Reflection was long the text-book of the
advanced thinkers of Anglican theology,
but his Christabel, Kubla Khan, and
Ancient Mariner, admirable as they are,
are little more than the dreams of a
gorgeous imagination. . They might be
the visions of an “English Opium-Eater,”
in the earlier stages of the seductive drug
as described by De Quincey.
Of the early English poets, the names
of Chaucer and Spenser stand out pre
eminent. Spenser, indeed, has perhaps
as large a share as any other, even of the
greatest poets, of that which is the sub
stratum or first requisite of all true poetry:
the exquisite susceptibility to all that is
beautiful in the surrounding universe.
But his philosophy does not go much
beyond an allegorical representation of
vices and virtues as they appear in the
abstract, rather than in the concrete form
of living individuals. Compare Una,
who is his most distinct and lovable
character, with Imogen, and you feel at
once that Shakespeare gives you a living
woman, in contact with an actual world;
while Spencer’s embodiment of nearly
the same ideal is shadowy and mystic,
half woman and half allegory, living in a
world of impossible giants and monsters.
Chaucer, on the other hand, stands on
solid earth, and deals with real characters.
In the dramatic faculty of depicting actual
living men and women he has no rival
except Shakespeare, and is inferior to him
rather in the narrower width of his canvas,
and in the complexity and variety of the
characters depicted, than in the truth and
vividness of the portraits themselves.
In his Canterbury Tales we have the real
England of the reign of Edward III.
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
U3
brought before us as distinctly as if we His wise Providence, so established its
had been one of the company assembled order that definite pieces and progres
at the Tabard, and had ridden on the sions of things shall not be eternal, but
come into existence and pass away in
Dover road to the shrine of St. Thomas,
with the worthy knight, the dainty and due succession.
“ Thus the oak, which grows so slowly
soft-hearted abbess, the jolly wife of Bath,
and has so long a life, at last wastes
and the other typical representatives of
away and dies. Even the hard rock in
the various classes who made up what
was the framework of English society in time wasteth away; broad rivers run dry;
great cities decay and disappear; and all
the fourteenth century. How like they
things have an end. So also of the
are to us, how completely we feel that
they are our own flesh and blood, and human race. All die; some in youth,
that five centuries have made but little others in old age; kings as well as
change either in human nature itself or commoners; some in their beds, some
in the special form of it which may be in the deep sea, some in battlefields.
“There is no help; all go the same
called English nature.
In reading Chaucer I am also struck way; all die. What causeth this but the
by the wonderful anticipations of the Ruler and First Cause of all things, who
most advanced modern thought, which draws back into His own essence all that
occasionally crop up in the most unlikely was derived from it, against which decree
places, and which only require to be it availeth no living creature to strive.
translated into modern language to be at Therefore it seems to me to be wise to
once recognised. For instance, I came make a virtue of necessity, and make the
across a passage the other day which, if best of that which we cannot prevent;
expressed in the terminology which would and that a man is a fool who grumbles
now be used to convey the same ideas, at that which is the universal fate, and
rebels against the law to which he is
would read as follows :—
“The inscrutable First Cause of the indebted for his own existence.”
If anyone came across this passage
universe knew well what He was about
without knowing its origin, he would be
when He established the fair chain of
love or of mutual attraction. For with apt to attribute it to some writer who was
this chain He bound the elements, fire, conversant with the works of Herbert
air, water, and land, together in definite Spencer, Darwin, and Lyell; and about
forms, so as not to fly asunder into the last guess he would make would be
that it came from the father of English
primeval chaos.
“In like manner He established certain poetry writing in the fourteenth century.
periods and durations for all creation, And yet, if he would turn to the speech
beyond which nothing could pass. This of Duke Theseus in the Knight's Tale,
needs no authority to confirm it, for it he would find that it is a literal though
is proved by universal experience. Men, modernised version of what Chaucer puts
therefore, by this order of the universe, into the mouth of his representative of
may easily discern that the laws of nature perfect manhood and mature wisdom.
are 'fixed and eternal. And anyone who Religions and philosophies have changed,
is not a fool can understand that, as every knowledge has increased; but these lines
part is derived from a whole, nature of Chaucer remain as a summary of the
cannot have originated from any part or best and truest attitude in which a man
parcel of a thing, but from something can face the insoluble mysteries of the
that is perfect and stable, passing by universe.
This passage alone should be sufficient
evolution from the homogeneous into
the heterogeneous, until it becomes to justify Chaucer’s claim to rank among
subject to change and corruption. The the great poets.
My object, however, is not so much to
Creator of the universe has, therefore, in
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CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
review poetry generally, or to assign to
each poet his proper place in the hier
archy of Art, as to ascertain what have
been the real creeds or inmost convic
tions of those who, by universal consent,
are ranked among the highest. And
when I talk of creeds, I do not mean
the outward professions, which, with poets
as with other men, may be mainly affairs
of time and circumstance; but the deeper
insight with which they “see into the life
of things,” and find, with Wordsworth,
Wordsworth, in common with Brahmins,
Buddhists, and Platonists, solves this
problem by postulating pre-existence :—
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.”
. It is remarkable that this Pantheistic
view of the universe is essentially that of
other great modern poets, who, in many
respects, differ most widely from the
calm and self-contained character and
“ The anchor of the purest thoughts, the nurse, serene wisdom of Wordsworth. Byron,
The guide, the guardian of the heart, and soul in his _ moments of best and truest
Of all the moral being. ”
inspiration, expresses, in still more
In Wordsworth’s case the answer is easy: passionate and vigorous language, the
he gives it himself. He finds it in nature.’ same feeling for one great living whole,
Not in a. dead or mechanical nature, or comprising nature, humanity, and him
one limited to seas and skies, mountains self :—
and rivers; but one which includes
All heaven and earth are still—though not in
“ The still sad music of humanity,”
and which lives with
“ A presence which disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfuse
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”
This is very nearly pure Pantheism,
and it is remarkable how closely he
approximates in other respects to the
Oriental philosophy which finds its ex
pression in the religions of Brahma and
of Buddha, and which tinged the
speculations of Plato. In the Intima
tions of Immortality he adopts, to a
considerable extent, the doctrine of the
transmigration of souls, or, to express it
in modern language, the “ Conservation
of Energy,” applied to the immaterial
soul as a distinct and indestructible
essence.
The problem of immortality hinges on
two questions : life before birth, life after
death. They hang very much together,
for if from nothing we came —
nothing in the sense of no conscious
personal identity—it is more than pro
bable that to nothing we shall return.
sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep_
All heaven and earth are still ; from the high
host
Of stars to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude when we are least alone.”
And again, in the rush of the midnight
storm, he wishes to be
“ A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! ”
Shelley, again, was essentially the poet
of Pantheism, and derived all his best
inspiration from
“ Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood !”
The song of the skylark, the fleeting
cloud, the forest at noonday, the
“ Waste and solitary places, where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be,”'
spoke to him and he to them as living
beings, vibrating in unison with the most
delicate harmonies.
Of Death he speaks as
The boundless realm of unending change,”
where
“ All that we feel, and know, and see
■Shall pass like an unreal mystery.”.
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
In other words, his glance of insight
into the mysteries of the universe is
essentially Pantheistic and Agnostic.
In sharp contrast with the ethereal
poetry of Shelley, Burns, while equal to
him or any other poet in the exquisite
delicacy of his lyrics, stands on solid
earth, and teaches what may be called
a gospel of practical life. He may not
always have acted up to it, but his
poetry is pre-eminent in laying down
sound and sensible maxims of conduct,
and investing common things and ordi
nary life with a halo of tenderness and
dignity drawn from the inspiration of
the highest feelings of human nature.
Thus, when he says,
.“To make a happy household clime
For weans and wife
Is the true pathos and sublime
Of human life,”
he presents an ideal universal in its
application, within reach of all, common
to all sorts and conditions of men; and
he presents it in a way which lifts the
fundamental fact of the family tie from
the region of prose into that of poetry.
The poorest man, who lives even approxi
mately up to these lines, may feel that
he has not lived in vain. By industry,
prudence, self-restraint, good temper, and
kindness, he has made his humble home
a shrine of affection and happiness, and
has made good his title to rank as one
of nature’s gentlemen. Goethe means
much the same thing when he says that
“no man carries it farther than to per
petuate the species, beget children, and
nourish them as well as he can.” But
how cold and ironical does this sound
when contrasted with Burns. One is
prose, the other poetry ; one a criticism
on life, the other an incentive to purify
and exalt it.
No one equals Burns in the keenness
of insight with which he looks through
the outer husks and habiliments of
things to their real essence. Carlyle’s
clothes philosophy in Sartor Resartus
is but a sermon on the text—
“ The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man’s the gold for a’ that.”
145
A manly independence, based on the
qualities which Tennyson attributes to
the Goddess of Wisdom,
“ Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,”
is to Burns, as it is to everyone, the
solid basis of all the manly virtues.. It
is a basis which is more readily provided
to those who live by work, whether of
the hand or head, than to those who are
born with a silver spoon in their mouths,
and are cradled in comfort and luxury.
A man never knows what is really , in
him until he has measured himself with
his fellows in real honest work. I. have
known many a man who fancied himself
one of the creme de la creme, and looked
down on the rest of the world as “ cads
and “ outsiders,” who was not honestly
worth twenty shillings a week of any
man’s money. He could ride, but not
well enough to be a whipper-in; shoot,
but did not know enough of wood-craft
or rearing pheasants to be a game
keeper ; dance, sing, or draw, perhaps,
but nothing well enough to earn a penny
by it. Strip him of his cotton-wool
wrappings of wealth and rank, and land
him at Sydney or Melbourne without a
sixpence in his pocket, and what could
he do to earn a living ? Possibly drive
a cab, or be a waiter at an eating-house.
How can such a man feel the same
manly independence as one who knows
that, wherever he goes, he has muscles
or brains to sell which are honestly
worth their price in the world’s market.
No one sets forth so forcibly as Burns
the dignity of labour, and the compen
sations which go so far to equalise the
lot of the rich and poor. If I wanted
to convert to sounder views some narrow
minded social democrat, whose one idea
was envy of the rich, I would make him
read Burns’ Twa Dogs, where the rela
tive advantages _ and disadvantages of
different stations of life are set forth
with so much force and humour. Against
the hardships and privations of the
working masses, alternating with the
enjoyments of the evening rest, the
healthy appetite, and the sound sleep,
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CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
he would read of the non-working classes,
how
“ Gentlemen, and ladies worst,
With even-down want of work are curst,”
and learn
“ It’s no in riches or in rank,
' It’s no in wealth like London Bank,
To bring content and rest.
“If happiness has no its seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be rich, or wise, or great,
But never can be blest.”
He may learn also from the Cotter's
Saturday Night how peasant life may
rise to the level of patriarchal dignity;
and from Highland Mary or Bonnie
Jean how the romance of love may be
as true and tender by the “ banks and
braes o’ bonnie Doon ” as in Belgravian
drawing-rooms. Nor will the lesson be
wanting from Willie brewed a peck o'
maut and Auld Lang Syne, that frank
joviality and hearty friendship are not
the exclusive appanage of any class or
condition of mortal men.
From Burns to Shakespeare is a long
stretch, but any attempt to ascertain the
creeds of great poets would be . incom
plete without some analysis of what
seems to be the inmost and truest
attitude of the greatest of all poets
towards the deepest problems of life.
In the case of Shakespeare this is not
easy to discover, for his genius is so
essentially dramatic that his characters
speak and act their own lives, and are
not mere masks behind which the author
discourses to the publiic. Thus Childe
Harold, Conrad, Lara, and Manfred are
only Byron himself posing in different
attitudes, while Othello and Macbeth,
Falstaff and Dogberry, are types of
themselves reflecting nature, and not
Shakespeare. All we can say from them
of Shakespeare’s individuality is, that it
must have been wide enough and rich
enough to realise, with a certain amount
of sympathy, all the varied range of
human passions and emotions, strength
.and weakness, wisdom and folly. Even
the humorous drolleries, and rogueries,
and sheer imbecilities of human nature
are noted and reproduced with a genial
smile.
We cannot say that Shakespeare had
any resemblance to Falstaff, but we may
be sure that he had noted someone like
him; some humorous ton of flesh,
unblushing compound of braggart,
coward, liar, and glutton, yet who half
redeemed these evil qualities by his
ready wit and unfailing good-humour,
and left us almost sorry for him when
he died babbling of green fields in
Mistress Quickly’s hostelry.
It is only in one or two of his
characters that we can discover some
thing of the real Shakespeare himself,
projected from within outwards, and
fashioned in some mood of his own
image. This is the case mainly with
Hamlet and Prospero. Of Hamlet I
think we may say with some certainty
that no one could have conceived such
a character who had not a Hamlet in
him. He must have felt the irresolu
tion, the despondency, the metaphysical
thought sicklying over the “native hue
of resolution,” the burden of life almost
too heavy to be borne, which made a
noble nature and high intelligence drift
the sport of circumstances, rather than
“ take arms against a sea of troubles ”
and incur the pain of coming to a definite
decision.
The Sonnets, in which Shakespeare
speaks in his own person, reveal a good
deal of this frame of mind. The general
tone is that of thought rather than of
action, with an undercurrent of despon
dency and gentle melancholy. Thus, if
the twenty-ninth Sonnet be really Shake
speare’s, what a sermon is it on the vanity
of human things to find the supreme
artist of the world, the man who had
apparently led the most prosperous life,
who had risen from a poor country lad
to be the admired friend of the highest
nobles and best intellects of his day, and
who had in a few years achieved fame
and competence, writing such lines as
these:—
“ When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
147
by anyone who had not known it by
personal experience. We can hardly
And look upon myself, and curse my fate.”
suppose the high-born and accomplished
Or think of such a man, when recalling heir to the Danish throne to have been
his past life to the “sessions, of sweet a party to a Chancery suit, or to have
trod for years, like Peter Peebles, the
silent thought,” thus summing it up :—
corridors of a Copenhagen Court of
“ I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,.
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s Session. Nor was he likely to have
waste ;
suffered from
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death s dateless
night,
And weep afresh love’s long-since cancelled
And moan the expense of many a vanished
sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan.”
No one can mistake the analogy
between these Sonnets and the melan
choly musings of the Prince of Denmark.
Again, the sixty-sixth Sonnet is almost
identical with the enumeration of the ills
of life which make death desirable in
Hamlet’s famous soliloquy :—
“ Tired with all these, for restful death I cry—
As, to behold desert a beggar born.
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily foresworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
'
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be
gone.”
The evidence of this identity between
Shakespeare and Hamlet is strengthened
if we examine in detail the enumeration
of the “whips and scorns of time” which
might almost compel a man to suicide.
As a general rule, Shakespeare’s charac
ters speak with an admirable dramatic
propriety of place and circumstance.
They say nothing but what such charac
ters in such conditions might have said.
But in this soliloquy there are things
which Hamlet hardly could have said,
and which must be Shakespeare speaking
of his own experiences. Thus, the “law’s
delay ” would hardly be included among
the serious ills of life justifying suicide
“ The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.”
If, then, Hamlet’s soliloquy expresses
the real sentiments of Shakespeare, we
have his judgment on the great questions
of death and immortality summed up
almost in the identical words of Tenny
son :—
“ Behind the veil, behind the veil.”
To die is “to sleep—to sleep ! perchance
to dream.” Death is “the undiscovered
country from whose bourne no traveller
returns.” There is no assurance, abso
lutely none ! He cannot say, with the
Materialist, we shall certainly perish,, or,
with the Christian, we shall certainly live.
The character of Prospero affords even
a better test than that of Hamlet for
ascertaining what were Shakespeare’s
■ mature views on these subjects. There
can be little doubt that in Prospero
Shakespeare has an eye to himself, retir
ing in the plenitude of his powers from
London and the stage, to spend the
autumn of his days in a round of domestic
duties in his native town. The magic
which Prospero abjures can hardly be
other than the poet’s imagination, and
the staff which he breaks and book which
he drowns,
“ Deeper than did ever plummet sound,”
the poet’s pen, which had bodied forth
so many of these airy nothings, and given
them
“ A local habitation and a name.”
It is well worthy of remark how nearly
this practical solution of the problem of
life coincides with that of another of the
world’s greatest geniuses, Goethe.
The drama of Faust concludes by
showing howr the hero is delivered from
the power of evil, and how the sins and
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CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
miseries of his career while commanding
the powers of magic are condoned, by
devoting himself to the practical work of
real life—reclaiming a waste tract from
the sea, colonising it, and making it the
abode of healthy human industry.
The moral is precisely the same in the
two cases, that man’s true life is in the
natural and not in the supernatural, or,
as Goethe expresses it elsewhere, that
“here is your America’’—not in visionary
continents across unmeasured oceans, but
in doing, as Carlyle phrases it, “the duty
that lies nearest to your hand, as the best
guide to further duties.”
But Shakespeare, speaking through
Prospero, in his farewell address to the
world, goes beyond the sphere of practical
life, and gives us his views of the highest
problems of the universe in the wellknown lines :—
“ And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
If, in the case of Wordsworth, I had
to remark on the singular approximation
of modern poetry to the Pantheistic views
of Oriental religions and philosophies,
this passage of Shakespeare carries the
comparison still closer. It is the pure
doctrine of Maya or illusion, which plays
such a great part in the systems of
Brahma and Buddha.
There is no
reality but the great unknowable; all the
manifestations of the universe are illu
sive dreams, rising and falling like mists
from the Ocean of the Infinite. Indi
vidual existence is but one of these
illusions, destined to disappear like
others when its “little life is rounded
with a sleep.”
Observe that in this latest utterance
Shakespeare has gone beyond the phase
of thought which dictated the soliloquy
of Hamlet. There, death was a sleep
indeed, but a sleep in which there might
be dreams, an undiscovered bourne
where there might be anything. But I
here there is not merely Agnosticism,
but the positive assertion that sleep is
all, and that the individual life is ab
sorbed, like everything else, in the great
Ocean from which it came, of the
Infinite and Absolute.
_ Goethe’s theory of the universe is very
similar to that of Shakespeare, but he
approximates to the Oriental philosophy
rather on its positive or Pantheistic side
than on the metaphysical side of Illu
sion. Thus, in the famous reply of
Faust to the simple inquiry of Margaret
whether he believes in God, “ Wer darf
ihn nennen ? ” he says :—
“ Who dares to name Him ?
Who to say of Him, I believe?
Who is there ever
With a soul to dare,
To utter, I believe Him not?
The All-encompasser, the All-upholder,
Enfolds, sustains He not
Thee, me, Himself?”
And he goes on to say how the over
arching sky, the solid earth, the ever
lasting stars, the depths of human
emotion, are but manifestations of the
eternal essence, call it what name you
will—
“ Words are but mist and smoke
Obscuring Heaven’s glow.”
This is almost identical with Words
worth’s
“ Sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused.”
In a word, it is pure Pantheism. So
also is the hymn of the Earth Spirit, who
sits weaving the varied shows of the
universe,
“ And at Time’s humming loom prepares
The garment which the Eternal Spirit wears.”
It has often been observed to what a
little extent religion—that is, the formal
religion of theological creeds, appears in
Shakespeare’s plays. Love, ambition,
jealousy, all the various motives which
practically influence human conduct and
character, are depicted to the life ; but
religious belief is as completely ignored as
if it had no existence. One would have
thought that in an age which had wit
nessed the martyrdoms of Latimer and
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
149
Cranmer, the destruction of the Spanish threat of foreign interference he would
Armada, and the innumerable wars and have been for England, whether under a
conspiracies of the reign of Elizabeth, King, a Protector, or a Parliament.
Perhaps Shakespeare is right, and after
almost every one must have been a keen
all religion plays a less part in the real
partisan either of the Protestant or of the
Catholic persuasion. And yet such is life of individuals and of nations than
Shakespeare’s indifference or impartiality we are apt to assign to it. It becomes
that it is impossible to say to which side important when it happens to coincide
he inclined. The only conjecture that with great currents of feeling or opinion
has been hazarded is that he leant which are setting in the same direction,
towards the old faith, because his friars, but it has little effect when it runs counter
especially Father Lawrence in Romeo to them. Thus at the present day we
and Juliet, are depicted in a favourable see that the feeling of nationality is vastly
light. But this can hardly be carried more powerful than any differences of
I renchmen,
further than to show that he was not one religious denomination.
of those bigoted Protestants to whom Italians, and Germans are for national in
everything connected with Rome was an dependence and greatness alike, whether
abomination. On the other hand, we they are Catholics, Protestants, or Free
find no trace of it, where it might have thinkers, just as English Catholics were
been most expected, in ridicule or abuse Englishmen first and Catholics afterwards
at the time of the Armada. Catholic
of the Puritans.
The Puritans were already a consider Ireland bows the Pope’s rescript respect
able sect, and from their bitter hostility to fully out of Court when it comes in con
the stage must have appeared to Shake flict with national feeling, and follows
speare almost in the light of personal the lead of an “uncrowned king’’who is
enemies. His observant eye could not a Protestant. In private life nothing can
have failed to notice many of the traits be clearer than that the Christian theory
which, as in Butler’s Hudibras, laid them is that it is better to be poor than rich;
open to ridicule. Many of his characters, while the Christian practice is that it is
as for instance that of Malvolio, would better to be rich than poor. The example
have enabled him with perfect dramatic of Lazarus and Dives does not prevent
propriety to sharpen the shafts of his the immense majority of mankind fiom
satire by introducing an element of striving to be better fed, better clothed,
Puritanism. But he entirely abstains better lodged, and more independent;
from doing so by a single word or and the precept to “ take no thought for
insinuation. Malvolio is a prig, but not the morrow ” is nowhere in competition
with Burns’s ideal of life :
a Puritan.
The fact is that patriotism and loyalty
“ To make a happy household clime
For weans and wife ”—•
seem to have been such ruling motives
in Shakespeare’s breast as to have left no
room for political or theological differ an ideal which, under existing conditions,
ences. The dithyrambic and almost is only to be realised by the constant
Jingoist praises of England which he puts exercise of providence and foresight. So
® the mouth of John o’ Gaunt and other also nine-tenths of the very men who
characters are evidently written con amore, preach and who repeat the command,
and express his real sentiments ; and so “ Thou and thy servant shall do no work
also are the glowing eulogiums on the on the Sabbath,” go home to a hot dinner,
“imperial votaress throned in the West.” which compels their cook to do the same
Had he lived a generation later, we may work on the seventh as on the other days
conjecture that he would have been a of the week.
The fact is that these remote and
Cavalier, and charged with Rupert rather
than with Cromwell; but at the first metaphysical speculations, whether of
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CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
theology or philosophy, exert wonder
fully little influence on practical life.
The spiritualist who holds with Berkeley
that matter has no real existence walks
on solid earth exactly as does the
materialist who believes in nothing but
matter. The determinist, who holds
that everything is the result of preestablished harmony or of mechanical
necessity, when it comes to practical
action differs in no perceptible degree
from the believer in free-will, who holds
with Tennyson that
“ Man is man, and master of his fate.”
In either case, the practical incentive is
that
“ Because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.”
In other words, that the rules of right
and wrong, which have become almost
instinctive by the operation of heredity,
education, and environment, influence
conduct far more than any theoretical
considerations as to the origin of morals,
and practical life is made up mainly of
the conflict between these instincts and
the lower inducements of selfishness,
sensuality, and passion, which tempt us
to disregard them.
Of great poets who may be considered
to have drawn their inspiration from
theology there are two—Dante and
Milton. In the case of Dante, however,
it is doubtful whether the phantasmagoria
of mediaeval horrors in the Inferno can
be considered as anything more than
the canvas on which he has painted his
immortal pictures. He is a great poet,
from the passionate insight with which
he has described contemporary events
and characters, his knowledge of universal
human nature, his vivid power of descrip
tion, and the occasional gleams of pity
and tenderness which lighten up his
gloomy landscape. His inspiration is,
to a great extent, political and personal
rather than theological. He loves and
hates with the intense vehemence of an
exile whose life has been marred by the
struggles of contending factions, and
who has known the misery of eating the I
bread of charity and mounting the cold
stairs of haughty patrons. He takes the
regions of Tartarus, the tortures of the
damned, and the malignity of devils, as
he finds them ready to his hand in the
popular beliefs of his day, and on this
canvas dashes down the vivid impres
sions and brooding ideas of which his
soul is full; and that soul being a great
one, the picture is great also.
In the case of Milton, on the other
hand, we have an instance of a really
great poet, who, “smit by the love of
sacred song,” derived his inspiration
mainly from the Bible and from theo
logy. And if theology acted thus power
fully on him, he in return reacted no
less powerfully on it, for the conceptions
of Adam and Eve, of paradise, of heaven
and hell, and of the whole hierarchy of
good and bad angels, are derived mainly
from his Paradise Lost. In particular that
of Satan transformed from the grotesque,
Pan-like devil of popular mythology into
an heroic figure, not less than “arch
angel ruined,” is purely Miltonic. The
indomitable resolution with which he
opposes his own personality and free
will to the buffets of adverse fate and
the decrees of Omnipotence elevates
the horned and tailed “auld Clootie”
of vulgar tradition into an heroic figure
akin to the Prometheus of Greek tragedy.
It may easily be seen from the example
of Milton how readily poetry may pass
into mythology in uncritical ages. It
was thought by some Greek philosophers
that the gods of Olympus were a creation
of Homer’s. Had Milton’s Paradise
Lost been written before the invention
of printing and transmitted for centuries
by the chants of itinerant bards, probably
the same thing might have been said of
many of the personifications of popular
Christianity.
In contrasting the spirit of the Greek
tragedians with that of modern poetry,
it strikes me very forcibly how much
more the element of morality enters
into the former. The ground-note of
■/Eschylus and Sophocles, and in a less
degree of Euripides, is that of an
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
inexorable and irresistible Fate, based
mainly on a vindication of immutable
moral laws. This all-powerful Fate grinds
gods and mortals alike, regardless of indi
vidual lives, and of individual pains and
sufferings, merits and demerits.
The
essence of tragedy lies in the heroic
struggles of lofty souls to oppose this
inexorable Fate, and either vindicate
against it the more immediate laws
of human justice and mercy, or, if
defeated, to suffer and endure with
unshaken resolution. Thus the Thyestian banquet entails a curse on the
house of Atreus, which is visited from
father to son, to the third and fourth
generation, of those whose ancestor had
violated one of the fundamental laws of
human nature and been guilty of canni
balism. The avenging Furies pursue
Orestes to assert the eternal law against
the unnatural crime of matricide, regard
less of the extenuating circumstances
which might have induced a modern
jury to bring in a verdict of justifiable
homicide. So also (Edipus undergoes
the extreme of human suffering, regard
less of the fact that the homicide of his
father and marriage with his mother
were committed in total ignorance, and
without any taint of what may be
called personal depravity. Antigone and
Electra suffer, not only when they are
free from guilt, but when their lives have
been devoted to acts of natural piety.
They suffer not for their own sins, but
because circumstances have involved
them in the train of events and family
connections, for which the eternal moral
laws require expiation. The spirit of
modern poetry is very different. It is
based less on Fate and more on nature;
on nature as it is seen in the outward
universe, conceived in the Pantheistic
spirit of a living whole, and on nature as
shown by the actual course of events and
real characters and actions of actual
men and women. Virtue is sometimes
^rewarded and vice punished, but not
always ; characters are partly good and
partly bad, just as we see them in the
real world; they do not stalk before us
151
on the stage as heroes or demi-gods, in
heroic mask and buskin, but tell their
tale and act their parts as ordinary
mortals, by the play of words, gesture,
and of the human countenance. From
Chaucer and Shakespeare downwards,
the aim of all first-rate poets, dramatists,
and novelists has been, not to preach
sermons or illustrate views of “fate, free
will, foreknowledge absolute,” but to
hold up a mirror to nature and reflect it
as it really is. Not partially, as in the
modern French realistic school, which
photographs only that which is ugly and
obscene; nor as in society novels, which
find nothing in the world but school-girl
romance and the rose-coloured trivialities
of fashionable circles; but, as Shakespeare
did in a supreme degree, the whole real
world of nature, which lies within the
domain of art—that is, which admits of
being illuminated by genius into some
thing which, in its final impression, is
beautiful and not ugly, pleasing and not
repulsive.
I have reserved for the last Tennyson,
for he was the great poet of modern
thought, who stood nearest to us, and
who wrote with the fullest knowledge of
the discoveries of recent science, and of
the problems which occupied the minds
of the living generation. In writing of
Tennyson I have to bear in mind that
he lived many days, and went through
many phases of thought, and might,
therefore, probably have objected to be
classed in any one category, or repre
sented as consistently holding in his
declining years the views which he ex
pressed in his early youth or mature
manhood. It is a long journey from the
first Locksley Hall, where the poet of
progress hails with exulting spirit the
“ wondrous mother age,” and sees in his
fellow-men—
“ Men my brothers, men the workers ever
working something new,
What they have done but the earnest of the
things that they shall do,”
to the Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After,
of the mournful bard who, being old,
“ thinks gray thoughts,” and walks from
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CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
Dan to Beersheba, finding all things
barren. It is not for us to complain
that the sun is not always at its meridian
splendour, but, after having given us light
and warmth for its appointed season,
sinks, not in the softer glories of a glow
ing sunset, but behind the gray and
clammy mists that obscure the horizon.
_ Let us rather take our great poet at
his best and fullest, in the days when
he poured out his inmost soul in In
Memoriam, and gave the world his views
on the deepest problems, in lines which
dwell for ever in the minds of the fore
most thinkers of his generation. No
poet of any generation struck a deeper
or truer note than Tennyson in those
noble stanzas in In Memoriam in which
he says :—
“ No more ? a monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
Who tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music matched with him.
“ Oh, life as futile, then, as frail '
Oh, for thy voice to soothe and bless !
What hope of answer or redress ?
Behind the veil, behind the veil! ”
I never read those noble lines without
almost a thrill of awe at the intense
truthfulness wfith which they sum up the
latest conclusions of the human intellect.
Here, at last, is the true truth, based on
the inexorable facts and laws of modern
science, and on the ineradicable hopes,
fears, and aspirations of human nature
which underlie them in presence of the
“ unknowable.” Tennyson has read his
Darwin, and understands the facts of
“ Are God and Nature then at strife,
“ Evolution ” and the “ struggle for
That Nature lends such evil dreams ?
existence.” He has read his Lyell, and
So careful of the type she seems,
knows how the facts of geology show
So careless of the single life ;
that what is true of individuals is true
“ That I, considering everywhere
of types, and that all creation lives and
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
dies, comes into existence, and is trans
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear ;
formed, by immutable laws. He sees
this as clearly as Llerbert Spencer, but,
“ I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
like Spencer, he sees that this is not all,
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
and that underlying these known or
That lead from darkness up to God ;
knowable facts and laws is a great
“ I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, Unknowable, in presence of which we
And gather dust and chaff, and call
can only veil our faces and bow in
To Him I feel is Lord of all,
reverent silence.
And faintly trust the larger hope.
This much, at any rate, it teaches us
“ ‘ So careful of the type ? ’ but No !
—that the apprehensions are visionary
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, ‘ A thousand types are gone: which tell us that the progress of science
I care for nothing, all shall go.
and the light of reason will banish all
poetry and all religion from the world,
“ ‘Thou makest thine appeal to me :
and reduce life to an arid and prosaic
I bring to life, I bring to death :
The spirit doth but mean the breath :
desert like that of a burnt-out planet.
I know no more.’—And He, shall He,
His science furnishes him with some of
“ Man, her last work, who looked so fair,
the most magnificently poetical similes
With splendid purpose in his eyes,
ever penned by mortal poet.
The
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
struggle for existence, and apparent
And built him fanes of fruitless prayer ;
cruelty of nature, is embodied as the
“ Who trusted God was love indeed,
wild eagle, dropping gore from beak and
And Love Creation’s final law—
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw talon, and shrieking with ravine against
the creed of love and mercy.
The
With ravine, shrieked against his creed ;
Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus give him
“ Who loved, who suffered countless ills,
the
And battled for the True and Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or sealed within the iron hills ?
“ Dragons of the prime,
Who tare each other in the slime.”
�CREEDS OF GREAT POETS
The decay of the old simple paths, the
slowly-dying creeds, translate themselves
into a deep undertone of the “ still, sad
music Of humanity.” Men “ falter where
they firmly trod,” doubt whether their
churches and cathedrals are not “ fanes
of fruitless prayer,” and their accepted
creeds and solemn services but as the
“ cry of an infant in the night,” and with
“no'language but a cry.”
Tennyson’s practical conclusion is very
similar to that of Shakespeare and Goethe
—viz., to place the centre of gravity of
human life in the natural rather than in
the supernatural. The advice of his
Goddess of Wisdom is to cultivate “ self
reverence, self-knowledge, self-control
and, without investigating too closely the
origin of conscience, to accept it as a fact,
153
“And because right is right, to follow right.”
In his Two Voices, after a deep philo
sophical disquisition on the Zoroastrian
doctrine of polarity, or conflict of two
principles, he finds the best solution of
the problem in the spectacle of a man
walking to the parish church between
his wife and child.
This is apparently the last word of
religions and philosophies. Work while
it is day, for the night cometh when no
man can work. Work well and wisely,
and when your little day is over go to
sleep calmly, accepting with an equal
mind whatever fate, if fate there be, that
may be in store for you
“Behind the veil.”
�.................................................
i
-1
4
�INDEX
Clairvoyance, 85
Bear, evolution of the, 69
Acts of the Apostles, 128
Clergy, the modern, 102
Bethlehem, story of, 117
Advance of Science, 95
Coal-measures, thickness of the,
Aerolites as cause of solar heat, Bible, inspiration of the, 93
16
Bird, evolution of the, 71
10-11
Coleridge as a poet, 142
^Esthetic sense and Christianity, Birth-place of mankind, 78
----- on theological assumptions,
Bismarck, 136, 137
99, 101
93
Africa, prehistoric implements Boucher de Perthes, discoveries
Comets, II
of, 48
in, 53
Comets and meteorites, 32
Agnosticism and morality, 96- Boulder-drift, 40-1.
Comstock, 31
Bourgeois, discoveries of, 57
100
Bow-wow theory of language, 75 Comte, religion of, 96
Agnosticism, definition of, 90
Conduct and creed, 99
Boycotting, 136
Ahriman, 105
Condylarthra, 70
America, prehistoric man in, 53, Braid, Dr., 79
Configuration, Lyell’s theory of,
Brain of man and the ape, 72
60
46
Brain, weight of the, 76 .
Amphicyon, 69
Britain, Ancient, animal life in, 49 Conservation of energy, 29
Ancestors of man, 78
British Islands, once joined to Contraction as source of solar
Anchenia, 61
heat, 12
continent, 49
Angstrom, on solar heat, 12
Contradictions in the Gospels,
Browning, 142
Animals, language of, 75
112, 117
----- non-progressiveness of, 75 Buckland, 13
Buenos Ayres, pre-historic man Conversions, religious and scien
----- tools not used by, 75
tific, 94-5
in, 64
Anthropoid apes, fossil, 55
Cope, Professor, on missing
Anthropomorphism of the savage, Bunodonta, 69
links, 68
Burns, 145
65-6
Bushmen, intelligence of, 74? 75 Corals in Greenland, 29
Ape, man and the, 55-6, 72
Corot, 140
Byron, 139, 142
Apostles, the, 118
Creation an absurdity, 92
Apostles’ Creed, the, 101
Creeds, decay of, 101
Calaveras skull, the, 61
Apparitions of the dying, 86
California, prehistoric man in, Creodonta, 69
Archaeopteryx, the, 71
Groll’s theory of climatic varia
55? 60-3
Architherium, the, 69
tion, 33-4, 37
Arctic regions, former high Canstadt man, 54, 77
Carbonic-dioxide in atmosphere, Cro-Magnon man, 54, 77
temperature of, 29, 30
Cromer forest, the, 45
31, 32
Arcturus, speed of, 19
Carew on the treatment of luna Cromwell, 137
[Argyll, Duke of, 61
Crucifixion of Christ, 122
tics, 131
Arrested development in apes, 75
Crust of the earth, 31
Carlyle, pessimism of, 128-9
Art, beginnings of, 51
Cumberland, the
thought
Cassiopzea, 25
----- need of cult of, 103
reader, 86
Ascension, evidence for the, 112, Castelnedolo discoveries, the, 59
Cures by mesmerism, 79
Catalepsy, 81
127
Cuvier on fossil man, 47
Cerithium, the, 67
Ascidian, the, 72
Asia, prehistoric implements in, Chalk downs, implements of the, Cynodictis, 69
52
51
Dalgairns on the existence of
Atmosphere, the, as a blanket, Chamouni, 41
God, 9^
Chauc'er, 142
31-2
Chimpanzee, mind of the, 74, 75 Dante, 150
Atoms, 26
Dark stars, 19, 24, 25
Christian Agnostics, 93
Athanasian Creed, the, 92
Darwin, life of, 138-9
(Augustine, St., on miracles, 113 Christian morality, 94
----- views of, 95,
Axis, terrestrial, variations in, 34 Churches, future of the, 102
Darwinism, spread of, 67
Civil war in America, 135
Civilisation, rate of progress of, Dawson, Sir J., on fossil man,
Bab, miracles of the, 116
36
Be&consfield, Lord, 138
38
�156
Death of Christ, probable truth
about, 124
Denise, fossil man of, 58
Denudation, rate of, 15, 39
Deposition, rate of, 15, 39
Depressions of earth’s surface, 42
Descartes on the soul, 92
Devils, possession by, 131
Digger Indians, 55
Divinity of Christ, 121-2
Dog, evolution of the, 69
Dogmatic Christianity, 91
Doubt, morality of, 99
Dreams, 86
Dryden, 142
Dryopithecus, the, 56, 59
Dualism in nature, 105
Dual personality, 84
Earth, age of the, 9-17
Eginhard, 113
Egypt, ancient civilisation of, 48
Electricity in the sun, 20
Electrons, 27
Elephas meridionalis, 56
Elevation of earth’s surface, 43
Eliot, George, secession of, 95
Elotherium, 61
Emerson on polarity, 104
Energy, primitive fund of, 18
----- problem of, 20-21
Eohippus, the, 69
Erect posture of man, 73
Erosion, rate of, 39, 41
Esquimaux, migrations of the, 54
Euripides, 150
Eusebius, 109
Evil, problem of, 105
Evolution and creation, 65-9
----- of prehistoric man, 50
----- reception of theory, 67
Exorcisms, 132
Faith, nature of, 114
Fate, 151
Faust, 146
Flint instruments, making of, 50
Fiction, 140
Foot of man and the ape, 73
France, progress in, 135
Freeman on miracles, 113
Freemantle, Canon, on theo
logy, 93
Freethought and conduct, 103
Furfooz type, the, 55
Future life, our ignorance about,
94
Gadarene swine, the, 119
Gaudry on evolution, 68
Genesis, refutation of, 47
Geneva, Lake of, 16
Geological time, duration of, 15
Geology, history of, 13
INDEX
Germany, progress in, 135
Glacial deposits in England, 40
Glacial period, the, 36-47
----- duration of the, 43, 45
Glacial periods, number of, 34,
37
Glaciers, formation of, 46
----- rate of advance of, 38, 39,
40
Gladstone, 137-8
Glyptodon, 63
God, theological idea of, 92
Goethe, 147
Gorilla, morality of the, 74
Gospels, date of the, no
----- miracles of the, 112
Gravitation, nature of, 18
Greenland, glaciers of, 40
Gulf Stream, the, 46-7
Hallucinations, 82-3
Hamlet, 146-7
Harrison, F., on religion, 100
Heat received from sun, IO
Helium, 26
Heresy, nature of, 133
■---- - persecution of, 133
Herschell on solar heat, IO
Higher critics, the, 109
Hipparion, the, 69
Historical epoch, the, 48
Horse, evolution of the, 69-71
Hugo, Victor, 139
Humanism and progress, 97
Humanity, religion of, 100
Huxley, sketch of, 139
Hyrenarctus, 69
Hyde Park exhibition, 134
Hydrochrerus, 63
Hydrogen, 26
Hypersesthesia, 82
Hypnotism, 79-85
----- dangers of, 83
Hysteria and hypnotism, 80
John, Gospel of, no
Jupiter, 34
Kellar and the spiritists, 88
Kent’s cavern, 49, 51
Krakatoa, 14
Krishna, 117
Lakes, drying up of, 16
Language of animals, 75
Laplace, theory of, 25
Larmor’s theory of atoms, 27
Law of Uniformity, the, 13
Lazarus, raising of, 113
Lemurs, the, 72
Lethargy, hypnotic, 80
Leyden, Congress of, 77
Lightfoot on the testimony of
Papias, ill
Lincoln, Abraham, 138
Lingula, 14
Lisbon Congress, 57
Literature, growth of, 103
Loaves and fishes, miracle of the,
120
Loess deposits, 41-2
Lockyer, Sir N., on stellar evo
lution, 23
Lord’s Prayer, the, 108
Luke, Gospel of, no
Lunacy, medieval treatment of,
130
Luther, 137
Lyell on the causes of climatic
variation, 33
----- on the earth’s age, 17
----- on solar heat, 9
----- on uniformity, 13
Lykke, skull of, 77
Machairodus, the, 50
Machine, man as a, 74
Magnet, effect of, in hypnotism,
81, 84
Mammoth, the, 36
Man, antiquity of, 36, 43
Ictitherium, 69
Manco-Capac, 38
Idiots, skulls of, 76
Mark, Gospel of, no
Illative sense, the, 91
Immortality, irrationality of, 92 Marriage, Christ on, 120
Mars, 34
Impact theory, 25
Marseilles, 42
Incisions on bone, 58
Marsupials, the, 71
Inter-glacial periods, 45
Massachusetts, witch-burning in,
Inquiry, duty of, 107
132
Inquisition, the, 133
Massacre of the innocents, II7
Instinct, nature of, 98
Mastodon, 60, 63
Intuition, 91, 92
Ireland, once connected with Mather, Cotton, 133
Matter, nature of, 26
England, 54
Matthew, Gospel of, no
Irish question, the, 135
Medicine and Christianity, 130
Italy, progress in, 135
Mediums, fraud detected in, 87.
Mellard Reade’s geological esti
Jesus, character of, 108-20
mates, 44
----- historicity of, 116
Memory, abnormal feats of, 82
John the Baptist, 117
�INDEX
157
Rabbinical literature and the
New Testament, 109
Races, lower and human, 76
Radiation in space, 20
Radio-action, 27
Radium, 21
Rainfall, variations in, 41
Religion, elements of, 101
Religion of the future, 99
Renan, secession of, 95
Pagan parallels of birth stories, Resurrection, contradictory ac
counts of the, 123
117
Painting, modern standard of, ----- improbability of, 112
•----- - witnesses to the, 112-3
140
Rhinoceros Leptorhinus, 56
Palaeolithic man, 39, 49, 51
Romanes, 94
----- weapons, 39
Rotation of the earth, 30
----- period, stages of, 50
Palaeotherium, the, 69
Salpetriere experiments, the,
Pantheism, 144
80-85
Papias, 109-10
Parables, authenticity of the, Salvation Army, the, 106
Saturn, 34
120
Paul, St., on the Resurrection, Savages, characteristics of, 7b
Scalidotherum, 63
126
Scandinavia, elevation of, 43
Pessimism, 129
Scepticism, consequences of, 130
Pharisees, the, 113
----- nature of, 130
Philistinism, 106
Physical phenomena of spiritism, Scybert Commission, the, 87-8
Seances, hypnotic conditions of,
88
89
Pilate, 123
Pithecanthropus erectus, the, 77 Semidouro skulls, the, 63
Sermon on the Mount, the, 108
Pliocene man, 59
Services, evolution of, 103
Pliohippus, 69
Shakespeare, 146
Pliopithecus, the, 55
Shelley, 139, 144
Poetry, 141
----- not injured by scepticism, Shooting-stars, 22
Sierra Nevada, prehistoric re
139
mains of, 60-1
Polarity, 104
Sirius, 24
Politics, polarity in, 106
Polygamy sanctioned in Old Skaptar-jokal, 14
Skertchley, discoveries by, 62
Testament, 98
Slade, the spiritist-medium, 88
Pope, 142
Slate-writing, 87
Positivism, 100
•*. '
Slavery sanctioned in Old Testa
Post-glacial period, the, 43-4
Nampa image, the, 62
ment, 98
Napoleon, Louis, sketch of, 137 Pouillet on the sun's heat, 12
Snakes, absence of from Ireland,
Poussin, 140
Nationality, 134
Practical Christianity, 90
Nativity, legends of the, 116
Social instincts and morality, 98
Precession, theory of, 30, 37
Natural law and miracles, 66
Social progress, 136
Pre-historic man, 49
Natural selection, 67
Prestwich on the Glacial period, Socialism of Christ and early
Nature, the law of, 103
Christians, 118
36, 38
Naulette, prehistoric remains of,
Solar heat, source of, 9, 10
Priests, future of the, 102
77
----- supply of, 9, IO
Primates, the, 76
Neanderthal man, 77
Primitive man, migrations of, 54 Solar radiation, variations in,
Nebulse, 24
31
Progress in palaeolithic age, 39
Nebular hypothesis, 25, 34
Psychical Research Society, 86 Somnambulism, artificial, 81
Neolithic weapons, 39
Space, cold regions of, 45
Nervous disease and hypnotism, Pterodactyl, the, 71
------constitution of, 18, 19
Puritanism, 149
80
Puy Courny discoveries, the, 58 Spain, progress in, 135
New stars, 25
Species, evolution of, 66
Newcomb on gravitation, 18
Quadrumania, incorrectness of Spectra, classes of, 23
Newman’s idea of faith, 114
Spectroscope, work of the, 23
name, 73
Nile valley, borings in, 48
Speech of animals, 74
Nitregen in the atmosphere, 33 Quaternary epoch, the, 48
Spencer on Positivism, 100
I----- man, distribution of, 51-2
North Pole, the, 37
Mendelejeff’s law, 26
Mersey valley, changes in the,
44
Mesmer, 79
Mesmerism, 79-85
Mesohippus, 69
Messiahship of Jesus, 121
Metamorphism, 17
Meteoric theory, the, II, 23-5
Meteorites, II, 22-3
Meteors, nature of, 26
—— origin of, 26
Millais, 140
Millennium, the, 118
Miller, Hugh, 13
Millet, 140
Milton, 150
Mincopics, implements of the, 57
Mind in man and the lower
animals, 74-5
Minimum of miracle, theory of,
115
Miohippus, 69
Miracle theory, refutation of, 66
Miracles, decay of belief in, 112
----- of Christ, absurdity of, 119
Missing links, 67-69
Mississippi, work of the, 15
Monotremata, the, 72
Monte Aperto discoveries, the,
57
Moon, origin of the, 35
Morality and religion, 96-9
---- » foundations of, 97, 98
---- •» in the Old Testament, 97
----- source of, 98
More, Sir Thomas, on lunatics,
I31
Mormonism, 100
Mosaic code, the, 98
. law and Jesus, 121
Murder, abhorrence of, 97
Oannes, 83
Old Testament, degrading fea
tures of, 97
Olmo skull, the, 60
Oita discoveries, the, 57
Ormuzd, 105
Ornithorhyncus, the, 72
Orohippus, 69
Oxygen in the atmosphere, 33
�158
Spenser, 142
INDEX
Temperature of the earth, 33
Temple, Dr., on evolution, 93
Tennyson, 139, 151-3
Tertiary epoch, the, 48
Tertiary man, question of, 55-65
Thenay discoveries, the, 57
Theologians and science, 129
Theology and science, 107
Thirty Years’ War, 135
Thomas a Becket, miracles of,
116
Thought-reading, 85
Thought-transference, 86
Tolerance, growth of, 105
Tools as a human characteristic,
75
Trenton implements, the, 53
Trial of Christ, 122
Truth, modern reverence for, 99
Talmudic literature and the Tuolumne skull, the, 61
New Testament, 109
Teeth, evolution of the, 74
Universe, nature of the, 19
Telepathy, 86
Unknowable, the, 92
Spiritualism, 84-90, 136
Spitzbergen, tropical plants in,
2?, 3°
Spring Valley remains, the, 62
Spurgeon on liberalism, 96
St. Prest, prehistoric remains of,
56
Stars, motion of the, 18, 25
Stellar evolution, 24-6
Strain theory of matter, the, 27
Sub-atoms, 27
Sun, age of the, 9
------temperature of the, 10
----- nature of the, 19
----- spots, 19
----- - shrinkage of the, 12
Swinburne, 139
Usher, Archbishop, estimate of, 48
Vertebral column in man and
the ape, 73
Vibrations from the brain, 90
Virgin Mary, cult of the, 114
------------ historical account of
the, 115
Voltaire on persecution, 134
Vortex theory of matter, the, 26
Wace, reply of, to Huxley, 108
Wars, religious, 134
Wesley on witchcraft, 133
Whitney, Professor, 61
Witchcraft, 132
Wordsworth, 144
Working-classes, improvement
in the, 104
Zenglodon, 60
Zoroaster, 105
Zoroastrianism, 104
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Description
An account of the resource
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>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Problems of the future
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: [Rev.ed.]
Place of publication: London
Collation: 160 p. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: No. 22
Notes: Includes index. Printed in double columns. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. First published, London: Chapman and Hall,1902, but without the final three chapters. Front cover has added imprint for Chapman & Hall, Ltd. At head of title on front cover: 'A fascinating work'. Publisher's advertisements p.[159]-160, also inside and on back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Laing, Samuel [1812-1897]
McCabe, Joseph [1867-1955]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1905
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RA725
RA1628
N432
Subject
The topic of the resource
Science
Religion
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Problems of the future), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Agnosticism
NSS
Science
Science and Religion
Spiritualism