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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
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Architecture and Place
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Humanist Library and Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Subject
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Architecture
Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
Language
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English
Text
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Counterpart lease of 14, 15 and 16 Lambs Conduit Passage, 23 January 1903
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Counterpart lease of 14,15,16 Lambs Conduit Passage, (23 January 1903).</p>
<ul><li>(1) Algernon Augustus de Lisle Strickland of Eccleston Square, Middx, and 37 Fleet St, City of London, banker, tenant for life under will of Henry Eustatius Strickland (see Deeds 19) who died 9 May 1865</li>
<li>(2) James Smith of 7 Finsbury Square, City of London, gent</li>
</ul><p>(1)-(2) 3 messuages nos. 14, 15 and 16 Lambs Conduit Passage.</p>
<p>Term: 21 years</p>
<p>Rent: 120 pa</p>
<p>(2) covenants to insure premises for £3000.</p>
<p>Includes detailed plan of premises and detailed schedule of landlord's fixtures and furniture.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Unknown
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1903
Subject
The topic of the resource
Leases
Identifier
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SPES/3/1/1/23
Format
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image/jpeg
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<p>Licenced for digitisation by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works" target="_blank">Intellectual Property Office</a> under Orphan Works Licence <a href="https://www.orphanworkslicensing.service.gov.uk/view-register/details?owlsNumber=OWLS000075-29" target="_blank">OWLS000075-29</a>.</p>
Lamb's Conduit Passage, Holborn
Strickland, Algernon Augustus de Lille
Strickland, Henry Eustatius
-
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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
Architecture and Place
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Humanist Library and Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Subject
The topic of the resource
Architecture
Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
Language
A language of the resource
English
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
Parchment
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
Lease of 14, 15 and 16 Lambs Conduit Passage, 23 January 1903
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Lease of 14,15,16 Lambs Conduit Passage, (23 January 1903).</p>
<ul><li>(1) Algernon Augustus de Lille Strickland of Eccleston Square, Middx, and 37 Fleet St, City of London, banker, tenant for life under will of Henry Eustatius Strickland who died 9 May 1865</li>
<li>(2) James Smith of 7 Finsbury Square, City of London, gent</li>
</ul><p>(1)-(2) 3 messuages nos. 14,15 and 16 Lambs Conduit Passage.</p>
<p>Term: 21 years</p>
<p>Rent: 120 pa</p>
<p>(2) covenants to insure premises for £3000.</p>
<p>Includes detailed plan of premises and detailed schedule of landlord's fixtures and furniture.</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Unknown
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1903
Subject
The topic of the resource
Leases
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPES/3/1/1/21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
image/jpeg
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<p>Licenced for digitisation by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works" target="_blank">Intellectual Property Office</a> under Orphan Works Licence <a href="https://www.orphanworkslicensing.service.gov.uk/view-register/details?owlsNumber=OWLS000073-4" target="_blank">OWLS000073-4</a>.</p>
Lamb's Conduit Passage, Holborn
Strickland, Algernon Augustus de Lille
Strickland, Henry Eustatius
-
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17ed7abf3b96597bd14b94526bcbf698
PDF Text
Text
No. 10—R.P.A.CHEAP REPRINTS.
INCLUDING THE
Famous Belfast Address
LECTURES
AND
ESSAYS
By PROFESSOR TYNDALL
WATTS & Co.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
(issued for the rationalist press
association, limited)
SECOND IMPRESSION, completing’ 35,000 copies.
D,
« ST
��Ife,
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
LECTURES AND ESSAYS
�CONTENTS
PAGE
•
•
5
-
-
i3
-
■
43
-
54
-
•
61
■
-
76
------
•
-
94
Reflections on Prayer and Natural Law ■
*
-
97
•
■
100
•
■
114
Biographical Sketch of
The Belfast Address
Apology for
ti-ie
-
Author
-
Belfast Address
the
-
-
•
Scientific Materialism Scientific Use of
Science
Man
and
Vitality
Miracles
and
On Prayer
Imagination
the
-
■
Special Providences
as a
Science and
the
-
Form of Physical Energy“ Spirits
117
�LECTURES
>
AND ESSAYS
BY
JOHN TYNDALL
(Cullings from “ Fragments of Science ”)
[issued
for the rationalist press association, ltd.]
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1909
��BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH1
John Tyndall, natural philosopher,
son of John Tyndall and his wife Sarah
(Macassey), was born at Leighlin Bridge,
co. Carlow, Ireland, on August 2nd,
1820. The Tyndalls, who claimed rela
tionship with the family of William
Tyndale the martyr, had crossed from
Gloucestershire to Ireland in the seven
teenth century. The elder John Tyndall,
son of a small landowner, although poor,
was a man of superior intellect, and he
gave his son the best education which
his circumstances could afford. At the
local national school young Tyndall
acquired a thorough knowledge of
elementary mathematics, which quali
fied him to. enter as civil assistant
(in 1839) the ordnance survey of Ireland.
In 1842 he was selected, as one of the
best draughtsmen in his department, for
employment on the English survey.
While quartered at Preston in Lanca
shire he joined the mechanics’ institute,
and attended its lectures. He was at
this time much impressed by Carlyle’s
Past and Present, and to the stimula
ting influence of Carlyle’s works was in
part' due his later resolve to follow a
scientific career. On quitting the survey
Tyndall was employed for three years as
a railway engineer.
In 1847 he accepted an offer from
George Edmondson, principal of Queen
wood College, Hampshire, to join the
college staff as teacher of mathematics
■hi
and surveying.
Mr. (afterwards Sir
Edward) Frankland was lecturer on
chemistry, and the two young men
agreed respectively to instruct each other
in chemistry and mathematics. But
Queenwood did not yield all the oppor
tunities they wished for, and they
presently resolved to take advantage of
the excellent instruction to be enjoyed
at the university of Marburg in HesseCassel. The decision was for Tyndall a
momentous one. He had nothing but
his own work and slender savings to
depend on, and his friends thought him
mad for abandoning the brilliant possi
bilities then open to a railway engineer.
In October, 1848, Tyndall and Frank
land settled at Marburg. Tyndall at
tended Bunsen’s lectures on experimental
and practical chemistry, and studied
mathematics and physics .in the classes
and laboratories of Stegmann, Gerling,
and Knoblauch. By intense application
he accomplished in less than two years
the work usually extended over three,
and thus became doctor of philosophy
early in 1850. Thenceforward he was
free to devote himself entirely to original
research.
x
His first scientific paper was a mathe
matical essay on screw surfaces—“ Die
Schraubenflache mit geneigter Erzeugungslinie und die Bedingungen des
Gleichgewichts fur solche Schrauben
which formed his inaugural dissertation
Smith-E,te-& Co-
- tetolf of
�biographical sketch
6
At Easter, 1851, Tyndall finally left
when he took his degree. His first I
Marburg and went to Berlin, where he
physical paper, published in the Philo
sophical Magazine for February, I^5I> became acquainted with many eminent
was on “The Phenomena of a Water Jet” men of science. In the laboratory of
—a subject comparatively simple, but not Professor Magnus he conducted a second
investigation on “ Diamagnetism and
without scientific interest.
In conjunction with Knoblauch, Tyn Magne-crystallic Action,”1 which formed
a sequel to that previously undertaken
dall executed and published an impor
with Knoblauch. A paper describing his
tant investigation “ On the Magneto
results was read at the Ipswich meeting
optic Properties of Crystals and the
of the British Association. He showed
Relation of Magnetism and Diamag
netism to Molecular Arrangement.”1 that the antithesis of the two forces
was absolute : diamagnetism resembling
They claimed to have discovered the
existence of a relation between the magnetism as to polarity and all other
density of matter and the manifestation characteristics, differing from it only by
the substitution of repulsion for attrac
of the magnetic force. Their funda
mental idea was that the component tion and vice versa.
The question of diamagnetic polarity
molecules of crystals, and other sub
was much discussed. Its existence,
stances, are not in every direction at the
originally asserted by Faraday, and
same distance from each other. The
superior magnetic energy of a crystal in reaffirmed by Weber in 1848, had been
subsequently denied by Faraday, who
a given direction, when suspended
still continued doubtful. To meet all
between the poles, they attributed
objections, Tyndall, at a later date, again
to the greater closeness of its mole
took up the subject, and in three con
cules in that direction. In support
clusive investigations, the second of
of their assumption they showed that, by
which formed the subject of the Bakenan
pressure, the magnetic axis of a bismuth
crystal could be shifted 909 in azimuth, lecture delivered before the Royal Society
in 1855, he put the polarity of bismuth
the line of pressure always setting itself
and other diamagnetic bodies beyond
parallel with, or at right angles to, the
question.2 Five years were. devoted _ by
fine joining the two magnetic poles, ac
him to the investigation of diamagnetism
cording as the crystal was magnetic or
and the influence of crystalline struc
diamagnetic. This explanation differed
ture and mechanical pressure upon the
essentially from that of Faraday and
manifestations of magnetic force. The
Pliicker. In June, 1850, Tyndall went
original papers (with a few omissions in
to England, and at the meeting of the
the last edition) are collected in his book
British Association of that year in Edin
burgh he read an account of his investiga on Diamagnetism (see p. 12).
Before leaving Marburg in 1851,
tion, which excited considerable interest.
Tyndall had agreed to return to Queen
He afterwards returned to Marburg for
wood ; this time as lecturer on matter
six months, and carried out a lengthy
; matics and natural philosophy. Here
inquiry into electro-magnetic attractions
at short distances.2
1 Phil. Mag., September,
„
» lb., November, 1851 1
«Phil. Mag-P^h 1850.
2 lb., April, 1851.
ib., 1856, pt. i.
Trans., x8SSI
�BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
7
■ he remained two years. The first of first to last resembled that of father and
the three investigations just alluded to son. Tyndall’s Faraday as a Discoverer
' was carried out at Queenwood, as was bears striking testimony to their attach
I also a Series of experiments on “The ment. Other sketches of Faraday by
Conduction of Heat through Wood.”1 Tyndall are in his Fragments of Science
On June 3rd, 1852, Tyndall was elected and in the life of Faraday in the
fellow of the Royal Society.
Dictionary of National Biography.
While at Queenwood he applied for
Tyndall’s career was now definitely
several positions which offered a wider marked out. To the end of his active
scope for his abilities. On his way to life his best energies were devoted to the
Ipswich in 1851 he had made the service of the Royal Institution. In
acquaintance of T. H. Huxley, and a 1867, when Faraday died, Tyndall suc
warm and enduring friendship resulted. ceeded him in his position as superin
. They made joint applications for the tendent of the Institution. On his own
chairs respectively of natural history retirement in the autumn of 1887 he
and physics then vacant at Toronto; was elected honorary professor.
but, tn spite of high testimonials, they
In 1854, after attending the British
were unsuccessful. They also failed Association meeting at Liverpool, Tyndall
tn candidatures for chairs in the newly- visited the slate quarries of Penrhyn.
founded university of Sydney, New His familiarity with the effects of pres
South Wales. Meanwhile, soon after sure upon the structure of crystals led
Tyndall’s departure from Berlin, Dr. him to give special attention to the
Henry Bence Jones visited that city, problem of slaty cleavage. By careful
and, hearing much of Tyndall’s labours observation and experiments with white
and personality, caused him to be wax and many other substances which
invited to give a Friday evening lecture develop cleavage in planes perpendicular
at the Royal Institution. The lecture,
to pressure, he satisfied himself that
“On the Influence of Material Aggregation pressure alone was sufficient to produce
Upon the Manifestations of Force,”2 was the cleavage of slate rocks. On June 6th,
delivered on February nth, 1853. It 1856, he lectured on the subject at the
produced an extraordinary impression, Royal Institution.1 Huxley, who was
and Tyndall, hitherto known only among present, suggested afterwards that the
physicists, became famous beyond the same cause might possibly explain the
limits of scientific society. In May, 1853, laminated structure of glacier ice recently
he was unanimously chosen as professor described in Forbes’s Travels in the
of natural philosophy in the Royal Alps. The friends agreed to take a
Institution. The appointment had the holiday and inspect the glaciers together.
special charm of making him the colleague The results of the observations made
of Faraday. Seldom have two men during this and two subsequent visits to
worked together so harmoniously as did Switzerland are given in Tyndall’s classi
Faraday and Tyndall during the years cal work, The Glaciers of the Alps
that followed. Their relationship from (see p. 12). The original memoirs are
in the Philosophical Transactions for
' See “ Molecular Influences,” Phil. Trans.,
Jvmaxy, 1853.
* 2?^/. Inst. Proc., i. 185.
1 See appendix to Glaciers of the Alps.
�8
Biographical
sketch
The very important series of researches
1857 and 1859. Tyndall, assisted by his
on “Radiant Heat in its Relation to
friend, Dr. Thomas Archer Hirst, made
many measurements upon the glaciers in Gases and Vapours,” which occupied him
continuation of the work of Agassiz and on and off for twelve years, and with
J. D. Forbes. He discussed, in particular, which his name will be always especially
the question as to the conditions which associated, were begun in 1859. He
enable a rigid body like ice to move like was led from the consideration of glacier
a river.
He showed very clearly the problems to study the part played by
defects of former theories, proving by aqueous vapour and other constituents
repeated observations on the structure of the atmosphere in producing the
and properties of ice the inefficacy of the remarkable conditions of temperature
generally admitted plastic theory to ac which prevail in mountainous regions.
The inquiry was one of exceptional diffij
count for the phenomena. Through the
direct application of the doctrine of culty. Prior to 1859 no means had been
regelation, he arrived at a satisfactory found of determining by experiment, as
explanation of the nature of glacier Melloni had done for solids and liquids,
the absorption, radiation, and trans
motion. The veined structure he as
cribed to mechanical pressure, and the mission of heat by gases and vapours.
By the invention of new and more deli
formation of crevasses to strains and
cate methods Tyndall succeeded in
pressures occurring in the body of the
glacier. In assigning to Rendu his controlling the refractory gases. . Fie
found unsuspected differences to exist in
position in the history of glacier theories,
their respective powers of absorption.
Tyndall gave offence to Professor
While elementary gases offered practi
Forbes. A controversy followed, in
cally no obstacle to the passage of heat
which the fairness of Tyndall’s attitude
rays, some of the compound gases
was fully vindicated.
absorbed more than eighty per cent, of
The expedition to Switzerland, under
the incident radiation. Allotropic forms
taken for a scientific purpose, had a
came under the same rule; ozone, for
secondary outcome. Tyndall was fasci
example, being a much better absorbent
nated by the mountains, and from that
than oxygen. The temperature of the
time forward yearly sought refreshment
source of heat was found to be of
in the Alps when his labours in London importance: heat of a higher tempAwere over. He became an accomplished
ture was much more penetrative than
mountaineer. In company with Mr.
Vaughan Hawkins he made one of the heat of a lower temperature.
The power to absorb and the power to
earliest assaults upon the Matterhorn in
radiate Tyndall showed to be perfectly
i860. He crossed over its summit from
reciprocal. He also established that, as
Breuil to Zermatt in 1868. The first
regards their powers of absorption and
ascent of the Weisshorn was made by him,
radiation, liquids and their vapours res
in 1861. Tyndall’s descriptions of his
pectively follow the same order. . Thus
Alpine adventures are not only graphic and he was able to determine the position bf
characterised by his keen interest in scien
aqueous vapour, which, on account of
tific problems, but show a poetical appre condensation, could not be experimented
ciation of mountain beauties in which he
[ upon directly. Experiments made with
is approached by few Alpine travellers.
�BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
dry and humid air corroborated the
inference that, as water transcends all
Other liquids, so aqueous vapour is
powerful above all other vapours as a
radiator and absorber. These results,
questioned by Magnus and by a few
liter experimenters, but fully established
by Tyndall, explained a number of
phenomena previously unaccounted for.
Since Wells’s researches on dew, no fact
has been established of greater impor
tance to the science of meteorology than
the high absorptive and radiative power
Of aqueous vapour. Many years later
<n experiment made in his presence by
Mr. Graham Bell suggested to Tyndall
a novel and interesting method of indi
rectly confirming his former results.1
Using a dark solution of iodine in
bisulphide of carbon as a ray-filter,
Tyndall was able approximately to
determine the proportion of luminous
to non-luminous rays in the electric and
Other lights. He also found that the
obscure rays collected by means of a
rock-salt lens would ignite combustible
materials at the invisible focus; while
some non-combustible bodies, exposed at
the same dark focus, became luminous
or calorescent. The astounding change
in the deportment of matter towards heat
»diated from an obscure source which
accompanies the act of chemical com
bination, and many other points of equal
importance, were first established by
these researches, for which Tyndall
received the Rumford medal in 1869.
Nine memoirs on these subjects were
published in the Philosophical Transac
tions^ and many additional papers in
other journals. They have been gathered
together in Contributions to Molecular
* See “Action of Free Molecules on Radiant
Heat, and its Conversion thereby into Sound,”
1882, pt. i.
9
Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat
(see p. 12). This volume also includes
a series of striking experiments on the
decomposition of vapours by light,
wherein the blue of the firmament and
the polarisation of sky-light—illustrated
on skies artificially produced — were
shown to be due to excessively fine
particles floating in our atmosphere.
While engaged upon the last-mentioned
inquiry, Tyndall observed that a lumi
nous beam, passing through the moteless
air of his experimental tube, was invisible.
It occurred to him that such a beam
might be utilised to detect the presence
of germs in the atmosphere : air incom
petent to scatter light, through the
absence of all floating particles, must be
free from bacteria and their germs.
Numerous experiments showed “opti
cally pure ” air to be incapable of
developing bacterial life. In properly
protected vessels infusions of fish, flesh,
and vegetable, freely exposed after boiling
to air rendered moteless by subsidence,
and declared to be so by the invisible
passage of a powerful electric beam,
remained permanently pure and un
altered ; whereas the identical liquids,
exposed afterwards to ordinary dust
laden air, soon swarmed with bacteria.
Three extensive investigations into the
behaviour of putrefactive organisms were
made by Tyndall, mainly with the view
of removing such vagueness as still lin
gered in the public mind in 1875-6,
regarding the once widely-received doc
trine of spontaneous generation. Among
the new results arrived at the following
are noteworthy.
Bacteria are killed
below ioo° C.; but their desiccated
germs—those of the hay bacillus in par
ticular—may retain their vitality after
several hours’ boiling.
By a process
which he called “ discontinuous heating,”
�IO
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
whereby the germs, in the order of their
development, were successively destroyed
before starting into active life, he suc
ceeded in sterilising nutritive liquids
containing the most resistant germs.
This method, since universally adopted
by bacteriologists, has proved of great
practical value. The medical faculty of
Tubingen gave Tyndall the degree of
M.D. in recognition of these researches.
The original essays, written for the
Philosophical Transactions, are collected
in Floating Matter of the Air (see
p. 12).
In 1866 Tyndall had succeeded
Faraday as scientific adviser to the
Trinity House and Board of Trade. He
held the post for seventeen years, and it
was in connection with the Elder Brethren
that his chief investigations on sound
were undertaken, with a view to the
establishment of fog signals upon our
coasts. Many conflicting opinions were
held as to the respective values of
the various sound signals in use when
Tyndall began his experiments at the
South Foreland (May 19th, 1873). Very
discordant results appeared at first, but
all were eventually traced to variations
of density in the atmosphere. Tyndall
discovered that non-homogeneity of the
atmosphere affects sound as cloudiness
affects light. By streams of air differently
heated, or saturated in different degrees
with aqueous vapour, “acoustic flocculence” is produced. Acoustic clouds,
opaque enough to intercept sound
altogether and to produce echoes of
great intensity, may exist in air of perfect
visual transparency. Rain, hail, snow,
and fog were found not sensibly to
obstruct sound.
The atmosphere was
also shown to exercise a selective and con
tinually varying influence upon sounds,
being favourable to the transmission
sometimes of the longer, sometimes of
the shorter, sonorous waves. Tyndall
recommended the steam siren used in
the South Foreland experiments as, upon
the whole, the most powerful fog signal
yet tried in England.
His memoir on
the subject, presented to the Royal
Society on February 5th, 1874, is sum
marised in the book on Sound (see
p. 12).
Passing mention should be
made of the beautiful experiments on
sensitive flames described in the same
volume.
It was likewise in his capacity of
scientific adviser that Tyndall was called
upon, in 1869 and on many subsequent
occasions, to report upon the gas system
introduced by Mr. John Wigham, of
Dublin, the originator of several impor
tant steps in modern lighthouse illumina
tion. Tyndall’s inability, during a long
series of years, to secure what he con
sidered justice towards Mr. Wigham led
him eventually to sever himself from
colleagues to whom he was sincerely
attached.
He resigned his post on
March 28th, 1883.1
As a lecturer Tyndall was famed for
the charm and animation of his language,
for lucidity of exposition, and singular
skill in devising and conducting beautiful
experimental illustrations. As a writer
he did perhaps more than any other
person of his time for the diffusion of
scientific knowledge. By the publication
of his lectures and essays he aimed espe
cially at rendering intelligible to all, in
non-technical language, the dominant
scientific ideas of the century. His
work has borne abundant fruit in
inciting others to take up the great
interests which possessed so powerful an
1 See Nineteenth Century, July, 1888 ; Fort
nightly Review, December, 1888, and February,
1889 ; New Review, 1892.
�BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
attraction for himself. In Heat as a
Mode of Motion (see p. 12), which has
been regarded as the best of Tyndall’s
books, that difficult subject was for the
first time presented in a popular form.
The book on Light gives the substance
of lectures delivered in the United
States in the winter of 1872-3. The
proceeds of these lectures, which by
jttdiefous investment amounted in a few
years to between ^6,000 and ^7,000,
were devoted to the encouragement of
science in the United States.
His views upon the great question as
to the relation between science and
theological opinions are best given in his
presidential address to the British Asso
ciation at Belfast in 1874, which occa
sioned much controversy at the time
(reprinted, with essays on kindred sub
jects, in Fragments of Science, vol. ii.).
The main purpose of that address was
to maintain the claims of science to
discuss all such questions fully and
freely in all their bearings.
On February 29th, 1876, Tyndall mar
ried Louisa, eldest daughter of Lord
Claud Hamilton, who became his com
panion in all things. In 1877 they built
a cottage at Bel Alp, on the northern
side of the Valaise, above Brieg. There
they spent their summers amid his
favourite haunts.
In 1885 they built
what Tyndall called “a retreat for his
old age” upon the summit of Hind
Head, on the Surrey moors, then a very
retired district. Sleeplessness and weak
ness of digestion—ills from which he
had suffered more or less all his life—
increased upon him in later years, and
Caused him to resign his post at the
Royal Institution in March, 1887. His
later years were for the most part spent
at Hind Head. Repeated attacks of
severe illness, unhappily, prevented the
ii
execution of the many plans he had laid
out for his years of retirement. In 1893
he returned greatly benefited from a
three months’ sojourn in the Alps. But
a dose of chloral, accidentally adminis
tered, brought all to a close on December
4th, 1893.
Tyndall’s single-hearted devotion to
science and indifference to worldly advan
tages were but one manifestation of a noble
and generous nature.
A resolute will
and lofty principles, always pointing to a
high ideal, were in him associated with
great tenderness and consideration for
others. His chivalrous sense of justice
led him not unfrequently—irrespective
of nationality or even of personal ac
quaintance, and often at great cost of
time and trouble to himself—to take up
the cause of men whom he deemed to
have been unfairly treated or overlooked
in respect to their scientific merits. He
thus vindicated the claim of the unfortu
nate German physician, Dr. Julius
Robert Mayer, to have been the first to
lay down clearly the principle of the
conservation of energy and to point out
its universal application ; and succeeded
in obtaining his recognition by the
scientific world in spite of eminent
opposition.
The same spirit appeared
in his defence of Rendu’s title to a share
in the explanation of glacier movement,
and of Wigham’s services in regard to
lighthouses.
Tyndall took a warm interest in some
great political questions.
He sided
strongly with the Liberal Unionists in
opposing Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule
policy.
Tyndall was of middle height, sparely
built, but with a strength, toughness, and
flexibility of limb which qualified him
to endure great fatigue and achieve the
�12
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
most difficult feats as a mountaineer.
His face was rather stern and strongly
marked, but the sharp features assumed
an exceedingly pleasing expression when
his sympathy was touched ; and the effect
was heightened by the quality of his
voice. His eyes were grey-blue, and his
hair, light-brown in youth, was abundant
and of very fine texture. He had gener
ally, like Faraday, to bespeak a hat on
account of the unusual length of his
head. A medallion of Tyndall, executed
by Woolner in 1876, is, perhaps, the best
likeness that exists of him.
Tyndall’s works have been translated
into most European languages.
In
Germany (where Helmholtz and Wiede
mann undertook the translations and
wrote prefaces) they are read almost as
much as in England. Some thousands of
his books are sold yearly in America, and
a few translations have been made into
the languages of India, China, and Japan.
In the Royal Society’s catalogue of
scientific papers 145 entries appear
under Tyndall’s name between 1850
and 1883, indicating approximately the
number of his contributions to the
Philosophical Transactions, the Philo
sophical Magazine, the Proceedings of the
Royal Society and of the Royal Institu
tion, and other scientific journals. A
great variety of subjects besides those
glanced at above occupied his attention.
They are for the most part dealt with in
the miscellaneous essays collected in
Fragments of Science and New Frag
ments. The essence of his teaching is
contained in the following publications :
1. The Glaciers of the Alps, being a
Narrative of Excursions and Ascents, an
Account of the Origin and Phenomena
of Glaciers, and an Exposition of the
Physical Principles to which they are
Related, i860; reprinted in 1896; trans
lated for the first time into German in
1898. 2. Mountaineering in 1861: A
Vacation Tour, 1862 (mostly repeated in
Hours of Exercise). 3. Pleat Considered
as a Mode of Motion, 1863; fresh
editions, each altered and enlarged,*n
1865, 1868, 1870, 1875 ; the sixth
edition, 1880, was stereotyped. 4. On
Sound, a course of eight lectures, 1867 ;
3rd edit., with additions, 1875 ; 4th
edit., revised and augmented, 1883 ; 5th
edit., revised, 1893. 5. Faraday as a
Discoverer, 1868; 5th edit., revised
1894. 6. Researches on Diamagnetism
and Magne-crystallic Action, including
the Question of Diamagnetic Polarity,
1870; third and smaller edition, 1888.
7. Fragments of Science for Unscientific
People: A Series of Detached Essays,
Lectures, and Reviews, 1871; augmented
in the first five editions; from 6th edit.,
1879, in two vols. 8- Hours of Exercise
in the Alps, 1871 ; 2nd edit., 1871; 3rd
edit., 1873; reprinted in 1899. 9.
Contributions to Molecular Physics in
the Domain of Radiant Heat: A Series
of Memoirs published in the Philosophical
Transactions and Philosophical Magazine,
with additions, 1872. 10. The Forms of
Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice, and
Glaciers (International Scientific Series),
1872 ; 12th edit., 1897. 11. Six Lectures
on Light, delivered in America in 1872-3,
1873; 5th edit., 1895. 12. Lessons in
Electricity, at the Royal Institution, 1876;
5th edit., 1892. 13. Essays on the Float
ing Matter of the Air in Relation to Putre
faction and Infection, 1881; 2nd edit.,
1883. 14. New Fragments, 1892; last
edit., 1897. 15. Notes on Light: Nine
Lectures delivered in 1869, 1870. 16.
Notes on Electrical Phenomena and
Theories : Seven Lectures delivered in
1870, 1870.
L. C. T.
�LECTURES AND ESSAYS
THE BELFAST ADDRESS1
. § i.
An impulse inherent in primeval man
turned his thoughts and questionings
betimes towards the sources of natural
phenomena.
The same impulse, in
herited and intensified, is the spur of
scientific action to-day. Determined by
it, by a process of abstraction from
experience we form physical theories
which lie beyond the pale of experience,
but which satisfy the desire of the mind
to see every natural occurrence resting
upon a cause. In forming their notions
of the origin of things, our earliest
historic (and doubtless, we might add,
our prehistoric) ancestors pursued, as
far as their intelligence permitted, the
same course. They also fell back upon
experience 5 but with this difference—
that , the particular experiences which
furnished the warp and woof of their
theories were drawn, not from the study
of nature, but from what lay much
closer to them—the observation of men.
Their theories accordingly took an an
thropomorphic form. To supersensual
beings, which, “however potent and
invisible, were nothing but a species of
human creatures, perhaps raised from
among mankind, and retaining all human
passions and appetites,”2 were handed
Over the rule and governance of natural
phenomena.
Tested by observation and reflection,
these early notions failed in the long run I
to satisfy the more penetrating intellects
of our race.
Far in the depths of
history we find men of exceptional
power differentiating themselves from
the crowd, rejecting these anthropo
morphic notions, and seeking to con
nect natural phenomena with their
physical principles. But, long prior to
these purer efforts of the understanding,
the merchant had been abroad, and
rendered the philosopher possible;
commerce had been developed, wealth
amassed, leisure for travel and specula
tion secured, while races educated under
different conditions, and therefore differ
ently informed and endowed, had been
stimulated and sharpened by mutual
contact. In those regions where the
commercial aristocracy of ancient Greece
mingled with their eastern neighbours,
the sciences were born, being nurtured
and developed by free-thinking and
courageous men. The state of things
to be displaced may be gathered from a
passage of Euripides quoted by Hume:
“ There is nothing in the world; no
glory, no prosperity. The gods toss all
into confusion ; mix everything with its
reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance
and uncertainty, may pay them the more
worship and reverence.” Now, as science
demands the radical extirpation of caprice
and the absolute reliance upon law in
nature, there grew, with the growth of
scientific notions, a desire and determina
tion to sweep from the field of theory
Delivered before the British Association on Wednesday, August 10th, 1874.
2 Hume, Natural History of Religion.
�LECTURES AND ESSA YS
this mob of gods and demons, and to
place natural phenomena on a basis more
congruent with themselves.
The problem, which had been pre
viously approached from above, was now
attacked from below; theoretic effort
passed from the super- to the subsensible. It was felt that, to construct
the universe in idea, it was necessary to
have some notion of its constituent parts
_ of what Lucretius subsequently called
the “ First Beginnings.” Abstracting
again from experience, the leaders of
scientific speculation reached at length
the pregnant doctrine of atoms and
molecules, the latest developments of
which were set forth with such power
and clearness at the last meeting of the
British Association. Thought, no doubt,
had long hovered about this doctrine
before it attained the precision and com
pleteness which it assumed in the mind
of Democritus,1 a philosopher who may
well for a moment arrest our attention.
“ Few great men,” says Lange, a non
materialist, in his excellent History of
Materialism, to the spirit and to the
letter of which I am equally indebted,
“ have been so despitefully used by
history as Democritus. In the distorted
Images sent down to us through unscien
tific traditions there remains of him
almost nothing but the name of ‘the
laughing philosopher,’ while figures of im
measurably smaller significance spread
themselves out at full length before us.”
Lange speaks of Bacon’s high apprecia
tion of Democritus—for ample illustra
tions of which I am indebted to my
excellent friend Mr. Spedding, the learned
editor and biographer of Bacon. It is
evident, indeed, that Bacon considered
Democritus to be a man of weightier
metal than either Plato or Aristotle,
though their philosophy “was noised
and celebrated in the schools, amid the
din and pomp of professors.” It was not
they, but Genseric and Attila and the
barbarians, who destroyed the atomic
philosophy. “ For, at a time when all
1 Born 460 B.c.
human learning had suffered shipwreck,
these planks of Aristotelian and Platonic
philosophy, as being of a lighter and
more inflated substance, were preserved
and came down to us, while things
more solid sank and almost passed into
oblivion.”
The son of a wealthy father, Demo
critus devoted the whole of his inherited
fortune to the culture of his mind. He
travelled everywhere; visited Athens
when Socrates and Plato were there, but
quitted the city without making himself
known. Indeed, the dialectic strife in
which Socrates so much delighted had
no charm for Democritus, who held that
“the man who readily contradicts, and
uses many words, is unfit to learn any
thing truly right.” He is said to have
discovered and educated Protagoras the
Sophist, being struck as much by the
manner in which he, being a hewer of
wood, tied up his faggots as by the
sagacity of his conversation. Democritus
returned poor from his travels, was sup
ported by his brother, and _ at length
wrote his great work entitled “Diakosmos,”
which he read publicly before the people
of his native town. He was honoured
by his countrymen in various ways, and
died serenely at a great age.
The principles enunciated by Demo
critus reveal his uncompromising antago
nism to those who deduced the phenomena
of nature from the caprices of the gods.
They are briefly these: 1. From nothing
comes nothing. Nothing that exists can
be destroyed. All changes _ are due to
the combination and separation of mole
cules. 2. Nothing happens by chance j
every occurrence has its cause, from
which it follows by necessity. 3. The
only existing things are the atoms and
empty space; all else is mere opinion.
4. The atoms are infinite in number and
infinitely various in form ; they strike
together, and the lateral motions and
whirlings which thus arise are the begin
nings of worlds. 5- The varieties of all
things depend upon the varieties of their
atoms, in number, size, and aggregation.
6. The soul consists of fine, smooth,
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
round atoms, like those of fire. These
are the most mobile of all: they inter
penetrate the whole body, and in their
motions the phenomena of life arise.
The first five propositions are a fair
general statement of the atomic philo
sophy, as now held. As regards the
sixth, Democritus made his finer atoms
do duty for the nervous system, whose
functions were then unknown.
The
atoms of Democritus are individually
without sensation; they combine in
obedience to mechanical laws ; and not
only organic forms, but the phenomena
of sensation and thought, are the result
of their combination.
That great enigma, “ the exquisite
adaptation of one part of an organism
to another part, and to the conditions of
life,” more especially the construction of
the human body, Democritus made no
attempt to solve. Empedocles, a man
of more fiery and poetic nature, intro
duced the notion of love and hate
among the atoms to account for their
combination and separation; and, bolder
than Democritus, he struck in with the
penetrating thought, linked, however,
with some wild speculation, that it lay
in the very nature of those combinations
which were suited to their ends (in
other words, in harmony with their
environment) to maintain themselves,
while unfit combinations, having no
proper habitat, must rapidly disappear.
Thus, more than 2,000 years ago, the
doctrine of the “ survival of the fittest,”
which in our day, not on the basis of
vague conjecture, but of positive know
ledge, has been raised to such extra
ordinary significance, had received at all
events partial enunciation.1
Epicurus,2 said to be the son of a poor
schoolmaster at Samos, is the next
dominant figure in the history of the
atomic philosophy.
He mastered the
writings of Democritus, heard lectures
in Athens, went back to Samos, and
subsequently wandered through various
countries. He finally returned to Athens,
* s«e Laxge, 2nd edit., p. 23.
2 Born 342 B.c.
15
where he bought a garden and sur
rounded himself by pupils, in the midst
of whom he lived a pure and serene life,
and died a peaceful death. Democritus
looked to the soul as the ennobling part
of man; even beauty, without under
standing, partook of animalism.
Epi
curus also rated the spirit above the
body; the pleasure of the body being
that of the moment, while the spirit
could draw upon the future and the past.
His philosophy was almost identical
with that of Democritus ; but he never
quoted either friend or foe. One main
object of Epicurus was to free the world
from superstition and the fear of death.
Death he treated with indifference. It
merely robs us of sensation. As long as
we are, death is not; and when death
is, we are not. Life has no more evil
for him who has made up his mind that
it is no evil not to live. He adored the
gods, but not in the ordinary fashion.
The idea of Divine power, properly
purified, he thought an elevating one.
Still he taught: “Not he is godless who
rejects the gods of the crowd, but rather
he who accepts them.” The gods were
to him eternal and immortal beings,
whose blessedness excluded every thought
of care or occupation of any kind. Nature
pursues her course in accordance with
everlasting laws, the gods never inter
fering. They haunt
“ The lucid interspace of world and world
Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm.”1
Lange considers the relation of Epi
curus to the gods subjective ; the indica
tion, probably, of an ethical requirement
of his own nature.
We cannot read
history with open eyes, or study human
nature to its depths, and fail to discern
such a requirement.
Man never has
been, and he never will be, satisfied with
the operations and products of the
Understanding alone; hence physical
1 Tennyson’s Lucretius,
�LECTURES AND ESSA YS
i6
science cannot cover all the demands of
his nature. B at the history of the efforts
made to satisfy these demands might be
broadly described as a history of errors
—the error, in great part, consisting in
ascribing fixity to that which is fluent,
which varies as we vary, being gross when
we are gross, and becoming, as our capa
cities widen, more abstract and sublime.
On one great point the mind of Epicurus
was at peace. He neither sought nor
expected, here or hereafter, any personal
profit from his relation to the gods. And
it is assuredly a fact that loftiness and
serenity of thought may be promoted by
conceptions which involve no idea of
profit of this kind. “ Did I not believe,”
said a great man1 to me once, “ that an
Intelligence is at the heart of things, my
life on earth would be intolerable.” The
utterer of these words is not, in my
opinion, rendered less but more noble
by the fact that it was the need of ethical
harmony here, and not the thought
of personal happiness hereafter, that
prompted his observation.
There are persons, not belonging to
the highest intellectual zone, nor yet to
the lowest, to whom perfect clearness of
exposition suggests want of depth. They
find comfort and edification in an abstract
and learned phraseology. To such people
Epicurus, who spared no pains to rid his
style of every trace of haze and turbidity,
appeared, on this very account, super
ficial. He had, however, a disciple who
thought it no unworthy occupation to
spend his days and nights in the effort
to reach the clearness of his master, and
to whom the Greek philosopher is mainly
indebted for the extension and perpetua
tion ot his fame.
Some two centuries
after the death of Epicurus, Lucretius2
wrote his great poem, On the Nature of
Things, in which he, a Roman, developed
with extraordinary ardour the philosophy
of his Greek predecessor. He wishes to
win over his friend Memnius to the
school of Epicurus ; and although he has
no rewards in a future life to offer,
’ Carlyle.
3 Born 99 B. C.
although his object appears to be a purely
negative one, he addresses his friend with
the heat of an apostle. • His object, like
that of his great forerunner, is the destruc
tion of superstition; and considering that
men in his day trembled before every
natural event as a direct monition from
the gods, and that everlasting torture
was also in prospect, the freedom aimed
at by Lucretius might be deemed a posi
tive good. “ This terror,” he says, “ and
darkness of mind, must be dispelled, not
by the rays of the sun and glittering
shafts of day, but by the aspect and the
law of nature.” He refutes the notion
that anything can come out of nothing,
or that what is once begotten can be
recalled to nothing. The first beginnings,
the atoms, are indestructible, and into
them all things can be resolved at last.
Bodies are partly atoms and partly com
binations of atoms; but the atoms
nothing can quench. They are strong
in solid singleness, and, by their denser
combination, all things can be closely
packed .and exhibit enduring strength.
He denies that matter is infinitely divisi
ble. We come at length to the atoms,
without which, as an imperishable sub
stratum, all order in the generation and
development of things would be des
troyed.
The mechanical shock of the atoms
being, in his view, the all-sufficient cause
of things, he combats the notion that the
constitution of nature has been in any
way determined by intelligent design.
The interaction of the atoms throughout
infinite time rendered all manner of
combinations possible.
Of these, the
fit ones persisted, while the unfit ones
disappeared. Not after sage deliberation
did the atoms station themselves.in their
right places, nor did they bargain what
motions they should assume. From all
eternity they have been driven together,
and, after trying motions and unions of
every kind, they fell at length _ into the
arrangements, out of which this system
of things has been evolved. . “ If you
will apprehend and keep in mind these
things, Nature, free at once and rid of
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
her haughty lords, is seen to do all
things spontaneously of herself, without
the meddling of the gods.”1
To meet the objection that his atoms
cannot be seen, Lucretius describes a
violent storm, and shows that the in
visible particles of air act in the same
way as the visible particles of water.
We perceive, moreover, the different
smells of things, yet never see them
coming to our nostrils. Again, clothes
hung up on a shore, which waves break
upon, become moist, and then get dry if
spread out in the sun, though no eye can
see either the approach or the escape
of the water-particles. A ring, worn long
on the finger, becomes thinner; a water
drop hollows out a stone; the plough
share is rubbed away in the field; the
street-pavement is worn by the feet; but
the particles that disappear at any
moment we cannot see. Nature acts
through invisible particles. That Lu
cretius had a strong scientific imagina
tion the foregoing references prove. A
fine illustration of his power in this
respect is his explanation of the ap
parent rest of bodies whose atoms are in
motion. He employs the image of a
flock of sheep with skipping lambs,
which, seen from a distance, presents
simply a white patch upon the green hill,
the jumping of the individual lambs
being quite invisible.
His vaguely grand conception of the
atoms falling eternally through space
suggested the nebular hypothesis to
Kant, its first propounder. Far beyond
the limits of our visible world are to be
found atoms innumerable, which have
never been united to form bodies, or
which, if once united, have been again
dispersed—falling silently through im
measurable intervals of time and space.
As everywhere throughout the All the'
same conditions are repeated, so must
the phenomena be repeated also. Above
1 Monro’s translation. In bis criticism of this
work {Contemporary Review, 1867) Dr. Hayman
does not appear to be aware of the really sound
and subtile observations on which the reasoning
of Lucretius, though erroneous, sometimes rests.
17
us, below us, beside us, therefore, are
worlds without end; and this, when
considered, must dissipate every thought
of a deflection of the universe by the
gods. The worlds come and go, attract
ing new atoms out of limitless space, or
dispersing their own particles.
The
reputed death of Lucretius, which forms
the basis of Mr. Tennyson’s noble poem,
is in strict accordance with his philo
sophy, which was severe and pure.
§ 2-
Still earlier than these three philoso
phers, and during the centuries between
the first of them and the last, the human
intellect was active in other fields than
theirs. Pythagoras had founded a school
of mathematics, and made his experi
ments on the harmonic intervals. The
Sophists had run through their career.
At Athens had appeared Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle, who ruined the Sophists,
and whose yoke remains to some extent
unbroken to the present hour. Within
this period also the School of Alexandria
was founded, Euclid wrote his Elements,
and made some advance in optics.
Archimedes had propounded the theory
of the lever and the principles of
hydrostatics. Astronomy was immensely
enriched by the discoveries of Hippar
chus, who was followed by the historically
more celebrated Ptolemy.
Anatomy
had been made the basis of scientific
medicine; and it is said by Draper1 that
vivisection had begun.
In fact, the
science of ancient Greece had already
cleared the world of the fantastic images of
divinities operating capriciously through
natural phenomena. It had shaken itself
free from that fruitless scrutiny “ by the
internal light of the mind alone,” which
had vainly sought to transcend experi
ence, and to reach a knowledge of
ultimate causes. Instead of accidental
observation, it had introduced observa
tion with a purpose; instruments were
employed to aid the senses, and scientific
1 History of the Intellectual Development 0]
Europe, p. 295.
�i8
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
method was rendered in a great measure
complete by the union of Induction and
Experiment.
What, then, stopped its victorious
advance ?
Why was the scientific
intellect compelled, like an exhausted
soil, to lie fallow for nearly two millen
niums, before it could regather the
elements necessary to its fertility and
strength ?
Bacon has already let us
know one cause; Whewell ascribes this
stationary period to four causes—obscu
rity of thought, servility, intolerance of
disposition, enthusiasm of temper; and
he gives striking examples of each.1 But
these characteristics must have had their
antecedents in the circumstances of the
time. Rome, and the other cities of the
Empire, had fallen into moral putrefac
tion. Christianity had appeared, offer
ing the Gospel to the poor, and by
moderation, if not asceticism of life,
practically protesting against the pro
fligacy of the age. The sufferings of the
early Christians, and the extraordinary
exaltation of mind which enabled them
to triumph over the diabolical tortures to
which they were subjected,2 must have
left traces not easily effaced. They
scorned the earth, in view of that “build
ing of God, that house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens.” The
Scriptures which ministered to their
spiritual needs were also the measure of
their science.
When, for example, the
celebrated question of Antipodes came
to be discussed, the Bible was with many
the ultimate court of appeal. Augustine,
who flourished a.d. 400, would not deny
the rotundity of the earth; but he would
deny the possible existence of inhabi
tants at the other side, “ because no
such race is recorded in Scripture among
the descendants of Adam.” Archbishop
Boniface was shocked at the assumption
of a “ world of human beings out of
the reach of the means of salvation.”
Thus reined in, Science was not likely to
make much progress. Later on, the
’ History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i.
* Described with terrible vividness in Renan’s
Antichrist.
political and theological strife between
the Church and civil governments, so
powerfully depicted by Draper, must
have done much to stifle investigation.
Whewell makes many wise and brave
remarks regarding the spirit of the Middle
Ages.
It was a menial spirit.
The
seekers after natural knowledge had for
saken the fountain of living waters, the
direct appeal to nature by observation
and experiment, and given themselves
up to the remanipulation of the notions
of their predecessors.
It was a time
when thought had become abject, and
when the acceptance of mere authority
led, as it always does in science, to
intellectual death. Natural events, in
stead of being traced to physical, were
referred to moral, causes; while an
exercise of the phantasy, almost as degra
ding as the spiritualism of the present
day, took the place of scientific specula
tion. Then came the mysticism of the
Middle Ages, Magic, Alchemy, the Neo
platonic philosophy, with its visionary
though sublime abstractions, which caused
men to look with shame upon their own
bodies, as hindrances to the absorption
of the creature in the blessedness of the
Creator.
Finally came the scholastic
philosophy, a fusion, according to Lange,
of the least mature notions of Aristotle
with the Christianity of the West. Intel
lectual immobility was the result. As' a
traveller without a compass in a fog may
wander long, imagining he is making
way, and find himself after hours of toil
at his starting-point, so the schoolmen,
having “ tied and untied the same knots,
and formed and dissipated the same
clouds,”1 found themselves at the end of
centuries in their old position.
With regard to the influence wielded
by Aristotle in the Middle Ages, and
which, to a less extent, he still wields, I
would ask permission to make one
remark.
When the human mind has
achieved greatness and given evidence
of extraordinary power in one domain,
there is a tendency to credit it with
’ Whewell.
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
similar power in all other domains. Thus
theologians have found comfort and as
surance in the thought that Newton dealt
with the question of revelation—forgetful
of the fact that the very devotion of his
powers, through all the best years of his
life, to a totally different class of ideas,
not to speak of any natural disqualifica
tion, tended to render him less, instead
of more, competent to deal with theo
logical and historic questions.
Goethe,
starting from his established greatness as
a poet, and indeed from his positive dis
coveries in Natural History, produced a
profound impression among the painters
of Germany, when he published his
“ Farbenlehre,” in which he endeavoured
to overthrow Newton’s theory of colours.
This theory he deemed so obviously
absurd that he considered its author a
charlatan, and attacked him with a corre
sponding vehemence of language. In
the domain of Natural History Goethe
had made really considerable discoveries;
and we have high authority for assuming
that, had he devoted himself wholly to
that side of science, he might have
reached an eminence comparable with
that which he attained as a poet. In
sharpness of observation, in the detection
of analogies apparently remote, in the
Classification and organisation of facts
according to the analogies discerned,
Goethe possessed extraordinary powers.
These elements of scientific inquiry fall
in with the disciplines of the poet. But,
on the other hand, a mind thus richly
endowed in the direction of Natural His
tory may be almost shorn of endowment
as regards the physical and mechanical
sciences. Goethe was in this condition.
He could not formulate distinct mecha
nical conceptions; he could not see the
force of mechanical reasoning; and, in
regions where such reasoning reigns
Supreme, he became a mere ignis fatuus
to those who followed him.
I have sometimes permitted myself to
compare Aristotle with Goethe—to credit
the Stagirite with an almost superhuman
power of amassing and systematising
facts, but to consider him fatally defective
T9
on that side of the mind in respect to
which incompleteness has been just
ascribed to Goethe. Whewell refers the
errors of Aristotle not to a neglect of
facts, but to “a neglect of the idea
appropriate to the facts; the idea of
Mechanical cause, which is Force, and
the substitution of vague or inapplicable
notions, involving only relations of space
or emotions of wonder.” This is doubt
less true; but the word “ neglect
implies mere intellectual misdirection,
whereas in Aristotle, as in Goethe, it
was not, I believe, misdirection, but
sheer natural incapacity, which lay at the
root of his mistakes. As a physicist,
Aristotle displayed what we should con
sider some of the worst of attributes in
a modern physical investigator—indis
tinctness of ideas, confusion of mind,
and a confident use of language which
led to the delusive notion that he had
really mastered his subject, while he
had, as yet, failed to grasp even the
elements of it. He put words in the
place of things, subject in the place of
object. He preached Induction without
practising it, inverting the true order of
inquiry by passing from the general to
the particular, instead of from the par
ticular to the general. He made of the
universe a closed sphere, in the centre
of which he fixed the earth, proving from
general principles, to his own satisfaction
and to that of the world for near 2,000
years, that no other universe was possible.
His notions of motion were entirely
unphysical. It was natural or unnatural,
better or worse, calm or violent—no
real mechanical conception regarding it
lying at the bottom of his mind. He
affirmed that a vacuum could not exist,
and proved that if it did motion in it
would be impossible. He determined
a priori how many species of animals
must exist, and showed on general prin
ciples why animals must have such and
such parts. When an eminent contem
porary philosopher, who is far removed
from errors of this kind, remembers
these abuses of the a prion method, he
will be able to make allowance for the
�20
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
jealousy of physicists as to the accep
tance of so-called 4 priori truths. Aris
totle’s errors of detail, as shown by
Eucken and Lange, were grave and
numerous. He affirmed that only in
man we had the beating of the heart,
that the left side of the body was colder
than the right, that men have more teeth
than women, and that there is an empty
space at the back of every man’s head.
There is one essential quality in physical
conceptions which was entirely wanting
in those of Aristotle and his followers—
a capability of being placed as coherent
pictures before the mind. The Germans
express the act of picturing by the word
vorstellen, and the picture they call
a Vorstellung. We have no word in
English which comes nearer to our
requirements than Imagination ; and,
taken with its proper limitations, the
word answers very well. But it is tainted
by its associations, and therefore objec
tionable to some minds. Compare, with
reference to this capacity of mental
presentation, the case of the Aristotelian,
who refers the ascent of water in a pump
to Nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum,
with that of Pascal when he proposed
to solve the question of atmospheric
pressure by the ascent of the Puy de
Dome. In the one case the terms of
the explanation refuse to fall into place
as a physical image; in the other the
image is distinct, the descent and rise
of the barometer being clearly figured
beforehand as the balancing of two
varying and opposing pressures.
§3During the drought of the Middle
Ages in Christendom, the Arabian in
tellect, as forcibly shown by Draper, was
active. With the intrusion of the Moors
into Spain, order, learning, and refine
ment took the place of their opposites.
When smitten with disease, the Christian
peasant resorted to a shrine, the Moorish
one to an instructed physician. The
Arabs encouraged translations from the
Greek philosophers, but not from the
Greek poets. They turned in disgust
“ from the lewdness of our classical
mythology, and denounced as an un
pardonable blasphemy all connection
between the impure Olympian Jove and
the Most High God.” Draper traces
still farther than Whewell the Arab
elements in our scientific terms. He
gives examples of what Arabian men of
science accomplished, dwelling particu
larly on Alhazen, who was the first to
correct the Platonic notion that rays of
light are emitted by the eye. Alhazen
discovered atmospheric refraction, and
showed that we see the sun and the
moon after they have set. He explained
the enlargement of the sun and moon,
and the shortening of the vertical
diameters of both these bodies when
near the horizon. He was aware that
the atmosphere decreases in density with
increase of elevation, and actually fixed
its height at 58^ miles. In the Book of
the Balance of Wisdom he sets forth the
connection between the weight of the
atmosphere and its increasing density.
He shows that a body will weigh differ
ently in a rare and dense atmosphere,
and he considers the force with which
plunged bodies rise through heavier
media. He understood the doctrine of
the centre of gravity, and applied it to
the investigation of balances and steel
yards. He recognised gravity as a force,
though he fell into the error of assuming
it to diminish simply as the distance, and
of making it purely terrestrial. He knew
the relation between the velocities,
spaces, and times of falling bodies, and
had distinct ideas of capillary attraction.
He improved the hydrometer. The deter
minations of the densities of bodies, as
given by Alhazen, approach very closely
to our own. “I join,” says Draper, “in
the pious prayer of Alhazen, that in the
day of judgment the All-Merciful will
take pity on the soul of Abur-Raihan,
because he was the first of the race of
men to construct a table of specific
gravities.” If all this be historic truth
(and I have entire confidence in Dr.
Draper), well may he “ deplore the
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
systematic manner in which the litera
ture of Europe has contrived to put out
of sight our scientific obligations to the
Mohammedans.”1
The strain upon the mind during the
stationary period towards ultra-terrestrial
things, to the neglect of problems close
at hand, was sure to provoke reaction.
But the reaction was gradual; for the
ground was dangerous, and a power was
at hand competent to crush the critic
who went too far. To elude this power,
and still allow opportunity for the ex
pression of opinion, the doctrine of “two
fold truth ” was invented, according to
which an opinion might be held “theo
logically,” and the opposite opinion
“philosophically.”2 Thus, in the thir
teenth century, the creation of the world
in six days, and the unchangeableness
of the individual soul, which had been
so distinctly affirmed by St. Thomas
Aquinas, were both denied philoso
phically, but admitted to be true as
articles of the Catholic faith. When
^Protagoras uttered the maxim which
brought upon him so much vituperation,
that “opposite assertions are equally
true,” he simply meant to affirm men’s
differences to be so great that what was
subjectively true to the one might be
subjectively untrue to the other. The
great Sophist never meant to play fast
and loose with the truth by saying that
one of two opposite assertions, made by
the same individual, could possibly
escape being a lie. It was not “ sophis
try,” but the dread of theologic ven
geance, that generated this double deal
tag with conviction; and it is astonishing
to notice what lengths were allowed to
men who were adroit in the use of
[artifices of this kind.
Towards the close of the stationary
period a word-weariness, if I may so
express it, took more and more possession
of men’s minds.
Christendom had
become sick of the School Philosophy
and its verbal wastes, which led to no
1 Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 359.
2 Lange, 2nd edit., pp. 181, 182.
issue, but left the intellect in everlasting
haze. Here and there was heard the
voice of one impatiently crying in the
wilderness: “Not unto Aristotle, not unto
subtle hypothesis, not unto church, Bible,
or blind tradition, must we turn for a
knowledge of the universe, but to the
direct investigation of nature by obser
vation and experiment.” In 1543 the
epoch-marking work of Copernicus on
the paths of the heavenly bodies appeared.
The total crash of Aristotle’s closed
universe, with the earth at its centre,
followed as a consequence, and “The
earth moves 1” became a kind of watch
word among intellectual freemen. Coper
nicus was Canon of the church of
Frauenburg in the diocese of Ermeland.
For three-and-thirty years he had with
drawn himself from the world, and
devoted himself to the consolidation of
his great scheme of the solar system.
He made its blocks eternal; and even to
those who feared it, and desired its over
throw, it was so obviously strong that
they refrained for a time from meddling
with it. In the last year of the life of
Copernicus his book appeared; it is said
that the old man received a copy of it a
few days before his death, and then
departed in peace.
The Italian philosopher, Giordano
Bruno, was one of the earliest converts
to the new astronomy. Taking Lucretius
as his exemplar, he revived the notion of
the infinity of worlds ; and, combining
with it the doctrine of Copernicus,
reached the sublime generalisation that
the fixed stars are suns, scattered number
less through space, and accompanied by
satellites, which bear the same relation
to them that our earth does to our sun,
or our moon to our earth. This was an
expansion of transcendent import; but
Bruno came closer than this to our
present line of thought. Struck with
the problem of the generation and
maintenance of organisms, and duly
pondering it, he came to the conclusion
that Nature, in her productions, does
not imitate the technic of man. Her
process is one of unravelling and unfolding.
�LECTURES AND ESSA YS
22
The infinity of forms under which
matter appears was not imposed upon it
by an external artificer; by its own
intrinsic force and virtue it brings these
forms forth. Matter is not the mere
naked empty capacity which philosophers
have pictured her to be, but the universal
mother, who brings forth all things as
the fruit of her own womb.
This outspoken man was originally a
Dominican monk.
He was accused of
heresy and had to fly, seeking refuge in
Geneva, Paris, England, and Germany.
In 1592 he fell into the hands of the
Inquisition at Venice. He was im
prisoned for many years, tried, degraded,
excommunicated, and handed over to
the civil power, with the request that he
should be treated gently, and “without
the shedding of blood.” This meant
that he was to be burnt; and burnt
accordingly he was, on February 16th,
1600. To escape a similar fate Galileo,
thirty-three years afterwards, abjured
upon his knees, with his hands upon the
holy Gospels, the heliocentric doctrine,
which he knew to be true. After Galileo
came Kepler, who from his German
home defied the ultramontane power. He
traced out from pre-existing observations
the laws of planetary motion. Materials
were thus prepared for Newton, who
bound those empirical laws together by
the principle of gravitation.
§ 4*
In the seventeenth century Bacon and
Descartes, the restorers of philosophy,
appeared in succession. Differently edu
cated and endowed, their philosophic
tendencies were different. Bacon held
fast to Induction, believing firmly in the
existence of an external world, and
making collected experiences the basis
of all knowledge.
The mathematical
studies of Descartes gave him a bias
towards Deduction; and his fundamental
principle was much the same as that of
Protagoras, who made the individual man
the measure of all things.
“ I think,
therefore I am,” said Descartes.
Only
his own identity was sure to him ; and
the full development of this system
would have led to an idealism, in which
the outer world would have been re
solved into a mere phenomenon of con
sciousness. Gassendi, one of Descartes’s
contemporaries, of whom we shall hear
more presently, quickly pointed out that
the fact of personal existence would be
proved as well by reference to any other
act as to the act of thinking. I eat,
therefore I am, or I love, therefore I am,
would be quite as conclusive. Lichten
berg, indeed, showed that the very thing
to be proved was inevitably postulated in
the first two words, “ I think
and it is
plain that no inference from the postulate
could, by any possibility, be stronger
than the postulate itself.
But Descartes deviated strangely from
the idealism implied in his fundamental
principle. He was the first to reduce,
in a manner eminently capable of bearing
the test of mental presentation, vital
phenomena to purely mechanical prin
ciples. Through fear or love, Descartes
was a good Churchman ; he accordingly
rejected the notion of an atom, because
it was absurd to suppose that God, if He
so pleased, could not divide an atom; he
puts in the place of the atoms small
round particles, and light splinters, out
of which he builds the organism. .He
sketches with marvellous physical insight
a machine, with water for its motive
power, which shall illustrate vital actions.
He has made clear to his mind that such
a machine would be competent to carry
on the processes of digestion, nutrition,
growth, respiration, and the beating of
the heart. It would be competent to
accept impressions from the external
sense, to store them up in imagination
and memory, to go through the internal
movements of the appetites and passions,
and the external movements of the limbs.
He deduces these functions of his
machine from the mere arrangement of
its organs, as the movement of a clock,
or other automaton, is deduced from its
weights and wheels.
“ As far as these
functions are concerned,” he says, “ it is
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
not necessary to conceive any other
vegetative or sensitive soul, nor any other
principle of motion or of life, than the blood
and the spirits agitated by the fire which
burns continually in the heart, and which
is in nowise different from the fires exist
ing in inanimatebodies.” Had Descartes
been acquainted with the steam-engine,
he would have taken it, instead of a fall
of water, as his motive power. He would
have shown the perfect analogy which
exists between the oxidation of the food
in the body and that of the coal in
the furnace.
He would assuredly
have anticipated Mayer in calling the
blood, which the heart diffuses, “ the oil
of the lamp of life,” deducing all animal
motions from the combustion of this oil,
as the motions of a steam-engine are
deduced from the combustion of its coal.
As the matter stands, however, and con
sidering the circumstances of the time,
the boldness, clearness, and precision
with which Descartes grasped the prob
fem of vital dynamics constitute a
marvellous illustration of intellectual
power.1
During the Middle Ages the doctrine
of atoms had to all appearance vanished
from discussion. It probably held its
ground among sober-minded and thoughtful men, though neither the church nor
the world was prepared to hear of it with
tolerance. Once, in the year 1348, it
received distinct expression. But re
tractation by compulsion immediately
followed; and, thus discouraged, it
Slumbered till the seventeenth century,
when it was revived by a contemporary
and friend of Hobbes of Malmesbury,
the orthodox Catholic provost of Digne,
Gassendi. But, before stating his rela
tion to the Epicurean doctrine, it will be
well to say a few words on the effect, as
regards science, of the general introduc
tion of monotheism among European
nations.
“ Were men,” says Hume, “ led into
the apprehension of invisible intelligent
’ See Huxley’s admirable Essay on Descartes.
Sermons, pp. 364, 365.
«3
power by contemplation of the works of
Nature, they could never possibly enter
tain any conception but of one single
Being, who bestowed existence and order
on this vast machine, and adjusted all
its parts to one regular system.” Refer
ring to the condition of the heathen, who
sees a god behind every natural event,
thus peopling the world with thousands
of beings whose caprices are incalculable,
Lange shows the impossibility of any
compromise between such notions and
those of science, which proceeds on the
assumption of never-changing law and
causality. “ But,” he continues, with
characteristic penetration, “ when the
great thought of one God, acting as a
unit upon the universe, has been seized,
the connection of things in accordance
with the law of cause and effect is not
only thinkable, but it is a necessary con
sequence of the assumption. For when
I see ten thousand wheels in motion,
and know, or believe, that they are all
driven by one motive power, then I
know that I have before me a mecha
nism, the action of every part of which
is determined by the plan of the whole.
So much being assumed, it follows that
I may investigate the structure of that
machine, and the various motions of its
parts. For the time being, therefore,
this conception renders scientific action
free.” In other words, were a capricious
god at the circumference of every wheel
and at the end of every lever, the action
of the machine would be incalculable by
the methods of science. But the actions
of all its parts being rigidly determined
by their connections and relations, and
these being brought into play by a
single motive power, then, though this
last prime mover may elude me, I am
still able to comprehend the machinery
which it sets in motion. We have here
a conception of the relation of Nature
to its Author, which seems perfectly
acceptable to some minds, but perfectly
intolerable to others.
Newton and
Boyle lived and worked happily under
the influence of this conception ; Goethe
rejected it with vehemence, and the same
�24
LECTUEES AND ESSA FS
repugnance to accepting it is manifest in
Carlyle.1
The analytic and synthetic tendencies
of the human mind are traceable through
out history, great writers ranging them
selves sometimes on the one side, some
times on the other. Men of warm
feelings, and minds open to the elevating
impressions produced by nature as a
whole, whose satisfaction, therefore, is
rather ethical than logical, lean to the
synthetic side; while the analytic har
monises best with the more precise and
more mechanical bias which seeks the
satisfaction of the understanding. Some
form of pantheism was usually adopted
by the one, while a detached Creator,
working more or less after the manner of
men, was often assumed by the other.
Gassendi, as sketched by Lange, is
hardly to be ranked with either. Having
formally acknowledged God as the great
first cause, he immediately dropped the
idea, applied the known laws of mechanics
to the atoms, and deduced from them
all vital phenomena.
He defended
Epicurus, and dwelt upon his purity,
both of doctrine and of life. True he
was a heathen, but so was Aristotle.
Epicurus assailed superstition and re
ligion, and rightly, because he did not
know the true religion. He thought
that the gods neither rewarded nor
punished, and he adored them purely in
consequence of their completeness : here
we see, says Gassendi, the reverence of
the child, instead of the fear of the slave.
The errors of Epicurus shall be corrected,
and the body of his truth retained.
Gassendi then proceeds, as any heathen
might have done, to build up the world,
and all that therein is, of atoms and
molecules. God, who created earth and
water, plants and animals, produced in
the first place a definite number of
1 Boyle’s model of the universe was the Stras
burg clock with an outside Artificer. Goethe,
on the other hand, sang :—
“ Ihm ziemt’s die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen.”
See also Carlyle, Fast and Present, chap. v.
atoms, which constituted the seed of all
things. Then began that series of com
binations and decompositions which
now goes on, and which will continue in
future. The principle of every change
resides in matter. In artificial produc
tions the moving principle is different
from the material worked upon; but in
nature the agent works within, being the
most active and mobile part of the
material itself. Thus this bold ecclesiastic,
without incurring the censure of the
Church or the world, contrives to outstrip
Mr. Darwin. The same cast of mind
which caused him to detach the Creator
from his universe led him also to detach
the soul from the body, though to the
body he ascribes an influence so large as
to render the soul almost unnecessary.
The aberrations of reason were, in his
view, an affair of the material brain.
Mental disease is brain-disease; but then
the immortal reason sits apart, and can
not be touched by the disease. The
errors of madness are those of the instru
ment, not of the performer.
It may be more than a mere result of
education, connecting itself, probably,
with the deeper mental structure of the
two men, that the idea of Gassendi,
above enunciated, is substantially the
same as that expressed by Professor
Clerk Maxwell, at the close of the very
able lecture delivered by him at Bradford
in 1873. According to both philoso
phers, the atoms, if I understand aright,
are prepared materials, which, formed
once for all by the Eternal, produce by
their subsequent interaction all the
phenomena of the material world. There
seems to be this difference, however,
between Gassendi and Maxwell. The one
postulates, the other infers, his first cause.
In his “ manufactured articles,” as he
calls the atoms, Professor Maxwell finds
the basis of an induction which enables
him to scale philosophic heights con
sidered inaccessible by Kant, and to
take the logical step from the atoms to
their Maker.
Accepting here the leadership of Kant,
I doubt the legitimacy of Maxwell’s
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
25
draws the sharpest distinction between
our real selves and our bodily instru
ments.
He does not, as far as I
remember, use the word “soul,” possibly
because the term was so hackneyed in
his day, as it had been for many genera
tions previously.
But he speaks of
“living powers,” “perceiving or percipient
powers,” “moving agents,”“ourselves,” in
the same sense as we should employ the
term “ soul.” He dwells upon the fact
that limbs may be removed, and mortal
diseases assail the body, the mind,
almost up to the moment of death, re
maining clear. He refers to sleep and
to swoon, where the “ living powers ” are
suspended but not destroyed. He con
siders it quite as easy to conceive of
existence out of our bodies as in them ;
that we may animate a succession of
bodies, the dissolution of all of them
having no more tendency to dissolve
our real selves, or “ deprive us of living
faculties—the faculties of perception and
action—than the dissolution of any
foreign matter which we are capable of
receiving impressions from, or making
use of for the common occasions of life.”
This is the key of the Bishop’s position :
“ our organised bodies are no more a
part of ourselves than any other matter
around us.” In proof of this he calls
attention to the use of glasses, which
“prepare objects” for the “percipient
power ” exactly as the eye does. The
eye itself is no more percipient than the
glass; is quite as much the instrument
of the true self, and also as foreign to
the true self, as the glass is. “ And if
we see with our eyes only in the same
manner as we do with glasses, the like
§ 5<
may justly be concluded from analogy
of all our senses.”
Ninety years subsequent to Gassendi
Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a
the doctrine of bodily instruments, as it
may be called, assumed- immense im precisely opposite conclusion: and it
certainly would be interesting, if not
portance in the hands of Bishop Butler,
profitable, to us all to hear what he
who, in his famous Analogy of Religion^
would or could urge in opposition to the
developed, from his own point of view,
reasoning of the Bishop.
As a brief
and with consummate sagacity, a similar
discussion of the point will enable us to
idea. The Bishop still influences many
see the bearings of an important question,
superior minds; and it will repay us to
I will here permit a disciple of Lucretius
dwell for a moment on his views. He
logic; but it is impossible not to feel the
ethic glow with which his lecture con
cludes. There is, moreover, a very noble
strain of eloquence in his description of
the steadfastness of the atoms : “Natural
causes, as we know, are at work, which
tend to modify, if they do not at length
destroy, all the arrangements and dimen
sions of the earth and the whole solar
system. But though in the course of
ages catastrophes have occurred and
may yet occur in the heavens, though
ancient systems may be dissolved and
new systems evolved out of their ruins,
the molecules out of which these systems
are built—the foundation stones of the
material universe—remain unbroken and
unworn.”
The atomic doctrine, in whole or in
part, was entertained by Bacon, Des
cartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle,
and their successors, until the chemical
law of multiple proportions enabled
Dalton to confer upon it an entirely
new significance. In our day there are
secessions from the theory, but it still
stands firm. Loschmidt, Stoney, and
Sir William Thomson have sought to
determine the sizes of the atoms, or
rather to fix the limits between which
their sizes lie; while the discourses of
Williamson and Maxwell delivered in
Bradford in 1873 illustrate the present
hold of the doctrine upon the foremost
scientific minds. In fact, it may be
doubted whether, wanting this funda
mental conception, a theory of the
material universe is capable of scientific
statement.
�26
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
to try the strength of the Bishop’s posi
tion, and then allow the Bishop to
retaliate, with the view of rolling back,
if he can, the difficulty upon Lucretius.
The argument might proceed in this
fashion :—
“ Subjected to the test of mental pre
sentation (Vorstellungj, your views, most
honoured prelate, would offer to many
minds a great, if not an insuperable,
difficulty. You speak of ‘ living powers,’
• percipient or perceiving powers,’ and
‘ ourselves ’; but can you form a mental
picture of any of these, apart from the
organism through which it is supposed
to act ? Test yourself honestly, and see
whether you possess any faculty that
would enable you to form such a concep
tion. The true self has a local habitation
in each of us; thus localised, must it not
possess a form ? If so, what form ?
Have you ever for a moment realised it ?
When a leg is amputated the body is
divided into two parts; is the true self
in both of them or in one? Thomas
Aquinas might say in both; but not
you, for you appeal to the consciousness
associated with one of the two parts, to
prove that the other is foreign matter.
Is consciousness, then, a necessary ele
ment of the true self ? If so, what do you
say to the case of the whole body being
deprived of consciousness ? If not, then on
what grounds do you deny any portion of
the true self to the severed limb? It seems
very singular that, from the beginning to
the end of your admirable book (and no
one admires its sober strength more than
I do), you never once mention the brain
or nervous system. You begin at one
end of the body, and show that its parts
may be removed without prejudice to the
perceiving power. What if you begin at
the other end, and remove, instead of the
leg, the brain ? The body, as before, is
divided into two parts; but both are
now in the same predicament, and neither
can be appealed to to prove that the
other is foreign matter. Or, instead of
going so far as to remove the brain itself,
let a certain portion of its bony covering
be removed, and let a rhythmic series of
pressures and relaxations of pressure be
applied to the soft substance. At every
pressure ‘ the faculties of perception and
of action ’ vanish; at every relaxation of
pressure they are restored. Where, dur
ing the intervals of pressure, is the per
ceiving power ? I once had the discharge
of a large Leyden battery passed unex
pectedly through me : I felt nothing, but
was simply blotted out of conscious
existence for a sensible interval. Where
was my true self during that interval? Men
who have recovered from lightning-stroke
have been much longer in the same state;
and, indeed, in cases of ordinary con
cussion of the brain, days may elapse
during which no experience is registered
in consciousness.
Where is the man
himself during the period of insensibility ?
You may say that I beg the question
when I assume the man to have been
unconscious, that he was really conscious
all the time, and has simply forgotten
what had occurred to him. In reply to
this, I can only say that no one need
shrink from the worst tortures that super
stition ever invented, if only so felt and
so remembered. I do not think your
theory of instruments goes at all to the
bottom of the matter.
A telegraph
operator has his instruments, by means
of which he converses with the world ;
our bodies possess a nervous system,
which plays a similar part between the
perceiving power and external things.
Cut the wires of the operator, break his
battery, demagnetise his needle; by this
means you certainly sever his connection
with the world; but, inasmuch as these
are real instruments, their destruction
does not touch the man who uses them.
The operator survives, and he knows that
he survives. What is there, I would ask,
in the human system that answers to
this conscious survival of the operator
when the battery of the brain is so
disturbed as to produce insensibility, or
when it is destroyed altogether ?
“ Another consideration, which you
may regard as slight, presses upon me
with some force. The brain may change
from health to disease, and through such
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
a change the most exemplary man may
be converted into a debauchee or a mur
derer. My very noble and approved
good master had, as you know, threatenings of lewdness introduced into his
brain by his jealous wife’s philter; and
sooner than permit himself to run even
the risk of yielding to these base prompt
ings he slew himself. How could the
hand of Lucretius have been thus turned
against himself if the real Lucretius
remained as before ? Can the brain or
can it not act in this distempered way
without the intervention of the immortal
reason? If it can, then it is a prime
mover which requires only healthy regu
lation to render it reasonably self-acting,
and there is no apparent need of your
immortal reason at all. If it cannot,
then the immortal reason, by its mis
chievous activity in operating upon a
broken instrument, must have the credit
of committing every imaginable extrava
gance and crime. I think, if you will
allow me to say so, that the gravest
consequences are likely to flow from
your estimate of the body. To regard
'th® brain as you -would a staff or an
-eyeglass—to shut your eyes to all its
aiystery, to the perfect correlation of its
condition and our consciousness, to the
fact that a slight excess or defect of
blood in it produces the very swoon to
which you refer, and that in relation to
it our meat, and drink, and air, and
exercise have a perfectly transcendental
value and significance—to forget all
this does, I think, open a way to innu
merable errors in our habits of life, and
may possibly, in some cases, initiate and
ffoster that very disease, and consequent
mental ruin, which a wiser appreciation
©f this mysterious organ would have
^voided.”
I can imagine the Bishop thoughtful
after hearing this argument. He was
not the man to allow anger to mingle
with the consideration of a point of this
kind. After due reflection, and having
Strengthened himself by that honest
Contemplation of the facts which was
habitual with him, and which includes
27
the desire to give even adverse reasonings
their due weight, I can suppose the
Bishop to proceed thus : “ You will
remember that in the Analogy of Religion,
of which you have so kindly spoken, I
did not profess to prove anything abso
lutely, and that I over and over again
acknowledged and insisted on the small
ness of our knowledge, or rather the
depth of our ignorance, as regards the
whole system of the universe. My object
was to show my deistical friends, who
set forth so eloquently the beauty and
beneficence of Nature and the Ruler
thereof, while they had nothing but scorn
for the so-called absurdities of the Chris
tian scheme, that they were in no better
condition than we were, and that, for
every difficulty found upon our side,
quite as great a difficulty was to be found
upon theirs. I will now, with your per
mission, adopt a similar line of argument.
You are a Lucretian, and from the com
bination and separation of insensate
atoms deduce all terrestrial things, includ
ing organic forms and their phenomena.
Let me tell you in the first instance how
far I am prepared to go with you. I
admit that you can build crystalline
forms out of this play of molecular force;
that the diamond, amethyst, and snow
star are truly wonderful structures which
are thus produced. I will go farther, and
acknowledge that even a tree or flower
might in this way be organised. Nay, if
you can show me an animal without
sensation, I will concede to you that it
also might be put together by the
suitable play of molecular force.
“ Thus far our way is clear, but now
comes my difficulty. Your atoms are
individually without sensation; much
more are they without intelligence. May
I ask you, then, to try your hand upon
this problem ? Take your dead hydrogen
atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, your
dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen
atoms, your dead phosphorus atoms, and
all the other atoms, dead as grains of
shot, of which the brain is formed.
Imagine them separate and sensationless;
observe them running together and
�28
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
forming alt imaginable combinations.
This, as a purely mechanical process, is
seeable by the mind. But can you see, or
dream, or in any way imagine, how out
of that mechanical act, and from these
individually dead atoms, sensation,
thought, and emotion are to rise ? Are
you likely to extract Homer out of the
rattling of dice, or the Differential Cal
culus out of the clash of billiard-balls ?
I am not all bereft of this VorstellungsKraft of which you speak, nor am I, like
so many of my brethren, a mere vacuum
as regards scientific knowledge. I can
follow a particle of musk until it reaches
the olfactory nerve; I can follow the
waves of sound until thei> tremors reach
the water of the labyrinth, and set the
otoliths and Corti’s fibres in motion; I
can also visualise the waves of ether as
they cross the eye and hit the retina.
Nay more, I am able to pursue to the
central organ the motion thus imparted
at the periphery, and to see in idea the
very molecules of the brain thrown into
tremors. My insight is not baffled by
these physical processes. What baffles
and bewilders me is the notion that from
those physical tremors things so utterly
incongruous with them as sensation,
thought, and emotion can be derived.
You may say, or think, that this issue of
consciousness from the clash of atoms is
not more incongruous than the flash of
light from the union of oxygen and
hydrogen. But I beg to say that it is.
For such incongruity as the flash possesses
is that which I now force upon your
attention.
The ‘ flash ’ is an aflair of
consciousness, the objective counterpart
of which is a vibration. It is a flash
only by your interpretation. You are
the cause of the apparent incongruity;
and you are the thing that puzzles me.
I need not remind you that the great
Leibnitz felt the difficulty which I feel;
and that to get rid of this monstrous
deduction of life from death he displaced
your atoms by his monads, which were
more or less perfect mirrors of the
universe, and out of the summation and
integration of which he supposed all the
phenomena of life—sentient, intellectual,
and emotional—to arise.
“ Your difficulty then, as I see you
are ready to admit, is quite as great as
mine. You cannot satisfy the human
understanding in its demand for logical
continuity between molecular processes
and the phenomena of consciousness.
This is a rock on which Materialism
must inevitably split whenever it pre
tends to be a complete philosophy of life.
What is the moral, my Lucretian ? You
and I are not likely to indulge in illtemper in the discussion of these great
topics, where we see so much room for
honest differences of opinion. But there
are people of less wit or more bigotry (I
say it with humility), on both sides, who
are ever ready to mingle anger and vitu
peration with such discussions. There
are, for example, writers of note and in
fluence at the present day who are not
ashamed publicly to assume the ‘ deep
personal sin ’ of a great logician to be
the cause of his unbelief in a theologic
dogma.1 And there are others who hold
that we, who cherish our noble Bible,
wrought as it has been into the constitu
tion of our forefathers, and by inherit
ance into us, must necessarily be hypo
critical and insincere. Let us disavow
and discountenace such people, cherish
ing the unswerving faith that what is
good and true in both our arguments
will be preserved for the benefit of
humanity, while all that is bad or false
will disappear.”
I hold the Bishop’s reasoning to be
unanswerable, and his liberality to be
worthy of imitation.
It is worth remarking that in one re
spect the Bishop was a product of his
age. Long previous to his day the nature
1 This is the aspect under which the late
Editor of the Dublin Review presented to his
readers the memory of John Stuart Mill. I can
only say that I would as soon take my chance in
the other world, in the company of the “un
believer,” as in that of his Jesuit detractor. In
Dr. Ward we have an example of a wholesome
and vigorous nature soured and perverted by a
poisonous creed.
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
29
of the soul had been so favourite and I
The lode of discovery once struck,
general a topic of discussion that, when
those petrified forms in which life was at
the students of the Italian Universities
one time active increased to multitudes
wished to know the leanings of a new
and demanded classification. They were
Professor, they at once requested him to
grouped in genera, species, and varie
lecture-upon the soul. About the time
ties, according to the degree of similarity
of Bishop Butler the question was not
subsisting between them. Thus confu
only agitated but extended. It was seen
sion was avoided, each object being
by the clear-witted men who entered this
found in the pigeon-hole appropriated to
arena that many of their best arguments
it and to its fellows of similar morpho
applied equally to brutes and men. The
logical or physiological character.
The
Bishop’s arguments were of this character.
general fact soon became evident that
He saw it, admitted it, took the conse none but the simplest forms of life lie
quence, and boldly embraced the whole
lowest down; that, as we climb higher
animal world in his scheme of immor among the superimposed strata, more per
tality.
fect forms appear. The change, however,
§ 6.
from form to form was not continuous, but
by steps—some small, some great. “ A
Bishop Butler accepted with unwaver section,” says Mr. Huxley, “ a hundred
ing trust the chronology of the Old Tes feet thick will exhibit at different heights
tament, describing it as “ confirmed by
a dozen species of Ammonite, none of
the natural and civil history of the world,
which passes beyond the particular zone
collected from common historians, from
of limestone, or clay, into the zone below
the state of the earth, and from the late
it, or into that above it.”
In the
inventions of arts and sciences.” These
presence of such facts it was not possible
words mark progress; and they must to avoid the question: Have these forms,
seem somewhat hoary to the Bishop’s
showing, though in broken stages, and
successors of to-day. It is hardly neces with many irregularities, this unmistak
sary to inform you that since his time the
able general advance, been subjected to
domain of the naturalist has been im no continuous law of growth or variation ?
mensely extended—the whole science of Had our education been purely scientific,
geology, with its astounding revelations
or had it been, sufficiently detached from
regarding the life of the ancient earth,
influences which, however ennobling in
having been created. The rigidity of old
another domain, have always proved
conceptions has been relaxed, the public
hindrances and delusions when intro
mind being rendered gradually tolerant
duced as factors into the domain of
of the idea that not for six thousand, nor
physics, the scientific mind never could
for sixty thousand, nor for six thousand
have swerved from the search for a law
thousand, but for seons embracing untold
of growth, or allowed itself to accept the
millions of years, this earth has been the
anthropomorphism which regarded each
theatre of life and death. The riddle of successive stratum as a kind of mechanic’s
the rocks has been read by the geologist
bench for the manufacture of new species
and palaeontologist from subcambrian
out of all relation to the old.
depths to the deposits thickening over
Biassed, however, by their previous
the sea-bottoms of to-day. And upon
education, the great majority of natural
the leaves of that stone book are, as you
ists invoked a special creative act to
know, stamped the characters, plainer
account for the appearance of each new
and surer than those formed by the ink
group of organisms. Doubtless numbers
of history, which carry the mind back
of them were clear-headed enough to see
into abysses of past time, compared with
that this was no explanation at all—that,
which the periods which satisfied Bishop
in point of fact, it was an attempt, by the
Butler cease to have a visual angle.
introduction of a greater difficulty, to
�3°
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
These papers were followed in 1859
by the publication of the first edition of
the Origin of Species. All great things
come slowly to the birth. Copernicus,
as I informed you, pondered his great
work for thirty-three years. Newton for
nearly twenty years kept the idea of
Gravitation before his mind ; for twenty
years also he dwelt upon his discovery of
Fluxions, and doubtless would have
continued to make it the object of his
private thought had he not found
Leibnitz upon his track. Darwin for
two-and-twenty years pondered the
problem of the origin of species, and
doubtless he would have continued to
do so had he not found Wallace upon,
his track.1 A concentrated, but full and
powerful, epitome of his labours was the
consequence. The book was by no
means an easy one; and prooably not
one in every score of those who then
attacked it had read its pages through,
or were competent to grasp their signifi
cance if they had. I do not say this
merely to discredit them ; for there were
in those days some really eminent
scientific men, entirely raised above the
heat of popular prejudice, and willing tc
accept any conclusion that science had
to offer, provided it was duly backed by
fact and argument, who entirely mistook
Mr. Darwin’s views. In fact, the woik
needed an expounder, and it found one
in Mr. Huxley. I know nothing more
admirable in the way of scientific exposi
tion than those early articles of his on
the origin of species. He swept the
curve of discussion through the really
significant points of the subject, en
riched his exposition with profound
original remarks and reflections, often
summing up in a single pithy sentence
an argument which a less compact mind
would have spread over pages. But
there is one impression made by the
book itself which no exposition of it,
1 Zoonomia, vol. i., pp- 5°°‘510,
_
however luminous, can convey ? and
2 In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer {Principles of
account for a less. But, having nothing I
to offer in the way of explanation, they
for the most part held their peace. Still,
the thoughts of reflecting men naturally
and necessarily simmered round the
question. De Maillet, a contemporary
of Newton, has been brought into notice
by Professor Huxley as one who “had a
notion of the modifiability of living
forms.” The late Sir Benjamin Brodie,
a man of highly philosophic mind, often
drew my attention to the fact that, as
early as 1794, Charles Darwin’s grand
father was the pioneer of Charles Darwin.1
In 1801, and in subsequent years, the
celebrated Lamarck, who, through the
vigorous exposition of his views by the
author of the Vestiges of Creation, gen
dered the public mind perfectly familiar
with the idea of evolution, endeavoured
to show the development of species out
of changes of habit and external con
dition. In 1813 Dr. Wells, the founder
of our present theory of Dew, read before
the Royal Society a paper in which, to
use the words of Mr. Darwin, “ he dis
tinctly recognises the principle of natural
selection ; and this is the first recognition
that has been indicated.” The thorough
ness and skill with which Wells pursued
his work, and the obvious independence
of his character, rendered him long ago a
favourite with me; and it gave me the
liveliest pleasure to alight upon this
additional testimony to his penetration.
Professor Grant, Mr. Patrick Matthew,
Von Buch, the author of the Vestiges,
D’Halloy, and others, by the enunciation
of opinions more or less clear and correct,
showed that the question had been fer
menting long prior to the year 1858,
when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace
simultaneously, but independently, placed
their closely concurrent views before the
Linnean Society.2
Psychology, 2nd edit., vol. i., p. 465) expressed
“the belief that life under all its forms has
arisen by an unbroken evolution, and through
the instrumentality of what are called natural
causes.” This was my belief also at that time.
1 The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to
this subject has been dignified in the highest
degree.
. .
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
that is the impression of the vast amount
of labour, both of observation and of
thought, implied in its production. Let
US glance at its principles.
It is conceded on all hands that what
are called “varieties” are continually
produced. The rule is probably with
out exception. No chick, or child, is in
all respects and particulars the counter
part of its brother and sister; and in
such differences we have “ variety ” in
cipient. No naturalist could tell how far
this variation could be carried ; but the
great mass of them held that never, by
any amount of internal or external
change, nor by the mixture of both,
could the offspring of the same progenitor
so far deviate from each other as to con
stitute different species. The function
of the experimental philosopher is to
combine the conditions of Nature and
to produce her results; and this was the
method of Darwin.1 He made himself
acquainted with what could, without
any manner of doubt, be done in the
way of producing variation. He asso
ciated himself with pigeon-fanciers—
bought, begged, kept, and observed
every breed that he could obtain. Though
derived, from a common stock, the
diversities of these pigeons were such
that “ a score of them might be chosen
which, if shown to an ornithologist, and
he were told that they were wild birds,
would certainly be ranked by him as welldefined species.” The simple principle
which guides the pigeon-fancier, as it
does the cattle-breeder, is the selection
of some variety that strikes his fancy,
and the propagation of this variety
by inheritance. With his eye still directed
to the particular appearance which he
wishes to exaggerate, he selects it as it
re-appears in successive broods, and thus
adds . increment to increment until an
astonishing amount of divergence from
the parent type is effected. The breeder
The first step only towards experimental
demonstration has been taken. Experiments
now begun might, a couple of centuries hence,
ftimish data of incalculable value, which ought
to be supplied to the science of the future.
3«
in this case does not produce the elements
of the variation. He simply observes
them, and by selection adds them together
until the required result has been ob
tained. “No man,” says Mr. Darwin,
“ would ever try to make a fantail till he
saw a pigeon with a tail developed in
some slight degree in an unusual manner,
or a pouter until he saw a pigeon with a
crop of unusual size.” Thus nature gives
the hint, man acts upon it, and by the law
of inheritance exaggerates the deviation.
. Having thus satisfied himself by indu
bitable facts that the organisation of an
animal or of a plant (for precisely the
same treatment applies to plants) is to
some extent plastic, he passes from varia
tion under domestication to variation
under nature. Hitherto we have dealt
with the adding together of small
changes by the conscious selection of
man. Can Nature thus select ? Mr.
Darwin’s answer is, “Assuredly she can.”
The number of living things produced is
far in excess of the number that can be
supported ; hence at some period or
other of their lives there must be a
struggle for existence. And what is the
infallible result ? If one organism were
a perfect copy of the other in regard to
strength, skill, and agility, external con
ditions would decide. But this is not
the case. Here we have the fact of
variety offering itself to nature, as in the
former instance it offered itself to man ;
and those varieties which are least com
petent to cope with surrounding con
ditions will infallibly give way to those
that are most competent. To use a
familiar proverb, the weakest goes to the
wall. But the triumphant fraction again
breeds to over-production, transmitting
the qualities which secured its main
tenance, but transmitting them in different
degrees. The struggle for food again
supervenes, and those to whom the
favourable quality has been transmitted
in excess will triumph as before.
It is easy to see that we have here the
addition of increments favourable to the
individual, still more rigorously carried
out than in the case of domestication;
�32
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
for not only are unfavourable specimens
not selected by nature, but they are
destroyed. This is what Mr. Darwin
calls “ Natural Selection,” which acts by
the preservation and accumulation of
small inherited modifications, each profit
able to the preserved being. With this
idea he interpenetrates and leavens the
vast store of facts that he and others
have collected. We cannot, without
shutting our eyes through fear or preju
dice, fail to see that Darwin is here
dealing, not with imaginary, but. with
true causes; nor can we fail to discern
what vast modifications may be produced
by natural selection in periods sufficiently
long. Each individual increment may
resemble what mathematicians call a
“differential” (a quantity indefinitely
small)but definite and great changes
may obviously be produced by the inte
gration of these infinitesimal quantities,
through practically infinite time.
If Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the
notion of creative power,, acting after
human fashion, it certainly is not because
he is unacquainted with the numberless
exquisite adaptations on which this
notion of a supernatural. Artificer, has
been founded. His book is a repository
of the most startling facts of this descrip
tion. Take the marvellous observation
which he cites from Dr. Kruger, where a
bucket with an aperture . serving as a
spout is formed in an orchid. Bees visit
the flower; in eager search of material
for their combs they push each other
into the bucket, . the drenched ones
escaping from their involuntary , bath by
the spout. Here they rub their backs
against the viscid stigma, of the flower
and obtain glue; then against the pollenmasses, which are thus stuck to the back
of the bee and carried away. “ When the
bee, so provided, flies to another flower,
or to the same flower a second time, and
is pushed by its comrades into the
bucket, and then crawls out. by the
passage, the pollen-mass upon its back
necessarily comes first into contact with
the viscid stigma,” which takes up the
pollen; and this is how that orchid is
fertilised. Or take this other case of the
Catasetum. “Bees visit these flowers
in order to gnaw the labellum; in doing
this they inevitably touch a long, taper
ing, sensitive projection. This, when
touched, transmits a sensation or vibra
tion to a certain membrane, which is
instantly ruptured, setting free a spring,
by which the pollen-mass is shot forth
like an arrow in the right direction, and
adheres by its viscid extremity to the
back of the bee.” In this way the fer
tilising pollen is spread abroad.
It is the mind thus stored with the
choicest materials of the teleologist that
rejects teleology, seeking to refer these
wonders to natural causes. They illus
trate, according to him, the method of
nature, not the “ technic ” of a manlike
Artificer. The beauty of flowers is due
to natural selection. Those that distin
guish themselves by vividly contrasting
colours from the surrounding green leaves
are most readily seen, most frequently
visited by insects, most often fertilised, and
hence most favoured by natural selection.
Coloured berries also readily attract the
attention of birds and beasts, which feed
upon them, spread their manured seeds
abroad, thus giving trees and shrubs pos
sessing such berries a greater chance in
the struggle for existence.
With profound analytic and synthetic
skill, Mr. Darwin investigates the cell
making instinct of the hive-bee. His
method of dealing with it is representa
tive. He falls back from the more per
fectly to the less perfectly developed in
stinct—from the hive-bee to the humblebee, which uses its own cocoon as a
comb, and to classes of bees of interme
diate skill endeavouring to show how the
passage might be gradually made from
the lowest to the highest. The saving
of wax is the most important point in
the economy of bees. Twelve.to fifteen
pounds of dry sugar are said to be
needed for the secretion of a single
pound of wax. The quantities of nectar
necessary for the wax must therefore be
vast, and every improvement of construc
tive instinct which results in the saving
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
of wax is a direct profit to the insect’s
life. The time that would otherwise be
devoted to the making of wax is devoted
to the gathering and storing of honey for
winter food. Mr. Darwin passes from
the humble-bee, with its rude cells,
through the Melipona, with its more
artistic cells, to the hive-bee with its
astonishing architecture. The bees place
themselves at equal distances apart upon
the wax, sweep and excavate equal
spheres round the selected points. The
spheres intersect, and the planes of inter
section are built up with thin laminae.
Hexagonal cells are thus formed. This
mode of treating such questions is, as I
have said, representative. The expositor
habitually retires from the more perfect
and complex, to the less perfect and
simple, and carries you with him through
stages of perfecting—adds increment to
increment of infinitesimal change, and in
this way gradually breaks down your
reluctance to admit that the exquisite
climax of the whole could be a result of
natural selection.
Mr. Darwin shirks no difficulty; and,
Saturated as the subject was with his
own thought, he must have known,
better than his critics, the weakness as
well as the strength of his theory. This
of course would be of little avail were
his object a temporary dialectic victory,
instead of the establishment of a truth
which he means to be everlasting. But
he takes no pains to disguise the weak
ness he has discerned; nay, he takes
every pains to bring it into the strongest
light. His vast resources enable him to
cope with objections started by himself
and others, so as to leave the final
impression upon the reader’s mind that,
if they be not completely answered, they
certainly are not fatal. Their negative
force being thus destroyed, you are free
to be influenced by the vast positive
mass of evidence he is able to bring
before you. This largeness of know
ledge and readiness of resource render
Mr. Darwin the most terrible of antago
nists.
Accomplished naturalists have
levelled heavy and sustained criticisms
33
against him—not always with the view
of fairly weighing his theory, but with
the express intention of exposing its
weak points only. This does not irritate
him. He treats every objection with a
soberness and thoroughness which even
Bishop Butler might be proud to imitate,
surrounding each fact with its appropriate
detail, placing it in its proper relations,
and usually giving it a significance which,
as long as it was kept isolated, failed to
appear. This is done without a trace of
ill-temper. He moves over the subject
with the passionless strength of a glacier;
and the grinding of the rocks is not
always. without a counterpart in the
logical pulverisation of the objector.
But though in handling this mighty
theme all passion has been stilled, there
is an emotion of the intellect, incident
to the discernment of new truth, which
often colours and warms the pages of
Mr. Darwin.
His success has been
great; and this implies not only the
solidity of his work, but the preparedness
of the public mind for such a revelation.
On this head a remark of Agassiz
impressed me more than anything else.
Sprung from a race of theologians, this
celebrated man combated to the last the
theory of natural selection. One of the
many times I had the pleasure of meeting
him in the United States was at Mr.
Winthrop’s beautiful residence at Brook
line, near Boston. Rising from luncheon,
we all halted as if by common consent
in front of a window, and continued
there a discussion which had been started
at table. The maple was in its autumn
glory, and the exquisite beauty of the
scene outside seemed, in my case, to
interpenetrate without disturbance the
intellectual action.
Earnestly, almost
sadly, Agassiz turned, and said to the
gentlemen standing round : “ I confess
that I was not prepared to see this
theory received as it has been by the
best intellects of our time. Its success
is greater than I could have thought
possible.”
B
�LECTURES AND ESSA YS
34
§ 7-
In our day grand generalisations have
been reached. The theory of the origin
of species is but one of them. Another,
of still wider grasp and more radical
significance, is the doctrine of the Con
servation of Energy, the ultimate philo
sophical issues of which are as yet
but dimly seen—that doctrine which
“ binds nature fast in fate,” to an extent
not hitherto recognised, exacting from
every antecedent its equivalent conse
quent, from every consequent its equiva
lent antecedent, and bringing vital as
well as physical phenomena under the
dominion of that law of causal con
nection which, so far as the human
understanding has yet pierced, asserts
itself everywhere in nature. Long in
advance of all definite experiment upon
the subject, the constancy and in
destructibility of matter had been
affirmed; and all subsequent experi
ence justified the affirmation. Mayer
extended the attribute of indestructi
bility to energy, applying it in the first
instance to inorganic,1 and afterwards
with profound insight to organic nature.
The vegetable world, though drawing
all its nutriment from invisible sources,
was proved incompetent to generate
anew either matter or force. Its matter
is for the most part transmuted gas ; its
force transformed solar force.
The
animal world was proved to be equally
uncreative, all its motive energies being
referred to the combustion of its food.
The activity of each animal, as a whole,
was proved to be the transferred activity
of its molecules. The muscles were
shown to be stores of mechanical energy,
potential until unlocked by the nerves,
and then resulting in muscular con
tractions. The speed at which messages
fly to and fro along the nerves was deter
mined by Helmholtz, and found to be,
not, as had been previously supposed,
1 Dr. Berthold has shown that Leibnitz had
sound views regarding the conservation of energy
in inorganic nature.
equal to that of light or electricity, but
less than the speed of sound—less even
than that of an eagle.
This was the work of the physicist:
then came the conquests of the com
parative anatomist and physiologist, re
vealing the structure of every animal and
the function of every organ in the whole
biological series, from the lowest zoo
phyte up to man. The nervous system
had been made the object of profound
and continued study, the wonderful, and,
at bottom, entirely mysterious controlling
power which it exercises over the whole
organism, physical and mental, being
recognised more and more. Thought
could not be kept back from a subject
so profoundly suggestive. Besides the
physical life dealt with by Mr. Darwin,
there is a psychical life presenting similar
gradations, and asking equally for a
solution. How are the different grades
and orders of Mind to be accounted for?
What is the principle of growth of that
mysterious power which on our planet
culminates in Reason ?
These are
questions which, though not thrusting
themselves so forcibly upon the attention
of the general public, had not only
occupied many reflecting minds, but had
been formally broached by one of them
before the Origin of Species appeared.
With the mass of materials furnished
by the physicist and physiologist in his
hands, Mr. Herbert Spencer, twenty
years ago, sought to graft upon this basis
a system of psychology; and two years
ago a second and greatly amplified
edition of his work appeared. Those
who have occupied themselves with the
beautiful experiments of Plateau will
remember that when two spherules of
olive-oil, suspended in a mixture of alcohol
and water of the same density as the oil,
are brought together, they do not imme
diately unite. Something like a pellicle
appears to be formed around the drops,
the rupture of which is immediately
followed by the coalescence of the
globules into one. There are organisms
whose vital actions are almost as purely
physical as the coalescence of such drops
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
of oil. They come into contact and fuse
themselves thus together. From such
organisms to others a shade higher, from
these to others a shade higher still, and
on through an ever-ascending series, Mr.
Spencer conducts his argument. There
are two obvious factors to be here taken
into account — the creature and the
medium in which it lives, or, as it is
often expressed, the organism and its
environment.
Mr. Spencer’s funda
mental principle is, that between these
two factors there is incessant interaction.
The organism is played upon by the
environment, and is modified to meet
the requirements of the environment.
Life he defines to be “ a continuous
adjustment of internal relations to external
relations.”
In the lowest organisms we have a
kind of tactual sense diffused over the
entire body; then, through impressions
from without and their corresponding
adjustments, special portions of the sur
face become more responsive to stimuli
than others. The senses are nascent,
the basis of all of them being that simple
tactual sense which the sage Democritus
recognised 2,300 years ago as their
common progenitor. The action of light,
in,the first instance, appears to be a
mere disturbance of the chemical pro
cesses in the animal organism, similar to
that which occurs in the leaves of plants.
By degrees the action becomes localised
in a few pigment-cells, more sensitive to
light than the surrounding tissue. The
eye is incipient. At first it is merely
capable of revealing differences of light
and shade produced by bodies close at
hand. Followed, as the interception of
the light commonly is, by the contact of
the closely adjacent opaque body, sight
in this condition becomes a kind of
“anticipatory touch.” The adjustment
continues; a slight bulging out of the
epidermis over the pigment-granules
supervenes. A lens is incipient, and,
through the operation of infinite adjust
ments, at length reaches the perfection
that it displays in the hawk and eagle.
So of the other senses; they are special
35
differentiations of a tissue which was
originally vaguely sensitive all over.
With the development of the senses,
the adjustments between the organism
and its environment gradually extend in
space., a multiplication of experiences and
a corresponding modification of conduct
being the result. The adjustments also
extend in time, covering continually
greater intervals. Along with this exten
sion in space and time the adjustments
also increase in speciality and complexity,
passing through the various grades of
brute life, and prolonging themselves
into the domain of reason. Very striking
are Mr. Spencer’s remarks regarding the
influence of the sense of touch upon the
development of intelligence. This is, so
to say, the mother-tongue of all the
senses, into which they must be trans
lated to be of service to the organism.
Hence its importance. The parrot is
the most intelligent of birds, and its
tactual power is also greatest. From this
sense it gets knowledge, unattainable by
birds which cannot employ their feet as
hands. The elephant is the most saga
cious of quadrupeds—its tactual range
and skill, and the consequent multiplica
tion of experiences, which it owes to its
wonderfully adaptable trunk, being the
basis of its sagacity. Feline - animals,
for a similar cause, are more sagacious
than hoofed animals—atonement being
to some extent made in the case of the
horse by' the possession of sensitive
prehensile lips. In the Primates the
evolution of intellect and the evolution
of tactual appendages go hand in hand.
In the most intelligent anthropoid apes
we find the tactual range and delicacy
greatly augmented, new avenues of know
ledge being thus opened to the animal.
Man crowns the edifice here, not only in
virtue of his own manipulatory power,
but through the enormous extension of
his range of experience, by the invention
of instruments of precision, which serve
as supplemental senses and supplemental
limbs. The reciprocal action of these is
finely described and illustrated. That
chastened intellectual emotion, to which
�3&
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
I have referred in connection with Mr.
Darwin, is not absent in Mr. Spencer.
His illustrations possess at times exceed
ing vividness and force; and from his
style on such occasions it is to be in
ferred that the ganglia of this Apostle of
the Understanding are sometimes the
seat of a nascent poetic thrill.
It is a fact of supreme importance that
actions, the performance of which at first
requires even painful effort and delibera
tion, may, by habit, be rendered auto
matic. Witness the slow learning of its
letters by a child, and the subsequent
facility of reading in a man, when each
group of letters which forms a word is
instantly, and without effort, fused to a
single perception. Instance the billiardplayer,. whose muscles of hand and eye,
when he reaches the perfection of his art,
are unconsciously co-ordinated. Instance
the musician, who, by practice, is enabled
to fuse a multitude of arrangements,
auditory, tactual, and muscular, into a
process of automatic manipulation. Com
bining such facts with the doctrine of
hereditary transmission, we reach a theory
of Instinct. A chick, after coming out
of the egg, balances itself correctly, runs
about, picks up food, thus showing that
it possesses a power of directing its move
ments to definite ends. How did the
chick learn this very complex co-ordina
tion of eyes, muscles, and beak ? It has
not been individually taught; its per
sonal experience is nil, but it has the
benefit of ancestral experience. In its
inherited organisation are registered the
powers which it displays at birth. So
also as regards the instinct of the hive
bee, already referred to. The distance
at which the insects stand apart when
they sweep their hemispheres and build
their cells is “ organically remembered.”
Man also carries with him the physical
texture of his ancestry, as well as the
inherited intellect bound up with it.
The defects of intelligence during in
fancy and youth are probably less due to
a lack of individual experience than to
the fact that in early life the cerebral
organisation is still incomplete. The
period necessary for completion varies
with the race and with the individual.
As a round shot outstrips the rifled bolt
on quitting the muzzle of the gun, so the
lower race, in childhood, may outstrip
the higher. But the higher eventually
overtakes the lower, and surpasses it in
range. As regards individuals, we do
not always find the precocity of youth
prolonged to mental power in maturity;
while the dulness of boyhood is some
times strikingly contrasted with the intel
lectual energy of after years. Newton,
when a boy, was weakly, and he showed
no particular aptitude at school; but in
his eighteenth year he went to Cam
bridge, and soon afterwards astonished
his teachers by his power of dealing with
geometrical problems. During his quiet
youth his brain was slowly preparing
itself to be the organ of those energies
which he subsequently displayed.
By myriad blows (to use a Lucretian
phrase) the image and superscription of
the external world are stamped as states
of consciousness upon the organism, the
depth of the impression depending on
the number of the blows. When two or
more phenomena occur in the environ*
ment invariably together, they are stamped
to the same depth or to the same relief,
and indissolubly connected. And here
we come to the threshold of a great ques
tion. Seeing that he could in no way
rid himself of the consciousness of Space
and Time, Kant assumed them to be
necessary “forms of intuition,” the moulds
and shapes into which our intuitions are
thrown belonging to ourselves, and with
out objective existence. With unexpected
power and success, Mr. Spencer brings
the hereditary experience theory, as he
holds it, to bear upon this question.
“ If there exist certain external relations
which are experienced by all organisms
at all instants of their waking lives—
relations which are absolutely constant
and universal—there will be established
answering internal relations, that are
absolutely constant and universal. Such
relations we have in those of Space and
Time. As the substratum of all other
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
relations of the Non-Ego, they must be
responded to by conceptions that are the
substrata of all other relations in the
Ego. Being the constant and infinitely
repeated elements of thought, they must
become the automatic elements of
thought—the elements of thought which
it is impossible to get rid of—the “ forms
of intuition.”
Throughout this application and ex
tension of Hartley’s and Mill’s “ Law of
Inseparable Association,” Mr. Spencer
stands upon his own ground, invoking,
instead of the experiences of the indi
vidual, the registered experiences of the
race. His overthrow of the restriction of
experience to the individual is, I think,
complete. That restriction ignores the
power of organising experience, furnished
at the outset to each-individual; it ignores
the different degrees of this power pos
sessed by different races, and by different
individuals of the same race. Were there
not in the human brain a potency ante
cedent to all experience, a dog or a cat
ought to be as capable of education as a
man. These predetermined internal re
lations are independent of the experi
ences of the individual. The human
brain is the “ organised register of infi
nitely numerous experiences received
during the evolution of life, or rather
during the evolution of that series of
organisms through which the human
organism has been reached. The effects
of the most uniform and frequent of
these experiences have been successively
bequeathed, principal and interest, and
have slowly mounted to that high intelli
gence which lies latent in the brain of
the infant. Thus it happens that the
European inherits from twenty to thirty
cubic inches more of brain than the
Papuan. Thus it happens that faculties,
as of music, which scarcely exist in some
inferior races, become congenital in
superior ones. Thus it happens that out
of savages unable to count up to the
number of their fingers, and speaking a
language containing only nouns and
verbs, arise at length our Newtons and
.Shakespeares.”
37
§ 8.
At the outset of this Address it was
stated that physical theories which lie
beyond experience are derived by a pro
cess of abstraction from experience. It
is instructive to note from this point of
view the successive introduction of new
conceptions. The idea of the attraction
of gravitation was preceded by the obser
vation of the attraction of iron by a
magnet, and of light bodies by rubbed
amber. The polarity of magnetism and
electricity also appealed to the senses.
It thus became the substratum of the
conception that atoms and molecules are
endowed with attractive and repellent
poles, by the play of which definite forms
of crystalline architecture are produced.
Thus molecular force becomes structural.'1
It required no great boldness of thought
to extend its play into organic nature,
and to recognise in molecular force the
agency by which both plants and animals
are built up. In this way, out of expe
rience arise conceptions which are wholly
ultra-experiential. None of the atomists
of antiquity had any notion of this play
of molecular polar force, but they had
experience of gravity, as manifested by
falling bodies. Abstracting from this,
they permitted their atoms to fall eter
nally through empty space. Democritus
assumed that the larger atoms moved
more rapidly than the smaller ones, which
they therefore could overtake, and with
which they could combine. Epicurus,
holding that empty space could offer no
resistance to motion, ascribed to all the
atoms the same velocity; but he seems
to have overlooked the consequence
that under such circumstances the atoms
could never combine. Lucretius cut the
knot by quitting the domain of physics
altogether, and causing the atoms to
move together by a kind of volition.
Was the instinct utterly at fault which
1 See Fragments of Science, vol. ii., article on
“ Matter and Force
or Lectures on Light, No.
�38
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
caused Lucretius thus to swerve from
his own principles ? Diminishing gradu
ally the number of progenitors,. Mr.
Darwin comes at length to one “ primor
dial form
but he does not say, so far
as I remember, how he supposes this
form to have been introduced. He
quotes with satisfaction the words of a
celebrated author and divine who had
“gradually learnt to see that it was just
as noble a conception of the Deity to
believe He created a few original forms,
capable of self-development into other
and needful forms, as to believe He
required a fresh act of creation to supply
the voids caused by the action of His
laws.” What Mr. Darwin thinks of this
view of the introduction of life I do
not know. But the anthropomorphism,
which it seemed his object to set asioe,
is as firmly associated with the creation
of a few forms as with the creation of a
multitude.
We need clearness and
thoroughness here. Two courses, and
two only, are possible. Either let _ us
open our doors freely to the conception
of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let
us radically change our notions of matter.
If we look at matter as pictured by
Democritus, and as defined for genera
tions in our scientific text-books, the
notion of conscious life coming out of it
cannot be formed by the mind. . The
argument placed in the mouth of Bishop
Butler suffices, in my opinion, to crush
all such materialism as this. . Those,
however, who framed these definitions of
matter were but partial students. . They
were not biologists, but mathematicians,
whose labours referred only to such
accidents and properties of matter as
could be expressed in their formulae.
Their science was mechanical science,
not the science of life. With matter in
its wholeness they never dealt; and,
denuded by their imperfect definitions,
“ the gentle mother of all ” became the
object of her children’s dread. Let us
reverently, but honestly, look the ques
tion in the face. Divorced from matter,
where is life ? Whatever our faith may
say, our knowledge shows them to be
indissolubly joined. Every meal we eat,
every cup we drink, illustrates the
mysterious control of mind by matter.
On tracing the line of life backwards,
we see it approaching more and more to
what we call the purely physical con
dition. We come at length to those
organisms which I have compared to
drops of oil suspended in a mixture of
alcohol and water. We reach the pro
togenes of Haeckel, in which we have “ a
type distinguishable from a fragment of
albumen only by its finely granular
character.” Can we pause here? We
break a magnet, and find two poles in
each of its fragments. We continue the
process of breaking ; but, however small
the parts, each carries with it, though
enfeebled, the polarity of the whole.
And when we can break no longer, we
prolong the intellectual vision to the
polar molecules. Are we not urged to
do something similar in the case of life ?
Is there not a temptation to close to
some extent with Lucretius, when he
affirms that “Nature is seen to do all
things spontaneously of herself without
the meddling of the gods”? or with
Bruno, when he declares that matter is
not “ that mere empty capacity which
philosophers have pictured her to be,
but the universal mother who brings
forth all things as the fruit of her own
womb ”? Believing, as I do, in the con
tinuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly
where our microscopes cease to be of
use.
Here the vision of the mind
authoritatively supplements the vision of
the eye. By a necessity engendered and
justified by science I cross the boundary
of the experimental evidence, and dis
cern in that matter which we, in our
ignorance of its latent powers, and not
withstanding our professed reverence for
its Creator, have hitherto covered with
opprobrium, the promise and potency of
all terrestrial life.
If you ask me whether there exists the
least evidence to prove that any form of
life can be developed out of matter,
without demonstrable antecedent life,
my reply is that evidence considered
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
perfectly conclusive by many has been
adduced; and that were some of us who
have pondered this question to follow a
very common example and accept testi
mony because it falls in with our belief,
we also should eagerly close with the
evidence referred to. But there is in the
true man of science a desire stronger
than the wish to have his beliefs upheld
—namely, the desire to have them true.
And this stronger wish causes him to
reject the most plausible support, if he
has reason to suspect that it is vitiated
by error. Those to whom I refer as
having studied this question, believing
the evidence offered in favour of “ spon
taneous generation ” to be thus vitiated,
cannot accept it. They know full well
that the chemist now prepares from in
organic matter a vast array of substances,
which were some time ago regarded as
the sole products of vitality. They are
intimately acquainted with the structural
power of matter, as evidenced in the
phenomena of crystallisation. They can
justify scientifically their belief in its
potency, under the proper conditions, to
produce organisms. But, in reply to
your question, they will frankly admit
their inability to point to any satisfactory
experimental proof that life can be
developed, save from demonstrable an
tecedent life. As already indicated, they
draw the line from the highest organisms
through lower ones down to the lowest;
and it is the prolongation of this line by
the intellect, beyond the range of the
senses, that leads them to the conclusion
which Bruno so boldly enunciated.1
The “materialism”, here professed
may be vastly different from what you
suppose, and I therefore crave your
gracious patience to the end. “The
'question of an external world,” says
J. S. Mill, “ is the great battle-ground of
metaphysics.”2 Mr. Mill himself reduces
•external phenomena to “ possibilities of
sensation. ’
Kant, as we have seen,
1 Bruno was a " Pantheist,” not an “ Atheist ”
•Oi a “ Materialist.”
’ Examination of Hamilton, p. 154,
39
made time and space “ forms ” of our
own intuitions. Fichte, having first by
the inexorable logic of his understanding
proved himself to be a mere link in that
chain . of eternal causation which holds
so rigidly in nature, violently broke the
chain by making nature, and all that it
inherits, an apparition of the mind.1
And it is by no means easy to combat
such notions. For when I say “ I see
you,” and that there is not the least doubt
about it, the obvious reply is, that what
I am really conscious of is an affection
of my own retina. And if I urge that
my sight can be checked by touching
you, the retort would be that I am equally
transgressing the limits of fact; for what I
am really conscious of is, not that you are
there, but that the nerves of my hand
have undergone a change. All we hear,
and see, and touch, and taste, and smell
are, it would be urged, mere variations
of our own condition, beyond which,
even, to the extent of a hair’s breadth,’
we cannot go. That anything answering
to our impressions exists outside of our
selves is not a fact, but an inference, to
which all validity would be denied by
an idealist like Berkeley, or by a sceptic
like Hume. Mr. Spencer takes another
line. With him, as with the uneducated
man, there is no doubt or question as to
the existence of an external world. But
he differs from the uneducated, who
think that the world really is what con
sciousness represents it to be.
Our
states of consciousness are mere symbols
of an outside entity which produces
them and determines the order of their
succession, but the real nature of which
we can never know.2 _ In fact, the whole
process of evolution is the manifestation
of a power absolutely inscrutable to the
1 Bestimmung des Menschen.
2 In a paper, at once popular and profound,
enhUed, “ Recent Progress in the Theory of
Vision, contained in the volume of lectures by
Helmholtz, published by Longmans, this sym
bolism of our states of consciousness is also
dwelt upon. The impressions of sense are the
mere signs of external things. In this paper
Helmholtz contends strongly against the view
that the consciousness of space is inborn; and
�40
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
intellect of man. As little in our day as
in the days of Job can man by searching
find this Power out. Considered funda
mentally, then, it is by the operation of
an insoluble mystery that life on earth is
evolved, species differentiated, and mind
unfolded, from their prepotent elements
in the immeasurable past,
The strength of the doctrine of Evolu
tion consists, not in an experimental
demonstration (for the subject is hardly
accessible to this mode of proof), but
in its general harmony with scientific
thought. From contrast, moreover, it
derives enormous relative cogency. On
the one side we have a theory (if it could
with any propriety be so called) derived,
as were the theories referred to at the
beginning of this Address, not from the
study of nature, but from the observa
tion of men—a theory which converts
the Power whose garment is seen in
the visible universe into an Artificer,
fashioned after the human model, and
acting by broken efforts as man is seen
to act. On the other side we have the
conception that all we see around us,
and all we feel within us—the phenomena
of physical nature as well as those of the
human mind—have their unsearchable
roots in a cosmical life, if I dare apply
the term, an infinitesimal span of which
is offered to the investigation of man.
And even this span is only knowable in
part. We can trace the development of
a nervous system, and correlate with it
the parallel phenomena of sensation and
thought. We see with undoubting cer
tainty that they go hand in hand. But
we try to soar in a vacuum the moment
we seek to comprehend the connection
he evidently doubts the power of the chick to
pick up grains of corn without preliminary
lessons. On this point, he says, further expertments are needed.
Such experiments have
been since made by Mr. Spalding, and they
seem to prove conclusively that the chick does
not need a single moment’s tuition to enable it
to stand, run, govern the muscles of its eyes,
and peck. Helmholtz, however, is contending
against the notion of pre-established harmony,
and I am not aware of his views as to the
organisation of experiences of race or breed.
between them. An Archimedean fulcrum
is here required which the human mind
cannot command ; and the effort to
solve the problem—to borrow a com
parison from an illustrious friend of
mine—is like that of a man trying to lift
himself by his own waistband. All that
has been said in this discourse is to be
taken in connection with this funda
mental truth. When £< nascent senses
are spoken of, when “ the differentiation
of a tissue at first vaguely sensitive all
over” is spoken of, and when these
possessions and processes are associated
with “ the modification of an organism
by its environment,” the same parallelism,
without contact, or even approach to
contact, is implied. Man the object is
separated by an impassable gulf from
man the subject.
There is no motor
energy in the human intellect to carry
it, without logical rupture, from the one
to the other.
§ 9The doctrine of Evolution derives man,
in his totality, from the interaction of
organism and environment through
countless ages past. The Human Under
standing, for example—that faculty which
Mr. Spencer has turned so skilfully round
upon its own antecedents—is itself a
result of the play between organism and
environment through cosmic ranges_ of
time. Never, surely, did prescription
plead so irresistible a claim. But then
it comes to pass that, over and above
his understanding, there are many other
things appertaining to man whose pre
scriptive rights are quite as strong as
those of the understanding itself. It is
a result, for example, of the play of
organism and environment that sugar is
sweet, and that aloes are bitter 5 that the
smell of henbane differs from the perfume
of a rose. Such facts of consciousness
(for which, by the way, no adequate
reason has ever been rendered) are quite
as old as the understanding; and many
other things can boast an equally ancient
origin. Mr. Spencer at one place refers
�THE BELFAST ADDRESS
to that most powerful of passions—the
amatory passion—as one which, when it
first occurs, is antecedent to all relative
experience whatever; and we may press
its claim as being at least as ancient, and
as valid, as that of the understanding
itself. Then there are such things woven
into the texture of man as the feeling of
Awe, Reverence, Wonder—and not alone
the sexual love just referred to, but the
love of the beautiful, physical, and moral,
in Nature, Poetry, and Art. There is
also that deep-set feeling, which, since
the earliest dawn of history, and pro
bably for ages prior to all history, incor
porated itself in the religions of the
world. You, who have escaped from
these religions into the high-and-dry light
of the intellect, may deride them; but
in so doing you deride accidents of form
merely, and fail to touch the immovable
basis of the religious sentiment in the
nature of man. To yield this sentiment
reasonable satisfaction is the problem of
problems at the present hour.
And
grotesque in relation to scientific culture
as many of the religions of the world
have been and are—dangerous, nay,
destructive, to the dearest privileges of
freemen as some of them undoubtedly
have been, and would, if they could, be
again—it will be wise to recognise them
as the forms of a force, mischievous if
permitted to intrude on the region of
objective knowledge, over which it holds
no command, but capable of adding, in
the region of poetry and emotion, inward
completeness and dignity to man.
Feeling, I say again, dates from as old
an origin and as high a source as intelli
gence, and it equally demands its range
of play. The wise teacher of humanity
will recognise the necessity of meeting
this demand, rather than of resisting it
on account of errors and absurdities of
form.
What we should resist, at all
hazards, is the attempt made in the past,
and now repeated, to found upon this
elemental bias of man’s nature a system
which should exercise despotic sway over
his intellect.
I have no fear of such a
consummation. Science has already to
41
some extent leavened the world; it will
leaven it more and more. I should look
upon the mild light of science breaking
in upon the minds of the youth of Ireland,
and strengthening gradually to the per
fect day, as a surer check to any intel
lectual or spiritual tyranny which may
threaten this island than the laws of
princes or the swords of emperors. We
fought and won our battle even in the
Middle Ages : should we doubt the issue
of another conflict with our broken foe ?
The impregnable position of science
may be described in a few words. We
claim, and we shall wrest from theology,
the entire domain of cosmological theory.
All schemes and systems which thus
infringe upon the domain of science must,
in so far as they do this, submit to its
control, and relinquish all thought of
controlling it. Acting otherwise proved
always disastrous in the past, and it is
simply fatuous to-day. Every system
which would escape the fate of an
organism too rigid to adjust itself to its
environment must be plastic to the
extent that the growth of knowledge
demands. When this truth has been
thoroughly taken in, 'rigidity will be
relaxed, exclusiveness diminished, things
now deemed essential will be dropped,
and elements now rejected will be assimi
lated. The lifting of the life is the
essential point, and as long as dogma
tism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept
out, various modes of leverage may be
employed to raise life to a higher level.
Science itself not unfrequently derives
motive power from an ultra-scientific
source. Some of its greatest discoveries
have been made under the stimulus of a
non-scientific ideal. This was the case
among the ancients, and it has been so
among ourselves. Mayer, Joule, and
Colding, whose names are associated
with the greatest of modern generalisa
tions, were thus influenced. With his
usual insight, Lange at one place remarks
that “it is not always the objectively
correct and intelligible that helps man
most, or leads most quickly to the
fullest and truest knowledge. As the
�42
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
sliding body upon the brachystochrone
reaches its end sooner than by the
straighter road of the inclined plane, so,
through the swing of the ideal, we often
arrive at the naked truth more rapidly
than by the processes of the understand
ing.” Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of
temper as a hindrance to science; but
he means the enthusiasm of weak heads.
There is a strong and resolute enthu
siasm in which science finds an ally; and
it is to the lowering of this fire, rather
than to the diminution of intellectual
insight, that the lessening productiveness
of men of science, in their mature years,
is to be ascribed. Mr. Buckle sought to
detach intellectual achievement from
moral force. He gravely erred; for with
out moral force to whip it into action
the achievement of the intellect would
be poor indeed.
It has been said by its opponents that
science divorces itself from literature;
but the statement, like so many others,
arises from lack of knowledge. A glance
at the less technical writings of its leaders
—of its Helmholtz, its Huxley, and its
Du Bois-Reymond—would show what
breadth of literary culture they com
mand. Where among modern writers
can you find their superiors in clearness
and vigour of literary style? Science
desires not isolation, but freely combines
with every effort towards the bettering of
man’s estate. Single-handed, and sup
ported, not by outward sympathy, but by
inward force, it has built at least one
great wing of the many-mansioned home
which man in his totality demands. And
if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends
indicate that on one side the edifice is
still incomplete, it is only by wise com
bination of the parts required, with those
already irrevocably built, that we can
hope for completeness. There is no
necessary incongruity between what has
been accomplished and what remains to
be done. The moral glow of Socrates,
which we all feel by ignition, has in . it
nothing incompatible with the physics
of Anaxagoras which he so much
scorned, but which he would hardly
scorn to-day. And here I am reminded
of one among us, hoary, but still strong,
whose prophet-voice some thirty years
ago, far more than any other of this age,
unlocked whatever of life and nobleness
lay latent in its most gifted minds—one
fit to stand beside Socrates or the
Maccabean Eleazar, and to dare and
suffer all that they suffered and dared—
fit, as he once said of Fichte, “ to have
been the teacher of the Stoa, and to
have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in
the groves of Academe.” With a capacity
to grasp physical principles which his
friend Goethe did not possess, and which
even total lack of exercise has not been
able to reduce to atrophy, it is the
world’s loss that he, in the vigour of his
years, did not open his mind and sym
pathies to science, and make its conclu
sions a portion of his message to mankind.
Marvellously endowed as he was—equally
equipped on the side of the Heart and
of the Understanding—he might have
done much towards teaching us how to
reconcile the claims of both, and to
enable them in coming times to dwell
together, in unity of spirit and in the
bond of peace.
And now the end is come. With
more time, or greater strength and know
ledge, what has been here said might
have been better said, while worthy
matters, here omitted, might have re
ceived fit expression. But there would
have been no material deviation from
the views set forth. As regards myself,
they are not the growth of a day; and
as regards you, I thought you ought to
know the environment which, with or
without your consent, is rapidly surround
ing you, and in relation to which some
adjustment on your part may be neces
sary.
A hint of Hamlet’s, however,
teaches us how the troubles of common
life may be ended; and it is perfectly
possible for you and me to purchase
intellectual peace at the price of intel
lectual death. The world is not without
refuges of this description; nor is it
wanting in persons who seek their
�APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS
shelter, and try to persuade others to do
the same. The unstable and the weak
have yielded and will yield to this per
suasion, and they to whom repose is
sweeter than the truth. But I would
exhort you to refuse the offered shelter,
and to scorn the base repose—to accept,
if the choice be forced upon you, com
motion before stagnation, the breezy leap
of the torrent before the foetid stillness
of the swamp. In the course of this
Address I have touched on debatable
questions, and led you over what will be
deemed dangerous ground—and this
partly with the view of telling you that,
as regards these questions, science
claims unrestricted right of search. It
is not to the point to say that the views
of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and
Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should
agree with you, deeming it indeed
certain that these views will undergo
modification.
But the point is that,
whether right or wrong, we claim the
right to discuss them.
For science,
however, no exclusive claim is here
made; you are not urged to erect it into
an idol.
The inexorable advance of
man’s understanding in the path of
knowledge, and those unquenchable
claims of his moral and emotional nature
which the understanding can never satisfy,
43
are here equally set forth. The world em
braces not only a Newton, but a Shake
speare—not only a Boyle, but a Raphael
—not only a Kant, but a Beethoven—
not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not
in each of these, but in all, is human
nature whole. They are not opposed,
but supplementary—not mutually exclu
sive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatis
fied with them all, the human mind, with
the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant
home, will still turn to the Mystery from
which it has emerged, seeking so to
fashion it as to give unity to thought and
faith ; so long as this is done, not only
without intolerance or bigotry of any
kind, but with the enlightened recogni
tion that ultimate fixity of conception is
here unattainable, and that each suc
ceeding age must be held free to fashion
the mystery in accordance with its own
needs—then, casting aside all the restric
tions of Materialism, I would affirm this
to be a field for the noblest exercise of
what, in contrast with the knowing facul
ties, may be called the creative faculties
of man. Here, however, I touch a theme
too great for me to handle, but which
will assuredly be handled by the loftiest
minds, when you and I, like streaks of
morning cloud, shall have melted into
the infinite azure of the past.
APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS'
1874
The world has been frequently informed
of late that I have raised up against
myself a host of enemies ; and consider
ing, with few exceptions, the deliverances
of the Press, and more particularly, of the
religious Press, I am forced to admit
that the statement is only too true. I
derive some comfort, nevertheless, from
..
the reflection of Diogenes, transmitted
to us by Plutarch, that “he who would
be saved must have good friends or
violent enemies ; and that he is best off
who possesses both.” This “best” con
dition, I have reason to believe, is mine.
Reflecting on the fraction I have
read of recent remonstrances, appeals,
The word “Apology” is here used in its original sense, as signifying “Vindication” 01
Defence”; no retractation is implied.— Ed.
�44
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
has himself told us how and where this
menaces, and judgments—covering not
Address of his was composed. It was
only the world that now is, but that
written among the glaciers and the soli
which is to come—I have noticed with
tudes of the Swiss mountains. It was
mournful interest how trivially men seem
no hasty, hurried, crude production; its
to be influenced by what they call their
every sentence bore marks of thought
religion, and how potently by that
and care.”
“ nature ” which it is the alleged province
My critic intends to be severe: he is
of religion to eradicate or subdue. From
simply just.
In the “ solitudes ” to
fair and manly argument, from the tenwhich he refers I worked with delibera
derest and holiest sympathy on the part
tion, endeavouring even to purify my
of those who desire my eternal good, I
pass by many gradations, through deli intellect by disciplines similar to those
berate unfairness, to a spirit of bitter enjoined by his own Church for the
ness, which desires with a fervour inex sanctification of the soul. I tried, more
over, in my ponderings to realise not
pressible in words my eternal ill. Now,
only the lawful, but the expedient; and
were religion the potent factor, we might
to permit no fear to act upon my mind,
expect a homogeneous utterance from
save that of uttering a single word on
those professing a common creed, while,
which I could not take my stand, either
if human nature be the really potent
in this or in any other world.
factor, we may expect utterances as
Still my time was so brief, the diffi
heterogeneous as the characters of men.
culties arising from my isolated position
As a matter of fact, we have the latter;
suggesting to my mind that the common were so numerous, and my thought and
expression so slow, that, in a literary
religion, professed and defended by
point of view, I halted, not only behind
these different people, is merely the
the ideal, but behind the possible.
accidental conduit through which they
Hence, after the delivery of the Address,
pour their own tempers, lofty or low,
I went over it with the desire, not to
courteous or vulgar, mild or ferocious,
as the case may be. Pure abuse, how revoke its principles, but to improve it
verbally, and above all to remove any
ever, as serving no good end, I have,
word which might give colour to the
wherever possible, deliberately avoided
reading, wishing, indeed, to keep, not notion of “ crudeness, hurry, or haste.”
In connection with the charge of
only hatred, malice, and uncharitable
Atheism my critic refers to the Preface
ness, but even every trace of irritation,
to the second issue of the Belfast
far away from my side of a discussion
Address. “ Christian men,” I there say,
which demands not only good-temper,
but largeness, clearness, and many-sided “are proved by their writings to have
their hours of weakness and of doubt, as
ness of mind, if it is to guide us to even
well as their hours of strength and of
provisional solutions.
It has been stated, with many varia conviction; and men like myself share,
in their own way, these variations of
tions of note and comment, that in
mood and tense.
Were the religious
the Address as subsequently published
moods of many of my assailants the only
by Messrs. Longman I have retracted
alternative ones, I do not know how
opinions uttered at Belfast. A Roman
strong the claims of the doctrine of
Catholic writer is specially strong upon
‘ Material Atheism ’ upon my allegiance
this point. Startled by the deep chorus
might be. Probably they would be very
of dissent which my “ dazzling fallacies ”
strong. But, as it is, I have noticed
have evoked, I am now trying to retreat.
during years of self-observation that it is
This he will by no means tolerate. “ It
not in hours of clearness and vigour
is too late now to seek to hide from
that this doctrine commends itself to my
the eyes of mankind one foul blot, one
mind; that in the presence of stronger
ghastly deformity.
Professor Tyndall
�APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS
and healthier thought it ever dissolves
and disappears, as offering no solution
of the mystery in which we dwell, and
of which we form a part.”
With reference to this honest and
reasonable utterance my censor exclaims:
“ This is a most remarkable passage.
Much as we dislike seasoning polemics
with strong words, we assert that this
apology only tends to affix with links
of steel, to the name of Professor Tyndall,
the dread imputation against which he
struggles.”
Here we have a very fair example of
subjective religious vigour.
But my
quarrel with such exhibitions is that they
do not always represent objective fact.
No atheistic reasoning can, I hold, dis
lodge religion from the human heart.
Logic cannot deprive us of life, and
religion is life to the religious. As an
experience of consciousness it is beyond
the assaults of logic. But the religious
life is often projected in external forms
—I use the word in its widest sense—
and this embodiment of the religious
sentiment will have to bear more and
more, as the world becomes more en
lightened, the stress of scientific tests.
We must be careful of projecting into
external nature that which belongs to
ourselves. My critic commits this mis
take : he feels, and takes delight in
feeling, that I am struggling, and he
obviously experiences the most exquisite
pleasures of “the muscular sense” in
holding me down. His feelings are as
real as if his imagination of what mine
are were equally real. His picture of
my “ struggles ” is, however, a mere
delusion. I do not struggle. I do not
fear the charge of Atheism; nor should
I even disavow it, in reference to any
definition of the Supreme which he, or
his order, would be likely to frame. His
“ links ” and his “ steel ” and his “dread
imputations ” are, therefore, even more
unsubstantial than my “streaks of morn
ing cloud,” and they may be permitted
to vanish together.
These minor and more purely personal
45
matters at an end, the weightier allegation
remains, that at Belfast I misused my
position by quitting the domain of
science, and making an unjustifiable raid
into the domain of theology. This I
fail to see. Laying aside abuse, I hope
my accusers will consent to reason with
me. Is it not lawful for a scientific man
to speculate on the antecedents of the
solar system ? Did Kant, Laplace, and
William Herschel quit their legitimate
spheres when they prolonged the intellec
tual vision beyond the boundary of
experience, and propounded the nebular
theory ? Accepting that theory as prob
able, is it not permitted to a scientific
man to follow up, in idea, the series of
changes associated with the condensation
of the nebulae; to picture the successive
detachment of planets and moons, and
the z relation of all of them to the sun ?
If I look upon our earth, with its orbital
revolution and axial rotation, as one
small issue of the process which made
the solar system what it is, will any theo
logian deny my right to entertain and
express this theoretic view ? Time was
when a multitude of theologians would
have been found to do so—when that
arch-enemy of science which now vaunts
its tolerance would have made a speedy
end of the man who might venture to
publish any opinion of the kind.
But
that time, unless the world is caught
strangely slumbering, is for ever past.
As regards inorganic nature, then, we
may traverse, without let or hindrance,
the whole distance which separates the
nebulae from the worlds of to-day. But
only a few years ago this now conceded
ground of science was theological ground.
I could by no means regard this as the
final and sufficient concession of theo
logy ; and, at Belfast, I thought it not
only my right but my duty to state that,
as regards the organic world, we must
enjoy the freedom which we have already
won in regard to the inorganic. I could
not discern the shred of a title-deed
which gave any man, or any class of men,
the right to open the door of one of these
worlds to the scientific searcher and to
�46
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
close the other against him. And I con
sidered it frankest, wisest, and in the
long run most conducive to permanent
peace, to indicate, without evasion or
reserve, the ground that belongs to
Science, and to which she will assuredly
make good her claim.
I have been reminded that an eminent
predecessor of mine in the Presidential
chair expressed a totally different view of
the Cause of things from that enunciated
by me. In doing so he transgressed the
bounds of science at least as much as I
did; but nobody raised an outcry against
him. The freedom he took I claim.
And looking at what I must regard as
the extravagances of the religious world;
at the very inadequate and foolish notions
concerning this universe which are enter
tained by the majority of our authorised
religious teachers; at the waste of energy
on the part of good men over things
unworthy, if I may say it without dis
courtesy, of the attention of enlightened
heathens ; the fight about the fripperies
of Ritualism, and the verbal quibbles of
the Athanasian Creed ; the forcing on the
public view of Pontigny Pilgrimages ; the
dating of historic epochs from the defini
tion of the Immaculate Conception; the
proclamation of the Divine Glories of the
Sacred Heart—standing in the midst of
these chimeras, which astound all think
ing men, it did not appear to me extra
vagant to claim the public tolerance for
an hour and a half, for the statement of
more reasonable views, views more in
accordance with the verities which science
has brought to light, and which many
weary souls would, I thought, welcome
with gratification and relief.
But to come to closer quarters. The
expression to which the most violent ex
ception has been taken is this: “ Aban
doning all disguise, the confession I feel
bound to make before you is that I pro
long the vision backward across the
boundary of the experimental evidence,
and discern in that Matter which we, in
our ignorance, and notwithstanding our
professed reverence for its Creator, have
hitherto covered with opprobrium, the
promise and potency of every form and
quality of life.” To call it a “chorus of
dissent,” as my Catholic critic does, is a
mild way of describing the storm of
opprobrium with which this statement
has been assailed. But the first blast of
passion being past, I hope I may again
ask my opponents to consent to reason.
First of all, I am blamed for crossing the
boundary of the experimental evidence.
This, I reply, is the habitual action of
the scientific mind—at least of that por
tion of it which applies itself to physical
investigation. Our theories of light, heat,
magnetism, and electricity, all imply the
crossing of this boundary. My paper on
the “ Scientific Use of the Imagination,”
and my “Lectures on Light,” illustrate
this point in the amplest manner ; and in
the article entitled “ Matter and Force ” I
have sought, incidentally, to make clear
that in physics the experiential incessantly
leads to the ultra-experiential; that out
of experience there always grows some
thing finer than mere experience, and
that in their different powers of ideal
extension consists, for the most part, the
difference between the great and the
mediocre investigator. The kingdom of
science, then, cometh not by observation
and experiment alone, but is completed
by fixing the roots of observation and
experiment in a region inaccessible to
both, and in dealing with which we are
forced to fall back upon the picturing
power of the mind.
Passing the boundary of experience,
therefore, does not, in the abstract, con
stitute a sufficient ground for censure.
There must have been something in my
particular mode of crossing it which pro
voked this tremendous “chorus of dis
sent.”
Let us calmly reason the point out.
I hold the nebular theory as it was held
by Kant, Laplace, and William Herschel,
and as it is held by the best scientific
intellects of to-day. According to it, our
sun and planets were once diffused
through space as an impalpable haze, out
of which, by condensation, came the
I solar system.
What caused the haze to
�APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS
condense ? Loss of heat. What rounded
the sun and planets ? That which rounds
a tear—molecular force. For seons, the
immensity of which overwhelms man’s
conceptions, the earth was unfit to main
tain what we call life. It is now covered
with visible living things. They are not
formed of matter different from that of
the earth around them. They are, on
the contrary, bone of its bone, and flesh
of its flesh. How were they introduced?
Was life implicated in the nebula—as
part, it may be, of a vaster and wholly
Unfathomable Life; or is it the work of
a Being standing outside the nebula,
who fashioned it, and vitalised it; but
whose own origin and ways are equally
past finding out ? As far as the eye of
science has hitherto ranged through
nature, no intrusion of purely creative
power into any series of phenomena has
ever been observed. The assumption
of such a power to account for special
phenomena, though often made, has
always proved a failure. It is opposed
to the very spirit of science ; and I there
fore assumed the responsibility of holding
up, in contrast with it, that method of
nature which it has been the vocation
and triumph of science to disclose, and
in the application of which we can alone
hope for further light.
Holding, then,
that the nebulae and the solar system,
life included, stand to each other in the
relation of the germ to the finished
organism, I reaffirm here, not arrogantly
or defiantly, but without a shade of indis
tinctness, the position laid down at
Belfast.
Not with the vagueness belonging to
the emotions, but with the definiteness
belonging to the understanding, the
scientific man has to put to himself these
questions regarding the introduction of
life upon the earth. He will be the last
to dogmatise upon the subject, for he
knows best that certainty is here for the
present unattainable. His refusal of the
creative hypothesis is less an assertion of
knowledge than a protest against the
assumption of knowledge which must
long, if not for ever, lie beyond us, and
47
the claim to which is the source of per
petual confusion upon earth. With a
mind open to conviction he asks his
opponents to show him an authority for
the belief they so strenuously and so
fiercely uphold. They can do no more
than point to the Book of Genesis, or
some other portion of the Bible. Pro
foundly interesting, and indeed pathetic,
to me are those attempts of the opening
mind of man to appease its hunger for a
Cause. But the Book of Genesis has no
voice in scientific questions. To the
grasp of geology, which it resisted for a
time, it at length yielded like potter’s
clay; its authority as a system of cosmo
gony being discredited on all hands by
the abandonment of the obvious meaning
of its writer. It is a poem, not a scien
tific treatise. In the former aspect it is
for ever beautiful: in the latter aspect it
has been, and it will continue to be,
purely obstructive and hurtful.
To
knowledge its value has been negative,
leading, in rougher ages than ours, to
physical, and even in our own “free”
age to moral, violence.
No incident connected with the pro
ceedings at Belfast is more instructive
than the deportment of the Catholic
hierarchy of Ireland; a body usually too
wise to confer notoriety upon an adver
sary by imprudently denouncing him.
The Times, to which I owe a great deal
on the score of fair play, where so much
has been unfair, thinks that the Irish
Cardinal, Archbishops, and Bishops, in
a recent manifesto, adroitly employed a
weapon which I, at an unlucky moment,
placed in their hands. The antecedents
of their action cause me to regard it in
a different light; and a brief reference
to these antecedents will, I think, illu
minate not only their proceedings regard
ing Belfast, but other doings which have
been recently noised abroad.
Before me lies a document bearing
the date of November, 1873, which, after
appearing for a moment, unaccountably
vanished from public view.
It is a
Memorial addressed by seventy of the
�4»
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
Students and Ex-students of the Catholic
University in Ireland to the Episcopal
Board of the University ; and it consti
tutes the plainest and bravest remon
strance ever addressed by Irish laymen
to their spiritual pastors and masters. . It
expresses the profoundest dissatisfaction
with the curriculum marked out for the
students of the University, setting forth
the extraordinary fact that the lecture
list for the faculty of Science, published
a month before they wrote, did not
contain the name of a single Professor
of the Physical or Natural Sciences.
The memorialists forcibly deprecate
this, and dwell upon the necessity of
education in science : “The distinguish
ing mark of this age is its ardour for
science.
The natural sciences have,
within the last fifty years, become the
chiefest study in the world; they
are in our time pursued with an activity
unparalleled in the history of mankind.
Scarce a year now passes without some
discovery being made in these sciences
which, as with the touch of the magician’s
wand, shivers to atoms theories formerly
deemed unassailable. It is through the
physical and natural sciences that the
fiercest assaults are now made on our
religion. No more deadly weapon is
used against our faith than the facts
incontestably proved by modern re
searches in science.”
Such statements must be the reverse
of comfortable to a number of gentle
men who, trained in the philosophy of
Thomas Aquinas, have been accustomed
to the unquestioning submission of all
other sciences to their divine science of
Theology. But this is not all: “ One thing
seems certain,” say the memorialists,
“ viz., that if chairs for the physical and
natural sciences be not soon founded in
the Catholic University, very many young
men will have their faith exposed to
dangers which the creation of a school
of science in the University would defend
them from. For our generation of Irish
Catholics are writhing under the sense
of their inferiority in science, and are
determined that such inferiority shall
not long continue; and so, if scientific
training be unattainable at our University,
they will seek it at Trinity or at the
Queen’s Colleges, in not one of which is
there a Catholic Professor of Science.” .
Those who imagined the Catholic
University at Kensington to be due to
the spontaneous recognition, on the part
of the Roman hierarchy, of the intel
lectual needs of the age will derive
enlightenment from this, and still more
from what follows : for the most formid
able threat remains. To the picture of
Catholic students seceding to Trinity
and the Queen’s Colleges the memo
rialists add this darkest stroke of all:
“ They will, in the solitude of their own
homes, unaided by any guiding advice,
devour the works of Haeckel, Darwin,
Huxley, Tyndall, and Lyell: works in
nocuous if studied under a professor
who would point out the difference
between established facts and erroneous
inferences, but which are calculated
to sap the faith of a solitary student
deprived of a discriminating judgment to
which he could refer for a solution of his
difficulties.”
In the light of the knowledge given by
this courageous memorial, and of similar
knowledge otherwise derived, the recent
Catholic manifesto did not at all strike
me as a chuckle over the mistake of a
maladroit adversary, but rather as an
evidence of profound uneasiness on the
part of the Cardinal, the Archbishops,
and the Bishops who signed it. They
acted towards the Students’ Memorial,
however, with their accustomed practical
wisdom. As one concession to the spirit
which it embodied, the Catholic Univer
sity at Kensington was brought forth,
apparently as the effect of spontaneous
inward force, and not of outward pressure
becoming too formidable to be success
fully opposed.
.
The memorialists point with bitterness
to the fact that “the name of no Irish
Catholic is known in connection with the
physical and natural sciences.” But this,
they ought to know, is the complaint
of free and cultivated minds wherever
�APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS
a Priesthood exercises dominant power.
Precisely the same complaint has been
made with respect to the Catholics
of Germany. The great national litera
ture and the scientific achievements
of that country, in modern times, are
almost wholly the work of Protestants.
A vanishingly small fraction of it only is
derived from members of the Roman
Church, although the number of these in
Germany is at least as great as that of the
Protestants. “ The question arises,” says
a writer in an able German periodical,
“ what is the cause of a phenomenon so
humiliating to the Catholics ? It cannot
be referred to want of natural endowment
due to climate (for the Protestants of
Southern Germany have contributed
powerfully to the creations of the German
intellect), but purely to outward circum
stances. And these are readily discovered
in the pressure exercised for centuries by
the Jesuitical system, which has crushed
out of Catholics every tendency to free
mental productiveness.” It is, indeed,
in Catholic countries that the weight of
Ultramontanism has been most severely
felt. It is in such countries that the very
finest spirits, who have dared, without
quitting their faith, to plead for freedom
or reform, have suffered extinction. The
extinction, however, was more apparent
than real, and Hermes, Hirscher, and
Gunther, though individually broken and
subdued, prepared the way, in Bavaria,
for the persecuted but unflinching
Frohschammer, for Dollinger, and for
the remarkable liberal movement of
which Dollinger is the head and guide.
Though moulded for centuries to an
obedience unparalleled in any other
country, except Spain, the Irish intellect
is beginning to show signs of indepen
dence; demanding a diet more suited
to its years than the pabulum of the
Middle Ages. As for the recent mani
festo in which Pope, Cardinal, Arch
bishops, and Bishops are united in one
grand anathema, its character and faith
are shadowed forth by the Vision of
Nebuchadnezzar recorded in the Book
of Daniel.
It resembles the image
49
whose form was terrible, but the gold,
and silver, and brass, and iron of which
rested upon feet of clay. And a stone
smote the feet of clay ; and the iron, and
the brass, and the silver, and the gold,
were broken in pieces together, and
became like the chaff of the summer
threshing-floors, and the wind carried
them away.
Monsignor Capel has recently been
good enough to proclaim at once the
friendliness of his Church towards true
science, and her right to determine what
true science is. Let us dwell for a
moment on the proofs of her scientific
competence.
When Halley’s comet
appeared in 1456 it was regarded as
the harbinger of God’s vengeance, the
dispenser of war, pestilence, and famine,
and by order of the Pope the church
bells of Europe were rung to scare the
monster away.
An additional daily
prayer was added to the supplications of
the faithful. The comet in due time
disappeared, and the faithful were com
forted by the assurance that, as in
previous instances relating to eclipses,
droughts, and rains, so also as regards
this “nefarious” comet, victory had been
vouchsafed to the Church.
Both Pythagoras and Copernicus had
taught the heliocentric doctrine—that
the earth revolves round the sun. In
the exercise of her right to determine
what true science is, the Church, in the
Pontificate of Paul V., stepped in and,
by the mouth of the Holy Congregation
of the Index, delivered, on March 5th,
1616, the following decree :—
And whereas it hath also come to the
knowledge of the said Holy Congregation
that the false Pythagorean doctrine of the
mobility of the earth and the immobility
of the sun, entirely opposed to Holy writ,
which is taught by Nicolas Copernicus, is
now published abroad and received by
many. In order that this opinion may not
further spread, to the damage of Catholic
truth, it is ordered that this and all other
books teaching the like doctrine be sus
pended, and by this decree they are all respec
tively suspended, forbidden, and condemned.
�5o
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
But why go back to 1456 and 1616 ?
Far be it from me to charge bygone sins
upon Monsignor Capel, were it not for
the practices he upholds to-day. The
most applauded dogmatist and champion
of the Jesuits is, I am informed, Perrone.
No less than thirty editions of a work of
his have been scattered abroad for the
healing of the nations. His notions of
physical astronomy are virtually those of
1456.
He teaches boldly that “God
does not rule by universal law....... that
when God orders a given planet to stand
still He does not detract from any law
passed by Himself, but orders that
planet to move round the sun for such
and such a time, then to stand still, and
then again to move, as His pleasure may
be.” Jesuitism proscribed Frohschammer
for questioning its favourite dogma, that
every human soul was created by a
direct supernatural act of God, and for
asserting that man, body and soul, came
from his parents. This is the system
that now strives for universal power; it
is from it, as Monsignor Capel graciously
informs us, that we are to learn what is
allowable in science, and what is not 1
In the face of such facts, which might
be multiplied at will, it requires extra
ordinary bravery of mind, or a reliance
upon public ignorance almost as extra
ordinary, to make the claims made by
Monsignor Capel for his Church.
Before me is a very remarkable letter
addressed in 18751 by the Bishop of
Montpellier to the Deans and Professors
of Faculties of Montpellier, in which the
writer very clearly lays down the claims
of his Church. He had been startled
by an incident occurring in a course of
lectures on Physiology given by a pro
fessor, of whose scientific capacity there
was no doubt, but who, it was alleged,
rightly or wrongly, had made his course
the vehicle of materialism. “Je ne me
suis point donne,” says the Bishop, “ la
mission que je remplis au milieu de
1 The next four paragraphs, as this date indi
cates, were inserted only in the subsequent
reprints.—Ed.
vous.
‘ Personne, au temoignage de
saint Paul, ne s’attribue & soi-meme un
pared honneur; il y faut etre appele de
Dieu, comme Aaron.’ Et pourquoi en
est-il ainsi ? C’est parce que, selon le
meme Apotre, nous devons' etre les
ambassadeurs de Dieu; et il n’est pas
dans les usages, pas plus qu’il n’est dans
la raison et le droit, qu’un envoye
s’accredite lui-meme.
Mais, si j’ai regu
d’En-Haut une mission; si l’Eglise, au
nom de Dieu lui-meme, a souscrit mes
lettres de creance, me sierait-il de manquer aux instructions qu’elle m’a donnees et d’entendre, en un sens different
du sien, le role qu’elle m’a confie ?
“ Or, Messieurs, la sainte Eglise se
croit investie du droit absolu d’enseigner
les hommes; elle se croit depositaire de
la verite, non pas de la verite fragmentaire, incomplete, melee de certitude et
d’hesitation, mais de la verite totale,
complete, au point de vue religieux.
Bien plus, elle est si sfire de l’infaillibilite que son Fondateur divin lui a
communiquee, comme la dot magnifique
de leur indissoluble alliance, que, meme
dans l’ordre naturel, - scientifique ou
philosGphique, moral ou politique, elle
n’admet pas qu’un systeme puisse etre
soutenu et adopte par des chretiens, s’il
contredit a des dogmes definis. Elle
considere que la negation volontaire et
opiniatre d’un seul point de sa doctrine
rend coupable du peche d’heresie; et
elle pense que toute heresie formelie, si
on ne la rejette pas courageusement
avant de paraitre devant Dieu, entraine
avec soi la perte certaine de la grace et
de l’eternite.”
The Bishop recalls those whom he
addresses from the false philosophy of
the present to the philosophy of the past,
and foresees the triumph of the latter.
“Avant que le dix-neuvieme siecle
s’acheve, la vieille philosophic scolastique aura repris sa place dans la juste
admiration du monde.
Il lui faudra
pourtant bien du temps pour guerir les
maux de tout genre, causes par son
indigne rivale; et pendant de longues
annees encore, ce nom de philosophic le
�APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS
plus grand de la langue humaine apres
celui de religion, sera suspect aux ames
qui se souviendront de la science impie
et materialiste de Locke, de Condillac
ou d’Helvetius.
L’heure actuelle est
aux sciences naturelies : c’est maintenant
l’instrument de combat contre l’Eglise et
contre toute foi religieuse. Nous ne les
redoutons pas.” Further on the Bishop
warns his readers that everything can be
abused. Poetry is good, but in excess it
“ Les
may injure practical conduct.
mathematiques sont excellentes : et B ossuet les a louees ‘ comme etant ce qui
sert le plus a la justesse du raisonnement ’; mais si on s’accoutume exclusivement a leur methode, rien de ce qui
appartient a l’ordre moral ne parait plus
pouvoir etre demontre ; et Fenelon a pu
parler de rensorcellement et des attraits
diaboliques de la geometrie.”
The learned Bishop thus finally accen
tuates the claims of the Church:—
“ Comme le definissait le Pape Leon X,
au cinquieme concile cecumenique de
Latran, ‘ Le vrai ne peut pas etre contraire
a lui-meme : par consequent, toute asser
tion contraire a une verite de foi revelee
est necessairement et absolument fausse.’
Il suit de la que, sans entrer dans l’examen
scientifique de telle ou telle question de
physiologie, mais par la seule certitude
de nos dogmes, nous pouvons juger du
sort de telle ou telle hypothese, qui est
une machine de guerre anti-chretienne
plutot qu’une conquete serieuse sur les
secrets et les mysteres de la nature.........
C’est un dogme que l’homme a ete forme
et fagonne des mains de Dieu. Done
il est faux, heretique, contraire a la
dignite du Createur et offensant pour son
chef-d’oeuvre, de dire que l’homme constitue la sepiieme espece des singes.
....... Heresie encore de dire que le genre
humain n’est pas sorti d’un seul couple,
et qu’on y peut compter jusqu’a douze
races distinctes 1”
The course of life upon earth, as far
as Science can see, has been one of
amelioration—a steady advance on the
whole from the lower to the higher. The
Si
continued effort of animated nature is to
improve its condition and raise itself
to a loftier level. In man improvement
and amelioration depend largely upon
the growth of conscious knowledge, by
which the errors of ignorance are con
tinually moulted, and truth is organised.
It is the advance of knowledge that has
given a materialistic colour to the philo
sophy of this age. Materialism is there
fore not a thing to be mourned over, but
to be honestly considered—accepted if
it be wholly true, rejected if it be wholly
false, wisely sifted and turned to account
if it embrace a mixture of truth and
error. Of late years the study of the
nervous system, and its relation to
thought and feeling, have profoundly
occupied inquiring minds.
It is our
duty not to shirk—it ought rather to be
our privilege to accept—the established
results of such inquiries, for here assur
edly our ultimate weal depends upon our
loyalty to the truth. Instructed as to the
control which the nervous system exer
cises over man’s moral and intellectual
nature, we shall be better prepared, not
only to mend their manifold defects, but
also to strengthen and purify both. Is
mind degraded by this recognition of its
dependence ? Assuredly not. Matter,
on the contrary, is raised to the level it
ought to occupy, and from which timid
ignorance would remove it.
But the light is dawning, and it will
become stronger as time goes on. Even
the Brighton “Church Congress” affords
evidence of this. From the manifold
confusions of that assemblage my
memory has rescued two items, which it
would fain preserve : the recognition of
a relation between Health and Religion,
and the address of the Rev. Harry Jones.
Out of the conflict of vanities his words
emerge wholesome and strong, because
undrugged by dogma, coming directly
from the warm brain of one who knows
what practical truth means, and who has
faith in its vitality and inherent power of
propagation. I wonder whether he is
less effectual in his ministry than his
more embroidered colleagues ? It surely
�52
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
behoves our teachers to come to some
definite understanding as to this question
of health; to see how, by inattention to
it, we are defrauded, negatively and
positively : negatively, by the privation of
that “ sweetness and light ” which is the
natural concomitant of good health;
positively, by the insertion into life of
cynicism, ill-temper, and a thousand
corroding anxieties which good health
would dissipate. We fear and scorn
“ materialism.” But he who knew all
about it, and could apply his knowledge,
might become the preacher of a new
gospel. Not, however, through the
ecstatic moments of the individual does
such knowledge come, but through the
revelations of science, in connection with
the history of mankind.
Why should the Roman Catholic
Church call gluttony a mortal sin ? Why
should fasting occupy a place in the dis
ciplines of religion ? What is the mean
ing of Luther’s advice to the young
clergyman who came to him, perplexed
with the difficulties of predestination and
election, if it be not that, in virtue of its
action upon the brain, when wisely
applied, there is moral and religious
virtue even in a hydro-carbon ? To use
the old language, food and drink are
creatures of God, and have therefore a
spiritual value. Through our neglect of
the monitions of a reasonable materialism
we sin and suffer daily. I might here
point to the train of deadly disorders
over which science has given modern
society such control—disclosing the lair
of the material enemy, ensuring his
destruction, and thus preventing that
moral squalor and hopelessness which
habitually tread on the heels of epidemics
in the case of the poor.
Rising to higher spheres, the visions
of Swedenborg, and the ecstasy of
Plotinus and Porphyry, are phases of
that psychical condition, obviously con
nected with the nervous system and state
of health, on which is based the Vedic
doctrine of the absorption of the indi
vidual into the universal soul. Plotinus
taught the devout how to pass into a
condition of ecstasy. Porphyry com
plains of having been only once united
to God in eighty-six years, while his
master Plotinus had been so united six
times in sixty years.1
A friend who
knew Wordsworth informs me that the
poet, in some of his moods, was accus
tomed to seize hold of an external object
to assure himself of his own bodily exist
ence. As states of consciousness such
phenomena have an undisputed reality
and a substantial identity ; but they are
connected with the most»heterogeneous
objective conceptions. The subjective
experiences are similar, because of the
similarity of the underlying organisations.
But for those who wish to look beyond
the practical facts there will always
remain ample room for speculation.
Take the argument of the Lucretian in
troduced in the Belfast Address. As
far as I am aware, not one of my
assailants has attempted to answer it.
Some of them, indeed, rejoice over the
ability displayed by Bishop Butler in
rolling back the difficulty on his oppo
nent ; and they even imagine that it is
the Bishop’s own argument that is there
employed. But the raising of- a new
difficulty does not abolish—does not
even lessen—the old one, and the argu
ment of the Lucretian remains untouched
by anything the Bishop has said or can
say.
And here it may be permitted me to
add a word to an important controversy
now going on: and which turns on the
question: Do states of consciousness
enter as links into the chain of ante
cedence and sequence, which give rise
to bodily actions, and to other states of
consciousness; or are they merely by
products, which are not essential to the
physical processes going on in the brain ?
Speaking for myself, it is certain that I
have no power of imagining states of
* I recommend to the reader’s particular
attention Dr. Draper’s important work entitled
History of the Conflict between Religion and
Science (Messrs. H. S. King and Co.).
�APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS
consciousness, interposed between the
molecules of the brain, and influencing
the transference of motion among the
molecules.
The thought “ eludes all
mental presentation
and hence the
logic seems of iron strength which claims
for the brain an automatic action, unin
fluenced by states of consciousness.
But it is, I believe, admitted by those
who hold the automaton-theory, that
states of consciousness are produced by
the marshalling of the molecules of the
brain : and this production of conscious
ness by molecular motion is to me quite
as inconceivable on mechanical princi
ples as the production of molecular
motion by consciousness. If, therefore,
I reject one result, I must reject both.
I, however, reject neither, and thus stand
in the presence of two Incomprehensibles,
instead of one Incomprehensible. While
accepting fearlessly the facts of mate
rialism dwelt upon in these pages, I bow
my head in the dust before that mystery
of mind which has hitherto defied its
own penetrative power, and which may
ultimately resolve itself into a demon
strable impossibility of self-penetration.
But the secret is an open one—the
practical monitions are plain enough,
which declare that on our dealings with
matter depend our weal and woe, phy
sical and moral.
The state of mind
which rebels against the recognition of
the claims of “ materialism” is not un
known to me. I can remember a time
when I regarded my body as a weed, so
much more highly did I prize the
53
conscious strength and pleasure derived
from moral and religious feeling—which,
I may add, was mine without the inter
vention of dogma. The error was not
an ignoble one, but this did not save it
from the penalty attached to error.
Saner knowledge taught me that the
body is no weed, and that, treated as
such, it would infallibly avenge itself.
Am I personally lowered by this change
of front ? Not so. Give me their health,
and there is no spiritual experience of
those earlier years—no resolve of duty,
or work of mercy, no work of self
renouncement, no solemnity of thought,
no joy in the life and aspects of nature
—that would not still be mine; and this
without the least reference or regard to
any purely personal reward or punish
ment looming in the future.
And now I have to utter a “ farewell ”
free from bitterness to all my readers ;
thanking my friends for a sympathy
more steadfast, I would fain believe, if
less noisy, than the antipathy of my foes;
and commending to these a passage
from Bishop Butler, which they have
either not read or failed to lay to heart.
“ It seems,” saith the Bishop, “that men
would be strangely headstrong and selfwilled, and disposed to exert themselves
with an impetuosity which would render
society insupportable, and the living in
it impracticable, were it not for some
acquired moderation and self-govern
ment, some aptitude and readiness in
restraining themselves, and concealing
their sense of things.”
�54
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM1
1868
The celebrated Fichte, in his lectures on
the “Vocation of the Scholar,” insisted
on a culture which should be not one
sided, but all-sided. The scholar’s in
tellect was to expand spherically, and
not in a single direction only. In one
direction, however, Fichte required that
the scholar should apply himself directly
to nature, become a creator of know
ledge, and thus repay, by original labours
of his own, the immense debt he owed
to the labours of others. It was these
which enabled him to supplement the
knowledge derived from his own re
searches, so as to render his culture
rounded and not one-sided.
As regards science, Fichte’s idea is to
some extent illustrated by the constitu
tion and labours of the British Associa
tion. We have here a body of men
engaged in the pursuit of Natural Know
ledge, but variously engaged. While
sympathising with each of its departments,
and supplementing his culture by know
ledge drawn from all of them, each
student amongst us selects one subject
for the exercise of his own original faculty
—one line, along which he may carry
the light of his private intelligence a
little way into the darkness by which all
knowledge is surrounded. Thus, the
geologist deals with the rocks; the biolo
gist with the conditions and phenomena
of life; the astronomer with stellar
masses and motions ; the mathematician
with the relations of space and number;
the chemist pursues his atoms ; while
the physical investigator has his own
large field in optical, thermal, electrical,
acoustical, and other phenomena. The
British Association then, as a whole,
faces physical nature on all sides, and
pushes knowledge centrifugally outwards,
the sum of its labours constituting what
Fichte might call the sphere of natural
knowledge. In the meetings of the
Association it is found necessary to
resolve this sphere into its component
parts, which take concrete form under
the respective letters of our Sections.
Mathematics and Physics have been
long accustomed to coalesce, and here
they form a single section. No matter
how subtle a natural phenomenon may
be, whether we observe it in the
region of sense or follow it into that of
imagination, it is in the long run reducible
to mechanical laws. But the mechanical
data once guessed or given, mathematics
are all-powerful as an instrument of
deduction. The command of Geometry
over the relations of space, and the farreaching power which Analysis confers,
are potent both as means of physical
discovery and of reaping the entire fruits
of discovery. Indeed, without mathe
matics, expressed or implied, our know
ledge of physical science would be both
friable and incomplete.
Side by side with the mathematical
method we have the method of experi
ment. Here, from a starting-point fur
nished by his own researches or those of
others, the investigator proceeds _ by
combining intuition and verification.
He ponders the knowledge he possesses,
and tries to push it further; he guesses,
and checks his guess; he conjectures,
and confirms or explodes his conjecture.
These guesses and conjectures are by no
means leaps in the dark; for knowledge
once gained casts a faint light beyond
its own immediate boundaries. There
is no discovery so limited as not to
1 President’s Address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association at
Norwich.
�SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM
55
illuminate something beyond itself. The
relationship to each other. When this
force of intellectual penetration into this
is done, we find that the observed
penumbral region which surrounds actual
motion of the hands follows of necessity
knowledge is not, as some seem to think,
from the inner mechanism of the watch
dependent upon method, but upon the
when acted upon by the force invested
genius of the investigator. There is,
in the spring. The motion of the hands
however, no genius so gifted as not to
may be called a phenomenon of art, but
need control and verification. The prothe case is similar with the phenomena
foundest minds know best that Nature’s
of nature. These also have their inner
ways are not at all times their ways, and
mechanism and their store of force to
that the brightest flashes in the world of set that mechanism going. The ultimate
thought are incomplete until they have
problem of physical science is to reveal
been proved to have their counterparts
this mechanism, to discern this store,
in the world of fact. Thus the vocation
and to show that, from the combined
of the true experimentalist may be
action of both, the phenomena of which
defined as the continued exercise of they constitute the basis must, of neces
spiritual insight, and its incessant cor
sity, flow.
rection and realisation. His experiments
I thought an attempt to give you even
constitute a body, of which his purified
a brief and sketchy illustration of the
intuitions are, as it were, the soul.
manner in which scientific thinkers
Partly through mathematical and
regard this problem would not be un
partly through experimental research,
interesting to you on the present occa
physical science has, of late years,
sion ; more especially as it will give me
assumed a momentous position in the
occasion to say a word or two on the
world. Both in a material and in an
tendencies and limits of modern science;
intellectual point of view it has produced,
to point out the region which men of
and it is destined to produce, immense
science claim as their own, and where it
changes—vast social ameliorations, and
is futile to oppose their advance; and
vast alterations in the popular conception
also to define, if possible, the bourne
of the origin, rule, and governance of between this and that other region to
natural things.
By science, in the
which the questionings and yearnings of
physical world, miracles are wrought,
the scientific intellect are directed in vain.
while philosophy is forsaking its ancient
But here your tolerance will be needed.
metaphysical channels, and pursuing
It was the American Emerson, I think,
others which have been opened or
who said that it is hardly possible to state
indicated by scientific research.
This
any truth strongly, without apparent in
must become more and more the case as justice to some other truth. Truth is
philosophical writers become more deeply
often of a dual character, taking the form
imbued with the methods of science,
of a magnet with two poles; and many
better acquainted with the facts which
of the differences which agitate the think
scientific men have established, and with
ing part of mankind are to be traced to
the great theories which they have elabo the exclusiveness with which partisan
rated.
reasoners dwell upon one half of the
I f you look at the face of a watch, you
duality, in forgetfulness of the other.
see the hour and minute-hands, and
The proper course appears to be to state
possibly also a second-hand, moving
both halves strongly, and allow each its
over the graduated dial. Why do these
fair share in the formation of the resul
hands move; and why are their relative
tant conviction. But this waiting for the
motions such as they are observed to be?
statement of the two sides of a question
These questions cannot be answered
implies patience. It implies a resolution
without opening the watch, mastering its
to suppress indignation, if the statement
various parts, and ascertaining their
of the one half should clash with our
�56
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
convictions, and to repress equally undue
elation, if the half-statement should
happen to chime in with our views. It
implies a determination to wait calmly
for the statement of the whole before we
pronounce judgment in the form of either
acquiescence or dissent.
This premised, and I trust accepted,
let us enter upon our task. There have
been writers who affirmed that the Pyra
mids of Egypt were natural productions;
and in his early youth Alexander von
Humboldt wrote a learned essay with the
express object of refuting this notion.
We now regard the pyramids as the work
of men’s hands, aided probably by
machinery of which no record remains.
We picture to ourselves the swarming
workers toiling at those vast erections,
lifting the inert stones, and, guided by
the volition, the skill, and possibly _ at
times by the whip of the architect, placing
them in their proper positions. The
blocks, in this case, were moved and
posited by a power external to them
selves, and the final form of the pyramid
expressed the thought of its human
builder.
Let us pass from this illustration of
constructive power to another of a dif
ferent kind. When a solution of common
salt is slowly evaporated, the water which
holds the salt in solution disappears, but
the salt itself remains behind. At a
certain stage of concentration the salt
can no longer retain the liquid form; its
particles, or molecules, as they are called,
begin to deposit themselves as minute
solids—so minute, indeed, as to defy all
microscopic power. As evaporation con
tinues, solidification goes on, and we
finally obtain, through the clustering
together of innumerable molecules, a
finite crystalline mass of a definite form.
What is this form ? It sometimes seems
a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt.
We have little pyramids built by the salt,
terrace above terrace from base to apex,
forming a series of steps resembling those
up which the traveller in Egypt is dragged
by his guides. The human mind is as
little disposed to look without question
ing at these pyramidal salt-crystals as to
look at the pyramids of Egypt, without
inquiring whence they came. How,
then, are those salt-pyramids built up ?
Guided by analogy, you may, if you
like, suppose that, swarming among the
constituent molecules of the salt, there is
an invisible population, controlled and
coerced by some invisible master, placing
the atomic blocks in their positions.
This, however, is not the scientific idea,
nor do I think your good sense will
accept it as a likely one. The scientific
idea is that the molecules act upon each
other without the intervention of slave
labour; that they attract each other, and
repel each other, at certain definite
points or poles, and in certain definite
directions ; and that the pyramidal form
is the result of this play of attraction and
repulsion. While, then, the blocks of
Egypt were laid down by a power external
to themselves, these molecular blocks of
salt are self-posited, being fixed in their
places by the inherent forces with which
they act upon each other.
I take common salt as an illustration,
because it is so familiar to us all; but
any other crystalline substance would
answer my purpose equally well. Every
where, in fact, throughout inorganic
nature, we have this formative power, as
Fichte would call it—this structural
energy ready to come into play, and
build the ultimate particles of matter
into definite shapes. The ice of our
winters and of our polar regions is its
handiwork, and so also are the quartz,
felspar, and mica of our rocks. Our
chalk-beds are for the most part composed
of minute shells, which are also the pro
duct of structural energy; but behind
the shell, as a whole, lies a more remote
and subtle formative act. These shells
are built up of little crystals of calc-spar,
and, to form these crystals, the structural
force had to deal with the intangible
molecules of carbonate of line. This
tendency on the part of matter to organise
itself, to grow into shape, to assume defi
nite forms in obedience to the definite
action of force, is, as I have said, all-
�SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM
pervading. It is in the ground on which
you tread, in the water you drink, in the
air you breathe. Incipient life, as it
were, manifests itself throughout the
whole of what we call inorganic nature.
The forms of the minerals resulting
from this play of polar forces are various,
and exhibit different degrees of com
plexity. Men of science avail themselves
of all possible means of exploring their
molecular architecture. For this purpose
they employ in turn, as agents of explora
tion, light, heat, magnetism, electricity,
and sound. Polarised light is especially
useful and powerful here. A beam of
such light, when sent in among the
molecules of a crystal, is acted on by
them, and from this action we infer with
more or less clearness the manner in
which the molecules are arranged. That
differences, for example, exist between
the inner structure of rock-salt and that
of crystallised sugar or sugar-candy is
thus strikingly revealed. These actions
often display themselves in chromatic
phenomena of great splendour, the play
of molecular force being so regulated as
to cause the removal of some of the
coloured constituents of white light,
while others are left with increased
intensity behind.
And now let us pass from what we
are accustomed to regard as a dead
mineral, to a living grain of corn. When
this is examined by polarised light,
chromatic phenomena similar to those
noticed in crystals are observed. And
why? Because the architecture of the
grain resembles that of the crystal. In
the grain also the molecules are set in
definite positions, and in accordance
with their arrangement they act upon
the light. But what has built together
the molecules of the corn ? Regarding
crystalline architecture, I have already
said that you may, if you please, consider
the atoms and molecules to be placed
in position by a Power external to them
selves. The same hypothesis is open to
you now. But if in the case of crystals
you have rejected this notion of an
external architect, I think you are bound
57
to reject it in the case of the grain, and
to conclude that the molecules of the
corn, also, are posited by the forces with
which they act upon each other. It
would be poor philosophy to invoke an
external agent in the one case, and to
reject it in the other.
Instead of cutting our grain of corn
into slices and subjecting it to the action
of polarised light, let us place it in the
earth, and subject it to a certain degree
of warmth.
In other words, let the
molecules, both of the corn and of the
surrounding earth, be kept in that state
of agitation which we call heat. Under
these circumstances, the grain and the
substances which surround it interact,
and a definite molecular architecture is
the result. A bud is formed; this bud
reaches the surface, where it is exposed
to the sun’s rays, which are also to be
regarded as a kind of vibratory motion.
And as the motion of common heat,
with which the grain and the substances
surrounding it were first endowed, enabled
the grain and these substances to exer
cise their mutual attractions and repul
sions, and thus to coalesce in definite
forms, so the specific motion of the sun’s
rays now enables the green bud to feed
upon the carbonic acid and the aqueous
vapour of the air. The bud appropriates
those constituents of both for which it
has an elective attraction, and permits
the other constituent to return to the
atmosphere. Thus the architecture is
carried on. Forces are active at the
root, forces are active in the blade, the
matter of the air and the matter of the
atmosphere are drawn upon, and the
plant augments in size.
We have in
succession the stalk, the ear, the full
corn in the ear; the cycle of molecular
action being completed by the produc
tion of grains similar to that with which
the process began.
Now there is nothing in this process
which necessarily eludes the conceptive
or imagining power of the human mind.
An intellect the same in kind as our
own would, if only sufficiently expanded,
be able to follow the whole process from
�§8
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
beginning to end. It would see every
molecule placed in its position by the
specific attractions and repulsions exerted
between it and other molecules, the
whole process, and its consummation,
being an instance of the play of molecular
force. Given the grain and its environ
ment, with their respective forces, the
purely human intellect might, if suffi
ciently expanded, trace out a priori
every step of the process of growth, and,
by the application of purely mechanical
principles, demonstrate that the cycle
must end, as it is seen to end, in the
reproduction of forms like that with
which it began. A necessity rules here,
similar to that which rules the planets
in their circuits round the sun.
You will notice that I am stating the
truth strongly, as at the beginning we
agreed it should be stated. But I must
go still further, and affirm that in the
eye of science the animal body is just as
much the product of molecular force as
the chalk and the ear of corn, or as
the crystal of salt or sugar. Many of
the parts of the body are obviously
mechanical. Take the human heart, for
example, with its system of valves, or
take the exquisite mechanism of the eye
or hand. Animal heat, moreover, is
the same in kind as the heat of a fire,
being produced by the same chemical
process. Animal motion, too, is as cer
tainly derived from the food of the
animal as the motion of Trevethyck’s
walking-engine from the fuel in its fur
nace. As regards matter, the animal
body creates nothing; as regards force,
it creates nothing. Which of you by
taking thought can add one cubit to his
stature? All that has been said, then,
regarding the plant may be restated with
regard to the animal. Every particle
that enters into the composition of a
nerve, a muscle, or a bone has been
placed in its position by molecular force.
And unless the existence of law in these
matters be denied, and the element of
caprice introduced, we must conclude
that, given the relation of any molecule
of the body to its environment, its posi
tion in the body might be determined
mathematically.
Our difficulty is not
with the quality of the problem, but with
its complexity ; and this difficulty might
be met by the simple expansion of the
faculties we now possess.
Given this
expansion, with the necessary molecular
data, and the chick might be deduced
as rigorously and as logically from the
egg as the existence of Neptune from
the disturbances of Uranus, or as conical
refraction from the undulatory theory of
light.
You see I am not mincing matters, but
avowing nakedly what many scientific
thinkers more or less distinctly believe.
The formation of a crystal, a plant, or
an animal is, in their eyes, a purely
mechanical problem, which differs from
the problems of ordinary mechanics in
the smallness of the masses, and the
complexity of the processes involved.
Here you have one half of our dual
truth; let us now glance at the other
half.
Associated with this wonderful
mechanism of the animal body we have
phenomena no less certain than those of
physics, but between which and the
mechanism we discern no necessary con
nection. A man, for example, can say
“I feel,” “I think,” “I love”; but how
does consciousness infuse itself into the
problem ? The human brain is said to
be the organ of thought and feeling:
when we are hurt, the brain feels it;
when we ponder, or when our passions
or affections are excited, it is through
the instrumentality of the brain. Let us
endeavour to be a little more precise
here. I hardly imagine there exists a
profound scientific thinker, who has
reflected upon the subject, unwilling to
admit the extreme probability of the
hypothesis, that for every fact of con
sciousness, whether in the domain of
sense, thought, or emotion, a definite
molecular condition, of motion or struc
ture, is set up in the brain; or who
would be disposed even to deny that, if
the motion, or structure, be induced by
internal causes instead of external, the
effect on consciousness will be the same?
�SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM
Let any nerve, for example, be thrown
by morbid action into the precise state
of motion which would be communicated
to it by the pulses of a heated body,
surely that nerve will declare itself hot—
the mind will accept the subjective inti
mation exactly as if it were objective.
The retina may be excited by purely
mechanical means. A blow on the eye
causes a luminous flash, and the mere
pressure of the finger on the external
ball produces a star of light, which
Newton compared to the circles on a
peacock’s tail.
Disease makes people
see visions and dream dreams; but, in
all such cases, could we examine the
organs implicated, we should, on philo
sophical grounds, expect to find them in
that precise molecular condition which
the real objects, if present, would super
induce.
The relation of physics to conscious
ness being thus invariable, it follows that,
given the state of the brain, the corres
ponding thought or feeling might be
inferred : or, given the thought or feel
ing, the corresponding state of the brain
might be inferred. But how inferred ?
It would be at bottom not a case of
logical inference at all, but of empi
rical association. You may reply that
many of the inferences of science are of
this character—the inference, for ex
ample, that an electric current, of a given
direction, will deflect a magnetic needle
in a definite way. But the cases differ
in this, that the passage from the current
to the needle, if not demonstrable, is
conceivable, and that we entertain no
doubt as to the final mechanical solution
of the problem. But the passage from
the physics of the brain to the corre
sponding facts of consciousness is in
conceivable as a result of mechanics.
Granted that a definite thought and a
definite molecular action in the brain
occur simultaneously, we do not possess
the intellectual organ, nor apparently any
rudiment of the organ, which would
enable us to pass, by a process of reason
ing, from the one to the other. They
appear together, but we do not know why.
59
Were our minds and senses so expanded,
strengthened, and illuminated, as to
enable us to see and feel the very mole
cules of the brain; were we capable of
following all their motions, all their
groupings, all their electric discharges, if
such there be; and were we intimately
acquainted with the corresponding states
of thought and feeling ; we should be as
far as ever from the solution of the prob
lem, “How are these physical processes
connected with the facts of conscious
ness ?” The chasm between the two
classes of phenomena would still remain
intellectually impassable. Let the con
sciousness of love, for example, be asso
ciated with a right-handed spiral motion
of the molecules of the brain, and the
consciousness of hate with a left-handed
spiral motion. We should then know,
when we love, that the motion is in one
direction, and, when we hate, that the
motion is in the other; but the “ why ?”
would remain as unanswerable as before.
In affirming that the growth of the
body is mechanical, and that thought, as
exercised by us, has its correlative in the
physics of the brain, I think the position
of the “ Materialist ” is stated, as far as
that position is a tenable one. I think
the materialist will be able finally to
maintain this position against all attacks;
but I do not think, in the present condi
tion of the human mind, that he can pass
beyond this position. I do not think he
is entitled to say that his molecular
groupings and motions explain every
thing. In reality they explain nothing.
The utmost he can affirm is the associa
tion of two classes of phenomena, of
whose real bond of union he is in abso
lute ignorance. The problem of the con
nection of body and soul is as insoluble
in its modern form as it was in the prescientific ages. Phosphorus is known to
enter into the composition of the human
brain, and a trenchant German writer
has exclaimed, “ Ohne Phosphor, kein
Gedanke !” That may or may not be the
case; but even if we knew it to be the
case, the knowledge would not lighten
our darkness. On both sides of the zone
�6o
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
here assigned to the materialist he is
equally helpless. If you ask him whence
is this “ Matter ” of which we have been
discoursing, who or what divided it into
molecules, who or what impressed upon
them this necessity of running into
organic forms, he has no answer. Science
is mute in reply to these questions. But
if the materialist is confounded and
science rendered dumb, who else is pre
pared with a solution? To whom has
this arm of the Lord been revealed? Let
us lower our heads and acknowledge our
ignorance, priest and philosopher, one
and all.
Perhaps the mystery may resolve itself
into knowledge at some future day. The
process of things upon this earth has
been one of amelioration. It is a long
way from the Iguanodon and his contem
poraries to the President and Members
of the British Association. And whether
we regard the improvement from the
scientific or from the theological point of
view—as the result of progressive deve
lopment, or of successive exhibitions of
creative energy—neither view entitles us
to assume that man’s present faculties
end the series, that the process of
amelioration ends with him. A time
may therefore come when this ultra-scien
tific region, by which we are now
enfolded, may offer itself to terrestrial, if
not to human, investigation. Two-thirds
of the rays emitted by the sun fail to
arouse the sense of vision. The rays
exist, but the visual organ requisite for
their translation into light does not exist.
And so, from this region of darkness and
mystery which surrounds us, rays may
now be darting, which require but the
development of the proper intellectual
organs to translate them into knowledge
as far surpassing ours as ours surpasses
that of the wallowing reptiles which once
held possession of this planet. Mean
while the mystery is not without its uses.
It certainly may be made a power in the
human soul; but it is a power which has
feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It
may be, will be, and I hope is turned to
account, both in steadying and strengthen
ing the intellect, and in rescuing man
from that littleness to which, in the
struggle for existence, or for precedence
in the world, he is continally prone.
Musings on the Matterhorn^
July 2ytht 1868.
Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect
of the mountain from its higher crags
saddened me. Hitherto the impression
it made was that of savage strength;
here we had inexorable decay. But this
notion of decay implied a reference to a
period when the Matterhorn was in the
full strength of mountainhood. Thought
naturally ran back to its remoter origin
and sculpture. Nor did thought halt
there, but wandered on through molten
worlds to that nebulous haze which
philosophers have regarded, and with
good reason, as the proximate source of
all material things. I tried to look at
this universal cloud, containing within
itself the prediction of all that has since
occurred; I tried to imagine it as the
seat of those forces whose action was to
issue in solar and stellar systems, and all
that they involve. Did that formless
fog contain potentially the sadness with
which I regarded the Matterhorn ? Did
the thought which now ran back to it
simply return to its primeval home ? If
so, had we not better recast our defini
tions of matter and force; for, if life and
thought be the very flower of both, any
definition which omits life and thought
must be inadequate, if not untrue. Are
questions like these warranted? Why
not ? If the final goal of man has not
been yet attained; if his development
has not been yet arrested, who can say
that such yearnings and questionings are
not necessary to the opening of a finer
vision, to the budding and the growth of
diviner powers ? When I look at the
heavens and the earth, at my own body,
at my strength and weakness, even at
these ponderings, and ask myself, I§
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
there no being or thing in the universe
that knows more about these matters
than I do; what is my answer ? Suppos
ing our theologic schemes of creation,
condemnation, and redemption to be
dissipated; and the warmth of denial
which they excite, and which, as a motive
force, can match the warmth of affirma
tion, dissipated at the same time ; would
the undeflected human mind return to
61
the meridian of absolute neutrality as
regards these ultra-physical questions?
Is such a position one of stable equi
librium ? The channels of thought being
already formed, such are the questions,
without replies, which could run athwart
consciousness during a ten minutes’ halt
upon the weathered crest of the Matter
horn.
SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION1
“Lastly, physical investigation, more than anything besides, helps to teach us the actual value and
right use of the Imagination—of that wondrous faculty which, left to ramble uncontrolled, leads us
astray into a wilderness ofperplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows ; but which, properly
controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man ; the source ofpoetic genius,
the instrument of discovery in Science, without the aid of which Newton would never have invented
fluxions, nor Davy have decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Columbus have found another
Continent.”—Address to the Royal Society by its President, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Nov. 30th, 1859.
I carried with me to the Alps this year
the burden of this evening’s work. Save
from memory I had no direct aid upon
the mountains; but to spur up the
emotions, on which so much depends, as
well as to nourish indirectly the intellect
and will, I took with me four works,
comprising two volumes of poetry,
Goethe’s Farbenlehre, and the work on
Logic recently published by Mr. Alex
ander Bain. In Goethe, so noble other
wise, I chiefly noticed the self-inflicted
hurts of genius, as it broke itself in vain
against the philosophy of Newton. Mr.
Bain I found, for the most part, learned
and practical, shining generally with a
dry light, but exhibiting at times a flush
of emotional strength, which proved that
even logicians share the common fire of
humanity. He interested me most when
he became the mirror of my own condi
tion. Neither intellectually nor socially
is it good for man to be alone, and the
sorrows of thought are more patiently
borne when we find that they have been
experienced by another. From certain
passages in his book I could infer that
Mr. Bain was no stranger to such
sorrows. Speaking, for example, of the
ebb of intellectual force, which we all
from time to time experience, Mr. Bain
says: “The uncertainty where to look for
the next opening of discovery brings the
pain of conflict and debility of in
decision.” These words have in them
the true ring of personal experience.
The action of the investigator is periodic.
He grapples with a subject of inquiry,
wrestles with it, and exhausts, it may be,
both himself and it for the time being.
He breathes a space, and then renews
the struggle in another field. Now this
period of halting between two investi
gations is not always one of pure repose.
It is often a period of doubt and dis
comfort—of gloom and ennui. “ The
uncertainty where to look for the next
opening of discovery brings the pain of
* Discourse delivered before the British Association at Liverpool, September 16th, 1870.
�62
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
conflict and the debility of indecision.”
It was under such conditions that I had
to equip myself for the hour and the
ordeal that are now come.
The disciplines of common life are, in
great part, exercises in the relations of
space, or in the mental grouping of
bodies in space; and by such exercises
the public mind is, to some extent,
prepared for the reception of physical
conceptions. Assuming this preparation
on your part, the wish gradually grew
within me to trace, and to enable you to
trace, some of the more occult features
and operations of Light and Colour. I
wished, if possible, to take you. beyond
the boundary of mere observation, into
a region where things are intellectually
discerned, and to show you there the
hidden mechanism of optical action.
But how are those hidden things to
be revealed? Philosophers may be right
in affirming that we cannot transcend
experience: we can, at all events, carry
it a long way from its origin. We can
magnify, diminish, qualify, and combine
experiences, so as to render them fit for
purposes entirely new. In explaining
sensible phenomena, we habitually form
mental images of the ultra-sensible.
There are Tories even in science who
regard Imagination as a faculty to be
feared and avoided rather than employed.
They have observed its action in weak
vessels, and are unduly impressed by its
disasters. But they might with equal
justice point to exploded boilers as an
argument against the use of steam.
With accurate experiment and observa
tion to work upon, Imagination becomes
the architect of physical theory. Newton’s
passage from a falling apple to a falling
moon was an act of the prepared imagina
tion, without which the “laws of Kepler
could never have been traced to their
foundations.
Out of the facts of
chemistry the constructive imagination
of Dalton formed the atomic . theory.
Davy was richly endowed with the
imaginative faculty, while with Faraday
its exercise was incessant, preceding,
accompanying, and guiding all his experi
ments. His strength and fertility as a
discoverer is to be referred in great part
to the stimulus of his imagination.
Scientific men fight shy of the word
because of its ultra-scientific connota
tions ; but the fact is that without the
exercise of this power our knowledge of
nature would be a mere tabulation of
co-existences and sequences. We should
still believe in the succession of day and
night, of summer and winter; but the
conception of Force would vanish from
our universe; causal relations would
disappear, and with them that science
which is now binding the parts of nature
to an organic whole.
I should like to illustrate by a few
simple instances the use that scientific
men have already made of this power of
imagination, and to indicate afterwards
some of the further uses that they are
likely to make of it. Let us begin with
the rudimentary experiences. Observe
the falling of heavy rain-drops into a
tranquil pond. Each drop as it strikes
the water becomes a centre of distur
bance, from which a series of ring-ripples
expand outwards. Gravity and inertia
are the agents by which this wave-motion
is produced, and a rough experiment
will suffice to show that the rate of
propagation does not amount to a foot
a second. A series of slight mechanical
shocks is experienced by a body plunged
in the water, as the wavelets reach it in
succession. But a finer motion is at the
same time set up and propagated. If
the head and ears be immersed in the
water, as in an experiment of Franklin’s,
the tick of the drop is heard. Now, this
sonorous impulse is propagated, not at
the rate of a foot, but at the rate of 4,700
feet a second. In this case it is not the
gravity but the elasticity of the water
that comes into play. . Every liquid
particle pushed against its neighbour
delivers up its motion with extreme
rapidity, and the pulse is. propagated as
a thrill. The incompressibility of water,
as illustrated by the famous Florentine
experiment, is a measure of its elasticity ;
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
and to the possession of this property,
in so high a degree, the rapid trans
mission of a sound-pulse through water
is to be ascribed.
But water, as you know, is not neces
sary to the conduction of sound; air is
its most common vehicle.
And you
know that when the air possesses the
particular density and elasticity corre
sponding to the temperature of freezing
water, the velocity of sound in it is
1,090 feet a second. It is almost exactly
one-fourth of the velocity in water; the
reason being that, though the greater
weight of the water tends to diminish
the velocity, the enormous molecular
elasticity of the liquid far more than
atones for the disadvantage due to weight.
By various contrivances we can compel
the vibrations of the air to declare them
selves; we know the length and fre
quency of the sonorous waves, and we
have also obtained great mastery over
the various methods by which the air is
thrown into vibration. We know the
phenomena and laws of vibrating rods,
of organ-pipes, strings, membranes, plates,
and bells. We can abolish one sound
by another. We know the physical
meaning of music and noise, of harmony
and discord. In short, as regards sound
in general, we have a very clear notion
of the external physical processes which
correspond to our sensations.
In the phenomena of sound, we travel
a very little way from downright sensible
experience. Still the imagination is to
some extent exercised. The bodily eye,
for example, cannot see the condensations
and rarefactions of the waves of sound.
We construct them in thought, and we
believe as firmly in their existence as
in that of the air itself. But now our
experience is to be carried into a new
region, where a new use is to be made
of it. Having mastered the cause and
mechanism of sound, we desire to know
the cause and mechanism of light. We
wish to extend our inquiries from the
auditory to the optic nerve. There is
in the human intellect a power of expan
sion—I might almost call it a power of
63
creation—which is brought into play by
the simple brooding upon facts. The
legend of the spirit brooding over chaos
may have originated in experience of
this power. In the case now before us
it has 'manifested itself by transplanting
into space, for the purposes of light, an
adequately modified form of the mecha
nism of sound.
We know intimately
whereon the velocity of sound depends.
When we lessen the density of the
aerial medium, and preserve its elasticity
constant, we augment the velocity. When
we heighten the elasticity and keep the
density constant we also augment the
velocity. A small density, therefore, and
a great elasticity, are the two things
necessary to rapid propagation. Now
light is known to move with the astound
ing velocity of 186,000 miles a second.
How is such a velocity to be obtained ?
By boldly diffusing in space a medium
of the requisite tenuity and elasticity.
Let us make such a medium our
starting-point, and, endowing it with one
or two other necessary qualities, let us
handle it in accordance with strict
mechanical laws. Let us then carry our
results from the world of theory into the
world of sense, and see whether our
deductions do not issue in the very
phenomena of light which ordinary
knowledge and skilled experiment reveal.
If in all the multiplied varieties of these
phenomena, including those of the most
remote and entangled description, this
fundamental conception always brings
us face to face with the truth; if no con
tradiction to our deductions from it be
found in external nature, but on all sides
agreement and verification; if, more
over, as in the case of Conical Refraction
and in other cases, it actually forces
upon our attention phenomena which
no eye had previously seen, and which
no mind had previously imagined—such
a conception must, we think, be some
thing more than a mere figment of the
scientific fancy.
In forming it, that
composite and creative power, in which
reason and imagination are united, has,
we believe, led us into a world not less
�64
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
real than that of the senses, and of which
the world of sense itself is the suggestion
and, to a great extent, the outcome.
Far be it from me, however, to wish
to fix you immovably in this or in any
other theoretic conception.
With all
our belief of it, it will be well to keep
the theory of a luminiferous ether plastic
and capable of change.
You may,
moreover, urge that, although the phe
nomena occur as if the. medium existed,
the absolute demonstration of its exist
ence is still wanting. Far be it from me
to deny to this reasoning such validity
as it may fairly claim. Let us endeavour
by means of analogy to form a fair
estimate of its force. You believe that
in society you are surrounded by reason
able beings like yourself.
You are,
perhaps, as firmly convinced of this as of
anything. What is your warrant for this
conviction ? Simply and solely this: your
fellow-creatures behave as if they were
reasonable; the hypothesis, for it is
nothing more, accounts for the facts. To
take an eminent example : you believe
that our President is a reasonable being.
Why? There is no known method of
superposition by which any one of us
can apply himself intellectually to any
other, so as to demonstrate coincidence
as regards the possession of reason, If,
therefore, you hold our President to be
reasonable, it is because he behaves as if
he were reasonable. As in the case of
the ether, beyond the “ as if” you can
not go. Nay, I should not wonder if
a close comparison of the data on which
both inferences rest caused many re
spectable persons to conclude that the
ether had the best of it.
This universal medium, this light-ether
as it is called, is the vehicle, not the
origin, of wave-motion. It receives and
transmits, but it does not create. Whence
does it derive the motions it conveys ?
For the most part from luminous bodies.
By the motion of a luminous body I do
not mean its sensible motion, such, as
the flicker of a candle, or the shooting
out of red prominences from the limb
of the sun. I mean an intestine motion
of the atoms or molecules of the lumin
ous body. But here a certain reserve is
necessary. Many chemists of the pre
sent day refuse to speak of atoms and
molecules as real things. Their caution
leads them to stop short of the clear,
sharp, mechanically intelligible atomic
theory enunciated by Dalton, or any
form of that theory, and to make the
doctrine of “ multiple proportions ” their
intellectual bourne.
I respect the
caution, though I think it is here mis
placed. The chemists who recoil from
these notions of atoms and molecules
accept, without hesitation, the Undulatory Theory of Light. Like you and me,
they one and all believe in an e ther and
its light-producing waves. Let us consider
what this belief involves. Bring your
imaginations once more into play, and
figure a series of sound-waves passing
through air. Follow them up to their
origin, and what do you there find ? A
definite, tangible, vibrating body. It may
be the vocal chords of a human being, it
may be an organ-pipe, or it may be a
stretched string. Follow in the same
manner a train of ether-waves to their
source, remembering at the same time
that your ether is matter, dense, elastic,
and capable of motions subject to, and
determined by, mechanical laws. What
then do you expect to find as the source
of a series of ether-waves ? Ask your
imagination if it will accept a vibrating
multiple proportion—a numerical ratio
in a state of oscillation ? I do not think
it will. You cannot crown the edifice
with this abstraction. The scientific
imagination, which is here authoritative,
demands, as the origin and cause of a
series of ether-waves, a particle of vibrat
ing matter quite as definite, though it
may be excessively minute, as that which
gives origin to a musical sound. Such a
particle we name an atom or a molecule.
I think the intellect, when focussed so as
to give definition without penumbral
haze, is sure to realise this image at the
last.
With the view of preserving thought
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
continuous throughout this discourse,
and of preventing either failure of know
ledge or of memory from causing any
rent in our picture, I here propose to run
rapidly over a bit of ground which is
probably familiar to most of you, but
which I am anxious to make familiar to
you all. The waves generated in the
ether by the swinging atoms of luminous
bodies are of different lengths and ampli
tudes. The amplitude is the width of
swing of the individual particles of the
waves. In water-waves it is the vertical
height of the crest above the trough,
while the length of the wave is the hori
zontal distance between two consecutive
crests. The aggregate of waves emitted
by the sun may be broadly divided into
two classes: the one class competent,
the other incompetent, to excite vision.
But the light-producing waves differ
markedly among themselves in size, form,
and force. The length of the largest of
these waves is about twice that of the
smallest, but the amplitude of the largest
is probably a hundred times that of the
smallest. Now the force or energy of
the wave, which, expressed with reference
to sensation, means the intensity of the
light, is proportional to the square of the
amplitude. Hence the amplitude being
one-hundred-fold, the energy of the
largest light-giving waves would be tenthousand-fold that of the smallest. This
is not improbable. I use these figures
not with a view to numerical accuracy,
but to give you definite ideas of the dif
ferences that probably exist among the
light-giving waves. And if we take the
whole range of solar radiation into
account—its non-visual as well as its
visual waves—I think it probable that
the force, or energy, of the largest wave
is more than a million times that of the
smallest.
Turned into their equivalents of sensa
tion, the different light-waves produce
different colours. Red, for example, is
produced by the largest waves, violet by
the smallest, while green is produced by
a wave of intermediate length and ampli
tude. On entering from air into a more
65
highly refracting substance, such as glass
or water, or the sulphide of carbon, all
the waves are retarded, but the smallest
ones most. This furnishes a means of
separating the different classes of waves
from each other; in other words, of
analysing the light. Sent through a re
fracting prism, the waves of the sun are
turned aside in different degrees from
their direct course, the red least, the
violet most. They are virtually pulled
asunder, and they paint upon a white
screen placed to receive them “ the solar
spectrum.” Strictly speaking, the spec
trum embraces an infinity of colours ;
but the limits of language, and of our
powers of distinction, cause it to be
divided into seven segments: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. These
are the seven primary or prismatic colours.
Separately, or mixed in various pro
portions, the solar waves yield all the
colours observed in nature and employed
in art. Collectively, they give us the
impression of whiteness. Pure unsifted
solar light is white ; and, if all the wave
constituents of such light be reduced in
the same proportion, the light, though
diminished in intensity, will still be white.
The whiteness of snow with the sun
shining upon it is barely tolerable to the
eye. The same snow under an overcast
firmament is still white. Such a firma
ment enfeebles the light by reflecting it
upwards : and when we stand above a
cloud-field—on an Alpine summit, for
instance, or on the top of Snowdon—
and see, in the proper direction, the
sun shining on the clouds below us, they
appear dazzlingly white. Ordinary clouds,
in fact, divide the solar light impinging
on them into two parts—a reflected part
and a transmitted part—in each of which
the proportions of wave-motion which
produce the impression of whiteness are
sensibly preserved.
It will be understood that the con
dition of whiteness would fail if all the
waves were diminished equally, or by the
same absolute quantity. They must
be reduced proportionately, instead of
equally. If by the act of reflection the
c
�66
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
waves of red light are split into exact
halves, then, to preserve the light white,
the waves of yellow, orange, green, and
blue must also be split into exact halves.
In short, the reduction must take place,
not by absolutely equal quantities, but
by equal fractional parts. In white light
the preponderance, as regards energy, of
the larger over the smaller waves must
always be immense.
Were the case
otherwise, the visual correlative, blue, of
the smaller waves would have the upper
hand in our sensations.
Not only are the waves of ether re
flected by clouds, by solids, and . by
liquids, but when they pass from light
air to dense, or from dense, air to light,
a portion of the wave-motion is always
reflected. Now, our atmosphere changes
continually in density from top to bottom.
It will help our conception if we regard
it as made up of a series of thin con
centric layers, or shells of air, each shell
being of the same density throughout, a
small and sudden change of density
occurring in passing from shell to shell.
Light would be reflected at the limiting
surfaces of all these shells, and their
action would be practically the same as
that of the real atmosphere. And now
I would ask your imagination to picture
this act of reflection. What must become
of the reflected light ? The atmospheric
layers turn their convex surfaces towards
the sun; they are so many convex
mirrors of feeble power; and you will
immediately perceive that the light regu
larly reflected from these surfaces cannot
reach the earth at all, but is dispersed in
space. Light thus reflected cannot, there
fore, be the light of the sky..
But, though the sun’s light is not
reflected in this fashion from the aerial
layers to the earth, there is indubitable
evidence to show that the light of our
firmament is scattered light. Proofs of
the most cogent description could be
here adduced; but we need only con
sider that we receive light at . the same
time from all parts of the hemisphere of
heaven. The light of the firmament
comes to us across the direction of the
solar rays, and even against the direction
of the solar rays ; and this lateral and
opposing rush of wave-motion can only
be due to the rebound of the waves from
the air itself, or from something sus
pended in the air. It is also evident
that, unlike the action of clouds, the
solar light is not reflected by the sky. in
the proportions which produce white.
The sky is blue, which indicates an
excess of the shorter waves. In account
ing for the colour of the sky, the first
question suggested by analogy would
undoubtedly be, Is not the air blue?
The blueness of the air has, in fact, been
given as a solution of the blueness of the
sky. But how, if the air be blue, can
the light of sunrise and sunset, which
travels through vast distances of air, be
yellow, orange, or even red ? The
passage of white solar light through, a
blue medium could by no possibility
redden the light. The hypothesis of a
blue air is therefore untenable. In fact,
the agent, whatever it is, which sends us
the light of the sky, exercises in. so
doing a dichroitic action. The light
reflected is blue, the light transmitted is
orange or red. A marked distinction is
thus exhibited between the matter of the
sky and that of an ordinary cloud, which
exercises no such dichroitic action.
By the scientific use of the imagina
tion we may hope to penetrate this
mystery. The cloud takes no note of
size on the part of the waves of ether,
but reflects them all alike. It exercises
no selective action. Now, the cause of
this may be that the cloud particles are
so large, in comparison with, the waves of
ether, as to reflect them all indifferently.
A broad cliff reflects an Atlantic roller as
easily as a ripple produced by a sea-bird s
wing; and in the presence of large
reflecting surfaces the existing differences
of magnitude among the waves of ether
may disappear. But supposing the re
flecting particles, instead of being very
large, to be very small in comparison
with the size of the waves. In this case,
instead of the whole wave being fronted
and thrown back, a small portion only is
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
shivered off. The great mass of the
wave passes over such a particle without
reflection. Scatter, then, a handful of
such minute foreign particles in our
atmosphere, and set imagination to watch
their action upon the solar waves. Waves
of all sizes impinge upon the particles,
and you see at every collision a portion
of the impinging wave struck off; all the
waves of the spectrum, from the extreme
red to the extreme violet, being thus
acted upon.
Remembering that the red waves stand
to the blue much in the relation of
billows to ripples, we have to consider
whether those extremely small particles
are competent to scatter all the waves in
the same proportion. If they be not—
and a little reflection will make it clear
that they are not—the production of
colour must be an incident of the scatter
ing. Largeness is a thing of relation;
and the smaller the wave, the greater is
the relative size of any particle on which
the wave impinges, and the greater also
the ratio of the portion scattered to the
total wave. A pebble, placed in the
way of the ring-ripples produced by
heavy rain-drops on a tranquil pond, will
scatter a large fraction of each ripple,
while the fractional part of a larger wave
thrown back by the same pebble might
be infinitesimal. Now we have already
made it clear to our minds that, to
preserve the solar light white, its con
stituent proportions must not be altered;
but in the act of division performed by
these very small particles the proportions
are altered; an undue fraction of the
smaller waves is scattered by the particles,
and, as a consequence, in the scattered
light blue will be the predominant
colour.
The other colours of the
spectrum must, to some extent, be
associated with the blue. They are not
absent, but deficient. We ought, in
fact, to have them all, but in diminishing
proportions, from the violet to the red.
We have here presented a case to the
imagination, and, assuming the undulatory theory to be a reality, we have, I
think, fairly reasoned our way to the
conclusion, that were particles, small in
comparison to the sizes of the ether
waves, sown in our atmosphere, the light
scattered by those particles would be
exactly such as we observe in our azure
skies. When this light is analysed, all
the colours of the spectrum are found,
and they are found in the proportions
indicated by our conclusion. Blue is
not the sole, but it is the predominant
colour.
Let us now turn our attention to the
light which passes unscattered among
the particles. How must it be finally
affected ? By its successive collisions
with the particles the white light is more
and more robbed of its shorter waves;
it therefore loses more and more of its
due proportion of blue. The result may
be anticipated. The transmitted light,
where short distances are involved, will
appear yellowish. But as the sun sinks
towards the horizon the atmospheric
distances increase, and consequently the
number of the scattering particles. They
abstract in succession the violet, the
indigo, the blue, and even disturb the pro
portions of green. The transmitted light
under such circumstances must pass from
yellow through orange to red.
This
also is exactly what we find in nature.
Thus, while the reflected light gives us
at noon the deep azure of the Alpine
skies, the transmitted light gives us at
sunset the warm crimson of the Alpine
snows. The phenomena certainly occur
as if our atmosphere were a medium
rendered slightly turbid by the mecha
nical suspension of exceedingly small
foreign particles.
Here, as before, we encounter our
sceptical “as if."
It is one of the
parasites of science, ever at hand, and
ready to plant itself and sprout, if it can,
on the weak points of our philosophy.
But a strong constitution defies the
parasite, and in our case, as we question
the phenomena, probability grows like
growing health, until in the end the
malady of doubt is completely extirpated,
fl he first question that naturally arises is
this: Can small particles be really proved
�68
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
to act in the manner indicated? No
doubt of it.
Each one of you can
submit the question to an experimental
test. Water will not dissolve resin, but
spirit will dissolve it; and when spirit
holding resin in solution is dropped into
water, the resin immediately separates
in solid particles, which render the water
milky. The coarseness of this precipitate
depends on the quantity of the dissolved
resin.
You can cause it to separate
either in thick clots or in exceedingly
fine particles. Professor Briicke has
given us the proportions which produce
particles particularly suited to our present
purpose. One gramme of clean mastic
is dissolved in eighty-seven grammes of
absolute alcohol, and the transparent
solution is allowed to drop into a beaker
containing clear water, kept briskly
stirred. An exceedingly fine precipitate
is thus formed, which declares its pre
sence by its action upon light. Placing
a dark surface behind the beaker, and
permitting the light to fall into it from
the top or front, the medium is seen to
be distinctly blue. It is not perhaps so
perfect a blue as may be seen on excep
tional days among the Alps, but it is. a
very fair sky-blue. A trace of soap in
water gives a tint of blue. London, and
I fear Liverpool, milk makes an approxi
mation to the same colour, through the
operation of the same cause; and Helm
holtz has irreverently disclosed the fact
that the deepest blue eye is simply a
turbid medium.
The action of turbid media upon light
was illustrated by Goethe, who, though
unacquainted with the undulatory theory,
was led by his experiments to regard
the firmament as an illuminated turbid
medium, with the darkness of space
behind it. He describes glasses showing
a bright yellow by transmitted, and a
beautiful blue by reflected, light. Pro
fessor Stokes, who was probably the first
to discern the real nature of the action
of small particles on the waves of ether,1
1 This is inferred from conversation.
I am
describes a glass of a similar kind.’
Capital specimens of such glass are to
be found at Salviati’s, in St. James’s
Street. What artists call “ chill ” is no
doubt an effect of this description.
Through the action of minute particles,
the browns of a picture often present
the appearance of the bloom of a plum.
By rubbing the varnish with a silk hand
kerchief optical continuity is established
and the chill disappears. Some years
ago I witnessed Mr. Hirst experimenting
at Zermatt on the turbid water of the
Visp. When kept still for a day or so,
the grosser matter sank, but the finer
particles remained suspended, and gave
a distinctly blue tinge to the water. The
blueness of certain Alpine lakes has
been shown to be in part due to this
cause. Professor Roscoe has noticed
several striking cases of a similar kind.
In a very remarkable paper the late
Principal Forbes showed that steam
issuing from the safety-valve of a locomo
tive, when favourably observed, exhibits
at a certain stage of its condensation
the colours of the sky. It is blue by
reflected light, and orange or red by
transmitted light. The same effect, as
pointed out by Goethe, is to some extent
exhibited by peat-smoke.
More than
ten years ago, I amused . myself by
observing, on a calm day at Killarney, the
straight smoke-columns rising from the
cabin-chimneys. It was easy to project
the lower portion of a column against a
dark pine, and its upper portion against
a bright cloud.
The smoke in the
former case was blue, being seen mainly
by reflected light; in the latter case it
was reddish, being seen mainly by trans
mitted light.
Such smoke was not in
not aware that Professor Stokes has published
anything upon the subject.
1 This glass, by reflected light, had a colour
“strongly resembling that of a decoction o
horse-chesnut bark.” Curiously enough, Goethe
refers to this very decoction :
^'Ianr) ne^me
einen Streifen frischer Rinde von der Rosskastanie, man stecke denselben in ein Gias Wasser,
und in der kurzesten Zeit werden wir das vollkommenste Himmelblau entstehen sehen. —Goethe s
Werke, B. xxix., p. 24.
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
exactly the condition to give us the glow
of the Alps, but it was a step in this
direction. Briicke’s fine precipitate, above
referred to, looks yellowish by transmitted
light; but, by duly strengthening the
precipitate, you may render the white
light of noon as ruby-coloured as the
sun, when seen through Liverpool smoke
or upon Alpine horizons. I do not,
however, point to the gross smoke arising
from coal as an illustration of the action
of small particles, because such smoke
soon absorbs and destroys the waves of
blue, instead of sending them to the eyes
of the observer.
These multifarious facts, and number
less others which cannot now be referred
to, are explained by reference to the
single principle, that, where the scatter
ing particles are small in comparison
to the ethereal waves, we have in the
reflected light a greater proportion of
the smaller waves, and in the trans
mitted light a greater proportion of
the larger waves, than existed in the
original white light. The consequence, as
regards sensation, is that in the one case
blue is predominant, and in the other
orange or red. Our best microscopes
can readily reveal objects not more than
s^Loth of an inch in diameter. This
is less than the length of a wave of red
light. Indeed, a first-rate microscope
would enable us to discern objects not
exceeding in diameter the length of the
smallest waves of the visible spectrum.1
By the microscope, therefore, we can
test our particles. If they be as large as
the light-waves, they will infallibly be
seen; and if they be not so seen, it is
because they are smaller. Some months
ago I placed in the hands of our Presi
dent a liquid containing Briicke’s pre
cipitate. The liquid was milky blue, and
Mr. Huxley applied to it his highest
microscopic power. He satisfied me that,
had particles of even nrsWath of an
inch in diameter existed in the liquid,
1 Dallinger and Drysdale have recently
measured cilia -^Ars^th of an inch in diameter.
1878.
69
they could not have escaped detection.
But no particles were seen. Under the
microscope the turbid liquid was not to
be distinguished from distilled water.1
But we have it in our power to imitate,
far more closely than we have hitherto
done, the natural conditions of this prob
lem. We can generate, in air, artificial
skies, and prove their perfect identity
with the natural one, as regards the exhi
bition of a number of wholly unexpected
phenomena. By a continuous process of
growth, moreover, we are able to connect
sky-matter, if I may use the term, with
molecular matter on the one side, and
with molar matter, or matter in sensible
masses, on the other. In illustration ot
this, I will take an experiment suggested
by some of my own researches, and
described by M. Morren of Marseilles at
the Exeter meeting of the British Asso
ciation. Sulphur and oxygen combine
to form sulphurous acid gas, two atoms
of oxygen and one of sulphur constitut
ing the molecule of sulphurous acid. It
has been recently shown that waves of
ether issuing from a strong source, such
as the sun or the electric light, are com
petent to shake asunder the atoms of
gaseous molecules.2 A chemist would
call this “ decomposition ” by light; but
it behoves us, who are examining the
power and function of the imagination,
to keep constantly before us the physical
images which underlie our terms. There
fore I say, sharply and definitely, that
the components of the molecules of
sulphurous acid are shaken asunder by
the ether-waves. Enclosing sulphurous
acid in a suitable vessel, placing it in a
dark room, and sending through it a
powerful beam of light, we at first see
nothing : the vessel containing the gas
seems as empty as a vacuum. Soon,
1 Like Dr. Burdon Sanderson’s “ pyrogen/'
the particles of mastic passed, without sensible
hindrance, through filtering-paper. By such
filtering no freedom from suspended particles is
secured. The application of a condensed beam
to the filtrate renders this at once evident.
2 See article on “New Chemical Reactions
Produced by Light,"Fragments of Science, vol. i.
�70
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
however, along the track of the beam a
beautiful sky-blue colour is observed,
which is due to light scattered by the
liberated particles of sulphur. For a
time the blue grows more intense; it
then becomes whitish, and ends in a
more or less perfect white. When the
action is continued long enough, the
tube is filled with a dense cloud of sul
phur particles, which by the application
of proper means may be rendered indi
vidually visible.1
Here, then, our ether-waves untie the
bond of chemical affinity, and liberate a
body—sulphur—which at ordinary tem
peratures is a solid, and which therefore
soon becomes an object of the senses.
We have first of all the free atoms of
sulphur, which are incompetent to stir
the retina sensibly with scattered light.
But these atoms gradually coalesce and
form particles, which grow larger by con
tinual accretion, until after a minute or
two they appear as sky-matter.. In this
condition they are individually invisible;
but collectively they send an amount of
wave-motion to the retina, sufficient to
produce the firmamental blue.
The
particles continue, or may be caused to
continue, in this condition for a con
siderable time, during which no micro
scope can cope with them. But they
grow slowly larger, and pass by in
sensible gradations into the state of cloud,
when they can no longer elude the armed
eye.
Thus, without solution of con
tinuity, we start with matter in the atom,
and end with matter in the mass ; sky
matter being the middle term of the
series of transformations.
Instead of sulphurous acid, we might
choose a dozen other substances, and
produce the same effect with all of them.
In the case of some—probably in the
case of all—it is possible to preserve
* M. Morren was mistaken in supposing that
& modicum of sulphurous acid, in the drying
tubes, had any share in the production of the
“ actinic clouds” described by me. A beautiful
case of molecular instability in the presence of
light is furnished by peroxide of chlorine, as
proved by Professor Dewar. 1878.
matter in the firmamental condition for
fifteen or twenty minutes under the con
tinual operation of the light. During
these fifteen or twenty minutes the
particles constantly grow larger, without
ever exceeding the size requisite to the
production of the celestial blue. Now,
when two vessels are placed before us,
each containing sky-matter, it is possible
to state with great distinctness which
vessel contains the largest particles.
The eye is very sensitive to differences
of light, when, as in our experiments, it
is placed in comparative darkness, and
the wave-motion thrown against the
retina is small. The larger particles
declare themselves by the greater white
ness of their scattered light. Call now
to mind the observation, or effort at
observation, made by our President,
when he failed to distinguish the particles
of mastic in Briicke’s medium, and when
you have done this, please follow me.
A beam of light is permitted to act upon
a certain vapour. In two minutes the
azure appears, but at the end of fifteen
minutes it has not ceased to be azure.
After fifteen minutes its colour, and some
other phenomena, pronounce it to be a
blue of distinctly smaller particles than
those sought for in vain by Mr. Huxley.
These particles, as already stated, must
have been less than nroVoth of an inch
in diameter. And now I want you to
consider the following question : Here
are particles which have been growing
continually for fifteen minutes, and at
the end of that time are demonstrably
smaller than those which defied the
microscope of Mr. Huxley— What must
have been the size of these particles at the
beginning of their growth I What notion
can you form of the magnitude of such
particles ?
The distances of stellar
space give us simply a bewildering, sense
of vastness, without leaving any distinct
impression on the mind; and the mag
nitudes with \yhich we have here to. do,
bewilder us equally in the opposite direc
tion. We are dealing with infinitesimals,
compared with which the test objects of
the microscope are literally immense.
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
Small in mass, the vastness in point of
number of the particles of our sky may be
inferred from the continuity of its light.
It is not in broken patches, nor at scat
tered points, that the heavenly azure is
revealed.
To the observer on the
summit of Mont Blanc, the blue is as
uniform and coherent as if it formed the
surface of the most close-grained solid.
A marble dome would not exhibit a
stricter continuity. And Mr. Glaisher
will inform you that, if our hypothetical
shell were lifted to twice the height of
Mont Blanc above the earth’s surface,
we should still have the azure overhead.
By day this light quenches the stars;
even by moonlight it is able to exclude
from vision all stars between the fifth
and the eleventh magnitude. It may be
likened to a noise, and the feebler stellar
radiance to a whisper drowned by the
noise.
What is the nature of the particles
which shed this light ? The celebrated
De la Rive ascribes the haze of the Alps
in fine weather to floating organic germs.
Now the possible existence of germs in
such profusion has been held up as an
absurdity.
It has been affirmed that
they would darken the air, and on the
assumed impossibility of their existence
in the requisite numbers, without invasion
of the solar light, an apparently powerful
argument has been based by believers in
spontaneous generation. Similar argu
ments have been used by the opponents
of the germ theory of epidemic disease,
who have triumphantly challenged an
appeal to the microscope and the
chemist’s balance to decide the question.
Such arguments, however, are founded
on a defective acquaintance with the
powers and properties of matter. Without
committing myself in the least to De la
Rive’s notion, to the doctrine of spon
taneous generation, or to the germ theory
of disease, I would simply draw attention
to the demonstrable fact, that in the
atmosphere we have particles which defy
both the microscope and the balance,
which do not darken the air, and which
exist, nevertheless, in multitudes suffi
7i
cient to reduce to insignificance the
Israelitish hyperbole regarding the sands
upon the sea-shore.
The varying judgments of men on
these and other questions may perhaps
be, to some extent, accounted for by that
doctrine of Relativity which plays so im
portant a part in philosophy. This doc
trine affirms that the impressions made
upon us by any circumstance, or com
bination of circumstances, depend upon
our previous state. Two travellers upon
the same height, the one having ascended
to it from the plain, the other having
descended to it from a higher elevation,
will be differently affected by the scene
around them.
To the one nature is
expanding, to the other it is contracting;
and impressions which have two such
different antecedent states are sure to
differ. In our scientific judgments the
law of relativity may also play an impor
tant part. To two men, one educated
in the school of the senses, having mainly
occupied himself with observation; the
other educated in the school of imagina
tion as well, and exercised in the con
ceptions of atoms and molecules to which
we have so frequently referred, a bit of
matter, say yvfonrth of an inch in dia
meter, will present itself differently. The
one descends to it from his molar heights,
the other climbs to it from his molecular
lowlands. To the one it appears small,
to the other large. So, also, as regards
the appreciation of the most minute
forms of life revealed by the microscope.
To one of the men these naturally appear
conterminous with the ultimate particles
of matter; there is but a step from
the atom to the organism. The other
discerns numberless organic gradations
between both. Compared with his atoms,
the smallest vibrios and bacteria of the
microscopic field are as behemoth and
leviathan. The law of relativity may to
some extent explain the different atti
tudes of two such persons with regard to
the question of spontaneous generation.
An amount of evidence which satisfies
the one entirely fails to satisfy the other;
�72
LECTURES AND ESSA FS
and while to the one the last bold defence
and startling expansion of the doctrine
by Dr. Bastian will appear perfectly con
clusive, to the other it will present itself
as merely imposing a labour of demo
lition on subsequent investigators.1
Let me say here that many of our
physiological observers appear to form a
very inadequate estimate of the distance
which separates the microscopic from
the molecular limit, and that, as a con
sequence, they sometimes employ a
phraseology calculated to mislead. When,
for example, the contents of a cell are
described as perfectly homogeneous or
as absolutely structureless, because the
microscope fails to discover any struc
ture; or when two structures are pro
nounced to be without difference, because
the microscope can discover none, then,
I think, the microscope begins to play a
mischievous part. A little consideration
will make it plain that the microscope
can have no voice in the question of
germ structure. Distilled water is more
perfectly homogeneous than any possible
organic germ. What is it that causes
the liquid to cease contracting at 39°
Fahr., and to expand until it freezes?
We have here a structural process of
which the microscope can take no note,
nor is it likely to do so by any con
ceivable extension of its powers. Place
distilled water in the field of an electro
magnet, and bring a microscope to bear
upon it. Will any change be observed
when the magnet is excited ? Absolutely
none ; and, still, profound and complex
changes have occurred. First of all, the
particles of water have been rendered
diamagnetically polar; and secondly, in
virtue of the structure impressed upon it
by the magnetic whirl of its. molecules,
the liquid twists a ray of light in a fashion
perfectly determinate both as to quantity
and direction.
Have the diamond, the amethyst, and
the countless other crystals formed in
1 When these words were uttered I did not
imagine that the chief labour of demolition would
fall upon myself. 1878.
the laboratories of nature and of man no
structure ? Assuredly they have ; but
what can the microscope make of it?
Nothing. It cannot be too distinctly
borne in mind that between the micro
scopic limit and the true molecular limit
there is room for infinite permutations
and combinations. It is in this region
that the poles of the atoms are arranged,
that tendency is given to their powers;
so that when these poles and powers
have free action, proper stimulus, and a
suitable environment, they determine,
first the germ, and afterwards the com
plete organism. This first marshalling
of the atoms, on which all subsequent
action depends, baffles a keener power
than that of the microscope. When
duly pondered, the complexity of the
problem raises the doubt, not of the
power of our instrument, for that is
but whether we ourselves possess the
intellectual elements which will . ever
enable us to grapple with the ultimate
structural energies of nature.1
In more senses than one Mr. Darwin
has drawn heavily upon the scientific
tolerance of his age. He has drawn
heavily upon time in his development of
species, and he has drawn adventurously
upon matter in his theory of pangenesis.
According to this theory, a germ, already
microscopic, is a world of minor germs.
Not only is the organism as a whole
wrapped up in the germ, but every organ
of the organism has there its special seed.
This, I say, is an adventurous draft on
the power of matter to divide itself and
distribute its forces. But, unless we are
perfectly sure that he is overstepping the
bounds of reason, that he is unwittingly
1 “ In using the expression, ‘ one sort of living
substance,’ I must guard against being supposed
to mean that any kind of living protoplasm is
homogeneous. Hyaline though it may appear,
we are not at present able to assign any
limit to its complexity of structure.”—Burd on
Sanderson, in the British Medical Journal.,
January 16th, 1875. We have here scientific
insight, and its correlative caution.
In tact,
Dr. Sanderson’s important researches are a
continued illustration of the position laid down
above.
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
sinning against observed fact or demon
strated law—for a mind like that of
Darwin can never sin wittingly against
either fact or law—we ought, I think, to
be cautious in limiting his intellectual
horizon. If there be the least doubt in
the matter, it ought to be given in favour
of the freedom of such a mind. To it a
vast possibility is in itself a dynamic
power, though the possibility may never
be drawn upon. It gives me pleasure to'
think that the facts and reasonings of
this discourse tend rather towards the
justification of Mr. Darwin than towards
his condemnation; for they seem to show
the perfect competence of matter and
force, as regards divisibility and distribu
tion, to bear the heaviest strain that he
has hitherto imposed upon them.
In the case of Mr. Darwin, observa
tion, imagination, and reason combined
have run back with wonderful sagacity
and success over a certain length of the
line of biological succession. Guided by
analogy, in his Origin of Species he placed
at the root of life a primordial germ, from
which he conceived the amazing variety
of the organisms now upon the earth’s
surface might be deduced. If this hypo
thesis were even true, it would not be
final. The human mind would infallibly
look behind the germ, and, however
hopeless the attempt, would inquire into
the history of its genesis. In this dim
twilight of conjecture the searcher wel
comes every gleam, and seeks to augment
his light by indirect incidences.
He
studies the methods of nature in the
ages and the worlds within his reach, in
order to shape the course of speculation
in antecedent ages and worlds. And
though the certainty possessed by experi
mental inquiry is here shut out, we are
not left entirely without guidance. From
the examination of the solar system, Kant
and Laplace came to the conclusion that
its various bodies once formed parts of
the same undislocated mass; that matter
in a nebulous form preceded matter in
its present form ; that, as the ages rolled
away, heat was wasted, condensation
followed, planets were detached; and
73
that finally the chief portion of the hot
cloud reached, by self-compression, the
magnitude and density of our sun. The
earth itself offers evidence of a fiery
origin; and in our day the hypothesis of
Kant and Laplace receives the indepen
dent countenance of spectrum analysis,
which proves the same substances to be
common to the earth and sun.
Accepting some such view of the con
struction of our system as probable, a
desire immediately arises to connect the
present life of our planet with the past.
We wish to know something of our
remotest ancestry. On its first detach
ment from the central mass, life, as we
understand it, could not have been
present on the earth. How, then, did
it come there ? The thing to be encou
raged here is a reverent freedom—a free
dom preceded by the hard discipline
which checks licentiousness in specula
tion—while the thing to be repressed,
both in science and out of it, is dog
matism. And here I am in the hands
of the meeting—willing to end, but ready
to go on. I have no right to intrude
upon you. unasked, the unformed notions
which are floating like clouds, or gather
ing to more solid consistency, in the
modern speculative scientific mind. But
if you wish me to speak plainly, honestly,
and undisputatiously, I am willing to do
so. On the present occasion—
“ You are ordained to call, and I to come.”
Well, your answer is given, and I obey
your call.
Two or three years ago, in an ancient
London College, I listened to a discus
sion at the end of a lecture by a very
remarkable man. Three or four hundred
clergymen were present at the lecture.
The orator began with the civilisation of
Egypt in the time of Joseph; pointing
out the very perfect organisation of the
kingdom, and the possession of chariots,
in one of which Joseph rode, as proving
a long antecedent period of civilisation.
He then passed on to the mud of the
Nile, its rate of augmentation, its present
thickness, and the remains of human
�74
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
handiwork found therein : thence to the
rocks which bound the Nile valley, and
which teem with organic remains. Thus
in his own clear way he caused the idea
of the world’s age to expand itself indefi
nitely before the minds of his audience,
and he contrasted this with the age
usually assigned to the world. During
his discourse he seemed to be swimming
against a stream ; he manifestly thought
that he was opposing a general convic
tion. He expected resistance in the
subsequent discussion; so did I. But
it was all a mistake; there was no
adverse current, no opposing conviction,
no resistance; merely here and there a
half-humorous but unsuccessful attempt
to entangle him in his talk. The meeting
agreed with all that had been said
regarding the antiquity of the earth and
of its life. They had, indeed, known it
all long ago, and they rallied the lecturer
for coming among them with so stale a
story. It was quite plain that this large
body of clergymen, who were, I should
say, to be ranked among the finest
samples of their class, had entirely given
up the ancient landmarks, and trans
ported the conception of life’s origin to
an indefinitely distant past.
■ This leads us to the gist of our present
inquiry, which is this : Does life belong
to what we call matter, or is it an inde
pendent principle inserted into matter
at some suitable epoch—say when the
j hysical conditions became such as to
permit of the development of life ? Let
us put the question with the reverence
due to a faith and culture in which we
all were cradled, and which are the
undeniable historic antecedents of our
present enlightenment. I say, let us put
the question reverently, but let us also
put it clearly and definitely. There are
the strongest grounds for believing that
during a certain period of its history the
earth was not, nor was it fit to be, the
theatre of life. Whether this was ever a
nebulous period, or merely a molten
period, does not signify much ; and if
we revert to the nebulous condition, it
is because the probabilities are really on
its side. Our question is this : Did
creative energy pause until the nebulous
matter had condensed, until the earth
had been detached, until the solar fire
had so far withdrawn from the earth’s
vicinity as to permit a crust to gather
round the planet ? Did it wait until the
air was isolated ; until the seas were
formed; until evaporation, condensation,
and the descent of rain had begun; until
the eroding forces of the atmosphere
had weathered and decomposed the
molten rocks so as to form soils; until
the sun’s rays had become so tempered
by» distance, and by waste, as to be
chemically fit for the decomposition
necessary to vegetable life ? Having
waited through these seons until the
proper conditions had set in, did it send
the fiat forth, “ Let there be Life! ”?
These questions define a hypothesis not
without its difficulties, but the dignity of
which in relation to the world’s know
ledge was demonstrated by the nobleness
of the men whom it sustained.
Modern scientific thought is called
upon to decide between this hypothesis
and another; and public thought gene
rally will afterwards be called upon to
do the same. But, however the convic
tions of individuals here and there may
be influenced, the process must be slow
and secular which commends the hypo
thesis of Natural Evolution to the public
mind. For what are the core and essence
of this hypothesis ? Strip it naked, and
you stand face to face with the notion
that not alone the more ignoble forms of
animalcular or animal life, not alone the
nobler forms of the horse and lion, not
alone the exquisite and wonderful mecha
nism of the human body, but that the
human mind itself—emotion, intellect,
will, and all their phenomena—were once
latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere
statement of such a notion is more than
a refutation. But the hypothesis would
probably go even farther than this.
Many who hold it would probably
assent to the position that, at the present
moment, all our philosophy, all our
poetry, all our science, and all our art—
�SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION
Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael
—are potential in the fires of the sun.
We long to learn something of our origin.
If the Evolution hypothesis be correct,
even this unsatisfied yearning must have
come to us across the ages which separate
the primeval mist from the consciousness
of to-day. I do not think that any holder
of the Evolution hypothesis would say
that I overstate or overstrain it in any
way. I merely strip it of all vagueness,
and bring before you, unclothed and
unvarnished, the notions by which it
must stand or fall.
Surely these notions represent an
absurdity too monstrous to be enter
tained by any sane mind. But why are
such notions absurd, and why should
sanity reject them ? The law of Rela
tivity, of which we have previously
spoken, may find its application here.
These Evolution notions are absurd,
monstrous, and fit only for the intel
lectual gibbet, in relation to the ideas
concerning matter which were drilled
into us when young. Spirit and matter
have ever been presented to us in the
rudest contrast, the one as all-noble, the
other as all-vile. But is this correct?
Upon the answer to this question all
depends.
Supposing that, instead of
having the foregoing antithesis of spirit
and matter presented to our youthful
minds, we had been taught to regard
them as equally worthy, and equally
wonderful; to consider them, in fact, as
two opposite faces of the self-same
mystery. Supposing that in youth we
had been impregnated with the notion
of the poet Goethe, instead of the notion
of the poet Young, and taught to look
upon matter, not as “ brute matter,” but
as the “ living garment of God ”; do you
not think that under these altered cir
cumstances the law of Relativity might
have had an outcome different from its
present one? Is it not probable that
our repugnance to the idea of primeval
union between spirit and matter might
be considerably abated? Without this
total revolution of the notions now preva
lent, the Evolution hypothesis must stand
75
condemned; but in many profoundly
thoughtful minds such a revolution has
already taken place. They degrade neither
member of the mysterious duality referred
to ; but they exalt one of them from its
abasement, and repeal the divorce hitherto
existing between them. In substance, if
not in words, their position as regards
the relation of spirit and matter is:
“ What God hath joined together, let not
man put asunder.”
You have been thus led to the outer
rim of speculative science, for beyond
the nebulae scientific thought has never
hitherto ventured. I have tried to state
that which I considered ought, in fair
ness, to be outspoken. I neither think
this Evolution hypothesis is to be flouted
away contemptuously, nor that it ought
to be denounced as wicked. It is to be
brought before the bar of disciplined
reason, and there justified or condemned.
Let us hearken to those who wisely sup
port it, and to those who wisely oppose
it; and let us tolerate those, whose
name is legion, who try foolishly to do
either of these things. The only thing
out of place in the discussion is dogma
tism on either side.
Fear not the
Evolution hypothesis. Steady yourselves,
in its presence, upon that faith in the
ultimate triumph of truth which was
expressed by old Gamaliel when he said:
“ If it be of God, ye cannot overthrow
it; if it be of man, it will come to
nought.”
Under the fierce light of
scientific inquiry, it is sure to be dissi
pated if it possess not a core of truth.
Trust me, its existence as a hypothesis
is quite compatible with the simultaneous
existence of all those virtues to which
the term “ Christian ” has been applied.
It does not solve—it does not profess to
solve—the ultimate mystery of this uni
verse. It leaves, in fact, that mystery
untouched. For, granting the nebula
and its potential life, the question,
whence they came, would still remain to
baffle and bewilder us. At bottom, the
hypothesis does nothing more than
“ transport the conception of life’s origin
to an indefinitely distant past.”
�76
LECTURES AND ESSA VS
Those who hold the doctrine of Evo
lution are by no means ignorant of the
uncertainty of their data, and they only
yield to it a. provisional assent. They
regard the nebular hypothesis as pro
bable, and, in the utter absence of any
evidence to prove the act illegal, they
extend the method of nature from the
present into the past. Here the observed
uniformity of nature is their only guide.
Within the long range of physical
inquiry they have never discerned in
nature the insertion of caprice. Through
out this range the laws of physical and
intellectual continuity have run side by
side. Having thus determined the
elements of their curve in a world of
observation and experiment, they prolong
that curve into an antecedent world,
and accept as probable the unbroken
sequence of development from the nebula
to the present time. You never hear
the really philosophical defenders of the
doctrine of Uniformity speaking of
impossibilities in nature. They never
say, what they are constantly charged
with saying, that it is impossible for the
Builder of the universe to alter His
work. Their business is not with the
possible, but the actual—not with a
world which might be, but with a world
that is. This they explore with a courage
not unmixed with reverence, and accord
ing to methods which, like the quality
of a tree, are tested by their fruits. They
have but one desire—to know the truth.
They have but one fear—to believe a
lie. And if they know the strength of
science, and rely upon it with unswerving
trust, they also know the limits beyond
which science ceases to be strong. They
best know that questions offer themselves
to thought which science, as now prose
cuted, has not even the tendency to
solve. They have as little fellowship
with the atheist who says there is no
God as with the theist who professes
to know the mind of God. “ Two
things,” said Immanuel Kant, “ fill me
with awe : the starry heavens, and the
sense of moral responsibility in man.”
And in his hours of health and strength
and sanity, when the stroke of action
has ceased, and the pause of reflection
has set in, the scientific investigator
finds himself overshadowed by the same
awe. Breaking contact with the hamper
ing details of earth, it associates him
with a Power which gives fulness and
tone to his existence, but which he can
neither analyse nor comprehend.
SCIENCE AND MAN'
A magnet attracts iron; but when we
analyse the effect we learn that the
metal is not only attracted but repelled,
the final approach to the magnet being
due to the difference of two unequal
and opposing forces. Social progress is
for the most part typified by this duplex
or polar action. As a general rule, every
advance is balanced by a partial retreat,
every amelioration is associated more or
less with deterioration. No great mecha
nical improvement, for example, is intro
duced for the benefit of society at large
that does not bear hardly upon indivi
duals. Science, like other things, is
subject to the operation of this polar
law, what is good for it under one aspect
being bad for it under another.
1 Presidential Address, delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Institute, October 1st,
1877 ; with additions.
�SCIENCE AND MAN
Science demands above all things per
sonal concentration.
Its home is the
study of the mathematician, the quiet
laboratory of the experimenter, and the
cabinet of the meditative observer of
nature. Different atmospheres are re
quired by the man of science, as. such,
and the man of action.
Thus the
facilities of social and international inter
course, the railway, the telegraph, and
the post-office, which are such undoubted
boons to the man of action, re-act, to
some extent injuriously, on the man of
science. Their tendency is to break up
that concentrativeness which, as I have
said, is an absolute necessity to the
scientific investigator.
The men who have most profoundly
influenced the world from the scientific
side have habitually sought isolation.
Faraday, at a certain period of his career,
formally renounced dining out. Darwin
lives apart from the bustle of the world
in his quiet home in Kent. Mayer and
Joule dealt in unobtrusive retirement
with the weightiest scientific questions.
There is, however, one motive power in
the world which no man, be he a scien
tific student or otherwise, can afford to
treat with indifference; and that is, the
cultivation of right relations with his
fellow-men—the performance of his duty,
not as an isolated individual, but as a
member of society. It is duty in this
aspect, overcoming alike the sense of
possible danger and the desire for repose,
that has placed me in your presence here
to-night.
.
To look at his picture as a whole, a
painter requires distance ; and to judge
of the total scientific achievement of any
age, the standpoint of a succeeding age
is desirable. We may, however, trans
port ourselves in idea into the future,
and thus survey with more or Jess com
pleteness the science of our time. We
sometimes hear it decried, and contrasted
to its disadvantage with the science of
other times. I do not think that this
will be the verdict of posterity. I think,
on the contrary, that posterity will
acknowledge that in the history of
77
science no higher samples of intellectual
conquest are recorded than those which
this age has made its own. One of the
most salient of these I propose, with
your permission, to make the subject of
our consideration during the coming
hour.
It is now generally admitted that the
man of to-day is the child and product
of incalculable antecedent time.
His
physical and intellectual textures have
been woven for him during his passage
through phases of history and forms of
existence which lead the mind back to
an abysmal past. One of the qualities
which he has derived from that past is
the yearning to let in the light of prin
ciples on the otherwise bewildering flux
of phenomena. He has been described
by the German Lichtenberg as “ das
rastlose Ursachenthier ” — the restless
cause-seeking animal—in whom facts
excite a kind of hunger to know the
sources from which they spring. Never,
I venture to say, in the history of the
world has this longing been more liberally
responded to, both among men of science
and the general public, than during the
last thirty or forty years. - I say “ the
general public,” because it is a feature of
our time that the man of science no
longer limits his labours to the society of
his colleagues and his peers, but shares,
as far as it is possible to share, with the
world at large the fruits of inquiry.
The celebrated Robert Boyle regarded
the universe as a machine; Mr. Carlyle
prefers regarding it as a tree. He loves
the image of the umbrageous Igdrasil
better than that of the Strasburg clock. . A
machine may be defined as an organism
with life and direction outside; a tree
may be defined as an organism with life
and direction within. In the light of
these definitions, I close with the con
ception of Carlyle.
The order and
energy of the universe I hold to be
inherent, and not imposed from without,
the expression of fixed law and not of
arbitrary will, exercised by what Carlyle
would call an Almighty Clockmaker. But
the two conceptions are not so much
�78
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
opposed to each other after all. In one
fundamental particular they at all events
agree. They equally imply the inter
dependence and harmonious interaction
of parts, and the subordination of the in
dividual powers of the universal organism
to the working of the whole.
Never were the harmony and inter
dependence just referred to so clearly
recognised as now. Our insight regard
ing them is not that vague and general
insight to which our fathers had attained,
and which, in early times, was more
frequently affirmed by the synthetic poet
than by the scientific man.
The inter
dependence of our day has become
quantitative—expressible by numbers—
leading, it must be added, directly into
that inexorable reign of law which so
many gentle people regard with dread.
In the domain now under review men of
science had first to work their way from
darkness into twilight, and from twilight
into day.
There is no solution of con
tinuity in science.
It is not given to
any man, however endowed, to rise
spontaneously into intellectual splendour
without the parentage of antecedent
thought. Great discoveries grow. Here,
as in other cases, we have first the seed,
then the ear, then the full corn in the
ear, the last member of the series imply
ing the first. Thus, as regards the dis
covery of gravitation with which the
name of Newton is identified, notions
more or less clear concerning it had
entered many- minds before Newton’s
transcendent mathematical genius raised
it to the level of a demonstration. The
whole of his deductions, moreover, rested
upon the inductions of Kepler. Newton
shot beyond his predecessors; but his
thoughts were rooted in their thoughts,
and a just distribution of merit would
assign to them a fair portion of the
honour of discovery.
Scientific theories sometimes float like
rumours in the air before they receive
complete expression.
The doom of a
doctrine is often practically sealed, and
the truth of one is often practically ac
cepted, long prior to the demonstration
of either the error or the truth. Per
petual motion was discarded before it
was proved to be opposed to natural
law; and, as regards the connection and
interaction of natural forces, intimations
of modern discoveries are strewn through
the writings of Leibnitz, Boyle, Hooke,
Locke, and others.
Confining ourselves to recent times,
Dr. Ingleby has pointed out to me some
singularly sagacious remarks bearing
upon this question, which were published
by an anonymous writer in 1820. Roget’s
penetration was conspicuous in 1829.
Mohr had grasped in 1837 some deep
lying truth. The writings of Faraday
furnish frequent illustrations of his pro
found belief in the unity of nature. “ I
have long,” he writes in 1845, “ held an
opinion almost amounting to conviction,
in common, I believe, with other lovers
of natural knowledge, that the various
forms under which the forces of matter
are made manifest have one common
origin, or, in other words, are so directly
related and mutually dependent that
they are convertible, as it were, one
into another, and possess equivalence
of power in their action.”
His own
researches on magneto-electricity, on
electro-chemistry, and on the “ magneti
sation of light,” led him directly to this
belief. At an early date Mr. Justice
Grove made his mark upon this question.
Colding, though starting from a meta
physical basis, grasped eventually the
relation between heat and mechanical
work, and sought to determine it experi
mentally. And here let me say, that
to him who has only the truth at heart,
and who in his dealings with scientific
history keeps his soul unwarped by envy,
hatred, or malice, personal or national,
every fresh accession to historic know
ledge must be welcome.
For every
new-comer of proved merit, more espe
cially if that merit should have been
previously overlooked, he makes ready
room in his recognition or his reverence.
But no retrospect of scientific literature
has as yet brought to light a claim which
can sensibly affect the positions accorded
�SCIENCE AND MAN
* to two great Path-hewers, as the Germans
call them, whose names in relation to
this subject are linked in indissoluble
association.
These names are Julius
Robert Mayer and James Prescott Joule.
In his essay on “Circles” Mr. Emerson,
if I remember rightly, pictured intel
lectual progress as rhythmic.
At a
given moment knowledge is surrounded
by a barrier which marks its limit. It
gradually gathers clearness and strength
until by-and-by some thinker of excep
tional power bursts the barrier and wins
a wider circle, within which thought
once more entrenches itself.
But the
internal force again accumulates, the
new barrier is in its turn broken, and the
mind finds itself surrounded by a still
wider horizon.
Thus, according to
Emerson, knowledge spreads by inter
mittent victories instead of progressing
at a uniform rate.
When Dr. Joule first proved that a
weight of one pound, falling through a
height of 7 7 2 feet, generated an amount of
heat competent to warm a pound of water
one degree Fahrenheit, and that in lifting
the weight so much heat exactly dis
appeared, he broke an Emersonian
“ circle,” releasing by the act an amount
of scientific energy which rapidly overran
a vast domain, and embodied itself in
the great doctrine known as the “ Con
servation of Energy.”
This doctrine
recognises in the material universe a
constant sum of power made up of items
among which the most Protean fluctua
tions are incessantly going on. It is as
if the body of Nature were alive, the
thrill and interchange of its energies
resembling those of an organism. The
parts of the “stupendous whole” shift and
change, augment and diminish, appear
and disappear, while the total of which
they are the parts remains quantitatively
immutable. Immutable, because when
change occurs it is always polar—plus
accompanies minus, gain accompanies
loss, no item varying in the slightest
degree without art absolutely equal change
of some other item in the opposite direc
tion.
79
The sun warms the tropical ocean,
converting a portion of its liquid into
vapour, which rises in the air and is
recondensed on mountain heights, return
ing in rivers to the ocean from which it
came. Up to the point where condensa
tion begins, an amount of heat exactly
equivalent to the molecular work of
vaporisation and the mechanical work
of lifting the vapour to the mountaintops has disappeared from the universe.
What is the gain corresponding to this
loss ? It will seem when mentioned to
be expressed in a foreign currency. The
loss is a loss of heat; the gain is a gain
of distance, both as regards masses and
molecules. Water which was formerly
at the sea-level has been lifted to a
position from which it can fall; mole
cules which have been locked together
as a liquid are now separate as vapour
which can recondense. After condensa
tion gravity comes into effectual play,
pulling the showers down upon the hills,
and the rivers thus created through their
gorges to the sea. Every raindrop which
smites the mountain produces its definite
amount of heat; every river in its course
developes heat by the clash of its cataracts
and the friction of its bed. In the act
of condensation, moreover, the molecular
work of vaporisation is accurately re
versed.
Compare, then, the primitive
loss of solar warmth with the heat gene
rated by the condensation of the vapour,
and by the subsequent fall of the water
from cloud to sea. They are mathemati
cally equal to each other. No particle
of vapour was formed and lifted without
being paid for in the currency of solar
heat; no particle returns as water to the
sea without the exact quantitative resti
tution of that heat There is nothing
gratuitous in physical nature, no expen
diture without equivalent gain, no gain
without equivalent expenditure. With
inexorable constancy the one accom
panies the other, leaving no nook or
crevice between them for spontaneity to
mingle with the pure and necessary play
of natural force.
Has this uniformity
�80 '
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
of nature ever been broken ? The reply
blood-heat, then to redness, and finally
is : “Not to the knowledge of science.”
to a white heat. The heat under these
What has been here stated regarding
circumstances generated in the battery
heat and gravity applies to the whole of by the combustion of a fixed quantity of
inorganic nature. Let us take an illus zinc is no longer constant, but it varies
tration from chemistry. The metal zinc
inversely as the heat generated outside.
may be burnt in oxygen, a perfectly
If the outside heat be tzz’Z, the inside heat
definite amount of heat being produced
is a maximum; if the external wire be
by the combustion of a given weight of raised to a blood-heat, the internal heat
the metal. But zinc may also be burnt
falls slightly short of the maximum. If
in a liquid which contains a supply of the wire be rendered red-hot, the quantity
oxygen—in water, for example. It does
of missing heat within the battery is
not in this case produce flame or fire,
greater, and if the external wire be ren
but it does produce heat which is capable
dered white-hot the defect is greater
of accurate measurement. But the heat
still. Add together the internal and
of zinc burnt in water falls short of that
external heat produced by the combus
produced in pure oxygen, the reason
tion of a given weight of zinc, and
being that to obtain its oxygen from the
you have an absolutely constant total.
water the zinc must first dislodge the
The heat generated without is so much
hydrogen. It is in the performance of lost within, the heat generated within is
this molecular work that the missing heat
so much lost without, the polar changes
is absorbed. Mix the liberated hydrogen
already adverted to coming here con
with oxygen and cause them to recom spicuously into play. Thus in a variety
bine ; the heat developed is mathemati of ways we can distribute the items of a
cally equal to the missing heat. Thus, in
never-varying sum, but even the subtle
pulling the oxygen and hydrogen asunder
agency of the electric current places no
an amount of heat is consumed which is
creative power in our hands.
accurately restored by their reunion.
Instead of generating external heat,
This leads up to a few remarks upon
we may cause the current to effect
the Voltaic battery. It is not my design
chemical decomposition at a distance
to dwell upon the technical features of from the battery. Let it, for example,
this wonderful instrument, but simply,
decompose water into oxygen and hydro
by means of it, to show what varying
gen. The heat generated in the battery
shapes a given amount of energy can
under these circumstances by the com
assume while maintaining unvarying
bustion of a given weight of zinc falls
quantitative stability. When that form
short of what is produced when there is
of power which we call an electric cur no decomposition. How far short ? The
rent passes through Grove’s battery, zinc
question admits of a perfectly exact
is consumed in acidulated water; and in
answer. When the oxygen and hydrogen
the battery we are able so to arrange
recombine, the heat absorbed in the de
matters that when no current passes no
composition is accurately restored, and it
zinc shall be consumed.
Now the cur is exactly equal in amount to that missing
rent, whatever it may be, possesses the
in the battery. We may, if we like,
power of generating heat outside the
bottle up the gases, carry in this form
battery. We can fuse with it iridium,
the heat of the battery to the polar
the most refractory of metals, or we can regions, and liberate it there.
The
produce with it the dazzling electric light,
battery, in fact, is a hearth on which
and that at any terrestrial distance from
fuel is consumed; but the heat of the
the battery itself.
combustion, instead of being confined
We will now, however, content our in the usual manner to the hearth itself,
selves with causing the current to raise a
may be first liberated at the other side of
given length of platinum wire, first to a
the world.
�SCIENCE AND MAN
And here we are able to solve an
enigma which long perplexed scientific
men, and which could not be solved
until the bearing of the mechanical
theory of heat upon the phenomena of
the Voltaic battery was understood. The
puzzle was, that a single cell could not
decompose water. The reason is now
plain enough. The solution of an equi
valent of zinc in a single cell developes
not much more than half the amount of
heat required to decompose an equivalent
of water, and the single cell cannot cede
an amount of force which it does not
possess. But by forming a battery of
two cells instead of one, we develop an
amount of heat slightly in excess of that
needed for the decomposition of the
water. The two-celled battery is there
fore rich enough to pay for that decom
position, and to maintain the excess
referred to within its own cells.
Similar reflections apply to the thermo
electric pile, an instrument usually com
posed of small bars of bismuth and
antimony soldered alternately together.
The electric current is here evoked by
warming the soldered junctions of one
face of the pile. Like the Voltaic current,
the thermo-electric current can heat
wires, produce decomposition, magnetise
iron, and deflect a magnetic needle at
any distance from its origin. You will
be disposed, and rightly disposed, to
refer those distant manifestations of
power to the heat communicated to the
face of the pile, but the case is worthy
of closer examination. In 1826 Thomas
Seebeck discovered thermo-electricity,
and six years subsequently Peltier made
an observation which comes with singular
felicity to our aid in determining the
material used up in the formation of the
thermo-electric current. He found that
when a weak extraneous current was
sent from antimony to bismuth the
junction of the two metals was always
heated, but that when the direction was
from bismuth to antimony the junction
was chilled. Now the current in the
thermo-pile itself is always from bismuth
to antimony, across the heated junction
—a direction in which it cannot possibly
establish itself without consuming the
heat imparted to the junction. This
heat is the nutriment of the current.
Thus the heat generated by the thermo
current in a distant wire is simply that
originally imparted to the pile which has
been first transmuted into electricity, and
then retransmuted into its first form at a
distance from its origin. As water in
a state of vapour passes from a boiler
to a distant condenser, and there assumes
its primitive form without gain or loss,
so the heat communicated to the thermo
pile distils into the subtler electric
current, which is, as it were, recondensed
into heat in the distant platinum wire.
In my youth I thought an electro
magnetic engine which was shown to me
a veritable perpetual motion—a machine,
that is to say, which performed work
without the expenditure of power. Let
us consider the action of such a machine.
Suppose it to be employed to pump
water from a lower to a higher level.
On examining the battery which works
the engine we find that the zinc consumed
does not yield its full amount of heat.
The quantity of heat thus missing within
is the exact thermal equivalent of the
mechanical work performed without.
Let the water fall again to the lower
level; it is warmed by the fall.
Add
the heat thus produced to that generated
by the friction, mechanical and mag
netical, of the engine; we thus obtain
the precise amount of heat missing in
the battery.
All the effects obtained
from the machine are thus strictly paid
for; this “ payment for results ” being,
I would repeat, the inexorable method
of nature.
No engine, however subtly devised,
can evade this law of equivalence, or
perform on its own account the smallest
modicum of work. The machine distri
butes, but it cannot create.
Is the
animal body, then, to be classed among
machines? When I lift a weight, or
throw a stone, or climb a mountain, or
wrestle with my comrade, am I not con
scious of actually creating and expending
�82
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
force ? Let us look at the antecedents
of this force.
We derive the muscle
and fat of our bodies from what we eat.
Animal heat you know to be due to the
slow combustion of this fuel. My arm
is now inactive, and the ordinary slow
combustion of my blood and tissue is
going on. For every grain of fuel thus
burnt a perfectly definite amount of heat
has been produced. I now contract my
biceps muscle without causing it to
perform external work. The combustion
is quickened, and the heat is increased;
this additional heat being liberated in
the muscle itself. I lay hold of a 56 lb.
weight, and by the contraction of my
biceps lift it through the vertical space
of a foot. The blood and tissue con
sumed during this contraction have not
developed in the muscle their due
amount of heat. A quantity of heat is
at this moment missing in my muscle
which would raise the temperature of an
ounce of water somewhat more than one
degree Fahrenheit. I liberate the weight:
it falls to the earth, and by its collision
generates the precise amount of heat
missing in the muscle.
My muscular
heat is thus transferred from its local
' hearth to external space. The fuel is
consumed in my body, but the heat of
combustion is produced outside my
body.
The case is substantially the
same as that of the Voltaic battery when
it performs external work, or produces
external heat. All this points to the
conclusion that the force we employ in
muscular exertion is the force of burning
fuel and not of creative will.
In the
light of these facts the body is seen to
be as incapable of generating energy
without expenditure, as the solids and
liquids of the Voltaic battery.
The
body, in other words, falls into the
category of machines.
We can do with the body all that we
have already done with the battery—
heat platinum wires, decompose water,
magnetise iron, and deflect a magnetic
needle.
The combustion of muscle
may be made to produce all these
effects, as the combustion of zinc may
be caused to produce them. By turning
the handle of a magneto-electric machine
a coil of wire may be caused to rotate
between the poles of a magnet. As long
as the two ends of the coil are uncon
nected we have simply to overcome
the ordinary inertia and friction of the
machine in turning the handle. But the
moment the two ends of the coil are
united by a thin platinum wire a sudden
addition of labour is thrown upon the
turning arm. When the necessary labour
is expended, its equivalent immediately
appears. The platinum wire glows. You
can readily maintain it at a white heat,
or even fuse it. This is a very remark
able result. From the muscles of the
arm, with a temperature of ioo°, we
extract the temperature of molten plati
num, which is nearly four thousand
degrees. The miracle here is the reverse
of that of the burning bush mentioned
in Exodus. There the bush burned,
but was not consumed : here the body
is consumed, but does not burn. The
similarity of the' action with that of
the Voltaic battery when it heats an
external wire is too obvious to need
pointing out.
When the machine is
used to decompose water, the heat of
the muscle, like that of the battery, is
consumed in molecular work, being fully
restored when the gases recombine. As
before, also, the transmuted heat of the
muscles may be bottled up, carried to
the polar regions, and there restored to
its pristine form.
The matter of the human body is the
same as that of the world around us;
and here we find the forces of the
human body identical with those of
inorganic nature. Just as little as the
Voltaic battery is the animal body a
creator of force. It is an apparatus ex
quisite and effectual beyond all others in
transforming and distributing the energy
with which it is supplied, but it possesses
no creative power. Compared with the
notions previously entertained regarding
the play of “vital force ” this is a great
result. The problem of vital dynamics
�SCIENCE AND MAN
has been described by a competent
authority as “ the grandest of all.” I
subscribe to this opinion, and honour
correspondingly the man who first suc
cessfully grappled with the problem.
He was no pope, in the sense of being
infallible, but he was a man of genius
whose work will be held in honour as
long as science endures. I have already
named him in connection with our
illustrious countryman Dr. Joule. Other
eminent men took up this subject subse
quently and independently, but all that
has been done hitherto enhances instead
of diminishing the merits of Dr. Mayer.
Consider the vigour of his reasoning.
“ Beyond the power of generating in
ternal heat, the animal organism can
generate heat external to itself. A
blacksmith by hammering can warm a
nail, and a savage by friction can heat
wood to its point of ignition. Unless,
then, we abandon the physiological
axiom that the animal body cannot create
heat out of nothing, we are driven to the
conclusion that it is the total heat., within
and without, that ought to be regarded as
the real calorific effect of the oxidation
within the body A Mayer, however, not
only states the principle, but illustrates
numerically the transfer of muscular heat
to external space. A bowler who imparts
a velocity of 30 feet to an 8-lb. ball con
sumes in the act one-tenth of a grain of
carbon. The heat of the muscle is here
distributed over the track of the ball,
being developed there by mechanical
friction. A man weighing 150 lbs. con
sumes in lifting his own body to a height
of 8 feet the heat of a grain of carbon.
Jumping from this height the heat is
restored. The consumption of 2 ozs.
4 drs. 20 grs. of carbon would place the
same man on the summit of a mountain
10,000 feet high. In descending the
mountain an amount of heat equal to
that produced by the combustion of
the foregoing amount of carbon is
restored. The muscles of a labourer
whose weight is 150 lbs. weigh 64 lbs.
When dried they are reduced to 15 lbs.
Were the oxidation corresponding to a
83
day-labourer’s ordinary work exerted on
the muscles alone, they would be wholly
consumed in 80 days. Were the oxida
tion necessary to sustain the heart’s
action concentrated on the heart itself,
it would be consumed in 8 days. And
if we confine our attention to the two
ventricles, their action would consume
the associated muscular tissue in 3%
days. With a fulness and precision of
which this is but a sample did Mayer,
between 1842 and 1845, deal with the
great question of vital dynamics.
In direct opposition, moreover, to the
foremost scientific authorities of that day,
with Liebig at their head, this solitary
Heilbronn worker was led by his calcu
lations to maintain that the muscles, in
the main, played the part of machinery,
converting the fat, which had been
previously considered a mere heat-pro
ducer, into the motive power of the
organism. Mayer’s prevision has been
justified by events, for the scientific
world is now upon his side.
We place, then, food in our stomachs
as so much combustible matter. It is
first dissolved by purely chemical pro
cesses, and the nutritive fluid is poured
into the blood. Here it comes into con
tact with atmospheric oxygen admitted by
the lungs. It unites with the oxygen as
wood or coal might unite with it in a
furnace. The matter-products of the
union, if I may use the term, are the
same in both cases, viz. carbonic acid
and water. The force-products are also
the same—heat within the body, or heat
and work outside the body. Thus far
every action of the organism belongs to
the domain either of physics or of
chemistry. But you saw me cohtract
the muscle of my arm. What enabled
me to do so? Was it or was it not the
direct action of my will? The answer
is, the action of the will is mediate, not
direct. Over and above the muscles the
human organism is provided with long
whitish filaments of medullary matter,
which issue from the spinal column,
being connected by it on the one side
with the brain, and on the other side
�84
LECTURES AND ESSA VS
losing themselves in the muscles. Those
filaments or cords are the nerves, which
you know are divided into two kinds,
sensor and motor, or, if you like the
terms better, afferent and efferent nerves.
The former carry impressions from the
external world to the brain; the latter
convey the behests of the brain to the
muscles. Here, as elsewhere, we find
ourselves aided by the sagacity of Mayer,
who was the first clearly to formulate the
part played by the nerves in the organism.
Mayer saw that neither nerves nor brain,
nor both together, possessed the energy
necessary to animal motion ; but he also
saw that the nerve could lift a latch and
open a door, by which floods of energy
are let loose.
“As an engineer,” he
says with admirable lucidity, “ by the
motion of his finger in opening a valve
or loosening a detent, can liberate an
amount of mechanical energy almost
infinite compared with its exciting cause;
so the nerves, acting on the muscles, can
unlock an amount of power out of all
proportion to the work done by the
nerves themselves.” The nerves, accord
ing to Mayer, pull the trigger, but the
gunpowder which they ignite is stored in
the muscles.
This is the view now
universally entertained.
The quickness of thought has passed
into a proverb, and the notion that any
measurable time elapsed between the
infliction of a wound and the feeling of
the injury would have been rejected as
preposterous thirty years ago. Nervous
impressions, notwithstanding the results
of Haller, were thought to be transmitted,
if not instantaneously, at all events with
the rapidity of electricity. Hence, when
Helmholtz, in 1851, affirmed, as the
result of experiment, nervous transmis
sion to be a comparatively sluggish
process, very few believed him. His
experiments may now be made in the
lecture-room. Sound in air moves at
the rate of 1,100 feet a second; sound
in water moves at the rate of 5,000 feet
a second; light in ether moves at the
rate of 186,000 miles a second, and elec
tricity in free wires moves probably at the
same rate.
But the nerves transmit
their messages at the rate of only 70 feet
a second, a progress which in these
quick times might well be regarded as
inordinately slow.
Your townsman, Mr. Gore, has pro
duced by electrolysis a kind of antimony
which exhibits an action strikingly analo
gous to that of nervous propagation. A
rod of this antimony is in such a mole
cular condition that when you scratch or
heat one end of the rod the disturbance
propagates itself before your eyes to the
other end, the onward march of the dis
turbance being announced by the develop
ment of heat and fumes along the line of
propagation.
In some such way the
molecules of the nerves are successively
overthrown ; and if Mr. Gore could only
devise some means of winding up his
exhausted antimony, as the nutritive
blood winds up exhausted nerves, the
comparison would be complete. The
subject may be summed up, as Du BoisReymond has summed it up, by reference
to the case of a whale struck by a harpoon
in the tail. If the animal were seventy
feet long, a second would elapse before
the disturbance could reach the brain.
But the impression after its arrival has
to diffuse itself and throw the brain into
the molecular condition necessary to
consciousness. Then, and not till then,
the command to the tail to defend itself
is shot through the motor nerves.
Another second must elapse before the
command can reach the tail, so that
more than two seconds transpire between
the infliction of the wound and the
muscular response of the part wounded.
The interval required for the kindling of
consciousness would probably more than
suffice for the destruction of the brain by
lightning, or even by a rifle-bullet. Before
the organ can arrange itself it may, there
fore, be destroyed, and in such a case we
may safely conclude that death is pain
less.
The experiences of common life supply
us with copious instances of the libera
tion of vast stores of muscular power
�SCIENCE AND MAN
by an infinitesimal “priming” of the
muscles by the nerves. We all know the
effect produced on a “ nervous ” organi
sation by a slight sound which causes
affright. An aerial wave, the energy. of
which would not reach a minute fraction
of that necessary to raise the thousandth
of a grain through the thousandth of an
inch, can throw the whole human frame
into a powerful mechanical spasm, fol
lowed by violent respiration and palpita
tion. The eye, of course, may be
appealed to as well as the ear. Of this
the lamented Lange gives the following
vivid illustration:—
A merchant sits complacently in his
easy chair, not knowing whether smoking,
sleeping, newspaper reading, or the diges
tion of food occupies the largest portion
of his personality. A servant enters the
room with a telegram, bearing the words,
“Antwerp, etc........ Jonas and Co. have
failed.” “Tell James to harness the
horses 1” The servant flies. Up starts
the merchant, wide awake, makes a dozen
paces through the room, descends to the
counting-house, dictates letters, and for
wards despatches. He jumps into his
carriage, the horses snort, and their
driver is immediately at the Bank, on the
Bourse, and among his commercial
friends. Before an hour has elapsed he
is again at home, where he throws him
self once more into his easy chair with a
deep-drawn sigh : “ Thank God I am pro
tected against the worst, and now for
further reflection.”
This complex mass of action, emo
tional, intellectual, and mechanical, is
evoked by the impact upon the retina of
the infinitesimal waves of light coming
from a few pencil marks on a bit of paper.
We have, as Lange says, terror, hope,
sensation, calculation, possible ruin, and
victory compressed into a moment. What
caused the merchant to spring out of his
chair ? The contraction of his muscles.
What made his muscles contract ? An
impulse of the nerves, which lifted the
proper latch, and liberated the muscular
power. Whence this impulse ? From
the centre of the nervous system. But
85
how did it originate there ? This is the
critical question, to which some will
reply that it had its origin in the human
soul.
The aim and effort of science is to
explain the unknown in terms of the
known. Explanation, therefore, is con
ditioned by knowledge. You have pro
bably heard the story of the German
peasant who, in early railway days, was
taken to see the performance of a loco
motive. He had never known carriages
to be moved except by animal power.
Every explanation outside of this concep
tion lay beyond his experience, and could
not be invoked. After long reflection,
therefore, and seeing no possible escape
from the conclusion, he exclaimed con
fidently to his companion, “ Es miissen
doch Pferdedarin sein”—“There must be
horses inside.” Amusing as this locomo
tive theory may seem, it illustrates a
deep-lying truth.
With reference to our present question,
some may be disposed to press upon me
such considerations as these :—Your
motor-nerves are so many speakingtubes, through which messages are sent
from the man to the world; and your
sensor nerves are so many conduits
through which the whispers of the world
are sent back to the man. But you have
not told us where is the man. Who or
what is it that sends and receives those
messages through the bodily organism ?
Do not the phenomena point to the
existence of a self within the self, which
acts through the body as through a
skilfully constructed instrument? You
picture the muscles as hearkening to the
commands sent through the motor nerves,
and you picture the sensor nerves as the
vehicles of incoming intelligence; are
you not bound to supplement this
mechanism by the assumption of an
entity which uses it ? In other words,
are you not forced by your own exposition
into the hypothesis of a free human soul ?
This is fair reasoning now, and at a
certain stage of the world’s knowledge
it might well have been deemed con
clusive. Adequate reflection, however,
�86
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
shows that, instead of introducing light
into our minds, this hypothesis con
sidered scientifically increases our dark
ness. You do not in this case explain
the unknown in terms of the known,
which, as stated above, is the method of
science, but you explain the unknown
in terms of the more unknown. Try
to mentally visualise this soul as an
entity distinct from the body, and the
difficulty immediately appears.
From
the side of science all that we are war
ranted in stating is that the terror, hope,
sensation, and calculation of Lange’s
merchant are psychical phenomena pro
duced by, or associated with, the mole
cular processes set up by waves of light
in a previously prepared brain.
When facts present themselves let us
dare to face them, but let the man of
science equally dare to confess ignorance
where it prevails. What then is the
causal connection, if any, between the
objective and subjective—between mole
cular motions and states of conscious
ness ? My answer is : I do not see the
connection, nor have I as yet met any
body who does. It is no explanation to
say that the objective and subjective
effects are two sides of one and the same
phenomenon. Why should the pheno
menon have two sides ? This is the very
core of the difficulty. There are plenty
of molecular motions which do not
exhibit this two-sidedness. Does water
think or feel when it runs into frost-ferns
upon a window-pane ? If not, why
should the molecular motion of the brain
be yoked to this mysterious companion
—consciousness ? We can form a cohe
rent picture of the physical processes—
the stirring of the brain, the thrilling
of the nerves, the discharging of the
muscles, and all the subsequent mecha
nical motions of the organism. But we
can present to our minds no picture
ef the process whereby consciousness
emerges, either as a necessary link or as
an accidental by-product of this series of
actions. Yet it certainly does emerge—
the prick of a pin suffices to prove that
molecular motion can produce conscious
ness. The reverse process of the pro
duction of motion by consciousness is
equally unpresentable to the mind. We
are here, in fact, upon the boundary line
of the intellect, where the ordinary
canons of science fail to extricate us
from our difficulties. If we are true to
these canons, we must deny to subjective
phenomena all influence on physical
processes. Observation proves that they
interact, but in passing from one to the
other we meet a blank which mechanical
deduction is unable to fill.
Frankly
stated, we have here to deal with facts
almost as difficult to seize mentally as
the idea of a soul.
And if you are
content to make your “ soul ” a poetic
rendering of a phenomenon which refuses
the yoke of ordinary physical laws, I,
for one, would not object to this exercise
of ideality. Amid all our speculative
uncertainty, however, there is one prac
tical point as clear as the day; namely,
that the brightness and the usefulness of
life, as well as its darkness and disaster,
depend to a great extent upon our own
use or abuse of this miraculous organ.
Accustomed as I am to harsh lan
guage, I am quite prepared to hear my
“ poetic rendering ” branded as a “ false
hood ” and a “ fib.” The vituperation is
unmerited, for poetry or ideality and
untruth are assuredly very different
things. The one may vivify, while the
other kills. When St. John extends the
notion of a soul to “souls washed in
the blood of Christ ” does he “ fib ” ?
Indeed, if the appeal to ideality is cen
surable, Christ himself ought not to
have escaped censure. Nor did he
escape it. “ How can this man give us
his flesh to eat ?” expressed the sceptical
flouting of unpoetic natures. Such are
still among us.
Cardinal Manning
would doubtless tell any Protestant who
rejects the doctrine of transubstantiation
that he “ fibs ” away the plain words of.
his Saviour when he reduces “ the Body
of the Lord ” in the sacrament to a mere
figure of speech.
Though misuse may render it grotesque
or insincere, the idealisation of ancient
�SCIENCE AND MAN
conceptions, when done consciously and
above board, has, in my opinion, an im
portant future. We are not radically
different from our historic ancestors, and
any feeling which affected them pro
foundly requires only appropriate, cloth
ing to affect us. The world will not
lightly relinquish its heritage of poetic
feeling, and metaphysic will be welcomed
when it abandons its pretensions to
scientific discovery and consents to be
ranked as a kind of poetry. “A good
symbol,”says Emerson, “is a missionary
to persuade thousands. The Vedas, the
Edda, the Koran, are each remembered
by its happiest figure. There is no more
welcome gift to men than a new symbol.
They assimilate themselves to it, deal
with it in all ways, and it will last a
hundred years.
Then comes a . new
genius and brings another.” Our ideas
of God and the soul are obviously sub
ject to this symbolic mutation. They
are not now what they were a century
ago. They will not be a century hence
what they are now. Such ideas consti
tute a kind of central energy in the
human mind, capable, like the energy of
the physical universe, of assuming various
shapes and undergoing various trans
formations. They baffle and elude the
theological mechanic who would carve
them to dogmatic forms. They offer
themselves freely to the poet who under
stands his vocation, and whose function
is, or ought to be, to find “ local habita
tion ” for thoughts woven into our sub
jective life, but which refuse to be
mechanically defined.
We now stand face to face with the
final problem. It is this : Are the brain,
and the moral and intellectual processes
known to be associated with the brain—
and, as far as our experience goes, in
dissolubly associated—subject to the
laws which we find paramount in physical
nature? Is the will of man, in other
words, free, or are it and nature equally
“ bound fast in fate ” ? From this latter
conclusion, after he had established it to
the entire satisfaction of his understand
87
ing, the great German thinker Fichte
recoiled. You will find the record of
this struggle between head and heart in
his book, entitled Die. Bestimmung des
Menschen — The Vocation of Man.1
Fichte was determined at all hazards to
maintain his freedom, but the price he
paid for it indicates the difficulty of the
task. To escape from the iron necessity
seen everywhere reigning in physical
nature, he turned defiantly round upon
nature and law, and affirmed both of
them to be the products of his own mind.
He was not going to be the slave of a
thing which he had himself created.
There is a good deal to be said in
favour of this view, but few of us prob
ably would be able to bring into play the
solvent transcendentalism whereby Fichte
melted his chains.
Why do some regard this notion of
necessity with terror, while others do not
fear it at all ? Has not Carlyle some
where said that a belief in destiny is the
bias of all earnest minds ? “ It is not
Nature,” says Fichte, “it is Freedom
itself, by which the greatest and most
terrible disorders incident to our race are
produced. Man is the cruellest enemy
of man.” But the question of moral
responsibility here emerges, and it is the
possible loosening of this responsibility
that so many of us dread. The notion
of necessity certainly failed to frighten
Bishop Butler. He thought it untrue
—even absurd—but he did not fear its
practical consequences. He showed, on
the contrary, in the Analogy, that as
far as human conduct is concerned the
two theories of free-will and necessity
would come to the same in the end.
What is meant by free-will ? Does it
imply the power of producing events
without antecedents?—of starting, as it
were,, upon a creative tour of occurrences
without any impulse from within or from
without ? Let us consider the point.
If there be absolutely or relatively no
reason why a tree should fall, it will not
1 Translated by Dr. William Smith, of Edin
burgh ; Triibner, 1873.
�LECTURES AND ESSA YS
fall; and if there be absolutely or rela
tively no reason why a man should act,
he will not act. It is true that the
united voice of this assembly could not
persuade me that I have not, at this
moment, the power to lift my arm if I
wished to do so. Within this range the
conscious freedom of my will cannot be
questioned. But what about the origin
of the “ wish ” ? Are we, or are we not,
complete masters of the circumstances
which create our wishes, motives, and
tendencies to action ? Adequate reflec
tion will, I think, prove that we are not.
What, for example, have I had to do
with the generation and development of
that which some will consider my total
being, and others a most potent factor of
my total being—the living, speaking
organism which now addresses you ?
As stated at the beginning of this dis
course, my physical and intellectual
textures were woven for me, not
me.
Processes in the conduct or regulation
of which I had no share have made me
what I am. Here, surely, if anywhere,
we are as clay in the hands of the potter.
It is the greatest of delusions to suppose
that we come into this world as sheets of
white paper, on which the age can write
anything it likes, making us good or bad,
noble or mean, as the age pleases. The
age can stunt, promote, or pervert pre
existent capacities, but it cannot create
them. The worthy Robert Owen, who
saw in external circumstances the great
moulders of human character, was
obliged to supplement his doctrine by
making the man himself one of the
circumstances. It is as fatal as it is
cowardly to blink facts because they are
not to our taste. How many disorders,
ghostly and bodily, are transmitted to us
by inheritance ? In our courts of law,
whenever it is a question whether a crime
has been committed under the influence
of insanity, the best guidance the judge
and jury can have is derived from the
parental antecedents of the accused. If
among these insanity be exhibited in any
marked degree, the presumption in the
prisoner’s favour is enormously enhanced,
because the experience of life has taught
both judge and jury that insanity is fre
quently transmitted from parent to child.
I met, some years ago, in a railway
carriage the governor of one of our largest
prisons. He was evidently an observant
and reflective man, possessed of wide
experience gathered in various parts of
the world, and a thorough student of the
duties of his vocation. He told me that
the prisoners in his charge might be
divided into three distinct classes. The
first class consisted of persons who ought
never to have been in prison. External
accident, and not internal taint, had
brought them within the grasp of the
law, and what had happened to them
might happen to most of us. They
were essentially men of sound moral
stamina, though wearing the prison garb.
Then came the largest class, formed of
individuals possessing no strong bias,
moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of
circumstances, which could mould them
into either good or evil members of
society. Thirdly came a class—happily
not a large one—whom no kindness
could conciliate and no discipline tame.
They were sent into this world labelled
“incorrigible,’’wickedness being stamped,
as it were, upon their organisations. It
was an unpleasant truth, but, as a truth,
it ought to be faced. For such criminals
the prison over which he ruled was
certainly not the proper place. If con
fined at all, their prison should be on a
desert island, where the deadly contagium
of their example could not taint the
moral air. But the sea itself he was
disposed to regard as a cheap and appro
priate substitute for the island.
It
seemed to him evident that the State
would benefit if prisoners of the first
class were liberated ; prisoners of the
second class educated; and prisoners of
the third class put compendiously under
water.
It is not, however, from the observa
tion of individuals that the argument
against “ free-will,” as commonly under
stood, derives its principal force. It is, as
already hinted, indefinitely strengthened
�SCIENCE AND MAN
when extended to the race. Most of
you have been forced to listen to the
outcries and denunciations which rang
discordant through the land for some
years after the publication of Mr. Darwin’s
Origin of Species. Well, the world—even
the clerical world—has for the most part
settled down in the belief that Mr.
Darwin’s book simply reflects the truth
of nature : that we who are now “ fore
most in the files of time ” have come to
the front through almost endless stages
of promotion from lower to higher forms
of life.
If to any one of us were given the
privilege of looking back through the
aeons across which life has crept towards
its present outcome, his vision, according
to Darwin, would ultimately reach a
point when the progenitors of this
assembly could not be called human.
From that humble society, through the
interaction of its members and the
storing up of their best qualities, a better
one emerged; from this again a better
still; until at length, by the integration
of infinitesimals through ages of ameliora
tion, we came to be what we are to-day.
We of this generation had no conscious
share in the production of this grand
and beneficent result. Any and every
generation which preceded us had just
as little share. The favoured organisms
whose garnered excellence constitutes
our present store owed their advantages,
first, to what we in our ignorance are
obliged to call “accidental variation”;
and, secondly, to a law of heredity in
the passing of which our suffrages were
not collected. With characteristic felicity
and precision Mr. Matthew Arnold lifts
this question into the free air of poetry,
but not out of the atmosphere of truth,
when he ascribes the process of ameliora
tion to “a power not ourselves which
makes for righteousness.” If, then, our
organisms, with all their tendencies and
capacities, are given to us without our
being consulted; and if, while capable
of acting within certain limits in accord
ance with our wishes, we are not masters
of the circumstances in which motives
89
and wishes originate; if, finally, our
motives and wishes determine our actions
—in what sense can these actions be
said to be the result of free-will ?
Here, again, we are confronted with
the moral responsibility, which, as it has
been much talked of lately, it is desirable
to meet. With the view of removing
the fear of our falling back into the con
dition of “ the ape and tiger,” so sedu
lously excited by certain writers, I propose
to grapple with this question in its
rudest form, and in the most uncom
promising way. “ If,” says the robber,
the ravisher, or the murderer, “ I act
because I must act, what right have you
to hold me responsible for my deeds ?”
The reply is, “ The right of society to
protect itself against aggressive and
injurious forces, whether they be bond
or free, forces of nature or forces of
man.”
“ Then,” retorts the criminal,
“ you punish me for what I cannot help.”
“ Let it be granted,” says society ; “ but
had you known that the treadmill or the
gallows was certainly in store for you,
you might have ‘helped.’ Let us reason
the matter fully and frankly out. We
may entertain no malice or hatred against
you; it is enough that with a view to
our own safety and purification we are
determined that you and such as you
shall not enjoy liberty of evil action in
our midst. You, who have behaved as
a wild beast, we claim the right to cage
or kill as we should a wild beast. The
public safety is a matter of more impor
tance than the very limited chance of
your moral renovation, while the know
ledge that you have been hanged by the
neck may furnish to others about to do
as you have done the precise motive
which will hold them back. If your act
be such as to invoke a minor penalty, then
not only others, but yourself, may profit
by the punishment which we inflict. On
the homely principle that ‘ a burnt child
dreads the fire,’ it will make you think
twice before venturing on a repetition of
your crime. Observe, finally, the con
sistency of our conduct. You offend,
�90
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
you say, because you cannot help offend
ing, to the public detriment. We punish,
is our reply, because we cannot help
punishing, for the public good. Practi
cally, then, as Bishop Butler predicted,
we act as the world acted when it sup
posed the evil deeds of its criminals to
be the products of free-will.”1
“ What,” I have heard it argued, “ is
the use of preaching about duty if a
man’s predetermined position in the
moral world renders him incapable of
profiting by advice ?” Who knows that
he is incapable? The preacher’s last
word is a factor in the man’s conduct,
and it may be a most important factor,
unlocking moral energies which might
otherwise remain imprisoned and unused.
If the preacher thoroughly feel that words
of enlightenment, courage, and admoni
tion enter into the list of forces employed
by Nature herself for man’s amelioration,
since she gifted man with speech, he
will suffer no paralysis to fall upon his
tongue. Dung the fig-tree hopefully,
and not until its barrenness has been
demonstrated beyond a doubt let the
sentence go forth, “Cut it down, why
cumbereth it the ground ?”
I remember when a youth in the town
of Halifax, some two and thirty years
ago, attending a lecture given by a young
man to a small but select audience. The
aspect of the lecturer was earnest and
practical, and his voice soon rivetted
attention. He spoke of duty, defining
it as a debt owed, and there was a kind
ling vigour in his words which must have
strengthened the sense of duty in the
minds of those who heard him.
No
speculations regarding the freedom of the
will could alter the fact that the words of
that young man did me good. His
name was George Dawson. He also
spoke, if you will allow me to allude to
it, of a social subject much discussed at
the time—the Chartist subject of “ level
ling.” Suppose, he says, two men to be
1 An eminent Church dignitary describes all
this, not unkindly, as “ truculent logic.” I think
it worthy of his Grace’s graver consideration.
equal at night, and that one rises at six,
while the other sleeps till nine next
morning, what becomes of your level
ling? And, in so speaking, he made
himself the mouthpiece of Nature, which,
as we have seen, secures advance, not by
the reduction of all to a common level,
but by the encouragement and conserva
tion of what is best.
It may be urged that, in dealing as
above with my hypothetical criminal, I
am assuming a state of things brought
about by the influence of religions which
include the dogmas of theology and the
belief in free-will—a state, namely, in
which a moral majority control and keep
in awe an immoral minority. The heart
of man is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked. Withdraw, then, our
theologic sanctions, including the belief
in free-will, and the condition of the race
will be typified by the samples of indi
vidual wickedness which have been
above adduced. We shall, that is, become
robbers, and ravishers, and murderers.
From much that has been written of late
it would seem that this astounding infe
rence finds house-room in many minds.
Possibly, the people who hold such views
might be able to illustrate them by indi
vidual instances.
“ The fear of hell’s a hangman’s whip,
To keep the wretch in order.”
Remove the fear, and the wretch, follow
ing his natural instinct, may become
disorderly; but I refuse to accept him as
a sample of humanity. “ Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die ” is by no
means the ethical consequence of a
rejection of dogma. To many of you
the name of George Jacob Holyoake is
doubtless familiar, and you are probably
aware that at no man in England has the
term “ atheist ” been more frequently
pelted. There are, moreover, really few
who have more completely liberated
themselves from theologic notions.
Among working-class politicians Mr.
Holyoake is a leader. Does he exhort
his followers to “ Eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die”? Not so. In the
�SCIENCE AND MAN
August number of the Nineteenth Cen
tury you will find these words from his
pen : “ The gospel of dirt is bad enough,
but the gospel of mere material comfort
is much worse.” He contemptuously
calls the Comtist championship of the
working man “ the championship of the
trencher.” He would place “the leanest
liberty which brought with it the dignity
and power of self-help ” higher than
“ any prospect of a full plate without it.”
Such is the moral doctrine taught by
this “atheistic” leader; and no Christian,
I apprehend, need be ashamed of it.
Most heartily do I recognise and
admire the spiritual radiance, if I may
use the term, shed by religion on
the minds and lives of many personally
known to me. At the same time I can
not but observe how signally, as regards
the production of anything beautiful,
religion fails in other cases. Its pro
fessor and defender is sometimes at
bottom a brawler and a clown. These
differences depend upon primary dis
tinctions of character which religion does
not remove. It may comfort some to
know that there are among us many
whom the gladiators of the pulpit would
call “ atheists ” and “ materialists,” whose
lives, nevertheless, as tested by any ac
cessible standard of morality, would con
trast more than favourably with the
lives of those who seek to stamp them
with this offensive brand. When I say
“ offensive,” I refer simply to the inten
tion of those who use such terms, and
not because atheism or materialism,
when compared with many of the notions
ventilated in the columns of religious
newspapers, has any particular offensive
ness for me. If I wished to find men
who are scrupulous in their adherence to
engagements, whose words are their bond,
and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind
is subjectively unknown; if I wanted a
loving father, a faithful husband, an
honourable neighbour, and a just citizen
—I should seek him, and find him, among
the band of “ atheists ” to which I refer.
I have known some of the most pro
nounced among them not only in life but
9i
in death—seen them approaching with
open eyes the inexorable goal, with no
dread of a “ hangman’s whip,” with no
hope of a heavenly crown, and still as
mindful of their duties, and as faithful in
the discharge of them, as if their eternal
future depended upon their latest deeds.
In letters addressed to myself, and in
utterances addressed to the public, Fara
day is often referred to as a sample of
the association of religious faith with
moral elevation. I was locally intimate
with him for fourteen or fifteen years of
my life, and had thus occasion to observe
how nearly his character approached
what might, without extravagance, be
called perfection. He was strong but
gentle, impetuous but self-restrained; a
sweet and lofty courtesy marked his
dealings with men and women; and
though he sprang from the body of the'
people, a nature so fine might well have
been distilled from the flower of antece
dent chivalry. Not only in its broader
sense was the Christian religion necessary
to Faraday’s spiritual peace, but in what
many would call the narrow sense held
by those described by Faraday himself
as “ a very small and despised sect of
Christians, known, if known at all, as
Sandemanians,” it constituted the light
and comfort of his days.
Were our experience confined to such
cases, it would furnish an irresistible
argument in favour of the association of
dogmatic religion with moral purity and
grace. But, as already intimated, our
experience is not thus confined. In
further illustration of this point, we may
compare with Faraday a philosopher of
equal magnitude, whose character, in
cluding gentleness and strength, candour
and simplicity, intellectual power and
moral elevation, singularly resembles that
of the great Sandemanian, but who has
neither shared the theologic views nor
the religious emotions which formed so
dominant a factor in Faraday’s life. I
allude to Mr. Charles Darwin, the Abra
ham of scientific men—a searcher as
obedient to the command of truth as was
the patriarch to the command of God.
�92
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
I cannot, therefore, as so many desire,
look upon Faraday’s religious belief as
the exclusive source of qualities shared
so conspicuously by one uninfluenced by
that belief. To a deeper virtue belonging
to human nature in its purer forms I am
disposed to refer the excellence of both.
Superstition may be defined as con
structive religion, which has grown incon
gruous with intelligence. We may admit,
with Fichte, “that superstition has un
questionably constrained its subjects to
abandon many pernicious practices and
to adopt many useful ones the real loss
accompanying its decay at the present
day has been thus clearly stated by the
same philosopher: “ In so far as these
lamentations do not proceed from the
priests themselves—whose grief at the
loss of their dominion over the human
mind we can well understand—but from
the politicians, the whole matter resolves
itself into this, that government has
thereby become more difficult and expen
sive. The judge was spared the exercise
of his own sagacity and penetration
when, by threats of relentless damnation,
he could compel the accused to make
confession. The evil spirit formerly per
formed without reward services for which
in later times judges and policemen have
to be paid.”
No man ever felt the need of a high
and ennobling religion more thoroughly
than this powerful and fervid teacher,
who, by the way, did not escape the
brand of “atheist.” But Fichte asserted
emphatically the power and sufficiency
of morality in its own sphere. “ Let us
consider,” he says, “the highest which
man can possess in the absence of
religion—I mean pure morality.
The
moral man obeys the law of duty in his
breast absolutely, because it is a law unto
him; and he does whatever reveals itself
to him as his duty simply because it is
duty. Let not the impudent assertion
be repeated that such an obedience,
without regard to consequences, and
without desire for consequences, is in
itself impossible and opposed to human
nature.” So much for Fichte. Faraday
was equally distinct. “ I have no inten
tion,” he says, “ of substituting anything
for religion, but I wish to take that part
of human nature which is independent
of it. Morality, philosophy, commerce,
the various institutions and habits of
society, are independent of religion and
may exist without it.” These were the
words of his youth, but they expressed
his latest convictions. I would add that
the muse of Tennyson never reached a
higher strain than when it embodied the
sentiment of duty in ./Enone :—
“And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.”
Not in the way assumed by our dog
matic teachers has the morality of human
nature been built up. The power which
has moulded us thus far has worked
with stem tools upon a very rigid stuff.
What it has done cannot be so readily
undone; and it has endowed us with
moral constitutions which take pleasure
in the noble, the beautiful, and the true,
just as surely as it has endowed us with
sentient organisms, which find aloes
bitter and sugar sweet. That power did
not work with delusions, nor will it stay
its hand when such are removed. Facts,
rather than dogmas, have been its
ministers—hunger and thirst, heat and
cold, pleasure and pain, fervour, sym
pathy, aspiration, shame, pride, love,
hate, terror, awe—such were the forces
whose interaction and adjustment through
out an immeasurable past wove the triplex
web of man’s physical, intellectual, and
moral nature, and such are the forces
that will be effectual to the end.
You may retort that even on my own
showing “ the power which makes for
righteousness ” has dealt in delusions;
for it cannot be denied that the beliefs
of religion, including the dogmas of
theology and the freedom of the will,
have had some effect in moulding the
moral world. Granted; but I do not
think that this goes to the root of the
matter. Are you quite sure that those
beliefs and dogmas are primary, and not
derived ?—that they are not the products,
�SCIENCE AND MAN
instead of being the creators, of man’s
moral nature ?
I think it is in one of
the Latter-Day Pamphlets that Carlyle
corrects a reasoner, who deduced the
nobility of man from a belief in heaven,
by telling him that he puts the cart
before the horse, the real truth being
that the belief in heaven is derived from
the nobility of man. The bird’s instinct
to weave its nest is referred to by Emerson
as typical of the force which built cathe
drals, temples, and pyramids :—
“ Knowest thou what wove yon woodbird’s nest
Of leaves and feathers from her breast,
Or how the fish outbuilt its shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell ?
Such and so grew these holy piles
While love and terror laid the tiles;
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky
As on its friends with kindred eye;
For ut of Thought’s interior sphere
These wonders rose to upper air,
And nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.”
Surely, many utterances which have been
accepted as descriptions ought to be
interpreted as aspirations, or as having
their roots in aspiration instead of in
objective knowledge. Does the song of
the herald angels, “ Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, goodwill
toward men,” express the exaltation and
the yearning of a human soul ? or does
it describe an optical and acoustical fact
—a visible host and an audible song?
If the former, the exaltation and the
yearning are man’s imperishable posses
sion—a ferment long confined to indivi
duals, but which may by-and-by become
the leaven of the race. If the latter,
then belief in the entire transaction is
93
wrecked by non-fulfilment. Look to the
East at the present moment as a com
ment on the promise of peace on earth
and goodwill toward men. That promise
is a dream ruined by the experience of
eighteen centuries, and in that ruin is
involved the claim of the “ heavenly
host ” to prophetic vision. But though
the mechanical theory proves untenable,
the immortal song and the feelings it
expresses are still ours, to be incorporated,
let us hope, in purer and less shadowy
forms in the poetry, philosophy, and
practice of the future.
Thus, following the lead of physical
science, we are brought without solution
of continuity into the presence of pro
blems which, as usually classified, lie
entirely outside the domain of physics.
To these problems thoughtful and pene
trative minds are now applying those
methods of research which in physical
science have proved their truth by their
fruits. There is on all hands a growing
repugnance to invoke the supernatural
in accounting for the phenomena of
human life; and the thoughtful minds
just referred to, finding no trace of
evidence in favour of any other origin,
are driven to seek in the interaction of
social forces the genesis and development
of man’s moral nature. If they succeed
in their search—and I think they are
sure to succeed—social duty will be
raised to a higher level of significance,
and the deepening sense of social duty
will, it is to be hoped, lessen, if not
obliterate, the strifes and heartburnings
which now beset and disfigure our social
life. Towards this great end it behoves
us one and all to work; and devoutly
wishing its consummation, I have the
honour, ladies and gentlemen, to bid you
a friendly farewell.
�94
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
VITALITY
[i863]
The origin, growth, and energies of
living things are subjects which have
always engaged the attention of thinking
men. To account for them it was usual
to assume a special agent, free to a great
extent from the limitations observed
among the powers of inorganic nature.
This agent was called vital force ; and,
under its influence, plants and- animals
were supposed to collect their materials
and to assume determinate forms. Within
the last few years, however, our ideas of
vital processes have undergone profound
modifications ; and the interest, and
even disquietude, which the change has
excited are amply evidenced by the dis
cussions and protests which are now
common regarding the phenomena of
vitality. In tracing these phenomena
through all their modifications, the most
advanced philosophers of the present
day declare that they ultimately arrive
at a single source of power, from which
all vital energy is derived ; and the dis
quieting circumstance is that this source
is not the direct fiat of a supernatural
agent, but a reservoir of what, if we do
not accept the creed of Zoroaster, must
be regarded as inorganic force. In short,
it is considered as proved that all the
energy which we derive from plants and
animals is drawn from the sun.
A few years ago, when the sun was
affirmed to be the source of life, nine
out of ten of those who are alarmed by
the form which this assertion has latterly
assumed would have assented, in a general
way, to its correctness. Their assent,
however, was more poetic than scientific,
and they were by no means prepared to
see a rigid mechanical signification
attached to their words. This, however,
is the peculiarity of modern conclusions:
that there is no creative energy whatever
in the vegetable or animal organism, but
that all the power which we obtain from
the muscles of man and animals, as much
as that which we develop by the combus
tion of wood or coal, has been produced
at the sun’s expense. The sun is so much
the colder that we may have our fires; he
is also so much the colder that we may
have our horse-racing and Alpine climb
ing. It is, for example, certain that the
sun has been chilled to an extent capable
of being accurately expressed in num
bers, in order to furnish the power which
lifted this year a certain number of
tourists from the vale of Chamouni to
the summit of Mont Blanc.
. To most minds, however, the energy
of light and heat presents itself as a
thing totally distinct from ordinary
mechanical energy. Either of them can
nevertheless be derived from the other.
Wood can be raised by friction to the
temperature of ignition; while by properly
striking a piece of iron a skilful black
smith can cause it to glow. Thus, by
the rpde agency of his hammer, he gene
rates light and heat. This action, if
carried far enough, would produce the
light and heat of the sun. In fact, the
sun’s light and heat have actually been
referred to the fall of meteoric matter
upon his surface; and, whether the sun
is thus supported or not, it is perfectly
certain that he might be thus supported.
Whether, moreover, the whilom molten
condition of our planet was, as supposed
by eminent men, due to the collision of
cosmic masses or not, it is perfectly
certain that the molten condition might
be thus brought about. If, then, solar
light and heat can be produced by the
impact of dead matter, and if from the
light and heat thus produced we can
derive the energies which we have been
accustomed to call vital, it indubitably
follows that vital energy may have a
proximately mechanical origin.
In what sense, then, is the sun to be
regarded as the origin of the energy de
rivable from pLnts and animals? Let
�VITALITY
us try to give an intelligible answer to
this question. Water may be raised from
the sea-level to a high elevation, and
then permitted to descend. In descend
ing it may be made to assume various
forms—to fall in cascades, to spurt in
fountains, to boil in eddies, or to flow
tranquilly along a uniform bed. It may,
moreover, be caused to set complex
machinery in motion, to turn millstones,
throw shuttles, work saws and hammers,
and drive piles. But every form of
power here indicated would be derived
from the original power expended in
raising the water to the height from which
it fell. There is no energy generated by
the machinery ; the work performed by
the water in descending is merely the
parcelling out and distribution of the
work expended in raising it. In precisely
this sense is all the energy of plants and
animals the parcelling out and distribu
tion of a power originally exerted by the
sun. In the case of the water, the source
of the power consists in the forcible
separation of a quantity of the liquid
from a low level of the earth’s surface
and its elevation to a higher position, the
power thus expended being returned by
the water in its descent. In the case of
vital phenomena, the source of power
consists in the forcible separation of the
atoms of compound substances by the
sun. We name the force which draws
the water earthward “ gravity,” and that
which draws atoms together “ chemical
affinity
but these different names must
not mislead us regarding the qualitative
identity of the two forces. They are
both attractions ; and to the intellect the
falling of carbon atoms against oxygen
atoms is not more difficult of concep
tion than the falling of water to the
earth.
The building up of the vegetable, then,
is effected by the sun, through the reduc
tion of chemical compounds. The phe
nomena of animal life are more or less
complicated reversals of these processes
of reduction. We eat the vegetable and
we breathe the oxygen of the air ; and in
our bodies the oxygen, which has been
95
lifted from the carbon and hydrogen
by the action of the sun, again falls
towards them, producing animal heat and
developing animal forms. Through the
most complicated phenomena of vitality
this law runs: the vegetable is pro
duced while a weight rises; the animal is
produced while a weight falls. But the
question is not exhausted here. The
water employed in our first illustration
generates all the motion displayed in its
descent, but the form of the motion
depends on the character of the machinery
interposed in the path of the water. In a
similar way the primary action of the
sun’s rays is qualified by the atoms and
molecules among which their energy is
distributed. Molecular forces determine
the form which the solar energy will
assume. In the separation of the carbon
and oxygen this energy may be so con
ditioned as to result in one case in the
formation of a cabbage and in another
case in the formation of an oak. So also,
as regards the reunion of the carbon and
the oxygen, the molecular machinery
through which the combining energy
acts may in one case weave the texture
of a frog, while in another it may weave
the texture of a man.
The matter of the animal body is that
of inorganic nature. There is no sub
stance in the animal tissues which is not
primarily derived from the rocks, the
water, and the air. Are the forces of
organic matter, then, different in kind
from those of inorganic matter ? The
philosophy of the present day negatives
the question. It is the compounding,
in the organic world, of forces belonging
equally to the inorganic that constitutes
the mystery and the miracle of vitality.
Every portion of every animal body may
be reduced to purely inorganic matter.
A perfect reversal of this process of
reduction would carry us from the inor
ganic to the organic; and such a reversal
is at least conceivable. The tendency,
indeed, of modern science is to break
down the wall of partition between
organic and inorganic, and to reduce
both to the operation of forces which
�9o
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
are the same in kind, but which are
differently compounded.
Consider the question of personal
identity in relation to that of molecular
form. Thirty-four years ago Mayer, of
Heilbronn, with that power of genius
which breathes large meanings into
scanty facts, pointed out that the blood
was “the oil of the lamp of life,” the
combustion of which sustains muscular
action. The muscles are the machinery
by which the dynamic power of the
blood is brought into play. Thus the
blood is consumed. But the whole body,
though more slowly than the blood,
wastes also, so that after a certain number
of years it is entirely renewed. How is
the sense of personal identity maintained
across this flight of molecules ? To man,
as we know him, matter is necessary to
consciousness ; but the matter of any
period may be all changed, while con
sciousness exhibits no solution of con
tinuity. Like changing sentinels, the
oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon that depart
seem to whisper their secret to. their
comrades that arrive, and thus, while the
Non-ego shifts, the Ego remains the
same.
Constancy of form in the
grouping of the molecules, and not con
stancy of the molecules themselves, is
the correlative of this constancy of per
ception. Life is a wave which in no
two consecutive moments of its existence
is composed of the same particles.
Supposing, then, the molecules of the
human body, instead of replacing others,
and thus renewing a pre-existing form,
to be gathered first hand from nature
and put together in the same relative
positions as those which they occupy in
the body. Supposing them to have the
self-same forces and distribution of forces,
the self-same motions and distribution
of motions—would this organised con
course of molecules stand before us as a
sentient thinking being? There seems
no valid reason to believe that it would
not. Or, supposing a planet carved
from the sun, set spinning round an
axis, and revolving round the sun at a
distance from him equal to that of our
earth, would one of the consequences
of its refrigeration be the development
of organic forms ? I lean to the affirma
tive. Structural forces are certainly in
the mass, whether or not those forces
reach to the extent of forming a plant
or an animal. In an amorphous drop
of water lie latent all the marvels of
crystalline force; and who will set limits
to the possible play of molecules in a
cooling planet ? If these statements
startle, it is because matter has been
defined and maligned by philosophers
and theologians who were equally
unaware that it is, at bottom, essentially
mystical and transcendental.
Questions such as these derive their
present interest in great part from their
audacity, which is sure, in due time, to
disappear. And the sooner the public
dread is abolished with reference to such
questions the better for the cause of truth.
As regards knowledge, physical science
is polar. In one sense it knows, or
is destined to know, everything. In
another sense it knows nothing. Science
understands much of this intermediate
phase of things that we call nature, of
which it is the product; but science
knows nothing of the origin or destiny
of nature. Who or what made the
sun and gave his rays their alleged
power? Who or what made and bestowed
upon the ultimate particles of matter
their wondrous power of varied inter
action ? Science does not know : the
mystery, though pushed back, remains
unaltered. To many of us who feel
that there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamt of in the
present philosophy of science, but who
have been also taught, by baffled efforts,
how vain is the attempt to grapple with
the Inscrutable, the ultimate frame of
mind is that of Goethe :—
“ Who dares to name His name,
Or belief in Him proclaim,
Veiled in mystery as He is, the All-enfolder ?
Gleams across the mind His light,
Feels the lifted soul His might,
Dare it then deny His reign, the All-up
holder ?”
�REFLECTIONS ON PRA YER AND NA TURAL LA W
REFLECTIONS ON PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW
1861
Amid the apparent confusion and caprice
of natural phenomena, which roused
emotions hostile to calm investigation, it
must for ages have seemed hopeless to
seek for law or orderly relation; and
before the thought of law dawned upon
the unfolding human mind these other
wise inexplicable effects were referred to
personal agency. In the fall of a cataract
the savage saw the leap of a spirit, and
the echoed thunder-peal was to him the
hammer-clang of an exasperated god.
Propitiation of these terrible powers was
the consequence, and sacrifice was offered
to the demons of earth and air.
But observation tends to chasten the
emotions and to check those structural
efforts of the intellect which have emotion
for their base.
One by one natural
phenomena came to be associated with
their proximate causes; the idea of direct
personal volition mixing itself with the
economy of nature retreating more and
more. Many of us fear this change. Our
religious feelings are dear to us, and we
look with suspicion and dislike on any
philosophy the apparent tendency of
which is to dry them up. Probably every
change from ancient savagery to our
present enlightenment has excited, in a
greater or less degree, fears of this
kind. But the fact is, that we have not
yet determined whether its present form
is necessary to the life and warmth of
religious feeling. We may err in linking
the imperishable with the transitory, and
confound the living plant with the decay
ing pole to which it clings. My object,
however, at present is not to argue, but
to mark a tendency. We have ceased
to propitiate the powers of nature—
ceased even to pray for things in manifest
contradiction to natural laws. In Pro
testant countries, at least, I think it is
conceded that the age of miracles is
past.
At an auberge near the foot of the
Rhone glacier I met, in the summer of
1858, an athletic young priest, who, after
a solid breakfast, including a bottle of
wine, informed me that he had come up
to “ bless the mountains.” This was the
annual custom of the place. Year by
year the Highest was entreated, by official
intercessors, to make such meteorological
arrangements as should ensure food and
shelter for the flocks and herds of the
Valaisians. A diversion of the Rhone,
or a deepening of the river’s bed, would,
at the time I now mention, have been of
incalculable benefit to the inhabitants of
the valley. But the priest would have
shrunk from the idea of asking the
Omnipotent to open a new channel for
the river, or to cause a portion of it to
flow over the Grimsel pass, and down the
valley of Oberhasli to Brientz. This he
would have deemed a miracle, and he
did not come to ask the Creator to per
form miracles, but to do something which
he manifestly thought lay quite within
the bounds of the natural and nonmiraculous.
A Protestant gentleman
who was present at the time smiled at
this recital. He had no faith in the
priest’s blessing; still, he deemed his
prayer different in kind from a request
to open a new river-cut, or to cause the
water to flow up-hill.
In a similar manner the same Pro
testant gentleman would doubtless smile
at the honest Tyrolese priest who, when
he feared the bursting of a glacier dam,
offered the sacrifice of the Mass upon
the ice as a means of averting the
calamity. That poor man did not expect
to convert the ice into adamant, or to
strengthen its texture, so as to enable it
D
�LECTURES AND ESSA YS
98
then, was the mine in which our gem
must be sought. A modified and more
refined form of the ancient faith revived;
and, for aught I know, a remnant of
sanguine designers may at the present
moment be engaged on the problem
which like-minded men in former ages
left unsolved.
And why should a perpetual motion,
even under modern conditions, be impos
sible? The answer to this question is
the statement of that great generalisation
of modern science which is known under
the name of the Conservation of Energy.
This principle asserts that no power can
make its appearance in nature without
an equivalent expenditure of some other
power ; that natural agents are so related
to each other as to be mutually con
vertible, but that no new agency is
created. Light runs into heat; heat into
electricity; electricity into magnetism ;
magnetism into mechanical force; and
mechanical force again into light and
heat. The Proteus changes, but he is
ever the same; and his changes in
nature, supposing no miracle to super
vene, are the expression, not of spon
taneity, but of physical necessity. A
perpetual motion, then, is deemed impos
sible because it demands the creation
of energy, whereas the principle of Con
servation is—no creation, but infinite
conversion.
It is an old remark that the law which
moulds a tear also rounds a planet. In
the application of law in nature the
terms “great” and “small” are unknown.
Thus the principle referred to teaches us
that the Italian wind, gliding over the
crest of the Matterhorn, is as firmly
ruled as the earth in its orbital revolution
round the sun; and that the fall of its
vapour into clouds is exactly as much a
matter of necessity as the return of the
seasons. The dispersion, therefore,, of
the slightest mist by the special volition
of the Eternal would be as much a
miracle as the rolling of the Rhone over
the Grimsel precipices, down the valley
of Hasli to Meyringen and Brientz.
■ See Helmholtz, Wechselwirkung der NaturIt seems to me quite beyond the
to withstand the pressure of the water;
nor did he expect that his sacrifice would
cause the stream to roll back upon its
source and relieve him, by a miracle, of
its presence. But beyond the boundaries
of his knowledge lay a region where rain
was generated, he knew not how. He
was not so presumptuous as to expect , a
miracle, but he firmly believed that in
yonder cloud-land matters could be so
arranged, without trespass on the miracu
lous, that the stream which threatened
him and his people should be caused to
shrink within its proper bounds.
Both these priests fashioned that
which they did not understand to their
respective wants and wishes. In their
case imagination came into play, uncon
trolled by a knowledge of law.
A
similar state of mind was long prevalent
among mechanicians. Many of these,
among whom were to be reckoned men
of consummate skill, were occupied a
century ago with the question of per
petual motion. They aimed at con
structing a machine which should execute
work without the expenditure of power;
and some of them went mad in the
pursuit of this object. The faith in such
a consummation, involving, as it did,
immense personal profit to the inventor,
was extremely exciting, and every attempt
to destroy this faith was met by bitter
resentment on the part of those who
held it. Gradually, however, as men
became more and more acquainted with
the true functions of machinery, the
dream dissolved. The hope of getting
work out of mere mechanical com
binations disappeared; but still there
remained for the speculator a cloudland denser than that which filled the
imagination of the Tyrolese priest, and
out of which he still hoped to evolve
perpetual motion. There was the mystic
store of chemic force, which nobody
understood ; there were heat and light,
electricity and magnetism, all competent
to produce mechanical motion.1 Here,
kriifie.
�REFLECTIONS ON FRA YER AND NATURAL LAW
present power of science to demonstrate
that the Tyrolese priest, or his colleague
of the Rhone valley, asked for an “ im
possibility ” in praying for good weather ;
but Science can demonstrate the incom
pleteness of the knowledge of nature
which limitqfl their prayers to this narrow
ground ; and she may lessen the number
of instances in which we “^.sk amiss ” by
showing that we sometimes pray for the
performance of a miracle when we do
not intend it. She does assert, for
example, that without a disturbance of
natural law, quite as serious as the stop
page of an eclipse or the rolling of the
river Niagara up the Falls, no act of
humiliation, individual or national, could
call one shower from heaven or deflect
towards us a single beam of the sun.
Those, therefore, who believe that the
miraculous is still active in nature may,
with perfect consistency, join in our
periodic prayers for fair weather and for
rain; while those who hold that the age
of miracles is past will, if they be con
sistent, refuse to join in these petitions.
And these latter, if they wish to fall back
upon such a justification, may fairly urge
that the latest conclusions of science are
in perfect accordance with the doctrine
of the Master himself, which manifestly
was that the distribution of natural
phenomena is not affected by moral or
religious causes. “ He maketh His sun
to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust.” Granting “the power of Free Will
in man,” so strongly claimed by Professor
Mansel in his admirable defence of the
belief in miracles, and assuming the
efficacy of free prayer to produce
changes in external nature, it necessarily
follows that natural laws are more or less
at the mercy of man’s volition, and no
conclusion founded on the assumed per
manence of those laws would be worthy
of confidence.
It is a wholesome sign for England
that she numbers among her clergy men
wise enough to understand all this, and
courageous enough to act up to their
knowledge. Such men do service to
99
public character by encouraging a manly
and intelligent conflict with the real
causes of disease and scarcity, instead of
a delusive reliance on supernatural aid.
But they have also a value beyond this
Local and temporary one. They prepare
the public mind for changes which,
though inevitable, could hardly, without
such preparation, be wrought without
violence. Iron is strong; still, water in
crystallising will shiver an iron envelope,
and the more unyielding the metal is
the worse for its safety. There are in the
world men who would encompass philo
sophic speculation by a rigid envelope,
hoping thereby to restrain it, but in
reality giving it explosive force. In
England, thanks to men of the stamp to
which I have alluded, scope is gradually
given to thought for changes of aggrega
tion, and the envelope slowly alters its
form, in accordance with the necessities
of the time.
The proximate origin of the foregoing slight
article, and probably the remoter origin of the
next following one, was this. Some years ago
a day of prayer and humiliation, on account of
a bad harvest, was appointed by the proper
religious authorities; but certain clergymen of
the Church of England, doubting the wisdom
of the demonstration, declined to join in the
services of the day. For this act of noncon
formity they were severely censured by some
of their brethren. Rightly or wrongly, my
sympathies were on the side of these men ; and,
to lend them a helping hand in their struggle
against odds, I inserted the foregoing chapter
in a little book entitled Mountaineering in
1861. Some time subsequently I received from a
gentleman of great weight and distinction in the
scientific world, and, I believe, of perfect ortho
doxy in the religious one, a note directing my
attention to an exceedingly thoughtful article on
Prayer and Cholera in the Pall Mall Gazette.
My eminent correspondent deemed the article
a fair answer to the remarks made by me in
i86r. I, also, was struck by the temper and
ability of the article; but I could not deem its
arguments satisfactory, and in a short note to
the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette I ventured
to state so much. The letter elicited some very
able replies, and a second leading article was
also devoted to the subject. In answer to all,
I risked the publication of a second letter, and
soon afterwards, by an extremely courteous note
from the editor, the discussion was closed.
Though thus stopped locally, the discussion
flowed in other directions.
Sermons were
�TOO
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
demonstrate earnestness, while gentlemanly
feeling was too predominant to permit that
earnestness to contract itself to bigotry or to
clothe itself in abuse. It was probably the
memory of this discussion which caused another
excellent friend of mine to recommend to my
perusal the exceedingly able work which in the
next article I have endeavoured to review.
*
preached, essays were published, articles were
written, while a copious correspondence occupied
the pages of some of the religious newspapers.
It gave me sincere pleasure to notice that the
discussion, save in a few cases where natural
coarseness had the upper hand, was conducted
with a minimum of vituperation. The severity
shown was hardly more than sufficient to
MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES'
1867
It is my privilege to enjoy the friendship
of a select number of religious men,
with whom I converse freely upon theo
logical subjects, expressing without dis
guise the notions and opinions I enter
tain regarding their tenets, and hearing
in return these notions and opinions
subjected to criticism. I have thus far
found them liberal and loving men,
patient in hearing, tolerant in reply, who
know how to reconcile the duties of
courtesy with the earnestness of debate.
From one of these, nearly a year ago, I
received a note, recommending strongly
to my attention the volume of Bamp ton
Lectures for 1865, in which the question
of miracles is treated by Mr. Mozley.
Previous to receiving this note, I had in
part made the acquaintance of the work
through an able and elaborate review of
it in the Times. The combined effect
of the letter and the review was to make
the book the companion of my summer
tour in the Alps. There, during the wet
and snowy days which were only too
prevalent in 1866, and during the days
of rest interpolated between days of toil,
I made myself more thoroughly con
versant with Mr. Mozley’s volume. I
found it clear and strong—an intellectual
tonic, as bracing and pleasant to my mind
as the keen air of the mountains was to
my body. From time to time I jotted
down thoughts regarding it, intending
afterwards to work them up into a
coherent whole. Other duties, however,
interfered with the complete carrying out
of this intention, and what I wrote last
summer I now publish, not hoping to
be able, within any reasonable time, to
render my defence of scientific method
more complete.
Mr. Mozley refers at the outset of his
task to the movement against miracles
which of late years has taken place, and
which determined his choice of a subject.
He acquits modern science of having had
any great share in the production of
this movement. The objection against
miracles, he says, does not arise from
any minute knowledge of the law of
nature, but simply because they are
opposed to that plain and obvious order
of nature which everybody sees. The
present movement is, he thinks, to be
ascribed to the greater earnestness and
penetration of the present age. _ For
merly miracles were accepted without
question, because without reflection; but
the exercise of the “historic imagina
tion ” is a characteristic of our own time.
Men are now accustomed to place before
themselves vivid images of historic facts;
and when a miracle rises to view, they
halt before the astounding occurrence,
and, realising it with the same clearness
1 Fortnightly Review, New Series, vol. i., p. 645.
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES
as if it were now passing before their
eyes, they ask themselves, “ Can this
have taken place ?” In some instances
the effort to answer this question has led
to a disbelief in miracles, in others to a
strengthening of belief.
The aim of
Mr. Mozley’s lectures is to show that the
strengthening of belief is the logical
result which ought to follow from the
examination of the facts.
Attempts have been made by religious
men to bring the Scripture miracles
within the scope of the order of nature,
but all such attempts are rejected by Mr.
Mozley as utterly futile and wide of the
mark. Regarding miracles as a necessary
accompaniment of a revelation, their
evidential value in his eyes depends
entirely upon their deviation from the
order of nature. Thus deviating, they
suggest and illustrate a power higher
than nature, a “ personal will ”; and they
commend the person in whom this power
is vested as a messenger from on high.
Without these credentials such a mes
senger would have no right to demand
belief, even were his assertions regarding
his Divine mission backed by a holy life.
Nor is it by miracles alone that the order
of nature is, or may be, disturbed. The
material universe is also the arena of
‘ ‘ special providences. ” Under these two
heads Mr. Mozley distributes the total
preternatural. One form of the pre
ternatural may shade into the other, as
one colour passes into another in the
rainbow; but while the line which
divides the specially providential from
the miraculous cannot be sharply drawn,
their distinction broadly expressed is this:
that, while a special providence can only
excite surmise more or less probable, it
is “ the nature of a miracle to give proof,
as distinguished from mere surmise, of
Divine design.”
Mr. Mozley adduces various illustra
tions of what he regards to be special
providences
as distinguished from
miracles. “The death of Arius,” he
says, “ was not miraculous, because the
coincidence of the death of a heresiarch
taking place when it was peculiarly
IOI
advantageous to the orthodox faith.......
was not such as to compel the inference
of extraordinary Divine agency; but it
was a special providence, because it
carried a reasonable appearance of it.
The miracle of the Thundering Legion
was a special providence, but not a
miracle, for the same reason, because
the coincidence of an instantaneous fall
of rain, in answer to prayer, carried
some appearance, but not proof, of
preternatural agency.” The eminent
lecturer’s remarks on this head brought
to my recollection certain narratives
published in Methodist magazines, which
I used to read with avidity when a
boy. The general title of these exciting
stories, if I remember right, was “The
Providence of God Asserted,” and in
them the most extraordinary escapes
from peril were recounted and ascribed
to prayer, while equally wonderful
instances of calamity were adduced as
illustrations of Divine retribution. In
such magazines, or elsewhere, I found
recorded the case of the celebrated
Samuel Hick, which, as it illustrates a
whole class of special providences ap
proaching in conclusiveness to miracles,
is worthy of mention here. It is related
of this holy man that, on one occasion,
flour was lacking to make the sacra
mental bread. Grain was present, and
a windmill was present, but there was
no wind to grind the corn. With faith
undoubting, Samuel Hick prayed to the
Lord of the winds : the sails turned, the
corn was ground, after which the wind
ceased. According to the canon of the
Bampton Lecturer, this, though carrying
a strong appearance of an immediate
exertion of Divine energy, lacks by a
hair’s-breadth the quality of a miracle.
For the wind might have arisen, and
might have ceased, in the ordinary
course of nature. Hence the occurrence
did not “ compel the inference of extra
ordinary Divine agency.” In like manner
Mr. Mozley considers that “ the appear
ance of the cross to Constantine was a
miracle, or a special providence, according
to what account of it we adopt. As
�102
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
dist and the Tyrolese peasant than in the
only a meteoric appearance in the shape
heart of Mr. Mozley. Indeed, those
of a cross, it gave some token of preter
feelings belong to the primal powers of
natural agency, but not full evidence.”
man’s nature. A “sceptic” may have
In the Catholic canton of Switzerland
them. They find vent in the battle-cry of
where I now write, and still more among
the Moslem. They take hue and form in
the pious Tyrolese, the mountains are
the hunting-grounds of the Red Indian ;
dotted with shrines, containing offerings
of all kinds, in acknowledgment of and raise all of them, as they raise the
Christian, upon a wave of victory, above
special mercies—legs, feet, arms, and
the terrors of the grave.
hands—of gold, silver, brass, and wood,
The character then of a miracle, as
according as worldly possessions enabled
the grateful heart to express its indebted distinguished from a special providence,
is that the former furnishes proof, while
ness. Most of these offerings are made
to the Virgin Mary. They are recogni in the case of the latter we have only
surmise. Dissolve the element of doubt,
tions of “ special providences,” wrought
and the alleged fact passes from the one
through the instrumentality of the Mother
class of the preternatural into the other.
of God. Mr. Mozley’s belief, that of the
In other words, if a special providence
Methodist chronicler, and that of the
could be proved to be a special provi
Tyrolese peasant, are substantially the
dence, it would cease to be a special
same. Each of them assumes that
providence and become a miracle. There
nature, instead of flowing ever onward
is not the least cloudiness about Mr.
in the uninterrupted rhythm of cause
Mozley’s meaning here. A special pro
and effect, is mediately ruled by the free
vidence is a doubtful miracle. Why,
human will. As regards direct action
then, riot call it so ? The term employed
upon natural phenomena, man’s wish
by Mr. Mozjey conveys no negative sug
and will, as expressed in prayer, are
gestion, whereas the negation of certainty
confessedly powerless; but prayer is the
is the peculiar characteristic of the thing
trigger which liberates the Divine power,
intended to be expressed. There is an
and to this extent, if the will be free, man,
apparent unwillingness on the part of
of course, commands nature.
the lecturer to call a special providence
Did the existence of this belief depend
what his own definition makes it to be.
solely upon the material benefits derived
Instead of speaking of it as a doubtful
from it, it could not, in my opinion, last
miracle, he calls it “ an invisible miracle.”
a decade. As a purely objective fact,
He speaks of the point of contact of
we should soon see that the distribution
supernatural power with the chain of
of natural phenomena is unaffected by
causation being so high up as to be
the merits or the demerits of men; that
wholly, or in part, out of sight, whereas
the law of gravitation crushes the simple
the essence of a special providence is
worshippers of Ottery St. Mary, while
the uncertainty whether there is any con
singing their hymns, just as surely as if
tact at all, either high or low. By the
they were engaged in a midnight brawl.
use of an incorrect term, however, a
The hold of this belief upon the human
grave danger is avoided. For the idea
mind is not due to outward verification,
of doubt, if kept systematically before
but to the inner warmth, force, and
the mind, would soon be fatal to the
elevation with which it is commonly
special providence, considered as a means
associated. It is plain, however, that
of edification. The term employed, on
these feelings may exist under the most
the contrary, invites and encourages the
various forms. They are not limited to
trust which is necessary to supplement the
Church of England Protestantism—they
evidence.
are not even limited to Christianity.
This inner trust, though at first rejected
Though less refined, they are certainly
by Mr. Mozley in favour of external proof,
not less strong in the heart of the Metho
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES
is subsequently called upon to do momen
tous duty in regard to miracles. When
ever the evidence of the miraculous seems
incommensurate with the fact which it
has to establish, or rather when the fact
is so amazing that hardly any evidence
is sufficient to establish it, Mr. Mozley
invokes “ the affections.” They must
urge the reason to accept the conclusion,
from which unaided it recoils.
The
affections and emotions are eminently
the court of appeal in matters of real
religion, which is an affair of the heart;
but they are not, I submit, the court in
which to weigh allegations regarding the
credibility of physical facts. These must
be judged by the dry light of the intellect
alone, appeals to the affections being
reserved for cases where moral elevation,
and not historic conviction, is the aim.
It is, moreover, because the result, in
the case under consideration, is deemed
desirable that the affections are called
upon to back it. If undesirable, they
would, with equal right, be called upon to
act the other way. Even to the disciplined
scientific mind this would be a dangerous
doctrine. A favourite theory—the desire
to establish or avoid a certain result—
can so warp the mind as to destroy its
powers of estimating facts.
I have
known men to work for years under a
fascination of this kind, unable to extri
cate themselves from its fatal influence.
They had certain data, but not, as it
happened, enough. By a process exactly
analogous to that invoked by Mr.
Mozley, they supplemented the data,
and went wrong. From that hour their
intellects were so blinded to the percep
tion of adverse phenomena • that they
never reached truth. If, then, to the
disciplined scientific mind this incon
gruous mixture of proof and trust be
fraught with danger, what must it be to
the indiscriminate audience which Mr.
Mozley addresses ? In calling upon
this agency he acts the part of Franken
stein. It is a monster thus evoked that
we see stalking abroad in the degrading
spiritualistic phenomena of the present
day. Again, I say, where the aim is to
elevate the mind, to quicken the moral
sense, to kindle the fire of religion in
the soul, let the affections by all means
be invoked ; but they must not be per
mitted to colour our reports, or to influ
ence our acceptance of reports, of occur
rences in external nature. Testimony
as to natural facts is worthless when
wrapped in this atmosphere of the affec
tions, the most earnest subjective truth
being thus rendered perfectly compatible
with the most astounding objective error.
There are questions in judging of
which the affections or sympathies are
often our best guides, the estimation of
moral goodness being one of these.
But at this precise point, where they are
really of use, Mr. Mozley excludes the
affections and demands a miracle as a
certificate of character. He will not
accept any other evidence of the perfect
goodness of Christ. “No outward life
and conduct,” he says, “ however irre
proachable, could prove His perfect sin
lessness, because goodness depends
upon the inward motive, and the per
fection of the inward motive is not
proved by the outward act.” But surely
the miracle is an outward act, and to
pass from it to the inner motive imposes
a greater strain upon logic than that
involved in our ordinary methods of
estimating men. There is, at least,
moral congruity between the outward
goodness and the inner life, but there is
no such congruity between the miracle
and the life within. The test of moral
goodness laid down by Mr. Mozley is
not the test of John, who says: “He
that doeth righteousness is righteous
nor is it the test of Jesus: “By their
fruits ye shall know them; do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?”
But it A the test of another: “ If thou
be the Son of God, command that these
stones be made bread.” For my own
part, I prefer the attitude of Fichte to
that of Mr. Mozley. “The Jesus of
John,” says this noble and mighty
thinker, “ knows no other God than
the true God, in whom we all are, and
live, and may be blessed, and out of
�104
LECTURES AND ESSA VS
whom there is only death and nothing
ness.
And,” continues Fichte, “ he
appeals, and rightly appeals, in support
of this truth, not to reasoning, but to
the inward practical sense of truth in
man, not even knowing any other proof
than this inward testimony: ‘ If any
man will do the will of Him who sent
Me, he shall know of the doctrine
whether it be of God.’ ”
Accepting Mr. Mozley’s test, with
which alone I am now dealing, it is
evident that, in the demonstration of
moral goodness, the quantity of the
miraculous comes into play. Had Christ,
for example, limited himself to the con
version of water into wine, He would
have fallen short of the performance of
Jannes and Jambres; for it is a smaller
thing to convert one liquid into another
than to convert a dead rod into a living
serpent. But Jannes and Jambres, we
are informed, were not good. Hence,
if Mr. Mozley’s test be a true one, a
point must exist on the one side of
which miraculous power demonstrates
goodness, while on the other side it does
not. How is this “point of contrary
flexure ” to be determined ? It . must
lie somewhere between the magicians
and Moses, for within this space the
power passed from the diabolical to the
Divine. But how to mark the point of
passage—how, out of a purely quantita
tive difference in the visible manifestation
of power, we are to infer a total inversion
of quality—it is extremely difficult to
see. Moses, we are informed, produced
a large reptile; Jannes and Jambres
produced a small one. I do not possess
the intellectual faculty which would
enable me to infer, from those data, either
the goodness of the one or the badness
of the other ; and in the highest recorded
manifestations of the miraculous I am
equally at a loss. Let us not play fast
and loose with the miraculous; either it
is a demonstration of goodness in all
cases or in none. If Mr. Mozley accepts
Christ’s goodness as transcendent be
cause He did such works as no other
man did, he ought, logically speaking, to
accept the works of those who, in His
name, had cast out devils, as demon
strating a proportionate goodness on
their part. But it is people of this class
who are consigned to everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels.
Such zeal as that of Mr. Mozley for
miracles tends, I fear, to eat his religion
up. The logical threatens to stifle the
spiritual. The truly religious soul needs
no miraculous proof of the goodness of
Christ. The words addressed to Matthew
at the receipt of custom required no
miracle to produce obedience. It was
by no stroke of the supernatural that
Jesus caused those sent to seize Him to
go backward and fall to the ground. It
was the sublime and holy effluence from
within, which needed no prodigy to
commend it to the reverence even of
his foes.
As regards the function of miracles in
the founding of a religion, Mr. Mozley
institutes a comparison between the
religion of Christ and that of Mohammed;
and he derides the latter as “irrational”
because it does not profess to adduce
miracles in proof of its supernatural
origin. But the religion of Mohammed,
notwithstanding this drawback, has
thriven in the world, and at one time it
held sway over larger populations than
Christianity itself.
The spread and
influence of Christianity are, however,
brought forward by Mr. Mozley as “a
permanent, enormous, and incalculable
practical result” of Christian miracles;
and he makes use of this result to
strengthen his plea for the miraculous.
His logical warrant for this proceeding
is not clear. It is the method of science,
when a phenomenon presents itself to
wards the production of which several
elements may contribute, to exclude
them one by one, so as to arrive at length
at the truly effective cause. Heat, for
example, is associated with a phenome
non; we exclude heat, but the phenome
non remains : hence, heat is not its cause.
Magnetism is associated with a pheno
menon; we exclude magnetism, but the
phenomenon remains: hence, magnetism
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES
is not its cause. Thus, also, when we
seek the cause of the diffusion of a religion
—whether it be due to miracles or to
the spiritual force of its founders—we
exclude the miracles, and, finding the
result unchanged, we infer that miracles
are not the effective cause. This impor
tant experiment Mohammedanism has
made for us. It has lived and spread
without miracles; and to assert, in the
face of this, that Christianity has spread
because of miracles is, I submit, opposed
both to the spirit of science and the
common sense of mankind.
The incongruity of inferring moral
goodness from miraculous power has
been dwelt upon above; in another
particular also the strain put by Mr.
Mozley upon miracles is, I think, more
than they can bear. In consistency
with his principles, it is difficult to see
how he is to draw from the miracles of
Christ any certain conclusion as to His
Divine nature. He dwells very forcibly
on what he calls “ the argument from
experience,” in the demolition of which
he takes obvious delight. He destroys
the argument, and repeats it, for the
mere pleasure of again and again knock
ing the breath out of it. Experience, he
urges, can only deal with the past; and
the moment we attempt to project expe
rience a hair’s-breadth beyond the point
it has at any moment reached we are
condemned by reason. It appears to
me that, when he infers from Christ’s
miracles a Divine and altogether super
human energy, Mr. Mozley places himself
precisely under this condemnation. For
what is his logical ground for concluding
that the miracles of the New Testament
illustrate Divine power ? May they not
be the result of expanded human power ?
A miracle he defines as something impos
sible to man. But how does he know
that the miracles of the New Testament
are impossible to man ? Seek as he may,
he has absolutely no reason to adduce
save this—that man has never hitherto
accomplished such things. But does the
fact that man has never raised the dead
prove that he can never raise the dead ?
io5
“ Assuredly not,” must be Mr. Mozley’s
reply; “ for this would be pushing ex
perience beyond the limit it has now
reached—which I pronounce unlawful.”
Then a period may come when man will
be able to raise the dead. If this be
conceded—and I do not see how Mr.
Mozley can avoid the concession—it
destroys the necessity of inferring Christ’s
Divinity from His miracles. He, it may
be contended, antedated the humanity
of the future; as a mighty tidal wave
leaves high upon the beach a mark which
by-and-by becomes the general level of
the ocean. Turn the matter as you will,
no other warrant will be found for the
all-important conclusion that Christ’s
miracles demonstrate Divine power than
an argument which has been stigmatised
by Mr. Mozley as a “ rope of sand ”—the
argument from experience.
The learned Bampton Lecturer would
be in this position, even had he seen
with his own eyes every miracle recorded
in the New Testament. But he has not
seen these miracles; and his intellectual
plight is, therefore, worse. He accepts
these miracles on testimony. Why does
he believe that testimony? How does
he know that it is not delusion; how is
he sure that it is not even fraud ? He
will answer that the writing bears the
marks of sobriety and truth ; and that in
many cases the bearers of this message
to mankind sealed it with their blood.
Granted with all my heart; but whence
the value of all this? Is it not solely
derived from the fact that men, as we
know them, do not sacrifice their lives in
the attestation of that which they know
to be untrue ? Does not the entire value
of the testimony of the Apostles depend
ultimately upon our experience of human
nature ? It appears, then, that those said
to have seen the miracles based their
inferences from what they saw on the
argument from experience, and that Mr.
Mozley bases his belief in their testimony
on the same argument. The weakness
of his conclusion is quadrupled by this
double insertion of a principle of belief
to which he flatly denies rationality. His
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LECTURES AND ESSA YS
reasoning, in fact, cuts two ways—if it
destroys our trust in the order of nature,
it far more effectually abolishes the basis
on which Mr. Mozley seeks to found the
Christian religion.
Over this argument from experience,
which at bottom is his argument, Mr.
Mozley rides rough-shod. There is a
dash of scorn in the energy with which
he tramples on it. Probably some pre
vious writer had made too much of it,
and thus invited his powerful assault.
Finding the difficulty of belief in miracles
to rise from their being in contradiction
to the order of nature, he sets himself to
examine the grounds of our belief in
that order. With a vigour of logic rarely
equalled, and with a confidence in its
conclusions never surpassed, he disposes
of this belief in a manner calculated to
startle those who, without due examina
tion, had come to the conclusion that the
order of nature was secure.
What we mean, he says, by our belief
in the order of nature is the belief that
the future will be like the past. There
is not, according to Mr. Mozley, the
slightest rational basis for this belief :—
That any cause in nature is more permanent
than its existing and known effects, extending
further, and about to produce other and more
instances besides what it has produced already,
we have no evidence. Let us imagine [he con
tinues] the occurrence of a particular physical
phenomenon for the first time. Upon that single
occurrence we should have but the very faintest
expectation of another. If it did occur again,
once or twice, so far from counting on another
occurrence, a cessation would occur as the most
natural event to us. But let it continue one
hundred times, and we should find no hesitation
in inviting persons from a distance to see it; and
if it occurred every day for years, its occurrence
would be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel.
....... What ground of reason can we assign for an
expectation that any part of the course of nature
will be the next moment what it has been up to
this moment—i.e., for our belief in the uniformity
of nature ? None. No demonstrative reason
can be given, for the contrary to the recurrence
of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No pro
bable reason can be given; for all probable
reasoning respecting the course of nature is
founded upon this presumption of likeness, and
therefore cannot be the foundation of it. No
reason can be given for this belief. It is without
a reason. It rests upon no rational grounds,
and can be traced to no rational principle.
“ Everything,” Mr. Mozley, however,
adds, “ depends upon this belief; every
provision we make for the future, every
safeguard and caution we employ against
it, all calculation, all adjustment of means
to ends, supposes this belief; and yet
this belief has no more producible reason
for it than a speculation of fancy.........It
is necessary, all-important for the pur
poses of life, but solely practical, and
possesses no intellectual character.........
The proper function,” continues Mr.
Mozley, “ of the inductive principle, the
argument from experience, the belief in
the order of nature—by whatever phrase
we designate the same instinct—is to
operate as a practical basis for the affairs
of life and the carrying on of human
society.” To sum up, the belief in the
order of nature is general, but it is “an
unintelligent impulse, of which we can
give no rational account.” It is inserted
into our constitution solely to induce us
to till our fields, to raise our winter fuel,
and thus to meet the future on the per
fectly gratuitous supposition that it will
be like the past.
“ Thus, step by step,” says Mr. Mozley,
with the emphasis of a man who feels
his position to be a strong one, “ has
philosophy loosened the connection of
the order of nature with the ground . of
reason, befriending in exact proportion
as it has done this the principle of
miracles.” For “this belief not having
itself a foundation in reason, the ground
is gone upon which it could be main
tained that miracles, as opposed to the
order of nature, are opposed to reason.”
When we regard this belief in connec
tion with science, “ in which connection
it receives a more imposing name, and
is called the inductive principle,” the
result is the same.
“The inductive
principle is only this unreasoning impulse
applied to a scientifically ascertained
fact.........Science has led up to the fact;
but there it stops, and for converting
this fact into a law a totally unscientific
principle comes into play, the same as
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES
that which generalises the commonest
observation of nature.”
The eloquent pleader of the cause of
miracles passes over without a word the
results of scientific investigation, as
proving anything rational regarding the
principles or method by which such
results have been achieved. Here, as
elsewhere, he declines the test: “ By
their fruits shall ye know them,” Perhaps
our best way of proceeding will be to
give one or two examples of the mode in
which men of science apply the unintel
ligent impulse with which Mr. Mozley
credits them, and which shall show, by
illustration, the surreptitious method
whereby they climb from the region of
facts to that of laws.
Before the sixteenth century it was
known that water rises in a pump, the
effect being then explained by the
maxim that “ Nature abhors a vacuum.”
It was not known that there was
any limit to the height to which the
water would ascend, until, on one occa
sion, the gardeners of Florence, while
attempting to raise water to a very great
elevation, found that the column ceased
at a height of thirty-two feet. Beyond
this all the skill of the pump-maker
could not get it to rise. The fact was
brought to the notice of Galileo, and he,
soured by a world which had not treated
his science over kindly, is said to have
twitted the philosophy of the time by
remarking that nature evidently abhorred
a vacuum only to a height of thirty-two
feet. Galileo, however, did not solve
the problem. It was taken up by his
pupil Torricelli, to whom, after due
pondering, the thought occurred that
the water might be forced into the tube
by a pressure applied to the surface of
the liquid outside. But where, under
the actual circumstances, was such a
pressure to be found ? After much
reflection, it flashed upon Torricelli that
the atmosphere might possibly exert this
pressure ; that the impalpable air might
possess weight; and that a column of
water thirty-two feet high might be of
the exact weight necessary to hold the
107
pressure of the atmosphere in equili
brium.
There is much in this process of
pondering and its results which it is
impossible to analyse. It is by a kind
of inspiration that we rise from the wise
and sedulous contemplation of facts to
the principles on which they depend.
The mind is, as it were, a photographic
plate, which is gradually cleansed by the
effort to think rightly, and which, when
so cleansed, and not before, receives
impressions from the light of truth.
This passage from facts to principles is
called induction; and induction, in its
highest form, is, as I have just stated, a
kind of inspiration. But, to make it
sure, the inward sight must be shown to
be in accordance with outward fact. To
prove or disprove the induction, we must
resort to deduction and experiment.
Torricelli reasoned thus : If a column
of water thirty-two feet high holds the
pressure of the atmosphere in equili
brium, a shorter column of a heavier
liquid ought to do the same. Now,
mercury is thirteen times heavier than
water; hence, if my induction be correct,
the atmosphere ought to be able to sus
tain only thirty inches of mercury. Here,
then, is a deduction which can be imme
diately submitted to experiment. Torri
celli took a glass tube a yard or so in
length, closed at one end and open at
the other, and, filling it with mercury, he
stopped the open end with his thumb,
and inverted it into a basin filled with
the liquid metal. One can imagine the
feeling with which Torricelli removed his
thumb, and the delight he experienced
on finding that his thought had forestalled
a fact never before revealed to human
eyes. The column sank, but it ceased
to sink at a height of thirty inches, leav
ing the Torricellian vacuum over head.
From that hour the theory of the pump
was established.
The celebrated Pascal followed Tor
ricelli with another deduction. He
reasoned thus : If the mercurial column
be supported by the atmosphere, the
higher we ascend in the air, the lower
�108
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
the column ought to sink, for the less
will be the weight of the air over head.
He caused a friend to ascend the Puy
de Dome, carrying with him a barometric
column; and it was found that during
the ascent the column sank, and that
during the subsequent descent the column
rose.
Between the time here referred to and
the present, millions of experiments have
been made upon this subject. Every
village pump is an apparatus for such
experiments. In thousands of instances,
moreover, pumps have refused to work;
but on examination it has infallibly been
found that the well was dry, that the
pump required priming, or that some
other defect in the apparatus accounted
for the anomalous action. In every case
of the kind the skill of the pump-maker
has been found to be the true remedy.
In no case has the pressure of the
atmosphere ceased; constancy, as re
gards the lifting of pump-water, has been
hitherto the demonstrated rule of nature.
So also as regards Pascal’s experiment.
His experience has been the universal
experience ever since. Men have climbed
mountains, and gone up in balloons;
but no deviation from Pascal’s result has
ever been observed. Barometers, like
pumps, have refused to act; but instead
of indicating any suspension of the
operations of nature, or any interference
on the part of its author with atmospheric
pressure, examination has in every in
stance fixed the anomaly upon the
instruments themselves. It is this weld
ing, then, of rigid logic to verifying fact
that Mr. Mozley refers to an “unreasoning
impulse.”
Let us now briefly consider the case
of Newton. Before his time men had
occupied themselves with the problem of
the solar system. Kepler had deduced,
from a vast mass of observations, those
general expressions of planetary motion
known as “ Kepler’s laws.” It had
been observed that a magnet attracts
iron; and by one of those flashes of
inspiration which reveal to the human
mind the vast in the minute, the general
in the particular, it had been inferred
that the force by which bodies fall to
the earth might also be an attraction.
Newton pondered all these things. He
looked, as was his wont, into the dark
ness until it became entirely luminous.
How this light arises we cannot explain;
but, as a matter of fact, it does arise.
Let me remark here, that this kind of
pondering is a process with which the
ancients could have been but imperfectly
acquainted. They, for the most part,
found the exercise of fantasy more
pleasant than careful observation and
subsequent brooding over facts. Hence
it is that, when those whose education
has been derived from the ancients speak
of “ the reason of man,” they are apt to
omit from their conception of reason one
of its most important factors. Well,
Newton slowly marshalled his thoughts,
or, rather, they came to him while he
“ intended his mind,” rising like a series
of intellectual births out of chaos. He
made this idea of attraction his own.
But, to apply the idea to the solar system,
it was necessary to know the magnitude
of the attraction, and the law of its
variation with the distance. His con
ceptions first of all passed from the
action of the earth as a whole to that of
its constituent particles. And persistent
thought brought more and more clearly
out the final conclusion, that every par
ticle of matter attracts every other particle
with a force varying inversely as the
square of the distance between the
particles.
Here we have the flower and outcome
of Newton’s induction; and how to
verify it, or to disprove it, was the next
question. The first step of the philo
sopher in this direction was to prove,
mathematically, that if this law of attrac
tion be the true one, if the earth be con
stituted of particles which obey this law,
then the action of a sphere equal to the
earth in size on a body outside of it is
the same as that which would be exerted
if the whole mass of the sphere were
contracted to a point at its centre. Prac
tically speaking, then, the centre of the
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES
109
tions extended, the planetary motions
earth is the point from which distances
had obeyed these laws; and neither
must be measured to bodies attracted by
Kepler nor Newton entertained a doubt
the earth.
as to their continuing to obey them.
From experiments executed before his
Year after year, as the ages rolled, they
time, Newton knew the amount of the
believed that those laws would continue
earth’s attraction at the earth’s surface,
to illustrate themselves in the heavens.
or at a distance of 4,000 miles from its
But this was not sufficient. The scien
centre. His object now was to measure
tific mind can find no repose in the mere
the attraction at a greater distance, and
thus to determine the law of its diminu registration of sequence in nature. The
further question intrudes itself with
tion. But how was he to find a body
resistless might, Whence comes the
at a sufficient distance? He had no
sequence ? What is it that binds the
balloon, and, even if he had, he knew
consequent to its antecedent in nature ?
that any height to which he could attain
The truly scientific intellect never can
would be too small to enable him to
attain rest until it reaches the forces by
solve his problem. What did he do ?
which the observed succession is pro
He fixed his thoughts upon the moon, a
duced. It was thus with Torricelli; it
body 240,000 miles, or sixty times the
was thus with Newton; it is thus pre
earth’s radius, from the earth’s centre.
eminently with the scientific man of
He virtually weighed the moon, and
to-day. In common with the most
found that weight to be ^ab-oth of what
ignorant, he shares the belief that spring
it would be at the earth’s surface. This
will succeed winter, that summer will
is exactly what his theory required. I
will not dwell here upon the pause of succeed spring, that autumn will succeed
summer, and that winter will succeed
Newton after his first calculations, or
autumn. But he knows still further—
speak of his self-denial in withholding
and this knowledge is essential to his
them because they did not quite agree
with the observations then at his com intellectual repose—that this succession,
besides being permanent, is, under the
mand. Newton’s action in this matter is
circumstances, necessary ; that the gravi
the normal action of the scientific mind.
tating force exerted between the sun and
If it were otherwise—if scientific men
were not accustomed to demand verifica a revolving sphere with an axis inclined
tion—if they were satisfied with the im to the plane of its orbit must produce
the observed succession of the seasons.
perfect while the perfect is attainable,
Not until this relation between forces
their science, instead of being, as it is, a
fortress of adamant, would be a house of and phenomena has been established is
clay, ill-fitted to bear the buffetings of the law of reason rendered concentric
with the law of nature ; and not until
the theologic storms to which it is
this is effected does the mind of the
periodically exposed.
Thus we see that Newton, like Torri scientific philosopher rest in peace.
The expectation of likeness, then, in
celli, first pondered his facts, illuminated
the procession of phenomena is not that
them with persistent thought, and finally
divined the character of the force of on which the scientific mind founds its
belief in the order of nature. - If the
gravitation. But, having thus travelled
force be permanent, the phenomena are
inward to the principle, he reversed his
necessary, whether they resemble or do
steps, carried the principle outwards, and
not resemble anything that has gone
justified it by demonstrating its fitness to
before. Hence, in judging of the order
external nature.
of nature, our inquiries eventually relate
And here, in passing, I would notice a
to the permanence of force. From
point which is well worthy of attention.
Kepler had deduced his laws from obser Galileo to Newton, from Newton to our
vation. As far back as those observa 1 own time, eager eyes have been scanning
�Ito
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
the heavens, and clear heads have been
pondering the phenomena of the solar
system. The same eyes and minds have
been also observing, experimenting, and
reflecting on the action of gravity at
the surface of the earth. Nothing has
occurred to indicate that the operation
of the law has for a moment been sus
pended ; nothing has ever. intimated
that nature has been crossed by spon
taneous action, or that a state of things
at any time existed which could not be
rigorously deduced from the preceding
state.
Given the distribution of matter, and
the forces in operation, in the time of
Galileo, the competent mathematician
of that day could predict what is now
occurring in our own.
We calculate
eclipses in advance, and find our calcu
lations true to the second. We deter
mine the dates of those that have
occurred in the early times of history,
and find calculation and history in
harmony. Anomalies and perturbations
in the planets have been over and over
again observed; but these, instead of
demonstrating any inconstancy on the
part of natural law, have invariably
been reduced to consequences of that
law. Instead of referring the perturba
tions of Uranus to any interference on
the part of the author of nature with the
law of gravitation, the question which
the astronomer proposed to himself was :
“ How, in accordance with this law, can
the perturbation be produced ?” Guided
by a principle, he was enabled to fix the
point of space in which, if a mass of
matter were placed, the observed per
turbations would follow. We know the
result. The practical astronomer turned
his telescope towards the region which
the intellect of the theoretic astronomer
had already explored, and the planet
now named Neptune was found in its
predicted place.
A very respectable
outcome, it will be admitted, of an
impulse which “rests upon no rational
grounds, and can be traced to no rational
principle,” which possesses “no intel
lectual character,” which “ philosophy ”
has uprooted fiom “the ground of
reason,” and fixed in that “large irra
tional department ” discovered for it, by
Mr. Mozley, in the hitherto unexplored
wilderness of the human mind.
The proper function of the inductive
principle, or the belief in the order of
nature, says Mr. Mozley, is “ to act as a
practical basis for the affairs of life and
the carrying on of human society.” But
what, it may be asked, has the planet
Neptune, or the belts of Jupiter, or the
whiteness about the poles of Mars, to
do with the affairs of society ? How is
society affected by the fact that the sun’s
atmosphere contains sodium, or that the
nebula of Orion contains hydrogen gas ?
Nineteen-twentieths of the force employed
in the exercise of the inductive principle,
which, reiterates Mr. Mozley, is “ purely
practical,” have been expended upon
subjects as unpractical as these. What
practical interest has society in the fact
that the spots on the sun have a
decennial period, and that, when a magnet
is closely watched for half a century, it
is found to perform small motions which
synchronise with the appearance and
disappearance of the solar spots ? And
yet, I doubt not, Sir Edward Sabine
would deem a life of intellectual toil
amply rewarded by being privileged to
solve, at its close, these infinitesimal
motions.
The inductive principle is founded in
man’s desire to know—a desire arising
from his position among phenomena
which are reducible to order by his
intellect. The material universe is the
complement of the intellect; and, without
the study of its laws, reason could never
have awakened to the higher forms of
self-consciousness at all. It is the Non
ego through and by which the Ego is
endowed with self-discernment. We hold
it to be an exercise of reason to explore
the meaning of a universe to which we
stand in this relation, and the work we
have accomplished is the proper com
mentary on the methods we have pursued.
Before these methods were adopted the
unbridled imagination roamed through
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROViDENCES
nature, putting in the place of law the
figments of superstitious dread. For
thousands of years witchcraft, and magic,
and miracles, and special providences,
and Mr. Mozley’s “ distinctive reason of
man,” had the world to themselves.
They made worse than nothing of it—
worse, I say, because they let and
hindered those who might have made
something of it. Hence it is that during
a single lifetime of this era of “ unintel
ligent impulse” the progress in know
ledge is all but infinite, as compared with
that of the ages which preceded ours.
The believers in magic and miracles
of a couple of centuries ago had all the
strength of Mr. Mozley’s present logic
on their side. They had done for them
selves what he rejoices in having so
effectually done for us—cleared the
ground of the belief in the order of
nature, and declared magic, miracles,
and witchcraft to be matters for “ordi
nary evidence” to decide. “The principle
of miracles” thus “befriended” had
free scope, and we know the result.
Lacking that rock-barrier of natural
knowledge which we now possess, keen
jurists and cultivated men were hurried
on to deeds the bare recital of which
makes the blood run cold. Skilled in
all the rules of human evidence, and
versed in all the arts of cross-examination,
these men, nevertheless, went systemati
cally astray, and committed the deadliest
wrongs against humanity. And why?
Because they could not put Nature into
the witness-box, and question her—of
her voiceless “testimony” they knew
nothing. In all cases between man and
man their judgment was to be relied
on; but in all cases between man and
nature they were blind leaders of the
blind.1
' “In 1664 two women were hung in Suffolk,
under a sentence of Sir Matthew Hale, who
took the opportunity of declaring that the
reality of witchcraft was unquestionable ; ‘ for
first, the Scriptures had affirmed so much ; and
secondly, the wisdom of all nations had pro
vided laws against such persons, which is an
argument of their confidence of such a crime.’
Sir Thomas Browne, who was a great physician
hi
Mr. Mozley concedes that it would be
no great result if miracles were only
accepted by the ignorant and super
stitious, “because it is easy to satisfy
those who do not inquire.” But he
does consider it “ a great result ” that
they have been accepted by the edu
cated. In what sense educated ? Like
those statesmen, jurists, and Church
dignitaries whose education was unable
to save them from the frightful errors
glanced at above? Not even in this
sense; for the great mass of Mr. Mozley’s
educated people had no legal training,
and must have been absolutely defence
less against delusions which could set
even that training at naught. Like ninetenths of our clergy at the present day,
they were versed in the literature of
Greece, Rome, and Judea; but as
regards a knowledge of nature, which is
here the one thing needful, they were
“ noble savages,” and nothing more. In
the case of miracles, then, it behoves us
to understand the weight of the negative
before we assign a value to the positive;
to comprehend the depositions of nature
before we attempt to measure, with them,
the evidence of men. We have only to
open our eyes to see what honest and
even intellectual men and women are
capable of, as to judging evidence, in
this nineteenth century of the Chris
tian era, and in latitude fifty-two
degrees north.
The experience thus
gained ought, I imagine, to influence
our opinion regarding the testimony of
people inhabiting a sunnier clime, with
a richer imagination and without a
particle of that restraint which the dis
coveries of physical science have imposed
upon mankind.
Having thus submitted Mr. Mozley’s
views to the examination which they chal
lenged at the hands of a student of nature,
I am unwilling to quit his book without
expressing my admiration of his genius
as well as a great writer, was called as a witness,
and swore ‘ that he was clearly of opinion that
the persons were bewitched.’ ”—Lecky’s History
of Rationalism, vol. i., p. 120.
�I 12
LECTURES AND ESSA VS
and my respect for his character. Though
barely known to him personally, his
recent death affected me as that of a
friend. With regard to the style of his
book, I heartily subscribe to the descrip
tion with which the Times winds up its
able and appreciative review: “ It is
marked throughout with the most serious
and earnest conviction, but is without a
single word from first to last of asperity
or insinuation against opponents ; and
this not from any deficiency of feeling as
to the importance of the issue, but from
a deliberate and resolutely maintained
self-control, and from an over-ruling,
ever-present sense of the duty, on themes
like these, of a more than judicial calm
ness.”
ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON
MIRACLES
Among the scraps of manuscripts,
written at the time when Mr. Mozley’s
work occupied my attention, I find the
following reflections :—
With regard to the influence of modern
science, which Mr. Mozley rates so low,
one obvious effect of it is to enhance the
magnitude of many of the recorded
miracles, and to increase proportionably
the difficulties of belief. The ancients
knew but little of the vastness of the
universe. The Rev. Mr. Kirkman, for
example, has shown what inadequate
notions the Jews entertained regarding
the “ firmament of heaven
and Sir
George Airy refers to the case of a Greek
philosopher who was persecuted for
hazarding the assertion, then deemed
monstrous, that the sun might be as large
as the whole country of Greece. The
concerns of a universe, regarded from
this point of view, were much more com
mensurate with man and his concerns
than those of the universe which science
now reveals to us; and hence that to
suit man’s purposes, or that in compli
ance with his prayers, changes should
occur in the order of the universe, was
more easy of belief in the ancient world
than it can be now. In the very magni
tude which it assigns to natural pheno
mena, science has augmented the dis
tance between them and man, and in
creased the popular belief in their orderly
progression.
As a natural consequence, the demand
for evidence is more exacting than it
used to be whenever it is affirmed that
the order of nature has been disturbed.
Let us take as an illustration the miracle
by which the victory of Joshua over the
Amorites was rendered complete. In
this case the sun is reported to have
stood still for “ about a whole day ” upon
Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of
Ajalon. An Englishman of average edu
cation at the present day would naturally
demand a greater amount of evidence to
prove that this occurrence took place
than would have satisfied an Israelite in
the age succeeding that of Joshua. For
to the one the miracle probably con
sisted in the stoppage of a fiery ball less
than a yard in diameter, while to the other
it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen
hundred thousand times the earth in size.
And even accepting the interpretation
that Joshua dealt with what was apparent
merely, -but that what really occurred was
the suspension of the earth’s rotation, I
think the right to exercise a greater
reserve in accepting the miracle, and to
demand stronger evidence in support of
it than that which would have satisfied
an ancient Israelite, will still be con
ceded to a man of science.
There is a scientific as well as an
historic imagination; and when, by the
exercise of the former, the stoppage of
the earth’s rotation is clearly realised,
the event assumes proportions so vast, in
comparison with the result to be obtained
by it, that belief reels under the reflec
tion. The energy here involved is equal
to that of six trillions of horses working
for the whole of the time employed by
Joshua in the destruction of his foes.
The amount of power thus expended
would be sufficient to supply every indi
vidual of an army a thousand times the
strength of that of Joshua, with a thousand
�MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES
times the fighting power of each of
Joshua’s soldiers, not for the few hours
necessary to the extinction of a handful
of Amorites, but for millions of years.
All this wonder is silently passed over by
the sacred historian, manifestly because
he knew nothing about it. Whether,
therefore, we consider the miracle as
purely evidential, or as a practical means
of vengeance, the same lavish squander
ing of energy stares us in the face. If
evidential, the energy was wasted because
the Israelites knew nothing of its amount;
if simply destructive, then the ratio of
the quantity lost to the quantity em
ployed may be inferred from the fore
going figures.
To other miracles similar remarks
apply. Transferring our thoughts from
this little sand-grain of an earth to the
immeasurable heavens, where countless
worlds with freights of life probably
revolve unseen, the very suns whicb
warm them being barely visible across
abysmal space, reflecting that beyond
these sparks of solar fire suns innumer
able may burn, whose light can never
stir the optic nerve at all, and bringing
these reflections face to face with the
idea of the Builder and Sustainer of it
all showing Himself in a burning bush,
exhibiting His hinder parts, or behaving
in other familiar ways ascribed to Him in
the Jewish Scriptures, the incongruity
mus.t appear. Did this credulous prattle
of the ancients about miracles stand
alone; were it not associated with words
of imperishable wisdom, and with ex
amples of moral grandeur unmatched
elsewhere in the history of the human
race, both the miracles and th^ir “ evi
dences ” would have long since ceased to
be the transmitted inheritance of intelli
gent men. Influenced by the thoughts
which this universe inspires, well may we
exclaim in David’s spirit, if not in David’s
words : “ When I consider the heavens,
the work of thy fingers, the moon, and
the stars, which thou hast ordained,
what is man that thou shouldst be mind
ful of him, or the son of man that thou
shouldst so regard him ?”
J13
If you ask me who is to limit the out
goings of Almighty power, my answer is,
Not I. If you should urge that, if the
Builder and Maker of this universe chose
to stop the rotation of the earth, or to
take the form of a burning bush, there is
nothing to prevent Him from doing so,
I am not prepared to contradict you. I
neither agree with you nor differ from
you, for it is a subject of which I know
nothing. But I observe that in such
questions regarding Almighty power your
inquiries relate, not to that power as
*it is actually displayed in the universe,
but to the power of your own imagina
tion. Your question is, not Has the
Omnipotent done so and so ? or Is it in
the least degree likely that the Omni
potent should do so and so ? but, Is my
imagination competent to picture aBeing
able and willing to do so and so ? I am
not prepared to deny your competence.
To the human mind belongs the faculty
of enlarging and diminishing, of distort
ing and combining, indefinitely the
objects revealed by the senses. It can
imagine a mouse as large as an elephant,
an elephant as large as a mountain, and
a mountain as high as the stars. It can
separate congruities and unite incon
gruities. We see a fish and we see a
woman ; we can drop one half of each,
and unite in idea the other two halves to
a mermaid. We see a horse and we see
a man; we are able to drop one half of
each, and unite the other two halves to
a centaur. Thus also the pictorial repre
sentations of the Deity, the bodies and
wings of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs,
horns, and tail of the Evil One, the joys
of the blessed, and the torments of the
damned, have been elaborated from
materials furnished to the imagination
by the senses. It behoves you and me
to take care that our notions of the
Power which rules the universe are not
mere fanciful or ignorant enlargements
of human power. The capabilities of
what you call your reason are not denied.
By the exercise of the faculty here ad
verted to, you can picture to yourself a
Being able and willing to do any and
�114
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
every conceivable thing. You are right
in saying that in opposition to this Power
science is of no avail—that it is “ a
weapon of air.” The man of science,
however, while accepting the figure,
would probably reverse its application,
thinking it is not science which is nere
the thing of air, but that unsubstantial
pageant of the imagination to which the
solidity of science is opposed.
ON PRAYER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY
fct_S72]
The Editor of the Contemporary Review
is liberal enough to grant me space
for some remarks upon a subject which,
though my relation to it was simply
that of a vehicle of transmission, has
brought down upon me a consider
able amount of animadversion.
It may be interesting to some of my
readers if I glance at a few cases illustra
tive of the history of the human mind
in relation to this and kindred questions.
In the fourth century the belief in
Antipodes was deemed unscriptural and
heretical. The pious Lactantius was as
angry with the people who held this
notion as my censors are now with me,
and quite as unsparing in his denuncia
tions of their “ Monstrosities.” Lactan
tius was irritated because, in his mind,
by education and habit, cosmogony and
religion were indissolubly associated, and,
therefore, simultaneously disturbed. In
the early part of the seventeenth century
the notion that the earth was fixed, and
that the sun and stars revolved round
it daily, was interwoven with religious
feeling, the separation then attempted
by Galileo rousing the animosity and
kindling the persecution of the Church.
Men still living can remember the indig
nation excited by the first revelations of
geology regarding the age of the earth,
the association between chronology and
religion being for the time indissoluble.
In our day, however, the best informed
theologians are prepared to admit that
our views of the Universe and its Author
are not impaired, but improved, by the
abandonment of the Mosaic account of
the Creation. Look, finally, at the
excitement caused by the publication of
the Origin of Species, and compare it
with the calm attendant on the appear
ance of the far more outspoken and,
from the old point of view, more impious
Descent of Man.
Thus religion survives after the removal
of what had been long considered essen
tial to it. In our day the Antipodes are
accepted; the fixity of the earth is given
up; the period of Creation and the
reputed age of the world are alike dissi
pated ; Evolution is looked upon with
out terror; and other changes have
occurred in the same direction too
numerous to be dwelt upon here. In
fact, from the earliest times to the pre
sent, religion has been undergoing a
process of purification, freeing .itself
slowly and painfully from the physical
errors which the active but uninformed
intellect mingled with the aspirations of
the soul. Some of us think that a final
act of purification is needed, while others
oppose ihis notion with the confidence
and the warmth of ancient times. The
bone of contention at present is the
physical value of prayer. It is not my
wish to excite surprise, much less to
draw forth protest, by the employment
of this phrase. I would simply ask any
intelligent person to look the problem
honestly in the face, and then to say
whether, in the estimation of the great
body of those who sincerely resort to it,
prayer does not, at all events upon special
�ON PRA YER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY
occasions, invoke a Power which checks
andlaugments the descent of rain, which
changes the force and direction of
winds, which affects the growth of corn
and the health of men and cattle—a
Power, in short, which, when appealed
to under pressing circumstances, pro
duces the precise effects caused by
physical energy in the ordinary course
of things. To any person who deals
sincerely with the subject, and refuses to
blur his moral vision by intellectual sub
tleties, this, I think, will appear a true
statement of the case.
It is under this aspect alone that the
scientific student, so far as I represent
him, has any wish to meddle with prayer.
Forced upon his attention as a form of
physical energy, or as the equivalent of
such energy, he claims the right of sub
jecting it to those methods of examina
tion from which all our present knowledge
of the physical universe is derived. And
if his researches lead him to a conclusion
adverse to its claims—if his inquiries
rivet him still closer to the philosophy
implied in the words, “ He maketh His
sun to shine on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain upon the just and upon
the unjust”—he contends only for the
displacement of prayer, not for its
extinction. He simply says, physical
nature is not its legitimate domain.
This conclusion, moreover, must be
based on pure physical evidence, and not
on any inherent unreasonableness in the
act of prayer- The theory that the
system of nature is under the control of
a Being who changes phenomena in
compliance with the prayers of men is,
in my opinion, a perfectly legitimate one.
It may, of course, be rendered futile by
being associated with conceptions which
contradict it; but such conceptions form
no necessary part of the theory. It is a
matter of experience that an earthly
father, who is at the same time both
wise and tender, listens to the requests
of his children, and, if they do not ask
amiss, takes pleasure in granting their
requests. We know also that this com
pliance extends to the alteration, within I
115
certain limits, of the current of events
on earth. With this suggestion offered
by experience, it is no departure from
scientific method to place behind natural
phenomena a Universal Father, who, in
answer to the prayers of his children,
alters the currents of those phenomena.
Thus far theology and science go hand
in hand. The conception of an aether,
for example, trembling with the waves of
light, is suggested by the ordinary phe
nomena of wave-motion in water and in
air; and in like manner the conception
of personal volition in nature is suggested
by the ordinary action of man upon
earth. I, therefore, urge no impossi
bilities, though I am constantly charged
with doing so. I do not even urge
inconsistency, but, on the contrary,
frankly admit that the theologian has as
good a right to place his conception at
the root of phenomena as I have to
place mine.
But without verification a theoretic
conception is a mere figment of the
intellect, and I am sorry to find us
parting company at this point. The
region of theory, both in science and
theology, lies behind the world of the
senses, but the verification of theory
occurs in the sensible world. To check
the theory, we have simply to compare
the deductions from it with the facts of
observation. If the deductions be in
accordance with the facts, we accept the
theory; if in opposition, the theory is
given up.
A single experiment is
frequently devised by which the theory
must stand or fall. Of this character
was the determination of the velocity of
light in liquids as a crucial test of the
Emission Theory. According to it, light
travelled faster in water than in air;
according to the Undulatory Theory, it
travelled faster in air than in water.
An experiment suggested by Arago, and
executed by Fizeau and Foucault, was
conclusive against Newton’s theory.
But while science cheerfully submits to
this ordeal, it seems impossible to devise
a mode of verification of their theories
which does not rouse resentment in
�116
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
theological minds. Is it that, while the
pleasure of the scientific man culminates
in the demonstrated harmony between
theory and fact, the highest pleasure of
the religious man has been already tasted
in the very act of praying prior to verifi
cation, any further effort in this direction
being a mere disturbance of his peace ?
Or is it that we have before us a residue
of that mysticism of the Middle Ages,
so admirably described by Whewell—
that “practice of referring things and
events, not to clear and distinct notions,
not to general rules capable of direct
verification, but to notions vague, distant,
and vast, which we cannot bring into
contact with facts, as when we connect
natural events with moral and historic
causes”? “Thus,” he continues, “the
character of mysticism is that it refers
particulars not to generalisations homo
geneous and immediate, but to such as
are heterogeneous and remote; to which
we must add, that the process of this
reference is not a calm act of the intellect,
but is accompanied with a glow of enthu
siastic feeling.”
Every feature here depicted, and some
more questionable ones, have shown
themselves of late; most conspicuously,
I regret to say, in the “ leaders ” of a
weekly journal of considerable influence,
and one, on many grounds, entitled
to the respect of thoughtful men. In
the correspondence, however, published
by the same journal, are to be found two
or three letters well calculated to correct
the temporary flightiness of the journal
itself.
It is not my habit of mind to think
otherwise than solemnly of the feeling
which prompts prayer. It is a power I
which I should like to see guided, not
extinguished — devoted to practicable
objects instead of wasted upon air. In
some form or other, not yet evident, it
may, as alleged, be necessary to man’s
highest culture. Certain it is that,
while I rank many persons who resort
to prayer low in the scale of being
natural foolishness, bigotry, and intoler
ance being in their case intensified by
the notion that they have access to the
ear of God—I regard others who employ
it as forming part of the very cream of
the earth. The faith that adds to the
folly and ferocity of the one is turned to
enduring sweetness, holiness, abounding
charity, and self-sacrifice by the other.
Religion, in fact, varies with the nature
upon which it falls. Often unreasonable,
if not contemptible, prayer, in its purer
forms, hints at disciplines which few of
us can neglect without moral loss. But
no good can come of giving it a delusive
value, by claiming for it a power in
physical nature. It may strengthen the
heart to meet life’s losses, and thus
indirectly promote physical well-being,
as the digging of 2Esop’s orchard brought
a treasure of fertility greater than the
golden treasure sought. Such indirect
issues we all admit; but it would be
simply dishonest to affirm that it is such
issues that are always in view. Here,
for the present, I must end. I ask no
space to reply to those railers who make
such free use of the terms “insolence,”
“outrage,”“profanity,’’and “ blasphemy.”
They obviously lack the sobriety of mind
necessary to give accuracy to their state
ments, or to render their charges worthy
of serious refutation.
�SCIENCE AND THE “SPIRITS
”
11?
______________________________________ —------------------ *---------------------------—
:
SCIENCE AND THE “SPIRITS”
[1864]
TtlEiR refusal to investigate “ spiritual
phenomena” is often urged as a reproach
against scientific men. I here propose
to give a sketch of an attempt to apply
to the “ phenomena ” those methods of
inquiry which are found available in
dealing with natural truth.
Some years ago, when the spirits
were particularly active in this country,
Faraday was invited, or rather entreated,
by one of his friends to meet and ques
tion them. He had, however, already
made their acquaintance, and did not
wish to renew it. I had not been so
privileged, and he therefore kindly
arranged a transfer of the invitation to
me. The spirits themselves named the
time of meeting, and I was conducted to
the place at the day and hour appointed.
Absolute unbelief in the facts was by
no means my condition of mind. On
the contrary, I thought it probable that
some physical principle, not evident to
the spiritualists themselves, might under
lie their manifestations. Extraordinary
effects are produced by the accumulation
of small impulses. Galileo set a heavy
pendulum in motion by the well-timed
puffs of his breath. Ellicot set one
dock going by the ticks of another, even
when the two clocks were separated by
a wall. Preconceived notions can, more
over, vitiate, to an extraordinary degree,
the testimony of even veracious persons.
Hence my desire to witness those extra
ordinary phenomena, the existence of
which seemed placed beyond a doubt by
the known veracity of those who had
witnessed and described them.
The
Sheeting took place at a private residence
ia the neighbourhood of London. My
host, his intelligent wife, and a gentleman
who may be called X. were in the house
when I arrived. I was informed that
the ** medium ” had not vet made her
appearance ; that she was sensitive, and
might resent suspicion. It was therefore
requested that the tables and chairs
should be examined before her arrival,
in order to be assured that there was no
trickery in the furniture.
This was
done; and I then first learned that my
hospitable host had arranged that the
stance should be a dinner-party. This
was to me an unusual form of investiga
tion •, but I accepted it, as one of the
accidents of the occasion.
The “ medium ” arrived—a delicatelooking young lady, who appeared to
have suffered much from ill-health. I
took her to dinner and sat close beside
her. Facts were absent for a consider
able time, a series of very wonderful
narratives supplying their place. The
duty of belief on the testimony of wit
nesses was frequently insisted on. X.
appeared to be a chosen spiritual agent,
and told us many surprising things. He
affirmed that, when he took a pen in his
hand, an influence ran from his shoulder
downwards, and impelled him to write
oracular sentences.
I listened for a
time, offering no observation.' “ And
now,” continued X., “ this power has so
risen as to reveal to me the thoughts of
others. Only this morning I told a
friend what he was thinking of, and what
he intended to do during the day.”
Here, I thought, is something that can
be at once tested. I said immediately
to X.: “If you wish to win to your cause
an apostle, who will proclaim your
principles to the world from the house
top, tell me what I am now thinking of.”
X. reddened, and did not tell me my
thought.
Some time previously I had visited
Baron Reichenbach, in Vienna, and I
> now asked the young lady who sat beside
me whether she could see any of the
�118
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
curious things which he describes—the
be able to see the interior of my own
light emitted by crystals, for example ?
eyes. The medium affirmed that she
Here is the conversation which followed,
could see actual waves of light coming
as extracted from my notes, written on
from the sun. I retorted that men of
the day following the stance :—
science could tell the exact number of
Medium.—“ Oh, yes ; but I see light
waves emitted in a second, and also their
around all bodies.”
exact length.
The medium spoke of
I.—“ Even in perfect darkness ?”
the performances of the spirits on
Medium.—“Yes; I see luminous atmo musical instruments. I said that such
spheres round all people. The atmo performance was gross, in comparison
sphere which surrounds Mr. R. C.
with a kind of music which had been
would fill this room with light.”
discovered some time previously by a
I.—“You are aware of the effects
scientific man. Standing at a distance
ascribed by Baron Reichenbach to
of twenty feet from a jet of gas, he could
magnets ?”
command the flame to emit a melodious
Medium.—“ Yes; but a magnet makes
note; it would obey, and continue its
me terribly ill.”
song for hours. So loud was the music
I.—“ Am I to understand that, if this
emitted by the gas-flame that it might
room were perfectly dark, you could tell
be heard by an assembly of a thousand
whether it contained a magnet, without
people. These were acknowledged to
being informed of the fact ?”
be as great marvels as any of those of
Medium.—“ I should know of its pre
spiritdom. The spirits were then con
sence on entering the room.”
sulted, and I was pronounced to be a
I.—“ How ?”
first-class medium.
Medium.—“I should be rendered
During this conversation a low knock
instantly ill.”
ing was heard from time to time under
I.—“ How do you feel to-day ?”
the table. These, I was told, were the
Medium.—“ Particularly well; I have
spirits’ knocks. I was informed that one
not been so well for months.”
knock, in answer to a question, meant
I.—“ Then, may I ask you whether
“No”; that two knocks meant “Not
there is, at the present moment, a
yet ”; and that three knocks meant
magnet in my possession ?”
“Yes.” In answer to a question whether
The young lady looked at me, blushed,
I was a medium, the response was three
brisk and vigorous knocks. I noticed
and stammered :
“ No ; I am not en rapport with you.”
that the knocks issued from a particular
I sat at her right hand, and a left locality, and therefore requested the
spirits to be good enough to answer
hand pocket, within six inches of her
from another corner of the table. They
person, contained a magnet.
did not comply; but I was assured that
Our host here deprecated discussion,
as it “exhausted the medium.”
The
they would do it, and much more, byand-by.
The knocks continuing, I
wonderful narratives were resumed; but
turned a wine-glass upside down, and
I had narratives of my own quite as
placed my ear upon it, as upon a stetho
wonderful. These spirits, indeed, seemed
scope. The spirits seemed disconcerted
clumsy creations, compared with those
by the act; they lost their playfulness,
with which my own work had made me
and did not recover it for a considerable
familiar. I therefore began to match
the wonders related to me by other
time.
Somewhat weary of the proceedings, I
wonders. A lady present discoursed on
once threw myself back against my chair
spiritual atmospheres, which she could
and gazed listlessly out of the window.
see as beautiful colours when she closed
While thus engaged, the table was rudely
her eyes. I professed myself able to see
pushed. Attention was drawn to the
similar colours, and, more than that, to
�SCIENCE AND THE “SPIRITS”
wine, still oscillating in the glasses, and
I was asked whether that was not con
vincing. I readily granted the fact of
motion, and began to feel the delicacy of
my position. There were several pairs
of arms upon the table, and several pairs
of legs under it; but how was I, without
offence, to express the conviction which
I really entertained ? To ward off the
difficulty, I again turned a wine-glass
upside down and rested my ear upon it.
The rim of the glass was not level,, and
my hair, on touching it, caused it. to
vibrate, and produce a peculiar buzzing
sound. A perfectly candid and warm
hearted old gentleman at the opposite
Side of the table, whom I may call A.,
drew attention to the sound, and ex
pressed his entire belief that it was
spiritual. I, however, informed him that
it was the moving hair acting on the
glass. The explanation was not well
received; and X., in a tone of severe
pleasantry, demanded whether it was the
hair that had moved the table. The
promptness of my negative probably
satisfied him that my notion was a very
different one.
The superhuman power of the spirits
was next dwelt upon. The strength of
man, it was stated, was unavailing in
opposition to theirs. No human power
could prevent the table from moving
when they pulled it. During the evening
this pulling of the table occurred, or
rather was attempted, three times.
Twice the table moved when my atten
tion was withdrawn from it; on a third
occasion, I tried whether the act could
be provoked by an assumed air of
inattention. Grasping the table firmly
between my knees, I threw myself back
in the chair, and waited, with eyes fixed
on vacancy, for the pull. It came. For
some seconds it was pull spirit, hold
muscle; the muscle, however, prevailed,
and the table remained at rest. Up to
the present moment, this interesting fact
is known only to the particular spirit in
question and myself.
A species of mental scene-painting,
with which my own pursuits had long
,
119
rendered me familiar, was employed to
figure the changes and distribution of
spiritual power.
The spirits, it was
alleged, were provided with atmospheres,
which combined with and interpenetrated
each other, and considerable ingenuity
was shown in demonstrating the neces
sity of time in effecting the adjustment
of the atmospheres.
A re-arrange
ment of our positions was proposed
and carried out; and soon afterwards
my attention was drawn to a scarcely
sensible vibration on the part of the
table. Several persons were leaning on
the table at the time, and I asked per
mission to touch the medium’s hand.
“ Oh 1 I know I tremble,” was her reply.
Throwing one leg across the other, I
accidentally nipped a muscle, and pro
duced thereby an involuntary vibration
of the free leg. This vibration, I knew,
must be communicated to the floor, and
thence to the chairs of all present. I
therefore intentionally promoted it. My
attention was promptly drawn to the
motion; and a gentleman beside me,
whose value as a witness I was particu
larly desirous to test, expressed his belief
that it was out of the compass of human
power to produce so strange a tremor.
“ I believe,” he added, earnestly, “ that
it is entirely the spirits’ work.” “ So do
I,” added, with heat, the candid and
warm-hearted old gentleman A. “Why,
sir,” he continued, “ I feel them at this
moment shaking my chair.” I stopped
the motion of the leg. “ Now, sir,” A.
exclaimed, “they are gone.” I began
again, and A. once more affirmed their
presence. I could, however, notice that
there were doubters present, who did not
quite know what to think of the mani
festations. I saw their perplexity ; and,
as there was sufficient reason to believe
that the disclosure of the secret would
simply provoke anger, I kept it to myself.
Again a period of conversation inter
vened, during which the spirits became
animated. The evening was confessedly
a dull one, but matters appeared to
brighten towards its close. The spirits
were requested to spell the name by
�120
LECTURES AND ESSA YS
which I was known in the heavenly
world. Our host commenced repeating
the alphabet, and when he reached the
letter “ P ” a knock was heard. He
began again, and the spirits knocked at
the letter “0.”
1 was puzzled, but
waited for'the end. The next letter
knocked down was “E.” I laughed, and
remarked that the spirits were going to
make a poet of me. Admonished for
my levity, I was informed that the frame
of mind proper for the occasion ought to
have been superinduced by a perusal of
the Bible immediately before the seance.
The spelling, however, went on, and
sure enough I came out a poet. But
matters did not end here. Our host
continued his repetition of the alphabet,
and the next letter of the name proved
to be “ O.” Here was manifestly an
unfinished word ; and the spirits were
apparently in their most communicative
mood. The knocks came from under
the table, but no person present evinced
the slightest desire to look under it. I
asked whether I might go underneath;
the permission was granted ; so I crept
under the table. Some tittered; but the
candid old A. exclaimed: “ He has a
right to look into the very dregs of it, to
convince himself.” Having pretty well
assured myself that no sound could be
produced under the table without its
origin being revealed, I requested our
host to continue his questions. He did
so, but in vain. He adopted a tone of
tender entreaty ; but the “dear spirits ”
had become dumb dogs, and refused to
be entreated. I continued under that
table for at least a quarter of an hour,
after which, with a feeling of despair as
regards the prospects of humanity never
before experienced, I regained my chair.
Once there, the spirits resumed their
loquacity, and dubbed me “ Poet of
Science.”
This, then, is the result of an attempt
made by a scientific man to look into
these spiritual phenomena.
It is not
encouraging ; and for this reason. The
present promoters of spiritual pheno
mena divide themselves into two classes,
one of which needs no demonstration,
while the other is beyond the reach of
proof. The victims like to believe, and
they do not like to be undeceived.
Science is perfectly powerless in the
presence of this frame of mind. It is,
moreover, a state perfectly compatible
with extreme intellectual subtlety and a
capacity for devising hypotheses which
only require the hardihood engendered
by strong conviction, or by callous
mendacity, to render them impregnable.
The logical feebleness of science is not
sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps
down the weed of superstition, not by
logic, but by slowly rendering the mental
soil unfit for its cultivation.
When
science appeals to uniform experience,
the spiritualist will retort : “ How do you
know that a uniform experience will
continue uniform ? You tell me that
the sun has risen for six thousand years :
that is no proof that it will rise to
morrow ; within the next twelve hours it
may be puffed out by the Almighty.**
Taking this ground, a man may maintain
the story of “ Jack and the Beanstalk ” in
the face of all the science in the world.
You urge, in vain, that science has given
us all the knowledge of the universe
which we now possess, while spiritualism
has added nothing to that knowledge.
The drugged soul is beyond the reach of
reason. It is in vain that impostors are
exposed, and the special demon cast out.
He has but slightly to change his shape,
return to his house, and find it “ empty,
swept, and garnished.”
Since the time when the foregoing
remarks were written I have been more
than once among the spirits, at their own
invitation.
They do not improve on
acquaintance. Surely no baser delusion
ever obtained dominance over the weak
mind of man.
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LIMITED.
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Bjornstjerne Bjornson
George Brandes
Dr. Charles Callaway
Dr. Paul Carus
Prof. B. H. Chamberlain
Dr. Stanton Coit
Honorary Associates:
Dr. F. J. Furnivall
F. J. Gould
Prof. Ernst Haeckel
Leonard Huxley
Prof. Cesare Lombroso
Joseph McCabe
Eden Phillpotts
John M. Robertson
Dr. _W. R. Washington
Sullivan
Prof. Lester F. Ward
Prof. Ed. A.Westermarck
and
Thomas Whittaker
A Brief Statement of the Objects and Methods of the
Association.
The “Spirit of Rationalism.”
The prevalence of the “spirit of Rationalism,” as Mr. Lecky has called it, is one of
the chief features distinguishing modern from mediaeval thought and life. This
spirit has permeated all nations and all classes comprised in the world of Western
civilisation. It is not any definite and reasoned doctrine, but simply a sceptical
attitude towards magic and miracles, assumptions of occult power and insight on the
part of men, and alleged divine interferences.
We believe that this spirit of Rationalism is closely connected with the progress
of modern science and critical research. The “ spirit ” assumes unconsciously and
as a general, practical rule that uniformity of nature which science and research
repeatedly prove to exist in particular cases. In other words, it assumes that
exceptional occurrences are due to unfamiliar combinations of familiar conditions,
and do not require superhuman conscious agency to account for them. But the
spirit of Rationalism is, after all, only a mental tendency. As such, it is liable, to
exist in the modern mind side by side with the supernaturalism of a pre-scientific
age. It does so conspicuously under present-day Protestantism. Most Protestants
are Rationalists in their attitude towards contemporary instances of alleged miracle
and inspiration. They are Rationalists in their attitude towards the sacred literatures
of Buddhists, Brahmans, Parsees, and Mohammedans, and towards the distinctive
teachings of the Church of Rome. As regards the narrative and theology contained
in the Bible, however, they are not Rationalists, but at best compromisers between
traditional reverence and scientific inquiry. Thus, while the spirit of Rationalism
is rife, the attempt to raise Rationalism into a consistent rule of the intellectual life
is extremely unpopular,, having to face both active opposition and widespread
indifference. That, nevertheless, is the aim which the Association keeps steadily
in view.
�THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Limited
Embodiment of the Rationalistic Spirit.
The physical sciences are, within their respective limits, the most consistent
embodiments of the spirit of Rationalism. Astronomy, geology, and biology have
successively broken away from Biblical tradition. They have become genuine
sciences through an exercise of the freest and most serious inquiry, combined with
the expectation of discovering natural uniformities where men formerly saw nothing
but supernatural mysteries. But the special sciences belong primarily to specialists.
What the average thinking man requires is a good synopsis of the object-matter and
results of science, an insight into its nature and methods, and a habit of mind which
will enable him to form sensible and serviceable judgments as to the many questions
which cannot yet (and perhaps never can) be decided with scientific accuracy.
Thus the spirit of Rationalism has needed to embody itself, not only in science
and exact research, but in certain types of human thought which form, as it were,
the atmosphere of science. Among the more highly-cultivated intellects it has given
rise to the various schools of modern philosophy. Among the people and certain
of their democratic leaders it has given rise to the various parties of modern
Freethought. . Philosophy is, on the whole, somewhat conservative, although it is
far more anxious to conserve the wide outlook of Plato and Aristotle than the
theology of Paul and Augustine. The tendency of popular Freethought is more
revolutionary and impatient for a new start in human ideas. With the spread of
education and democracy, however, these two types of advanced thought must
increasingly coalesce. In coalescing, Freethought should gain breadth of view and
lose the “ scoffing ” habit which only hardens foes and alienates many who would
otherwise be friends. Philosophy, on the other hand, should gain a certain down
rightness and relation to practical life which it generally lacks, and at the same time
learn to relinquish such speculations as are not even possessed of probability in the
light of experience and science. To temper Freethought with philosophy, and to
assist in freeing philosophy from all academic trammels and fanciful excrescences,
are among the objects for which the R. P. A. has been formed.
The Limits of Compromise.
The semi-philosophic works which have acquired wide popularity in recent years
are those which have set forth some new compromise (or what has really amounted
to a compromise) between certain tenets of Christianity and certain views of
modem science. We believe that this accommodating spirit, though a long way in
advance of the spirit of sheer intolerance, lags equally far behind the philosophic
spirit of truth seeking.
Compromise is inevitable, and, to a certain extent, salutary, in politics. This is
because political measures have to be adjusted to the existing views of the most
influential body of citizens, no matter whether those views be sound or the reverse.
But the very fact which makes compromise legitimate in politics makes it illegitimate
as regards religious and abstract social questions. Thus a consistent Rationalism is
the direct antithesis, the uncompromising rejection, of that religious faith which deems
it necessary to accept traditional and reputedly sacred opinions, without seriously
inquiring into their evidential value. In saying this, we do not, of course, mean
that all traditional religious opinions are necessarily to be rejected, nor do we
pretend to be in a position to teach the whole philosophy of Rationalism. That is
still in the making, and it is that which the R. P. A. must help, directly or
indirectly, to make.
Our contention is that the appeal to experience and
reason must alone decide what elements of traditional Christianity are worthy
to be retained, and that theological dogmas and scriptural prejudices must be
�THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Limited
allowed no more influence over the philosophic thinker than has the legend
of creation contained in the book of Genesis over the present-day astronomer or
gwlogist.
After careful consideration, aided by the advice of several well-known thinkers,
tile following definition of Rationalism has been adopted and embodied in the
Memorandum of Association :—
9
“ Rationalism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts
the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a system of philosophy and
ethics verifiable by experience and independent of all arbitrary assumptions or
authority.”
In making direct mention of ethics we wish to accentuate the fact that the philosophy
of Rationalism cannot fail to have important bearings on human conduct, which
will, we believe, be far more beneficent in the long run than those of traditional
theology.
The Need of Propaganda.
Although the spirit of Rationalism has permeated the Protestant clergy, con
forming and non-conformist alike, and, in many cases, the preachers are more
liberal-minded than their flocks, professional needs naturally make them, as a body,
hostile to Rationalism in any consistent shape. They and their lay supporters spare
neither pains nor money in promulgating views which, though differing widely
according to the church or sect from which they proceed, agree in attributing
unique authority and surpassing excellence to the Christian religion, and defending,
rather than dispassionately inquiring into, its supposed essentials. Many powerful
associations, among which the Religious Tract Society and the Society for Promoting,
IChristian Knowledge are perhaps the most widely known, are carried on largely with
the object of vindicating Christian tradition against Rationalist criticism.
Philosophic Rationalists, on the other hand, have been disposed to trust to the
progress of science and the ultimate triumph of truth, and have made comparatively
little effort to propagate their opinions. It is believed that the R. P. A. will
be a means of arousing and directing the energies of such torpid sympathisers.
Concerted action among Rationalists was never more needed than now, in
face of the present widespread reaction towards relatively irrational beliefs
and practices. This reaction shows itself in the disposition to assert the
sufficiency of instinct and sentiment, as well as to magnify the claims of custom,
I ritual, and authority, while making light of reason, evading the duty of critical
inquiry, and ignoring the need of a broad human and scientific outlook, such as
constructive philosophic thought alone can give.
The cause of Rationalism cannot be assisted more materially than by promoting
the publication and distribution of works which the organised weight of religious
prejudice, the stolid indifference of the general public to philosophic inquiry, and
the consequent policy of the popular press and the booksellers, all tend to discourage,
if not to taboo—provided, of course, that such works have intrinsic value.
Publications of the R. P. A., Ltd.
Works of a serious, and especially those of a seriously philosophic character, are
■ heavily handicapped in the competition for popular favour. Still more is this the
case when such works soberly advocate unpopular views. The notion that the most
successful books are the best may be partially true as regards works of imagination.
It is very far indeed from being true as regards works of research and reflection.
�THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Limited
Thus one of the objects of the Association is to assist in issuing the works of
competent authors whose religious heterodoxy places them at a disadvantage in
approaching the ordinary publishing firms. Another object, equally important to
the cause of Rationalism, and in carrying out which the Association has already
met with striking success, is to re-issue, in cheap and convenient form, standard or
notable books of a scientific, critical, ethical, or philosophical character.
Conditions of Membership.
The Rationalist Press Association, Ltd., is “a Company Limited by Guarantee,
and not having a Capital divided into shares.” It is a propagandist, not a com
mercial, undertaking. Each member becomes liable for a sum not exceeding one
pound, in the case of the Association being wound up; but even should the
necessity for winding up occur (a highly improbable contingency), it is not likely
that the members would be called upon for the amount of their guarantee, as the
Directors are careful to refrain from embarking on any undertaking for which
pecuniary provision has not been made.
Any person above the age of twenty-one may, with the consent of the Board,
become a member, on payment of an annual subscription of not less than five
shillings. The subscription is payable in advance on the first of January of each
year. A member may retire from the Association upon giving notice in writing ft)
the Secretary.
Members are entitled to receive, post free, publications of the Association within
the value of their annual subscriptions, and it is usual to send the new publications
as issued. Those, however, who prefer to specify “ Books by request ” can make
their own selection from the R. P. A. lists which are issued from time to time.
Donations and Bequests.
It is hoped that all who are in fact Rationalists will give their open support to
the Association, and take part so far as possible in its meetings; but sympathisers
who do not wish to be incorporated as members, or who prefer to conceal their
identity, can aid the funds by informal annual subscriptions or special donations,
strict confidence being observed when desired. Donations, no matter hoy small,
will be welcome from members who can spare such sums at the present time, but
do not care to include them in the amount of their annual subscription.
Rationalists and sympathisers with Rationalism should, when making their.wills,
bear in mind the work which the Association is doing. As a legally-constituted
body, having stringent rules to prevent any possible misapplication of funds, it is
eminently fitted to carry out the wishes or instructions of persons who bequeath
sums of money for specified objects—-literary, scientific, or educational—which are in
accord with its general principles. A suggested form of bequest will be sent to any
applicant.
For further particulars address the Secretary—Charles E. Hooper,
Nos. y and 6, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
�List of Publications
(Alphabetically Arranged) Issued for the
■(Rationalist (Press association, Uimiteb,
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BOCHNER, Professor LUDWIG.—Last Words on Materialism
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The First Volume treats of the superstitions of savages and primitive man, and
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Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd. Printed in double columns. Fragments of science first published in 1871. Brief statement of RPA's objects and methods, and publisher's list on unnumbered pages at the end.
Contents: Biographical sketch -- The Belfast address -- Apology for the Belfast address -- Scientific materialism -- Scientific use of the imagination -- Science and man -- Vitality -- Reflections on prayer and natural law -- Miracles and special providences -- On prayer as a form of physical energy -- Science and the "spirits".
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EDUCATION:
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1903
��PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE
In the preface to the cheap edition of this work, issued
in 1878, the author says :—•
The growing demand for the original edition of these Chapters
on Education has suggested to me the propriety of issuing an
edition that shall come within easy reach of a larger public.
That the work has had considerable currency in the United
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Arabic, and Bulgarian.
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circulation of these essays yet further.
��J
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
•
9
CHAPTER II.
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
-
40
-
69
CHAPTER III.
MORAL EDUCATION
....
CHAPTER IV.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
92
i
J
1
1
1
�EDUCATION AT ETON, 1842-5
“ Balston, our tutor, was a good scholar after the fashion of the day,
and famous for Latin verse; but he was essentially a commonplace
don. ‘ Stephen major,’ he once said to my brother, 1 if you do not
take more pains, how can you ever expect to write good longs and
shorts ? If you do not write good longs and shorts, how can you
ever be a man of taste? If you are not a man of taste, how can
you ever hope to be of use in the world ?’ ”
( The Life of Sir Tames Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., by his brother, Leslie Stephen,
pp. 80-1.)
�EDUCATION
CHAPTER I.
WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ?
It has been truly remarked that, in
order of time, decoration precedes dress.
Among people who submit to great physi
cal suffering that they may have themselves
handsomely tattooed, extremes of tempera
ture are borne with but little attempt at
mitigation. Humboldt tells us that an
Orinoco Indian, though quite regardless
of bodily comfort, will yet labour for a
fortnight to purchase pigment wherewith
to make himself admired; and that the
same woman who would not hesitate to
leave her hut without a fragment of
clothing on, would not dare to commit
such a breach of decorum as to go out
unpainted. Voyagers find that coloured
beads and trinkets are much more prized
by wild tribes, than are calicoes or
broadcloths. And the anecdotes we have
of the ways in which, when shirts and
coats are given, savages turn them to
some ludicrous display, show how com
pletely the idea of ornament predominates
over that of use. Nay, there are still
more extreme illustrations : witness the
fact narrated by Capt. Speke of his
African attendants, who strutted about
in their goat-skin mantles when the
weather was fine, but when it was wet,
took them off, folded them up, and went
about naked, shivering in the rain!
Indeed, the facts of aboriginal life seem
to indicate that dress is developed out
of decorations. And when we remember
that even among ourselves most think
more about the fineness of the fabric
than its warmth, and more about the cut
than the convenience—when we see that
the function is still in great measure
subordinated to the appearance — we
have further reason for inferring such an
origin.
It is curious that the like relations
hold with the mind. Among mental
as among bodily acquisitions, the orna
mental comes before the useful. Not
only in times past, but almost as much
in our own era, that knowledge which
conduces to personal well-being has been
postponed to that which brings applause.
In the Greek schools, music, poetry,
rhetoric, and a philosophy which, until
Socrates taught, had but little bearing
upon action, were the dominant subjects ;
while knowledge aiding the arts of life
had a very subordinate place. And in
our own universities and schools at the
present moment, the like antithesis holds.
We are guilty of something like a plati
tude when we say that throughout his
after-career, a boy, in nine cases out of
ten, applies his Latin and Greek to no
practical purposes. The remark is trite
that in his shop, or his office, in managing
- his estate or his family, in playing his
part as director of a bank or a railway,
he is very little aided by this knowledge
he took so many years to acquire—so
�IO
EDUCATION
little, that generally the greater part of it
drops out of his memory; and if he
occasionally vents a Latin quotation, or
alludes to some Greek myth, it is less to
throw light on the topic in hand than
for the sake of effect. If we inquire
what is the real motive for giving boys a
classical education, we find it to be
simply conformity to public opinion.
Men dress their children’s minds as they
do their bodies, in the prevailing fashion.
As the Orinoco Indian puts on paint
before leaving his hut, not with a view
to any direct benefit, but because he
would be ashamed to be seen without
it; so, a boy’s drilling in Latin and
Greek is insisted on, not because of
their intrinsic value, but that he may not
be disgraced by being found ignorant of
them—that he may have “the education
of a gentleman ”—the badge marking a
certain social position, and bringing a
consequent respect.
This parallel is still more clearly
displayed in the case of the other sex.
In the treatment of both mind and body,
the decorative element has continued to
predominate in a greater degree among
women than among men. Originally,
personal adornment occupied the atten
tion of both sexes equally. In these
latter days of civilisation, however, we
see that in the dress of men the regard
for appearance has in a considerable
degree yielded to the regard for comfort;
while in their education the useful has
of late been trenching on the ornamental.
In neither direction has this change
gone so far with women. The wearing
of ear-rings, finger-rings, bracelets; the
elaborate dressings of the hair; the
still occasional use of paint; the
immense labour bestowed in making
habiliments sufficiently attractive; and
the great discomfort that will be sub
mitted to for the sake of conformity;
show how greatly, in the attiring of
women, the desire of approbation over
rides the desire for warmth and con
venience. And similarly in their educa
tion, the immense preponderance of
“ accomplishments ” proves how here,
too, use is subordinated to display.
Dancing, deportment, the piano, singing,
drawing—what a large space do these
occupy 1 If you ask why Italian and
German are learnt, you will find that,
under all the sham reasons given, the
real reason is, that a knowledge of those
tongues is thought ladylike. It is not
that the books written in them may be
utilised, which they scarcely ever are ;
but that Italian and German songs may
be sung, and that the extent of attainment
may bring whispered admiration. The
births, deaths, and marriages of kings,
and other like historic trivialities, are
committed to memory, not because of
any direct benefits that can possibly
result from knowing them ; but because
society considers them parts of a good
education—because the absence of such
knowledge may bring the contempt of
others. When we have named reading,
writing, spelling, grammar, arithmetic,
and sewing, we have named about all
the things a girl is taught with a view
to their actual uses in life; and even
some of these have more reference to
the good opinion of others than to
immediate personal welfare.
Thoroughly to realise the truth that
with the mind as with the body the
ornamental precedes the useful, it is
requisite to glance at its rationale. This
lies in the fact that, from the far past
down even to the present, social needs
have subordinated individual needs,
and that the chief social need has been
the control of individuals. It is not, as
we commonly suppose, that there are no
governments but those of monarchs, and
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
parliaments, and constituted authorities.
These acknowledged governments are
supplemented by other unacknowledged
ones, that grow up in all circles, in which
every man or woman strives to be king
or queen or lesser dignitary. To get
above some and be reverenced by them,
and to propitiate those who are above
us, is the universal struggle in which the
chief energies of life are expended. By
the accumulation of wealth, by style of
living, by beauty of dress, by display of
knowledge of intellect, each tries to
subjugate others; and so aids in weaving
that ramified network of restraints by
which society is kept in order. It is not
the savage chief only, who, in formidable
war-paint, with scalps at his belt, aims
to strike awe into his inferiors; it is not
only the belle who, by elaborate toilet,
polished manners, and numerous accom
plishments, strives to “make conquests ”;
but the scholar, the historian, the philo
sopher, use their acquirements to the
same end. We are none of us content
with quietly unfolding our own indivi
dualities to the full in all directions; but
have a restless craving to impress our
individualities upon others, and in some
way subordinate them. And this it is
which determines the character of our
education. Not what knowledge is of
most real worth, is the consideration;
but what will bring most applause,
honour, respect—what will most conduce
to social position and influence—what
will be most imposing. As, throughout
life, not what we are, but what we shall
be thought, is the question; so in
education, the question is, not the
intrinsic value of knowledge, so much
as its extrinsic effects on others. And
this being our dominant idea, direct
utility is scarcely more regarded than by
the barbarian when filing his teeth and
staining his nails.
ii
If there requires further evidence of
the rude, undeveloped character of
our education, we have it in the fact
that the comparative worths of different
kinds of knowledge have been as yet
scarcely even discussed — much less
discussed in a methodic way with
definite results. Not only is it that no
standard of relative values has yet been
agreed upon; but the existence of any
such standard has not been conceived in
a clear manner. And not only is it
that the existence of such a standard
has not been clearly conceived : but the
need for it seems to have been scarcely
even felt. Men read books on this topic,
and attend lectures on that; decide that
their children shall be instructed in
these branches of knowledge, and shall
not be instructed in those; and all under
the guidance of mere custom, or liking,
or prejudice; without ever considering
the enormous importance of determining
in some rational way what things are
really most worth learning. It is true
that in all circles we hear occasional
remarks on the importance of this or the
other order of information. But whether
the degree of its importance justifies
the expenditure of the time needed to
acquire it; and whether there are not
things of more importance to which
such time might be better devoted; are
queries which, if raised at all, are dis
posed of quite summarily, according to
personal predilections. It is true also,
that now and then, we hear revived the
standing controversy respecting the com
parative merits of classics and mathe
matics. This controversy, however, is
carried on in an empirical manner, with
no reference to an ascertained criterion;
and the question at issue is insignificant
when compared with the general question
of which it is part. To suppose that
�12
EDUCATION
deciding whether a mathematical or a
classical education is the best, is deciding
what is the proper curriculum, is much the
same thing as to suppose that the whole
of dietetics lies in ascertaining whether or
not bread is more nutritive than potatoes!
The question which we contend is of
such transcendent moment, is, not
whether such or such knowledge is of
worth, but what is its relative worth?
When they have named certain advan
tages which a given course of study has
secured them, persons are apt to assume
that they have justified themselves :
quite forgetting that the adequateness
of the advantages is the point to be
judged. There is, perhaps, not a subject
to which men devote attention that has
not some value. A year diligently spent
in getting up heraldry, would very
possibly give a little further insight into
ancient manners and morals. Any one
who should learn the distances between
all the towns in England, might, in the
course of his life, find one or two of the
thousand facts he had acquired of some
slight service when arranging a journey.
Gathering together all the small gossip
of a county, profitless occupation as it
would be, might yet occasionally help to
establish some useful fact—say, a good
example of hereditary transmission. But
in these cases, every one would admit
that there was no proportion between
the required labour and the probable
benefit.
No one would tolerate the
proposal to devote some years of a boy’s
time to getting such information, at the
cost of much more valuable information
which he might else have got. And if
here the test of relative value is appealed
to and held conclusive, then should it be
appealed to and held conclusive through
out. Had we time to master all subjects
we need not be particular. To quote
the old song
Could a man be secure
That his days would endure
As of old, for a thousand long years,
What things might he know !
What deeds might he do !
And all without hurry or care.
“But we that have but span-long lives”
must ever bear in mind our limited time
for acquisition. And remembering how
narrowly this time is limited, not only
by the shortness of life, but also still
more by the business of life, we ought
to be especially solicitous to employ what
time we have to the greatest advantage.
Before devoting years to some subject
which fashion or fancy suggests, it is
surely wise to weigh with great care the
worth of the results, as compared with
the worth of various alternative results
which the same years might bring if
otherwise applied.
In education, then, this is the question
of questions, which it is high time we
discussed in some methodic way. The
first in importance, though the last to be
considered, is the problem—how to
decide among the conflicting claims of
various subjects on our attention. Before
there can be a rational curriculum, we
must settle which things it most concerns
us to know; or, to use a word of Bacon’s,
now unfortunately obsolete—we must
determine the relative values of know
ledges.
To this end, a measure of value is the
first requisite. And happily, respecting
the true measure of value, as expressed
in general terms, there can be no dispute.
Everyone, in contending for the worth of
any particular order of information, does
so by showing its bearing upon some part
of life. In reply to the question—“ Of
what use is it ?” the mathematician,
linguist, naturalist, or philosopher, ex
plains the way in which his learning
beneficially influences action—saves from
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
evil or secures good—conduces to happi
ness. When the teacher of writing has
pointed out how great an aid writing is
to success in business—that is, to the
obtainment of sustenance—that is, to
satisfactory living; he is held to have
proved his case. And when the collector
of dead facts (say a numismatist) fails to
make clear any appreciable effects which
these facts can produce on human
welfare, he is obliged to admit that they
are comparatively valueless. All then,
either directly or by implication, appeal
to this as the ultimate test.
How to live ?—that is the essential
question for us. Not how to live in the
mere material sense only, but in the
widest sense. The general problem
which comprehends every special problem
is—the right ruling of conduct in all
directions under all circumstances. In
what way to treat the body; in what
way to treat the mind; in what way to
manage our affairs ; in what way to bring
up a family; in what way to behave as
a citizen; in what way to utilise those
sources of happiness which nature
supplies—how to use all our faculties
to the greatest advantage of ourselves
and others—how to live completely ?
And this being the great thing needful
for us to learn, is, by consequence, the
great thing which education has to teach.
To prepare us for complete living is the
function which education has to dis
charge ; and the only rational mode of
judging of an educational course is, to
judge in what degree it discharges such
function.
• This test, never used in its entirety,
but rarely even partially used, and used
then in a vague, half conscious way, has
to be applied consciously, methodically,
and throughout all cases. It behoves us
to set before ourselves, and ever to keep
clearly in view, complete living as the
13
end to be achieved; so that in bringing
up our children we may choose subjects
and methods of instruction, with deli
berate reference to this end. Not only
ought we to cease from the mere unthink
ing adoption of the current fashion in
education, which has no better warrant
than any other fashion; but we must
also rise above that rude, empirical style
of judging displayed by those more intel
ligent people who do bestow some care
in overseeing the cultivation of their
children’s minds. It must not suffice
simply to think that such or such infor
mation will be useful in after life, or that
this kind of knowledge is of more prac
tical value than that; but we must seek
out some process of estimating their
respective values, so that as far as possible
we may positively know which are most
deserving of attention.
Doubtless the task is difficult—perhaps
never to be more than approximately
achieved. But, considering the vastness
of the interests at stake, its difficulty is
no reason for pusillanimously passing it
by; but rather for devoting every energy
to its mastery. And if we only proceed
systematically, we may very soon get at
results of no small moment.
Our first step must obviously be to
classify, in the order of their importance,
the leading kinds of activity which con
stitute human life. They may be naturally
arranged into :—1. those activities which
directly minister to self-preservation; 2.
those activities which, by securing the
necessaries of life, indirectly minister to
self-preservation; 3. those activities which
have for their end the rearing and dis
cipline of offspring; 4. those activities
which are involved in the maintenance
of proper social and political relations;
5. those miscellaneous activities which
fill up the leisure part of life, devoted to
the gratification of the tastes and feelings.
�14
EDUCATION
That these stand in something like
their true order of subordination, it needs
no long consideration to show. The
actions and precautions by which, from
moment to moment, we secure personal
safety, must clearly take precedence of all
others. Could there be a man, ignorant
as an infant of surrounding objects and
movements, or how to guide himself
among them, he would pretty certainly
lose his life the first time he went into
the street; notwithstanding any amount
of learning he might have on other
matters. And as entire ignorance in all
other directions would be less promptly
fatal than entire ignorance in this direc
tion, it must be admitted that knowledge
immediately conducive to self-preserva
tion is of primary importance.
That next after direct self-preservation
comes the indirect self-preservation which
consists in acquiring the means of living,
none will question. That a man’s indus
trial functions must be considered before
his parental ones, is manifest from the
fact that, speaking generally, the dis
charge of the parental functions is made
possible only by the previous discharge
of the industrial ones. The power of
self-maintenance necessarily preceding
the power of maintaining offspring, it
follows that knowledge needful for self
maintenance has stronger claims than
knowledge needful for family welfare—
is second in value to none save know
ledge needful for immediate self-preser
vation.
As the family comes before the State
in order of time—as the bringing up of
children is possible before the State
exists, or when it has ceased to be,
whereas the State is rendered possible
only by the bringing up of children; it
follows that the duties of the parent
demanti closer attention than those of
the citizen. Or, to use a further argu
ment—since the goodness of a society
ultimately depends on the nature of its
citizens; and since the nature of its
citizens is more modifiable by early train
ing than by anything else; we must
conclude that the welfare of the family
underlies the welfare of society. And
hence knowledge directly conducing to
the first, must take precedence of know
ledge directly conducing to the last.
Those various forms of pleasurable
occupation which fill up the leisure left
by graver occupations—the enjoyments
of music, poetry, painting, etc.—mani
festly imply a pre-existing society. Not
only is a considerable development of
them impossible without a long-estab
lished social union; but their very sub
ject-matter consists in great part of social
sentiments and sympathies. Not only
does society supply the conditions to
their growth; but also the ideas and
sentiments they express. And, conse
quently, that part of human conduct
which constitutes good citizenship, is of
more moment than that which goes out
in accomplishments or exercise of the
tastes; and, in education, preparation
for the one must rank before preparation
for the other.
Such then, we repeat, is something
like the rational order of subordination:—
That education which prepares for direct
self-preservation; that which prepares for
indirect self-preservation; that which
prepares for parenthood; that which pre
pares for citizenship ; that which prepares
for the miscellaneous refinements of life.
We do not mean to say that these
divisions are definitely separable. We
do not deny that they are intricately
entangled with each other, in such way
that there can be no training for any that
is not in some measure a training for all.
Nor do we question that of each division
there are portions more important than
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
certain portions of the preceding divi
sions : that, for instance, a man of much
skill in business but little other faculty,
may fall further below the standard of
complete living than one of but moderate
ability in money-getting but great judg
ment as a parent; or that exhaustive
information bearing on right social
action, joined with entire want of general
culture in literature and the fine arts, is
less desirable than a more moderate
share of the one joined with some of the
other. But, after making due qualifica
tions, there still remain these broadlymarked divisions; and it still continues
substantially true that these divisions
subordinate one another in the foregoing
order, because the corresponding divi
sions of life make one another possible in
that order.
Of course the ideal of education is—
complete preparation in all these divi
sions. But failing this ideal, as in our
phase of civilisation every one must do
more or less, the aim should be to main
tain a due proportion between the degrees
of preparation in each. Not exhaustive
cultivation in any one, supremely impor
tant though it may be—not even an ex
clusive attention to the two, three, or
four divisions of greatest importance;
but an attention to all;—greatest where
the value is greatest; less where the
value is less; least where the value is
least.
For the average man (not to
forget the cases in which peculiar apti
tude for some one department of know
ledge, rightly makes pursuit of that one
the bread-winning occupation)—for the
average man, we say, the desideratum is,
a training that approaches nearest to
perfection in the things which most sub
serve complete living, and falls more and
more below perfection in the things that
have more and more remote bearings on
complete living.
15
In regulating education by this stan
dard, there are some general considera
tions that should be ever present to us.
The worth of any kind of culture, as
aiding complete living, may be ‘either
necessary or more or less contingent.
There is knowledge of intrinsic value;
knowledge of quasi-intrinsic value ; and
knowledge of conventional value. Such
facts as that sensations of numbness and
tingling commonly precede paralysis,
that the resistance of water to a body
moving through it varies as the square of
the velocity, that chlorine is a disinfec
tant—these, and the truths of Science in
general, are of intrinsic value; they will
bear on human conduct ten thousand
years hence as they do now. The extra
knowledge of our own language, which
is given by an acquaintance with Latin
and Greek, may be considered to have a
value that is quasi-intrinsic: it must exist
for us and for other races whose lan
guages owe much to these sources; but
will last only as long as our languages
last. While that kind of information
which, in our schools, usurps the name
History—the mere tissue ci names and
dates and dead unmeaning events—has
a conventional value only : it has not
the remotest bearing on any of our
actions; and is of use only for the avoid
ance of those unpleasant criticisms
which current opinion passes upon its
absence. Of course, as those facts which
concern all mankind throughout all time
must be held of greater moment than
those which concern only a portion of
them during a limited era, and of far
greater moment than those which con
cern only a portion of them during the
continuance of a fashion; it follows that in
a rational estimate, knowledge of intrinsic
worth must, other things equal, take pre
cedence of knowledge, that is of quasiintrinsic or conventional worth.
�i6
EDUCATION
One further preliminary. Acquirement
of every kind has two values—value as
knowledge and value as discipline. Besides
its use for guiding conduct, the acqui
sition of each order of facts has also its
use as mental exercise; and its effects as
a preparative for complete living have to
be considered under both these heads.
These, then, are the general ideas with
which we must set out in discussing a
curriculum:—Life as divided into several
kinds of activity of successively decreas
ing importance; the worth of each order
of facts as regulating these several kinds
of activity, intrinsically, quasi-intrinsically,
and conventionally ; and their regulative
influences estimated both as knowledge
and discipline.
these, and various other pieces of infor
mation needful for the avoidance of
death or accident, it is ever learning.
And when, a few years later, the energies
go out in running, climbing, and jump
ing, in games of strength and games of
skill, we see in all these actions by which
the muscles are developed, the percep
tions sharpened, and the judgment
quickened, a preparation for the safe
conduct of the body among surrounding
objects and movements; and for meeting
those greater dangers that occasionally
occur in the lives of all. Being thus,
as we say, so well cared for by Nature,
this fundamental education needs com
paratively little care from us. What we are
chiefly called upon to see, is, that there
shall be free scope for gaining this
Happily, that all-important part of experience and receiving this discipline
education "which goes to secure direct —that there shall be no such thwarting
self-preservation, is in great part already of Nature as that by which stupid school
provided for. Too momentous to be left mistresses commonly prevent the girls in
to our blundering, Nature takes it into their charge from the spontaneous physi
her own hands. While yet in its nurse’s cal activities they would indulge in; and
arms, the infant, by hiding its face and so render them comparatively incapable
crying at the sight of a stranger, shows of taking care of themselves in circum
the dawning instinct to attain safety by stances of peril.
flying from that which is unknown and
This, however, is by no means all that
may be dangerous; and when it can is comprehended in the education that
walk, the terror it manifests if an un prepares for direct self-preservation.
familiar dog comes near, or the screams Besides guarding the body against
with which it runs to its mother, after mechanical damage or destruction, it
any startling sight or sound, shows this has to be guarded against injury from
instinct further developed. Moreover,
other causes—against the disease and
knowledge subserving direct self-preser death that follow breaches of physiologic
vation is that which it is chiefly busied law. For complete living it is necessary,
in acquiring from hour to hour. How not only that sudden annihilations of
to balance its body; how to control its life shall be warded off; but also that
movements so as to avoid collisions : there shall be escaped the incapacities
what objects are hard, and will hurt if and the slow annihilation which unwise
struck; what objects are heavy, and in habits entail. As, without health and
jure if they fall on the limbs; which energy, the industrial, the parental, the
things will bear the weight of the body,
social, and all other activities become
and which not; the pains inflicted by more or less impossible ; it is clear
fire, by missiles, by sharp instruments— that this secondary kind of direct self
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
preservation is only less important than
the primary kind; and that knowledge
tending to secure it should rank very
high.
It is true that here, too, guidance is
in some measure ready supplied. By
our various physical sensations and
desires, Nature has insured a tolerable
conformity to the chief requirements.
Fortunately for us, want of food, great
heat, extreme cold, produce promptings
too peremptory to be disregarded. And
would men habitually obey these and all
like promptings when less strong, com
paratively few evils would arise. If
fatigue of body or brain were in every
case followed by desistance; if the
oppression produced by a close atmos
phere always led to ventilation ; if there
were no eating without hunger, or drink
ing without thirst; then would the
system be but seldom out of working
order. But so profound an ignorance is
there of the laws of life, that men do not
even know that their sensations are their
natural guides, and (when not rendered
morbid by long-continued disobedience)
their trustworthy guides. So that though,
to speak teleologically, Nature has pro
vided efficient safeguards to health, lack
of knowledge makes them in a great
measure useless.
If any one doubts the importance of
an acquaintance with the principles of
physiology,as a means to complete living,
let him look around and see how many
men and women he can find in middle
or later life who are thoroughly well.
Only occasionally do we meet with an
example of vigorous health continued
to old age; hourly we meet with
examples of acute disorder, chronic
ailment, general debility, premature
‘decrepitude. Scarcely is there one to
whom you put the question, who has
not, in the course of his life, brought
17
upon himself illnesses which a little in
formation would have saved him from.
Here is a case of heart-disease consequent
on a rheumatic fever that followed reck
less exposure. There is a case of eyes
spoiled for life by over-study. Yesterday
the account was of one whose longenduring lameness was brought on by
continuing, spite of the pain, to use a
knee after it had been slightly injured.
And to-day we are told of another who
has had to lie by for years, because he
did not know that the palpitation he
suffered under resulted from overtaxed
brain. Now we hear of an irremediable
injury which followed some silly feat of
strength; and, again, of a constitution
that has never recovered from the effects
of excessive work needlessly undertaken.
While on every side we see the perpetual
minor ailments which accompany feeble
ness. Not to dwell on the pain, the
weariness, the gloom, the waste of time
and money thus entailed, only consider
how greatly ill-health hinders the dis
charge of all duties—makes business
often impossible, and always more diffi
cult ; produces an irritability fatal to the
right management of children; puts the
functions of citizenship out of the
question; and makes amusement a bore.
Is it not clear that the physical sins—
partly our forefathers’ and partly our own
—which produce this ill-health, deduct
more from complete living than anything
else ? and to a great extent make life a
failure and a burden instead of a bene
faction and a pleasure ?
Nor is this all. Life, besides being
thus immensely deteriorated, is also cut
short. It is not true, as we commonly
suppose, that after a disorder or disease
from which we have recovered, we are
as before. No disturbance of the normal
course of the functions can pass away
and leave things exactly as they were.
�ï8
EDUCATION
A permanent damage is done—not
immediately appreciable, it may be, but
still there; and along with other such
items which Nature in her strict account
keeping never drops, it will tell against
us to the inevitable shortening of our
days.
Through the accumulation of
small injuries it is that constitutions are
commonly undermined, and break down,
long before their time. And if we call
to mind how far the average .duration of
life falls below the possible duration, we
see how immense is the loss. When,
to the numerous partial deductions which
bad health entails, we add this great
final deduction, it results that ordinarily
one-half of life is thrown away.
Hence, knowledge which subserves
direct self-preservation by preventing
this loss of health, is of primary import
ance. We do not contend that possession
of such knowledge would by any means
wholly remedy the evil. It is clear that
in our present phase of civilisation, men’s
necessities often compel them to trans
gress. And it is further clear that, even
in the absence of such compulsion, their
inclinations would frequently lead them,
spite of their convictions, to sacrifice
future good to present gratification. But
we do contend that the right knowledge
impressed in the right way would effect
much ; and we further contend that as
the laws of health must be recognised
before they can be fully conformed to,
the imparting of such knowledge must
precede a more rational living—come
when that may. We infer that as vigorous
health and its accompanying high spirits
are larger elements of happiness than any
other things whatever, the teaching how to
maintain them is a teaching that yields
in moment to no other whatever. And
therefore we assert that such a course of
physiology as is needful for the compre
hension of its general truths, and their
bearings on daily conduct, is an all
essential part of a rational education.
Strange that the assertion should need
making! Stranger still that it should
need defending! Yet are there not a
few by whom such a proposition will be
received with something approaching to
derision.
Men who would blush if
caught saying Iphigenia instead of
Iphigenia, or would resent as an insult
any imputation of ignorance respecting
the fabled labours of a fabled demi-god,
show not the slightest shame in confess
ing that they do not know where the
Eustachian tubes are, what are the
actions of the spinal cord, what is
the normal rate of pulsation, or how the
lungs are inflated. While anxious that
their sons should be well up in the
superstitions of two thousand years ago,
they care not that they should be taught
anything about the structure and func
tions of their own bodies—nay, even wish
them not to be so taught. So overwhelm
ing is the influence of established routine !
So terribly in our education does the
ornamental over-ride the useful 1
We need not insist on the value of
that knowledge which aids indirect self
preservation by facilitating the gaining
of a livelihood. This is admitted by all;
and, indeed, by the mass is perhaps too
exclusively regarded as the end of
education. But while every one is ready
to endorse the abstract proposition that
instruction fitting youths for the bus'ness
of life is of high importance, or even
to consider it of supreme importance;
yet scarcely any inquire what instruction
will so fit them. It is true that reading,
writing, and arithmetic are taught with
an intelligent appreciation of their uses.
But when we have said this we have said
nearly all. While the great bulk of what
else is acquired has no bearing on the
industrial activities, an immensity of
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OE MOST WORTH?
information that has a direct bearing on
the industrial activities is entirely passed
over.
For, leaving out only some very small
classes, what are all men employed in ?
They are employed in the production,
preparation and distribution of com
modities. And on what does efficiency
in the production, preparation, and dis
tribution of commodities depend ? It
depends on the use of methods fitted to
the respective natures of these com
modities ; it depends on an adequate
acquaintance with their physical, chemi
cal, and vital properties, as the case may
be ; that is, it depends on Science. This
order of knowledge which is in great
part ignored in our school-courses, is the
order of knowledge underlying the right
performance of those processes by which
civilised life is made possible. Undeni
able as is this truth, there seems to be
no living consciousness of it: its very
familiarity makes it unregarded. To
give due weight to our argument, we
must, therefore, realise this truth to the
reader by a rapid review of the facts.
Passing over the most abstract science,
Logic, on the due guidance by which,
however, the large producer or distributor
depends, knowingly or unknowingly, for
success in his business-forecasts, we come
first to Mathematics. Of this, the most
general division, dealing with number,
guides all industrial activities : be they
those by which processes are adjusted,
or estimates framed, or commodities
bought and sold, or accounts kept. No
one needs to have the value of this
division of abstract science insisted upon.
For the higher arts of construction,
some acquaintance with the more special
division of Mathematics is indispensable.
The village carpenter, who lays out his
work by empirical rules, equally with the
builder of a Britannia Bridge, makes
I?
hourly reference to the laws of space
relations. The surveyor who measures
the land purchased; the architect in
designing a mansion to be built on it;
the builder when laying out the founda
tions ; the masons in cutting the stones ;
and the various artizans who put up the
fittings ; are all guided by geometrical
truths. Railway-making is regulated from
beginning to end by geometry ; alike in
the preparation of plans and sections ; in
staking out the line ; in the mensuration
of cuttings and embankments ; in the
designing and building of bridges,
culverts, viaducts, tunnels, stations.
Similarly with the harbours, docks,
piers, and various engineering and
architectural works that fringe the coasts
and overspread the country, as -well as
the mines that run underneath it. And
now-a-days, even the farmer, for the
correct laying-out of his drains, has
recourse to the level—that is, to
geometrical principles.
Turn next to the Abstract-Concrete
sciences. On the application of the
simplest of these, Mechanics, depends
the success of modem manufactures.
The properties of the lever, the wheeland-axle, etc., are recognised in every
machine, and to machinery in these
times we owe all production. Trace the
history of the breakfast-roll. The soil
out of which it came was drained with
machine-made tiles; the surface was
turned over by a machine ; the wheat
was reaped, thrashed, and winnowed by
machines ; by machinery it was ground
and bolted ; and had the flour been sent
to Gosport, it might have been made
into biscuits by a machine. Look round
the room in which you sit. If modern,
probably the bricks in its walls were
machine-made ; and by machinery the
flooring was sawn and planed, the
mantel-shelf sawn and polished, the
�2Cf
EDUCATION
paper-hangings made and printed. The
veneer on the table, the turned legs of
the chairs, the carpet, the curtains, are
all products of machinery. Your clothing
—plain, figured, or printed—is it not
wholly woven, nay, perhaps even sewed,
by machinery ? And the volume you
are reading—are not its leaves fabricated
by one machine and covered with these
words by another ? Add to which that
for the means of distribution over both
land and sea, we are similarly indebted.
And then observe that according as
knowledge of mechanics is well or ill
applied to these ends, comes success or
failure. The engineer who miscalculates
the strength of materials, builds a bridge
that breaks down. The manufacturer
who uses a bad machine cannot compete
with another whose machine wastes less
in friction and inertia. The ship-builder
adhering to the old model, is outsailed
by one who builds on the mechanicallyjustified wave-line principle. And as the
ability of a nation to hold its own against
other nations, depends on the skilled
activity of its units, we see that on
mechanical knowledge may turn the
national fate.
On ascending from the divisions of
Abstract-Concrete science dealing with
molar forces, to those divisions of it
which deal with molecular forces, we
come to another vast series of applica
tions. To this group of sciences joined
with the preceding groups we owe the
steam-engine, which does the work
of millions of labourers. That section
of physics which formulates the laws of
heat, has taught us how to economise
fuel in various industries : how to increase
the produce of smelting furnaces by
substituting the hot for the cold blast ;
how to ventilate mines ; how to prevent
explosions by using the safety-lamp ; and,
through the thermometer, how to regulate
innumerable processes. That section
which has the phenomena of light for its
subject, gives eyes to the old and the
myopic; aids through the microscope in
detecting diseases and adulterations;
and, by improved lighthouses, prevents
shipwrecks. Researches in electricity
and magnetism have saved innumerable
lives and incalculable property through
the compass ; have subserved many arts
by the electrotype; and now, in the
telegraph, have supplied us with an
agency by which, for the future, mercan
tile transactions will be regulated and
political intercourse carried on. While
in the details of indoor life, from the
improved kitchen-range up to the stereo
scope on the drawing-room table, the
applications of advanced physics under
lie our comforts and gratifications.
Still more numerous are the applica
tions of Chemistry. The bleacher, the
dyer, the calico-printer, are severally
occupied in processes that are well or ill
done according as they do or do not
conform to chemical laws. Smelting of
copper, tin, zinc, lead, silver, iron, must
be guided by chemistry. Sugar-refining,
gas-making, soap-boiling, gunpowder
manufacture, are operations all partly
chemical, as are likewise those which
produce glass and porcelain. Whether
the distiller’s wort stops at the alcoholic
fermentation or passes into the acetous,
is a chemical question on which hangs
his profit or loss; and the brewer, if his
business is extensive, finds it pay to keep
a chemist on his premises. Indeed, there
is now scarcely any manufacture over
some part of which chemistry does not
preside. Nay, in these times even agri
culture, to be profitably carried on, must
have like guidance. The analysis of
manures and soils; the disclosure of
their respective adaptations; the use of
gypsum or other substances for fixing
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
ammonia; the utilisation of coprolites;
the production of artificial manures—all
these are boons of chemistry which it
behoves the farmer to acquaint himself
with. Be it in the lucifer match, or in
disinfected sewage, or in photographs—
in bread made without fermentation, or
perfumes extracted from refuse, we may
perceive that chemistry affects all our
industries; and that, therefore, knowledge
of it concerns every one who is directly or
indirectly connected with our industries.
Of the Concrete sciences, we come first
to Astronomy. Out of this has grown
that art of navigation which has made
possible the enormous foreign commerce
that supports a large part of our popula
tion, while supplying us with many neces
saries and most of our luxuries.
Geology, again, is a science knowledge
of which greatly aids industrial success.
Now that iron ores are so large a source
of wealth ; now that the duration of our
coal-supply has become a question of
great interest; now that we have a College
of Mines and a Geological Survey , it is
scarcely needful to enlarge on the truth
that the study of the Earth’s crust is
important to our material welfare.
And then the science of life—Biology:
does not this, too, bear fundamentally on
these processes of indirect self-preserva
tion ? With what we ordinarily call
manufactures, it has, indeed, little con
nection ; but with the all-essential manu
facture—that of food—it is inseparably
connected. As agriculture must conform
its methods to the phenomena of vegetal
and animal life, it follows that the science
of these phenomena is the rational basis
of agriculture. Various biological truths
have indeed been empirically established
and acted upon by farmers, while yet
there has been no conception of them as
science; such as that particular manures
are suited to particular plants; that crops
21
of certain kinds unfit the soil for other
crops ; that horses cannot do good work
on poor food ; that such and such diseases
of cattle and sheep are caused by such
and such conditions. These, and the
every-day knowledge which the agri
culturist gains by experience respecting
the management of plants and animals,
constitute his stock of biological facts ;
on the largeness of which greatly depends
his success. And as these biological
facts, scanty, indefinite, rudimentary,
though they are, aid him so essentially ;
judge what must be the value to him of
such facts when they become positive,
definite, and exhaustive. Indeed, even
now we may see the benefits that rational
biology is conferring on him. The truth
that the production of animal heat implies
waste of substance, and that, therefore,
preventing loss of heat prevents the need
for extra food—a purely theoretical con
clusion—now guides the fattening of
cattle : it is found that by keeping cattle
warm, fodder is saved. Similarly with
respect to variety of food. The experi
ments of physiologists have shown that
not only is change of diet beneficial, but
that digestion is facilitated by a mixture
of ingredients in each meal. The dis
covery that a disorder known as “ the
staggers,” of which many thousands of
sheep have died annually, is caused by
an entozoon which presses on the brain,
and that if the creature is extracted
through the softened place in the skull
which marks its position, the sheep
usually recovers, is another debt which
agriculture owes to biology.
Yet one more science have we to note
as bearing directly on industrial success
—the Science of Society. Men who
daily look at the state of the moneymarket ; glance over prices current ; dis
cuss the probable crops of corn, cotton,
sugar, wool, silk ; weigh the chances of
�22
EDUCATION
war; and from these data decide on
their mercantile operations; are students
of social science ; empirical and blunder
ing students it may be; but still, students
who gain the prizes or are plucked of
their profits, according as they do or do
not reach the right conclusion. Not only
the manufacturer and the merchant must
guide their transactions by calculations
of supply and demand, based on numerous
facts, and tacitly recognising sundry
general principles of social action ; but
even the retailer must do the like; his
prosperity very greatly depending upon
the correctness of his judgments respect
ing the future wholesale prices and the
future rates of consumption. Manifestly,
whoever takes part in the entangled
commercial activities of a community, is
vitally interested in understanding the
laws according to which those activities
vary.
Thus, to all such as are occupied in
the production, exchange, or distribution
of commodities, acquaintance with
Science in some of its departments, is of
fundamental importance.
Each man
who is immediately or remotely impli
cated in any form of industry, (and few
are not,) has in some way to deal with
the mathematical, physical, and chemical
properties of things; perhaps, also, has
a direct interest in biology ; and certainly
has in sociology. Whether he does or
does not succeed well in that indirect
self-preservation which we call getting a
good livelihood, depends in a great
degree on his knowledge of one or more
of these sciences: not, it may be, a
rational knowledge; but still a know
ledge, though empirical. For what we
call learning a business, really implies
learning the science involved in it;
though not perhaps under the name of
science. And hence a grounding in
science is of great importance, both
because it prepares for all this, and
because rational knowledge has an im
mense superiority over empirical know
ledge. Moreover, not only is scientific
culture requisite for each, that he may
understand the how and the why of the
things and processes with which he is
concerned as maker or distributor; but
it is often of much moment that he
should understand the how and the why
of various other things and processes.
In this age of joint-stock undertakings,
nearly every man above the labourer is
interested as capitalist in some other
occupation than his own ; and, as thus
interested, his profit or loss depends on
his knowledge of the sciences bearing on
this other occupation. Here is a mine,
in the sinking of which many shareholders
ruined themselves, from not knowing that
a certain fossil belonged to the old red
sand stone, below which no coal is found.
Numerous attempts have been made to
construct perpetual-motion engines in the
hope of superseding steam ; but had
those who supplied the money, under
stood the general law of the conservation
and equivalence of forces, they might
have had better balances at their bankers.
Daily are men induced to aid in carrying
Out inventions which a mere tyro in
science could show to be futile. Scarcely
a locality but has its history of fortunes
thrown away over some impossible pro
ject.
And if already the loss from want of
science is so frequent and so great, still
greater and more frequent will it be to
those who hereafter lack science. Just
as fast as productive processes become
more scientific, which competition will
inevitably make them do; and just as
fast as joint-stock undertakings spread,
which they certainly will; so fast must
scientific knowledge grow necessary to
every one. That which our school-courses
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
leave almost entirely out, we thus find to
be that which most nearly concerns the
business of life. Our industries would
cease, were it not for the information which
men begin to acquire, as they best may,
after their education is said to be
finished. And were it not for the infor
mation, from age to age accumulated
and spread by unofficial means, these
industries would never have existed.
Had there been no teaching but such as
goes on in our public schools, England
would now be what it was in feudal
times.
That increasing acquaintance
with the laws of phenomena, which has
through successive ages enabled us to
subjugate Nature to our needs, and in
these days gives the common labourer
comforts which a few centuries ago kings
could not purchase, is scarcely in any
degree owed to the appointed means of
instructing our youth. The vital know
ledge—that by which we have grown as
a nation to what we are, and which now
underlies our whole existence, is a know
ledge that has got itself taught in nooks
and corners; while the ordained agencies
for teaching have been mumbling little
else but dead formulas.
We come now to the third great divi
sion of human activities—a division for
which no preparation whatever is made.
If by some strange chance not a vestige
of us descended to the remote future
save a pile of our school-books or some
college examination-papers, we may
imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the
period would be on finding in them no
sign that the learners were ever likely
to be parents. “ This must have been
the curriculum for their celibates,” we
may fancy him concluding. “ I perceive
here an elaborate preparation for many
things; especially for reading the books
of extinct nations and of co-existing
23
nations (from which indeed it seems
clear that these people had very little
worth reading in their own tongue); but
I find no reference whatever to the
bringing up of children. They could
not have been so absurd as to omit all
training for this gravest of responsibilities.
Evidently then, this was the school
course of one of their monastic orders.”
Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact,
that though on the treatment of offspring
depend their lives or deaths, and their
moral welfare or ruin ; yet not one word
of instruction on the treatment of off
spring is ever given to those who will by
and by be parents ? Is it not monstrous
that the fate of a new generation should
be left to the chances of unreasoning
custom, impulse, fancy—joined with the
suggestions of ignorant nurses and the
prejudiced counsel of grandmothers ?
If a merchant commenced business with
out any knowledge of arithmetic and
book-keeping, we should exclaim at his
folly, and look for disastrous conse
quences. Or if, before studying anatomy,
a man set up as a surgical operator, we
should wonder at his audacity and pity
his patients. But that parents should
begin the difficult task of rearing children
without ever having given a thought to
the principles—physical, moral, or in
tellectual—which ought to guide them,
excites neither surprise at the actors nor
pity for their victims.
To tens of thousands that are killed,
add hundreds of thousands that survive
with feeble constitutions, and millions
that grow up with constitutions not so
strong as they should be; and you will
have some idea of the curse inflicted on
their offspring by parents ignorant of the
laws of life. Do but consider for a
moment that the regimen to which
children are subject, is hourly telling
upon them to their life-long injury or
�24
EDUCATION
benefit; and that there are twenty ways
of going wrong to one way of going
right; and you will get some idea of the
enormous mischief that is almost every
where inflicted by the thoughtless, hap
hazard system in common use. Is it
decided that a boy shall be clothed in
some flimsy short dress, and be allowed
to go playing about with limbs reddened
by cold ? The decision will tell on his
whole future existence—either in ill
nesses ; or in stunted growth; or in
deficient energy; or in a maturity less
vigorous than it ought to have been,
and in consequent hindrances to success
and happiness. Are children doomed
to a monotonous dietary, or a dietary
that is deficient in nutritiveness ?
Their ultimate physical power and their
efficiency as men and women, will in
evitably be more or less diminished by
it. Are they forbidden vociferous play,
or (being too ill-clothed to bear exposure)
are they kept in-doors in cold weather ?
They are certain to fall below that
measure of health and strength to which
they would else have attained. When
sons and daughters grow up sickly and
feeble, parents commonly regard the
event as a misfortune—as a visitation of
Providence. Thinking after the prevalent
chaotic fashion, they assume that these
evils come without causes; or that the
causes are supernatural. Nothing of the
kind. In some cases the causes are
doubtless inherited; but in most cases
foolish regulations are the causes. Very
generally, parents themselves are respon
sible for all this pain, this debility, this
depression, this misery. They have
undertaken to control the lives of their
offspring from hour to hour; with cruel
carelessness they have neglected to learn
anything about these vital processes
which they are unceasingly affecting by
their commands and prohibitions; in
utter ignorance of the simplest physiologic
laws, they have been year by year under
mining the constitutions of their children;
and have so inflicted disease and pre
mature death, not only on them but on
their descendants.
Equally great are the ignorance and
the consequent injury, when we turn
from physical training to moral training.
Consider the young mother and her
nursery-legislation. But a few years ago
she was at school, where her memory
was crammed with words, and names,
and dates, and her reflective faculties
scarcely in the slightest degree exercised
—where not one idea was given her
respecting the methods of dealing with
the opening mind of childhood; and
where her discipline did not in the least
fit her for thinking out methods of her
own. The intervening years have been
passed in practising music, in fancy-work,
in novel-reading, and in party-going : no
thought having yet been given to the
grave responsibilities of maternity; and
scarcely any of that solid intellectual
culture obtained which would be some
preparation for such responsibilities. And
now see her with an unfolding human
character committed to her charge—see
her profoundly ignorant of the pheno
mena with which she has to deal, under
taking to do that which can be done but
imperfectly even with the aid of the
profoundest knowledge.
She knows
nothing about the nature of the emotions,
their order of evolution, their functions,
or where use ends and abuse begins.
She is under the impression that some
of the feelings are wholly bad, which is
not true of any one of them; and that
others are good however far they may be
carried, which is also not true of any one
of them. And then, ignorant as she is
of the structure she has to deal with, she
is equally ignorant of the effects produced
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
on it by this or that treatment. What
ran be more inevitable than the disas
trous results we see hourly arising ?
lacking knowledge of mental pheno
mena, with their cause and consequences,
her interference is frequently more
mischievous than absolute passivity would
have been. This and that kind of action,
which are quite normal and beneficial,
she perpetually thwarts; and so dimin
ishes the child’s happiness and profit,
injures its temper and her own, and pro
duces estrangement. Deeds which she
thinks it desirable to encourage, she gets
performed by threats and bribes, or by
exciting a desire for applause : consider
ing little what the inward motive may
be, so long as the outward conduct con
forms ; and thus cultivating hypocrisy,
and fear, and selfishness, in place of good
feeling. While insisting on truthfulness,
she constantly sets an example of untruth,
by threatening penalties which she does
not inflict. While inculcating self-con
trol, she hourly visits on her little ones,
angry scoldings for acts undeserving of
them. She has not the remotest idea
that in the nursery, as in the world, that
alone is the truly salutary discipline
which visits on all conduct, good and
bad, the natural consequences—the con
sequences, pleasurable or painful, which
in the nature of things such conduct
tends to bring.
Being thus without
theoretic guidance, and quite incapable
of guiding herself by tracing the mental
processes going on in her children, her
rule is impulsive, inconsistent, mis
chievous ; and would indeed be generally
ruinous, were it not that the overwhelm
ing tendency of the growing mind to
assume the moral type of the race,
usually subordinates all minor influences.
And then the culture of the intellect—
is not this, too, mismanaged in a similar
manner ? Grant that the phenomena of
25
intelligence conform to laws; grant that
the evolution of intelligence in a child
also conforms to laws; and it follows
inevitably that education cannot be
rightly guided without a knowledge of
these laws. To suppose that you can
properly regulate this process of forming
and accumulating ideas, without under
standing the nature of the process, is
absurd. How widely, then, must teach
ing as it is, differ from teaching as it
should be; when hardly any parents,
and but few tutors, know anything about
psychology. As might be expected,
the established system is grievously at
fault, alike in matter and in manner.
While the right class of facts is withheld,
the wrong class is forcibly administered
in the wrong way and in the wrong order.
Under that common limited idea of
education which confines it to knowledge
gained from books, parents thrust primers
into the hands of their little ones years
too soon, to their great injury.. Not
recognising the truth that the function of
books is supplementary—that they form
an indirect means to knowledge when
direct means fail—a means of seeing
through other men what you cannot see for
yourself; teachers are eager to give second
hand facts in place of first-hand facts.
Not perceiving the enormous value of
that spontaneous education which goes
on in early years—not perceiving that a
child’s restless observation, instead of
being ignored or checked, should be
diligently ministered to, and made as
accurate and complete as possible;
they insist on occupying its eyes and
thoughts with things that are, for the
time being, incomprehensible and
repugnant. Possessed by a superstition
which worships the symbols of know
ledge instead of knowledge itself, they
do not see that only when his acquain
tance with the objects and processes of
�26
EDUCATION
the household, the streets, and the fields,
is becoming tolerably exhaustive—only
then should a child be introduced to the
new sources of information which books
supply: and this, not only because
immediate cognition is of far greater
value than mediate cognition; but also,
because the words contained in books
can be rightly interpreted into ideas,
only in proportion to the antecedent
experience of things.
Observe next,
that this formal instruction, far too soon
commenced, is carried on with but little
reference to the laws of mental develop
ment. Intellectual progress is of necessity
from the concrete to the abstract. But
regardless of this, highly abstract studies,
such as grammar, which should come
quite late, are begun quite early. Political
geography, dead and uninteresting to a
child, and which should be an appendage
of sociological studies, is commenced
betimes; while physical geography, com
prehensible and comparatively attractive
to a child, is in great part passed over.
Nearly every subject dealt with is arranged
in abnormal order : definitions and rules
and principles being put first, instead of
being disclosed, as they are in the order
of nature, through the study of cases.
And then, pervading the whole, is .the
vicious system of rote learning—a system
of sacrificing the spirit to the letter. See
the results. What with perceptions
unnaturally dulled by early thwarting,
and a coerced attention to books—what
with the mental confusion produced by
teaching subjects before they can be
understood, and in each of them giving
generalisations before the facts of which
they are the generalisations—what with
making the pupil a mere passive recipient
of others’ ideas, and not in the least
leading him to be an active inquirer or
self-instructor—and what with taxing the
faculties to excess ; there are very few
minds that become as efficient as they
might be.
Examinations being once
passed, books are laid aside ; the greater
part of what has been acquired, being
unorganised, soon drops out of recollec
tion ; what remains is mostly inert—the
art of applying knowledge not having
been cultivated; and there is but little
power either of accurate observation or
independent thinking. To all which
add, that while much of the information
gained is of relatively small value, an
immense mass of information of trans
cendent value is entirely passed over.
Thus we find the facts to be such as
might have been inferred a priori. The
training of children—physical, moral,
and intellectual—is dreadfully defective.
And in great measure it is so, because
parents are devoid of that knowledge
by which this training can alone be
rightly guided. What is to be expected
when one of the most intricate of
problems is undertaken by those who
have given scarcely a thought to the
principles on which its solution depends?
For shoe-making or house-building, for
the management of a ship or a loco
motive engine, a long apprenticeship is
needful. Is it, then, that the unfolding
of a human being in body and mind, is
so comparatively simple a process, that
any one may superintend and regulate
it with no preparation whatever ? If not
—if the process is, with one exception,
more complex than any in Nature, and
the task of ministering to it one of
surpassing difficulty; is it not madness
to make no provision for such a task ?
Better sacrifice accomplishments than
omit this all-essential instruction. When
a father, acting on false dogmas adopted
without examination, has alienated his
sons, driven them into rebellion by his
harsh treatment, ruined them, and made
himself miserable ; he might reflect that
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
the study of Ethology would have been
worth pursuing, even at the cost of
knowing nothing about Asschylus. When
a mother is mourning over a first-born
that has sunk under the sequelae of
scarlet-fever—when perhaps a candid
medical man has confirmed her suspicion
that her child would have recovered had
not its system been enfeebled by over
study—when she is prostrate under the
pangs of combined grief and remorse;
it is but small consolation that she can
read Dante in the original.
Thus we see that for regulating the
third great division of human activities,
a knowledge of the laws of life is the one
thing needful. Some acquaintance with
the first principles of physiology and the
elementary truths of psychology, is indis
pensable for the right bringing up of
children.; We doubt not that many
will read this assertion with a smile.
That parents in general should be ex
pected to acquire a knowledge of subjects
so abstruse, will seem to them an absur
dity. And if we proposed that an
exhaustive knowledge of these subjects
should be obtained by all fathers and
mothers, the absurdity would indeed be
glaring enough. But we do not. General
principles only, accompanied by such
illustrations as may be needed to make
them understood, would suffice. And
these might be readily taught—if not
rationally, then dogmatically. Be this
as it may, however, here are the indispu
table facts:—that the development of
children in mind and body follows
certain laws; that unless these laws are
in some degree conformed to by parents,
death is inevitable; that unless they are
in a great degree conformed to, there
must result serious physical and mental
defects; and that only when they are
completely conformed to, can a perfect
maturity he reached.
Judge, then,
27
whether all who may one day be parents,
should not strive with some anxiety to
learn what these laws are.
From the parental functions let us
pass now to the functions of the citizen.
We have here to inquire what knowledge
fits a man for the discharge of these
functions. It cannot be alleged that the
need of knowledge fitting him for these
functions is wholly overlooked; for our
school-courses contain certain studies
which, nominally at least, bear upon
political and social duties. Of these
the only one that occupies a prominent
place is History.
But, as already hinted, the information
commonly given under this head, is
almost valueless for purposes of gui
dance. Scarcely any of the facts set down
in our school-histories, and very few of
those contained in the more elaborate
works written for adults, illustrate the
right principles of political action.
The biographies of monarchs (and our
children learn little else) throw scarcely
any light upon the science of society.
Familiarity with court intrigues, plots,
usurpations, or the like, and with all the
personalities accompanying them, aids
very little in elucidating the causes of
national progress. We read of some
squabble for power, that it led to a
pitched battle ; that such and such were
the names of the generals and their
leading subordinates; that they had
each so many thousand infantry and
cavalry, and so many cannon : that they
arranged their forces in this and that
order; that they manoeuvred, attacked,
and fell back in certain ways; that at
this part of the day such disasters were
sustained, and at that such advantages
gained ; that in one particular movement
some leading officer fell, while in another
a certain regiment was decimated; that
�28
EDUCATION
after all the changing fortunes of the
fight, the victory was gained by this or
that army ; and that so many were killed
and wounded on each side, and so many
captured by the conquerors. And now,
out of the accumulated details making
up the narrative, say which it is that
helps you in deciding on your conduct
as a citizen. Supposing even that you
diligently read, not only “The Fifteen
Decisive Battles of the World,” but
accounts of all other battles that history
mentions; how much more judicious
would your vote be at the next election ?
“But these are facts—interesting facts,”
you say. Without doubt they are facts
(such, at least, as are not wholly or
partially fictions); and to many they
may be interesting facts. But this by
no means implies that they are valuable.
Factitious or morbid opinion often gives
seeming value to things that have scarcely
any. A tulipomaniac will not part with
a choice bulb for its weight in gold.
To another man an ugly piece of cracked
old china seems his most desirable
possession. And there are those who
give high prices for relics of celebrated
murderers. Will it be contended that
these tastes are any measure of value in
the things that gratify them ? If not,
then it must be admitted that the liking
felt for certain classes of historical facts
is no proof of their worth; and that we
must test their worth, as we test the
worth of other facts, by asking to what
uses they are applicable. Were some
one to tell you that your neighbour’s cat
kittened yesterday, you would say the
information was valueless. Fact though
it may be, you would call it an utterly
useless fact—a fact that could in no way
influence your actions in life—a fact that
would not help you in learning how to
live completely. Well, apply the same
test to the great mass of historical facts,
and you will get the same result. They
are facts from which no conclusions can
be drawn — unorganisable facts; and
therefore facts of no service in establishing
principles of conduct, which is the chief
use of facts. Read them, if you like,
for amusement; but do not flatter
yourself they are instructive.
That which constitutes History,
properly so called, is in great part
omitted from works on the subject.
Only of late years have historians com
menced giving us, in any considerable
quantity, the truly valuable information.
As in past ages the king was everything
and the people nothing; so, in past
histories the doings of the king fill the
entire picture, to which the national life
forms but an obscure background.
While only now, when the welfare of
nations rather than the rulers is becoming
the dominant idea, are historians beginning
to occupy themselves with the phenomena
of social progress. The thing it really
concerns us to know, is the natural
history of society. We want all facts
which help us to understand how a
nation has grown and organised itself.
Among these, let us of course have an
account of its government; with as little
as may be of gossip about the men who
officered it, and as much as possible
about the structure, principles, methods,
prejudices, corruptions, etc., which it
exhibited; and let this account include
not only the nature and actions of the
central government, but also those of
local governments, down to their minutest
ramifications. Let us of course also have
a parallel description of the ecclesiastical
government—its organisation, its con
duct, its power, its relations to the State;
and accompanying this, the ceremonial,
creed, and religious ideas—not only
those nominally believed, but those
really believed and acted upon. Let us
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
at the same time be informed of the
Control exercised by class over class, as
displayed in social observances—in titles,
¡Salutations, and forms of address. Let
us know, too, what were all the other
customs which regulated the popular life
out of doors and in-doors ; including
those concerning the relations of the
sexes, and the relations of parents to
children. The superstitions, also, from
the more important myths down to the
charms in common use, should be
indicated. Next should cornea delinea
tion of the industrial system : showing to
what extent the division of labour was
carried ; how trades were regulated,
whether by caste, guilds, or otherwise;
what was the connection between
employers and employed; what were
the agencies for distributing commo
dities; what were the means of com
munication ; what was the circulating
medium. Accompanying all which should
be given an account of the industrial
arts technically considered : stating the
processes in use, and the quality of the
products. Further, the intellectual con
dition of the nation in its various grades
should be depicted ; not only with
respect to the kind and amount of
education, but with respect to the
progress made in science, and the pre
vailing manner of thinking. The degree
of æsthetic culture, as displayed in
architecture, sculpture, painting, dress,
music, poetry, and fiction, should be
described. Nor should there be omitted
a sketch of the daily lives of the people—
their food, their homes, and their amuse
ments. And lastly, to connect the whole,
should be exhibited the morals, theo
retical and practical, of all classes : as
indicated in their laws, habits, proverbs,
deeds. * hese facts, given with as much
T
brevity as consists with clearness and
accuracy, should be so grouped and
29
arranged that they may be comprehended
in their ensemble, and contemplated as
mutually-dependent parts of one great
whole. The aim should be so to present
them that men may readily trace the
consensus subsisting among them; with
the view of learning what social
phenomena co-exist with what others.
And then the corresponding delineations
of succeeding ages should be so managed
as to show how each belief, institution,
custom, and arrangement was modified;
and how the consensus of preceding
structures and functions was developed
into the consensus of succeeding ones.
Such alone is the kind of information
respecting past times, which can be of
service to the citizen for the regulation
of his conduct. The only history that
is of practical value, is what may be
called Descriptive Sociology. And the
highest office which the historian can
discharge, is that of so narrating the lives
of nations, as to furnish materials for a
Comparative Sociology; and for the
subsequent determination of the ultimate
laws to which social phenomena con
form.
But now mark, that even supposing
an adequate stock of this truly valuable
historical knowledge has been acquired,
it is of comparatively little use without
the key. And the key is to be found
only in Science. In the absence of the
generalisations of biology and psychology,
rational interpretation of social pheno
mena is impossible. Only in proportion
as men draw certain rude, empirical
inferences respecting human nature, are
they enabled to understand even the
simplest facts of social life: as, for
instance, the relation between supply and
demand. And if the most elementary
truths of sociology cannot be reached
until some knowledge is obtained of how
men generally think, feel, and act under
�3©
EDUCATION
given circumstances; then it is manifest
that there can oe nothing like a wide
comprehension of sociology, unless
through a competent acquaintance with
man in all his faculties, bodily and
mental.
Consider the matter in the
. abstract, and this conclusion is selfevident. Thus :—Society is made up of
individuals; ail that is done in society is
done by the combined actions of indi
viduals ; and therefore, in individual
actions only can be found the solutions
of social phenomena. But the actions
of individuals depend on the laws of
their natures; and their actions cannot
be understood until these laws are under
stood.
These laws, however, when
reduced to their simplest expressions,
prove to be corollaries from the laws of
body and mind in general. Hence it
follows, that biology and psychology are
indispensable as interpreters of sociology.
Or, to state the conclusions still more
simply : — all social phenomena are
phenomena of life—are the most com
plex manifestations of life—must con
form to the laws of life—and can be
understood only when the laws of life
are understood. Thus, then, for the
regulation of this fourth division of
human activities, »we are, as before,
dependent on Science. Of the know
ledge commonly imparted in educational
courses, very little is of service for guiding
a man in his conduct as a citizen. Only
a small part of the history he reads is of
practical value; and of this small part he
is not prepared to make proper use. He
lacks not only the materials for, but the
very conception of, descriptive sociology;
and he also lacks those generalisations
of the organic sciences, without which
even descriptive sociology can give him
but small aid.
And now we come to that remaining
division of human life which includes the
relaxations and amusements filling leisure
hours. After considering what training
best fits for self-preservation, for the
obtainment of sustenance, for the dis
charge of parental duties, and for the
regulation of social and political conduct;
we have now to consider what training
best fits for the miscellaneous ends n6t
included in these—for the enjoyments of
Nature, of Literature, and of the Fine
Arts, in all their forms. Postponing
them as we do to things that bear more
vitally upon human welfare; and bringing
everything, as we have, to the test of
actual value ; it will perhaps be inferred
that we are inclined to slight these less
essential things. No greater mistake
could be made, however. We yield to
none in the value we attach to aesthetic
culture and its pleasures.
Without
painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and
the emotions produced by natural beauty
of every kind, life would lose half its
charm. So far from regarding the
training and gratification of the tastes
as unimportant, we believe that in time to
come they will occupy a much larger share
of human life than now. When the forces
of Nature have been fully cojiquered to
man’s use—when the means of produc
tion have been brought to perfection—
when labour has been economised to
the highest degree—when education has
been so systematised that a preparation
for the more essential activities may be
made with comparative rapidity—and
when, consequently, there is a great
increase of spare time; then will the
beautiful, both in Art and Nature, rightly
fill a large space in the minds of all.
But it is one thing to approve of
aesthetic culture as largely conducive to
human happiness; and another thing to
admit that it is a fundamental requisite
to human happiness. However important
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
it may be, it must yield precedence
to those kinds of culture which bear
directly upon daily duties. As before
hinted, literature and the fine arts are
made possible by those activities which
make individual and social life possible ;
and manifestly, that which is made
possible, must be postponed to that
which makes it possible. A florist
cultivates a plant for the sake of its
flower ; and regards the roots and leaves
as of value, chiefly because they are
instrumental in producing the flower.
But while, as an ultimate product, the
flower is the thing to which everything
else is subordinate, the florist has learnt
that the root and leaves ase intrinsically
of greater importance ; because on them
the evolution of the flower depends. He
bestows every care in rearing a healthy
plant; and knows it would be folly if,
in his anxiety to obtain the flower, he
were to neglect the plant. Similarly
in thé case before us.
Architecture,
sculpture, painting, music, and poetry,
may truly be called the efflorescence of
civilised life. But even supposing they
are of such transcendent worth as to
subordinatethe civilised life out of which
they grow^vhich can hardly be asserted),
it will still be admitted that the produc
tion of a healthy civilised life must be
the first condition ; and that culture
subserving this must occupy the highest
place.
And here we see most distinctly the
vice of our educational system.
It
neglects the plant for the sake of the
flower. In anxiety for elegance, it
forgets substance. While it gives no
knowledge conducive to self-preservation
—while of knowledge that facilitates
gaining a livelihood it gives but the
rudiments, and leaves the greater part
to be picked up any how in after life—
while for the discharge'of parental func
31
tions it makes not the slightest provision
—and while for the duties of citizenship
it prepares by imparting a mass of facts,
most of which are irrelevant, and the rest
without a key; it is diligent in teaching
whatever adds to refinement, polish,
éclat. Fully as we may admit that ex
tensive acquaintance with modern lan
guages is a valuable accomplishment,
which, through reading, conversation,
and travel, aids in giving a certain finish;
it by no means follows that this result
is rightly purchased at the cost of the
vitally important knowledge sacrificed to
it. Supposing it true that classical edu
cation conduces to elegance and correct
ness of style; it cannot be said that
elegance and correctness of style are
comparable in importance to a familiarity
with the principles that should guide the
rearing of children. Grant that the
taste may be improved by reading the
poetry written in extinct languages; yet
it is not to be inferred that such im
provement of taste is equivalent in value
to an acquaintance with the laws of
health. Accomplishments, the fine arts,
belles-lettres, and all those things which,
as we say, constitute the efflorescence of
civilisation, should be wholly subordi
nate to that instruction and discipline on
which civilisation rests. As they occupy
the leisure part of life, so should they
occupy the leisure part of education.
Recognising thus the true position of
aesthetics, and holding that while the
cultivation of them should form a part
of education from its commencement,
such cultivation should be subsidiary;
we have now to inquire what knowledge
is of most use to this end—what know
ledge best fits for this remaining sphere
of activity ? To this question the answer
is still the same as heretofore. Unex
pected though the assertion may be, it is
nevertheless true, that the highest Art of
�32
EDUCATION
every kind is based on Science—that
without Science there can be neither
perfect production nor full appreciation.
Science, in that limited acceptation
current in society, may not have been
possessed by various artists of high
repute; but acute observers as such
artists have been, they have always
possessed a stock of those empirical
generalisations which constitute science
in its lowest phase; and they have
habitually fallen far below perfection,
partly because their generalisations were
comparatively few and inaccurate. That
science necessarily underlies the fine arts,
becomes manifest, a priori, when we
remember that art products are all more
or less representative of objective or sub
jective phenomena; that they can be
good only in proportion as they conform
to the laws of these phenomena; and
that before they can thus conform, the
artist must know what these laws are.
That this a priori conclusion tallies with
experience, we shall soon see.
Youths preparing for the practice of
sculpture, have to acquaint themselves
with the bones and muscles of the human
frame in their distribution, attachments,
and movements. This is a portion of
science; and it has been found needful
to impart it for the prevention of those
many errors which sculptors who do not
possess it commit.
A knowledge of
mechanical principles is also requisite;
and such knowledge not being usually
possessed, grave mechanical mistakes
are frequently made. Take an instance.
For the stability of a figure it is needful
that the perpendicular from the centre
of gravity—“ the line of direction,” as it
is called—should fall within the base of
support; and hence it happens, that
when a man assumes the attitude known
as “ standing at ease,” in which one leg
is straightened and the other relaxed, the
line of direction falls within the foot of
the straightened leg. But sculptors un- I
familiar with the theory of equilibrium,
not uncommonly so represent this atti- i
tude, that the line of direction falls mid- 1
way between the feet. Ignorance of the
law of momentum leads to analogous
blunders : as witness the admired Dis- |
cobolus, which, as it is posed, must inevit
ably fall forward the moment the quoit
is delivered.
In painting, the necessity for scientific
information, empirical if not rational, is
still more conspicuous. What gives the
grotesqueness to Chinese pictures, unless
their utter disregard of the laws of
appearances^|heir absurd linear per
spective, and their want of aerial per
spective ? In what are the drawings of
a child so faulty, if not in a similar
absence of truth—an absence arising, in
great part, from ignorance of the way in f
which the aspects of things vary with the
conditions? Do but remember the books 2
and lectures by which students are in
structed; or consider the criticisms of If
Ruskin; or look at the doings of the Pre- £
Raffaelites; and you will see that pro
gress in painting implies ¡increasing
knowledge of how effects in Mture are a:
produced. The most diligent observa
tion, if unaided by science, fails to pre
serve from error. Every painter will I Hi
endorse the assertion that unless it is
known what appearances must exist
under given circumstances, they often 03
will not be perceived; and to know what
appearances must exist is, in so far, to if
understand the science of appearances. : .236
From want of science Mr. J. Lewis,
careful painter as he is, casts the shadow
of a lattice-window in sharply-defined baii
lines upon an opposite wall; which he
would not have done, had he been
familiar with the phenomena of penum -friii
brae. From want of science, Mr. Rosetti,
1
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
catching sight of a peculiar iridescence
displayed by certain hairy surfaces under
particular lights (an iridescence caused
by the diffraction of light in passing the
hairs), commits the error of showing this
iridescence on surfaces and in positions
where it could not occur.
To say that music, too, has need of
scientific aid will cause still more sur
prise. Yet it may be shown that music
is but an idealisation of the natural lan
guage of emotion; and that consequently,
music must be good or bad according as
it conforms to the laws of this natural
language.
The various inflections of
voice which accompany feelings of dif
ferent kinds and intensities, are the
germs out of which music is developed.
It is demonstrable that these inflections
and cadences are not accidental or arbi
trary ; but that they are determined by
certain general principles of vital action;
and that their expressiveness depends on
this. Whence it follows that musical
phrases and the melodies built of them,
can be effective only when they are in
harmony with these general principles. It
is difficult here properly to illustrate this
position. But perhaps it will suffice to
instance the swarms of worthless ballads
that infest arawing-rooms, as composi
tions which science would forbid. They
sin against science by setting to music,
ideas that are not emotional enough to
prompt musical expression; and they
also sin against science by using musical
phrases that have no natural relations to
the ideas expressed : even where these
are emotional. They are bad because
they are untrue. And to say they are
untrue, is to say they are unscientific.
Even in poetry the same thing holds.
Like music, poetry has its root in those
natural modes of expression which
accompany deep feeling. Its rhythm,
its strong and numerous metaphors, its
33
hyperboles, its violent inversions, are
simply exaggerations of the traits of
excited speech. To be good, therefore,
poetry must pay attention to those laws
of nervous action which excited speech
obeys. In intensifying and combining
the traits of excited speech, it must have
due regard to proportion—must not use
its appliances without restriction ; but,
where the ideas are least emotional,
must use the forms of poetical expression
sparingly ; must use them more freely as
the emotion rises ; and must carry them
to their greatest extent, only where the
emotion reaches a climax. The entire
contravention of these principles results
in bombast or doggerel. The insufficient
respect for them is seen in didactic
poetry. And it is because they are
rarely fully obeyed, that so much poetry
is inartistic.
Not only is it that the artist, of what
ever kind, cannot produce a truthful
work without he understands the laws
of the phenomena he represents ; but it
is that he must also understand how the
minds of spectators or listeners will be
affected by the several peculiarities of his
work—a question in psychology. What
impression any art-product generates,
manifestly depends upon the mental
natures of those to whom it is presented;
and as all mental natures have certain
characteristics in common, there must
result certain corresponding general prin
ciples on which alone art-products can
be successfully framed. These general
principles cannot be fully understood
and applied, unless the artist sees how
they follow from the laws of mind. To
ask whether the composition of a picture
is good, is really to ask how the percep
tions and feelkjgs of observers will be:
affected by it. To ask whether a drama,
is well constructed, is to ask whether its
situations are so arranged as duly to»
�34
ÉDUCATION
consult the power of attention of an audi
ence and duly to avoid overtaxing any
one class of feelings. Equally in arrang
ing the leading divisions of a poem or
fiction, and in combining the words of
a single sentence, the goodness of the
effect depends upon the skill with which
the mental energies and susceptibilities
of the reader are economised. Every
artist, in the course of his education and
after-life, accumulates a stock of maxims
by which his practice is regulated. Trace
such maxims to their roots, and they
inevitably lead you down to psychological
principles. And only when the artist
understands these psychological principles
and their various corollaries, can he work
in harmony with them.
We do not for a moment believe that
science will make an artist. While we
contend that the leading laws both of
objective and subjective phenomena
must be understood by him, we by no
means contend that knowledge of such
laws will serve in place of natural per
ception. Not the poet only, but the
artist of every type, is born, not made.
What we assert is, that innate faculty
cannot dispense with the aid of organised
knowledge. Intuition will do much, but
it will not do all. Only when Genius is
married to Science can the highest
results be produced.
As we have above asserted, Science is
necessary not only for the most success
ful production, but also for the full
appreciation, of the fine arts. In what
consists the greater ability of a man than
of a child to perceive the beauties of a
picture; unless it is in his more extended
knowledge of those truths in nature or
life which the picture renders? How
happens the cultivated gentleman to
enjoy a fine poem so much more than a
boor does; if it is not because his wider
acquaintance with objects and actions
enables him to see in the poem much
that the boor cannot see ? And if, as is
here so obvious, there must be some
familiarity with the things represented,
before the representation can be appre
ciated ; then the representation can
be completely appreciated, only when
the things represented are completely
understood.
The fact is, that every
additional truth which a work of art
expresses, gives an additional pleasure
to the percipient mind—a pleasure that
is missed by those ignorant of this truth.
The more realities an artist indicates in
any given amount of work, the more
faculties does he appeal to; the more
numerous ideas does he suggest; the
more gratification does he afford. But
to receive this gratification the spectator,
listener, or reader, must know the realities
which the artist has indicated; and to
know these realities is to have that much
science.
And now let us not overlook the
further great fact, that not only does
science underlie sculpture, painting,
music, poetry, but that science is itself
poetic. The current opinion that science
and poetry are opposed, is it delusion.
It is doubtless true that as states of
consciousness, cognition and emotion
tend to exclude each other. And it is
doubtless also true that an extreme
activity of the reflective powers tends
to deaden the feelings; while an
extreme activity of the feelings tends to
deaden the reflective powers: in which
sense, indeed, all orders of activity are
antagonistic to each other. But it is
not true that the facts of science are
unpoetical; or that the cultivation of
science is necessarily unfriendly to the
exercise of imagination and the love of
the beautiful. On the contrary, science
opens up realms of poetry where to
the unscientific all is a blank. Those
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
engaged in scientific researches constantly
show us that they realise not less vividly,
but more vividly, than others, the poetry
of their subjects. Whoso will dip into
Hugh Miller’s works on geology, or read
Mr. Lewes’s Seaside Studies, will per
ceive that science excites poetry rather
than extinguishes it. And he who con
templates the life of Goethe, must see
that the poet and the man of science
can co-exist in equal activity. Is it not,
indeed, an absurd and almost a sacri
legious belief, that the more a man studies
Nature the less he reveres it? Think
you that a drop of water, which to the
vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses
anything in the eye of the physicist who
knows that its elements are held together
by a force which, if suddenly liberated,
would produce a flash of lightning ?
Think you that what is carelessly looked
upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow
flake, does not suggest higher associations
to one who has seen through a micro
scope the wondrously-varied and elegant
forms of snow-crystals ? Think you that
the rounded rock marked with parallel
scratches, calls up as much poetry in an
ignorant mind as in the mind of a geolo
gist who knows that over this rock a
glacier slid a million years ago ? The
truth is, that those who have never
entered upon scientific pursuits are blind
to most of the poetry by which they are
surrounded. Whoever has not in youth
collected plants and insects, knows not
half the halo of interest which lanes and
hedge-rows can assume. Whoever has
not sought for fossils, has little idea of
the poetical associations that surround the
places where imbedded treasures were
found. Whoever at the seaside has not
had a microscope and aquarium, has yet
to learn what the highest pleasures of
the seaside are. Sad, indeed, is it to
see how men occupy themselves with
35
trivialities, and are indifferent to the
grandest phenomena—care not to under
stand the architecture of the Heavens,
but are deeply interested in some con
temptible controversy about the intrigues
of Mary Queen of Scots !—are learnedly
critical over a Greek ode, and pass by
without a glance that grand epic written
by the finger of God upon the strata of
the Earth !
We find, then, that even for this
remaining division of human activities,
scientific culture is the proper prepara
tion. We find that aesthetics in general
are necessarily based upon scientific
principles; and can be pursued with com
plete success only through an acquain
tance with these principles. We find
that for the criticism and due apprecia
tion of works of art, a knowledge of
the constitution of things, or in other
words, a knowledge of science, is requi
site. And we not only find that science
is the handmaid to all forms of art and
poetry, but that, rightly regarded, science
is itself poetic.
Thus far our question has been, the
worth of knowledge of this or that kind
for purposes of guidance. We have now
to judge the relative values of different
kinds of knowledge for purposes of
discipline. This division of our subject
we are obliged to treat with comparative
brevity; and happily, no very lengthened
treatment of it is needed. Having found
what is best for the one end, we have by
implication found what is best for the
other. We may be quite sure that the
acquirement of those classes of facts
which are most useful for regulating
conduct, involves a mental exercise best
fitted for strengthening the faculties. It
would be utterly contrary to the beautiful
economy of Nature, if one kind of culture
were needed for the gaining of information
�36
EDUCATION
and another kind were needed as a
mental gymnastic. Everywhere through
out creation we find faculties developed
through the performance of those func
tions which it is their office to perform;
not through the performance of artificial
exercises devised to fit them for those
functions.
The Red Indian acquires
the swiftness and agility which make him
a successful hunter, by the actual pursuit
of animals; and through the miscel
laneous activities of his life, he gains a
better balance of physical powers than
gymnastics ever give.
That skill in
tracking enemies and prey which he has
reached after long practice, implies a
subtlety of perception far exceeding any
thing produced by artificial training.
And similarly in all cases. From the
Bushman whose eye, habitually employed
in identifying distant objects that are to
be pursued or fled from, has acquired a
telescopic range, to the accountant whose
daily practice enables him to add up
several columns of figures simultaneously;
we find that the highest power of a faculty
results from the discharge of those duties
which the conditions of life require it to
discharge. And we may be certain,
a priori, that the same law holds through
out education. The education of most
value for guidance, must at the same
time be the education of most value for
discipline. Let us consider the evidence.
One advantage claimed for that devo
tion to language-learning which forms
so prominent a feature in the ordinary
curriculum, is, that the memory is thereby
strengthened. This is assumed to be
an advantage peculiar to the study of
words. But the truth is, that the sciences
afford far wider fields for the exercise of
memory. It is no slight task to remember
everything about our solar system; much
more to remember all that is known
concerning the structure of our galaxy.
The number of compound substances,
to which chemistry daily adds, is so
great that few, save professors, can
enumerate them; and to recollect the
atomic constitutions and affinities of all
these compounds, is scarcely possible
without making chemistry the occupation
of life.
In the enormous mass of
phenomena presented by the Earth’s
crust, and in the still more enormous
mass of phenomena presented by the
fossils it contains, there is matter which
it takes the geological student years of
application to master.
Each leading
division of physics—sound, heat, light,
electricity — includes facts numerous
enough to alarm any one proposing to
learn them all. And when we pass to
the organic sciences, the effort of memory
required becomes still greater. In human
anatomy alone, the quantity of detail is
so great, that the young surgeon has
commonly to get it up half-a-dozen
times before he can permanently retain
it. The number of species of plants
which botanists distinguish, amounts to
some 320,000; while the varied forms
of animal life with which the zoologist
deals, are estimated at some 2,000,000.
So vast is the accumulation of facts
which men of science have before them,
that only by dividing and subdividing
their labours can they deal with it. To
a detailed knowledge of his own division,
each adds but a general knowledge of
the allied ones ; joined perhaps to a rudi
mentary acquaintance with some others.
Surely, then, science, cultivated even to
a very moderate extent, affords adequate
exercise for memory. To say the very
least, it involves quite as good a dis
cipline for this faculty as language does.
But now mark that while, for the
training of mere memory, science is as
good as, if not better than, language,
it has an immense superiority in the kind
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
of memory it trains. In the acquire
ment of a language, the connections of
ideas to be established in the mind
correspond to facts that are in great
measure accidental ; whereas, in the
acquirement of science, the connections
of ideas to be established in the mind
correspond to facts that are mostly
necessary. It is true that the relations
of words to their meanings are in one
sense natural; that the genesis of these
relations may be traced back a certain
distance, though rarely to the beginning;
and that the laws of this genesis form a
branch of mental science—the science
of philology. But since it will not be
contended that in the acquisition of
languages, as ordinarily carried on, these
natural relations between words and
their meanings are habitually traced,
and their laws explained; it must be
admitted that they are commonly learned
as fortuitous relations. On the other
hand, the relations which science pre
sents are causal relations; and, when
properly taught, are understood as such.
While language familiarises with nonrational relations, science familiarises
with rational relations. While the one
exercises memory only, the other exer
cises both memory and understanding.
Observe next, that a great superiority
of science over language as a means of
discipline, is, that it cultivates the judg
ment. As, in a lecture on mental edu
cation delivered at the Royal Institution,
Professor Faraday well remarks, the most
common intellectual fault is deficiency of
judgment. “Society, speaking generally,”
he says, “ is not only ignorant as respects
education of the judgment, but it is also
ignorant of its ignorance.” And the
cause to which he ascribes this state, is
want of scientific culture. The truth of
his conclusion is obvious. Correct judg
ment with regard to surrounding objects,
37
events, and consequences, becomes pos
sible only through knowledge of the way
in which surrounding phenomena depend
on each other. No extent of acquain
tance with the meanings of words, will
guarantee correct inferences respecting
causes and effects. The habit of drawing
conclusions from data, and then of verify
ing those conclusions by observation
and experiment, can alone give the
power of judging correctly. And that it
necessitates this habit is one of the
immense advantages of science.
Not only, however, for intellectual
discipline is science the best; but also
for moral discipline. The learning of
languages tends, if anything, further to
increase the already undue respect for
authority.
Such and such are the
meanings of these words, says the teacher
or the dictionary. So and so is the rule
in this case, says the grammar. By the
pupil these dicta are received as un
questionable. His constant attitude of
mind is that of submission to dogmatic
teaching. And a necessary result is a
tendency to accept without inquiry what
ever is established. Quite opposite is
the mental tone generated by the culti
vation of science. Science makes con
stant appeal to individual reason. Its
truths are not accepted on authority
alone; but all are at liberty to test them
—nay, in many cases, the pupil is
required to think out his own conclu
sions. Every step in a scientific investi
gation is submitted to his judgment.
He is not asked to admit it without
seeing it to be true. And the trust in
his own powers thus produced, is further
increased by the uniformity with which
Nature justifies his inferences when they
are correctly drawn. From all which
there flows that independence which is
a most valuable element in character.
Nor is this the only moral benefit
�38
EDUCATION
bequeathed by scientific culture. When
carried on, as it should always be, as
much as possible under the form of
original research, it exercises perseverance
and sincerity. As says Professor Tyndall
of inductive inquiry, “it requires patient
industry, and an humble and conscien
tious acceptance of what Nature reveals.
The first condition of success is an
honest receptivity and a willingness to
abandon all preconceived notions, how
ever cherished, if they be found to con
tradict the truth. Believe me, a selfrenunciation which has something noble
in it, and of which the world never hears,
is often enacted in the private experience
of the true votary of science.”
Lastly we have to assert—and the
assertion will, we doubt not, cause extreme
surprise—that the discipline of science
is superior to that of our ordinary
education, because of the religious culture
that it gives. Of course we do not here
use the words scientific and religious in
their ordinary limited acceptations ; but
in their widest and highest acceptations.
Doubtless, to the superstitions that pass
under the name of religion, science is
antagonistic; but not to the essential
religion which these superstitions merely
hide. Doubtless, too, in much of the
science that is current, there is a pervad
ing spirit of irreligion; but not in that
true science which has passed beyond
the superficial into the profound.
“ True science and true religion,” says Pro
fessor Huxley at the close of a recent course of
lectures, “ are twin-sisters, and the separation
of either from the other is sure to prove the
death of both. Science prospers exactly in pro
portion as it is religious ; and religion flourishes
in exact proportion to the scientific depth and
firmness of its basis. The great deeds of
philosophers have been less the fruit of their
intellect than of the direction of that intellect by
an eminently religious tone of mind. Truth has
yielded herself rather to their patience, their
love, their single-heartedness and their self
denial, than to their logical acumen.”
So far from science being irreligious,
as many think, it is the neglect of science
that is irreligious—it is the refusal to
study the surrounding creation that is
irreligious.
Take a humble simile.
Suppose, a writer were daily saluted with
praises couched in superlative language.
Suppose the wisdom, the grandeur, the
beauty of his works, were the constant
topics of the eulogies addressed to him.
Suppose those who unceasingly uttered
these eulogies on his works were content
with looking at the outsides of them; and
had never opened them, much less tried
to understand them. What value should
we put upon their praises ? What should
we think of their sincerity ? Yet, com
paring small things to great, such is the
conduct of mankind in general, in
reference to the Universe and its Cause.
Nay, it is worse. Not only do they pass
by without study, these things which
they daily proclaim to be so wonderful;
but very frequently they condemn as
mere triflers those who give time to the
observation of Nature—they actually
scorn those who show any active interest
in these marvels. We repeat, then, that
not science, but the neglect of science,
is irreligious. Devotion to science, is a
tacit worship—a tacit recognition of
worth in the things studied; and by
implication in their Cause. It is not a
mere lip-homage, but a homage expressed
in actions—not a mere professed respect,
but a respect proved by the sacrifice of
time, thought, and labour.
Nor is it thus only that true science is
essentially religious. It is religious, too,
inasmuch as it generates a profound
respect for, and an implicit faith in,
those uniformities of action which all
things disclose. By accumulated experi
ences the man of science acquires a
�WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH?
thorough belief in the unchanging rela
tions of phenomena—in the invariable
connection of cause and consequence—
in the necessity of good or evil results.
Instead of the rewards and punishments
of traditional belief, which people vaguely
hope they may gain, or escape, spite of
their disobedience ; he finds that there
are rewards and punishments in the
ordained constitution of things ; and
that the evil results of disobedience are
inevitable. He sees that the laws to
which we must submit are both inexor
able and beneficent. He sees that in
conforming to them, the process of
things is ever towards a greater perfec
tion and a higher happiness. Hence he
is led constantly to insist on them, and
is indignant when they are disregarded.
And thus does he, by asserting the
eternal principles of things and the
necessity of obeying them, prove himself
intrinsically religious.
And lastly the further religious aspect
of science, that it alone, can give us true
conceptions of ourselves and our rela
tion to the mysteries of existence. At
the same time that it shows us all which
can be known, it shows us the limits
beyond which we can know nothing.
Not by dogmatic assertion, does it teach
the impossibility of comprehending the
Ultimate Cause of things ; but it leads
us clearly to recognise this impossibility
by bringing us in. every direction to
boundaries we cannot cross. It realises
to us in a way which nothing else can,
the littleness of human intelligence in
the face of that which transcends human
intelligence. While towards the tradi
tions and authorities of men its attitude
may be proud, before the impenetrable
veil which hides the Absolute its attitude
is humble—a true pride and a true
humility. Only the sincere man of
science (and by this title we do not
39
mean the mere calculator of distances,
or analyser of compounds, or labeller of
species; but him who through lower
truths seeks higher, and eventually the
highest)—only the genuine man of
science, we say, can truly know how
utterly beyond, not only human know
ledge but human conception, is the
Universal Power of which Nature, and
Life, and Thought are manifestations.
We conclude, then, that for discipline,
as well as for guidance, science is of
chiefest value. In all its effects, learning
the meanings of things, is better than
learning the meanings of words. Whether
for intellectual, moral, or religious train
ing, the study of surrounding phenomena
is immensely superior to the study of
grammars and lexicons.
Thus to the question we set out with
—What knowledge is of most worth ?—
the uniform reply is—Science. This is
the verdict on all the counts. For direct
self-preservation, or the maintenance of
life and health, the all-important know
ledge is—Science. For that indirect
self-preservation which we call gaining
a livelihood, the knowledge of greatest
value is—Science. For the due dis
charge of parental functions, the proper
guidance is to be found only in—Science.
For that interpretation of national life,
past and present, without which the
citizen cannot rightly regulate his con
duct, the indispensable key is—Science.
Alike for the most perfect production
and present enjoyment of art in all its
forms, the needful preparation is still—
Science, and for purposes of discipline
—intellectual, moral, religious—the most
efficient study is, once more—Science.
The question which at first seemed so
perplexed, has become, in the course of
our inquiry, comparatively simple. We
have not to estimate the degrees of
�40
EDUCATION
importance of different orders of human conceived, or could have believed, yet is
activity, and different studies as severally this kind of knowledge only now receiving
fitting us for them; since we find that a grudging recognition in our highest
the study of Science, in its most com educational institutions. To the slowly
prehensive meaning, is the best prepara growing acquaintance with the uniform
tion for all these orders of activity. We co-existences and sequences of phe
have not to decide between the claims nomena—to the establishment of invari
of knowledge of great though conven able laws, we owe our emancipation from
tional value, and knowledge of less the grossest superstitions.
But for
though intrinsic value; seeing that the science we should be still worshipping
knowledge which proves to be of most fetishes ; or, with hecatombs of victims,
value in all other respects, is intrinsically propitiating diabolical deities. And yet
most valuable: its worth is not dependent this science, which, in place of the most
upon opinion, but is as fixed as is the degrading conceptions of things, has
relation of man to the surrounding world. given us some insight into the grandeurs
Necessary and eternal as are its truths,
of creation, is written against in our theo
all Science concerns all mankind for all logies and frowned upon from our pulpits.
time. Equally at present and in the
Paraphrasing an Eastern fable, we
remotest future, must it be of incalculable may say that in the family of knowledges,
importance for the regulation of their Science is the household drudge, who, in
conduct, that men should understand obscurity, hides unrecognised perfections.
the science of life, physical, mental, and To her has been committed all the work ;
social; and that they should understand by her skill, intelligence, and devotion,
all other science as a key to the science have all conveniences and gratifications
of life.
been obtained ; and while ceaselessly
And yet this study immensely tran ministering to the rest, she has been
scending all other in importance, is that kept in the background, that her haughty
which, in an age of boasted education, sisters might flaunt their fripperies in the
receives the least attention. While what eyes of the world. The parallel holds
we call civilisation could never have yet further. For we are fast coming to
arisen had it not been for science; the dénouement, when the positions will
science forms scarcely an appreciable be changed ; and while these haughty
element in our so-called civilised training. sisters sink into merited neglect, Science,
Though to the progress of science we proclaimed as highest alike in worth and
owe it, that millions find support where beauty, will reign supreme.
once there was food only for thousands;
yet of these millions but a few thousands
pay any respect to that which has made
their existence possible. Though in
creasing knowledge of the properties
CHAPTER II.
and relations of things has not only
enabled wandering tribes to grow into
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
populous nations, but has given to the
There cannot fail to be a relationship
countless members of these populous
between the successive systems of edu
nations, comforts and pleasures which
their few naked ancestors never even cation, and the successive social states
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
with which they have co-existed. Having
a common origin in the national mind,
the institutions of each epoch, whatever
be their special functions, must have a
family likeness. When men received
.
their creed and its interpretations from
' an infallible authority deigning no expla
nations, it was natural that the teaching
of children should be purely dogmatic.
While “believe and ask no questions ”
was the maxim of the Church, it was
fitly the maxim of the school. Conversely,
/now that Protestantism has gained for
adults a right of private judgment and
established the practice of appealing to
reason, there is harmony in the change
that has made juvenile instruction a
process of exposition addressed to the
A. understanding.
Along with political
despotism, stern in its commands, ruling
by force of terror, visiting trifling crimes
with death, and implacableinits vengeance
on the disloyal, there necessarily grew up
academic discipline similarly harsh—a
discipline of multiplied injunctions and
blows for every breach of them — a
discipline of unlimited autocracy upheld
by rods, and ferules, and the black-hole.
On the other hand, the increase of
political liberty, the abolition of laws
restricting individual action, and the
amelioration of the criminal code, have
been accompanied by a kindred progress
towards non-coercive education: the pupil
is hampered by fewer restraints, and other
means than punishments are used to
govern him.
In those ascetic days
when men, acting on the greatest-misery
principle, held that the more gratifications
they denied themselves the more virtuous
they were, they, as a matter of course,
considered that the best education which
most thwarted the wishes of their children,
and cut short all spontaneous activity
with—“You mustn’t do so.” While,
on the contrary, now that happiness is
41
coming to be regarded as a legitimate
aim—now that hours of labour are beine;
shortened and popular recreations pro
vided; parents and teachers are beginning
to see that most childish desires may
rightly be gratified, that childish sports
should be encouraged, and that the
tendencies of the growing mind are not
altogether so diabolical as was supposed.
The age in which all believed that trades
must be established by bounties and
prohibitions ; that manufacturers needed
their materials and qualities and prices
to be prescribed ; and that the value of
money could be determined by law;
was an age which unavoidably cherished
the notions that a child’s mind could be
made to order ; that its powers were to
be imparted by the schoolmaster; that
it was a receptacle into which knowledge
was to be put, and there built up after
the teacher’s ideal. In this free-trade
era, however, when we are learning that
there is much more self-regulation ' in
things than was supposed ; that labour,
and commerce, and agriculture, and
navigation, can do better without manage
ment than with it ; that political govern
ments, to be efficient, must grow up from
within and not be imposed from without ;
we are also being taught that there is a
natural process of mental evolution which
is not to be disturbed without injury;
that we may not force on the unfolding
mind our artificial forms ; but that
psychology, also, discloses to us a law
of supply and demand, to which, if we
would not do harm, we must conform.
Thus, alike in its oracular dogmatism, in
its harsh discipline, in its multiplied
restrictions, in its professed asceticism,
and in its faith in the devices of men,
the old educational regime was akin to
the social systems with which it was
contemporaneous ; and similarly in the
reverse of these characteristics, our modern
�42
EDUCATION
Erodes of culture correspond to our more
liberal religious and political institutions.
But there remain further parallelisms
to which we have not yet adverted : that,
namely, between the processes by which
these respective changes have been
wrought out; and that between the
several states of heterogeneous opinion
to which they have led. Some centuries
ago there was uniformity of belief —religious, political, and educational.
All men were Romanists, all were
Monarchists, all were disciples of
Aristotle; and no one thought of calling
in question that grammar-school routine
under which all were brought up. The
same agency has in each case replaced
this uniformity by a constantly-increasing
diversity. That tendency towards asser
tion of the individuality, which, after
contributing to produce the great Pro
testant movement, has since gone on to
produce an ever-increasing number of
sects — that tendency which initiated
political parties, and out of the two
primary ones has, in these modern days,
evolved a multiplicity to which every
year adds—that tendency which led to
the Baconian rebellion against the schools,
and has since originated here and abroad,
sundry new systems of thought—is a
tendency which, in education also, has
caused divisions and the accumulation
of methods. As external consequences
of the same internal change, these
processes have necessarily been more
or less simultaneous. The decline of
authority, whether papal, philosophic,
kingly, or tutoral, is essentially one
phenomenon; in each of its aspects a
leaning towards free action is seen alike
in the working out of the change itself,
and in the new forms of theory and prac
tice to which the change has given birth.
While many will regret this multiplica
tion of schemes of juvenile culture, the
catholic observer will discern in it a
means of ensuring the final establishment
of a rational system. Whatever may be
thought of theological dissent, it is clear
that dissent in education results in
facilitating inquiry by the division in
labour. Were we in possession of the
true method, divergence from it would,
of course, be prejudicial; but the
true method having to be found, the
efforts of numerous independent seekers
carrying out their researches in different
directions, constitute a better agency for
finding it than any that could be devised.
Each of them struck by some new thought
which probably contains more or less of
basis in facts—each of them zealous on
behalf of his plan, fertile in expedients
to test its correctness, and untiring in
his efforts to make known its success—
each of them merciless in his criticism
on the rest; there cannot fail, by compo
sition of forces, to be a gradual approxi
mation of all towards the right course.
Whatever portion of the normal method
any one has discovered, must, by the
constant exhibition of its results, force
itself into adoption; whatever wrong
practices he has joined with it must, by
repeated experiment and failure, be
exploded. And by this aggregation of
truths and elimination of errors, there
must eventually be developed a correct
and complete body of doctrine. Of the
three phases through which human
opinion passes—the unanimity of the
ignorant, the disagreement of the in
quiring, and the unanimity of the wise—
it is manifest that the second is the
parent of the third. They are not se
quences in time only, they are sequences
in causation.
However impatiently,
therefore, we may witness the present
conflict of educational systems, and how
ever much we may regret its accompany
ing evils, we must recognise it as a
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION '
transition stage needful to be passed
through, and beneficent in its ultimate
effects.
Meanwhile, may we not advantageously
take stock of our progress ? After fifty
years of discussion, experiment, and
comparison of results, may we not expect
a few steps towards the goal to be already
made good? Some old methods must
by this time have fallen out of use; some
new ones must have become established;
and many others must be in process
of general abandonment' or adoption.
Probably we may see in these various
changes, when put side by side, similar
characteristics—may find in them a
common tendency; and so, by inference,
may get a clue to the direction in which
experience is leading us, and gather
hints how we may achieve yet further
improvements. Let us then, as a pre
liminary to a deeper consideration of the
matter, glance at the leading contrasts
between the education of the past and
that of the present.
The suppression of every error is
commonly followed by a temporary
ascendency of the contrary one ; and so
it happened, that after the ages when
physical development alone was aimed
at, there came an age when culture of
the mind was the sole solicitude—when
children had lesson-books put before
them at between two and three years
old, and the getting of knowledge was
thought the one thing needful. As,
further, it usually happens that after one
of these reactions the next advance is
achieved by co-ordinating the antagonist
errors, and perceiving that they are
opposite sides of one truth; so, we are
now coming to the conviction that body
and mind must both be cared for, and
the whole being unfolded. The forcing
system has been by many given up; and
43
precocity is discouraged.
People are
beginning to see that the first requisite
to success in life is to be a good animal.
The best brain is found of little service,
if there be not enough vital energy to
work it; and hence to obtain the one
by sacrificing the source of the other, is
now considered a folly—a folly which
the eventual failure of juvenile prodigies
constantly illustrates.
Thus we are
discovering the wisdom of the saying,
that one secret in education is “ to know
how wisely to lose time.”
The once universal practice of learning
by rote is daily falling into discredit.
All modern authorities condemn the
old mechanical way of teaching the
alphabet. The multiplication table is
now frequently taught experimentally.
In the acquirement of languages, the
grammar-school plan is being superseded
by plans based on the spontaneous
process followed by the child in gaining
its mother tongue.
Describing the
methods there used, the Reports on the
Training School at Battersea say :—
“The instruction in the whole pre
paratory course is chiefly oral, and is
illustrated as much as possible by
appeals to nature.” And so throughout.
The rote-system, like all other systems
of its age, made more of the forms and
symbols than of the things symbolised.
To repeat the words correctly was every
thing ; to understand their meaning,
nothing; and thus the spirit was sacrificed
to the letter. It is at length perceived
that, in this case as in others, such a
result is not accidental but necessary—
that in proportion as there is attention
to the signs, there must be inattention
to the things signified; or that, as
Montaigne long ago said—S^avoir par
coeur n’est pas s^avoir.
Along with rote-teaching, is declining
also the nearly-allied teaching by rules.
�44
EDUCATION
The particulars first, and then the
generalisations, is the new method—a
method, as the Battersea School Reports
remark, which, though “the reverse of
the method usually followed, which con
sists in giving the pupil the rule first,” is
yet proved by experience to be the right
one. Rule-teaching is now condemned
as imparting a merely empirical know
ledge—as producing an appearance of
understanding without the reality. To
give the net product of inquiry, without
the inquiry that leads to it, is found to
be both enervating and inefficient.
General truths to be of due and per
manent use, must be earned. “ Easy
come easy go,” is a saying as applicable
to knowledge as to wealth. While rules,
lying isolated in the mind—not joined to
its other contents as out-growths from
them—are continually forgotten; the
principles which those rules express
piecemeal, become, when once reached
by the understanding, enduring posses
sions. While the rule-taught youth is at
sea when beyond his rules, the youth
instructed in principles solves a new
case as readily as an old one. Between
a mind of rules and a mind of principles,
there exists a difference such as that
between a confused heap of materials,
and the same materials organised into a
complete whole, with all its parts bound
together. Of which types this last has
not only the advantage that its con
stituent parts are better retained, but the
much greater advantage that it forms an
efficient agent for inquiry, for indepen
dent thought, for discovery—ends for
which the first is useless. Nor let it be
supposed that this is a simile only : it is
the literal truth. The union of facts
into generalisations is the organisation
of knowledge, whether considered as an
objective phenomenon or a subjective
one; and the mental grasp may be
measured by the extent to which this
organisation is carried.
From the substitution of principles for
rules, and the necessarily co-ordinate
practice of leaving abstractions untaught
till the mind has been familiarised with
the facts from which they are abstracted,
has resulted the postponement of some
once early studies to a late period. This
is exemplified in the abandonment of
that intensely stupid custom, the teach
ing of grammar to children. As M.
Marcel says :—“ It may without hesita
tion be affirmed that grammar is not
the stepping-stone, but the finishing
instrument.” As Mr. Wyse argues:—
“Grammar and Syntax are a collection
of laws and rules. Rules are gathered
from practice; they are the results of
induction to which we come by long
observation and comparison of facts. It
is, in fine, the science, the philosophy of
language. In following the process of
nature, neither individuals nor nations
ever arrive at the science first. A
language is spoken, and poetry written,
many years before either a grammar or
prosody is even thought of. Men did
not wait till Aristotle had constructed
his logic, to reason.” In short, as
grammar was made after language, so
ought it to be taught after language : an
inference which all who recognise the
relationship between the evolution of the
race and that of the individual, will see
to be unavoidable.
Of new practices that have grown up
during the decline of these old ones, the
most important is the systematic culture
of the powers of observation. After long
ages of blindness, men are at last seeing
that the spontaneous activity of the
observing faculties in children, has a
meaning and a use. What was once
thought mere purposeless action, or play,
or mischief, as the case might be, is now
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
recognised as the process of acquiring a
knowledge on which all after-knowledge
is based. Hence the well-conceived but
ill-conducted system of object-lessons.
The saying of Bacon, that physics is the
mother of the sciences, has come to have
a meaning in education. Without an
accurate acquaintance with the visible
and tangible properties of things, our
conceptions must be erroneous, our
inferences fallacious, and our operations
unsuccessful. “ The education of the
senses neglected, all after education
partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, an
insufficiency which it is impossible to
cure.” Indeed, if we consider it, we
shall find that exhaustive observation is
an element in all great success. It is
not to artists, naturalists, and men of
science only, that it is needful; it is not
only that the physician depends on it for
the correctness of his diagnosis, and that
to the engineer it is so important that
some years in the workshop are pre
scribed to him ; but we may see that the
philosopher, also, is fundamentally one
who observes relationships of things which
others had overlooked, and that the
poet, too, is one who sees the fine facts
in nature which all recognise when
pointed out, but did not before remark.
Nothing requires more to be insisted on
than that vivid and complete impressions
are all-essential. No sound fabric of
wisdom can be woven out of a rotten
raw material.
While the old method of presenting •
truths in the abstract has been falling
out of use, there has been a correspond
ing adoption of the new method of
presenting them in the concrete. The
rudimentary facts of exact science are
now being learnt by direct intuition, as
textures, and tastes, and colours are
learnt. Employing the ball-frame for
first lessons in arithmetic, exemplifies
45
this. It is well illustrated, too, in Pro
fessor De Morgan’s mode of explaining
the decimal notation. M. Marcel, rightly
repudiating the old system of tables,
teaches weights and measures by refer
ring to the actual yard and foot, pound
and ounce, gallon and quart; and lets
the discovery of their relationships be
experimental. The use of geographical
models and models of the regular bodies,
etc., as introductory to geography and
geometry respectively, are facts of the
same class. Manifestly, a common trait
of these methods is, that they carry each
child’s mind through a process like that
which the mind of humanity at large has
gone through. The truths of number, of
form, of relationship in position, were all
originally drawn from objects; and to
present these truths to the child in the
concrete, is to let him learn them as the
race learnt them. By and by, perhaps,
it will be seen that he cannot possibly
learn them in any other way; for that if
he is made to repeat them as abstrac
tions, the abstractions can have no
meaning for him, until he finds that they
are simply statements of what he intui
tively discerns.
But of all the changes taking place,
the most significant is the growing desire
to make the acquirement of knowledge
pleasurable rather than painful—a desire
based on the more or less distinct per
ception, that at each age the intellectual
action which a child likes is a healthy
one for it; and conversely. There is a
spreading opinion that the rise of an
appetite for any kind of information,
implies that the unfolding mind has
become fit to assimilate it, and needs it
for purposes of growth ; and that, on the
other hand, the disgust felt towards such
information is a sign either that it is
prematurely presented, or that it is pre
sented in an indigestible form. Hence
�46
EDUCATION
the efforts to make early education
amusing, and all education interesting.
Hence the lectures on the value of play.
Hence the defence of nursery rhymes
and fairy tales. Daily we more and
more conform our plans to juvenile
opinion. Does the child like this or
that kind kind of teaching?—does he
take to it ? we constantly ask. “ His
natural desire of variety should be in
dulged,” says M. Marcel; “and the grati
fication of his curiosity should be com
bined with his improvement.” “Lessons,”
he again remarks, “should cease before
the child evinces symptoms of weariness.”
And so with later education.
Short
breaks during school-hours, excursions
into the country, amusing lectures, choral
songs—in these and many like traits,
the change may be discerned. Asceti
cism is disappearing out of education as
out of life; and the usual test of political
legislation—its tendency to promote
happiness—is beginning to be, in a great
degree, the test of legislation for the
school and the nursery. What now is
the common characteristic of these
several changes ? Is it not an increas
ing conformity to the methods of
Nature ? The relinquishment of early
forcing, against which Nature rebels, and
the leaving of the first years for exercise
of the limbs and senses, show this.
The superseding of rote-learnt lessons
by lessons orally and experimentally
given, like those of the field and play
ground, shows this. The disuse of rule
teaching, and the adoption of teaching
by principles—that is, the leaving of
generalisations until there are particulars
to base them on—show this. The sys
tem of object-lessons shows this. The
teaching of the rudiments of science in
the concrete instead of the abstract,
shows this. And above all, this ten
dency is shown in the variously-directed
efforts to present knowledge in attractive
forms, and so to make the acquirement
of it pleasurable. For, as it is the order
of Nature in all creatures that the grati
fication accompanying the fulfilment of
needful functions serves as a stimulus to
their fulfilment—as, during the self-edu
cation of the young child, the delight
taken in the biting of corals and the
pulling to pieces of toys, becomes the
prompter to actions which teach it the
properties of matter; it follows that, in
choosing the succession of subjects and
the modes of instruction which most
interest the pupil, we are fulfilling
Nature’s behests, adjusting our proceed
ings to the laws of life.
Thus, then, we are on the highway
towards the doctrine long ago enunciated
by Pestalozzi, that alike in its order and
its methods, education must conform to
the natural process of mental evolution
—that there is a certain sequence in
which the faculties spontaneously develop,
and a certain kind of knowledge which
each requires during its development;
and that it is for us to ascertain this
sequence, and supply this knowledge.
All the improvements above alluded to
are partial applications of this general
principle. A nebulous perception of it
now prevails among teachers; and it is
daily more insisted on in educational
works. “ The method of nature is the
archetype of all methods,” says M.
Marcel. “ The vital principle in the
pursuit is to enable the pupil rightly to
instruct himself,” writes Mr. Wyse. The
more science familiarises us with the
constitution of things, the more do we
see in them an inherent self-sufficingness.
A higher knowledge tends continually to
limit our interference with the processes
of life. As in medicine the old “ heroic
treatment ” has given place to mild treat
ment, and often no treatment save a
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
normal regimen—as we have found that
it is not needful to mould bodies of
babes by bandaging them in papoosefashiun or otherwise—as in gaols it is
being discovered that no cunninglydevised discipline of ours is so efficient
in producing reformation as the natural
discipline of self-maintenance by produc
tive labour ; so in education, we are
finding that success is to be achieved
only by making our measures subservient
to that spontaneous unfolding which all
minds go through in their progress to
maturity.
Of course, this fundamental principle
of tuition, that the arrangement of matter
and method must correspond with the
order of evolution and mode of activity
of the faculties—a principle so obviously
true, that once stated it seems almost
self-evident—has never been wholly dis
regarded. Teachers have unavoidably
made their school-courses coincide with
it in some degree, for the simple reason
that education is possible only on that
condition. Boys were never taught the
rule-of-three until they had learnt addi
tion. They were not set to write
exercises before they had got into their
copy-books. Conic sections have always
been preceded by Euclid. But the error
of the old methods consists in this, that
they do not recognise in detail what they
are obliged to recognise in general.
Yet the principle applies throughout.
If from the time when a child is able
to conceive two things as related in
position, years must elapse before it can
form a true concept of the Earth, as a
sphere made up of land and sea, covered
with mountains, forests, rivers, and cities,
revolving on its axis, and sweeping round
the Sun—if it gets from the one concept
to the other by degrees—if the inter
mediate concepts which it forms are
consecutively larger and more compli
47
cated ; is it not manifest that there is a
general succession through which alone
it can pass; that each larger concept is
made by the combination of smaller
ones, and presupposes them ; and that
to present any of these compound con
cepts before the child is in possession of
its constituent ones, is only less absurd
than to present the final concept of the
series before the initial one. In the
mastering of every subject some course
of increasingly complex ideas has to be
gone through. The evolution of the
corresponding faculties consists in the
assimilation of these; which, in any
true sense, is impossible without they
are put into the mind in the normal
order. And when this order is not
followed, the result is, that they are
received with apathy or disgust; and
that unless the pupil is intelligent enough
eventually to fill up the gaps himself,
they lie in his memory as dead facts,
capable of being turned to little or no
use.
“ But why trouble ourselves about any
curriculum at all ?” it may be asked. “ If
it be true that the mind like the body
has a predetermined course of evolution
—if it unfolds spontaneously—if its
successive desires for this or that kind
of information arise when these are
severally required for its nutrition—if
there thus exists in itself a prompter to
the right species of activity at the right
time; why interfere in any way ? Why
not leave children wholly to the discipline
of nature?—why not remain quite pas
sive and let them get knowledge as they
best can ?—why not be consistent
throughout ?” This is an awkwardlooking question. Plausibly implying
as it does, that a system of complete
laissez-faire is the logical outcome of the
doctrines set forth, it seems to furnish a
disproof of them by reductio ad absurdum.
�48
EDUCATION
In truth, however, they do not, when
rightly understood, commit us to any
such untenable position. A glance at
the physical analogies will clearly show
this. It is a general law of life tha the
t
*
more complex the organism to be pro
duced, the longer the period during
which it is dependent on a parent
organism for food and protection. The
difference between the minute, rapidlyformed, and self-moving spore of a
conferva, and the slowly-developed seed
of a tree, with its multiplied envelopes
and large stock of nutriment laid by to
nourish the germ during its first stages
of growth, illustrates this law in its
application to the vegetal world. Among
anirrials we may trace it in a series of
contrasts from the monad whose spon
taneously-divided halves are as selfsufficing the moment after their separa
tion as was the original whole; up to
man, whose offspring not only passes
through a protracted gestation, and
subsequently long depends on the breast
for sustenance; but after that must have
its food artificially administered; must,
when it has learned to feed itself, con
tinue to have bread, clothing, and shelter
provided; and does not acquire the
power of complete self-support until a
time varying from fifteen to twenty years
after its birth. Now this law applies to
the mind as to the body. For mental
pabulum also, every higher creature, and
especially man, is at first dependent on
adult aid. Lacking the ability to move
about, the babe is almost as powerless
to get materials on which to exercise its
perceptions as it is to get supplies for its
stomach. Unable to prepare its own
food, it is in like manner unable to reduce
many kinds of knowledge to a fit form
for assimilation. The language through
which all higher truths are to be gained,
it wholly derives from those surrounding
it. And we see in such an example as
the Wild Boy of Aveyron, the arrest of
development that results when no help
is received from parents and nurses.
Thus, in providing from day to day the
right kind of facts, prepared in the right
manner, and giving them in due abun
dance at appropriate intervals, there is
as much scope for active ministration to
a child’s mind as to its body. In either
case, it is the chief function of parents
to see that the conditions requisite to
growth are maintained. And as, in
supplying aliment, and clothing, and
shelter, they may fulfil this function
without at all interfering with the spon
taneous development of the limbs and
viscera, either in their order or mode;
so, they may supply sounds for imitation,
objects for examination, books for read
ing, problems for solution, and, if they
use neither direct nor indirect coercion,
may do this without in any way disturbing
the normal process of mental evolution;
or rather, may greatly facilitate that
process. Hence the admission of the
doctrines enunciated does not, as some
might argue, involve the abandonment
of teaching; but leaves ample room
for an active and elabcrate course of
culture.
Passing from generalities to special
considerations, it is to be remarked that
in practice, the Pestalozzian system
seems scarcely to have fulfilled the
promise of its theory. We hear of
children not at all interested in its
lessons,—disgusted with them rather ;
and, so far as we can gather, the Pesta
lozzian schools have not turned out any
unusual proportion of distinguished men:
if even they have reached the average.
We are not surprised at this. The
success of every appliance depends
mainly upon the intelligence with which
�INTELLECTUAL ED UCA TION
it is used, it is a trite remark that,
having the choicest tools, an unskilled
artisan will botch his work; and bad
teachers will fail even with the best
methods. Indeed, the goodness of the
method becomes in such case a cause
of failure; as, to continue the simile,
the perfection of the tool becomes in
undisciplined hands a source of imper
fection in results. A simple, unchanging,
almost mechanical routine of tuition,
may be carried out by the commonest
intellects, with such small beneficial
effect as it is capable of producing; but
a complete system—a system as hetero
geneous in its appliances as the mind in
its faculties—a system proposing a special
means for each special end, demands
for its right employment powers such as
few teachers possess. The mistress of
a dame-school can hear spelling-lessons ;
and any hedge-schoolmaster can drill
boys in the multiplication table. But to
teach spelling rightly, by using the
powers of the letters instead of their
names, or to instruct in numerical com
binations by experimental synthesis, a
modicum of understanding is needful;
and to pursue a like rational course
throughout the entire range of studies,
asks an amount of judgment, of invention,
of intellectual sympathy, of analytical
faculty, which we shall never see applied
to it while the tutorial office is held in
such small esteem. Tjue education is
practicable only by a true philosopher.
J udge then, what prospect a philosophical
method now has of being acted out!
Knowing so little as we yet do of psycho
logy, and ignorant as our teachers are of
that little, what chance has a system
which requires psychology for its basis ?
Further hindrance and discouragement
has arisen from confounding the Pestalozzian principle with the forms in which
it has been embodied. Because particular
49
plans have not answered expectation,
discredit has been cast upon the doctrine
associated with them : no inquiry being
made whether these plans truly conform
to the doctrine. Judging as usual by
the concrete rather than the abstract,
men have blamed the theory for the
bunglings of the practice. It is as though
the first futile attempt to construct a
steam-engine had been held to prove
that steam could not be used as a motive
power. Let it be constantly borne in
mind that while right in his fundamental
ideas, Pestalozzi was not therefore right
in all his applications of them. As
described even by his admirers, Pesta
lozzi was a man of partial intuitions—a
man who had occasional flashes of
insight; rather than a man of systematic
thought.
His first great success at
Stantz was achieved when he had no
books or appliances of ordinary teaching,
and when “ the only object of his atten
tion was to find out at each moment
what instruction his children stood pecu
liarly in need of, and what was the best
manner of connecting it with the know
ledge they already possessed.” Much
of his power was due, not to calmly
reasoned-out plans of culture, but to his
profound sympathy, which gave him a
quick perception of childish needs and
difficulties. He lacked the ability
logically to co-ordinate and develop the
truths which he thus from time to time
laid hold of; and had in great measure
to leave this to his assistants, Kruesi,
Tobler, Buss, Niederer, and Schmid.
The result is, that in their details his
own plans, and those vicariously devised,
contain numerous crudities and incon
sistencies. His nursery-method, described
in The Mother’s Manual, beginning as
it does with a nomenclature of the
different parts of the body, and pro
ceeding next to specify their relative
�50
EDUCATION
positions, and next their connections,
. may be proved not at all in accordance
with the initial stages of mental evolu
tion.
His process of teaching the
mother-tongue by formal exercises in
the meanings of words in the construc
tion of sentences, is quite needless, and
must entail on the pupil loss of time,
labour and happiness. His proposed
lessons in geography are utterly unpesta$ lozzian. And often where his plans are
essentially sound, they are either incom
plete or vitiated by some remnant of
the old regime. While, therefore, we
would defend in its entire extent the
general doctrine which Pestalozzi inaugu
rated, we think great evil likely to result
from an uncritical reception of his
specific methods. That tendency, con
stantly exhibited by mankind, to canonise
the forms and practices along with which
any great truth has been bequeathed to
them—their liability to prostrate their
intellects before the prophet, and swear
by his every word—their proneness to
mistake the clothing of the idea for the
idea itself ; renders it ne'edful to insist
strongly upon the distinction between
the fundamental principle of the Pestalozzian system, and the set of expedients
devised for its practice ; and to suggest
that while the one may be considered as
established, the other is probably nothing
but an adumbration of the normal
course. Indeed, on looking at the state
of our knowledge, we may be quite sure
that this is the case. Before educational
methods can be made to harmonise in
character and arrangement with the
faculties in their mode and order of
unfolding, it is first needful that we
ascertain with some completeness how
the faculties do unfold. At present we
have acquired, on this point, only a few
general notions. These general notions
must be developed in detail—must be
transformed into a multitude of specific
propositions, before we can be said to
possess that science on which the art of
education must be based. And then,
when we have definitely made out in
what succession and in what combina
tions the mental powers become active,
it remains to choose out of the many
possible- ways of exercising each of
them, that which best conforms to its
natural mode of action.
Evidently,
therefore, it is not to be supposed that
even our most advanced modes of
teaching are the right ones, or nearly the
right ones.
Bearing in mind then this distinction
between the principle and the practice
of Pestalozzi, and inferring from the
grounds assigned that the last must
necessarily be very defective, the reader
will rate at its true worth the dissatisfac
tion with the system which some have
expressed; and will see that the realisa
tion of the Pestalozzian idea remains to
be achieved. Should he argue, however,
from what has just been said, that no
such realisation is at present practicable,
and that all effort ought to be devoted
to the preliminary inquiry; we reply,
that though it is not possible for a
scheme of culture to be perfected either
in matter or form until a rational psycho
logy has been established, it is possible,
with the aid of certain guiding prin
ciples, to make empirical approximations
towards a perfect scheme. To prepare
the way for further research we will now
specify these principles. Some of them
have been more or less distinctly implied
in the foregoing pages; but it will be
well here to state them all in logical
order.
i. That in education we should pro
ceed from the simple to the complex, is
a truth which has always been to some
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
extent acted upon : not professedly,
indeed, nor by any means consistently.
The mind develops. Like all things
that develop it progresses from the
homogeneous to the heterogeneous ; and
a normal training system, being an
objective counterpart of this subjective
process, must exhibit a like progression.
Moreover thus interpreting it, we may
see that this formula has much wider
applications than at first appears. For
its rationale involves, not only that we
should proceed from the single to the
combined in the teaching of each branch
of knowledge; but that we should do
the like with knowledge as a whole. As
the mind, consisting at first of but few
active faculties, has its later-completed
faculties successively brought into play,
and ultimately comes to have all its
faculties in simultaneous action; it
follows that our teaching should begin
with but few subjects at once, and suc
cessively adding to these, should finally
carry on all subjects abreast. Not only
in its details should education proceed
from the simple to the complex, but in
its ensemble also.
2.The development of the mind, as
all other development, is an advance
from the indefinite to the definite. In
common with the rest of the organism,
the brain reaches its finished structure
only at maturity; and in proportion as
its structure is unfinished, its actions are
wanting in precision. Hence like the
first movements and the first attempts
at speech, the first perceptions and
thoughts are extremely vague. As from
a rudimentary eye, discerning only the
difference between light and darkness,
the progress is to an eye that distinguishes
kinds and gradations of colour, and
details of form, with the greatest exact
ness ; so, the intellect as a whole and in
each faculty, beginning with the rudest
discriminations among objects and
actions, advances towards discrimina
tions of increasing nicety and distinct
ness. To this general law our educa
tional course and methods must conform.
It is not practicable, nor would it be
desirable if practicable, to put precise
ideas into the undeveloped mind. We
may indeed at an early age communicate
the verbal forms in which such ideas are
wrapped up; and teachers, who habitually
do this, suppose that when the verbal
forms have been correctly learnt, the
ideas which should fill them have been
acquired. But a brief cross-examination
of the pupil proves the contrary. It
turns out either that the words have
been committed to memory with little
or no thought about their meaning, or
else that the perception of their meaning
which has been gained is a very cloudy
one. Only as the multiplication of
experiences gives materials for definite
conceptions—only as observation year
by year discloses the less conspicuous
attributes which distinguish things and
processes previously confounded together
—only as each class of co-enstences
and sequences becomes familiar through
the recurrence of cases coming under it
—only as the various classes of relations
get accurately marked off from each
other by mutual limitation; can the
exact definitions of advanced knowledge
become truly comprehensible. Thus in
education we must be content to set out
with crude notions. These we must aim
to make gradually clearer by facilitating
the acquisition of experiences such as
will correct, first their greatest errors,
and afterwards their successively less
marked errors. And the scientific
formulae must be given only as fast as
the conceptions are perfected.
3. To say that our lessons ought to
start from the concrete and end in the
�52
EDUCATION
abstract, may be considered as in part a
repetition of the first of the foregoing
principles. Nevertheless it is a maxim
that must be stated: if with no other
view, then with the view of showing in
certain cases what are truly the simple
and the complex. For unfortunately
there has been much misunderstanding
on this point. General formulas which
men have devised to express groups of
details, and which have severally simpli
fied their conceptions by uniting many
facts into one fact, they have supposed
must simplify the conceptions of a child
also. They have forgotten that a
generalisation is simple only in com
parison with the whole mass of particular
truths it comprehends—that it is more
complex than any one of these truths
taken singly—that only after many of
these single truths have been acquired,
does the generalisation ease the memory
and help the reason—and that to a mind
not possessing these single truths it is
necessarily a mystery. Thus confounding
two kinds of simplification, teachers
have constantly erred by setting out
with “first principles”: a proceeding
essentially, though not apparently, at
variance with the primary rule; which
implies that the mind should be intro
duced to principles through the medium
of examples, and so should be led from
the particular to the general—from the
concrete to the abstract.
4. The education of the child must
accord both in mode and arrangement
with the education of mankind, con
sidered historically. In other words, the
genesis of knowledge in the individual,
must follow the same course as the
genesis of knowledge in the race. In
strictness, this principle may be con
sidered as already expressed by implica
tion ; since both being processes of
evolution, must conform to those same
general laws of evolution above insisted
on, and must therefore agree with each
other.
Nevertheless this particular
parallelism is of value for the specific
guidance it affords. To M. Comte we
believe society owes the enunciation of
it; and we may accept this item of his
philosophy without at all committing
ourselves to the rest. This doctrine
may be upheld by two reasons, quite
independent of any abstract theory;
and either of them sufficient to establish
it. One is deducible from the law of
hereditary transmission as considered in
its wider consequences. For if it be
true that men exhibit likeness to
ancestry, both in aspect and character—
if it be true that certain mental mani
festations, as insanity, occur in successive
members of the same family at the same
age—if, passing from individual cases in
which the traits of many dead ancestors
mixing with those of a few living ones
greatly obscure the law, we turn to
national types, and remark how the con
trasts between them are persistent from
age to age—if we remember that these
respective types came from a common
stock, and that hence the present marked
differences between them must have
arisen from the action of modifying
circumstances upon successive genera
tions who severally transmitted the
accumulated effects to their descendants
—if we find the differences to be now
organic, so that a French child grows
into a French man even when brought
up among strangers—and if the general
fact thus illustrated is true of the whole
nature, intellect inclusive; then it follows
that if there be an order in which the
human race has mastered its various
kinds of knowledge, there will arise in
every child an aptitude to acquire these
kinds of knowledge in the same order.
So that even were the order intrinsically
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
indifferent, it would facilitate education
to lead the individual mind through the
steps traversed by the general mind. But
the order is not intrinsically indifferent;
and hence the fundamental reason why
education should be a repetition of
civilisation in little. It is provable both
that the historical sequence was, in its
main outlines, a necessary one; and that
the causes which determined it apply to
the child as to. the race. Not to specify
these causes in detail, it will suffice here
to point out that as the mind of humanity
placed in the midst of phenomena and
striving to comprehend them, has, after
endless comparisons, speculations, experi
ments, and theories, reached its present
knowledge of each subject by a specific
route; it may rationally be inferred that
the relationship between mind and phe
nomena is such as to prevent this know
ledge from being reached by any other
route; and that as each child’s mind
stands in this same relationship to phe
nomena, they can be accessible to it
oply through the same route. Hence in
deciding upon the right method of edu
cation, an inquiry into the method of
civilisation will help to guide us.
5. One of the conclusions to which
such an inquiry leads, is, that in each
branch of instruction we should proceed
from the empirical to the rational.
During human progress, every science
is evolved out of its corresponding art.
It results from the necessity we are
under, both individually and as a race,
of reaching the abstract by way of the
concrete, that there must be practice
and an accruing experience with its
empirical generalisations, before there
can be science. Science is organised
knowledge; and before knowledge can
be organised, some of it must be pos
sessed. Every study, therefore, should
have a purely experimental introduction ;
53
and only after an ample fund of observa
tions has been accumulated, should
reasoning begin. As illustrative appli
cations of this rule, we may instance the
modern course of placing grammar, not
before language, but after it; or the
ordinary custom of prefacing perspec
tive by practical drawing. By and by
further applications of it will be indi
cated.
6. A second corollary from the fore
going general principle, and one which
cannot be too strenuously insisted on, is,
that in education the process of self
development should be encouraged to
the uttermost. Children should be led
to make their own investigations, and to
draw their own inferences. They should
be told as little as possible, and induced
to discover as much as possible.
Humanity has progressed solely by self
instruction ; and that to achieve the
best results, each mind must progress
somewhat after the same fashion, is con
tinually proved by the marked success
of self-made men. Those who have
been brought up under the ordinary
school-drill, and have carried away with
them the idea that education is prac
ticable only in that style, will think it
hopeless to make children their own
teachers. If, however, they will consider
that the all-important knowledge of sur
rounding objects which a child gets in
its early years, is got without help—if
they will remember that the child is selftaught in the use of its mother tongue—
if they will estimate the amount of that
experience of life, that out-of-school
wisdom, which every boy gathers for
himself—if they will mark the unusual
intelligence of the uncared-for London
gamin, as shown in whatever directions
his faculties have been tasked—if, further,
they will think how many minds have
struggled up unaided, not only through
�54
■ EDUCATION
the mysteries of our irrationally-planned
curriculum, but through hosts of other
obstacles besides; they will find it a not
unreasonable conclusion, that if the
subjects be put before him in right
order and right form, any pupil of
ordinary capacity will surmount his suc
cessive difficulties with but little assis
tance. Who indeed can watch the cease
less observation, and inquiry, and infer
ence going on in a child’s mind, or listen
to its acute remarks on matters within the
range of its faculties, without perceiving
that these powers it manifests, if brought
to bear systematically upon studies within
the same range, would readily master
them without help ? This need for per
petual telling results from our stupidity,
not from the child’s. We drag it away
from the facts in which it is interested,
and which it is actively assimilating of
itself. We put before it facts far too
complex for it to understand; and there
fore distasteful to it. Finding that it
will not voluntarily acquire these facts,
we thrust them into its mind by force
of threats and punishment. By thus
denying the knowledge it craves, and
cramming it with knowledge it cannot
digest, we produce a morbid state of its
faculties; and a consequent disgust for
knowledge in general. And when, as a
result partly of the stolid indolence we
have brought on, and partly of stillcontinued unfitness in its studies, the
child can understand nothing without
explanation, and becomes a mere passive
recipient of our instruction, we infer
that education must necessarily be
carried on thus. Having by our method
induced helplessness, we make the help
lessness a reason for our method. Clearly
then, the experience of pedagogues
cannot rationally be quoted against the
system we are advocating. And who
ever sees this, will see that we may safely
follow the discipline of Nature through
out may, by a skilful ministration,
make the mind as self-developing in its
latter stages as it is in its earlier ones ;
and that only by doing this can we pro
duce the highest power and activity.
7. As a final test by which to judge
any plan of culture, should come the
question,—Does it create a pleasurable
excitement in the pupils ? When in
doubt whether a particular mode or
arrangement is or is not more in harmony
with the foregoing principles than some
other, we may safely abide by this cri
terion.
Even when, as considered
theoretically, the proposed course seems
the best, yet if it produces no interest,
or less interest than some other course,
we should relinquish it; for a child’s
intellectual instincts are more trustworthy
than our reasonings. In respect to the
knowing-faculties, we may confidently
trust in the general law, that under
normal conditions, healthful action is
pleasurable, while action which gives
pain is not healthful. Though at present
very incompletely conformed to by the
emotional nature, yet by the intellectual
nature, or at least by those parts of it
which the child exhibits, this law is
almost wholly conformed to. The re
pugnances to this and that study which
vex the ordinary teacher, are not innate,
but result from his unwise system.
Fellenberg says, “ Experience has taught
me that indolence in young persons is so
directly opposite to their natural dispo
sition to activity, that unless it is the
consequence of bad education, it is
almost invariably connected with some
constitutional defect.” And the spon
taneous activity to which children are
thus prone, is simply the pursuit of those
pleasures which the healthful exercise of
the faculties gives. It is true that some
of the higher mental powers, as yet but
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
little developed in the race, and congeni
tally possessed in any considerable degree
only by the most advanced, are indis
posed to the amount of exertion required
of them.. But these, in virtue of their
very complexity, will, in a normal course
of culture, come last into exercise ; and
will therefore have no demands made on
them until the pupil has arrived at an
age when ulterior motives can be brought
into play, and an indirect pleasure made
to counterbalance a direct displeasure.
With all faculties lower than these, how
ever, the immediate gratification conse
quent on activity, is the normal stimulus ;
and under good management the only
needful stimulus. When we have to fall
back on some other, we must take the
fact as evidence that we are on the wrong
track. Experience is daily showing with
greater clearness, that there is always a
method to be found productive of interest
—even of delight; and it ever turns out
that this is the method proved by all
other tests to be the right one.
With most, these guiding principles
will weigh but'little if left in this abstract
form. Partly, therefore, to exemplify
their application, and partly with a view
of making sundry specific suggestions,
we propose now to pass from the theory
of education to the practice of it.
55
of unseen planets, the invention of calcu
lating engines, the production of great
paintings, or the composition of sym
phonies and operas. This activity of
the faculties from the very first, being
spontaneous and inevitable, the question
is whether we shall supply in due variety
the materials on which they may exer
cise themselves; and to the question so
put, none but an affirmative answer can
be given. As before said, however,
agreement with Pestalozzi’s theory does
not involve agreement with his practice ;
and here occurs a case in point. Treating
of instruction in spelling he says :
The spelling-book ought, therefore, to con
tain all the sounds of the language, and these
ought to be taught in every family from the
earliest infancy. The child who learns his
spelling-book ought to repeat them to the infant
in the cradle, before it is able to pronounce even
one of them, so that they may be deeply im
pressed upon its mind by frequent repetition.
Joining this with the suggestions for
“ a nursery method,” set down in his
Mother’s Manual, in which he makes the
names, positions, connections, numbers,
properties, and uses of the limbs and
body his first lessons, it becomes clear
that Pestalozzi’s notions on early mental
development were too crude to enable
him to devise judicious plans. Let us
consider the course which Psychology
dictates.
The earliest impressions which the
It was the opinion of Pestalozzi, and
one which has ever since his day been mind can assimilate, are the undecomgaining ground, that education of some posable sensations produced by resis
kind should begin from the cradle. tance, light, sound, etc. Manifestly,
Whoever has watched with any discern decomposable states of consciousness
ment, the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at cannot exist before the states of con
surrounding objects, knows very well that sciousness out of which they are com
education does begin thus early, whether posed. There can be no idea of form
we intend it or not; and that these until some familiarity with light in its
fingerings and suckings of everything it gradations and qualities, or resistance in
can lay hold of, these open-mouthed its different intensities, has been acquired;
listenings to every sound, are first steps for, as has been long known, we recognise
in the series which ends in the discovery visible form by means of varieties of light,
�56
EDUCATION
and tangible form by means of varieties of Nor let us omit the fact, that both
resistance. Similarly, no articulate sound
temper and health will be improved
is cognisable until the inarticulate sounds by the continual gratification resulting
which go to make it up have been learned. from a due supply of these impressions
And thus must it be in every other case. which every child so greedily assimilates.
Following, therefore, the necessary law Space, could it be spared, might here be
of progression from the simple to the well filled by some suggestions towards
complex, we should provide for the a more systematic ministration to those
infant a sufficiency of objects presenting simplest of the perceptions.
But it
different degrees and kinds of resistance,
must suffice to point out that any such
a sufficiency of objects reflecting different ministration, recognising the general law
amounts and qualities of light, and a of evolution from the indefinite to the
sufficiency of sounds contrasted in their definite, should proceed upon the corol
loudness, their pitch and their timbre. lary that in the development of every
How fully this à priori conclusion is faculty, markedly contrasted impressions
confirmed by infantile instincts, all will are the first to be distinguished; that
see on being reminded of the delight hence sounds greatly differing in loud
which every young child has in biting its ness and pitch, colours very remote from
toys, in feeling its brother’s bright jacket each other, and substances widely unlike
buttons, and pulling papa’s whiskers— in hardness or texture, should be the first
how absorbed it becomes in gazing at supplied; and that in each case the
any gaudily-painted object, to which it progression must be by slow degrees to
applies the word “ pretty,” when it can impressions more nearly allied.
pronounce it, wholly because of the bright
Passing on to object-lessons, which
colours and how its face broadens into manifestly form a natural continuation
a laugh at the tattlings of its nurse, the of this primary culture of the senses, it
snapping of a visitor’s fingers, or any is to be remarked, that the system com
- sound which it has not before heard. monly pursued is wholly at variance with
Fortunately, the ordinary practices of the the method of Nature, as exhibited alike
nursery fulfil these early requirements in infancy, in adult life, and in the course
. of education to a considerable degree. of civilisation. “The child,” says M.
Much, however, remains to be done; Marcel, “ must be shown how all the
and it is of more importance that it parts of an object are connected, etc.”;
should be done than at first appears. and the various manuals of these objectEvery faculty during that spontaneous lessons severally contain lists of the facts
activity which accompanies its evolution, which the child is to be told respecting
is capable of receiving more vivid im each of the things put before it. Now it
pressions than at any other period. needs but a glance at the daily life of the
Moreover, as these simplest elements infant to see that all the knowledge of
have to be mastered, and as the mastery things which is gained before the acquire
of them whenever achieved must take ment of speech, is self-gained—that the
time, it becomes an economy of time to qualities of hardness and weight asso
occupy this first stage of childhood,
ciated with certain appearances, the pos
during which no other intellectual action session of particular forms and colours
is possible, in gaining a complete famili by particular persons, the production of
arity with them in all their modifications.
special sounds by animals of special
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
aspects, are phenomena which it observes
for itself. In manhood too, when there
are no longer teachers at hand, the obser
vations and inferences hourly required
for guidance, must be made unhelped ;
and success in life depends upon the
accuracy and completeness with which
they are made. Is it probable then, that
while the process displayed in the evolu
tion of humanity at large, is repeated
alike by the infant and the man, a
reverse process must be followed during
the period between infancy and man
hood ? and that too, even in so simple a
thing as learning the properties of objects?
Is it not obvious, on the contrary, that one
method must be pursued throughout ?
And is not Nature perpetually thrusting
this method upon us, if we had but the
wit to see it, and the humility to adopt
it? What can be more manifest than
the desire of children for intellectual
sympathy ? Mark how the infant sitting
on your knee thrusts into your face the
toy it holds, that you may look at it.
See when it makes a creak with its wet
finger on the table, how it turns and
looks at you ; does it again, and again
looks at you ; thus saying as clearly as it
can'—“ Hear this new sound.” Watch
the elder children coming into the
room exclaiming—“ Mamma, see what a
curious thing,” “ Mamma, look at this,”
“ Mamma, look at that ” : a habit which
they would continue, did not the silly
mamma tell them not to tease her.
Observe that, when out with the nursemaid, each little one runs up to her with
the new flower it has gathered, to show
her how pretty it is, and to get her also,
to say it is pretty. Listen to the eager
volubility with which every urchin
describes any novelty he has been to
see ; if only he can find some one who
will attend with any interest. Does not
the induction lie on the surface ? Is it
57
not clear that we must conform our
course to these intellectual instincts—that we must just systematise the natural
process—that we must listen to all the
child has to tell us about each object ;
must induce it to say everything it can
think of about suchobject; must occasion
ally draw its attention to facts it has not
yet observed, with the view of leading it to
notice them itself whenever they recur;
and must go on by and by to indicate or
supply new series of things for a like
exhaustive examination ? Note the way
in which, on this method, the intelligent
mother conducts her lessons. Step by
step she familiarises her little boy with
the names of the simpler attributes,
hardness, softness, colour, taste, size :
in doing which she finds him eagerly
help by bringing this to show her that it
is red, and the other to make her feel
that it is hard, as fast as she gives him
words for these properties. Each addi
tional property, as she draws his atten
tion to it in some fresh thing which he
brings her, she takes care to mention
in connection with those he already
knows ; so that by the natural tendency
to imitate, he may get into the habit of
repeating them one after another. Grad
ually as there occur cases in which he
omits to name one or more of the pro
perties he has become acquainted with,
she introduces the practice of asking him
whether there is not something more
that he can tell her about the thing he
has got. Probably he does not under
stand.
After letting him puzzle a
while she tells him ; perhaps laughing
at him a little for his failure. A few
recurrences of this and he perceives
what is to be done. When next she says
she knows something more about the
object than he has told her, his pride is
roused ; he looks at it intently ; he
thinks over all that he has heard ; and
�58
EDUCATION
the problem being easy, presently finds it with the intellectual appetites their
out. He is full of glee at his success, natural adjuncts—amour propre and the
and she sympathises with him.
In desire for sympathy; to induce by the
common with every child, he delights in union of all these an intensity of atten
the discovery of his powers. He wishes tion which insures perceptions both vivid
for more victories, and goes in quest of and complete; and to habituate the
more things about which to tell her. As mind from the beginning to that practice
his faculties unfold she adds quality after of self-help which it must ultimately
quality to his list: progressing from follow.
hardness and softness to roughness and
Object-lessons should not only be
smoothness, from colour to polish, from carried on after quite a different fashion
simple bodies to composite ones—thus
from that commonly pursued, but should
constantly complicating the problem as be extended to a range of things far
he gains competence, constantly taxing wider, and continued to a period far
his attention and memory to a greater later, than now. They should not be
extent, constantly maintaining his inte limited to the contents of the house;
rest by supplying him with new impres but should include those of the fields
sions such as his mind can assimilate,
and the hedges, the quarry and the sea
and constantly gratifying him by con shore. They should not cease with early
quests over such small difficulties as he childhood; but should be so kept up
can master. In doing this she is mani during youth, as insensibly to merge into
festly but following out that spontaneous the investigations of the naturalist and
process which was going on during a still the man of science. Here again we
earlier period—simply aiding self-evolu have but to follow Nature’s leadings.
tion; and is aiding it in the mode Where can be seen an intenser delight
suggested by the boy’s instinctive be than that of children picking up new
haviour to her.
Manifestly, too, the flowers and watching new insects; or
course she is adopting is the one best hoarding pebbles and shells ? And who
calculated to establish a habit of exhaus is there but perceives that by sympa
tive observation ; which is the professed thising with them they may be led on to
aim of these lessons. To tell a child any extent of inquiry into the qualities
this and to show it the other, is not and structures of these things? Every
to teach it how to observe, but to make botanist who has had children with him
it a mere recipient of another’s obser in the woods and lanes must have
vations : a proceeding which weakens noticed how eagerly they joined in his
rather than strengthens its powers of pursuits, how keenly they searched out
self-instruction—which deprives it of the plants for him, how intently they watched
pleasures resulting from successful activity while he examined them, how they over
—which presents this all-attractive know whelmed him with questions. The con-.
ledge under the aspect of formal tuition sistent follower of Bacon—the “servant
—and which thus generates that indif and interpreter of nature,” will see that
ference and even disgust not unfrequently we ought modestly to adopt the course
Having
felt towards these object-lessons. On of culture thus indicated.
the other hand, to pursue the course become familiar with the simpler pro
above described is simply tc guide the perties of inorganic objects, the child
should by the same process be led on to
intellect to its appropriate food; to join
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCA TION
an exhaustive examination of the things
it picks up in its daily walks—the less
complex facts they present being alone
noticed at first: in plants, the colours,
numbers, and forms of the petals, and
shapes of the stalks and leaves; in
Insects, the numbers of the wings, legs,
and antennae, and their colours. As
these become fully appreciated and
invariably observed, further facts may be
successively introduced : in the one case,
the numbers of stamens and pistils, the
forms of the flowers, whether radial or
bilateral in symmetry, the arrangement
and character of the leaves, whether
opposite or alternate, stalked or sessile,
smooth or hairy, serrated, toothed, or
crenate; in the other, the divisions of
the body, the segments of the abdomen,
the markings of the wings, the number
of joints in the legs, and the forms of
the smaller organs—the system pursued
throughout, being that of making it the
child’s ambition to say respecting every
thing it finds, all that can be said. Then
when a fit age has been reached, the
means of preserving these plants, which
have become so interesting in virtue of
the knowledge obtained of them, may
as a great favour be supplied; and
eventually, as a still greater favour, may
also be supplied the apparatus needful
for keeping the larvae of our common
butterflies and moths through their trans
formations—a practice which, as we
can personally testify, yields the highest
gratification; is continued with ardour
for years; when joined with the entomo
logical collection, adds immense interest
to Saturday-afternoon rambles; and
forms an admirable introduction to the
study of physiology.
We are quite prepared to hear from
many that all this is throwing away time
and energy ; and that children would be
much better occupied in writing their
59
copies or learning their pence-tables, and
so fitting themselves for the business of
life. We regret that such crude ideas of
what constitutes education, and such a
narrow conception of utility, should still
be prevalent. Saying nothing on the
need for a systematic culture of the per
ceptions and the value of the practices
above inculcated as subserving that need,
we are prepared to defend them even on
the score of the knowledge gained. If
men are to be mere cits, mere porers
over ledgers, with no ideas beyond their
trades—if it is well that they should be
as the cockney whose conception of rural
pleasures extends no further than sitting
in a tea-garden smoking pipes and
drinking porter; or as the squire who
thinks of woods as places for shooting
in, of uncultivated plants as nothing but
weeds, and who classifies animals into
game, vermin, and stock—then indeed
it is needless to learn any thing that does
not directly help to replenish the till and
fill the larder. But if there is a more
worthy aim for us than to be drudges—
if there are other uses in the things
around us than their power to bring
money—if there are higher faculties to
be exercised than acquisitive and sensual
ones—if the pleasures which poetry and
art and science and philosophy can bring
are of any moment; then is it desirable
that the instinctive inclination which
every child shows to observe natural
beauties and investigate natural phe
nomena, should be encouraged. But
this gross utilitarianism which is content
to come into the world and quit it again
without knowing what kind of a world it
is or what it contains, may be met on its
own ground. It will by and by be found
that a knowledge of the laws of life
is more important than any other know
ledge whatever—that the laws of life
underlie not only all bodily and mental
�6o
EDUCATION
processes, but by implication all the
transactions of the house and the street,
all commerce, all politics, all morals—
and that therefore without a comprehen
sion of them, neither personal nor social
conduct can be rightly regulated. It
will eventually be seen to, that the laws
of life are essentially the same through
out the whole organic creation; and
further, that they cannot be properly
understood in their complex manifesta
tions until they have been studied in
their simpler ones. And when this is
seen, it will be also seen that in aiding
the child to acquire the out-of-door
information for which it shows so great
an avidity, and in encouraging the
acquisition of such information through
out youth, we are simply inducing it to
store up the raw material of future
organisation—the facts that will one
day bring home to it with due force,
those great generalisations of science by
which actions may be rightly guided.
The spreading recognition of drawing
as an element of education, is one
among many signs of the more rational
views on mental culture now beginning
to prevail.
Once more it may be
remarked that teachers are at length
adopting the course which Nature has
perpetually been pressing on their
notice.
The spontaneous attempts
made by children to represent the men,
houses, trees, and animals around them
—on a slate if they can get nothing
better, or with lead-pencil on paper if
they can beg them—are familiar to all.
To be shown through a picture-book is
one of their highest gratifications; and
as usual, their strong imitative tendency
presently generates in them the ambition
to make pictures themselves also. This
effort to depict the striking things they
see, is a further instinctive exercise of
the perceptions—a means whereby still
greater accuracy and completeness of
observation are induced. And alike by
trying to interest us in their discoveries
of the sensible properties of things, and
by their endeavours to draw, they solicit
from us just that kind of culture which
they most need.
Had teachers been guided by Nature’s
hints, not only in making drawing a part
of education but in choosing modes of
teaching it, they would have done still
better than they have done. What is
that the child first tries to represent ?
Things that are large, things that are
attractive in colour, things round which
its pleasurable associations most cluster
—human beings from whom it has
received so many emotions; cows and
dogs which interest by the many phe
nomena they present; houses that are
hourly visible and strike by their size
and contrast of parts. And which of
the processes of representation gives it
most delight? Colouring. Paper and
pencil are good in default of something
better; but a box of paints and a brush
—these are the treasures. The drawing
of outlines immediately becomes sec
ondary to colouring—-is gone through
mainly with a view to the colouring;
and if leave can be got to colour a book
of prints, how great is the favour!
Now, ridiculous as such a position will
seem to drawing-masters, who postpone
colouring and who teach form by a dreary
discipline of copying lines, we believe
that the course of culture thus indicated
is the right one. The priority of colour
to form, which, as already pointed out,
has a psychological basis, should be
recognised from the beginning; and
from the beginning also, the things
imitated should be real. That greater
delight m colour which is not only
conspicuous in children but persists in
most persons throughout life, should be
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
continuously employed as the natural
stimulus to the mastery of the com
paratively difficult and unattractive form :
the pleasure of the subsequent tinting,
should be the prospective reward for the
labour of delineation. And these efforts
to represent interesting actualities, should
be encouraged; in the conviction that
as, by a widening experience, simpler
and more practicable objects become
interesting, they too will be attempted;
and that so a gradual approximation
will be made towards imitations having
some resemblance to the realities. The
extreme indeiiniteness which, in con
formity with the law of evolution, these
first attempts exhibit, is anything but
a reason for ignoring them. No matter
how grotesque the shapes produced;
no matter how daubed and glaring the
colours. The question is not whether
the child is producing good drawings.
The question is, whether it is developing
its faculties. It has first to gain some
command over its fingers, some crude
notions of likeness; and this practice is
better than any other for these ends,
since it is the spontaneous and interest
ing one. During early childhood no
formal drawing-lessons are possible.
Shall we therefore repress, or neglect to
aid, these efforts of self-culture ? or shall
we encourage and guide them as normal
exercises of the perceptions and the
powers of manipulation ? If by furnish
ing cheap woodcuts to be painted, and
simple contour-maps to have their boun
dary lines tinted, we can not only plea
surably draw out the faculty of colour,
but can incidentally produce some fami
liarity with the outlines of things and
countries, and some ability to move the
brush steadily; and if by the supply of
tempting objects we can keep up the
instinctive practice of making repre
sentations, however rough; it must hap
6j
pen that when the age for lessons in
drawing is reached, there will exist a
facility that would else have been absent.
Time will have been gained ; and trouble
both to teacher and pupil, saved.
From what has been said, it may be
readily inferred that we condemn the
practice of drawing from copies; and
still more so that formal discipline in
making straight lines and curved lines
and compound lines, with which it is the
fashion of some teachers to begin. We
regret that the Society of Arts has re
cently, in its series of manuals on “ Ru
dimentary Art-Instruction,” given its
countenance to an elementary drawing
book, which is the most vicious in prin
ciple that we have seen. We refer to
the “ Outline from Outline, or from the
Flat,” by John Bell, sculptor. As ex
plained in the prefatory note, this pub
lication proposes “ to place before the
student a simple, yet logical mode of
instruction”; and to this end sets out
with a number of definitions thus :—
“ A simple line in drawing is a thin mark
drawn from one point to another.
“ Lines may be divided, as to their nature in
drawing, into two classes:
“ i. Straight, which are marks that go the
shortest road between two points, as A B.
“ 2. Or Curved, which are marks which do
not go the shortest road between two points, as
C D.”
And so the introduction progresses to
horizontal lines, perpendicular lines,
oblique lines, angles of the several kinds,
and the various figures which lines and
angles make up. The work is, in short,
a grammar of form, with exercises. And
thus the system of commencing with a
dry analysis of elements, which, in the
teaching of language, has been exploded,
is to be re-instituted in the teaching of
drawing. We are to set out with the
definite, instead of with the indefinite.
The abstract is to be preliminary to the
�62
EDUCATION
concrete. Scientific conceptions are to
precede empirical experiences. That
this is an inversion of the normal order,
we need scarcely repeat. It has been
well said concerning the custom of pre
facing the art of speaking any tongue by
a drilling in the parts of speech and their
functions, that it is about as reasonable
as prefacing the art of walking by a
course of lessons on the bones, muscles,
and nerves of the legs; and much the
same thing may be said of the proposal
to preface the art of representing objects,
by a nomenclature and definitions of the
lines which they yield on analysis. These
technicalities are alike repulsive and
needless. They render the study dis
tasteful at the very outset; and all with
the view of teaching that which, in the
course of practice, will be learnt uncon
sciously. Just as the child incidentally
gathers the meanings of ordinary words
from the conversations going on around
it, without the help of dictionaries; so,
from the remarks on objects, pictures,
and its own drawings, will it presently
acquire, not only without effort but even
pleasurably, those same scientific terms
which, when taught at first, are a mystery
and a weariness.
If any dependence is to be placed on
the general principles of education that
have been laid down, the process of
learning to draw should be throughout
continuous with those efforts of early
childhood, described above as so worthy
of encouragement. By the time that the
voluntary practice thus initiated has
given some steadiness of hand, and some
tolerable ideas of proportion, there will
have arisen a vague notion of body as
presenting its three dimensions in per
spective. And when, after sundry abor
tive, Chinese-like attempts to render this
appearance on paper, there has grown up
a pretty clear perception of the thing to
be done, and a desire to do it, a first
lesson in empirical perspective may be
given by means of the apparatus occa
sionally used in explaining perspective as
a science. This sounds alarming; but
the experiment is both comprehensible
and interesting to any boy or girl of
ordinary intelligence. A.plate of glass
so framed as to stand vertically on the
table, being placed before the pupil, and
a book or like simple object laid on the
other side of it, he is requested, while
keeping the eye in one position, to make
ink-dots on the glass, so that they may
coincide with, or hide, the comers of
this object. He is next told to join
these dots by lines; on doing which he
perceives that the lines he makes hide,
or coincide with, the outlines of the
object. And then by putting a sheet
of paper on the other side of the glass,
it is made manifest to him that the lines
he has thus drawn represent the object
as he saw it. They not only look like it,
but he perceives that they must be like
it, because he made them agree with its
outlines; and by removing the paper he
can convince himself that they do agree
with its outlines. The fact is new and
striking; and serves him as an experi
mental demonstration, that lines of
certain lengths, placed in certain direc
tions on a plane, can represent lines of
other lengths, and having other direc
tions, in space. By gradually changing
the position of the object, he may be
led to observe how some lines shorten
and disappear, while others come into
sight and lengthen. The convergence
of parallel lines, and, indeed, all the
leading facts of perspective, may, from
time to time, be similarly illustrated
to him. If he has been duly accustomed
to self-help, he will gladly, when it is
suggested, attempt to draw one of these
outlines on paper, by the eye only; and
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
it may soon be made an exciting aim to
produce unas^sted, a representation as
like as he can to one subsequently
sketched on the glass. Thus without
the unintelligent, mechanical practice of
copying other drawings, but by a method
at once simple and attractive—rational,
yet not abstract,—a familiarity with the
linear appearances of things, and a faculty
of rendering them, may be step by step
acquired. To which advantages add
these :—that even thus early the pupil
learns, almost unconsciously, the true
theory of a picture (namely, that it is a
delineation of objects as they appear
when projected on a plane placed between
them and the eye); and that when he
reaches a fit age for commencing scientific
perspective, he is already thoroughly
acquainted with the facts which form its
logical basis.
As exhibiting a rational mode of con
veying primary conceptions in geometry,
we cannot do better than quote the
following passage from Mr. Wyse :—
A child has been in the habit of using cubes
for arithmetic; let him use them also for the
elements of geometry. I would begin with
solids, the reverse of the usual plan. It saves
all the difficulty of absurd definitions, and bad
explanations on points, lines, and surfaces,
which are nothing but abstractions....... A cube
presents many of the principal elements of
geometry; it at once exhibits points, straight
lines, parallel lines, angels, parallelograms, &c.,
&c. These cubes are divisible into various parts.
The pupil has already been familiarised with
such divisions in numeration, and he now pro
ceeds to a comparison of their several parts,
and of the relation of these parts to each other.
....... From thence he advances to globes, which
furnish him with elementary notions of the circle,
of curves generally, &c., &c.
Being tolerably familiar with solids, he may
now substitute planes. The transition may be
made very easy. Let the cube, for instance, be
cut into thin divisions, and placed on paper ; he
will then see as many plane rectangles as he has
divisions ; so with all the others. Globes may
be treated in the same manner ; he will thus see
6.3
how surfaces really are generated, and be enabled
to abstract them with facility in every solid.
He has thus acquired the alphabet and reading
of geometry. He now proceeds to write it.
The simplest operation, and therefore the firstj
is merely to place these planes on a piece of
paper, and pass the pencil round them. When
this has been frequently done, the plane may be
put at a little distance, and the child required to
copy it, and so on.
*
A stock of geometrical conceptions
having been obtained, in some such
manner as this recommended by Mr.
Wyse, a further step may be taken, by
introducing the practice of testing the
correctness of figures drawn by eye:
thus both exciting an ambition to make
them exact, and continually illustrating
the difficulty of fulfilling that ambition.
There can be little doubt that geometry
had its origin (as, indeed, the word
implies) in the methods discovered by
artizans and others, of making accurate
measurements for the foundations of
buildings, areas of enclosures, and the
like; and that its truths came to be
treacured up, merely with a view to their
immediate utility. They should be im
troduced to the pupil under analogous
relationships. In cutting out pieces for
his card-houses, in drawing ornamental
diagrams for colouring, and in those
various instructive occupations which an
inventive teacher will lead him into, he
may for a length of time be advantage
ously left, like the primitive builder, to
tentative processes; and so will learn
through experience the difficulty of
achieving his aims by the unaided senses.
When, having meanwhile undergone a
valuable discipline of the perceptions,
he has reached a fit age for using a pair
of compasses, he will, while duly appre
ciating these as enabling him to verify
his ocular guesses, be still hindered by
the imperfections of the approximative
method. In this stage he may be left
�64
EDUCATION
for a further period : partly as being yet of these triangles may be drawn with
too young for anything higher; partly perfect correctness and without guessing;
because it is desirable that he should be and after his failure he will value the
made to feel still more strongly the want information. Having thus helped him
of systematic contrivances. If the acqui to the solution of the first problem, with
sition of knowledge is to be made con the view of illustrating the nature of
tinuously interesting; and if, in the early geometrical methods, he is in future to
civilisation of the child, as in the early be left to solve the questions put to him
civilisation of the race, science is valued as best he can. To bisect a line, to
only as ministering to art; it is manifest erect a perpendicular, to describe a
that the proper preliminary to geometry,
square, to bisect an angle, to draw a line
is a long practice in those constructive parallel to a given line, to describe a
processes, which geometry will facilitate.
hexagon, are problems which a little
Observe that here, too, Nature points patience will enable him to find out.
the way. Children show a strong pro And from these he may be led on step
pensity to cut out things in paper, to
by step to more complex questions : all
make, to build—a propensity which, if of which, under judicious management,
encouraged and directed, will not only he will puzzle through unhelped. Doubt
prepare the way for scientific conceptions,
less, many of those brought up under
but will develop those powers of mani the old régime, will look upon this
pulation in which most people are so assertion sceptically. We speak from
deficient.
facts, however; and those neither few
When the observing and inventive nor special. We have seen a class of
faculties have attained the requisite boys become so interested in making
power, the pupil may be introduced to out solutions to such problems, as to
empirical geometry; that is—geometry look forward to their geometry-lesson as
dealing with methodical solutions, but a chief event of the week. Within the
not with the demonstrations of them. last month, we have heard of one girls’
Like all other transitions in education,
school, in which some of the young
this should be made not formally but ladies voluntarily occupy themselves with
incidentally; and the relationship to geometrical questions out of schoolconstructive art should still be main hours ; and of another, where they not
tained. To make, out of cardboard, a only do this, but where one of them is
tetrahedron like one given to him, is a begging for problems to find out during
problem which will interest the pupil,
the holidays : both which facts we state
and serve as a convenient starting-point.
on the authority of the teacher. Strong
In attempting this, he finds it needful to proofs, these, of the practicability and
draw four equilateral triangles arranged the immense advantage of self-develop
in special positions. Being unable in ment ! A branch of knowledge which,the absence of an exact method to do as commonly taught, is dry and even
this accurately, he discovers on putting repulsive, is thus, by following the
the triangles into their respective posi method of Nature, made extremely
tions, that he cannot make their sides interesting and profoundly beneficial.fit; and that their angles do not meet at We say profoundly beneficial, because
the apex. He may now be shown how,
the effects are riot confined to the gain
by describing a couple of circles, each ing of geometrical facts, but often
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
65
revolutionise the whole state of mind. It
has repeatedly occurred that those who
have been stupefied by the ordinary
school-drill—by its abstract formulas, its
wearisome tasks, its cramming—have
suddenly had their intellects roused by
thus ceasing to make them passive
recipients, and inducing them to become
active discoverers. The discouragement
caused by bad teaching having been
diminished by a little sympathy, and
sufficient perseverance excited to achieve
a first success, there arises a revulsion of
feeling affecting the whole nature. They
no longer find themselves incompetent;
they, too, can do something. And
gradually as success follows success, the
incubus of despair disappears, and they
attack the difficulties of their other
studies with a courage insuring conquest.
A few weeks after the foregoing re
marks were originally published, Pro
fessor Tyndall, in a lecture at the Royal
Institution “ On the Importance of the
study of Physics as a Branch of Educa
tion,” gave some conclusive evidence to
the same effect. His testimony, based
on personal observation, is of such great
value that we cannot refrain from
quoting it. Here it is.
stated something to be impossible, never to use
that stupid word again. Thus cheered, he has
returned to his task with a smile, which perhaps
had something of doubt in it, but which, never
theless, evinced a resolution to try again. I
have seen the boy’s eye brighten, and at length,
with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of Archi
medes was but a simple expansion, heard him
exclaim, “ I have it, sir.” The consciousness
of self-power, thus awakened, was of immense
value; and animated by it the progress of the
class was truly astonishing. It was often my
custom to give the boys their choice of pursuing
their propositions in the book, or of trying their
strength at others not to be found there. Never
in a single instance have I known the book to
be chosen. I was ever ready to assist when I
deemed help needful, but my offers of assistance
were habitually declined. The boys had tasted
the sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded
victories of their own. I have seen their
diagrams scratched on the walls, cut into the
beams upon their play-ground, and numberless
other illustrations of the living interest they took
in the subject. For my own part, as far as
experience in teaching goes, I was a mere
fledgling: I knew nothing of the rules of
pedagogics, as the Germans name it; but I
adhered to the spirit indicated at the commence
ment of this discourse, and endeavoured to make
geometry a means and not a branch of education.
The experiment was successful, and some of the
most delightful hours of my existence have been
spent in marking the vigorous and cheerful
expansion of mental power, when appealed to in
the manner I have described.
One of the duties which fell to my share,
during the period to which I have referred, was
the instruction of a class in mathematics, and I
usually found that Euclid and the ancient
geometry generally, when addressed to the
understanding, formed a very attractive study
for youth. But it was my habitual practice to
withdraw the boys from the routine of the book,
and to appeal to their self-power in the treat
ment of questions not comprehended in that
routine. At first, the change from the beaten
track usually excited a little aversion : the youth
felt like a child amid strangers ; but in no single
instance have I found this aversion to continue.
When utterly disheartened, I have encouraged
the boy by that anecdote of Newton, where he
attributes the difference between him and other
men, mainly to his own patience ; or of Mira
beau, when he ordered his servant, who had |
This empirical geometry which pre
sents an endless series of problems,
should be continued along with other
studies for years; and may throughout
be advantageously accompanied by those
concrete applications of its principles
which serve as its preliminary. After
the cube, the octahedron, and the vari
ous forms of pyramid and prism have
been mastered, may come the more
complex regular bodies—the dodecahe
dron and icosahedron—to construct
which out of single pieces of cardboard,
requires considerable ingenuity. From
these, the transition may naturally be
made to such modified forms of the
c
�66
EDUCATION
regular bodies as are met with in
crystals—the truncated cube, the cube
with its dihedral as well as its solid
angles truncated, the octahedron and
the various prisms as similarly modified :
in imitating which numerous forms
assumed by different metals and salts, an
acquaintance with the leading facts of
mineralogy will be incidentally gained.
*
After long continuance in exercises of
this kind, rational geometry, as may be
supposed, presents no obstacles. Habit
uated to contemplate relationships of
form and quantity, and vaguely per
ceiving from time to time the necessity
of certain results as reached by certain
means, the pupil comes to regard the
demonstrations of Euclid as the missing
supplemeuts to his familiar problems.
His well-disciplined faculties enable him
easily to master its successive proposi
tions, and to appreciate their value; and
he has the occasional gratification of
finding some of his own methods proved
to be true. Thus he enjoys what is to
the unprepared a dreary task. It only
remains to add, that his mind will pre
sently arrive at a fit condition for that
most valuable of all exercises for the
reflective faculties—the making of origi
nal demonstrations. Such theorems as
those appended to the successive books
of the Messrs. Chambers’s Euclid, will
soon become practicable to him; and in
proving them, the process of self-develop
ment will be not intellectual only, but
moral.
To continue these suggestions much
further, would be to write a detailed
treatise on education, which we do not
purpose. The foregoing outlines of plans
for exercising the perceptions in early
* Those who seek aid in carrying out the
system of culture above described, will find in it
a little work entitled “Inventional Geometry”;
published by Messrs. Williams & Norgate.
childhood, for conducting object-lessons,
for teaching drawing and geometry, must
be considered simply as illustrations of
the method dictated by the general
principles previously specified. We
believe that on examination they will be
found not only to progress from the
simple to the complex, from the indefinite
to the definite, from the concrete to the
abstract, from the empirical to the
rational; but to satisfy the further
requirements, that education shall be a
repetition of civilisation in little, that it
shall be as much as possible a process
of self-evolution, and that it shall be as
pleasurable. The fulfilment of all these
conditions by one type of method, tends
alike to verify the conditions, and to
prove that type of method the right one.
Mark too, that this method is the logical
outcome of the tendency characterising
all modern improvements in tuition—•
that it is but an adoption in full of the
natural system which they adopt partially
—that it displays this complete adoption
of the natural system, both by conform
ing to the above principles, and by
following the suggestions which the
unfolding mind itself gives : facilitating
its spontaneous activities, and so aiding
the developments which Nature is busy
with. Thus there seems abundant reason
to conclude, that the mode of procedure
above exemplified, closely approximates
to the true one.
A few paragraphs must be added in
further inculcation of the two general
principles, that are alike the most impor
tant and the least attended to : namely,
the principle that throughout youth, as
in early childhood and in maturity, the
process shall be one of self-instruction;
and the obverse principle, that the mental
action induced shall be throughout in
trinsically grateful. If progression from
�INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
simple to complex, from indefinite to
definite, and from concrete to abstract, be
considered the essential requirements as
dictated by abstract psychology ; then do
the requirements that knowledge shall be
self-mastered, and pleasurably mastered,
become tests by which we may judge
whether the dictates of abstract psycho
logy are being obeyed. If the first embody
the leading generalisations of the science
of mental growth, the last are the chief
canons of the art of fostering mental
growth. For manifestly, if the steps in
our curriculum are so arranged that they
can be successively ascended by the
pupil himself with little or no help, they
must correspond with the stages of
evolution in his faculties ; and manifestly,
if the successive achievements of these
steps are intrinsically gratifying to him,
it follows that they require no more than
a normal exercise of his powers.
But making education a process of
self-evolution, has other advantages than
this of keeping our lessons in the right
order. In the first place, it guarantees
a vividness and permanency of impression
which the usual methods can never pro
duce. Any piece of knowledge which
the pupil has himself acquired — any
problem which he has himself solved,
becomes, by virtue of the conquest, much
more thoroughly his than it could else
be. The preliminary activity of mind
which his success implies, the concentra
tion of thought necessary to it, and the
excitement consequent on his triumph,
conspire to register the facts in his
memory in a way that no mere informa
tion heard from a teacher, or read in a
school-book, can be registered. Even if
he fails, the tension to which his faculties
have been wound up, insures his remem
brance of the solution when given to
him, better than half-a-dozen repetitions
would. Observe, again, that this disci
67
pline necessitates a continuous organisa
tion of the knowledge he acquires. It
is in the very nature of facts and inferences
assimilated in this normal manner, that
they successively become the premises
of further conclusions—the means of
solving further questions. The solution
of yesterday’s problem helps the pupil in
mastering to-day’s. Thus the knowledge
is turned into faculty as soon as it is
taken in, and forthwith aids in the
general function of thinking—does not
lie merely written on the pages of an
internal library, as when rote-learnt.
Mark further, the moral culture which
this constant self-help involves. Courage
in attacking difficulties, patient concen
tration of the attention, perseverance
through failures—these are characteristics
which after-life specially requires; and
these are characteristics which this system
of making the mind work for ’ts food
specially produces. That it is thoroughly
practicable to carry out instruction after
this fashion, we can ourselves testify;
having been in youth thus led to solve
the comparatively complex problems of
perspective. And that leading teachers
have been tending in this direction, is
indicated alike in the saying of Fellenberg,
that “the individual, independent activity
of the pupil is of much greater importance
than the ordinary busy officiousness of
many who assume the office of educators”;
in the opinion of Horace Mann, that
“ unfortunately education amongst us at
present consists too much in telling, not
in training”; and in the remark of M.
Marcel, that “ what the learner discovers
by mental exertion is better known than
what is told to him.”
Similarly with the correlative require
ment, that the method of culture pursued
shall be one productive of an intrinsically
happy activity,—an activity not happy
because of intrinsic rewards to be obtained,
�68
EDUCATION
but because of its own healthfulness.
Conformity to this requirement, besides
preventing us from thwarting the normal
process of evolution, incidentally secures
positive benefits of importance. Unless
we are to return to an ascetic morality
(or rather /¡w-morality) the maintenance
of youthful happiness must be considered
as in itself a worthy aim. Not to dwell
upon this, however, we go on to remark
that a pleasurable state of feeling is far
more favourable to intellectual action
than a state of indifference or disgust.
Every one knows that things read, heard,
or seen with interest, are better remem
bered than things read, heard, or seen
with apathy. In the one case the facul
ties appealed to are actively occupied
with the subject presented; in the other
they are inactively occupied with it, and
the attention is continually drawn away
by more attractive thoughts. Hence the
impressions are respectively strong and
weak.
Moreover, to the intellectual
listlessness which a pupil’s lack of interest
in any study involves, must be added the
paralysing fear of consequences. This,
by distracting his attention, increases the
difficulty he finds in bringing his faculties
to bear upon facts that are repugnant to
them. Clearly, therefore, the efficiency
of tuition will, other things equal, be
proportionate to the gratification with
which tasks are performed.
It should be considered also, that grave
moral consequences depend upon the
habitual pleasure or pain which daily
lessons produce. No one.can compare
the faces and manners of two boys—theone made happy by mastering interesting
subjects, and the other made miserable
by disgust with his studies, by consequent
inability, by cold looks, by threats, by
punishment — without seeing that the
disposition of the one is being benefited,
and that of the other injured. Whoever
has marked the effects of success and
failure upon the mind, and the power of
the mind over the body; will see that in
the one case both temper and health are
favourably affected, while in the other
there is danger of permanent moroseness,
of permanent timidity, and even of per
manent constitutional depression. There
remains yet another indirect result of no
small moment. The relationship between
teachers and their pupils is, other things
equal, rendered friendly and influential,
or antagonistic and powerless, according
as the system of culture produces happi
ness or misery. Human beings are at
the mercy of their associated ideas. A
daily minister of pain cannot fail to be
regarded with secret dislike; and if he
causes no emotions but painful ones, will
inevitably be hated. Conversely, he who
constantly aids children to their ends,
hourly provides them with the satisfac
tions of conquest, hourly encourages
them through their difficulties and sympa
thises in their successes, will be liked;
nay, if his behaviour is consistent
throughout, must be loved. And when
we remember how efficient and benign
is the control of a master who is felt to
be a friend, when compared with the
control of one who is looked upon with
aversion, or at best indifference, we may
infer that the indirect advantages of
conducting education on the happiness
principle do not fall far short of the
direct ones. To all who question the
possibility of acting out the system here
advocated, we reply as before, that not
only does theory point to it, but experience
commends it. To the many verdicts of
distinguished teachers who since Pestalozzi’s time have testified this, may be
here added that of Professor Pillans,
who asserts that “ where young, people
are taught as they ought to be, they are
quite as happy in school as at play,
�MORAL EDUCATION
seldom less delighted, nay, often more,
with the well-directed exercise of their
mental energies, than with that of their
muscular powers.”
As suggesting a final reason for making
education a process of self-instruction,
and by consequence a process of pleasur
able instruction, we may advert to the
fact that, in proportion as it is made so,
is there a probability that it will not
cease when school-days end. As long
as the acquisition of knowledge is
rendered habitually repugnant, so long
will there be a prevailing tendency to
discontinue it when free from the coer
cion of parents and masters. And when
the acquisition of knowledge has been
rendered habitually gratifying, then there
will be as prevailing a tendency to con
tinue, without superintendence, that self
culture previously carried on under super
intendence. These results are inevitable.
While the laws of mental association
remain true—while men dislike the
things and places that suggest painful
recollections, and delight in those which
call to mind by-gone pleasures—painful
lessons will make knowledge repulsive,
and pleasurable lessons will make it
attractive. The men to whom in boyhood information came m dreary tasks
along with threats of punishment, and
who were never led into habits of inde
pendent inquiry, are unlikely to be
students in after years ; while those to
whom it came in the natural forms, at
the proper times, and who remember its
facts as not only interesting in them
selves, but as the occasions of a long
series of gratifying successes, are likely
to continue through life that self
instruction commenced in youth.
CHAPTER III.
MORAL EDUCATION
The greatest defect in our programmes
of education is entirely overlooked.
While much is being done in the
detailed improvement of our systems in
respect both of matter and manner, the
most pressing desideratum- has not yet
been even recognised as a desideratum.
To prepare the young for the duties of
life, is tacitly admitted to be the end
which parents and schoolmasters should
have in view; and happily, the value of
the things taught, and the goodness of
the methods followed in teaching them,
are now ostensibly judged by their fitness
to this end. The propriety of substi
tuting for an exclusively classical training,
a training in which the modern languages
shall have a share, is argued on this
ground. The necessity of increasing the
amount of science is urged for like
reasons. But though some care is taken
to fit youth of both sexes for society and
citizenship, no care whatever is taken to
fit them for the position of parents.
While it is seen that for the purpose of
gaining a livelihood, an elaborate pre
paration is needed, it appears to be
thought that for the bringing up of
children, no preparation whatever is
needed. While many years are spent
by a boy in gaining knowledge of which
the chief value is that it constitutes “ the
education of a gentleman”; and while
many years are spent by a girl in those
decorative acquirements which fit her for
evening parties ; not an hour is spent by
either in preparation for that gravest of
all responsibilities—the management of
a family. Is it that this responsibility
is but a remote contingency? On the
contrary, it is sure to devolve on nine
�7o
EDUCATION
out of ten. Is it that the discharge of
it is easy? Certainly not: of all functions
which the adult has to fulfil, this is the
most difficult. Is it that each may be
trusted by self-instruction to fit himself,
or herself, for the office of parent ? No :
not only is the need for such self-instruc
tion unrecognised, but the complexity of
the subject renders it the one of all
others in which self-instruction is least
likely to succeed. No rational plea can
be put forward for leaving the Art of
Education out of our curriculum.
Whether as bearing on the happiness
of parents themselves, or whether as
affecting the characters and lives of their
children and remote descendants, we
must admit that a knowledge of the right
methods of juvenile culture, physical,
intellectual, and moral, is a knowledge
of extreme importance.
This topic
should be the final one in the course
of instruction passed through by each
man and woman. As physical maturity
is marked by the ability to produce
offspring; so, mental maturity is marked
by the ability to train those offspring.
The subject which involves all other
subjects, and therefore the subject in which
education should culminate, is the Theory
and Practice of Education.
In the absence of this preparation, the
management of children, and more espe
cially the moral management, is lament
ably bad. Parents either never think
about the matter at all, or else their con
clusions are crude and inconsistent. In
most cases, and especially on the part of
mothers, the treatment adopted on every
occasion is that which the impulse of the
moment prompts : it springs not from
any reasoned-out conviction as to what
will most benefit the child, but merely
expresses the dominant parental feelings,
whether good or ill; and varies from
hour to hour as these feelings vary. Or
if the dictates of passion are supple
mented by any definite doctrines and
methods, they are those handed down
from the past, or those suggested by the
remembrances of childhood, or those
adopted from nurses and servants—
methods devised not by the enlighten
ment, but by the ignorance, of the time.
Commenting on the chaotic state oí
opinion and practice relative to selfgovernment, Richter writes:—
If the secret variances of a large class of
ordinary fathers were brought to light, and laid
down as a plan of studies and reading, cata
logued for a moral education, they would run
somewhat after this fashion :—In the first hour
“pure morality must be read to the child, either
by myself or the tutor ”; in the second “mixed
morality, or that which may be applied to one’s
own advantage
in the third, “ do you not see
that your father does so and so?”; in the fourth,
“you are little, and this is only fit for grown-up
people ”; in the fifth, “ the chief matter is that
you should succeed in the world, and become
something in the state”; in the sixth, “not the
temporary, but the eternal, determines the worth
of a man”; in the seventh, “therefore rather
suffer injustice, and be kind ”; in the eighth, “ but
defend yourself bravely if any one attack you ”;
in the ninth, “ do not make a noise, dear child ”;
in the tenth, “a boy must not sit so quiet”; in
the eleventh, “you must obey your parents
better”; in the twelfth, “and educate yourself.”
So by the hourly change of his principles, the
father conceals their untenableness and onesided
ness. As for his wife, she is neither like him,
nor yet like that harlequin who came on to the
stage with a bundle of papers under each arm,
and answered to the inquiry, what he had under
his right arm, “orders,” and to what he had
under his left arm, “ counter-orders.” But the
mother might be much better compared to a
giant Briareus, who had a hundred arms, and a
bundle of papers under each.
This state of things is not to be readily
changed. Generations must pass before
a great amelioration of it can be expected.
Like political institutions, educational
systems are not made, but grow; and
within brief periods growth is insensible.
Slow, however, as must be any improve
�MORAL EDUCATION
ment, even that improvement implies the
use of means ; and among the means is
discussion.
We are not among those who believe
in Lord Palmerston’s dogma, that “ all
children are born good.” On the whole,
the opposite dogma, untenable as it is,
seems to us less wide of the truth. Nor do
we agree with those who think that, by
skilful discipline, children may be made
altogether what they should be. Con
trariwise, we are satisfied that, though
imperfections of nature may be dimin
ished by wise management, they cannot
be removed by it. The notion that an
ideal humanity might be forthwith pro
duced by a perfect system of education,,
is near akin to that implied in the poems
of Shelley, that would mankind give up
their old institutions and prejudices, all
the evils in the world would at once
disappear : neither notion being accep
table to such as have dispassionately
studied human affairs.
Nevertheless, we may fitly sympathise
with those who entertain these too
sanguine hopes. Enthusiasm, pushed
even to fanaticism, is a useful motive
power—perhaps an indispensable one.
It is clear that the ardent politician
would never undergo the labours and
make the sacrifices he does, did he not
believe that the reform he fights for is
the one thing needful. But for his con
viction that drunkenness is the root of
■all social evils, the teetotaller would
•agitate far less energetically. In philan
thropy, as in other things, great advan
tage results from division of labour; and
that there may be division of labour,
each class of philanthropists must be
more or less subordinated to its function
—must have an exaggerated faith in its
work. Hence, of those who regard
■education, intellectual or moral, as the
7i
panacea, we may say that their undue
expectations are not without use ; and
that perhaps it is part of the beneficent
order of things that their confidence
cannot be shaken.
Even were it true, however, that by
some possible system of moral control,
children could be moulded into the
desired form, and even could every
parent be indoctrinated with this system;
we should still be far from achieving the
object in view. It is forgotten that the
carrying out of any such system pre
supposes, on the part of adults, a degree
of intelligence, of goodness, of self
control, possessed by no one. The
error made by those who discuss ques
tions of domestic discipline, lies in
ascribing all the faults and difficulties to
the children, and none to the parents.
The current assumption respecting
family government, as respecting na
tional government, is, that the virtues
are with the rulers and the vices with the
ruled. Judging by educational theories,
men and women are entirely transfigured
in their relations to offspring. The
citizens we do business with, the people
we meet in the world, we know to be
very imperfect creatures. In the daily
scandals, in the quarrels of friends, in
bankruptcy disclosures, in lawsuits, in
police reports, we have constantly thrust
before us the pervading selfishness, dis
honesty, brutality. Yet when we criti
cise nursery-management and canvass
the misbehaviour of juveniles, we habitu
ally take for granted that these culpable
persons are free from moral delinquency
in the treatment of their boys and girls !
So far is this from the truth, that we do
not hesitate to blame parental miscon
duct for a great part of the domestic
disorder commonly ascribed to the per
versity of children. We do not assert
this of the more sympathetic and self
�72
EDUCATION
restrained, among whom we hope most
of our readers may be classed; but we
assert it of the mass. What kind of
moral culture is to be expected from a
mother who, time after time, angrily
shakes her infant because it will not
suck ; which we once saw a mother do ?
How much sense of justice is likely to
be instilled by a father who, on having
his attention drawn by a scream to the
fact that his child’s finger is jammed
between the window-sash and the sill,
begins to beat the child instead of re
leasing it ? Yet that there are such
fathers is testified to us by an eye
witness. Or, to take a still stronger
case, also vouched for by direct testi
mony—what are the educational pros
pects of the boy who, on being taken
home with a dislocated thigh, is saluted
with a castigation ? It is true that these
are extreme instances—instances exhibit
ing in human beings that blind instinct
which impels brutes to destroy the
weakly and injured of their own race.
But extreme though they are, they
typify feelings and conduct daily observ
able in many families. Who has not
repeatedly seen a child slapped by nurse
or parent for a fretfulness probably re
sulting from bodily derangement ? Who,
when watching a mother snatch up a
fallen little one, has not often traced,
both in the rough manner and in the
sharply - uttered exclamation — “ You
stupid little thing 1”—an irascibility fore
telling endless future squabbles ? Is
there not in the harsh tones in which a
father bids his children be quiet, evi
dence of a deficient fellow-feeling with
them ? Are not the constant, and often
quite needless, thwartings that the young
experience—the injunctions to sit still,
which an active child cannot obey with
out suffering great nervous irritation, the
commands not to look out of the window
when travelling by railway, which on
a child of any intelligence entails serious
deprivation—are not these thwartings,
we ask, signs of a terrible lack of sym
pathy ? The truth is, that the difficulties
of moral education are necessarily of
dual origin—necessarily result from the
combined faults of parents and children.
If hereditary transmission is a law of
nature, as every naturalist knows it to
be, and as our daily remarks and current
proverbs admit it to be; then, on the
average of cases, the defects of children
mirror the defects of their parents ; —on
the average of cases, we say, because,
complicated as the results are by the
transmitted traits of remoter ancestors,
the correspondence is not special but
only general. And if, on the average of
cases, this inheritance of defects exists,
then the evil passions which parents
have to check in their children, imply
like evil passions in themselves : hidden,
it may be, from the public eye; or per
haps obscured by other feelings; but
still there.
Evidently, therefore, the
general practice of any ideal system of
discipline is hopeless: parents are not
good enough.
Moreover, even were there methods
by which the desired end could be at
once effected ; and even had fathers and
mothers sufficient insight, sympathy, and
self-command to employ these methods
consistently; it might still be contended
that it would be of no use to reform
family-government faster than other
things are reformed. What is it that
we aim to do ? Is it not that education
of whatever kind, has for its proximate
end to prepare a child for the business
of life—to produce a citizen who, while
he is well conducted, is also able to make
his way in the world ? And does not
making his way in the world (by which
we mean, not the acquirement of wealth,
�MORAL EDUCATION
but of the funds requisite for bringing
up a family)—does not this imply a
- certain fitness for the world as it now is ?
And if by any system of culture an ideal
human being could be produced, is it
not doubtful whether he would be fit for
the world as it now is? May we not,
on the contrary, suspect that his too
keen sense of rectitude, and too elevated
standard of conduct, would make life
intolerable or even impossible ? And how
ever admirable the result might be, con
sidered individually, would it not be selfdefeating in so far as society and posterity
are concerned ? There is much reason
for thinking that as in a nation so in a
family, the kind of government is, on
the whole, about as good as the general
state of human nature permits it to be.
We may argue that in the one case, as
in the other, the average character of the
people determines the quality of the
control exercised. In both cases it may
be inferred that amelioration of the
average character leads to an ameliora
tion of system ; and further, that were
it possible to ameliorate the system with
out the average character being first
ameliorated, evil rather than good would
follow. Such degree of harshness as
children now experience from their
parents and teachers, may be regarded
as but a preparation for that greater
harshness which they will meet with on
entering the world. And it may be
urged that were it possible for parents
and teachers to treat them with perfect
equity and entire sympathy, it would
but intensify the sufferings which the
selfishness of men must, in after life,
inflict on them.1
1 Of this nature is the plea put in by some for
the rough treatment experienced by boys at our
public schools; where, as it is said, they are
introduced to a miniature world whose hardships
prepare them for those of the real world. It
73
“But does not this prove too much?”
some one will ask. “ If no system of
moral training can forthwith make
children what they should be; if, even
were there a system that would do this,
existing parents are too imperfect to
carry it out; and if even could such a
system be successfully carried out, its
results would be disastrously incongruous
with the present state of society; does it
not follow that to reform the system now
in use, is neither practicable nor desir
able?” No. It merely follows that
reform in domestic government must go
on, pari passu, with other reforms. It
merely follows that methods of discipline
neither can be nor should be ameliorated,
except by instalments. It merely follows
that the dictates of abstract rectitude
will, in practice, inevitably be subordi
nated by the present state of human
nature—by the imperfections alike of
children, of parents, and of society; and
can only be better fulfilled as the general
character becomes better.
“At any rate, then,” may rejoin our
critic, “it is clearly useless to set up
any ideal standard of family discipline.
There can be no advantage in elabora
ting and recommending methods that
are in advance of the time.” Again we
must be admitted that the plea has some force ;
but it is a very insufficient plea. For whereas
domestic and school discipline, though they
should not be much better than the discipline of
adult life, should be somewhat better ; the disci
pline which boys meet with at Eton, Winchester,
Harrow, etc., is worse than that adult life—more
unjust and cruel. Instead of being an aid to
human progress which all culture should be,
the culture of our public schools, by accustoming
boys to a despotic form of government and an
intercourse regulated by brute force, tends to fit
them for a lower state of society than that which
exists. And chiefly recruited as our legislature
is from among those who are brought up at such
schools, this barbarising influence becomes a
hindrance to national progress.
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EDUCATION
contend for the contrary. Just as
in the case of political government,
though pure rectitude may be at
present impracticable, it is requisite
to know where the right lies, in
order that the changes we make may be
iowards the right instead of away from
it; so, in the case of domestic govern
ment, an ideal must be upheld, that
there may be gradual approximations to
it. We need fear no evil consequences
from the maintenance of such an ideal.
On the average the constitutional con
servatism of mankind is strong enough
to prevent too rapid a change. Things
are so organised that until men have
grown up to the level of a higher belief,
they cannot receive it: nominally, they
may hold it, but not virtually. And
even when the truth gets recognised, the
obstacles to conformity with it are so
persistent as to outlive the patience of
philanthropists and even of philosophers.
We may be sure, therefore, that the
difficulties in the way of a normal
government of children, will always put
an adequate check upon the efforts to
realise it.
With these preliminary explanations,
let us go on to consider the true aims
and methods of moral education. After
a few pages devoted to the settlement of
general principles, during the perusal of
which we bespeak the reader’s patience,
we shall aim by illustrations to make
clear the right methods of parental
behaviour in the hourly occurring
difficulties of family government.
When a child falls, or runs its head
against the table, it suffers a pain, the
remembrance of which tends to make it
more careful; and by repetition of such
experiences, it is eventually disciplined
into proper guidance of its movements.
If it lays hold of the fire-bars, thrusts its
hand into a candle-flame, or spills boiling
water on any part of its skin, the result
ing burn or scald is a lesson not easily
forgotten. So deep an impression is
produced by one or two events of this
kind, that no persuasion will afterwards
induce it thus to disregard the laws of
its constitution.
Now in these cases, Nature illustrates
to us in the simplest way, the true theory
and practice of moral discipline—a
theory and practice which, however
much they may seem to the superficial
like those commonly received, we shall
find on examination to differ from them
very widely.
Observe, first, that in bodily injuries
and their penalties we have misconduct
and its consequences reduced to their
simplest forms. Though, according to
their popular acceptations, right and
wrong are words scarcely applicable to
actions that have none but direct bodily
effects j yet whoever considers the matter
will see that such actions must be as
much classifiable under these heads as
any other actions. From whatever
assumption they start, all theories of
morality agree that conduct whose total
results, immediate and remote, are
beneficial, is good conduct; while
conduct whose total results, immediate
and remote, are injurious, is bad
conduct. The ultimate standards by
which all men judge of behaviour,
are the resulting happiness or misery.
We consider drunkenness wrong because
of the physical degeneracy and accom
panying moral evils entailed on the
drunkard and his dependents.
Did
theft give pleasure both to taker and
loser, we should not find it in our cata
logue of sins. Were it conceivable that
kind actions multiplied human sufferings,
we should condemn them—should not
consider them kind. It needs but to
�MokAl education
read the first newspaper-leader, or listen
to any conversation on social affairs, to
see that acts of parliament, political
movements, philanthropic agitations, in
common with the doings of individuals
are judged by their anticipated results in
augmenting the pleasures or pains of
men. And if on analysing all secondary,
superinduced ideas, we find these to be
our final tests of right and wrong, we
cannot refuse to class bodily conduct as
right or wrong according to the bene
ficial or detrimental results produced.
Note, in the second place, the char
acter of the punishments by which these
physical transgressions are prevented.
Punishments, we call them, in the
absence of a better word: for they are
not punishments in the literal sense.
They are not artificial and unnecessary
inflictions of pain; but are simply the
beneficent checks to actions that are
essentially at variance with bodily wel
fare—checks in the absence of which
life would be quickly destroyed by bodily
injuries. It is the peculiarity of these
penalties, if we must so call them, that
they are simply the unavoidable conse
quences of the deeds which they follow :
they are nothing more than the inevitable
reactions entailed by the child’s actions.
Let it be further borne in mind that
these painful reactions are proportionate
to the transgressions. A slight accident
brings a slight pain ; a more serious one,
a severer pain. It is not ordained that
the urchin who tumbles over the door
step, shall suffer in excess of the amount
necessary; with the view of making it
still more cautious than the necessary
suffering will make it. But from its daily
experience it is left to learn the greater
or less errors; and to behave accord
ingly.
And then mark, lastly, that these
natural reactions which follow the child’s
wrong actions, are constant, direct,
unhesitating, and not to be escaped.
No threats; but a silent, rigorous per
formance. If a child runs a pin into
its finger, pain follows. If it does it
again, there is again the same result:
and so on perpetually. In all its dealings
with inorganic Nature it finds this un
swerving persistence, which listens to no
excuse, and from which there is no
appeal; and very soon recognising this
stern though beneficent discipline, it
becomes extremely careful not to trans
gress.
Still more significant will these general
truths appear, when we remember that
they hold throughout adult life as well
as throughout infantine life. It is by an
experimentally-gained knowledge of the
natural consequences, that men and
women are checked when they go wrong.
After home education has ceased, and
when there are no longer parents and
teachers to forbid this or that kind of
conduct, there comes into play a disci
pline like that by which the young child
is trained to self-guidance. If the youth ~
entering on the business of life idles
away his time and fulfils slowly or unskil
fully the duties entrusted to him, there
by-and-by follows the natural penalty :
he is discharged, and left to suffer for
awhile the evils of a relative poverty,
On the unpunctual man, ever missing his
appointments of business and pleasure,
there continually fall the consequent
inconveniences, losses, and deprivations.
The tradesman who charges too high a
rate of profit, loses his customers, and so
is checked in his greediness. Diminish
ing practice teaches the inattentive
doctor to bestow more trouble on his
patients. The too credulous creditor
and the over-sanguine speculator, alike
learn by the difficulties which rashness
entails on them, the necessity of being
�76
EDUCATION
more cautious in their engagements.
And so throughout the life of every
citizen. In the quotation so often made
apropos of such cases—“The burnt child
dreads the fire ”—we see not only that
the analogy between this social discipline
and Nature’s early discipline of infants
is universally recognised; but we also
see an implied conviction that this disci
pline is of the most efficient kind. Nay
indeed, this conviction is more than
implied ; it is distinctly stated. Every
one has heard others confess that only
by “ dearly bought experience ” had they
been induced to give up some bad or
foolish course of conduct formerly
pursued. Every one has heard, in the
criticisms passed on the doings of this
spendthrift or the other schemer, the
remark that advice was useless, and that
nothing but “bitter experience ” would
produce any effect : nothing, that is, but
suffering the unavoidable consequences.
And if further proof be needed that the
natural reaction is not only the most
efficient penalty, but that no humanlydevised penalty can replace it, we have
such further proof in the notorious illsuccess of our various penal systems.
Out of the many methods of criminal
discipline that have been proposed and
legally enforced, none have answered the
expectations of their advocates. Artificial
punishments have failed to produce
reformation ; and have in many cases
increased the criminality. The only suc
cessful reformatories are those privatelyestablished ones which approximate their
régime to the method of Nature—which
do little more than administer the natural
consequences of criminal conduct :
diminishing the criminal’s liberty of
action as much as is needful for the
safety of society, and requiring him to
maintain himself while living under this
restraint. Thus we see, both that the
discipline by which the young child is
taught to regulate its movements is the
discipline by which the great mass of
adults are kept in order, and more or
less improved; and that the discipline
humanly-devised for the worst adults,
fails when it diverges from this divinelyordained discipline, and begins to succeed
on approximating to it.
Have we not here, then, the guiding
principle of moral education ? Must we
not infer that the system so beneficent
in its effects during infancy and maturity,
will be equally beneficent throughout
youth? Can any one believe that the
method which answers so well in the
first and the last divisions of life, will
not answer in the intermediate division ?
Is it not manifest that as “ ministers and
interpreters of Nature ” it is the function
of parents to see that their children
habitually experience the true conse
quences of their conduct—the natural
reactions; neither warding them off, nor
intensifying them, nor putting artificial
consequences in place of them? No
unprejudiced reader will hesitate in his
assent.
Probably, however, not a few will con
tend that already most parents do this—
that the punishments they inflict are, in
the majority of cases, the true conse
quences of ill-conduct—that parental
anger, venting itself in harsh words and
deeds, is the result of a child’s transgres
sion—and that, in the suffering, physical
or moral, which the child is subject to,
it experiences the natural reaction of its
misbehaviour. Along with much error
this assertion contains some truth. It is
unquestionable that the displeasure of
fathers and mothers is a true conse
quence of juvenile delinquency; and that
the manifestation of it is a normal check
upon such delinquency. The scoldings,
�MORAL EDUCATION
and threats, and blows, which a passionate
parent visits on offending little ones, are
doubtless effects actually drawn from
such a parent by their offences ; and so
are, in some sort, to be considered as
among the natural reactions of their
wrong actions. Nor are we prepared to
say that these modes of treatment are
not relatively right—right, that is, in
relation to the uncontrollable children of
ill-controlled adults; and right in relation
to a state of society in which such illcontrolled adults make up the mass of
the, people.
As already suggested,
educational systems, like political and
other institutions, are generally as good
as the state of human nature permits.
The barbarous children of barbarous
parents are probably only to be re
strained by the barbarous methods which
such parents spontaneously employ;
while submission to these barbarous
methods is perhaps the best preparation
such children can have for the barbarous
society in which they are presently to
play a part. Conversely, the civilised
members of a civilised society will spon
taneously manifest their displeasure in
less violent ways—will spontaneously
use milder measures: measures strong
enough for their better-natured children.
Thus it is true that, in so far as the
expression of parental feeling is con
cerned, the principle of the natural
reaction is always more or less followed.
The system of domestic government
gravitates towards its right form.
But now observe two important facts.
The first fact is that, in states of rapid
transition like ours, which witness a
continuous battle between old and new
theories and old and new practices, the
educational methods in use are apt to
be considerably out of harmony with the
times. In deference to dogmas fit only
for the ages that uttered them, many
77
parents inflict punishments that do
violence to their own feelings, and so
visit on their children unnatural reactions;
while other parents, enthusiastic in their
hopes of immediate perfection, rush to
the opposite extreme. The second fact
is, that the discipline of chief value is
not the experience of parental approba
tion or disapprobation; but it is the
experience of those results which would
ultimately flow from the conduct in the
absence of parental opinion or interfer
ence. The truly instructive and salutary
consequences are not those inflicted by
parents when they take upon themselves
to be Nature’s proxies; but they are
those inflicted by Nature herself. We
will endeavour to make this distinction
clear by a few illustrations, which, while
they show what we mean by natural
reactions as contrasted with artificial
ones, will afford some practical sugges
tions.
In every family where there are young
children there daily occur cases of what
mothers and servants call “making a
litter.” A child has had out its box of
toys, and leaves them scattered about the
floor. Or a handful of flowers, brought
in from a morning walk, is presently
seen dispersed over tables and chairs.
Or, a little girl, making doll’s clothes,
disfigures the room with shreds. In
most cases the trouble of rectifying this
disorder falls anywhere but where it
should. Occurring in the nursery, the
nurse herself, with many grumblings
about “ tiresome little things,” under
takes the task; if below-stairs, the task
usually devolves either on one of the
elder children or on the housemaid : the
transgressor being visited with nothing
more than a scolding. In this very
simple case, however, there are many
parents wise enough to follow out, more
or less consistently, the normal course—
�78
EDUCATION
that of making the child itself collect the
toys or shreds. The labour of putting
things in order, is the true consequence
of having put them in disorder. Every
trader in his office, every wife in her
household, has daily experience of this
fact. And if education be a preparation
for the business of life, then every
child should also, from the begin
ning, have daily experience of this
fact. If the natural penalty be met by
refractory behaviour (which it may per
haps be where the system of moral disci
pline previously pursued has been bad),
then the proper course is to let the child
feel the ulterior reaction caused by its
disobedience. Having refused or neg
lected to pick up and put away the
things it has scattered about, and having
thereby entailed the trouble of doing
this on some one else, the child should,
on subsequent occasions, be denied the
means of giving this trouble. When
next it petitions for its toy-box, the
reply of its mamma should be—“ The
last time you had your toys you left
them lying on the floor, and Jane had to
pick them up. Jane is too busy to pick
up every day the things you leave about;
and I cannot do it myself. So that, as
you will not put away your toys when
you have done with them, I cannot let
you have them.” This is obviously a
natural consequence, neither increased
nor lessened ; and must be so recognised
by a child. The penalty comes, too, at
the moment when it is most keenly felt.
A new-born desire is balked at the
moment of anticipated gratification ; and
the strong impression so produced can
scarcely fail to have an effect on the
future conduct: an effect which, by
consistent repetition, will do whatever
can be done in curing the fault. Add
to which, that, by this method, a child
is early taught the lesson which cannot
be learnt too soon, that in this world of
ours pleasures are rightly to be obtained
only by labour.
Take another case. Not long since
we had frequently to hear the repri
mands visited on a little girl who was
scarcely ever ready in time for the daily
walk. Of eager disposition, and apt to
become absorbed in the occupation of
the moment, Constance never thought
of putting on her things till the rest were
ready. The governess and the other
children had almost invariably to wait;
and from the mamma there almost
invariably came the same scolding.
Utterly as this system failed, it never
occurred to the mamma to let Constance
experience the natural penalty. Nor,
indeed, would she try it when it was
suggested to her. In the world, un
readiness entails the loss of some
advantage that would else have been
gained : the train is gone ; or the steam
boat is just leaving its moorings ; or the
best things in the market are sold; or all
the good seats in the concert-room are
filled. And every one, in cases per
petually occurring, may see that it is the
prospective deprivations which prevent
people from being too late. Is not the
inference obvious ? Should not the pro
spective deprivations control a child’s
conduct also ? If Constance is not
ready at the appointed time, the natural
result is that of being left behind, and
losing her walk. And after having once
or twice remained at home while the rest
were enjoying themselves in the fields—
after having felt that this loss of a muchprized gratification was solely due to
want of promptitude; amendment would
in all probability take place. At any
rate, the measure would be more effective
than that perpetual scolding which ends
only in producing callousness.
Again, when children, with more than
�MORAL EDUCATION
usual carelessness, break or lose the
things given to them, the natural penalty
—the penalty which makes grown-up
persons more careful—is the consequent
inconvenience. The lack of the lost or
damaged article, and the cost of re
placing it, are the experiences by which
men and women are disciplined in these
matters; and the experiences of children
should be as much as possible assimilated
to theirs. We do not refer to that early
period at which toys are pulled to pieces
in the process of learning their physical
properties, and at which the results of
carelessness cannot be understood; but
to a later period, when the meaning and
advantages of property are perceived.
When a boy, old enough to possess a
penknife, uses it so roughly as to snap
the blade, or leaves it in the grass by
some hedge-side where he was cutting a
stick, a thoughtless parent, or some in
dulgent relative, will commonly forthwith
buy him another ; not seeing that, by
doing this, a valuable lesson is prevented.
In such a case, a father may properly
explain that penknives cost money, and
that to get money requires labour; that
ne cannot afford to purchase new pen
knives for one who loses or breaks them ;
and that until he sees evidence of greater
carefulness he must decline to make
good the loss. A parallel discipline will
serve to check extravagance.
These few familiar instances, here
chosen because of the simplicity with
which they illustrate our point, will
make clear to every one the distinction
between those natural penalties which
we contend are the truly efficient ones,
and those artificial penalties commonly
substituted for them. Before going on
to exhibit the higher and subtler applica
tions of the principle exemplified, let us
note its many and great superiorities over
the principle, or rather the empirical
79
practice, which prevails in most families.
One superiority is that the pursuance
of it generates right conceptions of cause
and effect; which by frequent and con
sistent experience are eventually rendered
definite and complete. Proper conduct
in life is much better guaranteed when
the good and evil consequences of actions
are understood, than when they are
merely believed on authority. A child
who finds that disordliness entails the
trouble of putting things in order, or
who misses a gratification from dilatori
ness, or whose carelessness is followed
by the want of some much-prized posses
sion, not only suffers a keenly-felt con
sequence, but gains a knowledge of
causation: both the one and the other
being just like those which adult life will
bring. Whereas a child who in such
cases receives a reprimand, or some
factitious penalty, not only experiences
a consequence for which it often cares
very little, but misses that instruction
respecting the essential natures of good
and evil conduct, which it would else
have gathered. It is a vice of the
common system of artificial rewards and
punishments, long since noticed by the
clear-sighted, that by substituting for the
natural results of misbehaviour certain
tasks or castigations, it produces a
radically wrong moral standard. Having
throughout infancy and boyhood always
regarded parental or tutorial displeasure
as the chief result of a forbidden action,
the youth has gained an established
association of ideas between such action
and such displeasure, as cause and effect.
Hence when parents and tutors have
abdicated, and their displeasure is not
to be feared, the restraints on forbidden
actions are in great measure removed:
the true restraints, the natural reactions,
having yet to be learnt by sad experience.
As writes one who has had personal
�8o
EDUCATION
knowledge of this short-sighted system :—
“Young men let loose from school, par
ticularly those whose parents have
neglected to exert their influence, plunge
into every description of extravagance;
they know no rule of action—they are
ignorant of the reasons for moral conduct
—they have no foundation to rest upon
—and until they have been severely
disciplined by the world are extremely
dangerous members of society.”
Another great advantage of this natural
discipline is, that it is a discipline of
pure justice; and will be recognised as
such by every child. Whoso suffers
nothing more than the evil which in
the order of nature results from his
own misbehaviour, is much less likely to
think himself wrongly treated than if he
suffers an artificially inflicted evil; and
this will hold of children as of men.
Take the case of a boy who is habitually
reckless of his clothes—scrambles
through hedges without caution, or is
utterly regardless of mud. If he is
beaten, or sent to bed, he is apt to con
sider himself ill-used; and is more likely
to brood over his injuries than to repent
of his transgressions. But suppose he
is required to rectify as far as possible
the harm he has done—to clean off the
mud with which he has covered himself,
or to mend the tear as well as he can.
Will he not feel that the evil is one of
his own producing ? Will he not while
paying this penalty be continuously
conscious of the connection between
it and its cause ? And will he not,
spite of his irritation, recognise
more or less clearly the justice of the
arrangement ? If several lessons of this
kind fail to produce amendment—if suits
ff clothes are prematurely spoiled—if
the father, pursuing this same system of
discipline, declines to spend money for
new ones until the ordinary time has
elapsed—and if meanwhile, there occur
occasions on which, having no decent
clothes to go in, the boy is debarred
from joining the rest of the family on
holiday excursions and fete days, it is
manifest that while he will keenly feel
the punishment, he can scarcely fail to
trace the chain of causation, and to
perceive that his own carelessness is the
origin of it. And seeing this he will not
have any such sense of injustice as if
there were no obvious connection
between the transgression and its
penalty.
Again, the tempers both of parents
and children are much less liable to be
ruffled under this system than under the
ordinary system. When, instead of
letting children experience the painful
results which naturally follow from wrong
conduct, parents themselves inflict cer
tain other painful results, they produce
double mischief. Making, as they do,
multiplied family laws; and identifying
their own supremacy and dignity with the
maintenance of these laws; every trans
gression is regarded as an offence against
themselves, and a cause of anger on their
part. And then come the further vexa
tions which result from taking upon
themselves, in the shape of extra labour
or cost, those evil consequences which
should have been allowed to fall on the
wrong-doers. Similarly with the children.
Penalties which the necessary reaction
of things brings round upon them—
penalties which are inflicted by imper
sonal agency, produce an irritation that
is comparatively slight and transient;
whereas penalties voluntarily inflicted by
a parent, and afterwards thought of as
caused by him or her, produce an irrita
tion both greater and more continued.
Just consider how disastrous would be
the result if this empirical method wrere
pursued from the beginning. Suppose
�MORAL EDUCATION
it were possible for parents to take upon
themselves the physical sufferings en
tailed on their children by ignorance and
awkwardness; and that while bearing
these evil consequences they visited on
their children certain other evil conse
quences, with the view of teaching them
the impropriety of their conduct. Sup
pose that when a child, who had been
forbidden to meddle with the kettle,
spilt boiling water on its foot, the mother
vicariously assumed the scald and gave
a blow in place of it; and similarly in
all other cases. Would not the daily
mishaps be sources of far more anger
than now ? Would there not be chronic
ill-temper on both sides ? Yet an
exactly parallel policy is pursued in after
years. A father who beats his boy for
carelessly or wilfully breaking a sister’s
toy, and then himself pays for a new
toy, does substantially the same thing—
inflicts an artificial penalty on the trans
gressor, and takes the natural penalty on
himself: his own feelings and those of
the transgressor being alike needlessly
irritated. Did he simply require restitu
tion to be made, he would produce far
less heart-burning. If he told the boy
that a new toy must be bought at his,
the boy’s cost; and that his supply of
pocket-money must be withheld to the
needful extent; there would be much
less disturbance of temper on either side :
while in the deprivation afterwards felt,
the boy would experience the equitable
and salutary consequence. In brief, the
system of discipline by natural reactions
is less injurious to temper, both because
it is perceived to be nothing more than
pure justice, and because it in great
part substitutes the impersonal agency of
Nature for the personal agency of
parents.
Whence also follows the manifest corol
lary, that under this system the parental
81
and filial relation, being a more friendly,
will be a more influential one. Whether
in parent or child, anger, however
caused, and to whomsoever directed, is
detrimental. But anger in a parent
towards a child, and in a child towards
a parent, is especially detrimental;
because it weakens that bond of sym
pathy which is essential to beneficent
control. From the law of association of
ideas, it inevitably results, both in young
and old, that dislike is contracted
towards things which in experience are
habitually connected with disagreeable
feelings. Or where attachment originally
existed, it is diminished, or turned into
repugnance, according to the quantity of
painful impressions received. Parental
wrath, venting itself in reprimands and
castigations, cannot fail, if often repeated,
to produce filial alienation; while the
resentment and sulkiness of children
cannot fail to weaken the affection felt
for them, and may even end in destroy
ing it. Hence the numerous cases in
which parents (and especially fathers,
who are commonly deputed to inflict the
punishment) are regarded with indiffer
ence, if not with aversion; and hence
the equally numerous cases in which
children are looked upon as inflictions.
Seeing then, as all must do, that
estrangement of this kind is fatal to a
salutary moral culture, it follows that
parents cannot be too solicitous in
avoiding occasions of direct antagonism
with their children. And therefore they
cannot too anxiously avail themselves of
this discipline of natural consequences;
which, by relieving them from penal
functions, prevents mutual exasperations
and estrangements.
The method of moral culture by
experience of the normal reactions,
which is the divinely-ordained method
alike for infancy and for adult life, we thus
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EDUCATION
find to be equally applicable during the
intermediate childhood and youth.
Among the advantages of this method
we see:—First; that it gives that
rational knowledge of right and wrong
conduct which results from personal
experience of their good and bad con
sequences.
Second; that the child,
suffering nothing more than the painful
effects of its own wrong actions, must
recognise more or less clearly the justice
of the penalties. Third; that recognising
the justice of the penalties, and receiving
them through the working of things
rather than at the hands of an individual,
its temper is less disturbed; while the
parent, fulfilling the comparatively passive
duty of letting the natural penalties be
felt, preserves a comparative equanimity.
Fourth ; that mutual exasperations being
thus prevented, a much happier, and a
more influential relation, will exist
between parent and child.
“ But what is to be done in cases of
more serious misconduct ?” some will
ask. “ How is this plan to be carried
out when a petty theft has been com
mitted ? or when a lie has been told ?
or when some younger brother or sister
has been ill-used ?”
Before replying to these questions, let
us consider the bearings of a few illus
trative facts.
Living in the family of his brother-inlaw, a friend of ours had undertaken the
education of his little nephew and niece.
This he had conducted, more perhaps
from natural sympathy than from
reasoned-out conclusions, in the spirit
of the method above set forth. The
two children were in-doors his pupils
and out-of-doors his companions. They
daily joined him in walks and botanising
excursions, eagerly sought plants for
him, looked on while he examined and
identified them, and in this and other
ways were ever gaining pleasure and
instruction in his society. In short,
morally considered, he stood to them
much more in the position of parent
than either their father or mother did.
Describing to us the results of this policy,
he gave, among other instances, the
following. One evening, having need
for some article lying in another part of
the house, he asked his nephew to fetch
it. Interested as the boy was in some
amusement of the moment, he, contrary
to his wont, either exhibited great reluc
tance or refused, we forget which. His
uncle, disapproving of a coercive course,
went himself for that which he wanted :
merely exhibiting by his manner the
annoyance this ill-behaviour gave him.
And when, later in the evening, the boy
made overtures for the usual play, they
were gravely repelled—the uncle mani
fested just that coldness naturally pro
duced in him; and so let the boy feel
the necessary consequences of his con
duct. Next morning at the usual time
for rising, our friend heard a new voice
at the door, and in walked his little
nephew with the hot water. Peering
about the room to see what else could
be done, the boy then exclaimed, “ Oh !
you want your boots
and forthwith
rushed down-stairs to fetch them. In
this and other ways he showed a true
penitence for his misconduct. He
endeavoured by unusual services to make
up for the service he had refused. His
better feelings had made a real conquest
over his lower ones; and acquired
strength by the victory. And having
felt what it was to be without it, he
valued more than before the friendship
he thus regained.
This gentleman is now himself a father;
acts on the same system; and finds it
answer completely. He makes himself
�MORAL EDUCATION
thoroughly his children’s friend. The
evening is longed for by them because
he will be at home; and they especially
enjoy Sunday because he is with them
all day. Thus possessing their perfect
confidence and affection, he finds that
the simple display of his approbation or
disapprobation gives him abundant power
of control. If, on his return home, he
hears that one of his boys has been
naughty, he behaves towards him with
that coolness which the consciousness of
the boy’s misconduct naturally produces ;
and he finds this a most efficient punish
ment. The mere withholding of the
usual caresses, is a source of much
distress—produces a more prolonged fit
of crying than a beating would do. And
the dread of this purely moral penalty is,
he says, ever present during his absence :
so much so, that frequently during the
day his children ask their mamma how
they have behaved, and whether the
report will be good. Recently the
eldest, an active urchin of five, in one of
those bursts of animal spirits common
in healthy children, committed sundry
extravagances during his mamma’s
absence—cut off part of his brother’s
hair and wounded himself with a razor
taken from his father’s dressing-case.
Hearing of these occurrences on his
return, the father did not speak to the
boy either that night or next morning.
Besides the immediate tribulation the
effect was, that when, a few days after,
the mamma was about to go out, she
was entreated by the boy not to do so;
and on inquiry, it appeared his fear was
that he might again transgress in her
absence.
We have introduced these facts before
replying to the question—“ What is to
be done with the graver offences ?” for
the purpose of first exhibiting the rela
tion that may and ought to be estab
83
lished between parents and children;
for on the existence of this relation
depends the successful treatment of these
graver offences. And as a further pre
liminary, we must now point out that the
establishment of this relation will result
from adopting the system here advocated.
Already we have shown that by simply
letting a child experience the painful
reactions of its own wrong actions, a
parent avoids antagonism and escapes
being regarded as an enemy; but it
remains to be shown that where this
course has been consistently pursued
from the beginning, a feeling of active
friendship will be generated.
At present, mothers and fathers are
mostly considered by their offspring as
friend-enemies. Determined as the im
pressions of children inevitably are by
the treatment they receive; and oscil
lating as that treatment does between
bribery and thwarting, between petting
and scolding, between gentleness and
castigation ; they necessarily acquire con
flicting beliefs respecting the parental
character. A mother commonly thinks
it sufficient to tell her little boy that she
is his best friend; and assuming that he
ought to believe her, concludes that he
will do so. “ It is all for your good ”;
“ I know what is proper for you better
than you do yourself”; “You are not old
enough to understand it now, but when
you grow up you will thank me for
doing what I do”;—these, and like
assertions, are daily reiterated. Mean
while the boy is daily suffering positive
penalties; and is hourly forbidden to
do this, that, and the other, which he
wishes to do. By words he hears that
his happiness is the end in view; but
from the accompanying deeds he habitu
ally receives more or less pain. Incom
petent as he is to understand that future
which his mother has in view, or how
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EDUCATION
this treatment conduces to the happiness
of that future, he judges by the results he
feels; and finding such results anything
but pleasurable, he becomes sceptical
respecting her professions of friendship.
And is it not folly to expect any other
issue ? Must not the child reason from
the evidence he has got ? and does not
this evidence seem to warrant his con
clusion ? The mother would reason in
just the same way if similarly placed.
If, among her acquaintance, she found
some one who was constantly thwarting
her wishes, uttering sharp reprimands,
and occasionally inflicting actual penal
ties on her, she would pay small atten
tion to any professions of anxiety for her
welfare which accompanied these acts.
Why, then, does she suppose that her
boy will do otherwise ?
But now observe how different will be
the results if the system we contend for
be consistently pursued—if the mother
not only avoids becoming the instru
ment of punishment, but plays' the part
of a friend, by warning her boy of the
pun.’shment which Nature will inflict.
Take a case; and that it may illustrate
the mode in which this policy is to be
early initiated, let it be one of the
simplest cases. Suppose that, prompted
by the experimental spirit so conspicuous
in children, whose proceedings instinc
tively conform to the inductive method
of inquiry—suppose that so prompted,
the boy is amusing himself by lighting
pieces of paper in the candle and watch
ing them burn. A mother of the
ordinary unreflective stamp, will either,
on the plea of keeping him “ out of
mischief,” or from fear that he will burn
himself, command him to desist; and in
case of non-compliance will snatch the
paper from him. But should he be fortu
nate enough to have a mother of some
rationality, who knows that this interest
with which he is watching the paper burn,
results from a healthy inquisitiveness, and
who has also the wisdom to consider
the results of interference, she will
reason thus:—“If I put a stop to this
I shall prevent the acquirement of a
certain amount of knowledge.
It is
true that I may save the child from a
burn but what then ? He is sure to
burn himself some time; and it is quite
essential to his safety in life that he
should learn by experience the properties
of flame. If I forbid him from running
this present risk, he will certainly here
after run the same or a greater risk when
no one is present toprevent him; whereas,
should he have an accident now that
I am by, I can save him from any great
injury. Moreover, were I to make him
desist, I should thwart him in the pursuit
of what is in itself a purely harmless, and
indeed, instructive gratification; and he
would regard me with more or less illfeeling. Ignorant as he is of the pain
from which I would save him, and feeling
only the pain of a baulked desire, he
could not fail to look on me as the
cause of that pain. To save him from a
hurt which he cannot conceive, and
which has therefore no existence for
him, I hurt him in a way which he feels
keenly enough; and so become, from
his point of view, a minister of evil. My
best course, then, is simply to warn him
of the danger, and to be ready to prevent
any serious damage.” And following
out this conclusion, she says to the child
—“ I fear you will hurt yourself if you
do that.” Suppose, now, that the boy,
persevering as he will probably do, ends
by burning his hand. What are the
results ? In the first place he has gained
an experience which he must gain
eventually, and which, for his own safety,
he cannot gain too soon. And in the
second place, he has found that his
�MORAL EDUCATION
mother’s disapproval or warning was
meant for his welfare : he has a further
positive experience of her benevolence
a further reason for placing confidence
in her judgment and kindness—a further
reason for loving her.
Of course, in those occasional hazards
where there is a risk of broken limbs or
other serious injury, forcible prevention
is called for. But leaving out extreme
cases, the system pursued should be, not
that of guarding a child from the small
risks which it daily runs, but that of
advising and warning it against them.
And by pursuing this course, a much
stronger filial affection will be generated
than commonly exists. If here, as else
where, the discipline of the natural
reactions is allowed to come into play
if in those out-door scrambling and in
door experiments, by which children are
liable to injure themselves, they are
allowed to persist, subject only to dis
suasion more or less earnest according
to the danger, there cannot fail to arise
an ever-increasing faith in the parental
friendship and guidance. Not only, as
before shown, does the adoption of this
course enable fathers and mothers to
avoid the odium which attaches to the
infliction of positive punishment; but,
as we here see, it enables them to avoid
the odium which attaches to constant
thwartings j and even to turn those
incidents that commonly cause squabbles
into a means of strengthening the mutual
good feeling. Instead of being told in
words, which deeds seem to contradict,
that their parents are their best friends,
children will learn this truth by a con
sistent daily experience; and so learning
it, will acquire a degree of trust and
attachment which nothing else can give.
And now, having indicated the more
sympathetic relation which must result
from the habitual use of this method,
85
let us return to the question above put
—How is this method to be applied to
the graver offences ?
Note, in the first place, that these
graver offences are likely to be both less
frequent and less grave under the régime
we have described than under the ordi
nary régime. The ill-behaviour of many
children is in itself a consequence of
that chronic irritation in which they are
kept by bad management. The state of
isolation and antagonism produced by
frequent punishment, necessarily deadens
the sympathies ; necessarily, therefore,
opens the way to those transgressions
which the sympathies check.
That
harsh treatment which children of the
same family inflict on each other is often,
in great measure, a reflex of the harsh
treatment they receive from adults
partly suggested by direct example, and
partly generated by the ill-temper and
the tendency to vicarious retaliation,
which follow chastisements and scoldings.
It cannot be questioned that the greater
activity of the affections and happier
state of feeling, maintained in children
by the discipline we have described,
must prevent them from sinning against
each other so gravely and so frequently.
The still more reprehensible offences, as
lies and petty thefts, will, by the same
causes, be diminished. Domestic estrange
ment is a fruitful source of such trans
gressions. It is a law of human nature,
visible enough to all who observe, that
those who are debarred the higher grati
fications fall back upon the lower ; those
who have no sympathetic pleasures seek
selfish ones ; and hence, conversely, the
maintenance of happier relations between
parents and children is calculated to
diminish the number of those offences
of which selfishness is the origin.
When, however, such offences are
committed, as they will occasionally be
�86
EDUCATION
even under the best system, the discipline
of consequences may still be resorted to;
and if there exists that bond of con
fidence and affection above described,
this discipline will be efficient. For
what are the natural consequences, say,
of a theft ? They are of two kinds—
direct and indirect. The direct conse
quence, as dictated by pure equity, is
that of making restitution. A just ruler
(and every parent should aim to be one)
will demand that, when possible, a wrong
act shall be undone by a right one; and
in the case of theft this implies either
the restoration of the thing stolen, or, if
it is consumed, the giving of an equiva
lent : which, in the case of a child, may
be effected out of its pocket-money.
The indirect and more serious conse
quence is the grave displeasure of parents
—a consequence which inevitably follows
among all peoples civilised enough to
regard theft as a crime. “ But,” it will'
be said, “ the manifestation of parental
displeasure, either in words or blows, is
the ordinary course in these cases : the
method leads here to nothing new.”
Very true. Already we have admitted
that, in some directions, this method is
spontaneously pursued.
Already we
have shown that there is a tendency for
educational systems to gravitate towards
the true system. And here we may
remark, as before, that the intensity of
this natural reaction will, in the beneficent
order of things, adjust itself to the
requirements—that this parental dis
pleasure will vent itself in violent
measures during comparatively barbarous
times, when children are also compara
tively barbarous; and will express itself
less cruelly in those more advanced
social states in which, by implication,
the children are amenable to milder
treatment. But what it chiefly concerns
us here to observe is, that the manifesta
tion of strong parental displeasure, pro
duced by one of these graver offences,
will be potent for good, just in proportion
to the warmth of the attachment existing
between parent and child. Just in pro
portion as the discipline of natural con
sequences has been consistently pursued
in other cases, will it be efficient in this
case. Proof is within the experience of
all, if they will look for it.
For does not every one know that
when he has offended another, the
amount of regret he feels (of course,
leaving worldly considerations out of the
question) varies with the degree of
sympathy he has for that other ? Is he
not conscious that when the person
offended is an enemy, the having given
him annoyance is apt to be a source
rather of secret satisfaction than of
sorrow ? Does he not remember that
where umbrage has been taken by some
total stranger, he has felt much less con
cern than he would have done had such
umbrage been taken by one with whom
he was intimate ? While, conversely,
has not the anger of an admired and
cherished friend been regarded by him
as a serious misfortune, long and keenly
regretted ? Well, the effects of parental
displeasure on children must similarly
vary with the pre-existing relationship.
Where there is an established alienation,
the feeling of a child who has trans
gressed is a purely selfish fear of the
impending physical penalties or depriva
tions ; and after these have been inflicted,
the injurious antagonism and dislike
which result, add to the alienation. On
the contrary, where there exists a warm
filial affection produced by a consistent
parental friendship, the state of mind
caused by parental displeasure is not
only a salutary check to future miscon
duct of like kind, but is intrinsically
salutary. The moral pain consequent
�MORAL EDUCATION
on having, for the time being, lost so
loved a friend, stands in place of the
physical pain usually inflicted, and
proves equally, if not more, efficient.
While instead of the fear and vindictive
ness excited by the one course, there are
excited by the other a sympathy with
parental sorrow, a genuine regret for
having caused it, and a desire, by some
atonement, to re-establish the friendly
relationship. Instead of bringing into
play those egotistic feelings whose pre
dominance is the cause of criminal acts,
there are brought into play those altruistic
feelings which check criminal acts, fl hus
the discipline of natural consequences
is applicable to grave as well as trivial
faults; and the practice of it conduces
not simply to the repression, but to the
eradication of such faults.
In brief, the truth is that savageness
begets savageness, and gentleness begets
gentleness. Children who are unsympa
thetically treated become unsympathetic;
whereas treating them with due fellowfeeling is a means of cultivating their
fellow-feeling. With family governments
as with political ones, a harsh despotism
itself generates a great part of the crimes
it has to repress; while on the other
hand a mild and liberal rule both avoids
many causes of dissension, and so
ameliorates the tone of feeling as to
diminish the tendency to transgression.
As John Locke long since remarked,
“Great severity of punishment does but
very little good, nay, great harm, in
education; and I believe it will be found
that, cceteris paribus, those children who
have been most chastised seldom make
the best men.” In confirmation of which
opinion we may cite the fact not long
since made public by Mr. Rogers,
Chaplain of the Pentonville Prison, that
those juvenile criminals who have been
whipped are those who most frequently
87
return to prison. Conversely, the bene
ficial effects of a kinder treatment, are
well illustrated in a fact stated to us by
a French lady, in whose house we recently
stayed in Paris. Apologising for the dis
turbance daily caused by a little boy who
was unmanageable both at home and at
school, she expressed her fear that there
was no remedy save that which had
succeeded in the case of an elder brother;
namely, sending him to an English school.
She explained that at various schools in
Paris this elder brother had proved
utterly untractable; that in despair they
had followed the advice to send him to
England; and that on his return home
he was as good as he had before been
bad.
This remarkable change she
ascribed entirely to the comparative
mildness of the English discipline.
After the foregoing exposition of
principles, our remaining space may best
be occupied by a few of the chief maxims
and rules deducible from them; and
with a view to brevity we will put these
in a hortatory form.
Do not expect from a child any great
amount of moral goodness.
During
early years every civilised man passes
through that phase of character exhibited
by the barbarous race from which he is
descended. As the child’s features—
flat nose, forward-opening nostrils, large
lips, wide-apart eyes, absent frontal sinus,
&c.—resemble for a time those of the
savage, so, too, do his instincts. Hence
the tendencies to cruelty, to thieving,
to lying, so general among children—
tendencies which, even without the aid
of discipline, will become more or less
modified just as the features do. The
popular idea that children are “innocent,”
while it is true with respect to evil know
ledge, is totally false with respect to evil
impulses; as half an hour’s observation
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EDUCATION
in the nursery will prove to any one.
Boys when left to themselves, as at
public schools, treat each other more
brutally than men do; and were they
left to themselves at an earlier age
their brutality would be still more con
spicuous.
Not only is it unwise to set up a high
standard of good conduct for children,
but it is even unwise to use very urgent
incitements to good conduct. Already
most people recognise the detrimental
results of intellectual precocity; but there
remains to be recognised the fact that
moral precocity also has detrimental
results. Our higher moral faculties, like
our higher intellectual ones, are com
paratively complex.
By consequence
both are comparatively late in their
evolution. And with the one as with
the other, an early activity produced by
stimulation will be at the expense of the
future character. Hence the not un
common anomaly that those who during
childhood were models of juvenile good
ness, by-and-by undergo a seemingly
inexplicable change for the worse, and
end by being not above but below par;
while relatively exemplary men are often
the issue of a childhood by no means
promising.
Be content, therefore, with moderate
measures and moderate results. Bear
in mind that a higher morality, like a
higher intelligence, must be reached by
slow growth; and you will then have
patience with those imperfections which
your child hourly displays. You will be
less prone to that constant scolding, and
threatening, and forbidding, by which
many parents induce a chronic domestic
irritation, in the foolish hope that they
will thus make their children what they
should be.
This liberal form of domestic govern
ment, which does not seek despotically
to regulate all the details of a child’s
conduct, necessarily results from the
system we advocate. Satisfy yourself
with seeing that your child always
suffers the natural consequences of his
actions, and you will avoid that excess
of control in which so many parents err.
Leave him wherever you can to the
discipline of experience, and you will
save him from that hot-house virtue
which over-regulation produces in
yielding natures, or that demoralising
antagonism which it produces in inde
pendent ones.
By aiming in all cases to insure the
natural reactions to your child’s actions,
you will put an advantageous check on
your own temper. The method of
moral education pursued by many, we
fear by most, parents, is little else than
that of venting their anger in the way
that first suggests itself. The slaps, and
rough shakings, and sharp words, with
which a mother commonly visits her
offspring’s small offences (many of them
not offences considered intrinsically), are
generally but the manifestations of her
ill-controlled feelings—result much more
from the promptings of those feelings
than from a wish to benefit the offenders.
But by pausing in each case of trans
gression to consider what is the normal
consequence, and how it may best be
brought home to the transgressor, some
little time is obtained for the mastery of
yourself; the mere blind anger first
aroused settles down into a less vehement
feeling, and one not so likely to mislead
you.
Do not, however, seek to behave as a
passionless instrument. Remember that
besides the natural reactions to your
child’s actions which the working of
things tends to bring round on him, your
own approbation or disapprobation is
also a natural reaction, and one of the
�MORAL EDUCATION
ordained agencies for guiding him. The
error we have been combating is that of
substituting parental displeasure and its
artificial penalties for the penalties which
Nature has established. But while it
should not be substituted for these
natural penalties, we by no means argue
that it should not accompany them.
Though the secondary kind of punish
ment should not usurp the place of the
primary kind; it may, in moderation,
rightly supplement the primary kind.
Such amount of sorrow or indignation as
you feel, should be expressed in words
or manner : subject, of course, to the
approval of your judgment. The kind
and degree of feeling produced in you,
will necessarily depend on your own
character; and it is therefore useless to
say it should be this or that. Neverthe
less you may endeavour to modify the
feeling into that which you believe
ought to be entertained. Beware, how
ever, of the two extremes ; not only in
respect of the intensity, but in respect of
the duration, of your displeasure. On
the one hand, avoid that weak impul
siveness, so general among mothers,
which scolds and forgives almost in the
same breath. On the other hand, do
not unduly continue to show estrange
ment of feeling, lest you accustom your
child to do without your friendship, and
so lose your influence over him. The
moral reactions called forth from you by
your child’s actions, you should as much
as possible assimilate to those which you
conceive would be called forth from a
parent of perfect nature.
Be sparing of commands. Command
only when other means are inexplicable,
or have failed. “ In frequent orders the
parents’ advantage is more considered
than the child’s,” says Richter. As in
primitive societies a breach of law is
punished, not so much because it is
89
intrinsically wrong as because it is a
disregard of the king’s authority—a
rebellion against him; so in many
families, the penalty visited on a trans
gressor is prompted less by reprobation
of the offence than by anger at the dis
obedience. Listen to the ordinary
speeches—“ How dare you disobey me ?”
“ I tell you I’ll make you do it, sir
“ I’ll soon teach you who is master ”—
and then consider what the words, the
tone, and the manner imply. A deter
mination to subjugate is far more con
spicuous in them than anxiety for the
child’s welfare. For the time being the
attitude of mind differs but little from
that of a despot bent on punishing a
recalcitrant subject. The right-feeling
parent, however, like the philanthropic
legislator, will rejoice not in coercion,
but in dispensing with coercion. He
will do without law wherever other
modes of regulating conduct can be
successfully employed; and he will
regret the having recourse to law when
law is necessary. As Richter remarks—
“ The best rule in politics is said to be
1 pas trop gouverner’: it is also true in
education.” And in spontaneous con
formity with this maxim, parents whose
lust of dominion is restrained by a true
sense of duty, will aim to make their
children control themselves as much as
possible, and will fall back upon abso
lutism only as a last resort.
But whenever you do command, com
mand with decision and consistency. If
the case is one which really cannot be
otherwise dealt with, then issue your fiat,
and having issued it, never afterwards
swerve from it. Consider well what you
are going to do; weigh all the conse
quences ; think whether you have
adequate firmness of purpose; and then,
if you finally make the law, enforce
obedience at whatever cost. Let your
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EDUCATION
penalties be like the penalties inflicted
by inanimate Nature—inevitable. The
hot cinder burns a child the first time he
seizes it; it burns him the second time ;
it burns him the third time; it burns him
every time; and he very soon learns not
to touch the hot cinder. If you are
equally consistent—if the consequences
which you tell your child will follow
specified acts, follow with like uniformity,
he will soon come to respect your laws
as he does those of Nature. And this
respect once established, will prevent
endless domestic evils. Of errors in
education one of the worst is incon
sistency. As in a community, crimes
multiply when there is no certain
administration of justice; so in a family,
an immense increase of transgressions
results from a hesitating or irregular
infliction of punishments. A weak
mother, who perpetually threatens and
rarely performs—who makes rules in
haste and repents of them at leisure—
who treats the same offence now with
severity and now with leniency, as the
passing humour dictates, is laying up
miseries for herself and her children.
She is making herself contemptible in
their eyes; she is setting them an
example of uncontrolled feelipgs; she
is encouraging them to transgress by the
prospect of probable impunity; she is
entailing endless squabbles and accom
panying damage to her own temper and
the tempers of her little ones; she is
reducing their minds to a moral chaos,
which after-years of bitter experience
will with difficulty bring into order.
Better even a barbarous form of domestic
government carried out consistently than
a humane one inconsistently carried out.
Again we say, avoid coercive measures
wherever it is possible to do so; but
when you find despotism really neces
sary, be despotic in good earnest.
Remember that the aim of your
discipline should be to produce a selfgoverning being; not to produce a being
to be governed by others. Were your
children fated to pass their lives as
slaves, you could not too much accustom
them to slavery during their childhood;
but as they are by-and-by to be free men,
with no one to control their daily con
duct, you cannot too much accustom
them to self-control while they are still
under your eye. This it is which makes
the system of discipline by natural con
sequences, so especially appropriate tothe social state which we in England
have now reached. In feudal times,,
when one of the chief evils the citizen
had to fear was the anger of his superiors,
it was well that during childhood, parental
vengeance should be a chief means of
government. But now that the citizen
has little to fear from any one—now that
the good or evil which he experiences is
mainly that which in the order of things
results from his own conduct, he should
from his first years begin to learn, experi
mentally, the good or evil consequences
which naturally follow this or that con
duct. Aim, therefore, to diminish the
parental government, as fast as you can
substitute for it in your child’s mind that
self-government arising from a foresight
of results. During infancy a considerable
amount of absolutism is necessary. A
three-year old urchin playing with an
open razor, cannot be allowed to learn
by this discipline of consequences; for
the consequences may be too serious.
But as intelligence increases, the number
of peremptory interferences may be, and
should be, diminished; with the view
of gradually ending them as maturity
is approached.
All transitions aredangerous ; and the most dangerousis the transition from the restraint of
the family circle to the non-restraint of
�MORAL EDUCATION
the world. Hence the importance of
pursuing the policy we advocate; which,
by cultivating a boy’s faculty of self
restraint, by continually increasing the
degree in which he is left to his self
restraint, and by so bringing him, step
by step, to a state of unaided self-restraint,
obliterates the ordinary sudden and
hazardous change from externallygoverned youth to internally-governed
maturity.
Let the history of your
domestic rule typify, in little, the history
of our political rule: at the outset,
autocratic control, where control is really
needful; by-and-by an incipient consti
tutionalism, in which the liberty of the
subject gains some express recognition;
successive extensions of this liberty of
the subject; gradually ending in parental
abdication.
Do not regret the display of consider
able self-will on the part of your children.
It is the correlative of that diminished
coerciveness so conspicuous in modern
education. The greater tendency to
assert freedom of action on the one side,
corresponds to the smaller tendency to
tyrannise on the other. They both
indicate an approach to the system of
discipline we contend for, under which
children will be more and more led to
rule themselves by the experience of
natural consequences; and they are both
accompaniments of our more advanced
social state. The independent English
boy is the father of the independent
English man; and you cannot have the
last without the first. German teachers
say that they had rather manage a dozen
German boys than one English one.
Shall we, therefore, wish that our boys
had the manageableness of German
ones, and with it the submissiveness and
political serfdom of adult Germans ?
Or shall we not rather tolerate in our
boys those feelings which make them
free men, and modify our methods
accordingly ?
Lastly, always recollect that to edu
cate rightly is not a simple and easy
thing, but a complex and extremely
difficult thing, the hardest task which
devolves on adult life. The rough and
ready style of domestic government is
indeed practicable by the meanest and
most uncultivated intellects. Slaps and
sharp words are penalties that suggest
themselves alike to the least reclaimed
barbarian and the stolidest peasant.
Even brutes can use this method of
discipline; as you may see in the growl
and half-bite with which a bitch will
check a too-exigeant puppy- But if you
would carry out with success a rational'
and civilised system, you must be pre
pared for considerable mental exertion—■
for some study, some ingenuity, some
patience, some self-control. You will
have habitually to consider what are the
results which in adult life follow certain
kinds of acts; and you must then devise
methods by which parallel results shall
be entailed on the parallel acts of your
children. It will daily be needful to
analyse the motives of juvenile conduct
—to distinguish between acts that are
really good and those which, though
simulating them, proceed from inferior
impulses; while you will have to be ever
on your guard against the cruel mistake
not unfrequently made, of translating
neutral acts into transgressions, or
ascribing worse feelings than were enter
tained. You must more or less modify
your method to suit the disposition of
each child; and must be prepared to
make further modifications as each
child’s disposition enters on a new phase.
Your faith will often be taxed to main
tain the requisite perseverance in a
course which seems to produce little or
no effect. Especially if you are dealing
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EDUCATION
with children who have been wrongly
treated, you must be prepared for a
lengthened trial of patience before suc
ceeding with better methods; since that
which is not easy even where a right
state of feeling has been established
from the beginning, becomes doubly
difficult when a wrong state of feeling
has to be set right. Not only will you
have constantly to analyse the motives
of your children, but you will have to
analyse your own motives—to discrimi
nate between those internal suggestions
springing from a true parental solicitude
and those which spring from your own
selfishness, your love of ease, your lust of
dominion. And then, more trying still,
you will have not only to detect, but to
curb these baser impulses. In brief,
you will have to carry on your own
higher education at the same time that
you are educating your children. Intel
lectually you must cultivate to good
purpose that most complex of subjects—
human nature and its laws, as exhibited
in your children, in yourself, and in the
world. Morally, you must keep in con
stant exercise your higher feelings, and
restrain your lower. It is a truth yet
remaining to be recognised, that the last
stage in the mental development of each
man and woman is to be reached only
through a proper discharge of the
parental duties. And when this truth is
recognised, it will be seen how admirable
is the arrangement through which human
beings are led by their strongest affec
tions to subject themselves to a discipline
that they would else elude.
While some will regard this concep
tion of education as it should be, with
doubt and discouragement, others will,
we think, perceive in the exalted ideal
which it involves, evidence of its truth.
That it cannot be realised by the impul
sive, the unsympathetic, and the short
sighted, but demands the higher attri
butes of human nature, they will see to
be evidence of its fitness for the more
advanced state of humanity. Though it
calls for much labour and self-sacrifice,
they will see that it promises an abundant
return of happiness, immediate and
remote. They will see that while in its
injurious effects on both parent and
child a bad system is twice cursed, a
good system is twice blessed—it blesses
him that trains and him that’s trained.
CHAPTER IV.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Equally at the squire’s table after the
withdrawal of the ladies, at the farmers’
market ordinary, and at the village ale
house, the topic which, after the political
question of the day, excites the most
general interest, is the management of
animals. Riding home from hunting,
the conversation usually gravitates towards
horse-breeding, and pedigrees, and com
ments on this or that “good point”;
while a day on the moors is very unlikely
to end without something being said on
the treatment of dogs. When crossing
the fields together from church, the
tenants of adjacent farms are apt to pass
from criticisms on the sermon to criticisms
on the weather, the crops, and the stock;
and thence to slide into discussions on
the various kinds of fodder and their
feeding qualities. Hodge and Giles,
after comparing notes over their respective
pig-styes, show by their remarks that
they have been observant of their masters’
beasts and sheep ; and of the effects
produced on them by this or that kind
of treatment. Nor is it only among the
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
rural population that the regulations of
the kennel, the stable, the cow-shed, and
the sheep-pen, are favourite subjects.
In towns, too, the numerous artizans
who keep dogs, the young men who are
rich enough to now and then indulge
their sporting tendencies, and their more
staid seniors who talk over agricultural
progress or read Mr. Mechi’s annual
reports and Mr. Caird’s letters to the
Times, form, when added together, a
large portion of the inhabitants. Take
the adult males throughout the kingdom,
and a great majority will be found to
show some interest in the breeding,
rearing, or training of animals of one
kind or other.
But, during after-dinner conversations,
or at other times of like intercourse, who
hears anything said about the rearing of
children ? When the country gentleman
has paid his daily visit to the stable,
and personally inspected the condition
and treatment of his horses ; when he
has glanced at his minor live stock,
and given directions about them; how
often does he go up to the nursery and
examine into its dietary, its hours, its
ventilation ? On his library-shelves may
be found White’s Farriery, Stephens’s
Book of the Farm, Nimrod On the
Condition of Hunters-, and with the con
tents of these he is more or less familiar;
but how many books has he read on the
management of infancy and childhood ?
The fattening properties of oil-cake, the
relative values of hay and chopped straw,
the dangers of unlimited clover, are points
bn which every landlord, farmer, and
peasant has some knowledge ; but what
percentage of them inquire whether the
food they give their children is adapted
to the constitutional needs of growing
boys and girls ? Perhaps the business
interests of these classes will be assigned
as accounting for this anomaly. The
93
explanation is inadequate, however;
seeing that the same contrast holds
among other classes. Of a score of
townspeople, few, if any, would prove
ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable
to work a horse soon after it has eaten ;
and yet, of this same score, supposing
them all to be fathers, probably not one
would be found who had considered
whether the time elapsing between his
children’s dinner and their resumption
of lessons was sufficient. Indeed, on
cross-examination, nearly every man
would disclose the latent opinion that
the regimen of the nursery was no concern
of his. “ Oh, I leave all those things to
the women,” would probably be the reply.
And in most cases the tone of this reply
would convey the implication, that such
cares are not consistent with masculine
dignity.
Regarded from any but a conventional
point of view, the fact seems strange that
while the raising of first-rate bullocks is
an occupation on which educated men
willingly bestow much time and thought,
the bringing up of fine human beings is
an occupation tacitly voted unworthy of
their attention. Mammas who have been
taught little but languages, music, and
accomplishments, aided by nurses full of
antiquated prejudices, are held competent
regulators of the food, clothing, and
exercise of children. Meanwhile the
fathers read books and periodicals, attend
agricultural meetings, try experiments,
and engage in discussions, all with the
view of discovering how to fatten prize
pigs ! We see infinite pains taken to
produce a racer that shall win the Derby :
none to produce a modern athlete. Had
Gulliver narrated of the Laputans that
the men vied with each other in learning
how best to rear the offspring of other
creatures, and were careless of learning
how best to rear their own offspring, he
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EDUCATION
would have paralleled any of the other
absurdities he ascribes to them.
The matter is a serious one, however.
Ludicrous as is the antithesis, the fact
it expresses is not less disastrous. As
remarks a suggestive writer, the first
requisite to success in life is “to be a
good animal and to be a nation of
good animals is the first condition to
national prosperity. Not only is it that
the event of a war often turns on the
strength and hardiness of soldiers; but
it is that the contests of commerce are
in part determined by the bodily endu
rance of producers. Thus far we have
found no reason to fear trials of strength
with other races in either of these fields.
But there are not wanting signs that our
powers will presently be taxed to the
uttermost. The competition of modern
life is so keen, that few can bear the
required application without injury.
Already thousands break down under
the high pressure they are subject to. If
this pressure continues to increase, as it
seems likely to do, it will try severely
even the soundest constitutions. Hence
it is becoming of especial importance
that the training of children should be
so carried on, as not only to fit
them mentally for the struggle before
them, but also to make them physi
cally fit to bear its excessive wear and
tear.
Happily the matter is beginning to
attract attention. The writings of Mr.
Kingsley indicate a reaction against over
culture ; carried perhaps, as reactions
usually are, somewhat too far. Occasional
letters and leaders in the newspapers
have shown an awakening interest in
physical training. And the formation
of a school, significantly nicknamed
that of “ muscular Christianity,” implies
a growing opinion that our present
methods of bringing up children do
not sufficiently regard the welfare of
the body. The topic is evidently ripe
for discussion.
To conform the regimen of the nursery
and the school to the established truths of
modern science —this is the desideratum.
It is time that the benefits which our
sheep and oxen are deriving from the
investigations of the laboratory, should
be participated in by our children.
Without calling in question the great
importance of horse-training and pig
feeding, we would suggest that, as the
rearing of well-grown men and women
is also of some moment, these conclusions
which theory indicates and practice
indorses, ought to be acted on in the
last case as in the first. Probably not
a few will be startled—perhaps offended
—by this collocation of ideas. But it
is a fact not to be disputed, and to which
we must reconcile ourselves, that man
is subject to the same organic laws as
inferior creatures. No anatomist, no
physiologist, no chemist, will for a
moment hesitate to assert, that the
general principles which are true of
the vital processes in animals are equally
true of the vital processes in man. And
a candid admission of this fact is not
without its reward: namely, that the
generalisations established by observation
and experiment on brutes, become avail
able for human guidance. Rudimentary
as is the Science of Life, it has already
attained to certain fundamental principles
underlying the development of all
organisms, the human included. That
which has now to be done, and that
which we shall endeavour in some measure
to do, is to trace the bearings of these
fundamental principles on the physical
training of childhood and youth.
The rhythmical tendency which is
traceable in all departments of social
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
95
life—which is illustrated in the access of easily corrected, that those of inanition.”1
despotism after revolution, or, among Besides, where there has been no
ourselves, in the alternation of reforming injudicious interference, repletion seldom
epochs and conservative epochs—which, occurs. “ Excess is the vice rather of
after a dissolute age, brings an age of adults than of the young, who are rarely
asceticism, and conversely,—which, in either gourmands or epicures, unless
commerce, produces the recurring infla through the fault of those who rear
tions and panics—which carries the them.”2 This system of restriction
devotees of fashion from one absurd which many parents think so necessary,
extreme to the opposite one :— this is based upon inadequate observation,
rhythmical tendency affects also our and erroneous reasoning. There is an
table-habits, and by implication, the over-legislation in the nursery, as well as
dietary of the young. After a period an over-legislation in the State ; and one
distinguished by hard drinking and hard of the most injurious forms of it is this
eating, has come a period of comparative limitation in the quantity of food.
“ But are children to be allowed to
sobriety, which, in teetotalism and
vegetarianism, exhibits extreme forms surfeit themselves ? Shall they be suffere d
of protest against the riotous living of to take their fill of dainties and make
the past. And along with this change themselves ill, as they certainly will do ?”
in the regimen of adults, has come a As thus put, the question admits of but
parallel change in the regimen for boys one reply. But as thus put, it assumes
and girls. In past generations the the point at issue. We contend that,
belief was, that the more a child could as appetite is a good guide to all the
be induced to eat the better; and even lower creation—as it is a good guide to
now, among farmers and in remote the infant—as it is a good guide to the
districts, where traditional ideas most invalid—as it is a good guide to the
linger, parents may be found who tempt differently-placed races of men—and as
their children into repletion. But among it is a good guide for every adult who
the educated classes, who chiefly display leads a healthful life ; it may safely be
this reaction towards abstemiousness, inferred that it is a good guide for child
there may be seen a decided leaning hood. It would be strange indeed were
to the under-feeding, rather than the it here alone untrustworthy.
Perhaps some will read this reply with
over-feeding of children. Indeed their
disgust for by-gone animalism, is more impatience; being able, as they think,
clearly shown in the treatment of their to cite facts totally at variance with it.
offspring than in the treatment of them It may appear absurd if we deny the
selves; for while their disguised asceticism relevancy of these facts. And yet the
is, in so far as their personal conduct is paradox is quite defensible. The truth
concerned, kept in check by their appe is, that the instances of excess which
tites, it has full play in legislating for such persons have in mind, are usually
the consequences of the restrictive system
juveniles.
That over-feeding and under-feeding they seem to justify. They are the
are both bad, is a truism. Of the two, sensual reactions caused by an ascetic
They illustrate on a small
however, the last is the worst. As writes regimen.
a high authority, “ the effects of casual
1 Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine.
3 lb.
repletion are less prejudicial, and more
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EDUCATION
scale that commonly-remarked truth,
that those who during youth have been
subject to the most, rigorous discipline,
are apt afterwards to rush into the wildest
extravagances. They are analogous to
those frightful phenomena, once not
uncommon in convents, where nuns
suddenly lapsed from the extremest
austerities into an almost demoniac
wickedness.
They simply exhibit the
uncontrollable vehemence of long-denied
desires.
Consider the ordinary tastes
and the ordinary treatment of children.
The love of sweets is conspicuous and
almost universal among them. Probably
ninety-nine people in a hundred presume
that there is nothing more in this than
gratification of the palate; and that, in
common with other sensual desires, it
should be discouraged. The physiolo
gist, however, whose discoveries lead
him to an ever-increasing reverence for
the arrangements of things, suspects
something more in this love of sweets
than is currently supposed ; and inquiry
confirms the suspicion. He finds that
sugar plays an important part in the
vital processes. Both saccharine and
fatty matters are eventually oxidised in
the body; and there is an accompanying
evolution of heat. Sugar is the form to
which sundry other compounds have to
be reduced before they are available as
heat-making food; and this formation
of sugar is carried on in the body. Not
only is starch changed into sugar in the
course of digestion, but it has been
proved by M. Claude Bernard that the
liver is a factory in which other con
stituents of food are transformed into
sugar: the need for sugar being so
imperative that it is even thus produced
from nitrogenous substances when no
others are given. Now, when to the
fact that children have a marked desire
for this valuable heat-food, we join the
fact that they have usually a marked
dislike to that food which gives out the
greatest amount of heat during oxidation
(namely, fat), we have reason for think
ing that excess of the one compensates
for defect of the other—that the organism
demands more sugar because it cannot
deal with much fat. Again, children are
fond of vegetable acids. Fruits of all
kinds are their delight; and, in the
absence of anything better, they will
devour unripe gooseberries and the
sourest of crabs. Now not only are
vegetable acids, in common with mineral
ones, very good tonics, and beneficial
as such when taken in moderation, but
they have, when administered in their
natural forms, other advantages. “ Ripe
fruit,” says Dr. Andrew Combe, “ is
more freely given on the Continent than
in this country; and, particularly when
the bowels act imperfectly, it is often
very useful.” See, then, the discord
between the instinctive wants of children
and their habitual treatment.
Here
are two dominant desires, which in
all probability express certain needs
of the child’s constitution ; and not only
are they ignored in the nursery-regimen,
but there is a general tendency to forbid
the gratification of them. Bread-andmilk in the morning, tea and bread-andbutter at night, or some dietary equally
insipid, is rigidly adhered to ; and any
ministration to the palate is thought
needless, or rather, wrong. What is the
consequence ?
When, on fête-days,
there is unlimited access to good things
—when a gift of pocket-money brings
the contents of the confectioner’s window
within reach, or when by some accident
the free run of a fruit-garden is obtained;
then the long-denied, and therefore
intense, desires lead to great excesses.
There is an impromptu carnival, due
partly to release from past restraints, and
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
partly to the consciousness that a long
Lent will begin on the morrow. And
then, when the evils of repletion display
themselves, it is argued that children
must not be left to the guidance of their
appetites ! These disastrous results of
artificial restrictions, are themselves cited
as proving the need for further restric
tions ! We contend therefore, that the
reasoning used to justify this system of
interference is vicious. We contend
that, were children allowed daily to
partake of these more sapid edibles,
for which there is a physiological require
ment, they would rarely exceed, as they
now mostly do when they have the
opportunity: were fruit, as Dr. Combe
recommends, “ to constitute a part of
the regular food ” (given, as he advises,
not between meals, but along with them),
there would be none of that craving
which prompts the devouring of crabs
and sloes. And similarly in other cases.
Not only is it that the a priori reasons
for trusting the appetites of children are
strong; and that the reasons assigned
for distrusting them are invalid; but it
is that no other guidance is worthy of
confidence. What is the value of this
parental judgment, set up as an alterna
tive regulator ? When to “ Oliver asking
for more,” the mamma or governess says
“ No,” on what data does she proceed ?
She thinks he has had enough. But
where are her grounds for so thinking?
Has she some secret understanding with
the boy’s stomach—some clairvoyant
power enabling her to discern the needs
of his body ? If not, how can she safely
decide ? Does she not know that the
demand of the system for food is deter
mined by numerous and involved causes
•—varies with the temperature, with the
hygrometric state of the air, with the
electric state of the air—varies also
according to the exercise taken, accord
97
ing to the kind and quantity of food
eaten at the last meal, and according to
the rapidity with which the last meal was
digested? How can she calculate the
result of such a combination of causes ?
As we heard said by the father of a fiveyears-old boy, who stands a head taller
than most of his age, and is propor
tionately robust, rosy, and active :—“ I
can see no artificial standard by which
to mete out his food. If I say, ‘ this
much is enough,’ it is a mere guess ;
and the guess is as likely to be wrong as
right. Consequently, having no faith in
guesses, I let him eat his fill.” And,
certainly, any one judging of his policy
by its effects, would be constrained to
admit its wisdom. In truth, this con
fidence, with which most persons legislate
for the stomachs of their children, proves
their unacquaintance with physiology:
if they knew more, they would be more
modest.
“The pride of science is
humble when compared with the pride
of ignorance.” If any one would learn
how little faith is to be placed, in human
judgments, and how much in the preestablished arrangement of things, let
him compare the rashness of the inex
perienced physician with the caution of
the most advanced; or let him dip into
Sir John Forbes’s work, On Nature and
Art in the Cure of Disease ; and he will
see that, in proportion as men gain
knowledge of the laws of life, they come
to have less confidence in themselves, and
more in Nature.
Turning from the question of quantity
of food to that of quality, we may discern
the same ascetic tendency. Not simply
a restricted diet, but a comparatively low
diet, is thought proper for children. The
current opinion is, that they should have
but little animal food. Among the less
wealthy classes, economy seems to have
dictated this opinion—the wish has been
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EDUCATION
father to the thought. Parents not
affording to buy much meat, answer the
petitions of juveniles with—“Meat is
not good for little boys and girls ”; and
this, at first probably nothing but a con
venient excuse, has by repetition grown
into an article of faith. While the classes
with whom cost is no consideration, have
been swayed partly by the example of
the majority, partly by the influence of
nurses drawn from thp lower classes, and
in some measure by the reaction against
past animalism.
If, however, we inquire for the basis
of this opinion, we find little or none.
It is a dogma repeated and received
without proof, like that which, for thou
sands of years, insisted on swaddlingclothes. Very probably for the infant’s
stomach, not yet endowed with much
muscular power, meat, which requires
considerable trituration before it can be
made into chyme, is an unfit aliment.
But this objection does not tell against
animal food from which the fibrous part
has been extracted; nor does it apply
when, after the lapse of two or three
years, considerable muscular vigour has
been acquired. And while the evidence
in support of this dogma, partially valid
in the case of very young children, is not
valid in the case of older children, who
are, nevertheless, ordinarily treated in
conformity with it, the adverse evidence
is abundant and conclusive. The verdict
of science is exactly opposite to the
popular opinion.
We have put the
question to two of our leading physicians,
and to several of the most distinguished
physiologists, and they uniformly agree
in the conclusion, that children should
have a diet not less nutritive, but, if
anything, more nutritive than that of
adults.
I
The grounds for this conclusion are j
obvious, and the reasoning simple. It |
needs but to compare the vital processes
of a man with those of a boy, to see
that the demand for sustenance is rela
tively greater in the boy than in the
man. What are the ends for which a
man requires food ? Each day his body
undergoes more or less wear—wear
through muscular exertion, wear of the
nervous system through mental actions,
wear of the viscera in carrying on the
functions of life; and the tissue thuswasted has to be renewed. Each day,
too, by radiation, his body loses a large
amount of heat; and as, for the continu
ance of the vital actions, the temperature
of the body must be maintained, this loss
has to be compensated by a constant
production of heat: to which end certain
constituents of the body are ever under
going oxidation. To make up for the
day’s waste, and to supply fuel for the
day’s expenditure of heat, are, then, the
sole purposes for which the adult requires
food. Consider now, the case of the
boy. He, too, wastes the substance of
his body by action; and it needs but to
note his restless activity to see that, in
proportion to his bulk, he probably
wastes as much as a man. He, too,
loses heat by radiation; and, as his
body exposes a greater surface in pro
portion to its mass than does that of
a man, and therefore loses heat more
rapidly, the quantity of heat-food he
requires is, bulk for bulk, greater than
that required by a man. So that even
had the boy no other vital processes to
carry on than the man has, he would
need, relatively to his size, a somewhat
larger supply of nutriment. But, besides
repairing his body and maintaining its
heat, the boy has to make new tissue—
to grow. After waste and thermal loss
have been provided for, such surplus of
nutriment as remains, goes to the further
building up of the frame; and only in
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
virtue of this surplus is normal growth
possible j the growth that sometimes
takes place in the absence of it, causing
a manifest prostration consequent upon
defective repair. It is true that because
of a certain mechanical law which can
not be here explained, a small organism
has an advantage over a large one in
the ratio between the sustaining and
destroying forces—an advantage, indeed,
to which the very possibility of growth
is owing.
But this admission only
makes it the more obvious that though
much adverse treatment may be borne
without this excess of vitality being quite
out-balanced; yet any adverse treatment,
by diminishing it, must diminish the
size or structural perfection reached.
How peremptory is the demand of the
unfolding organism for materials, is seen
alike in that “ school-boy hunger,” which
after-life rarely parallels in intensity, and
in the comparatively quick return of
appetite. And if there needs further
evidence of this extra necessity for
nutriment, we have it in the fact that,
during the famines following shipwrecks
and other disasters, the children are the
first to die.
This relatively greater need for nutri
ment being admitted, as it must be, the
question that remains is—shall we meet
it by giving an excessive quantity of what
may be called dilute food, or a more
moderate quantity of concentrated food ?
The nutriment obtainable from a given
weight of meat is obtainable only from
a larger weight of bread, or from a still
larger weight of potatoes, and so on.
To fulfil the requirement, the quantity
must be increased as the nutritiveness
is diminished. Shall we, then, respond
to the extra wants of the growing child
by giving an adequate quantity of food
as good as that of adults ? Or, regardless
of the fact that its stomach has to dispose
99
of a relatively larger quantity even of
this good food, shall we further tax it
By giving an inferior food in still greater
quantity?
The answer is tolerably obvious. The
more the labour of digestion is econo
mised, the more energy is left for the
purpose of growth and action. The
functions of the stomach and intestines
cannot be performed without a large
supply of blood and nervous power ; and
in the comparative lassitude that follows
a hearty meal, every adult has proof that
this supply of blood and nervous power
is at the expense of the system at large.
If the requisite nutriment is obtained
from a great quantity of innutritious
food, more work is entailed on the
viscera than when it is obtained from
a moderate quantity of nutritous food.
This extra work is so much loss—a
loss which in children shows itself
either in diminished energy, or in smaller
growth, or in both. The inference is,
then, that they should have a diet which
combines, as much as possible, nutritive
ness and digestibility.
It is doubtless true that boys and girls
may be reared upon an exclusively,
or almost exclusively, vegetable diet.
Among the upper classes are to be
found children to whom comparatively
little meat is given; and who, neverthe
less, grow and appear in good health.
Animal food is scarcely tasted by the
offspring of labouring people, and yet
they reach a healthy maturity.
But
these seemingly adverse facts have by no
means the weight commonly supposed.
In the first place, it does not follow that
those who in early years flourish on
bread and potatoes, will eventually reach
a fine development; and a comparison
between the agricultural labourers and
the gentry, in England, or between the
middle and lower classes in France,
�•TOO
EDUCATION
is by no means in favour of vegetable locomotive energy and considerable
feeders. In the second place, the ques vivacity.
If, again, we contrast the
tion is not simply a question of bulk, but stolid inactivity of the graminivorous
also a question of quality. A soft, flabby sheep with the liveliness of the dog,
flesh makes as good a show as a firm subsisting on flesh or farinaceous matters,
one; but though to the careless eye, a
or a mixture of the two, we see a differ
child of full, flaccid tissue may appear
ence similar in kind, but still greater in
the equal of one whose fibres are well degree. And after walking through the
toned, a trial of strength will prove the Zoological Gardens, and noting the rest
difference. Obesity in adults is often a lessness with which the carnivorous
sign of feebleness. Men lose weight in animals pace up and down their cages, it
training. Hence the appearance of these
needs but to remember that none of the
low-fed children is far from conclusive. herbivorous animals habitually display
In the third place, besides size we have
this superfluous energy, to see how clear
to consider energy. Between children of is the relation between concentration of
the meat-eating classes and those of the
food and degree of activity.
bread-and-potato-eating classes, there is
That these differences are not directly
a marked contrast in this respect. Both
consequent on differences of constitu
in mental and physical vivacity the
tion, as some may argue; but are directly
peasant-boy is greatly inferior to the consequent on differences in the food
son of a gentleman.
which the creatures are constituted to
If we compare different kinds of subsist on; is proved by the fact, that
animals, or different races of men, or
they are observable between different
the same animals or men when differently divisions of the same species.
The
fed, we find still more distinct proof that varieties of the horse furnish an illustra
the degree of energy essentially depends on tion. Compare the big-bellied, inactive,
the nutritiveness of the food.
spiritless cart-horse with a racer or
In a cow, subsisting on so innutritive hunter, small in the flanks and full of
a food as grass, we see that the immense energy; and then call to mind how
quantity required necessitates an enor much less nutritive is the diet of the one
mous digestive system ; that the limbs,
than that of the other. Or take the
small in comparison with the body, are case of mankind. Australians, Bushmen,
burdened by its weight; that in carrying '
and others of the lowest savages who
about this heavy body and digesting this live on roots and berries, varied by
excessive quantity of food, much force is . larvae of insects and the like meagre
expended; and that, having but little i fare, are comparatively puny in stature,
remaining, the creature is sluggish.
have large abdomens, soft and unde
Compare with the cow a horse — an !
veloped muscles, and are quite unable to
animal of nearly allied structure, but i cope with Europeans, either in a struggle
habituated to a more concentrated diet, j. or in prolonged exertion. Count up the
Here the body, and more especially its I wild races who are well grown, strong
abdominal region, bears a smaller ratio i and active, as the Kaffirs, North-Amerito the limbs; the powers are not taxed j can Indians, and Patagonians, and you
by the support of such massive viscera ' find them large consumers of flesh. The
nor the digestion of so bulky a food; ' ill-fed Hindoo goes down before the
and, as a consequence, there is greater ' Englishman fed on more nutritive food,
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
to whom he is as inferior in mental as
in physical energy. And generally, we
think, the history of the world shows
that the well-fed races have been the
energetic and dominant races.
Still stronger, however, becomes the
argument, when we find that the same
individual animal is capable of more or
less exertion according as its food is
more or less nutritious. This has been
demonstrated in the case of the horse.
Though flesh may be gained by a grazing
horse, strength is lost; as putting him to
hard work proves. “The consequence
of turning horses out to grass is relaxa
tion of the muscular system.” “Grass
is a very good preparation for a bullock
for Smithfield market, but a very bad
one for a hunter.” It was well known
of old that, after passing the summer in
the fields, hunters required some months
of stable-feeding before becoming able
to follow the hounds; and that they
did not get into good condition till the
beginning of the next spring. And the
modern practice is that insisted on by
Mr. Apperley—“Never to give a hunter
what is called ‘ a summer’s run at grass,’
and, except under particular and very
favourable circumstances, never to turn
him out at all.” That is to say, never
give him poor food: great energy and
endurance are to be obtained only by
the continued use of nutritive food. So
true is this that, as proved by Mr.
Apperley, prolonged high-feeding enables
a middling horse to equal, in his per
formances, a first-rate horse fed in the
ordinary way. To which various evidences
add the familiar fact that, when a horse
is required to do double duty, it is the
practice to give him beans—a food con
taining a larger proportion of nitrogenous,
or flesh-making material, than his habitual
Oats.
Once more, in the case of individual
IOI
men the truth has been illustrated with
equal, or still greater, clearness. We do
not refer to men in training for feats
of strength, whose regimen, however,
thoroughly conforms to the doctrine.
We refer to the experience of railway
contractors and their labourers. It has
been for years a well-established fact
that an English navvy, eating largely of
flesh, is far more efficient than a Conti
nental navvy living on farinaceous food ;
so much more efficient, that English
contractors for Continental railways found
it pay to take their labourers with them.
That difference of diet and not difference
of race caused this superiority, has been
of late distinctly shown. For it has
turned out, that when the Continental
navvies live in the same style as their
English competitors, they presently rise,
more or less nearly, to a par with them
in efficiency. And to this fact, let us here
add the converse one, to which we can
give personal testimony based upon six
months’ experience of vegetarianism, that
abstinence from meat entails diminished
energy of both body and mind.
Do not these various evidences endorse
our argument respecting the feeding of
children ? Do they not imply that, even
supposing the same stature and bulk to
be attained on an innutritive as on a
nutritive diet, the quantity of tissue is
greatly inferior ? Do they not establish
the position that, where energy as well
as growth has to be maintained, it can
only be done by high feeding ? Do they
not confirm the a priori conclusion that,
though a child of whom little is expected
in the way of bodily or mental activity,
may thrive tolerably well on farinaceous
substances, a child who is daily required,
not only to form the due amount of new
tissue, but to supply the waste consequent
on great muscular action, and the further
waste consequent on hard exercise of
�102
EDUCATION
brain, must live on substances containing
a larger ratio of nutritive matter ? And
is it not an obvious corollary, that denial
of this better food will be at the expense
either of growth, or of bodily activity, or
of mental activity; as constitution and
circumstances determine? We believe
no logical intellect will question it. To
think otherwise is to entertain in a
disguised form the old fallacy of the
perpetual-motion schemers—that it is
possible to get power out of nothing.
Before leaving the question of food,
■a few words must be said on another
requisite—variety. In this respect the
dietary of the young is very faulty. If
not, like our soldiers, condemned to
“ twenty years of boiled beef,” our
children have mostly to bear a monotony
which, though less extreme and less
lasting, is quite as clearly at variance
with the laws of health. At dinner, it is
true, they usually have food that is more
or less mixed, and that is changed day
by day. But week after week, month
after month, year after year, comes the
same breakfast of bread-and-milk, or, it
may be, oatmeal-porridge. And with
like persistence the day is closed, perhaps
with a second edition of the bread-andmilk, perhaps with tea and bread-andbutter.
This practice is opposed to the dictates
of physiology. The satiety produced by
an oft-repeated dish, and the gratification
caused by one long a stranger to the
palate, are not meaningless, as people
carelessly assume; but they are the
incentives to a wholesome diversity of
diet. It is a fact, established by numerous
experiments, that there is scarcely any
one food, however good, which supplies
in due proportions or right forms all the
elements required for carrying on the
vital processes in a normal manner •
whence it follows that frequent change
of food is desirable to balance the
supplies of all the elements. It is a
further fact, known to physiologists, that
the enjoyment given by a much-liked
food is a nervous stimulus, which, by
increasing the action of the heart and
so propelling the blood with increased
vigour, aids in the subsequent digestion.
And these truths are in harmony with
the maxims of modern cattle-feeding,
which dictate a rotation of diet.
Not only, however, is periodic change
of food very desirable; but, for the
same reasons, it is very desirable that a
mixture of food should be taken at each
meal. The better balance of ingredients,
and the greater nervous stimulation, are
advantages which hold here as before.
If facts are asked for, we may name as
one, the comparative ease with which
the stomach disposes of a French dinner,
enormous in quantity but extremely varied
in materials. Few will contend that an
equal weight of one kind of food, how
ever well cooked, could be digested with
as much facility. If any desire further
facts, they may find them in every
modern book on the management of
animals. Animals thrive best when each
meal is made up of several things. The
experiments of Goss and Stark “afford
the most decisive proof of the advantage,
or rather the necessity, of a mixture of
substances, in order to produce the com
pound which is the best adapted for the
action of the stomach.”1
Should any object, as probably many
will, that a rotating dietary for children,
and one which also requires a mixture
of food at each meal, would entail too
much trouble; we reply, that no trouble
is thought too great which conduces to
the mental development of children, and
that for their future welfare, good bodily
1 Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology.
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
103
There is a current theory, vaguely enter
tained if not put into a definite formula,
that the sensations are to be disregarded.
They do not exist for our guidance, but
to mislead us, seems to be the prevalent
belief reduced to its naked form. It is
a grave error: we are much more bene
ficently constituted. It is not obedience
to the sensations, but disobedience to
them, which is the habitual cause of
bodily evils. It is not the eating when
hungry, but the eating in the absence of
hunger, which is bad. It is not drinking
when thirsty, but continuing to drink
when thirst has ceased, that is the vice.
Harm does not result from breathing
that fresh air which every healthy person
enjoys ; but from breathing foul air, spite
of the-protest of the lungs. Harm does
not result from taking that active exercise
which, as every child shows us, Nature
strongly prompts ; but from a persistent
disregard of Nature’s promptings. Not
that mental activity which is spontaneous
and enjoyable does the mischief; but
that which is preserved in after a hot
or aching head commands desistance.
Not that bodily exertion which is pleasant
or indifferent, does injury; but that which
is continued when exhaustion forbids.
It is true that, in those who have long
led unhealthy lives, the sensations are
not trustworthy guides. People who
have for years been almost constantly
in-doors, who have exercised their brains
very much and their bodies scarcely at
all, who in eating have obeyed their
clocks without consulting their stomachs,
may very likely be misled by their vitiated
feelings. But their abnormal state is
itself the result of transgressing their
With clothing as with food, the usual feelings. Had they from childhood
tendency is towards an improper scanti never disobeyed what we may term the
ness. Here, too, asceticism peeps out. physical conscience, it would not have
been seared, but would have remained
a faithful monitor.
1 Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture.
development is of still higher importance.
Moreover, it seems alike sad and strange
that a trouble which is cheerfully taken
in the fattening of pigs, should be thought
too great in the rearing of children.
One more paragraph, with the view of
warning those who may propose to adopt
the regimen indicated. The change
must not be made suddenly ; for con
tinued low-feeding so enfeebles the
system, as to disable it from at once
dealing with a high diet. Deficient
nutrition is itself a cause of dyspepsia.
This is true even of animals. “When
calves are fed with skimmed milk, or
whey, or other poor food, they are liable
to indigestion.”1 Hence, therefore, where
the energies are low, the transition to a
generous diet must be gradual: each
increment of strength gained, justifying
a fresh addition of nutriment. Further,
it should be borne in mind that the con
centration of nutriment may be carried
too far. A bulk sufficient to fill the
stomach is one requisite of a proper
meal; and this requisite negatives a diet
deficient in those matters which give
adequate mass. Though the size of the
digestive organs is less in the well-fed
civilised races than in the ill-fed savage
ones ; and though their size may even
tually diminish still further; yet, for the
time being, the bulk of the ingesta must
be determined by the existing capacity.
But, paying due regard to these two
qualifications, our conclusions are—that
the food of children should be highly
nutritive; that it should be varied at
each meal and at successive meals ; and
that it should be abundant.
�104
EDUCATION
Among the sensations serving for our
guidance are those of heat and cold:
and a clothing for children which does
not carefully consult these sensations, is
to be condemned. The common notion
about “ hardening ” is a grievous delusion.
Not a few children are “hardened” out
of the world ; and those who survive,
permanently suffer either in growth or
constitution. “Their delicate appear
ance furnishes ample indication of the
mischief thus produced, and their
frequent attacks of illness might prove
a warning even to unreflecting parents,”
says Dr. Combe. The reasoning on
which this hardening theory rests is
extremely superficial. Wealthy parents,
seeing little peasant boys and girls
playing about in the open-air only half
clothed, and joining with this fact the
general healthiness of labouring people,
draw the unwarrantable conclusion that
the healthiness is the result of the
exposure, and resolve to keep their
own offspring scantily covered! It is
forgotten that these urchins who gambol
upon village-greens are in many respects
favourably circumstanced — that their
lives are spent in almost perpetual play;
that they are all day breathing fresh air;
and that their systems are not disturbed
by over-taxed brains. For aught that
appears to the contrary, their good health
may be maintained, not in consequence
of, but in spite of, their deficient clothing.
This alternative conclusion we believe to
be the true one; and that an inevitable
detriment results from the loss of animal
heat to which they are subject.
For when, the constitution being
sound enough to bear it, the exposure
does produce hardness, it does so at
the expense of growth. This truth is
displayed alike in animals and in man.
Shetland ponies bear greater inclemencies
than the horses of the south, but are
dwarfed. Highland sheep and cattle,
living in a colder climate, are stunted
in comparison with English breeds. In
both the arctic and antarctic regions
the human race falls much below its
ordinary height: the Laplander and
Esquimaux are very short; and the
Terra del Fuegians, who go naked in a
wintry land, are described by Darwin as
so stunted and hideous, that “ one can
hardly make one’s-self believe they are
fellow-creatures. ”
Science explains this dwarfishness pro
duced by great abstraction of heat;
showing that, food and other things
being equal, it unavoidably results. For
as before pointed out, to make up for
that cooling by radiation which the body
is ever undergoing, there must be a
constant oxidation of certain matters
forming part of the food. And in pro
portion as the thermal loss is great, must
the quantity of these matters required
for oxidation be great. But the power
of the digestive organs is limited. Con
sequently, when they have to prepare a
large quantity of this material needful
for maintaining the temperature, they
can prepare but a small quantity of
the material which goes to build up the
frame. Excessive expenditure for fuel
entails diminished means for other
purposes. Wherefore there necessarily
results a body small in size, or inferior
in texture, or both.
Hence the great importance of clothing.
As Liebig says :—“ Our clothing is, in
reference to the temperature of the body,
merely an equivalent for a certain amount
of food.” By diminishing the loss of
heat, it diminishes the amount of fuel
needful for maintaining the heat; and
when the stomach has less to do in
preparing fuel, it can do more in
preparing other materials. This deduc
tion is confirmed by the experience
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
io5
of those who manage animals. Cold acid given off varies with tolerable
can be borne by animals only at an accuracy as the quantity of heat pro
expense of fat, or muscle, or growth, as duced. And thus we see that in children
the case may be. “If fattening cattle are the system, even when not placed at a
exposed to a low temperature, either disadvantage, is called upon to provide
their progress must be retarded or a nearly double the proportion of material
great additional expenditure of food for generating heat.
See, then, the extreme folly of clothing
incurred.”1 Mr. Apperley insists strongly
that, to bring hunters into good con the young scantily. What father, fulldition, it is necessary that the stable grown though he is, losing heat less
should be kept warm.
And among rapidly as he does, and having no
those who rear racers, it is an established physiological necessity but to supply the
waste of each day—what father, we ask,
doctrine that exposure is to be avoided.
The scientific truth thus illustrated by would think it salutary to go about with
ethnology, and recognised by agricul bare legs, bare arms, and bare neck?
turists and sportsmen, applies with Yet this tax on the system, from which
double force to children. In proportion he would shrink, he inflicts on his little
to their smallness and the rapidity of ones, who are so much less able to bear
their growth is the injury from cold it! or, if he does not inflict it, sees
great. In France, new-born infants often it inflicted without protest. Let him
die in winter from being carried to the remember that every ounce of nutriment
office of the maire for registration. needlessly expended for the maintenance
“M. Quetelet has pointed out, that in of temperature, is so much deducted from
Belgium two infants die in January for the nutriment going to build up the
one that dies in July.” And in Russia frame; and that even when colds, con
the infant mortality is something enor gestions, or other consequent disorders
mous. Even when near maturity, the are escaped, diminished growth or less
undeveloped frame is comparatively perfect structure is inevitable.
“The rule is, therefore, not to dress
unable to bear exposure : as witness the
in an invariable way in all cases, but to
quickness with which young soldiers
succumb in a trying campaign. The put on clothing in kind and quantity
rationale is obvious. We have already sufficient in the individual case to protect
adverted to the fact that, in consequence the body effectually from an abiding
of the varying relation between surface sensation of cold, however slight! This
and bulk, a child loses a relatively larger rule, the importance cf which Dr. Combe
amount of heat than an adult; and here indicates by the italics, is one in which
we must point out that the disadvantage men of science and practitioners agree.
under which the child thus labours is We have met with none competent to
very great. Lehmann says:—“If the form a judgment on the matter, who do
carbonic acid excreted by children or not strongly condemn the exposure of
young animals is calculated for an equal children’s limbs. If there is one point
bodily weight, it results that children above others in which “pestilent custom”
produce nearly twice as much acid as should be ignored, it is this.
Lamentable, indeed, is it to see mothers
adults.” Now the quantity of carbonic
seriously damaging the constitutions of
their children out of compliance with an
1 Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture.
�EDUCATION
irrational fashion. It is bad enough that
they should themselves conform to every
folly which our Gallic neighbours please
to initiate ; but that they should clothe
their children in any mountebank dress
which Le petit Courrier des Dames indi
cates, regardless of its insufficiency and
unfitness, is monstrous.
Discomfort,
more or less great, is inflicted; frequent
disorders are entailed; growth is checked
or stamina undermined; premature death
not uncommonly caused; and all because
it is thought needful to make frocks of a
size and material dictated by French
caprice. Not only is it that for the sake
of conformity, mothers thus punish and
injure their little ones by scantiness of
covering; but it is that from an allied
motive they impose a style of dress which
forbids healthful activity. To please the
eye, colours and fabrics are chosen totally
unfit to bear that rough usage which
unrestrained play involves : and then to
prevent damage the unrestrained play is
interdicted.
“ Get up this moment:
you will soil your clean frock,” is the
mandate issued to some urchin creeping
about on the floor. “ Come back : you
will dirty your stockings,” calls out the
governess to one of her charges, who has
left the footpath to scramble up a bank.
Thus is the evil doubled. That they
may come up to their mamma’s standard
of prettiness, and be admired by her
visitors, children must have habiliments
deficient in quantity and unfit in texture;
and that these easily-damaged habiliments
may be kept clean and uninjured, the
restless activity so natural and needful
for the young, is restrained. The exercise
which becomes doubly requisite when
the clothing is insufficient, is cut short,
lest it should deface the clothing. Would
that the terrible cruelty of this system
could be seen by those who maintain it!
We do not hesitate to say that, through
enfeebled health, defective energies, and
consequent non-success in life, thousands
are annually doomed to unhappiness by
this unscrupulous regard for appearances :
even when they are not, by early death,
literally sacrificed to the Moloch of
maternal vanity. We are reluctant to
counsel strong measures, but really the
evils are so great as to justify, or even to
demand, a peremptory interference on
the part of fathers.
Our conclusions are, then—that, while
the clothing of children should never be
in such excess as to create oppressive
warmth, it should always be sufficient to
prevent any general feeling of cold;
*
that instead of the flimsy cotton, linen,
or mixed fabrics commonly used, it
should be made of some good non
conductor, such as coarse woollen cloth ;
that it should be so strong as to receive
little damage from the hard wear and
tear which childish sports will give it;
and that its colours should be such as
will not soon suffer from use and expo
sure.
To the importance of bodily exercise
most people are in some degree awake.
Perhaps less needs saying on this requisite
of physical education than on most
others : at any rate, in so far as boys are
concerned. Public schools and private
schools alike furnish tolerably adequate
playgrounds; and there is usually a fair
1 It is needful to remark that children whose
legs and arms have been from the beginning
habitually without covering, cease to be conscious
that the exposed surfaces are cold ; just as by use
we have all ceased to be conscious that our faces
are cold, even when out of doors. But though
in such children the sensations no longer protest,
it does not follow that the system escapes injury;
any more than it follows that the Fuegian is
undamaged by exposure, because he bears with
indifference the melting of the falling snow on
his naked body.
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
share of time for out-door games, and a
recognition of them as needful. In this,
if in no other direction, it seems admitted
that the promptings of boyish instinct
may advantageously be followed; and,
indeed, in the modern practice of breaking
the prolonged morning’s and afternoon’s
lessons by a few minutes’ open-air recrea
tion, we see an increasing tendency to
conform school-regulations to the bodily
sensations of the pupils. Here, then,
little need be said in the way of expostu
lation or suggestion.
But we have been obliged to qualify
this admission by inserting the clause
“in so far as boys are concerned.” Un
fortunately, the fact is quite otherwise
with girls. It chances, somewhat
strangely, that we have daily opportunity
of drawing a comparison. We have
both a boys’ school and a girls’ school
within view; and the contrast between
them is remarkable. In the one case,
nearly the whole of a large garden is
turned into an open, gravelled space,
affording ample scope for games, and
supplied with poles and horizontal bars
for gymnastic exercises. Every day
before breakfast, again towards eleven
o’clock, again at mid-day, again in the
afternoon, and once more after school is
over, the neighbourhood is awakened by
a chorus of shouts and laughter as the
boys rush out to play; and for as long
as they remain, both eyes and ears give
proof that they are absorbed in that
enjoyable activity which makes the pulse
bound and ensures the healthful activity
of every organ. How unlike is the
picture offered by the “ Establishment
for Young Ladies”! Until the fact was
pointed out, we actually did not know
that we had a girls’ school as close to us
as the school for boys. The garden,
equally large with the other, affords no
sign whatever of any provision for juvenile
107
recreation; but is entirely laid out with
prim grass-plots, gravel-walks, shrubs, and
flowers, after the usual suburban style.
During five months we ha.ve not once
had our attention drawn to the premises
by a shout or a laugh. Occasionally
girls may be observed sauntering along
the paths with their lesson-books in their
hands, or else walking arm-in-arm. Once,
indeed, we saw one chase another round
the garden; but, with this exception,
nothing like vigorous exertion has been
visible.
Why this astonishing difference? Is
it that the constitution of a girl differs
so entirely from that of a boy as not to
need these active exercises ? Is it that
a girl has none of the promptings to
vociferous play by which boys are
impelled ? Or is it that, while in boys
these promptings are to be regarded as
stimuli to a bodily activity without which
there cannot be adequate development,
to their sisters, Nature has given them
for no purpose whatever—unless it be
for the vexation of school-mistresses ?
Perhaps, however, we mistake the aim
of those who train the gentler sex. We
have a vague suspicion that to produce
a robust physique is thought undesirable ;
that rude health and abundant vigour
are considered somewhat plebeian; that
a certain delicacy, a strength not com
petent to more than a mile or two’s walk,
an appetite fastidious and easily satisfied,
joined with that timidity which commonly
accompanies feebleness, are held more
lady-like. We do not expect that any
would distinctly avow this; but we fancy
the governess-mind is haunted by an
ideal young lady bearing not a little
resemblance to this type. If so, it must
be admitted that the established system
is admirably calculated to realise this
ideal. But to suppose that such is the
ideal of the opposite sex is a profound
�108
EDUCATION
mistake. That men are not commonly
drawn towards masculine women, is
doubtless true.
That such relative
weakness as asks the protection of
superior strength, is an element of
attraction, we quite admit. But the
difference thus responded to by the
feelings of men, is the natural, preestablished difference, which will assert
itself without artificial appliances. And
when, by artificial appliances, the degree
of this difference is increased, it becomes
an element of repulsion rather than of
attraction.
“Then girls should be allowed to run
wild—to become as rude as boys, and
grow up into romps and hoydens !”
exclaims some defender of the pro
prieties. This, we presume, is the ever
present dread of school-mistresses. It
appears, on inquiry, that at “ Establish
ments for Young Ladies ” noisy play like
that daily indulged in by boys, is a
punishable offence; and we infer that it
is forbidden, lest unlady-like habits should
be formed. The fear is quite groundless,
however. For if the sportive activity
allowed to boys does not prevent them
from growing up into gentlemen; why
should a like sportive activity prevent
girls from growing up into ladies ?
Rough as may have been their play
ground frolics, youths who have left
school do not indulge in leap-frog in the
street, or marbles in the drawing-room.
Abandoning their jackets, they abandon
at the same time boyish games; and
display an anxiety—often a ludicrous
anxiety—to avoid whatever is not manly.
If now, on arriving at the due age, this
feeling of masculine dignity puts so
efficient a restraint on the sports of boy
hood, will not the feeling of feminine
modesty, gradually strengthening as
maturity is approached, put an efficient
restraint on the like snorts of girlhood ?
Have not women even a greater regard
for appearances than men ? and will there
not consequently arise in them even a
stronger check to whatever is rough or
boisterous ? How absurd is the supposi
tion that the womanly instincts would
not assert themselves but for the rigorous
discipline of school-mistresses!
In this, as in other cases, to remedy
the evils of one artificiality, another
artificiality has been introduced. The
natural, spontaneous exercise having
been forbidden, and the bad conse
quences of no exercise having become
conspicuous, there has been adopted a
system of factitious exercise—gymnastics.
That this is better than nothing we
admit; but that it is an adequate sub
stitute for play we deny. The defects
are both positive and negative. In the
first place, these formal, muscular
motions, necessarily less varied than
those accompanying juvenile sports, do
not secure so equable a distribution of
action to all parts of the body; whence
it results that the exertion, falling on
special parts, produces fatigue sooner
than it would else have done: to which,
in passing, let us add, that if constantly
repeated, this exertion of special parts
leads to a disproportionate development.
Again, the quantity of exercise thus taken
will be deficient, not only in consequence
of uneven distribution; but there will be
a further deficiency in consequence of
lack of interest. Even when not made
repulsive, as they sometimes are, by
assuming the shape of appointed lessons,
these monotonous movements are sure
to become wearisome from the absence
of amusement. Competition, it is true,
serves as a stimulus; but it is not a
lasting stimulus, like that enjoyment
which accompanies varied play. The
weightiest objection, however, still
remains.
Besides being inferior in
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
respect of the quantity of muscular
exertion which they secure, gymnastics
are still more inferior in respect of the
quality., This comparative want of
enjoyment which we have named as a
cause of early desistance from artificial
exercises, is also a cause of inferiority
in the effects they produce on the system.
The common assumption that, so long
as the amount of bodily action is the
same, it matters not whether it be
pleasurable or otherwise, is a grave
mistake. An agreeable mental excite
ment has a highly invigorating influence.
See the effect produced upon an invalid
by good news, or by the visit of an old
friend. Mark how careful medical men
are to recommend lively society to
debilitated patients. Remember how
beneficial to health is the gratification
produced by change of scene. The
truth is that happiness is the most
powerful of tonics. By accelerating the
circulation of the blood, it facilitates the
performance of every function; and so
tends alike to increase health when it
exists, and to restore it when it has been
lost. Hence the intrinsic superiority of
play to gymnastics. The extreme interest
felt by children in their games, and the
riotous glee with which they carry on
their rougher frolics, are of as much
importance as the accompanying exertion.
And as not supplying these mental
stimuli, gymnastics must be radically
defective.
Granting then, as we do, that formal
exercises of the limbs are better than
nothing—granting, further, that they may
be used with advantage as supplementary
aids; we yet contend that they can never
serve in place of the exercises prompted
by Nature. For girls, as well as boys,
the sportive activities to which the
instincts impel, are essential to bodily
welfare. Whoever forbids them, forbids
109
the divinely-appointed means to physical
development.
A topic still remains—one perhaps
more urgently demanding consideration
than any of the foregoing. It is asserted
by not a few, that among the educated
classes the younger adults and those
who are verging on maturity, are neither
so well grown nor so strong as their
seniors. On first hearing this assertion,
we were inclined to class it as one of
the many manifestations of the old
tendency to exalt the past at the expense
of the present. Calling to mind the
facts that, as measured by ancient
armour, modern men are proved to be
larger than ancient men; and that the
tables of mortality show no diminution,
but rather an increase, in the duration
of life; we paid little attention to what
seemed a groundless belief. Detailed
observation, however, has shaken our
opinion. Omitting from the comparison
the labouring classes, we have noticed a
majority of cases in which the children
do not reach the stature of their parents;
and, in massiveness, making due allow
ance for difference of age, there seems a
like inferiority. Medical men say that
now-a-days people cannot bear nearly so
much depletion as in times gone by.
Premature baldness is far more common
than it used to be. And an early decay
of teeth occurs in the rising generation
with startling frequency.
In general
vigour the contrast appears equally strik
ing. Men of past generations, living
riotously as they did, could bear more
than men of the present generation, who
live soberly, can bear. Though they
drank hard, kept irregular hours, were
regardless of fresh air, and thought little
of cleanliness, our recent ancestors were
capable of prolonged application without
injury, even to a ripe old age: witness
�I IO
EDUCATION
the annals of the bench and the bar.
Yet we who think much about our bodily
welfare; who eat with moderation, and
do not drink to excess; who attend to
ventilation, and use frequent ablutions
who make annual excursions, and have
the benefit of greater medical knowledge;
—we are continually breaking down
under our work. Paying considerable
attention to the laws of health, we seem
to be weaker than our grandfathers, who,
in many respects, defied the laws of
health. And, judging from the appear
ance and frequent ailments of the rising
generation, they are likely to be even
less robust than ourselves.
What is the meaning of this ? Is it
that past over-feeding, alike of adults and
children, was less injurious than the
under-feeding to which we have adverted
as now so general? Is it that the
deficient clothing which this delusive
hardening-theory has encouraged, is to
blame ? Is it that the greater or less
discouragement of juvenile sports, in
deference to a false refinement, is the
cause ? From our reasonings it may be
inferred that each of these has probably
had a share in producing the evil.1 But
there has been yet another detrimental
influence at work, perhaps more potent
1 We are not certain that the propagation of
subdued forms of constitutional disease through
the agency of vaccination is not a part-cause.
Sundry facts in pathology suggest the inference,
that when the system of a vaccinated child is
excreting the vaccine virus by means of pustules,
it will tend also to excrete through such pustules
other morbific matters; especially if these
morbific matters are of a kind ordinarily got rid
of by the skin, as are some of the worst of
them. Hence it is very possible—probable even
-—that a child with a constitutional taint, too
slight to show itself in visible disease, may,
through the medium of vitiated vaccine lymph
taken from it, convey a like constitutional taint
to other children, and these to others.
than any of the others : we mean—excess
of mental application.
On old and young, the pressure of
modern life puts a still-increasing strain.
In all businesses and professions, intenser
competition taxes the energies and
abilities of every adult; and to fit the
young to hold their places under this
intenser competition, they are subject to
severer discipline than heretofore. The
damage is thus doubled. Fathers, who
find themselves run hard by their multi
plying competitors, and, while labouring
under this disadvantage, have to maintain
a more expensive style of living, are all
the year round obliged to work early and
late, taking little exercise and getting but
short holidays. The constitutions shaken
by this continued over-application, they
bequeath to their children. And then
these comparatively feeble children, pre
disposed to break down even under
ordinary strains on their energies, are
required to go through a curriculum
much more extended than that prescribed
for the unenfeebled children of past
generations.
The disastrous consequences that
might be anticipated, are everywhere
visible. Go where you will, and before
long there come under your notice cases
of children or youths, of either sex,
more or less injured by undue study.
Here, to recover from a state of debility
thus produced, a year’s rustication has
been found necessary. There you find
a chronic congestion of the brain, that
has already lasted many months, and
threatens to last much longer. Now you
hear of a fever that resulted from the
over-excitement in some way brought on
at school. And again, the instance is
that of a youth who has already had
once to desist from his studies, and who,
since his return to them, is frequently
taken out of his class in a fainting fit.
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
11 î
We state facts—facts not sought for, but | is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating
which have been thrust on our observa —cases where there is frequent derange
ment of the functions, attributed to this
tion during the last two years ; and that,
too, within a very limited range. Nor or that special cause, or to constitutional
have we by any means exhausted the delicacy; cases where there is retarda
tion and premature arrest of bodily
list. Quite recently we had the oppor
tunity of marking how the evil becomes growth ; cases where a latent tendency
hereditary : the case being that of a lady to consumption is brought out and
of robust parentage, whose system was established; cases where a predisposition
so injured by the régime of a Scotch is given to that now common cerebral
boarding-school, where she was under disorder brought on by the labour oi
adult life. How commonly health is
fed and over-worked, that she invariably
suffers from vertigo on rising in the thus undermined, will be clear to all
morning ; and whose children, inheriting who, after noting the frequent ailments
this enfeebled brain, are several of them of hard-worked professional and mercan
unable to bear even a moderate amount tile men, will reflect on the much worse
of study without headache or giddiness. effects which undue application must
produce on the undeveloped systems of
At the present time we have daily under
children. The young can bear neither
our eyes a young lady whose system
so much hardship, nor so much physical
has been damaged for life by the college
exertion, nor so much mental exertion,
course through which she has passed.
as the full grown. Judge then, if the
Taxed as she was to such an extent that
she had no energy left for exercise, she is, full grown manifestly suffer from the
excessive mental exertion required of
now that she has finished her education,
a constant complainant. Appetite small them, how great must be the damage
which a mental exertion, often equally
and very capricious, mostly refusing meat;
extremities perpetually cold, even when excessive, inflicts on the young 1
Indeed, when we examine the merciless
the weather is warm ; a feebleness which
forbids anything but the slowest walking, school drill frequently enforced, the
and that only for a short time ; palpita wonder is, not that it does extreme
injury, but that it can be borne at all.
tion on going upstairs ; greatly impaired
vision—these, joined with checked Take the instance given by Sir John
Forbes, from personal knowledge; and
growth and lax tissue, are among the
which he asserts, after much inquiry, to
results entailed. And to her case we
may add that of her friend and fellow be an average sample of the middle
class girls’-school system throughout
student ; who is similarly weak ; who is
England. Omitting detailed divisions
liable to faint even under the excitement
of time, we quote the summary of the
of a quiet party of friends ; and who has
at length been obliged by her medical twenty-four hours.
hours
attendant to desist from study entirely.
........................................
•••
9
If injuries so conspicuous are thus In bed
(the younger io hours)
frequent, how very general must be the
In school, at their studies and tasks
...
9
smaller and inconspicuous injuries ! To In school, or in the house, the elder at
one case where positive illness is trace
optional studies or work, the younger
able to over-application, there are probably
at play ...
...
...
•••
•••
3$
(the younger 2^ hours)
at least half-a-dozen cases where the evil
�IT2
At meals........................................
Exercise in the open air, in the shape of
a formal walk, often with lesson-books
in hand, and even this only when the
weather is fine at the appointed time ...
EDUCATION
hours
i
24
And what are the results of this
“astounding regimen,” as Sir John
Forbes terms it? Of course, feebleness,
pallor, want of spirits, general ill-health.
But he describes something more. This
utter disregard of physical welfare, out
of extreme anxiety to cultivate the mind
this prolonged exercise of brain and
deficient exercise of limbs,—he found
to be habitually followed, not only by
disordered functions but by malformation.
He says :—“ We lately visited, in a large
town, a boarding-school containing forty
girls; and we learnt, on close and
accurate inquiry, that there was not one
of the girls who had been at the school
two years (and the majority had been
as long) that was not more or less
crooked 1 ”1
It may be that since 1833, when this
was written, some improvement has taken
place. We hope it has. But that the
system is still common—nay, that it is
in some cases carried to a greater extreme
than ever; we can personally testify. We
recently went over a training-college for
young men: one of those instituted of
late years for the purpose of supplying
schools with well-disciplined teachers.
Here, under official supervision, where
something better than the judgment of
private school-mistresses might have
been looked for, we found the daily
routine to be as follows :—
At 6 o’clock the students are called,
,, 7 to 8 studies,
’ Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, vol. i.,
pp. 697, 698.
At 8 to 9 scripture-reading, prayers, and break
fast,
,, 9 to 12 studies,
” 12 to
leisure, nominally devoted to walk
ing or other exercise, but often spent ia
study,
” Ii to 2 dinner, the meal commonly occupying
twenty-minutes,
j, 2 to 5 studies,
,, 5 to 6 tea and relaxation,
,, 6 to 8J studies,
,, 8J to 9J private studies in preparing lessons
for the next day,
J, 10 to bed.
Thus, out of the twenty-four hours,
eight are devoted to sleep; four and a
quarter are occupied in dressing, prayers,
meals, and the brief periods of rest
accompanying them; ten and a half are
given to study; and one and a quarter
to exercise, which is optional and often
avoided. Not only, however, are the
ten-and-a-half hours of recognised study
frequently increased to eleven-and-a-half
by devoting to books the time set apart
for exercise; but some of the students
get up at four o’clock in the morning to
prepare their lessons; and are actually
encouraged by their teachers to do this !
The course to be passed through in a
given time is so extensive; and the
teachers, whose credit is at stake in
getting their pupils well through the
examinations, are so urgent; that pupils
are not uncommonly induced to spend
twelve and thirteen hours a day in mental
labour 1
It needs no prophet to see that the
bodily injury inflicted must be great.
As we were told by one of the inmates,
those who arrive with fresh complexions
quickly become blanched. Illness is
frequent: there are always some on the
sick-list. Failure of appetite and indiges
tion are very common. Diarrhoea is a
prevalent disorder: not uncommonly a
third of the whole number of students
suffering under it at the same time.
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Headache is generally complained of;
and by some is borne almost daily for
months. While a certain percentage
break down entirely and go away.
That this should be the regimen of
•what is in some sort a model institution,
established and superintended by the
embodied enlightenment of the age, is a
startling fact. That the severe examina
tions, joined with the short period
assigned for preparation, should compel
recourse to a system which inevitably
undermines the health of all who pass
through it, is proof, if not of cruelty,
then of woful ignorance.
The case is no doubt in a great degree
exceptional—perhaps to be paralleled
only in other institutions of the same
class. But that cases so extreme should
exist at all, goes far to show that the
minds of the rising generation are greatly
over-taxed. Expressing as they do the
ideas of the educated community, the
requirements of these training colleges,
even in the absence of other evidence,
would imply a prevailing tendency to an
unduly urgent system of culture.
It seems strange that there should be
so little consciousness of the dangers of
over-education during youth, when there
is so general a consciousness of the
dangers of over-education during child
hood. Most parents are partially aware
of the evil consequences that follow
infant-precocity. In every society may
t>6 heard reprobation of those who too
early stimulate the minds of their little
ones. And the dread of this early
Stimulation is great in proportion as there
h adequate knowledge of the effects;
witness the implied opinion of one of
our most distinguished professors of
physiology, who told us that he did not
intend his little boy to learn any lessons
until he was eight years old. But while
to all it is a familiar truth that a forced
«3
development of intelligence in childhood}
entails either physical feebleness, or ulti
mate stupidity, or early death; it appears
not to be perceived that throughout
youth the same truth holds. Yet it
unquestionably does so. There is a
given order in which, and a given rate
at which, the faculties unfold. If the
course of education conforms itself to
that order and rate, well. If not—if
the higher faculties are early taxed by
presenting an order of knowledge more
complex and abstract than can be readily
assimilated; or if, by excess of culture,
the intellect in general is developed to a
degree beyond that which is natural to
its age; the abnormal advantage gained
will inevitably be accompanied by some
equivalent, or more than equivalent, evil.
For Nature is a strict accountant;
and if you demand of her in one direc
tion more than she is prepared to lay
out, she balances the account by making
a deduction elsewhere. If you will let
her follow her own course, taking care
to supply, in right quantities and kinds,
the raw materials of bodily and mental
growth required at each age, she will
eventually produce an individual more
or less evenly developed. If, however,
you insist on premature or undue growth
of any one part, she will, with more or
less protest, concede the point; but that
she may do your extra work, she must leave
some of her more important work undone.
Let it never be forgotten that the amount
of vital energy which the body at any
moment possesses, is limited; and that,
being limited, it is impossible to get
from it more than a fixed quantity of
results. In a child or youth the demands
upon this vital energy are various and
urgent. As before pointed out, the waste
consequent on the day’s bodily exercise
has to be met; the wear of brain entailed
by the day’s study has to be made good;
�114
EDUCATION
a certain additional growth of body has in mental labour exceeds that which
to be provided for; and also a certain Nature has provided for; the expendi
additional growth of brain: to which ture for other purposes falls below what
must be added the amount of energy it should have been; and evils of one
absorbed in digesting the large quantity kind or other are inevitably entailed.
of food required for meeting these many Let us briefly consider these evils.
Supposing the over-activity of brain to
demands.
Now, that to divert an
excess of energy into any one of these exceed the normal activity only in a
channels is to abstract it from the others, moderate degree, there will be nothing
is both manifest a priori, and proved a more than some slight reaction on the
posteriori, by the experience of every development of the body: the stature
one. Every one knows, for instance, falling a little below that which it would
that the digestion of a heavy meal else have reached; or the bulk being
makes such a demand on the system less than it would have been; or the
as to produce lassitude of mind and body, quality of tissue not being so good. One
frequently ending in sleep. Every one or more of these effects must necessarily
knows, too, that excess of bodily exercise occur. The extra quantity of blood
diminishes the power of thought—that supplied to the brain during mental
the temporary prostration following any exertion, and during the subsequent
sudden exertion, or the fatigue produced period in which the waste of cerebral
by a thirty miles’ walk, is accompanied substance is being made good, is blood
by a disinclination to mental effort; that, that would else have been circulating
after a month’s pedestrian tour, the through the limbs and viscera ; and the
mental inertia is such that some days are growth or repair for which that blood
required to overcome it; and that in would have supplied materials, is lost.
peasants who spend their lives in This physical reaction being certain, the
muscular labour the activity of mind is question is, whether the gain resulting
very small. Again, it is a familiar truth from the extra culture is equivalent to
that during those fits of rapid growth the loss ? — whether defect of bodily
which sometimes occur in childhood, the growth, or the want of that structural
great abstraction of energy is shown in an perfection which gives vigour and endu
attendant prostration, bodily and mental. rance, is compensated by the additional
Once more, the facts that violent muscular knowledge acquired ?
When the excess of mental exertion is
exertion after eating, will stop digestion;
greater, there follow results far more
and that children who are early put to
hard labour become stunted; similarly serious; telling not only against bodily
exhibit the antagonism—similarly imply perfection, but against the perfection of
that excess of activity in one direction the brain itself. It is a physiological
involves deficiency of it in other direc law, first pointed out by M Isidor St.
tions. Now, the law which is thus Hilaire, and to which attention has been
manifest in extreme cases, holds in all drawn by Mr. Lewes in his essay on
cases. These injurious abstractions of “ Dwarfs and Giants,” that there is an
energy as certainly take place when the antagonism between growth and develop
undue demands are slight and constant, ment. By growth, as used in this anti
as when they are great and sudden. thetical sense, is to be understood
Hence, if during youth the expenditure increase of size; by development, increase
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
of structure. And the law is, that great
activity in either of these processes
involves retardation or arrest of the other.
A familiar example is furnished by the
cases of the caterpillar and the chrysalis.
In the caterpillar there is extremely rapid
augmentation of bulk ; but the structure
is scarcely at all more complex when the
caterpillar is full-grown than when it is
small. In the chrysalis the bulk does
not increase; on the contrary, weight is
lost during this stage of the creature’s
life ; but the elaboration of a more com
plex structure goes on with great activity.
The antagonism, here so clear, is less
traceable in higher creatures, because
the two processes are carried on together.
But we see it pretty well illustrated among
ourselves when we contrast the sexes.
A girl developes in body and mind
rapidly, and ceases to grow compara
tively early. A boy’s bodily and mental
development is slower, and his growth
greater. At the age when the one is
mature, finished, and having all faculties
in full play, the other, whose vital energies
have been more directed towards increase
of size, is relatively incomplete in struc
ture ; and shows it in a comparative
awkwardness, bodily and mental. Now
this law is true of each separate part of
the organism, as well as of the whole.
The abnormally rapid advance of any
organ in respect of structure, involves
premature arrest of its growth; and this
happens with the organ of the mind as
certainly as with any other organ. The
brain, which during early years is rela
tively large in mass but imperfect in
structure, will, if required to perform its
functions with undue activity, undergo
a structural advance greater than is
appropriate to its age; but the ultimate
effect will be a falling short of the size
and power that would else have been
attained. And this is a part-cause—
115
probably the chief cause—why precocious
children, and youths who up to a certain
time were carrying all before them, so
often stop short and disappoint the high
hopes of their parents.
But these results of over-education,
disastrous as they are, are perhaps less
disastrous than the effects produced on
the health—the undermined constitu
tion, the enfeebled energies, the morbid
feelings. Recent discoveries in physiology
have shown how immense is the influence
of the brain over the functions of the
body. Digestion, circulation, and through
these all the organic processes, are
profoundly affected by cerebral excite
ment. Whoever has seen repeated, as
we have, the experiment first performed
by Weber, showing the consequence of
irritating the vagus nerve, which connects
the brain with the viscera—whoever has
seen the action of the heart suddenly
arrested by irritating this nerve; slowly
recommencing when the irritation is
suspended; and again arrested the
moment it is renewed; will have a vivid
conception of the depressing influence
which an overwrought brain exercises
on the body. The effects thus physio
logically explained, are indeed exemplified
in ordinary experience. There is no one
but has felt the palpitation accompanying
hope, fear, anger, joy—no one but has
observed how laboured becomes the
action of the heart when these feelings
are violent. And though there are many
who have never suffered that extreme
emotional excitement which is followed
by arrest of the heart’s action and fainting;
yet every one knows these to be cause
and effect. It is a familiar fact, too,
that disturbance of the stomach results
from mental excitement exceeding a
certain intensity. Loss of appetite is a
common consequence alike of very
pleasurable and very painful states of
�EDUCATION
mind. When the event producing a
pleasurable or painful state of mind
occurs shortly after a meal, it not unfrequently happens either that the stomach
rejects what has been eaten, or digests
it with great difficulty and under protest.
And as every one who taxes his brain
much can testify, even purely intellectual
action will, when excessive, produce
analogous effects. Now the relation
between brain and body which is so
manifest in these extreme cases, holds
equally in ordinary, less-marked cases.
Just as these violent but temporary
cerebral excitements produce violent but
temporary disturbances of the viscera;
so do the less violent but chronic cerebral
excitements produce less violent but
chronic visceral disturbances. This is
not simply an inference:—it is a truth
to which every medical man can bear
witness; .and it is one to which a long
and sad experience enables us to give
personal testimony. Various degrees and
forms of bodily derangement, often taking
years of enforced idleness to set partially
right, result from this prolonged over
exertion of mind. Sometimes the heart
is chiefly affected : habitual palpitations;
a pulse much enfeebled; and very
generally a diminution in the number of
beats from seventy-two to sixty, or
even fewer. Sometimes the conspicuous
disorder is of the stomach: a dyspepsia
which makes life a burden, and is
amenable to no remedy but time. In
many cases both heart and stomach are
implicated. Mostly the sleep is short
and broken. And very generally there
is more or less mental depression.
Consider, then, how great must be the
damage inflicted by undue mental excite
ment on children and youths. More or
less of this constitutional disturbance will
inevitably follow an exertion of brain
beyond the normal amount; and when not
so excessive as to produce absolute illness,
is sure to entail a slowly accumulating
degeneracy of physique. With a small
and fastidious appetite, an imperfect
digestion, and an enfeebled circulation,
how can the developing body flourish?
The due performance of every vital
process depends on an adequate supply
of good blood. Without enough good
blood, no gland can secrete properly, no
viscus can fully discharge its office.
Without enough good blood, no nerve,
muscle, membrane, or other tissue can
be efficiently repaired. Without enough
good blood, growth will be neither sound
nor ■ sufficient. Judge, then, how bad
must be the consequences when to a
growing body the weakened stomach
supplies blood that is deficient in quantity
and poor in quality; while the debilitated
heart propels this poor and scanty blood
with unnatural slowness.
And if, as all who investigate the
matter must admit, physical degeneracy
is a consequence of excessive study, how
grave is the condemnation to be passed
on this cramming-system above exempli
fied. It is a terrible mistake, from
whatever point of view regarded. It is
a mistake in so far as the mere acquire
ment of knowledge is concerned. For
the mind, like the body, cannot assimilate
beyond a certain rate; and if you ply it
with facts faster than it can assimilate
them, they are soon rejected again:
instead of being built into the intellectual
fabric, they fall out of recollection after
the passing of the examination for which
they were got up. It is a mistake, too,
because it tends to make study distasteful.
Either through the painful associations
produced by ceaseless mental toil, or
through the abnormal state of brain it
leaves behind, it often generates an
aversion to books; and, instead of
that subsequent self-culture induced by
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
rational education, there comes continued
retrogression. It is a mistake, also,
inasmuch as it assumes that the acquisi
tion of knowledge is everything; and
forgets that a much more important
thing is the organisation of knowledge,
for which time and spontaneous thinking
are requisite. As Humboldt remarks
respecting the progress of intelligence in
general, that “ the interpretation of
Nature is obscured when the description
languishes under too great an accumula
tion of insulated facts ”; so, it may be
remarked respecting the progress of indi
vidual intelligence, that the mind is over
burdened and hampered by an excess of
ill-digested information. It is not the
knowledge stored up as intellectual fat
which is of value; but that which is
turned into intellectual muscle. The
mistake goes still deeper however. Even
were the system good as producing
intellectual efficiency, which it is not; it
would still be bad, because, as we have
shown, it is fatal to that vigour of physique
needful to make intellectual training
available in the struggle of life. Those
who, in eagerness to cultivate their pupils’
minds, are reckless of their bodies, do
not remember that success in the world
depends more on energy than on infor
mation ; and that a policy which in
cramming with information undermines
energy, is self-defeating. The strong will
and untiring activity due to abundant
animal vigour, go far to compensate even
great defects of education; and when
joined with that quite adequate education
which may be obtained without sacrificing
health, they ensure an easy victory over
competitors enfeebled by excessive study :
prodigies of learning though they may be.
A comparatively small and ill-made
engine, worked at high pressure, will do
more than a large and well-finished one
worked at low pressure. What folly is
117
it, then, while finishing the engine, so to
damage the boiler that it will not generate
steam ! Once more, the system is a
mistake, as involving a false estimate of
welfare in life. Even supposing it were
a means to worldly success, instead of a
means to worldly failure, yet, in the
entailed ill-health, it would inflict a more
than equivalent curse. What boots it to
have attained wealth, if the wealth is
accompanied by ceaseless ailments ?
What is the worth of distinction, if it has
brought hypochondria with it ? Surely
no one needs telling that a good digestion,
a bounding pulse, and high spirits, are
elements of happiness which no external
advantages can out-balance. Chronic
bodily disorder casts a gloom over the
brightest prospects ; while the vivacity of
strong health gilds even misfortune. We
contend, then, that this over-education is
vicious in every way—vicious, as giving
knowledge that will soon be forgotten ;
vicious, as producing a disgust for
knowledge; vicious, as neglecting that
organisation of knowledge which is more
important than its acquisition; vicious,
as weakening or destroying that energy
without which a trained intellect is
useless; vicious, as entailing that illhealth for which even success would not
compensate, and which makes failure
doubly bitter.
On women the effects of this forcing
system are, if possible, even more injurious
than on men. Being in great measure
debarred from those vigorous and en
joyable exercises of body by which boys
mitigate the evils of excessive study,
girls feel these evils in their full intensity.
Hence, the much smaller proportion of
them who grow up well-made and healthy.
In the pale, angular, flat-chested young
ladies, so abundant in London drawing
rooms, we see the effect of merciless
application, unrelieved by youthful sports ;
�EDUCATION
and this physical degeneracy hinders
their welfare far more than their many
accomplishments aid it. Mammas anxious
to make their daughters attractive, could
scarcely choose a course more fatal than
this, which sacrifices the body to the
mind. Either they disregard the tastes
of the opposite sex, or else their concep
tion of those tastes is erroneous. Men
care little for erudition in women; but
very much for physical beauty, good
nature, and sound sense. How many
conquests does the blue-stocking * ake
m
through her extensive knowledge of
history ? What man ever fell in love
with a woman because she understood
Italian ? Where is the Edwin who was
brought to Angelina’s feet by her German?
But rosy cheeks and laughing eyes are
great attractions. A finely-rounded figure
draws admiring glances. The liveliness
and good humour that overflowing health
produces, go a great way towards estab
lishing attachments. Every one knows
cases where bodily perfections, in the
absence of all other recommendations,
have incited a passion that carried all
before it; but scarcely any one can point
to a case where intellectual acquirements,
apart from moral or physical attributes,
have aroused such a feeling. The truth
is, that out of the many elements uniting
in various proportions to produce in a
man’s breast the complex emotion we
call love, the strongest are those produced
by physical attractions; the next in order
of strength are those produced by moral
attractions; the weakest are those pro
duced by intellectual attractions; and
even these are dependent less on acquired
knowledge than on natural faculty —
quickness, wit, insight. If any think the
assertion a derogatory one, and inveigh
against the masculine character for being
thus swayed; we reply that they little
know what they say when they thus call
in question the Divine ordinations. Even
were there no obvious meaning in the
arrangement, we might be sure that some
important end was subserved. But the
meaning is quite obvious to those who
examine. When we remember that one
of Nature’s ends, or rather her supreme
end, is the welfare of posterity; further
that, in so far as posterity are concerned,
a cultivated intelligence based on a bad
physique is of little worth, since its descen
dants will die out in a generation or two ;
and conversely that a good physique,
however poor the accompanying mental
endowments, is worth preserving, because,
throughout future generations, the mental
endowments may be indefinitely de
veloped ; we perceive how important is
the balance of instincts above described.
But, advantage apart, the instincts being
thus balanced, it is folly to persist in a
system which undermines a girl’s constitu
tion that it may overload her memory.
Educate as highly as possible—the higher
the better—provided no bodily injury is
entailed (and we may remark, in passing,
that a sufficiently high standard might be
reached were the parrot-faculty cultivated
less, and the human faculty more, and
were the discipline extended over that
now wasted period between leaving school
and being married). But to educate in
such manner, or to such extent, as to
produce physical degeneracy, is to defeat
the chief end for which the toil and cost
and anxiety are submitted to. By sub
jecting their daughters to this highpressure system, parents frequently ruin
their prospects in life. Besides inflicting
on them enfeebled health, with all its
pains and disabilities and gloom ; they
not unfrequently doom them to celibacy.
The physical education of children is
thus, in various ways, seriously faulty.
It errs in deficient feeding ; in deficient
�PHYSICAL EDUCATION
clothing ; in deficient exercise (among
girls at least); and in excessive mental
application. Considering the régime as
a whole, its tendency is too exacting : it
asks too much and gives too little. In
the extent to which it taxes the vital
energies, it makes the juvenile life far
more like the adult life than it should be.
It overlooks the truth that, as in the
foetus the entire vitality is expended in
growth—as in the infant, the expenditure
of vitality in growth is so great as to leave
extremely little for either physical or
mental action ; so throughout childhood
and youth, growth is the dominant
requirement to which all others must
be subordinated : a requirement which
dictates the giving of much and the taking
away of little — a requirement which,
therefore, restricts the exertion of body
and mind in proportion to the rapidity
of growth—a requirement which permits
the mental and physical activities to
increase only as fast as the rate of growth
diminishes.
The rationale of this high-pressure
education is that it results from our
passing phase of civilisation. In primitive
times, when aggression and defence were
the leading social activities, bodily vigour
with its accompanying courage were the
desiderata ; and then education was
almost wholly physical: mental cultivation
was little cared for, and indeed, as in
feudal ages, was often treated with con
tempt. But now that our state is relatively
peaceful—now that muscular power is of
use for little else than manual labour,
while social success of nearly every kind
119
depends very much on mental power;
our education has become almost exclu
sively mental. Instead of respecting the
body and ignoring the mind, we now
respect the mind and ignore the body.
Both these attitudes are wrong. We do
not yet realise the truth that as, in this
life of ours, the physical underlies the
mental, the mental must not be developed
at the expense of the physical. The
ancient and modem conceptions must
be combined.
Perhaps nothing will so much hasten
the time when body and mind will both
be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of
the belief that the preservation of health
is a duty. Few seem conscious that
there is such a thing as physical morality.
Men’s habitual words and acts imply the
idea that they are at liberty to treat their
bodies as they please. Disorders entailed
by disobedience to Nature’s dictates, they
regard simply as grievances : not as the
effects of a conduct more or less flagitious.
Though the evil consequences inflicted
on their dependents, and on future
generations, are often as great as those
caused by crime; yet they do not think
themselves in any degree criminal. It
is true that, in the case of drunkenness,
the viciousness of a bodily transgression
is recognised : but none appear to infer
that, if this bodily transgression is vicious,
so too is every bodily transgression.
The fact is, that all breaches of the laws
of health are physical sins. When this is
generally seen, then, and perhaps not till
then, will the physical training of the
young receive the attention it deserves.
THE END.
�INDEX
[For this Index the author is indebted to F. H. Collins, Esq., of Edgbaston,
Birmingham, who very kindly volunteered to prepare it for him.]
A.
Abstract-Sciences and their industrial appli
cations, 19 ; those of the abstract-concrete, 19
“ Accomplishments, the,” in a lady’s education,
10
Accountant, the facility acquired by one, 36 ;
Nature, a strict, 113-115
Activities, classification of the, 13
Æsthetic culture, the value of, 30-31
Agriculture, aided by Chemistry, 20, and by
Biology, 21
Amusements and Relaxations, the knowledge
aiding the, 30-35 .
Anatomy and Botany as cultivating the memory,
36
Ancestors, their vigour compared with our own,
no
“ Animal, a good,” the necessity to be, 43, 94
Animals, their rearing studied more than that
of children, 93 ; their vital processes allied to
man’s, 94 ; their energies dependent upon
their kinds of food, 100
Apperley, Mr., on hunters, 101-105
Applause, the general desire for, 11
Arithmetical Truths should be taught in the
concrete, 45
Asceticism and its Relation to Educational
Systems, 41
Astronomy, its industrial application, 21
Aveyron, the Wild Boy of, 48
B.
Bacon—“ The relative values ofknowledges,” 12
Battles, history is largely composed of their
descriptions, 27-28
Beauty, physical, in women is more attractive
than erudition, 18
Beliefs, the growing diversity in, 42
Bernard, M. Claude, on the functions of the
liver, 96
Biology, its application to agriculture, 21
Bodily Exercise, as needful for girls as boys,
106-109 ! in excess, diminishes thought, 114
Body, the cost of mental achievement to the,
114-117.
Books, their educational value over-rated, 25
Botany, its interest to Children, 58
Bread and Butter ; its too great frequency, 96, 103
Brain reacts upon the body, the, 114-117
Breakfast Roll, its history, 19
Burns, the lesson taught by, 84-90
Butterflies, their collection and keeping cultivate
the powers of observation, 59
C.
Candle, the penalty for playing with a lighted,
84
Cardboard, figures cut in, 64
Carelessness ; its natural penalty, 78-80
Caterpillar as an example of growth, 115
Centre of gravity in Sculpture, 32
Chemistry; its industrial value, 20
Children, prevalent ignorance concerning the
rearing of, 23-27 ; is harshness to children a
preparation for their after-life ? 73 ; moral
precocity equally detrimental with intellectual,
88; their love of fruits and sweets justified,
95-97
Chrysalis, as an example of Development, 115
Citizen, the knowledge which aids the functions
of the, 27-30
Civilisation ; its order, and that of education
should be similar, 52, 53
Classics, Public Opinion the motive for teaching
them, 9 ; and Mathematics form an insignifi
cant part of a proper Curriculum, 11-12
Clothing is a development of decoration, 9-11 ;
the natural penalty for its reckless treatment,
80; should suffice to prevent an abiding
sensation of cold, 103-106
Coal-mining, its Failure, from lack of geological
knowledge, 22
Cold, its ill-effects on the development of
children, 24, 103-106
Colours ; children’s delight in painting, 60
Combe, Dr. Andrew, on the advantages of Fruit
in Diet, 96, 97; on the importance of sufficient
Clothing, 105
Commands, Parents should give few, 89 ; but
when given they should be decisive and con
sistent, 89
Comte, M.—The Education of the Child should
accord with th it of mankind, considered
historically, 52
�INDEX
Concrete Sciences, and their industrial applica
tions, the, 19
Conduct, the right ruling of, in all divisions, the
aim of education, 13 ; of Society, Parents, and
Children relatively considered, 71-74 ; the
definitions of good and bad, 74
“Could a Man be Secure,” 12
Cramming Systems, their mischievous results,
HÔ-118
Culture, the desirableness of general, 15 ; the
present value of the Æsthetic, and its probable
future increase, 30-32
D.
HANTS, a knowledge of, a small consolation in
trouble, 27
Decision should be used by Parents in commands, 89
Decoration in Primitive Societies precedes dress,
9-11
Degenerating, are we ? no
Despotism in the State induces Despotism in
Education, 41
Development ; its long duration in Children, 48;
of the mind, 50-55 > an increase of structure
retards increase of size, 115
Discobolus, illustrates ignorance of the law of
momentum, the, 32
Diet. {See Food.)
Digestion, chemical changes in, 96 ; the organs
of, smaller in civilised than in savage races,
103, productive of lassitudes 114
Discipline ; Science superior to language for
cultivating the judgment and for moral dis.dpline, 35-39 ; of nature not wholly sufficient
for education, 47 ; of unavoidable consequences
or the penalties of Nature, 74-87 ; failure of
artificial criminal codes, 76 ; English school
discipline less severe than the French, 87 ;
the aim of, should be to produce a selfgoverning being, 90
Disease, the permanent damage done by, 17
■Drawing, when and how to teach, 60-63 >
apparatus for teaching perspective, 62
Dress. {See Clothing. )
Drinking without Thirst, its evils, 17, 103
Drunkenness, accompanied by physical de
generacy, 74, 119
E.
Eating without hunger, its evils, 17, 103
Education at the present time a matter of custom
and prejudice, 11. The ideal, a training in
each subject proportionate to its value, 15.
The omissions and vices of our present system,
31 ; and its relation to the contemporary social
. state, 40-43, 72-74- The past and present
systems compared, 43-48. It should conform
with the evolution of the faculties, 47-48.
Should be a repetition in little of civilisation,
53, 66 : and should commence in infancy with
object lessons, 55
Electricity and its industrial applications, 20
Emotions, the prevailing ignorance of their
nature» 24
121
Empirical should precede the rational in educa
tion, 53
Employers and employed ; their relations should
be noted in history, 29
Energy in well-fed races is greater than that in
ill-fed, 99-101
English and German Boys ; their relative charac
ters, 91
English and Foreign Labourers compared, 101
Error, suppression of one, followed by the
ascendency of another, 43
Euclid, an attractive study when addressed to
the understanding, 65
Evolution of the faculties should be the basis of
education, the, 47-48. The laws of mental
evolution, 50-55
Examinations cause the acquirement ot un
organised knowledge, which is soon forgotten,
26
Exercise, bodily, as needful for girls as boys,
106-109 > in excess diminishes thought, 114
Eye, an instance of faculty developed through
function, 36
,F.
Faculties are developed by the performance of
their functions, 36
Family, prevalent ignorance concerning the
rearing of a, 23-27 ; and its management, 69
Family _ Government, Richter on the present
chaotic state in, 70
Faraday, Professor, on the deficiency of judg
ment in society, 37
&
Fatigue of body or brain should be followed by
desistance, 17
Features of young children resemble those of a
savage, 87
Feelings react upon the reflective powers, the,
34
Fellenberg—Indolence is not natural to children,
54 J the importance of individual activity in
children, 67
Food, to be beneficial should be varied, 21,
103 ; sufficient in quantity--appetite being a
natural guide, 95-97 ; and for children highly
nutritious, 97-103 ; the easy digestibility of a
French dinner, 102 ; food as well as clothing
is necessary for maintaining the heat of the
body, 104-106.
Forbes, Sir John, on the present division of time
in girls’ schools, III
Fruit, children’s love for, also its digestibility, 96
Friendship, between parents and children, should
be cultivated, 83-87
G.
Games of children develop the system and pre
pare it for after life, 16
Genius as well as science necessary to attain the
highest results, 34
Geography, in teaching, physical, should precede
political, 26
Geology : its industrial applications, 21 ; a
knowledge of increases the poetry of nature,
34
Geometry: its industrial uses, 19 ; its lessons
�INDEX
122
should commence empirically with models,
and afterwards proceed to the rational with
Euclid, 63-66 ; Inventional Geometry, 66;
Professor Tyndall, on rendering it attractive,
65
Grammar coming after language historically,
should be taught after it, 44
Growth is affected by the food consumed, 97100; and by the temperature experienced,
104; an increase of size retards increase of
structure, 115
H.
Happiness, regarded as a legitimate aim, 41 ;
favourable to physical and mental action, 54,
66-68, 109
Hardening Theory, its ill effects on children’s
health, 104
Health, its importance for all activities, 17-18,
109, 117 ; some causes and effects of ill-health,
17, 104, no; affected by over-study, 110-118;
its preservation a duty, 119
Heart, influences affecting its action, 115
Heat, its science and industrial applications, 20
Heredity and the transmission of defects, 52, 72;
likewise of those caused by over-study, 111
History, considered part of a good education,
10 ; its worthlessness as now taught, 15, 27 ;
as it should be taught, 28-30
Huxley, Professor, on true science and religion,
38
I.
Ignorance, the various effects produced by
parental, 23
Impulsiveness should be avoided by parents,
89
Indefinite in education should precede the defi
nite, the, 51
Indolence in children is unnatural—Fellenberg,
54
■
•
, ■
Insects, their collection and keeping cultivate
the powers of observation, 58
Instincts of an infant, self-preservative, 16. They
show that progression should be from the
simple to the complex, 56
Interest, the advantages of doing work with, 67
Inventional Geometry, 66
K.
Kingsley, Mr., his writings against over
culture, 94
Knowledge, the importance of knowing its rela
tive value, 12; and Discipline form the two
values of an acquirement, 16; Rational
superior to Empirical, 22 ; it should be orga
nised, and not merely acquired, 116
L.
Labourers, English and Foreign compared, 101
Language inferior to Science for cultivating the
judgment and the memory, 36
Learning by rote inferior to Self-instruction, 26 ;
and now falling into disuse, 43
Lehman, on the quantity of Carbonic Acid
excreted by Children and Adults, 105
Leisure, the occupations of, 12, 30
Liebig—Clothing is an equivalent for a certain
amount of food, 104
Life, its present, falls below its possible dura
tion, 17 ; the Tables of Mortality show its in
creased length, 109
Light, the science of, and its industrial applica
tions, 20
Livelihood, gaining a (indirect self-preservation),
the knowledge which best aids, 19-23
Locke, John, on the futility of very severe
punishment, 87
M.
Machinery, its all-prevailing use, 19
Mann, Horace—“ Education consists too much
at present in telling, and not training” 67
Marcel, M.—“ Grammar is not a stepping-stone,
but the finishing instrument,” 44 ; Weights and
Measures should be taught by the use of
models, 45 ; the Child should be shown the
relation of the parts of an object, 56 ; for the
Mind, it is better to discover than be told, 67
Mathematics indispensable for the arts of con
struction, 19; and Classics form an insignificant
part of a proper curriculum, 11-12
Maxims, of Art are related to psychologic prin
ciples, 34; and Rules for parental guidance,
87-92
Memory and Judgment cultivated by science,
the, 36-37
Mirabeau and the word “ impossible,” 65
Modern life, its increasing strain necessitates a
sound constitution, 94, no
Moderation to be used and moderate results
expected, 88
Montaigne—Sqavoir par cceurn'estpas st;avoir, 43
Mortality, and the effects of cold on infants
abroad, 105; Tables of, show an increased
length of life, 109
Multiplication Table should be taught experi
mentally, 43
Music based on science, 33
N.
Natural History trains the powers of observa
tion in children, and should be encouraged,
58, 82
. .
r
Navigation an industrial application of astro
nomy, 21
Neatness inculcated by the natural penalties for
untidiness, 77-78
Nerve, the effects on the heart of irritating the
vagus, 115
Newton, an example of patience, 65
Nursery, one of the evils of over legislation in
the, 95
O.
Object Lessons, their importance in commenc
ing education, 45, 56-66
Observation, important tocultivate the powers of,
44
�INDEX
Opinions, the various revolutions affecting, 4043
Ornament in dress predominates over use
among savages, 9-11
Over-study, some instances of, and injuries
brought on by, 110-118
P.
Painting, based on science, 32 ; children’s
delight in should be made an incentive to
drawing, 60
Palmerston’s, Lord, “All Children are born
Good,” 71
Paper, children’s powers of manipulation increase
by cutting objects in, 64
Parents, their duties precede those of the citizen,
14; the knowledge which aids them in rearing
children, 23-27 ; their conduct and children’s
relatively considered, 71-74, 76, 80-82 ; their
conduct, and not children’s perversity, a fre
quent cause of disorder, 71; mostly considered
as “friend-enemies,” 83; maxims and rules
for their guidance, 87-92
Particulars in education should precede the
generalisation, 44, 52
Penalties, the natural, considered for the lighter
offences, 74-82 J and for the more serious,
82-87
Perspective, when and how to teach it, 62 ; its
practicability, 67
Pestalozzi—Education should conform to mental
evolution, 46; his practice did not conform to
the principles of his system, 48-50 ; education
should begin in infancy, 55
Physiology, ignorance of its principles is pro
ductive of ill-health, 17-18 ; a knowledge of
it is necessary for bringing up children, 26
Picture, its true theory is that of objects projected
on a plane, 63
Pillans, Professor — Children when properly
taught as happy as wh- n at play, 68
Poetry, scientific principles necessary to true, 33;
science is itself poetic, 34
Precocity, intellectual should be discouraged, 43 ;
likewise moral precocity, 88; its ultimate
effect is a falling short in size and power, 114
Promptings of nature should be obeyed, 17
Psychology, its guidance needed by parents and
teachers, 25, 26, 49 ; its principles underlie
the maxims of art, 34
Public Schools and their Teaching, 23 ; their
discipline, 73, 87
Punctuality, to be instilled by the use of its
natural penalty, 79
R.
Railway making regulated by Geometry, 19;
children’s restlessness in travelling by, 72
Relaxations and Amusements, the knowledge
which aids the, 30-35
Religion and Science, Professor Huxley on,
.38-9
Richter, his description of the chaotic state of
moral education, 70; Pas trop gouverner, 89
123
S.
Sçavoir par cœur n‘est pas sçavoir—Montaigne,
43
Schools, the Public and their teaching, 23 ; their
discipline, 73, 87 ; English and Foreign com
pared, 91 ; the division of time in various,
111-112
Sculpture based on the principles of science, 32.
Science, its truths are of intrinsic value, 15 ; of
society and its industrial uses, 21 ; underlies
art> 3r—35 î is poetic, 34; cultivates the
memory and the judgment, 36-37 ; and fosters
religion, 38-39 ; the universal need for, 39 ;
the Cinderella of knowledge, 40 ; evolves
from its corresponding art, 53
Self-control, needful to parents, 89
Self-governed, the aim of education is to produce
a being, 90
Self-instruction to be encouraged, 53, 66 ; its
lasting advantages, 67-9
Self-preservation is primarily important, 13 ; the
knowledge which aids Direct, 16-18 ; and
Indirect, or gaining a livelihood, 18-23
Self-renunciation necessary to scientific men,
Professor Tyndall on the, 38
Self-will in Children not to be regretted, 91
Simple in Education should precede the com
plex, the, 50
Social Observances should be noted in History,
28 ; Social Phenomena are the phenomena of
life, 30
Society, its goodness is dependent on the nature
of its citizens, 14, 30; “Is ignorant of its own
ignorance”—Professor Faraday, 37
Species, their number in Botany and in Zoology,
36 . .
Sugar, its importance as Food, 96
Sympathy, children’s desire for, 55-58 ; the
regret for offending varies with the amount of,
86
T.
Theft, why catalogued as a sin, 74 ; its natural
penalty, 86
Time, Systematised Education will increase the
amount of Leisure, 30 ; its division at various
schools, Hi-112
Tyndall, Professor, on Inductive Inquiry, 38 ;
on teaching Geometry attractively, 65
V.
Vaccination, a possible cause of degeneration,
110
Vegetarianism entails diminished energy, 99-102
W.
Whipping Juvenile Criminals not preventive of
crime, 87
Wyse, Mr., On the rational method of teaching
geometry, 63
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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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Education : intellectual, moral, and physical
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Spencer, Herbert [1820-1903]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 126, [2] p. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: No. 6
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Index compiled by F.H. Collins of Edgbaston [and it's very good - cataloguer's note]. Bust of Spencer on front cover. Publisher's advertisements on last two numbered pages and unnumbered pages at the end. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. First published London: Williams & Norgate, 1861. The cheap edition of the work first published 1878. Stamp on title page "2d given. If this book is returned to W.A. Foyle, 65 Grand Parade, Harringay". Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Education
Moral Education
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Text
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
BY MONSIGNOR W. CROKE ROBINSON, M.A.1
It is difficult to know where to start in a subject so large
and profound as the change of one’s faith, and the
process by which that change came about. I will
endeavour to trace the beginnings from which were
evolved eventually five conclusions which led me to the
Catholic Church.
I must premise that I was brought up as a Low
Church Anglican, but that a very little serious thought
brought me to what is known as Tractarianism, as dis
tinguished from Evangelicanism on the one side and
Ritualism on the other, with neither of which I had any
sympathy. I thought the one narrow - minded and
illogical, and the other illogical and dishonest; and I
think so now. I very soon began to be disturbed and
unsettled by the confusion worse confounded of Angli
canism. I asked myself, “Can Almighty God be the
author of this confusion ?
Can our Divine Saviour’s
promise be fulfilled ‘ that the gates of hell shall not pre1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Roads to
Rome (Longmans).
�2
From Darkness to Light
vail against His Church,’ or His prayer be answered,
‘ that they may be all one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and
I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me’ ? ” 1 I
could neither explain the difficulty nor get it explained.
As yet the Catholic and Roman Church, for whatever
reason, never entered into my thoughts. These early
troubles were the beginning of what I may truly call my
ten years’ agony. For it took me all that time—that is,
from 1862 to 1872—to find my way from darkness to
light.
It was not very long before it dawned upon me that
every Anglican, of whatever school, was in reality a law
to himself, and that he acted on his own authority: and
then it was that the question of authority became to me
the c<articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesicu” and ever
afterwards. I asked every one I met, “ By what authority
dost thou believe, and doest thou these things ? ” Some
times, on my inquiry of this or that divine, I was
referred to the Prayer-book as my authority, sometimes
to the bathers of the Church, sometimes to the Primitive
Church. It took me some years to discover the fallacy
of such appeals to authority; why, I cannot think. But
that is always the way when one becomes a Catholic.
One is sure to feel and say, “ How could it have taken
so long to discover what a moment’s serious thought and
the exercise of a little common sense ought to have
revealed ? How is it that every Anglican cannot see
it ? ” The answer, of course, is that they have not the
gift of faith. They even might see it—that is to say,
might be intellectually convinced of the fallacy of such
1 St. John xvii. 21.
�From Darkness to Light
3
^appeals, and moreover of the logical standpoint of the
Catholic Church; and yet, for all that, they will not,
and cannot become Catholics. For—and here I must
be pardoned for making a considerable digression—in
tellectual conviction is not faith. It cannot be too
strongly insisted upon at this present moment (January,
1901). There are thousands and tens of thousands to-day
who are intellectually convinced that of all bodies of men
calling themselves Christians, the Catholic Church alone
is logical and unassailable in its credentials. But they
do not, and will not, ever become Catholics because they
have not faith.
Let me give an illustration of the difference between
intellectual conviction and faith. For several years
the astronomers Adams and Leverrier were intellectually
convinced of the existence of the planet Neptune. It
was not till 1846 that M. Galle, of Berlin, actually saw
it. This similitude explains itself.
God alone can give the faculty of seeing as well
in the order of grace as in that of nature; and until
He gives it, no man can attain to it by any process
of scientific inference. And here, let me observe,
many of the so-called apostasies of our days are to be
explained. They are not really apostasies. It is simply
this, that certain men have reasoned themselves into the
•Church and then have reasoned themselves out again.
They were merely intellectually convinced, and were
received on the strength of this conviction by priests who
possibly took too much for granted, and who neglected
to satisfy themselves about che faith of their neophytes,
accounting such precautions as superfluous in the case of
educated men or members of the Universities. But these
�4
From Darkness to Light
people are not apostates, for they never had the faith.
When a man has once the real gift of faith—that is to say,
the gift of God’s grace, which elevates his reason above
his natural powers and attainments, so that it rises and
passes from intellectual conviction into faith, which is an
act of the reason but different in kind as well as degree
from intellectual consent—when, I say, a man once has
this great gift of God, it is impossible for him, so I think,
to lose it, and to relapse into any form of Protestantism.
He may lose it by wilfully and persistently sinning
against the faith, and, being punished by judicial blind
ness, become an infidel. This, of course, is true in the
abstract. But, in the concrete, it may well be doubted
whether this or that person among the exceedingly few
apostates of to-day has really lost the faith. For myself,,
I do not believe they have.
But to return to my subject. At length I saw through
the fallacy of any appeal to the Prayer-book, or the Fathers,,
or the Primitive Church, or the Church of the Ritualists.
To begin with the last. A Ritualist has always seemed:
to me to be one who forms for himself his own theory of”
the Church, and then religiously obeys, not the Church,
but his own theory of it. He is as much a law to himself
as the extremest Evangelical.
His is merely a case of
obedience to self once removed. All Anglicans likewiseform their own theory of the Prayer-book, their owa
commentary on the Fathers of the Church, their own
account of the Primitive Church. They are simply a law
to themselves, and the slaves of a self-imposed obedience.
This conviction of my mind was, I know not why, very
slow in its growth, but it came at last, and was indeed a
disillusionment! But, besides this, it occurred to me to-
�From Darkness to Light
5
inquire of what practical use is the dead letter of any
book, whether Prayer-book, or Patristic writings, or even
the Bible itself. For any practical purpose, what is wanted
is the living voice of authority to determine infallibly what
the book means or does not mean in the cause of Holy
Writ; and what is true or false doctrine in the pages of all
other writers, even those of the Fathers of the Church,
all of whom—with the solitary exception of St. Gregory
Nazianzen—we as Catholics know have more or less
•committed themselves, here and there, to false doctrine.
Where is the living voice among Anglicans ? Echo
answers, “ Where ? ” It is quite past my comprehension
how such men as Lord Halifax fail to see what is so
obvious, and keep on appealing with wearisome monotony
to what the Prayer - book teaches, or the Church of
England teaches, when the fact must be patent to him,
as it is to all the world, that there is no living authorized
interpreter of either, and never can be, unless it be the
Crown, which of course they repudiate. Here I find
I must relinquish the continuous narrative of the
process of my conversion for want of space. I will
proceed to notice one or two of the chief difficulties
which occurred to me on the march to the Catholic
Church, and the solution of them which satisfied
me, but may not, I am perfectly aware, satisfy
everybody.
The first difficulty occurred to me in the condemnation
of Private Judgement by the Catholic Church. Catholic
teaching on this point seemed to me inconsistent with
itself; because at one moment it insists on the use of
Private Judgement, and in the next it absolutely forbids
it. The answer, however, is very simple ; though it was
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From Darkness to Light
some time in coming home to me. Of course, a man
must use his reason to examine the credentials of the
Catholic Church. When he is satisfied with them, and
has found the true Church, he gives up his Private
Judgement and submits to the judgement of the Church.
As Cardinal Newman writes, in his own inimitable style,.
“Those who are external to the Church must begin with
Private Judgement: they use it in order to ultimately
supersede it; as a man out of doors uses a lamp on a
dark night, and puts it out when he gets home. What
would be thought of his bringing it into the drawing
room ? ” 1
I was puzzled for a time with another plausible con
tention. It occurred to me that it might be said, “ Yoh
admit that by Private Judgement a man finds out the
Catholic Church. Well, then, although he subsequently
lays it aside, yet what was Private Judgement in the first
instance must always be Private Judgement. By Private
Judgement he began; Private Judgement, therefore, is the
real foundation of his subsequent belief.” But I saw
before long that this objection proves a great deal too
much. It seems to imply, at least to me, that, in the
last resort, truth is nothing more to a man than what
seems to him to be truth. A most dangerous doctrine,
'truly, as well as utterly false! It spells Idealism in
Philosophy, Licentiousness in Morals, and Anarchy in
Politics. Surely truth is not dependent for its being on
Private Judgement. By Private Judgement we attain ta
it, but the truth was there before we discovered it, and
no matter what we think about it; and, the moment we
arrive at it, we lest upon the truth, not upon the Private
1 Loss and Gain, p. 203.
�From Darkness to Light
7
Judgement which brought us to it. By Private Judge
ment, at some time of my life, I apprehended the
authority of the English Crown; the moment I did
so, I gave my intelligent allegiance to it. Hence
forth, I rested upon the authority of the Crown, not
upon my mental apprehension of it. I am now a
British subject, not because mentally I have come to
that conclusion, but because of the /ar/. Or, to adopt
another illustration: by means of a ladder I mount a
platform; I am then standing on the platform, and not
on the ladder which is left down below. By Private
Judgement, then, a man must find out the Catholic
Church. When he finds it, it is a huge objective fact.
All men must be agreed about it as a gigantic organiza
tion, which has existed these nineteen hundred years.
For all that time—the name and date of every Pope
being historical facts—it has become a chief factor in
the history of Europe. All that time it has taught with
the living voice, and ruled with an incomparable dis
cipline. There it is to-day, as of old, independent
altogether of what men may think about it, a stub
born, undeniable, unmistakable fact. Whether it
be true or false in its doctrine is beside the mark :
there it is, and there it will be; that is all we are
maintaining.
Well, then, a man discovers this Church; he makes his
allegiance to it, and is formally accepted by it. Hence
forth he rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church,
not upon his mental apprehension of it. He is a
Catholic, not because he thinks he is, but because of
the fact of his formal reception into the Catholic
Church : whereas an Anglican rests, not in facts, but
�8
From Darkness to Light
in his theory of facts. Not one of the objects of his
religious allegiance really exists except in his imagina
tion. He will say, “Surely the Prayer-book is a fact.”
To which I reply, “ Well, of course it is; but not the
Catholic interpretation of it; for all men are not agreed
about that; indeed, the great majority are violently
opposed to it. As long as there is a Broad Church
interpretation of it, or an Evangelical, so long the High
Church interpretation of it must be a theory and not a
fact.” The same with the Fathers of the Church or
the Primitive Church. These things are, of course,
facts in themselves, but not to the Anglican, only the
Anglican interpretation of them, which is a very different
thing. From beginning to end, therefore, the Anglican
is a creature of Private Judgement, not a child of
faith; and from the extremest Ritualist down to the
most rabid Evangelical, he is a Protestant pure and
simple.
But all this is reasoning in the mere natural order of
things. Let us go to the supernatural. By Private
Judgement, then, aided by grace—for without that he
can do nothing—a man finds out the Catholic Church ;
then Private Judgement is superseded by Faith, which,
as has been already said, elevates and sustains the reason
above the level of its own natural powers. It is on
that platform that he stands ever afterwards, and Private
Judgement is the ladder by which he reached it and is
of no further use.
Upon this, another objection occurred to me, which
may be worded thus: “ That is a convenient way of
getting out of a difficulty by appealing to faith which is
not cognizable by any human sense. It may be or it
�From Darkness to Light
9
■may not be as you say, but that is not argument after
all.” To this I reply: “ Quite so ; to every one but a
Catholic it is, I grant, inconclusive. But, then, must it
not of its very nature be so ? I cannot show anybody
my faith, as I can show him a bunch of keys taken from
my pocket. All I know is that I have it, and that the
non-Catholic has it not. and that that great gift of God
is my foundation, and no longer Private Judgement,
which is, ipso facto, driven out by faith just as darkness
is by light.”
I do not remember any other serious intellectual
difficulty, or one that detained me for long. Bad popes
and bad priests never troubled me for a moment. The
office and the man are so obviously distinct, that the
mind must be addled that does not see it at a glance.
A policeman may be an immoral man, but the ’bus
drivers and the cabmen will obey him, and rein in
their horses at his bidding, because he is a police
man. The sentence of an immoral judge will avail
to hang a guilty murderer, because it is the official
act of a judge; it is not invalid because the judge is a
bad man.
But, before I formulate my five conclusions, I must
here declare my greatest obstacle to my conversion,
which was not intellectual but moral. I loved the
English Church intensely. It was associated with
everybody and everything dear to me from the first
■dawn of consciousness. From a worldly point of view,
to change my faith was to lose everything dear to me
and to gain nothing. It meant the wreck of one’s life,
shattered nerves, and, for all I knew, absolute destitu
tion. Can it be wondered that I felt reluctant to take
�io
From Darkness to Light
the step ? Whilst I cannot accuse myself positively of
bad faith, yet I must own that the terrible prospect
before me made me dilatory in the work of finding out
the truth. I have always accounted it as nothing short
of a signal miracle of God’s grace by which a conver
sion such as mine was brought about. For ever and
for ever blessed be His Holy Name, and the inter
cession of His Blessed Mother!
I come then, finally, to the five conclusions already
alluded to, which pointed, unmistakably—in the reputed
language of Lord Macaulay after one of Cardinal
Wiseman’s famous lectures—to “ either the Catholic
Church or Babel.”
Point I.—If my soul is to be saved, God must show me
the way. It is not for me to choose my own way, and
offer that to God. These words may seem a truism,
but they are not really so; on the contrary, they are
most useful as hitting off the Catholic and Protestant
position exactly. The Ritualist, the High Churchman,
the Broad Churchman, the Evangelical, the Noncon
formist, all alike formulate their own views of religion,,
and offer them for God’s acceptance as their account
of salvation. The Catholic calls that putting the cart
before the horse. The Catholic standpoint is this : that
it is for God to reveal His own way of salvation, and
all that man has to do is to find out where that, is and
to obey it. Further, that God has revealed it, and has
committed this revelation to a competent authority
upon earth, to guard it from error and to enforce
its observance. It is the duty of man to find out
where this oracle of truth is, and submit mind and
heart to it.
�From Darkness to Light
11
Point II.— When God does reveal the way of salva
tion, it will and must be one—
(1) One in number.
(2) One in unity.
(1) One in number, i.e., “One Lord, One Faith,
One Baptism” (Eph. iv. 5). Nowhere does Scripture
give a hint as to more than one Church. When St. John
writes to the Seven Churches of Asia, he is, of course,
writing to seven hierarchies of the one only Church.
And so historians sometimes speak of the English
Church or French Church, meaning the Catholic Church
in England or France. But mere common sense postu
lates oneness in number. It is impossible to imagine
more than one way of salvation. Of course, it is
conceivable that Almighty God could make many Ways
of salvation, because He can do all things; but it is not
conceivable how confusion worse confounded would be
avoided if He did. Supposing there was one way for
Europe, another for Asia, another for Africa, another for
America, a man would have to change his religion four
times in a voyage round the world; and where could he
tell where his good ship passed from one way of salvation
into that of another? Some spiritual Trinity House
would have to mark the supremely important boundaries
of buoys. I know this is fooling ; but then, the theory
I am trying to gibbet is fooling too.
(2) Next, if the revelation is one in number it will be
one in unity too; that is to say, the earthly teachers of
it will be one, and the taught will be one. Why?
Because it is the truth. Truth is one: one in the
teacher, and one in the taught of its very nature.
For instance, London is a city on the Thames. That
�12
From Darkness to Light
is truth; and so all schoolmasters are one in teaching it,
and all scholars one in learning it. Why ? Because it
is true. About God’s way of salvation, then, wherever
located on the earth—and located it must be somewhere
—there will be unity in the teacher and unity in the
taught. If I do not find unity in the teacher and unity
in the taught, then I shall know that the truth is not
there, from the very fact that there is not unity about it.
Let us be quite sure about this. The following proposi
tion is undeniable. Wherever the truth is, there must
be unity of the teacher and unity of the taught about it,
because it is true. But the proposition, “ Wherever there
is unity in the teacher and unity in the taught there is
truth,” cannot, of course, be maintained as it stands;
because teachers and scholars may conceivably be agreed
upon what is false. Yet, observe, in religious argument,
even this last proposition is undeniable. For, as a matter
of fact, no religious system of human opinion has ever
succeeded in maintaining unity, and for this reason :
because the moment you depart from the Divine rule of
faith, wherever it may be, you are landed, ipso facto, in
human opinion. There is no intermediate position
possible. Now, human opinion must of its very nature
be variable, because the human mind has been created
by God as variable as the human face. When Dr.
Benson, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, ordered
prayers for unity of belief among his flock, I remember
saying that he might just as usefully pray for unity of
countenance among them. Therefore, in point of fact,
though not perhaps in logic, the religious inquirer may
be quite sure that where there is not unity in the teacher
-and unity in the taught, there cannot be truth ; and that,
�'
From Darkness to Light
13,
conversely, wherever there is unity in the teacher and
unity in the taught, there, ipso facto, is Divine truth.
Point III.—If God does make a revelation of the way
by which the soul is to be saved, that revelation will be
infallible.
A. Infallible in its Subject Matter—
(1) Because Almighty God delivers it. How can it
be otherwise ?
(2) Because my soul wants nothing less. I cannot
trifle with eternity. I cannot afford to make a mistake
about it, which it is impossible to put right after death.
B. Infallible in its Earthly Mouthpiece—
(1) For of what practical use would be infallible truth
with a fallible mouthpiece ?
(2) How can Almighty God punish me for ever, if I
refuse to believe a teacher who may mislead me? It is
my solemn duty to refuse belief in such an one. Re
member, we have to give an account of our faith as well
as of our morals, and of faith before morals. “ He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved : he that
believeth not shall be condemned” (St. Mark xvi. 16).
How can God punish me eternally for want of faith,
unless he gives me an infallible teacher, whereby I can
secure infallible truth ? An infallible teacher of salva
tion is the most pressing of all the needs of the soul, and
yet the very mention of an infallible teacher makes the
average Englishman shiver in his shoes. This is indeed
astounding. Well, then, somewhere on earth, and in.
some authoritative body of men, or in the office of one
man, must be placed by Almighty God the infallible
oracle of truth. The way of salvation, then, is reduced
to great simplicity by this time. All a man has to do is-
�14
From Darkness to Light
to find out where the oracle is, and then believe what it
teaches, and do what it commands.
Point IV.—This way of salvation will be exclusive.
That is to say, it will be the only one ; and every other
way of salvation will be false. This means that the true
Church, wherever it is, will not only be the best of all
Churches, but the only one. This point seems to require
no further remark; and yet I remember a catechumen
once saying to me when teaching it, “ Oh, Father, that
is a tall order and no mistake ! ”
Point V.—To accept when once seen or wilfully to reject
this way of salvation is a matter of life or death eternal.
This seems obvious from the words of Scripture already
quoted. To see it not, by a man’s own fault, is likewise
to be lost. Once the solid conviction has crossed a
man’s brain, that if he inquired honestly into the cre
dentials of the Catholic Church he would be convinced
of the truth of it, and bound to submit to it in mind and
will—that man must go on in his inquiry, otherwise he
will be lost. To see it not, not by a man’s fault—that is
to say, in a case where it has never occurred to a man’s
mind that his own religion is false or that any other
religion can be true—then, not to believe in the Catholic
Church will not, of course, entail eternal loss on that
account. All this was self-evident to me, but it may
not be so to others. With that I have nothing to do.
My task is nearly done. Only a few words are needed
-to show that the Catholic and Roman Church alone can
satisfy these five points or conclusions. Let the reli
gious inquirer examine any system of religion other than
that of the Catholic Church, he will find that it breaks
-down on one or more of these five points. Ask the
�From Darkness to Light
15
Ritualist first, who is in many ways nearer to the truth
(and yet of him I say, “thou art so near and yet so
far”), is he one with his brother Anglicans in faith?
And what must he answer if he speaks the truth ? Is
he infallible, or the Church of his invention ? Is the
Church Times infallible? No; he breaks down hope
lessly, and all his fellow-Protestants when submitted to
the test of my five points. But ask next the Catholic
Church if it can satisfy these same points, and you will
soon see how perfectly she can stand the test.
Point I.—This point, as we have already seen, is the
■Catholic standpoint par excellence.
Point II.—Is the Catholic and Roman Church one ?
Yes; absolutely one in number and in unity all over
the world, in every climate, in every race of men:
-one in the teachers and one in the taught. It is this
marvellous fact that in point of fact converted me. I
have always considered this unity of nineteen hundred
years as God’s greatest miracle.
Point III.—Is the Catholic Church infallible? Yes;
and it has always claimed to be, and has acted as the
infallible Divine teacher of truth from the time of Christ.
The Catholic Church alone of all religious bodies claims
infallibility. The very claim sufficiently proved its truth
to me.
Point IV.—Is the Catholic Church exclusive ? Yes
it says, “I, and I only am the one true religion. All
others are false, and not to be accounted religions at
all.”
»
Point V.—Is it a matter of life or death eternal to
accept when seen or wilfully reject the Catholic Church ?
The Catholic Church replies “ Yes.” She alone teaches
�16
From Darkness to Light
this; no other system of Christianity has dared toteach it.
Here I conclude the history of my conversion. I do
not pretend to do anything more than show what led me
to the Catholic Church. I do not lay down any law for
others. All I know is that I have the faith, and in the
profession and peace of it I have lived twenty-nine years.
Not a shadow of a doubt in it has ever crossed my mind
during that long time. In this faith I still live, and inthis faith I hope to die. Amen.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY
THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
u
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From darkness to light
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Robinson, W. Croke
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No. 13.—R. P. A. CHEAP REPRINTS.
A Renowned Work
53
Ol® LIBERTY
BY
T<JOHN STUART MILL
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�CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Introductory
9
CHAPTER II.
Of the Liberty of Thought
and
Discussion
19
CHAPTER III.
Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well-being
46
CHAPTER IV.
Of
the Limits to the
Individual -
Authority of Society over the
- .
60
CHAPTER V.
Applications
74
A
�ON LIBERTY
BY
JOHN STUART MILL
[issued for
the rationalist press association, limited]
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1903
�The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument
unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and
essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt : Sphere and Duties of Government.
�JOHN STUART MILL
John Stuart Mill, philosopher, politi house of Jeremy Bentham; had contributed
cal economist, and reformer—described by to the Traveller • and had written to the
Mr. Gladstone as “the saint of Rationalism” Morning Chronicle letters of protest against
—was born in London on May 20th, 1806. the savage prosecutions for blasphemy
He died at Avignon on May Sth, 1873. which raged so fiercely round the heroic
The sixty-seven years of his life were filled figure of Richard Carlile during the stormy
with strenuous intellectual labour, and with years of reaction which followed Waterloo.
loyal and devoted service to the causes of Professor Bain tells us that when, in 1822,
goodness, humanity, and truth. If it may Mill visited Cambridge, “his immense con
be truly said that to labour is to worship, versational power ” made a deep impression
these were the shrines at which Mill on the undergraduates, notwithstanding
worshipped with a fervour that could not their familiarity with the copious verbal
be surpassed by the devotee of any super resources of Macaulay and Austin.
Mill soon stepped into the wider literary
natural religion.
Under the stern tuition of his father, and philosophical arena in which he was
James Mill—himself an acute thinker, and destined to render so much valuable
a distinguished ■writer—John Stuart Mill service. In 1824 he became a frequent
began to study Greek when he was three contributor to the new Westminster
years old, passed on to Latin in his eighth Review, and acquired considerable reputa
year, and, at the age of twelve, commenced tion as a powerful advocate of the philo
an elaborate course of study in political sophical Radicalism which was associated
economy, logic, and metaphysics. In 1823 with the names of Bentham and Jameshe entered the India House as junior clerk Mill. But it is worthy of note that he had1
in the Examiner’s office, and it is not sur not been converted by his father’s system
prising to find that, at this period, he was of education into a mere intellectual
described as “ a disquisitive youth ” by the machine, or reduced to an empty echo of
Examiner, Thomas Love Peacock, the his father’s thought. Throughout life he
poet and novelist. His intellectual attain was distinguished by extreme candour and
ments were immense. He had read widely honesty of intellect; he was always anxious
on many subjects in Greek, English, Latin, to accord to others the independence and
and French, and was already a logician, a liberty of thought and speech which hemetaphysician, and a political and social claimed for himself; and there was no
reformer. His practical achievements were thinker more ready to admit and to adopt
also remarkable for his years, and seemed whatever might be sound in the argument
to foreshadow an illustrious career. He of an opponent. It was this openness and
had formed a Utilitarian Society at the freedom of mind which led him to widen
�6
JOHN STUART MILL
the somewhat narrow grooves of Benthamic
thought, and, on certain questions, to take
up an attitude with which the original Utili
tarians could have no sympathy.
In 1826 Mill entered on a period of
mental crisis which lasted for two or three
years. Asking himself whether, supposing
all his objects in life were realised, it would
be a great joy and happiness to him, “ an
irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly
answered, ‘No.’” At this his heart sank
within him; “ the end had ceased to charm,
and how could there ever again be any
interest in the means ? I seemed to have
nothing left to live for.” Mill tells us that at
this time he was “ in a dull state of nerves,”
and we agree with Professor Bain that the
crisis was mainly due to physical causes
and to the overworking of the brain. Mr.
W. L. Courtney, in his Life ofJohn Stuart
Mill, describes this period of melancholy
as “ the shipwreck of Rationalism,” but
that is clearly a misstatement. The feeling
that there is nothing worth living for is not
uncommon among young people of a
thoughtful type; it has no necessary
connection either with Rationalism or with
■Christianity ; and Mill’s depression would
not have been removed if he could have
believed that the end of man was to glorify
God and enjoy him for ever. Time, new
and congenial companionships, and the
poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley, formed
the healing influences under which Mill’s
despair slowly passed away, never to return.
This crisis over, he gradually settled
down to the serious work of his life. He
had made rapid progress in the India
House, his salary rising from £30 per
annum, in 1823, to £600 per annum, in
1828; and in 1856 he was appointed
Examiner, with a salary of £2,000 a year.
This post he held until the end of 1858,
when the East India Company was extin
guished by the British Government, and
Mill was superannuated on a pension of
£1,500 per annum. His official duties left
him ample time for his cherished literary
and philosophical pursuits. His industry
was very great. He remarks that his
writings from 1832 to 1834, even if the
newspaper articles were left out, would
make a large volume. For several years,
from 1834 onward, his intellectual energies
were mainly concentrated on his System of
Logic, which was published in 1843, and
ultimately ran through eight editions. No
student of philosophy can afford to neglect
this masterly work. Acute, lucid, and
profound, it has been used as a text-book
at the Universities, and it would be difficult
to overrate its value as a philosophical
presentation of the principles underlying
modern scientific investigation.
The Logic was followed, in 1848, by
Principles of Political Economy, which is,
perhaps, the most interesting and sugges
tive book in the English language on this
great topic. Taking as its foundation
some of the main propositions of Ricardo
and Malthus, Mill adds the ripe results of
his own varied and extensive reading,
thinking, and observation, and applies the
principles of the science in a practical
manner to existing social conditions.
With his introduction to Mrs. John
Taylor in 1831 there had commenced the
most remarkable and most valued friend
ship of his life. Twenty years afterwards,
on the death of her husband, she became
Mill’s wife, and the perfect happiness of
this ideal union remained unbroken until
her death at Avignon in 1858. No one
doubts that the relations which existed
between Mill and Mrs. Taylor during her
first husband’s lifetime were of a purely
platonic character; and it is equally impos
sible to doubt that, while she exerted great
�JOHN STUART MILL
7
influence over Mill, his extravagant lauda member for Westminster, and, although
tions of her genius rested on a very slender scarcely fitted to shine as an orator, he
basis of fact. She appears to have been achieved considerable success by speeches
a woman of considerable ability and of on Reform, on the Cattle Plague Bill, on
a highly sympathetic temperament, and
Irish questions, and on other subjects.
it is probable that Mill, being powerfully He was defeated at the general election of
attracted by her sympathy, was led to take an 1868 by Mr. W. H. Smith (who afterwards
exaggerated view of her talents. He tells us became Conservative leader of the House
that the article on “The Enfranchisement of Commons), and retired, not unwillingly,
of Women ” which appeared in the West- into private life at Avignon. In 1867 he
minster Review for July, 1851, and is published his Subjection of Women, which
reprinted in his Dissertations and Discus is an amplification of the article on “ The
sions, Vol. II., was mainly her production ; Enfranchisement of Women” referred to
and we are able to gather from this essay above. It is a powerful plea for the
that, although possessed of great talent, equality of the sexes, urging that there
she was not the extraordinary genius so should be “ no power or privilege on the
loudly proclaimed by Mill.
one side nor disability on the other.” The
Meanwhile, through all the joys and Autobiography was completed, and the
vicissitudes of private life—personal illness, third of his posthumous Essays on Religion
marriage, bereavement—the current of was written, between the years 1868 and
Mill’s public work flowed steadily onward.
1873The essay On Liberty, which, he tells us,
Mill was educated by his father as a
was the joint production of himself and Rationalist, and he remained a Rationalist
his wife, was published in 1859, after her to the end of his life. As he himself wrote,
death. Charles Kingsley, who read it he was one who had “ not thrown off
through at a sitting, declared that “it made religious belief, but never had it: I grew
him a clearer-headed, braver-minded man up in a negative state with regard to it.”
on the spot.” Between the years 1858 and On the subject of religion, both the Mills
1865 Mill also published several important held opinions which are now included
political and philosophical works, including under the term Agnosticism. But, though
Representative Government, essays on a Rationalist, John Mill, we read, had a
Utilitarianism, and An Examination of favourite text: “ Work while it is day, for
Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. All the night cometh when no man can work ”;
these books possess permanent value, and and when, shortly before his death, he was
will repay close and careful study. During told that the end was near, he calmly said,
the American Civil War Mill’s sympathies “ My work is done.” Yes, his work was
and interest were strongly enlisted in favour done, and may we not say with truth of
of the North, and, by articles contributed this “saint of Rationalism” that his “works
in 1862 to Fraser's Magazine and the do follow ” him ? He has joined
Westminster Review, he did something to
“ The choir invisible
stem the tide of feeling which ran so
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence.”
strongly in England on the side of the
Confederate States.
W. B. Columbine.
In 1865 he entered Parliament as
�DEDICATION
To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer,
and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings—the friend
and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest
incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward—I dedicate
this volume.
Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs
as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a
very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision;
some of the most important portions having been reserved for a
more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined to
receive.
Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one half
the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave,
I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it than is ever likely
to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted
by her all but unrivalled wisdom.
�ON LIBERTY
Chapter I.
INTRODUCTORY
The subject of this Essay is not the socalled Liberty of the Will, so unfortu
nately opposed to the misnamed doctrine
of Philosophical Necessity ; but Civil or
Social Liberty : the nature and limits of
the power which can be legitimately
exercised by society over the individual.
A question seldom stated, and hardly
ever discussed, in general terms, but
which profoundly influences the prac
tical controversies of the age by its latent
presence, and is likely soon to make
itself recognised as the vital question of
the future. It is so far from being new
that, in a certain sense, it has divided
mankind almost from the remotest ages;
but in the stage of progress into which
the more civilised portions of the species
have now entered it presents itself under
new conditions, and requires a different
and more fundamental treatment.
The struggle between Liberty and
Authority is the most conspicuous
feature in the portions of history with
which we are earliest familiar, particu
larly in that of Greece, Rome, and
England. But in old times this contest
was between subjects, or some classes of
subjects, and the Government. By
liberty was meant protection against the
tyranny of the political rulers. The
rulers were conceived (except in some of
the popular Governments of Greece) as
in a necessarily antagonistic position to
the people whom they ruled. They con
sisted of a governing One, or a govern
ing tribe or caste, who derived their
authority from inheritance or conquest,
who, at all events, did not hold it at the
pleasure of the governed, and whose
supremacy men did not venture, perhaps
did not desire, to contest, whatever pre
cautions might be taken against its
oppressive exercise. Their power was
regarded as necessary, but also as highly
dangerous—as a weapon which they
would attempt to use against their sub
jects, no less than against external
enemies. To prevent .the weaker mem
bers of the community from being preyed
upon by innumerable vultures, it was
needful that there should be an animal
of prey stronger than the rest commis
sioned to keep them down. But as the
•king of the vultures •would be no less
bent upon preying on the flock than any
of the minor harpies, it was indispen
sable to be in a perpetual attitude of
defence against his beak and claws. The
aim, therefore, of patriots was to set
limits to the power which the ruler
should be suffered to exercise over the
community; and this limitation was what
they meant by liberty. It was attempted
�IO
ON LIBERTY
in two ways. First, by obtaining a re
cognition of certain immunities, called
political liberties or rights, which it was
to be regarded as a breach of duty in the
ruler to infringe, and which, if he did
infringe, specific resistance, or general
rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A
second, and generally a later, expedient
was the establishment of constitutional
checks, by which the consent of the
community, or of a body of some sort, sup
posed to represent its interests, was made
a necessary condition to some of the more
important acts of the governing power.
To the first of these modes of limitation
the ruling power, in most European
countries, was compelled, more or less, to
submit. It was not so with the second;
and, to attain this—or, when already in
some degree possessed, to attain it more
completely — became everywhere the
principal object of the lovers of liberty.
And so long as mankind were content to
combat one enemy by another, and to
be ruled by a master, on condition of
being guaranteed more or less effica
ciously against his tyranny, they did not
carry their aspirations beyond this point.
A time, however, came, in the progress
of human affairs, when men ceased to
think it a necessity of nature that their
governors should be an independent
power, opposed in interest to themselves.
It appeared to them much better that
the various magistrates of the State should
be their tenants or delegates, revocable
at their pleasure. In that way alone, it
seemed, could they have complete security
that the powers of government would
never be abused to their disadvantage.
By degrees this new demand for elective
and temporary rulers became the promi
nent object of the exertions of the
popular party, wherever any such party
existed; and superseded, to a con
siderable extent, the previous efforts to
limit the power of rulers. As the struggle
proceeded for making the ruling power
emanate from the periodical choice of
the ruled, some persons began to think
that too much importance had been
attached to the limitation of the power
itself.
That (it might seem) was a
resource against rulers whose interests
were habitually opposed to those of the
people. What was now wanted was,
that the rulers should be identified with
the people; that their interest and will
should be the interest and will of the
nation. The nation did not need to be
protected against its own will. There
was no fear of its tyrannising over itself.
Let the rulers be effectually responsible
to it, promptly removable by it, and it
could afford to trust them with power
of which it could itself dictate the use
to be made. The power was but the
nation’s own power, concentrated, and
in a form convenient for exercise. This
mode of thought, or rather perhaps of
feeling, was common among the last
generation of European liberalism, in
the Continental section of which it still
apparently predominates. Those who
admit any limit to what a Government
may do, except in the case of such
Governments as they think ought not to
exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions
among the political thinkers of the Con
tinent. A similar tone of sentiment
might by this time have been prevalent
in our own country if the circumstances
which for a time encouraged it had con
tinued unaltered.
But in political and philosophical
theories, as well as in persons, success
discloses faults and infirmities which
failure might have concealed from obser
vation. The notion, that the people
have no need to limit their power over
�INTRODUCTOR Y
themselves, might seem axiomatic, when
popular government was a thing only
dreamed about, or read of as having
existed at some distant period of the
past. Neither was that notion neces
sarily disturbed by such temporary aber
rations as those of the French Revolu
tion, the worst of which were the work
of an usurping few, and which, in any
case, belonged, not to the permanent
working of popular institutions, but to a
sudden and convulsive outbreak against
monarchical and aristocratic despotism.
In time, however, a democratic republic
came to occupy a large portion of the
earth’s surface, and made itself felt as
one of the most powerful members of
the community of nations; and elective
and responsible government became sub
ject to the observations and criticisms
which wait upon a great existing fact.
It was now’ perceived that such phrases
as “self-government” and “the power
of the people over themselves ” do not
express the true state of the case. The
“ people ” who exercise the pow’er are
not always the same people with those
over whom it is exercised; and the “ selfgovernment ” spoken of is not the
government of each by himself, but of
each by all the rest. The will of the
people, moreover, practically means the
will of the most numerous or the most
active part of the people ; the majority,
or those who succeed in making them
selves accepted as the majority: the
people, consequently, may desire to
oppress a part of their number, and
precautions are as much needed against
this as against any other abuse of power.
The limitation, therefore, of the power of
government over individuals loses none
of its importance w’hen the holders of
pow'er are regularly accountable to the
community—that is, to the strongest party |
ii
therein. This view of things, recom
mending itself equally to the intelligence
of thinkers and to the inclination of
those important classes in European
society to whose real or supposed inte
rests democracy is adverse, has had no
difficulty in establishing itself; and in
political speculations “ the tyranny of the
majority ” is now generally included
among the evils against which society
requires to be on its guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of
the majority was at first, and is still
vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operat
ing through the acts of the public autho
rities. But reflecting persons perceived
that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate
individuals who compose it—its means
of tyrannising are not restricted to the
acts which it may do by the hands of its
political functionaries. Society can and
does execute its own mandates: and if it
issues wrong mandates instead of right,
or any mandates at all in things with
which it ought not to meddle, it practises a
social tyranny more formidable than many
kinds of political oppression, since, though
not usually upheld by such extreme penal
ties, it leaves fewer means of escape,
penetrating much more deeply into the
details of life, and enslaving the soul
itself. Protection, therefore, against the
tyranny of the magistrate is not enough :
there needs protection also against the
tyranny of the prevailing opinion and
feeling; against the tendency of society
to impose, by other means than civil/
penalties, its own ideas and practices as
rules of conduct on those who dissent
from them ; to fetter the development,
and, if possible, prevent the formation,
of any individuality not in harmony with
its ways, and compels all characters to
fashion themselves upon the model of its
�12
ON LIBERTY
own. There is a limit to the legitimate
interference of collective opinion with
individual independence : and to find
that limit, and maintain it against en
croachment, is as indispensable to a
good condition of human affairs as pro
tection against political despotism.
But, though this proposition is not
likely to be contested in general terms,
the practical question, where to place the
limit—how to make the fitting adjust
ment between individual independence
and social control—is a subject on which
nearly everything remains to be done.
All that makes existence valuable to any
one depends on the enforcement of
restraints upon the actions of other
people. Some rules of conduct, there
fore, must be imposed, by law in the
first place, and by opinion on many
things which are not fit subjects for the
operation of law. What these rules
should be is the principal question in
human affairs; but if we except a few of
the most obvious cases, it is one of those
which least progress has been made in
resolving. No two ages, and scarcely
any two countries, have decided it alike;
and the decision of one age or country
is a wonder to another. Yet the people
of any given age and country no more
suspect any difficulty in it than if it were
a subject on which mankind had always
been agreed. The rules which obtain
among themselves appear to them selfevident and self-justifying. This all but
universal illusion is one of the examples
of the magical influence of custom,
which is not only, as the proverb says, a
second nature, but is continually mis
taken for the first. The effect of custom,
in preventing any misgiving respecting
the rules of conduct which mankind
impose on one another, is all the more
complete because the subject is one on
which it is not generally considered
necessary that reasons should be given,
either by one person to others, or by
each to himself. People are accustomed
to believe, and have been encouraged in
the belief by some who aspire to the
character of philosophers, that their
feelings on subjects of this nature are
better than reasons, and render reasons
unnecessary.
The practical principle
which guides them to their opinions on
the regulation of human conduct is the
feeling in each person’s mind that every
body should be required to act as he,
and those with whom he sympathises,
would like them to act. No one, indeed,
acknowledges to himself that his stan
dard of judgment is his own liking; but
an opinion on a point of conduct not
supported by reasons can only count as
one person’s preference; and if the
reasons, when given, are a mere appeal
to a similar preference felt by other
people, it is still only many people’s
liking instead of one. To an ordinary
man, however, his own preference, thus
supported, is not only a perfectly satis
factory reason, but the only one he
generally has for any of his notions of
morality, taste, or propriety which are
not expressly written in his religious
creed; and his chief guide in the inter
pretation even of that. Men’s opinions,
accordingly, on what is laudable or
blameable are affected by all the multi
farious causes which influence their
wishes in regard to the conduct of
others, and which are as numerous as
those which determine their wishes on
any other subject.
Sometimes their
reason—at other times their prejudices
or superstitions : often their social affec
tions, not seldom their anti-social ones,
their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or
contemptuousness: but most commonly,
�INTRODUCTORY
their desires or fears for themselves—
their legitimate or illegitimate self-inte
rest. Wherever there is an ascendant
class, a large portion of the morality of
the country emanates from its class
interests, and its feelings of class supe
riority. The morality between Spartans
and Helots, between planters and
negroes, between princes and subjects,
between nobles and roturiers, between
men and women, has been for the most
part the creation of these class interests
and feelings; and the sentiments thus
generated react in turn upon the moral
feelings of the members of the ascendant
class in their relations among themselves.
Where, on the other hand, a class, for
merly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy,
or where its ascendancy is unpopular, the
prevailing moral sentiments frequently
bear the impress of an impatient dislike
of superiority. Another grand deter
mining principle of the rules of conduct,
both in act and forbearance, which have
been enforced by law or opinion has
been the servility of mankind towards
the supposed preferences or aversions of
their temporal masters or of their gods.
This servility, though essentially selfish,
is not hypocrisy : it gives rise to perfectly
genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it
made men burn magicians and heretics.
Among so many baser influences, the
general and obvious interests of society
have of course had a share, and a large
one, in the direction of the moral senti
ments: less, however, as a matter of
reason, and on their own account, than
as a consequence of the sympathies and
antipathies which grew out of them; and
sympathies and antipathies which had
little or nothing to do with the interests
of society have made themselves felt in
the establishment of moralities with
quite as great force.
13
The likings and dislikings of society,
or of some powerful portion of it, are
thus the main thing which has practi
cally determined the rules laid down for
general observance, under the penalties
of law or opinion. And, in general, those
who have been in advance of society in
thought and feeling have left this con
dition of things unassailed in principle,
however they may have come into con
flict with it in some of its details. They
have occupied themselves rather in inquir
ing what things society ought to like or
dislike than in questioning whether its
likings or dislikings should be a law
to individuals. They preferred endea
vouring to alter the feelings of mankind
on the particular points on which they
were themselves heretical, rather than
make common cause in defence of free
dom, with heretics generally. The only
case in which the higher ground has been
taken on principle and maintained with
consistency, by any but an individual
here and there, is that of religious belief:
a case instructive in many ways, and
not least so as forming a most striking
instance of the fallibility of what is called
the moral sense; for the odium theologicum, in a sincere bigot, is one of the
most unequivocal cases of moral feeling.
Those who first broke the yoke of what
called itself the Universal Church were,
in general, as little willing to permit
difference of religious opinion as that
Church itself. But when the heat of the
conflict was over, without giving a com
plete victory to any party, and each Church
or sect was reduced to limit its hopes
to retaining possession of the ground
it already occupied; minorities, seeing
that they had no chance of becoming
majorities, were under the necessity of
pleading to those whom they could not
convert, for permission to differ. It is
�U
ON LIBERTY
accordingly on this battle field, almost
solely, that the rights of the individual
against society have been asserted on
broad grounds of principle, and the
claim of society to exercise authority
over dissentients openly controverted.
The great writers to whom the world
owes what religious liberty it possesses
have mostly asserted freedom of con
science as an indefeasible right, and
denied absolutely that a human being is
accountable to others for his religious
belief. Yet so natural to mankind is
intolerance in whatever they really care
about that religious freedom has hardly
anywhere been practically realised, except
where religious indifference, which dis
likes to have its peace disturbed by
theological quarrels, has added its weight
to the scale. In the minds of almost all
religious persons, even in the most tole
rant countries, the duty of toleration is
admitted with tacit reserves. One person
will bear with dissent in matters of
Church government, but not of dogma;
another can tolerate everybody, short of
a Papist or an Unitarian ; another, every
one who believes in revealed religion; a
few extend their charity a little further,
but stop at the belief in a God and in a
future state. Wherever the sentiment of
the majority is still genuine and intense,
it is found to have abated little of its
claim to be obeyed.
In England, from the peculiar circum
stances of our political history, though
the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier,
that of law is lighter, than in most other
countries of Europe; and there is con
siderable jealousy of direct interference,
by the legislative or the executive power,
with private conduct; not so much from
any just regard for the independence of
the individual, as from the still subsisting
habit of looking on the Government as
representing an opposite interest to the
public. The majority have not yet
learnt to feel the power of the Govern
ment their power, or its opinions their
opinions. When they do so, individual
liberty will probably be as much exposed
to invasion from the Government as it
already is from public opinion. But, as
yet, there is a considerable amount of
feeling ready to be called forth against
any attempt of the law to control indi
viduals in things in which they have not
hitherto been accustomed to be con
trolled by it; and this with very little
discrimination as to whether the matter
is, or is not, within the legitimate sphere
of legal control; insomuch that the
feeling, highly salutary on the whole, is
perhaps quite as often misplaced as well
grounded in the particular instances of
its application. There is, in fact, no
recognised principle by which the pro
priety or impropriety of Government inter
ference is customarily tested. People
decide according to their personal pre
ferences. Some, whenever they see any
good to be done, or evil to be remedied,
would willingly instigate the Government
to undertake the business ; while others
prefer to bear almost any amount of
social evil rather than add one to the
departments of human interests amenable
to governmental control. And men
range themselves on one or the other
side in any particular case, according to
this general direction of their sentiments ;
or according to the degree of interest
which they feel in the particular thing
which it is proposed that the Govern
ment should do; or according to the
belief they entertain that the Government
would or would not do it in the manner
they prefer; but very rarely on account
of any opinion to which they consistently
adhere, as to what things are fit to be
�INTRODUCTORY
done by a Government. And it seems
to me that, in consequence of this
absence of rule or principle, one side is
at present as often wrong as the other:
the interference of Government is, with
about equal frequency, improperly in
voked and improperly condemned.
The object of this Essay is to assert
one very simple principle, as entitled to
govern absolutely the dealings of society
with the individual in the way of com
pulsion and control, whether the means
used be physical force in the form of
legal penalties, or the moral coercion of
public opinion. The principle is, that
the sole end for which mankind are
warranted, individually or collectively,
in interfering with the liberty of action
of any of their number is self-protec
tion. That the only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised over
any member of a civilised community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to
others. His own good, either physical
or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
He cannot rightfully be compelled to do
or forbear because it will be better for
him to do so, because it will make him
happier, because, in the opinions of
others, to do so would be wise, or even
right. These are good reasons for
remonstrating with him, or reasoning
with him, or pursuing him, or entreating
him, but not for compelling him, or
visiting him with an evil in case he do
otherwise. To justify that, the conduct
from which it is desired to deter him must
be calculated to produce evil to some one
else. The only part of the conduct of
any one, for which he is amenable to
society, is that which concerns others.
In the part which merely concerns him
self his independence is, of right, abso
lute. Over himself, over his own body
and mind, the individual is sovereign.
15
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say
that this doctrine is meant to apply
only to human beings in the maturity of
their faculties. We are not speaking of
children, or of young persons below the
age which the law may fix as that of
manhood or womanhood. Those who
are still in a state to require being taken
care of by others must be protected
against their own actions as well as
against external injury. For the same
reason, we may leave out of considera
tion those backward states of society in
which the race itself may be considered
as in its nonage. The early difficulties
in the way of spontaneous progress are
so great that there is seldom any choice
of means for overcoming them; and a
ruler full of the spirit of improvement is
warranted in the use of any expedients
that will attain an end perhaps other
wise unattainable. Despotism is a legiti
mate mode of government in dealing with
barbarians, provided the end be their
improvement, and the means justified by
actually effecting that end. Liberty, as
a principle, has no application to any
state of things anterior to the time when
mankind have become capable of being
improved by free and equal discussion.
Until then there is nothing for them
but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a
Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as
to find one. But as soon as mankind
have attained the capacity of being
guided to their own improvement by
conviction or persuasion (a period long
since reached in all nations with whom
we need here concern ourselves), com
pulsion, either in the direct form or in
that of pains and penalties for noncompliance, is no longer admissible as
a means to their own good, and justifi
able only for the security of others.
It is proper to state that I forego any
�i6
ON LIBERTY
advantage which could be derived to my
argument from the idea of abstract right,
as a thing independent of utility. I
regard utility as the ultimate appeal on
all ethical questions; but it must be
utility in the largest sense, grounded on
the permanent interests of a man as a
progressive being. Those interests, I
contend, authorise the subjection of
individual spontaneity to external control
only in respect to those actions of each
which concern the interest of other
people. If any one does an act hurtful
to others, there is a frima facie case for
punishing him, by law, or, where legal
penalities are not safely applicable, by
general disapprobation. There are also
many positive acts for the benefit of
others which he may rightfully be com
pelled to perform—such as to give
evidence in a court of justice; to bear
his fair share in the common defence,
or in any other joint work necessary to
the interest of the society of which he
enjoys the protection; and to perform
certain acts of individual beneficence,
such as saving a fellow-creature’s life, or
interposing to protect the defenceless
against ill-usage—things which, whenever
it is obviously a man’s duty to do, he
may rightfully be made responsible to
society for not doing. A person may
cause evil to others not only by his
actions, but by his inaction; and in either
case he is justly accountable to them for
the injury. The latter case, it is true,
requires a much more cautious exercise
of compulsion than the former.
To
make any one answerable for doing evil
to others is the rule; to make him
answerable for not preventing evil is,
comparatively speaking, the exception.
Yet there are many cases clear enough
and grave enough to justify that excep
tion. In all things which regard the
external relations of the individual he is
jure amenable to those whose inte
rests are concerned, and, if need be, to
society as their protector. There are
often good reasons for not holding him
to the responsibility; but these reasons
must arise from the special expediences
of the case: either because it is a kind
of case in which he is on the whole
likely to act better when left to his own
discretion than when controlled in any
way in which society have it in their
power to control him, or because the
attempt to exercise control would pro
duce other evils greater than those
which it would prevent. When such
reasons as these preclude the enforce
ment of responsibility, the conscience of
the agent himself should step into the
vacant judgment-seat, and protect those
interests of others which have no ex
ternal protection, judging himself all
the more rigidly because the case does
not admit of his being made accountable
to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.
But there is a sphere of action in
which society, as distinguished from the
individual, has, if any, only an indirect
interest—comprehending all that portion
of a person’s life and conduct which
affects only himself, or, if it also affects
others, only with their free, voluntary,
and undeceived consent and participa
tion. When I say only himself, I mean
directly, and in the first instance, for
whatever’ affects himself may affect
others through himself; and the objec
tion which may be grounded on this con
tingency will receive consideration in the
sequel. This, then, is the appropriate
region of human liberty. It comprises,
first, the inward domain of conscious
ness : demanding liberty of conscience,
in the most comprehensive sense ; liberty
of thought and feeling ; absolute freedom
�INTRODUCTORY
of opinion and sentiment on all subjects,
practical or speculative, scientific, moral,
or theological. The liberty of expressing
and publishing opinions may seem to
fall under a different principle, since it
belongs to that part of the conduct of an
individual which concerns other people;
but, being almost of as much importance
as the liberty of thought itself, and resting
in great part on the same reasons, is
practically inseparable from it. Secondly,
the principle requires liberty of tastes
and pursuits; of framing the plan of our
life to suit our own character; of doing
as we like, subject to such consequences
as may follow—without impediment from
our fellow-creatures so long as what we
do does not harm them, even though
they should think our conduct foolish,
perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this
liberty of each individual follows the
liberty, within the same limits, of com
bination among individuals ; freedom to
unite, for any purpose not involving harm
to others, the persons combining being
supposed to be of full age, and not forced
or deceived.
No society in which these liberties
are not, on the whole, respected is free,
whatever may be its form of government;
and none is completely free in which
they do not exist absolute and unqualified.
The only freedom which deserves the
name is that of pursuing our own good
in our own way, so long as we do not
attempt to deprive others of theirs, or
impede their efforts to obtain it. Each
is the proper guardian of his own health,
whether bodily or mental and spiritual.
Mankind are greater gainers by suffering
each other to live as seems good to them
selves than by compelling each to live
as seems good to the rest.
Though this doctrine is anything but
new, and, to some persons, may have the
17
air of a truism, there is no doctrine which
stands more directly opposed to the
general tendency of existing opinion and
practice. Society has expended fully as
much effort in the attempt (according to
its lights) to compel people to conform
to its notions of personal as of social
excellence. The ancient commonwealths
thought themselves entitled to practise,
and the ancient philosophers counte
nanced, the regulation of every part of
private conduct by public authority, on
the ground that the State had a deep
interest in the whole bodily and mental
discipline of every one of its citizens—a
mode of thinking which may have been
admissible in small Republics surrounded
by powerful enemies, in constant peril
of being subverted by foreign attack or
internal commotion, and to which even
a short interval of relaxed energy and
self-command might so easily be fatal,
that they could not afford to wait for the
salutary permanent effects of freedom.
In the modern world the greater size of
political communities, and, above all, the
separation between spiritual and temporal
authority (which placed the direction of
men’s consciences in other hands than
those which controlled their worldly
affairs), prevented so great an interference
by law in the details of private life; but
the engines of moral repression have
been wielded more strenuously against
divergence from the reigning opinion in
self-regarding than even in social matters;
religion, the most powerful of the elements
which have entered into the formation of
moral feeling, having almost always been
governed either by the ambition of a
hierarchy, seeking control over every
department of human conduct, or by the
spirit of Puritanism. And some of those
modern reformers who have placed them
selves in strongest opposition to the
c
�i8
ON LIBERTY
religions of the past have been noway
behind either Churches or sects in their
assertion of the right of spiritual domina
tion : M. Comte, in particular, whose
social system, as unfolded in his Systeme
de Politique Positive, aims at establishing
(though by moral more than by legal
appliances) a despotism of society over
the individual surpassing anything con
templated in the political ideal of the
most rigid disciplinarian among the
ancient philosophers.
Apart from the peculiar tenets of in
dividual thinkers, there is also in the
world at large an increasing inclination
to stretch unduly the powers of society
over the individual, both by the force of
opinion and even by that of legislation ;
and as the tendency of all the changes
taking place in the world is to strengthen
society and diminish the power of the
individual, this encroachment is not one
of the evils which tend spontaneously to
disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow
more and more formidable. The dis
position of mankind, whether as rulers
or as fellow-citizens, to impose their own
opinions and inclinations as a rule of
conduct on others, is so energetically
supported by some of the best and by
some of the worst feelings incident to
human nature that it is hardly ever kept
under restraint by anything but want of
power; and as the power is not declin
ing, but growing, unless a strong barrier
of moral conviction can be raised against
the mischief, we must expect, in the
present circumstances of the world, to
see it increase.
It will be convenient for the argument
if, instead of at once entering upon the
general thesis, we confine ouselves, in the
first instance, to a single branch of it, on
which the principle here stated is, if not
fully, yet to a certain point, recognised by
the current opinions. This one branch is
the Liberty of Thought, from which it is
impossible to separate the cognate liberty
of speaking and of writing. Although
these liberties, to some considerable
amount, form part of the political morality
of all countries which profess religious
toleration and free institutions, the
grounds, both philosophical and practical,
on which they rest are perhaps not so
familiar to the general mind, nor so
thoroughly appreciated by many, even of
the leaders of opinion, as might have
been expected. Those grounds, when
rightly understood, are of much wider
application than to only one division of
the subject, and a thorough consideration
of this part of the question will be found
the best introduction to the remainder.
Those to whom nothing which I am about
to say will be new may, therefore, I hope,
excuse me if, on a subject which for now
three centuries has been so often dis
cussed, I venture on one discussion more.
�1
OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
Chapter II.
OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by
when any defence would be necessary of
the “ liberty of the press ” as one of
the securities against corrupt or tyrannical
government. No argument, we may
suppose, can now be needed against
permitting a legislature or an executive,
not identified in interest with the people,
to prescribe opinions to them, and deter
mine what doctrines or what arguments
they shall be allowed to hear. This
aspect of the question, besides, has been
so often and so triumphantly enforced
by preceding writers that it needs not
be especially insisted on in this place.
Though the law of England, on the
subject of the press, is as servile to this
day as it was in the time of the Tudors,
there is little danger of it being actually
put in force against political discussion,
except during some temporary panic,
when fear of insurrection drives ministers
and judges from their propriety / and,
j
1 These words had scarcely been written when,
as if to give them an emphatic contradiction,
occurred the Government Press Prosecutions of
1858. That ill-judged interference with the
liberty of public discussion has not, however,
induced me to alter a single word in the text,
nor has it at all weakened my conviction that,
moments of panic excepted, the era of pains and
penalties for political discussion has, in our own
country, passed away. For, in the first place,
the prosecutions were not persisted in ; and, in
the second, they were never, properly speaking,
political prosecutions. The offence charged was
not that of criticising institutions, or the acts or
persons of rulers, but of circulating what was
deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of
Tyrannicide.
If the arguments of the present chapter are of
speaking generally, it is not, in constitu
tional countries, to be apprehended that
the Government, whether completely
responsible to the people or not, will
often attempt to control the expression
of opinion, except when in doing so it
makes itself the organ of the general
intolerance of the public.
Let us
suppose, therefore, that the Government
is entirely at one with the people, and
never thinks of exerting any power of
coercion unless in agreement with what
it conceives to be their voice. But
I deny the right of the people to exercise
such coercion, either by themselves or
by their Government. The power itself
any validity, there ought to exist the fullest
liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter
of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however
immoral it may be considered. It would, there
fore, be irrelevant and out of place to examine
here whether the doctrine of Tyrannicide
deserves that title. I shall content myself with
saying that the subject has been at all times one
of the open questions of morals ; that the act
of a private citizen in striking down a criminal
who, by raising himself above the law, has
placed himself beyond the reach of legal punish
ment or control, has been accounted by whole
nations, and by some of the best and wisest of
men, not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue ;
and that, right or wrong, it is not of the nature of
assassination, but of civil war. As such, I hold
that the instigation to it, in a specific case, may
be a proper subject of punishment, but only if
an overt act has followed, and at least a probable
connection can be established between the act
and the instignation. Even then it is not a
foreign Government, but the very Government
assailed, which alone, in the exercise of selfdefence, can legitimately punish attacks directed
against its own existence.
�20
ON LIBERTY
is illegitimate. The best Government has
no more title to it than the worst. It
is as noxious, or more noxious, when
exerted in accordance with public opinion
than when in opposition to it. If all
mankind minus one were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary
opinion, mankind would be no more
justified in silencing that one person
than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind. Were an
opinion a personal possession of no
value except to the owner; if to be
obstructed in the enjoyment of it were
simply a private injury, it would make
some difference whether the injury was
inflicted only on a few persons or on
many. But the peculiar evil of silencing
the expression of an opinion is that it is
robbing the human race ; posterity as
well as the existing generation; those
who dissent from the opinion, still more
than those who hold it. If the opinion
is right, they are deprived of the oppor
tunity of exchanging error for truth; if
wrong, they lose, what is almost as great
a benefit, the clearer perception and
livelier impression of truth, produced by
its collision with error.
It is necessary to consider separately
these two hypotheses, each of which has
a distinct branch of the argument corre
sponding to it. We can never be sure
that the opinion we are endeavouring to
stifle is a false opinion; and if we were
sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
First, the opinion which it is attempted
to suppress by authority may possibly be
true. Those who desire to suppress it
of course deny its truth ; but they are
not infallible. They have no authority
to decide the question for all mankind,
and exclude every other person from the
means of judging. To refuse a hearing
to an opinion because they are sure that
it is false is to assume that their certainty
is the same thing" as absolute certainty.
All silencing of discussion is an assump
tion of infallibility. Its condemnation may
be allowed to rest on this common argu
ment, not the worse for being common.
Unfortunately for the good sense of
mankind, the fact of their fallibility is far
from carrying the weight in their practical
judgment which is always allowed to
it in theory; for, w’hile every one well
knows himself to be fallible, few think it
necessary to take any precautions against
their own fallibility, or admit the suppo
sition that any opinion of which they
feel very certain may be one of the
examples of the error to which they
acknowledge themselves to be liable.
Absolute princes, or others who are
accustomed to unlimited deference,
usually feel this complete confidence in
their own opinions on nearly all subjects.
People more happily situated, who some
times hear their opinions disputed, and
are not wholly unused to be set right
when they are wrong, place the same
unbounded reliance only on such of
their opinions as are shared by all who
surround them, or to whom they habitu
ally defer ; for in proportion to a man’s
want of confidence in his own solitary
judgment does he usually repose, with
implicit trust, on the infallibility of “ the
world ” in general. And the world, to
each individual, means the part of it with
which he comes in contact—his party,
his sect, his church, his class of society :
the man may be called, by comparison,
almost liberal and large-minded to whom
it means anything so comprehensive as
his own country or his own age. Nor is
his faith in this collective authority at all
shaken by his being aware that other
ages, countries, sects, churches, classes,
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
and parties have thought, and even now
think, the exact reverse. He devolves
upon his own world the responsibility of
being in the right against the dissentient
worlds of other people; and it never
troubles him that mere accident has
decided which of these numerous worlds
is the object of his reliance, and that the
same causes which make him a Church
man in London would have made him
a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. Yet
it is as evident in itself as any amount
of argument can make it that ages are
no more infallible than individuals—every
age having held many opinions which
subsequent ages have deemed not only
false but absurd; and it is as certain that
many opinions, now general, will be
rejected by future ages as it is that many,
once general, are rejected by the present.
The objection likely to be made to
this argument would probably take some
such form as the following. There is no
greater asstfmption of infallibility in for
bidding the propagation of error than in
any other thing which is done by public
authority on its own judgment and respon
sibility. Judgment is given to men that
they may use it. Because it may be used
erroneously, are men to be told that they
ought not to use it at all ? To prohibit
what they think pernicious is not claiming
exemption from error, but fulfilling the
duty incumbent on them, although fal
lible, of acting on their conscientious
conviction. If we were never to act on
our opinions because those opinions
may be wrong, we should leave all our
interests uncared for and all our duties
unperformed. An objection which applies
to all conduct can be no valid objection
to any conduct in particular. It is the
duty ot Governments, and of individuals,
to form the truest opinions they can ; to
form them carefully, and never impose
21
them upon others unless they are quite
sure of being right. But when they are
sure (such reasoners may say), it is
not conscientiousness, but cowardice, to
shrink from acting on their opinions, and
allow doctrines which they honestly think
dangerous to the welfare of mankind,
either in this life or in another, to be scat
tered abroad without restraint, because
other people, in less enlightened times,
have persecuted opinions now believed
to be true. Let us take care, it may be
said, not to make the same mistake ; but
Governments and nations have made
mistakes in other things which are not
denied to be fit subjects for the exercise
of authority: they have laid on bad
taxes, made unjust wars. Ought we,
therefore, to lay on no taxes, and, under
whatever provocation, make no wars?
Men and Governments must act to the
best of their ability. There is no such
thing as absolute certainty, but there is
assurance sufficient for the purposes of
human life. We may, and must, assume
our opinion to be true for the guidance
of our own conduct; and it is assuming
no more when we forbid bad men to
pervert society by the propagation of
opinions which we regard as false and
pernicious.
I answer, that it is assuming very much
more. There is the greatest difference
between presuming an opinion to be true,
because, with every opportunity for con
testing it, it has not been refuted, and
assuming its truth for the purpose of
not permitting its refutation. Complete
liberty of contradicting and disproving
our opinion is the very condition which
justifies us in assuming its truth for
purposes of action; and on no other
terms can a being with human faculties
have any rational assurance of beinz
right.
�22
ON LIBERT Y
When we consider either the history so ? Because he has kept his mind open
of opinion or the ordinary conduct of to criticism of his opinions and conduct.
human life, to what is it to be ascribed Because it has been his practice to listen
that the one and the other are no worse to all that could be said against him ;
than they are? Not certainly to the to profit by as much of it as was just,
inherent force of the human under and expound to himself, and upon occa
standing ; for, on any matter not self- sion to others, the fallacy of what was
evident, there are ninety-nine persons fallacious. Because he has felt that the
totally incapable of judging of it for one only way in which a human being can
who is capable; and the capacity of the make some approach to knowing the
hundredth person is only comparative; whole of a subject is by hearing what
for the majority of the eminent men of can be said about it by persons of every
every past generation held many opinions variety of opinion, and studying all modes
now known to be erroneous, and did or in which it can be looked at by every
approved numerous things which no one character of mind. No wise man ever
will now justify. Why is it, then, that acquired his wisdom in any mode but
there is on the whole a preponderance this, nor is it in the nature of human
among mankind of rational opinions and intellect to become wise in any other
rational conduct ? If there really is this manner. The steady habit of correcting
preponderance — which there must be and completing his own opinion by col
unless human affairs are, and have always lating it with those of others, so far from
been, in an almost desperate state—it is causing doubt and hesitation in carrying
owing to a quality of the human mind, it into practice, is the only stable founda
the source of everything respectable in tion for a just reliance on it; for, being
man either as an intellectual or as a cognisant of all that can, at least obviously,
moral being—namely, that his errors are be said against him, and having taken
corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his up his position against all gainsay er s—
knowing that he has sought for objections
mistakes by discussion and experience.
and difficulties, instead of avoiding them,
Not by experience alone. There must
be discussion, to show how experience and has shut out no light which can be
is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions thrown upon the subject from any quarter
and practices gradually yield to fact and —he has a right to think his judgment
argument; but facts and arguments, to better than that of any person, or any
produce any effect on the mind, must be multitude, who have not gone through a
brought before it. Very dew facts are similar process.
It is not too much to require that
able to tell their own story without
comments to bring out their meaning. what the wisest ot mankind, those who
The whole strength and value, then, of are best entitled to trust their own judg
human judgment, depending on the one ment, find necessary to warrant their
property, that it can be set right when it relying on it, should be submitted to by
is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only that miscellaneous collection of a few
when the means of setting it right are kept wise and many foolish individuals, called
constantly at hand. In the case of any the public. The most intolerant of
person whose judgment is really deserv Churches, the Roman Catholic Church,
ing of confidence, how has it become even at the canonisation of a saint, admits,
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
and listens patiently to, a “devil’s advo
cate.” The holiest of men, it appears,
cannot be admitted to posthumous
honours until all that the devil could say
against him is known and weighed. If
even the Newtonian philosophy were not
permitted to be questioned, mankind
could not feel as complete assurance of
its truth as they now do. The beliefs
which we have most warrant for have
no safeguard to rest on, but a standing
invitation to the whole world to prove
them unfounded. If the challenge is
not accepted, or is accepted and the
attempt fails, we are far enough from
certainty still; but we have done the
best that the existing state of human
reason admits of; we have neglected
nothing that could give the truth a
chance of reaching us; if the lists are
kept open, we may hope that, if there be
a better truth, it will be found when the
human mind is capable of receiving it;
and in the meantime we may rely on
having attained such approach to truth
as is possible in our own day. This is
the amount of certainty attainable by a
fallible being, and this the sole way of
attaining it.
Strange it is that men should admit
the validity of the arguments for free
discussion, but object to their being
“pushed to an extreme”; not seeing
that, unless the reasons are good for an
extreme case, they are not good for any
case. Strange that they should imagine
that they are not assuming infallibility
when they acknowledge that there should
be free discussion on all subjects which
can possibly be doubtful, but think that
some particular principle or doctrine
should be forbidden to be questioned
because it is so certain; that is, because
they are certain that it is certain. To
call any proposition certain while there
23
is anyone who would deny its certainty
if permitted, but who is not permitted,
is to assume that we ourselves and those
who agree with us are the judges of
certainty, and judges without hearing the
other side.
In the present age—which has been
described as “ destitute of faith, but
terrified at scepticism ”—in which people
feel sure, not so much that their opinions
are true, as that they should not know
what to do without them—the claims of
an opinion to be protected from public
attack are rested not so much on its
truth as on its importance to society.
There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs,
so useful, not to say indispensable, to
well-being that it is as much the duty of
Governments to uphold those beliefs as
to protect any other of the interests of
society. In a case of such necessity,
and so directly in the line of their duty,
something less than infallibility may, it
is maintained, warrant, and even bind,
Governments to act on their own opinion,
confirmed by the general opinion of man
kind. It is also often argued, and still
oftener thought, that none but bad men
would desire to weaken these salutary
beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong,
it is thought, in restraining bad men, and
prohibiting what only such men would
wish to practise. This mode of thinking
makes the justification of restraints on
discussion not a question of the truth of
doctrines, but of their usefulness, and
flatters itself by that means to escape the
responsibility of claiming to be an infal
lible judge of opinions. But those who
thus satisfy themselves do not perceive
that the assumption of infallibility is
merely shifted from one point to another.
The usefulness of an opinion is itself
matter of opinion : as disputable, as open
to discussion, and requiring discussion as
�24
ON LIBERTY
much as the opinion itself. There is fix down the discussion to a concrete
the same need of an infallible judge of case; and I choose, by preference, the
opinions to decide an opinion to be cases which are least favourable to me—
noxious as to decide it to be false, unless in which the argument against freedom
the opinion condemned has full oppor of opinion, both on the score of truth
tunity of defending itself. And it will and on that of utility, is considered the
not do to say that the heretic may be strongest. Let the opinions impugned
allowed to maintain the utility or harm be the belief in a God and in a future
lessness of his opinion, though forbidden state, or any of the commonly received
to maintain its truth. The truth of an doctrines of morality. To fight the
opinion is part of its utility. If we would battle on such ground gives a great
know whether or not it is desirable that advantage to an unfair antagonist; since
a proposition should be believed, is it he will be sure to say (and many who
possible to exclude the consideration of have no desire to be unfair will say it
whether or not it is true ? In the opinion, internally), Are these the doctrines which
not of bad men, but of the best men, no you do not deem sufficiently certain to be
belief which is contrary to truth can be taken under the protection of law ? Is
really useful; and can you prevent such the belief in a God one of the opinions
men from urging that plea when they to feel sure of which you hold to be
are charged with culpability for denying assuming infallibility? But I must be
some doctrine which they are told is permitted to observe that it is not the
useful, but which they believe to be false? feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it
Those who are on the side of received may) which I call an assumption of
opinions never fail to take all possible infallibility. It is the undertaking to
advantage of this plea: you do not find decide that question for others, without
them handling the question of utility as allowing them to hear what can be said
if it could be completely abstracted from on the contrary side. And I denounce
that of truth ; on the contrary, it is, above and reprobate this pretension not the
all, because their doctrine is “ the truth ” less if put forth on the side of my most
that the knowledge or the belief of it is solemn convictions. However positive
held to be so indispensable. There can anyone’s persuasion may be, not only of
be no fair discussion of the question of the falsity, but of the pernicious conse
usefulness when an argument so vital quences— not only of the pernicious
may be employed on one side but not consequences, but (to adopt expressions
on the other. And, in point of fact, when which I altogether condemn) the immo
law or public feeling do not permit the rality and impiety of an opinion; yet if,
truth of an opinion to be disputed, they in pursuance of that private judgment,
are just as little tolerant of a denial of its though backed by the public judgment
usefulness. The utmost they allow is an of his country or his cotemporaries, he
extenuation of its absolute necessity, or prevents the opinion from being heard
in its defence, he assumes infallibility.
of the positive guilt of rejecting it.
In order more fully to illustrate the And so far from the assumption being
mischief of denying a hearing to opinions less objectionable or less dangerous
because we, in our own judgment, have because the opinion is called immoral or
condemned them, it will be desirable to I impious, this is the case of all others in
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
which it is most fatal. These are exactly
the occasions on which the men of one
generation commit those dreadful mis
takes which excite the astonishment and
horror of posterity. It is among such
that we find the instances memorable in
history when the arm of the law has
been employed to root out the best men
and the noblest doctrines—with deplor
able success as to the men, though some
of the doctrines have survived to be (as
if in mockery) invoked in defence of.
similar conduct towards those who dissent
from them, or from their 'received inter
pretation.
Mankind can hardly be too often re
minded that there was once a man
named Socrates, between whom and the
legal authorities and public opinion of
his time there took place a memorable
collision. Born in an age and country
abounding in individual greatness, this
man has been handed down to us by
those who best knew both him and the
age as the most virtuous man in it;
while we know him as the head and
prototype of all subsequent teachers of
virtue, the source equally of the lofty
inspiration of Plato and the judicious
utilitarianism of Aristotle, “ i maestri di
color che sanno” the two headsprings of
ethical as of all other philosophy. This
acknowledged master of all the eminent
thinkers who have since lived—whose
fame, still growing after more than two
thousand years, all but outweighs the
whole remainder of the names which
make his native city illustrious—was put
to death by his countrymen, after a
judicial conviction, for impiety and im
morality. Impiety, in denying the gods
recognised by the State; indeed, his
accuser asserted (see the Apologia) that
he believed in no gods at all. Im
morality, in being, by his doctrines and
25
instructions, a “corrupter of youth.”
Of these charges the tribunal, there is
every ground for believing, honestly found
him guilty, and condemned the man who
probably of all then born had deserved
best of mankind to be put to death as a
criminal.
To pass from this to the only other
instance of judicial iniquity, the mention
of which, after the condemnation of
Socrates, would not be an anti-climax—
the event which took place on Calvary
rather more than eighteen hundred years
ago. The man who left on the memory
of those who witnessed his life and con
versation such an impression of his moral
grandeur that eighteen subsequent cen
turies have done homage to him as the
Almighty in person was ignominiously
put to death, as what ? Asa blasphemer.
Men did not merely mistake their bene
factor ; they mistook him for the exact
contrary of what he was, and treated him
as that prodigy of impiety, which they
themselves are now held to be, for their
treatment of him. The feelings with
which mankind now regard these lament
able transactions, especially the later of
the two, render them extremely unjust
in their judgment of the unhappy actors.
These were, to all appearance, not bad
men—not worse than men commonly
are, but rather the contrary; men who
possessed in a full, or somewhat more
than a full, measure the religious, moral,
and patriotic feelings of their time and
people : the very kind of men who, in
all times, our own included, have every
chance of passing through life blameless
and respected. The high-priest who rent
his garments when the words were pro
nounced, which, according to all the
ideas of his country, constituted the
blackest guilt, was in all probability quite
as sincere in his horror and indignation
�26
ON LIBERTY
as the generality of respectable and pious
men now are in the religious and moral
sentiments they profess; and most of
those who now shudder at his conduct,
if they had lived in his time, and been
born Jews, would have acted precisely as
he did. Orthodox Christians who are
tempted to think that those who stoned
to death the first martyrs must have
been worse men than they themselves are
ought to remember that one of those
persecutors was Saint Paul.
Let us add one more example, the
most striking of all, if the impressiveness
of an error is measured by the wisdom
and virtue of him who falls into it. If
ever anyone, possessed of power, had
grounds for thinking himself the best
and most enlightened among his con
temporaries, it was the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the
whole civilised world, he preserved
through life not only the most un
blemished justice, but, what was less to
be expected from his Stoical breeding,
the tenderest heart. The few failings
which are attributed to him were all on
the side of indulgence; while his writings,
the highest ethical product of the ancient
mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they
differ at all, from the most characteristic
teachings of Christ. This man, a better
Christian in all but the dogmatic sense
of the word than almost any of the
ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have
since reigned, persecuted Christianity.
Placed at the summit of all the previous
attainments of humanity, with an open,
unfettered intellect, and a character
which led him of himself to embody in
his moral writings the Christian ideal,
he yet failed to see that Christianity was
to be a good and not an evil to the
world, with his duties to which he was
so deeply penetrated. Existing society
he knew to be in a deplorable state.
But such as it was, he saw, or thought
he saw, that it was held together, and
prevented from being worse, by belief
and reverence of the received divinities.
As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his
duty not to suffer society to fall in pieces;
and saw not how, if its existing ties were
removed, any others could be formed
which could again knit it together. The
new religion openly aimed at dissolving
these ties: unless, therefore, it was his
duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to
be his duty to put it down. Inasmuch,
then, as the theology of Christianity did
not appear to him true or of divine origin;
inasmuch as this strange history of a cru
cified God was not credible to him, and a
system which purported to rest entirely
upon a foundation to him so wholly
unbelievable could not be foreseen by
him to be that renovating agency which,
after all abatements, it has in fact proved
to be; the gentlest and most amiable of
philosophers and rulers, under a solemn
sense of duty, authorised the persecution
of Christianity. To my mind, this is one
of the most tragical facts in all history.
It is a bitter thought how different a
thing the Christianity of the world might
have been if the Christian faith had been
adopted as the religion of the empire
under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius
instead of those of Constantine. But it
would be equally unjust to him, and false
to truth, to deny that no one plea which
can be urged for punishing anti-Christian
teaching was wanting to Marcus Aurelius
for punishing, as he did, the propaga
tion of Christianity. No Christian more
firmly believes that Atheism is false, and
tends to the dissolution of society, than
Marcus Aurelius believed the same things
of Christianity—he who, of all men then
living, might have been thought the most
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
capable of appreciating it. Unless any
one who approves of punishment for the
promulgation of opinions flatters himself
that he is a wiser and better man than
Marcus Aurelius—more deeply versed in
the wisdom of his time, more elevated
in his intellect above it; more earnest
in his search for truth, or more singleminded in his devotion to it when found—
let him abstain from that assumption of
the joint infallibility of himself and the
multitude which the great Antoninus
made with so unfortunate a result.
Aware of the impossibility of defend
ing the use of punishment for restraining
irreligious opinions, by any argument
which will not justify Marcus Antoninus,
the enemies of religious freedom, w’hen
hard pressed, occasionally accept this
consequence, and say, with Dr. Johnson,
that the persecutors of Christianity were
in the right; that persecution is an
ordeal through which truth ought to pass,
and always passes successfully, legal
penalties being, in the end, powerless
against truth, though sometimes bene
ficially effective against mischievous
errors. This is a form of the argument for
religious intolerance sufficiently remark
able not to be passed without notice.
A theory which maintains that truth
may justifiably be persecuted because
persecution cannot possibly do it any
harm cannot be charged with being
intentionally hostile to the reception of
new truths; but we cannot commend
the generosity of its dealing with the
persons to whom mankind are indebted
for them. To discover to the world
something which deeply concerns it, and
of which it was previously ignorant; to
prove to it that it had been mistaken on
some vital point of temporal or spiritual
interest, is as important a service as a
human being can render to his fellow
27
creatures, and in certain cases, as in
those of the early Christians and of the
Reformers, those who think with Dr.
Johnson believe it to have been the most
precious gift which could be bestowed
on mankind. That the authors of such
splendid benefits should be requited by
martyrdom ; that their reward should be
to be dealt with as the vilest of criminals,
is not, upon this theory, a deplorable
error and misfortune, for which humanity
should mourn in sackcloth and ashes,
but the normal and justifiable state of
things. The propounder of a new truth,
according to this doctrine, should stand,
as stood, in the legislation of the Locrians,
the proposer of a new law, with a halter
round his neck, to be instantly tightened
if the public assembly did not, on hearing
his reasons, then and there adopt his pro
position. People who defend this mode of
treating benefactors cannot be supposed
to set much value on the benefit; and I
believe this view of the subject is mostly
confined to the sort of persons who think
that new truths may have been desirable
once, but that we have had enough of
them now.
But, indeed, the dictum that truth
always triumphs over persecution is one
of those pleasant falsehoods which men
repeat after one another till they pass
into commonplaces, but which all expe
rience refutes. History teems with in
stances of truth put down by persecution.
If not suppressed for ever, it may be
thrown back for centuries. To speak
only of religious opinions : the Refor
mation broke out at least twenty times
before Luther, and was put down.
Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra
Dolcino was put down. Savonarola was
put down. The Albigeois wrere put
down. The Vaudois w’ere put down.
The Lollards were put down.
The
�28
ON LIBERTY
Hussites were put down. Even after the
era of Luther, wherever persecution was
persisted in it was successful. In Spain,
Italy, Flanders, the Austrian empire,
Protestantism was rooted out; and, most
likely, would have been so in England
had Queen Mary lived, or Queen
Elizabeth died. Persecution has always
succeeded, save where the heretics were
too strong a party to be effectually per
secuted.
No reasonable person can
doubt that Christianity might have
been extirpated in the Roman Empire.
It spread, and became predominant,
because the persecutions were only occa
sional, lasting but a short time, and
separated by long intervals of almost
undisturbed propagandism. It is a piece
of idle sentimentality that truth, merely
as truth, has any inherent power denied
to error, of prevailing against the dungeon
and the stake. Men are not more zealous
for truth than they often are for error,
and a sufficient application of legal or
even of social penalties will generally
succeed in stopping the propagation of
either. The real advantage which truth
has consists in this, that when an opinion
is true it may be extinguished once,
twice, or many times, but in the course
of ages there will generally be found
persons to rediscover it, until some one
of its reappearances falls on a time when
from favourable circumstances it escapes
persecution until it has made such head
as to withstand all subsequent attempts
to suppress it.
It will be said that we do not now
put to death the introducers of new
opinions; we are not like our fathers,
who slew the prophets : we even build
sepulchres to them. It is true we no
longer put heretics to death; and the
amount of penal infliction which modern
feeling would probably tolerate, even
against the most obnoxious opinions, is
not sufficient to extirpate them. But let
us not flatter ourselves that we are yet
free from the stain even of legal persecu
tion. Penalties for opinion, or at least
for its expression, still exist by law; and
their enforcement is not, even in these
times, so unexampled as to make, it at
all incredible that they may some day be
revived in full force. In the year 1857,
at the summer assizes of the county of
Cornwall, an unfortunate man,1 said to
be of unexceptionable conduct in all
relations of life, was sentenced to twentyone months’ imprisonment for uttering
and writing on a gate some offensive
words concerning Christianity. Within
a month of the same time, at the Old
Bailey, two persons, on two separate
occasions,2 were rejected as jurymen,
and one of them grossly insulted by the
judge and by one of the counsel, because
they honestly declared that they had
no theological belief; and a third, a
foreigner,3 for the same reason, was
denied justice against a thief. This
refusal of redress took place in virtue of
the legal doctrine that no person can be
allowed to give evidence in a court of
justice who does not profess belief in a
God (any god is sufficient) and in a
future state; which is equivalent to
declaring such persons to be outlaws,
excluded from the protection of the
tribunals; who may not only be robbed
or assaulted with impunity, if no one but
themselves, or persons of similar opinions,
be present, but anyone else may be
1 Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes, July 31st,
1857. In December following he received a
free pardon from the Crown.
2 George Jacob Holyoake, August 17th, 1857;
Edward Truelove, July, 1857.
3 Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough Street
Police Court, August 4th, 1857.
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
robbed or assaulted with impunity, if the
proof of the fact depends on their evi
dence. The assumption on which this
is grounded is that the oath is worthless
of a person who does not believe in a
future state, a proposition which betokens
much ignorance of history in those who
assent to it (since it is historically true
that a large proportion of infidels in all
ages have been persons of distinguished
integrity and honour), and would be
maintained by no one who had the
smallest conception how many of the
persons in greatest repute with the world,
both for virtues and attainments, are well
known, at least to their intimates, to
be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is
suicidal, and cuts away its own founda
tion. Under pretence that Atheists must
be liars, it admits the testimony of all
Atheists who are willing to lie, and rejects
only those who brave the obloquy of
publicly confessing a detested creed
rather than affirm a falsehood. A rule
thus self-convicted of absurdity, so far as
regards its professed purpose, can be
kept in force only as a badge of hatred,
a relic of persecution—a persecution,
too, having the peculiarity that the
qualification for undergoing it is the
being cleaily proved not to deserve it.
The rule and the theory it implies are
hardly less insulting to believers than to
infidels. For if he who does not believe
in a future state necessarily lies, it
follows that they who do believe are only
prevented from lying, if prevented they
are, by the fear of hell. We will not do
the authors and abettors of the rule the
injury of supposing that the conception
which they have formed of Christian
virtue is drawn from their own conscious
ness.
These, indeed, are but rags and rem
nants of persecution, and may be thought
29
to be not so much an indication of the
wish to persecute as an example of that
very frequent infirmity of English minds
which makes them take a preposterous
pleasure in the assertion of a bad prin
ciple when they are no longer bad enough
to desire to carry it really into practice.
But, unhappily, there is no security in the
state of the public mind that the suspen
sion of worse forms of legal persecution,
which has lasted for about the space of a
generation, will continue. In this age the
quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled
by attempts to resuscitate past evils as
to introduce new benefits. What is
boasted of at the present time as the
revival of religion is always, in narrow
and uncultivated minds, at least as much
the revival of bigotry ; and where there
is the strong permanent leaven of intole
rance in the feelings of a people, which
at all times abides in the middle classes
of this country, it needs but little to
provoke them into actively persecuting
those whom they have never ceased to
think proper objects of persecution.1
1 Ample warning maybe drawn from the large
infusion of the passions of a persecutor, which
mingled with the general display of the worst
parts of our national character on the occasion
of the Sepoy insurrection. The ravings of
fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may be
unworthy of notice ; but the heads of the
Evangelical party have announced as their
principle for the government of Hindoos and
Mohammedans, that no schools be supported by
public money in which the Bible is not taught,
and, by necessary consequence, that no public
employment be given to any but real or pretended
Christians. An Under-Secretary of State, in a
speech delivered to his constituents on November
12th, 1857, is reported to have said : “Tolera
tion of their faith” (the faith of a hundred
millions of British subjects), “ the superstition
which they called religion, by the British
Government, had had the effect of retarding the
■ ascendancy of the British name, and preventing
�3°
ON LIBERTY
For it is this—it is the opinions men
entertain, and the feelings they cherish,
respecting those who disown the beliefs
they deem important, which makes this
country not a place of mental freedom.
For a long time past, the chief mischief of
the legal penalties is that they strengthen
the social stigma. It is that stigma
which is really effective, and so effective
is it that the profession of opinions
which are under the ban of society is
much less common in England than is,
in many other countries, the avowal of
those which incur risk of judicial punish
ment. In respect to all persons but
those whose pecuniary circumstances
make them independent of the goodwill
of other people, opinion on this subject
is as efficacious as law; men might as
well be imprisoned as excluded from the
means of earning their bread. Those
whose bread is already secured, and who
desire no favours from men in power, or
from bodies of men, or from the public,
have nothing to fear from the open
avowal of any opinions, but to be illthought of and ill-spoken of, and this
it ought not to require a very heroic
mould to enable them to bear. There
the salutary growth of Christianity.......Tolera
tion was the great corner-stone of the religious
liberties of this country ; but do not let them
abuse that precious word ‘toleration.’ As he
understood it, it meant the complete liberty to
all, freedom of worship, among Christians who
worshipped upon the same foundation. It meant
toleration of all sects and denominations of Chris
tians who believed in the one mediation.'1' I
’
desire to call attention to the fact, that a man
who has been deemed fit to fill a high office in
the government of this country under a Liberal
Ministry maintains the doctrine that all who do
not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond
the pale of toleration. Who, after this imbecile
display, can indulge the illusion that religious
persecution has passed away, never to return ?
is no room for any appeal ad misericordiam in behalf of such persons. But
though we do not now inflict so much
evil on those who think differently from
us as it was formerly our custom to do,
it may be that we do ourselves as much
evil as ever by our treatment of them.
Socrates was put to death, but the
Socratic philosophy rose like the sun in
heaven, and spread its illumination over
the whole intellectual firmament. Chris
tians were cast to the lions, but the
Christian Church grew up a stately and
spreading tree, overtopping the older
and less vigorous growths, and stifling
them by its shade. Our merely social
intolerance kills no one, roots out no
opinions, but induces men to disguise
them, or to abstain from any active effort
for their diffusion. With us heretical
opinions do not perceptibly gain, or
even lose ground in each decade or
generation; they never blaze out far and
wide, but continue to smoulder in the
narrow circles of thinking and studious
persons among whom they originate,
without ever lighting up the general
affairs of mankind with either a true or
deceptive light. And thus is kept up a
state of things very satisfactory to some
minds, because, without the unpleasant
process of fining or imprisoning anybody,
it maintains all prevailing opinions out
wardly undisturbed, while it does not
absolutely interdict the exercise of reason
by dissentients afflicted with the malady
of thought. A convenient plan for
having peace in the intellectual world,
and keeping all things going on therein
very much as they do already. But the
price paid for this sort of intellectual
pacification is the sacrifice of the entire
moral courage of the human mind. A
state of things in which a large portion
of the most active and inquiring intellects
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
find it advisable to keep the general
principles and grounds of their convic
tions within their own breasts, and
attempt, in what they address to the
public, to fit as much as they can of
their own conclusions to premises which
they have internally renounced, cannot
send forth the open, fearless characters,
and logical, consistent intellects, who
once adorned the thinking world. The
sort of men who can be looked for under
it are either mere conformers to common
place or time-servers for truth, whose
arguments on all great subjects are meant
for their hearers, and are not those which
have convinced themselves. Those who
avoid this alternative do so by narrow
ing their thoughts and interest to things
which can be spoken of without venturing
within the region of principles—that is,
to small practical matters, which would
come right of themselves, if but the
minds of mankind were strengthened
and enlarged, and which will never be
made effectually right until then ; while
that which would strengthen and enlarge
men’s minds, free and daring speculation
on the highest subjects, is abandoned.
Those in whose eyes this reticence on
the part of heretics is no evil should
consider, in the first place, that in conse
quence of it there is never any fair and
thorough discussion of heretical opinions;
and that such of them as could not stand
such a discussion, though they may be
prevented from spreading, do not disap
pear. But it is not the minds of heretics
that are deteriorated most by the ban
placed on all inquiry which does not
end in the orthodox conclusions. The
greatest harm done is to those who are
not heretics, and whose whole mental
development is cramped, and their reason
cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can
compute what the world loses in the
3i
multitude of promising intellects com
bined with timid characters, who dare
not follow out any bold, vigorous, inde
pendent train of thought, lest it should
land them in something which would
admit of being considered irreligious or
immoral? Among them we may occa
sionally see some man of deep conscien
tiousness and subtle and refined under
standing, who spends a life in sophisti
cating with an intellect which he cannot
silence, and exhausts the resources of
ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the
promptings of his conscience and reason
with orthodoxy, which yet he does not
perhaps to the end succeed in doing.
No one can be a great thinker who does
not recognise that as a thinker it is his
first duty to follow his intellect to what
ever conclusions it may lead. Truth
gains more even by the errors of one
who, with due study and preparation,
thinks for himself than by the true
opinions of those who only hold them
because they do not suffer themselves to
think. Not that it is solely or chiefly
to form great thinkers that freedom of
thinking is required. On the contrary, it
is as much and even more indispensable
to enable average human beings to attain
the mental stature which they are capable
of. There have been, and may again be,
great individual thinkers in a general
atmosphere of mental slavery. But there
never has been, nor ever will be, in
that atmosphere an intellectually active
people. Where any people has made a
temporary approach to such a character,
it has been because the dread of hetero
dox speculation was for a time suspended.
Where there is a tacit convention that
principles are not to be disputed; where
the discussion of the greatest questions
which can occupy humanity is considered
to be closed, we cannot hope to find that
�32
ON LIBERTY
generally high scale of mental activity
which has made some periods of history
so remarkable. Never when controversy
avoided the subjects which are large and
important enough to kindle enthusiasm
was the mind of a people stirred up from
its foundations and the impulse given
which raised even persons of the most
ordinary intellect to something of the
dignity of thinking beings. Of such we
have had an example in the condition
of Europe during the times immediately
following the Reformation; another,
though limited to the continent and to
a more cultivated class, in the specula
tive movement of the latter half of the
eighteenth century; and a third, of still
briefer duration, in the intellectual fermen
tation of Germany during the Goethian
and Fichtean period. These periods
differed widely in the particular opinions
which they developed; but were alike
in this, that during all three the yoke of
authority was broken. In each an old
mental despotism had been thrown off,
and no new one had yet taken its place.
The impulse given at these three periods
has made Europe what it now is. Every
single improvement which has taken
place either in the human mind or in
institutions may be traced distinctly to
one or other of them. Appearances have
for some time indicated that all three
impulses are well-nigh spent; and we
can expect no fresh start until we again
assert our mental freedom.
Let us now pass to the second division
of the argument, and, dismissing the
supposition that any of the received
opinions may be false, let us assume
them to be true, and examine into the
worth of the manner in which they are
likely to be held when their truth is not
freely and openly canvassed. However
unwillingly a person who has a strong
opinion may admit the possibility that
his opinion may be false, he ought to be
moved by the consideration that, however
true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently,
and fearlessly discussed, it will be held
as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
There is a class of persons (happily
not quite so numerous as formerly) who
think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think true,
though he has no knowledge whatever
of the grounds of the opinion, and could
not make a tenable defence of it against
the most superficial objections. Such
persons, if they can once get their creed
taught from authority, naturally think
that no good, and some harm, comes
of its being allowed to be questioned.
Where their influence prevails, they make
it nearly impossible for the received
opinion to be rejected wisely and con
siderately, though it may still be rejected
rashly and ignorantly; for to shut out
discussion entirely is seldom possible,
and, when it once gets in, beliefs not
grounded on conviction are apt to give
way before the slightest semblance of an
argument. Waving, however, this possi
bility—assuming that the true opinion
abides in the mind, but abides as a
prejudice, a belief independent of, and
proof against, argument—this is- not the
way in which truth ought to be held by
a rational being. This is not knowing
the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one
superstition the more, accidentally cling
ing to the words which enunciate a truth.
If the intellect and judgment of man
kind ought to be cultivated, a thing which
Protestants at least do not deny, on what
can these faculties be more appropriately
exercised by anyone than on the things
which concern him so much that it is
considered necessary for him to hold
opinions on them? If the cultivation
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of the understanding consists in one
thing more than in another, it is surely
in learning the grounds of one’s own
opinions. Whatever people believe, on
subjects on which it is of the first impor
tance to believe rightly, they ought to
be able to defend against at least the
common objections. But someone may
say: “ Let them be taught the grounds
of their opinions. It does not follow
that opinions must be merely parroted
because they are never heard contro
verted. Persons who learn geometry
do not simply commit the theorems to
memory, but understand and learn like
wise the demonstrations; and it would
be absurd to say that they remain
ignorant of the grounds of geometrical
truths because they never hear anyone
deny and attempt to disprove them.”
Undoubtedly ; and such teaching suffices
on a subject like mathematics, where
there is nothing at all to be said on
the wrong side of the question. The
peculiarity of the evidence of mathe
matical truths is that all the argument
is on one side. There are no objections,
and no answers to objections. But on
every subject on which difference of
opinion is possible the truth depends
on a balance to be struck between two
sets of conflicting reasons. Even in
natural philosophy there is always some
other explanation possible of the same
facts; some geocentric theory instead of
heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of
oxygen; and it has to be shown why
that other theory cannot be the true one;
and until this is shown, and until we
know how it is shown, we do not under
stand the grounds of our opinion. But
when we turn to subjects infinitely more
complicated, to morals, religion, politics,
social relations, and the business of life,
three-fourths of the arguments for every
33
disputed opinion consist in dispelling
the appearances which favour some
opinion different from it. The greatest
orator save one of antiquity has left it
on record that he always studied his
adversary’s case with as great, if not still
greater, intensity than even his own.
What Cicero practised as the means of
forensic success requires to be imitated
by all who study any subject, in order to
arrive at the truth. He who knows only
his own side of the case knows little of
that. His reasons may be good, and no
one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the
reasons on the opposite side, if he does
not so much as know what they are, he
has no ground for preferring either
opinion. The rational position for him
would be suspension of judgment; and,
unless he contents himself with that, he
is either led by authority, or adopts, like
the generality of the world, the side to
which he feels most inclination. Nor
is it enough that he should hear the
arguments of adversaries from his own
teachers presented as they state them,
and accompanied by what they offer as
refutations. That is not the way to do
justice to the arguments or bring them
into real contact with his own mind.
He must be able to hear them from
persons who actually believe them, who
defend them in earnest, and do their
very utmost for them. He must know
them in their most plausible and persua
sive form; he must feel the whole force
of the difficulty which the true view of
the subject has to encounter and dispose
of; else he will never really possess him
self of the portion of truth which meets
and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine
in a hundred of what are called educated
men are in this condition—even of those
who can argue fluently for their opinions.
�34
ON LIBERTY
Their conclusion may be true, but it
might be false for anything they know;
they have never thrown themselves into
the mental position of those who think
differently from them, and considered
what such persons may have to say ; and
consequently they do not, in any proper
sense of the word, know the doctrine
which they themselves profess. They
do not know those parts of it which
explain and justify the remainder; the
considerations which show that a fact
which seemingly conflicts with another
is reconcilable with it, or that, of two
apparently strong reasons, one and not
the other ought to be preferred. All
that part of the truth which turns the
scale, and decides the judgment of a
completely informed mind, they are
strangers to; nor is it ever really known
but to those who have attended equally
and impartially to both sides, and en
deavoured to see the reasons of both in
the strongest light. So essential is this
discipline to a real understanding of
moral and human subjects that, if oppo
nents of all important truths do not exist,
it is indispensable to imagine them, and
supply them with the strongest arguments
which the most skilful devil’s advocate
can conjure up.
To abate the force of these considera
tions, an enemy of free discussion may
be supposed to say that there is no
necessity for mankind in general to know
and understand all that can be said
against or for their opinions by philoso
phers and theologians. That it is not
needful for common men to be able to
expose all the misstatements or fallacies
of an ingenious opponent. That it is
enough if there is always somebody
capable of answering them, so that
nothing likely to mislead uninstructed
persons remains unrefuted. That simple
minds, having been taught the obvious
grounds of the truths inculcated on them,
may trust to authority for the rest, and,
being aware that they have neither know
ledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty
which can be raised, may repose in the
assurance that all those which have been
raised have been or can be answered by
those who are specially trained to the
task.
Conceding to this view of the subject
the utmost that can be claimed for it by
those most easily satisfied with the
amount of understanding of truth which
ought to accompany the belief of it—
even so, the argument for free discussion
is no way weakened. For even this
doctrine acknowledges that mankind
ought to have a rational assurance that
all objections have been satisfactorily
answered; and how are they to be
answered if that which requires to be
answered is not spoken ? or how can the
answer be known to be satisfactory if
the objectors have no opportunity of
showing that it is unsatisfactory ? If not
the public, at least the philosophers and
theologians who are to resolve the diffi
culties, must make themselves familiar
with those difficulties in their most
puzzling form; and this cannot be accom
plished unless they are freely stated, and
placed in the most advantageous light
which they admit of. The Catholic
Church has its own way of dealing with
this embarrassing problem. It makes a
broad separation between those who can
be permitted to receive its doctrines on
conviction and those who must accept
them on trust. Neither, indeed, are
allowed any choice as to what they will
accept; but the clergy, such at least as
can be fully confided in, may admissibly
and meritoriously make themselves ac
quainted with the arguments of opponents,
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
in order to answer them, and may, there
fore, read heretical books—the laity, not
unless by special permission, hard to be
obtained. This discipline recognises a
knowledge of the enemy’s case as bene
ficial to the teachers, but finds means,
consistent with this, of denying it to the
rest of the world; thus giving to the
elite more mental culture, though not
more mental freedom, than it allows to
the mass. By this device it succeeds in
obtaining the kind of mental superiority
which its purposes require ; for, though
culture without freedom never made a
large and liberal mind, it can make a
clever nisi prius advocate of a cause.
But in countries professing Protestantism
this resource is denied; since Protestants
hold, at least in theory, that the respon
sibility for the choice of a religion must
be borne by each for himself, and cannot
be thrown off upon teachers. Besides,
in the present state of the world it is
practically impossible that writings which
are read by the instructed can be kept
from the uninstructed. If the teachers
of mankind are to be cognisant of all
they ought to know, everything must be
free to be written and published without
restraint.
If, however, the mischievous operation
of the absence of free discussion, when
the received opinions are true, were
confined to leaving men ignorant of the
grounds of those opinions, it might be
thought that this, if an intellectual, is no
moral evil, and does not affect the worth
of the opinions regarded in their influence
on the character. The fact, however, is
that not only the grounds of the opinion
are forgotten in the absence of discussion,
but too often the meaning of the opinion
itself. The words which convey it cease
to suggest ideas, or suggest only a small
portion of those they were originally
35
employed to communicate. Instead of
a vivid conception and a living belief,
there remain only a few phrases retained
by rote ; or, if any part, the shell and
husk only of the meaning is retained,
the finer essence being lost. The great,
chapter in human history which this fact
occupies and fills cannot be too earnestly
studied and meditated on.
It is illustrated in the experience of
almost all ethical doctrines and religious
creeds. They are all full of meaning and
vitality to those who originate them, and
to the direct disciples of the originators.
Their meaning continues to be felt in
undiminished strength, and is perhaps
brought out into even fuller conscious
ness, so long as the struggle lasts to give
the doctrine or creed an ascendancy over
other creeds. At last it either prevails
and becomes the general opinion, or its
progress stops : it keeps possession of
the ground it has gained, but ceases to
spread further. When either of these
results has become apparent, controversy
on the subject flags, and gradually dies
away. The doctrine has taken its place,
if not as a received opinion, as one of
the admitted sects or divisions of opinion;
those who hold it have generally inherited
not adopted it; and conversion from one
of these doctrines to another, being now
an exceptional fact, occupies little place
in the thoughts of their professors.
Instead of being, as at first, constantly
on the alert either to defend themselves
against the world or to bring the world
over to them, they have subsided into
acquiescence, and neither listen when they
can help it to arguments against their
creed nor trouble dissentients (if there
be such) with arguments in its favour.
From this time may usually be dated the
decline in the living power of the doctrine.
We often hear the teachers of all creeds
�36
ON LIBERTY
lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in
To what an extent doctrines intrinsi
the minds of believers a lively apprehen cally fitted to make the deepest impres
sion of the truth which they nominally sion upon the mind may remain in it as
recognise, so that it may penetrate the dead beliefs, without being ever realised
feelings and acquire a real mastery over in the imagination, the feeling, or the
the conduct. No such difficulty is com understanding, is exemplified by the
plained of while the creed is still fighting manner in which the majority of believers
for its existence; even the weaker com hold the doctrines of Christianity. By
batants then know and feel what they are Christianity I here mean what is accoun
fighting for, and the difference between it ted such by all Churches and sects—the
and other doctrines; and in that period maxims and precepts contained in the
of every creed’s existence not a few New Testament. These are considered
persons may be found who have realised sacred, and accepted as laws, by all pro
its fundamental principles in all the forms fessing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too
of thought, have weighed and considered much to say that not one Christian in a;
them in all their important bearings, and thousand guides or tests his individual
have experienced the full effect on the conduct by reference to those laws. The
character which belief in that creed standard to which he does refer it is the
ought to produce in a mind thoroughly custom of his nation, his class, or his
imbued with it. But when it has come religious profession. He has thus, on
to be an hereditary creed, and to be the one hand, a collection of ethical
received passively, not actively—when maxims which he believes to have been
the mind is no longer compelled, in the vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom
same degree as at first, to exercise its as rules for his government; and, on the
vital powers on the questions which its other, a set of every-day judgments and
belief presents to it, there is a progressive practices which go a certain length with
tendency to forget all of the belief except some of those maxims, not so great a
the formularies, or to give it a dull and length with others, stand in direct oppo
torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust sition to some, and are, on the whole, a
dispensed with the necessity of realising compromise between the Christian creed
it in consciousness, or testing it by per and the interests and suggestions of
sonal experience, until it almost ceases worldly life. To the first of these stan
to connect itself at all with the inner life dards he gives his homage; to the other
of the human being. Then are seen the his real allegiance. All Christians believe ’
cases, so frequent in this age of the world that the blessed are the poor and humble
as almost to form the majority, in which and those who are ill-used by the world;
the creed remains, as it were, outside the that it is easier for a camel to pass
mind, incrusting and petrifying it against through the eye of a needle than for a
all other influences addressed to the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven;
higher parts of our nature; manifesting that they should judge not, lest they be
its power by not suffering any fresh and judged; that they should swear not at
living conviction to get in, but itself doing all; that they should love their neighbour
nothing for the mind or heart, except as themselves; that if one take their cloak,
standing sentinel over them to keep them they should give him their coat also; that
they should take no thought for the
vacant.
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
37
morrow; that, if they would be perfect, owing that Christianity now makes so
they should sell all that they have and little progress in extending its domain,
give it to the poor. They are not insincere and, after eighteen centuries, is still nearly
when they say that they believe these confined to Europeans and the descen
things. They do believe them, as people dants of Europeans. Even with the
believe what they have always heard strictly religious, who are much in earnest
lauded and never discussed. But, in the about their doctrines, and attach a greater
sense of that living belief which regulates amount of meaning to many of them
conduct, they believe these doctrines just than people in general, it commonly
up to the point to which it is usual to happens that the part which is thus
act upon them. The doctrines in their comparatively active in their minds is
integrity are serviceable to pelt adversaries that which was made by Calvin, or Knox,
with ", and it is understood that they are or some such person much nearer in
to be put forward (when possible) as the character to themselves. The sayings
reasons for whatever people do that they of Christ co-exist passively in their minds,
think laudable. But anyone who re producing hardly any effect beyond what
minded them that the maxims require is caused by mere listening to words soan affinity of things which they never amiable and bland. There are many
even think of doing, would gain nothing reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which
but to be classed among those very un- | are the badge of a sect retain more of
popular characters who affect to be better their vitality than those common to all
than other people. The doctrines have recognised sects, and why more pains
no hold on ordinary believers—are not are taken by teachers to keep their
a power in their minds. They have an meaning alive ; but one reason certainly
habitual respect for the sound of them, is that the peculiar doctrines are more
but no feeling which spreads from the questioned, and have to be oftener de
words to the things signified, and forces fended against gainsayers. Both teachers
the mind to take them in, and make and learners go to sleep at their post as
them conform to the formula. Whenever soon as there is no enemy in the field.
The same thing holds true, generally
conduct is concerned, they look round
for Mr. A and B to direct them how far speaking, of all traditional doctrines—
those of prudence and knowledge of life
to go in obeying Christ
Now, we may be well assured that the as well as of morals or religion. All lan
case was not thus, but far otherwise, with guages and literatures are full of general
the early Christians. Had it been thus, observations on life, both as to what it is;
Christianity never would have expanded and how to conduct oneself in it—obser
from an obscure sect of the despised vations which everybody knows, which
Hebrews into the religion of the Roman everybody repeats, or hears with acquies
Empire. When their enemies said, “ See cence, which are received as truisms,
how these Christians love one another ” yet of which most people first truly learn
(a remark not likely to be made by any the meaning when experience, generally
body now), they assuredly had a much of a painful kind, has made it a reality
livelier feeling of the meaning of their to them. How often, when smarting
creed than they have ever had since. under some unforeseen misfortune or
And to this cause, probably, it is chiefly disappointment, does a person call to
�38
CA' LIBERTY
mind some proverb or common saying,
familiar to him all his life, the meaning
of which, if he had ever before felt it as
he does now, would have saved him from
the calamity. There are, indeed, reasons
for this other than the absence of discus
sion : there are many truths of which the
full meaning cannot be realised until
personal experience has brought it home.
But much more of the meaning even of
these would have been understood, and
what was understood would have been
far more deeply impressed on the mind,
if the man had been accustomed to hear
it argued pro and con. by people who did
understand it. The fatal tendency of
mankind to leave off thinking about a
thing when it is no longer doubtful is
the cause of half their errors. A co
temporary author has well spoken of “the
deep slumber of a decided opinion.”
But what! (it may be asked) Is the
absence of unanimity an indispensable
condition of true knowledge ? Is it
necessary that some part of mankind
should persist in error to enable any to
realise the truth? Does a belief cease to
be real and vital as soon as it is generally
received — and is a proposition never
thoroughly understood and felt unless
some doubt of it remains ? As soon as
mankind have unanimously accepted a
truth, does the truth perish within them?
The highest aim and best result of im
proved intelligence, it has hitherto been
thought, is to unite mankind more and
more in the acknowledgment of all im
portant truths; and does the intelligence
only last as long as it has not achieved
Its object? Do the fruits of conquest
perish by the very completeness of the
victory ?
I affirm no such thing. As mankind
improve the number of doctrines which
are no longer disputed or doubted will
be constantly on the increase; and the
well-being of mankind may almost be
measured by the number and gravity of
the truths which have reached the point
of being uncontested. The cessation,
on one question after another, of serious
controversy is one of the necessary inci
dents of the consolidation of opinion—-a
consolidation as salutary in the case of
true opinions as it is dangerous and
noxious when the opinions are erroneous.
But though this gradual narrowing of the
bounds of diversity of opinion is neces
sary in both senses of the term, being at
once inevitable and indispensable, we are
not therefore obliged to conclude that
all its consequences must be beneficial.
The loss of so important an aid to the
intelligent and living apprehension of a
truth as is afforded by the necessity of
explaining it to, or defending it against,
opponents, though not sufficient to out
weigh, is no trifling drawback from, the
benefitofits universal recognition. Where
this advantage can no longer be had, I
confess I should like to see the teachers
of mankind endeavouring to provide a
substitute for it—some contrivance for
making the difficulties of the question as
present to the learner’s consciousness as
if they were pressed upon him by a dis
sentient champion, eager for his conver
sion.
But, instead of seeking contrivances
for this purpose, they have lost those
they formerly had. The Socratic dia
lectics, so magnificently exemplified in
the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance
of this description. They were essentially
a negative discussion of the great ques
tions of philosophy and life, directed with
consummate skill to the purpose of con
vincing anyone who had merely adopted
the commonplaces of received opinion,
that he did not understand the subject
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
—that he as yet attached no definite I
meaning to the doctrines he professed;
in order that, becoming aware of his igno
rance, he might be put in the way to
obtain a stable belief, resting on a clear
apprehension both of the meaning of
doctrines and of their evidence. The
school disputations of the Middle Ages
had a somewhat similar object. They
were intended to make sure that the pupil
understood his own opinion, and (by
necessary correlation) the opinion opposed
to it, and could enforce the grounds of
the one and confute those of the other.
These last-mentioned contests had indeed
the incurable defect that the premises
appealed to were taken from authority,
not from reason; and, as a discipline to
the mind, they were in every respect
inferior to the powerful dialectics which
formed the intellects of the “ Socratici
viri”; but the modern mind owes far
more to both than it is generally willing
to admit, and the present modes of
education contain nothing which in the
smallest degree supplies the place either
of the one or of the other. A person who
derives all his instruction from teachers
or books, even if he escape the besetting
temptation of contenting himself with
cram, is under no compulsion to hear
both sides; accordingly, it is far from a
frequent accomplishment, even among
thinkers, to know both sides; and the
weakest part of what everybody says in
defence of his opinion is what he intends
as a reply to antagonists. It is the fashion
of the present time to disparage negative
logic—that which points out weaknesses
in theory or errors in practice, without
establishing positive truths. Such nega
tive criticism would, indeed, be poor
enough as an ultimate result; but, as a
means to attaining any positive know
ledge or conviction worthy the name, it
39
cannot be valued too highly; and until
people are again systematically trained
to it there will be few great thinkers,
and a low general average of intellect, in
any but the mathematical and physical
departments of speculation. On any
other subject no one’s opinions deserve
the name of knowledge, except so far as
he has either had forced upon him by
others, or gone through of himself, the
same mental process which would have
been required of him in carrying on an
active controversy with opponents. That,
therefore, which, when absent, it is so
indispensable, but so difficult, to create,
how worse than absurd it is to forego
when spontaneously offering itself! If
there are any persons who contest a
received opinion, or who will do so if law
or opinion will let them, let us thank
them for it, open our minds to listen to
them, and rejoice that there is someone
to do for us what we otherwise ought, if
we have any regard for either the certainty
or the vitality of our convictions, to do
with much greater labour for ourselves.
It still remains to speak of one of the
principal causes which make diversity of
opinion advantageous, and will continue
to do so until mankind shall have entered
a stage of intellectual advancement which
at present seems at an incalculable dis
tance. We have hitherto considered
only two possibilities: that the received
opinion may be false, and some other
opinion, consequently, true; or that, the
received opinion being true, a conflict
with the opposite error is essential to a
clear apprehension and deep feeling of
its truth. But there is a commoner case
than either of these : when the conflicting
doctrines, instead of being one true and
the other false, share the truth between
them, and the nonconforming opinion
�4o
ON LIBERTY
is needed to supply the remainder of the
truth, of which the received doctrine
embodies only a part. Popular opinions,
on subjects not palpable to sense, are
often true, but seldom or never the whole
truth. They are a part of the truth—
sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller
part, but exaggerated, distorted, and dis
joined from the truths by which they
ought to be accompanied and limited.
Heretical opinions, on the other hand,
are generally some of these suppressed
and neglected truths, bursting the bonds
which kept them down, and either seek
ing reconciliation with the truth contained
in the common opinion, or fronting it as
enemies, and setting themselves up, with
similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth.
The latter case is hitherto the most
frequent, as, in the human mind, one
sidedness has always been the rule and
many-sidedness the exception. Hence,
even in revolutions of opinion, one part
of the truth usually sets while the other
rises. Even progress, ’ which ought to
superadd, for the most part only substi
tutes, one partial and incomplete truth
for another; improvement consisting
chiefly in this, that the new fragment of
truth is more wanted, more adapted to
the needs of the time, than that which
it displaces. Such being the partial
character of prevailing opinions, even
when resting on a true foundation, every
opinion which embodies somewhat of
the portion of truth which the common
opinion omits ought to be considered
precious, with whatever amount of error
and confusion that truth may be blended.
No sober judge of human affairs will feel
bound to be indignant because those who
force on our notice truths which we should
otherwise have overlooked, overlook some
of those which we see. Rather, he will
think that, so long as popular truth is
one-sided, it is more desirable than
otherwise that unpopular truth should
have one-sided assertors too; such
being usually the most energetic and
the most likely to compel reluctant
attention to the fragment of wisdom
which they proclaim as if it were the
whole.
Thus in the eighteenth century, when
nearly all the instructed, and all those of
the uninstructed who were led by them,
were lost in admiration of what is called
civilisation, and of the marvels of modern
science, literature, and philosophy, and,
while greatly overrating the amount of
unlikeness between the men of modern
and those of ancient times, indulged the
belief that the whole of the difference was
in their own favour—with what a salutary
shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau
explode like bombshells in the midst,
dislocating the compact mass of one
sided opinion, and forcing its elements
to recombine in a better form and
with additional ingredients. Not that the
current opinions were on the whole farther
from the truth than Rousseau’s were; on
the contrary, they were nearer to it: they
contained more of positive truth, and
very much less of error. Nevertheless,
there lay in Rousseau’s doctrine, and has
floated down the stream of opinion along
with it, a considerable amount of exactly
those truths which the popular opinion
wanted; and these are the deposit which
was left behind when the flood subsided.
The superior worth of simplicity of life,
the enervating and demoralising effect of
the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial
society, are ideas which have never been
entirely absent from cultivated minds
since Rousseau wrote; and they will in
time produce their due effect, though at
present needing to be asserted as much
as ever, and to be asserted by deeds,
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
for words on this subject have nearly
exhausted their power.
In politics, again, it is almost a com
monplace, that a party of order or stability,
and a party of progress or reform, are both
necessary elements of a healthy state of
political life ; until the one or the other
shall have so enlarged its mental grasp
as to be a party equally of order and of
progress, knowing and distinguishing what
is fit to be preserved from what ought to
be swept away. Each of these modes
of thinking derives its utility from the
deficiencies of the other; but it is in a
great measure the opposition of the other
that keeps each within the limits of reason
and sanity. Unless opinions favourable
to democracy and to aristocracy, to
property and to equality, to co-operation
and to competition, to luxury and to
abstinence, to sociality and individuality,
to liberty and discipline, and all the other
standing antagonisms of practical life, are
expressed with equal freedom, and en
forced and defended with equal talent
and energy, there is no chance of both
elements obtaining their due : one scale
is sure to go up and the other down.
Truth, in the great practical concerns of
life, is so much a question of the recon
ciling and combining of opposites that
very few have minds sufficiently capacious
and impartial to make the adjustment
with an approach to correctness, and it
has to be made by the rough process of
a struggle between combatants fighting
under hostile banners. On any of the
great open questions just enumerated, if
either of the two opinions has a better
claim than the other, not merely to be
tolerated, but to be encouraged and
countenanced, it is the one which happens
at the particular time and place to be in a
minority. That is the opinion which, for
the time being, represents the neglected
41
interests, the side of human well-being
which is in danger of obtaining less than
its share. I am aware that there is not,
in this country, any intolerance of differ
ences of opinion on most of these topics.
They are adduced to show, by admitted
and multiplied examples, the universality
of the fact that only through diversity
of opinion is there, in the existing state
of human intellect, a chance of fair play
to all sides of the truth. When there are
persons to be found who form an excep
tion to the apparent unanimity of the
world on any subject, even if the world
is in the right, it is always probable that
dissentients have something worth hear
ing to say for themselves, and that truth
would lose something by their silence.
It may be objected, “ But some received
principles, especially on the highest and
most vital subjects, are more than half
truths. The Christian morality, for
instance, is the whole truth on that
subject, and if anyone teaches a morality
which varies from it, he is wholly in error.”
As this is of all cases the most important
in practice, none can be fitter to test the
general maxim. But before pronouncing
what Christian morality is or is not, it
would be desirable to decide what is
meant by Christian morality. If it means
the morality of the New Testament, I
wonder that anyone who derives his
knowledge of this from the book itself
can suppose that it was announced, or
intended, as a complete doctrine of
morals. The Gospel always refers to a
pre-existing morality, and confines its
precepts to the particulars in which that
morality was to be corrected, or super
seded by a wider and higher; expressing
itself, moreover, in terms most general,
often impossible to be interpreted literally,
and possessing rather the impressiveness
of poetry or eloquence than the precision
�42
ON LIBERTY
of legislation. To extract from it a body
of ethical doctrine has never been possible
without eking it out from the Old Testa
ment—that is, from a system elaborate
indeed, but in many respects barbarous,
and intended only for a barbarous people.
St. Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical
mode of interpreting the doctrine and
filling up the scheme of his Master,
equally assumes a pre-existing morality—
namely, that of the Greeks and Romans;
and his advice to Christians is in a great
measure a system of accommodation to
that; even to the extent of giving an
apparent sanction to slavery. What is
called Christian, but should rather be
termed theological, morality was not the
work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of
much later origin, having been gradually
built up by the Catholic Church of the
first five centuries, and, though not
implicitly adopted by moderns and Pro
testants, has been much less modified
by them than might have been expected.
For the most part, indeed, they have
contented themselves with cutting off the
additions which had been made to it in
the Middle Ages, each sect supplying
the place by fresh additions, adapted to
its own character and tendencies. That
mankind owe a great debt to this morality,
and to its early teachers,, I should be the
last person to deny; but I do not scruple
to say of it that it is, in many important
points, incomplete and one-sided, and
that unless ideas and feelings, not
sanctioned by it, had contributed to the
formation of European life and character,
human affairs would have been in a
worse condition than they now are.
Christian morality (so called) has all the
characters of a reaction; it is, in great
part, a protest against Paganism. Its
ideal is negative rather than positive ;
passive rather than active; Innocence
----------------- :------ r ;
rather than Nobleness ; Abstinence trom
Evil rather than energetic Pursuit of
Good; in its precepts (as has been well
said) “thou shalt not” predominates
over “ thou shalt.” In its horror
of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compro
mised away into one of legality. It
holds out the hope of heaven and the
threat of hell, as the appointed and ap
propriate motives to a virtuous life; in
this falling far below the best of the
ancients, and doing what lies in it to give
to human morality an essentially selfish
character, by disconnecting each man’s
feelings of duty from the interests of his
fellow-creatures, except so far as a selfinterested inducement is offered to him
for consulting them. It is essentially a
doctrine of passive obedience; it incul
cates submission to all authorities found
established; who indeed are not to be
actively obeyed when they command
what religion forbids, but who are not to
be resisted, far less rebelled against, for
any amount of wrong to ourselves. And
while, in the morality of the best Pagan
nations, duty to the State holds even a
disproportionate place, infringing on the
just liberty of the individual, in purely
Christian ethics that ground department
of duty is scarcely noticed or acknow
ledged. It is in the Koran, not the New
Testament, that we read the maxim—•
“ A ruler who appoints any man to an
office when there is in his dominions
another man better qualified for it, sins
against God and against the State.”
What little recognition the idea of obli
gation to the public obtains in modern
morality is derived from Greek and
Roman sources, not from Christian; as
even in the morality of private life what
ever exists of magnanimity, highmindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of
!
■
j
1
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
honour, is derived from the purely human,
not the religious, part of our education,
and never could have grown out of a
standard of ethics in which the only
worth, professedly recognised, is that of
obedience.
I am as far as anyone from pretending
that these defects are necessarily inherent
in the Christian ethics, in every manner
in which it can be conceived, or that the
many requisites of a complete moral
doctrine which it does not contain do
not admit of being reconciled with it.
Far less would I insinuate this of the
doctrines and precepts of Christ himself.
I believe that the sayings of Christ are
all that I can see any evidence of their
having been intended to be; that they
are irreconcilable with nothing which a
comprehensive morality requires; that
everything which is excellent in ethics
may be brought within them with no
greater violence to their language than
has been done to it by all who have
attempted to deduce from them any
practical system of conduct whatever.
But it is quite consistent with this to
believe that they contain, and were
meant to contain, only a part of the
truth; that many essential elements of the
highest morality are among the things
which are not provided for, nor intended
to be provided for, in the recorded
deliverances of the Founder of Chris
tianity, and which have been entirely
thrown aside in the system of ethics
erected on the basis of those deliverances
by the Christian Church.
And this
being so, I think it a great error to
persist in attempting to find in the Chris
tian doctrine that complete rule for our
guidance which its author intended it to
sanction and enforce, but only partially
to provide. I believe, too, that this
narrow theory is becoming a grave prac
43
tical evil, detracting greatly from the
moral training and instruction which so
many well-meaning persons are now at
length exerting themselves to promote.
I much fear that by attempting to form
the mind and feelings on an exclusively
religious type, and discarding those secu
lar standards (as for want of a better
name they may be called) which hereto
fore co-existed with and supplemented
the Christian ethics, receiving some of
its spirit, and infusing into it some of
theirs, there will result, and is even now
resulting, a low, abject, servile type of
character, which, submit itself as it may
to what it deems the Supreme Will, is
incapable of rising to or sympathising in>
the conception of Supreme Goodness.
I believe that other ethics than any
which can be evolved from exclusively
Christian sources must exist side by
side with Christian ethics to produce the
moral regeneration of mankind; and that
the Christian system is no exception to
the rule, that in an imperfect state of
the human mind the interests of truth
require a diversity of opinions. It is not
necessary that, in ceasing to ignore the
moral truths not contained in Chris
tianity, men should ignore any of those
which it does contain. Such prejudice,
or oversight, when it occurs, is altogether
an evil; but it it is one from which we
cannot hope to be always exempt, and
must be regarded as the price paid for
an inestimable good. The exclusive pre
tension made by a part of the truth to be
the whole must and ought to be pro
tested against; and if a reactionary im
pulse should make the protesters unjust
in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the
other, may be lamented, but must be
tolerated. If Christians would teach
infidels to be just to Christianity, they
should themselves be just to infidelity.
�44
ON LIBERTY
It can do truth no service to blink the
fact, known to all who have the most
ordinary acquaintance with literary history,
that a large portion of the noblest and
most valuable moral teaching has been
the work, not only of men who did not
know, but of men who knew and rejected,
the Christian faith.
I do not pretend that the most un
limited use of the freedom of enunciating
all possible opinions would put an end
to the evils of religious or philosophical
sectarianism. Every truth which men of
narrow capacity are in earnest about is
•sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in
many ways even acted on, as if no other
truth existed in the world, or at all
events none that could limit or qualify
the first. I acknowledge that the ten
dency of all opinions to become sectarian
?is not cured by the freest discussion,
but is often heightened and exacerbated
thereby; the truth which ought to have
been, but was not, seen being rejected
all the more violently because proclaimed
by persons regarded as opponents. But
it is not on the impassioned partisan, it
is on the calmer and more disinterested
bystander, that this collision of opinions
works its salutary effect. Not the violent
conflict between parts of the truth, but
the quiet suppression of half of it, is the
formidable evil; there is always hope
when people are forced to listen to both
sides; it is when they attend only to one
that errors harden into prejudices, and
truth itself ceases to have the effect of
truth by being exaggerated into false
hood. And since there are few mental
attributes more rare than that judicial
faculty which can sit in intelligent judg
ment between two sides of a question, of
which only one is represented by an
advocate before it, truth has no chance
but in proportion as every side of it,
every opinion which embodies any frac
tion of the truth, not only finds advo
cates, but is so advocated as to be
listened to.
We have now recognised the necessity
to the mental well-being of mankind (on
which all their other well-being depends)
of freedom of opinion, and freedom of
the expression of opinion, on four distinct
grounds, which we will now briefly re
capitulate.
First, if any opinion is compelled to
silence, that opinion may, for aught we
can certainly know, be true. To deny
this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion
be an error, it may, and very commonly
does, contain a portion of truth ; and
since the general or prevailing opinion
on any subject is rarely or never the
whole truth, it is only by the collision of
adverse opinions that the remainder of
the truth has any chance of being
supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion
be not only true, but the whole truth,
unless it is suffered to be, and actually
is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it
will, by most of those who receive it, be
held in the manner of a prejudice, with
little comprehension or feeling of its
rational grounds. And not only this,
but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine
itself, will be in danger of being lost, or
enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect
on the character and conduct: the
dogma becoming a mere formal pro
fession, inefficacious for good, but
cumbering the ground, and preventing
the growth of any real and heartfelt
conviction, from reason or personal
experience.
Before quitting the subject of freedom
of opinion, it is fit to take some notice
of those who say that the free expression
�OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
cf all opinions should be permitted, on
condition that the manner be temperate,
and do not pass the bounds of fair dis
cussion. Much might be said on the
impossibility of fixing where these sup
posed bounds are to be placed; for if
the test be offence to those whose
opinions are attacked, I think experience
testifies that this offence is given when
ever the attack is telling and powerful,
and that every opponent who pushes
them hard, and whom they find it difficult
to answer, appears to them, if he shows
any strong feeling on the subject, an
intemperate opponent. But this, though
an important consideration in a practical
point of view, merges in a more funda
mental objection.
Undoubtedly the
manner of asserting an opinion, even
though it be a true one, may be very
objectionable, and may justly incur
severe censure.
But the principal
offences of the kind are such as it is
mostly impossible, unless by accidental
self-betrayal, to bring home to con
viction. The gravest of them is, to
argue sophistically, to suppress facts or
arguments, to misstate the elements
of the case, or misrepresent the oppo
site opinion.
But all this, even to
the most aggravated degree, is so con
tinually done in perfect good faith by
persons who are not considered, and in
many other respects may not deserve
to be considered, ignorant or incom
petent, that it is rarely possible, on
adequate grounds, conscientiously to
stamp the misrepresentation as morally
culpable ; and still less could law pre-;
sume to interfere with this kind of con
troversial misconduct. With regard to
what is commonly meant by intemperate
discussion—namely, invective, sarcasm,
personality, and the like—the denuncia
tion of these weapons would deserve
45
more sympathy if it were ever proposed
to interdict them equally to both sides ;
but it is only desired to restrain the
employment of them against the pre
vailing opinion; against the unprevailing
they may not only be used without
general disapproval, but will be likely to
obtain for him who uses them the praise
of honest zeal and righteous indignation.
Yet whatever mischief arises from their
use is greatest when they are employed
against the comparatively defenceless;
and whatever unfair advantage can be
derived by any opinion from this mode
of asserting it accrues almost exclu
sively to received opinions. The worst
offence of this kind which can be com
mitted by a polemic is to stigmatise
those who hold the contrary opinion as
bad and immoral men. To calumny of
this sort those who hold any unpopular
opinion are peculiarly exposed, because
they are in general few and uninfluential,
and nobody but themselves feels much
interested in seeing justice done them ;
but this weapon is, from the nature of
the case, denied to those who attack a
prevailing opinion; they can neither use
it with safety to themselves, nor, if they
could, would it do anything but recoil on
their own cause. In general, opinions
contrary to those commonly received
can only obtain a hearing by studied
moderation of language, and the most
cautious avoidance of unnecessary
offence, from which they hardly ever
deviate even in a slight degree without
losing ground; while unmeasured vitu
peration employed on the side of the
prevailing opinion really does deter
people from professing contrary opinions,
and from listening to those who profess
them. For the interest, therefore, of
truth and justice, it is far more imporI tant to restrain this employment of
�46
ON LIBERTY
vituperative language than the other;
and, for example, if it were necessary to
choose, there would be much more need
to discourage offensive attacks on infi
delity than on religion. It is, however,
obvious that law and authority have no
business with restraining either, while
opinion ought, in every instance, to de
termine its verdict by the circumstances
of the individual case; condemning
every one, on which ever side of the argu
ment he places himself, in whose mode
of advocacy either want of candour, or
malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feel
ing, manifest themselves ; but not infer
ring these vices from the side which a
person takes, though it be the contrary
side of the question to our own: and
giving merited honour to every one,
whatever opinion he may hold, who has
calmness to see and honesty to state
what his opponents and their opinions
really are, exaggerating nothing to their
discredit, keeping nothing back which
tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their
favour. This is the real morality of
public discussion : and if often violated,
I am happy to think that there are
many controversialists who to a great
extent observe it, and a still greater
number who conscientiously strive to
wards it.
Chapter III.
OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS
OF WELL-BEING
Such being the reasons which make it
imperative that human beings should be
free to form opinions, and to express
their opinions without reserve; and such
the baneful consequences to the intel
lectual, and through that to the moral,
nature of man, unless this liberty is either
conceded, or asserted in spite of prohibi
tion; let us next examine whether the
same reasons do not require that men
should be free to act upon their opinions
—to carry these out in their lives, with
out hindrance, either physical or moral,
from their fellow men, so long as it is at
their own risk and peril. This last pro
viso is, of course, indispensable. No one
pretends that actions should be as free
as opinions. On the contrary, even
opinions lose their immunity when the
circumstances in which they are ex
pressed are such as to constitute their
expression a positive instigation to some
mischievous act. An opinion that corn
dealers are starvers of the poor, or that
private property is robbery, ought to
be unmolested when simply circulated
through the press, but may justly incur
punishment when delivered orally to an
excited mob assembled before the house
of a corn-dealer, or when handed about
among the same mob in the form of a pla
card. Acts, of whatever kind, which, with
out justifiable cause, do harm to others,
may be, and in the more important cases
absolutely require to be, controlled by
the unfavourable sentiments, and, when
�OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING 47
needful, by the active interference of the indifference of persons in general to
mankind. The liberty of the individual the end itself. If it were felt that the
must be thus far limited; he must not free development of individuality is one of
make himself a nuisance to other people. the leading essentials of well-being; that
But if he refrains from molesting others it is not only a co-ordinate element with
in what concerns them, and merely acts all that is designated by the terms civili
according to his own inclination and judg sation, instruction, education, culture,
ment in things which concern himself, the but is itself a necessary part and con
same reasons which show that opinion dition of all those things; there would
should be free prove also that he should be no danger that liberty should be
be allowed, without molestation, to carry undervalued, and the adjustment of the
his opinions into practice at his own boundaries between it and social control
cost. That mankind are not infallible; would present no extraordinary difficulty.
But the evil is that individual spontaneity
that their truths, for the most part,
are only half-truths; that unity of is hardly recognised by the common
opinion, unless resulting from the modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic
fullest and freest comparison of op worth, or deserving any regard on its
posite opinions, is not desirable, and own account. The majority, being satis
fied with the ways of mankind as they
diversity not an evil, but a good
until mankind are much more capable now are (for it is they who make them
than at present of recognising all sides what they are), cannot comprehend why
of the truth, are principles applicable to those ways should not be good enough
men’s modes of action, not less than to for everybody: and what is more, spon
their opinions. As it is useful that while taneity forms no part of the ideal of the
mankind are imperfect there should be majority of moral and social reformers,
different opinions, so it is that there but is rather looked on with jealousy,
should be different experiments of living ; as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious
that free scope should be given to varieties obstruction to the general acceptance
of character, short of injury to others; of what these reformers, in their own
and that the worth of different modes of judgment, think would be best for man
life should be proved practically, when kind. Few persons, out of Germany,
anyone thinks fit to try them. It is even comprehend the meaning of the
desirable, in short, that in things which doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt,
do not primarily concern others, indi so eminent both as a savant and as a
politician, made the text of a treatise—
viduality should assert itself. Where,
that “ the end of man, or that which is
not the person’s own character, but the
traditions or customs of other people, prescribed by the eternal or immutable
are the rule of conduct, there is wanting dictates of reason, and not suggested by
one of the principal ingredients of human vague and transient desires, is the highest
happiness, and quite the chief ingredient and most harmonious development of
his powers to a complete and consistent
of individual and social progress.
that, therefore, the object
In maintaining this principle, the whole
greatest difficulty to be encountered “ towards which every human being
does not lie in the appreciation of means must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on
towards an acknowledged end, but in which especially those who design to
�48
ON LIBERTY
influence their fellow-men must ever
keep their eyes, is the individuality of
power and development”; that for this
there are two requisites, “freedom, and
variety of situations”; and that from the
union of these arise “ individual vigour
and manifold diversity,” which combine
themselves in “ originality.”1
Little, however, as people are accus
tomed to a doctrine like that of Von
Humboldt, and surprising as it may
be to them to find so high a value
attached to individuality, the question,
one must nevertheless think, can only
be one of degree. No one’s idea of
excellence in conduct is that people
should do absolutely nothing but copy
one another. No one would assert that
people ought not to put into their mode
of life, and into the conduct of their
concerns, any impress whatever of their
own judgment, or of their own individual
character. On the other hand, it would
be absurd to pretend that people ought
to live as if nothing whatever had been
known in the world before they came
into it; as if experience had as yet
done nothing towards showing that
one mode of existence, or of conduct,
is preferable to another.
Nobody
denies that people should be so
taught and trained in youth as to
know and benefit by the ascertained
results of human experience. But it
is the privilege and proper condition of
a human being, arrived at the maturity
of his faculties, to use and interpret
experience in his own way. It is for
him to find out what part of recorded
experience is properly applicable to his
own circumstances and character. The
traditions and customs of other people
1 The Sphere and Duties of Government, from
the German of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt,
np. II-13.
are, to a certain extent, evidence of what
their experience has taught them; pre
sumptive evidence, and as such, have
a claim to his deference: but, in the
first place, their experience may be too
narrow; or they may not have inter
preted it rightly. Secondly, their inter
pretation of experience may be correct,
but unsuitable to him. Customs are
made for customary circumstances and
customary characters ; and his circum
stances or his character may be un
customary. Thirdly, though the customs
be both good as customs, and suitable
to him, yet to conform to custom merely
as custom does not educate or develop
in him any of the qualities which are the
distinctive endowment of a human being.
The human faculties of perception,
judgment, discriminative feeling, mental
activity, and even moral preference, are
exercised only in making a choice. He
who does anything because it is the
custom makes no choice. He gains no
practice either in discerning or in desir
ing what is best. The mental and moral,
like the muscular powers, are improved
only by being used. The faculties are
called into no exercise by doing a thing
merely because others do it, no more
than by believing a thing only because
others believe it. If the grounds of an
opinion are not conclusive to the person’s
own reason, his reason cannot be
strengthened, but is likely to be
weakened, by his adopting it; and if the
inducements to an act are not such as
are consentaneous to his own feelings
and character (where affection, or the
rights of others, are not concerned), it is
so much done towards rendering his
feelings and character inert and torpid,
instead of active and energetic.
He who lets the world, or his own
portion of it, choose his plan of life for
�OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING 49
him has no need of any other faculty
than the ape-like one of imitation. He
who chooses his plan for himself employs
all his faculties. He must use observa
tion to see, reasoning and judgment to
foresee, activity to gather materials for
decision, discrimination to decide, and,
when he has decided, firmness and self
control to hold to his deliberate decision.
And these qualities he requires and
exercises exactly in proportion as the
part of his conduct which he determines
according to his own judgment and
feelings is a large one. It is possible
that he might be guided in some good
path, and kept out of harm’s way, without
any of these things. But what will be
his comparative worth as a human being ?
It really is of importance, not only what
men do, but also what manner of men
they are that do it. Among the works
of man which human life is rightly
employed in perfecting and beautifying,
the first in importance surely is man
himself. Supposing it were possible to
get houses built, corn grown, battles
fought, causes tried, and even churches
erected and prayers said, by machinery
—by automatons in human form—it
would be a considerable loss to exchange
for these automatons even the men and
women who at present inhabit the more
civilised parts of the world, and who
assuredly are but starved specimens of
what nature can and will produce.
Human nature is not a machine to be
built after a model, and set to do exactly
the work prescribed for it, but a tree,
which requires to grow and develop itself
on all sides, according to the tendency
of the inward forces which make it a
living thing.
It will probably be conceded that it is
desirable people should exercise their
understandings, and that an intelligent
following of custom, or even occasionally
an intelligent deviation from custom, is
better than a blind and simply mechanical
adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is
admitted that our understanding should
be our own; but there is not the same
willingness to admit that our desires and
impulses should be our own likewise ; or
that to possess impulses of our own, and
of any strength, is anything but a peril
and a snare. Yet desires and impulses
are as much a part of a perfect human
being as beliefs and restraints; and
strong impulses are only perilous when
not properly balanced ; when one set of
aims and inclinations is developed into
strength, while others, which ought to
co-exist with them, remain weak and
inactive. It is not because men’s desires
are strong that they act ill; it is because
their consciences are weak. There is
no natural connection between strong
impulse and a weak conscience. The
natural connection is the other way. To
say that one person’s desires and feelings
are stronger and more various than those
of another is merely to say that he has
more of the raw material of human
nature, and is therefore capable, perhaps
of more evil, but certainly of more good.
Strong impulses are but another name
for energy. Energy may be turned to
bad uses ; but more good may always
be made of an energetic nature than of
an indolent and impassive one. Those
who have most natural feeling are always
those whose cultivated feelings may be
made the strongest. The same strong
susceptibilities which make the personal
impulses vivid and powerful are also the
source from whence are generated the
most passionate love of virtue and the
sternest self-control. It is through the
cultivation of these that society both
does its duty and protects its interests:
E
�5°
ON LIBERTY
not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes
are made, because it knows not how to
make them. A person whose desires
and impulses are his own—are the
expressions of his own nature, as it has
been developed and modified by his
own culture—is said to have a character.
One whose desires and impulses are not
his own has no character, no more than
a steam-engine has a character. If, in
addition to being his own, his impulses
are strong, and are under the government
of a strong will, he has an energetic char
acter. Whoever thinks that individu
ality of desires and impulses should not
be encouraged to unfold itself must
maintain that society has no need of
strong natures—is not the better for
containing many persons who have much
character—and that a high general
average of energy is not desirable.
In some early states of society these
forces might be, and were, too much
ahead of the power which society then
possessed of disciplining and controlling
them. There has been a time when the
element of spontaneity and individuality
was in excess, and the social principle
had a hard struggle with it. The diffi
culty then was, to induce men of strong
bodies or minds to pay obedience to any
rules which required them to control
their impulses. To overcome this diffi
culty, law and discipline, like the Popes
struggling against the Emperors, asserted
a power over the whole man, claiming to
control all his life in order to control his
character—which society had not found
any other sufficient means of binding.
But society has now fairly got the better
of individuality; and the danger which
threatens human nature is not the ex
cess, but the deficiency, of personal
impulses and preferences. Things are
vastly changed, since the passions of
those who were strong by station or by
personal endowment were in a state of
habitual rebellion against laws and ordi
nances, and required to be rigorously
chained up to enable the persons within
their reach to enjoy any particle of secu
rity. In our times, from the highest
class of society down to the lowest,
every one lives as under the eye of a
hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only
in what concerns others, but in what con
cerns only themselves, the individual or
the family do not ask themselves—What
do I prefer ? or, What would suit my
character and disposition? or, What would
allow the best and highest in me to have
fair play, and enable it to grow and
thrive ? They ask themselves—What is
suitable to my position ? What is usually
done by persons of my station and
pecuniary circumstances? or (worse still),
What is usually done by persons of a
station and circumstances superior to
mine ? I do not mean that they choose
what is customary in preference to what
suits their own inclination. It does not
occur to them to have any inclination,
except for what is customary. Thus the
mind itself is bowed to the yoke; even
in what people do for pleasure confor
mity is the first thing thought of; they
like in crowds; they exercise choice
only among things commonly done;
peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of con
duct, are shunned equally with crimes;
until, by dint of not following their own
nature, they have no nature to follow ;
their human capacities are withered and
starved; they become incapable of any
strong wishes or native pleasures, and are
generally without either opinions or
feelings of home growth, or properly
their own. Now, is this, or is it
not, the desirable condition of human
nature?
�OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING 51
It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. consistent with that faith to believe that
According to that, the one great offence this Being gave all human faculties that
of man is self-will. All the good of they might be cultivated and unfolded,
not rooted out and consumed, and that
which humanity is capable is comprised
in obedience. You have no choice; he takes delight in every nearer approach
thus you must do, and no otherwise; made by his creatures to the ideal con
“ whatever is not a duty is a sin.” ception embodied in them, every increase
in any of their capabilities of comprehen
Human nature being radically corrupt,
there is no redemption for any one until sion, of action, or of enjoyment. There
human nature is killed within him. To is a different type of human excellence
one holding this theory of life, crushing from the Calvinistic : a conception of
out any of the human faculties, capaci humanity as having its nature bestowed
on it for other purposes than merely to
ties, and susceptibilities is no evil; man
needs no capacity but that of surrender be abnegated. “Pagan self-assertion”
ing himself to the will of God ; and if is one of the elements of human worth,
he uses any of his faculties for any other as well as “Christian self-denial.”1 There
purpose but to do that supposed will is a Greek ideal of self-development,
more effectually, he is better without which the Platonic and Christian ideal
them. This is the theory of Calvinism; of self-government blends with, but does
and it is held, in a mitigated form, by not supersede. It may be better to be a
many who do not consider themselves John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is
Calvinists; the mitigation consisting in better to be a Pericles than either; nor
giving a less ascetic interpretation to the would a Pericles, if we had one in these
alleged will of God; asserting it to be days, be without anything good which
his will that mankind should gratify belonged to John Knox.
It is not by wearing down into uni
some of their inclinations; of course, not
in the manner they themselves prefer, formity all that is individual in them
but in the way of obedience—that is, in selves, but by cultivating it, and calling
a way prescribed to them by authority; it forth, within the limits imposed by the
and, therefore, by the necessary condition rights and interests of others, that human
beings become a noble and beautiful
of the case, the same for all.
In some such insidious form there is object of contemplation; and as the
at present a strong tendency to this works partake the character of those
narrow theory of life, and to the who do them, by the same process human
pinched and hidebound type of human life also becomes rich, diversified, and
character which it patronises. Many animating, furnishing more abundant
persons, no doubt, sincerely think that aliment to high thoughts and elevating
human beings thus cramped and dwarfed feelings, and strengthening the tie which
are as their Maker designed them to be; binds every individual to the race, by
just as many have thought that trees are making the race infinitely better worth
a much finer thing when clipped into belonging to. In proportion to the
pollards, or cut out into figures of animals, development of his individuality, each
than as nature made them. But if it be person becomes more valuable to
any part of religion to believe that man
was made by a good Being, it is more
1 Sterling’s Essays.
�52
ON LIBERTY
himself, and is therefore capable of it is only the cultivation of individ
being more valuable to others. There uality which produces, or can produce,
is a greater fulness of life about his own well-developed human beings, I might
existence, and when there is more life in here close the argument: for what more
the units there is more in the mass which or better can be said of any condition of
is composed of them. As much com human affairs than that it brings human
pression as is necessary to prevent the beings themselves nearer to the best
stronger specimens of human nature thing they can be ? Or what worse can
from encroaching on the rights of others be said of any obstruction to good than
cannot be dispensed with; but for this that it prevents this ? Doubtless, how
there is ample compensation even in the ever, these considerations will not suffice
point of view of human development. to convince those who most need con
The means of development which the vincing; and it is necessary further to
individual loses by being prevented show that these developed human beings
from gratifying his inclinations to the are of some use to the undeveloped—
injury of others are chiefly obtained at to point out to those who do not desire
the expense of the development of other liberty, and would not avail themselves
people. And even to himself there is a of it, that they may be in some intelli
full equivalent in the better development gible manner rewarded for allowing other
of the social part of his nature, rendered people to make use of it without
possible by the restraint put upon the hindrance.
selfish part. To be held to rigid rules
In the first place, then, I would
of justice for the sake of others developes ■suggest that they might possibly learn
the feelings and capacities which have something from them. It will not be
the good of others for their object. But denied by anybody that originality is
to be restrained in things not affecting a valuable element in human affairs.
their good, by their mere displeasure, There is always need of persons not
developes nothing valuable, except such only to discover new truths, and point
force of character as may unfold itself in out when what were once truths are
resisting the restraint. If acquiesced in, true no longer, but also to commence
it dulls and blunts the whole nature. new practices, and set the example of
To give any fair play to the nature of more enlightened conduct, and better
each, it is essential that different persons taste and sense in human life. This
should be allowed to lead different lives. cannot well be gainsaid by anybody
In proportion as this latitude has been who does not believe that the world has
exercised in any age, has that age been already attained perfection in all its
noteworthy to posterity. Even despotism ways and practices. It is true that this
does not produce its worst effects, so long benefit is not capable of being rendered
as individuality exists under it; and by everybody alike: there are but few
whatever crushes individuality is despot persons, in comparison with the whole
ism, by whatever name it may be called, of mankind, whose experiments, if
and whether it professes to be enforcing adopted by others, would be likely to
the will of God or the injunctions of men. be any improvement on established
Having said that individuality is the practice. But these few are the salt of
same thing with development, and that the earth; without them human life
�OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING 53
would become a stagnant pool. Not
only is it they who introduce good things
which did not before exist; it is they who
keep the life in those which already exist.
If there were nothing new to be done,
would human intellect cease to be
necessary ? Would it be a reason why
those wrho do the old things should
forget wrhy they are done, and do them
like cattle, not like human beings?
There is only too great a tendency in
the best beliefs and practices to
degenerate into the mechanical; and
unless there were a succession of persons
whose ever-recurring originality prevents
the grounds of those beliefs and prac
tices from becoming merely traditional,
such dead matter would not resist the
smallest shock from anything really alive,
and there wrould be no reason why
civilisation should not die out, as in the
Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius,
it is true, are, and are always likely to
be, a small minority; but, in order to
have them, it is necessary to preserve
the soil in which they grow. Genius
can only breathe freely in an atmosphere
of freedom. Persons of genius are, ex
vi termini, more individual than any
other people—less capable, consequently,
of fitting themselves, without hurtful
compression, into any of the small
number of moulds which society pro
vides in order to save its members the
trouble of forming their own character.
If from timidity they consent to be
forced into one of these moulds, and to
let all that part of themselves which
cannot expand under the pressure remain
unexpanded, society will be little the
better for their genius. If they are of
a strong character, and break their
fetters, they become a mark for the
society which has not succeeded in
reducing them to commonplace, to point
out with solemn warning as “wild,”
“erratic,” and the like; much as if one
should complain of the Niagara river
for not flowing smoothly between its
banks like a Dutch canal.
I insist thus emphatically on the
importance of genius, and the necessity
of allowing it to unfold itself freely both
in thought and in practice, being well
aware that no one will deny the position
in theory, but knowing also that almost
everyone, in reality, is totally indifferent
to it. People think genius a fine thing
if it enables a man to write an exciting
poem, or paint a picture. But, in its
true sense, that of originality in thought
and action, though no one says that it is
not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at
heart, think that they can do very well
without it. Unhappily this is too natural
to be wrondered at. Originality is the
one thing which unoriginal minds cannot
feel the use of. They cannot see what
it is to do for them : how should they ?
If they could see what it would do for
them, it would not be originality. The
first service which originality has to
render them is that of opening their
eyes ; which, being once fully done, they
would have a chance of being themselves
original. Meanwhile, recollecting that
nothing wras ever yet done which some
one was not the first to do, and that all
good things which exist are the fruits of
originality, let them be modest enough
to believe that there is something still
left for it to accomplish, and assure
themselves that they are more in need
of originality the less they are conscious
of the want.
In sober truth, whatever homage may
be professed, or even paid, to real or
supposed mental superiority, the general
tendency of things throughout the world
is to render mediocrity the ascendant
�54
ON LIBERTY
power among mankind. In ancient
history, in the Middle Ages, and in a
diminishing degree through the long
transition from feudality to the present
time, the individual was a power in him
self; and if he had either great talents
or a high social position, he was a con
siderable power. At present individuals
are lost in the crowd. In politics it is
almost a triviality to say that public
opinion now rules the world. The only
power deserving the name is that of
masses, and of governments while they
make themselves the organ of the
tendencies and instincts of masses. This
is as true in the moral and social rela
tions of private life as in public tran
sactions. Those whose opinions go by
the name of public opinion are not
always the same sort of public; in
America they are the whole white
population; in England, chiefly the
middle class. But they are always a
mass—that is to say, collective medi
ocrity. And, what is a still greater
novelty, the mass do not now take their
opinions from dignitaries in Church or
State, from ostensible leaders, or from
books. Their thinking is done for
them by men much like themselves,
addressing them or speaking in their
name, on the spur of the moment,
through the newspapers. I am not com
plaining of all this. I do not assert
that anything better is compatible, as
a general rule, with the present low
state of the human mind. But that
does not hinder the government of
mediocrity from being mediocre govern
ment. No government by a democracy
or a numerous aristocracy, either in
its political acts or in the opinions,
qualities, and tone of mind which it
fosters, ever did or could rise above
mediocrity, except in so far as the
sovereign Many have let themselves be
guided (which, in their best times, they
always have done) by the counsels and
influence of a more highly gifted and
instructed One or Few. The initiation
of all wise or noble things comes, and
must come, from individuals; generally
at first from some one individual.
The honour and glory of the average
man is that he is capable of following
that initiative; that he can respond
internally to wise and noble things, and
be led to them with his eyes open.
I am not countenancing the sort of
“ hero-worship ” which applauds the
strong man of genius for forcibly seizing
on the government of the world and
making it do his bidding in spite of
itself. All he can claim is freedom to
point out the way. The power of com
pelling others into it is not only incon
sistent with the freedom and develop
ment of all the rest, but corrupting to
the strong man himself. It does seem,
however, that when the opinions of
masses of merely average men are
everywhere become or becoming the
dominant power, the counterpoise and
corrective to that tendency would be
the more and more pronounced indi
viduality of those who stand on the
higher eminences of thought. It is in
these circumstances most especially that
exceptional individuals, instead of being
deterred, should be encouraged in
acting differently from the mass. In
other times there was no advantage in
their doing so, unless they acted not
only differently, but better. In this
age the mere example of non-con
formity, the mere refusal to bend the
knee to custom, is itself a service.
Precisely because a tyranny of opinion
is such as to make eccentricity a
reproach, it is desirable, in order
�OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING 55
to break through that tyranny, that one model. But different persons also
people should be eccentric. Eccentricity require different conditions for their
has always abounded when and where spiritual development, and can no more
strength of character has abounded ; and exist healthily in the same moral than
the amount of eccentricity in a society all the variety of plants can in the same
has generally been proportional to the physical, atmosphere and climate. The
amount of genius, mental vigour, and same things which are helps to one
moral courage it contained. That so person towards the cultivation of his
few now dare to be eccentric marks the higher nature are hindrances to another.
The same mode of life is a healthy
chief danger of the time.
I have said that it is important to give excitement to one, keeping all his faculties
the freest scope possible to uncustomary of action and enjoyment in their best
things, in order that it may in time order, while to another it is a distracting
appear which of these are fit to be con burthen, which suspends or crushes all
verted into customs. But independence internal life. Such are the differences
of action and disregard of custom are among human beings in their sources of
not solely deserving of encouragement pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain,
for the chance they afford that better and the operation on them of different
modes of action, and customs more physical and moral agencies, that, unless
worthy of general adoption, may be there is a corresponding diversity in their
struck out; nor is it only persons of modes of life, they neither obtain their
decided mental superiority who have a fair share of happiness nor grow up to
just claim to carry on their lives in their the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature
own way. There is no reason that all of which their nature is capable. Why,
human existence should be constructed then, should tolerance, as far as the
on some one or some small number of public sentiment is concerned, extend
patterns. If a person possesses any only to tastes and modes of life which
tolerable amount of common sense and extort acquiescence by the multitude of
experience, his own mode of laying out their adherents ? Nowhere (except in
his existence is the best, not because it some monastic institutions) is diversity
is the best in itself, but because it is of taste entirely unrecognised; a person
his own mode. Human beings are not may, without blame, either like or dislike
like sheep; and even sheep are not rowing, or smoking, or music, or athletic
undistinguishably alike. A man cannot exercises, or chess, or cards, or study,
get a coat or a pair of boots to fit him because both those who like each of these
unless they are either made to his things and those who dislike them are
measure or he has a whole warehouseful too numerous to be put down. But the
to choose from; and is it easier to fit man, and still more the woman, who can
him with a life than with a coat, or are be accused either of doing “ what nobody
human beings more like one another in does,” or of not doing “ what everybody
their whole physical and spiritual con does,” is the subject of as much depre
formation than in the shape of their feet? ciatory remark as if he or she had com
If it were only that people have diver mitted some grave moral delinquency.
sities of taste, that is reason enough for Persons require to possess a title, or
not attempting to shape them all after some other badge of rank, or of the
�56
ON LIBERTY
consideration of people of rank, to be able
to indulge somewhat in the luxury of
doing as they like without detriment to
their estimation. To indulge somewhat,
I repeat; for whoever allow themselves
much of that indulgence incur the risk
of something worse than disparaging
speeches—they are in peril of a com
mission de lunatico, and of having their
property taken from them and given to
their relations.1
There is one characteristic of the
present direction of public opinion,
1 There is something both contemptible and
frightful in the sort of evidence on which, of late
years, any person can be judicially declared unfit
for the management of his affairs ; and after his
death his disposal of his property can be set
aside, if there is enough of it to pay the expenses
of litigation—which are charged on the property
itself. All the minute details of his daily life
are pried into, and whatever is found which,
seen through the medium of the perceiving and
describing faculties of the lowest of the low,
bears an appearance unlike absolute common
place, is laid before the jury as evidence of
insanity, and often with success; the jurors
being little, if at all, less vulgar and ignorant
than the witnesses; while the judges, with that
extraordinary want of knowledge of human
nature and life which continually astonishes us
in English lawyers, often help to mislead them.
These trials speak volumes as to the state of
feeling and opinion among the vulgar with regard
to human liberty. So far from setting any value
on individuality—so far from respecting the right
of each individual to act, in things indifferent, as
seems good to his own judgment and inclinations,
judges and juries cannot even conceive that a
person in a state of sanity can desire such
freedom. In former days, when it was proposed
to burn atheists, charitable people used to suggest
putting them in a madhouse instead : it would
be nothing surprising nowadays were we to see
this done, and the doers applauding themselves,
because, instead of persecuting for religion, they
had adopted so humane and Christian a mode
of treating these unfortunates, not without a
silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained
their deserts.
peculiarly calculated to make it intole
rant of any marked demonstration of
individuality. The general average of
mankind are not only moderate in in
tellect, but also moderate in inclina
tions : they have no tastes or wishes
strong enough to incline them to do
anything unusual, and they consequently
do not understand those who have,
and class all such with the wild and
intemperate whom they are accustomed
to look down upon. Now, in addition
to this fact, which is general, we have
only to suppose that a strong move
ment has set in towards the improve
ment of morals, and it is evident what
we have to expect. In these days such
a movement has set in; much has
actually been effected in the way of
increased regularity of conduct, and
discouragement of excesses; and there
is a philanthropic spirit abroad, for
the exercise of wrhich there is no
more inviting field than the moral and
prudential improvement of our fellow
creatures.
These tendencies of the
times cause the public to be more dis
posed than at most former periods to
prescribe general rules of conduct, and
endeavour to make every one conform
to the approved standard. And that
standard, express or tacit, is to desire
nothing strongly. Its ideal of character
is to be without any marked character ;
to maim by compression, like a Chinese
lady’s foot, every part of human nature
which stands out prominently, and tends
to make the person markedly dissimilar
in outline to commonplace humanity.
As is usually the case with ideals
which exclude one-half of what is de
sirable, the present standard of appro
bation produces only an inferior imita
tion of the other half. Instead of great
energies guided by vigorous reason, and
�of Individuality, as one of the elements of well-being y
strong feelings strongly controlled by a
conscientious will, its result is weak feel
ings and weak energies, which therefore
can be kept in outward conformity to
rule without any strength either of will
or of reason. Already energetic char
acters on any large scale are becoming
merely traditional. There is now scarcely
any outlet for energy in this country
except business. The energy expended
in this may still be regarded as consider
able. What little is left from that
employment is expended on some hobby ;
which may be a useful, even a philan
thropic hobby, but is always some one
thing, and generally a thing of small
dimensions. The greatness of England
is now all collective : individually small,
we only appear capable of anything
great by our habit of combining; and
with this our moral and religious philan
thropists are perfectly contented. But
it was men of another stamp than this
that made England what it has been;
and men of another stamp will be needed
to prevent its decline.
The despotism of custom is every
where the standing hindrance to human
advancement, being in unceasing an
tagonism to that disposition to aim at
something better than customary, which
is called, according to circumstances,
the spirit of liberty, or that of progress
or improvement. The spirit of improve
ment is not always a spirit of liberty,
for it may aim at forcing improvements
on an unwilling people; and the spirit of
liberty, insofar as it resists such attempts,
may ally itself locally and temporarily
with the opponents of improvement;
but the only unfailing and permanent
source of improvement is liberty, since
by it there are as many possible indepen
dent centres of improvement as there are
individuals. The progressive principle,
however, in either shape, whether as the
love of liberty or of improvement, is
antagonistic to the sway of Custom,
involving at least emancipation from
that yoke; and the contest between the
two constitutes the chief interest of the
history of mankind. The greater part of
the world has, properly speaking, no
history, because the despotism of Custom
is complete. This is the case over the
whole East. Custom is there, in all
things, the final appeal; justice and right
mean conformity to custom; the argu
ment of custom no one, unless some
tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks of
resisting. And we see the result. Those
nations must once have had originality ;
they did not start out of the ground
populous, lettered, and versed in many of
the arts of life; they made themselves
all this, and were then the greatest and
most powerful nations of the world.
What are they now ? The subjects or
dependents of tribes whose forefathers
wandered in the forests when theirs had
magnificent palacesand gorgeous temples,
but over whom custom exercised only a
divided rule with liberty and progress.
A people, it appears, may be progressive
for a certain length of time, and then
stop: when does it stop? When it
ceases to possess individuality. If a
similar change should befall the nations
of Europe, it will not be in exactly the
same shape: the despotism of custom
with which these nations are threatened
is not precisely stationariness. It pro
scribes singularity, but it does not
preclude change, provided all change
together. We have discarded the fixed
costumes of our forefathers: everyone
must still dress like other people, but the
fashion may change once or twice a year.
We thus take care that, when there is a
change, it shall be for change’s sake, and
�58
ON LIBERTY
not from any idea of beauty or con
venience; for the same idea of beauty
or convenience would not strike all the
world at the same moment, and be
simultaneously thrown aside by all at
another moment. But we are progressive
as well as changeable : we continually
make new inventions in mechanical
things, and keep them until they are
again superseded by better; we are eager
for improvement in politics, in education,
even in morals, though in this last our
idea of improvement chiefly consists in
persuading or forcing other people to be
as good as ourselves. It is not progress
that we object to ; on the contrary, we
flatter ourselves that we are the most
progressive people who ever lived. It
is individuality that we war against:
we should think we had done wonders
if we had made ourselves all alike;
forgetting that the unlikeness of one
person to another is generally the first
thing which draws the attention of
either to the imperfection of his own
type, and the superiority of another, or
the possibility, by combining the ad
vantages of both, of producing some
thing better than either. We have a
warning example in China—a nation
of much talent, and, in some respects,
even wisdom, owing to the rare good
fortune of having been provided at an
early period with a particularly good
set of customs, the work, in some
measure, of men to whom even the most
enlightened European must accord,
under certain limitations, the title of sages
and philosophers. They are remark
able, too, in the excellence of their
apparatus for impressing, as far as pos
sible, the best wisdom they possess
upon every mind in the community,
and securing that those who have ap
propriated most of it shall occupy the
posts of honour and power. Surely the
people who did this have discovered
the secret of human progressiveness,
and must have kept themselves steadily
at the head of the movement of the
world. On the contrary, they have
become stationary—have remained so
for thousands of years ; and if they are
ever to be farther improved, it must be
by foreigners. They have succeeded
beyond all hope in what English philan
thropists are so industriously working at
—in making a people all alike, all
governing their thoughts and conduct by
the same maxims and rules; and these
are the fruits. The modern regime of
public opinion is, in an unorganised
form, what the Chinese educational and
political systems are in an organised; and
unless individuality shall be able success
fully to assert itself against this yoke,
Europe, notwithstanding its noble ante
cedents and its professed Christianity,
will tend to become another China.
What is it that has hitherto preserved
Europe from this lot ? What has made
the European family of nations an im
proving, instead of a stationary, portion
of mankind ? Not any superior excellence
in them, which, when it exists, exists as
the effect, not as the cause; but their
remarkable diversity of character and
culture. Individuals, classes, nations,
have been extremely unlike one another;
they have struck out a great variety of
paths, each leading to something valu
able ; and although at every period
those who travelled in different paths
have been intolerant of one another,
and each would have thought it an ex
cellent thing if all the rest could have
been compelled to travel his road, their
attempts to thwart each other’s develop
ment have rarely had any permanent
success, and each has in time endured
�OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING 59
to receive the good which the others
have offered. Europe is, in my judg
ment, wholly indebted to this plurality
of paths for its progressive and manysided 'development.
But it already
begins to possess this benefit in a con
siderably less degree. It is decidedly
advancing towards the Chinese ideal of
making all people alike. M. de Toc
queville, in his last important work,
remarks how much more the French
men of the present day resemble one
another than did those even of the last
generation. The same remark might be
made of Englishmen in a far greater
degree. In a passage already quoted from
Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out
two things as necessary conditions of
human development, because necessary
to render people unlike one another;
namely, freedom, and variety of situa
tions. The second of these two con
ditions is in this country every day
diminishing. The circumstances which
surround different classes and indivi
duals, and shape their characters, are
daily becoming more assimilated. For
merly, different ranks, different neigh
bourhoods, different trades and pro
fessions, lived in what might be called
different worlds; at present, to a great
degree in the same. Comparatively
speaking, they now read the same
things, listen to the same things, see
the same things, go to the same places,
have their hopes and fears directed
to the same objects, have the same
rights and liberties, and the same means
of asserting them. Great as are the
differences of position which remain,
they are nothing to those which have
ceased. And the assimilation is still
proceeding. All the political changes
of the age promote it, since they all
tend to raise the low and to lower
the high. Every extension of educa
tion promotes it, because education
brings people under common influences,
and gives them access to the general
stock of facts and sentiments. Improve
ment in the means of communication
promotes it, by bringing the inhabitants
of distant places into personal contact,
and keeping up a rapid flow of changes
of residence between one place and
another. The increase of commerce and
manufactures promotes it, by diffusing
more widely the advantages of easy
circumstances, and opening all objects
of ambition, even the highest, to general
competition, whereby the desire of rising
becomes no longer the character of a
particular class, but of all classes. A
more powerful agency than even all these,
in bringing about a general similarity
among mankind, is the complete estab
lishment, in this and other free coun
tries, of the ascendancy of public opinion
in the State. As the various social
eminences which enabled persons en
trenched on them to disregard the
opinion of the multitude gradually be
come levelled; as the very idea of
resisting the will of the public, when it
is positively known that they have a will,
disappears more and more from the
minds of practical politicians; there
ceases to be any social support for non
conformity—any substantive power in
society, which, itself opposed to the ascen
dancy of numbers, is interested in taking
under its protection opinions and tenden
cies at variance with those of the public.
The combination of all these causes
forms so great a mass of influences
hostile to individuality that it is not
easy to see how it can stand its ground.
It will do so with increasing difficulty,
unless the intelligent part of the public
can be made to feel its value—to see
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that it is good there should be differences,
even though not for the better; even
though, as it may appear to them, some
should be for the worse. If the claims
of individuality are ever to be asserted,
the time is now, while much is still
wanting to complete the enforced assimi
lation. It is only in the earlier stages
that any stand can be successfully made
against the encroachment. The demand
that all other people shall resemble our
selves grows by what it feeds on. If
resistance waits till life is reduced nearly
to one uniform type, all deviations from
that type will come to be considered
impious, immoral, even monstrous and
contrary to nature. Mankind speedily
become unable to conceive diversity,
when they have been for some time
unaccustomed to see it.
Chapter IV.
OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY
OVER THE INDIVIDUAL
What, then, is the rightful limit to the
sovereignty of the individual over him
self? Where does the authority of
society begin ? How much of human
life should be assigned to individuality,
and how much to society ?
Each will receive its proper shape, if
each has that which more particularly
concerns it. To individuality should
belong the part of life in which it is
chiefly the individual that is interested;
to society, the part which chiefly interests
society.
Though society is not founded on a
contract, and though no good purpose is
answered by inventing a contract in order
to deduce social obligations from it, every
one who receives the protection of society
owes a return for the benefit, and the
fact of living in society renders it
indispensable that each should be bound
to observe a certain line of conduct towards
the rest. This conduct consists, first, in I
not injuring the interests of one another;
or rather certain interests, which, either
by express legal provision or by tacit
understanding, ought to be considered
as rights; and secondly, in each person’s
bearing his share (to be fixed on some
equitable principle) of the labours and
sacrifices incurred for defending the
society or its members from injury and
molestation. These conditions society
is justified in enforcing, at all costs to
those who endeavour to withhold fulfil
ment. Nor is this all that society may
do. The acts of an individual may be
hurtful to others, or wanting in due con
sideration for their welfare, without going
to the length of violating any of their
constituted rights. The offender may
then be justly punished by opinion,
though not by law. As soon as any part
of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially
the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL 61
the general welfare will or will not be
promoted by interfering with it becomes
open to discussion. But there is no
room for entertaining any such question
when a person’s conduct affects the
interests of no persons besides himself,
or needs not affect them unless they like
(all the persons concerned being of full
age and the ordinary amount of under
standing). In all such cases there should
be perfect freedom, legal and social, to
do the action and stand the conse
quences.
It would be a great misunderstanding
of this doctrine to suppose that it is one
of selfish indifference, which pretends
that human beings have no business
with each other’s conduct in life, and
that they should not concern themselves
about the well-doing or well-being of one
another, unless their own interest is
involved. Instead of any diminution,
there is need of a great increase of
disinterested exertion to promote the
good of others. But disinterested bene
volence can find other instruments to
persuade people to their good than
whips and scourges, either of the literal
or the metaphorical sort. I am the last
person to undervalue the self-regarding
virtues; they are only second in impor
tance, if even second, to the social. It
is equally the business of education to
cultivate both. But even education
works by conviction and persuasion as
well as by compulsion, and it is by the
former only that, when the period of
education is passed, the self-regarding
virtues should be inculcated. Human
beings owe to each other help to dis
tinguish the better from the worse, and
encouragement to choose the former
and avoid the latter. They should be for
ever stimulating each other to increased
exercise of their higher faculties, and
increased direction of their feelings and
aims towards wise instead of foolish,
elevating instead of degrading, objects
and contemplations. But neither one
person, nor any number of persons, is
warranted in saying to another human
creature of ripe years that he shall not
do with his life for his own benefit what
he chooses to do with it. He is the
person most interested in his own well
being : the interest which any other
person, except in cases of strong personal
attachment, can have in it, is trifling,
compared with that which he himself
has; the interest which society has in
him individually (except as to his conduct
to others) is fractional, and altogether
indirect: while with respect to his own
feelings and circumstances, the most
ordinary man or woman has means of
knowledge immeasurably surpassing those
that can be possessed by anyone else.
The interference of society to overrule
his judgment and purposes in what only
regards himself must be grounded on
general presumptions; which may be
altogether wrong, and, even if right, are
as likely as not to be misapplied to indi
vidual cases, by persons no better
acquainted with the circumstances of
such cases than those are who look at
them merely from without. In this
department, therefore, of human affairs
individuality has its proper field of
action. In the conduct of human
beings towards one another it is neces
sary that general rules should for the
most part be observed, in order that
people may know what they have to
expect; but in each person’s own con
cerns his individual spontaneity is
entitled to free exercise. Considera
tions to aid his judgment, exhortations
to strengthen his will, may be offered to
him, even obtruded on him, by others;
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ON LIBERTY
but he himself is the final judge. All
errors which he is likely to commit
against advice and warning are far
outweighed by the evil of allowing
others to constrain him to what they
deem his good.
I do not mean that the feelings with
which a person is regarded by others
ought not to be in any way affected
by his self-regarding qualities or defi
ciencies. This is neither possible nor
desirable. If he is eminent in any of
the qualities which conduce to his own
good, he is, so far, a proper object of
admiration. He is so much the nearer
to the ideal perfection of human nature.
If he is grossly deficient in those qualities,
a sentiment the opposite of admiration
will follow. There is a degree of folly,
and a degree of what may be called
(though the phrase is not unobjection
able) lowness or depravation of taste,
which, though it cannot justify doing
harm to the person who manifests it,
renders him necessarily and properly a
subject of distaste, or, in extreme cases,
even of contempt: a person could not
have the opposite qualities in due
strength without entertaining these
feelings. Though doing no wrong to
anyone, a person may so act as to
compel us to judge him, and feel to him,
as a fool, or as a being of an inferior
order: and since this judgment and
feeling are a fact which he would prefer
to avoid, it is doing him a service to
warn him of it beforehand, as of any
other disagreeable consequence to which
he exposes himself. It would be well,
indeed, if this good office were much
more freely rendered than the common
notions of politeness at present permit,
and if one person could honestly point
out to another that he thinks him in fault,
without being considered unmannerly
or presuming. We have a right also, in
various ways, to act upon our unfavour
able opinion of anyone, not to the
oppression of his individuality, but in
the exercise of ours. We are not bound,
for example, to seek his society: we have
a right to avoid it (though not to parade
the avoidance), for we have a right to
choose the society most acceptable to us.
We have a right, and it may be our duty,
to caution others against him, if we think
his example or conversation likely to
have a pernicious effect on those with
whom he associates. We may give others
a preference over him in optional good
offices, except those which tend to his
improvement. In these various modes
a person may suffer very severe penalties
at the hands of others, for faults which
directly concern only himself; but he
suffers these penalties only insofar as they
are the natural, and, as it were, the
spontaneous, consequences of the faults
themselves, not because they are
purposely inflicted on him for the sake
of punishment. A person who shows
rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit—who
cannot live within moderate means—
who cannot, restrain himself from hurtful
indulgences — who pursues animal
pleasures at the expense of those of
feeling and intellect—must expect to be
lowered in the opinion of others, and to
have a less share of their favourable
sentiments; but of this he has no right
to complain, unless he has merited their
favour by special excellence in his social
relations, and has thus established a title
to their good offices, which is not
affected by his demerits towards himself.
What I contend for is that the incon
veniences which are strictly inseparable
from the unfavourable judgment of others
are the only ones to which a person
should ever be subjected for that portion
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL 63
of his conduct and character which
concerns his own good, but which does
not affect the interests of others in their
relations with him. Acts injurious to
others require a totally different treat
ment. Encroachment on their rights;
infliction on them of any loss or damage
not justified by his own rights; falsehood
or duplicity in dealing with them; unfair
or ungenerous use of advantages over
them: even selfish abstinence from
defending them against injury—these
are fit objects of moral reprobation,
and, in grave cases, of moral retribution
and punishment. And not only these
acts, but the dispositions which lead to
them, are properly immoral, and fit
subjects of disapprobation, which may
rise to abhorrence. Cruelty of dis
position ; malice and ill-nature; that
most anti-social and odious of all
passions, envy; dissimulation and in
sincerity; irascibility on insufficient cause,
and resentment disproportioned to the
provocation; the love of domineering
over others; the desire to engross more
than one’s share of advantages (the
TrXeove^ta of the Greeks); the pride
which derives gratification from the
abasement of others; the egotism which
thinks self and its concerns more impor
tant than everything else, and decides all
doubtful questions in its own favour—
these are moral vices, and constitute a
bad and odious moral character : unlike
the self-regarding faults previously men
tioned, which are not properly immorali
ties, and, to whatever pitch they may be
carried, do not constitute wickedness.
They may be proofs of any amount of
folly, or want of personal dignity and
self-respect; but they are only a subject
of moral reprobation when they involve
a breach of duty to others, for whose
sake the individual is bound to have care
for himself. What are called duties to
ourselves are not socially obligatory,
unless circumstances render them at
the same time duties to others. The
term duty to oneself, when it means
anything more than prudence, means
self-respect or self-development; and
for none of these is anyone accountable
to his fellow-creatures, because for none
of them is it for the good of mankind
that he be held accountable to them.
The distinction between the loss of
consideration which a person may
rightly incur by defect of prudence or
of personal dignity, and the reproba
tion which is due to him for an offence
against the rights of others, is not a
merely nominal distinction. It makes
a vast difference both in our feelings
and in our conduct towards him, whether
he displeases us in things in which we
think we have a right to control him or
in things in which we know that we have
not. If he displeases us, we may express
our distaste, and we may stand aloof
from a person as well as from a thing
that displeases us; but we shall not,
therefore, feel called on to make his life
uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he
already bears, or will bear, the whole
penalty of his error; if he spoils his life
by mismanagement, we shall not, for
that reason, desire to spoil it still further :
instead of wishing to punish him, we
shall rather endeavour to alleviate his
punishment, by showing him how he
may avoid or cure the evils his conduct
tends to bring upon him. He may be
to us an object of pity, perhaps of
dislike, but not of anger or resentment;
we shall not treat him like an enemy of
society: the worst we shall think our
selves justified in doing is leaving him to
himself, if we do not interfere benevo
lently by showing interest or concern for
a
�64
ON LIBERTY
him. It is far otherwise if he has in
fringed the rules necessary for the
protection of his fellow-creatures, in
dividually or collectively.
The evil
consequences of his acts do not then fall
on himself, but on others; and society,
as the protector of all its members, must
retaliate on him; must inflict pain on
him for the express purpose of punish
ment, and must take care that it be
sufficiently severe. In the one case, he
is an offender at our bar, and we are
called on not only to sit in judgment on
him, but, in one shape or another, to
execute our own sentence; in the other
case, it is not our part to inflict any
suffering on him, except what may inci
dentally follow from our using the same
liberty in the regulation of our own
affairs which we allow to him in his.
The distinction here pointed out
between the part of a person’s life which
concerns only himself and that which
concerns others many persons will
refuse to admit. How (it may be asked)
can any part of the conduct of a member
of society be a matter of indifference to
the other members? No person is an
entirely isolated being; it is impossible
for a person to do anything seriously
or permanently hurtful to himself, with
out mischief reaching at least to his near
connections, and often far beyond them.
If he injures his property, he does harm
to those who directly or indirectly
derived support from it, and usually
diminishes, by a greater or less amount,
the general resources of the community.
If he deteriorates his bodily or mental
faculties, he not only brings evil upon all
who depended on him for any portion
of their happiness, but disqualifies him
self for rendering the services which he
owes to his fellow-creatures generally;
perhaps becomes a burthen on their
affection or benevolence; and, if such Iddff
conduct were very frequent, hardly any Lrir
offence that is committed would detract'fiori
more from the general sum of good. |.b’w
Finally, if by his vices or follies a person Lhcra
does no direct harm to others, he is,
nevertheless (it may be said), injurious ;>ire
by his example—and ought to be com ■■mi
pelled to control himself, for the sake of . to'■:Lthose whom the sight or knowledge of ‘Id?
his conduct might corrupt or mislead.
And even (it will be added) if the
consequences of misconduct could be
confined to the vicious or thoughtless
individual, ought society to abandon to
their own guidance those who are mani
festly unfit for it ? If protection against
themselves is confessedly due to children
and persons under age, is not society
equally bound to afford it to persons of
mature years who are equally incapable
of self-government? If gambling, or
drunkenness, or incontinence, or idle
ness, or uncleanliness, are as injurious
to happiness, and as great a hindrance
to improvement, as many or most of the
acts prohibited by law, why (it may be
asked) should not law, so far as is con
sistent with practicability and social
convenience, endeavour to repress these
also? And as a supplement to the
unavoidable imperfections of law, ought
b
not opinion at least to organise a
powerful police against these vices, and
visit rigidly with social penalties those
who are known to practise them ? There
is no question here (it may be said) about
restricting individuality, or impeding the
trial of new and original experiments in
living. The only things it is sought to
prevent are things which have been tried
and condemned from the beginning of
the world until now; things which experi
ence has shown not to be useful or
suitable to any person’s individuality.
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL 65
There must be some length of time and
amount of experience after which a
moral or prudential truth may be
regarded as established; and it is merely
desired to prevent generation after
generation from falling over the same
precipice which has been fatal to their
predecessors.
I fully admit that the mischief which
a person does to himself may seriously
affect, both through their sympathies
and their interests, those nearly con
nected with him, and, in a minor degree,
society at large. When, by conduct of
this sort, a person is led to violate a
distinct and assignable obligation to
any other person or persons, the case
is taken out of the self-regarding class,
and becomes amenable to moral disap
probation in the proper sense of the
term. If, for example, a man, through
intemperance or extravagance, becomes
unable to pay his debts, or, having
undertaken the moral responsibility of a
family, becomes from the same cause
incapable of supporting or educating
them, he is deservedly reprobated, and
might be justly punished; but it is for
the breach of duty to his family or
creditors, not for the extravagance. If
the resources which ought to have been
devoted to them had been diverted
from them for the most prudent invest
ment, the moral culpability would have
been the same. George Barnwell
murdered his uncle to get money for
his mistress; but if he had done it to
set himself up in business, he would
equally have been hanged. Again, in
the frequent case of a man who causes
grief to his family by addiction to bad
habits, he deserves reproach for his
unkindness or ingratitude; but so he
may for cultivating habits not in them
selves vicious, if they are painful to
those with whom he passes his life, or
who from personal ties are dependent
on him for their comfort. Whoever fails
in the consideration generally due to the
interests and feelings of others, not
being compelled by some more impera
tive duty, or justified by allowable self
preference, is a subject of moral disap
probation for that failure, but not for the
cause of it, nor for the errors, merely
personal to himself, which may have
remotely led to it. In like manner,
when a person disables himself, by
conduct purely self-regarding, from the
performance of some definite duty
incumbent on him to the public, he is
guilty of a social offence. No person
ought to be punished simply for being
drunk; but a soldier or a policeman
should be punished for being drunk on
duty. Whenever, in short, there is a
definite damage, or a definite risk of
damage, either to an individual or to
the public, the case is taken out of the
province of liberty, and placed in that
of morality or law.
But with regard to the merely con
tingent, or, as it may be called, con
structive injury which a person causes
to society, by conduct which neither
violates any specific duty to the public
nor occasions perceptible hurt to any
assignable individual except himself,
the inconvenience is one which society
can afford to bear, for the sake of the
greater good of human freedom. If
grown persons are to be punished for
not taking proper care of themselves, I
would rather it were for their own sake,
than under pretence of preventing them
from impairing their capacity of render
ing to society benefits which society does
not pretend it has a right to exact. But
I cannot consent to argue the point as if
society had no means of bringing its
F
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ON LIBERTY
weaker members up to its ordinary
standard of rational conduct, except
waiting till they do something irrational,
and then punishing them, legally or
morally, for it. Society has had absolute
power over them during all the early
portion of their existence: it has had the
whole period of childhood and nonage
in which to try whether it could make
them capable of rational conduct in life.
The existing generation is master both of
the training and the entire circumstances
of the generation to come; it cannot
indeed make them perfectly wise and
good, because it is itself so lamentably
deficient in goodness and wisdom; and
its best efforts are not always, in individual
cases, its most successful ones; but it is
perfectly well able to make the rising
generation, as a whole, as good as, and a
little better than, itself. If society lets
any considerable number of its members
grow up mere children, incapable of
being acted on by rational consideration
of distant motives, society has itself to
blame for the consequences. Armed
not only with all the powers of education,
but with the ascendancy which the
authority of a received opinion always
exercises over the minds who are least
fitted to judge for themselves; and aided
by the natural penalties which cannot be
prevented from falling on those who incur
the distaste or the contempt of those who
know them ; let not society pretend that
it needs, besides all this, the power to
issue commands and enforce obedience
in the personal concerns of individuals,
in which, on all principles of justice and
policy, the decision Qught to rest with
those who are to abide the consequences.
Nor is there anything which tends more
to discredit and frustrate the better means
of influencing conduct than a resort to
the worse. If there be among those
whom it is attempted to coerce into
prudence or temperance any of the
material of which vigorous and inde
pendent characters are made, they will
infallibly rebel against the yoke. No
such person will ever feel that others
have a right to control him in his con
cerns, such as they have to prevent him
from injuring them in theirs; and it
easily comes to be considered a mark
of spirit and courage to fly in the face
of such usurped authority, and do with
ostentation the exact opposite of what it
enjoins; as in the fashion of grossness
which succeeded, in the time of Charles
II., to the fanatical moral intolerance of
the Puritans. With respect to what is
said of the necessity of protecting society
from the bad example set to others by
the vicious or the self-indulgent, it is
true that bad example may have a perni
cious effect, especially the example of
doing wrong to others with impunity to
the wrong-doer. But we are now speak
ing of conduct which, while it does no
wrong to others, is supposed to do great
harm to the agent himself; and I do
not see how those who believe this can
think otherwise than that the example,
on the whole, must be more salutary
than hurtful, since, if it displays the mis
conduct, it displays also the painful or
degrading consequences which, if the
conduct is justly censured, must be sup
posed to be in all or most cases attendant
on it.
But the strongest of all the arguments
against the interference of the public
with purely personal conduct is that,
when it does interfere, the odds are that
it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong
place. On questions of social morality, of
duty to others, the opinion of the public
—that is, of an overruling majority—•
though often wrong, is likely to be still
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL
oftener right; because on such questions
they are only required to judge of their
own interests ; of the manner in which
some mode of conduct, if allowed to be
practised, would affect themselves. But
the opinion of a similar majority, imposed
as a law on the minority, on questions of
self-regarding conduct, is quite as likely
to be wrong as right; for in these cases
public opinion means, at the best, some
people’s opinion of what is good or bad
for other people ; while very often it does
not even mean that; the public, with the
most perfect indifference, passing over
the pleasure or convenience of those
whose conduct they censure, and con
sidering only their own preference.
There are many who consider as an
injury to themselves any conduct which
they have a distaste for, and resent it as
an outrage to their feelings; as a religious
bigot, when charged with disregarding
the religious feelings of others, has been
known to retort that they disregard his
feelings, by persisting in their abominable
worship or creed. But there is no parity
between the feeling of a person for his
own opinion and the feeling of another
who is offended at his holding it; no
more than between the desire of a thief
to take a purse and the desire of the
right owner to keep it. And a person’s
taste is as much his own peculiar concern
as his opinion or his purse. It is easy
for anyone to imagine an ideal public,
which leaves the freedom and choice of
individuals in all uncertain matters
undisturbed, and only requires them to
abstain from modes of conduct which
universal experience has condemned.
But where has there been seen a public
which set any such limit to its censorship?
or when does the public trouble itself
about universal experience ? In its inter
ferences with personal conduct it is
67
seldom thinking of anything but the
enormity of acting or feeling differently
from itself; and this standard of judg
ment, thinly disguised, is held up to
mankind as the dictate of religion and
philosophy by nine-tenths of all moralists
and speculative writers. These teach
that things are right because they are
right; because we feel them to be so.
They tell us to search in our own minds
and hearts for laws of conduct binding
on ourselves and on all others. What
can the poor public do but apply these
instructions, and make their own personal
feelings of good and evil, if they are
tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory
on all the world ?
The evil here pointed out is not one
which exists only in theory; and it may,
perhaps, be expected that I should
specify the instances in which the public
of this age and country improperly
invests its own preferences with the
character of moral laws. I am not
writing an essay on the aberrations of
existing moral feeling. That is too
weighty a subject to be discussed paren
thetically, and by way of illustration.
Yet examples are necessary, to show that
the principle I maintain is of serious and
practical moment, and that I am not
endeavouring to erect a barrier against
imaginary evils. And it is not difficult
to show, by abundant instances, that to
extend the bounds of what may be called
moral police, until it encroaches on the
most unquestionably legitimate liberty
of the individual, is one of the most
universal of all human propensities.
As a first instance, consider the anti
pathies which men cherish on no better
grounds than that persons whose religious
opinions are different from theirs do not
practise their religious observances,
especially their religious abstinences. To
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ON LIBERTY
cite a rather trivial example, nothing in the
creed or practice of Christians does more
to envenom the hatred of Mohamme
dans against them than the fact of their
eating pork. There are few acts which
Christians and Europeans regard with
more unaffected disgust than Mussulmans
regard this particular mode of satisfying
hunger. It is, in the first place, an
offence against their religion; but this
circumstance by no means explains
either the degree or the kind of their
repugnance; for wine also is forbidden
by their religion, and to partake of it
is by all Mussulmans accounted wrong,
but not disgusting. Their aversion to
the flesh of the “ unclean beast ” is, on
the contrary, of that peculiar character
resembling an instinctive antipathy which
the idea of uncleanness, when once it
thoroughly sinks into the feelings, seems
always to excite even in those whose
personal habits are anything but scrupu
lously cleanly, and of which the senti
ment of religious impurity, so intense in
the Hindoos, is a remarkable example.
Suppose, now, that in a people of whom
the majority were Mussulmans, that
majority should insist upon not per
mitting pork to be eaten within the
limits of the country. This would be
nothing new in Mohammedan countries.1
Would it be a legitimate exercise of the
moral authority of public opinion? and
if not, why not ? The practice is really
1 The case of the Bombay Parsees is a curious
instance in point. When this industrious and
enterprising tribe, the descendants of the Persian
fire-worshippers, flying from their native country
before the Caliphs, arrived in Western India,
they were admitted to toleration by the Hindoo
sovereigns, on condition of not eating beef.
When those regions afterwards fell under the
dominion of Mohammedan conquerors, the Parsees
obtained from them a continuance of indulgence,
on condition of refraining from pork. What was
revolting to such a public. They also
sincerely think that it is forbidden and
abhorred by the Deity. Neither could
the prohibition be censured as religious
persecution. It might be religious in its
origin ; but it would not be persecution
for religion, since nobody’s religion makes
it a duty to eat pork. The only tenable
ground of condemnation would be that
with the personal tastes and self-regarding
concerns of individuals the public has
no business to interfere.
To come somewhat nearer home : the
majority of Spaniards consider it a gross
impiety, offensive in the highest degree
to the Supreme Being, to worship him
in any other manner than the Roman
Catholic; and no other public worship
is lawful on Spanish soil. The people of
all Southern Europe look upon a married
clergy as not only irreligious, but un
chaste, indecent, gross, disgusting. What
do Protestants think of these perfectly
sincere feelings, and of the attempt to
enforce them against non-Catholics ?
Yet, if mankind are justified in inter
fering with each other’s liberty in things
which do not concern the interests of
others, on what principle is it possible
consistently to exclude these cases? or
who can blame people for desiring to
suppress what they regard as a scandal
in the sight of God and man? No
stronger case can be shown for prohibit
ing anything which is regarded as a
personal immorality than is made out
for suppressing these practices in the
eyes of those who regard them as im
pieties ; and unless we are willing to
at first obedience to authority became a second
nature, and the Parsees to this day abstain both
from beef and pork. Though not required by
their religion, the double abstinence has had
time to grow into a custom of their tribe—and
custom in the East is a religion.
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL Gg
adopt the logic of persecutors, and to say
that we may persecute others because we
are right, and that they must not persecute
us because they are wrong, we must
beware of admitting a principle of which
we should resent as a gross injustice the
application to ourselves.
The preceding instances may be ob
jected to, although unreasonably, as
drawn from contingencies impossible
among us : opinion, in this country, not
being likely to enforce abstinence from
meats, or to interfere with people for
worshipping, and for either marrying or
not marrying, according to their creed or
inclination. The next example, however,
shall be taken from an interference with
liberty which we have by no means
passed all danger of. Wherever the
Puritans have been sufficiently powerful,
as in New England, and in Great Britain
at the time of the Commonwealth, they
have endeavoured, with considerable
success, to put down all public, and
nearly all private, amusements: especially
music, dancing, public games, or other
assemblages for purposes of diversion,
and the theatre. There are still in this
country large bodies of persons by whose
notions of morality and religion these
recreations are condemned; and those
persons belonging chiefly to the middle
class, who are the ascendant power in
the present social and political condition
of the kingdom, it is by no means im
possible that persons of these sentiments
may at some time or other command a
majority in Parliament. How will the
remaining portion of the community like
to have the amusements that shall be
permitted to them regulated by the reli
gious and moral sentiments of the stricter
Calvinists and Methodists? Would they
not, with considerable peremptoriness,
desire these intrusively pious members of
society to mind their own business ?
This is precisely what should be said to
every Government and every public who
have the pretension that no person shall
enjoy any pleasure which they think
wrong. But if the principle of the pre
tension be admitted, no one can reason
ably object to its being acted on in the
sense of the majority, or other prepon
derating power in the country; and all
persons must be ready to conform to the
idea of a Christian commonwealth, as
understood by the early settlers in New
England, if a religious profession similar
to theirs should ever succeed in regaining
its lost ground, as religions supposed to be
declining have so often been known to do.
To imagine another contingency, per
haps more likely to be realised than the
one last mentioned. There is confessedly
a strong tendency in the modern world
towards a democratic constitution of
society, accompanied or not by popular
political institutions. It is affirmed that
in the country where this tendency ismost completely realised—where both
society and the Government are most
democratic—the United States—the feel
ing of the majority, to whom any appear
ance of a more showy or costly style of
living than they can hope to rival is dis
agreeable, operates as a tolerably effectual
sumptuary law, and that in many parts
of the Union it is really difficult for a
person possessing a very large income
to find any mode of spending it which
will not incur popular disapprobation.
Though such statements as these are
doubtless much exaggerated as a repre
sentation of existing facts, the state of
things they describe is not only a con
ceivable and possible, but a probable,
result of democratic feeling, combined
with the notion that the public has a
right to a veto on the manner in which
�7°
ON LIBERTY
individuals shall spend their incomes.
We have only further to suppose a con
siderable diffusion of Socialist opinions,
and it may become infamous in the eyes
of the majority to possess more property
than some very small amount, or any
income not earned by manual labour.
Opinions similar in principle to these
already prevail widely among the artisan
class, and weigh oppressively on those
who are amenable to the opinion chiefly
of that class—namely, its own members.
It is known that the bad workmen, who
form the majority of the operatives in
many branches of industry, are decidedly
of opinion that bad workmen ought to
receive the same wages as good, and that
no one ought to be allowed, through
piecework or otherwise, to earn by supe
rior skill or industry more than others
■ can without it. And they employ a
moral police which occasionally becomes
. a physical one, to deter skilful workmen
from receiving, and employers from
giving, a larger remuneration for a more
useful service. If the public have any
jurisdiction over private concerns, I
cannot see that these people are in fault,
or that any individual’s particular public
can be blamed for asserting the same
authority over his individual conduct
which the general public asserts over
people in general.
But, without dwelling upon suppositi
tious cases, there are, in our own day,
gross usurpations upon the liberty of
private life actually practised, and still
greater ones threatened with some expec
tation of success, and opinions pro
pounded which assert an unlimited right
in the public not only to prohibit by law
everything which it thinks wrong, but, in
order to get at what it thinks wrong, to
prohibit a number of things which it
admits to be innocent.
Under the name of preventing in
temperance, the people of one English
colony, and of nearly half the United
States, have been interdicted by law from
making any use whatever of fermented
drinks, except for medical purposes : for
prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is
intended to be, prohibition of their use.
And though the impracticability of
executing the law has caused its repeal
in several of the States which had
adopted it, including the one from which
it derives its name, an attempt has not
withstanding been commenced, and is
prosecuted with considerable zeal by
many of the professed philanthropists, to
agitate for a similar law in this country.
The association, or “Alliance” as it
terms itself, which has been formed for
this purpose, has acquired some notoriety
through the publicity given to a corres
pondence between its secretary and one
of the very few English public men who
hold that a politician’s opinions ought to
be founded on principles. Lord Stanley’s
share in this correspondence is cal
culated to strengthen the hopes already
built on him by those who know how
rare such qualities as are manifested in
some of his public appearances un
happily are among those who figure in
political life. The organ of the Alliance,
who would “ deeply deplore the recog
nition of any principle which could be
wrested to justify bigotry and persecu
tion,” undertakes to point out the “broad
and impassable barrier ” which divides
such principles from those of the associa
tion. “All matters relating to thought,
opinion, conscience, appear to me,” he
says, “to be without the sphere of legis
lation ; all pertaining to social act, habit,
relation, subject only to a discretionary
power vested in the State itself, and not
in the individual, to be within it.” No
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL 71
mention is made of a third class, different
from either of these—viz., acts and habits
which are not social, but individual;
although it is to this class, surely, that
the act of drinking fermented liquors
belongs.
Selling fermented liquors,
however, is trading, and trading is a
social act. But the infringement com
plained of is not on the liberty of the
seller, but on that of the buyer and
consumer; since the State might just
as well forbid him to drink wine as
purposely make it impossible for him
to obtain it. The secretary, however,
says : “ I claim, as a citizen, a right to
legislate whenever my social rights are
invaded by the social act of another.”
And now for the definition of these
“ social rights.” “ If anything invades
my social rights, certainly the traffic
in strong drink does. It destroys my
primary right of security, by constantly
creating and stimulating social disorder.
It invades my right of equality, by
deriving a profit from the creation of a
misery I am taxed to support. It
impedes my right to free moral and
intellectual development, by surrounding
my path with dangers, and by weakening
and demoralising society, from which I
have a right to claim mutual aid and
intercourse.” A theory of ‘‘ social rights ”
the like of which probably never before
found its way into distinct language:
being nothing short of this—that it is
the absolute social right of every indi
vidual that every other individual shall
act in every respect exactly as he ought;
that, whosoever fails thereof in the
smallest particular, violates my social
right, and entitles me to demand from
the legislature the removal of the griev
ance. So monstrous a principle is far
more dangerous than any single inter
ference with liberty; there is no violation
of liberty which it would not justify ;
it acknowledges no right to any freedom
whatever, except perhaps to that of
holding opinions in secret, without ever
disclosing them: for, the moment an
opinion which I consider noxious passes
anyone’s lips, it invades all the “social
rights ” attributed to me by the Alliance.
The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a
vested interest in each other’s moral,
intellectual, and even physical perfection,
to be defined by each claimant according
to his own standard.
Another important example of ille
gitimate interference with the rightful
liberty of the individual, not simply
threatened, but long since carried into
triumphant effect, is Sabbatarian legisla
tion. Without doubt, abstinence on
one day in the week, so far as the
exigencies of life permit, from the usual
daily occupation, though in no respect
religiously binding on any except Jews,
is a highly beneficial custom. And
inasmuch as this custom cannot be ob
served without a general consent to that
effect among the industrious classes,
therefore, in so far as some persons by
working may impose the same neces
sity on others, it may be allowable and
right that the law should guarantee to
each the observance by others of the
custom, by suspending the greater opera
tions of industry on a particular day.
But this justification, grounded on the
direct interest which others have in each
individual’s observance of the practice,
does not apply to the self-chosen occupa
tions in which a person may think fit to
employ his leisure; nor does it hold good
in the smallest degree for legal restric
tions on amusements. It is true that the
amusement of some is the day’s work of
others; but the pleasure, not to say the
useful recreation, of many is worth the
�72
ON LIBERTY
labour of a few, provided the occupa
tion is freely chosen and can be freely
resigned. The operatives are perfectly
right in thinking that, if all worked on
Sunday, seven days’ work would have to
be given for six days’ wages; but so long
as the great mass of employments are
suspended, the small number who for the
enjoyment of others must still work obtain
a proportional increase of earnings; and
they are not obliged to follow those
occupations if they prefer leisure to
emolument.
If a further remedy is
sought, it might be found in the estab
lishment by custom of a holiday on
some other day of the week for those
particular classes of persons. The only
ground, therefore, on which restrictions
on Sunday amusements can be defended
must be that they are religiously wrong—
a motive of legislation which can never be
too earnestly protested against. Deorum
injuria Diis cura. It remains to be
proved that society or any of its officers
holds a commission from on high to
avenge any supposed offence to Omni
potence which is not also a wrong to
our fellow-creatures. The notion that it
is one man’s duty that another should
be religious was the foundation of all
the religious persecutions ever perpe
trated, and, if admitted, would fully
justify them. Though the feeling which
breaks out in the repeated attempts to
stop railway travelling on Sunday, in the
resistance to the opening of museums,
and the like, has not the cruelty of the
old persecutors, the state of mind indi
cated by it is fundamentally the same.
It is a determination not to tolerate
others in doing what is permitted by
their religion, because it is not permitted
by the persecutor’s religion. It is a
belief that God not only abominates
the act of the misbeliever, but will
not hold us guiltless if we leave him
unmolested.
I cannot refrain from adding to these
examples of the little account commonly
made of human liberty the language of
downright persecution which breaks out
from the press of this country whenever
it feels called on to notice the remarkable
phenomenon of Mormonism. Much
might be said on the unexpected and
instructive fact that an alleged new
revelation, and a religion founded on it,
the product of palpable imposture, not
even supported by the prestige of extra
ordinary qualities in its founder, is be
lieved by hundreds of thousands, and has
been made the foundation of a society,
in the age of newspapers, railways, and
the electric telegraph. What here con
cerns us is that this religion, like other
and better religions, has its martyrs; that
its prophet and founder was for his
teaching put to death by a mob; that
others of its adherents lost their lives by
the same lawless violence; that they
were forcibly expelled in a body from
the country in which they first grew up ;
while, now that they have been chased
into a solitary recess in the midst of a
desert, many in this country openly
declare that it would be right (only that
it is not convenient) to send an expedi
tion against them, and compel them by
force to conform to the opinions of other
people. The article of the Mormonite
doctrine which is the chief provocative
to the antipathy which thus breaks
through the ordinary restraints of reli
gious tolerance is its sanction of poly
gamy; which, though permitted to
Mohammedans, and Hindoos, and
Chinese, seems to excite unquenchable
animosity when practised by persons
who speak English, and profess to be
a kind of Christians. No one has a
�OF LIMITS TO AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL 73
deeper disapprobation than I have of
this Mormon institution; both for other
reasons and because, far-from being in
any way countenanced by the principle
of liberty, it is a direct infraction of
that principle, being a mere riveting
of the chains of one half of the com
munity, and an emancipation of the
other from reciprocity of obligation
towards them. Still, it must be
remembered that this relation is as
much voluntary on the part of the
women concerned in it, and who may be
deemed the sufferers by it, as is the
case with any other form of the marriage
institution; and, however surprising this
fact may appear, it has its explanation
in the common ideas and customs of
the world, which, teaching women to
think marriage the one thing needful,
make it intelligible that many a woman
should prefer being one of several wives
to not being a wife at all. Other
countries are not asked to recognise
such unions, or release any portion of
their inhabitants from their own laws
on the score of Mormonite opinions.
But when the dissentients have con
ceded to the hostile sentiments of others
far more than could justly be demanded ;
when they have left the countries to
which their doctrines were unacceptable,
and established themselves in a remote
corner of the earth which they have
been the first to render habitable to
human beings; it is difficult to see on
what principles but those of tyranny
they can be prevented from living
there under what laws they please,
provided they commit no aggression
on other nations, and allow perfect
freedom of departure to those who are
dissatisfied with their ways. A recent
writer, in some respects of considerable
merit, proposes (to use his own words)
not a crusade, but a civilisade, against
this polygamous community, to put an
end to what seems to him a retrograde
step in civilisation. It also appears so
to me, but I am not aware that any
community has a right to force another
to be civilised. So long as the sufferers
by the bad law do not invoke assistance
from other communities, I cannot admit
that persons entirely unconnected with
them ought to step in and require that
a condition of things with which all who
are directly interested appear to be satis
fied should be put an end to because it
is a scandal to persons some thousands
of miles distant, who have no part or
concern in it. Let them send mission
aries, if they please, to preach against it;
and let them, by any fair means (of
which silencing the teachers is not one),
oppose the progress of similar doctrines
among their own people. If civilisation
has got the better of barbarism when
barbarism had the world to itself, it is
too much to profess to be afraid lest
barbarism, after having been fairly got
under, should revive and conquer civili
sation. A civilisation that can thus
succumb to its vanquished enemy must
first have become so degenerate that
neither its appointed priests and teachers
nor anybody else has the capacity, or
will take the trouble, to stand up for it.
If this be so, the sooner such a civilisa
tion receives notice to quit the better.
It can only go on from bad to worse,
until destroyed and regenerated (like
the Western Empire) by energetic bar
barians.
�74
ON LIBERTY
Chapter V.
APPLICATIONS
The principles asserted in these pages
must be more generally admitted as the
basis for discussion of details, before a
consistent application of them to all the
various departments of government and
morals can be attempted with any pros
pect of advantage. The few observations
I propose to make on questions of detail
are designed to illustrate the principles,
rather than to follow them out to their
consequences. I offer, not so much
applications, as specimens of application;
which may serve to bring into greater
clearness the meaning and limits of the
two maxims which together form the
entire doctrine of this Essay, and to
assist the judgment in holding the
balance between them, in the cases
where it appears doubtful which of them
is applicable to the case.
The maxims are, first, that the indi
vidual is not accountable to society for
his actions, in so far as these concern
the interests of no person but himself.
Advice, instruction, persuasion, and
avoidance by other people, if thought
necessary by them for their own good,
are the only measures by which society
can justifiably express its dislike or dis
approbation of his conduct. Secondly,
that, for such actions as are prejudicial to
the interests of others, the individual is
accountable, and may be subjected either
to social or to legal punishment, if society
is of opinion that the one or the other is
requisite for its protection.
In the first place, it must by no means
be supposed, because damage, or proba
bility of damage, to the interests of others
can alone justify the interference of
society, that therefore it always does
justify such interference. In many cases
an individual, in pursuing a legitimate
object, necessarily, and therefore legiti
mately, causes pain or loss to others, or
intercepts a good which they had a
reasonable hope of obtaining. Such oppo
sitions of interest between individuals
often arise from bad social institutions,
but are unavoidable while those institu
tions last; and some would be unavoid
able under any institutions. Whoever
succeeds in an overcrowded profession,
or in a competitive examination; whoever
is preferred to another in any contest for
an object which both desire, reaps benefit
from the loss of others, from their wasted
exertion and their disappointment. But
it is, by common admission, better for the
general interest of mankind that persons
should pursue their objects undeterred
by this sort of consequences. In other
words, society admits no right, either
legal or moral, in the disappointed com
petitors, to immunity from this kind of
suffering; and feels called on to interfere
only when means of success have been
employed which it is contrary to the
general interest to permit—namely, fraud
or treachery, and force.
Again, trade is a social act. Whoever
undertakes to sell any description of
goods to the public does what affects
the interest of other persons, and of
society in general; and thus his conduct,
in principle, comes within the jurisdiction
�APPLICATIONS
of society : accordingly, it was once held
to be the duty of governments, in all cases
which were considered of importance, to
fix prices and regulate the processes of
manufacture. But it is now recognised,
though not till after a long struggle, that
both the cheapness and the good quality
of commodities are most effectually pro
vided for by leaving the producers and
sellers perfectly free, under the sole check
of equal freedom to the buyers for sup
plying themselves elsewhere. This is the
so-called doctrine of Free Trade, which
rests on grounds different from, though
equally solid with, the principle of indi
vidual liberty asserted in this Essay.
Restrictions on trade, or on production
for purposes of trade, are indeed re
straints ; and all restraint, qua restraint,
is an evil: but the restraints in question
affect only that part of conduct which
society is competent to restrain, and are
wrong solely because they do not really
produce the results which it is desired to,
produce by them. As the principle of
individual liberty is not involved in the
doctrine of Free Trade, so neither is it in
most of the questions which arise respect
ing the limits of that doctrine; as, for
example, what amount of public control
is admissible for the prevention of fraud
by adulteration; how far sanitary pre
cautions, or arrangements to protect
workpeople employed in dangerous occu
pations, should be enforced on employers.
Such questions involve considerations of
liberty, only in so far as leaving people to
themselves is always better, caterisparibus,
than controlling them; but that they
may be legitimately controlled for these
ends is in principle undeniable. On the
other hand, there are questions relating
to interference with trade which are
essentially questions of liberty ; such as
the Maine Law, already touched upon ;
75
the prohibition of the importation of
opium into China; the restriction of the
sale of poisons ; all cases, in short, where
the object of the interference is to make
it impossible or difficult to obtain a
particular commodity. These interfer
ences are objectionable, not as infringe
ments on the liberty of the producer or
seller, but on that of the buyer.
One of these examples, that of the
sale of poisons, opens a new question;
the proper limits of what may be called
the functions of police ; how far liberty
may legitimately be invaded for the
prevention of crime, or of accident. It
is one of the undisputed functions of
government to take precautions against
crime before it has been committed, as
well as to detect and punish it afterwards.
The preventive function of government,.
however, is far more liable to be abused,
to the prejudice of liberty, than the
punitory function; for there is hardly
any part of the legitimate freedom of
action of a human being which would
not admit of being represented, and
fairly too, as increasing the facilities
for some form or other of delinquency.
Nevertheless, if a public authority, or
even a private person, sees anyone
evidently preparing to commit a crime,
they are not bound to look on inactive
until the crime is committed, but may
interfere to prevent it. If poisons were
never bought or used for any purpose
except the commission of murder, it would
be right to prohibit their manufacture and
sale. They may, however, be wanted
not only for innocent but for useful
purposes, and restrictions cannot be
imposed in the one case without operat
ing in the other. Again, it is a proper
office of public authority to guard against
accidents. If either a public officer or
any one else saw a person attempting to
�76
ON LIBERTY
cross a bridge which had been ascertained
to be unsafe, and there were no time to
warn him of his danger, they might seize
him and turn him back, without any real
infringement of his liberty; for liberty
consists in doing what one desires, and
he does not desire to fall into the river.
Nevertheless, when there is not a cer
tainty, but only a danger of mischief, no
one but the person himself can judge of
the sufficiency of the motive which may
prompt him to incur the risk: in this
case, therefore (unless he is a child, or
delirious, or in some state of excitement
or absorption incompatible with the full
use of the reflecting faculty), he ought,
.1 conceive, to be only warned of the
danger, not forcibly prevented from
exposing himself to it. Similar con
siderations, applied to such a question
as the sale of poisons, may enable us to
decide which among the possible modes
of regulation are or are not contrary to
principle. Such a precaution, for ex
ample, as that of labelling the drug with
some word expressive of its dangerous
character may be enforced without
violation of liberty: the buyer cannot
wish not to know that the thing he
possesses has poisonous qualities. But
to require in all cases the certificate of
a medical practitioner would make it
sometimes impossible, always expensive,
to obtain the article for legitimate uses.
The only mode apparent to me, in which
difficulties may be thrown in the way
of crime committed through this means,
without any infringement, worth taking
into account, upon the liberty of those
who desire the poisonous substance for
other purposes, consists in providing
what, in the apt language of Bentham,
is called “preappointed evidence.” This
provision is familiar to every one in
the case of contracts. It is usual and i
right that the law, when a contract is
entered into, should require, as the con
dition of its enforcing performance, that
certain formalities should be observed,
such as signatures, attestation of wit
nesses, and the like, in order that in case
of subsequent dispute there may be evi
dence to prove that the contract was really
entered into, and that there was nothing
in the circumstances to render it legally
invalid : the effect being to throw great
obstacles in the way of fictitious con
tracts, or contracts made in circumstances
which, if known, would destroy their
validity. Precautions of a similar nature
might be enforced in the sale of articles
adapted to be instruments of crime. The
seller, for example, might be required to
enter in a register the exact time of the
transaction, the name and address of the
buyer, the precise quality and quantity
sold; to ask the purpose for which it
was wanted, and record the answer he
received. When there was no medical
prescription, the presence of some third
persoh might be required, to bring home
the fact to the purchaser, in case there
should afterwards be reason to believe
that the article had been applied to
criminal purposes. Such regulations
would in general be no material impedi
ment to obtaining the article, but a very
considerable one to making an improper
use of it without detection.
The right inherent in society, to ward
off crimes against itself by antecedent
precautions, suggests the obvious limita
tions to the maxim, that purely self
regarding misconduct cannot properly
be meddled with in the way of preven
tion or punishment. Drunkenness, for
example, in ordinary cases is not a fit
subject for legislative interference; but I
should deem it perfectly legitimate that
a person who had once been convicted
�APPLICA PIONS
of any act of violence to others under
the influence of drink should be placed
under a special legal restriction, personal
to himself; that, if he were afterwards
found drunk, he should be liable to a
penalty, and that, if when in that state he
committed another offence, the punish
ment to which he would be liable for
that other offence should be increased in
severity. The making himself drunk, in
a person whom drunkenness excites to
do harm to others, is a crime against
others. So, again, idleness, except in a
person receiving support from the public,
or except when it constitutes a breach
of contract, cannot without tyranny be
made a subject of legal punishment; but
if, either from idleness or from any other
avoidable cause, a man fails to perform
his legal duties to others, as, for instance,
to support his children, it is no tyranny
to force him to fulfil that obligation by
compulsory labour if no other means are
available.
Again, there are many acts which,
being directly injurious only to the agents
themselves, ought not to be legally inter
dicted, but which, if done publicly, are a
violation of good manners, and, coming
thus within the category of . offences
against others, may rightly be prohibited.
Of this kind are offences against decency;
on which it is unnecessary to dwell, the
rather as they are only connected
indirectly with our subject, the objection
to publicity being equally strong in the
case of many actions not in themselves
condemnable, nor supposed to be so.
There is another question to which an
answer must be found, consistent with
the principles which have been laid down.
In cases of personal conduct supposed
to be blameable, but which respect for
liberty precludes society from preventing
or punishing, because the evil directly '
77
resulting falls wholly on the agent; what
the agent is free to do, ought other
persons to be equally free to counsel or
instigate ? This question is not free
from difficulty. The case of a person
who solicits another to do an act is not
strictly a case of self-regarding conduct.
To give advice or offer inducements to
anyone is a social act, and may, therefore,
like actions in general which affect others,
be supposed amenable to social control.
But a little reflection corrects the first
impression, by showing that, if the case
is not strictly within the definition of
individual liberty, yet the reasons on
which the principle of individual liberty
is grounded are applicable to it. If
people must be allowed, in whatever
concerns only themselves, to act as
seems best to themselves, at their own
peril, they must equally be free to con
sult with one another about what is fit
to be so done; to exchange opinions,
and give and receive suggestions. What
ever it is permitted to do, it must be
permitted to advise to do. The question
is doubtful only when the instigator
derives a personal benefit from his
advice; when he makes it his occupation,
for subsistence or pecuniary gain, to
promote what society and the State con
sider to be an evil. Then, indeed, a
new element of complication is intro
duced ; namely, the existence of classes
of persons with an interest opposed to
what is considered as the public weal,
and whose mode of living is grounded
on the counteraction of it. Ought this
to be interfered with, or not ? Fornica
tion, for example, must be tolerated, and
so must gambling; but should a person
be free to be a pimp, or to keep a
gambling-house ? The case is one of
those which lie on the exact boundary
line between two principles, and it is not
�78
ON LIBERTY
at once apparent to which of the two it
properly belongs. There are arguments
on both sides. On the side of toleration
it may be said that the fact of following
anything as an occupation, and living or
profiting by the practice of it, cannot
make that criminal which would other
wise be admissible; that the act should
•either be consistently permitted or con
sistently prohibited; that, if the principles
■which we have hitherto defended are
true, society has no business, as society,
to decide anything to be wrong which
concerns only the individual; that it
cannot go beyond dissuasion, and that
one person should be as free to persuade
as another to dissuade. In opposition
to this it may be contended that, although
the public, or the State, are not warranted
in authoritatively deciding, for purposes
of repression or punishment, that such
•or such conduct affecting only the in
terests of the individual is good or bad,
they are fully justified in assuming, if
they regard it as bad, that its being so
or not is at least a disputable question :
That, this being supposed, they cannot
be acting wrongly in endeavouring to
exclude the influence of solicitations
which are not disinterested, of instigators
who cannot possibly be impartial—who
have a direct personal interest on one
side, and that side the one which
the State believes to be wrong, and
who confessedly promote it for personal
objects only. There can surely, it may
be urged, be nothing lost, no sacrifice of
good, by so ordering matters that persons
shall make their election, either wisely
or foolishly, on their own prompting, as
free as possible from the arts of persons
who stimulate their inclinations for inte
rested purposes of their own. Thus (it
may be said), though the statutes respect
ing unlawful games are utterly indefen
sible—though all persons should be free
to gamble in their own or each other’s
houses, or in any place of meeting
established by their own subscriptions,
and open only to the members and their
visitors — yet public gambling-houses
should not be permitted. It is true that
the prohibition is never effectual, and
that, whatever amount of tyrannical
power may be given to the police,
gambling-houses can always be main
tained under other pretences ; but they
may be compelled to conduct their
operations with a certain degree of
secrecy and mystery, so that nobody
knows anything about them but those
who seek them; and more than this
society ought not to aim at. There is
considerable force in these arguments.
I will not venture to decide whether
they are sufficient to justify the moral
anomaly of punishing the accessory,
when the principal is (and must be)
allowed to go free; of fining or imprison
ing the procurer, but not the fornicator
—the gambling-house keeper, but not
the gambler. Still less ought the
common operations of buying and selling
to be interfered with on analogous
grounds. Almost every article which is
bought and sold may be used in excess,
and the sellers have a pecuniary interest
in encouraging that excess ; but no argu
ment can be founded on this, in favour,
for instance, of the Maine Law ; because
the class of dealers in strong drinks,
though interested in their abuse, are
indispensably required for the sake of
their legitimate use. The interest, how
ever, of these dealers in promoting
intemperance is a real evil, and justifies
the State in imposing restrictions and
requiring guarantees which, but for that
justification, would be infringements of
legitimate liberty.
�APPLICA TIONS
A further question is, whether the
State, while it permits, should neverthe
less indirectly discourage conduct which
it deems contrary to the best interests of
the agent; whether, for example, it
should take measures to render the
means of drunkenness more costly, or
add to the difficulty of procuring them
by limiting the number of the places of
sale. On this, as on most other practical
questions, many distinctions require to
be made. To tax stimulants for the sole
purpose of making them more difficult
to be obtained is a measure differing
only in degree from their entire prohi
bition, and would be justifiable only if
that were justifiable. Every increase of
cost is a prohibition to those whose
means do not come up to the augmented
price; and to those who do, it is a
penalty laid on them for gratifying a
particular taste. Their choice of plea
sures, and their mode of expending their
income, after satisfying their legal and
moral obligations to the State and to
individuals, are their own concern, and
must rest with their own judgment.
These considerations may seem at first
sight to condemn the selection of
stimulants as special subjects of taxation
for purposes of revenue. But it must
be remembered that taxation for fiscal
purposes is absolutely inevitable; that
in most countries it is necessary that a
considerable part of. that taxation should
be indirect; that the State, therefore,
cannot help imposing penalties, which
to some persons may be prohibitory, on
the use of some articles of consumption.
It is hence the duty of the State to con
sider, in the imposition of taxes, what
commodities the consumers can best
spare; and, b fortiori, to select in
preference those of which it deems the
use, beyond a very moderate quantity,
79
to be positively injurious. Taxation,
therefore, of stimulants, up to the point
which produces the largest amount of
revenue (supposing that the State needs
all the revenue which it yields), is not
only admissible, but to be approved of.
The question of making the sale of
these commodities a more or less exclusive
privilege must be answered differently
according to the purposes to which the
restriction is intended to be subservient.
All places of public resort require the
restraint of a police, and places of this
kind peculiarly, because offences against
society are especially apt to originate
there. It is, therefore, fit to confine the
power of selling these commodities (at
least, for consumption on the spot) to
persons of known or vouched-for respect
ability of conduct; to make such regula
tions respecting hours of opening and
closing as may be requisite for public
surveillance, and to withdraw the licence
if breaches of the peace repeatedly take
place through the connivance or inca
pacity of the keeper of the house, or if
it becomes a rendezvous for concocting
and preparing offences against the law.
Any further restriction I do not conceive
to be, in principle, justifiable. The
limitation in number, for instance, of
beer and spirit houses, for the express
purpose of rendering them more difficult
of access, and diminishing the occasions
of temptation, not only exposes all to an
inconvenience because there are some
by whom the facility would be abused,
but is suited only to a state of society in
which the labouring classes are avowedly
treated as children or savages, and placed
under an education of restraint, to fit
them for future admission to the privi
leges of freedom. This is not the
principle on which the labouring classes
are professedly governed in any free
�8o
ON LIBERTY
country; and no person who sets due
value on freedom will give his adhesion
to their being so governed, unless after
all efforts have been exhausted to educate
them for freedom and govern them as
freemen, and it has been definitively
proved that they can only be governed
as children. The bare statement of the
alternative shows the absurdity of sup
posing that such efforts have been made
in each case which needs be considered
here. It is only because the institutions
of this country are a mass of inconsis
tencies that things find admittance into
our practice which belong to the system
of despotic, or what is called paternal,
government, while the general freedom
of our institutions precludes the exercise
of the amount of control necessary to
render the restraint of any real efficacy
as a moral education.
It was pointed out in an early part of
this Essay that the liberty of the indi
vidual, in things wherein the individual
is alone concerned, implies a correspond
ing liberty in any number of individuals
to regulate by mutual agreement such
things as regard them jointly, and regard
no persons but themselves. This ques
tion permits no difficulty, so long as the
will of all the persons implicated remains
unaltered; but, since that will may
change, it is often necessary, even in
things in which they alone are concerned,
that they should enter into engagements
with one another; and, when they do, it
is fit, as a general rule, that those engage
ments should be kept. Yet, in the laws,
probably of every country, this general
rule has some exceptions. Not only
persons are not held to engagements
which violate the rights of third parties,
but it is sometimes considered a sufficient
reason for releasing them from an engage
ment that it is injurious to themselves.
In this and most other civilised countries,
for example, an engagement by which a
person should sell himself, or allow him
self to be sold, as a slave, would be null
and void—neither enforced by law nor
by opinion. The ground for thus limit
ing his power of voluntarily disposing of
his own lot in life is apparent, and is
very clearly seen in this extreme case.
The reason for not interfering, unless for
the sake of others, with a person’s volun
tary acts is consideration for his liberty.
His voluntary choice is evidence that
what he so chooses is desirable, or at the
least endurable, to him, and his good is
on the whole best provided for by allow
ing him to take his own means of pur
suing it. But by selling himself for a
slave he abdicates his liberty; he fore
goes any future use of it beyond that
single act. He therefore defeats, in his
own case, the very purpose which is the
justification of allowing him to dispose
of himself. He is no longer free, but is
thenceforth in a position which has no
longer the presumption in its favour
that would be afforded by his voluntarily
remaining in it. The principle of free
dom cannot require that he should be
free not to be free. It is not freedom
to be allowed to alienate his freedom.
These reasons, the force of which is so
conspicuous in this peculiar case, are
evidently of far wider application; yet a
limit is everywhere set to them by the
necessities of life, which continually
require, not indeed that we should resign
our freedom, but that wye should consent
to this and the other limitation of it.
The principle, how’ever, which demands
uncontrolled freedom of action in all
that concerns only the agents themselves,
requires that those who have become
bound to one another, in things which
concern no third party, should be able
�APPLICATIONS
to release one another from the engage
ment ; and even without such voluntary
release there are, perhaps, no contracts
or engagements, except those that relate
to money or money’s worth, of which
one can venture to say that there ought
to be no liberty whatever of retractation.
Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in the
excellent essay from which I have already
quoted, states it as his conviction that
engagements which involve personal re
lations or services should never be
legally binding beyond a limited duration
of time; and that the most important of
these engagements, marriage, having the
peculiarity that its objects are frustrated
unless the feelings of both the parties
are in harmony with it, should require
nothing more than the declared will of
either party to dissolve it. This subject
is too important and too complicated to
be discussed in a parenthesis, and I touch
on it only so far as is necessary for pur
poses of illustration. If the conciseness
and generality of Baron Humboldt’s dis
sertation had not obliged him, in this
instance, to content himself with enun
ciating his conclusion without discussing
the premises, he would doubtless have
recognised that the question cannot be
decided on grounds so simple as those
to which he confines himself. When a
person, either by express promise or by
conduct, has encouraged another to rely
upon his continuing to act in a certain way
—to build expectations and calculations,
and stake any part of his plan of life upon
that supposition—a new series of moral
obligations arises on his part towards
that person, which may possibly be over
ruled, but cannot be ignored. And
again, if the relation between two con
tracting parties has been followed by
consequences to others ; if it has placed
third parties in any peculiar position, or,
81
as in the case of marriage, has even
called third parties into existence, obli
gations arise on the part of both the
contracting parties towards those third
persons, the fulfilment of which, or at
all events the mode of fulfilment, must
be greatly affected by the continuance
or disruption of the relation between
the original parties to the contract. It
does not follow, nor can I admit, that
these obligations extend to requiring the
fulfilment of the contract at all costs
to the happiness of the reluctant party;
but they are a necessary element in the
question; and even if, as Von Humboldt
maintains, they ought to make no dif
ference in the legal freedom of the
parties to release themselves from the
engagement (and I also hold that they
ought not to make much difference),
they necessarily make a great difference
in the moral freedom. A person is
bound to take all these circumstances
I into account before resolving on a step
which may affect such important inte
rests of others; and if he does not allow
proper weight to those interests, he is
morally responsible for the wrong. I
have made these obvious remarks for
the better illustration of the general
principle of liberty, and not because
they are at all needed on the particular
question, which, on the contrary, is
usually discussed as if the interest of
children was everything, and that of
grown persons nothing.
I have already observed that, owing to
the absence of any recognised general
principles, liberty is often granted where
it should be withheld, as well as withheld
where it should be granted ; and one of
the cases in which, in the modern Euro
pean world, the sentiment of liberty is
the strongest, is a case where, in my view,
it is altogether misplaced. A person
G
�82
ON LIBERTY
should be free to do as he likes in his
own concerns; but he ought not to be
free to do as he likes in acting for
another, under the pretext that the affairs
of the other are his own affairs. The
State, while it respects the liberty of each
in what specially regards^imself, is bound
to maintain a vigilant control over his
exercise of any power which it allows him
to possess over others. This obligation
is almost entirely disregarded in the case
of the family relations—a case, in its
direct influence on human happiness,
more important than all others taken
together. The almost despotic power of
husbands over wives needs not be
enlarged upon here, because nothing
more is needed for the complete removal
of the evil than that wives should have
the same rights, and should receive the
protection of the law in the same manner,
as all other persons; and because, on this
subject, the defenders of established in
justice do not avail themselves of the
plea of liberty, but stand forth openly as
the champions of power. It is in the
case of children that misapplied notions
of liberty are a real obstacle to the fulfil
ment by the State of its duties. One
would almost think that a man’s children
were supposed to be literally, and not
metaphorically, a part of himself, so
jealous is opinion of the smallest inter
ference of law with his absolute and
exclusive controlover them—morejealous
than of almost any interference with his
own freedom of action : so much less do
the generality of mankind value liberty
than power. Consider, for example, the
case of education. Is it not almost a
self-evident axiom that the State should
require and compel the education, up to
a certain standard, of every human being
who is born its citizen? Yet who is
there that is not afraid to recognise
and assert this truth ? Hardly anyone,
indeed, will deny that it is one of the
most sacred duties of the parents (or, as
law and usage now stand, the father),
after summoning a human being into the
world, to give to that being an education
fitting him to perform his part well in life
towards others and towards himself. But
while this is unanimously declared to be
the father’s duty, scarcely anybody, in
this country, will bear to hear of obliging
him to perform it. Instead of his being
required to make any exertion or sacri
fice for securing education to his child, it
is left to his choice to accept it or not
when it is provided gratis 1 It still
remains unrecognised that to bring a
child into existence without a fair pros
pect of being able, not only to provide
food for its body, but instruction and
training for its mind, is a moral crime,
both against the unfortunate offspring
and against society; and that, if the
parent does not fulfil this obligation, the
State ought to see it fulfilled, at the
charge, as far as possible, of the parent.
Were the duty of enforcing universal
education once admitted, there would be
an end to the difficulties about what the
State should teach, and how it should
teach, which now convert the subject
into a mere battle-field for sects and
parties, causing the time and labour
which should have been spent in educat
ing to be wasted in quarrelling about
education. If the Government would
make up its mind to require for every
child a good education, it might save
itself the trouble of providing one. It
might leave to parents to obtain the
education where and how they pleased,
and content itself with helping to pay
the school fees of the poorer classes of
children, and defraying the entire school
expenses of those who have no one else
�APPLICA TIONS
to pay for them. The objections which
arc urged with reason against State edu
cation do not apply to the enforcement
of education by the State, but to the
State’s taking upon itself to direct that
education: which is a totally different
thing. That the whole or any large part
of the education of the people should be
in State hands I go as far as any one in
deprecating. All that has been said of
the importance of individuality of cha
racter, and diversity in opinions and
modes of conduct, involves, as of the
same unspeakable importance, diversity
of education. A general State education
is a mere contrivance for moulding people
to be exactly like one another; and as
the mould in which it casts them is 'that
which pleases the predominant power
in the Government, whether this be a
monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy,
or the majority of the existing generation:
in proportion as it is efficient and success
ful, it establishes a despotism over the
mind, leading by natural tendency to
one over the body. An education estab
lished and controlled by the State should
only exist, if it exist at all, as one among
many competing experiments, carried on
for the purpose of example and stimulus,
to keep the others up to a certain
standard of excellence. Unless, indeed,
when society in general is in so backward
a state that it could not or would not
provide for itself any proper institutions
of education, unless the Government
undertook the task: then, indeed, the
Government may, as the less of two great
evils, take upon itself the business of
schools and universities, as it may that
of joint-stock companies, when private
enterprise, in a shape fitted for under
taking great works of industry, does not
exist in the country. But in general, if
the country contains a sufficient number
83
of persons qualified to provide education
under Government auspices, the same
persons would be able and willing to
give an equally good education on the
voluntary principle, under the assurance
of remuneration afforded by a law render
ing education compulsory, combined
with State aid to those unable to defray
the expense.
The instrument for enforcing the law
could be no other than public examina
tions, extending to all children, and begin
ning at an early age. An age might be
fixed at which every child must be exa
mined, to ascertain if he (or she) is able to
read. If a child proves unable, the father,
unless he has some sufficient ground of
excuse, might be subjected to a moderate
fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by
his labour, and the child might be put
to school at his expense. Once in every
year the examination should be renewed,
with a gradually extending range of
subjects, so as to make the universal
acquisition, and, what is more, retention, of
a certain minimum of general knowledge
virtually compulsory. Beyond that mini
mum there should be voluntary examina
tions on all subjects, at which all who
come up to a certain standard of pro
ficiency might claim a certificate. To
prevent the State from exercising, through
these arrangements, animproper influence
over opinion, the knowledge required
for passing an examination (beyond the
merely instrumental parts of knowledge,
such as languages and their use) should,
even in the higher classes of examina
tions, be confined to facts and positive
science exclusively. The examinations
on religion, politics, or other disputed
topics should not turn on the truth or
falsehood of opinions, but on the matter
of fact that such and such an opinion is
held, on such grounds, by such authors,
�84
ON LIBERTY
or schools, or Churches. Under this
system the rising generation would be
no worse off in regard to all disputed
truths than they are at present; they
would be brought up either Churchmen
or Dissenters, as they now are, the State
merely taking care that they should be
instructed Churchmen or instructed.
Dissenters. There would be nothing to
hinder them from being taught religion,
if their parents chose, at the same
schools where they were taught other
things. All attempts by the State to
bias the conclusions of its citizens on
disputed subjects are evil; but it may
very properly offer to ascertain and certify
that a person possesses the knowledge,
requisite to make his conclusions, on
any given subject worth attending to.
A student of philosophy would be the
better for being able to stand an exami
nation both in Locke and in Kant,
whichever of the two he takes up with,
or even if with neither; and there is no
reasonable objection to examining an
Atheist in the evidences of Christianity,
provided he is not required to profess
a belief in them. The examinations,
however, in the higher branches of
knowledge should, I conceive, be entirely
voluntary.
It would be giving too
dangerous a power to Governments were
they allowed to exclude any one from
professions, even from the profession of
teacher, for alleged deficiency of qualifi
cations ; and I think, with Wilhelm von
Humboldt, that degrees, or other public
certificates of scientific or professional
acquirements, should be given to all
who present themselves for examination,
and stand the test; but that such certifi
cates should confer no advantage over
competitors, other than the weight which
may be attached to their testimony by
public opinion.
It is not in the matter of education
only that misplaced notions of liberty
prevent moral obligations on the part of
parents from being recognised, and legal
obligations from being imposed, where
there are the strongest grounds for the
former always, and in many cases for the
latter also. The fact itself, of causing
the existence of a human being, is one
of the most responsible actions in the
range of human life. To undertake this
responsibility—to bestow a life which
may be either a curse or a blessing—
unless the being on whom it is to be
bestowed will have at least the ordinary
chances of a desirable existence, is a
crime against that being. And in a
country either over-peopled, or threatened
with being so, to produce children,
beyond a very small number, with the
effect of reducing the reward of labour
by their competition, is a serious offence
against all who live by the remuneration
of their labour. The laws which, in
many countries on the Continent, forbid
marriage unless the parties can show
that they have the means of support
ing a family do not exceed the legiti
mate powers of the State; and whether
such laws be expedient or not (a ques
tion mainly dependent on local circum
stances and feelings), they are not ob
jectionable as violations of liberty. Such
laws are interferences of the State to
prohibit a mischievous act—an act in
jurious to others, which ought to be
a subject of reprobation and social
stigma, even when it is not deemed expe
dient to superadd legal punishment. Yet
the current ideas of liberty, which bend
so easily to real infringements of the
freedom of the individual in things which
concern only himself, would repel the
attempt to put any restraint upon his
inclinations when the consequence of
�APPLICA TIONS
their indulgence is a life or lives of
wretchedness and depravity to the off
spring, with manifold evils to those suffi
ciently within reach to be in any way
affected by their actions. When we
compare the strange respect of mankind
for liberty with their strange want of
respect for it, we might imagine that a man
had an indispensable right to do harm to
others, and no right at all to please him
self without giving pain to any one.
I have reserved for the last place a
large class of questions respecting the
limits of Government interference, which,
though closely connected with the subject
of this Essay, do not, in strictness, belong
to it. These are cases in which the
reasons against interference do not turn
upon the principle of liberty: the question
is not about restraining the actions of
individuals, but about helping them : it
is asked whether the Government should
do, or cause to be done, something for
their benefit, instead of leaving it to be
done by themselves, individually or in
voluntary combination.
The objections to Government inter
ference, when it is not such as to involve
infringement of liberty, may be of three
kinds.
The first is, when the thing to be done
is likely to be better done by individuals
than by the Government. Speaking
generally, there is no one so fit to conduct
any business, or to determine how or by
whom it shall be conducted, as those
who are personally interested in it. This
principle condemns the interferences,
once so common, of the Legislature, or
the officers of Government, with the
ordinary processes of industry. But this
part of the subject has been sufficiently
enlarged upon by political economists,
and is not particularly related to the
principles of this Essay.
85
The second objection is more nearly
allied to our subject. In many cases,
though individuals may not do the par
ticular thing so well, on the average, as
the officers of Government, it is neverthe
less desirable that it should be done by
them, rather than by the Government, as
a means to their own mental education
—a mode of strengthening their active
faculties, exercising their judgment, and
giving them a familiar knowledge of the
subjects with which they are thus left to
deal. This is a principal, though not the
sole, recommendation of jury trial (in
cases not political); of free and popular
local and municipal institutions ; of the
conduct of industrial and philanthropic
enterprises by voluntary associations.
These are not questions of liberty, and
are connected with that subject only by
remote tendencies ; but they are ques
tions of development. It belongs to a
different occasion from the present to
dwell on these things as parts of national
education; as being, in truth, the peculiar
training of a citizen, the practical part
of the political education of a free
people, taking them out of the narrow
circle of personal and family selfishness,
and accustoming them to the compre
hension of joint interests, the manage
ment of joint concerns—habituating
them to act from public or semi-public
motives, and guide their conduct by aims
which unite instead of isolating them
from one another. Without these habits
and powers, a free constitution can
neither be worked nor preserved ; as is
exemplified by the too often transitory
nature of political freedom in countries
where it does not rest upon a sufficient
basis of local liberties. The manage
ment of purely local business by the
localities, and of the great enterprises of
industry by the union of those who
�86
ON LIBERTY
voluntarily supply the pecuniary means,
is further recommended by all the advan
tages which have been set forth in this
Essay as belonging to individuality of
development and diversity of modes of
action. Government operations tend to
be everywhere alike. With individuals
and voluntary associations, on the con
trary, there are varied experiments, and
endless diversity of experience. What
the State can usefully do is to make itself
a central depository, and active circulator
and diffuser, of the experience resulting
from many trials. Its business is to
enable each experimentalist to benefit
by the experiments of others, instead of
tolerating no experiments but its own.
The third and most cogent reason for
restricting the interference of Govern
ment is the great evil of adding unneces
sarily to its power. Every function super
added to those already exercised by the
Government causes its influence over
hopes and fears to be more widely
diffused, and converts, more and more,
the active and ambitious part of the
public into hangers-on of the Govern
ment, or of some party which aims at
becoming the Government. If the roads,
the railways, the banks, the insurance
offices, the great joint-stock companies,
the universities, and the public charities,
wrere all of them branches of the Govern
ment ; if, in addition, the municipal
corporations and local boards, with all
that now devolves on them, became
departments of the central administra
tion; if the employes of all these different
enterprises were appointed and paid by
the Government, and looked to the
Government for every rise in life; not
all the freedom of the press and popular
constitution of the Legislature would
make this or any other country free other
wise than in name. And the evil would
be greater the more efficiently and scien
tifically the administrative machinery
was constructed—the more skilful the
arrangements for obtaining the best
qualified hands and heads with which to
work it. In England it has of late been
proposed that all the members of the
civil service of government should be
selected by competitive examination, to
obtain for those employments the most
intelligent and instructed persons pro
curable ; and much has been said and
written for and against this proposal.
One of the arguments most insisted on
by its opponents is that the occupation
of a permanent official servant of the
State does not hold out sufficient pros
pects of emolument and importance to
attract the highest talents, which will
always be able to find a more inviting
career in the professions, or in the service
of companies and other public bodies.
One would not have been surprised if
this argument had been used by the
friends of the proposition, as an answer
to its principal difficulty. Coming from
the opponents, it is strange enough. What
is urged as an objection is the safetyvalve of the proposed system. If, indeed,
all the high talent of the country could
be drawn into the service of the Govern
ment, a proposal tending to bring about
that result might well inspire uneasiness.
If every part of the business of society
which required organised concert, or
large and comprehensive views, were in
the hands of the Government, and if
Government offices were universally filled
by the ablest men, all the enlarged
culture and practised intelligence in the
country, except the purely speculative,
would be concentrated in a numerous
bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest of
the community would look for all things :
the multitude for direction and dictation
�APPLICA TIONS
in all they had to do; the able and aspir
ing for personal advancement. To be
admitted into the ranks of this bureau
cracy, and, when admitted, to rise therein,
would be the sole objects of ambition.
Under this regime, not only is the outside
public ill-qualified, for want of practical
experience, to criticise or check the mode
of operation of the bureaucracy, but even
if the accidents of despotic or the natural
working of popular institutions occasion
ally raise to the summit a ruler or rulers
of reforming inclinations, no reform can
be effected which is contrary to the
interest of the bureaucracy. Such is
the melancholy condition of the Russian
Empire, as shown in the accounts of those
who have had sufficient opportunity of
observation. The Czar himself is power
less against the bureaucratic body; he
can send any one of them to Siberia,
but he cannot govern without them, or
against their will. On every decree of
his they have a tacit veto, by merely
refraining from carrying it into effect.
In countries of more advanced civilisa
tion and of a more insurrectionary spirit,
the public, accustomed to expect every
thing to be done for them by the State,
or at least to do nothing for themselves
without asking from the State not only
leave to do it, but even how it is to be
done, naturally hold the State respon
sible for all evil which befalls them, and
when the evil exceeds their amount of
patience, they rise against the Govern
ment, and make what is called a revolu
tion ; whereupon somebody else, with or
without legitimate authority from the
nation, vaults into the seat, issues his
orders to the bureaucracy, and every
thing goes on much as it did before, the
bureaucracy being unchanged, and no
body else being capable of taking their
place.
87
A very different spectacle is exhibited
among a people accustomed to transact
their own business. In France, a large
part of the people having been engaged
in military service, many of whom have
held at least the rank of non-commis
sioned officers, there are in every popular
insurrection several persons competent
to take the lead, and improvise some
tolerable plan of action. What the
French are in military affairs, the
Americans are in every kind of civil
business : let them be left without a
Government, every body of Americans
is able to improvise one, and to carry on
that or any other public business with a
sufficient amount of intelligence, order,
and decision. This is what every free
people ought to be ; and a people capable
of this is certain to be free ; it will never
let itself be enslaved by any man or body
of men because these are able to seize
and pull the reins of the central adminis
tration. No bureaucracy can hope to
make such a people as this do or undergo
anything that they do not like. But
where everything is done through the
bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureau
cracy is really adverse can be done at all.
The constitution of such countries is
an organisation of the experience and
practical ability of the nation into a
disciplined body for the purpose of
governing the rest; and the more perfect
that organisation is in itself, the more
successful in drawing to itself and
educating for itself the persons of greatest
capacity from all ranks of the community,
the more complete is the bondage of all,
the members of the bureaucracy included.
For the governors areas much the slaves
of their organisation and discipline as
the governed are of the governors. A
Chinese mandarin is as much the tool
and creature of a despotism as the
�ON LIBERTY
humblest cultivator.
An individual
Jesuit is to the utmost degree of abase
ment the slave of his order, though the
order itself exists for the collective power
and importance of its members.
It is not, also, to be forgotten that
the absorption of all the principal ability
of the country into the governing body
is fatal, sooner or later, to the mental
activity and progressiveness of the body
itself. Banded together as they are—
working a system which, like all systems,
necessarily proceeds in a great measure
by fixed rules—the official body are
under the constant temptation of sinking
into indolent routine, or, if they now and
then desert the mill-horse round, of
rushing into some half-examined crudity
which has struck the fancy of some lead
ing member of the corps : and the sole
check to these closely-allied, though
seemingly opposite, tendencies, the only
stimulus which can keep the ability of
the body itself up to a high standard, is
liability to the watchful criticism of equal
ability outside the body. It is indis
pensable, therefore, that the means should
exist, independently of the Government,
of forming such ability, and furnishing
it with the opportunities and experience
necessary for a correct judgment of great
practical affairs. If we would possess
permanently a skilful and efficient body
of functionaries—above all, a body able
to originate and willing to adopt im
provements ; if we would not have our
bureaucracy degenerate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross all
the occupation’s which form and cultivate
the faculties required for the government
of mankind.
To determine the point at which evils,
so formidable to human freedom and
advancement, begin, or rather at which
they begin to predominate over the
benefits attending the collective applica
tion of the force of society, under its
recognised chiefs, for the removal of the
obstacles which stand in the way of its
well-being; to secure as much of the
advantages of centralised power and
intelligence as can be had without turn
ing into governmental channels too great
a proportion of the general activity—is
one of the most difficult and complicated
questions in the art of government. It
is, in a great measure, a question of
detail, in which many and various con
siderations must be kept in view, and no
absolute rule can be laid down. But I
believe that the practical principle in
which safety resides, the ideal to be kept
in view, the standard by which to test
all arrangements intended for overcoming
the difficulty, may be conveyed in these
words: the greatest dissemination of
power consistent with efficiency; but
the greatest possible centralisation of
information, and diffusion of it from the
centre. Thus, in municipal administra
tion, there would be, as in the New
England States, a very minute division
among separate officers, chosen by the
localities, of all business which is not
better left to the persons directly inte
rested ; but, besides this, there would be,
in each department of local affairs, a
central superintendence, forming a
branch of the general government. The
organ of this superintendence would
concentrate, as in a focus, the variety ot
information and experience derived from
the conduct of that branch of public
business in all the localities, from every
thing analogous which is done in foreign
countries, and from the general principles
of political science. This central organ
should have a right to know all that is
done, and its special duty should be
that of making the knowledge acquired
�APPLICA TIONS
in one place available for others.
Emancipated from the petty prejudices
and narrow views of a locality by its
elevated position and comprehensive
sphere of observation, its advice would
naturally carry much authority; but its
actual power, as a permanent institution,
should, I conceive, be limited to com
pelling the local officers to obey the laws
laid down for their guidance. In all
things not provided for by general rules
those officers should be left to their own
judgment, under responsibility to their
constituents. For the violation of rules
they should be responsible to law, and
the rules themselves should be laid down
by the Legislature; the central admin
istrative authority only watching over
their execution, and, if they were not
properly carried into effect, appealing,
according to the nature of the case, to
the tribunals to enforce the law, or to
the constituencies to dismiss the func
tionaries who had not executed it
according to its spirit. Such, in its
general conception, is the central super
intendence which the Poor Law Board
is intended to exercise over the admin
istrators of the Poor Rate throughout
the country. Whatever powers the
Board exercises beyond this limit were
right and necessary in that peculiar
case, for the cure of rooted habits of
maladministration in matters deeply
affecting not the localities merely, but
the whole community; since no locality
has a moral right to make itself, by
mismanagement, a nest of pauperism,
necessarily overflowing into other loca
lities, and impairing the moral and
physical condition of the whole labour
ing community. The powers of ad
89
ministrative coercion and subordinate
legislation possessed by the Poor Law
Board (but which, owing to the state of
opinion on the subject, are very scantily
exercised by them), though perfectly
justifiable in a case of first-rate national
interest, would be wholly out of place in
the superintendence of interests purely
local. But a central organ of informa
tion and instruction for all the localities
would be equally valuable in all depart
ments of administration. A Government
cannot have too much of the kind of
activity which does not impede, but aids
and stimulates, individual exertion and
development. The mischief begins when,
instead of calling forth the activity and
powers of individuals and bodies, it
substitutes its own activity for theirs;
when, instead of informing, advising, and,
upon occasion, denouncing, it makes
them work in fetters, or bids them stand
aside and does their work instead of them.
The worth of a State, in the long run, is
the worth of the individuals composing
it; and a State which postpones the
interests of their mental expansion and
elevation, to a little more of administrative
skill, or of that semblance of it which
practice gives, in the details of business ;
a State which dwarfs its men, in order
that they may be more docile instru
ments in its hands even for beneficial
purposes—will find that with small men
no great thing can reallybe accomplished ;
and that the perfection of machinery to
which it has sacrificed everything will in
the end avail it nothing, for want of the
vital power which, in order that the
machine might work more smoothly, it
has preferred to banish.
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PNo. 2,-R.P.A. EXTRA SERIES.
The "Riddle” Vindicated
......... ......... .
........... —. . ............. *"*5^
Haeckel’s Critics
Answered
JOSEPH McCABE
(FORMERLY THE VERY REV. FATHER ANTONY, O.S.F., PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AND
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AT ST. ANTONY'S, FOREST GATE)
Author of “Twelve Years in a Monastery, ” “ Peter Abelard," “St. Augustine and
li is Age" etc.
WATTS & CO.,
;
|^> tx
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Prolegomena to “The History of Philosophy,” by 0. H. LEWES.
�THE
Rationalist Press Association,
LIMITED.
Registered Office—V], Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
Chairman:
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REFERENCE LIBRARY
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HAECKEL’S CRITICS ANSWERED
�By JOSEPH McCABE.
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�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
HAECKEL’S
CRITICS ANSWERED •
BY
JOSEPH McCABE
(FORMERLY THE VERY REV. F. ANTONY, O.S.F., PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
at st.
Antony’s,
forest gate)
AUTHOR OF “ TWELVE YEARS IN A MONASTERY," “ PETER ABELARD,”
“ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE,” ETC.
\Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited.}
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1903
�BISHSPSGATE INSTITUTE
REFERENCE LIBRARY
y.. 1 9 MAY 1987
k Ciassiflcat i&n .. H. hi?. §•
�CONTENTS
PAGE
I.
II.
Some General Criticisms, and
The Unity
of the
a
Lessonin Modesty........................................ 7
World, and the Lawof Substance
.
.
.
.18
III.
The Evolution of the Inorganic World....................................................... 29
IV.
The Origin of Life................................................................................................. 39
V.
The Ascent
of
Man................................................................................................ 49
VI.
The Immortality of the Soul...............................................................................61
VII.
God........................................................................................................................ 68
VIII.
IX.
X.
Science
and
Christianity....................................................................................... 80
The Ethic and Religion of Monism.............................................................. 91
Dr. Wallace and
his
Critics............................................................................... 99
XI.
Lord Kelvin Intervenes...................................................................................... 108
XII.
Mr. Mallock’s Olive Branch..............................................................................114
XIII.
Conclusion............................................................................................................... 123
Index........................................................................................................................127
�PREFATORY NOTE
WHILST these pages were in the press an interview with Mr.
F. Ballard, written by Mr. Raymond Blathwayt, has appeared in Great
Thoughts. The interviewer introduces his subject with the following
passage :—
“ None can deny Haeckel’s sincerity; few can deny a certain wistful eager
ness ; all must stand saddened at his pessimism. He himself, if report be true,
is shaken to the very core as to his own position. A friend of his, entering his
study a few weeks ago, found him in a somewhat mournful condition. ‘ What is
the matter ? ’ said he, and the great philosopher replied, ‘ I cannot feel certain of
my own position ,■ suppose all my theories should turn out to be false? So that
even Haeckel, whom most people regard as a blank materialist, is overshadowed
now and again by the spirit world which surrounds us all, and to him also come the
doubts and craven fears to which the strongest of humanity is liable now and again.”
I at once submitted this passage to Professor Haeckel, and he
replied :—
“The anecdote about the wavering of my Monistic position is a pure invention.
My views are firm as a rockj but they may, naturally, be only partly correct.
The reader will find from the following pages that this—whoever
was the “ inventor
is only one of a long series of untruths and mis
representations with which the distant Professor has been cowardly
assailed.
J. M.
�•ii'-il tbb:»w
• • J
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til jnt»
ifiiBik.-.
■
’
.
t_ <>.t \ nd jnjw jcH.'n
.,»..., fftr, hr. r
HAECKEL’S CRITICS ANSWERED
■ '
,• ••
■
. < . . J1I&' '
bXz?
Hi
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1881 L,* imL
Chapter 1
SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN
MODESTY
Some forty-four years ago a young
German medical man was spending
laborious hours in an effort to penetrate
the secret of the living organism. From
his earliest years he had been powerfully
attracted to the study of life. He had
written a small work on botany whilst
he- was yet a boy at the gymnasium. He
had then had the advantage of a train
ing for the medical profession under
such masters as Kolliker and Johannes
Muller. He had published an essay on
crabs in 1857, and in 1859 he was pur
suing a most important inquiry into the
microscopic life that fills the blue waters
of the Italian coast. But his many lines
of research had not as yet led to any
large conclusions. He stood perplexed
between the discarded views of the older
biologists and the dim vision that was
slowly breaking upon the scientific mind
of the time. His own revered master
had insisted on the fixity of the various
species of organisms, but it was an age
when every note of the time-spirit whis
pered “advance” in the ears of the
younger men. The despotism of Genesis
had been broken by the new criticism,
and the Mosaic barrier to research was
being trampled under foot. The young
scientist, then in his twenty-seventh year,
returned to Berlin in 1861, and heard
that during his absence an English
naturalist had published a startlingly
revolutionary view of the whole kingdom
of life.
He obtained a copy of The
Origin of Sfecies, and saw at a glance
that a great truth had been discovered.
In the light of the new theory of evolu
tion, fulfilling the intuitions of Goethe
and the speculations of Lamarck, the
vast realm of animals and plants began
to exhibit the order and rationality he
had so long sought.
The very valuable and brilliant work
he had done in Italy secured for him a
professorship at the University of Jena,
and he at once devoted himself to the
creation of the new biology. In 1863
(his twenty-ninth year) he gave an able
address on the new theory before a
congress at Stettin, where all the most
distinguished scientists of Germany were
assembled. It was his baptism of fire
in a life-long campaign against error and
prejudice.
The vast majority of the
scientists present scoffed at Darwin’s
idea, and said it was not a matter for
serious discussion.
“The harmless
dream of an after-dinner nap,” said one
distinguished zoologist; and another
said they might as well discuss “ tableturning.”
A famous botanist present
said there was not a single fact of
science in its favour; though Darwin’s
book alone contains an overwhelming
mass of evidence. In France the great
Cuvier was crushing the young theory
with the weight of his authority. From
the pulpit of Notre Dame the brilliant
Lacordaire was assuring men that “its
father was pride, its mother lust, and
�8
SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
its offspring revolutions.” The young
naturalist went back to Jena with a
stem and grim resolve to pursue truth
through fire and water, and, as Huxley
was putting it after a like experience,
to “smite all humbugs” that lent their
authority to error. Five years later he
published his Generelle Morphologie,
which Huxley calls “ one of the greatest
scientific works ever published,” and
which considerably advanced the libera
tion of Germany from the old error.
Two years afterwards he published his
Natural History of Creation, of which
Darwin said that, had he read it earlier,
the Descent of Man would probably
never have been written.
With phe
nomenal industry, with brilliant success,
and with a moral idealism of the highest
order, he continued his research into the
nature of life and the nature of man,
and long before the close of the century
he was in the foremost rank of men of
science.
His progress was impeded by the
usual conservative hostility. For years
the ecclesiastical party strove to drive
him from the university, and enforced
a boycott of him and his family. One
day a prelate approached the Grand
Duke of Weimar, and urged him to put
an end to the scandal of the heretical
professor. “ Do you mean to say,” asked
the Grand-Duke—for the spirit of Goethe
still lingered in the court of Weimar,
“ that the professor really believes these
things he teaches?”
“He certainly
does,” assured the cleric.
“Then the
man is only doing what you are doing
yourself,” was the amiable retort. At
another time the professor himself ap
proached the head of the university,
Dr. Seebeck, an orthodox thinker, and
offered to resign his chair, to end the
trouble, as he would never swerve one
inch from the path of integrity and
faithfulness to what he considered to
be the truth. Dr. Seebeck bade him
remain; and his name has, in return,
taken the name of Jena to the ends of
the earth. His books have been trans
lated into twelve languages. Flis name
will rise first to the lips of any informed
student in the civilised world, from
Yokohama to St. Petersburg, from San
Francisco to Calcutta, if you speak of
zoology or embryology. He holds four
gold medals for research, and more
than seventy diplomas from so many
academies and learned bodies all over
the world, who have desired to have his
name on their roll of members or asso
ciates. When, in 1881, the Asiatic Society
of Bengal resolved to nominate six special
“ centenary honorary members,” he was
the one chosen for Germany. On the
occasion of his sixtieth birthday, ten
years ago, the elite of the scientific
world sent their greeting to the man
“who has devoted his life in unselfish
devotion to science and to truth, who
has opened new paths and inaugurated
fresh knowledge wherever he has turned,
and who has ever given his best for the
moral welfare of humanity.”
That is the real Ernst Haeckel.
That is the man whom our ecclesias
tical M.A.’s and our D.D.’s have lately
been accusing of “scientific humbug”
and “insolent dogmatism” and “child
ish credulity” and “mendacities” and
“rhodomontade,” of being “an essen
tially ignorant guide,” “an atrophied
soul,” and “ a rude, ill-mannered, igno
rant child,” of “ poisoning the minds ”
of the people and leading them “back
into barbarism,” of “prostituting him
self,” of making “misrepresentations so
gross and glaring as to make it extremely
difficult to credit him at once with
mental ability and sincerity,” of “ having
forfeited all right to speak as a serious
scientific man,” and of being “so fla
grantly prejudiced, so false to fact, and
so insolent in tone, as to require much
self-control to keep one from flinging
the book away in disgust.” I am not
quoting itinerant Christian Evidence
lecturers, but the deliberately published
observations of Dr. Horton, Dr. Loofs,
and the Rev. Mr. Ballard.
We need not tender our sympathy to
Professor Haeckel. He has been listen
ing to language of this kind ever since
�SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
he published his famous General Mor
phology in 1866. He may have by this
time a kindly theory that it comes
naturally to a mind that breathes a
mediaeval atmosphere, and that still holds
the general principles on which the
Holy Inquisition was founded. But it
is worth while investigating how all this
lurid language is reconciled with the
culture and scholarship and tolerance
which are claimed for the modern
clergyman. The writers of these pic
turesque phrases would indignantly re
pudiate the notion that they were angry
merely because Haeckel’s views of the
nature of man and the constitution of
the universe contradict their own, and
tend to diminish the number of their
followers. They do, indeed, reject the
substance of his speculations, but their
quarrel is with the manner in which he
pursues and expounds them. A few
years ago he published a summary of
the opinions he had arrived at on a vast
number of problems of science, philo
sophy, history, and religion. As he saw
his great colleagues pass on one by one
to join “ the choir invisible,” he decided
to draw up this “last will and testa
ment ”; to look back over the sombre
fields of half-a-century of warfare, and
sum up the issues of the conflict. In
Germany his Riddle of the Universe
sold 9,000 copies in two months, and
has led to an appalling outpouring of
controversial ink. In England it was
eagerly and extensively welcomed in the
more expensive edition, and in the cheap
form it is circulating to the extent of
nearly 80,000 copies. I have waded
through the turgid flood of criticisms it
has called forth, and will deal first with
those charges which tend to palliate the
outrageous phrases I have quoted before
I proceed to the criticisms of its sub
stance. These ponderous names are
not flung out, we are told, from a secret
consciousness that sober criticism would
have little force. They are reluctantly
penned out of regard for the ethic
and aesthetic of controversy. Professor
Haeckel, whom Mr. Mallock has saluted
9
in the Fortnightly Review (September,
1901) as “one of the most eminent and
most thoughtful men of science in
Europe,” whom an antagonistic reviewer
in Knowledge describes as “ impelled by
no motive but a love of truth,” and says
that “ to know him is to love him,” and
“ there are few who have worked harder
and, at the same time, more brilliantly,
for their day and generation,” whom the
Westminster Review regards as “a great
biologist and thinker,” and whom even
Dr. Dallinger calls “a man of large
scientific attainments, a biologist of the
highest repute, and possessed of the
keenest acumen” (fThe Creator, p. 18)
—this Professor Haeckel has, it seems,
greatly violated the good taste and the
ordinary morality of literary work in his
Riddle of the Universe. Mr. Ballard
epitomises the charge very neatly in the
British Weekly. The book, he says,
“ teems with exhibitions of bitter pre
judice, arrant dogmatism, unwarranted
assumption, uncalled-for insult, logical
failure, and self-contradictions ”; and
the misguided British public calls for
five editions of it, in spite of all the
abuse that is heaped on it and all the
secret and public manoeuvres that are
directed against its circulation.
A desperate champion might ask the
reader to reflect on the atmosphere of
invective in which Haeckel has lived for
the last fifty years—from Lacordaire’s
tracing of the parentage of evolution to
Dr. Talmage’s sermons on the subject
only four years 'ago—and might recall
that even dainty prelates like Bishop
Wilberforce could utter bitter insults in
that charmed region. He might argue
that a Haeckel was not pledged to turn
the other cheek to the smiter. He might
point out that it is not soothing to have
had to spend half a life in overcoming
what is now acknowledged to be a foolish
resistance, yet see the same theological
forces arrayed at a more advanced
position to-day. But, in truth, we shall
do better to ask, what is the aesthetic
and ethical standard of controversy
cherished by Dr. Haeckel’s critics, and
B
�IO
SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
how: far does he really fall below their
shining example ?
There is Dr. Horton, for instance,
whose sensitive nature is outraged by
Haeckel’s rude comments on some of the
Christian beliefs. Now, I have been a
priest and I know how largely rhetorical
this kind of indignation is, and how
effective it is sometimes in preventing a
book from being read. As a fact, one
who was present when Dr. Horton
delivered his philippic tells how, when the
preacher read out in tremulous tones
the famous mother-in-law passage (and the
like) from the Riddle, his audience was
really shaking with suppressed laughter.
However, let us examine Dr. Horton’s
discourse,1 and learn the better manners
which he desiderates in Haeckel. He
opens with a reference to “ the depths of
degradation and despair into which the
teaching of Haeckel will plunge man
kind ; ” though, of course, to speak
of Dr. Horton’s views as degrading
would be considered insulting. Then,
though “ there has been no more diligent
and successful investigator of the facts of
nature than Ernst Haeckel during the
century that has passed,” he is a child
at moral and religious reasoning, “ a rude,
ill-mannered, ignorant child ; ” he is “ an
atrophied soul, a being that is blind on
the spiritual side.” The “ spiritual side ”
being a blend of moral and intellectual
faculty (if it is anything more than
imagination), this is grave; but Dr.
Horton says it <£in the interest of souls
and truth.” Presently he finds Haeckel
an ££ utterly unsatisfactory and essentially
ignorant guide,” an “ unthinking mind ”
with -whose “ obvious weakness and igno
rance ” and “ childish credulity ” “ the
rationalist press gulls the ignorance of
the public.” Dr. Horton admits that
modern science “ must gradually affect
the view of man, even the view of God,
which we drew from the matchless
revelation of the first chapters of
Genesis” [this in Hampstead, in the
1 It is published in the Christian World
Pulpit, June loth, 1903.
year of grace 1903 !], and must modify
“ the naive, but essentially correct, con
ceptions of our ancestors ”; but Haeckel
asks too much. I will touch in the
proper place Dr. Horton’s brief argu
mentation on the origin of life and the
origin of the mind,1 and will only admire
here the delicacy with which he points
out the spiritual consequences of monism.
“ Men who have no belief in God and
immortality sink to the level of the
brutes,” and Haeckel is “ anxious to
sweep us back into this barbarism under
the name of progress.”
Haeckel is not
conscious of the degradation that has
passed upon his spirit ” through rejecting
the particular solution of the world-riddle
which Dr. Horton recommends, but in
any one who does so “ the soul is shrunk,
the mind is warped, the very body must
carry its marks of degradation.” It is
true that the preacher’s sense of humour
awakes at one point, and he disavows
any intention of imputing these “ bestial
levels ” to Haeckel himself, but he seems
to forget the reservation, and ends in a
most ludicrous strain of commiseration.
There is nothing half so insulting and
offensive in Haeckel.
Passing by Dr. Loofs (whose little work
is one of the most spiteful and painful
diatribes that has issued from a modern
university), as he does not claim to be an
English gentleman, we may turn to the
Rev. F. Ballard for an exhibition of those
manners which Haeckel has neglected to
cultivate.
Mr. Ballard is said in the
religious press to have proved that
“ Haeckel doesn’t count,” and it will be
expected from the precision and force of
his indictment of Haeckel’s manner
(which I have quoted above) that this
1 Dr. Horton’s knowledge of the controversy
may be tested very well by his statement that
Bois-Reymond, Vogt, Buchner, and Baer, “per
haps four of the greatest men of science in the
nineteenth century in Germany,” came to “ the
recognition of spirit as the author of conscious
ness.” Not one of the four ever recognised any
thing of the kind, as we shall see. Bois-Reymond
and Baer remained agnostic, whilst Buchner and
Vogt were actually the leaders of German
materialism up to the moment of death.
�SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
scientific clergyman will be quite the
Beau Brummel of religious controversy.
He has written a chapter on The
Riddle of the Universe in his Miracles
of Unbelief, but this has been swallowed
up in his great attack in the columns of
the British Weekly. The later articles
of this series refer to the able editor of
the Clarion,, and Mr. Blatchford has
shown a sufficient command of appro
priate language to dispense with my
services. I confine myself to the first
three articles (July 23rd, 30th, and Aug.
6th). It proves, on examination, that
twelve columns out of the thirteen are
mainly preliminary comments on Haec
kel’s morals. I will deal with the thir
teenth column (which will turn out to be
very largely a question of Mr. Ballard's
morals) in its proper place, and will
here briefly examine the general criti
cisms.
Dogmatism and dishonesty are the
chief points Mr. Ballard charges, with an
infinite variety of phrasing, against the
absent Professor. Now, one would
really’ be disposed to see something in
the first point, since it is so persistently
urged by Haeckel’s critics. Unfortun
ately, when one looks closely into the
grounds of the charge it begins to totter ;
and when one compares Haeckel’s words
with those of his critics, one wonders
what dogmatism really is. There is, for
instance, that admirable writer of the
Christian World, Mr. J. Brierley (“J. B.”),
who stooped in some unguarded hour to
attack Haeckel. The Riddle is “ one of
the most amusing books this generation
has seen” because “its dogmatism is so
naive.” “ Professor Haeckel has found
everything out,” says Mr. Brierley. “ He
has exploded the old mystery, and found
it a bag stuffed with sawdust. There is
nothing to wonder at in suns and sys
tems. They are just matter and force,
and there is an end.” Now, the Chris
tian World is a fine paper, and “ J. B.”
is one of its sanest contributors, yet this
passage is astounding. Whence did a
hostile reviewer in the Sheffield Daily
Telegraph get the opposite impression
n
that Haeckel “is modest and unassum
ing in the claims he makes for his
system”? How came the Westminster
Review to call it “ a careful and conscien
tious endeavour to construct a theory of
the universe in harmony with the teach
ings of modern science”? Read the
second page of the preface to the Riddle.
“ The studies of these world-riddles which
I offer in the present work,” you read,
“ cannot reasonably claim to give a
perfect solution of them; they merely
offer to a wide circle of readers a critical
inquiry into the problem, and seek to
answer the question as to how nearly we
have approached that solution at the
present day. What stage in the attain
ment of truth have we actually arrived
at in this closing year of the nineteenth
century ? What progress have we really
made during its course towards that
immeasurably distant goal ? ”
Those
words—and you will vainly seek their
equal in modesty in any religious riddle
solver in the world—meet the eye at the
very opening of the book, and they are
substantially repeated at its close (p.
134).1 “The answer which I give to
these great questions,” Haeckel con
tinues, “ must naturally be merely sub
jective and only partly correct.” Was
there ever so singular a “ dogmatist ” ?
“ The one point that I can claim is that
my Monistic Philosophy is sincere from
beginning to end.” “ My own command
of the various branches of science is
uneven and defective, so that I can
attempt no more than to sketch the
general plan of such a world-picture,
and point out the pervading unity of its
parts, however imperfect be the execu
tion.” “ In taking leave of my readers,
I venture the hope that, through my
sincere and conscientious work—in spite
of its faults, of which I am not uncon
scious-—I have contributed a little to
wards the solution of the great enigma.”
If that is dogmatism, and the average
theological pronouncement is fragrant
1 I quote throughout from the cheap edition
of the Riddle.
�12
SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
with modesty, we shall need to recon
sider our moral terminology.1
But Mr. Ballard would tell us there
are other passages in which “ the most
arrogant dogmatism ” breaks out. Well,
Haeckel has told us the book is uneven
and sketchy, that its parts were written
at different times, in different moods;
and, knowing there was no inconsistency
of thought, he may have trusted to the
intelligence of his readers to adjust any
mere inconsistency of expression. But
the truth is, that Mr. Ballard’s choice
examples (given in his third article) of
“ unmitigated dogmatism ” are little short
of ridiculous. “ Thus we have got rid of
the transcendental design of the philo
sophy of the schools ” and “ The unpre
judiced study of natural phenomena
reveals the futility of the theistic idea ”
are two of the shorter quotations. Clearly,
Mr. Ballard must mean that Haeckel
should have interposed “ in my opinion ”
in these sentences. Does Mr. Ballard
do that? Does any sane and literary
writer do it who expects to have intelli
gent readers ? Professor Haeckel is by
no means a Social Democrat, but he
does credit “ the general reader ” with
intelligence enough to relieve him from
saying “ this is my opinion ” at every
third line. He has gone out of his way
to warn the reader from the beginning
that his conclusions are “ merely subjec
tive.” In not one of these cases does he re
present a conclusion as being unanimously
accepted. On the contrary, Mr. Ballard
and his friends are never tired of point
ing out how Haeckel, on his own showing,
1 An amusing feature of this delinquency of
Mr. J. Brierley’s—which I sincerely regret to
have to notice—is that it follows upon a fine
article on ‘ ‘ Candour in the Pulpit ’’—that is to
say, on the lack of candour in the pulpit and of
honesty in apologetic literature. So that, almost
side by side with this unhappy passage, one
reads : “A foremost modern theologian, by no
means of the radical school, has recorded his
significant judgment that one of the main charac
teristics of apologetic literature is its lack of
honesty; and no one who has studied theology can
doubt that it has suffered more than any other
science from equivocal phraseology” {Christian
World, August 20th, 1903 ; p. 10).
is contradicted by his own colleagues in
Germany. The whole matter is too ab
surd to prolong. Haeckel’s “dogma
tisms ” are the ordinary ways of expres
sion in adult literature. They shine with
modesty in comparison with theological
utterances, and they are guarded from
misinterpretation on the part of the unin
formed by a most rare and conscientious
warning in the preface.
Finally let us consider the charge of
misinterpretation, trickery (“jugglery,”
the Rev. Rhondda Williams says), and
general dishonesty of method. To deal
with this fully would be to anticipate my
whole book here; the reader will be
amply informed for judgment in the
sequel. But we may, in the meantime,
profitably run our eye over Mr. Ballard’s
twelve columns of moral censorship. In
the last chapter of Miracles of Unbelief,
Mr. Ballard says “ we find misrepresen
tations so gross and glaring as to make it
extremely difficult to credit the writer at
once with mental ability and sincerity ”
(p. 35°)- 1° immediate justification of
this, Mr. Ballard quotes Haeckel’s state
ment (p. 46 of the Riddle) that even
some Christian theologians deny the
liberty of the will. This Bachelor of
Divinity seems unaware for the moment
that the Calvinists notoriously denied
freedom on the very ground indicated
by Haeckel, and that the greater part of
the Catholic theologians (the Thomists
and Augustinians) are accused by their
colleagues of being, logically, in the same
predicament. A more paltry justifica
tion for so grave a charge it would be
hard to conceive. The only other point
in the chapter worth noting is the com
ment on abiogenesis, and this will be met
at a later stage.1 I turn to the pages of
the British Weekly, and their blush of
righteous indignation.
The only point that concerns us in
1 But the many admirers of Mr. Ballard who
wish to know the worst at once may refer now
to p. 40, and see how their apologist garbles
his quotation from Haeckel, misrepresents his
position, misstates the attitude of science, and
so wins a glorious victory—over the Decalogue.
�SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
the first article is a curiously spirited
attack on my opinion that the Riddle is
“unanswered because it is unanswer
able,” and it is instructive to consider
this. Take down your copy of the
Riddle—do not contract the slovenly
and expensive habit of trusting. a con
troversial writer; and I will give you
pages throughout, which Mr. Ballard
never does—and notice that I wrote this
in November, 1902. Mr. Rhondda
Williams had not then written his
pamphlet, Dr. Horton had not preached
his sermon, and Dr. Loofs’s book was
unknown in England.
The only
“ reply ” in the field was a hastily added
chapter to Mr. Ballard’s Miracles of
Unbelief, which one may be pardoned
for not having discovered by 1902.
Further, I wrote with pointed reference
to Dr. Beale’s pathetic promise of a
reply in the agony column of the Times,
Oct. 1st, 1900; a promise which he
withdrew by referring later (Dec. 19th)
to a tiresome collection of letters from
the Lancet which he had published in
1898. Moreover, I pointedly wanted
an answer to the most important thesis
of the book, the evolution of mind,
which, I find, even Mr. Ballard had not
met. Mr. Ballard’s selection of spon
taneous generation as the chief point —
whereas Haeckel only offers it as “a
pure hypothesis,” and it is only an
incidental (though necessary) conse
quence of his system—is unworthy of a
serious scientific man. So, brushing
aside criticisms of Haeckel’s views on
Christ and the Immaculate Conception,
which have nothing to do with the
integrity of his system, I deplored “ the
silence or triviality of his opponents.”
But note how Mr. Ballard manipulates
this innocent observation. Premising
that I am “ doubtless honest,” and that
“ the apostles of free-thought, of all
men, might leave others free to think
for themselves,” and so on, he tells me
it was answered by himself (in an
obscure corner of an obscure book) and
—by anticipation! That encourages
him to call my statement an “ untruth.”
13
In the second article my enormity
grows. Readers are told that I assert
the “ monistic mechanism ‘ has been for
ever established ’ as the all-sufficient
origin, means, and end of everything ”;
whereas I most clearly said only that
“ the case for the evolution of mind ”
had been “ for ever established.” Later
we have a reference to “ the reactionary
assurances of an ex-ecclesiastic to the
effect ‘ that all Christian faith is ship
wrecked and all Christian convictions
amongst the breakers.’ ” The unsophis
ticated reader will learn with surprise (in
spite of “ to the effect ”) that this, whether
reactionary or not, is not a quotation from
me. And finally the growth is complete,
and I am made to “sneer at the triviality
or the silence of the opponents of the
mechanical theory of the universe.” Mr.
Ballard, F.R.M.S., clearly makes a very
improper use of his microscope at
times.
So it is with my innocent remark that
in the Riddle we have a “ masterly treat
ment of the question of the evolution of
mind.” “ Masterly ” soon grows into
“ more masterly,” and Mr. Ballard airily
asks : “ I really want to know why, for
some of us who make no profession to
be experts, Dr. Haeckel’s treatment
should be more ‘ masterly ’ than that of,
say, Dr. Wallace ” ; and in the end :
“ May we not then ask Mr. McCabe, or
Mr. Blatchford, why, or by what
authority, they proclaim that Prof.
Haeckel’s treatment is so much more
masterly than that of all others as to
foreclose the question ? ” The perver
sion of my phrase into a comparison
and the implication that I fail in respect
for Dr. Wallace or any other dis
tinguished thinker come very oddly
from the pen of this literary censor
morum.
Yet this is a fair sample of Mr.
Ballard’s procedure—and is in fact a
great part of his procedure, or I should
not have dwelt on it. The only other
important element in Mr. Ballard’s
preliminary twelve columns is his
industrious collection of authorities to
�14
SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
oppose to Dr. Haeckel. I shall speak
presently of the proper merit of this, but
must touch a few points of it here to
finish the consideration of Mr. Ballard’s
standard of controversy. He constantly
affirms that Haeckel is opposed by the
majority of scientific authorities. We
shall see what this really amounts to,
but let us consider it here in the light of
the more important question whether
they support Christianity. I have care
fully examined the list of writers quoted
against Haeckel by Mr. Ballard, and
this is the result. In the front rank
are the three eminent scientists, Lord
Kelvin, Sir O. Lodge, and Dr. A. R.
Wallace. Their convictions every man
will respect who respects himself, but—
two of them are Spiritists (having there
fore, an alien and empirical source of
faith, and holding views on the future state
which Christian teaching rejects), and
Lord Kelvin gives a very slender support,
as we shall see. Then there are Dr.
Beale (who confesses in his latest book
that he is fighting a vast majority), Dr.
Croll (who denies the liberty of the
will), Dr. Stirling (whose contribution is
the same as Dr. Beale’s), Dr. Winchell
and Sir J. W. Dawson (geologists of a
past generation, who defend the literal
interpretation of i. Genesis : Sir J. W.
Dawson thinks geology only claims
7000 years for the life of man, and
that “ the deluge is one of the most
important events both in human history
and the study of the later geological
periods ”), Professor Flower (with ten
lines of qualifications, but whose only
contribution to the subject seems to be
an address at a Church Congress, in which
he sharply tells the clergy they have
done mischief enough in the past, and had
better leave evolution to men of science ;
two short phrases about an “ eternal
power ” and the “ Divine govern
ment of the world ” seem to constitute
his slender theology), Dr. A. Macalister,
Professor Le Conte and Mr. Fiske
(American evolutionists and Pantheists),
Mr. Row (the Christian Evidence
lecturer), Dr. Cook (the American
Christian evidence lecturer), and Lord
Grimthorpe (the Vicar-general of York,
whose “legal and scientific mind” may
be seen at work in his Letters on Dr.
Todd's Discourses on the Prophecies}. The
rest of Mr. Ballard’s list consists of pro
fessional theologians. “ Dr.” This, and
“ Professor ” That, usually turn out to be
graduates in divinity. I am not for a
moment slighting the scientific acquire
ments of men like Dr. Dallinger, Mr.
Newman Smyth (one of the few
apologists who retain the character of a
gentleman amidst polemical work), Dr.
Iverach, Mr. Ballard, Mr. Profeit, and
Mr. Kennedy; I am not so unintelligent.
But it would be absurd to say that the
publications of these professors of
apologetics and doctors of divinity have
the same value, as replies to Haeckel, as
those of scientific laymen. The result is
that Mr. Ballard’s list is totally and
gravely misleading to the uninformed.
Rubbish like the “ Present Day Tracts ”
and antiquated work like Winchell’s and
Dawson’s and Stirling’s and Wainwright’s
are mixed up with the good work of
Newman Smyth and Dallinger and
Kennedy.
Evolutionists and non
evolutionists, theists and pantheists,
Christians and non-Christians, are hastily
thrown together. He drags in Prof.
W. James to rebuke Haeckel; the
average reader will have little suspicion
that James rejects the title of theist,
speaks scornfully of Mr. Ballard’s God,
and is not sure of the immortality of the
soul. All this is gravely misleading.
Clearly, Mr. Ballard’s ideal of con
troversy is not much superior to that
of Dr. Horton. Yet this budding con
troversialist has the effrontery to tell
Haeckel that “if he has no sense of
shame, then we have a sufficient object
lesson as to the failure of ‘ monistic
religion ’ to develop even an elementary
degree of morality.” This is provoked
by statements which Haeckel quotes
with transparent honesty from writers
named in his book. We have seen
how an equally coarse outburst was
prompted by a statement (as to the free-
�SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
dom of the will) which is literally correct.
The only other specific criticisms offered
by Mr. Ballard relate to the nature of
matter and the origin of life. In both
cases he gives a mere travesty of
Haeckel’s position. We shall take them
in detail later (though the reader may
find them at once by means of the index,
if he desires). For the present we take
our leave of these graceful guardians of
the taste and ethic of controversy.
“ What sort of an age do we live in ? ”
asked the Prager Tageblatt, when it saw
the clerical and scientific Lilliputians
of Germany shooting their insults at the
distinguished scientist. We are living,
still, in an age when religion is made to
consist essentially in certain speculations
about the nature of the universe, which
were framed, in substance, thousands of
years ago ; an age when any independent
speculator on the nature of things must
expect to arouse a bitter antagonism if
his conclusions differ from those of
religious tradition. Religion is, in a most
important aspect, “ a cosmic doctrine,”
to quote the words of Mr. Mallock.
“Religion and science,”he says, “touch
and oppose each other primarily as rival
methods of explaining the .... universe
taken as a whole, man forming part of
it.” Until a short time ago theologians
held that their particular cosmic specula
tions had the distinction of a super
natural origin, and they damned people
-who called them into question. To-day
the gilt is wearing off the legends of
Genesis, but the hereditary spirit of
intellectual arrogance goes more slowly.
To-day there are many theologians who
call themselves truth-seekers, and there
are a few who write and speak as if
they were truth-seekers, and not truthfulminators. But the sad truth is that
the majority are morally hampered by a
conviction of the sacredness and the
exclusive truth of certain speculations,
about God and the soul, which they
have a corporate charge to defend.
Every man who opposes them is con
structed into a hater of their religion and
a menace to human progress. The
15
diminution of their followers seems
only to increase their violence. “Al
ready,” says Mr. Rhondda Williams, “ it
is the fact that the cultured laity on the
one hand and the bulk of the democracy
on the other are outside the Churches.”1
Yes, people are seeking the truth, out in
the light of day, and they distrust a
tradition that has broken down section
by section as the century advanced.
Haeckel, starting from a most compre
hensive knowledge of living nature, has
reached out to certain conclusions on the
cosmic mystery. It will not avail to
Caricature his conclusions and vilify his
person and motives and method. Neither
he, nor his translator, nor his publishers,
dreamed of thrusting his zoological
authority down people’s throats, except
in so far as his book deals with zoology.
His further conclusions must be met on
their argumentative merits. His whole
system must be judged by rational
evidence.
Dust-throwing and mud
throwing are not the methods of truth
seekers ; they are the devices of timid
or foolish partisans.
But before I enter upon a systematic
examination of Haeckel’s system and the
criticisms it has provoked, I wish to ex
pose one further misrepresentation of a
general character. Almost all the critics
endeavour to make us distrust Flaeckel
by attributing to him a solitary and
isolated position in the scientific ■world.
Even if this were the case, it would only
be an incentive to examine his views
with the greater care. Copernicus stood
alone throughout life. Darwin was op
posed by most of the scientists of his
time. Wolff enunciated a profound
truth which was not accepted until long
after his death. Robert Owen preached
a whole series of social truths that we
all accept to-day. Further, all writers
do not regard Haeckel as isolated. Mr.
Mallock, in his Religion as a Credible
Doctrine, not only takes him to be the
supreme living representative of scientific
philosophy, but says that he and his
1 Does Science Destroy Religion ? p. 29.
�16
SOME GENERAL CRITICISMS, AND A LESSON IN MODESTY
colleagues “ are correct in their methods
and arguments—that the attempts of
contemporary theologians to find flaws
in the case of their opponents, or to
convert the discoveries of science into
proofs of their own theism, are exercises
of an ingenuity wholly and hopelessly
misapplied, and exhibit too often an
unreasoning or a feverish haste which
merely exposes to. ridicule the cause
which they are anxious to defend.”1 Dr.
Lionel Beale speaks throughout his
Vitality of the majority being on
Haeckel’s side in that controversy. Dr.
Iverach speaks in his Theism of “ scien
tists,” in a general way, as refusing to go
with him. But the misconception it is
particularly needful to clear up is as to
the relation of Haeckel’s Monism to
Agnosticism. When Mr. Ballard speaks
crudely of the majority of modern scien
tists being opposed to Haeckel, the
uninformed will conclude that they are,
therefore, more or less with Mr. Ballard.
We have corrected that impression by
giving the list of all the scientific laymen
of England and the United States, of
recent years, that Mr. Ballard has been
able to get under one very broad religious
umbrella. It bears only a small propor
tion to the whole, even when we have
added Professor Henslow and a few
more later on. On the other hand, the
average educated man would say that
Haeckel is a materialist and atheist, and
the great bulk of our men of science
reject both names. Haeckel, it is true,
equally rejects the name materialist, but
we may defer that point to the next
chapter. Our average educated man
has no illusion as to Huxley, Tyndall,
Clifford, Darwin, Bain, Sully, Maudsley,
Spencer, Ray Lankester, Karl Pearson,
and scientists of that type (or those
types) favouring what Mr. Ballard would
call religion. These have professed
Agnosticism; and the silence on the
religious question of the vast majority of
our scientific men must—especially in
1 The Fortnightly Review, September, 1901 ;
p. 400.
view of the feverish alertness of the
Churches to drag them on to platforms
when they are known to be in the least
favourable—I should say, be construed
in the same sense.
Now, Agnosticism is held to be more
or less respectable. Mr. Ballard quotes
Huxley and Darwin and Tyndall with a
light heart and without the least recburse
to his red ink. Haeckel is abused be
cause of his “dogmatism.” But let us
refrain from raising dust, and see what
the difference really comes to. I might
quote Lord Grimthorpe, whose “legal
and scientific mind ” Mr. Ballard has
warmly recommended to us : “ As for
professing to believe neither alternative,
atheism or theism, . . . that is not only
probably but certainly wrong, and, in
deed, is so impossible that any man who
thinks he has come to that conclusion is
mistaken, and is at present an atheist.” 1
But I think a writer of that type ought
to be left in his grave. Listen, however,
to what one of the ablest living thinkers
of England says on the matter : “ The
Neutral or Agnostic Monism now in
vogue amongst scientific men ... is
scientifically popular mainly because it
is still essentially naturalistic, and dis
parages the so-called psychical aspect as
epistemologically subordinate to the
physical. . . This monism escapes the
absurdities of the old materialism more
in seeming than in fact . . it is material
ism without matter. . . In this monism
the mechanical theory is still regarded
as furnishing a concrete and complete
presentment of the objective world. . .
If dualism is unsound, there seems to
be no agnostic resting-place between
materialism and spiritualism.”2 I do
not subscribe to all this, but the high
authority of the writer encourages me
to say that the custom of opposing our
1 At the close of The Origin of the Laws of
Nature.
2 Professor J. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosti
cism, p. 207, vol. ii. So Professor Case, in the
article on Metaphysics in the tenth edition of the
Encyc. Brit, says Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer,
only escape materialism by being inconsistent.
�'some general criticisms, and a lesson IN MODESTY
Agnostic scientists to Haeckel—especi
ally when fairly ancient quotations are
dug out of their works in support of it—
is totally misleading.
The difference between them is this
(setting aside for the manner the question
of idealism): Haeckel’s system is a
comprehensive theory covering the uni
verse, whilst they remain on ground
which they feel to be very solid. They
affirm the evolution of all things, of
matter, of solar systems, of species from
lower species, of man, of religion and
ethics. But they decline to skate at all
on thin ice. Whether the universe had
a beginning, whether evolution has been
purposively guided, whether or how life
arose out of non-life, whether conscious
ness is of the same texture as physical
force, whether death makes an end of it
—all these things they prefer to leave to
a later generation. Where they do
affirm, they agree with Haeckel; but
they consider his further affirmations
premature, to say the least. They
agree with him that the religious theory
is quite uncalled-for by the facts of
science ; but they think it too early to
frame counter-theories. This is the real
significance of those famous conversions
of German scientists of which every
critic of Haeckel has made so much.
Du Bois-Reymond, Virchow, Baer, and
Wundt spread their affirmations over
the universe in their younger days. At
a later period they restricted themselves,
like Huxley or Darwin, to positions
which seemed impregnable. They re
treated to Agnosticism on the more ad
vanced questions. It. is absurd to find
Haeckel’s critics representing them as
having gone over to theism or Christian
ity.1 Like Huxley and Tyndall (in his
1 Haeckel is read a ferocious lesson in
manners by all his critics for putting a certain
construction on their change. Let it stand. I
am chiefly concerned with the truth or untruth
of his ideas. I see, therefore, a far more griev
ous sin in the almost general misrepresentation
of the nature of these “conversions.” Dr.
Horton, we saw, slipped in Vogt and Buchner,
the most advanced materialists of Germany, as
converts to spiritualism. Mr, Ballard inserts
17
agnostic mood) they only decline to
follow Haeckel in a constructive theory
of the origin of life and the relation of
consciousness to brain, and the strenuous
denial of God and immortality; but they
shrink just as severely from the con
structive theories and the dogmas of
Haeckel’s critics.
In that sense Haeckel stands apart,
though far from alone. Is he justified
in leaping the abysses from which his
colleagues shrink ? Would it be wiser to
keep to the solid ground ? To put no
rounded system before the world ? We
can judge best when we have covered
the whole ground over which his system
extends. Meantime, remember three
things which are lost sight of in the dust
of this controversy. Firstly, Dr. Haeckel
does not claim anything like equal value
for his views on all points. He knows
perfectly well how the evidence differs,
and how at times he must bridge a chasm
with “a pure hypothesis,”as he calls his
theory of abiogenesis; though he does
not even put out a hypothesis without
sober ground.
His system is an
elaborate structure of demonstrated
truths, convincing theories, and rational
hypotheses of all grades of strength. The
critic who confuses the latter with the
former, and thinks he has destroyed
“ the fundamental axiom,” when he has
only shown that some outlying hypothesis
A only a hypothesis, does not evince
much discernment or a scrupulous desire
to let truth prevail. Secondly, dualism,
or theism, may not logically rush in if one
Romanes, of whose conversion Haeckel was
totally unaware when he wrote the book, and
whose change of views differs toto co:lo from that
of Virchow or Wundt. All essentially misstate
the real “ metamorphosis.” It was merely from
dogmatic monism to what Dr. Ward calls
“agnostic monism.” It lends no support to
theism or spiritualism. Prof. Haeckel assures me
that “even to-day these men are styled atheists
by German ecclesiastical writers.” Read Mr.
Kennedy’s attack on Du Bois-Reymond’s hetero
doxy, after his “ Ignorabimus-Rede,” in his
Natural Theology and Modern Thought, pp.
42-65. Darwin used stronger language about
Virchow than is to be found in the Riddle.
�18
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE
of Haeckel’s particular hypotheses breaks
down. Between Haeckel and Martineau
or Fiske lies the broad region of neutral
or agnostic monism. And thirdly, this
is the ordinary procedure of science. It
throws out the light bridges of its hypo
theses far in advance of its solid march.
They may be withdrawn later. More
probably they will gather strength as the
years roll on, and be at length absorbed
in the growth of the impregnable
structure of scientific truth.
Chapter II
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW
OF SUBSTANCE
What, then, is this monism which
has aroused so much bitterness and an
tagonism ? Once more, before we can pro
ceed to a sober and patient study of the
position of Dr. Haeckel, we find it
necessary to lay the dust which his
critics have raised. There is the defini
tion given by the Rev. Ambrose Pope,
who seems to have led the opposition
to Haeckel in the Clarion controversy.
Mr. Pope disposes of the system —
which it has taken Dr. Haeckel a
laborious life-time to construct—-with
a marvellous and quite papal facility.
It was made, he thinks, during three “half
day excursions” out of Haeckel’s own
province. From these he returned with
certain “assumptions” which contain,
with almost ludicrous clearness, the con
clusions he wanted to reach. We will
have a word on these “ assumptions ”
(which are really the conclusions of years
of observation and reflection) when the
time comes. But incidentally Mr. Pope
defines monism, or, as he calls it for
some occult reason, “ physiological
monism.”_ “Briefly,” he says, “the
universe is not dual in its ultimate
nature, viz., spirit (or soul) and matter;
but single (monistic), viz., matter (or
substance).” Mr. Pope goes on to say
airily that "this is another of those inno
cent-looking hypotheses” from which
Haeckel derives his atheism, &c. How
any man can fail to see that this is
not an assumption, but the most
laboured conclusion of Haeckel’s sys
tem—not the base but the apex of his
pyramid—passes comprehension. Mean
time, it is formulated in utter defiance
of Haeckel’s words, and one might think
Haeckel would be consulted on the
matter. He says (p. 8) that monism
does “ not deny the existence of spirit,
and dissolve the world into a heap of
dead atoms ” and that “ matter cannot
exist and be operative without spirit, or
spirit without matter.” Dr. Horton and
many others have the same confusion.
The Rev. Rhondda Williams says : “ He
recognises that there is something which
is not material (spatial) which we may
call mind, or soul, or spirit. But if this
spiritual something is treated as the
mere, product of matter, or the mere
function of the material organism, its
reality is denied, i.e., it has no real
spiritual nature.” But Haeckel has no
where said that spirit (or force) is a
product of matter. There are scientists
who resolve matter into force, but no one
ever attempted the reverse, except in
�THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE
the sense of reducing force to motion,
which Haeckel certainly does not.
Monism is so clearly defined at the
very commencement of Haeckel’s book
(p. 8) that these gentlemen must have
convinced themselves he gave an im
proper definition in order to escape the
odious label “materialist.” Before we
proceed, let us be perfectly clear why
this odium does attach to the word
“materialism.” It is well worthwhile,
for here is one of the strangest and most
common sophisms
of the
hour.
Materialism is the name for two totally
different things, which are constantly
confused. There is, in the first place,
materialism as a theory of the universe—
the theory that matter is the source
and the substance of all things. That is
(if you associate “ force ” or “ energy ”
or “motion” with your “matter,” as
every materialist does) a perfectly
arguable theory. It has not the remotest
connection with the amount of wine a
man drinks or the integrity of his life.
But we also give the name of materialism
to a certain disposition of the sentiments,
which few of us admire, and which
would kill the root of progress if it
became general. It is the disposition to
despise ideals and higher thought, to
confine one’s desires to selfish and
sensual pleasure and material advance
ment. There is no connection between
this materialism of the heart and that of
the head.
For whole centuries of
Christian history whole nations believed
abundantly in spirits without it having
the least influence on their morals;
and, on the other hand, materialists like
Ludwig Buchner, or Vogt, or Moleschott,
were idealists (in the moral sense) of the
highest order.1 Look around you and
see whether the belief or non-belief (for
the Agnostic is in the same predicament
here) in spirit is a dividing-line in conduct.
There is no ground in fact for the con
fusion, and it has wrought infinite
mischief; while it has rendered, and
1 See sketches of their lives in Last Words on
Materialism,
19
still renders, incalculable service to con
servative religion.
In his Natural History of Creation
Professor Haeckel admitted that his
monism was not far removed, from
scientific materialism. But there is still
so gross a confusion on the subject
that it is very natural for him to refuse
the name.
Indeed, he could not
logically accept it, and no one who is well
informed in recent physics will accept it,
unless he is allowed to interpret it in his
own way; a right which seems to be
denied to men like Dr. Haeckel. Glance
at any scientific work, and you will
find that it speaks as much, if not
more, about force than about matter.
Hence if critics insist on calling
materialism a belief in “dead atoms”
and “ hard atoms,” and “ solid atoms,”
and nothing else, there
are no
materialists to-day, if ever there were?
We shall see more presently about
modern notions of matter and force, but
may take it that Haeckel, in proper
scientific spirit, attaches as much im
portance to force as to matter, and does
not make any absurd attempt to derive
force from matter.1 Further, he identi
fies “ soul ” or “ spirit ” with force. Mr.
Williams says this is a polite way of
denying its existence, and Mr. Pope
would say it is an assumption.
It is
neither one nor 'the other, but a most
serious and characteristic conclusion of
Haeckel’s researches.
I am now
stating his position, not the grounds for
it (which will come in due time). He
concludes that the thinking and willing
force in man—what we call his mind or
spirit—is identical with the force that
reveals itself in light and heat. In
other words, he is forced to think that
spirit and energy are one and the same
thing, and so he uses the names in
discriminately. But he is further con
vinced, on grounds we shall see
presently, that matter and spirit (or
1 Yet even the writer of the article on Meta
physics in the 10th edition of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, who devotes two columns to the
Riddle, joins in this general misrepresentation,
�20
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE
force) are not two distinct entities or
natures, but two forms or two aspects of
one single reality, which he calls the
fundamental substance.
This
one
entity with the two attributes, this
matter-force substance, is the sole
reality that exists—to use a Greek word,
the motion—the one nature that presents
itself to our contemplation in the
infinitely varied panorama of the
universe.
This position is logically, as I said,
the culmination of Haeckel’s system.
For the convenience of this brief de
scription I take it as the starting point
of that network of explanations, theories,
and hypotheses which constitutes the
monistic philosophy. There is a most
important school of philosophers who
will challenge even the existence of this
matter-force substance, as we shall see
presently, but for the vast majority of
men of science, as well as of ordinary
folk, this matter-force element is the one
obvious reality. In this Haeckel’s cri
tics are at one with him. It is when
Haeckel goes on to say it is the sole —
mon-on—reality that the conflict begins.
The view which Haeckel opposes is that
there is another element in existence,
totally distinct from this matter-force
reality : that the mind of man cannot be
an evolution from the matter-force sub
stance, and that this substance itself
could not have evolved into the orderly
universe about us except under the guid
ance of a still higher intelligent principle,.
God. Now, it would be quite legitimate
to say that we are as yet so imperfectly
acquainted with this matter-force reality
that it is premature to say what it can o<cannot do. That is the Agnostic posi
tion, rejecting alike the dualist theory of
Mr. Ballard and the monistic explana
tions of Dr. Haeckel.1 But monism is
more ambitious.
Science has now
1 But I must repeat—so persistent is the mis
representation—that this agnostic position is as
antagonistic to Christianity as monism is. Its
quarrel with what it calls the premature theories
of the monist is a purely scientific or philosophical
matter, and is totally unconnected with religion.
amassed enormous quantities of facts
concerning every part and aspect of the
universe. The monist believes we can
already, with this material, sketch in
broad outline, at least, the upward
growth of the great world-substance
until it is transfigured in the beauty of
the living organism, and becomes selfconscious in the mind of man. Every
body admits to-day, says Mr. Mallock,
that the inorganic world is “an absolute
monism.”
The monist proceeds to
bring the realms of life and conscious
ness into this matter-force unity, and to
show that we are not warranted in claim
ing that its growth needs a designer or a
controller. He will go on until he has
embraced the whole life of humanity,
science, art, religion, and ethics, in his
single formula.
Do not misunderstand me to the
extent of supposing, as so many strangely
do, that the monist is bound to have a
theory ready for every phenomenon
under heaven. We find even the ablest
of Haeckel’s critics claiming that monism
breaks down here, or fails to explain
there, and then with a chant of praise
fluttering the banner of dualism in the
breach. Such a course is absurd. If
the monistic theory fails anywhere, the
next attitude that logic enforces is agnos
ticism, or reserve of judgment.
If
Haeckel’s theory of the origin of life, or
of heredity, or of consciousness, or of
morality, or of Christ, will not stand the
strain of rational examination, this does
not impair the general system of monism.
The heart of the system is (i) the affir
mation that a great matter-force sub
stance (or nature) is unrolling its poten
tialities in the universe about us
(which no one denies), and (2) that we
have no rational evidence that there exists
any other substance (or super-nature).
To say that Haeckel is bound to explain
everything or die, is a grotesque assump
tion.
He has plainly disavowed so
foolish an ambition. It may be that
before the last red rays of our dying sun
fall upon the eyes of the last of our race,
some millions of years hence, the mon-
�THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE 21
bundle of sense-impressions which he
istic philosophy will be complete. That
quite gratuitously supposes to be caused
is the “ infinitely remote goal ” he spoke
by a material object, and his stomach.is
of. But, as I said, science has already
accumulated so vast a library of know a fiction. So with the whole of material
life. It is a kinematoscopic display in
ledge that we may venture even now to
draw the outline of an extensive view of the mind—not, as far as we know, taken
from life. Berkeley opined that God
the universe in the monistic sense. That
was the operator of the instrument.
is what Dr. Haeckel does in the Riddle,
Idealists generally have dispensed with
of the Universe. He has spent half a
the operator now. The show unwinds
century in seeking truth. He has fought
itself by some occult law of the mind.
side by side with the finest scientific
thinkers of the last century in overcom In either case “ this too, too solid flesh ”
ing an historic resistance on the part of does melt, and thaw into something
the Churches. No one who is not con thinner than “an everlasting dew,”
Matter is a mental construction, force
vinced that humanity has already, at the
very beginning of its higher life, reached is the same, the world they make up
cannot be otherwise.
There is, of
the final truth, will be diverted by the
course, the agnostic position, that we
sneers and gibes of heated partisans
do not know whether this kinematoscopic
from a patient study of his conclusions.
No one who believes that truth is a panorama is a photograph, or a diagram,
of a real world, or no. But all idealists,
sacred possession, and the first condition
and they are the vast majority in philo
of lasting progress—no one who feels
sophy to-day, sternly insist that the
that dignity and sincerity are the first
matter and force which the scientist
qualities required in its pursuit—will
manipulates are mental counters; that
allow himself to be turned from the true
he is dealing with his idea of matter and
and vital issues by a petty and frivolous
force, whether or no an eternal reality
criticism of irrelevant details.
corresponds to these. Hence it is that
The plan I have adopted is to state
so many cultivated reviewers set aside
first the almost undisputed unity of the
inorganic world, then proceed to con Haeckel’s system with polite disdain.
sider its evolution, and pursue the pro His realism—his habit of talking of
cess of development through the suc matter and force as familiar objective
cessive stages of life, consciousness, and realities—is too naive.
Now this philosophy so obviously cuts
reason. But I have already said that
an important group of philosophers chal out the root of Haeckel’s system that
some of his clerical critics have put on
lenge our right even to the inorganic
superior airs and borrowed phrases from
world as a base of operations. Age
it. If the very existence of matter and
after age philosophy has rung the changes
on the familiar bells—materialism, ideal force is doubtful, clearly monism is in a
parlous state. They forget one thing.
ism, spiritualism, realism. To-day the
system in favour in the schools is ideal If idealism excludes, or throws doubt on,
the objective reality of matter, it in the
ism. According to the idealists the
same proportion destroys the Christian
naive belief of the average man that he
position. What is the meaning of the
lives in a material universe, which lay
Incarnation, or the death of Christ, or
here in space before humanity began to
the whole historic foundation of Chris
furrow its soil, and will lie there still
tianity, if the material world and its
when the last man has dropped into his
eternal tomb, is a delusion. The arch history are subjective ? Dr. Iverach sees
this very well, and warns his impetuous
sophist, Berkeley, comes along, and
colleagues. “In truth,’’ he says, “we
explains that the orange he thinks he
must arrive at a conception which leaves
is vulgarly injecting into a material
cavity he calls a stomach, is only a room for real individuality; that will
�22
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE
recognise the uniqueness of every person,
and yet place every person in relation to
every other person and thing that is, has
been, or will be. It must allow reality
to history, and permit a real progress
and real events in it. It must recognise
human activity as a factor in the world’s
history, and recognise somehow that
good and evil, happiness and misery,
righteousness and sin, are not appear
ance, but stern realities, which philo
sophy and theology must deal with.”1
There are, of course, important divines
amongst the idealists, such as Dr. Caird,
but they are neither consistent nor likely
ever to be literally adopted.
The
Catholic Church is intensely realistic.
Its philosophers, Dr. Ward, Dr. Mivart,
Father Maher, Father Clark, etc., have
never yielded a step to the reigning
fashion of idealism. In a word, the
defenders of religion whom Haeckel
opposes are as “ naive realists ” as he is.
It is only the more short-sighted who
meddle with the edged tools of the
modern metaphysician.
But the philosophers themselves, the
aristocracy of the intellectual world!
Are we to go on with our construction
in total disregard of their protest ? I
believe Haeckel is quite right in doing
so. As Mr. Mallock says, these idealist
dreams are not “ the mere raving
which at first sight they seem to be.”
On the other hand, the common fashion
idealists have of saying that the man
who refuses to take them seriously must
be altogether ignorant of their philo
sophy—a species of arrogance peculiar
to idealists and Roman Catholics—is
absurd. Few cultivated men are ignorant
of their arguments.
But the average
man of science, the average historian,
and the average man of affairs, sweep
away their theory as, in the words of
Mr. Mallock, “a fantastic, though in
genious and learned, dream.2 “ If phi1 Theism in the Light of Present Science and
Philosophy, p. 305.
2 Religion as a Credible Doctrine, p. 202.
Mr. Mallock gives an admirable summary of the
system, as presented by its latest and ablest
expositor, Professor James Ward.
losophers,” he says again, “instead of
confining themselves to the solemn alti
tudes of existence . . . would conde
scend to take their examples from the
common events of life, they would avoid
many of the mistakes which expose
them to the just ridicule of the vulgar.”
The historian is hardly likely to admit
that the stupendous drama he is engaged
in reconstructing is not the real play of
living passion. The astronomer is not
prepared to see in the vast expanse of
the heavens only the unreal mirage
of his ideas.
The physicist contemp
tuously repudiates the idealist’s interpre
tation of his matter and force.
The
question is raised, said Sir A. Rucker, in
his presidential address to the British
Association in 1901, “whether our basic
conceptions are to be regarded as accu
rate descriptions of the constitution of the
universe around us, or merely convenient
fictions,” and he gave an emphatic adhe
sion to the former. His speech ended
with a claim that ether and the atom are
not mere mental fictions, not mere “ work
ing hypotheses,” but “objective realities.”
His successor in the presidency, Pro
fessor Dewar, no less strongly repudiated
“ the ancient mystifications by which a
certain school shatter the objective reality
of matter and energy.” Indeed, signs
are not wanting of a coming change
amongst the metaphysicians themselves.
The immense difficulty of explaining how
we can perceive an external world is
familiar enough to every thinking man.
But philosophy must try again.
The
material world is more convincing than
all their difficulties.
The article on
“ Metaphysics,” by Professor Case, in the
latest edition of our greatest Encyclopaedia
is one long warning that the reign, or the
nightmare, of idealism is over, and that
we shall shortly return through “the
anarchy of modern metaphysics ” (as he
says), to a normal belief in the reality of
a material world, the reality of war and
disease and poverty and ignorance, and
the rationality and validity of social
enthusiasm and scientific investigation.
With Professor Haeckel, then, we pass
�THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LA W OF SUBSTANCE
by our perplexed metaphysicians, and
smile at their supercilious comments.
We turn to the spreading panorama of
inorganic nature as the first embodiment
of the monistic substance.1
There
should be no criticism for us to meet
here, but the eagerness to deny and to
discredit and to score a point—as if we
were conducting a mimic Parliament in
some dull provincial town, instead of
being sober searchers for truth—has
been so feverish that we shall find it
breaking out into all kinds of frivolous
criticisms.
When you look up at night into the
heavens you see some three or four
thousand stars scattered through space.
Each is an incandescent sphere, rarely
less than three million miles in circum
ference, and usually separated from its
fellows by billions of miles of space. It
would take some 175,000 years to count
the distance in miles to the nearest of
them. Some of them can be proved to
be at least 1,500,000,000,000,000 miles
away. With the use of a good telescope
the number of these world-masses runs
up to more than a hundred millions.
Yet even then we seem to be only at the
fringe of the question of the magnitude
of our universe. When a telescope
containing a highly sensitive photo
graphic plate is directed to what seem to
be dark and empty parts of space, and
is kept in that position for eight or ten
hours, the plate is found to bear the
faint imprint of a fresh myriad of worlds.
They are so far distant that, though they
are 150 times more luminous than lime
light, and though the waves of light they
send us have been falling on the plate—
1 A certain school would have us admit that,
because our conviction of the reality of the
external world is incapable of demonstrative sup
port, we should grant the same privilege to the
belief in God. There is no analogy whatever.
We cannot get away from our belief in the real
world. The idealists themselves assume it in
their arguments—as when they take the physi
cist’s analysis of sound or light, to throw doubt on
our hearing or sight. There is not a particle of
this irresistibility about the idea of God. We
can trace its roots and reject it without the
slightest inconsistency.
23
a plate that would take a picture in the
merest fraction of a second in day-time
— at the rate of 700,000,000,000,000
per second, many of them fail to make the
least impression after six or eight hours’
exposure. We have no ground for sup
posing our most powerful instruments
bring us to anything like a limit to the
universe.
Is the universe infinite? Dr. Haeckel
speaks of it as infinite and eternal, and
this is just one of those typical cases
where the monist outruns the agnostic.
The criticisms which have been passed
on the phrase “ infinite ” (we shall speak
of eternity later), as applied to the
material universe, are not very dis
cerning. There are critics who imagine
that Haeckel must advance no statement
for which he cannot furnish empirical
proof; whereas he has told us from the
first page that, as a sensible thinker, he
employs his faculty of speculation
(taking care that it starts from facts) as
well as his power of observation. Then
there are critics who insist on thinking—
it is very convenient for their purpose—
that he lays the same stress on every line
of his system, and so cry “ dogmatism ”
wherever the evidence is slender. We
must approach the subject more reason
ably. The question is, does the evidence
of astronomy point in the direction of
limits or of illimitableness ? Philosophy
has nothing to say against the infinity of
the cosmos. “We have no evidence,”
says Dr. Ward, “of definite space and
time limits; quite the contrary. ... we
certainly cannot prove that the universe
as a whole is measurable and therefore
finite. And when we pass to more
purely a priori considerations, the case
against a universe with fixed and finite
limits is equally strong.”1 The idea of
a limit is in fact unthinkable, and the
evidence of astronomy is far from sug
gesting it. “Is the universe infinite?
Who can say ? ” asks Dr. Dallinger.
He refers to the fairly definite scheme of
1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. i. p. 195.
Dr. Ward does not, of course, say the cosmos is
infinite.
�24
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LA W OF SUBSTANCE
our milky way, but says 11 it may be but
a complex particle in a universe of
universes, stretching on for ever and
ever over the bourneless immensity of
the unknown.”1 Briefly, what evidence
we have is totally against the idea of a
limit, and that idea is so unimaginable
that it would never have been suggested
but for theological considerations. Dr.
Haeckel prefers to rely on the scientific
indications. I reserve for a separate
chapter the discussion of Prof. Wallace’s
curious views on the subject.
The next step that science takes is to
establish the unity of this immeasurable
universe. There is no question to-day
about the identity of the matter which
composes these innumerable and widely
distant worlds. The spectroscope is a
more delicate analyst than the apparatus
of the chemist. It has detected poison
and convicted criminals where chemistry
has been mute. And the spectroscope
will tell us the chemical constituents of
Arcturus, 1,500,000,000,000,000 miles
away, as confidently as it ■will analyse
the matter in the laboratory. It needs
for its operation only a ray of light from
the matter in question. We have thus
learned that the material of the stars is
the same as that of our earth. We may
find different elements here and there;
we may find matter in states we cannot
detect or produce on earth. But the
ancient idea that the heavens were made
of a superior substance is totally dis
credited. From end to end of the
known universe matter is one. It is
also established that a more subtle form
of matter, called ether, fills the inter
stellar spaces and penetrates into the
very heart of the most solid substances.
Even the apparently rigid particles of a
1 The Creator, p. 14. Strange to say, Dr.
Dallinger immediately continues: “If that be
so, we can make no useful inference from our
finite universe ” : and shortly after actually infers
that the world was created on the ground that it
is “finite”! “What is finite begins to be,
must have been caused to be” (p. 14). If
Haeckel had proceeded in this slovenly fashion,
what an outcry there would have been.
block of iron are really swimming in
miniature oceans of ether.
But this is not unity, it is a wonderful
variety, some of the critics exclaim; you
give us ether on the one hand and some
seventy-four different kinds of ponderable
matter on the other. The latter part of
the objection is not now seriously urged.
For years the indications in chemistry
pointed towards a real unity of the chemi
cal elements, and to-day no one has any
doubt whatever that they are all multi
ples of some simpler form of atom. The
unity of oxygen, hydrogen, iron, gold, and
so on, is completely accepted. Astrono
mers have observed in some of the stars
matter which seems to be actually in a
transition stage; and physics, which has
made gigantic strides of late, seems to
have detected the same phenomenon in
its laboratories, as Sir O. Lodge points
out in his brilliant Romanes Lecture for
1903. The elements have been built
up by evolution from some simpler and
homogeneous substance. That is the
belief of all physicists and chemists, and
it is based on a mass of facts. Mr.
Ballard thinks it useful, or wise, to raise
the dust even here. He says (third
article—not the one in which he charges
Haeckel with dogmatism) that Haeckel
frankly confesses—as he does—his lack
of expert knowledge of physics, and adds
that these “ ultimate questions of mole
cular physics of necessity determine our
conceptions of the constitution of matter,
and so are fundamental to the whole of
his monistic theory.” This is mere dust
throwing. The unity of matter is a
necessary part of the monistic theory,
but this is given in the commonest and
the finest manuals of physics as an
established and accepted truth; how the
various elements arose from one form of
matter is a subject of merely speculative
interest to Dr. Haeckel, and is not yet
settled. But Mr. Ballard plunges deeper,
and says Haeckel’s confession of weak
ness in physics “ does not prevent his
recommending ‘ the brilliant pyknotic
theory ’ of J. C. Vogt to the acceptance
of every biologist.” Then he begs the
�THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE 25
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND
reader to study the stale criticisms of
Mr. Stallo “before accepting the VogtHaeckel theory as final,” and later says
Haeckel “decides that the conception
which best suits his purpose is the one
to be generally received.”
He then
reads a lesson on the impropriety of
misleading people, and, finally, after a
bewilderingly tortuous run, appeals to
the expert physicists Stewart and Tait
and Lord Kelvin to prove—quite irrele
vantly—that there is a Supreme Being.
The whole passage is too ludicrous to
analyse in detail, but I must point out
two things. Firstly, Mr. Ballard has no
more doubt than I have of the unity, of
matter, which is the only serious point
in question; Haeckel can fit into his
system any theory of the. evolution of
matter that physicists decide to adopt.
Secondly, Mr. Ballard quite misrepre
sents Haeckel’s attitude towards the
“pyknotic theory.” He does not say
“it is the one to be generally received,”
but says (p. 78) he “thinks it will prove
more acceptable to every biologist who
believes in the unity of nature” than
the other theory. The foolishness of
the whole episode is seen when one
reflects that this somewhat old (1891)
theory of Vogt’s is infinitely nearer to
the theories which are being discussed
to-day than the “ kinetic ” theory which
he dislikes.
The unity of all ponderable matter is,
then, an accepted doctrine, but we meet
fresh difficulties when we turn to ask if
there is a unity of ponderable and im
ponderable matter (or ether). . Here, in
deed, we meet a critic of a friendly dis
position whom it is courteous to hear. A
writer in the Reformer says, “ it will be
news to most of us that the ether is. the
original and fundamental matter, since
it is in its properties, so far as known,
pretty nearly the antithesis of all we
understand by material ”; and he
describes ether as “a material substance
which has none of the properties of
matter, and has most of those usually
associated with spirit.” Whether ether
has the properties of spirit or no depends
on what we mean by spirit. Theologians
mean nothing like ether, but spiritists
(who seem to be generally materialists
unconsciously) frequently do.
In any
case both Sir O. Lodge and Sir A.
Rucker meet the objection for us. Sir O.
Lodge, in his Romanes Lecture (1903),
says some physicists admit two kinds of
inertia, and he himself boldly advocates
the unity of electricity and ponderable
matter. “ An electric charge,” he says
(p. 4), “ possesses the most fundamental
and characteristic properties of matter,
viz., mass or inertia.” Sir A. Rucker, in
his presidential speech (1901), sweeps
the objection away as unphilosophical.
“ We cannot,” he says, “ explain things by
the things themselves.
If it be true
that the properties of matter are the
product of an underlying machinery,
that machinery cannot itself have the
properties which it produces, and must,
to that extent at all events, differ from
matter in bulk as it is directly presented
to the senses.”1 The affinity of ether
and ponderable matter is not questioned
in science, whatever the actual degree
of affinity may prove to be. And the
proof is advancing rapidly. I have said
that the astro-physicist finds a . transi
tional matter in the heavenly bodies, and
now the terrestrial physicist announces 2
that in his experiments with the new
element, radium, he witnesses the actual
break-down of the ponderable atom into
a form of matter he associates with
electricity. In fact, every modern theory
1 These principles also dispose of the critic in
Light who finds Haeckel “very uneasy” at
having to fit ether into his scheme, and thinks
his “ annexing ” it is “desperate work at this
hour of the day.” Seeing that the whole trend
of physics has been ever since in the direction
which Haeckel follows, I should say the criticism
is “ desperate work.” Light thinks ether is
“ending the old materialism ” and making for
spiritist monism. As I said, it depends what
you mean by spirit. Religious philosophy has
always meant “ unextended substance.
Ether
is just as quantitative as the most ponderable of
the elements.
2 See Sir O. Lodge’s Romanes Lecture, 1903,
and the discussion at the recent British Associa
tion meeting.
�26
™E miTY 0F ™E WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE
of the atom implies its origin from ether,
’
what does Haeckel mean by making this
or their common origin.
’
reality, or substance, of which they are
Haeckel is, therefore, fully justified in
the . manifestations, the central mystery
taking from physics and chemistry his
of life at one moment, and doubting its
thesis of the unity of matter. No man
very existence the next ? A patient ex
of science disputes it, and it is a purely
amination of what Haeckel says, and a
scientific question. With regard to the
little less eagerness to score rhetorical
unity of force, there is even less difficulty.
It is now notorious that the forces of the points, would have enabled Mr. Rhondda
Williams and other critics to see what
universe are interchangeable, and are
he meant. He warned them that the
regarded in physics as so many varieties Riddle'^ a sort of “sketch-book,” and
(chiefly differentiated by wave-movements
they might have expected a lack of com
of different lengths) of one fundamental
plete harmony of expression. Haeckel
energy. I am not, of course, including says (p. 134): “We must even grant that
here the disputed “ vital force ” and the
this essence of substance [more cor
human soul, which later chapters will
rectly, the essence of this substance]
discuss. But the unity of the forces with becomes more mysterious and enigmatic
which the physical sciences deal is beyond the deeper we penetrate into the know
dispute. We have thus so far simplified
ledge of its attributes, matter and energy,
the visible universe as to detect beneath and the more thoroughly we study its
its kaleidoscopic variety the operation of
countless phenomenal forms and their
one form of force and one form of matter evolution. We do not know the ‘thing
from end to end of the universe. The
in itself’ that lies behind these know
next and final step as far as the unity of able phenomena. But why trouble about
the material universe is concerned is to
this enigmatic ‘thing in itself’ when
bring together this matter and force
we have no means of investigating it,
themselves.
when we do not even clearly know
Dr. Haeckel has done this by saying whether it exists or no ? ” The Greeks
that matter and force (or spirit) are “ the long ago started the notion that the
two fundamental attributes, or principal properties or attributes of a thing were
properties, of the all-embracing divine
really distinct from its substance. The
essence of the world, the universal sub mediaeval philosophers made them as
stance.” He further admits that “ the distinct as the skin is from a potato, and
innermost character ” of this substance so it became a general custom to speak
is still totally unexplored; and in the end
of the essence or substance of a thing as
seems to question its existence altogether being hidden within or underneath a
(P- I34)- Here, of course, the critics
shell of properties. The senses stopped
are active. In the first place let us
short at the shell, but the intellect some
examine the alleged arbitrariness of this
how penetrated to the kernel. Kant’s
conjunction of matter and force. It is
critical philosophy destroyed this sup
a perfectly sound scientific and philo posed privilege of the intellect, but
sophic procedure. We not only know substituted for the substance-and-prono form of matter without force, but we perties idea the equally false and arbi
cannot imagine it. It could not act on trary notion of phenomena (qualities or
our organs of perception. On the other attributes that reach the senses) and
hand, we know no force apart from matter noumena (or “ things-in-themselves,”
(or ether). Force seems to be always which would be food for the intellect, if
embodied or substantiated in matter.
it could reach them). In both cases
Each is an incomplete reality; or, rather,
there is the veil of phenomena, or pro
they are two sides, or two different mani perties (colour, sound, shape, etc.), and
festations, of one reality.
That is in the veiled and inaccessible substance,
full accord with scientific teaching. But j <or essence, or noumenon. Now, many
�THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE
of us deny to-day that there is any solid
ground for the distinction at all, and that
is what Haeckel means. You say, he
argues, that matter and force are only
phenomena, and that there is an under
lying “thing-in-itself.” If there is, he
says, it is as mysterious as ever; but I
see no good reason at all for thinking
that matter and force are a screen or
veil hiding something else. They are
the one eternal substance or reality. It
is a pure fallacy to say tnat in oidinary
experience we are dealing with a shell, of
properties or phenomena, and not with
the realities themselves.
Therefore—
logic sternly enjoining us never to multi
ply entities without necessity—I take it
that matter and force are the world-sub
stance breaking upon our perception in
two different ways.1
To illustrate the point , further, and to
meet a further class of critics, let us hear
what science says about these properties
or phenomena of things. Let us take
the familiar ones, sound and colour,
Are you unaware, we are severely asked,
that science has shown these to be
totally subjective ? Yes, I am quite un
aware ", though I know perfectly well
what science has done. I am writing
over a green table-cloth. Science tells
me that this really means that the
material covering my table, is of such a
molecular texture that it absorbs. a
number of the waves of sun-light which
fall upon it, and only reflects the blue
and yellow waves. These it sends to my
retina at the rate of some hundred
billion per second: they cause a
peculiar movement in my optic nerve,
and finally in my brain, and—I see green.
So, as I write, the clock strikes twelve.
That is to say, the metal molecules of
the bell are thrown into a violent
oscillation; they cause waves in the
surrounding atmosphere; and the in
tricate mechanism of the ear turns these
into a modification of my auscultory
nerve and brain. And all this elaborate
description of objective movements and
objective agencies is supposed, to.have
made colour and sound “subjective.!
In point of fact, it has done away, with
the old shell of properties (though, it is a
question how far people ever did say
their sensations of colour and sound
were objective) and brought us into
direct touch with realities. And as all
the unnumbered objects about us con
stitute, fundamentally, one matter and
one force, we are face to face with the
one fundamental reality. We do not
“ know all about it.”
That is the
grossest perversion of Haeckel’s words.
To borrow the fine metaphor of Sir A.
Rucker, we see it in a light that is still
dim, but we see it. It is for the future
to complete the outline and fill in the
detail, as the light grows.1
Thus we have given in terms of
science the world substance, the matter
force reality, which is the constructive
starting point of Monism. The res^
our work consists in eliminating the
additional substances or forces which
theists, spiritualists, or supernaturalists
would compel us to add to it. It only
remains here to say a word of what
Haeckel calls the fundamental “law of
substance.” And first as to Haeckels
idea of a “law.” A fair-minded re
viewer in the Inquirer (March 9, 1901)
says: “The distinguished author seems
to have failed to see that to imagine a
law as an active power is every whit as
‘ anthropomorphic ’ as to imagine a God
of manlike form as feeling.” A writer in
Knowledge (January 30, 1901)—from
whom the Inquirer probably borrowed—
1 From these principles the reader can answer
for himself the often-heard criticism : You build
up the universe by matter and force, but what
do you really know about matter and force themselves ? The answer is : Go to a good library,
and ask for a few recent manuals of astronomy,
geology, chemistry, physics, and physiology. If
they do not deal with matter and force,, they
deal with fictions. The fallacy of the criticism
1 And that is not only the literal, but the only
is, of course, that science deals with this lmposrational, meaning of “phenomenon.”
Prof.
I torly shell of “ phenomena,” and does not reach
Haeckel readily endorses my explanation of his
I the “ essence ” or the “ underlying reality.”
position.
�28
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD, AND THE LA W OF SUBSTANCE
puts it as strongly : “ To scientific minds
tion of energy—which are, said the
who regard laws of nature as merely con Manchester Guardian critic, “precisely
ceptual formulae summing up certain
the oldest of all man’s discoveries in
sequences of experience, it may seem
the cosmological field.”
No particle
that to replace a deliberate architect and
of matter is ever annihilated or created ;
ruler of the world by 1 the eternal iron
that is the first axiom. Recent experi
laws of nature ’ is to be guilty of an
ments have actually seen the break
anthropomorphism precisely analogous to down of what has been called the
those on which the illustrious author
atom, and have seen particles chipped
pours contempt,” and he says, “ evolution off it; but only another form of matter
travels through the book like a creator is produced. The observations have
in disguise.” It would be rather curious
been so broad that physicists have felt
if one of the ablest living scientists did justified in concluding that indestructi
not know what science means by “ a law.”
bility or permanence is a property of
I .say science, because there is here no
matter. The same has been experi
discrepancy of views. That “ law ” only mentally demonstrated of force.1 Both
means “a summing-up of experience,” a are constant in quantity, though ever
uniform mode of action of this or that changing in form and distribution.
force, is a platitude of natural science.
Since we have seen reason for associat
Said Professor Dewar in his Presidential ing matter and force so closely, it is
Speech: “ When the scientist speaks of necessary to combine the two axioms
‘ a law of nature ’ he simply indicates a likewise. The great fundamental reality
sequence of events, which, so far as his
is constant or permanent amidst all its
experience goes, is invariable, and which qualitative changes. That is the first
therefore enables him to predict.” But and firmest law or feature of the monistic
the “law,” or mode of operation, of an
substance.
agency is so closely connected in our
We have now seen that Professor
minds with the agency itself that we fre Haeckel is in full accord with the latest
quently substitute the one for the other.
scientific teaching in his doctrine of the
It is strange to hear that this deceives
unity of the visible world. We have
any one.1 When a scientist speaks of the
seen(i) that matter and force are
law of gravitation, or the law of evolution,
realities; (2) that there is at bottom one
producing or compelling certain results,’
supreme form of each; (3) that there is
he invariably means the force of gravita no reason for holding them to be
tion or the agencies of evolution.
distinct realities, and so we unite them
We come, finally, to what Mr. Ballard as aspects of one substance or reality;
strangely calls Haeckel’s “ irrational law and (4) that this substance is, as far as
of substance.” The law of substance is extended observation goes, constant and
one of the most undoubted truths of indestructible in its quantity. We may
modern science. It is merely the union
now proceed to consider the evolution of
in one sentence of two of the proudest this matter-force reality into the infinite
results of modern physics, the inde complexity of the visible universe.
structibility of matter and the conserva{( 1 Does any one quarrel with us for saying that
“the law” compels us to pay taxes, and so
forth ?
1.'^s 10 t^le difficulty alleged to rise from
radio-action, Sir O. Lodge says there was
“never any ground” for concern about the
theory.
�THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
29
Chapter III
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
Dr. Iverach says, or it may have been one
hundred or more, as others think—the
part of space we occupy was filled with
a cloud (not necessarily a “ fire-mist ”) of
infinitely attenuated matter. By the
action of its inherent and natural forces
this nebular matter entered upon a pro
cess of condensation and disruption.
Portions of it—whether or no they were
cast off in the form of rings, which
broke into irregular masses—condensed
into the several planets of our system,
and were set in revolution round the
central mass. This central mass, the
sun, is still condensing and pouring out
the heat which its compression causes.
The smaller masses, such as the earth,
cooled in time and formed a solid crust
at their surface. This outline is
accepted by all educated people to-day.
Quibbles about the details of the pro
cess are best left to expert astronomers
to deal with.
Our solar system is as a single snow
flake in a shower, but we have already
seen that it in every verifiable way
resembles its fellow flakes. It is of the
same stuff as they, and is ruled by the
same laws or forces. We have un
deniable ground to extend our nebular
theory to other worlds than ours, and
take it as the key to the formation of
all the stars that fill the immeasurable
heavens.
Indeed, we find worlds in
every stage of development, as required
by the theory, when we sweep the sky
at night.
We find nebulse stretching
sometimes over billions of miles (as
the nebula in Orion), and patches cut
out of them, as it were, to form stars.
We find clusters of thousands of stars
(as the Pleiades) with the remnants
still clinging to them of the gigantic
nebula they were developed from. We
1 Theism in the Light of Present Science and
find nebulse and stars illustrating almost
Philosophy, p. 35.
Where shall we begin in a descrip
tion of the growth of the universe?
Can we go back' to a stage beyond
which the imagination cannot penetrate
with its ceaseless questioning? It is
impossible for us to hope ever to do
this. Wherever we start in our con
struction, we shall start with positive
building material, and the imagination,
if not reason, will ask endless questions
about its previous history. All that we
can do is to set out from a definite and
recognised point, the nebula from which
our particular solar system has been
formed. From this, once we have
traced the broad lines of the evolution
of our sun and planets, we may, in. the
light of the discoveries and speculations
of modern science, look back into the
appalling abysses of past time and out
over the boundless panorama of the
universe.
With what is known as the nebular
hypothesis we need not linger. Haeckel
has sketched the outline of the theory,
and there is no relevant criticism of it.
“ There is no doubt,” says Dr. Iverach,
“ that some form of the nebular theory
is true.”1 There are clerical writers
who seem to think it profitable in some
obscure way to point out defects in the
theory, or to prove that the evidence for
it is not overwhelming. What they
gain by such efforts is not clear. The
question has long since passed beyond
the sphere of theology. Catholic
astronomers like Miss Agnes Clerke
accept it as eagerly as atheists. No
man of science entertains the smallest
doubt to-day that it correctly describes
in outline the formation of our solar
system. Once upon a time—it may
have been fifty million years ago, as
�3o
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
every step of the process.
We find
dark stars, extinct suns, which point
to the complete accomplishment of
such a process.
Astronomers are of
late years disposed to think the number
of these extinct suns is enormous.
Moreover, at times a new star flames out
in the sky, announcing the recommence
ment somewhere of the familiar drama
of world-formation.
In a word, the evidence of astronomy
forbids us to look upon the evolution
of the material universe as a continuous
process in a straight line of which we
might picture a definite beginning
and for which we might anticipate a
definite end.
The life-force of the
great substance only dies down in one
corner of space to be relit in another.
The dark stars which indubitably have
run their million-year long course are
only waiting to be reanimated by collision
or some other cosmic accident.
The
nebulae are embryonic worlds before our
own eyes. The blue-white stars are in
the prime of life. The red stars (with
certain peculiarities) are slowly dying,
but may rise again any day from their
tombs. Science, as Dr. Mivart said in
Truth, “ points to no beginning.” Nor
does it help us to approach the subject
from another point of view. We have
not only the evolution of cosmic masses
to explain, but the evolution of the
chemical elements themselves, or of
ponderable matter, from the finer
medium from which all physicists
believe it has been developed. If we
had any scientific evidence which
justified us in going back to a stage
when ether (or whatever the “ prothyl ”
may turn out to be) alone existed; and
could then show how atoms of ponder
able matter arose by condensation of it,
or by the formation of vortices in it;
and could see these atoms being
grouped into the complex atoms of
oxygen, gold, sulphur, &c.; and could
further, trace their aggregation into
meteorites, and the meteorites into
nebulae, and the nebulae into solar
systems—even then we should in
reality be no nearer the beginning.
The “ prothyl ” (or “ first matter,” a
name which does very well to designate
the much-sought elementary substance)
might very well be only the last term of
a previous universe-drama. The cyclic
process may have gone on for ever as
far as science can tell. But in point of
fact the universe does not as yet give
indications of any such continuous
process.
The universe is developed
piecemeal, star by star. The hundred
millions that we see shining to-day are
by no means “the universe.”
We have here a drama of life and
death on an almost inconceivable scale,
but the point I want to bring out is that
even the most daring speculations of
science bring us no nearer to a begin
ning than we are to-day. Dr. Haeckel
has been roundly abused for speaking of
the universe as eternal. I think it is
quite clear that, if we confine ourselves
to scientific considerations, he is using a
very proper kind of language. Here is
a matter-force reality which is constant
and indestructible in its ultimate quan
tity ; and though we can go back millions
of years on solid evidence, and billions
of years on fair speculation, we find no
more suggestion of a limit in time than
we did in regard to space. Certainly,
the greatest number of billions of years
we could imagine would not be nearer
to eternity than a day is. I merely say
that if any one suggests a limit in time
for the cosmic process he will not find
the shadow of a justification in science.
Critics seem at times to employ a curious
logic in dealing with this question.
“Finiteness” and “infinity” are words
with a strong odour of metaphysics about
them. Let us take it that it is a question
simply whether the universe had a be
ginning.
Now, some critics naively
assume that it is our place to prove that
the universe, or matter, or force, or
motion, never had a beginning. That
is a novel kind of logic. Here is the
universe given, and if any one makes the
very pregnant and formidable assertion
that there was a time when it did not
�THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
exist, and that it came into existence
out of nothing, he must have. a very
positive and firm ground for his asser
tion. As far as scientific experience of
matter and force (or motion) goes, they
are not entities that slip in and out of
existence, but are constant. Yet we
have Mr. Rhondda Williams talking of
“ the mystery of the primitive push ” as
having always been the great difficulty
of mechanism. He tries at first to make
a scientific difficulty of it: “ Galileo,
the founder of physical science, laid it
down as the first principle of dynamics,
that every movement of matter could
only be explained by another movement
of matter, and that has been a recognised
principle of science ever since.” 1 Well,
that looks like a very strong confirma
tion of Haeckel’s thesis that matter and
motion must be eternal. But Mr. Wil
liams goes on : “ The difficulty was to
explain how matter began to move, what
caused the first movement, what gave
the primitive push ? ” But science, we
have seen, knows nothing whatever about
any “ primitive push.” It is a purely
gratuitous assumption. Dr. Horton might
refer us to “ the matchless revelation of
Genesis,” and we might suggest that the
Babylonian astronomers of 6,000 years
ago are not very safe guides. Mr. Wil
liams is content to assume the fact of
this “primitive push” without saying
why he thinks there was one. More
than that, he is greatly excited because
Haeckel declines to attempt to explain
it until some good reason has been
shown for thinking there ever was such
a thing. He tell his admiring audience
that Haeckel says “ the origin of move
ment is no difficulty because it never did
originate, he explains by simply denying !
What evidence does he adduce ? Abso
lutely none.” Dr. Haeckel, one would
think, can hardly be expected to spend
time in finding scientific proofs for the
first chapter of Genesis. His position is
negative. Eternity is a negative concept.
We do not prove negations in logic, or
1 Does Science Destroy Religion? (p. 13).
31
in real life. Mr. Williams further says
he has no objection to Haeckel holding
this “as a belief,” but he “does object
to his contention that this type of monism
is based upon empirical investigation.”
This is an unfortunate confusion. The
essence of Haeckel’s position is negative.
But he goes beyond the agnostic chiefly
on the ground of (1) the astronomical
evidence, and (2) the constancy of
matter; and those constitute empirical
evidence.
But to take them as more
than suggestions, and to ask empirical
proof that the world is eternal is rather
funny.
Finally, Mr. Williams says
Haeckel is equally unsatisfactory, about
the origin of consciousness. This just
illustrates Mr. Williams’s essential con
fusion. We know that consciousness
had a beginning, so there is no analogy ;
and in point of fact Haeckel, as we shall
see, devotes whole chapters to the origin
of consciousness.
Now this is a fair illustration of the
dreadful confusion which rules in the
minds of the people who put on very
superior airs about Haeckel’s “ dog
matic ” affirmation that the universe is
infinite and eternal. They almost al
ways assume, often in sweet unconscious
ness, this most important thesis that
there was a time when matter or motion
was not. It is one of the largest asser
tions that was ever made on the poorest
of sophisms. The scientific evidence,
such as it is, favours Haeckel’s negative
attitude.1 Philosophy is equally mute.
1 It is true that Mr. Mallock thinks one might
plausibly infer from what is called the entropy of
the universe that it had a beginning. This is the
only case where Mr. Mallock allows that scientific
evidence even seems to help theism. But we
shall soon see that the theory of entropy is totally
unable to bear the strain of such an inference.
Sir J. W. Dawson, one of the scientists Mr. Bal
lard raises from the dead to answer the Riddle,
says science does not regard the universe as
eternal “because, when we interrogate it as to
the particular things known to constitute the
heavens and the earth, it appears that we can
trace all of them to beginnings at more or less
definite points of past time.” Even at the time
this was written it was false in fact and unsound
in logic.
�32
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
The Greeks held that matter was eternal.
“It is not more difficult,” says Mr.
Mallock, “to suppose an eternal, self
existing and self-energising substance
than it is to suppose an eternal and
self-energising God.” But Christian
scholars have, in the interest of dogma,
tried to prove that the universe must
have had a beginning. We have seen
how Dr. Dallinger skipped from “ bourne
less immensity ” to “ finiteness,” and
concluded that “ what is finite begins to
be.” The last link of his curious chain
is hardly better than the others. Dr.
Iverach suggests the argument, but
abandons it (Ch. I., Christianity and
Evolution}. Dr. W. N. Clarke says:
“The things that we behold, mutable
though magnificent, bear the marks, not
of original, but of dependent existence.
Somehow existence has been caused.”1
Such an argument could only be
elaborated with the aid of a mediseval
metaphysic which we do not take to-day
as a measure of things. Dr. Clarke,
indeed, retreats to the position that even
if it were eternal we should need a
“ character-giving Spirit ” along with it;
a point we shall discuss later.
To sum up: neither philosophy nor
science points to a beginning of the
scheme of things. In view of the con
stancy of matter and the inconceivability
of a creation out of nothing, very strong
evidence would have been required to
make us accept this beginning. As it is,
the only source of the assertion is the
first line of Genesis and a concern for
theistic evidence. Professor Haeckel
has preferred to be guided by the sug
gestions or indications afforded by
scientific evidence. “ Science points to
no beginning,” as Mivart wrote. “We
have no evidence of definite space and
time limits; quite the contrary. . . .
And when we pass to more purely
a priori considerations, the case against
a universe with fixed and finite limits is
equally strong.” 2 Every effort to assign
1 An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 109.
2 l’rof J. Ward, quoted previously.
a beginning fails. We should never have
heard of it but for “ the matchless reve
lation of Genesis.”
Let us now turn to consider whether
science has anything to say with regard
to the end of the universe. As far as
our solar system is concerned, the
teaching of science is firm. Our sun
can only sustain his terrible vitality by
shrinking a certain number of feet every
century. He is doomed, as far as
astronomy can see, to die, like the dark
stars that already lie in the vast cemetery
of space. The air and water will dis
appear from the surface of our planet,
and for a time the heat of the sun will
beat upon the white tomb of all the
hopes and all the achievements of
humanity. The moon is the skeleton
at our feast. Its yawning sepulchre
points out the fate that awaits us.
Thou too, oh earth—thine empires, lands, and
seas—
Least, with thy stars, of all the galaxies,
Globed from the drift like these, like these
thou too
Shalt go. Thou art going, hour by hour, like
these.1
Perhaps Jupiter and Saturn will even
then teem with life, and their astronomers
study nightly the scarred and silent face
of the planet we enliven to-day.2 But
from planet to planet the hand of death
will travel. Then one by one, astrono
mers believe, the planets will fall into
the shrinking bosom of the sun and eke
out its failing vitality. At last the
blood-red sun will die out, and continue
to speed through space at twelve miles
a second, a dark, solid, silent, and
gigantic sepulchre. Physicists talk of
ten million years. It is an hour in
eternity.
1 Mr. Mallock’s Lucretius.
2 When Prof. Lionel Beale says (Vitality,
p. 4) that “ the more recent discoveries as to the
constitution of our sun and the planets as well
as the fixed stars, render it most improbable that
life exists in these or other orbs,” one can only
gasp with astonishment. There is no truth
whatever in it; and the mere idea of people
living in the stars—at a temperature of several
thousand degrees—makes one uncomfortable.
�THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
For this is only a relative end. The
whole hundred-million-year drama of our
history will be, in our present cosmical
perspective, only the subsidence of a
tiny ripple on the bosom of an illimitable
ocean. Millions of similar dramas had
been played out before ours began; and
when silence shall have fallen succes
sively on the planets of our system, the
great nebulae that lie against the back
ground of space will be but waking into
existence. Moreover, the dark stars, and
the new stars that appear at times in the
heavens, point to an indefinite prolonga
tion of the process. The colliding of two
of these extinct suns—two globes of per
haps 800,000 miles diameter (like the dark
companion of Algol)-—would generate
heat enough to reduce them to a nebu
lous mass, pouring out for millions, if not
billions, of miles ; and the force of gravi
tation would ensure a further condensa
tion and world-formation. Actual collision
is, indeed, net believed to be necessary ;
in cases an approach within a few million
miles is believed to have led to a stellar
conflagration. Moreover, there are stars
so stupendous (take Arcturus, for in
stance), and moving at such inconceivable
speed through the universe, that we can
only look upon them as destructive
anarchists.
The universe, taken as a
whole, has all the appearance and promise
of “ perpetual motion.”
Recent writers have, however, appealed
to the theory of entropy as a scientific
indication of an end of the process.
Briefly, all energy can be (and is daily)
converted into heat, but heat is not all
reconverted into electricity, &c. This
seems to forecast a time when all the
working energy of the universe will be
dissipated, or lost in a generally diffused
heat.
Mr. Mallock has pointed out
(though Lord Grimthorpe and others had
done so years ago) that if this were true
the universe cannot have been eternal.
We should have reached the final stage
long ago. Haeckel has described and re
jected the theory. It only remains for me
to show how the very latest pronounce
ments of science quite confirm his posi
33
tion. Physicists generally are by no means
disposed to allow that, because in our
laboratories a certain quantity of the heat
force cannot be reconverted, we may
jump to a cosmic conclusion on the
matter. Mr. Mallock admits that many
physicists reject it altogether, “ but
since others equally eminent maintain
that there is no escape from it—so far at
least as our present knowledge extends
—it is necessary to consider how it may
bear on the point at issue.”
The
parenthetic clause contains the essential
weakness of the theory. It assumes an
acquaintance with cosmic processes
which science is very far from possessing.
Sir O. Lodge deals with the point
incidentally in his recent Romanes
Lecture. “ So long,” he says, “ as there
is only a force of one sign at work it
would seem that ultimately the regenera
tive process must come to an end. The
repellent force exerted by light upon
small particles, however, must not be
forgotten ; and there are other possibili
ties.”
These possibilities have been
emphasised by the most recent discoveries
in physics, in connection with radio
action, so that Haeckel was more than
justified in declining to accept the hasty
and unwarranted conclusions of the
entropists.
Sir O. Lodge suggests an analogous
theory with regard to matter—a kind of
entropy of matter—but he suggests only
to reject it. He and many distinguished
physicists see in the phenomena of
radium, which have so greatly agitated
the world of physicists of late, an actual
breakdown of the atom. Electrons (units
of electricity) are detached from matter
at an electrode, and it is believed that
these electrons are really “ bits chipped
off” the .Acr'0 It is a “reasonable
hypothesis ” that an atom of ponderable
matter is made up of these electrons.
An atom of hydrogen is something like
the hundred-millionth of a centimetre in
diameter; yet an electron has only about
one-thousandth the mass of an atom of
hydrogen.
It is calculated that 700
electrons would go to make the hydrogen
c
�34
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
atom, 11,200 to make the atom of oxy
gen, and so on with the other elements.
Not that these electrons are to be pic
tured as locked in each other’s embraces
to form a solid atom. If the atom were
magnified to the size of the Sheldonian
Theatre, its constituent electrons would
be “ like full-stops flying about the
room.” They occupy the atom by their
forceful activity, not by bulk. These
electrons are thought to be the ultimate
units of which the atoms of ponderable
elements are built—though no doubt Sir
Oliver would allow that there remains
the question of the formation of these
electrons themselves from a continuous
medium.
But the most curious fact
is that in the experiments on radium
the atoms seem to disintegrate and give
rise to other forms of matter, which break
up in their turn. This seems to point to
a dissipation of matter into electrons cor
responding to the dissipation of force into
heat. But Sir O. Lodge reminds us at
once of the impropriety of founding such
large cosmic theories on our laboratory
experiments. ‘'‘There may be regenera
tion as well as degeneration,” he urges,
and he points to the analogy of the
collision of stars.1 Theoretical physics
is making rapid pace to-day—too rapid,
some physicists say. But the whole of
its recent discoveries and speculations go
to confirm those physical theorems which
Professor Haeckel took from the physics
of the time when he wrote (1890-5), and
built into the structure of his system—viz., the unity of matter and force, the
indestructibility of matter and conserva
tion of energy, and the evolution of the
ponderable out of imponderable matter
and its natural aggregation, by gravita
tion, into nebulae and solar systems.
Monism can easily acccrr.modace itself to
any rectifications of the details of these
theorems.
1 On the whole question see the Romanes
Lecture for 1903—which recalls the brilliant
expository work of Professor Tyndall—and the
proceedings of the Physical and Mathematical
Section at the meeting of the British Association,
September, 1903.
We are thus made acquainted with the
second great law of the universal matter
force reality—evolution. Avoiding meta
physical and abstract formulas, and keep
ing as closely as possible to the facts of
science, we learn from the study of in
animate nature that the life of this
great reality stretches as far behind and
before us in time as its substance
stretches over the abysses of space. We
find it in a condition of orderly and con
tinuous development. Chronologically,
we cannot reach back to any stage of the
process where we discover a continuous
and homogeneous form of matter and
force diffused through space.
But phy
sical analysis brings us almost within
sight of such a “ prothyl ” (first-matter)
and of the connecting link between
ponderable and imponderable matter.
If we can to-day witness the disintegra
tion of the atom, we are completely
justified in forming theories of its inte
gration ; and the theories find strong
empirical confirmation in the astro-phy
sical observations. We can trace the
upward growth of our “ prothyl ” into
the familiar chemical elements with their
immense variety of properties—and it
may be noted, in face of the recru
descence of old metaphysical theories
as to these new properties, that the new
elements (formed in radio-action, for
instance) sometimes only acquire their
distinctive qualities with very sensible
gradations. The titanic forces of the
universe—already differentiated into
heat, electricity, gravitation, &c.—mould
the new-formed matter into meteorites,
nebulae, stars, and solar systems. Man
looks about him on a vast and restless
ocean of being, on the surface of which
the life of his whole race is no more
than a momentary bubble.
There are two points to be considered
before we follow Dr. Haeckel into the
more contentious field of biological evo
lution in which he possesses an almost
unique authority.
We have to meet
the charge that Haeckel tries to bully
and depress us with the magnitude of
this “ cosmological perspective,” and we
�THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
must see how far his opponents accept
this teaching of modern science. Mr.
Ballard declares that this “ latest pseudo
gospel from Jena is as miserably be
littling and depressing as it is intellec
tually invalid and practically unwork
able.” A^critic in the Daily Chronicle
expresses the same sentiment (as to
depression), and it has been repeated
by many of the reviewers. There is an
excellent English proverb about the
proof of a pudding which might have
saved these writers if they had heeded
it. Haeckel himself is by no means
depressed by his “ cosmological perspec
tive,” if he is saddened at times by the
slow progress of truth. No Rationalist
is ever heard to complain of or to betray
the faintest depression at his position.
Sometimes, indeed, with that marvellous
alacrity of his, the theologian flies to
the other extreme, and says the Ration
alist must infallibly come to the practical
conclusion to eat and drink and be
merry. It is curious that we, who are
credited at times with making too much
use of reason, should be held to make
so little use of it in the ordering of our
lives. Quite certainly one effect of this
perception of our infinite littleness in
the universe at large, with its yawning
cosmic sepulchres on every side, is to
make us eager to enjoy our present life.
Quite certainly we say to ourselves, in
the words of Omar,
“ Ah ! make the most of what we yet may spend
Before we too into the dust descend.
Dust into dust, and under dust to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and sans
end.”
«Ve have not the remotest idea of
being depressed or bullied by the im
mensity of the universe or its sepulchral
aspect. That would be folly, not ra
tionalism. Moreover, it would be equal
folly to plunge into those sensual depths
which are so strangely said to be the
alternative to depression. Life is too
precious a thing to be squandered on
every impulse. Its potentialities must
be reasoned out. The promise and the
35
prospect of developing its higher gifts
must be pondered. Science, art, litera
ture, social and political activity, refined
intercourse, and sweet homes—those are
the most precious gifts life offers to us.
We are rationalistic enough to prefer the
higher to the lower, to prefer gladness to
depression.
The objection is, in fact, a purely
captious one. Haeckel’s belittlement of
man is relative. It aims at discrediting
the traditional and arrogant doctrine of
man’s uniqueness, which has done so
much to obstruct the advance of truth
in the nineteenth century. Even if it
were depressing to learn that we are not
compacted of a special material, and that
the universe is not a toy-theatre for us to
play our parts on before the angels, we
should welcome the truth and speak it.
The code of morals that consults our
likes and dislikes does not find favour
amongst Rationalists. But depressing
the truth certainly is not; and it is only
belittling in a narrow, comparative sense.
One of Haeckel’s critics proceeds to
show that, “ if we look at evolution from
above downwards, man is still the chief
thing in the universe.” With a passing
reminder that we do not know the whole
of evolution—we do not know what the
process may have produced in other
planets—we need only say that here is,
of course, another aspect of the question.
But to suppose that it has been over
looked, and that the belittlement is other
than comparative, is quite gratuitous.
The last point we have to deal with
here is: What is the attitude of the
opponents of Monism on the teaching
we have seen thus far ? As far as the
inorganic universe is concerned, they
accept the teaching of science, and are
usually content to add to it a theistic
supplement. They generally deny, as
we saw, the infinity and eternity of the
universe; and we have discussed the
grounds of their denial. The more
impetuous and less informed of them
have some vague notion of rendering
service to religion by criticising (for the
edification of their followers) every
�36
*
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
advance of scientific theory. Even Dr.
Dallinger protests that the nebular
hypothesis is not “an undisputed and
established fact of modern science.”
Others, like Mr. Ballard, recommend the
study of sceptical writers like Stallo.
All these petty criticisms might profitably
be left out of religious controversy.
They tend to no conclusion now. There
was a time when theistic evidence meant
the detection of gaps in the scientific
view of the world, and a rush to fill up the
gap with supernatural action. It is be
ginning to dawn on the more enlightened
of our theists that this is weak in logic,
and dangerous in practice. Who could
number the gaps they have occupied
during the last two centuries—and
deserted ? They are beginning to see
at length—what they were begged to
consider from the beginning—that a gap
in scientific construction may only mean
our temporary (or even permanent)
ignorance, and does not necessarily
imply a real breach or defect in the
action of natural agencies. We shall
see more of this later. Meantime Mr.
Mallock says: “ If we compare the
evidences in favour of the monistic
doctrine generally with the objections
urged by religious dualists against it, the
great difference between the two is this :
that whilst the objections of the latter
are isolated, disconnected, casual, the ex
isting evidences of the former cohere and
dovetail into one another like numbered
stones designed for some vast edifice:
and whilst the missing evidences of the
monist are one by one being found, the
objections of the dualists are in daily
process of being discredited.” 1 Hence,
he says, “ educated apologists of all
schools accept evolution to-day,” and he
quotes Professor Ward as saying that, if
there has been any interference in the
cosmic process, it “ took place before the
process began, not during it.” And
Professor Le Conte, whom Mr. Ballard
recommends us to read, and who accepts
evolution from the atom to the human
mind, says: “ Evolution is no longer a
school of thought. The words evolu
tionism and evolutionist ought not any
longer to be used, any more than
gravitcitionism or grcivitationist; for the
law of evolution is as certain as the law
of gravitation.” 1
So theistic writers are beginning to
repudiate the theology of gaps. “ How
slow of spirit we have been to learn
that the Divine Spirit does not work
through gaps,” says Mr. Newman Smyth.2
Already we see a tendency to prove on
theological principles that the world
must have been evolved, from the
primary matter (and there is a disposition
to let this be eternal) up to the human
mind j that evolution is the one divine
process, and that the old idea of succes
sive interferences in the work is too
undignified altogether. This language
will be heard from every village pulpit in
fifty years’ time. We need not be spite
ful about it; but, on the other hand,
these advanced theologians, who know
it, might understand the irony and
humour of a great scientist who has
lived through the struggles of the last
fifty years. At present the spectacle we
witness is not unlike that of the competi
tors in a walking-match. In front are
a few laymen like Professor Le Conte
and Mr. Fiske (who have nearly
dropped their theism for greater lightness
on the way). Mr. Rhondda Williams
and Mr. Newman Smyth are not far
behind. Canon Aubrey Moore and Dr.
W. N. Clarke would be well in the
running if they were still here. Mr.
Ballard, who thinks “ Christian thinkers
have every reason for accepting evolution
as the general method of world-growth ”
(but makes a tremendous pother when
it comes to the evolution of life), and
Dr. Iverach, who is not anxious to
quarrel with evolutionary terms “ except
in so far as they become the symbols of a
mechanical evolution ” (but
raise much
dust as he goes along), are at a third
stage. Mr. Ambrose Pope, who thinks
*• Religion as a Credible Doctrine., p. 78.
1 Evolution and Religious Thought, p. 66.
2 Through Science to Faith, p. 20.
�THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
“ the theory of evolution is a scientific
hypothesis, true only in the sense that it
explains all the facts to hand at present,
true in exactly the same sense in which
the theory of creation, as found
in Genesis, was at the time it was
written,” comes a bad fourth—in line,
however, with the average “ cultured ”
preacher and the leader-writers and
reviewers of the Tablet, Guardian, and
Church Times.
Then we have a
straggling line of Christian Evidence
Lecturers, tract-writers, preachers, and
leader-writers in the Methodist Luminary,
&c.; ending in bunches of suburban
curates and rural vicars, who are still
handicapped with heavy old copies of
the Bible.
All this puts a peculiar difficulty in
the way of the Rationalist. If he
attacks the attitude of the advanced
minority, Christianity at large repudiates
his criticism; if he tilts at the con
ventional beliefs, the little band of the
intellectuals use excited
language.
There is hardly a single question on
which we have anything like a solid
front to meet. This will be clearer as
we proceed. As regards the inorganic
universe, we may say that no Christian
scholar of any serious influence ques
tions its unity, its actual constancy (or
its first law—the law of substance), or
its formation by gradual development
(its second law—the law of evolution)
from a primitive matter. They rest their
dualism, as far as visible nature is con
cerned, on (i) the need for a creator of
matter and force, and (2) the need for a
directive intelligence. With the first
point—or with its groundwork—we have
already dealt, and will deal again in the
chapter on God. The second point
must be very clearly grasped. It is the
last conceivable quasi-scientific argu
ment for the existence of God. It will
confront us throughout the next three
chapters, and it will before long be the
only argument of “physical theology.”
In its general formula it runs:
Although science can assign the efficient
or physical causes of the complex
37
phenomena about us, it cannot say why
they produced just these phenomena and
not different ones ; and the more clearly
science shows that an elaborate pheno
menon—say, thought, or life—is only
the outcome of a long and intricate
evolutionary process, the more pressing
is the need to admit that the evolutionary
agencies were guided and controlled by
intelligence from the first. The argu
ment is not a new one, of course, but the
best-informed theistic apologists are
warning their colleagues to fall back on
it at once, and to abandon the defence
of temporary gaps and petty criticisms
of science. “We are not,” says Dr.
Iverach (though he will forget it later),
“of those who are constantly looking
about for imperfections in a mechanical
or other theory in order to find a chink
through which the theistic argument
may enter. If that were our position,
the argument for theism would soon be
a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of
the earth; each advance of science, each
discovery of law, would simply drive the
theistic argument to find a new refuge.” 1
So Mr. Newman Smyth says : “ The
assurance of faith cannot be maintained
from a fortified critical position outside
the province
of the evolutionary
science.” And
Mr.
R.
Williams
declares : “ I do not worship a God
who only fills gaps, nor hold a religion
whose validity depends on missing
links.” Teleology is the word. The
scientist will show you everywhere
certain forces co-operating to produce
certain complex results. Point out that
these “ blind ” erratic forces must have
been guided in their co-operation,
especially if the result is beautiful [or
orderly or beneficial or admirably adapted
to produce a certain further result.
The advantage of “ the new teleology ”
1 Christianity and Evolution, p. 26. Observe
the excellent description of what the theistic
argument has been for some time and the naive
proposal of this as a mere contingency. We
shall find, too, that the old Adam is still strong in
Dr. Iverach, and he is still keen on gaps in
practice.
Bishopsgate Institute*
�38
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INORGANIC WORLD
—which is the “old teleology” re
enamelled—is obvious. Science may
now strain its mechanical causes as it
pleases to explain the origin of life and
consciousness. The more stupendous
the results it claims for physical agencies,
the clearer will it be that there were
design, guidance, and control. More
over, the argument comes into play from
the very first step that evolutionary
science takes. The best illustrations of
its application will be found in Dr.
Iverach and Mr. Profeit.1 They follow
step by step the teaching of physics and
chemistry, and pause at the end of each
paragraph to admire the wisdom of the
creator with Paleyesque devotion. Be
hold the primitive matter mould itself
into electrons and atoms. Whence did
it get the power? How came a blind
force to put together the electrons in
such an orderly series of atoms with such
wonderful chemical adaptations to each
other? Behold the ponderable matter
grow into nebulae and solar systems.
Who distributed the elements so nicely
amongst the various nebulae ? Who
distributed the elements
the nebula,
and broke off the whirling rings at the
proper moment, and set the planets
going at the requisite speed, that a
system of perfect order resulted, and
was found to be just suited for the
sustenance of life ?
Now let us be perfectly clear. This
argument is to be the great reply to
Haeckel, and it will recur all through.
It thinks it differs from the old Paleyism
in this : it can grant science the power,
either now or in the future, to give a
complete explanation on physical lines of
the up-building of an atom or a world.
1 The Creation of Matter. Mr. Ballard tells
us this may count as a reply to the Riddle. It
has been published since the Riddle, but does
not seem to mention Haeckel’s book.
As it says, science may explain how
these things were done. It adds that
every thoughtful man must ask also
why—why the process took place at all,
and why it took this particular line, with
such a lucky termination for us, rather
than any one of a thousand others.
They say: Let Haeckel explain the
whole world-growth on mechanical
principles, from the formation of the
first atoms of hydrogen to the solidifica
tion of the last planet. That only tells
how natural forces built up the world :
we want to know why. So we can
allow the naturalist or mechanical view
to be complete in itself, yet leaving full
room for us. ■
In order to avoid the repetitions and
the confusion which this design
argument leads to, I propose to take the
hint offered and keep quite separate the
questions how the world was made and
why it was so made. In this and the
following three chapters we shall see
how the world was made ; in the seventh
chapter we shall discuss the teleological
argument in its principle. We shall see
that the theistic evolutionists are by no
means prepared in practice to allow that
science can explain how all things were
made, or to assign adequate efficient
causes
for
the
more
complex
phenomena. The first line of defence
had better hold as long as it can, in
case the second should be not quite
impregnable. As to inorganic nature,
however, there is no serious hesitation.
The inherent or native qualities of the
matter-force reality (I am not shirking,
but deferring, the question why it has
these qualities at all) are generally
admitted to be the adequate efficient
explanation of the formation of atoms
and stars. The first serious challenge
rings out when we come to the frontiers
of living nature.
�THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
39
Chapter IV
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
No sooner do we pass from the con
sideration of inorganic nature to a
discussion of the origin of life than we
encounter in a severe form the per
plexity I have previously indicated. Do
theists or dualists deny that Haeckel
may legitimately extend the monistic
interpretation to the problem of life ?
At once we have to deal with a straggling
line of contradictory thinkers, instead of
the fairly solid front which we desire
to face.
A large number of the
authorities recommended to us as cor
rectives of Haeckel’s philosophy entirely
agree with him in his theory of the
spontaneous generation of life, and are
content to add, as before, the teleo
logical consideration. A large number
severely criticise his position—and
therefore that of their own advanced
colleagues—even from the point of view
of physical or efficient causation ; and
there is every grade of vacillation
between the two.
It will be interest
ing to see first how far the doctrine
of the first appearance of life by
abiogenesis is accepted by theistic
writers,
It is well known that Dr. Mivart
defended the doctrine with great ability
for the twenty years preceding his death.
To-day Father Zahm and other Catholic
scientists are no less willing to admit it.
That Professor Le Conte and Mr. Fiske
accept it goes without saying. Dr. W.
N. Clarke is disposed to grant it:
“Life, when its time came, may have
come in by direct creation; so may
human life or the life of other species;
or the whole process of unfolding may
have been continuous, impelled by only
one kind of divine movement from first
to last. Whether God has performed
specific acts of creation from time to
time is a question for evidence, which
lies outside the field of theology.”1
Mr. Newman Smyth admits that it is now
irresistible: “ While the fact is now
universally admitted that non-living
matter cannot now be organised into a
living form except through the prior
agency of life, on the other hand the
momentum of all our scientific know
ledge of the continuities of nature leads
modern biology to the assumption that
the organic substance at some time has
been raised and quickened from the
deadness of the inorganic world.” 2 Mr.
Profeit also is willing to admit the
evolution of protoplasm, though only
“as the result of working intelligence.” 3
Dr. Iverach, who is also anxious to
stress the teleological aspect, never
theless admits that life was “ implicit in
the whole ”; though we shall find him
raising superfluous difficulties later.
Thus in his allegation of the fact that
life was evolved out of non-life Professor
Haeckel finds himself in quite respect
able company. The sonorous philo
sopher of one of our dramatic and
sporting papers (the Referee} delivered
himself as follows some months ago
(March ist, 1903): “At the very
threshold of this great theme we
encounter the eternal question as to
how life began at all, and here the
scientist cannot help us.” It would be
1 Outlines of Christian Theology, p. 132.
2 Through Science to Faith, p. 17.
3 The Creation of Matter, p. 96 ; his proviso
is, of course, shared by all these evolutionists.
We are for the present concerned only with
efficient causation. When Mr. Profeit goes on
to tell us that when protoplasm appeared “the
stars clapped their hands for joy,” we can hear
the rustle of his surplice. The evolution must
have taken millennia, if not millions of years.
There was no psychological moment for applause.
�40
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
interesting, and not a little enlighten
ing, for “Merlin” to investigate this—
under the circumstances—remarkable
phenomenon of a group of ardent
religious apologists subscribing to the
doctrine of abiogenesis. But “ Merlin ”
might quote a number of scientific men
(of ecclesiastical standing) who make
the same affirmation in yet stronger
language, and who denounce Haeckel
with some vigour for representing
abiogenesis as a scientific theorem.
There is Dr. Horton, the admirer of
Vogt and Buchner, who assures us
that “ no leading man of science treats
it [Haeckel’s theory of the origin of life]
seriously.” But the leading opponent
is Mr. Ballard, and we will treat his
criticism at respectful length. It will
lead us, sooner or later, into the heart
of the difficulty.
It will be remembered that in his
attack in the British Weekly, in which
he emulates the spirited Dr. Loofs in
literary manner, he devotes the bulk
of his articles (about twelve columns
out of thirteen) to preliminary obser
vations, and then turns, “ for sheer relief,”
to criticise Haeckel from the scientific
point of view. I will strike off super
fluous errors as I go along, and deal with
the essence of his objection afterwards.
“To begin with,” he says, “its funda
mental thesis is utterly unscientific, viz.,
the assumption of the actuality of spon
taneous generation.” To begin with, I
may repeat, this sentence contains three
grave and essential misrepresentations.
Spontaneous generation is very far from
being the “fundamental thesis ” (or the
“fundamental axiom” and “crucial
proof ” he elsewhere calls it) of the
Riddle, or of Haeckel’s system ; it is not
an “assumption,” but a serious conclu
sion ; and Haeckel does not claim that
spontaneous generation takes place to
day. It is preposterous to suppose that
Haeckel’s fundamental thesis should be
one that many Christian scholars accept,
and the reader will already understand
that, though it is necessarily involved in
Monism, it is no more “ fundamental ”
than ten other propositions. But Mr.
Ballard proceeds to make good his state
ment. He says Haeckel “frankly ac
knowledges that spontaneous generation
is ‘ an indispensable thesis in any natural
theory of evolution. I entirely agree
with the assertion that to reject abio
genesis is to admit a miracle.’ ” “ An,”
one may observe, is different from “the,”
and “ indispensable ” from “ fundamen-'
tai ” ; but that is a comparative trifle. No
page is given, but if you do look up the
passage (page 91) you find that Haeckel
is saying that Professor Naegeli represents
it as “an indispensable thesis,” and that
“the assertion” should be “his asser
tion.” It would not do, I suppose, to
let readers of the British Weekly know
that Haeckel does not stand alone, so
the quotation is manipulated. More
over, the phrase, “to reject abiogenesis
is to admit a miracle,” is quoted by
Haeckel from Naegeli, but the quotation
marks are omitted by Mr. Ballard. The
reader may judge if the fact of Haeckel’s
agreeing with Naegeli justifies this. I
know that Mr. Ballard quotes the passage
fairly in his Miracles of Unbelief My
second point, that it is not an “assump
tion,” will be clear when I come to resume
the evidence for it. The third point is
that if Mr. Ballard uses “actuality” in
the ordinary sense of the word, as the
ordinary reader will suppose, he gravely
misstates Haeckel’s position. That he
does imply that Haeckel claims spon
taneous generation to be “ actually ”
occurring is clear from his appeal to
those scientists (Tyndall, Pasteur, &c.)
who disprove no more than this. As a
fact Haeckel says (p. 91) : “ I restrict the
idea of spontaneous generation—also
called abiogenesis or archigony—to the
first development of living protoplasm
out of inorganic carbonates.” Further,
Haeckel refers the reader to his earlier
work for details, and Mr. Ballard himself
quotes therefrom that Haeckel only offers
the doctrine as “a pure hypothesis”
without experimental support.
Haeckel’s position is, then, properly
stated, that we have no evidence that
�THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
living things now arise by spontaneous
generation; that the monistic view of
the universe, which other scientific
evidence commends, requires the birth
of living things from non-living in the
beginning; that he finds no peculiar
qualities in the vital force which forbid
the extension of the law of evolution to
it; and that he therefore sketches a
purely hypothetical suggestion of the
mode of transition on broad lines. A
really careful and impartial inquirer
would see that the essential part of this
position, from the logical point of view,
is the third part of it—the conviction
that there is no peculiar feature of the
vital force which forbids us to assume
its evolution. Evolution is a known
law of the cosmos—or “ the general
method of world-growth,” as Mr.
Ballard says. We apply it until we are
pulled up by some phenomenon of a
specific nature that seems impossible to
have been evolved. But Mr. Ballard
utterly disregards this chief strength of
Haeckel’s position (supported by the
whole of this chapter of the Riddle),
proceeds to flourish weapons which do
not reach that position at all, and con
cludes that Haeckel is “ utterly without
scientific warrant,” or, as he has previously
said, he “ sets at defiance the latest and
most exact findings of science, and cuts
the Gordian knot by sheer assertion of
that which is essential to his hypothesis,
but is itself undemonstrated, and, we
may venture to add, on good authority,
undemonstrable.” His procedure is
so typical of the usual confused dis
cussion of the subject that we may
follow him to the end.
After saying that Haeckel offers no
proof—which we will discuss presently—
he goes on to overwhelm him with the
“ conclusions of experts.” G Between
the inorganic and the organic, there is,
according to all the facts now known
and the consensus of modern science
concerning them, a stage in which, to
quote Mr. Wallace, ‘ some new cause or
power must necessarily have come into
action.’ ” We are defending a gap after
4i
all, you see; though Mr. Ballard says it
is not essential to do so. Further, it is
not only “utterly without scientific
warrant,” but “ emphatically ” contra
dicted by “the conclusions of such
experts as Tyndall, Pasteur, Drysdale,
Dallinger, Roscoe, Kelvin, Beale, &c. ” ;
and “for modern science, speaking
generally and carefully, spontaneous
generation is as dead as Huxley’s
Bathybius.” One’s mind goes back
involuntarily to those clerical spontane
ous generationists and the horrible
levity with which they have deserted the
gap. The truth is, as those who know
anything of the controversy will have
seen long ago, Mr. Ballard is throwing
dust. He knows perfectly well that the
only point on which scientists are
agreed—and Haeckel is quite with them
—is that abiogenesis does not take place
to-day; that is a thesis which Haeckel
has explicitly disavowed. The experi
ments of Pasteur never purported to
prove anything else, and never could.
His favourite Professor Beale admits his
own solitude : “ Physicists and chemists
look forward with confidence ” to further
experiments, and “think to acquire a
knowledge of the manner in which the
first particle of living matter originated.”1
He cannot quote a single biologist to
say that his science is against Haeckel’s
“ hypothesis ” of abiogenesis in the past.
I will presently quote more than one in
favour of it, in the sense of endorsing
Haeckel’s most important point—that
there is no essential difference between
vital force and non-vital force. He, a
bachelor of science, has blurred the
distinction between actual abiogenesis
and archigony, which is essential, and
which has been pointed out for twenty
years by men of science. And this is
the culmination of his attack on Dr.
Haeckel, and, I suppose, the chief justi
fication for the gross epithets he has
showered on one of the most venerable
figures in the scientific world.
Mr. Mallock says : “ It was formerly
1 Vitality, p. 7.
D
�42
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
supposed that they [life and manj were Mr. Ballard and others so confusedly
produced by isolated creative acts; but represent as opposed to Haeckel.
we now know that they are the results of Science draws no inference, and logic
an orderly process of evolution. The can draw no inference, with regard to the
theist of to-day admits this as fully as primeval origin of life from this negative
anybody.” Unfortunately, we see that evidence. This has been pointed out
there are theists, who are held to be men time after time, as it was by Sir W.
of scientific culture and liberality, who do Turner in his Presidential Address in
not admit it, and we must discuss the 1900.
subject patiently. This is largely the
Haeckel’s second point (in my analysis
result of people like Mr. Ballard, in their of his position) is that we have ample
eagerness to draw up a long list of reason to regard evolution as a law of
“ sound ” literature, recommending all substance, or a law of nature. We
kinds of antiquated works. For instance, have seen how completely scientific
one of the authors he urges us to read this thesis is.
“ Evolution,” said
on this question, “ Principal Chapman,” Canon A. L. Moore, sixteen years ago,
assures his readers that Buchner and “may fairly claim to be an established
Haeckel assert “life now can be repro doctrine.”1 And we have quoted the
duced out of inorganic conditions,” and Rev. Newman Smyth’s opinion that “ the
attacks the “asserted possibility of arti momentum of all our scientific know
ficially producing organic compounds” ledge of the continuities of nature leads
—which are produced artificially by the modern biology to the assumption that
score to-day ; whilst his general culture the organic substance at some time has
may be measured by his giving the been raised and quickened from the
motto of the Buchner school as : “ Ohne deadness of the inorganic world.” As a
Phosphor ohne Gedank.” This does matter of scientific procedure, then, we
not tend to the advancement of truth. are bound to assume that life arose by
Let us have a clear idea what the real evolution until it has been proved that
position of Haeckel’s theory is in the vital force is something specifically
science.
distinct from physical force, and could
I have stated it in four theses, and not have been derived from it. That is
will deal with these separately. In the both the scientific and the logical way of
first place, scientists of all schools are looking at the question. The scientist
agreed that we do not know a single case does not depart from his ordinary
of abiogenesis taking place to-day. methods without grave reason; nor does
Curiously enough, religious philosophers nature. Nature evolves, wherever evolu
in the Middle Ages believed that any tion is not impossible. The really im
number of highly organised forms of life portant point is, then, this question
(such as bees) were produced daily by whether there is something so peculiar
spontaneous generation. It was science about vital force that we cannot suppose
that first opposed them. However, a it to have been evolved; and we find
few decades ago a group of materialistic accordingly that Haeckel devotes several
scientists made a stand for abiogenesis as pages to the point. I will not repeat,
an actual occurrence, and there was a but only supplement these from other
fierce controversy. It was a purely scientists; though, as we will discuss the
scientific quarrel, Tyndall opposing them question of the nature of life more fully
as firmly as the semi-vitalist Pasteur. It later (in the chapter on Lord Kelvin’s
was abundantly proved that no living intervention), I will not say more than is
thing we are acquainted with to-day is necessary for our purpose here.
developed without living parentage.
This is that “ teaching of science ” (to
1 Science and the Faith, p. 162: one of the
which Haeckel fully subscribes) which works Mr. Ballard recommends to us.
�THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Let me begin by quoting this admir
able warning to those who affirm that
nature could not have evolved life with
out a divine interference : “ In spite of all
present-day scientific generalisations, and
these based on the widest inductions
possible to us, we have no warrant what
ever for the assumption that the possi
bilities of the universe end where our
human apprehension of nature has
reached its ne plus ultra! Does Mr.
Ballard recognise the words ? They are
taken from his own preface to his
Miracles of Unbelief. A theistic phi
losopher, Professor J. Ward, also says:
“ Of the origin of life, if it ever did
originate, we have absolutely no know
ledge. But, on the one hand, there is
no definite limit to the possible com
plexity of mechanical processes, nor any
definite limit on the other, to the possible
simplicity of life.”1 These are timely
warnings to the theist not to build on
gaps in biology. Yet Dr. Horton tells
his trustful congregation that science has
“ not discovered what is that vast bridge
which spans the regions which, to the
eye, appear so near.” And a reviewer in
the Church of England Pulpit says the
gap between the living and the non-living
is “now wider than ever.” If you seek
the authority for these assertions, you are
generally met with a reference to Pro
fessor Lionel Beale. Now, Prof. Beale
is an able scientist and original worker,
and we will examine his claims about
protoplasm in a later chapter. Mean
time, we may recall that it was he who
so pathetically protested in the agony
column of the Times that Haeckel’s as
severations in this chapter were not in
accord with the teaching of science, and
later referred the anxious world to his
little work on Vitality. Now, when we
peruse Vitality we are given to under
stand almost from first page to last that
1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, ii, 262. Pro
fessor Ward, therefore, assumes life was evolved.
The Words, “if it ever did originate,” must be
understood in the idealist sense ; and the em
phatic denial of knowledge is grounded rather
confusedly on the Pasteur experiments.
43
Professor Beale is nearly contra mundum.
“ It must be admitted,” he says (p. v),
“ that few scientific men are quite satis
fied that vital phenomena may not yet
be otherwise explained ”; and we have
already quoted his admission (p. 7) that
“ physicists and chemists ” look forward
to a mechanical explanation of the origin
of life.
And in point of fact one can quote a
string of the ablest authorities against the
claim that vital force has so specific a
character that it could not have been
evolved. Says the theistic (or pantheistic)
evolutionist, Professor Le Conte, one of
Mr. Ballard’s chief authorities: “ Vital
forces are also transmutable into and
derivable from physical and chemical
forces . . . Vital force may now be re
garded as so much force withdrawn from
the general fund of chemical and physi
cal forces ... If vital force falls into the
same category as other natural forces,
there is no reason why living forms
should not fall into the same category in
this regard as other natural forms.”1
Says Professor J. Ward, another of Mr.
Ballard’s authorities : “ The old theory of
a special vital force, according to which
physiological processes were at the most
analogous to—not identical with—•
physical processes, has for the most part
been abandoned as superfluous. Step
by step within the last fifty years the
identity of the two processes has been
so far established that an eminent
physiologist does not hesitate to say
‘that for the future the word vital, as
distinctive of physiological processes,
might be abandoned altogether.’ ” 2 The
“ eminent physiologist ” is Sir J.
Burdon Sanderson, another able author
ity. In the article on zoology in the
Encyclopcedia Britannica, Professor Ray
Lankester says : “ It is the aim or busi1 Evolution and Religious Thought, p. 36.
2 Naturalism and Agnosticism, ii, p. 9. Ward
and Le Conte, while admitting the mechanical
theory as the explanation of “ efficient ” causa
tion, claim the action of a guiding intelligence.
That is a point we have reserved, and it does
not affect the present question.
�44
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
ness of those occupied with biology to
assign living things, in all their variety
of form and activity, to the one set of
forces recognised by the physicist and
the chemist,” On the physical side Sir
A. Rucker, in his presidential speech of
1901, spoke of the recent rise of Neo
Vitalism as merely the result of “some
outstanding difficulties ” in biology, and
he protested that “the action of physical
and chemical forces in living bodies can
never be understood, if at every diffi
culty and at every check in our investi
gations we desist from further attempts
in the belief that the laws of physics
and chemistry have been interfered with
by an incomprehensible vital force.” His
successor in the presidential chair also
protested that science was “ not debarred
from speculating on the mode in which
life may have originated,” and he quoted
this splendid expression from Lord
Kelvin’s (then Sir W. Thomson) presi
dential speech in 1871: “Science is
bound, by the everlasting law of honour,
to face fearlessly every problem which
can fairly be presented to it.
If a
probable solution, consistent with the
ordinary course of nature, can be found,
we must not invoke an act of Creative
Power.” And, finally, when Lord Kelvin
recently declared that he understood
biologists were coming again to entertain
the notion of a specific vital force, he
was, as we shall see (or the reader may
see now in Chap. XI.), emphatically
contradicted by the representative biolo
gists of this country.
The authority of Dr. Haeckel himself
on this point is paramount.
He has
made a life-long study of it. But I have
shown that his conclusion is in accord
with the general scientific attitude to-day,
and that he is not giving us the “ science
of yesterday,” as the dilettanti of the
Pall Mall Gazette express it. I will
only add here a few further considera
tions that tend to make clearer the ques
tion of the primitive origin of life, and
will reserve the discussion of Neo-Vitalism until we come to deal with Lord
Kelvin and his critics.
It is a matter of some importance to
remember that we do not know the nature
of the earliest organisms. Living things
had to proceed very far in their develop
ment before it was possible for their
remains to be fossilised and preserved.
Palaeontology can give us no aid what
ever. It is generally assumed that the
monera and such simple forms—mere
tiny globules of protoplasm—were the
earliest in point of time. That they
must have been the earliest of existing
forms is obvious, but, as Professor Ward
suggests, it is conceivable that there were
many simpler forms of life before the
moneron. We had to wait for the
microscope to discover the protists. We
may make other discoveries yet; or there
may have been earlier forms too un
stable to persist. These are “ may be’s,”
but remember Lord Kelvin’s advice that
we must exhaust the possibilities of
nature before we invoke “ an abnormal
act of Creative Power.” Canon Aubrey
Moore said long ago in connection with
the evolution of species : “ In this pro
cess of evolution there are things which
puzzle us, though it would be quite true
to say there is nothing half so puzzling
as there was, if we had only thought
more about it, in the old theory of
special creation.” .That is peculiarly
applicable to the question of the origin
of life. The notion of a “ creative
act ”—the notion that, at the mere ex
pression of a wish on the part of some
infinite being, particles of “ dead ”
matter scrape themselves together with
out any physical impulse, and, though
they are incompetent to see the design
they are to execute or the end of their
individual movements, build themselves
up into the intricate structure of living
protoplasm—is a perfect world of mys
teries, instead of being an “explana
tion.” We can only have recourse to it
when every conceivable effort has been
made to explain the phenomenon by
the physical impulsion of the atoms by
natural forces and by a very slow and
gradual development; and science, we
saw, is by no means inclined to admit
�THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
that its possibilities have been exhausted
yet.
But if we cannot get any nearer to the
origin on the biological side, it may be
possible to do something on the chemical
side; and from this side, in point of
fact, the “gulf,” as preachers call it
(compare Huxley’s article on Biology in
the Encyclopedia, Britannica}, between
the organic and the inorganic is being
bridged. If you take down one of the
apologetic works of the last generation
(even some of those Mr. Ballard recom
mends to-day), you will find that the
writers lay great stress on the inability of
the chemist to produce artificially certain
compound substances which were then
only made by the living organism. To
day a large number of these are produced
by the chemist in his laboratory. This
branch of chemistry is advancing every
year, and last year was able to announce
the artificial synthesis of so complex an
organic substance as albumen. The
“gulf” is narrowing; it is very far from
being “wider than ever.” Dr. Iverach,
one of those hesitating teachers who are
continually criticising scientific results
with some vague notion of serving
religion, says these chemists only “ac
complish at great cost and labour and
with many appliances what life is doing
easily every moment.” Very true ; but,
pray, how long was nature in fitting up
her laboratory and making her appli
ances ? Possibly millions of years in
making the protoplasm of the first
moneron; certainly many millions of
years in evolving those higher organisms
which the scientist is set to emulate.
One does not see what liberal-minded
and scientific men gain by strewing the
path with little obstacles of this kind.
There are other writers who say che
mistry may produce organic substances
without number, but it cannot produce
an organism. Well, on the theisticevolution hypothesis, which the abler
apologists adopt to-day, it took God
hundreds of thousands, if not millions,
of years to make an amoeba, with all the
resources of nature completely known to
45
him. And man, with his dim knowledge
of natural forces, is to make one in a
few weeks, or years! Science is ad
vancing. Let us be patient.
We are now in a position, then, to
estimate the criticisms that have been
directed against this section of Dr.
Haeckel’s system. There are two aspects
of his position. On the one hand there
is the negative side, that we are not
justified in rushing into the present gap
(such as it is) of scientific knowledge
with a “ vital force ” or a “ creative
power,” which are specifically distinct
from the natural forces we have hitherto
studied; and there is, further, the posi
tive attempt to sketch a theory of the
way in which protoplasm was evolved.
The first part is essential to monism ;
the second is not, and may vary with
the progress of science. Both parts
are scientifically justified. How widely
Haeckel’s first position is shared by men
of science, and how it is forced on us by
the axioms of men so different as Lord
Kelvin and Canon A. L. . Moore, we
have already seen. It is the only logical
attitude. When science assures us that
it has acquired a perfect knowledge of
vital force on the one hand and physical
force on the other, and that the two are
so widely separated that it cannot con
ceive the one to have been evolved from
the other; then there will be time enough
to talk of gaps and gulfs and creative
power. In the meantime logic forbids
us to multiply agencies without need.
There is a plausible kind of critic—
usually a preacher—who says: Well,
Haeckel may enjoy his opinion as long
as he likes, and the agnostic may wait
eternally for the last word of science, but
I find this creator-idea very satisfying,
and you may keep your logic for the
school. That is the practical man—the
man who would think you a fool if you
reasoned like that in business. It must
be remembered that we are not playing
a parlour game with conventional rules.
It is a question of truth or untruth,
reality or unreality. It is a huge asser
tion, this of creative action, It at once
�46
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
brings a new element into our cosmos.
We see that the material universe exists.
We must not recklessly affirm the exist
ence of anything beyond it; or if we do,
we have no guarantee of the truth of our
statements.
Now, until science has
shown that physical force and vital force
are not transmutable, and that no exten
sion of the former, even into the most
elaborate complication, could produce
the latter, you cannot extract from the
appearance of life a particle of evidence
fo,r an interfering cause other than
nature.
But Haeckel does not cease to speak
as a scientific man when he goes on to
offer a positive suggestion as to the
origin of life. Science advances com
monly by projecting hypotheses in
advance of its solid and established
positions, and if ever we are to under
stand the mode of the origin of life it
will be by such a procedure. No living
scientist is better acquainted with the
conditions of the problem than Haeckel,
and it would be preposterous to suppose
that he has not framed a theory con
sistent with the known facts. His theory
is directly grounded on the established
facts of the chemistry of protoplasm.
The only possible justification for the
criticism offered by scientists like Dr.
Horton would be if Haeckel had put it
before us as a sort of photographic
description of the primeval dawn of life.
As Mr. Ballard reminds us, Haeckel
only offers it as “a pure hypothesis,”
consistent with the facts as we know
them, and capable of any modification
new discoveries may entail.
Thus, when we have shaken off this
group of not very enlightened critics,
we see that we have advanced a step
in the evolution of the monistic uni
verse.
We had already followed the
great matter-force reality in its develop
ment as far as the formation of planets
with firm crusts, with heated oceans
and an enveloping atmosphere, and
provided by a shrinking central luminary
with a powerful flood of heat, light,
and electricity. Some time in the pre
Cambrian epoch living things appeared
in the primeval oceans. This was not
a sudden and dramatic entrance on the
stage of time, at which the morning
stars might clap their incandescent
hands ; it was the final issue of a long
course of evolution. It was the matter
force reality slowly groping upwards
through more and more elaborate com
binations of the
formed chemical
elements until a stage was reached
when a substance sufficiently plastic to
exchange elements with the environing
fluid and sufficiently stable to maintain
its integrity was formed. To-day this
substance (living protoplasm) is marked
off by several remarkable properties
from inorganic matter. Professor Beale
talks much of its “ structureless ” cha
racter. In view of the known extreme
complexity of its molecular structure, it
would be a miracle if it did not exhibit
functions widely removed from those of
simpler compounds. But the finding of an
actual divergence to-day is no obstacle
to our entertaining a theory of evolu
tion. No serious scientist questions to
day the evolution of the human body
from that of a lower animal species.
Yet the connecting links have disap
peared. It is a scientific truth that
intermediate forms do tend to disappear.
We see here, then, only another phase
in the unfolding of the cosmic substance,
or nature. Neither scientific evidence
nor logic compels us yet to admit a
fresh reality, a new form of being. We
are still monists. Whether nature has
needed the guidance of intelligence in
this evolution we need not consider
yet. First let us establish the fact that
nature evolves, from the first union of
electrons into an atom to the develop
ment of man, by means of its inherent
forces, and then we will consider
“ whence ” it got these forces and
whether they must have been guided.
Now, given the first tiny globule of
living protoplasm, there is no further gap
for the theologian to defend until we
come to the human mind. For the fifty
million years which extend from the
�THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Laurentian epoch to the early Pleisto
cene we witness the natural evolution of
the cosmic substance without any plau
sible interference. Naturalists “ have
accepted Darwin’s idea,” Sir W. Turner
tells us in his presidential speech; and
he speaks with respect of Haeckel’s
great share in constructing our ancestral
tree. Huxley said a long time ago that
he “ refused to run the risk of insulting
any sane man by supposing that he
seriously holds such a notion as special
creation.” Canon Aubrey Moore wrote
sixteen years ago that “ every competent
man of science believes in the origin of
species by progressive variations.”1 “All
living nature is of one descent and con
stitutes one relationship,” says Mr.
Newman Smyth. “ Evolution as a law
of derivation of forms from previous
forms ... is not only certain, it is axio
matic,” says Professor Le Conte. “ The
immutability and separate creation of
species . . . are doctrines now no longer
defensible,” says Professor Ward. And
Professor Flower (to whose qualifications
Mr. Ballard devotes ten lines—much
more than Professor Flower ever devoted
to theology) told the Reading Church
Congress twenty years ago (1883) that
the doctrine of the evolution of species
was even then “almost, if not quite,
universal among skilled and thoughtful
naturalists of all countries,” and advised
the clergy not to burn their fingers again
with it.2 We might fill a book with such
quotations.
Happily, there is no longer the need
to do so. Darwin lies in Westminster
Abbey, and episcopal lips utter his name
without a tremor. No one now questions
the fact that the species have been
formed by evolution; but there are still
ecclesiastics who take this occasion to
show that they are of a critical rather
than a credulous temper. They quarrel
with the agencies which science assigns
to the task of the formation of species,
or with the mode in which science con
ceives those agencies to have acted.
1 Science and the Faith, p. 165.
2 Recent Advances in Natural Science.
47
They express an opinion that natural
selection and sexual selection could
not do this or the other; that the
question of the transmission of acquired
characters is very unsettled, and so
forth. Now, it is in itself a healthy sign
of the times that our theologians take an
interest in these scientific questions, and
as scientific men. But the cause of
truth and progress, and the placidity of
scientific workers, would be best con
sulted by keeping these criticisms out
of Christian evidence treatises, with
which, logically, they have 'nothing to
do. Thus Dr. Iverach discusses the
question at great length in his Theism in
the Light ofPresent Science and Philosophy.
He thinks that natural selection may
act on variations, but cannot initiate
them, and cannot show why some
organisms remain unicellular and others
become multicellular.
Biologists do
not, he urges, prove the indefinite ex
pansiveness of species, and do not
explain the special causes which check
expansion. In strict logic this has nothing
to do with “Theism.” If biologists
have not adequately explained the pro
cess of evolution, we must wait until
they have further knowledge.
His
point is, of course, that the triumph of
evolution only means “ to transfer the
cause from a mere external influence
working from without to an immanent
rational principle.”
He is pleading
again for that “ incomprehensible vital
force,” as Sir A. Rucker calls it, which
we have already discussed and will dis
cuss later.
If it is sufficient to admit natural
(physical and chemical) forces in the
first formation of protoplasm, we meet
nothing to turn us aside from these with
any plausibility until we come to con
sciousness, which I will treat in the
next chapter. With that reservation
Haeckel’s mechanical explanation of the
derivation of species is accepted. Pro
fessor Ray Lankester says, in the article
on zoology in the Encyclopedia Britan
nica : “ It was reserved for Charles
Darwin in the year 1859 to place the
�48
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
whole theory of organic evolution on a
new footing, and by his discovery of a
mechanical cause actually existing and
demonstrable, by which organic evolution
must be brought about, to entirely
change the. attitude in regard to it of
even the most rigid exponents of scientific
method.” The recent letters of Pro
fessor Ray Lankester to the Times,
which I will quote later (Chap. XII.),
show that he has not departed from this
position. Dr. Croll also admits of the
derivation of species: “ At present
[1890] most evolutionists regard the
process as purely mechanical and physi
cal, the results of matter, motion, and
force alone.”1 And Mr. Fiske says:
“The natural selection of physical
variations will go far towards explaining
the characters of all the plants and all
the beasts in the world.” 2
But do not let us lose our way amidst
conflicting authorities. Two objections
are formulated, more or less vaguely,
against this phase of Haeckel’s position ;
or the two objections may be combined
into the general statement that the
mechanical explanation leaves some
aspects of the derivation of species
unaccounted for; and so we must admit,
besides the evolving matter-force reality,
a telic or purposive principle in the
organism and a general controlling in
telligence, or at least the latter (Fiske,
Ward, Le Conte, &c.). The second
opinion does not really conflict with our
present purpose, because it assumes that
this directing intelligence never takes the
place of physical agencies. It always
acts through mechanical causes, so that
science is quite right in expecting to
build up a perfect mechanical scheme of
the development of the world-substance.
With its further contention that this
mechanical scheme points to an initial
designer, we will deal later. It is only
the first opinion—that which postulates
a purposive principle in the organism—
which conflicts with the monistic view
at this stage. And this second opinion
1 The Philosophical Basis of Evolution, p. 2.
2 Through Nature to God, p. 81.
is, frankly, a philosophy or a theology
of gaps. It lodges in the breaches, or
supposed breaches, in our knowledge of
the evolutionary processes, and naively
takes these to be breaches in the cosmic
scheme itself. Remember Mr. Ballard’s
wise injunction that “we have no
warrant whatever for the assumption
that the possibilities of the universe end
where our human apprehension of
nature has reached its ne plus ultra ”—
for the time being, let me venture to
add. Which attitude is the more logical
and scientific, and the best accredited
by experience—this defence of gaps, or
the resolution to admit no aquosities or
vitalities, or other immaterial entities
until science has given a definite and
fully-informed decision ?
Professor Haeckel adopts the latter
attitude, and proceeds to reconstruct the
wonderful paths that nature has followed
in her journey from those ancient
Laurentian waters to the achievements
of man. We have three convergent and
consonant lines of evidence : the docu
ments of palaeontology, or the science of
fossils, the documents of zoology (to
speak of animals only), and the docu
ments of embryology. From them, as
from three synoptic gospels, we retrace
the upward growth of living nature.
The simplest organisms we can definitely
picture to ourselves are simple granules
of protoplasm, or structureless morsels
of an albuminous matter. In time some
of these are formed which live on their
fellow-protists, and the distinction of the
animal from the plant is adumbrated.
Later, some of them develop a nucleus
and form definite cells ; the cells cling
together in colonies and form multi
cellular organisms; these cells are dis
posed in a layer or skin with a central
cavity, and develop fine hair-like pro
cesses by which they can travel through
the water. As the ages advance some
of these beings fold their cell-layer in
wards and form the primitive gut. From
these, probably, the flat worms are
developed, with a primitive nervous
system and reproductive apparatus.
�THE ASCENT OF MAN
Higher worms arise with primitive
vascular and excretory systems, and at
length with a rude kind of breathing
apparatus. At the next stage the rudi
ment of a spinal cord appears, and
continues to develop until the lowest
vertebrates (such as the lampreys) are
seen, with their primitive crania, suctorial
mouths, and advancing ears. Then
comes a great development of fishes
with strong dermal armour and in
creasingly acute organs of sense. _ Am
phibious animals link the fishes with the
reptiles, which soon prowl over the
us
49
earth in huge and terrible forms.
Mammals,
or
warm,
red-blooded
animals, next appear in the Jurassic
strata, and slowly advance through the
forms of marsupials and placentals until
the lowest lemures, in the lower Eocene
strata (computed to be 3,000,000 years
old), bring us within dim and distant
vision of the human form. The man
like apes appear in the Miocene period
(about 850,000 years ago).
Some
600,000 years later the pithecanthropus,
or erect man-ape, is found to herald the
approach of our own race.
Chapter V
THE ASCENT OF MAN
When the third International Zoo
logical Congress met at Leyden in 1895
a Dutch military physician produced two
or three bones that he had discovered in
Java the previous year, which created a
lively sensation amongst the assembled
anthropologists. They were merely the
skull-cap, a femur, and two teeth of some
animal form that had been buried in the
upper Pliocene strata nearly 300,000 years
ago. The modern zoologist can recon
struct a skeleton almost from a single
bone, and the complete outline of the
being to which these scanty remains had
belonged was quickly restored. Science
found itself confronted with the long
sought missing link between man and his
pithecoid ancestors. The powerful form,
standing five feet and a half high when
erect, yet still much bent with the curve
of its prone ancestors : the great cranial
capacity (about 1,000 cubic centimetres),
much greater than that of the largest ape,
yet lower than that of man, and associ
ated with prominent eye-brow ridges and
heavy jaws; in a word, all its features
pointed very emphatically to a stage half
way between man and the earlier species
from which he and the apes had
descended. A loud and long discus
sion followed Dr. Dubois’ address. The
celebrated Dr. Virchow stubbornly op
posed the conclusion of Haeckel and his
colleagues, and was driven from point to
point by his opponents.1 In the end
twelve experts of the Congress gave a
decision on the remains. Three of them
held that they belonged to a member of
a low race of man ; three held that they
1 See the account of Virchow’s pitiful and
transparently prejudiced resistance to evolution
in Buchner’s Last Words on Materialism, p. 97.
At a scientific congress in the preceding year,
one of Virchow’s colleagues observed that his
behaviour was “quite enough to justify us in
paying serious attention no longer to the great
pathologist on this question.” In effect, Vir
chow’s opinions on the matter have died with
him.
�so
the ascent of man
had belonged to a huge man-like ape;
and six were convinced that they be
longed to an intermediate form, which
was rightly called the pithecanthropus
erectus (erect ape-man). The opinion of
the majority has now become the general
opinion in anthropology.
This was a dramatic intervention in
the standing controversy with regard to
the origin of man. Ever since Darwin
had, as Professor Dewar says, “ illumined
the long unsettled horizon of human
thought” with his theory of selection
and descent, anthropologists had foreseen
the extension of the doctrine of evolution
to man. Haeckel and Darwin had soon
effected that extension in theory. Now
the discovery of the pithecanthropus came
as a remarkable crown to the enormous
structure of evidence in its favour. But
a distinction had already been drawn
between the evolution of body and the
evolution of mind. Thinkers like Dr.
Wallace and Dr. Mivart offered no re
sistance, or, indeed, strongly defended,
the doctrine that man had inherited his
bodily form from a lower animal species,
but affected to see a gulf in mental
faculty which forbade us to derive man’s
mind from that of any animal. Since
those days the evidence for the evolution
of the mind has accumulated until it is
at least equivalent to that for the evolu
tion of the body. In the Riddle of the
Universe Professor Haeckel gives a mag
nificent summary of the evidence for
both theses, for the development of man,
mind and body, from an animal ancestor,
through which he is closely related to
the apes. The subject is one that be
longs to the science of which Haeckel is
one of the acknowledged masters. It was
thought that all serious criticism of the
work—all criticism that had the moral and
constructive aim of ensuring the triumph
of truth—would centre upon these first
ten chapters dealing with evolution. The
critics have acted otherwise, and we shall
see that there is little serious resistance
to our extension of the principle of
natural evolution to man, and bringing
him within the unity of the cosmos.
Let us see first, however, what is the
attitude of cultivated thought generally
on the subject. We have seen how the
defenders of gaps have surrendered the
inorganic world to the monist, how a
mere handful remain to defend the
dualistic theory of the origin of life, and
how they have fled before the advance
of the Darwinians. We shall now find
that they are fast deserting this last
breach in the evolutionary scheme. A
quarter of a century ago Tyndall shook
the world with his famous : “ We claim,
and we will wrest from theology, the
whole domain of cosmological theory.”
‘‘ His successors,” said Professor Dewar,
in the same city, last year, “have no
longer any need to repeat those signifi
cant words . . . The claim has been
practically, though often unconsciously,
conceded.”
Canon Aubrey Moore,
whose work Mr. Ballard recommends
us to read, urged his colleagues to
admit the claim nearly twenty years
ago. Wallace’s idea, he said, “has a
strangely unorthodox look.
If, as a
Christian believes, the higher intellect
who used these laws for the creation of
man, was the same God who worked in
and by these same laws in creating the
lower forms of life, Mr. Wallace’s dis
tinction of cause disappears.” Again :
“We have probably as much to learn
about the soul from comparative psychology, a science which as yet scarcely
exists, as we have learned about the
body from comparative biology.”1 He
concludes that the question has nothing
to do with religion. Dr. W. N. Clarke
is no less clear. “The time has come,”
he says, “ when theology should remand
the investigation of the time and manner
of the origin of man to the science or
anthropology with its kindred sciences,
just as it now remands the time and'
manner of the origin of the earth to
astronomy and geology . . . anthropo
logy and its kindred sciences will give
an evolutionary answer.” Again : “ But
though there is no reason against
1 Science and the Faith, pp. 203 and 211.
�THE ASCENT OF MAN
5i
an infirmary in travelling by rail across
admitting it if it is supported by facts,
special creation, whether of the spirit of Switzerland. Observations on the beauty
man or of other new elements of the of the mountains led to a discussion of
advancing order, may come to appear their natural growth, and the nun—little
improbable. The larger the sweep of suspecting his identity—informed him
one great progressive method, the more that she had obtained her sensible and
probable does it become that the method modern views from Haeckel’s Natural
is universal. The idea of unity in God’s History of Creation / We shall see in
the end that the religious opposition to
work and method is an idea that tends,
Haeckel’s teaching—his real teaching—
when once it has been admitted, to
is crumbling year by year. On our pre
extend over the whole field.”1
Dr.
Iverach and Mr. Newman Smyth desert sent question of the evolution of the
the gap, and refer us to science for the human mind, one may gather from this
solution; though, as before, we shall very general agreement of the cultured
find Dr. Iverach raising subsequent and defenders of Christianity that scientific
irrelevant difficulties.
Professor Le and expert opinion can be little short of
Conte and Mr. Fiske, whom we are unanimous. Dr. Wallace, with whose
views we shall deal separately, does in
told to read, are emphatic evolutionists.
Says Le Conte : “ I believe the spirit of deed stand out with a strange obstinacy
man was developed out of the anima or in the world of science—stands out as
conscious principle of animals, and that Virchow so long did in Germany, as
this again was developed out of the Cuvier did in France—but the doctrine
of the evolution of mind is now
lower forms of life-force, and this in its
turn out of the chemical and physical generally accepted by psychologists.
Professor J. Ward says “ the unanimity
forces of nature.” 2 Mr. Fiske sketches
with which this conclusion is now
a theory of natural evolution in his
accepted by biologists of every school
Through Nature to God (p. 94). Dr.
Dallinger allows it is “ not by any means seems to justify Darwin’s confidence a
other than conceivable that science may quarter of a century ago.”1 Another
psychologist, Professor
be able to demonstrate the actual distinguished
Miinsterberg, is equally scornful of those
physical line of man’s origin” (quoted
by Mr. Ballard). Even Mr. Rhondda who still linger in this breach.2 Sir W.
Williams believes “ evolution is com Turner closed his Presidential address
plete from the jelly-fish up to Shake to the British Association in 1900 with a
confident assumption of the general
speare” (p. 26), and says (p. 40):
“When evolution reached man she acceptance of the doctrine3—so far,
seemed not to be content with making indeed, as to evoke from a conservative
writer in the Athenceum a lament that
bodies, and devoted herself to the
development of intelligence and the he “ carried the evolutionary idea to its
logical conclusion with a most uncom
noblest feelings.”
Haeckel is, therefore, once more in promising materialism.” In fact, a cul
tivated and hostile reviewer in the Man
excellent and edifying company. He
chester Guardian dismisses the first and
tells in his latest work (Aus Insulinde)
how he found himself a few years ago
1 Naturalism and
p. 7face to face with the religious director of Ward is speaking ofAgnosticism, ii, doctrineDr.
the complete
of
1 An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 225.
2 Evolution and Religious Thought, p. 313.
And elsewhere he says that until recently “ the
grounds of our belief in immortality were based
largely on a supposed separateness of man from
the brutes—his complete uniqueness in the whole
scheme of nature. This is now no longer
possible” (The Conception of God, p. 75).
development.
2 Psychology and Life, p. 91.
3 I shall quote his words presently to show
that he held not only evolution, but evolution in
the same sense as Haeckel. I shall also quote
similar language from the speech of the President
of the Anthropological section at the Congress of
1901.
�52
THE ASCENT OF MAN
chief part of Haeckel’s book with an
assurance that “ nowadays you cannot
startle even the man in the street by tell
ing him the soul has been continuously
evolved from the souls of unicellular
protists.” For my part, I am not pre
pared to assign Dr. Wallace, or even
Dr. Horton, to a lower level of culture
than that of the man in the street. But
it would be difficult to draw up to-day
even a slender list of capable biologists
or anthropologists who deny the ascent
of man from the rest of the animal
world.
. This very general agreement of scien
tific men, accepted, as it is, by the ablest
theistic writers of the day, has a formid
able support in the facts and the justified
assumptions of science. Once it has
been proved that the whole development
of nature, from the formation of atoms
up to the formation of species, has pro
ceeded in a continuous manner; and
when it is known, as we do know to
day, that this law of natural evolution
applies also to the most elaborate of our
thoughts and institutions, to our art, our
language, and our civilisation; it becomes
clear that there is so strong a presump
tion for the natural evolution of man
that only the most explicit proof of
man’s uniqueness could prevent us from
applying the law to explain his origin.
When we find further that man is akin
to the lower species in a score of ways
which point to derivation, and are quite
unintelligible on any other theory, the
onus of proof lies heavier than ever on
those who resist. We should be scien
tifically and logically justified in assuming
the evolution of man, unless and until
some grave hindrance is pointed out
in. the nature of man’s structure or
spiritual powers. . But, as I said, the
positive evidence is enormous. As far
as structure is concerned we have no
reply to meet.
The proofs which
Haeckel has marshalled so ably in
Chapters II.-V. of the Riddle have
passed unchallenged; nor is there any
serious “answer by anticipation” which
we should be expected to consider. The
analogy of man’s structure and his phy
siological functions with those of other
mammals, the significant course of his
embryological development, and the
atrophied organs and muscles that are
still transmitted from mother to child,
have convinced a stubborn world at
length. . That gap has been deserted.
It is still thought by some that a gulf
remains between the mind of man and
that of the other animals, and that here
at least they still find their treasured in
tervention of an external power in the
orderly development of the universe.
They think that man’s mental powers,
and what he has achieved with those
powers, mark him off too sharply
from the psychology of the lower
animals for us to admit evolution.
Let us see first what distinctions are
alleged in support of this assertion,
and then we may study the force
of. the psychological evidence for evo
lution.
Now, when we turn to the critics of
the Riddle—either explicit critics or
critics “ by anticipation ”—we find we
have to deal with a very meagre group
of. not very clear or well-informed
thinkers. Such phrases as those which
Mr. Blatchford quotes from a sermon
delivered by Dr. Talmage as late as
1898, that the evolution of man is “con
trary to the facts of science,” and that
“natural evolution is not upward but
always downward ’’—only show the kind
of stuff that can be safely delivered
in tabernacles. Dr. Horton, another
preacher, complains that Haeckel “has
not been able to explain the origin of
consciousness,” or “how the rational
life we call spirit has been produced by
the physical ”; which is a complete
ignoring—probably ignorance—of" the
mass of evidence Haeckel has presented,
as we shall see.
Mr. Ballard hides
behind the respectable figure of Dr.
A. R. Wallace, though at other times he
seems indesirous to press the objection.
We are, in fact, left to face a medley of
small points made by the Rev. Rhondda
Williams (who admits the evolution of
�THE ASCENT OF MAN
the mind), Dr. Iverach, and the Rev.
Ambrose Pope.
Mr. Pope, you will remember, holds
that Haeckel collected the basic material
for his system during three “half-day
excursions.”
He himself admits the
sufficiency of evolution until we come
to the human mind, and then says:
“This is psychology, and, like all psy
chologists, Haeckel starts with certain
metaphysical hypotheses.
His hypo
thesis is that mental phenomena are the
effects of physical phenomena.” This,
he says, “ looks like an innocent assump
tion ”—to whom, we are not told—but
it contains the fatal conclusion, and is
“ opposed by nearly every psychologist of
repute in the world.” These men are
“ expert psychologists,” whereas Haeckel
is only making a “ half-day excursion ”
from his own province into “ another
subject entirely.” One really begins to
suspect that it was during “ a half-day
excursion ” that Mr. Pope studied
Haeckel.
A grosser travesty of his
system it would be difficult to conceive.
Serious students will not expect an
analysis of it, but I will briefly point
out its absurdities. This subject is as
much within the province of compara
tive zoology, of which Haeckel is one of
the greatest living masters, as it is in
the field of psychology. It is a border
question. There was, therefore, no ex
cursion.
Indeed, it is not too much
to say that this tracing of the upward
growth of mind has been one of
Haeckel’s most absorbing studies ; and
now his conclusion, based on a long
life of study and research, is to be
flippantly represented as an “assumption”
ignorantly and hastily stolen from a
province “ entirely ” different from his
own—a province, moreover, where we
are assured it did not exist. Further,
of the seven “ psychologists of repute ”
whom Mr. Pope quotes—Windt (Wundt),
Hoffding, Ward, Sully, Stout, Dewy,
and James—six at least admit the evo
lution of mind by purely natural pro
cesses. I have already quoted the ablest
ot them, Professor Ward, as a witness
53
to the unanimity of this conclu
sion.1
With the difficulties alleged by Dr.
Iverach we will not linger. He seems
not to insist on the impossibility of
evolution, but urges that man is actually
separated from the animals by several
marked prerogatives. One of these is
language; but as Dr. Iverach admits this
is “ manifestly a social product ”—that is
to say, evolved—one wonders why it is
adduced at all. Another difference is
in his relation to his environment, which
he can modify and turn to service ; that
also is clearly an acquired or evolved
faculty. Finally, Dr. Iverach urges man’s
distinction in the way of science,
religion, morality, civilisation, and so on.
Experts are agreed, and many theo
logians are with them, that these are all
evolutionary products. They did not
exist 300,000 years ago. Nor does Dr.
Iverach seriously urge them as objections
to the theory of evolution. On the other
hand, Mr. Rhondda Williams, who
“ believes ”—though it is “not proved
that man was evolved, soul and body,
makes a prolonged onslaught on
Haeckel’s position. Before we follow
him into his storm-cloud of rhetoric, let
us make clear what he hopes to gain by
it. He admits the fact of evolution.
He claims, of course, that the evolution
ary process was divinely or pantheistically
guided; a point we discuss later. The
only practical question is : Does he, or
does he not, admit that the agencies at
work in the uplifting of the human
species are the same agencies which we
have hitherto dealt with ? If he does, it
is of no real consequence to us that he
finds Haeckel’s theory of consciousness
or of memory at fault. The main point is
the exclusion of the new kind of force
which was supposed to enter the world
with the human mind. It is important
to remember—he seems to forget it
himself sometimes—that Mr. Williams
does not postulate the entrance of a new
1 In so far as Mr. Pope means that they differ
from Haeckel as to the actual relation of brain
and mind we shall meet the point presently.
�54
THE ASCENT OF MAN
force into the cosmos, but, like Le Conte to “ psychoplasm ” for more “conjuring.”
and Fiske, sees only a further unfolding
Haeckel is represented as “calling in
of the universal spirit. At the bottom
psychoplasm to account for what proto
his quarrel with Haeckel is not about the plasm could not do”—which is false;
evolution of the human soul, or the
psychoplasm being the same thing as
agencies which evolved it, but as to the protoplasm, but in a different relation,
relation of all soul to brain.
just as Dr. Lionel Beale speaks of
He promises us, then, that he is going
“bioplasm”—and then as saying that
to convict the distinguished scientist
“ what springs from it is declared to be
of “jugglery,” and to find him in only a name for what protoplasm does.”
“a perfect muddle,” and so on. The Mr. Williams foists on Haeckel a
first “conjuring trick” is produced by fictitious distinction, and then invites
a little conjuring on the preacher’s his admiring audience to make merry
own part. He cuts in two Haeckel’s over the confusion it involves. Any
reference (p. 94) to “ the transcendental student with a desire to understand,
design of the teleological philosophy of rather than to score rhetorical points,
the schools,” inserts a full-stop after will see at a glance that Haeckel’s termin
“design,” and then asks us to admire ology is perfectly consistent with itself
the stupidity or desperateness of a man and the facts.
Protoplasm is the
who first excludes purpose from the material substratum of all life; but
universe—“in order to shut out God” when it takes on the form of nerve
—and then finds it in the organic world tissue and becomes the base of nerveand calls it “ mechanical teleology.” If,
life (which we all agree to call psychic
moreover, Mr. Williams cannot see that life) it is described as psychoplasm.
the word “design” or “purpose” is Just as Mr. Williams’s procedure would
used only in a figurative sense in the be called clever from the intellectual
second application, he would do well to point of view, but by a different name
re-study the passage. A similar con from the moral standpoint.
fusion is found in his criticism of
As a last instance of this poor
Haeckel’s treatment of consciousness
“jugglery” I will quote one more
and memory. He labours to prove that passage. Haeckel, he says, “speaks of
Haeckel must take the word memory
certain parts of the brain as ‘the real
figuratively in its lower stages—which organs of mental life; they are those
is precisely what Haeckel obviously highest instruments of psychic activity
means. But the justification of apply that produce thought and conscious
ing the word “ memory ” to the function
ness ! ’ Look at the contradiction in
of a cell and to the human faculty lies
that statement. Certain parts of the
in the whole mass of proof Haeckel has brain are said to be at once the instru
accumulated to show that they are the ments and the producers of conscious
same function, and that the one passes
ness 1 Talk about a doctor using
gradually, as the nervous system develops,
instruments if you like, but do not talk
into the other. That is one of the
of the instruments producing the doctor;
most superficial truths of comparative and especially do not speak as if both
statements could be true at the same
psychology.1 Then Mr. Williams turns
time.” This is a bewildering sort of
1 We may compare Mr. Ballard’s eagerness to
point out that, whereas Haeckel grants zis no
souls or wills, he ascribes these even to the cells
and atoms. It is the same curious and wilful
misconstruction. Haeckel maintains that the
force associated with the atom or the cell is the
same fundamentally as that which reveals itself
in our consciousness. That is the logical con
clusion of all his proofs of continuous, natural
development. He is, therefore, logically correct
in speaking of the “soul” of the atom if we
insist on speaking of the “soul” of man. The
sensation and will he attributes to atoms are
obviously figurative, and merely reminders of his
doctrine of the unity of all force or spirit—a
unity which Le Conte and Fiske and even Mr.
Williams (when he is consistent) also admit.
�THE ASCENT OF MAN
criticism.
Organs, instruments, and
producers are clearly used by Haeckel
in much the same sense. None but a
pedant, or a desperate critic, would
abuse us for saying that the stomach
was the instrument and producer of
digestion; certainly no one would
misunderstand us. Thought is not a
substantial entity like a doctor. The
simile is totally misleading.
Happily, Mr. Williams finds we have
arrived at last at the crucial point, and
he says that it is : “ Does the mind use
the brain as an instrument, or does the
brain really produce the mind ? Haeckel’s
position is the latter. But do not sup
pose for a moment that he has any
scientific proof of it.” Anyone who is
acquainted with modern psychology is
aware that neither of the positions Mr.
Williams puts is held by anybody of
consequence nowadays.
Spiritualist
philosophers do not speak of the mind
using the brain; and Haeckel, when
you pay serious attention to all he says,
does not hold that the brain produces
the mind. Matter, he has said from the
beginning, never produces force or spirit.
They are two aspects of one reality, as
Mr. Williams himself holds (p. 8). The
sole question with Haeckel is whether
this force we call the human mind is one
with the force revealed in the animal
mind and also in inorganic nature. That
is naturally the first concern of a monist.
Force, it is a truism in science, varies with
its material substratum. When hydrogen
and oxygen are united the resultant force
has vastly different properties from what
it had before. When water unites with
fresh chemical substances, force takes on
again a wholly new set of properties ;
and the more elaborate the material
compound, the more elaborate the force.
Protoplasm is a most highly elaborate
chemical compound with a most intri
cate molecular structure. It is quite
natural to expect the force-side of it to
be very distinctive and peculiar; so we
agree to connect life with the lower
forces. But when protoplasm becomes
psychoplasm, the complication greatly
55
increases; the force varies in the same
proportion. The psychoplasm or proto
plasm of the higher animal brain ad
vances still further in complexity, and,
moreover, organic structure of the most
intricate kind is added. Hence in the
human brain, on physical principles, we
must expect a manifestation of force
vastly different from all that we find else
where. We find mind.
Haeckel, on
the strength of this very clear and
scientific reasoning, and of all the facts
as to the intimate dependence of mind
on nerve-tissue which he gathers into
several chapters, and all the facts as to
the gradual unfolding of this force we
call mind in exact correspondence to the
growth in complexity of the nervous
system, concludes that he sees no reason
for thinking that the mind-force is
specifically different from any other kind
of force. I will return to this very im
portant point presently. Meantime we
see what there is in Mr. Williams’s state
ment of Haeckel’s position and his
assertion that it is an idle assumption.1
1 I dare not risk fatiguing the reader with a
further analysis of Mr. Williams’s criticisms under
this head. I have treated them at some length,
because this is the chief section of his criticism
of Haeckel, and because, though this is the chief
section of Haeckel’s book, no other critic devotes
more than a paragraph to it. But I will briefly
point out some further instances of Mr. Williams’
peculiar method. He says that, “ as far as science
goes,” we are “quite free” to conceive the rela
tion of mind to brain as that of “ the musician
and his instrument.” That is gravely misleading.
Science permits no such substantial independence
of each other as there is between musician and
organ. The only proper metaphor science would
allow is the relation of music to the instrument;
which is by no means so accommodating to the
dualist. With the petty quibble about “ truth
I will not delay. But on the next page (23) you
will note how Mr. Williams quotes Haeckel’s,
saying that ‘ ‘ man sinks to the level of a placental
mammal ” (which no one questions, in substance),,
and in the next paragraph turns this into the
grotesque doctrine ‘ ‘ that human nature sinks to.
the level of tie lowest placental mammal ” (a,
very lowly beast)! Then he grumbles that
Haeckel is “ inconsistent in his estimates of
man ” ; though he must know that Haeckel only’
belittles man relatively to the old theology.
Then (p. 24), after a pedantic effort to make
Haeckel say the mind of Shakespeare may have:
rivals in the animal world, he credits him with.
Bishops gate Institnta?
�56
THE ASCENT OF MAN
Mr. Williams and his colleagues may
be advised to take to heart the words of
one of the ablest American psycho
logists, Professor Miinsterberg, who is
by no means a materialist. “ The
philosopher,” he says, “ who bases the
hope of immortality on a theory of brain
functions and enjoys the facts which
cannot be physiologically explained,
stands, it seems to me, on the same
ground with the astronomer who seeks
with his telescope for a place in the
universe where no space exists, and
where there would be undisturbed room
for God and eternal bodiless souls.”1
All this criticism is neither more nor less
than an attempt to defend gaps. If Mr.
Williams replies that it is rather an
attempt to point out gaps in Haeckel’s
system, the reply is obvious. The
essence of Haeckel’s system is monistic
or negative. Any positive theories he
may advance as to the relation of brain
to memory or cell to consciousness are
scientific theories, grounded on the best
available evidence, but not final and
unchangeable. If they prove inade
quate, or if fresh facts discountenance
them, they will be modified. But the
essential part of his position remains.
“The whole momentum of our know
ledge of biological continuities,” as
Mr. Newman Smyth says, the whole
momentum of our knowledge of cosmic
processes, indeed, impels us to suppose
the human mind was evolved. Where
are the obstacles to such an assump
tion ?
Where are the specifically
different—not merely very different, but
the opinion that the difference between the mind
of Plato and the animal is “slighter in every
respect than that between the anthropoid ape
and a bird”; whereas Plaeckel had said “be
tween the higher and the lower animal souls,”
which may mean the gorilla and the amoeba.
Then he finds a difference between the animal
and the human embryo in the fact that the
embryo will become a man and ‘1 the highest
animal never will ” ; which is begging the whole
question whether the highest animal has not
actually done so. Such is the farrago of rhetoric
opposed to us as the only and adequate reply to
the most important section of the Riddle.
1 Psychology and Life, p. 91.
different in kind—contents of the
human mind which forbid us to suppose
it ? They are disappearing one by one
as the sciences of comparative psycho
logy and comparative philology and
comparative sociology and comparative
ethics and religion unfold their several
stories. Everything has been evolved.
To talk blandly of the “vast difference ”
between mind and matter is “ an appeal to
the imagination ” and “ an insult to the
understanding,” says Mr. Mallock. He
goes on to censure the dishonest
practice of contrasting the mind of the
highest man with that of the lower
animals. That is not truth-seeking.
The truth-seeker will take the highest
animal intelligence (as discovered by
the observations of Darwin, Romanes,
Lloyd-Morgan, Lubbock, and so many
others) and the lowest human intelli
gence (as seen in the Veddahs or
Hottentots, or as indicated by pre
historic human skulls) and ask himself
whether he finds here a gulf which
evolution could not be supposed to
have bridged in something like 500,000
years. But if animals have the germ,
ask some, why can you not raise one to
a higher level ? Setting aside the actual
results of training, let us ask : Did it,
on the theistic-evolution theory of man’s
origin, take God 300,000 years or more
to raise the highest animal species to the
miserable level man occupied 50,000 or
100,000 years ago ? And do you ask
man to do more than this in a year or
two ?
But, though it is well to remember
that the essence of Haeckel’s position is
the reasoned exclusion of any new force,
we are bound to give serious attention to
the positive evidence he has accumu
lated.
The verbal quibbles of Mr.
Williams have not touched the structure
of evidence given in Chaps. VII.-X.
of the Riddle, and no other critic is in the
field. To resume it briefly, we have a
fourfold gradation of psychic force, or a
fourfold exhibition of the growth of
mind. In the first place, we may arrange
J all known organisms, from the moneron
�THE ASCENT OF MAN
to man, in a scale of mental faculty, or
vital faculty leading up to mental, and we
find a sensibly graduated development
of mind, corresponding rigidly. to the
growth of structure in complexity. In
the second place, we study the growth
of the individual human mind from the
impregnated ovum, and we find the
same gradual formation of nerve and
brain and the. same proportionate
unfolding of consciousness. In the
third place, we learn from palseontology
that living things have been developed
from each other in the order in which
the zoologist arranges his subjects, and
which is confidently anticipated by the
embryologist. In the fourth place, if we
arrange the brains of all known men in
a similar hierarchic scale, we find the
same rigid correspondence of function
and structure, or of mind-action and
brain. Then there are supplementary
and complementary lines of research.
There is the life of the sub-conscious
self, which Professor James says is a
great world we are only just beginning
to explore. Already the explorations
show conscious action to be only a
small area of mental action ; the larger
area is mostly mechanical, and the
conscious area passes gradually into it
and out of it. As Mr. Mallock says:
“ The human mind, like an iceberg
which floats with most of its bulk sub
merged, from its first day to its last, has
more of itself below the level of con
sciousness than ever appears above it.”
There are the facts of double and
abnormal consciousness, the. various
kinds of mental paralysis resulting from
lesion of the brain, the phenomena of
somnambulism and narcotic action and
artificial unconsciousness. There are
the voluminous determinations
of
psycho-physics as to the exact correspon
dence between purely physical and
chemical changes in the brain and
changes in thought or emotion. There
are the zealous investigations of the
modern students of child-life and child
brain, showing the same exact relation
of development. And there are the
57
most recent and largely successful
efforts to localise mental functions in
different parts of the brain.
Now, let us be perfectly clear what
this enormous mass of convergent
evidence really means. When we study
the stomach or the lungs in comparative
zoology, and perceive the close cor
respondence, from the lowest to the
highest forms, of structure and function,
we do not dream of concluding only
that the two have a very close con
nection : we say at once that they are
in the relation of organ and its function :
we say that the digestive force or the
respiratory-force is the same throughout,
and we can at the lowest end of the
scale connect it with ordinary natural
forces. Yet when we have this stupen
dous mass of evidence converging along
a dozen lines to the conclusion that the
mind-force is continuous throughout the
animal kingdom, and is rigidly and
absolutely bound up, as far as every
particle of scientific evidence goes, with
the nerve-structure., and is, at the lower
end, continuous with the ordinary force
of the universe, we are told we must
draw no conclusion whatever. We are
asked to believe that this mass of
scientific evidence is quite consistent
with a belief that some extraneous force,
distinct in kind from the ordinary force
of the cosmos, is “ using ” the nerve
tissue to manifest itself; and that the
highly complex force which must result
from the intricate molecular texture of
the human brain is nowhere discoverable.
On scientific principles “these facts,” as
Mr. Mallock says, “totally destroy the
foundation of the theist’s arguments.”
They teach us that, as he says again,
“each mother who has watched with
pride, as something peculiar and original,
the growth of her child’s mind, from the
days of the cradle to the days of the
first lesson-book, has really been watch
ing, compressed into a few brief years,
i the stupendous process which began in
the darkest abyss of time and connects
our thoughts, like our bodies, with the
primary living substance—whether this
�58
THE ASCENT OF MAN
be wholly identical with what we call
matter or no.”1 If it were not for the
presence amongst us of certain religious
traditions about the nature of man’s
“ soul,” or mind-force, no scientist would
ever hesitate for a moment to draw a
conclusion which would be justified by
every canon of logic and science—the
conclusion that in this vast hierarchy of
facts we see the world-force ascending
upwards until it grows self-conscious in
the human brain. Haeckel’s attitude is
the strictly and purely scientific attitude.
But, it is further urged, this is only a
description of the manner of growth, not
of the causes. “ Thus,” says Professor
Case, “ in presence of the problem which
is the crux of materialism, the origin of
consciousness, he first propounds a
gratuitous hypothesis that everything has
mind, and then gives up the origin of
conscious mind after all.” I have ex
plained in what sense Haeckel attributes
mind to “ everything ”—though a skilled
metaphysician might be expected to see
that. To the second point I reply that
the whole of this evidence is an explana
tion of the origin of mind. The whole
evidence points to the conclusion that
conscious mind is an outgrowth of un
conscious, and that this is the generally
diffused cosmic force. But you cannot
derive the conscious from the uncon
scious, say several critics. The objection
is childish. If we are to explain any
thing, as Sir A. Rucker said, we cannot
explain it in terms of itself: the conscious
must be derived from the unconscious.
And as a fact, Mr. Mallock points out,
you do get consciousness out of the
unconscious every day—in the growth of
the infant; or, as Lloyd Morgan puts it,
in the development of the chicken from
the egg. In any case, the critics plead,
you are only saying how and not why
mind was evolved. Now, in so far as
this is a plea for teleology, we remand it,
1 Religion as a Credible Doctrine, p. 77. The
last phrase is superfluous. No one “wholly
identifies ” the primary living substance with
“ matter.” Matter and force are two aspects of
it, as brain and mind are.
as before. If it is anything more than
this, it is a plea for gaps and breaches in
the mechanical scheme of the universe,
building. fallaciously (as usual) on the
present imperfection of science. Take
the development of the embryo. We
certainly can do little more as yet than
describe its stages. But no one now
doubts it is a mechanical process. The
assumption that some non-mechanical
force was grouping and marshalling the
molecules of protoplasm, according to a
design of which it was itself totally un
conscious, only plunges us in deeper
mysteries than ever. Moreover, the facts
of heredity, the transmission of bodily
marks and features and peculiarities,
point wholly to a mechanical or bodily
action. The development of the mind
on a cosmic scale is still more clearly
mechanical. There is not a single fact
that compels us to go outside of the range
of familiar cosmic forces to seek an
explanation.
I will add one or two illustrations from
recent science to show how its progress
tends more and more to confirm Haec
kel’s position. Sir W. Turner closed his
presidential address to the British Asso
ciation three years ago with these words
(which were duly censured as “ material
ism ”): “ At last man came into exist
ence. His nerve-energy, in addition to
regulating the processes in his economy
which he possesses in common with
animals, was endowed with higher
powers. When translated into psychical
activity, it has enabled him throughout
the ages to progress from the condition
of a rude savage to an advanced stage
of civilisation.” Thus is the very lan
guage of Haeckel used on our supreme
scientific solemnity. The following year
Professor D. J. Cunningham (M.D.,
D.Sc., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.) was the
president of the Anthropological Section
of the Congress, and his presidential
address was devoted to “ the part which
the human brain has played in the evo
lution of man.” The whole speech was
a vindication of the purely mechanical ex
! planation of the rise of man. Instead of
�THE ASCENT OF MAN
seeking the influence of external powers,
Professor Cunningham looks for more
prosaic changes that may have led to the
segregation of man. The reader who is
only accustomed to rhetorical and
spiritualistic treatment of the theme will
learn with a shock that the mere forma
tion of a habit of setting the hands free
for other purposes than locomotion pro
bably had a profound effect on the brain
and intelligence. “ So important is the
part played by the human hand as an
agent of the mind, and so perfectly is
it adjusted with reference to this office,
that there are many who think that the
first great start which man obtained on
the path which has led to his higher
development was given by the setting
of the upper limb free from the duty or
acting as an organ of support and loco
motion.” It hardly needed divine inter
vention or guidance to suggest this
change. The hand-centre in the brain
is located in such a region that its de
velopment must react on the cortex.
Further it is “ the acquisition of speech
which has been a dominant factor in
determining the high development of the
human brain.” The centre for facial
expression is contiguous to that of the
hand, and, as communication began to
grow between the primitive men, much
facial expression would be used, giving a
still further stimulus to the brain. In
fine, not only is language shown by the
philologist to be an evolutionary product,
but the physiologist finds that the dis
tinctive structures in the human brain
(though they may occasionally be fairly
traced in the brain of the anthropoid
ape) which are connected with speech
are the outcome of “a slow evolu
tionary growth.” Thus is science coming
to determine the physiological line of
evolution which gave the first distinction
of brain-power, on which natural selec
tion has fastened so effectively.1
1 Let me quote Professor Cunningham’s con
clusion : “ Assuming that the acquisition of
speech has afforded the chief stimulus to the
general development of the brain, therebygiving it a rank high above any other factor
59
Thus are the mechanical methods of
science bridging the supposed gulf.
There is no longer serious ground for
claiming a unique position for man, and
it is not surprising to find the leading
theologians sounding the retreat once
more. We are, in fact, beginning to
realise that the dualist theory of man
never did afford any “ explanation ” of
anything. The connection of soul and
body was always incomprehensible;1
nor is there the slightest intellectual satis
faction in covering up the whole mystery
of the mind with a label bearing the
word “ spirit.” Psychology has deserted
its old ways and become a science.. The
theologians will do well not to wait until
they are again ignominiously splashed
by the advancing tide of scientific re
search. Their efforts to “ show cause ”
why we should not apply the mechanical
process of evolution (whether divinely
guided or not) to the growth of man
have hopelessly failed.
But before we leave the question it
is necessary to consider for a moment
the question of the liberty of the will.
Here Haeckel’s opponents are content
to appeal to what Emerson calls “the
cowardly doctrine of consequences.”
We shall consider the moral outlook of
a monistic world in a later chapter, but
which has operated in the evolution of man, it
would be wrong to lose sight of the fact that
the first step in this upward movement must have
been taken by the brain itself. Some cerebral
variation—probably trifling and insignificant at
the start, and yet pregnant with the most farreaching possibilities—has in . the stem-form of
man contributed that condition which has
rendered speech possible.
This variation,
strengthened and fostered by natural selection,
has in the end led to the great double result.of
a large brain with wide and extensive associa
tion-areas and articulate speech, the two results
being brought about by the mutual reaction of
the one process on the other.”
1 Compare Professor Herbert’s desperate pre
dicament in his Modern Realism Examined,
which we are urged to read : “We may regard
the material world as real, but if we do we must
deny the existence of all but Creative Intelligence.
... If the material world is as it seems, it
contains no minds” (p. 148). Mr. Mallock
points all this out to Father Maher.very forcibly
in his Religion as a Credible Doctrine.
�6o
THE ASCENT OF MAN
may observe in passing that all this kind
of reasoning is futile and insincere. It
will not make the least practical differ
ence to life whether psychologists do
or do not agree to leave unimpaired the
old formula of “ the liberty of the will.”
A man can control his actions to a great
extent, and will to that extent be re
sponsible for them. On that we have
the witness of consciousness. How this
apparent power of choice arises in a
mechanism like the mind we can hardly
expect to understand until the new
psychology has made some progress.
But the old idea of a “ self-determining
power of the will ” is now “ an unthink
able conception,” as Dr. Croll (who
is on the list of the sound scientists)
emphatically says. Mr. Mallock also
thinks that “every attempt to escape
from the determinism of science by
analysis or by observation is fruitless.”
No sooner do we begin to look closely
into our free-will than we find the sup
posed area of its action shrinking
rapidly : we find ourselves in a perfect
network of determining influences.
Our will is the slave to our desire; we
cannot will what we do not desire, nor
what we desire the least or the less.
Our desire can always be traced to
our circumstances, our education, our
character and temperament. And our
character and
temperament — here
modern science has had a great deal
to say—are determined by heredity and
environment. The attempt to break
through this network with a cry of alarm
about consequences is futile. There
will be no practical consequences of an
evil character; and the consequences
for good of the scientific attack on the
old doctrine, from the days of Robert
Owen down, have been incalculable.
The community is a self-conscious
determinism. Now that it knows how
much heredity and environment have to
do with character and desire, and with
the healthy balancing of desires, it will
take action. The whole of education
and social reform have benefited enor
mously by the overthrow of the old
scholastic notion of the will. Such
“ freedom ” as we now find we have—if
we may still use the word—is not differ
ent in kind from that which a cat or a
dog evinces every day.
We conclude, then, that Haeckel’s
opponents have shown no plausible
reason why evolution should not extend
to the origin of man. The great achieve
ments which distinguish man to-day from
the animal world—art, science, philo
sophy, religion, civilisation, language—•
are known to have been formed, from
very rudimentary beginnings, by a long
process of evolution. At their root, in
the men whose skulls and bones and
rude implements are unearthed to-day,
we find only a somewhat more elaborate
brain, with deeper furrows and more con
volutions, a somewhat higher grade of
intelligence and emotion, than in the
higher animals about us. There is no
gulf, no gap: but there is a period of
some 300,000 years for natural selection
to work in. Comparative anatomy is
beginning to trace the steps—quite
natural, if not at first casual, steps—by
which man ascended in this direction. A
chance variation in the use of the limbs
could, it seems, greatly stimulate the
most important part of the brain. Any
increase of brain-power would prove of
enormous advantage, and would be
“ selected ” and emphasised at once. In
any case the momentum of continuity
and the mass of evidence for actual con
tinuity are enormous. It is no less
scientific than philosophical to see in the
growth of the human mind a further ex
tension of the life-force of the cosmos, a
further embodiment of the great matter
force reality which unfolds itself in the
universe about us and in the wonderful
self-conscious mechanism of the mind.
�THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
Chapter
61
VI
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
Until a few centuries ago a belief in have the same fate. Man now sees in
the immortality of the soul harmonised the universe at large no shadow of
so well with the prevailing conception support for that promise of unending
of the world at large that men were life he has entertained so long.
content with but slender rational proof “What! shall the dateless worlds in dust be
of it. Even then, it is true, the tragedy
blown
Back to the unremembered and unknown,
of death seemed to the eye so final—And this frail Thou—the flame of yesterday—
the curtain seemed to be rung down so
Burn on forlorn, immortal, and unknown ? ”
inexorably on the conscious soul—that
sceptics were not wanting. The Sad
Death is the law of all things. It is
ducees amongst the Hebrews, the true that the great reality that shapes'
Epicureans amongst the Greeks, and itself in a million forms never dies.
the materiarii of early Christian times, That is its first law. But of every
rejected the belief entirely. Some of single embodiment of its restless energy,
the ablest of the mediaeval schoolmen of every individual being that pours out
(such as Duns Scotus) went so far as to of its womb, the path is measured and
deny that any rational proof could be the fate is written.
devised in support of the belief. But ‘
“ Life lives on.
for most men the belief was credible
It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.”
enough, and not unwelcome. Immor
So rhe position of the belief in per
tality was a familiar idea to them. Not
only God and the angels had that sonal immortality has changed. The
prerogative, but the very stars they pretty thoughts that supported it, or
looked on night by night were believed accompanied it, in the mind of a Plato
to be of immortal texture. In a world or an Augustine, crumble beneath the
where the immortal outnumbered the burden some would lay on them to-day.
mortal, man could well convince him The cosmic odds are against it. It is
self that the tradition of his own immor now the assumption of a stupendous
privilege on the part of one inhabitant
tality was true.
But the world has grown into a of the universe, who flatters himself he
universe to-day, and from end to end of is exempted from the general law of
it comes only the whisper of death. death. We look up now to no immortal
The stars, that had been regarded as ■i stars for reassurance as we turn sadly
fragments of immortal fire, are known from the truthful face of the dead. The
to be hastening to a sure extinction. angels have retreated far from the ways
The moon stands close to us always of humanity. God has shrunk into an
as a calm prophet of death. Such as it intangible cosmic principle. If belief
is, the corpse of a world, will our earth in immortality is to be anything more
one day be. Such will our sun finally than a despairing trust, it must appeal to
become; and after him, or with him, the presence in man of some unique
the hundred millions of his fellows in power and promise. But we have seen
the firmament. Countless dead worlds that modern science completely dis
already lie on the paths of heaven ; and credits the “ supposed separateness of
the millions that are yet unborn will man from the brutes,” to use the words
�62
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
of Le Conte. The thinking force in him
is the same force that reveals itself in
the industry and ingenuity of the ant or
the affection of the dog. Why shall it
survive the corruption of the brain
in this case, yet in their case die
away as surely as the light dies when
the sun sets ? It would seem that it is
not so much a question of examining
Haeckel’s disproofs, as of asking where
we are to look for the ground of this
stupendous claim.
We shall fully consider both points in
the light of the criticisms passed on
Haeckel’s chapter on immortality and
the works on the subject which are
opposed to him. The actual criticisms
will detain us very little, for an obvious
reason. Haeckel has already destroyed
the ground for any claim of a unique
character of the human mind. We have
seen with how little success his oppo
nents have tried to impede or retard his
progress from point to point of the
evolutionary scheme. The very latest
researches of science confirm his theses.
The ablest Christian apologists yield
their arms and desert the long defended
breaches. We have been borne along
by the flood of scientific evidence,
philosophically considered, as far as the
closing thesis of our last chapter. Man
is the latest and highest embodiment of
the universal matter-force reality.
It
would seem that the acceptance of this
thesis is equivalent to an abandonment
of the belief in immortality, but we shall
see that evolutionists like Fiske, and Le
Conte, and Mr. Newman Smyth still
erect feeble barriers. Meantime, let us
dispose of the less advanced critics;
those who reflect the ideas of the average
church-goer and strive to offer some
defence of them.
There is Dr. Horton, for instance,
who pleads much for “ the naive, but
essentially correct, conceptions of our
ancestors.” Dr. Horton seems to think
it most effective to urge that men who
do not share the belief in God and im I
mortality live on “ bestial levels,” and [
are “ shrunk in soul, warped in mind, i
and degraded in body.” The “intel
lectual strain ” of Haeckel’s scientific
work is kindly said to relieve him
personally from these consequences, but
one gathers that we who are not great
scientists fall under Dr. Horton’s merci
less logic. “Accustom yourselves,” he
says, “ to believe that God and freedom
and immortality are hallucinations;
accustom yourselves to the idea that
this stupendous order of being in which
we live is not a rational order at all, but
the mere fortuitous concourse of atoms
[! ], and by an inevitable logic, as our
anarchist friends see, when you have got
rid of the first lie, which is God, you
quickly get rid of the second lie, which
is righteousness, and then you get rid of
all the other lies, which are love, and
truth, and peace, and joy, and civilisa
tion and progress generally, and poetry,
and life.” We will not stay here to
discuss this insincere rhetoric. It is too
great a libel on Dr. Horton himself, if
we take it seriously, and too insulting to
the intelligence of his readers—who,
one may assume, happen to know a few
agnostics. Nor need -we be detained
with the various criticisms in Light.
The chief of these articles states that
Haeckel relies on “physics ” to disprove
the immortality of the soul; more curi
ously still, a second writer in Light (Jan.
19th, 1901) does rely on physics (the
conservation of energy) to rehabilitate
the belief. The second writer, more
over, completely ignoring Haeckel’s de
liberate words, assures his readers that he
“is terrified at the thought of life beyond
the grave,” and adopts the grotesque
title of “ A Frightened Philosopher.”
We shall not get much light from that
side.
Most of the critics we have already
passed, attempting loyally to defend one
or other of the supposed breaches in the
evolutionary doctrine, so that they make
little resistance here. When, in the
course of the next ten years, they have
fallen back on this last position—probably discovering that, on theological
principles, man must have been evolved
�THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
—they will begin to repeat the argu
ments of Fiske and Le Conte, which we
shall presently consider. But there are
several critics who, setting aside the
question of evolution as not essential to
defend, formulate their objection thus.
Science proves up to the hilt that brain
and mind are correlative. As brain
develops, the mind opens—and in strict
est proportion. Lesion or other affection
of the brain proportionately mars the
mental or emotional life.
Psycho
physical observations show that the in
tensity of brain-action quite corresponds
to the intensity of mind-action. Let us
grant all this. But, they say, all this
throws no light whatever on the question
whether the mind may not outlive the
brain.
“ It’s logic! ” exclaims Mr.
Brierley, contemptuously, when he
comes to this part of Haeckel’s scheme.
Mr. Williams and Dr. Horton, and
others, make the same reply. Indeed,
as accomplished rhetoricians, they offer
Haeckel a pretty figurative way of con
ceiving the relation, which may help his
sluggish imagination and correct his
logic. Mind-action is like the music a
master evokes from the piano or violin.
A musical instrument maker would, like
the psycho-physicist, find an exact cor
respondence between the ailments and
defects of the violin and the disorders of
the music, or between the violence of
the molecules of string and wood and
the intensity and tone of the music.
But—Haeckel has forgotten the player !
Brain and thought are instrument and
music. Where, in Haeckel’s philosophy,
is the instrumentalist?
A very singular omission on the part
of one of the keenest observers in the
world! Let us examine the matter.
We have seen in the preceding chapter
the immense mass of scientific evidence
which goes to show that there is an
exact correspondence between brain
action and soul-life. The correspondence
is just the same in man as in the ape or
the dog. As the shadow varies with the
object which projects it, so does thought
vary with the quality and action of the
63
brain. There is no dispute about this.
No induction is based on a wider and
more varied range of observations.
This correspondence is the same as we
find in the case of the heart and its
function, the stomach and digestion, or
the lungs and respiration. Now, in all
these analogous cases we do not seek an
instrumentalist.
The instrument is
automatic. For its formation we look
back along a process of natural evolution
which stretches over 50,000,000 years.
Whether the evolutionary agencies were
divinely guided or no will be considered
presently, but at all events in the heart
and lungs we have automatic instruments,
and we never dream of looking for a
present instrumentalist. It is the same
with the brain of the dog. When the
dog dies, we do not ask what has become
of the instrumentalist now that the
instrument (brain) is broken and the
music (thought) is silent. We never
dream of there being a third element.
But the mind of man is the same mind
more fully developed.
In a sense there is a third factor—
both in the stomach, the canine life, and
the human life—and this is the only
truth there really is in this very mislead
ing figure of rhetoric. I have already
mentioned a critic who endeavours to
deduce the immortality of the soul from
the conservation of energy, and this
gives us the clue. Critics very stupidly,
or very wilfully, represent Haeckel as
saying that thought is a movement of
the molecules of the brain, just as they
say he resolves all things into matter.
They ignore the fact that he lays as
much, if not more, stress on force than
on matter. He holds, of course, that
there is fundamentally only one reality,
but it is most improper to call that by
the name of one of its attributes (exten
sion). Thus we have, in a sense, three
elements : the instrument, the music, and
the soul or energy associated with the
brain. When Haeckel speaks of thought
as “ a function of the brain,” he means
the living brain—the incomparably intri
cate structure of material elements and
�64
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
the natural forces associated with them,
in which thought arises. We have no
scientific or philosophical ground what
ever for . postulating any further element
to explain the music. Is it scientific to
make an exception of this living brain,
and say it is the only non-automatic organ
in the body ? Does its relation to the
rest of the body give the least support
to the notion ? Is it scientific to say the
living brain is automatic in the whole
animal world, but cannot be so in man
because the music is finer and more diffi
cult ? Does embryology favour the idea ?
Does philosophy step in, and bid us sus
pend the scientific method and admit a
breach in the scientific continuity ?
Probably it is to philosophy they will
appeal. These ideas, Dr. Horton says,
“rest on the region of thought and con
sciousness ” to which Haeckel “ studi
ously closes his eyes.” By all means let
us go to philosophy. Kant will tell us
that these psychological proofs of immor
tality are quite discredited. Schelling
and Hegel and Schopenhauer will give us
the consolation of disappearing in the
world-process. Hume and Mill and Spen
cer will prove more than sceptical. Most
modern philosophers will tell us, as
Miinsterberg does, that “ the philosopher
who bases his hope of immortality on a
theory of brain-functions . . . stands
on the same ground as the astronomer
who seeks with his telescope for a place
in the universe where no space exists,
and where there would be undisturbed
room for God and eternal bodiless souls.”
Certainly one can quote thinkers who
wish mind and brain movements to be
left parallel, with the relation of the two
undetermined. But they advance no
reasons which arrest the application of
scientific method. Here in the mind
life are phenomena that we can examine
from two sides—from without and from
within. This may seem at first to give
a certain uniqueness to the soul-life.
But the only soul-life we can examine
from within is our own individual experi
ence. Every other man’s soul is a
matter of objective examination to us;
and by much of the same evidence which
convinces us of his similar experiences,
we are forced to extend conscious mental
action to the brutes. So the uniqueness
once more disappears. Philosophy will
not help or hinder us. Referring to the
work of Professor Royce, a distinguished
American philosopher and Gifford Lec
turer, Professor Le Conte says: “He
gives up the question of immortality as
insoluble by philosophy. Well—perhaps
it is.” i
Thus (reserving some further philo
sophic arguments for the moment) we
return unembarrassed to our scientific
procedure ; and “ science,” Prof. Miinsterberg says, “ opposes to any doctrine
of individual immortality an unbroken
and impregnable barrier.”2 The rigid
relation determined by psycho-physics,
the rigid relation observed in the evolu
tion of the thinking animal, the rigid
relation that is recorded by pathology
and ethnology, and that lies on the
very surface of life, means something
more than parallelism.
It is easy to
quote Huxley and Tyndall in opposition
to Haeckel’s formula. The one was an
idealist in metaphysics: the other has
said much more in the monistic sense
than he ever said in the agnostic. Pro
ceeding on realistic and scientific lines,
we are driven by the rules of induction
to regard thought as wholly bound up
with brain, and to look for no third
element beyond the matter and force of
which the brain is so intricately con
structed. The mysteries that still linger
about consciousness and memory, just as
about embryonic development, for in
stance, are scientific mysteries. To build
on them would be to repeat the discre
dited old tactics.
If the theories of
them which Haeckel offers are unsatis
factory, wait for better ones. They are
the light bridges of the monistic system,
forecasting the scientific advance. But
that, in whatever way, mind-force is an
evolution of the general cosmic-force,
1 The Conception of God, p. 752 Psychology and Life, p. 85.
�THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
and that it therefore affords no more
promise of immortality in the individual
human mind than it does in the indi
vidual motor-car, is a scientific induction
resting on a mass of evidence and drawn
up in observance of the most rigid
rules.
Let us now consider the arguments
brought forward in favour of the belief
in immortality by 'those who have not
lingered to defend any evolutionary gap,
but who freely admit the evolution of
the human mind. These are the “ replies
by anticipation” which, we are told,
should have withheld Professor Haeckel
from his extreme conclusions. Let us
see how puny and fruitless are the efforts
they make to overleap the “ unbroken
and impregnable barrier ” that Professor
Miinsterberg speaks of. Miinsterberg
himself offers a curious example of the
way modern philosophers, especially
idealist philosophers, lend a nominal
support to religious doctrines, yet are
found to mean something totally different
from what the world at large understands
by those doctrines. As the words I
have quoted show, he is as hostile as
Haeckel to any belief in personal im
mortality. “ Only to a cheap curiosity,”
he says again, “ can it appear desirable
that the inner life, viewed as a series of
psychological facts shall go on and on ”;
and again : “ The claim that the deceased
spirits go on with psychological existence
is a violation of the ethical belief in
immortality.”1 Thus he rejects the only
notion of immortality which is in any
plausible way connected with those
moral consequences that are so much
urged upon us. However, he speaks of
an “ ethical belief in immortality,” and
so is gathered by controversialists into
the imposing category of “scientists
opposed to Haeckel.” The immortality
he promises us is no more consoling
than that offered by Comte or by
Haeckel himself. “Life lives on.” It
is a natural expression of his idealism.
“ For the philosophic mind,” he says,
1 Psychology and Life, p. 280.
65
“ which sees the difference between
reality and psychological transformation,
immortality is certain; for him the denial
of immortality would be even quite
meaningless.
Death is a biological
phenomenon in the world of objects in
time; how then can death reach a reality
which is not an object but an attitude,
and therefore neither in time nor space ? ”
He meets the scientific evidence by
getting rid of the body and death, and
the material world altogether.
Professor W. James, another able
American psychologist whom
Mr.
Ballard and Mr. Williams and several
ecclesiastical papers urge us to read, has
made his profession of faith at the close
of his recent Gifford Lectures, pub
lished under the title of Varieties of
Religious Experience. We shall see that
it does not include a belief in God.
On our present question it is little more
helpful to the Christian. Professor
James is convinced as a spiritist that
there are non-human intelligences in
existence, but he is not yet convinced
that these external intelligences are the
souls of men and women who have
“ passed beyond.” So far he lends no
real support to the doctrine of immor
tality. Professor J. Royce, another
distinguished American thinker whom
the Gifford Trust has invited amongst
us, “givesup the question of immortality
as insoluble by philosophy ”; so
Professor Le Conte assures us.
Mr. Le Conte himself, we saw,
follows this statement with a candid
admission that “perhaps it is.” But
he is not disposed to yield entirely as
yet. Where does so thorough an
evolutionist find ground for ascribing
this unique prerogative to the human
soul ? He professes to find it precisely
in the “evolutionary view of man’s
origin.” If that view of the world
process which we have hitherto sustained
is correct, it follows, he says, that the
human mind-force is “a spark of the
Divine Energy ” and a “ part of God.”
So is the force of a motor car, on his
principles. But, he says, the universal
E
�66
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
spirit (Haeckel’s universal substance on
its force side) has worked its way
upward through the hierarchy of evolu
tion, so that it (or God) “ may have, in
man, something not only to contem
plate, but also to love and to be loved
by ” ; and in view of that project, which
is not supposed to be a temporary pro
ject, man must be immortal.1 The
frailty of the position is obvious. It
assumes that the “ Divine Energy ”
(which is Haeckel’s substance) was
intelligent and had “designs” from the
beginning.
We shall consider the
grounds of this assumption in the
next chapter. But, granting it for the
sake of the argument, we are asked to
conceive this eternally intelligent prin
ciple going through a laborious process of
evolution in order to reach consciousness
in the human mind and admire itself,
and love and be loved by itself, in that
form; for the mind zs God, on these
pantheistic principles. Moreover, sup
posing that we could gather this remark
able project, it contains no promise
whatever of immortality for the in
dividual ; the “ Divine Energy ” is
incarnated in so many forms, and will
be throughout the eternal world-process,
that the perishing of one form or of one
world will hardly diminish its contempla
tion or its admiration. Further, if man
z's God, how comes he to be ignorant of
the project ?
What becomes (theo
retically) of moral distinctions ? But
this fantastic theory bristles with diffi
culties.
Mr. Fiske’s conclusion is very similar
to Professor Le Conte’s, as will be
expected from the similarity of his
premises. The doctrine of evolution,
he says, does not destroy our hope of
immortality. “ Haeckel’s opinion was
never reached through a scientific study
of evolution, and it is nothing but an
echo from the French speculation of the
eighteenth century ” ; and “ he takes his
opinion on such matters ready-made
from Ludwig Buchner, who is simply an
echo of the eighteenth century atheist
La Mettrie.”1 How Fiske could ever
pen such an egregious statement about
either Haeckel or Buchner is one of the
mysteries of religious controversy. After
our review of Haeckel’s arguments it
may very well be ignored. And when
Fiske has come to the end of this petty
and petulant criticism of Haeckel we
find him presenting a conclusion almost
less satisfactory than that of Le Conte.
The substance of his argument is that
“ there is in man a psychic ele
ment identical in nature with that
which is eternal” (p. 170). On the face
of it, that is just what Haeckel says.
Man’s mind-force is a little eddy or
focus in the eternal cosmic force.
There is no ground whatever for assum
ing that as such it will be eternal, and
will not simply sink back into the
eternal stream, like all other temporary
concentrations. The only difference is
that Fiske takes the eternal principle to
be conscious and intelligent from the
first—a point we discuss in the next
chapter.
There remains only the argumentation
of Mr. Newman Smyth in his able but
pathetic attempt to reconstruct Christian
belief on a scientific base.2 The argu
ment itself is an old one, but it is put
with some freshness.
He points out
that the evolutionary process has just
reached an important stage. Evolving
nature has at length passed beyond mere
animal life and reached the threshold of
the spiritual life. Since, then, we dis
cern an upward purpose in evolution, it
is impossible to suppose that the process
will end now that so promising a stage
has been reached. To this we need
only reply that, whether or no “ purpose ”
is discernible in nature (which we shall
deny), this further evolution will take
place in the race taken collectively. This
is so clear that Mr. Smyth makes a des
perate effort to apply his argument to the
individual. He says the “ last word of
organic development is the individual
1 The Conception of God, p. 77-
1 Through Nature to God, p. 144.
2 'Through Science to Faith, p. 265 and foil.
�THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
and his worth,” and he appeals to
“nature’s increasing estimate of indi
viduality in comparison with the species.”
Now, if we take this in the only sense
in which it could be conceived to help a
belief in personal immortality, it is totally
opposed to the scientific evidence. The
only way in which nature seems more
concerned about the individual is in the
perfection which she gives to the indi
viduals of the later species; but this is
absolutely necessary if the species itself
is to advance. In all other respects
nature, as ever, is indifferent to the indi
vidual—or, for the matter of that, if we
take a long enough perspective, to the
species itself.
The
supplementary
consideration
which Mr. Smyth submits is still feebler.
He contends that, though evolution is
generally continuous, it shows what he
calls “critical periods.” He instances
the changes which take place in a drop
of water as it sinks to freezing-point or
rises to the point of evaporation. He
thinks science does not preclude the
possibility of some analogous “ critical
period ” for the human soul. Nay, he
says, getting bolder, biology favours such
a view.
Look how “very slight and
easily changed” is the connection be
tween mind and organism at certain
times—at conception, in sleep, and when
we near death. Biology, he says, shows
that “ the mind does not need for its
birth and its coming to its inheritance a
whole body, a complete brain, a fullyformed organ of sense, or so much as a
single nerve ; a few microscopic threads
of chromatin matter in the egg are
enough.” Hence, if at both ends of
life the bond that links mind and body
can wear so thin, it is conceivable that
it may be dispensed with altogether.
Now, this is a most perverse piece of
reasoning. At conception, and long after
conception, we have no right to say that
the mind is there at all. It appears and
grows with the brain—that is all the
evidence says.
The facts point to a
conclusion diametrically opposed to that
of Mr. Smyth.
They show complete J
67
and slavish dependence. As to heredity,
it is gratuitous to say it is the mind, and
not the body, that inherits. Even Dr.
W. N. Clarke (who, with many modern
theologians, does not believe that the
“soul” is transmitted from parent to
child) says the facts of heredity point to
the mechanical, not the spiritual, theory.
At death we see the same rigid depend
ence of mind on organism, instead of
finding anything like a token of an in
dependent mind. The mind flickers and
goes out—as far as evidence goes—in
exact proportion to the last spluttering
and extinction of the physical life of the
body. At both ends of life, as through
out its course, the correlation of mind
action and brain-action is rigid and ab
solute. And, finally, what Mr. Smyth
unfortunately calls “ critical periods ” in
nature have not the least analogy to the
notion of the mind-force existing apart
from its material substratum. A differ
ent grouping of the water-molecules
naturally gives rise to different properties ;
so does a different grouping of brain
molecules (in fever, under opium, &c.)
give rise to different mental qualities.
When we find a case of the properties
or forces of a substance parting company
from, or changing independently of, the
material substratum, we shall have found
some ground in nature for the conception
of a disembodied soul; but not until
then.
Such are the feeble defences which
are to-day set up by the apologists
who have scientific attainments in the
Christian body. On the strength of
these ethereal speculations we are asked
to resist the weight of the scientific
evidence as to the relation of body and
soul, and to admit for man a privilege
that is unknown from end to end of the
universe. We are asked to believe that
with the aid of a fantastic and desperate
philosophy such as this we can overleap
science’s “unbroken and impregnable
barrier.” We are asked to call Haeckel
“an atrophied soul” and “a child in
spiritual reasoning ” because he will not
abdicate his scientific method and
�68
GOD
procedure in the face of such specula
tions as these. I have not, it is true,
examined the argument for a future
life from the alleged exigencies of the
moral order; but this is little urged
to-day, and we shall see, when we come
to deal with the monistic ethics, that
it rests on a false conception of moral
’trw.1
I have sought, in particular, and
stated with perfect fidelity, the argu
ments of those modern scholars who
are opposed to him as being equally in
formed in science and equally convinced
of evolution. The reader may judge
whether he or they are the more
philosophic, logical, and scientific in
procedure.
Chapter VII
GOD
We now enter upon a new and almost
the final stage of our direct vindication
of monism. If we have succeeded so
far in warding off the objections which
have been urged against Haeckel’s
position, if we have shown that the very
latest scientific research increasingly
confirms his position, it is clear that we
have covered considerable ground. We
have discerned in the stupendous process
of cosmic evolution the growth or the
unfolding of one great reality that lies
across the immeasurable space of the
universe. An illimitable substance, re
vealing itself to us as matter and force
(or spirit), is dimly perceived at the root
1 Neither have I, it will be noted, referred to
the empirical or spiritistic evidence for the per
sistence of mind, which gains increasing favour
to-day. This is not due to any lack of respect
for the distinguished scientists who have admitted
such evidence, or for the sobriety and judgment
of so many about us to-day who receive it. It is
due to the utter futility of discussing evidence of
this kind. It is of such a nature, resting so
largely on delicate moral considerations, that it
must in my opinion be left entirely to personal
examination in the concrete. But that Haeckel
is right in saying the subject is obscured with
much fraud and triviality is admitted, not only
by life-long students like Mr. Podmore, but by
many earnest spiritists.
of this evolution as a simple and homo
geneous medium (prothyl), associated with
an equally homogeneous force. Then the
continuous prothyl, by a process not yet
determined, forms into what are virtually
or really discrete and separate particles
—electrons: the electrons unite to
build atoms of various sizes and
structures, and the rich variety of the
chemical elements is given, the base of
an incalculable number of combinations
and forms of matter. Meantime the
more concentrated (ponderable) elements
gather into cosmic masses under the
influence of the force associated with
them : the force evolving and differen
tiating at equal pace with the matter (with
which it is one in reality). Nebulse
are formed: solar systems grow like
crystals from them: planets take on
solid crusts, with enveloping oceans
and atmospheres. Presently a more
elaborate
combination of material
elements, protoplasm, with—naturally—■
a more elaborate force-side, makes its
appearance, and organic evolution sets
in. The little cellules cling together
and form tissue-animals, which increase
in complexity and organisation and
centralisation until the human frame is
�GOD
produced, the life-force growing more
elaborate with the structure, until it
issues in the remarkable properties of
the human mind.
The tracing of this picture is the ideal
that science set itself a quarter of a
century ago.
The success has been
swift and astounding. We are still, as
Sir A. Riicker said, living in the twilight;
but no man of science now doubts that
what we do see is the real outline of the
universe and its growth. But other and
different cosmic speculations held the
field, and these were ultimately con
nected with the powerful corporations
and the intense emotions of religion.
As science advanced theology began a
long process of adaptation to the new
thought. The ambition of science was
to cover the whole ground with a scheme
of mechanical and orderly explanation,
because the instinct of science felt that
the universe was an orderly and con
tinuous structure. The ambition of the
theologian was to detect and exult over
gaps and breaches in this mechanical
scheme, and introduce his supernatural
agencies by means of them. We have
seen that many of the ablest theistic
apologists of our day (Ward, Smyth, Le
Conte, Fiske, Clarke, &c.)—almost all,
indeed, of those who have scientific
equipment—grant the ability of science,
now or in the near future, to cover “ the
whole cosmological domain ” with its
network of mechanical causation. We
have seen that there is a general dis
avowal of “ a theology of gaps ” or of the
desire to build on the temporary igno
rance of science.
But a few heroic
souls still linger in the familiar trenches,
and we have fully considered what they
have to say. With Smyth, Le Conte,
and Fiske, we have been forced to con
clude that so far we have seen in the
cosmic process the orderly unfolding of
one sole all-diffused matter-force reality,
which we commonly call Nature.
But we have throughout, for the sake
of clearer procedure, reserved one con
sideration that these advanced evolution
ists have been urging on us at every
69
step—that is to say, the claim that the
evolutionary process must have been in
telligently set going and intelligently
directed. Haeckel is quite right, they
say, in claiming that science can give or
adumbrate a mechanical interpretation
of the whole process. Quibbles about
his particular way of conceiving the first
formation of life, or of consciousness,
and so on, are irrelevant and distressing
to the serious thinkers, as is the diver
sion of the issue by discussing his taste,
or his knowledge of history, or his
optimism or pessimism. The important
point is that he has proved his case so
far in its essentials. But he must now
meet this last position of his opponents.
Was this monistic cosmic process con
ceived and designed from the beginning,
and guided throughout, by an intelligent
being, or no ? 1 This is the question of
the hour, and especially of the coming
hour, in apologetics.
As I write a
journal reaches me containing an inter
view with Mr. Ballard. Asked whether
he thinks “the rehabilitation of religion
would come from the scientists,” he
replies: " I think that the theistic basis
of Christianity will have scientific support
more than ever.
Modern science is
pledged to evolution, and Christianity
can only be justified scientifically on
evolutionary lines.” And Professor Le
Conte says: “ Here is the last line of
defence to the supporters of supernatu
ralism in the realm of Nature ... it is
evident that a yielding here implies not
a mere shifting of line, but a change of
base: not a readjustment of details
only, but a reconstruction of Christian
theology.
This, I believe, is indeed
necessary.”2
And we have already
seen passages from Ward and others to
the same effect.
Here is a dramatic simplification of
the controversy, which every thinker
1 Let us note in passing that this is not neces
sarily a question of monism or dualism. Mr. R.
Williams and others expressly state they are
monists, that God is not distinct from Nature.
More about this presently.
2 Evolution and Religiozis Thought, p. 295.
�7o
GOD
will welcome. Theology will, as before,
spread itself over the whole cosmos, but
it will be with the repetition of a single
formula. There will no longer be cease
less quarrels as to whether science can
explain this or that phenomenon with
its natural or mechanical causes. The
new attitude. is that this mechanical
explanation is precisely the work of
science, and if it cannot give a mechani
cal explanation of a thing—say, con
sciousness—to-day, we will wait patiently
till to-morrow.
But, the new theolo
gians say, we want to know in addition
how these mechanical causes came to
co-operate in producing such remarkable
structures.
With this science has
nothing to do, so we close our thirty
years’ war and sign an eternal truce.
Nay, if we look at the matter rightly,
these theologians of the twentieth cen
tury say it is very desirable that science
should complete its mechanical interpre
tation of the cosmos.
An automatic
universe, evolving by inherent forces
from electrons to minds, would be the
most marvellous mechanism ever con
ceived. The mind would be forced to
look for the engineer. Those ancient
theologians who scoffed at Tyndall for
his Belfast address were too hasty; so
were those who caused Huxley to com
pare their dread of the mechanical
scheme to the terror of savages during
an eclipse of the sun; so are those who
beat their wings in vain against Haeckel’s
structure to-day. The materialist will be
the truest auxiliary of the theist. If he
can only show that the universe is the
unfolding of one form of matter and one
force (or one matter-force reality), he
has put before us one of the most
stupendous machines that ever bore the
mark of intelligence.
We are then, it seems, approaching
the psychological moment in the great
drama of the conflict of science and
religion. That I am indicating a true I
tendency will be perfectly clear from the •
preceding chapters.
We have rarely |
found men of ability or of complete i
scientific equipment defending the old !
trenches that barred the advance of the
mechanical system of science. We have
constantly heard impatient denials of a
love for “ gaps.” But before I proceed
to show how Haeckel has met this teleo
logical position, let me quote a few
recent writers, both to show that the
formula is as simple as I said, and that
concentration on this position is the
order of the day.1 I have quoted Pro
fessor Ward’s opinion that, “ if there has
been any interference in the cosmic pro
cess, it must have been before the process
began.’( Dr. Croll, in his Basis of Evolu
tion, distinguishes between producing
(mechanical) and determining (directive)
forces, and tells the theologian of the
future to confine his attention to the
latter : “ The grand, the difficult, though
as yet unanswered, question is this:
What guides the molecule to its proper
position in relation to the end which it
has to serve ? ” With Mr. Newman
Smyth the supreme question is: “ Is
evolution without guidance or with guid
ance ?” Mr. Fiske says: “There is in
every earnest thinker a craving after a
final cause . . . and this craving can no
more be extinguished than our belief in
objective reality.” 2 Dr. Dallinger says
that, if the mechanical philosophy is
true we have “ a more majestic design
than all the thinkers of the past had
ever dreamed.”
And the sermon
preached on the last Association Sun
day at Southport by the Bishop of Ripon
points unmistakably to the same tendency
—even to a pantheistic identification of
God with the forces at work in Nature.
1 There may be a few fond and admiring
souls who are looking out for a reference to Mr.
Ambrose Pope’s third criticism. Briefly, he
finds that Haeckel has got rid of God by a third
“half-day excursion,” in the course of which he
discovered a system of “ physiological monism,”
which, as before, contains the fatal germ under
an innocent exterior. The joke may be given
for what it is worth, but it gets stale. Mr. Pope
goes on to say that when you ask Haeckel about
the substance he puts instead of God, he says he
is not sure whether it exists. Tableau, and
exeunt omnes, of course. We have met this
point in the second chapter.
2 The Idea of God, p. 137.
�7i
GOD
The new teleology flatters itself it
differs very scientifically from the old;
for “ teleology ” had fallen into disrepute
during the period of “ gap ” theology
which followed the break-up of Paleyism.
It is true that there are differences.
Aubrey Moore points out that we now
do not forget the past (the evolution) of
the organ. Dr. Iverach observes that
the new teleologist. does not think so
much of an “ external artificer ” as of an
immanent directive principle, and that
we do not now attempt to deduce scien
tific knowledge from the “ purpose ” of
a thing. These differences, however, do
not alter the essential structure of the
argument, which remains the same as
when Kant rejected it and Paley drove
it to death. We may state it briefly in
abstract form to this effect: Wherever in
Nature we find several agencies co
operating in the production of a certain
result which is orderly or beautiful, we
see the guidance of mind. The under
lying assumption is that the unconscious
forces of the universe will only produce
chaos unless they are guided. Pre-con
ceived design followed up by directive
control, or else a “ fortuitous clash of
atoms,” is the alternative put before us.
The process of evolution taken as a
whole has been so orderly, and had such
marvellous results, that we must admit
the agencies at work in the process were
intelligently guided. To suppose that
this process should chance to culminate
in the appearance of man is said to be
incredible. So throughout the whole
process we find co-operations, adapta
tions, orderly and beautiful operations,
which speak eloquently of design and
control. From the very first step, the
making of the atom, to the last, the
making of man’s brain, we see the finger
of God.
A few extracts and references will
show that this is a correct summary. As
regards the inorganic universe a little
work recently published by the Rev. W.
Profeit well illustrates the argument.
The author starts with the principle that
“every form of being must act according
to its nature,” and goes on to say that
“ the particles of matter have not in them
conscious intelligence, and consequently
have not of themselves the power of
arranging, and so of producing complex
order.”1 He then reviews the teaching
of modern physics at length, pausing at
every few paces, in the familiar manner,
to admire the ways of the Creator.
“ To deal with every particle of matter
in the universe, so as to make it of a
special type, to order all, so that they
might come under types so few and
compact, demanded an amount . of
thought and work of overwhelming
greatness, and could not be the result of
chance.” Chemistry is “crowded with
adjustments, packed with adaptations.”
The moulding of matter into solar
systems of such marvellous symmetry
and adaptability to life occasions another
outburst. In short, theology can easily
run to volumes by repeating “ Great are
thy works” at every forward step in
evolution. Chance is out of the ques
tion. “ Ah ! what foolery it is to deem
that a mighty world has been produced
by chance.” Happily, there are no fools
of that particular type amongst us. But
“necessity” is equally impotent. “No
sane mind ’’—the young theology keeps
up the literary tradition, you see, which
made even Fiske exclaim against “the
intellectual arrogance which the argu
ments of theologians show lurking
beneath their expressions of humility ” 2
—“no sane mind can for a moment
imagine that from the nature of things it
was an eternal necessity that the seventy,
or thereby, different kinds of atoms
should all exist, or be formed in the
numbers and proportions of numbers, in
which they help to form our great system
obeying the orb of day.” So it is to be
either “ fortuitous concourse ” or mind ;
and as the universe is not a chaotic
mess, -we must admit it was presided
over by intelligence from the first.
Dr. Dallinger offers us the same
1 The Creation of Matter, p. 6.
2 Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, p. 451.
�72
GOD
dilemma of chance or control, and urges
that to adopt chance “ is surely to trifle
with the fundamental principles of our
reasoning powers.” Rationalists, we
may say in passing, had a concern for
our “ reasoning powers ” in days when
doctors of divinity looked upon them as
mischievous.
Dr. Croll argues in the
same .way. Some principle, he says,
must determine why a natural force
takes direction A instead of direction B
or C. The determination of planetary
orbits is not so much due to gravitation
as to the way in which gravitation acted.
So in the formation of crystals or
organisms. “ Out of the infinite number
of different paths, what is it that directs
the force to select the right path ? ”
Dr. Croll seems to fancy that in this he
has suggested a new idea to the world.
Dr. Iverach, both in Christianity and
Evolution and in Theism, follows the
same line. For the pre-atomic mass to
be made atomic, and to produce the
orderly and periodic system of elements
with their affinities, the forces at work
must have been guided.
The argument does not differ in sub
stance when we pass to the organic
world, but, naturally, the notes of ex
clamation and edifying observations
increase. Biological science, says Dr.
Iverach, “must admit purpose in the
magnificent adjustments it points out.”
Mr. Newman Smyth gives an admirable
sketch of the evolution of the eye, and
pleads that the forces which have
gradually constructed it did not any the
less need guidance and control because
they took millions of years to do it.
Mr. Ballard takes the evolution of the
eye in the foetus, and says that if a child
were to repeat “ that God caused it so
to do, it is utterly beyond the power of
all modern science to contradict.”1
Embryology is, it is true, as yet very
imperfect.
However, other passages
make it clear that, though Mr. Ballard
may here be building on a “gap,” he
generally offers us the usual dilemma,
1 Miracles of Unbelief, p. 51.
design or “fortuitous concourse of
atoms,” and characteristically tells us
the latter is “fatuous.” In fact Mr.
Ballard tells even the agnostic, who
thinks there is not enough evidence
either for or against teleology, that his
hesitation is mere “childish fatuity.”
The Rev. R. Williams—not to neglect
him—tells his weaver-admirers that “the
solar system is really more wonderful
than a loom,” which is obviously de
signed, and that organisms are more
wonderful still. And Dr. W. N. Clarke
says “it is not probable that the most
significant elements in a world came
into it without having been entertained
during the process as character-giving
ideals.” He says Darwinism has modi
fied, but not destroyed, teleology. We
now know that needs, and contrivances
to supply them, “ grow up within the
universe,” but this power of adaptation
must have been given to organisms by a
purposive intelligence.1
The argument, therefore, on which
the fate of theism is finally to be deter
mined is now tolerably clear. Leave
Haeckel free to perfect his mechanical
monism ; when he has completed it, we
shall point out to the astonished pro
fessor that he has been proving the
existence of God all the time. If this
force which he traces for us in its
marvellous ascent through the atom, the
nebula, the cell, and the organism, was
unconscious from the start, and if it has
achieved all this progress in so orderly
and determined a fashion, it must have
been guided. Well, let us see whether
Haeckel is quite so naive and antiquated
as these good people assure the world.
To begin with, the flavour of antiquity
is quite clearly on the other side.
“ Chance ” and “ fortuitous concourse
of atoms ” are phrases which you will
not find outside theological schools for
the last 2,000 years. The early Greeks
used them. The constant reiteration of
them in our time is a grave piece of
insincerity, or else ignorance. How Mr.
1 Outlines of Christian 1'heology, p. 116.
�GOD
Profeit and Mr. Ballard come to use
these phrases in the year of grace 1903
is best known to themselves. Professor
Haeckel deals clearly with the point
(p. 97), and explains—as has been ex
plained innumerable times—the only
sense in which science admits “ chance ”
events. Mr. Profeit rightly indicates a
third alternative, necessity; and Dr.
Dallinger somewhat vaguely suggests it.
Haeckel and his colleagues hold that
the direction which the evolutionary
agencies take is not “ fortuitous ” : that
they never could take but the one
direction which they have actually taken.
A stone has not a dozen possible paths
to travel by when you drop it from your
hand. You do not seek any reason why
it follows direction A instead of direction
B or C. So it is, says the monist, with
all the forces in the universe. Some
day science will be able to trace a set of
forces working for ages at the con
struction of a solar system, or at the
making of an eye. The theist says the
ultimate object must have been foreseen
and the forces must have been guided,
or they would never have worked
steadily in this definite direction. The
monist says that these forces no more
needed guiding than a tramcar does;
there was only one direction possible for
them. Here is a clear issue, and in the
present state of apologetics, an important
one. It is useless to talk, as Fiske does,
of the “ teleological instinct.” “ The
teleological instinct in man,” he says,
“ cannot be suppressed or ignored. The
human soul shrinks from the thought
that it is without kith or kin in all this
wide universe.” This is not only “an
appeal to the imagination ”: it is utterly
opposed to the facts of life. Mr. Fiske
ascribes his own peculiar temperament
to the universe. The matter must be
reasoned out.
Now, it seems clear that if a man
asserts that the forces of the universe are
naturally erratic, and may go in any one
of a dozen directions unless they are
guided, he must show cause for his
Opinion. The man of science has never
73
discovered an erratic force yet. Force
always acts uniformly, always takes the
same direction. If you say this is only
because the natural forces are guided
and controlled, and is not their proper
and inherent nature, the man of science
naturally asks: How do you know ?
Science sees nothing in nature to suggest
such an idea. “ When we consider the
movements of the starry heavens to-day,”
says Mr. Mallock, “instead of feeling
it to be wonderful that they are ab
solutely regular, we should feel it to be
wonderful if they were ever anything
else . . . We realise that order, instead
of being the marvel of the universe, is
the indispensable condition of its
existence—that it is a physical platitude,
not a divine paradox, ”1 That is certainly
the feeling the universe inspires in men
of science. What is the ground for this
notion of the essentially erratic character
of natural forces ? One seeks it quite in
vain. Dr. Croll says : “ Though our
acquaintance with the forces of nature
were absolutely perfect, the question as
to how particles or molecules arrange
themselves into organic forms would
probably still remain as deep a mystery
as ever, unless we knew something more
than force.” 2 But he does not offer us a
single consideration to convince us of
this “ probability.” When Mr. Profeit
tries to bully us into admitting that “ no
sane mind can for a moment imagine
that from the nature of things it was an
eternal necessity that the seventy, or
thereby, different kinds of atoms should
all exist,” we timidly venture to inquire :
Why not ? Force, as far as our ex
perience goes, acts necessarily, inevitably,
infallibly. There could be no science if
it did not.
The only attempt made to escape this
initial difficulty of the teleologist is to
appeal to a number of totally false
analogies. The favourite is that vener
able and imposing sophism, that if you
cast to the ground an infinite (or a finite)
number of letters, they might after
1 Religion as a Credible Doctrine, p. 162.
a The Basis of Evolution, p. 24.
F
�74
GOD
infinite gyrations make a word here and
there, but we should think the man an
enthusiast who expected even a short
sentence, and a fool if he expected
them ever to make a poem. It is
absurd to offer us this as an analogy
to-day; or else it is begging the
whole question.
Take the case of
the eye. Quite certainly this is an
evolutionary product. Forces acting on
matter during millions of years have
evolved it. Each step in the process is
perfectly complete and intelligible in
itself. It is wholly arbitrary to suppose
the eye was in view when protoplasm
was first formed: or when the first
sensitive cells appeared on the surface of
the primitive animal body: or when
pigment-cells were developed at the fore
most part of the body : or when a sensi
tive nerve was formed under the skin;
and so on. Each structure was useful
in its turn ; and on that very account
natural selection fastened on it. It is
sheer imagination to suppose that the
ultimate form was foreseen: and it is sheer
scientific untruth to say the ultimate
form must have been foreseen or else the
earlier structures would be unintelligible.
Here is a plexus of natural forces acting
on matter, without, as far as we can see,
the possibility of their acting otherwise;
only one result was possible. And we
are asked to regard this as curious,
because, in the case of the imaginary
throw of type, natural forces will not lose
their uniform character and act miracu
lously. Finally, it is a colossal petitio
principii, because the question is pre
cisely whether Virgil’s Aeneid or Shake
speare’s Hamlet is not an evolutionary
product.
It seems, then, that the initial diffi
culty of the teleologist is insuperable.
He cannot give us a shadow of proof of
his assertion that natural forces are erra
tic. Haeckel is completely within the
right of science in speaking of the uni
verse as, in Goethe’s phrase, “ ruled by
eternal, iron laws ” (or forces). They
have wrought out a certain result—the
world we form part of. Until some good
reason is shown for thinking they could
have acted otherwise, we see no need for
designer, or guide, or engineer. Let us
put it another way. To an extent the
teleologists are playing on the present im
perfection of science, as Dr. Croll
innocently betrayed. Let us take them
at their word, and suppose science will in
time give a complete mechanical expla
nation of everything, for the good reason
that God, as they say, created a machine
that needed no mending or re-starting.
And let us suppose that he designed the
ultimate form of the cosmos. Is this
design communicated to the unconscious
atoms and their forces ? Clearly not; no
one would say that. Are these forces
which build up and impel the atoms
supernaturally inflected or modulated at
each step ? Again, no one would say
this. The only possible conception of
telic action on a cosmic scale is, when
we descend from grandiose phrases to
practical ideas, that from the start the
matter-force reality was of such a
nature that it would infallibly evolve into
the cosmos we form part of to-day. Any
other conception of “ guidance ” and
“control” is totally unthinkable. And
as a fact theists are settling down to
formulate their position in that way.
The interference, as Ward says, took
place before the process began.
But before we take up this last point
it is necessary to glance at another side
of the question. Haeckel has pointed
out that, not only do we see no ground
for believing in the presence of some
primitive design, but we see very con
siderable reasons for rejecting it. The
world is crowded with features which
forbid us lightly to admit a controlling
supreme intelligence. There is no an
swer to this. “ The fact stands inex
orably before us,” says Mr. Fiske, “ that
a Supreme Will, enlightened by perfect
intelligence and possessed of infinite
power, might differently have fashioned
the universe, though in ways inconceiv
able by us, so that the suffering and the
waste of life which characterise nature’s
process of evolution might have been
�GOD
avoided.”1 As to the waste, Dr. Iverach
ventures to say that “infinite precision
at one point is inconsistent with bad
shooting ”; but the infinite precision is,
we have seen, an assumption, whereas
the bad shooting is ubiquitous. At
every sex-act millions of spermatozoa are
wasted. Others say the glorious final
issue puts all right. But as Mr. Mallock
says, “ Whatever may be God’s future,
there will still remain His past.” Most
ideologists retreat into mystery. One
might unkindly remind them of their
great disinclination to let the monist
leave anything unexplained, but it is
better to say that when all the tangible
evidence is on one side and none on the
other, we do not regard it as a fair
dilemma. Listen to the impression of
a cultured defender of religion after a
study of the evolutionary process in
nature : “ We must divest ourselves of
all foregone conclusions, of;all question
begging reverences, and look the facts
of the universe steadily in the face. If
theists will but do this, what they will
see will astonish them. They will see
that if there is anything at the back of
this vast process with a consciousness
and a purpose in any way resembling our
own—a Being who knows what He
wants and is doing his best to get it—
he is, instead of a holy and all-wise God,
a scatter-brained, semi-powerful, semi
impotent monster. They will recognise
as clearly as they ever did the old familiar
facts which seemed to them evidences of
God’s wisdom, love, and goodness; but
they will find that these facts, when taken
in connection with the others, only sup
ply us with a standard in the nature of
this Being himself by which most of his
acts are exhibited to us as those of a
criminal madman. If he had been blind,
he had not had sin; but if we maintain
that he can see, then his sin remains.
Habitually a bungler as he is, and callous
when not actively cruel, we are forced to
regard him, when he seems to exhibit
benevolence, as, not divinely benevolent,
1 Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, p. 462.
75
but merely weak and capricious, like a
boy who fondles a kitten, and the next
moment sets a dog at it. And not only
does his moral character fall from him
bit by bit, but his dignity disappears
also. The orderly processes of the stars
and the larger phenomena of nature are
suggestive of nothing so much as a
wearisome Court ceremonial surrounding
a king who is unable to understand or
to break away from it; whilst the thunder
and whirlwind, which have from time
immemorial been accepted as special
•revelations of his awful power and ma
jesty, suggest, if they suggest anything of
a personal character at all, merely some
blackguardly larrikin kicking up his heels
in the clouds, not perhaps bent on mis
chief, but indifferent to the fact that he
is causing it. . . . A God who could
have been deliberately guilty of them
[the evolutionary processes] would be a
God too absurd, too monstrous, too mad
to be credible.” 1
No one who has studied biological
evolution can fail to recognise these
facts. They make it impossible for us
to see a divine presence and guidance at
least during the process. The only
plausible theory is that God set the
machine going and left it to itself. If
we hold that he is guiding molecules to
“their proper place ” in the construction
of the tiger’s eye, we must hold that he
has some control of the molecules in the
cruelty-centre of the tiger’s brain. A
universe without carnivora is conceivable
enough. Professor Kennedy and others
would divert us from a consideration of
these facts to contemplate the beauty and
sublimity the universe exhibits. But the
beauty of the starry heavens is only the
effect of distance and position; the
beauty of the Bay of Naples could be
1 Mr. W. H. Mallock, Religion as a Credible
Doctrine, p. 177. Mr. Mallock has throughout
life been one of the ablest opponents of agnosti
cism, and he has been nothing less than scornful
of a profession of atheism. Does he not see
how natural and logical atheism seems when one
sweeps aside all theistic proof on the one hand,
and recognises these dark features of the uni
verse on the other ?
Bishopsgate InstitutSi-
�76
*
GOD
shown by science to be a purely acci
dental outcome of the action of natural
agencies. The beauty of the diatoms
that are brought from the lowest depths
of the ocean, the beauty of the radiolaria
that swarm about the coast, and the beauty
of a thousand minute animal structures,
are obviously not designed and purposed
beauties. They were unknown until the
microscope was invented : the polariscope
reveals yet further beauties : the tele
scope yet more. The idea of these
things being designed for our, or for
God’s, entertainment belongs, as Mr.
Mallock says, “ to a pre-scientific age
. . . an age which had realised the
spectacular unity of the cosmos, but had
very imperfectly realised the nature of
its mechanical unity : and which, more
over, had never grasped the fact that the
forces in virtue of which material things
move, such as energy, attraction, repul
sion, and chemical affinity, are as much
a part of the material things themselves,
and as much amenable to scientific ex
periment, as extension, or shape, or mass,
or softness, or hardness, or visibility.”
Once more we are thrown back on the
efficient, mechanical, producing causes.
The point we have reached, then, is
this: the notion that molecules are
“ guided ” to their “ proper position ” by
any other than a mechanical force—'the
notion of “guidance ” or “control ” dur
ing the cosmic process is unproved, is
unthinkable when examined in detail,
and is opposed by an appalling mass of
facts (waste, cruelty, suffering, &c.). It
starts from an assumption—the assump
tion that natural forces are erratic in
action—for which it does not offer any
justification, and which is directly op
posed to scientific experience. It rests
on a number of fallacious analogies and
poetical expressions, on a fallacious
application of the term “ blind ” to
natural forces, and on the as yet imper
fect condition of our scientific knowledge
of the construction of organisms. All
that remains, then, is to examine the
position of the really consistent evolu
tionary theist, who does not build his
belief on the temporary ignorance of the
scientist. This position, to which all
apologists are tending, is that “ the only
interference was before the cosmic pro
cess began ”: that God created a matter
force reality in the beginning of such a
nature that it should evolve spontane
ously into the universe we know and of
which we are a part. This is the ideal
and final position of the apologist.
Science will drive him back pitilessly
decade by decade until he adopts it.
Many of the best-informed apologists
already adopt it.
Let us see, then, where Haeckel and
what remains of his opponents are now.
Both admit that the universe is a
mechanical system, a great machine that
has worked from the first without control,
in virtue of its inherent character. But
the dualists say such a machine must
have been most skilfully designed and
constructed : it is, in Dallinger’s words,
“a more majestic design than all the
thinkers of the past had ever dreamed ”
—and therefore it will commend itself
more and more to theists.
The
position is—it is very important to
understand clearly—that God only
creates any particular content of the
universe—say Plato’s mind—in the
sense that he imparted to the primitive
nebula, or ultimate prothyl, a natural
force to evolve it.
The germ of
everything, the capacity to evolve every
thing, is in the great matter-force
reality.
Now, we have seen in the
third chapter that “ science points to no
beginning.” It is perfectly consistent
with the scientific evidence to say that
the universe is eternal. We saw that
those who attack Haeckel’s ascription of
infinity and eternity 1 to the basic sub
stance show no cause why he should not
proceed candidly on the astronomical
evidence. No better evidence is forth1 Note the remarkably different treatment of
Haeckel and Mr. Spencer. Mr. Spencer’s First
Cause cannot be distinguished from Haeckel’s.
Yet when he speaks of it With capital letters, as
an Infinite and Eternal Power, we hear nothing
but admiration.
�GOD
coming here. Dr. Croll says : “ If any
man should affirm that the succession of
events had no beginning, but has been
in operation from all eternity, it would
be difficult indeed to prove him to be in
the wrong; but, on the other hand, it
would be far more difficult, nay, utterly
impossible, for him to prove his as
sertion.” 1 But, as we saw, the scientific
evidence and the rules of logic and truth
seeking put the burden of proof dis
tinctly on the man who asserts there was
a beginning. Professor Ward attempts
to infer a beginning from the theory of
entropy; but we saw that this is dis
credited by the latest pronouncements of
physicists. “Our experience,” as Pro
fessor Ward says himself elsewhere,
“certainly does not embrace the totality of
things; is, in fact, ridiculously far from
it”; and so entropy is a “ridiculously”
hasty conclusion.
No, there is no proof whatever that
the machine ever began to exist at all.
As far as we can see, it has eternally
possessed those forces and properties
with which we have agreed to credit it,
and has been eternally evolving them.
And, as a fact, apologists are rapidly
moving on to the identification of God
with Nature, which means an abandon
ment of the idea of creation. A curious
symptom falls under my notice as I
write. An editorial article in the Daily
News, the distinguished organ of the
Nonconformist Churches, commenting
on the Bishop of Ripon’s sermon at
Southport, endeavours to reconcile
science and religion.
The laws of
science, it says, reveal the working of
force, and it goes on to ask: •“ What is
that power ? May it not be the syn
thesis of all the various forces and
vitalities which the universe contains;
and may not that synthesis be God ? ”
That is precisely what Haeckel says ; in
fact, in a late German edition of the
Riddle he calls his system “ the purest
monotheism.” So close are we to
“ reunion ” ! Take, again, the Anticipa1 The Basis of Evolution, p. 167.
77
lions of Mr. H. G. Wells. Looking
about on the cultured thought of our
time, he says that before the end of this
century educated men will have ceased
to believe in “ an omniscient mind ”—
“ the last vestige of that barbaric theology
which regarded God as a vigorous but
uncertain old gentleman with a beard
and an inordinate lust for praise and
propitiation ”—and a supreme “ moral
ist ” and prayer ; and will know God
only as “a general atmosphere of im
perfectly apprehended purpose.” Mr.
Rhondda Williams assures us that “it
is not for dualism I am arguing. I
believe in the unity of the world, and a
kind of monism is probably the truest
solution of the riddle ; but I must find
the unity in spirit, not in matter.” That
means, if it means anything, not only a
complete misconception of Haeckel,
but an identification of God with Nature.
Professor Le Conte says : “ God may be
conceived as self-sundering his energy,
and setting over against Himself a part
as Nature. A part of this part, by a
process of evolution, individuates itself
more and more, and finally completes
its individuation and self-activity in the
soul of man. . . . Thus an effluence
from the Divine Person flows downward
through Nature to rise again by evolution
to recognition of, and communion with,
its own source. . . . And the sole
purpose of this progressive individuation
of the Divine Energy by evolution is
finally to have, in man, something not
only to contemplate, but also to love
and be loved by.” 1 In another place
he says : “ The forces of Nature are
naught else than different forms of one
omnipresent Divine energy or will,” and
“ In a word, according to this view,
there is no real efficient force but spirit,
and no real independent existence but
God.”2 We have seen how Mr. Fiske
1 The Conception of God, p. 77. Le Conte
tells us, moreover, that he is almost using the
language of another “theistic” writer, Mr.
Upton, the Hibbert lecturer.
2 Evolution and Religious Thought, p. 301.
He frankly allows that he is here close to the
opinions of Berkeley, and even Swedenborg.
�78
GOD
claims immortality on the ground that
“ there is in man a psychic element
identical in nature with that which is
eternal ” ; and man’s psychic element is,
he allows, an evolutionary outcome of
natural force. Professor Royce, a recent
Gilford lecturer and distinguished Ameri
can thinker, says, when he comes to
distinguish man from God : “ We there
fore need not conceive the eternal
Ethical Individual, however partial he
may be, as in any sense less in the grade
of complication of his activity or in the
multitude of his acts of will than is the
Absolute. ... It may be conceived as
a Part equal to the whole, and finally
united, as such equal, to the Whole
wherein it dwells.”1 Professor W.
James, another Gifford lecturer, rejects
the title of theist altogether, and says
“we must bid a definite good-bye to
dogmatic theology.” The metaphysical
attributes of God (omnipotence, omnis
cience, omnipresence, eternity, &c.)
are, he thinks, “ destitute of all intelligible
significance,” and “ the metaphysical
monster they offer to our mind is an
absolutely worthless invention of the
scholarly mind.”2
We are advancing rapidly. To this
does a knowledge of science bring the
theologian. It is true that some of
these evolutionary theists, like Mr.
Rhondda Williams, regard it as a great
gain that science has destroyed the idea
of a “ transcendent ” God and forced
theology to recognise his “ immanence ”
in nature. This is very misleading.
The “ immanence ” of God in nature
has been consistently taught in Roman
Catholic theology for the last thousand
years. You will not find a single Roman
Catholic theologian who locates God
outside the universe. It is a common
place with them that God is more closely
present in every part of nature than
ether is, for instance. Nor do the great
1 The World and the Individual, vol. ii,
P-451Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 445-8.
He adds that the “ moral attributes ” are just as
indefensible.
Anglican divines speak differently.
What, then is the new feature ? It is
that these modern apologists have been
driven to deny that there is any real
distinction between God and nature.
They talk of God “ sundering ” himself
and of nature being “ part ” of his sub
stance— which has a strange resemblance
to various ancient and mouldy Oriental
speculations (Brahmanic, Gnostic, and
Manichean)—but the gist of their posi
tion is that God and nature are one.
God is the “ pervading spirit ” and the
“ unifying force ” of the cosmos, or the
“Eternal and Infinite Energy” behind
phenomena, as Sir Henry Thompson
puts it. This is the kind of theology
which generally lies at the back of the
few theistic utterances which our anxious
bishops can wring out of men of science
to-day. It is the last page of a remark
able history. Man’s first idea of deity
was animistic and pantheistic, according
to one school of hierologists. In the
course of ages the shape of God was
disentangled from visible nature and
dramatically set against it. Now God
slowly sinks again into the life of nature.
Great Pan is alive once more.
How does this position compare with
that of Haeckel? We will not be so
rude as to suggest that if Haeckel used
capital letters, like Mr. Spencer, they
would greet him as a brother. Nor, on
the other hand, can we admit that, as
Mr. Williams claims, they find the unity
of the universe in spirit, while Haeckel
bases it on matter. We saw that
Haeckel does nothing of the kind.
Matter and spirit are to him two aspects
of one reality, and the unity of the
cosmos is the unity of that reality.
Spirit-force or energy emerging finally
as human thought-force is admitted by
Haeckel as freely as by Mr. Williams.
An idealist like Ward would very
naturally say that the unity of the world
consists in spirit, but we assume Mr.
Williams admits the existence of matter
and corporeal fellow-creatures. But
there is one further sense in which the
unity of the world could be said to
�GOD
consist in spirit, and in this lies the
final difference between Haeckel and
his critics on these cosmic speculations.
These theistic, or rather pantheistic,
monists hold that the cosmic energy is
essentially and from the beginning, or
from eternity, conscious and intelligent.
Haeckel holds that consciousness only
arises when a certain stage of nerve
formation appears. What evidence do
they offer for this? We may note in
passing that, when the real difference
between Haeckel and those scientific
writers who are the most zealously
pitted against him is so small, it would
have been better for his critics to say so
outright.
The average reader who
wades through the surging flood of
rhetoric will probably learn with aston
ishment that the chief champions of
reasoned Christianity to-day stand so
close to Haeckel’s position that only
one frail npetaphysical bridge divides
them.
Let us examine this last
division.
It is clear, in the first place, that the
evidence for the position of these evolu
tionary theists is not of a scientific
nature. Science does not find intelli
gence in the cosmos until a fairly
advanced stage of animal organisation is
reached. In fact, science finds conscious
ness so completely and rigidly bound
up with nerve-structure that it can only
listen with astonishment to the theory
of a vast consciousness existing apart
from nerve-structure and before it was
developed. One wonders, therefore,
what Mr. Ballard means when he
assured his anxious interviewer that
“the theistic basis of Christianity will
have scientific support more than ever.”
The reasons alleged for postulating this
intelligence at the “ beginning ” of
things are metaphysical. Mr. Rhondda
Williams formulates them more or less
clearly, as they are invented by
Dr. W. N. Clarke and Dr. Ward and
Le Conte. He says first—and this, I
believe, is an original contribution—that
science finds “ law ” in the cosmos ; but
“ law ” is a mental concept: ergo, science
79
finds mind in the cosmos. We will over
look that little weakness, and come to
the plausible arguments he has borrowed.
He says (after Ward) that the universe
must be the work of intelligence
because it is intelligible. The axiom
he rests on is that “ what is intelligible
must either be intelligent or have in
telligence behind it.” Now, on idealist
principles this is quite time; there being
no material world at all, if anything
exists, mind clearly exists. But, apart
from this denial of' a real ’world, the
axiom has no sense whatever; it is
simply an audacious assertion. Dr
Iverach {Theism) uses much the same
argument, and tries to give it a respect
able realistic air. “ A system,” he says,
“ which at this end needs an intelligence
to understand it must have something
to do with intelligence at the other.”
Many other writers say the same. To
show the inanity of the assertion, one
has only to ask Dr. Iverach whether
even a chaotic and disorderly uni
verse would not need “ an intelli
gence to understand it.” If he
means by “ intelligible ” that it is
orderly and systematic, he is simply
begging the whole question, and asking
us to swallow his position in the form of
an axiom, because he cannot prove it.
He says elsewhere {Christianity and
Evolution) that “ if thought has come out
of the universe, if the universe is a uni
verse that can be thought, then thought
has had something to do with it from
the outset.” That is the favourite form
of argument that “you cannot get out of
a sack what is not in it.” It is a longdiscredited fallacy. We have seen how
out of a simple matter and force have
come an immense variety of things.
These things were only implicitly in the
primitive prothyl. Similarly, the evolu
tion of thought only shows that thought
was implicitly in the first cosmic princi
ples. Moreover, consciousness evolves
out of the unconscious every day—in
embryonic development. Mr. Williams
finally urges that a thing which has not
been made by intelligence should be
�8o
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
reversible, and says : “ But it is the
essential principle of science that things
are not reversible; that they must be
where they are, as they are; the order
of nature is the greatest scientific dis
covery.” This is a curious confusion.
It is difficult to see why a thing con
structed by mechanical forces should be
immediately reversible, in any sense
which does not apply to an intelligent
construction; and in the long run the
cosmic process will be reversed, and
begun again, if the scientific evidence
counts for anything.
It is on the strength of such verbiage
and sophistry as this that Haeckel’s
critics assume airs of spiritual superior
ity and spatter his “ godless ” system with
contempt. He has followed up the
scientific evidence with a close fidelity.
He has not forgotten for a moment that
the unseen may be gathered from the
seen by valid reasoning (as he himself
has gathered many truths by inference
from the facts observed); he has not ex
cluded the sober and accredited use of
the speculative imagination. Professor
Henslow has recently, in a letter to the
daily Press, suggested that Rationalists
deny the existence of God because
it does not fall under observation or
experiment.
The
writer
Professor
Henslow quoted has himself repudiated
this interpretation of his words; and
certainly Haeckel has repeatedly en
dorsed the procedure of passing beyond
observation, when the inference is firmly
based on the facts and is logical in form.
Whether he is not justified in rejecting
as unsound these pseudo-metaphysical
arguments we have been considering,
the reader may judge for himself.
Whether his procedure is not more
scientific, more logical, and more philo
sophical than that of his opponents—
whose arguments I have, as far as possi
ble, given in their own words—may now
be determined. And if his procedure
so far is correct, and the objections of
his critics futile, we have established the
bases of monism. We have followed
the great matter-force reality through its
cosmic development until it breaks out
in the glory of the human mind and
emotions. And we have seen no reason
for suspecting the existence of any prin
ciple or agency distinct from it, or for as
cribing to Nature itself any feature that
would justify us in transferring to it the
title or prerogatives of the dying God.
Chapter VIII
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
As we have previously seen, the
cosmic speculations of the Monist find
themselves in antagonism with a set of
cosmic speculations
which
already
occupy, not merely the mind, but the
heart of a large number of people.
Whilst older religions, such as Confucian
ism and, to an extent, Buddhism, have
succeeded in effecting a separation
between ancient cosmological notions
and religion proper, so that the educated
Japanese, for instance, does not confound
theistic controversy with religion, Chris
tianity has retained the belief that man
is immortal, and that the universe has a
supreme controller as essential parts of
its framework.
Naturally, Christian
thinkers who are alert and informed are
�SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
ity ; as if his critics were somehow
beginning to deny this. .Mr. R. J.
unable to understand a pure love of
Campbell, for instance, insists. that
truth or regard for its moral and social
Christianity is “not dogma, but life a
stimulus. However, it is on this
life lived in conscious union with a
chapter of his work that critics have
Divine Person.” But that is somewhat
fastened most eagerly and most ardently.
bewildering. In one phrase dogma is
Now, one cannot but protest in pass
disavowed, and in the next a dogma of an
appallingly metaphysical character is ing against the foolishness of such a
made essential to the definition.
A procedure. All the world knows that
Professor Haeckel is not an expert in
similar inconsistency is found in almost
every other ecclesiastic who speaks of ecclesiastical history. If he felt himself
constrained to warn his readers that he
removing the emphasis from dogma.
had no expert acquaintance with physics,
The two dogmas of God and the future
life are still essential to Christianity, and lest he might innocently induce the
it is precisely these dogmas which uninformed to attach undue weight to
conflict with the monistic conception of his judgment in that department, he
the universe. The few advanced think might in return expect from, them a
ers we have encountered represent, on reasonable sense of the proportion of his
book.
His authority lies chiefly in
the whole, only a small cultured minority.
The great bulk of the faithful cling to zoology. We saw that he built some of
the most important parts of his system
the old ideas in the old form. And it. is
because this mass of conventional belief on the facts of zoology, or biology, and
still exists that preachers find it possible it is to these that the honest critic will
and advisable to bespatter the reputa mainly address himself. We saw how
few of the critics did so. But the book was
tions of fearless and sincere speculators,
who seek to spread their views amongst intended, as he says, to stand in some
measure for the complete system of his
the people.
Such a thinker as Haeckel, who has thought, which he feared he could now
never give to the world. It, therefoie,
found his faith obstructed throughout
life in the supposed interest of Christian contained an expression of his opinion
ity, naturally turns to consider that great on a multitude of topics which it is not
religion when the solid frame of his essential for a Monist, as such, to pass
In this he naturally
monistic system is compacted. He judgment on.
challenges the criticism of his opinions,
finds four dogmas chiefly responsible for
and must meet it. But he had a right
that strong attachment to Christianity,
to expect that his book and his system
which seems to him to prolong the life
of the errors he has criticised and the of thought should be judged essentially
diversion of men’s interest to another by their essential positions; he had a
world. These are, briefly— a belief in the right to expect that no one who would
supernatural character of the Bible; a be likely to read ten pages of such a
book would be so unintelligent as to
belief in the divinity, or . the unique
extend his zoological authority into the
character, of Christ; a belief that there
domain of ecclesiastical history.
is something preterhuman about the
Further, no one who takes the trouble
historical progress and moral power of the
to understand Haeckel’s system of
Christian religion; and a belief in the
infallibility of the Pope. He therefore thought would expect him to devote very
considerable time to an examination of
seeks to discredit those beliefs, in order
to prepare the way for an impartial con the dogmas I have enumerated. If his
previous conclusions are true, these
sideration of the new conception of life
dogmas must be false. That is a logical
which he regards as true and valuable.
At once, of course, he is credited, with and proper attitude. The man who has
some mysterious “ hatred” of Christian ) spent a life in deciphering the message
�82
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
of the cosmos, and has been compelled
characteristic portion of his work. But
to. interpret it in a monistic sense, and it has been sought to bring the full
reject entirely the dogmas of God and
weight of expert, historical scholarship to
immortality, has reached a conclusion bear on this episodic chapter on Chris
which he may apply to Christianity with
as strict and full a right as the historian tianity, and to make any defect dis
who has devoted his life to the direct covered in it the occasion of a bitter
and violent attack on Haeckel’s general
study of it.. Theistic writers are too apt authority. The. trained thinker sweeps
to forget this. When a man has reached
aside such tactics as an impertinence.
a conviction that God is a myth, he is But the untrained and uninformed
neither logically, nor morally expected to
millions of the Churches are assured
ask . himself seriously whether Christ or that. Haeckel’s authority has been dis
Christianity is divine. And it is per credited. They are taught that his
fectly obvious to any one who reads this
rejection of Christian beliefs is traceable
seventeenth chapter of the Riddle that
to a “childish credulity” (Dr. Horton)
this has been Haeckel’s attitude. He
and is supported by “mendacities”
merely skims the surface of a vast his (Mr. Ballard). However, let us examine
torical subject. He abandons the rigid the allegations on which the grossest
method of the earlier part, with its diatribes against Haeckel have been
accumulations of evidence. He hesitates supported.
to “devote a special chapter to the sub
The Achilles of the critics in this
ject,” and refers to other works. He then department is Dr. Loofs, professor of
decides to “ cast a critical glance ” at it, ecclesiastical history at the University of
protesting that it is only the hostility of Halle, and from his Anti-Haeckel we
the Churches which provokes him to do
gather the most formidable censures.1
so. He is mindful of “ the high ethical This work I have already qualified as
value ”. of pure Christianity and “ its
one of the coarsest and most painful
ennobling influence on the history of publications that have issued from a
civilisation.”
But it still clings to modern university. The story of its
beliefs which Haeckel (and large num writing runs thus. Dr. Loofs tells us
bers of its own theologians) believe to
St. Bernard has the same artistic
have no more than a legendary founda exordium to his attack on Abe'lard—
tion, and which nevertheless give it an that he was dragged into the arena by
incalculable influence on the minds of friends and colleagues in Germany. He
millions. Haeckel, therefore, gathers read the seventeenth chapter of the
from a group of German works or trans Riddle, and at once wrote an “ open
lations (all of which are indicated in the letter ” to Dr. Haeckel on the errors it
German edition) points of criticism in contains. This “ open letter ” first saw
regard to these dogmas, and briefly, with the light in the pages of an Evangelical
a light satire that evinces the absence of weekly, Die Christliche Welt, which circu
prolonged research in this department, lates amongst some 5,000 pious readers
fires them at the popular beliefs.
in Germany, and is hardly likely to
These considerations, which will penetrate into a university. Its tone
readily occur to the impartial student, was bitter and scurrilous. However, it
are prompted by the tactics which have was copied by other periodicals, and
been largely employed in the criticism of Haeckel wrote a brief reply in a
the Riddle. What value there is in the scientific and serious review, the editor
attack on its main position we have of the review, Dr. E. Bischoff, supportalready seen. The epithets that have
1 An English translation is promised, but has
been showered on the distinguished
scientist recoil on their authors where not appeared at the time of writing. It will, no
i
doubt, temper the extreme coarseness and ugli
there is question of the essential and ness of the German original.
�SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
ing Haeckel with his expert knowledge
and with a very plain but dignified
comment on Loofs’s procedure. At this
Dr. Loots seems to have lost all sense
of either humour or dignity, and
included these documents with his
reply in the brochure we are about to
examine. Its pages sparkle with in
candescent phrases, which are, more
over, usually italicised. “ Incredible
ignorance,” “crass stupidity,” “pure
folly,” etc., are amongst the milder
of these phrases. When, towards the
close, he looks back on his virulent
italics (or that larger type that serves
for italics in German), he says de
liberately: “It is not the ‘point of
view,’ not the ‘system,’ of Professor
Haeckel, but his scientific honour, that I
have attacked; and I have done it so
unmistakably that any court will convict
me of libelling my colleague of Jena, if
I cannot support my charges.” In a
word, he tells us (3rd edit., p. 52) that
the Press has ignored his precious
diatribe, and that a libel action.(though
he declines to “ provoke ” it) will bring
his grievance before the public. Such
is the famous rejoinder to Haeckel
which our ecclesiastical journals have
praised so highly.
After all this the reader will expect to
find that Haeckel has been convicted of
one of the most remarkable series of
controversial frauds and literary delin
quencies that a university professor to
say nothing of a man with four gold
medals and seventy honorary diplomas —ever stooped to. The reality would be
amusing if it were not for the vulgarity
and coarseness in which it is enveloped.
Leaving aside the pedantic discussion of
minor points (the date of the Council of
Nicaea, the authorship of the Synodicon,
and so on), and granting that Dr. .Loofs
abundantly proves that Haeckel is not
an expert in ecclesiastical history (if
there be any who did not know it),
we find that the two chief points are the
criticism of Haeckel’s observations on
the formation of the canon and on the
birth of Christ,
83
Haeckel, it will be remembered, states
that the canonical gospels were, selected
from the apocryphal by a miraculous
leap on to the altar at the Council of
Nicaea. At this the indignation of our
professor of church-history flashes forth.
Mr. J. Brierley alludes to this, saying :
“ He gives the story as though it were
the accepted Christian account of the
admission of the four gospels to the
canon. It is difficult to chaiacterise this
statement.” Well, it is foitunate that
some rationalistic Dr. Loofs does not have
to characterise this statement. Haeckel
does exactly the reverse of this. He
gives the “ leap ” story as a correction of
the “ accepted Christian account.” “ We
now know,” he says, in introducing his
version. Further, he gives the state
ment candidly on the authority of the
Synodicon j though he should have said
this was only edited by Pappus. His
own honesty in the matter is perfectly
transparent ; if his acquaintance with
ecclesiastical history is very far from
complete. The story in the Synodicon
is not to be taken seriously. The canon
of the gospels was substantially settled
long before the Council of Nicaea. It
is true that Dr. Loofs is himself accused
of error by Dr. Bischoff for stating that
the Nicene Council did not discuss the
canon, but we will keep to the main
issue. The story taken from the
Synodicon is not worthy of consideration
as an account of the forming of the
canon.
The reader will remember Haeckels
pointed warning in his preface that, not
only are his conclusions on all matters
“subjective and only partly.corrrect,
but his book contains “studies of un
equal value,” and his knowledge, of some
branches of science is “ defective.
In
the face of those repeated expressions it
is ludicrous to suppose that Haeckel
wished to employ his great authority as.a
man of science to enforce opinions in
ecclesiastical history. Here is, on the
face of it, a department of thought where
no one will suspect him to have spent
much of his valuable time, and the di§-
�84
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
covery of defects in this chapter was value of the Gospels.
He will learn
almost a matter of course. He has
with surprise that Dr. Loofs by no
acknowledged those defects, and has in
means shares the conventional rever
serted in the cheap German edition of his
ence for the New Testament.
The
work a notification that the authority he synoptic Gospels were written, he
followed on this and the following thinks, between the years 65 and 100,
question was unsound. That authority and the Gospel of “ St. John ” before
was an English writer, who had had a
I?5;
That is the general opinion of
theological training, and whose work had
biblical scholars to-day; but it is by no
been translated into German. Haeckel
means the general opinion of the readers
had been, wholly misinformed as to his
of Die Christliche Welt, or of religious
standing in this country, and thus had people in this country. What is more
been betrayed into a reliance on what he important, Dr. Loofs, as we shall pre
understood to be his expert knowledge.
sently see, rejects as worthless, if not
In the case of a writer who claimed dishonest, interpolations some of the
infallibility, or at least a uniform weight,
most treasured and familiar passages of
for the whole of his book, such a defect the New Testament. Let us remember
would be more or less serious. Whether what is really at stake in these con
it was in point of fact one-tenth as
troversies.
serious as some of the procedure of his
To come, then, to the cardinal offence
critics which we have reviewed, whether of Haeckel’s book—we will take a few
it is a matter for violent discussion at all,
detailed criticisms later—we find it in
and not one that might have been the statement that Jesus was the son
pointed out by a colleague without loss of a Greek officer of the name of
of dignity—I leave it to the reader to Pandera. Now let us approach the sub
say. The section in which the passage ject with some sense of proportion. For
occurs shows a fair average acquaintance
Haeckel it is (legitimately) a foregone
with its subject, but it is clear from the
conclusion that Jesus was a human being,
authorities explicitly mentioned in it
born in a normal manner. The conclusions
(Strauss, Feuerbach, Baur, and Renan)
he has already so laboriously reached
that it was written, or prepared, years
compel him to assume this. If there is
ago. Any modern expert would find it no God, Jesus was a man—a “noble
defective. Whether this defect is a prophet and enthusiast, so full of the
fitting.ground for Dr/Loofs’s structure of love of humanity,” Haeckel generously
rhetoric and scholarship may be called
describes him.. This is a standpoint
into question. But whether it is either which Haeckel is by no means alone in
sensible or honourable to seek to dis taking to-day.
The vast majority of
credit Haeckel’s earlier positions in
the cultured writers of every civilised
science, which we have reviewed, by a
country share it with him. It is very
microscopic examination of such a
largely held within the ranks of the
section as this, cannot long remain un Christian clergy themselves. Mr. Rhondda
decided.
Williams preaches it openly. The posi
Before we pass to a consideration of tion of our own Broad Church theolo
the second chief charge, there is one
gians is known.
Even Dr. Loofs—
more point that it is highly expedient
remember well—holds as frankly as
to make clear.
The average inexpert
Haeckel does the natural human parent
reader, about whom our ecclesiastical
age of Jesus, and has formulated his
writers have suddenly grown so con opinion, as the opinion of the average
cerned, will be apt to suppose that this
cultured theologian, in a German theo
deadly attack by the spirited theologian
logical encyclopaedia. He angrily resents
of Halle is prompted by a devotion
the imputation that he believes in the
to the current belief in the unique
virgin-birth, and says no historian of
�SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
dogma can entertain it.
He affirms
that the birth-story in Matthew and
Luke is a late interpolation in the
Gospel, and is quite discredited.
What then is the great difference
between the two ? It is that Loofs
awards the paternity of Christ to Joseph,
and Haeckel assigns it to the Greek
officer of a Roman legion. Our average
Christian neighbour will probably feel
that in substance it is a case of the devil
and the deep sea.
Further, it is easy to see in what
frame of mind a scientist like Haeckel
would approach such a matter. . The
birth of a Saviour-God from a virgin is a
legend that we find in all kinds of
religions anterior to Christianity.
We
know that in all these cases the prophet,
or god—supposing his historical reality
—was awarded this distinction by later
admirers to enhance the repute of his
divinity. When, therefore, Haeckel is
commenting on the dogma of the Im
maculate Conception,1 he turns aside for
a moment to discuss the question of
paternity. Not attaching an overwhelm
ing importance to the question, Who was
Christ’s father? he does not make a pro
found inquiry into it. But in one of his
authorities—the English writer whom I
have mentioned—he finds the curious
statement that the father was a Greek
officer, and it seems to harmonise with
the other statements. He finds that the
Gospels emphatically exclude the notion
that Mary was at that time married to
Joseph, or that Joseph was the father.
He finds, too, that as a matter of history
these miraculously born children were
generally illegitimate. In fact, the intro
duction of a Greek strain would help not
1 Which he misunderstands. The dogma of
the Immaculate Conception does not refer to the
conception of Christ by Maty, but to the concep
tion of Mary by her mother. Dr. Horton is
astonished at Haeckel’s ignorance. For my part
I am astonished at Dr. Horton’s knowledge.
The version Haeckel follows is quite the ordinary
non-Catholic version of the dogma. You will
find it even in Balzac (£<z messe de PathPe}.
Nay, even Mr. Ballard, B.D., thinks it is
correct {Miracles of Unbelief, p. 348).
85
a little to interpret the scriptural figure
of Christ, if it is taken to be historical.
It has long been an argument for the
divinity of Christ that the figure de
picted in the New Testament is so very
un-Hebraic in many of its features. We
who know the composition of the Gospels
understand this Greek element, But the
supposition that Christ had a Greek
father is not a little attractive in the cir
cumstances. When, therefore, Haeckel
learns from his authority, or supposed
authority, that in one of the apocryphal
gospels (the Gospel of Nicodemus)
Jesus was said to be the illegitimate son
of a Greek officer, and that this is con
firmed by the Sepher Toldoth Jeschua, he
at once embraces it as the most plausible
explanation of the “ high and noble
personality” of the Galilean.
These
apocryphal Gospels are, he tells the
reader, no less and no more reliable in
themselves than the canonical Gospels,
but this version of the birth seems to
accord best with the general situation.
Now this is a perfectly honest pro
cedure for a man who makes no pre
tension to expert knowledge or research.
Haeckel has again been misled by his
authority, it is true. The sentence, he
quotes from “ an apocryphal gospel ” is
not found in any of those books in that
form. The Gospel of Nicodemus merely
states that the Jews declared Christ to be
illegitimate. The Sepher ToldothJeschua,
which gives the story, is an early
mediaeval Jewish work of no authority.
The story can, indeed, be traced back
well into the second century (to about
130 a.d.), since Origen gives it as being
told to his opponent Celsus by the Jews,
in his Contra Celsum (I, 32); but this
was unknown at the time to Haeckel
and his authority. Further, it is mis
leading to say “the official theologian”
burks the story. It is perfectly true that
the Sepher Toldoth Jeschua is little com
mented on, but it is a worthless docu
ment; and Strauss, the author of the
Zz/e ofJesus, had contemptuously rejected
the story. These are undoubted errors
on Haeckel’s part. But, after all, the
�86
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
radical error is that he took a superficial
and unreliable author as his authority.
To have been misinformed as to the
weight and qualifications of a foreign
writer on a subject completely outside
his own territory, and to have neglected
to verify his information, is the full
extent of Haeckel’s delinquency. Dr.
Horton, who gives Vogt and Buchner as
shining lights in the spiritualist firma
ment, pompously tells us this was
“childish credulity.” Mr. Ballard, who
deals in such a remarkable fashion with
Haeckel’s observations on the pyknotic
theory and abiogenesis and determinism,
says he is “ ashamed to put such men
dacities into print,” and that if Haeckel
is not ashamed of himself he has not
developed “ an elementary degree of
morality.” Dr. Loofs calmly pours out
such a stream of invective that he thinks
it well to remind Haeckel of the text and
section of the German law which covers
the case ! He is afraid, he says, that
Haeckel will not be stung into dragging
the matter into court, and so he
continues to the end to dredge up
the. strong sediment of the German
dictionary.
A more ludicrous situation it would be
difficult to conceive. Haeckel frankly
states that in his opinion this is a subject
on which none of the evidence is worth
much. But he finds one legend more
plausible than that given in the canonical
gospels, and he points out that it seems
to be the most plausible. There is not
the slightest deception, as he openly
relies on the intrinsic plausibility of the
story, and openly states the immediate
and the ultimate sources from which he
takes it. No doubt he should have
examined more closely into the subject,
and should have looked into more
weighty and more recent literature. He
would then have found that the pas
sages which deny Joseph’s paternity
“belong to the least credible of New
Testament traditions,” as Dr. Loofs
says.1 But that his opponents should
1 American Journal oj Theology, July, 1899.
attack him with this virulence and
viciousness on that account is one of
the most disgraceful episodes of this
dreary controversy.
. The other defects which Dr. Loofs
discovers with his microscopic eye in
this chapter of the Riddle are mostly
pedantic rectifications of minor state
ments, or corrections with which only an
expert would concern himself, and as to
which opinions sometimes differ. Many
of them are quite paralleled by Dr.
Bischoff’s examination of Loofs’s own
statements. The year of the Council of
Nicfca and the number of bishops
present are incorrect; the number of
apocryphal gospels and of the genuine
Pauline epistles is not according to the
latest vagary of the critics; the statistics
of religion are not up to date; the
Immaculate Conception and Immaculate
Oath are improperly described. These
are the other points of the indictment.
The reader may judge for himself
whether there is anything more than a
lack of expert knowledge in these things;
and whether Haeckel ever claimed, and
did not rather disclaim from the outset,
such expert knowledge.
But we now turn to another aspect of
the matter. Haeckel, I said, set out to
discredit four dogmas which he found
hindering the progress of scientific know
ledge amongst the people at large. The
serious reader, impatient of all this dust
throwing and mud-throwing, will ask
how far the substance of Haeckel’s
attack on these dogmas survives this
scrutiny, and how far it is supported by
sound historical research. The dogma
of the infallibility of the Pope does not
appeal to the sympathies of these
Protestant critics, so that Haeckel’s
attack on the papacy is allowed to stand.
Let us consider his position with regard
to the other points—the uniqueness of
the Bible, of Christ, and of the history
of Christianity. Whether Haeckel is
infallible or not is hardly a subject for
prolonged discussion, provided his
“ scientific honour ” and “ scientific
conscience ” are not involved in the
�SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
manner that Dr. Loots would have the
readers of Die Chnstliche Welt to be
lieve. The serious question is : Can we
sustain his attack on these dogmas,
apart from the incidental errors into
which his unfortunate reliance . on
“ Saladin ” has betrayed him ? This is
a study in Church History, in the full
sense in which that science is under
stood to-day.1 We shall see that the
substance of Haeckel’s position is com
pletely supported by our present know
ledge of the subject.
In the first place, that implicit reli
ance on the statements found in the
Bible, which Haeckel set out to impugn,
is now wholly discredited. We need
not consider the Old Testament, and
Haeckel does not discuss it. _ The
cosmological speculations of Genesis are
now known to have been borrowed from
earlier religions : the historical books
are so full of error that we can only
trust them when we have independent
verification; whole books (Daniel, Es
ther, Tobit, etc.) are given up as wholly
unhistorical. This can be learned from
the works of Christian scholars to-day.
The Old Testament remains a work of
surpassing interest, containing some fine
literature and some of the highest moral
teaching of the ancient world. But it
no longer obstructs the path of the
scientist or the historian. As to the
New Testament, the work of recon
struction is not equally advanced.
Writers like Archdeacon Wilson confuse
the issue by taking “verbal inspiration ”
to be the butt of the rationalist attack.
No doubt one will still find many simple
believers in verbal inspiration, but that
is not the serious difficulty. The
opinion that the rationalist seeks to dis1 As a fact, the real secret of Dr. Loofs’s
bitterness and animosity seems to be that
Haeckel has laid a strong charge against Church
History. Apart from one historian, whom he
mentions by name, there was no reason for
thinking he included advanced writers like
Harnack and Loofs. But that his charge
against conventional Church History was solidly
grounded is well known to every student of
history, and will presently be fairly established.
87
credit—the opinion of the majority of
Christians to-day (solemnly propounded
to the world only a few years ago by
the official head of the Church of Rome)
—is the belief that the Bible contains
no error. Once the infallibility of the
Bible is abandoned, it ceases to be a
barrier to progress. The infallibility of
the Old Testament is not now held by
any Christian scholar; and the infalli
bility of the New Testament is rapidly
being expelled from the cultured Chris
tian mind. We have seen how Dr.
Loofs himself rejects the account of the
virgin-birth (Matt, i., Luke ii.) which
had worn itself into the very heart of
Christianity. “No well-informed, and
at the same time honest and conscien
tious theologian, can deny that he who
asserts these things as indisputable facts
affirms what is open to grave doubts,”
he says, significantly enough, in his
article in the American Journal of
Theology. In his article (“ Christologie
Kirchenlehre ”) in the Real-Encyclopadie filer Protestantische Theologie he
talks freely of “layers of biblical tradi
tion ” and their relative trustworthiness.
This statement, which has been taken
throughout the Christian era to be the
most characteristic and one of the most
important statements of the New Testa
ment, is now relegated to “ one of the
latest and least reliable ” of these
“layers.” The article on the Gospels
in the Encyclopedia Biblica, which re
flects the condition of cultured biblical
thought in England, is written entirely
in the same spirit; the author finds only
nine texts in the Gospels which are
“ entirely credible,” and without which
“ it would be impossible to prove to a
sceptic that any historical value what
ever was to be assigned to the Gospels.”
The inexpert reader is often misled by
statements to the effect that the critics
are returning on their traces, and are
denying the late dates assigned by the
Tubingen school to the Gospels and the
fewness of the genuine epistles of St.
Paul. The second point is not important
for our purpose, but the first statement is
�88
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
gravely misleading. When an ecclesias
tical journal or a tactical apologist re
produces Harnack’s saying that recent
criticism is vindicating “the essential
truth of tradition” about the Gospels,
one can only regret that one is incom
petent to borrow some of the phrases of
Dr. Loofs. The simple believer is en
couraged to think that the miraculous
life of Jesus is being fully rehabilitated.
The composition of the Gospels is being
put back to the period 65-125 : that is
to say, 65-70 for Mark, 70-75 for
Matthew, 78-93 for Luke, and 80-120
for John. It is not thought proper to
explain that the critics by no means
refer to the Gospels as we have them
to-day, and that these Gospels consist
of earlier and later “layers”—in plain
English, interpolations. It is not con
sidered necessary to explain that the
return to the Gospels only means, in
the words of Loofs, “ a return to the
sayings of Jesus in the synoptic gospels,”
and that the miraculous legends may be
sorted out as unprovable and incredible.
Well may the Christian World com
plain of “the lack of honesty” in
theological literature ! The truth is that
the historical value of the New Testa
ment is shattered, and Christian scholars
are, as in the case of the Old Testament,
retreating upon its ethical value. Thus
the putting back of the composition of
the synoptic Gospels into the first cen
tury does not save that popular reliance
on their legends which Haeckel solely
regarded.
This brings us to our second point,
the consideration of the person of Christ.
In this, as a matter of fact, Haeckel takes
up an exceedingly moderate position, and
falls far short of the advanced position
of many of the ablest recent Rationalist
writers. He assumes not only the his
torical character of Christ, but also that
we know enough about him to speak of
“ his high and noble personality ” and
to describe him as “ a noble prophet
and enthusiast.” He denies the divinity
of Christ, the miraculous powers that
are assigned to him in the Gospels, and j
the. originality of some of the chief
ethical sayings attributed to him. This
is not merely a position that will readily
be endorsed by numbers of Christian
theologians, but it is one that many theo
logians, to say nothing of non-Christian
writers, will regard as granting too much
to the religious tradition. How widely
the divinity of Christ is rejected to-day
few can be ignorant. The vague and
fluid phrases in which even the belief in
it is expressed very commonly now mis
lead only the inexpert. The older
Rationalistic attitude as to Jesus—that
we might omit the supernatural portions
of the Gospel narrative and take the
rest as historical—is giving way to a more
scientific procedure, and the figure of
Christ is dissolving into a hundred
elements. Comparative religion traces
numbers of the Gospel legends, such as
the virgin-birth, if not all the features of
the birth-story, to pre-Christian religions.
The death and burial, many incidents of
the life, and very much of the teaching,
are not more difficult to trace. Whilst
Christian scholars are separating the
Gospel-story into “layers of tradition”
(thus explaining the obvious contradic
tions), the study of the Greek, Egyptian,
Mithraist, and other religions, which
prevailed at the time and in the place
where the Gospels were written, is assign
ing their proper sources to the “ later
layers.” 1 The virgin-birth, which has
been so prominently brought before the
mind of English readers through the
famous denial on the part of a dignitary
of the Church of England, is only an
illustration of the process of dissolution
that is going on. When that process is
complete we shall see how little will be
left of the figure of the Crucified that
has been graven on the heart of Europe
for nearly 1500 years. Most assuredly
Haeckel’s position is a modest one. And
1 Read the able and learned efforts to trace
many of the gospel-elements in Mr. J. M.
Robertson’s Pagan Christs and Christianity and
Mythology. For the analysis of the Gospels read
especially Dr. Schmiedel’s article in the Encyclo-.
padia Biblica.
�SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
to conceal the strength of his position (as
opposed to the conventional position) by
the dust of a heated conflict as to
whether Christ’s father was Joseph the
carpenter or Pantheras the Greek is only
another specimen of “the lack of honesty
in apologetic literature.”
The third point to which Haeckel ad
dresses himself is the belief that there
has been anything unique about the
history or power of the Christian religion.
Here not only is Haeckel’s position very
moderately expressed, but the belief he
attacks is dissolving more rapidly than
the preceding beliefs. The term “unique ”
is—people so often forget—a relative or
comparative term; yet nine-tenths of
the ordinarily educated Christians who
talk of the uniqueness of the Bible have
never read a line of the Babylonian,
Persian, Egyptian, Hindoo, or Chinese
religious literatures; nine-tenths of those
who talk of the unique character of
Christ are totally ignorant of the work
and (traditional) character of Zoroaster,
Buddha, Lao-Tse, Kung-Tse, Apollonius,
or the Bab ; and nine-tenths of those
who think the history of Christianity is
“ unique ” have never studied, even in
the most general way, the growth and
work of Buddhism, or Confucianism, or
Parseeism, or Manicheeism, or Moham
medanism, or Babiism.
They have
trusted their ecclesiastical historians—
not men like Loofs and Harnack, but
the “ popular ” writers and the apologetic
writers of the Churches. Through this
literature most of us have waded at one
time or other; we can appreciate the
justice of the heaviest censure that can
be passed on it. It is one of the most
questionable implements in the employ
ment of the modern Churches. Com
plaint is frequently heard that rationalist
writers are ever seeking to belittle and
besmirch a religion which, with all its
defects, has had, in Haeckel’s words,
“ an ennobling influence on the history
of civilisation ” (p. 117). The reason is
found in the gross mis-statement and
perversion of the moral and religious
life in Europe during the last 1500 years
89
which the ecclesiastical historians have
been guilty of.
I will take in illustration one of . the
most characteristic and interesting periods
of this history of which I chance to have
expert knowledge—the fourth century.
Not many years ago I taught in a semi
nary, and preached from a Catholic
pulpit, the conventional theory of a
spiritual conquest of the Roman world
by Christianity—of “Rome, oppressed
by the weight of its vices, tottering to
embrace the foot of the crucifix.” That
is the historical theory you will hear from
almost every pulpit in this land to-day,
and will find, not merely in Christian
Evidence and S.P.C.K. and R.T.S.
Tracts, but in Sheppard and Milman
and Villemain and Dollinger and other
standard authorities. It is a ridiculously
false picture. Schultze has shown1 that
in some of the most important provinces
of the Empire not more than two and a
half per cent, were Christian at the
beginning of the fourth century. The
old religion had almost lost all serious
influence, and a number of Oriental re
ligions were pervading the Empire with
an ascetic and spiritual gospel. Of these
religions Christianity was one—not the
most ethical or spiritual or most success
ful. When the persecutions ceased, and
the Christians came out into the light of
day, their spiritual poverty was—with few
exceptions—a notable feature. Until 323
they proceeded quietly with their proselytic work, like the Mithraists and the
Manicheans, whom they closely re
sembled, when the conversion of Con
stantine to Christianity suddenly gave
them an immense advantage.
The
emperor’s “ conversion ” is not claimed
to have been important either as an in
tellectual or a spiritual phenomenon, but
it was supremely important in the poli
tical sense. Courtly senators followed
his example. It became, as Symmachus,
one of the last of the great pagans, says,
“ a new form of ambition to desert the
altars ” of the gods. Successive Christian
1 Geschichie des Untergangs des Heidenlhums.
�90
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
emperors sat on the Western throne, but
preserved a political neutrality, so that
Christianity advanced slowly. The short
reign of Julian showed how far Chris
tianity was from a triumph, and his suc
cessors, though Christian, still declined
to interfere politically in the rivalry of
religions.
By the year 380 the overwhelming
majority of the people and “ nearly the
whole of the nobility ” (St. Augustine
says) were still Pagan ; and the letters
of St. Jerome show that the Christians
were less spiritual than ever. But in 382
the “ triumph of Christianity ” began ;
within twenty years it became the
religion of the Empire. How ? From
the accession of Gratian (aged sixteen)
and Valentinian II. (aged four) there was
a succession of youthful, weak, and
religious emperors in the West. The
court was at Milan; its spiritual director
was St. Ambrose, one of the finest,
strongest, and most ambitious (for the
Church) of the fathers. He used his
influence, threatened the boy-emperor
with excommunication, and soon decree
after decree went out in favour of
Christianity. The pagan revenues were
confiscated: then the pagan temples
were destroyed or sealed up : finally any
who dared to cultivate any other than the
Christian religion were fined, imprisoned,
and threatened with death. At the same
time the Christian Churches adopted, or
had already adopted, all the attractions'
of the temples. They had gorgeous
vestments and ceremonies and pro
cessions, aspersion with water, incense,
banquets and dancing in the Church on
feast-days (generally ending in drunken
revelry), and all that the Roman cared
for in “religion.” The pagan merely
walked over to the Christian temple,
when he found his own barred by soldiers
or razed to the ground, and took
with him his music and flowers and in
cense and wine and statues. There was
no great moral reform, no great spiritual
conversion, except in a few distinguished
cases like that of St. Augustine.1
This gross misrepresentation of his
torical truth by ecclesiastical writers is
the sole reason for the Rationalist’s
playing “ the devil’s advocate.” Almost
the whole period of Christian history has
been treated with similar untruthfulness.
The good has been greatly exaggerated :
the evil suppressed or denied. The
belief in the uniqueness of the growth
of Christianity and of its moral and
civilising influence rests on a mass of
untruth and of calumny of other religions
and sects. Christianity and its sacred
books take their place in the great world
process. We see them growing naturally
out of the older religions and literatures,
and linking us with thoughts of other
ages. When theological literature has
ceased to offend us and to mislead the
people with its “ lack of honesty,” we
will study them with impartial interest,
and seek to establish their influence for
good as well as their share in the de
gradation of Europe from the first
century to the twelfth. Until then the
work of the Rationalist historian is
bound to seem destructive and one
sided.
1 Fuller details may be found in the author’s
St. Augustine and His Age: or in Boissier’s
Fin du Paganisme, Beugnot’s Histoire de la
Destruction dit Paganisme, or Schultze’s Geschichte des Untergangs des Heidenthums.
�THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
9i
Chapter XI
THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
Mr. H. G. Wells, the accredited
prophet of these latter days, predicts in
his well-known Anticipations that by the
end of the present century Christianity
will have been wholly abandoned
by people of culture. There will be,
he thinks, “a steady decay in the
various
Protestant
congregations,”
whilst Catholicism will increase for a
time, but only amongst “ the function
less wealthy, the half-educated, in
dependent women of the middle class,
and the people of the Abyss.” Another
recent writer, Sir Henry Thompson,
says in his essay on The Unknown
God\ “The religion of Nature must
eventually become the faith of the
future; its reception is a question for
each man’s personal convictions. It is
one in which a priestly hierarchy has no
place, nor are there any specified
formularies of worship. For ‘ Religion
[in the words of Huxley] ought to mean
simply reverence and love for the
Ethical ideal, and the desire to realise
that ideal in life. ’ ” Recently, too, Mr.
J. Brierley wrote one of his widely-read
articles in the Christian World on the
theme that there is impending “ a more
radical and more effective attack on
Christianity” than any that have pre
ceded. Mr. Rhondda Williams says that
“ already it is the fact that the cultured
laity on the one hand, and the great
bulk of the democracy on the other, are
outside the Churches.” It is true that
Mr. Ballard wrote in the British Weekly,
in July of this year, that Christianity “ is
at all events larger in quantity and
better in quality than ever before, and has
a brighter promise than in any previous
period of its history.” But within two
months we find him expressing himself
as follows : “ The outlook is a serious
one ; but I am not a pessimist, although
too many of my colleagues regard me as
such. I am only sensitive to the danger
of the day. What they call pessimism
I call open-eyed honesty. We are enter
ing on a very grave and probably pro
longed struggle, as Dr. Flint has recently
stated. The modern atmosphere is in
general tending away from rather than
towards all that is distinctive of Chris
tianity.” 1
Many things happened during the
course of the last summer to elicit or to
confirm these vaticinations. Haeckel’s
Riddle of the Universe was circulating to
the extent of some eighty thousand
copies in this country alone. Ecclesi
astics affected to believe that it was only
ignorant and thoughtless workers and
clerks who were deluded by its show of
learning, but they must have known
that it was being eagerly read by tens of
thousands of thoughtful artisans and
middle-class readers.2 Letters began to
trickle into the religious Press, telling of
increasing secessions and expressing ex
treme alarm. Within twelve months the
Rationalist Press Association, labouring
under the usual disadvantages of an
heretical publisher, put into circulation
nearly half a million of its publications ;
1 See interview by Mr. Raymond Blathwayt
in Great Thoughts.
2 So much pity is expressed in this connection
for the poor artisan that I must make this
observation. I have had intimate knowledge of
the clergy—Roman Catholic clergy, who, as a
rule, have had more definite philosophical instruc
tion than their Protestant colleagues—and have
lately, in the course of lecturing and wandering,
made a fair acquaintance with the working and
lower middle-class readers, who so largely pur
chase sixpenny editions. I do not hesitate to
say that there are tens of thousands of the latter
in England who can read Haeckel more intelli
gently than the majority of the Catholic clergy.
�92
THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
and almost every journal in England was
disturbing the peace of the faithful with
a reminder that there was a riddle of the
universe.
A Socialist journal, the
Clarion, made a drastic and sustained
attack on Christianity, in spite of threats
and jeers, and immediately found itself
in touch with the predominant sentiment
of its readers.
Other working-class
organs found it equally safe to open fire
on the Churches.
Two independent
and rigorous inquiries were conducted
into the religious condition of London,
where the Churches display incalculable
wealth. Both inquiries—that conducted
by Mr. C. Booth and that conducted by
Mr. Mudie-Smith for the Daily News—
proved that the Christian Churches in
London do not attach to themselves
more than a quarter of the population,
and that the great majority of their
adherents are women. A census taken
in Liverpool was equally depressing;
and observations made in several small
provincial towns showed that the con
dition was very general in the country.
At the Trade Union Congress at
Leicester the representatives of several
million workers declared for the ex
clusion of religious instruction from the
schools. A superficial inquiry at New
York discovered the same condition in
America, and the latest Australian
census also showed a decay of the
Churches, especially the Catholic Church
and the Salvation Army. M. Guyau dis
covered that in Paris not one in sixteen
of the population attended church, and
Protestant ministers have reported that
scarcely 8,000,000 of the population of
France remain under the obedience of
the Roman Church. The Belgian elec
tions show that half the population of
that “Catholic” country has definitely
ranged itself against the Church. The
success of the Social-Democrats in
Germany, and the reports from Spain
and Italy, point to the same general
defection of the people from Church
influence.1
1 One of the points in which Dr. Loofs joins
issue with Haeckel is in relation to religious
With the various sources of consola
tion which the clergy point out to each
other we are not concerned. The chief
of these seems to be hope; and a com
plete ignorance of the grounds on which
it rests prevents me from discussing it.
We know that the Churches have enor
mous wealth; one secondary denomination
having recently collected a sum of a mil
lion guineas, and another having erected
a cathedral at a cost of a quarter of a
million.
We know that no odium
attaches to the defence of Christianity, if
a scientist or historian be disposed to
defend it. We know that no intrigue
or menace is directed against the pub
lication or circulation of Christian litera
ture.
We know that the wealthier
journals of this country and the general
cultured sentiment is averse to attacking
even when it does not believe. We know
that the clergy have made enormous
concessions to the secular spirit of the
age, until in places their definite reli
gious ministration can only be timidly
and apologetically slipped in between a
cornet solo and a phonographic entertain
ment. Yet “ the outlook is serious,”
and “the cultured laity and the great
bulk of the democracy are outside the
Churches.”
Mr. Ballard has made
merry over the fact that Haeckel opens
his work in a despondent strain, and
yet his translator prefaces this with “a
paean of triumph.” He forgets that
there is an interval of several years
(not two months, as in his own case)
between the two passages.
The
twentieth century opened with—most
Rationalists considered—a brighter pros
pect for the Churches. Already this
statistics. Haeckel had given (from another
writer) the number of Christians as 410,000,000.
Dr. Loofs quotes two recent authorities who give
the figures as 535,000,000 and 556,000,000,
respectively. This is a fair illustration of the
“ victories ” of our apologists. Everyone knows
that these figures are obtained by lumping
together the populations of what are called
“Christian countries.” So France and England
are each credited with about 40,000,000 Chris
tians instead of 10,000,000. Belgium and Italy
and other countries are similarly treated. The
figures are totally worthless.
�THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
has wholly faded, and it seems impos
sible for the Churches ever to regain a
foot of the lost territory.1
This is not a “ paean of triumph,” but
a statement of fact. In the days when
a profession of unbelief involved social
ostracism and malignant calumny, when
men were thrown into prison with the
dregs of society for selling critical litera
ture or uttering critical sentiments, when
nearly every advance of science was
opposed by ignorant clergymen, when
women were bade to see their husbands
and sons in Hell for refusing to fre
quent the church, and the mind of
England was enslaved to dogmas that
all abhor to-day, the attack on Chris
tianity was necessarily predominantly
negative and destructive. Growth was
impossible until the iron bonds were
broken. To-day Rationalism, still rightly
militant and critical, has a conspicuous
constructive side. It has a sociological
outlook and an idealist gospel. After
all, the life of Europe has rested on
doctrinal foundations so long, and has
grown so accustomed to the stimulus of
religious thought, that some idea must
be substituted for the sources of inspira
tion that are rapidly exhausting. Haeckel
turns, therefore, at the close of his
cosmic speculations and his historical
glance at the Christian Church to con
sider this question of the successor of
Christianity.
Years ago he offered
Monism as “ a connecting link between
science and religion ”; as a system that
could unite harmoniously the finest
ethical truths of the Christian religion
1 Mr. Campbell makes a rhetorical point by
challenging a comparison between the census of
church-goers and a census of “ all the professedly
atheistic assemblies in London, all the Hyde
Park atheistic platforms, and the people who
are listening to atheistic propaganda.” Such a
quibble is unworthy of a serious speaker. 1 lie
limitation to “professedly atheistic” gatherings
makes the comparison ludicrous and unmeaning.
Let me in turn issue a challenge. Let the
figures of the circulation of the sixpenny Chris
tian publications be honestly compared with an
equal number, in an equal time, of the Rational
ist sixpenny works. Rationalism, Mr. Campbell
knows quite well, is almost entirely unorganised.
93
with the unshakable truths of modern
science. Even the believer in Christianity
must at times contemplate with misgiving
the practice of grounding the moral life
on beliefs which are to-day disputed and
attacked in every workshop in the land.
The child who has been trained to
honesty and sobriety on the ground
of supernatural reward or punishment,
or on the mere ground of giving offence
to an injured deity, must be of a singu
larly robust character to withstand
entirely the sneers at Hell and Heaven
and the open disbelief in God that
will presently assail his ears. If it be
desirable to have a humane, temperate,
and honourable community, it behoves
every thoughtful man to cast about for
some other ground for the commenda
tion of these moral qualities than an
enfeebled and disputed dogma. In
creasing stress is, therefore, laid on the
ethical and religious aspect of Monism.
One result of this is that, although the
Churches of our day profess a tolerance
which would have outraged the feelings
of their earlier leaders, their apologists
have by no means ceased to gird at the
alleged disastrous consequences of ma
terialism and agnosticism. Mr. Ballard,
who is supposed to have studied “un
belief” and “unbelievers,” introduces
his study (Miracles of Unbelief} with this
amiable quotation:
“ Hold thou the good : define it well:
For fear divine philosophy
Should push beyond her mark and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell.”
Mr. Rhondda Williams says “ ideal has
no place in Haeckel’s philosophy ”; and
that on his principles “ over the crimes
of a Csesar Borgia you must write a great
‘Can’t help it.’ . . . The sweater who
grinds the faces of the poor can’t help
it.” Dr. Horton says that “men who
have no belief in God and immortality
sink to the level of the brutes,” and
“ come down to the level of the stocks
and the stones ”; that their “ soul is
shrunk, the mind is warped, and the
very body must carry its marks of degra-
Bishopsgat® InfititutaJ
�94
THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
dation.” Mr. R. J. Campbell says that
if the soul is not immortal, then the
right philosophy is to “eat and drink
and be merry ”; that the real obstacles
to Christianity are the thirst for money,
sensual pleasure and entertainment; and
that atheism is “ the gospel of destruc
tion, disease, and death.”1 This senti
ment is repeated weelily from scores of
pulpits all over the country; it is a
commonplace of ecclesiastical literature
and of a certain type of fiction.
Such tactics are malignant and dis
honourable.
I remember reading an
article in the Daily News some months
ago by Mr. Quiller Couch—a religious
author writing in a journal with a pre
ponderantly religious following.
He
touched on the current calumny of the
man without belief in God and immor
tality, and he urged that his readers
knew as well as he that when they
wanted a man of honour and humanity
to confide in they most probably looked
to an agnostic. Without claiming so
much as this, without enumerating the
Stephens and Morleys and Harrisons
that for years have adorned our letters
and our public life, one asks oneself
whether these cultivated clergymen can
have had an experience of their fellows
so different from that of this candid
novelist and essayist that we can at least
credit them with sincerity. It is impos
sible. The statement is an argument, a
stratagem, a flimsy piece of theorising.
It overrides for the moment every gentle
manly impulse, and closes its eyes to the
pain and the heart-burn that many a
gentle Christian mother will suffer as
she broods over it and thinks of her
wandering son. It is a mighty palliative
—I will not say justification—of the
violent language which often returns to
these gentlemen. Did you ever meet a
Christian who felt a moment’s anxiety
about his own character in the event of
his ceasing to believe in Christian teach1 Sermon in -the Christian Commonwealth,
July 30, 1903. This was Mr. Campbell’s first
sermon in the City Temple, and must be regarded
as an exceptionally deliberate utterance.
ing ? I never did. They could not face
their fellows with an avowal that they
were humane (when not defending the
faith) and honourable only or chiefly
because of reward hereafter, or because
God willed it. They are proud of their
own manliness. Their anxiety is ever
for the welfare of others, for “the
people.”
What, then, is the ethic of Monism
which these rhetoricians so completely
ignore ? One does not need a profound
or prolonged research to find it. It
rises out of the very ground on which
they base their ignoble appeal. They
would have us retain the outworn creed
of Christianity because it has been an
inspiration to character-forming, and
because character and a quick sense of
honour are amongst the most valuable
qualities of life. They do not see that
if honour, and sobriety, and high aims
are of value in and for themselves,
humanity will not lightly part with them,
whether or no it reject the miraculous
setting of them which the preacher com
mends. If “ to eat and drink and be
merry,” to extinguish all ambition of
spirit, to forego the visions of an Emerson
or a Mazzini, to pour one’s whole energy
into money-making and sensual pleasure
—if all these are social dangers and
personal misfortunes, humanity will see
to it that they are restrained. The issue
is plain. If moral qualities may dis
appear without the faculties of man being
stunted and the grace and glory of life
being endangered, they will disappear.
No power on earth will prevent it, now
that man has begun to reflect. But if
justice, and honour, and truthfulness,
and self-control, and kindness are
qualities that enrich and gladden the
personal and the social life, they will be
cultivated on that account. And as a
fact, if we take a broad and true survey,
the world was never richer in those
qualities, yet the influence of dogma was
never less. What does the humanitarian
movement mean ? What the movement
for the extinction of the flames of war,
the increase in philanthropic effort, the
�THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
growing social service of the rich, and a
score of other movements ? What has
shattered the barbaric doctrine of hell,
and extinguished for ever the fires of
persecution? A development of men’s
moral and humane feeling, which has
proceeded simultaneously with a decay
of belief.
But, we are told, you are still so near
to the age of universal belief that the
Christian ethic is in your blood in spite
of you. You are severed twigs that are
still green with the sap of the tree. I
reply, firstly, that it is the modern
rationalist and humanitarian movement
that has reformed Christianity. Compare
the degraded condition of Spain, where
the Church has been able to stifle criti
cism, with England and Germany, where
a century of criticism has been directed
upon Christianity from the otitside. And
I reply, secondly, that we are perfectly
conscious that the sap of Christianity is
in our moral fibres. 11 We firmly adhere
to the best part of Christian morality,”
says Haeckel (p. 120): and “ the idea of
the good in our monistic religion co
incides for the most part with the
Christian idea of virtue.” Why should
we be so foolish as to set aside the moral
experience of the last 2000 years ? It is
the heritage of the race. We have been
lifted above that petty sectarian attitude
that distinguishes the church-member.
We survey the whole moral and religious
life of humanity as one broad stream.
Christianity is a stage, a phase, in the
continuous history of the world.
It
borrowed its ethic from Judaea, from
Greece, and from Egypt. It was made
in Alexandria, the centre at that time of
the civilised world, and the converging
point of three great spiritual streams.
There is not a single ethical element in
primitive Christianity that cannot be
traced to its predecessors. Moreover,
the notion that the Hebrews had a
“genius for morality” has no longer
even the semblance of plausibility.
Read the 125th chapter of confessions
or protestations in the Egyptian Bible,
and you will find, a great Egyptologist
95
(Budge) says, a system of morality
“second to none among those which
have been developed by the greatest
nations of the world.” And this chapter
was compiled, from very much earlier
teaching, fifteen centuries before Christ
appeared, and at a time when the
Hebrews were yet uncivilised. The
Book of the Dead, as Dr. Washington
Sullivan says, is so lofty that “ if every
vestige of Christianity were obliterated
from the earth, it would provide an ad
mirable ethical outfit for the reorganisa
tion of morality in Europe.” Further, we
have within the last two years discovered
the very source of that lofty morality with
which the Hebrew prophets lifted their
nation from its barbaric level. At a date
when the Hebrews were sacrificing
human victims to their idols, two thousand
years before the decalogue in the Old
Testament was written, the Babylonians
(from whom the Hebrews obtained their
wisdom and civilisation) were living at a
very high level of moral idealism. The
Code of Laws of Khammurabi—laws
promulgated between 2285 and 2242 B.c.
—is seen to be the foundation of the
“ Mosaic legislation.” We now know,
Dr. Washington Sullivan says, that the
Hebrews “ were positively the last of all
the peoples of remote antiquity to dis
cover those high truths of the moral life
which constitute the unchanging founda
tion of society.”1
But, while, in taking over from
Christianity the moral heritage of
humanity, we owe it gratitude for new
development in some directions, we
must with Haeckel acknowledge that it
has overlaid moral truth with false ideals
that must be set aside. I am not
speaking merely of those mediaeval
horrors which all Christians avoid and
evade to-day. I am thinking of some of
the most distinctive features of the
composite Christ-ideal. When Mr.
1 Ancient Morality. The reader will find in
this admirable booklet a fuller account of this
and the preceding point. It can be obtained at
a moderate price from “ The Ethical Religion
Society,” Steinway Hall.
�96
THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
Campbell
says that Christ “ has
manufactured more nobleness than all
the moral codes in all the world put to
gether,” we see at a glance how little he
knows of “all the moral codes” and
what they have done. We who watch
the advance of comparative religion and
ethics, and of the criticism of the New
Testament, know what will eventually
become of this kind of Christianity
which stakes its existence on the
historical truth of the Gospels. Christ
is dissolving year by year. But even
when apologists have removed the stress
from the (largely, at least) legendary
person of Christ to that moral teaching
which appears in the first century as
“primitive Christianity,” we still join
issue with them. Haeckel has indicated
several features of the Christian ethic
which we cannot receive. Some of
these features are already abandoned
by our Christian neighbours. There is
the ascetic principle, one of the most
prominent elements of the Christ-teaching, which even the Catholic Church is
quietly dropping. There is the Gospel
of opposing violence by submission and
Hooliganism by emptying your pockets,
which one honest Anglican bishop has
pronounced “ impracticable.” There is
the contempt of art and nature, which
follows from the ascetic principle. There
is the commendation of virginity, which
no one regards to-day, with its implica
tion of the inferiority of marriage, so ex
pressly preached by the Church fathers.
There is the suppression of woman, in
spired by the Old Testament teaching,
which, as Mr. Lecky has shown, put
back her emancipation (which the
Romans were initiating) for more than a
thousand years. All these were errors
of the enthusiastic but ignorant com
pilers of the Christ-ideal, and the modern
world agrees to abandon them.
We claim, further, that this moral
teaching must be set once for all on a
purely humanist ground.
“ With eyes
fixed on the future,” says the great
Mazzini, “ we must break the last links of
the chain which holds us in bondage to
the past, and with deliberate stages move
on. We have freed ourelves from the
abuses of the old world; we must now
free ourselves from its glories. . . To-day
we have to found the polity of the nine
teenth century—to climb through philo
sophy to faith ; to define and organise
association, proclaim humanity, initiate
the New Age.” The doctrine of Hell
and Heaven is no longer a fitting founda
tion for moral conduct, as most edu
cated Christians recognise to-day. But
the personality of God or the personality
of Christ is just as little fitted. Have
you ever seen how the little-minded
villagers, along those parts of our coast
where the sea is steadily invading the
land, build time after time close to the
edge of the cliff? “ My grandfather lived
there,” some old man will tell you, point
ing his lean finger out into the sea. And
he knows that in twenty years more the
cottage he has himself built will be un
dermined and swept away. That is
the procedure of those theologians who
base their ethic on the successively dis
solving dogmas of Christianity. Their
grandfathers staked the moral condition
of the community on a belief in Hell;
their fathers grounded it on faith in the
supernatural character of the Bible.
They are basing it to-day on belief in
God and the historical reality of Christ.
And year by year the waves of criticism
and the tunnels of research are under
mining their position. Let us retreat
once for all from the land of dogma.
Morality is too important a matter to be
left at the mercy of scientific or historical
controversies. Cling to your beliefs if
you must—if you can ; but in view of the
controversy that surrounds them, and
will soon thicken about them a hundred
fold, do not seek to bind up the moral
tone of the community with so frail a
speculation.
People who imagine that this pro
posal to transfer the moral interest
from the care of the Churches has a
violent and unnatural character are
little acquainted with the history of the
subject. The leading writers on com-
�THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
parative religion assure us that, in the
words of Professor Tiele, “ in the be
ginning religion had little or no con
nection with morality.” In other words,
morality had a quite different and inde
pendent origin from theology. It was
only at a fairly advanced stage in the
development of priesthood that the
notion was advanced of the gods being
the authors and the priests the guardians
of the moral law. We have seen how
Babylon had the decalogue and an
elaborate moral code centuries before the
supposed giving of the tables to Moses
on Mount Sinai. The existence of a fullydeveloped moral sentiment can thus be
discovered ages before the first claim of
a revelation. If, further, we study the
moral feeling of the lowliest tribes, and
ascend gradually through the semibarbaric peoples known to history, such
as the ancient Mexicans or our own
forefathers, we can trace clearly enough
the growth of the moral ideal. When
men began to live in community they
discovered that certain restraints must
be placed on individual impulses. They
saw the enormous advantages to each of
a communal life, of co-operation and the
division of labour, of mutual help and
service, of substituting trial or arbitration
for bloody combats, and of being able to
trust each other. In other words, they
discovered that, if they were to advance
in the construction of social life, which
promised so many advantages, certain
new habits or rules or qualities were
necessary.
Justice, kindness, respect
for age, care of youth, truthfulness,
sobriety, and self-control were necessary.
In proportion as they acquired these
qualities their social life was healthy and
effective.
The individual gained far
more than he had relinquished in the
occasional restraint of his impulses.
And in proportion as they fell away from
this ideal their social life was enfeebled
and disturbed. Thus there grew up a
sense of the importance of the moral
ideal—such a sense as we find, for
instance, amongst the ancient Germans
long before their contact with Chris
97
tianity. In this way the decalogue came
to be written. Man was its author.
The experience of 200,000 years was
his inspiration. And to-day, when we
see how vitally necessary moral fibre
is for progress in the exacting race of
our national and international life, it is
hardly likely that we shall return to the
lawlessness of prehistoric life. There came
a stage in the evolution of the moral ideal
when men considered it so wonderful
a thought that they hailed it as a gift of
the gods, just as the Hebrews did when
they composed, or borrowed, the legend
of the giving of the law on Sinai. In
this way morality became intimately
associated with theology. It is probable
that, whilst this association has hindered
moral development in some ways—com
pare the stagnancy of the “ages of
faith ” with the great ethical advance of
this “ age of unbelief ”—it has in other
ways greatly promoted it.
However that may be, the time has
come for humanity to claim its own from
the gods. There is an obvious danger
that, as the theological structure with
which morality has so long been asso
ciated breaks up, morality may suffer for
a time. Scepticism about the one natur
ally leads to scepticism about the other.
To say that we should on that account
refrain from hastening the dissolution of
theology is the very reverse of wisdom or
statesmanship. We must insist on the
formation of a purely humanitarian ethic.
We must jealously remove this deeply
important interest from the arena of
controversy. Our children must not be
taught, as they are still taught, to restrain
their impulses to lying, stealing, and
unhealthy practices, merely on the ground
of certain religious beliefs. In a few years
they will hear those beliefs ridiculed and
torn to shreds on every side, and it may
be that the whole structure of their
moral habits will be shaken to the ground.
This is a grave social and humanitarian
problem.
Our educational authorities
insist that moral training shall be given
by the teacher only in connection with
' the legends of the Old Testament, which
G
�98
THE ETHIC AND RELIGION OF MONISM
are not taken to Be historical by clerical
Scholars themselves to-day, or with the
stories of the New Testament that are
being rapidly reduced to myths. The
child is too unsophisticated to see what
is called a “symbolic truth” in these,
and it is well known that the teachers in
our schools, often with great repugnance
to their own feelings, have to treat these
stories as historical, or leave them to be
considered historical.
It is a pitiful
situation, and ought not to be tolerated
even by those who still adhere to
religious beliefs.
An organisation has been created to
meet this situation; to agitate for the
introduction of purely humanitarian
moral instruction for the children in our
elementary schools, and to formulate
schemes of such teaching and provide
model-lessons and expert teachers to
show its practicability. Already several
local educational authorities have adopted
the ideas of this organisation. But over
the country at large the moral instruction
of our children is still totally bound up
with that teaching of the Bible which is
to-day so seriously controverted. Every
man, and especially every woman, who
is alive to the folly and the danger of
our present system should consider the
aim and work of this organisation.1
A more difficult question arises when
we turn to consider moral culture
amongst the adult portion of the
community. Dr. Haeckel is of opinion,
as are very many rationalist writers, that
we need look forward to no substitute
for the Churches in this respect, except
for a certain minority of the community.
“The modern man,” he says, “who has
‘ science and art,’ and therefore ‘ re
ligion,’ needs no special church, no
narrow, enclosed portion of space. For
through the length and breadth of free
nature, wherever he turns his gaze, to
1 I am referring to the Moral Instruction
League. Its central office is at 19 Buckingham
Street, Strand, Loudon, W.C. ; any inquiries
addressed there will be promptly answered by
the secretary. Branches of the League have
been formed in various parts of the country.
the whole universe or to any single
part of it, be finds indeed the grim
struggle for life, but by its side are ever
1 the good, the true, and the beautiful ’
his church is commensurate with the
whole of glorious nature. Still, there
will always be men of special tem
perament who will desire to have
decorated temples or churches as places
of devotion, to which they may with
draw.” No doubt, - 'when we have
introduced an adequate scheme of
purely natural moral instruction into our
primary and secondary- schools instead
of leaving this most important section
of the child’s education to the casual
observations of a reluctant and untrained
teacher in the course of a Bible lesson,
there will not be the same need for
church-assemblies in later life. But it
would seem that the tendency to form
new groups and organisations for moral
and humanitarian culture is on the
increase. Already there is in the field
an important “ Ethical movement,” with
branches in America,' England, France,
and Germany, and with an international
organ (The International Journal of
Ethics) and international congresses.
The English branch includes some
fifteen societies in London and the
provinces, most of which are gathered
into a Union of Ethical Societies,1 and
is spreading rapidly. It has an organ
of its own (Ethics, one penny weekly),
and takes an active part in all social and
humanitarian work. There is also the
Positivist Movement; and there are num
bers of Humanitarian, Tolstoyan, and
other societies with similar aims. Even
churches and chapels are slowly casting
off their raiment of dogma and specula
tion, and restricting their aim to moral
culture. In many parts of England
this transformation has already com
pletely taken place. The tendency
everywhere is in the direction of an
abandonment of dogma, and a relin
quishment of cosmic speculation to the
philosopher and the scientist. Some
1 Central office at 19 Buckingham Street,
London, W.C.
J
�THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
day our Churches will perceive at length
that the belief in God is itself a cosmic
speculation, exposed: to a hundred
hazards of discovery and controversy.
Then, in the words of. Emerson, “there
will be a new Church, founded on moral
science ; at first cold and naked, a babe
in a manger again, the algebra and
mathematics of ethical law, the
Church of men to come, without
shawms, or psaltery, or sackbut, but it
will have heaven and earth for its beams
and rafters, science for symbol and
illustration; it will fast enough gather
beauty, music, picture, and poetry.”
That Haeckel is right in this, his final
judgment and expectation, none will
question who have long observed the
development of religious thought and
church life. Strong and eloquent voices
plead already within the Churches for
the elimination of dogma, for an ex
clusive concern for moral culture. If the
modem art of anticipation have any
validity, it is certain that theological
speculation and moral culture are
severing their long association. We are
taking the step that some of the great
religions of the world took ages ago.
Buddha, wiser in this than the founders
of Christianity, pleaded solely for moral
reform, and coldly discountenanced
theological speculation.
Enlightened
Buddhists hold to the spirit of his
teaching, though Buddhism has, as a
j
'
■ .i . J
99
whole, been unfaithful to his spirit. But
another great Oriental religion, Con
fucianism, the religion of the cultured
Chinese and Japanese, had taken the
step we are taking to-day centuries before
Christ was born. The followers of
Kung-Tse have for ages maintained
moral culture without dogma. Their
Bible, the Bushido, is the model
Bible of the world. It is the turn of
Christianity to make religion “ the service
of man ” instead of “ the service of God.”
If there be a God, he needs not the
sacrifices, and he must disdain the flattery
and adoration, of' a poverty-stricken
humanity. We must turn at length from
the land of shadows, where the super
natural lurks, and pour the whole intense
stream of religious emotion into the task
of uplifting ourselves and our fellows.
We must free the religious and moral
ideal from every entanglement of contro
verted dogma, and set it on a natural
base. Then will cease the long anxiety
and the foolish resistance to every ad
vance of thought. Then each new
discovery will shed new light on our
ideal, and science will be. eagerly
pursued.
“ Oh Science, lift aloud thy voice that stills
The pulse of fear, and through the conscience
thrills—
Thrills through the conscience with the
news of peace—
How beautiful thy feet are on the hills ! ”
Ji
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Chapter X
THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
The reader will probably remember
a famous passage in one of Huxley’s
essays where the anxiety that theologians
betray, as the mechanical interpretation
of the universe advances, is compared to
the terror which savages exhibit during
an eclipse of the sun. Whether Huxley
had had a rude experience of that
D 2
�IOO
THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
ecclesiastical rhetoric, of which we have
seen so much under the name of
“ criticism ” of Haeckel, and had yielded
to a malicious impulse in his choice of
an analogy, we need not inquire. We
have seen that the apologists are still
eager to. throw every obstacle they can
suggest in the way of the advance, or of
the acceptance, of the mechanical view.
We have encountered them at every step
in our course. Sometimes, indeed, we
have found ecclesiastics with scientific
qualifications desperately recommending
us to read criticisms that aim at dis
crediting scientific procedure; as when
Mr. Ballard tells his readers to study
Stallo s Concepts of Modern Physics, a
work “the.most of which,” says Sir O.
Lodge, “is occupied in demolishing
constructions of straw.” But these
tactics have long ago ceased to be
effective. Science has won too solid a
position in modern life to be shaken by
the ill-informed criticism of Stallo or the
academic subtleties of Professor Ward.
Nor is the general reader greatly moved
by the efforts of our modern theologians
to sit in judgment on science in its own
domain. The obvious plan for the
Churches to adopt with the largest hope
of success was to obtain, and give a wide
publicity to, utterances by prominent
scientists that tend to rehabilitate
theology. I am not suggesting that
these distinguished scientists only speak
out under a strong pressure from the
clergy. On the part of Sir O. Lodge, for
instance, and Dr. A. R. Wallace, there
is a very clear concern for religion,
which is entitled to our full respect.
But it cannot be denied that the use
which is made by the clergy of these
occasional utterances is gravely mislead
ing.
We have already seen this in
the case of those German scientists to
whom Haeckel refers as having changed
their views. The only statement that
Haeckel makes is that they have ceased
to defend the positive views which he
expounds in the Riddle • yet almost
every clerical writer represents them as
having, to use Dr. Plorton’s words,
“ come to recognise spirit as the author
of consciousness ”—this in spite of the
fact that Haeckel expressly mentions
Du Bois-Reymond’s agnosticism on this
point (p. 6). Dr. Horton, with his
inclusion amongst the elect of the most
notorious materialists that ever lived,
has a title to leniency, in a sense, because
of his obvious ignorance of the entire
subject. The position of those apologists
who have some scientific culture is more
serious. These German scientists—
Wundt, Baer, Virchow, and Du BoisReymond — are
agnostics. Professor
Haeckel assures me that in Germany the
clerical writers call them “atheists.”
They lend no support whatever to even
the. most advanced and liberal form of
theism.
Writers who so thoroughly
mi-lead the English public as to their
position have little right to discuss
the taste of Haeckel’s analysis of
his. colleagues’ views.
The oriental
saying about straining at the gnat
and. swallowing the camel is painfully
pertinent.
We have now to examine those utter
ances on the part of English men of
science which are so much quoted of
late, and we shall find how little support
they really give to the religious position.
Of the later views of G. J. Romanes I will
speak later, when we come to deal with
the somewhat similar ideas of Mr. W.
Mallock. Romanes saw to the end the
terrible strength of the scientific position.
It was only by an appeal to “extrarational ” and unscientific testimony
that he sought to evade it. With Sir O.
Lodge we need not deal in detail. His
chief line of argument is of a teleological
nature, and is exposed to the difficulties
we have already indicated. Nor do I
propose to deal with the spiritist convic
tions of Sir O. Lodge or Dr. Wallace, or
(if they still exist) Sir W. Crookes, or
(in a degree) Professor James. Spiritist
evidence is a subject for personal investi
gation. We may also hold ourselves
dispensed from dealing in detail with
the views of the late Dr. St. George
Mivart. They are not urged upon us to-
�THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
day.1 But there have lately been published
two remarkable pronouncements by dis
tinguished English scientists, Dr. Wallace
and Lord Kelvin, and these it is incum
bent on us to examine. It is chiefly on
the strength of these utterances, that
clerical apologists talk of a reconciliation
of science and religion, if not of “a
rehabilitation of religion. by science.”
These utterances have, in their bald
and misleading outline, been published
throughout the country. We shall see,
in this and the following chapter, how
wholly ineffectual they were, how swiftly
they were torn to shreds by the proper
experts on the subjects involved, and
how clearly the episodes show that the
science of to-day is overwhelmingly
favourable to the positions we have
defended against Haeckel’s critics.
Dr. A. R. Wallace, one of the most
distinguished naturalists of our time, has
long been famous for his opposition to
the doctrine of the evolution of the
human mind. This opposition, main
tained in face of a remarkable and
increasing consensus of scientists and
scientific theologians, is ceasing to im
press inquirers as it once did. The
opinions of a man of such ability, expert
knowledge, and candour, must always be
examined with respect. But we have
seen that the problem is very different
to-day from what it was thirty years ago.
To-day we all admit that evolution is a
cosmic law: Haeckel says it is “ the
second law of substance,” and the theo
logians say it is God’s way of making
things. We all admit the evolution of
matter and the evolution of solar
systems; and most of us admit the
evolution of life and the evolution of
species. On the other hand, we trace
back the distinctive human institutions
of to-day—art, civilisation, science, phi1 Had Mivart lived, the public would have seen
a sensational development in the exposition of
his later opinions. He told me, some years
before his death, that he intended to speak out
fully before he quitted the stage, and he frankly
admitted that his scepticism was deep and his
concern for religion little more than a belief in
its moral efficacy.
IOI
losophy, religion, moral codes, and lan
guage—along a line of evolution to very
primitive beginnings. Grant a glimmer
of intelligence and reason in early man,
and we can very well conceive the natural
development of these institutions in the
course of the last 200,000 years. We
must, indeed; because we know that the
prehistoric man, whose remains we un
earth to-day, had not these things. We
have, therefore, only to bridge the interval
between the brain of the Neanderthal
man and that of the anthropoid ape,
between the mind of the highest animal
and that of the lowest man. The dif
ference is one of degree, not of kind.
Comparative psychology finds in animals
the same emotions and reasoning power
as in man, only less highly developed.
Further, we have a period of at least
600,000 years in which the advance
might be effected. The anthropoid apes
appear in the Miocene period (about
900,000 years ago). Man is not held
to be developed from them, but from a
common ancestor with them; so that
from that period to the time when we
find unmistakable trace of man (250,000
to 220,000 years ago) natural selection
must have been at work.
Finally, we
have lately discovered a most important
link in the chain of development (the
pithecanthropus), and the study of the
brain is, as we saw, suggesting some very
remarkable and illuminating possibilities.
If Canon Aubrey Moore could say that
Mr. Wallace’s view “ had a strangely un
orthodox look ” sixteen years ago, it has
certainly not lost its singularity in our
day. When Dr. Haeckel went to Java,
two years ago, on a scientific expedition,
the Press assured us that he had gone to
search for more bones of the pithecan
thropus. As a fact, though his researches
and travels took him within a hundred
miles of the spot where Dubois found
the famous remains in 1894, he did not
go there. The evidence for the complete
natural development of man is so great
that such discoveries are unnecessary.
But Dr. Wallace has very recently
I entrenched his position with a very
�102
THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
remarkable attack on current scientific
conceptions. He purports to undo a
large and important section of the scien
tific procedure of our earlier chapters,
and we must enter upon a thorough
examination of his statements.1
He
says that the “ new astronomy ” entirely
disciedits that “ cosmological perspec
tive ” which we have taken from Haeckel
and supported with recent evidence.
Instead of finding indications of infinity,
he says, modern astronomers have dis
covered very definite limits to the
material universe. Instead of our sun
being a . neglected and unimportant
element in the stellar universe, it is the
very centre, or near the centre, of the
whole system. Instead of our earth
being a very ordinary fragment of matter,
torn, in some way, from the central mass,
and forming a casual crust at its cooled
surface, it. is a unique body in the uni
verse ; it is fitted to support life in a way
that no other planet of our system is,
and that most probably no other planet
in the universe is. Thus, instead of
man being a mere casual product of
natural development, he is the very
centre and culmination of its processes,
a unique creation, for whose production
the whole universe seems to be one vast
and orderly mechanism, set up for that
purpose by a Supreme Intelligence.
If this is true, it is one of the most
startling and dramatic discoveries ever
made. Let me point out at once that if
all this (except the last line) were estab
lished to-morrow it would not add one
grain of evidence to the religious position,
and would not break a line in the essen
tial structure of Monism. The universe
would still be a mechanism, with no
indication of ever having begun to exist;
and Dr. Wallace’s teleological plea for a
guiding intelligence would be as illogical
as we have seen that argument to be.
This new discovery would greatly impress
(because it would greatly unsettle) the
1 The book he announces is not published as
I write, so that I follow the two articles he wrote
in the Fortnightly Review (March and Sep
tember, 1903).
imagination, but would have no philo
sophical significance. Dr. Wallace says
we could no longer attribute the appear
ance of life to chance ; but we do not
attribute it now to “chance.”
We
attribute it to a mechanism which is not
erratic, but fixed, in its action. Setting
aside the imagination and the emotions,
there is no more philosophic significance
in the fact of the materials and conditions
of life being found in just one cosmic
body than in a million. Dr. Wallace
seem(> to make much of the “ re markable: coincidence” of these curious
privileges of our planet with the actual
appearance of life on it. Most people
will think there would be some reason
to use the word remarkable if the con
ditions were here and the life was not
forthcoming.
There is no religious
significance in all that Dr. Wallace urges.
But it is- in direct opposition to much
that we have established in the earlier
stages of .Haeckel’s position, and we
must examine the evidence adduced in
support of it. If it is true, Monism can
assimilate, it without strain. We shall
see that it is not only not proved, but
the attempt to prove it only shows again
the correctness of even Haeckel’s minor
positions, r
It is, naturally, to astronomy that Dr.
Wallace turns for evidence. He is not
an expert, in that science, but, of course,
every philosophic thinker must borrow
material from many different sciences.
The truth is, however, that no sooner
were Dr. Wallace’s views published than
there was immediately a loud and unani
mous condemnation of them on the part
of astronomers. The astronomers of
France and Germany were frankly cynical
about, them, two of the leading French
astronomers writing to combat them in
Knowledge. Our chief English astrono
mers, of all schools, at once repudiated
the alleged evidence. Professor Turner,
the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at
Oxford, said that Dr. Wallace had “ not
suggested, anything new which was in
the least likely to be true. He seems to
me to have unconsciously got his facts
�THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
distorted, and to indicate practically
nothing wherewith to link them to his
conclusion.” Dr. Maunder pronounced
the new theory “a myth,” and was not
sure if Dr. Wallace intended the article
to be taken as “a serious one.” A
number of other astronomers joined in
the discussion, and, apart from one or
two details in his evidence,,not a single
expert undertook to defend him. But
we must examine his several positions in
succession, so as to bring out once more
the fact that Haeckel is supported by
the most recent science.
The first point, and the most interest
ing for our purpose, is the contention
that the new astronomy discovers the
universe to have a d.efinite limit. We
have urged that Haeckel was in harmony
with the evidence when he spoke of the
universe as “ infinite,” so that here is a
clear contradiction. It need not be said
that the validity of Monism is not at
stake in the matter. Whether the uni
verse is limited or unlimited, it remains
a Monistic universe. The question is
whether Haeckel has misread the evi
dence of astronomy on this incidental
question of limit or no limit. It is well
to remember that “ infinity ” is a nega
tive idea. It merely denies that there is
a limit to the scheme of things. What
we have to see, then, is whether the most
recent investigations of astronomy point
to the existence of such a limit or not.
The evidence for a limit on which Dr.
Wallace lays most stress is, instead of
being a study in “ the new astronomy,”
a very old and threadbare fallacy.
Flammarion says1 it was “ the subject of
long and learned discussions during the
course of the eighteenth century and up
to the middle of the nineteenth,” and he
adds that “ it would not be difficult to
settle it to-day.” The argument is that
if the number of luminous stars were
infinite the sky would be at night as
bright as it is at noonday. The infinite
number would compensate for the dis
tance. But the actual star-light is only
1 Knowledge, June, 1903.
103
about one-fortieth the light of themoon,
and that is only a five-thousandth of the
intensity of the light of the sun. Dr.
Wallace has taken this specious calcula
tion from Professor Newcomb, but has,
as Dr. Maunder points out, omitted two
conditions which Newcomb carefully
gives, and which make the speculation
totally inapplicable to the actual uni
verse. Newcomb’s calculation assumed
that no star-light was lost in transmission,
and that “ every region of space of some
great but finite extent is, on the average,
occupied by at least one star.” Neither
of these conditions is found in our uni
verse. Light is absorbed in its passage
to us; and the stars are distributed with
nothing approaching the uniformity
which the speculation demands. The
second point needs no proof.
The
irregular structure of our stellar system
is familiar enough; and there is not the
slightest scientific difficulty about sup
posing that other stellar worlds may be
separated from ours by immeasurable
deserts of space. As to the absorption
of light, a number of causes are pointed
out. In the first place, we now know that
there are dark as well as luminous stars.
No astronomer supposes that these are
less numerous than the light stars. Sir
Robert Ball thinks they are so much
more numerous that to count the stars
by the light and visible spheres would be
like estimating the number of horse
shoes in England by the number of
those which are red-hot at a given
moment. These dark stars must inter
cept the light of their incandescent
fellows.1 Dr. Maunder says that if we
take them as a basis of our calculation
1 In his second article Dr. Wallace replies
that Mr. Monckhas shown that, even if the dark
stars were 150,000 times more numerous than
the light ones, the sky would, if these were in
finite, be as bright as moonlight. Once more
Dr. Wallace omits a condition stipulated by his
authority, who says this would be so- if they
“were distributed in anything approaching a
similar density.” For that we have no assurance
whatever. Moreover, Dr. Wallace almost ignore
the other and more important sources of absorp
tion.
�104
THE POSITION OF' DR. A. R. WALLACE
we could prove that “we are shut in by
a veil wnich no light from an infinite
distance could pierce.”
But in addition to these incalculable
dark stars there are other sources of
absorption. The astronomer to whom
Dr. Wallace appeals, Mr. Monck, holds
that ether itself absorbs light. At any
rate we know that space is full of cosmic
dust—meteorites, etc.—and that this
must be an important source of ab
sorption. Mr. Monck says that, “ if
sufficiently remote, the star would thus
for all practical purposes be blotted out.”
And Sir N. Lockyer also emphasises this
factor. Moreover, we have just learned
a further source. Before Newcomb’s
latest work was published, in February,
1901, a new cosmic element was dis
covered in the shape of a dark nebula.
Certain peculiarities of a new star led to
the discovery that it was surrounded by
a nebula that reflected its light. Thus,
we have the presence in space of another
and powerful screen in the shape of dark
nebulae, the number and distribution of
which we are unable to conjecture. Our
universe is something infinitely removed
from that theoretical system to which
Professor Newcomb’s calculations might
apply. Ihus, once more, does the very
latest science come to our assistance.
We may add that, even apart from the
absorption of light and the irregular dis
tribution of the stars, the calculation is
enfeebled by another possibility. We
have no proof that ether is continuous
throughout infinite space. There may
be several galaxies or stellar systems,
unconnected by ether, so that one would
not be visible to another. Assuming
that (according to a calculation of Lord
Kelvin’s) there are a thousand million
stars in our system, “there may be,”
says Flammarion, “ a second thousand
beyond an immense void, or a third, or
fourth or more.” And, finally, Professor
Pickering has shown that, even with a
continuous infinite ether, our present
star-light is quite consistent with the
existence of an infinite number of
luminous stars, “ if the distance between
the stars becomes (on the average)
greater the farther we go from the solar
system,” if we assume this to be central.
Thus the most emphatic of Dr.
Wallace s proofs has been absolutely
riddled by expert astronomical opinion.
It is “ founded,” says Dr. Maunder, “ on
a careless reading of Professor New
comb s book,” and cannot be sustained
for a moment.1 Nor is his other line of
argument more capable of defence. He
urges that, although up to a certain point
an increase in the power of the telescope
reveals new worlds in greater number,
this increase is not sustained in the case
of our largest telescopes; and, in the
case of photographs of the stars, an
exposure beyond three or four hours does
not bring us into touch with an increas
ing number of worlds. From this he
would infer that the powerful instru
ments we use to-day have exhausted the
universe and brought us to its extremities.
If the number of stars were infinite, an
increase of power or exposure should
always reveal new worlds. Once more,
Dr. Wallace has drawn his conclusion
too precipitately. In the first place, as I
said, there is the possibility of other
systems being cut off from ours by
empty space. But there is a simpler
and readier answer to his argument. The
fact to which he appeals—in so far as it
is fact; a study of the long-exposure
photographs of Dr. Isaacs by no means
sustains it 2—really means that we are
approaching the limit of the effective
range of the telescope, not the limit of
objective reality. Every increase in the
aperture of a refracting telescope means
1 Nor is Professor Newcomb’s book itself above
dispute, great as is the authority of the writer.
Mr. R. A. Gregory, reviewing it in Nature
(March, 1902), says that “ the outlook described
is not only limited, but imperfect,” and points
out a number of errors in it.
2 In his second article Dr. Wallace appeals to
these photographs, but makes it clear that he
has in mind photographs of nebulae and star
clusters. It is obvious that there must be a limit
to the number of stars in a given cluster or
nebula; but the eight-hour exposure photo
graphs of other parts of the heavens read
differently.
�105
THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
an increase in the absorption of light by
the lens itself. We are, Dr. Maunder
says, approaching the limit beyond which
the absorption will neutralise the advan
tage of a large objective. So in the case
of stellar photography, it is only when
we deal with “ medium luminosities ”
that a longer exposure avails. Thus Dr.
Wallace not only exaggerates the fact—
Mr. Monck, for instance, speaks of
“ the constant detection of additional
stars by more powerful instruments ”—
but he misinterprets its significance. He
has not, says M. Moye, “brought any
convincing proof against the universe
being infinite.”
“ Space cannot be
otherwise than infinite,” says M. Flammarion; a limit to either space or time
is unthinkable. The latest researches
of astronomers bring us no nearer than
ever to a limit of the material universe.
Dr. Wallace’s second point, that our
planet occupies a significant central
position in the universe, collapses of
itself when he fails to prove that that
universe is finite. There is no centre
in infinity. But, as Dr. Wallace has
committed the radical error of “ reason
ing from the area we see to the infinite,”
it is at least interesting to examine how
far our sun may be described as occupy
ing a central position in the vast stellar
combination we call the Milky Way.
Now, it has long been obvious that our
sun is roughly in the centre of this huge
system. We have only to glance at the
great belt of light the system forms around
us in the heavens to see this.
But
astronomers once more totally reject the
expression of this fact which Dr. Wallace
presents.
The system is so irregular
in structure that we could not with pro
priety assign a definite centre to it if our
knowledge were greater than it is. You
may talk of the centre of a bowl, says
Professor Turner, but you cannot talk of
the centre of a saucepan ; and there is
a projection of the system visible in the
southern heavens which answers to the
“handle” in this figure. Flammarion
believes there are clusters in the heavens
that do not belong to our system at all.
Moreover, even if we consent to speak
of a “ centre ” of this irregular structure,
with its clefts and projections, it is wholly
inaccurate to say that our sun is awarded
that position by astronomy. Mr. Monck
doubts “ if any astronomer could go
within one thousand light years of the
centre of the star system as at present
known ” ; that is to say, in non-technical
language, no astronomer would venture
to assign a centre within the broad limit
of 6000 billion miles ! Other astronomers
think it clear that we are nearer one side
of the system than its opposite, and
point out that if the motion of our sun
(about ten miles a second) is in a curve
determined by gravitation (as it surely is)
round the centre of gravity of the solar
system, it must be at an enormous dis
tance from that centre, as we can learn
from the analogy of motion in a globular
cluster.
All agree that we have no
greater right to consider ourselves in a
central position than are fifty other suns,
the nearest of which is twenty-five billion
miles away from us.
Thus Dr. Wallace has once more
considerably strained the evidence in
order to vindicate a central position for us.
But there is a further consideration
which must be taken into account.
Our sun is calculated by astronomers to
be travelling through space at about ten
miles per second. Dr. Wallace seeks to
enfeeble this doctrine of astronomy,
when it is turned against him, by urging
that the motion is relative; it may be
the stars that move while we remain
stationary. That is to say, he would
suggest an anomalous character for our
sun without a shadow of proof and
in direct opposition to the law of gravita
tion, which he himself invokes at other
times. The idea of a vast central sun,
round which all the stars in the Milky
Way would revolve, as planets do round
a sun, has been long since rejected by
astronomers. Its mass would have to
be incalculable; and the mass of our
sun is small compared with that of its
measurable neighbours. To save itself
) _ from being sucked in (or impelled
H
�106
THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
towards) its gigantic double and triple
neighbours it must move. It is probable
that it follows a curved path round the
common centre of gravity of our system
(not a central mass). In any case the
curve of its path is so great that
astronomers can as yet detect no curve
at all. It follows that, if to-day we
happen to occupy a central position, it is
only a temporary occupation. Many of
Dr. Wallace’s critics argued on the sup
position that our path lay in a straight
line through the universe, but others
pointed out the probable curve, so that
Dr. Wallace does not escape the point
by rejecting rectilinear motion. He had
argued that the special advantages which
this supposed central position gave to
our sun had been enjoyed by it during
the whole period of the evolution of
life. Astronomy wholly discredits that
assumption even when we bear in mind
all that he urges as to the relativity of
cosmic movements.
Let us next examine the advantages
which our planet is supposed by Dr.
Wallace to possess in the way of habita
bility. The conditions of life which he
enumerates are the usual conditions of a
certain temperature (say, between o° C.
and 75° C.), a circulation of water, and
an atmosphere of proper density and
extent to effect this. Our own distance
from the sun, with an atmosphere and
tidal movements to equalise the distri
bution of heat and cold, ensures a
moderate temperature. Our deep, per
manent oceans hold a supply of water,
which is admirably circulated by the
heat of the sun, controlled by the atmo
sphere, and assisted by the dust which
our deserts and volcanoes largely con
tribute.. Thus we have, he thinks, in
the position of our planet, its distribution
of land and water, its atmosphere, its
satellite, and its physical features, a com
bination of favourable circumstances
that is not likely to be found elsewhere,
The distance of the other planets from
the sun is either too great or too little.
Atmosphere is largely determined by
mass, and so Mars is in this respect dis
qualified. Venus has no moon, and
this “ may alone render it quite incapable
of developing high forms of life.” We
know, he says, with “ almost complete
certainty” that this combination of
favourable conditions is not found on
any other.planet in our solar system.
To this series of affirmations the
expert astronomical critics oppose a very
decided series of negatives. “In our
solar system,” says Flammarion, “this
little earth has not obtained any special
privileges from Nature.” M. Moye re
gards our earth and sun as “ very or
dinary orbs, having no special character
istics, and as no more suitable for life
than innumerable other suns and
planets.” Mr. Mo.nck has “sufficient
faith in the principle of evolution to
think that man might accommodate
himself to the conditions of life on
almost any of the planets, provided that
the change were sufficiently gradual, and
a sufficient time were allowed to elapse ”
It is true that Miss Clerke says, “ Dr.
Wallace’s contention, that our earth is
unique as being the abode of intellectual
life, corresponds in a measure with the
recent trend of astronomical research.”
Miss Clerke, it is not impertinent to
observe, approaches the subject with the
same prejudice as Dr. Wallace about the
uniqueness of man, but the phrase “ in
a measure ” saves the passage from in
accuracy.; and she later makes an ex
ception in favour of Mars. But the
whole, idea of seeking identical condi
tions in other planets is erroneous. “ To
limit the work of Nature to the sphere of
our knowledge is,” says Flammarion,
“to reason with singular childishness.”
They are of the same material as earth,
and have been evolved by the same
forces; there is likely to be a general
likeness of features, and that is enough
for our purpose, when we remember the
infinite adaptability of the life force.
M. Moye examines in detail the condi
tions Dr. Wallace lays down, and points
out many errors. To say that Mars is
disqualified on account of its smaller
mass than the earth is “ a purely
�THE POSITION OF DR. A. R. WALLACE
gratuitous assumption.” Aqueous va
pour has been detected by the spectro
scope in the atmospheres of at least
Venus and Jupiter. Tidal motion is
caused by the sun as well as the moon,
and may be so caused in Venus ; nor is
it essential to life. “ The distance from
the sun to the earth in the general, plan
of Our solar system is not peculiar or
extraordinary in any way.”
While,
as to deserts, each of the other planets
must, on Wallace’s theory, be one
vast desert; nor have we any ground
for thinking that deep, permanent
oceans are a peculiar feature of our
planet.
It would, of course, be no more than
an interesting discovery, of no grave
consequence to Monism, if our planet
were proved to be the only habitable
body in our solar system; but astronomers
utterly discountenance-the idea. “Life
is universal and eternal,” says Flammarion, almost in the words of Haeckel.
“ Yesterday the moon, to-day the earth,
to-morrow Jupiter . . . Let us open the
eyes of our understanding, and. let us
look beyond ourselves in the infinite
expanse at life and intelligence in all its
degrees in endless evolution.”
Professor Turner points out that Dr.
Wallace has completely failed to show,
after all his laborious proof of our central
position, that this would give our earth
any advantage in the way of habitability.
He says that Dr. Wallace, “with the
deftness of a conjurer,” has substituted
for this question a discussion of the
impossibility of there being life at the con
fines of the universe. It is true that Dr.
Wallace has since admitted that he had
no proof to offer at the time, but will
present one in his forthcoming work.
However, we may profitably close with a
glance at his attempt to prove that, life
is impossible towards the imagined
limits of our system. Even his fellow
io7
spiritualist, Miss A. Clerke, protests that
“ it cannot be reasonably supposed that
the conditions of vitality deteriorate with
remoteness from the centre ; and Dr.
Wallace has been forced to admit that
the reasons he suggested were ill-con
sidered and erroneous. He surmised
that gravitation might be less at the
verge of the system; which is not only
“ a pure assumption,” but is opposed by
our knowledge of the most distant
double stars. He compares the move
ments of the stars with the molecules of
a gas, and is eventually compelled to
acknowledge that “ there is probably no
justification for the idea.” And he quite
gratuitously supposes that. the action of
electric and similar rays is different at
the edge of our stellar system than it is
elsewhere.
■
We may conclude, then, that Dr.
Wallace’s excursion into astronomy has
been singularly and painfully disastrous.
In general and in detail his theory is
shattered to fragments by the criticisms
of all the experts who join in the discus
sion. The idea of man’s spiritual unique
ness obtains no support whatever from
the great cosmic investigations of ‘ the
new astronomy.” On the contrary, the
most recent discoveries and speculations
confirm the “ cosmological perspective
which Haeckel urges in his Riddle of the
Universe. We have no ground in
scientific evidence for assigning limits of
time or space to the material universe,
we have no ground for believing that
man is a unique outcome of natural
evolution, and that “ the supreme end
and purpose of the vast universe was
the production and development of the
living soul in the perishable body of
man”; and we have no. ground for
thinking there is so peculiar a combina
tion of circumstances in our planet as
to force us to appeal to a Supreme
Intelligence.
�LORD KELVIN INTERVENES
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Chapter
XI
MB fail: : ■ < 1
LORD KELVIN INTERVENES
Whilst this storm of astronomical
indignation was beating about the luck
less pronouncement of Dr. A. R. Wallace,
the second intervention on behalf of
religion, of which I spoke, took place.
Once more, it is important to observe,
the intervention consisted of a declara
tion by a distinguished scientist that
some science other than his own tended
to support conventional religion by its
recent investigations. Dr. Wallace, the
naturalist, purported to speak for as
tronomy ; and we have seen what the
astronomers themselves made of his
declarations. Lord Kelvin, the most
distinguished living physicist, assured
the world that biology was coming to
recognise a field of phenomena with
which it was so incompetent to deal that
it was retreating to the old notion of a
“vital principle” and the action of
“Creative Power.” We have now to
see what our biologists had to say about
this statement of their attitude.
The circumstances of Lord Kelvin’s
pronouncement will be easily recalled.
Certain of the students of the University
College, London, have formed them
selves, or been formed, into a “ Christian
Association,” and have lately set about
“ converting ” their less religious fellows
to the belief in their particular cosmic
speculations. A series of lectures was
arranged for the spring of this year, the
Botanical Theatre of the University
College was somehow secured, and a
certain show of scientific names was
scattered over the programme. The
first lecture was by the Rev. Professor
Henslow (M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S.), and
a vote of thanks was accorded to the
lecturer by Lord Kelvin for his “ examina
tion of Darwinism.” The second lecture,
on “ The Book of Genesis,” was given by
the Dean of Canterbury, and the chair
was taken by Sir Robert Anderson
(K.C.B., LL.D.). The Rev. Professor
Margoliouth gave the third lecture, on
“The Synoptic Gospels,” and was sup
ported by a distinguished physician (Sir
Dyce Duckworth) and a military man.
The other two lectures were also given
by reverend lecturers, and were supported
by Sir T. Barlow, M.D., and Mr.
Augustine Birrell. Lord Kelvin was the
lion of the display, and his few closing
words were at once published from end
to end of England. He claimed that
“modern biologists were coming once
.more to the acceptance of something,
and that was a vital principle.” He
asked : “ Was there anything so absurd
as to believe that a number of atoms by
falling together of their own accord
could make a crystal, a sprig of moss, a
microbe, a living animal?” And he
concluded that this was an appeal to
“creative power.” On the following day
he re-affirmed his opinion, with a distinc
tion, in a letter to the Times. He wrote :
“ I desire to point out that while ‘ fortui
tous concourse of atoms ’ is not an inap
propriate description of the formation of
a crystal, it is utterly absurd in respect
to the coming into existence, or the
growth, or the continuation of the
molecular combinations presented in the
bodies of living things. Here scientific
thought is compelled to accept the idea
of Creative Power. Forty years ago I
asked Liebig, walking somewhere in the
country, if he believed that the grass
and flowers which we saw around us
grew by mere mechanical forces. He
answered, ‘No, no more than I could
believe that a book of botany describing
them could grow by mere chemical
forces.’ ”
�LORD KELVIN INTERVENES
The echo of this sturdy utterance is
still reverberating through the provinces,
soothing the anxious feelings of thou
sands of believers, and being triumph
antly quoted against the unbeliever. In
London its echo was quickly drowned in
a chorus of condemnation.
Lord
Kelvin’s letter was at once followed in
the Times by letters from three of our
most eminent experts on the subject he
had ventured to touch, as well as by
letters from Mr. W. H. Mallock, Profes
sor Karl Pearson, and Sir O. Lodge.
The three experts unanimously con
demned Lord Kelvin’s statement, as did
also Mr. Mallock and Professor Pearson ;
and even Sir O. Lodge said that “ his
wording was more appropriate to a
speech than a philosophical essay,” it
had a “subjective interest,” but he
“ would not use the phrase himself.” Sir
W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, our most dis
tinguished botanist, complained that
Lord Kelvin “ wiped out by a stroke of
the pen the whole position won for us
by Darwin,” said that the reference to a
fortuitous concourse of atoms was
“ scarcely worthy of Lord Kelvin,” and
“ denied the fact ” that “ modern biolo
gists were coming to accept the vital
principle.” Sir J. Burdon-Sanderson,
the Regius Professor of Medicine at
Oxford, while resenting the strong terms
of Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer’s censure of
Lord Kelvin’s personal procedure, said
that it had been demonstrated to the
satisfaction of physiologists that “ the
natural laws which had been established
in the inorganic world govern no less
absolutely the processes of animal and
plant life, thus giving the death-blow to
the previously prevalent vitalistic doctrine
that these operations of life are domi
nated by law$ which are special to them
selves.” Professor Karl Pearson was
astonished that an institution with
accredited professors in biology “ should
open its doors to irresponsible lecturers
on ‘ directivity,’ ” and said that “ if Lord
Kelvin wishes to attack Darwinism, let
him leave the field of emotional theo
logical belief and descend into the plane
109
where straightforward biological argu
ment meets like argument.”
'
Professor E. Ray Lankester, from the
side of zoology, said : “ I do not myself
know of anyone of admitted leadership
among modern biologists who is showing
signs of ‘ coming to a belief in the exist
ence of a vital principle,’ ” and that “we
biologists, knowing the paralysing in
fluence of such hypotheses in the past,
are unwilling to have anything to do
with a ‘ vital principle,’ even though
Lord Kelvin erroneously thinks we are
coming to it,” and “ we take no stock in
these mysterious entities.” Sir O. Lodge,
drawn by an allusion to his belief in
telepathy, took occasion to disclaim and
deprecate Lord Kelvin’s use of the
phrases “ creative power ” and “ fortui
tous concourse of atoms.”
With these weighty and emphatic
pronouncements from some of the ablest
biologists in this country—without. a
single line in defence of Lord Kelvin,
either by himself or by any known ex
pert—we might dismiss Lord Kelvin’s
intervention as the most unfortunate
episode of his career, and as a pitiful
failure to give the slenderest support to
the reverend lecturers of the Christian
Association. But an appeal to authori
ties is a fallacious and unsatisfactory
settlement. We shall better vindicate
the strength of Haeckel’s position by a
brief analysis of this most recent attempt
to demolish it.
Let us see, then, first what truth there
is in the statement that “ modern biolo
gists are coming once more to a firm
acceptance of the vital principle.”
This three of our most representative
biologists, Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Pro
fessor Ray Lankester, and Sir J. BurdonSanderson, flatly deny. Clearly Lord
Kelvin was guilty of the gravest impro
priety in saying that “ modern biologists
are coming,” &c., and “scientific thought
is compelled,” &c. The implication of
these phrases is obvious, and it is totally
untrue. When Professor Ray Lankester,
one of the most distinguished biologists,
tells us he does “ not know of anyone
�IIO
LORD KELVIN INTERVENES
of admitted leadership among modern
biologists” who is accepting the vital
principle, it is clear that the statement
was gravely misleading. That there is
a certain revival of vitalistic ideas is
another matter. The clergy need not
have waited for Lord Kelvin’s assurance
to that effect. In the fourteenth chapter
of the Riddle of the Universe Professor
Haeckel long since informed us of that
revival. It would not be surprising—
ironic as the circumstance would be—to
learn that Lord Kelvin obtained the grain
of fact which underlay his assertion
from Haeckel’s book. In all countries
there have been of late years a few
scientific men of secondary rank who
have urged the acceptance of something
more or less resembling the old vital
force. Professor Lionel Beale and Dr.
Mivart are well-known advocates of
“ vitality” in this country; several French
biologists still speak of the vague idee
directrice which Pasteur imagined to
control the growth of the organism; in
America, Cope and Asa Gray advocate a
form of vitalism ; in Germany it is urged
by Nageli, Bunge, Rindfieisch, Dreisch,
and Benedikt, in Italy (more or less) by
Gallardi, in Denmark by the botanist
Reinke. The ideas of these writers
differ considerably, but they agree in
holding that some directive or “domi
nant ” principle must be superadded to
the physical and chemical forces of the
organism.
We have seen in an earlier chapter
how “modern biologists” as a class,
and “ scientific thought ” as a whole,
wholly reject the vitalistic hypothesis,
and maintain that we have no reason to
go beyond ordinary natural forces. We
have seen what Professor Le Conte,
Professor Ward, Sir A. Riicker, Sir J.
Burdon-Sanderson, Professor Dewar, and
others, say of the condition of “scientific
thought.” “For the future the word
vital, as distinctive of physiological pro
cesses, might be abandoned altogether,”
said Sir J. Burdon-Sanderson, and our
recent authorities fully concur with him.
Professor Beale is one of those scientists
who would sing a joyful Nunc Dimittis
if he saw any important sign of the
revival of vitalism. But if Lord Kelvin
consults his most recent publications
he will find only a deepening of the
pessimism which Professor Beale has
expressed on the matter for the last
twenty years. In Vitality— V, published
two years ago, he tells us the very
reverse of the assurance of Lord Kelvin.
“Probably no hypotheses or doctrines
known to philosophy or science,” he
says in his preface, “have been so
generally favoured, and more persistently
forced on the public by ‘Authority,’ and
therefore widely accepted and taught by
educated and intelligent persons, than
doctrines of physical life and its origin
in non-living matter ” (p. vii); and later
he says: “Purely mechanical views of
life are again, possibly for the last time,
becoming very popular” (p. 5). Further
on he quotes Professor Dolbear as say
ing (in his Matter, Ether, and Motion)
that “ there is little reason to doubt that
when chemists shall be able to form the
substance Protoplasm it will possess all
the properties it is now known to have,
including what is called life; and one
ought not to be surprised at its announce
ment any day”; and he refers us to the
appendix of Professor Dolbear’s book
for a long list of weighty pronounce
ments in favour of the mechanical hypo
thesis. We may, therefore, dismiss once
for all the attempt to commit “ modern
biologists,” as a class, to a belief in vital
principles and creative powers as a
serious, though unintentional, misstate
ment—one that it is painful to find over
the name of Lord Kelvin.
Haeckel was perfectly right. He
awarded a larger proportion to Neo
Vitalism than any of our own biologists
(even Dr. Beale) are prepared to do, but
he rightly claimed that the mechanical
view of life was the predominant one in
biology to-day. Sir W. T. ThiseltonDyer, writing of Huxley {Nature, June
5th, 1902), said: “Huxley was firmly
imbued with what is ordinarily called a
‘ materialistic conception’ of the universe.
�LORD KELVIN INTERVENES
I think myself that this is probably a
true view.” The representation that
Haeckel is alone, or almost alone, in his
view of life is a gross and audacious misrepresentation.
And when we come to examine on its
merits this revival of vitalism—such as
it is—we find it has no promise what
ever of gaining wide scientific recogni
tion, because it rests essentially on a
familiar fallacy. The reader who wishes
to study the grounds of it may consult
Professor Beale’s various editions of his
Vitality, or Reinke’s Welt als That, or
Dreisch’s Die organischen Regulationen,
where all the evidence of the NeoVitalists is ably mastered. Happily it is
not necessary for us to cover the whole
ground of this evidence even superfi
cially. As we saw in the case of teleology,
the principle of the argument is one,
however infinite may be its applications;
and it is the principle itself that lacks
logical validity. There are, the NeoVitalist urges, scores of features of the
life of the animal or plant that the
biologist cannot explain by chemical and
physical forces ; therefore we must have
recourse to a non-mechanical or new kind
of force—an idee directrice, a “ domi
nant,” a “ vital power,” and so forth.
What these inexplicable phenomena are
we need not consider at any length;
they are such phenomena as—the pro
cesses of segmentation and differentia
tion in the growth of the embryo, the
selection of food from the blood or sur
rounding media, the replacing of tissues
or organs that have been cut away (in the
hydra, the newt, and even higher
animals), the formation by an animal of
a protective anti-toxin, the acquisition of
protective mimicry, the power of adapta
tion in organs to changes in environ
ment, and so on.
There are, every
biologist admits, scores of phenomena
which are not as yet capable of ex
planation by mechanical forces ; and the
new vitalist urges that these point to the
presence of a specific principle in the
animal or plant. “ Up to this day,”
says Professor Beale, “ no cause, no ex
in
planation, can be found, and therefore
we attribute those vital phenomena to
Power—to Power which is special and
peculiar to life only, power which we
know cannot be derived from matter.
Is it not, therefore, perfectly reasonable
to believe that all vital power has come
direct from God?”1
The reader will at once recognise the
principle of the argument. It is that
familiar sophism which has made the the
istic doctrine “ a fugitive and vagabond”
(to borrow the words of Dr. Iverach) in
scientific territory for the last century or
more. It is the sophism that Laplace
expelled from astronomy, Lyell from
geology, Darwin from phylogeny, and
that we have found desperately clinging
to every little imperfection of our scien
tific knowledge of the universe. It is a
philosophy of “ gaps.” It is the familiar
procedure of taking advantage of the
temporary imperfectness of science. It
is an argument that has been wholly
discredited by the advance of science,
sweeping it from position after position;
it is as superficial philosophically as it
is unsound in logic and prejudicial in
science. “The action of physical and
chemical forces in living bodies can
never be understood,” said Sir A. Rucker,
“ if at every difficulty and at every check
in our investigations we desist from
further attempts in the belief that the
laws of physics and chemistry have been
interfered with by an incomprehensible
vital force.” “ The revival of the vitalistic conception in physiological work,”
said the president of the physiological
section (Prof. Halliburton, M.D., F.R.S.)
at the British Association meeting of
1902, “appears to me a retrograde step.
To explain anything we are not fully
able to understand in the light of physics
and chemistry by labelling it as vital, or
something we can never hope to under. )
1 Dr. Beale’s last conclusion is not, of course^
shared by the continental Neo-Vitalists. Even
if we were forced to admit a specific vital prin
ciple, it would not “come from God” any more
than other natural forces. But the analogy with
I Lord Kelvin’s vague phraseology is noticeable.
�112
lord kelvin intervenes
stand, is a confession of ignorance, and,
what is still more harmful, a bar to
progress. ... I am hopeful that the
scientific workers of the future will
discover that this so-called vital force
is due to certain physical or chemical
properties of living matter, which have
not yet been brought into line with the
known chemical and physical laws that
operate in the inorganic world. . . .
When a scientific man says this or that
vital phenomenon cannot be explained
by the laws of chemistry and physics, and
therefore must be regulated by laws of
some other nature, he most unjustifiably
assumes that the laws of chemistry and
physics have all been discovered.” “We
think,” says Prof. Ray Lankester, “ it is
a more hopeful method to be patient
and to seek by observation of, and ex
periment with, the phenomena of growth
and development to trace the evolution
of life and of living things without
the facile and sterile hypothesis of a
vital principle.” If we accepted it,
says Weismann, “we should at once
cut ourselves off from all possible
mechanical explanation of organic
nature.”
It is very difficult to reconcile Lord
Kelvin’s present attitude with the prin
ciple he laid down in 1871, and pre
sumably still holds. . “Science,” he said,
“is bound by the everlasting law of
honour to face fearlessly every problem
which is presented to it. If a probable
solution, consistent with the ordinary
course of nature, can be found, we must
not invoke an abnormal act of Creative
Power.” Prof. Dewar reproduced this
passage in this very application in his
presidential speech of last year; and
within a few months we find Lord Kelvin
approving the attitude of those few
biologists who depart from that principle
to-day, and, impatient at the slow growth
of our knowledge, rush to the conclusion
that science must abandon this portion
of the cosmological domain to the
theologian once more. Lord Kelvin
quotes Liebig, who was not a biologist,
and who lived in an earlier scientific
period.1 But immense progress has been
made since Liebig’s day in the mechani
cal interpretation of life.2 Lord Kelvin
also would have us think that the only
alternative to the “vital principle” is “the
fortuitous concourse of atoms.” Even
Sir O. Lodge is stirred to protest against
this descent from the level of science to
the level of Christian Evidence lecturing.
We have seen that science discovers
only the work of fixed, determinate
forces, not erratic and confused agencies.
“The whole order of nature,” says Prof.
Ray Lankester, “ including living and
lifeless matter—man, animal, and gas —
is a network of mechanism.” There is
nothing “fortuitous” whatever in the
concourse of atoms.”
We have, then, to set aside the un
fortunate and undefended utterance of
Lord Kelvin, and the claims of old3 It is not a little amusing to find that this
famous German chemist, whom Lord Kelvin
introduces as a friend to Christian Associations
in England, was regarded as an atheist by similar
bodies in Germany in his own time. When
Bishop Ketteler urged the Grand-Duke of Hesse
to take restrictive measures against materialists,
the Grand-Duke pointed out that Liebig had
recently undertaken to refute them. “ Don’t
make too much of that, your highness,” said
Ketteler; “ Liebig is a materialist himself at
the bottom of his heart.” (Buchner’s Last Words
on Materialism, p. 42.)
2 Dr. Horton assures us, about Haeckel’s
carbon-theory, that “ no leading man of science
treats it seriously, and it only has its whimsical
and uncertain place in the rationalist Press which
gulls the ignorance of the public.” One wonders
what it is not possible to say from a pulpit.
Compare the words of the expert reviewer of
Professor Ver worn’s Biogen-hypothese in Nature
(February 26, 1902): “ It seems quite clear from
the results of numerous investigators that, what
ever the nature of the sequence of chemical
events, the carbohydrates are proximately the
substances that are most intimately affected.”
Let me add here also a reference to a letter from
Sir O. Lodge to Nature (December 4, 1902)
in which he points out the possibility of germs
being preserved intact in the cold of space. It
was thereupon shown, not only that Lord Kel
vin’s old hypothesis of the origin of life assumed
a new importance, but that, as W. J. Calder
said, “if it is proved that vitality can survive
for a protracted period in such circumstances,
the conclusion that it is a molecular function
seems inevitable.” The most recent experiments
of life at very low temperatures confirm this.
�LORD KELVIN INTERVENES
11.3
those laws.” Thus life becomes “ some
thing the full significance of which lies
in another scheme of things, but which
touches and interacts with the material
universe in a certain way, building its
particles into notable configurations for
a time—oak, eagle, man—and then
evaporating whence it came.”
The objections to Sir O. Lodges
theory (which seems to be not unlike
that vaguely suggested by Pasteur.) may
be well indicated by following his own
words. He will not admit that life is a
form of energy (thus rejecting both the
old Vitalist and the Monistic theories)
because “ energy can transform itself
into other forces, remaining constant in
quantity, whereas life does not transmute
itself into any form of energy, nor does
death affect the sum of energy m any
way.” The sentence is hardly consis
tent. If death has not affected the sum
of energy it must have transmuted it, for
most certainly the energies in the dead
body differ from those of the living. To
assume that the energies are the same,
but that which differs is not. energy, looks
like a begging of the question. Indeed,
it is impossible to conceive life otherwise
than as energy. We might regard the
structure as a static force in. Sir Oliver’s
sense, but there must be a living energy
in addition. The death of the animal is
like the death of the motor-car. The
energy has been transmuted, or has re
turned into the elemental forms belong
ing to the several parts of the now irre
parable structure. Then,.as a later writer
in Nature points out, it is the place and
the ambition of science to explain the
direction or determination of working
energy as well as the origin of the energy.
Sir Oliver gives the illustration of a stone
falling over the cliff; it may make a
harmless dent in the sand, or it may be
guided to the firing of a charge of
1 At the eleventh hour I discover a lengthy
dynamite. So with the passage of a pen
reference to the Riddle of the Universe in an
over paper ; it may make a series of un-,
obscure corner (p. 65) of Dr. Beale’s Vitality ■ V.,
meaning daubs (if it rolls mechanically)
so that the announcement in the I'imes was not
or it may be guided in the signing of a
wholly in vain. But as the notice does not con
tain a line of definite and tangible refutation of
treaty of war or peace. But it is in each
any statement in the Riddle I am compelled to
one of these cases the function of scien-
fashioned Vitalists like Dr. Beale1 and
Neo-Vitalists like Reinke. Our knowledge
of vital phenomena, and of chemical
and physical forces, is as yet.very imper
fect. The vitalist hypothesis supposes
that our knowledge is complete, and that
we clearly see certain features of life to
be beyond the range of mechanical
explanation.
We see ourselves how
illogical and temporary such a position
is, and we are not surprised to find the
leading biologists standing solid with
Prof. Haeckel for a mechanical interpre
tation and mechanical origin.
Sir O. Lodge, the persuasive and able
and ever courteous leader of the
Birmingham University, offers another
version of Neo-Vitalism which it is
proper to consider. In a paper which
he read to the Synthetic Society at
London on February 20 of this year
(published in Nature, April 23) he
observes that “ if guidance or control
can be admitted into the scheme by no
means short of refuting or modifying the
laws of motion, there may be. every
expectation that the attitude of scientific
men will be perennially hostile to the
idea of guidance or control.” He there
fore proposes a theory of guidance (to
apply to the divine guidance of the
world, the human will, and the vital
principle) without interference. He dis
tinguishes between force and energy—or
static and dynamic power. A column
supporting a building, or a channel guid
ing a stream, is a force, but does not
produce energy. The action of life is to
be conceived as that, “of a groove, or
slot, or channel, or guide.” “ Guidance
and control are not forms of energy,
and their superposition upon the scheme
of physics perturbs physical, and
mechanical laws no whit, though it may
profoundly affect the consequences of
forego the pleasure of dealing with it.
Bishopsgate InstitntOo
�ii4
MR. MALLOCICS OLIVE-BRANCH
tific explanation to trace the energies
which determine the line of motion as
well as to trace their origin and proper
motion. We cannot conceive of energies
being directed except by energies. In
the case of the upbuilding of an organism
it is impossible to conceive the particles
being guided to their several places, or
the energies being impelled to put them
in their several places, by something
that is not an energy. In the parallelism
which Sir Oliver suggests we can only
see “ life ” as a superfluous partner. If
the mechanical scheme is complete, as
he seems to suggest it will be, it must
contain an explanation of the direction
of energy. To say otherwise is to declare
again the inadequacy of mechanical
theory (solely because its ever-growing
material is as yet comparatively scanty)
and to court the “perennial hostility”
of men of science.
Thus the second attempt to prove that
Haeckel’s views rest on “ the science of
yesterday,” and are contradicted by the
science of to-day, fails as ignominiously
as did that of Dr. Wallace. Our leading
biologists declare emphatically that they
and their science accept the mechanical,
if not (as Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer says)
the materialistic view of life. This inter
pretation of life must for some time to
come leave unexplained considerable
tracts of vital phenomena. Haeckel has
never pretended that he “ has explained
everything.” But so far as our know
ledge goes, we find only ordinary natural
forces at work in the living organism,
and we should be wholly unjustified in
the present condition of science in
assuming that they are incompetent to
explain the whole of life. We gain no
thing whatever philosophically by simply
sticking the label “vital” on these
mysterious phenomena, and we are
forbidden by the elementary laws of
logic and scientific procedure to bring
in such entities as “creative power”
and “vital principles” as long as
“a solution consistent with the or
dinary course of Nature ” can be
suggested.
:
• fl!
Chapter XII
MR. MALLOCK’S OLIVE-BRANCH
The last critic of Haeckel’s position
last, that is to say, in the logical order
which it seems expedient to follow—is
the distinguished essayist, Mr. W. H.
Mallock. Professor Haeckel, it will be
remembered, intended his work to be,
not only a comprehensive statement of
his views, but a summary of the issues
of the. many conflicts between religion
and science in which he had played so
conspicuous a part during the nineteenth
century. Mr. Mallock, declaring that
neither theologian nor scientist was
competent to analyse those issues quite
impartially, undertook, as a neutral
observer, to balance the controversial
ledgers of the departed century on his
own account. It may be granted that
Mr. Mallock occupies a position of some
advantage for the discharge of this
function. . He is adequately informed,
philosophic in temper, and neutral in
the sense that he clearly does not
believe in theology, yet strongly opposes
the final conclusions of the scientists.
To use an expressive colloquial phrase,
�MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
he has sat on the fence throughout the
last forty years, and shot his sharp
criticisms at the combatants on both
sides with a certain impartiality. . But
those who are acquainted with his at
tractive writings know that he has really
only riddled the theologians for their
ultimate advantage ; whilst he has at
tacked the Agnostics in the interest of
religion. However, an analysis of his
last publication, Religion as a Credible
Doctrine, will serve not only to clear up
the popular mystery about his position,
but to show us an interesting plea for
the retention of theology, even admitting
that we have fully established the theses
of the preceding chapter.
Mr. Mallock emphatically rejects the
idea of hampering scientists on their
own territory, and he fully admits that
H the whole cosmological domain ” is
their territory. ? He would have no
sympathy with efforts, like those of
Dr. Wallace and Lord Kelvin, to restrict
the ambition of the mechanical theory,
Or to try to wrest some shred of evi
dence for theism out of the teaching of
science. We shall see that he falls away
from his ideal here and there, but in his
deliberate mood he fully accepts the
conclusion that, on scientific and philo
sophic evidence, “the whole world”—
in the words of Huxley—“living and
non-living, is the result of the mutual
interaction, according to definite laws,
of the powers possessed' by the mole
cules of which the primitive nebulosity
was composed.” I have, in fact, freely
drawn upon Mr. Mallock s excellent
book for support in the vindication of
Professor Haeckel. He takes the Riddle
of the Universe as the finest summary of
the scientific hostility to religion. He
accepts Haeckel’s statement that the
three essential propositions in religion
are the belief in a personal God, the
liberty of the will, and the immortality
of the soul; and he assures Haeckel’s
critics, often in more vigorous language
than Haeckel presumes to use, that their
arguments are utterly fruitless and their
positions untenable.
After devoting
115
eight chapters to the struggle over these
doctrines, he concludes (p. 217): “The
entire intellectual scheme of religion—
the doctrines of immortality, of freedom,
and a God who is, in his relation to our
selves, separable from this [cosmic]
process—is not only a system which is
unsupported by any single scientific fact,
but is also a system for which, amongst
the facts of science, it is utterly im
possible for the intellect to find a place.
Yet Mr. Mallock has announced that he
is going to prove that these fundamental
doctrines of religion are “worthy of a
reasonable man’s acceptance.” How
will he accomplish this?
In the first place he does not intend
to evade the difficulties by an appeal to
the “ religious feelings ” or “ religious
instinct
at all events, not primarily ;
he is going to appeal to us “ as perfectly
reasonable beings.” He quite realises
that the growing habit of taking refuge
in the emotions is little more sensible
than the fabled practice of the ostrich.
He devotes three chapters to a closely
reasoned plea for the retention of the
doctrines, as to which he has so far
cordially endorsed Haeckel’s arguments.
Before entering on a careful analysis of
his reasoning I will state his.argument as
concisely as is compatible with justice to
it. These beliefs are to be retained on
the ground of their moral and spiritual
value to humanity. They are the chief
source of all higher aspiration and
effort, and are essential for the mainte
nance of our mental, moral, and social
progress. So far the argument is more
familiar than Mr. Mallock imagines.
The peculiarity of his position is that he
says they may be true, although they are
flatly and most properly contradicted by
science.
And he justifies this by
attempting to show that our accepted
doctrines, even in science, freely contra
dict each other, and that such contradic
tion is not at all an indication of falsity.
We may, and must, accept all that
Haeckel says, and then add to it all that
Dr. Horton says, without his “ worthless
and hopeless arguments.”
■!•.<
�MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
In an age of scepticism like ours such
peculiar evasions of the advancing
criticism are not infrequent.
Mr.
Balfour’s famous attempt to show the
rest of the world an escape from Ag
nosticism is still fresh in the memory,
though already too antiquated to detain
us. The later thoughts of G. J. Romanes
we will consider presently, as they are
much quoted in opposition to Haeckel.
Other singular attempts at pacification,
of a less distinguished order, are met
almost monthly. There is somehow a
conviction abroad that Agnostics are
languishing for some rehabilitation of
their old beliefs, or that humanity at
large always excluding the peace
makers themselves—cannot maintain
its advance without religious belief.
Hence arises the singular spectacle of
sceptical writers constructing elaborate
defences of the conventional beliefs,
which they do not share. The reception
of Mr. Mallock’s book hardly suggests
the belief that his olive-branch will be
respected by either group of combatants ;
but its ability and interest, and its indi
cation of a possible ground for religion
when all we have advanced has been
fully established, compel us to examine
it with respect.
Mr. Mallock begins with his proof
that all our knowledge ends in contradic
tions when we analyse it, so that we
may reconcile ourselves to Haeckel’s
disproofs. He first shows this in the
teaching of theology, where, as he
observes, the Monist will cordially agree
with him. But he goes on to say that
Haeckel’s “substance” is no less con
tradictory, yet we accept it. The ele
mentary substance (ether or prothyl)
either consists of minute separate par
ticles, or it is continuous. If ether
consists of disjointed atoms, separated
by empty spaces, all action must be an
“action at a distance,” which science
rejects as absurd and impossible. If
ether is continuous, yet the atoms of
ponderable matter arise from it by con
densation, then we are postulating
condensation and rarefaction in a sub
stance which has no particles to be
pushed closer together or thrust wider
asunder. But the elementary substance
must be either one or the other, so that
in either case we accept a contradictory
proposition. Further, when we say that
the nebula with its varied elements was
evolved out of a homogeneous ether by
a rigidly determined process, we are at
once saying the ether was simple and
homogeneous, yet was of so specific a
structure as to grow into an elaborately
varied cosmos. Again, we say time is
infinite, yet an addition is made to
it every moment; and we say space
is infinite, yet it is divisible, and each
part must be infinite (and so equal
to the whole), or else we make up infinity
from a finite number of finite quantities.
Thus our scientific doctrines hold innu
merable contradictions. Therefore, the
contradiction between religious and
scientific teaching need not deter us
from accepting both.
Now, in the first of these illustrations
Mr. Mallock has devised a fictitious
contradiction ; in the second he is fol
lowing the vulgar fashion of building an
argument on the imperfect condition of
scientific knowledge; and in the third he
is giving us some familiar metaphysical
quibbling. Dr. Haeckel inserted in his
work the theory of ether which was in
favour amongst physicists at the time he
wrote. Physics is changing yearly as to
such theories; all is as yet tentative and
provisional. But this is certain ; physi
cists will never adopt any theory of
matter that is self-contradictory. If the
pyknotic theory, or the vortex-theory, or
the strain-theory, of the atom reveals any
such contradiction, it has no chance of
acceptance. It is thus quite false to say
we here complacently accept contradic
tories. It is, moreover, clear that Mr.
Mallock’s dilemma is “lame in one
horn,” at least. It supposes that these
discrete particles are at rest. Science
on the contrary supposes them to be
eternally in motion, so that the empty
space only facilitates their impact and
mutual interaction. In the second case,
�MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
Mr. Mallock is, as I said, merely drawing
our attention to the acknowledged fact
that we have as yet nothing more than
vague conjectures about the origin of
atoms ; but we embrace no contradic
tion whatever, and no theory will be
received that contains such.
The
prothyl is conceived by scientists (apart
from philosophers) to be just as simple
and homogeneous as the scientific
evidence will allow it to be. There is
no disposition whatever to credit it
with contradictory attributes.
In the
third case, Mr. Mallock is serving up to
us metaphysical arguments, for theism
from those very theologians whose
methods he has so severely denounced.
Almost any recent Catholic apologist
gives these subtleties of word-play. The
contradiction is fictitious. When we say
that, as far as the astronomic evidence
goes, the universe is unlimited, we . do
not expose ourselves to this metaphysical
antithesis of finite and infinite. Both
as to space and time (in the concrete)
the argument makes us say far more
than we do.
Mr. Mallock thus entirely fails to
show that we accept contradictory
propositions as true. On the contrary,
in scientific procedure the emergence of
a contradiction is at once greeted as an
indication of falseness, and is forthwith
acted upon by the rejection of one of
the contradictory theses. The ground
work and most essential and novel part
of his structure of reasoning is invalid.
He proceeds, however, to show (ch. xii)
that science is not the only source, or
the only test, of our convictions. There
are as good grounds for accepting these
particular contradictions as for admitting
those of science.
It is at once apparent that we have in
fact a large number of convictions which it
is not the function of science to establish
or examine. Our comparative judgment
of conduct, of beauty, of spiritual values
generally, is not tested by standards that
the scientific reason sets up. Our belief
in “ the sanctity of human life ” does not
rest on scientific grounds; and the
117
influence of religious ideas—the truth of
which science criticises—is also a
subject for non-scientific . judgment.
We might, indeed, complain at once
that Mr. Mallock has here com
pletely lost his accustomed lucidity.
If he means by “ science ” the dis
ciplines
which
to-day bear
that
name, it is true that many of our
judgments lie outside them. But what
will lie outside the range of the
science of to-morrow it would be
difficult to say. The science of aesthe
tics and the science of ethics are
obviously creeping over much of that
territory which Mr. Mallock holds to be
extra-scientific. As a matter of fact the
very question he is leading us to—the
question of the mental and moral
influence of religious ideas—is mainly a
question for ethics and sociology to
determine by objective and scientific
standards. If Mr. Mallock means that
the ethical standard is not scientifically
determinable, he is begging an important
question. However, let us hasten to
examine the vital part of his eleventh
chapter.
He says that it “ has never occurred
to Haeckel ” to ask himself whether the
ethic of Christianity, which he accepts,
may not chance to be inseparable from
its dogmas. In face of the nineteenth
chapter of the Riddle this is a hard
saying. Haeckel cuts away most of the
ethic which is at all peculiar to
Christianity, and finds that the valuable
remainder is a purely humanitarian ethic.
We have already seen this. But Mr.
Mallock is thinking of that great
problem of his whole career—the
problem of free will or determinism—
and he holds emphatically that on
Haeckel’s principles morality is abso
lutely impossible. Suppose, he says,
that we in theory set up a world with
a general belief in the determinism of
the will. From such a world all moral
condemnation and all moral . appre
ciation must disappear ; in it vice and
virtue are indistinguishable ; men and
women are no more responsible for
�118
MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
their characteristics than the apple is
for its colour or shape. Now one of
the most effective parts of Mr. Mallock’s
book is that in which he shows that
scientific determinism is absolutely
irresistible. The contradiction he would
ask us to accept is therefore the
sharpest conceivable.
He asks us
to accept
this
contradiction—this
irrefutable proof that the will is not
free and this equally irrefutable proof
that it must be free—on account of the
moral importance of the belief in
freedom. On the same ground we are
to admit the beliefs in God and immor
tality which the scientific evidence has
wholly disproved; the effect of our
rejecting them would be “a shrinkage
in the importance, interest, and signifi
cance which we are able to attribute to
human life in general, and to the part
played in it by ourselves in particular;
and with the growth of scientific know
ledge, and the habit of completely
assimilating it, the shrinkage would
become more marked, and its moral
results more desolating.” . Hence, since
we are prepared in other cases to
swallow contradictories, we must yield
to these grave reasons and embrace the
contradictory theses of science and
religion.
The second fallacy in Mr. Mallock’s
procedure seems to be worse than the
first. Let us grant, for argument’s sake,
that these religious beliefs had all the
efficacy Mr. Mallock claims for them
whilst they were uncontradicted by
science and philosophy, were sincerely
and serenely held, and were thought to
be based on tangible cosmic evidence.
It is surely a monstrous fallacy to suppose
they will retain that power when their
position is so seriously changed; when
men are assured that, in Mr. Mallock’s
own words, “ it is utterly impossible for
the intellect to find a place for them
amongst the facts of science.” We are,
in fact, invited to regard these beliefs as
efficacious because they are really held,
and then to hold them because they are
efficacious. To say that these considera
tions—if they are correct—should dis
suade us from promulgating or defending
Haeckel’s views is an arguable, though a
mistaken, position.
But Mr. Mallock
has just concluded one of the most
vigorous and skilful attacks on the
evidence for these doctrines that has
appeared of late years. Does he imagine
that people who read that attack will be
disposed to cling to these beliefs because
it would be morally beneficial to hold
them ? that people are so simple as to
accept moral efficacy as the guarantee of
the truth of doctrines which can only be
morally efficacious when they are believed
to be true ? It reminds one of the
American critic who said that J. S. Mill
negotiated a certain difficulty by getting
under himself and carrying himself across.
Surely the simplest and the only possible
procedure is to fasten on this very im
portance of moral idealism as a humani
tarian gospel, and to show the world
that it will taste a very real hell, here on
earth, if it allows moral culture to be
swept away along with the cosmic specu
lations with which it has so long been
associated.
The difficulty about the
freedom of the will may turn out to be
largely due to our slavery to language.
That which formerly went by the name
of freedom is disproved by science. But
the fact remains—and it is a scientific, a
psychological, fact—that we are con
scious of being able to influence our
character and our actions, and so
we cannot deny our responsibility
within limits.
It is for ethics and
psychology to determine those limits
and to re-adjust our terms and con
ceptions.
I have only granted for the sake of
the argument that these doctrines have
all that moral importance which Mr.
Mallock claims for them. He says this
is clear from the attempts of Agnostic
thinkers to find a substitute for them.
Their ethical reasoning is irreproachable,
but they recognise that they must also
make “an appeal to the moral and
spiritual imagination of the individual.”
Prof. Huxley does this with a plea for
�MR. MALLOCPCS OLIVE-BRANCH
■lreverence and love for the ethical ideal,”
and Mr. Spencer urges reverence for
the Unknowable and recognition of
our unity with it. Mr. Mallock is very
scornful about both, and he may be right
that reverence of this cosmic order will
pass away with the passing of theology.
Haeckel has not appealed to such rever
ence, so that he may contemplate its
disappearance without undue concern.
He has urged us to find the practical
ground for moral culture in the future in
the recognition of its value to humanity.
No one recognises this value more clearly
than Mr. Mallock. It is the chief support
of his whole argument. The loss of the
higher aspiration would, he says, spell
ruin to a nation, and the “ belief in
human nature is as essential to civilisation
as is a good circulation to the healthy
body.” Now, if all this is true, as it is,
it seems perfectly obvious that, when
men have got over the confusion and
reaction caused by the decay of ethical
theology, they will turn to moral culture
for its own sake. It is inconceivable
how a subtle thinker, who believes men
are capable of continuing to worship
God and dream of immortality because
it is useful to do so, though contradicted
by the most solid evidence, cannot see
the possibility of setting up moral culture
on a sociological base. Confucians have
done it for ages, and with quite as great
success, to say the least, as Christianity.
The bulk of cultured people, like Mr.
Mallock, have done so for several
generations.
Theoretically, we should expect that
the transition from a divine to a humani
tarian ethic will be attended with a
certain amount of moral disorder. But
as a fact, the change is taking place
without any such disorder. The working
class, which is irreligious to the extent of
nine-tenths to-day, is no worse than it was
a century or five centuries ago; it is, in fact,
far nearer to “a belief in human nature.”
The middle-class, still largely religious,
is hardly likely to deteriorate. The
educated class—to ignore the money-line
—is almost wholly without those beliefs
119
in a personal God and personal im
mortality which Mr. Mallock thinks
essential, yet will compare very favour
ably with its class in almost any former
age. In a word, if we consult the facts
of ‘life instead of theory, we find no
ground for supposing that moral culture
—not to speak of intellectual, artistic,
and social aspiration—is bound up with
certain “cosmic speculations.” Under
neath all the transcendental imagery
with which the Churches have clothed
morality, there has always been an in
stinctive feeling that it was a very human
affair, and this feeling asserts itself as the
theological imagery passes away. There
will be changes, of course. The proud in
tolerance and arrogance of the old moral
ists, with the horrible persecutions they
inspired, have gone for ever; the ascetic
contempt of “the flesh” is going and
must wholly disappear; humility and
meekness have no sociological value;
virginity is a matter of taste, but marriage
is a more virtuous condition; the stress
on chastity (in a transcendental sense)
has led to an appalling amount of real
immorality in every age, because few
were prepared to respect it; the old
classification of virtues and vices, as so
many rigid moral boxes to put other
people’s conduct in, must go; the old
antithesis of selfishness and altruism
will be replaced by an organic conception
of man’s relation to his fellows; the
relation of the sexes will be subject only
to a purely rational ethic, grounded on
justice, not sentiment, and so there may
be at length some hope of putting an
end to hypocrisy and vice. When
writers like Mr. Wells, or Mr. G. B.
Shaw, or Mr. Karl Pearson, talk of the
disappearance of ethics, they are thinking,
of one or other of these changes. But.
ethics will only gain by such changes.
“ Many are called, but few are chosen,”
said the founder of Christianity. It was
a profound anticipation of the influence
of Christian morality throughout. the
ages. Apart from certain special periods,
apart from the relatively small areas that
could be reached. by a St. Bernard, or a;
�120
MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
St. Francis, Christian morality has been
a stupendous failure. It was too trans
cendental, too false to the natural moral
sense of the ordinary individual, to be
otherwise. The cultivation of a kindly and
humane disposition, of a sense of justice
and honour, of tolerance and broad
mindedness, of concern for health of
body and mind, of temperance and self
control, of honesty and truthfulness, is
what humanity really needs; and all this
it can and will have for its own inherent
worth.
Thus Mr. Mallock has failed to prove
that we anywhere complacently accept
contradictions in our beliefs; and that,
even if we did (to the utter confusion of
any notion of truth), there is any special
reason for retaining these theological
doctrines ; or that, if we did retain them
in the teeth of scientific teaching to the
contrary, they would be of the slightest
value. There are, however, one or two
confirmatory thoughts in his last chapter
which we may still consider. It follows,
he says, that our judgment deals with
two worlds, the cosmic and the moral,
the world of objective facts and the
world of subjective values. One is the
world of science, the other is reached by
some other faculty of mind. It would
be equally absurd to question the validity
of our judgment as to either. In fact,
there is, in the long run, a similarity in
the ground of judgment in both cases.
It is a mistake to suppose that in the
scientific world everything is “ proved.”
The fundamental belief, the conviction
that there is a material world at all, is
quite unprovable. If it is an inference
from our sensations, reason refuses to
ratify it. It is the outcome of “ an
original instinct”; and it is just such an
instinct that is at the root of our judg
ment of moral values. Science must
study the objective world; “ analytic
reason and a study of human character ”
must investigate the moral world. They
find these three beliefs essential to
progress, and their decision is as valid
as that of science in its own sphere.
The contradiction between the two need
not trouble us. The mind is limited,
and can “ grasp the existence of nothing
in its totality.” “We must learn, in
short,” is his closing sentence, “ that the
fact of our adoption of a creed which
involves an assent to contradictories is
not a sign that our creed is useless or
absurd, but that the ultimate nature of
things is for our minds inscrutable.”
. This reasoning is only a new formula
tion of the argument of his preceding
chapters, but one or two points call for
notice. In the first place, it is perfectly
true that all our convictions are not
capable of “proof,” because they cannot
all be inferences. Our knowledge must
ultimately be grounded on facts which
are directly intued. These are gathered
into general laws and principles, and
from these inferences are drawn. And
it is true that our perception of the
external world is—in its rudiments—
intuitive. It is not an inference from
our states of consciousness; it would
not be valid if it were. When meta
physics has grown tired of the current
idealism, it will probably tell us more
about this intuition. But Mr. Mallock’s
attempt to set up a number of little
oracles in the mind in the shape of
“ primitive instincts ” must be carefully
watched. Further, what he calls the
subjective or moral world is by no means
wholly subjective. It is useful for his
purpose to lead us on from sesthetic
judgments to moral. We may, fortu
nately, leave out of consideration the
difficulty of our sesthetic judgments,
because our moral judgment is purely
objective. The effects which Mr. Mal
lock anticipates from a Monistic ethic
are emphatically objective; and so are
the effects he claims for the Christian
ethic.
The determination of those
effects, and so of the relative value of
the two systems, is a study in objective
reality. “The sanctity of human life”
has nothing to do with it. The “ belief
in human nature ” is a conviction that,
of the various phases of life which
humanity has experienced—virtue and
vice, strength and enervation, social
�MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
order and anarchy, mental culture and
sensual dissipation—the former alter
natives are the most conducive to peace
and happiness, which we happen to
desire. That conviction is, therefore,
wholly based on an objective inquiry.
Hence the antithesis of the subjective
and objective worlds does not help Mr.
Mallock. And in point of fact the
sooner we apply scientific methods to
his second world, to the determination
of moral values, the better it will be for
us.
Finally, there is in Mr. Mallock’s closing
observations an important confusion of
ideas. That the mind is limited, that
we can only focus it on successive spots
in the great panorama of reality, is a
familiar truth. It is further true that
we may not be able to see the con
nection between our little areas of
knowledge, as they are often separated
by leagues of ignorance. In this passive
sense we may say we are unable to
reconcile ” them. But to admit two or
more statements that are clearly con
tradictory is quite another matter. To
do so in one single instance is to admit
the most radical and irreparable scepti
cism. Even the Catholic Church has
strongly denounced the principle that
“ a thing may be true in theology yet
false in philosophy.” If contradictories
may be true, we cannot rely on a single
affirmation of the mind. Some primi
tive instinct ” may yet find out that it is
also false. We should disci edit our
knowledge in its very source. Mr.
Mallock is likely to remain to the end a
Peri at the gate of Eden. Theology is
not more likely than science to give ear
to such a proposal.
I have said that Mr. Mallock’s theory
in some respects recalls the later
thoughts of Mr. Romanes, and as these
are much quoted in correction of
Haeckel’s procedure we may glance at
them in conclusion. In his later years
Mr. Romanes, once a thorough Monist,
jotted down some of his “ thoughts on
religion,” and they were published after
his ° death by Bishop Gore.
This
121
solitary “ conversion ” amongst the
scientific men of the last century has
naturally attracted some interest, but it
is not usually properly understood. In
the first place the works of both Mrs.
Romanes and Bishop Gore repel the
Rationalist inquirer by the offensive and
insulting insinuation that character had
anything to do with ■ the matter.
“ Blessed are the pure in heart for they
shall see God,” they both constantly
exclaim. The inference as to those
who do not see God is obvious. In the
second place, Mr. Romanes, though he
died in the communion of the Anglican
Church, seems to have reached a
theology of a very slender character.
His God is pantheistically immanent in
nature. All causation, he suggests, may
be Divine action, so that God melts into
the forces of the universe. The dis
tinction between the natural and super
natural he wholly rejects j and he thinks
the determinism of the will, established
by science, is consistent with the belief
that all causation is an act of Divine will.
And thirdly, without discussing the
illness which overcast the later years of
Mr. Romanes, these “thoughts, on
religion” contain some sorry sayings.
“ The nature of man without God is
thoroughly miserable,” he. says, pro
jecting his morbid condition on the
world at large; and “ there is a vacuum
in the soul which nothing can fill but
God.” Again, “ Unbelief is usually due
to indolence, often to prejudice, and
never a thing to be proud of.”. How
ever, let us examine his position in itself.
It may be said in a word that he
appeals to a religious instinct or intui
tion, which is independent of reason.
“If there be a God, he must be a.first
principle—-the first of all first piinciples
—-hence knowable by intuition and not
by reason.” Of the two temperaments
—the scientific or rational and the
“ spiritual ” or mystic—he says “ there is
nothing to choose between the two in
point of trustworthiness. Indeed, if
choice has to be made, the mystic
might claim higher authority for his
�122
MR. MALLOCK'S OLIVE-BRANCH
direct intuitions.” “ No one can believe
in God, or a 'fortiori in Christ, without
a severe act of will.” He shows how
often belief , is influenced by desire in
politics and is by no means an outcome
of reasoning, and adds: “ This may be
all deplorable enough in politics and in
all other beliefs secular; but who.shall
say it is not exactly as it ought to *be in
the matter of belief religious ? ” And,
speaking of “the continual sacrifices
which Christianity entails,” he says
“ the hardest of these sacrifices to an in
telligent .man is that of his own intellect.”
We will not do Romanes the injustice
of analysing in detail these sad reflec
tions of a suffering and diseased con
dition. . It is with reluctance that a
Rationalist approaches the question at
all, but it is forced on us. Just as I
write, an American correspondent sends
me a copy of the Literary Digest for
September 26.
It appears that Pro
fessor J. Orr, of the Glasgow Free
Church College, has been telling the
Americans that there is in England a
strong current from scepticism to faith.
He “claims to speak as an expert,” and
“ has in his possession a list of some
twenty-eight Secularist leaders in England
and Scotland who have become Chris
tians.” The truthfulness of this assertion
may be judged from the fact that he
only gives three names—Joseph Barker,
Thomas Cooper, and G. J. Romanes. The
former two were, I learn, men who were
associated with the Secularist activity
years ago, but were of no intellectual
standing and are hardly to be termed
“ leaders.” Romanes, he says, “ bit by bit
came under the power of the gospel, and
died a Christian in full communion with
the Church of England, avowing the
faith of Jesus, his deity and his atone
ment, and the resurrection of the dead,
and every other great article of our
faith.”1 We are thus forced to set in its
1 To finish with this miserable effusion—
quoted by the Digest from Zion's Herald—I
must add that he then goes on to speak of
Germany, where Haeckel’s Riddle “ has been
discarded for fully a quarter of a century” (the
true light the death-bed communion of
Romanes. As he says, it was by the
sacrifice of his intellect, by ignoring his
scientific temperament, by an effort of
will, that he succeeded in assenting to
what he calls “pure Agnosticism.”
In a sense, however, his idea of a
“ religious intuition ” is widely accepted
in the decaying Churches. Many dis
pense themselves on the ground of this
intuition or instinct from examining the
criticisms that are urged. We need only
make two observations on this last resort
of the theist. Firstly, this “ intuition ”
has, in the course of the last few thou
sand years, given men the most contra
dictory messages, and it is to-day sup
porting a hundred divergent beliefs
about. God and the future life. Its own
vagaries sternly condemn it as a channel
of truth. Secondly, modern psycholo
gists agree to regard instinct as an
inherited tendency or disposition.1 It
follows that if we have an “ original
instinct ” impelling us to accept religious
doctrines—I say if, because I am con
scious of no such instinct, nor is any
other person of whom I have inquired—
this is only the disposition towards them
which we have inherited, and has nothing
whatever to do with their truth or un
truth. It means, at the most, that our
fathers have accepted these beliefs for
many generations. We were aware of
that already.
first edition appeared a very few years ago).
Professor Orr says that “nearly all the great
scientific authorities that Haeckel quotes changed
their views some thirty or forty or twenty-five
years ago.” He will give “ the names of one or
two of them,” and out come the inevitable Vir
chow, Wundt, and Du Bois-Reymond. The
last-named “has reaffirmed the soul of man, re
affirmed the spiritual principle in man, and re
affirmed the supernatural element in man”—
compare what Haeckel does say of this Agnostic
writer on p. 6 of the Riddle. If these things are
not untruths, one wonders what is. One thinks
of poor Romanes’s awful statement that “ this
may be all deplorable enough in politics, but
who shall say it is not exactly as it ought to be
in religion ? ”
1 See Villa’s Contemporary Psychology, p. 292;
Sully’s Human Mind, I, 137 ; and Lloyd Mor
gan, Wundt, Ribot, and Masci.
�123
CONCLUSION
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CONCLUSION
We find, then, that the recent efforts
to evade the onward march of Monistic
science do not promise. any great
measure of success. Neither the specu
lations of Dr. Wallace, nor the assurances
of Lord Kelvin, nor the suggestions of
Mr. Mallock, provide a safe path of
retreat, if the positions of our earlier
chapters have been established.
As
long as scientists were willing to remain
silent on these cosmic speculations, it
was possible for ecclesiastical writers to
assume that they were not hostile, even
to assume that they were friendly, and so
to represent Professor Haeckel as a
Quixotic and isolated defender of an
extreme position which mature science
had deserted. It is certainly not pos
sible to do so with any regard for ac
curacy to-day. I have throughout sup
ported his positions with the most recent
utterances of scientific leaders, and the
excursions of Dr. Wallace and Lord
Kelvin have only served to show how
far science is to-day from lending sup
port to theology.
It may not be without interest, in conV eluding, to resume my work from the
point of view and in the order which one
finds in the Riddle itself. Chaps. II. to
V. are devoted to the proof that man is
descended, as regards his bodily frame,
from some earlier animal species. This
position is not now challenged by a
single anthropologist of the first or
second rank, and it is almost universally
admitted by cultivated theologians.
Chaps. VI. to X. are occupied with the
proof that the mind of man has been
developed from the mind of an animal
of an earlier species.
Dr. A. R.
Wallace is almost the only anthropolo
gist (if we may describe him as such) of
high rank who still questions that this
fact has been established, and we have
seen that theologians acquainted with
the facts began twenty years ago to
acquiesce in this truth. The majority of
the scientifically cultured apologists of
our day admit it. We have noticed the
overwhelming mass of evidence in favour
of it, and the fact that the most recent
researches of anthropologists tend to
elucidate it more and more. We have
seen that so critical a theist as Professor
J. Ward speaks of the doctrine of the
evolution of man, mind and body, being
“accepted with unanimity by biologists
of every school.”
When, however,
Haeckel goes on (Chap. . X.) to con
clude, in the purely scientific spirit, that
mind-force is therefore only an upward
and more elaborate extension of the
world-force that gradually advances from
the inorganic to the organic universe,
we find him denounced as “ crude ” and
“ unscientific.”
We have seen how
wholly logical and scientific his proce
dure is. When, further, he goes on to
say that this explanation of the origin of
the human soul leaves no room for those
claims of unique prerogatives on which
man once based his hope of immortality,
we again find the advanced company of
apologists at variance. Some think the
question is “ insoluble by philosophy ” ;
others elaborate novel speculations about
the aim of the cosmic process which we
have patiently considered.
The very
latest scientific researches, we saw, do
no tend to ascribe any peculiar signifi
cance to human life or to the planet we
inhabit.
Thus, in the first half of the book,
which deals with man, we find that all
Haeckel’s scientific assertions are sup
ported, almost without exception, by his
colleaguesin the anthropological sciences,
�124
CONCLUSION
and are admitted by most of the apolo
gists. . His conclusions from these facts,
touching the nature and the destiny of
the soul, are not denied by his colleagues
(who do not now, as a rule, trouble
themselves about the relation of their
knowledge to religious belief), but are
contested in the name of religion by the
theologians.. They appeal to philosophy,
and by philosophy we have judged
them.
The second half of the work deals with
a number of problems. Chaps. XII. to
XV. are occupied with the nature of the
cosmic substance, its unity, and its
evolution, through the inorganic world,
to the forms of living organisms. On
the nature of matter and force Haeckel
correctly gives the theories of the time
he wrote, and his system readily as
similates any modification of these which
the advance of physics may entail. The
unity he claims for inorganic nature is
undisputed, as is its evolution. When he
proceeds to unify the inorganic and the
organic worlds—to assume that life arose
by evolution, and that the life-force is not
of a specific or isolated character—he
has all the leading biologists and most
of the leading theists with him. We
have seen what befel Lord Kelvin when
he questioned this. He then (Chap. XV.)
attacks the question of the existence of
God. Here, save for a vague allusion to
a “creative power” or a “directive
principle” on the part of a few great
scientists and the fuller theology of a
small number of other Veil-known men of
science, he again advances beyond his
colleagues. Most of the scientists of our
day (including those German scientists
who are so much quoted) are Agnostics,
and do not concern themselves about
religion. Haeckel here speaks as a
philosopher. He is confronted with
certain metaphysical considerations which
purport to prove the existence of God.
We saw that for most of the cultured
apologists this merely means a principle
immanent in nature, and not distinguish
able from it.
In other words, the
ultimate question is : Is the evolution of
this Monistic universe of such a nature
that we are compelled to suppose there
was an intelligence guiding it from the
outset ? That is the problem on which
all forces are concentrating. The de
fence of gaps is falling into disrepute,
and, as a policy, is disdained by the very
men who practise it. We saw that the
forces which have evolved the world are
not erratic in their action, and so needed
no control; that science points to no
beginning of the scheme of things, and
so we need no creator; and that, on the
other hand, the cosmic process shows
many features which are inconsistent
with the existence of a supreme designer
and controller.
When Haeckel passes on to the moral
sciences, we saw that he is substantially
borne out by the latest research. Biblical
criticism and comparative mythology
have thoroughly shaken the belief in the
miraculous life of Christ; and whether
Haeckel has or has not the right version
of his paternity is not an important
matter. His judgment on the natural
growth and the limited influence of
Christianity is that of most historians.
His theory of a humanitarian ethic is in
harmony with the whole trend of ethical
discussion to-day.
We have seen, on the other hand,
how scattered and mutually conflicting
are the critics of Haeckel’s position.
We have been able, during quite twothirds. of our course, to silence the
majority of these critics with the weapons
of the minority. The majority of those
amongst them who have a wide scientific
culture are warning their smaller-minded
or less-informed colleagues to desert the
defence of gaps.
Almost the whole
library of apologetics up to within the
last ten years is useless to-day. The
apologists of yesterday mistook gaps in
scientific knowledge for gaps in the
course of natural development. A few
not very clear-minded theologians do so
still; and the old instinct is so strong,
and the fallacy appeals so strongly to the
imagination, that we have found even
the most advanced critics occasionally
�CONCLUSION
falling from grace. The tendency is,
however, to-day to allow that science
may build up a complete mechanical in
terpretation of the universe and all its
contents; the apologist is content to
hope that he may enter at the close with
his transcendental speculations on the sup
posed origin of the cosmic elements and
the alleged purpose of the cosmic process.
We have seen that already cultured and
sympathetic observers like Mr. Mallock
are telling them that this last position
will be no better than the first, and that
science allows them no foothold what
ever in the objective world.
That it is the ambition of science to
give a mechanical explanation of the
whole contents of the universe has been
made clear.
The dream of Tyndall
and Huxley is by no means abandoned.
For the inorganic universe no one
seriously doubts that this is only a ques
tion of time. And the angry resentment
by our leading biologists at Lord Kelvin’s
interference in their domain amply.shows
how little they are disposed to give up
the ideal of a mechanical interpretation
of life. So far the vast majority of the
leading scientists of the world are with
Haeckel. I do not say that they endorse
all his suggestions on points of detail.
His system, we saw, is not a rigidly
uniform structure, for all parts of which
he claims equal weight. He throws out
theories, and hypotheses, and suggestions,
in advance of the demonstrated conclu
sions. These are temporary and pro
visional.
That scientists reject or
dispute about any of these detailed
suggestions—whether it be on the evo
lution of ether, or the first formation of
protoplasm, or the fatherhood of Jesus—
does not affect his main position, or his
attitude towards religion. He frankly
says he may very well be wrong in these
details, and that he merely suggests that
the evidence so far seems to point in
this or that direction.
Whether the
advance of science proves or disproves
these suggestions does not affect the
main issue. The main issue is the unity
and evolution of nature. So far, as I
125
said, scientists in general are with him.
When he goes on to deal with conscious
ness, creation, design, and religion, it
cannot be said that they are with him.
But it is a gross deception to represent
that they are with his opponents. They
are Agnostics, as a rule. They prefer
not to concern themselves with these
subjects. They are Monists in the sense
that they accept the unity and evolution
of the cosmos, and refuse to see any
positive breach in the continuity of
nature. But they are, as Dr. Ward says,
“Agnostic Monists,” in the sense that
they are content with a negative attitude
on these later problems. The number
of great scientists who give a positive
and explicit support to personal theism
may be counted on one’s fingers.
In conclusion, I would respectfully
submit to these Agnostic men of science,
and the vast cultured following they
have in every educated country to
day, two considerations. The first is a
request that they will reflect on the spirit
and procedure of the apologists for con
ventional religion, as these are exhibited
in the attack on Dr. Haeckel, one of the
most distinguished and most honourable
of living scientists. If he cares to invade
every department of thought in search
of anti-theological arguments, and to
throw out scores of positive explanations
in the teeth of the theologians, he must,
of course, expect battle. It is just what
he desires. But he desires honourable
warfare. Truth is a frail spirit that must
be sought with patient and calm investi
gation. Its pursuit should be conducted
with dignity and especially with a scru
pulous honesty. We have seen that,
on the contrary, this campaign against
Haeckel’s views has been marked by
malignant abuse and persistent misrepre
sentation, by statements which cannot be
conceived as other than untruths, by
gross perversion of the teaching of modern
science, and by a score of devices and
stratagems that would disgrace the con
duct of a heated political campaign. It
is by these means that one-fourth of the
people are held attached to the old
�126
CONCLUSION
beliefs—people who, to a great extent,
would carry into the new humanitarian
religion a humane and proper spirit that
would enormously facilitate the transition
to a new inspiration. Is it conducive to
the interest of truth, or of science, or of
human welfare, that this corporation of
the clergy should continue in the twen
tieth century that mistaken conceit about
the truth of their cosmic views which
inspires them with such dishonourable
tactics ?
Secondly, I would ask whether it is
not too late in the history of the world
to be inventing fanciful theories for the
detention of the people in the Churches.
Three-fourths of the people are wholly
beyond the influence of the clergy, and
as these controversial devices become
known the defection is bound to increase.
It is too late to speak of the welfare of
the race depending on a religion which
the great majority have for ever aban
doned. Scepticism is in the atmosphere
of the world to-day.
The more we
educate the more we extend its influence.
If this is so the true humanitarian will
desire the change to be effected as
speedily as possible, and the moral ideal
to be swiftly disentangled from its decay
ing frame of dogma. In one respect the
world is in a pitiful plight to-day. Thou
sands of the clergy of all denominations
are only too eager to disavow the old
formulae and to devote themselves
to character-building alone. They are
prevented by the lingering concern of
the majority of church-members for
dogma. They are forced to utter un
truths (“ symbolically ”) at the very
moments when they are pleading for
truth, andhonour, and sincerity. We have
the spectacle of ecclesiastical scholars of
all denominations being forced to1
disavow the convictions which have
crept to their lips, and of Christian
journals complaining that the lack of
honesty is one of the most prominent?
features of theological literature. How
this state of things is held to be conducive
to the social good it is hard to imagine.
One of the great social needs of our
time is to sweep away the whole totter
ing structure of conventional religion and
worship. Whilst we talk of “ continuity ”
the world is deserting it altogether. The
moral tone of the clergy is lowered by
their corporate alliance with cosmic
speculations. The stream of enthusiasm
which has so long flowed through the
religions of the world is being dissipated.
Only one change will infuse new life into
the Churches and rehabilitate religion—
the swift abandonment to metaphysicians
of all these cosmic speculations. When
that revolution has been completed we
shall have given a new meaning to
religion that will change the present
contempt into concern. It will be an
affair of this world, a visibly important
element of this life. Men will turn their
eyes from the clouds to discover new
potencies in earth. That is the socio
logical basis of the work of the Rationalist
Press Association. Behind it are scores
of humanitarian constructive movements
ready to guide and inform the religious
or idealist ardour. Its work is the attack
on unthinking superstition, the war
against hypocritical professions, the
promulgation of a standard of intellec
tual honesty, the cultivation of a virile
and rational attitude on all the problems
of life.
It claims and deserves the sup
port of every man or woman who is sanely
and sincerely concerned for progress.
�INDEX
Christian World, the, 11, 12
Christianity, “triumph” of, 89, 90
Churches, advantages of the, 92 ;
decay of the, 92, 93
Clarke, Dr. W. N., 32, 39, 50, 67, 72 ;
on the origin of man, 50
Clarion, campaign of the, 11, 92
Colour, nature of, 27
Confucianism, 80
Consciousness, 54, 57, 58, 79
Constantine, conversion of, 89
Contradictions, alleged, in our know
ledge, Il6, 117, 121
Conversion of German scientists, 17 ;
Babylon, morality of ancient, 95
G. J. Romanes, 17, 121
Baer, K., 10, 17
Cook, Dr., 14
Bain, Prof., 16
Cooper, Thomas, 122
Balfour, Mr., 116
Creative action, 45, 77, 108, in, 124
Ball, Sir R., on dark stars, 103
Ballard, the Rev. F., criticisms of, 9, Croll, Dr. J., 14; on free-will, 60; on
the evolution of species, 48; on
10-14,16, 35, 36, 38, 46, 69, 79, 82,
teleology, 70, 72
85, 86, 93, 100; on determinism,
12 ; on evolution, 69 ; on physical Cunningham, Prof., on the evolution
of mind, 59
theories, 24, 25 ; on spontaneous
generation, 12, 13, 40, 41 ; on teleo
logy, 72 ; on the outlook of Chris Daily Chronicle, criticism of the, 33
Daily News, census of church-gomg,
tianity, 91
92 ; teaching Pantheism, 77
Barker, Joseph, 122
Beale, Prof. L., 14, 16, 32, 41, 43, 46, Dallinger, the Rev. Dr., 14, 23, 36,
70, 71 ; on Haeckel, 9; on the
iro; advertises in the Times, 13,
finite universe, 23, 32 ; on the origin
43, IX3
of man, 51
Beauty of the world, 75, 76
Beginning of the universe, 30-32, 76, 77 Dark nebulae, 104 ; stars, 30, 33, 103
Dawson, Sir J. W., 14, 31
Belgium, religion in, 92.
Design, 54, 58, 69-74 _
Belittling effect of Monism, 35
Determinism and morality, 117, 118
Berkeley, 21, 77
Bible, supposed uniqueness of the, Dewar, Prof., 28, 44, 50; on Dar
winism, 50 ; on idealism, 22
87, 88
Biologists and the vital principle, 199, Diplomas, Haeckel’s, 8
Dogma a dangerous base for morality,
iro
96 ; dangerous to religion, 15
Bischoff, Dr. E., 82, 83
Dolbear, Prof, (quoted), no
Blatchford, Mr., it, 13, 52
Dreisch, in
Blathwayt, Mr. R., on Haeckel, 6
Booth,Mr. C.,on religion in London, 92 Dualism, 20, 59
Brierley, the Rev. J. B., ri, 12, 63, Dubois, Dr., 49
Du Bois-Reymond, 10, 17
83, 9i
Duns Scotus on immortality, 61
Buchner, L., 10, 17, 19, 42, 49, 66
Buddhism, 80, 99
Ecclesiastical history, character of, 87,
Budge (quoted), 95
89, 9°
Burdon-Sanderson, Sir J., on Lord Egyptian Bible, the, 95
Kelvin, 109 ; on vitalism, 43, 109
Electrons, 33
Bushido, the, 99
Embryo, development of the, 58
Emerson (quoted), 99
Caird, Dr., 22
Encyclopaedia Biblica, the, 87
Campbell, the Rev. R. J., on Chris End of the universe, 32, 33
tianity, 81, 94, 96; on religious Entropy, theory of, 31, 33, 34, 77
statistics, 93
Epicureans, the, 61
Candour in the pulpit, theologians on, Eternity of the universe, 30-34
12
Ether, 24, 25, 30, 104, 116
Carbon-theory of Haeckel, 112
Ethic of Monism, the, 93-96, 117
Case, Prof., on Agnosticism and Ethical Movement, the, 98
Monism? 16 ; on consciousness, 58 ; Ethics, 98
on idealism, 22
Ethics, changes in, 119
Celsus on the fatherhood of Christ, 85 Evolution, 35-37, 41, 42, 101
Central sun, idea of a, 105
Eye, evolution of the, 74
Centre of the universe, 105
Chance, 71, 72-74
Facial expression, relation to mind, 59
Chapman, Principal, on the origin of Fiske, Mr., 14 ; admissions of, 48, 51,
life, 42
77 ; on immortality, 66 ; on teleo
Christian history, supposed uniqueness
logy 70, 73, 74
.
of, 89 ; morality, defects of, 96, 117 ; Flammarion on Dr. Wallace s views,
true conception of, 94, 96
103, 105, 106
Abiogenesis, 39-46
I
Action at a distance, 116, 117
j
Agnostic scientists, 16, 17, 20
_
|
Agnosticism, its relation to Monism,
16, 17, 20, 125
|
Ambrose, St., work of, 20
1
America, religion in, 92
Apes, the, and man, 49, 56, 101
Asceticism, 96
Atheism, 75
Atom, the, 28, 30, J3, 116
Australia, religion in, 92
Flower, Prof., 14 ; on evolution, 47
Force, unity of, 26
France, religion in, 92
Gaps, the theology of, 36, 37, 69, 124
Generelle Morphologic, the, 8
Germany, religion in, 92
Gore, Bishop, 121
Gospels, date of the, 84, 87, 88
Grimthorpe, Baron, 14, 16, 33
Haeckel, alleged dogmatism of, 11,
12, 23 ; pessimism of, 35 ; cardinal
offence of, 84; circulation of his
work, 91 ; early training of, 7 ; on
chance, 73; on Christian dogmas,
81 ; on Christian ethics, 96 ; on
the future of the Churches, 98 ; on
the person of Christ 84, 88; on
the validity of speculation, 80;
system of, 17-19
Halliburton, Prof., on vitalism, 111
Hand, connection of with the brain, 59
Harnack, 87, 88
Hebrews no genius for morality, 95
Henslow, Prof., 80
Herbert, Prof., 59
Heredity, 58, 67
Horton, Dr., criticisms of, 10, 17, 18,
40, 43, 46, 52, 62, 64, 82, 85, 86, 93,
100, 112 ; on Vogt and Buchner, 10,
17
Huxley, Prof., 16, 99
Idealism criticised, 21, 22, 120 ; and
Christianity, 21
Immaculate Conception, the, 85
Immanence of God in Nature, 78
Immortality of the sou , 61-68
Infinity of space and time, 116, 117
Infinity of the universe, 23,103-105, 116
Inquirer, criticism in the, 27
Instinct only hereditary disposition,
122
Intelligibility of the universe, 79
International Journal ofEthics, the,
98
Iverach, the Rev. Dr., criticisms of,
14, n6, 21, 29, 32, 36, 39, 45, 47, 50,
53, ?r, 72> 75> 79 > on idealism, 21
James, Prof. W., 14; on immortality,
65 ; on theism, 78
Kant, 26, 64, 71
Kelvin, Lord, 14, 44, 45 ; on vitalism,
108-114
Kennedy, the Rev. Mr., 14, 17, 75
Khammurabi, laws of, 95
Knowledge, review in, 9, 27
Language, 59
Lankester, Prof. E. Ray, 16, 43 ; on
Darwinism, 47; on Lord Kelvin,
109, in
Law, nature of, 28 ; of substance, 27,
28
Leap of the gospels, the, 83
Le Conte, Prof., 14, 50, 69 ; on evolu
tion, 36; on God and Nature, 77;
on immortality, 65 ; on life-force, 43
Leyden, congress at, 49
�128
Liberty of the will, 12
Liebig, 108, 112
Life, conditions of, 106 ; development
of, 48 ; in other worlds, 32, 106,
107 ; in space, 112 ; the nature of,
41, 42-44, 46; the origin of, 39-46
Light, criticisms of, 25, 62
Limits of the universe, alleged, 23,
103-105
Lodge, Sir O., 14, 24, 25, 28, 33, 100,
109, 112 ; on entropy, 33 ; on life
force, 113, 114 ; on the nature of
matter, 33
Loofs, Dr., criticisms of, 82-86; on
the birth of Christ, 85-87
Macalister, Dr. A., 14
Mallock, Mr. W. H., 9, 15, 20, 22, 31,
33, 4L 5.6, 73, 75 on design, 75, 76 ;
on dualist difficulties, 36; on free
will, 60 ; on Haeckel, 9, 15 ; on
science and religion, 114, 115; on
the credibility of religion, 115-121 ;
on the evolution of mind, 57 ; on
theological arguments, 15
Man, origin of, 50-60
Manchester Guardian, criticism in
the, 28
Manicheans, the, 89
Materialism, real nature of, 19
Materiarii, the, 61
Matter and force, 18, 19, 55; inde
structibility of, 28 ; nature of, 27,
28, 33, 116 ; unity of, 24-26
Maudsley, Dr., 16
Maunder, Dr., on Dr. Wallace’s
views, 103
Mechanism as the ideal of science,
48, 58, 68-70, 76, no, 125
Memory, 54
“ Merlin,” 40
Milky Way, the, 105
Mind and brain, relation of, 55, 5760, 63, 64, 67 ; evolution of, argu
ments for the, 56, 57, 101
Miracles of Unbelief, the, 11-13, 43
Mithraists, the, 89
Mivart, Dr., 32, 39, 50, 100, no
Moleschott, 19
Monera, 45
Monism, 17-20, 93
Moore, Canon A. L., 42, 45, 47, 51, 71 ;
on tbe origin of man, 50
Moral Instruction League, the, 98
Moral training for children, 97, 98
Morality of unbelievers, 93, 94, 118,
119; origin of, 97; real nature of,
94, 117, 118
Miinsterberg, Prof., 51 ; on immor
tality, 56, 64, 65
Music compared to thought, 63
Nageli, Prof., 40, no
Natural History of Creation, the, 8,
W
Natural selection, 47, 59
Nebular hypothesis, the, 28, 116
INDEX
Necessity, 71, 73
Neo-Vitalism, 42-45, 110-113
New Testament, criticism of the, 87, 88
Newcomb, Prof., 103, 104
Nicaea, Council of. 86
Species, origin of, 47-49
Spectroscope, the, 24
Spencer, Mr., 16, 76
Spiritism, 68
Spiritists, 25
Spontaneous generation, 39-46 ; in the
Middle Ages, 42
Old Testament, the, 87
Stallo, views of, 25, xoo
Organic substances produced, 45
Stars, distance of the, 23 ; distribution
Origin of Species, the, 7
of the, 104, 105 ; nature of the, 24,
Orr, Prof., on unbelievers, 122
6r ; number of tbe, 23, 104
Statistics of religion, 86, 92
Paganism and Christianity, 90; de Stettin, Congress at, 7
struction of, 90
Subconscious mind, the, 57
Paleyism, 71
Substance, the universal, 26, 116
Pandera, 84-86
Sully, Prof., 16
Pantheism of modern evolutionary Sun, motion of the, 105, 106
theists, 77, 78
Synodicon, the, 83
Pasteur, 41, 42
Pearson, Prof. Karl, 16; on Lord Tactics of religious apologists, 125
Kelvin, 109
Talmage, Dr., on evolution, 52
Phenomena and substance, 26
Teleology, 37, 38, 48, 69-74
Pithecanthropus erectus, the, 49, 50, Thiselton-Dyer, Sir W. T., on Lord
101
Kelvin, 109; on the materialistic
Planets, habitability of the, 106, 107
view of life, in
Pope, the Rev. A., criticisms of, 18, Thompson, Sir Henry, on God, 78 ;
36, 53, 70; on Monism, 18, 19
on the future of religion, 91
Profeit, the Rev. Mr., 14, 38, 39, 71, Thought as a brain function, 63
73
Turner, Prof., on Dr. Wallace’s
Prothyl, 30, 34, 116
views, 102, 105, 107
Protoplasm, .45, 46, 54, 55, no
Turner, Sir W., on Darwinism, 47 ;
Psycho-physics, 57
on the development of man, 51, 58 ;
Psychoplasm, 54
on life, 42
Pyknotic theory, the, 24, 25, 116
Tyndall, Prof., 16, 42, 50
Quiller-Couch, Mr., on Agnostics, 94
Radium, 33
Rationalist Press Association, 91, 126
Reformer, criticism of the, 25
Reinke, in
Religion, decay of, 93, 119, 126
Religious instinct or intuition, 122
Riddle of the Universe, circulation of
the, 9
Robertson, Mr. J. M., on Christ, 88
Romanes, 17 ; conversion of, 12 r, 122
Row, Mr., 14
Royce, Prof., on God and man, 78 ;
on immortality, 64
Rucker, Sir A., 25, 27 ; on idealism,
22 ; on the nature of matter, 25 ; on
vitalism, 44
Union of Ethical Societies, the, 98
Unity of the Universe, 24, 26, 27
Virchow, 17, 49
Vital force, 41, 42, 43, 109-113
Vogt, 10, 17, 19
Wallace, Dr. A. R., 14, 41, 50, 51,
101-107, 123 ; the recent articles of,
101-107
Ward, Prof. J., 16, 23, 36, 43, 47, 51,
70, 77 ; On Agnosticism and Monism,
16 ; on vital force, 43
Washington Sullivan, Dr. (quoted), 95
Wells, Mr. H. G., on the future of
religion, 77, 91
Westminster Review on Haeckel, 9,
11
Will, freedom of the, 59, 60, 118
Sadducees, the, 61
Williams, the Rev. Rhondda, criti
Schultze, 89
Scientists who support religion, 14
cisms of, 12, 18, 19, 26, 36, 37, 53-56>
69, 72, 78, 79, 93 ; on conscious
Schmiedel, Dr., on the Gospels, 87, 88
ness, 54; on the beginning of the
Sepher Toldoth Jeschua, the, 85
world, 31 ; on the decay of the
Sheffield Daily Telegraph, the, on
Churches, 15 ; on Monism, 18 ; on
Haeckel, 11
the origin of man, 51 ; rejects dualism,
Smyth, the Rev. Newman, 14, 36, 37,
47> 5L 7°, 72 >on immortality, 66, 67 ;
77
Wilson, the Rev. Archdeacon, 87
on tbe origin of life, 39
Soul of the atom or cell, 54
Winchell, Dr., 14
Woman and Christianity, 96
Sound, nature of, 27
Wundt, 17
Spain, condition of, 94
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Haeckel's critics answered
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McCabe, Joseph [1867-1955]
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Ernst Haeckel
Evolution
Monism
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Religion and science
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FROM
Christian Pulpit
Secular Platform
BY
JOHN
LLOYD
PRICE SIXPENCE
London:
THE PIONEER PRESS, 2 NEWCASTLE ST., E.C.
1903
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Pagan Mythology: or, the Wisdom of the
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Free Will
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8 1
�NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
FROM
CHRISTIAN PULPIT
TO
SECULAR PLATFORM
BY
JOHN
LLOYD
London:
The Pioneer Press, 2 Newcastle Street, E.C,
1903
�PRINTED BY THE PIONEER PRESS
AT
2 NEWCASTLE-STREET, FARRINGDON-STREET, LONDON, E.C
�( Reprinted from
the
“ Freethinker.” )
I.—INTRODUCTORY.
It is a stupendous leap from the high and lonely
prison of the preacher to the low, wide, and free ros
trum of the Atheist, and such are the risks connected
with it that no one should ever take it except in
obedience to the stern voice of duty.
Recently, it
fell to my lot to be solemnly called upon to take such
a perilous jump, and to turn such a bewildering
somersault; and I am now obliged to testify that the
event formed the most serious and unforgettable
crisis of my life.
I can honestly state that it was
my supreme crisis, and that I feel it to be my duty,
as well as privilege, to furnish the reader with a minute
description of the various circumstances which com
bined to render it absolutely inevitable. I think I would
be justified in characterising it, further, as a typical
experience, through which hosts of others, ere long, will
be necessitated to pass. Be it known, therefore, that for
upwards of twenty years I occupied the Christian pulpit,
and won a moderate amount of notoriety in it. I was
what is called “a popular preacher,” a fact which was
both pleasing and inspiring to me.
I trust I shall not
lay myself open to the charge of egotism when I affirm
that, during the last fifteen years of my professional
career, the churches in which I officiated were too small
to accommodate the eager crowds. Of course, it often
happens^ that popularity is no proof of superior excel
lence. The most notorious person in Great Britain at
�4
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
the present moment is Samuel Herbert Dougal, the
brutal murderer and clever forger. Let a man leave
the ruts in which the wheels of society have been
accustomed to run, and become eccentric in his ways,
and he will soon become an object of public curiosity.
Everybody will be anxious to catch a glimpse of him,
and, if possible, to hear him speak. In my own case, I
am afraid that the chief element whieh contributed to
my popularity was a lurking suspicion, on the part of
the people, that I was not quite sound in the faith. To
myself, however, the most painfully conscious fact was
the knowledge that the faith was not sufficiently sound
in me. I was theologically eccentric.
I must emphasise this point. It has always been my
devoutest wish to hold the Christian faith unhesitatingly,
firmly, and in its orthodox completeness ; but, unfortu
nately for my peace of mind, the wish never blossomed
into serene fulfilment. It had been carefully handed
down to me, as a sacred legacy, through a long line of
ancestors, and I had been trained to believe that to
doubt it, or to cherish it languidly and falteringly,
would have been a heinous sin against God. During
childhood and youth, and for at least one year of my
ministerial career, I did hold it with tightest grip, and
was prepared to defend it against all opponents. I
must here explain that, in the school of theology in
which I was brought up, the Christian Faith was
synonymous with Calvinism, and that the only enemies
of it, with whom I was familiar, were Socinians or
Arminians. To me, Calvinism was the only true faith,
and all who denied it were outside the pale of the
Church of God, and would be damned for ever.
I
shuddered as I thought of the awful doom that awaited
benighted Wesleyans and Unitarians in the next world.
I placed John Calvin on the same level as the apostle
Paul, and pitied all who had the audacity to differ from
these two giants. Of atheistical teachers, who rejected
even Christianity and the Bible, I at first knew nothing.
Arminians were bad-enough, in all conscience, and their
chance of entering heaven at death was infinitesimally
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
5
small; but infidels and Atheists were too-deep sunk in
moral filth even to be mentioned in respectable society.
They were black emissaries from the Bottomless Pit,
whom the Devil had succeeded in making as desperately
wicked as himself.
With my up-bringing, I would
rather have faced a thousand deaths than ventured to
peruse the diabolical writings of such reprobates as
Voltaire and Tom Paine! But soon after my ordination,
my intellectual grasp of Calvinistic theology slackened,
and ere long gave way altogether. My precious inheri
tance crumbled into white dust about my feet, and was
blown to the four winds before my very eyes; and I
discovered, to my unutterable horror, that I was doomed
to be an unbeliever. In my awful misery I went into
retirement, there to examine the very roots of the old
beliefs. Had I been wise, or wisely advised, I would
have there and then abandoned the Christian ministry,
and qualified for some other profession. But I fought
my doubts, and in some measure overcame them.
Then, unfortunately, I resumed my former work, but
necessarily without the former intellectual assurance. I
persuaded myself to believe that there were still two
sovereign truths to which I could passionately cling—
namely, the Fatherhood of God at one extreme, and, at
the other, the Brotherhood of Man.
During the
remainder of my professional career, I proclaimed these
two doctrines with considerable fervor, and as vehemently
denounced Calvinism, my first love. Intellectually, I
could not demonstrate and fully justify the Divine
Fatherhood, but emotionally it was a source of incalculable
satisfaction to me. Whenever difficult questions arose
(such as, If God be a Father, all-wise and all-good, how
is it that the world is the habitation of so much cruelty,
injustice, and suffering ? If God is infinity or the Abso
lute, how can He be a person ? and, if He is not a
person, how can He be our Father <*), I intellectually
ignored, while emotionally triumphing over them. In
calm, meditative moments, I was often inexpressibly
distressed by the puzzling problems that crowded upon
me ; but my feelings always came to my rescue, enabling
�6
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
me to sail pleasantly on the ocean of maudlin sentiment.
This was a state of things that could not possibly con
tinue. No man can be, for any length of time, intel
lectually a thorough Agnostic, and emotionally an ardent
believer.
As I now look back upon it all, it is an
insoluble mystery to me how I managed to occupy so
anomalous a position for so long a time. In part, the
explanation is, that I honestly and strenuously en
deavored to believe that the spiritual faculty in man is
infinitely superior to the intellectual. But the attempt
turned out a miserable failure. At last, the intellect
won a glorious victory over mere emotionalism, and, in
consequence, my sentimental adherence to, and enjoy
ment of, Christianity and the Bible began gradually to
diminish. Then I was necessarily obliged to abandon
my profession, and to adopt Secularism, based on
Atheism, as my only possible creed.
Another explanation is to be found in a circumstance
which, to some extent at any rate, extenuates my mis
take. You are doubtless aware that noteven a conscious
hypocrite can be serenely and uniformly happy. He
lives a double'life, and is in constant dread lest people
should perceive that he is wearing a mask, and playing
a part. But, surely, inconceivably greater is the misery
of a simple, honest man who is striving to act honorably
in a totally impossible position.
He is perpetually
running up and bruising his knuckles against a dead
wall, in entire ignorance of the fact that there is a way
of preventing so useless and disastrous a performance.
I hat is an accurate description of my experience for
many years. I had been most assiduously trained, from
earliest childhood, in the narrowest of creeds, and
dogmatically taught to look upon it as the only true
creed ; my parents had been similarly trained and
taught in their childhood; for many generations before
my birth, my ancestors had successively occupied high
and prominent positions in the ecclesiastical life of their
country ; and, as an inevitable consequence, even the
idea of renouncing for ever, not merely the old orthodox
Calvinism, but also Christianity itself, was intolerably
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
7
repugnant to me. Indeed, during the earlier years, such
an idea never once suggested itself to my imagination.
I was, rather, dominated by the depressing conviction
that the intellectual collapse of my faith was the out
come of some unknown but serious spiritual defect or
fault, or, perhaps, the penalty of some hidden but most
real sin against God. Hence, I multiplied and itensified
my devotions, and knocked persistently at heaven’s door,
passionately pleading for pardon and the restoration of
my vanished treasure. The laws of heredity and environ
ment rendered it impossible for me to contemplate a life
of Atheism except with indescribable aversion and
horror.
The object of the following articles will be to explain,
on the one hand, how I was literally forced into the
Christian ministry, and, on the other, how I was, with
equal literalness, forcibly, though gradually, driven out
of it.
�FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
II.—CHILD-LIFE IN A PURITAN HOME.
Surely no man in his senses would ever dream of
pronouncing an unqualified and extravagant eulogium
on Puritanism. That it possessed several wholly admir
able and fascinating qualities cannot be denied ; but it
is equally clear that, as a scheme and philosophy of
human life, it was deplorably one-sided and utterly mis
leading. Thinking only of its courageous insistence on,
and inflexible adherence to, Righteousness, Carlyle and
Ruskin deeply loved and loudly praised it, declaring
with mournful pride that they were the last surviving
exponents of it in England; but, thinking chiefly of its
unlovely and repellent attributes, I am tempted to
denounce it in the bitterest and most vehement terms at
my command. My blood boils and rushes furiously
through my veins, as I look back upon my childhood
and youth, and realise how sadly and completely they
were darkened and blighted by the grim, black shadow
and; cruel; tyranny^ of Puritanism. I thankfully admit,
that in my parents^ were abundantly exemplified the
brighter and nobler features of the darksome system.
My father and mother were living incarnations of honor,
honesty, truth, and righteousness, and their love for their
children knew no bounds. In my references to them, I
hope I shall not employ a single disrespectful or disloyal
word. I am convinced that their affection for me never
wavered, and_that, to secure what they believed to be
my highest good, they would have cheerfully made all
necessary sacrifices. But, while fully admitting the
integrity and.sublimityofwtheir_character, as well as the
purity and nobleness of their motives, I cannot close my
eyes to the mournful .fact, that they were the means of
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
9
Utterly spoiling my child-life, and of wofully handicap
ping my whole future. Their conception of life and
character was fundamentally mistaken. They looked
upon the world through colored spectacles, and never
saw it in its true light and beauty.
The first formative heresy instilled into my impres
sionable mind was, that life on earth is a series of disci
plinary experiences, the sole object of which is to prepare
us for the perfect life in heaven. Heaven was an in
effably happy realm, in which the inhabitants incessantly
sang psalms and hymns, to the accompaniment of golden
harps, while earth was the abode of griefs and groans,
with interludes of heart-breaking and spirit-crushing
dirges and threnodies. All amusement was said to be
of the devil, and should be forcibly suppressed. All
music had to be severely in the minor key. Laughter
deserved hottest denunciation, while, on Sunday, not
even a smile could be tolerated. Pleasure of all kinds
was ruthlessly excluded. Once I laughed out over some
humorous passage in the Bible, for which I received
such an emphatic castigation from my father, that I
have not been able to forget it to this day. At this
moment, I can still see the old man’s grandly wrathful
face, and hear his stern rebuke: “Your stupid levity
over God’s own Book, my boy, is rank blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost, for which the Great Judge may,
any minute, strike you down dead.” I trembled with
fear, and repressed my merriment, but failed to under
stand why it was wrong for a little boy to laugh at
ludicrous things. People of the world could eat and
drink and be merry, singing bright, joyous songs ; but
they were on the high road to hell, in which they would
have to weep and gnash their teeth to all eternity. And
yet, I remember that whenever I passed an inn or tavern,
and heard light-hearted, merry singing, I would stand
still, strangely thrilled and attracted : there was some
thing in me which, in spite of all my training and strong
convictions, irresistibly responded to the stirring strains.
But I was quickly brought to my senses byfcthe reflec
tion, that my enjoyment of such things was another
�IO
FROM CHRiSTIAN PULPIT
proof of the existence of original sin in my soul, and of
the fact that as yet I had not been born again.
Because of the same misconception of the nature and
meaning of human life, play, even in its mildest forms,
was regarded as being of the world worldly, in which
only the unregenerate indulged. Even little children
played marbles and span tops under severe parental
protest. Sometimes a lot of us would steal away into a
distant field, in order to have a clandestine turn at foot
ball ; but one of our number had to act as sentinel, that
no one might come upon us unawares. During my
childhood, I never saw an adult taking part in any sport
whatever. Even as recently as twenty years ago, the
Principal of a College, who was an ordained minister,
was solemnly reprimanded by his Presbytery for giving
encouragement to the sinful sporting spirit of the age, by
allowing himself to be elected President of the College
Cricket Club ; and had some of the pious brethren had
their way, he would have been deposed from the ministry.
I shall never forget the funereal tones in which children
were exhorted, at class-meetings, to abstain from all
irreverence and frivolity, and give themselves to prayer
and Bible-reading. Our parents, too, kept dinning the
same lesson in our ears: “ Remember, children,” they
used to say, “ that you are always in the presence of
holy God, and that in his sight seriousness is the most
becoming grace.”
And this brings me to the sole cause and root of the
whole matter, namely, the Puritanical conception of God,
which can only be characterised as pagan, cruel, monstrous.
The Puritan’s Deity was a heartless tyrant, who would
not permit little children to give free and full vent to the
very nature which he himself had bestowed upon them.
How persistently I was reminded that God was watching
me, and that every lie I told, and every wrong I did,
were recorded in his Books, and would be read out
against me at the Day of Judgment. To please him, it
was necessary to think about him all the time, read the
Bible with diligence, pray without ceasing, and go to
church three or four times on Sunday, and ever so
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
11
many times during the week. God’s eye was ever upon
me, so that there was no possibility of saying or doing
anything without his knowing about it.
On one occasion, I joined a number of boys in a
nutting expedition, thereby flatly disobeying my mother.
O how sweet was that stolen pleasure, while it lasted,
and how my whole being was thrilled, to its core, with
delight; but it was a short-lived bliss, for on my return
I had administered to me a never-to-be-forgotten punish
ment. Moreover, within a few hours after this motherly
chastisement, a fierce thunderstorm burst upon the com
munity, which was construed into a visible token of
heaven’s displeasure at my sinful behavior ; and after
almost every vivid flash, I was thus comforted : “ What
a mercy it did not strike you, my boy ; how good God
is thus to spare you.”
God’s tyranny cast its black and all-withering shadow
upon everything. I deliberately affirm that life was
not worth living; but, then, it was infinitely better to
live sadly and mournfully for a few years on earth, and
after death be endlessly happy in heaven, than to enjoy
a sinful life on earth, and afterwards grill and burn for
ever and forever in hell. Consequently, the better a
man became the more miserable he was. Lugubrious
ness was a sign of superior saintliness. It was openly
stated that a well-known and pre-eminent man of God,
who was a brilliant scholar, being able to speak with
fluency seven different languages, a profound theo
logian, and an authoritative interpreter of the eternal
decrees, had never been known to laugh. He was one
of the holiest men that ever lived, being so like him of
whom it is recorded that he wept bitteriy on several
occasions, but not that he laughed even once ; and chil
dren, especially, were advised to aim at a similarly
exalted type of piety.
This unrelieved lugubriousness of temper was always
in strong evidence at the public services of the church.
At such times everybody looked tremendously solemn, as
if thermal universal conflagration were about to begin,
and every two or three minutes all the best people
�i2
FROAf CHRlStlAff PUtPlT
vigorously sighed, moaned, grunted, groaned, or cried
“ Amen.” I can see them now, those elders and deacons
of enviable holiness, with their hair brushed down their
foreheads, arrayed in badly-fitted garments of home
made cloth, seated in the Big Pew immediately in front
of the Pulpit, and staring with fixed eyes upon the
preacher, who was vehemently shouting out God’s
gracious message in Christ. O what eloquent croakers
those superior men of God were, and how some of the
children wondered whether they would ever be old and
pious enough to be allowed a like high privilege!
In those days, to be a member of the Church was
identical with being saved. Every church member held
a certificate for heaven.
Hence, to be cut oft from
church membership was the most awful calamity that
could befall a person. Outside was the big world, lying
under the wrath of the Great Judge because of its sins,
and doomed to spend all eternity in the flames of hell;
and to be flung back into such a wretched world was the
greatest curse conceivable. Within my recollection, a
young woman was so thrust out for allowing a man of
the world to fall in love with, and be married to, her.
In excommunicating her, the officiating minister brutally
assured her that, were she to die before she repented and
was readmitted to membership, she would undoubtedly
be committed to the unquenchable flames of Gehenna.
Poor soul, she was frightened almost out of her wits ; and
yet her only crime consisted in marrying a thoroughly
honest, upright, and good man, who did not happen to
be within the pale of the Church.
Children’s meetings were frequently held, at which
the youngsters were drilled in Bible history and the
catechisms. • In all such gatherings, the dominant note
was that God sat on his throne, night and day, watching
the behavior of children on earth, and that, unless their
conduct was in harmony with the teaching of the Church
and their parents, he would most certainly cast them
into the outer darkness, where they would wail and
shudder in infinite torment for ever.
Such was the training of a child in a Puritan home
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
13
thirty or forty years ago, and naturally the consequences
were most disastrous. During all my childhood days I
never knew what it was to be spontaneously happy, or
genuinely and unreservedly young. I always had an
old head, filled with fears and forebodings, on my young
shoulders.
Of necessity, therefore, mv nature was
warped, and my character became wofully one-sided.
There was a whole realm of delightful and educative
experiences to which I was a total stranger, and to this
day I have suffered infinite loss in consequence. A
friend, similarly trained in childhood, told me the other
day that he never knew what it was to be young until
he was fifty years of age.
When will parents learn that childhood should be a
period of natural, spontaneous, and ebullient happiness,
and that any training that robs it of that desirable
quality, however well-intentioned, is in the highest
degree iniquitous ? At the bar of justice and common
sense Puritanism stands utterly, absolutely, and eternally
condemned.
�T4
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
III.—LOOKING TOWARDS THE PULPIT.
Nothing was more natural than that a boy, carefully
brought up in . a strictly Puritan home, should be
resolutely ambitious to enter the ministry of the
gospel.
Consider, for a moment, the theological
atmosphere in which the training would naturally be
conducted.
Many of my readers are fully aware
that the philosophy of the plan of salvation, as ex
pounded on the hearth-stone, from the pulpit, and
at most of the ordinary meetings of the church,
would be arrestingly realistic. By eating the for
bidden apple, Adam incurred the righteous wrath of
heaven, and in consequence of that one sinful act all
his descendants were involved in the same inexorable
doom. We have all inherited original sin; or, in
other words, we are all held and accounted guilty
of a sin we have never committed, or, more accurately,
of a sin we have committed in him as our divinely
appointed head. God hates the whole human race,
and has created a lake of fire and brimstone in which
to consume it for ever. Every one of us is justly
doomed to eternal shame and suffering. Such is the
immutable decree of heaven, and there is absolutely
no escape from it. Ours is a doomed world, and
there is not a single ray of hope for it. In this
stern, dark dogma I was most scrupulously indoctri
nated. But, fortunately, there are three persons in
the blessed Trinity, and we were assured that one
of them has always had a tender, compassionate
heart. Although the Father is, and always was, in
himself utterly implacable, and violently determined to
inflict an all-crushing punishment upon the objects of
his well-deserved indignation, the Son cherished feelings
�To SECULAR PLATFORM
i5
of yearning pity and forgiving sympathy towards them,
and passionately besought the P atherly heart to graci
ously spare them. The Supreme Ruler of the Universe,
however, showed himself relentlessly unpropitious, and
emphatically disinclined either to withdraw or to modify
the high claims of his justice. Said the Son: . “ My
heart bleeds with compassion for the condemned sinners
of the earth, and I am prepared to do all within my
power to deliver them from thy fierce wrath. Wilt thou
not punish me, and acquit them ? Wilt thou not empty
the vials of thine anger into my soul, and bestow upon
them thy free and full forgiveness ?” In response to so
moving an appeal, the Father entered into a solemn
covenant with his Son, known in theology as the
Covenant of Grace, according to which the Son was to be
accepted as a substitute for a chosen number of man
kind, and to endure, in his own innocent person, the
awful punishment due to them on account of their sins.
Hence, in order to secure the complete deliverance of
the Elect, the second person in the blessed Trinity came
down to earth, was born as a man, lived, toiled,
suffered, died on the Cross, rose from the dead, and
returned to heaven as the perfect Redeemer of his
people.
I know how utterly absurd all this will appear to all
who were not brought up to believe it, and even to me
now its most prominent feature is its absolute un
believability.
But the most extraordinary and in
credible teaching of theology is yet to be described.
We were told that the three persons in the glorious
Trinity had each his own peculiar share in the grand
work of redemption. The work of the Son consisted
in offering himself up as an infinite atonement for the
sins of the Elect, which he did on the Cross of Calvary,
and the Father’s work was, partly, to accept the offered
atonement as all-sufficient, and, partly, to arrange for
the actual administration of the Covenant of Grace.
Now, this administration of the Covenant was entrusted
to the Holy Ghost, the third member of the Trinity, as
his special share of the sublime work. He was there-
�l6
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
fore commissioned to descend into the world in order to
discharge his administrative duties.
But as the Holy Ghost did not become incarnate, he
was obliged to work through mediums and agents. As
a pure ghost he had to enter into chosen vessels, and fill
them to overflowing, before anything could be accom
plished. The chosen vessels were the apostles and their
duly ordained successors, who are usually known now
as clergymen, ministers of the gospel, or men in Holy
Orders, whom I was instructed to regard as the repre
sentatives of the Holy Ghost, commissioned by him to
explain the Covenant of Grace to their fellow-beings,
and to urge all to believe the gospel. Of course, the
non-elect had no chance whatever of being saved ; but,
as no one knew who the elect were, it was necessary
to preach the gospel to all without distinction. In every
congregation some of heaven’s chosen ones would surely
be found, and on hearing the word of life they would
savingly receive it, and be snatched as brands from the
•burning. Thus the extending of the offer of salvation
to all alike was only a trick to get at the elect, and
gather them into the gospel net.
Such was the creed on which I was nourished in my
childhood, and having inherited from my ancestors an
ardent temperament, and being from a child abnormally
sensitive and sympathetic, I was naturally most power
fully affected by it. My heart melted into tears of pity
for the miserable sinners round about me. I burned
with the desire to make known to them what God, for
Christ’s sake, had agreed to do for them. Of course,
there was the possibility that I did not happen to be one
of the elect myself, although I had fervently swallowed
the whole creed, and accepted Christ as my Redeemer.
Indeed, nobody could be absolutely sure of his election.
Even the brightest and most confident faith had a back
ground of fear and trembling. But I passionately
yearned to tell all within my reach that Christ had
offered himself up as an all-meritorious sacrifice for the
sins of his sheep, whom God, for his sake, was prepared
to forgive, justify, and sanctify, that at death they might
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17
ascend and occupy splendid mansions in the sky. And
thus I resolved to become a minister.
My father was the senior deacon of the church, and
the most prominent member of society in the community,
in consequence of which fact I enjoyed several high
privileges that did not fall to the lot of ordinary children.
For example, most of the itinerant preachers who
visited our little Bethel were my father’s guests during
their stay. Ah, how well I remember those holy men of
God. What an infinite honor it was to entertain them,
and with what deep, rich joy my parents waited on them,
and offered them the choicest fare that love could
procure! With what tremulous reverence I used to
regard them, and with what grateful avidity I treasured
up all their precious sayings ! They were not made of
common clay. They were the mouthpieces of Jehovah,
and their sermons came down to them as sacred gifts
from heaven. As I thought of them my soul was on
fire with envy, and O how fervently I prayed God to
appoint me to the same exalted vocation. Sometimes
one of these semi-divine beings would condescend to
speak to me, and at once my whole being quivered with
proud delight. “ What would you like to be when you
grow up, my boy ?” he would ask, and tremblingly I
would answer, “ A preacher, sir.” “ That is a good boy,”
he would add, gently stroking my hair; “ I hope God
has called you, for without his special call no one has a
right to enter the pulpit.” I felt the truth of his words,
and gave myself more than ever to prayer, assuring the
Supreme Being that if he permitted me to become a
preacher, I would do my best to be an honor to him.
At times, I almost fancied I could hear his welcome
voice distinctly calling me to the sacred profession.
But when, at fifteen, failing to restrain myself any
longer, I appealed to the church for permission to
exercise my preaching gifts, my request was firmly
refused, the church being evidently sceptical as to my
possessing such gifts to exercise. Still, the fire burned
in my bones, and preach I must, at whatever cost,
used to go up to the mountain top, and deliver eloquent
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FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT*
and all-convincing discourses to a congregation of sheep,
lambs, and lapwings. The sheep were somewhat dense,
and responded but slowly to my passionate appeals, but
the lapwings rewarded me with inspiring applause. I
little thought, at the time, that the lovely birds were only
trying to decoy me away from the vicinity of their muchcherished.’ nests.
Eventually, however, the church
accepted me as an accredited candidate for the sacred
profession, and started me on the preparatory course. I
was then the proudest and happiest young man in all the
land. For weeks I walked on air and partook of angels’
food. To keep down my pride a messenger of Satan
occasionally came to buffet me with this hateful insinu
ation : “ What if thou art not one of God’s elect, after
all ? What if thou art thyself, by heaven’s decree, a
miserable castaway ?” But to prevent my sinking into
utter despair, a messenger of God would breathe into
me the consolation that arose from the fact that the
church had chosen me, and that it was through the
church God was accustomed to reveal his will.
O blind, misguided, and superstition-ridden fool that I
was, and knew it not.
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*9
IV.—AT THE DIVINITY HALL.
Soon after my enrolment as a ministerial candidate
I entered the University, at which I was privileged to
spend four laborious years. At the conclusion of this
purely academic course, I was admitted to the Divinity
Hall, wherein three interesting and revealing years were
passed. A Divinity Hall, or Theological Seminary, is
one of the most wonderful and unique institutions on
earth. The curriculum includes the Hebrew Language,
Biblical Exegesis, Homiletics, Ecclesiastical History,
and Systematic Theology. In my youthful estimation,
the Professors were demi-gods. How delightfully omni
scient and authoritative they were ! They knew every
thing, could answer every question, solve every problem,
penetrate every mystery, and annihilate every difficulty.
They talked about God with as much familiarity as if
they had stood behind his back and peeped over his
shoulders while he was framing his Eternal Decrees.
They could supply us with all sorts of exact information
about Election, the Incarnation, and the Unseen World.
They were all more or less rigid Calvinists, and each
lecture they delivered stated a doctrine, presented irre
futable proofs of its truth, and triumphantly demolished
all objections to it. All who held different views from
those expressed by them were denounced as dangerous
heresiarchs. Indeed, our Professors were to be regarded,
not as vendors of mere views or opinions, but as divinelyappointed proclaimers of sovereign truths revealed in the
Bible.
Arminians were hopelessly, if not judicially,,
blind, because they deliberately refused to use their
spiritual eyes. All “ isms,” other than Augustinism or
Calvinism, were of the Devil, and destined to pass
away. Charles Hodge, of Princeton, America, one of
the most illustrious champions of the Old School Calvin
ism, was said to have refused to shake hands with
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FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
William Ellery Channing, the renowned Unitarian,
because he verily believed that Unitarianism had not a
single Scriptural leg on which to stand, and that Uni
tarians could not be recognised as genuine members of
the household of God.
At our Hall, a cold and narrow literalism reigned
with sublime dignity. The fable of the Fall in Genesis,
with its Adam and Eve, garden, apple, and serpent, was
treated as a unique historical fact. The doctrine of the
Trinity was explained in the most painfully mechanical
style. The Professor of Dogmatic Theology assured us,
with calm confidence, that it w7as the simplest, as -well as
the most important, doctrine contained in the Word of
God. He told us what distinctions and resemblances
there were between the three persons, in what exact
relations they stood to one another, and what distinctive
work each of them did. The fact of the incarnation of
God in Christ, according to him, involved the Immacu
late and Miraculous Conception. He explained to us
that it was just as easy for Omnipotence to create the
body and soul of Christ in Mary’s womb as it had been
to form the first man out of the dust of the ground, and
the first woman out of a male rib. Christ was Humiliated
Deity—Deity punishing himself for the sins of man.
The Incarnation was, therefore, the Supreme Miracle.
I smile as I think of it all now; but then I solemnly
believed it. To-day I regard it as a puerile superstition;
but then it impressed me as a truth revealed to us by the
Holy Spirit. All other dogmas were dealt with in pre
cisely the same way ; but space does not allow me to
give any further examples.
Occasionally the Professors were targets at which
thoughtful and sceptically-inclined young men fired
awkward and staggering questions; but not one of the
shots ever proved fatal. The theological skin was so
thick and hard that nothing could have penetrated it.
Here are a few samples of the type of question asked,
and answer given :—
Student : Professor, what real sin was there in
Adam’s act of eating the forbidden fruit ?
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Professor : No sin at all, except in the sense that it
was a violation of a Divine commandment. The com
mandment was a positive, not a moral, one ; and surely
the Supreme Being has a perfect right to impose what
commandments he pleases on the creatures of his hand.
Student : AVas it right of God to elect some to
eternal life, and leave all others to their doom ?
Professor: Yes, certainly; because the exercise of
mercy is purely optional with the Deity. It was an act
of stupendous condescension, on his part, to choose a
certain number to be saved through the atoning death of
his only begotten Son. Justice demanded that the whole
human family should be consigned to endless torment in
hell-fire. The damned arc only inheriting what they
richly deserve, and cannot fairly blame the Judge. But
salvation is of grace alone.
Student : Is it right to punish a person for ever after
death for a limited number of sins committed during a
limited number of years on earth ?
Professor : Yes ; because every sin, however small it
may appear, is yet infinite, and deserves infinite and end
less punishment.
Student : How do we know that Christ rose from
the grave on the third day, and ultimately ascended to
heaven ?
Professor : Simply because the Bible says so. What
ever the Bible says is of necessity true, because it is the
utterance of God himself. One miracle demands another.
You must always bear in mind that the miraculous birth
necessitated the miraculous uprise from the tomb.
I cannot tell whether the young men who asked such
questions were satisfied with the dogmatic answers given
or not; but I can give my word of honor that I was more
than satisfied. To me the appeal to Holy Writ was
absolutely conclusive, and to question it would have
been a sign of incorrigible depravity.
Of course,
etiquette did not permit students to argue with their
Professors, who were more infallible than the Pope of
Rome. My conviction was that the Bible was the final
court of appeal, the verdict of whic^i should settle alj
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FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
disputes.
Some people stumbled at miracles, for
example, and irreverently asked: “ In the name of
common sense, how can you believe that the whale
swallowed Jonah, and flung him out again unharmed ?”
Vehemently I answered: “Common sense has nothing
whatever to do with the matter. Had the Bible affirmed
that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would have believed
it quite as readily.” To me, then, the Bible was the
Word of the living God, and could not err. The
doctrines of the Christian Religion, as interpreted by
our Professors, was clearly revealed in the Scriptures,
and he was doubly blind and an unmitigated fool who
was impertinent enough, either to doubt them, or to
accept the Arminian interpretation of them.
That was the way in which I was trained and equipped
for my profession. My ancestors, my child-life at home,
the church in which I was brought up, and the Pro
fessors at the Seminary, all contributed to the develop
ment within me of an astonishingly firm adhesion to
what was called genuine orthodoxy. I left the hall a
gigantic believer. The supernatural was far more real
to me than the natural. Everything between the two
covers of the Old Book was God’s revealed truth. If
people told me that miracles were violations of natural
laws, I frankly admitted it, well knowing that in order
to facilitate the fulfilment of the noble purposes of
heaven, a higher law had a perfect right to make in
roads upon and subjugate a lower. If some weak-minded
friends experienced great difficulty, in believing in a
special Divine Revelation, I could astonish them with
the bold assertion that my only difficulty would have
been not to believe in it. My appetite for believing
knew no bounds, and was never entirely satisfied. And
this infinite appetite and capacity for blindly believing
constituted my stock-in-trade when I stood on the
threshold of the active ministry. Ah me, the pity and
the misery of it all! It lies on my memory like a horrid
nightmare.
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V.—THE FIRST YEAR OF PROFESSIONAL
LIFE.
The day of my ordination to the ministry of the glorious
Gospel of the blessed God was the greatest, grandest,
and gladdest in my whole history. At last, the harvest
of my ambition was fully ripe, and about to be gathered
into the barn of enjoyment. My wildest dreams and
brightest hopes were on the eve of veritable fulfilment.
Unanimously invited to the pastorate of a large city
church, possessing the entire confidence of a congrega
tion that had had experience of me as a preacher for
several months prior to the tendering of the invitation,
and having just listened to extravagant encomiums pro
nounced upon me by famous ministers who took part in
the ordination service, I was elated with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. I scarcely knew whether I was in
heaven or on earth. I felt as if I were automatically
floating on an ocean of holy peace. As I looked back
upon the past, I was confident that exceptionally high
and fruitful privileges had been lavishly showered upon
me in childhood and youth. While comparing notes
wTith my chums at the Divinity Hall I discovered that,
even at sixteen years of age, not one of them knew the
meaning of the word “ theology,” while I was a distin
guished champion of the faith at ten. I had drunk
theology with my mother’s milk, and had been, during
all my teens, systematically drilled in the art of contro
versy. Had I no excuse for cherishing a little pride and
self-complacency ? And as I looked forward to the
future, bright stars of hope shone upon and illuminated
the far-stretching pathway.
There never had been such a preacher as I was fully
determined to become. The Celtic fire, sanctified by
the grace of God, blazed away in all my veins. I was
deeply sensible of the reason why the majority of
churches were empty, and entertained no doubt that
�24
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
mine would soon be full. My sermons would aim at
converting two predominant classes of people, namely,
the open, reckless sinners who were rushing on to hell
at express speed, and those characterised by St. Paul as
natural or psychical men, who neither cared for nor
believed in the higher and nobler realities. In the faces
of shameless sinners I would vigorously shake hell,
painted in the most lurid colors, and I would drive the
natural man out of every stronghold in his possession,
and force him to surrender, openly confessing that his
case was utterly hopeless. Certainly, my part of the
city would be completely transformed within a few
months. I would frighten sinners and argue naturalists
right into the kingdom of God. Such was my program.
I little dreamed that the Fates were all the time laughing
in their sleeves at my ineffable stupidity.
For a time I did, undoubtedly, occasion not a little
sensation in my own immediate neighborhood. My out
spoken denunciation of everything I believed to be sin
soon attracted attention. Crowds flocked to hear me
preach. I had invincible energy and boundless enthu
siasm ; and I spared nobody. A text from which I
frequently discoursed was this : “ Ye serpents, ye offspring
of vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell ?” The
sufferings of the damned were never more vividly and
realistically portrayed than in those crude addresses of
my early ministry. I could not have depicted them
better had I actually seen and experienced them for a
thousand years. I remember once taking a Sunday
afternoon service at a neighboring church, and speaking
on this my then favorite theme. At the close the
minister intervened, and said: “I thank God for this
afternoon’s message. It is so refreshing and reassuring
to hear God’s own truths so boldly and uncompromisingly
proclaimed. Alas, not all ministers in this city (with an
obvious reference to a popular preacher who did not
believe in endless punishment) preach the Gospel on this
awful subject. But woe be to us if we withhold this
revealed truth from our people.” In the extra-orthodox
churches I was immensely popular, People admired my
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courage in putting so much fire and brimstone into my
sermons. Not one of my discourses was a sugar-coated
pill. But I was not nearly so successful with St. Paul’s
natural man. I soon perceived that he had a mind of
his own, and was astonishingly difficult to move. I
brought out my heavy artillery, and vigorously bom
barded the castle of his naturalism, but failed to make
the least impression upon it. I had fondly hoped that
he would have quickly surrendered, readily acknow
ledging the superior cogency of my arguments; but
instead of that coveted result, I found my own armor
sadly riddled with his shot, while he remained untouched
in his strongly fortified position. My signal failure with
him gave me a painful sense of disappointment, but I
comforted myself with the soothing reflection that, had
it not been for his intellectual stupidity and spiritual
obstinacy, I would have gained a magnificent victory
over him.
On the whole, however, my first year of professional
life was fairly satisfactory. My faith in the Divine
Verities continued unfaltering and undimmed for many
months. My acceptance of the Bible was complete,
without even a shadow of reservation; and I was
joyously loyal to all the doctrinal standards. I was a
firm believer in the efficacy of prayer ; and, when the
late Professor Tyndall issued his famous Prayer-Test, I
was horrified at the blasphemous audacity of his pro
posal. I pitied the poor scientist as an unregenerate
natural man.
Bye-and-bye, however, dark, ominous
clouds began to gather in my hitherto clear ecclesiastical
sky.
In the middle of each week a well-attended
Prayer-meeting was held in a large hall adjoining the
church. It was my custom to deliver a short address
on some religious topic, and then to call upon several
people to engage in prayer. Among those who usually
responded were two of the office-bearers. They were
both exceedingly fluent, and people always liked to hear
them.
They were well-read, intelligent, and devout
men ; but, unfortunately, it was softly whispered that
their unctuous rectitude was only a thin coat of veneer,
�26
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
covering and hiding a character that was radically
putrid. The one was said to be living continually in
grossest immorality, and the other to be the biggest
scoundrel out of prison. By degrees, the half-smothered
whisper grew into a loud rumor, behind which it was
evident there was too much truth. It was an insoluble
mystery to me how these men could offer up such fervent,
heart-stirring prayers, while pursuing such iniquitous
and God-defying practices. Thus two of my right-hand
men were consummate hypocrites. Was it possible that
they really believed in a holy, truthful, and loving God,
or were they simply playing at religion ?
I was
staggered and bewildered, and knew not what to think.
In course of time, I came to the mournful conviction
that, in the world, Christians were generally looked upon
with suspicion, that in business circles they were not
always trusted, and that many of them were openly
denounced as cunning and heartless swindlers. I found
out that because of their commercial crookedness and
social insincerity the members of a particular sect were
universally loathed, and the more I mingled with men
the more deeply convinced I became that such aspersions
were only too well founded. People who professed to be
better were really worse than their neighbors, and shielded
themselves under the cloak of religion. To-day I am
bound sorrowfully to admit that the tendency of adhesion
to the popular type of religion is to make people hypo
critical and immoral. Their professed peace with God,
the fact of their regeneration, their dream of eternal
blessedness in heaven, and their comforting conviction
that they shall never see hell except at a safe distance,
are dependent, not in any sense or degree on their char
acter, but on their faith in Christ, for whose sake and in
whose merits alone they are accepted in the Divine
sight. Their faith is reckoned or imputed to them for
righteousness, and their religious exercises—their praying,
hymn-singing, church-going, Bible-reading, alms-giving
—are substituted for upright living. Christ fulfilled the
moral law in their stead, and the moment they believed
in him they were released from all moral obligation. I
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27
remember a dear, deluded old saint saying, with
grateful tears in her eyes: “I deserve to go to hell,
and therein to burn for ever; but, blessed be his
name, my beloved Redeemer deserves that I should
go to heaven and sing his praises without end, and
I am sure God cannot say Nay to his only begotten
Son.” If there were a God of truth and love, such a
belief would be rank blasphemy; and in any case, he
who lives up to such a faith is guilty of high treason
against his own nature. I have no hesitation whatever,
therefore, in laying to the charge of all so-called Evan
gelical Churches the stupendous crime of being direct
and fruitful sources and encouragers of commercial dis
honesty, social hypocrisy, and moral stupor. In illustra
tion of the truth of this charge, John Ruskin tells us,
with burning indignation, of a wicked merchant in the
City of London who was a prominent and active member
in a suburban church. In the City he was a man that
required special watching, and one day he was guilty of
a specially tricky and fraudulent transaction. On the
following Sunday, one who knew of this dishonest
bargain, happened to attend that suburban church, and
therein saw the self-same merchant engaged in a most
solemn act of worship. At the close of the service, he
went up to him, and, with a significant look in his eye
and withering scorn in his voice, said : “You here ?”
The great man felt most uncomfortable, but after a
moment’s pause, answered: “ Here, you know, we all
assume the attitude of the poor publican, in the parable,
who smote upon his breast and tremblingly praye’d,
‘ Crod be merciful to me a sinner.' "
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FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
VI.—THE INTELLECT IN REVOLT.
Why was I such an ardent and militant believer in the
Calvinistic Version of the Christian Religion ? Was it
because it commended itself to my reason as essentially
and eternally true ? Was it because I could prove its
divinity by a long and elaborate train of irrefragable
reasoning ? Or was it simply because I had been
diligently taught from the cradle to believe and cherish
it ? The fact is, that I was a Christian solely because I
accepted the Bible as the inspired and infallible Word
of God, and that I accepted the Bible as the only
authoritative revelation from above, because, primarily,
my parents, and all the other people I knew, so regarded,
and trained me so to regard, it, and, secondarily, because
such was the doctrine of the Church into which I had
been born. Had I beeen born and bred in a Moham
medan country, I would have been a Mohammedan on
precisely the same ground. My belief in the Bible and
Christianity came down to me as an inheritance from
my ancestors: it ran in the blood, and I was not con
sulted as to whether I would take it or not. It was a
purely mechanical, traditional, and superstitious belief,
endowed with no inherent vitality with which to fight
fop its own existence. But such is the force of the law
of heredity, and of the influence of early training, that
this dead faith remained with me to the close of the first
year of my clerical career. When anybody asked me
why I believed such-and-such a dogma, the only answer
I could make was, “ Because I find it in the Bible.”
When pressed further for the ground of my faith in the
Bible, I could only cite the teaching of the great doctors
of the Church. For the faith that was in me this was a
flimsy, fragile, and worthless reason ; but it was the only
one I had to offer.
Just at that time a most remarkable theological book
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fell into my hands, entitled The. Limits of Religious
Thought, by the late Dean Mransel. That well-known
dignitary of the Anglican Church was an exceptionally
keen and subtle metaphysician of the school of Kant
and Sir William Hamilton.
One of the distinctive
tenets of this school crystalised into the apt phrase,
Relativity of Human Knowledge, which figured so
largely in the Lectures of Sir William Hamilton. This
is the tenet that underlies Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Syn
thetic Philosophy, and of which he makes such splendid
applications in his First Principles. M'ansel adopted this
doctrine in its entirety, and applied it to theology. His
main contention is that we cannot know the Infinite
and Eternal, all knowledge being confined to visible,
tangible, and finite objects. Hence, to our purely in
tellectual faculties, the Christian Creed is at once un
believable and unthinkable.
God is of necessity
unknown and unknowable, uncomprehended and incom
prehensible. Wre believe in him alone on the testimony
of Scripture. Our reason, acting within its own legiti
mate limits, pronounces all our theological dogmas
absurd and self-contradictory. As Christians, we are
not thinkers or reasoners, but blind believers. It was
under the influence of this monstrous teaching that
Tennyson sang, in his In Memoriam,
We have but faith : we cannot know ;
For knowledge is of things we see.
The Limits of Religious Thought is now a dead book ;
but it was marked by much logical -ingenuity and intel
lectual force, and a careful perusal of it compelled me
to pause and think. I had been instructed to regard
Calvinism as in the highest degree reasonable, although
in its nature and origin immeasurably above reason.
Times without number, as I imagined, I had success
fully championed it along purely intellectual lines. But
now I perceived, for the first time, that I had been
laboring under a fatal delusion. In reality my reason
had never had the opportunity of critically examining
the Christian Faith, and of ascertaining whether it was
in itself believable or not. I had begun life firmly
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Fkofvi CKRiSTiAN PULPIT
believing it, and I had taken for granted that hiy reason
gave it full support. But Dean Mansei’s book opened
my mind’s eyes, and for the first time in my life I began
to think for myself. But no sooner did I begin to think
for myself, than the foundations of my faith commenced
to tremble and crumble beneath my feet, and I realised
how completely I had been the slave of superstition and
traditionalism. The house of my faith tumbled into
awful rum, and I was flung headlong into an unfathom
able pit of pain and misery. I walked about in the
dark dungeon as one demented, weepingly bemoaning
my infinite loss. The discovery that the so-called truths
of the Bible were, not only above, but also in utter con
travention of reason brought with it a most disagreeable
sense of deprivation and impoverishment.
To be
actually. without God and without hope in the world was
a calamity too dreadful to contemplate. So deep and
poignant was my grief that I sank into utter despair.
I grew so tired of my life that I was strongly tempted
to put a violent end to it. At last a voice cried out of
the central deeps of my being, “ Thou coward ! ” and
thereupon I determined to fight my battle through to the
bitter end. But the end was not reached for several
years. Fierce in the extreme was the soul-wrestling
with Giant Doubt. What sunless days and starless
nights I wept my way through ! How incessantly and
confidently 1 prayed lor guidance to a deaf, unheeding
Deity! In my eagerness I consulted innumerable
standard books on the Evidences, wended my weary
way through ponderous Bodies of Divinity, and gave
whole nights as well as days to a prayerful study of the
Bible, yearning unspeakably all the while for the return
of my faith.
In this crisis books of science were conscientiously
eschewed as positively dangerous, because in the circles
in which I turned science was violently denounced as
irreligious and atheistical. Although I had lost my
faith in God, and Christ, and the spiritual world, I still
regarded Darwin and Tyndall as enemies of mankind.
I had not read a line of their works ; but it was my
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strong conviction that Evolution was a hellish theory.
When Dr. Charles Hodge, the renowned orthodox
divine, published his little volume against it, I was
transported with delight, and contributed an impassioned
eulogy of the production to a religious magazine. It
never occurred to me to suggest that the learned divine
did not understand what the word “ Darwinism ” meant,
and was not competent to pronounce judgment against
it with such dogmatic assurance. But while thus rashly
taking sides with the theologian against the naturalist, I
was myself in an entirely atheistical frame of mind. I
was afraid of science, because I knew it could not help
me back to faith. Nor could I take any of my friends
into my confidence, for they were all such orthodox
believers that they had no patience with doubt and
doubters. Thus, in a loneliness that lacerated the very
soul, I had to wage ceaseless war, singlehanded, against
my cruel foe. How much I suffered neither tongue nor
pen can ever tell.
But the long night came to an end, the welcome light
began to dawn upon my desolate heart, and slowly two
great truths, like twin suns, appeared on the horizon,
and offered me their kindly service. As I have already
stated, these truths were the Fatherhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Man, and to them I tendered the full
homage of my being. Of course, my acceptance of the
Divine Fatherhood necessitated the reconstruction of
Christ. The deposition of the Despot and the enthrone
ment of the Father involved the overthrow of the
Calvinistic conception of the Savior. In my search for
a consistent interpretation of Jesus and his work I fell
on a most ingenious and suggestive book, entitled
Wcan'pws Sacrifice, by the late Horace Bushnell, a very
profound but shockingly heterodox theologian. In this
luminous volume, the great man maintained that we are
to regard Christ as the last and absolutely perfect reve
lation of God, and that his work consisted, not in
conciliating or propitiating a vindictive Tyrant, but in
making known the all-holy, all-merciful, and all-re
deeming Father. This was a new evangel towards
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PROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
which my hungry heart leaped with boundless gratitude.
Surely this was a genuine return to the simple teaching
of the Apostolic Church. And with this new-found
gospel, I returned to the pulpit, aglow with zeal, jubilantly
triumphant, and resolutely bent on scathingly denouncing
the. very theology on which I had been brought up, and
which I had previously preached with such confidence.
On the Calvinism that was once so dear and precious
in my sight I now poured scalding streams of scorn.
The exhibition of such iconoclastic vehemence filled
the church to overflowing with interested hearers, the
great majority of whom enthusiastically approved and
applauded my deliverances. A few of the older and
narrower thinkers frowned, and raved, and threatened,
and denounced, it is true; but the bulk of the people
rejoiced, and wished me God-speed in the fulfilment of
what they styled my beneficent mission.
This was my second theological house, and O with what
ardor I thanked God for having inspired me to erect it!
It was such a lovely structure, and in it I hoped to spend
the remainder of my life. Alas, little did I then think
that this house also was built upon the sand, and that, like
the foolish man of the parable, I should soon find it
tumbling disastrously about my ears.
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33
VII.—THE INTELLECT IN BONDS.
Dogmatic theology no longer wielded its bewildering
fascination over me, but was scornfully trampled under
my feet. With those who regarded precision and defi
niteness of thought in religion as of supreme importance
I was completely out of touch. Like Dr. Bushnell, I
was firmly of the opinion that an adequate dogmatic
theology cannot exist, because spiritual facts can only
be expressed in approximative and poetical language.
This was also the contention so cleverly defended by
Matthew Arnold in his epoch-making book entitled
Literature and Dogma. His central proposition is that
Bible terms, like grace, new birth, justification, are not to
be “ taken in a fixed and rigid manner, as if they were
symbols with as definite and fully-grasped a meaning as
the names line or angle, but in a fluid and passing way,
as men use terms in common discourse, or in eloquence
and poetry, to describe approximately, but only approxi
mately, what they have present before their mind, but
do not profess that their mind does, or can, grasp exactly
or adequately.”
Such teaching suited my mood to
perfection, and with riotous joy I revelled in the two
sparkling gems, Literature and Dogma and St. Paul and
Protestantism. In these books Matthew Arnold goes so
far as to formally reject the Supernatural and the Mira
culous. “ God,” he says, “ is used in most cases as by
no means a term of science or exact knowledge, but a
term of poetry and eloquence—a term thrown out, so to
speak, at a not fully-grasped object of the speaker’s
consciousness; a literary term, in short; and mankind
mean different things by it as their consciousness differs.”
This idea was a key that opened most of the locks of the
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FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
Bible, and I used it continually with great prolit. But
I had not the courage to mention Arnold’s name, or
even Bushnell’s, in any of my public pronouncements,
because in deeply-religious circles both were highly
suspected and execrated names.
In this way it became fashionable to decry the
intellect as an inferior faculty, a calculating machine, a
logic-grinder, which deals only with mundane and
temporal realities, but cannot even touch the higher
things of the spirit. It is doubtless extremely useful to
the scientist, or the low-grade philosopher ; but to the
preacher it has no real value. Of course, this position
was tenable only to those who believed in the existence
and possible activity, within the human soul, of a
superior faculty, “ a subjective faculty,” as Max Muller
calls it, “ for the apprehension of the infinite.” In his
Hibbert Lectures the same scholar describes it more fully
as “ a mental faculty which, independent of, nay in
spite of, sense and reason, enables man to appre
hend the infinite under different names and under vary
ing disguises.” This faculty is intuitive, inborn, and
belongs to all alike, at least potentially. It is the gift of
insight, vision, and realisation. Now, my contention
was that by the exercise of this spiritual organ we could
clearly see God and Christ, realise the spiritual world
and immortality, and become blessedly assured of our
salvation through the risen and ascended Lord. Vision,
it seemed to me, was infinitely nobler and more ennobling
than ordinary knowledge.
Many of my comrades in
the new school used to wax irresistibly eloquent in
praise and commendation of this inward eye. To the
intellect God was unknowable and inconceivable ; but
through the soul’s eye and to the heart’s need he was
most gloriously and savingly visible.
At this time I had the unspeakable privilege of an
introduction to six luminous and illuminating poets,
namely, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth,
Browning, and Tennyson, all of whom confirmed and
advanced my theological liberalism. It was to Browning,
perhaps, that I -was most deeply indebted, and I habi-
�1*0 sfecULAk PtAti'Okfvi
35
tually quoted him in my sermons. How shocked I was
when I discovered that Mrs. Sutherland Orr and others
were impertinent enough to claim him as an Agnostic.
Among prose-writers my chief instructors were Emerson,
Carlyle, and Ruskin. Of theologians, the most inspiring
by far was Dr. George Matheson, the poet-preacher of
Scotland, whose able book, Can the Old Faith live with
the New ? gave me a firmer grip of what people call the
fundamental verities of the Gospel than all other books
put together. He made a magnificent use of the intellect
in the vilification of itself. The maligned faculty glowed
and sparkled, in the most charming manner, as it sang
the praises of its rival and so-called supplanter.
What makes me dwell so long on this point is the
knowledge that there are thousands of clergymen among
us at present, who loudly glory in their alleged posses
sion and enjoyment of the spiritual faculty. They say :
“ We cannot prove the existence of God on merely intel
lectual lines ; but we know that he is because our inward
eye sees him.” “ We cannot prove the Divinity of Jesus
Christ in any outward, formal way ; but to us his
Divinity is an irresistible inference from what we have
seen and experienced of his saving grace.” Not long
ago, the Rev. R. J. Campbell, the oracle of the City
Temple, stated that he had no fear of the Higher Critics.
“ Even if they w’ere to succeed in destroying the authority
of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation,” he said, “ yet
my own experience of its gracious efficacy would enable
me to cling to Christianity as confidently and tenaciously
as ever.” On another occasion he said : “ Our faith in
Christianity is dependent, not on the inspiration and
infallibility of the Bible, but on our direct vision and
knowledge of Christ.” I am not at all surprised at his
making such an assertion, because I often made it
myself; but it is an impotent attitude, and dates no
further back than the date of the Higher Criticism.
Fifty years ago it was well-nigh the universal teaching
of the Pulpit that no one could be a Christian without
believing in the full inspiration of the Scriptures; and
even at present there are a few, such as Dr. Robertson
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FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
Nicoll, who declare that if the Bible were discredited on
critical grounds, Christianity would have to be given up.
The truth, undoubtedly, is that the advanced theologians
of the present day are standing on the brink of the
chasm of scepticism, because, in the absence of an infal
lible Book, which claims to be a direct revelation from
God, Supernatural Religion must speedily collapse. In his
Literature and Dogma, Matthew Arnold’s mam object
was to make it possible for educated people who rejected
the miraculous still to believe in the Bible and Chris
tianity. What he said, in effect, was this : “ Miracles
do not happen, the belief in the personality of God is
groundless, and the hope of immortality is illusive; but,
on the whole, the Bible’s chief concern is with conduct,
which is three-fourths of human life, and, on this account,
the Bible should be retained, and we can still call our
selves Christians.” But, for once, one of the finest of
literary critics was utterly mistaken. Divest Chris
tianity of its miraculous element, and what will there be
left that is not common to all great religions ? Banish
the Supernatural from the Bible, and what will it contain
worth preserving ? Indeed, I am convinced that Arnold’s
argument inevitably leads to Atheism, not to the recovery
of faith. I am prepared to go one step further and
affirm that, at heart, the great apostle of culture was
himself a genuine Atheist.
The God in whom he
believed was only a projection or externalisation of him
self. In proof of this assertion I need give only the
following characteristic quotation : “ Bishop Wilson
says, ‘ Look up to God (by which he means just this,
consult your conscience) at all times, and you will, as in
a glass, discover what is fit to be done.’ ” To a cer
tainty we know that Bishop Wilson meant just exactly
what he said ; but to Matthew Arnold God and con
science, or God and himself, were convertible terms.
It took me many years, however, to perceive how
utterly unsound and illogical the position I occupied
really was, and how inevitable would be the alternative
between a return to the simple, blind, unreasoning, but
strong faith of my childhood, and an advance to open
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37
and unadulterated Atheism. There is no safe and per
manent half-way house between emphatic, unequivocal,
and old-fashioned Supernaturalism and plain, unadorned
Secularism. Mr. Campbell, though by no means an
orator, is yet a most magnetic speaker, and will always
have a large following of non-thinkers ; but I am certain
that his theological attitude and style of reasoning, if
reasoning it can be called, are calculated, in the long
run, to make more infidels than believers. Without one
definite seat of authority, to which to refer all debateable
points, religion cannot survive.
During the Middle
Ages it was the Church that settled all disputes. All its
official findings were infallible and universally binding.
The Reformation shifted the seat of authority from the
Church to the Bible; and for many generations Pro
testants worshipped the Book with as complete a homage
as Catholics did the Pope. The Protestant Reformation
did nothing more than exchange one seat of authority
for another. But in our day the only authoritative voice,
acknowledged by the leaders of British Free Churchism,
is that of individual experience; and the people who
decline to listen to, and follow, it, are declared to be
destitute of the spiritual organ. Every preacher is now
an infallible pope in his own society. The result is that
we have a million popes instead of one ; and it is a very
significant fact that no two of them agree on a single
subject. Each has a different kind of spiritual faculty
from all the others ; and the consequence is that all of
them deliver different and conflicting spiritual judgments.
The intellect is in bonds, but this very multiplicity of
contradictory voices is a sure sign that the day of its
glorious emancipation is hastening on. The Church is
slowly committing suicide at the instigation of its own
rulers, and the time is not far off when its tomb will be
adorned with green grass and lovely flowers. This is a
prophecy which is already in the process of fulfilment, as
every careful student of the signs of the times is bound
to admit.
�3§
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
VIII.—THE REIGN OF EMOTIONALISM.
When a man of an ardent temperament discovers that
the position he occupies is intellectually weak and in
defensible, he is almost sure to fall back on emotional
ism. That was the temptation that came to me, and to
which I readily yielded. With what infinite relish I
kept repeating to myself Matthew Arnold’s famous
saying : “ The true meaning of religion is, not simply
morality, but morality touched by emotion.''' During this
second period of my religious history, my theology
assumed a purely sentimental form, and pretended to
deal with facts as distinguished from theories. Dogmas
no longer appealed to me as true, although I had not the
temerity to reject them as false; but the great facts
which the dogmas endeavored to imprison within the
stone walls of scientific definitions appeared more vital
and precious than ever to me, and I hugged them with
kindling affection. There were doctrines which it was
my delight to hold up to ridicule and scorn; but there
were others on which I was silent, because I did not
understand them. Among these was the doctrine of
the Trinity. It was wholly inexplicable to me that
three infinite persons constituted but one God. Indeed,
there was something positively repulsive in the idea,
calmly held and seriously championed by many learned
doctors, that the second infinite person was eternally
born of the first, and that the third eternally proceeded,
without either birth or creation, from the other two.
Face-to-face with such inscrutable mysteries, I emotion
ally clung to the sweet Bible-verse, “ God is love." 1
was equally incapable of comprehending the Immaculate
Conception and Virgin Birth of Christ, or the mystical
union of the Divine and Human Natures in the con
stitution of his theanthropic person, which was no
longer merely the second person in the Trinity, but a
kind of new person miraculously brought into existence
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39
through the Incarnation. No theologian on earth ever
pretended to understand that strange doctrine; and yet
it found a place in every standard work on theology.
Not one of the twenty different theories of the Atone
ment commended itself to my reason, although some
of them were more acceptable than others ; and so I
contented myself with proclaiming the living fact that
lay behind them all. To me Christ was. the visible
image of the living God, and his only mission in the
world was to reveal the Divine love.
Towards miracles, as such, I maintained a sceptical
attitude. With Huxley, I fully admitted their possibility,
but was not clearly convinced that a single genuine
miracle had ever happened; nor could I appreciate the
ground on which Christian apologists rejected all miracles
except those recorded in the Bible. Consequently, I
never preached on the subject, nor did anxious inquirers
privately press me to give an opinion on it. I knew what
evidential value the majority of theologians attached to
the miraculous, and what emphasis was laid on the
assertion that the proof from miracles was the only
proof on which we could absolutely rely in the refutation
of the arguments of unbelief. Archbishop Whately was
confident that all Catholic miracles would turn out to be
impostures, or capable of a natural explanation, “ but
that Bible-miracles would stand sifting by a London
special jury, or by a committee of scientific men.”
Dean Mansel argued that “ if the reality of miracles as
facts is denied, the whole system of Christian belief with
its evidences, all Christianity, in short, so far as it has
any title to that name, so far as it has any special relation
to the person or the teaching of Christ, is overthrown at
the same time.” Mozley, Westcott, and Farrar ex
pressed themselves to the same effect. But while fully
aware of the theological contention that “ miracles and
the supernatural contents of Christianity must stand or
fall together,” still I somehow felt that it was a fallacy
and could not stand. But what was I to do with the
Resurrection of Christ, which was universally regarded
as the corner stone of the Christian Religion ? If J
�40
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
denied the miraculous, how could I believe that Christ
rose from the dead ? Must I not exclaim, in the poet’s
mournful words,—.
Far hence he lies
In the lorn Syrian town,
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down ?
But if I denied that Christ rose again, how could I, for
a moment longer, be a Christian minister ? Well, I
must confess that I took refuge in a mean and cowardly
subterfuge. I contended, with a few others, that Christ’s
Resurrection was to be understood poetically and
spiritually, not literally and mechanically. I deluded
myself into believing that the Apostle Paul, also,
accepted and interpreted the doctrine in precisely the
same way. I think it was Clough, in his exquisite
poem, in two parts, entitled Easter Day, who first sug
gested the subterfuge to me. What a spiritual resur
rection signified, it would have been most difficult to
explain ; but the belief in it was emotional, and conse
quently did not require to have its contents too minutely
described.
I was satisfied with merely feeling that
somehow and somewhere Christ still lived. It was a
degrading, soul-killing subterfuge, though I knew it not
at the time ; but it enabled me to imagine and feel that
I was a believer when in reality I was not.
To the more thoughtful and intelligent people such
preaching lacked precision, definiteness, and clearness,
and the preacher was severely censured by them. But
with the people as a whole I never lost touch. I was
capable of rising to such an exceptionally high pitch
of fervor that I never failed to secure the sympathy
and support of the crowd. Besides, the presence of a
crowd had such a magical and transforming effect upon
me that my natural enthusiasm more than doubled its
power. The dormant fire in my constitution was fanned
into white and furioufe heat ; and if ever I spoke with
convincing effect it was because I so deeply felt what I
said. Argumentatively I may have been deplorably
weak and vulnerable ; but emotionally I was gloriously
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41
strong and unassailable. And it is incontrovertible that a
miscellaneous, popular assembly responds much more
quickly and heartily to sentiment or feeling than to logic.
Earnestness, accompanied by kindling eloquence, is
infinitely more convincing to a multitude than the most
perfect and lucid argument ever framed.
Towards the close of the period under consideration, I
was, to all intents and purposes, nothing but an emo
tional and superficial expounder of the Christian
Religion. To my intellect, Christianity was almost
painfully false, but to my heart, it was irresistibly true.
On week days I was frequently a rampant Agnostic or
Atheist, but on Sundays and in the pulpit always a redhot believer. It was a pitiable condition, in the extreme,
to be in; but there was then absolutely no help for it.
I did my utmost to keep under and silence the intellect,
in which endeavor I occasionly succeeded ; and I did it
in the name and for the sake of what I verily believed to
be a higher and nobler faculty. Words can never tell
what soul-agonies I endured, what cruel crises I passed
through, and to what self-loathing I more than once
subjected myself. What kept me going was the con
viction that somehow the highest and best in my nature
still witnessed to the blessed reality of Revealed Religion;
and on Sundays, as I stood face-to-face with crowded
congregations, this conviction completely swayed my
whole being.
But the worst has yet to come, and must have a whole
chapter to itself. Arnoldism will never work, except
disastrously. The public has never been able to appre
ciate the fine distinction between literature and dogma.
On the contrary, the public is perpetually reducing
poetry to prose, and treating literature itself as if it were
dogma. A follower of Arnold in the pulpit cannot fail
sooner or later to commit suicide. He puts one meaning
into a word, a literary and poetical one, and his hearers,
another ; and he cannot but be aware of the fact. The
consequence is that he degenerates into a miserable
play-actor, a process I shall describe in the next
chapter,
�7
42
FROM CHRISTIAN PURPIT
IX.—PLAY-ACTING IN THE PULPIT.
In theory, Arnoldism is exquisitely beautiful and
irresistibly fascinating; but, in practice, it proves
wofully complicating and confusing. It leads to all
sorts of insincerities and hypocrisies.
A long time
ago a famous actor, on being asked by a clergyman,
“ Why is play-acting so much more successful than
preaching ?” answered, “ Because we treat fiction as
if it were truth, and you present truth as if it were
fiction.” It was a witty, apt, and, if both preacher and
actor believed the Bible to be the Word of God, emi
nently true answer. In numerous instances, it must be
confessed, the pulpit is such a signal failure because the
fire of enthusiasm does not burn in it, or because so
many preachers are empty-headed and empty-hearted
triflers. They do not doubt, because they are too lazy
to think. To them, the ministry is solely a “ living,”
an easy and respectable “ billet,” and they would forsake
it to-morrow did it not allow them to spend their days
in luxurious indolence. But there are other ministers
to whom laziness is not a besetting sin, and who cannot
complain of non-success in their work. The chief source
of their weakness is that they proclaim fiction as if it
were truth, thoroughly believing it, for the time being,
to be truth. We are assured that, while on the stage,
first-rate actors verily feel as if they were the characters
they represent, which, for the time, they doubtless are.
Judging by my own experience, and by observation of
other cases, pulpit play-acting reveals itself in various
ways.
In the first place, no sooner had I adopted Arnoldism,
and commenced to treat the Bible as literature, than I
discovered that I dared not preach all I knew. In
course of time, I came into possession of a large body of
esoteric truths, which were of too dangerous a character
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43
to be communicated to a mixed congregation. I was
positively certain that the Pentateuch was not written,
even the earlier and simpler portions of it, for many
centuries after Moses’ time. I knew well enough that
the Mosaic Economy was a late and gradual develop
ment, and that from the time it began to assume a
definite shape the prophets and the priests became
sworn enemies, proofs of which fact abound in the
prophetical writings themselves.
It was as clear . as
noonday to me that Genesis is a collection of interesting
legends, traditions, and myths; that Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are by no means historical,
but purely fabulous, symbolical, or eponymous char
acters, and that the stories of Creation, the Fall, and the
Flood are fables, borrowed from Babylonian and other
sources.
It was not hidden from my eyes that the
Historical Books were extremely crude and imperfect,
full of contradictions and discrepancies ; that the two
Chronicles, in particular, were written with the object
of representing the priesthood of the later Jewish
Church as an institution that had existed continuously,
and in its entirety, from the time of Moses, and that of
history in the modern sense they contained none.
Dr. Torrey boldly asserts that there are no mistakes
of any kind in the Bible—an assertion that makes
one wonder whether the popular evangelist can be
even an honest man.
From the time I began to
treat the Bible as literature, I have not been able to
shut my eyes to the fact that it contains innumerable
mistakes—historical, chronological, numerical, and
moral. But although I had full knowledge of all these
things, I had to be silent about them in the pulpit,
because of the danger that any public reference to
them might disturb the people’s simple faith in the
inspiration of the Book.
If I ever mentioned the
Higher Criticism at all, it was merely for the purpose
of emphasising the fact that if the Bible is inspired
no criticism, however hostile in spirit and aim, can
inflict any permanent injury upon it.
It was also
undeniable that as yet the Critics themselves were
�44
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
not quite sure of their ground, inasmuch as they hotly
disagreed with, and contradicted, one another.
Nor
could it be forgotten that some of the most advanced
and iconoclastic among them were yet firm advocates
of the moral and spiritual supremacy of the Volume,
and stood in the front rank of evangelical preachers.
On these grounds, as far as I possibly could, I kept my
congregation in the dark as to what was being done by
Biblical scholars, and continued to treat the Bible as
the supreme seat of authority in religion. Its history
might be glaringly inaccurate; its geology, hopelessly
chaotic, and its astronomy, ludicrously antiquated;
but then it was not written to teach these lower,
earthly sciences, but to be an infallible guide in all
matters affecting the destiny of the soul. Such was
the attitude taken up by theologians as soon as they
realised the impossibility of retaining the exploded
theory of verbal inspiration and inerrancy; and we
preachers feebly followed their example.
But, after
all, preachers have no moral right to withhold im
portant knowledge from their congregation, nor can
they do it without seriously weakening their position
and doing themselves irreparable harm.
In the second place, I found that, having adopted
the literary and poetical method of interpreting
Scripture, I attached other and, as I fondly fancied,
larger and worthier meanings to the great theological
terms than those which they popularly bore.
This
was an excessively risky game to play, but it was
played in the sincere hope that genuine good might
be the result.
For instance, the generality of the
people believed God to be an infinite and eternal
person, clothed with so many natural and moral
attributes of absolute perfection, with whom, through
the merits of Christ, they professed to be in intimate
and soul-making communion.
They told him all
their troubles, confessed to him all their sins, implored
him to pardon and release them, and besought him to
grant them sundry little favors. To me, on the other
hand, God was the name loosely given to the sum-total
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45
of ideal virtues and. moral excellencies, communion with
whom signified active admiration for and an ardent
desire and effort to possess and exhibit, such noble
qualities. I spoke of him as if he were a person ; but I
did so in a loose, poetical, or literary sense. I addressed
him as Father, Friend, Savior, meaning just this : that
at the core or heart of things is constructive, healing,
saving Love.
In maintaining this attitude I was
enormously helped and comforted by Henry Drummond’s
exquisitely beautiful book, entitled The Ascent of Man.
Its teaching was nebulous, vague, poetical, almost
fantastical ; but to me, at that time, irresistible. The
law of the Universe was Love, and only that which
opposed the glorious purposes of love could be called
sinful.
There were numerous other terms, such as
atonement, regeneration, justification, immortality, which I
treated in the same ambiguous and passing way. The
object I had in view was the gradual conversion of the
people to my way of looking at things.
But my success in the realisation of that object was
most discouragingly small. It is cocksure dogmatism
that always moves the multitude ; and even I, in my
most Arnoldian mood, was supposed to be speaking
dogmatically. There were but few who took me in my
own sense, and those few soon lost all interest in the
popular religion and ceased to attend its various meet
ings. I was all the time on the high road to Secularism,
though at that time I had not the least suspicion of it.
Some of those who joined me in the strange pilgrimage
soon outstripped me in speed, and arrived at the inevitable
destination years before I did. One of these was a man
of exceptional intellectual brilliancy, dowered with a fine,
lively imagination, and privileged, above most, to live
close to Nature’s heart. What deep joy was mine when
I had succeeded in winning him to my side ; but his
stay with me was wonderfully brief. He perceived,
almost at once, that the position I occupied was illogical,
irrational, and impossible, and his sense of perspective
drove him at a furious pace straight on to Naturalism or
Monism, in which he found intellectual peace and heart-
�46
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
rest. We are both together again now, sharing each
other’s joy, as well as responsibility.
When will ministers learn that theological liberalism
is only a stage in the journey either to Rome or to
Atheism ? Many of us remember how Newman, in a
book of startling novelty, assigned that fact as the chief
reason why he was obliged to become a Catholic—to
bow in lowliest reverence to a corporate authority—in
order to preserve his faith in religion. At one time he
and his younger brother, Francis William, stood on
practically the same platform ; but one day they parted
company, John Henry going down to Rome and
becoming a Cardinal, while Francis William climbed
towards, and almost reached, the domain of pure
Naturalism.
Theology cannot be liberal, and live.
Based on an infallible revelation from heaven, it must
remain stationary for ever, or die. No progress is
possible, except the progress out of it. Newman was
philosopher enough to perceive this; and he made his
escape in time.
The next chapter will explain how my deliverance
came.
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47
X.—THE EMANCIPATION OF THE
INTELLECT.
Everybody knows that play-acting is a species of
hypocrisy, this Greek word being the term originally
employed to describe the theatrical profession ; and it
would be equally a truism to say that play-acting, how
ever acceptable and successful on the stage, always
destroys the legitimate power of the pulpit. Above
everything else the preacher needs sincerity. At all
costs he must say what he means, and, to the deepest
roots of his being, mean what he says. If he speaks
hesitatingly, falteringlv, apologetically, or with numerous
reservations, explanations, and comments, he thereby
robs himself of more than half his natural power, and
completely cripples the influence of his ministry. He
occupies a lower platform than Samson did when he
made sport for the people.
Besides, although the
intellect may not be the strongest and noblest of our
mental faculties, it is anything but safe and wise to per
manently ignore and snub it. Sooner or later the day
of its revenge will come, which to the play-acting
preacher will be a dreadful day of swift judgment. In
my case the terrible day arrived much later than it would
have done had I been of a cooler, calmer, and more
reflective temperament.
Let me, now set down in order some of the causes
that led up to my emancipation, or indicate a few of the
stages in my journey from Supernaturalism to Secu
larism. They are these :—
1. Loss of faith in the infallibility and Divine authority
of the Bible.
2. The consequent relegation of Religion to the sphere
of faith, feeling, and individual experience.
�48
FROM CHRISTIAN PULRlt
3. Realisation of the forced nature of all devotional
exercises, in the cultivation of which the Closet
and the Church are but forcing-pits.
1. In connection with the passing of the Bible it is a
highly significant fact that the most effective agents in
the process have been professional theologians, trained
exegetes, accredited representatives of the Church. The
Bible has been mortally wounded in the house of its
nominal friends. The Faith has been stabbed to the
heart by its own official champions. Prominent among
these, at the present time, are Canons Driver and Cheyne,
of the Etablished Church of England, and Professor
George Adam Smith, of the United Free Church of
Scotland. I utterly fail to see how any honest, unbiassed
person can carefully study and understand Canon Driver’s
famous Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament,
and his lucid Commentaries on several Old Testament
Books; Canon Cheyne’s Introduction to the Booh of Isaiah,
together with his numerous Commentaries, critical articles
in theological and expository magazines, and the great
and scholastic Encyclopedia Biblica, of which he is chief
editor; and, in particular, Professor George Adam
Smith’s startling book entitled Modern Criticism and the
Preaching of the Old Testament, without being unavoidably
driven to the conclusion that the Bible is not, in any
superior or special sense, the word of God, and must be
subjected to the same canons of criticism as all other
books. At any rate, that was the inevitable effect the
study of such works had upon me.
2. But how can Supernaturalism stand without the
support of a specially inspired and infallible Book ?
There are still a few simple-minded and honest-hearted
people who, in spite of all the discoveries of modern
criticism, dogmatically maintain that, if the Bible is
fallible and bristles with blunders, there can be no escape
from the hateful inference that Christianity is overthrown.
Such people are the only consistent Christians extant.
But the bulk of present-day apologists refer for authority,
not to the Bible, but to the experience of living believers.
They eloquently exclaim : “ Religion does not live in a
�to SECULAR PLATFORM
49
book, but in the hearts and lives of its devotees. As
plants and flowers are grandly independent of the very
best Botanical text-books, so is Christianity of the Bible.”
The first great divine that formulated this argument in
England was the late Dr. Dale, of Birmingham, in a
book of immense interest, entitled The Living Christ and
the Four Gospels. He firmly believed in the authenticity
and inspiration of these documents ; but his argument
was that as Christianity came into healthy and vigorous
existence before a single line of the Four Gospels was
written, so it could likewise survive their utter destruc
tion. According to this argument, in its latest develop
ment, the Christian Religion, in its present sublimated
and etherealised form, is not vitally associated with the
miraculous birth, benevolent life, peerless teaching,
redemptive work, sacrificial death, and triumphant resur
rection of a historical Christ, but roots itself, rather, in
the personal experience of every genuine Christian, and
refers to the same source for its supreme and final
evidence. Consequently, Christ is not so much a his
torical person as a spiritual force in the souls of believers;
—that is to say, he is an unseen and omnipotent Being,
who in some mystic, inexplicable sense really dwells, as
a seed or germ, in every human soul ; in that of the
Mohammedan, the Confucian, or the Buddhist no less
than in that of the professing believer in Christendom.
Now, if this universally indwelling spiritual Christ gets
fair play, whether the gospel be heard and accepted or
not, he will certainly grow and develop into the ideal
stature. In those who make a spontaneous surrender to
him, he soon comes to conscious life ; and they worship
him with glowing devotion. They enjoy full communion
with him, as if he still actually existed somewhere, or as
if he were a person with a unique history lying behind
him. And yet, in spite of all this, they coolly assure us
that “ Christianity is not a system of intellectual truths,
but a practical and vital experience of the heart,” and
that “ Christ is not a fiction of the theologians, not a
prophet of Galilee, but an indwelling power whereby we
are evolved upward to the perfect spiritual stature of
�5°
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
man.” Quite recently, I heard the Rev. R. J. Campbell,
at the City Temple when'he affirmed, with his own pecu
liarly quiet and infectious’fervor, that this spiritual Christ
is now germinally present in the lowest and worst char
acter on earth. To those who venture to cast suspicion
on such an assertion, these modern apologists say : —■
“ You are blind, and there are whole regions of spiritual
apprehension of which you know nothing. Intellectually
you may, perhaps, be our equals or superiors; but
spiritually we are immeasurably above you, and possess a
faculty which enables and entitles us to judge you,
although you cannot judge us. We have allowed the
indwelling spiritual Christ to have his way with us to
such an extent that we already know all things.” They
affect a sublime indifference to all historical, critical, and
theological problems, saying : “ You may. smash up the
historical and intellectual setting to smithereens , but
when you have done that, you have not yet touched real
Christianity.” What, then, in the name of all the
wonders, is real Christianity ? Is it only the. creation of
the sanctified imagination of a few duly ordained clergy
men ? And is the same thing true of Christ himself ?
The late Professor Bruce, who wielded such an enormous
influence in his day, regarded the historicity of the Four
Gospels as absolutely essential. All the Epistles might
utterly disappear, without our suffering any radical loss,
for at best they were but human interpretations and
commentaries; but the moment we abandoned the
Gospels, Christianity would be entirely undermined.
And is it not true that Professor Bruce was literally and
profoundly right ? If it is or can be proved that Christ
never lived at all, or never lived as reported in the docu
ments, does not his spiritual existence in the souls of
believers become an empty dream? Surely a nonhistoric lesus cannot be in any sense a real person, nor
can a religion founded on an imaginary being possess
any objective reality, whatever the experience of its
devotees may say. The moment we give up our faith m
the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the moment
we admit that miracles do not happen, and have not
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
51
happened, that same moment we strip Christianity of all
its distinctive features as a Revealed Religion, and bring
it down to the level of all the great ethnic religions.
With this discovery came my emancipation (from all
superstitious slavery, and the full redemption of my soul.
A necessity was laid upon me to renounce, the Super
natural, and to find all I needed within the limits of the
natural. I substituted conscience for God, reason for
faith, common sense for prayer ; and for the first time in
my life I found mental rest and joy. •
3. But there was a third element that contributed to
my deliverance, namely, the conviction that all religious
exercises are artificially forced. Let us take prayer as an
example. As a child, I was systematically taught to
regard praying as an imperative duty, which everyone
should piously endeavor to discharge. I was also con
tinually reminded of the sorrowful fact that, ever since
the Fall in Eden, mankind had been sinfully disinclined
to bend their knees before the God of Heaven. Hence,
even to those who were born again through faith in
Christ, prayer did not come naturally. There was an
old man within them still who violently rebelled against
it; so that, in order to become proficient and find enjoy
ment in it, a necessity was laid upon them to crucify the
indwelling villain, and extend to his rightful successor,
created within them by the Holy Ghost, a firmer and
more welcome lodgment. But, in spite of all my des
perate efforts to bring about the death and ejectment of
the ancient Adam, in spite of all my passionate appeals
to God to come to my assistance in the matter, prayer
was never a joyous and strengthening exercise to me.
It continued to the end to be a hard, difficult, and un
illumined duty, which only my sense of loyalty to Christ
enabled me to perform at all. This constitutional dis
inclination to pray I then attributed to a fundamental
lack of spirituality, to some incompleteness of surrender
to God in Christ, or to some abnormal activity of the
persistent old scamp in my heart; and I tried to pray all
the more. After a while, I noticed that there was nothing
extraordinary or peculiar about my experience, but that
�52
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
the experience of all other children and adults was prac
tically the same. Of course, as long as I believed in
the Edenic Catastrophe, and the consequent imputation
of guilt and transmission of depravity to the whole race,
it was easy enough to account for the innate disinclina
tion to pray : it was a sign, proof, and direct consequence
of that hideous and hell-creating event. But as soon as
it became imperative to repudiate that damnable dogma,
because it flatly contradicted both reason and history,
there was no possibility of avoiding the atheistic con
clusion that religion, in the form of belief in and com
munion with an infinite and eternal Person, is un
natural, irrational, and injurious, and that for Christ,
with the whole paraphernalia of Atonement, Sacrifice,
and Salvation from hell, there is absolutely no need.
This is why adults are never religious unless they have
had religion forced down their throats in their youth.
This is why ministers and their assistants have to be so
busy attending to the religious education of the children ;
and it is to this incontrovertible fact that we owe SundaySchools, Bands of Hope, Societies of Christian Endeavor,
and even the regular services of the Churches. The
idea that underlies all ecclesiastical institutions, con
sciously or unconsciously, is that man is not by nature a
religious being, and that all religious convictions, beliefs,
and practices must be drilled into him by a long and
most laborious course of teaching. All religion originates
in superstition ; and it is a statement capable of amplest
verification that in proportion as superstition loses its
hold upon the common people, religion becomes a dead
letter. If the churches were to suspend operations from
next Sunday, in less than a hundred years Christianity
would be a thing of the past. We know that during the
last fifty or sixty years theology has been steadily aban
doning, one by one, positions that used to be regarded as
vitally essential. The renaissance of physical science in
the nineteenth century was accompanied by a corres
ponding decadence of religion. The acceptance of
Evolution meant the consequent rejection of the Bible
and Christianity.
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
53
XI.—THE INDESTRUCTIBLE REMAINDER.
Now that we have eliminated the Bible as a specially
inspired and authoritative book, and Christianity as a
miraculously revealed religion, both from our minds and
from our lives, is there anything that remains and cannot
be swept away? Yes, all that has ever had any
real and verifiable existence. We have merely rid
ourselves of unnatural and morbid developments, of
troublesome and hurtful incumbrances, or, in other
words, we have only lopped off a few injurious excres
cences. We ourselves, and Nature, of which we are an
important part, still endure. I can find no more in
external objects than is already, either active or dormant,
in myself. Man is an epitome of the Universe.
Nothing transcends the soul, because it is the sum-total
of all things in miniature. Hence, neither poet nor
philosopher ever uttered a thought that did not awaken
echoes in all minds. That which is in itself true appeals
more or less forcibly to all alike, because it is germinally
present and regnant in all natural souls. I know how
customary it is, in certain quarters, to accuse Atheists of
contradicting, in the most wilful manner, the testimony
of their own nature, and to call them liars and hypocrites.
“ At heart,” we are confidently assured, “ no man is or
can be an Atheist.” The obvious retort is that, at
heart, no man either is or can be anything else. Even
according to the teaching of orthodox theology, ever
since the Fall in Eden Atheism has been the natural
fruit of unregenerate hearts. Now that science has dis
proved the Story of the Fall it is undeniable that, by
nature, all men are Atheists. Everybody knows now
how the belief in Supernatural Beings first arose, and
how it was gradually evolved into its present forms. As
�54
l’kO'M CHRISTIAN PULPIT
I have already said, we are not naurally religious. Even
to-day children have to be diligently and painfully
trained and coaxed, often very much against their wills,
into religious beliefs and exercises, and many of them, as
soon as they arrive at years of discretion and indepen
dence, shake them off again. We do not take to religion
as naturally as we do to our food. Furthermore, un
believers are frequently taunted with their inability to
supply the world with a worthy substitute for the Christian
Religion. “ What have you to offer us in place of Chris
tianity ?” they are excitedly asked. “You must not rob
us of our religion until you can provide us with another
and better one.” We cheerfully accept the challenge ;
and our answer to it is, that the world would be im
mensely better off without its Supernatural Religions,
because they are more or less artificial and of a bedwarfing tendency.
As illustrations of the truth of this contention let us
consider a few of the great, central words of the Bible,
such as God, Christ, Sin, and Immortality. Is not the
merest tyro in theology fully aware that no two divines
are in entire agreement as to the meaning of a single
one of these terms ? It may be alleged that all theo
logians speak of God as an infinite, eternal, invisible,
and absolute Being ; and yet hosts of them admit, on
metaphysical grounds, that an infinite and absolute
Being is unthinkable. “ But,” some simple-minded
person will say, “ I must believe in God because he is
revealed in the Bible.” But several different and con
flicting gods are revealed in the Bible—in which of them
do you believe; the god who commanded human
sacrifice, or the one who forbade it : the god of war or
the god of peace: the god of vengeance or the god of
love ? These are all in the Book, and you must make
your choice between them.
“ My God,” another
exclaims, “ is the embodiment of all high and noble
qualities, and whenever I worship him it is really to
such attributes that I am paying homage.” Then your
God cannot be an infinite and self-conscious person, but
merely an idealisation, a poetic fancy, a product of your
�*ro SECULAR RLaTFoRM
55
own imagination. The only sound advice to such a
believer is this : By all means, retain and adore the
qualities, in so far as they are high and noble, rbut, or
all sakes, drop the fanciful person. The term C/mst,
also, is open to the same objection. As to who or
what Christ is there is an endless diversity of opinion.
To one disciple, he is the Son of the living God, the
only begotten; to another, the completest revelation o
the Highest ; to another, the all-sufficient expiatory
sacrifice for sin; to another, a teacher of remarkable
originality and power ; and to another still, man at his
highest and best, the supreme miracle of history. These
typical disciples represent different and contradictory
schools of Christology, which have always stood at
daggers drawn in relation to one another. In the
Middle Ages the Church sanctioned the Christology of
the Augustinian school, and tried to stamp out the other
schools by imprisoning, torturing, and burning their
representatives. But at no time was the. Church com
petent to exercise absolute authority in matters of
doctrine, because it has been repeatedly proved that she
put men to death for holding and teaching opinions
which riper knowledge has established as incontestably
true. Her character as an infallible teacher has been
completely and irretrievably shattered. Convicted, in
open court, as a false witness on many important points,
the validity of her evidence on all other subjects has
been hopelessly destroyed. If therefore we listen to our
own reason, unterrorised by any superstition, we shall
have to let the theological Christ go, with all the theories
concerning him, or put him in the same category as
Buddha, and Confucius, and Zoroaster.
The same remarks apply to the words Stn and Immor
tality. What is sin ? No two people agree. According
to some there are sins specially against God, trans
gressions against positive commands, similar to * the
Edenic one about the forbidden apple, aftd so far as one
can make out these are exclusively sins of omission.
We sin against God when we neglect to pray, to read
the Bible, to attend church, or to contribute towards the
�5^
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT’
clue maintenance of the priesthood. Then there are sins
against ourselves and sins against our neighbor, which
are variously defined according to the theological stand
point- Again, according to the ripest and most reliable
Biblical scholars, immortality is not taught in the Old
Testament at all, so that in reality the Jewish Church
concerned itself solely with the affairs of the life that
now is. Dr. George Adam Smith informs us, further,
that there are excellent Christians in present-day
Churches to whom the doctrine of a future life does not
appeal, and who have accepted Christianity merely on
the. ground of the unique exaltation and purity of its
ethical teaching. But is it not indisputable that if we
eliminate the Supernatural,^with its heaven and hell,
from the Christian Religion^nothing of distinctive value,
nothing that is not common to all great Religions,
remains ? All that is peculiar to it is purely mythical,
while all that is of real value in it is common property.
Now, face-to-face with such significant facts, my
argument is that we do not need a substitute for
Christianity, but would be much better off, in every
respect, with no Supernatural Religion whatever. But
what remains to us after we have discarded God, Christ,
and . Immortality, with all the absurd dogmas con
cerning them ?
Nature, in all the plenitude of her
glory and power. She is our kind, loving, all-sustaining
mother, in whom we live, and move, and have our
being.
She answers all our anxious questions and
solves all our vexing problems. We never appeal to
her in vain. How speedily she responds to our varying
moods, comforting us in sorrow, cheering us in des
pondency, inspiring us in weakness, weeping with us
when we are sad, and laughing with us when we are
merry. Our one business in life is to observe her laws,
and to be in perfect tune with her sweet harmonies ;
and the only sin possible to us is to be in a state of
rebellion against her wise orderings. There is only one
thing we should dread, not the wrath and punishment
of a Supernatural Being, supposed to be seated on a
glittering throne no one knows where, but the ominous
�TO SECULAR PLATFORM
57
frown of our mother when we have wilfully disregarded
her beneficent injunctions. No, my friends, we do not
need another Supernatural Religion, but we do need to
return to the worship of reason, the adoration of Nature,
and the practical fulfilment of the laws of truth, and
honor, and honesty, and pity, and service. This is the
the divinest religion on earth, and yet the one most
culpably neglected. Christians are too busy preparing
for heaven to pay the slightest attention to the socfal
duties of earth. “ But,” someone cries, “ I cannot give
up my hope of heaven, and you have no right to try
to rob me of it.” Well, cherish it to your heart’s
content, so far as I am concerned ; but will you be good
enough to consider, with due seriousness, the following
practical questfons ?—
“ Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the
Time,
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime ?”
Is it well that—
“ There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied
feet,
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the
street ?”
Is it well that—
“ There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted
floor,
And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor ?”
Is it well, is it right, is it just that these and a thousand
other anomalies, sufferings, and cruelties should be per
mitted to continue in countries which call themselves
Christian ?
Is it well, is it consistent that you, a
professed follower of Christ, should be rapidly amassing
a colossal fortune, and faring sumptuously every day, at
the expense of the poverty and misery of your work
people ? If that is what your hope of heaven enables or
allows or leads you to do, the sooner you part with it
the better it will be for all concerned. In your sane
moments, do you not agree ? It is most lamentable to
think how Christian churches seek to win and retain the
rich by wheedling flatteries and infamous cajoleries, and
�58
FROM CHRISTIAN PULPIT
then dole out a little charity to the poor, accom
panied by the assurance that though poor on earth
they shall be rich in heaven. In their hearts the
poor scorn charity, and cry bitterly for justice, fair
play, and the recognition of their humanity. If the
churches were true to Christ, whom they call their
Head, they would tell the rich that they cannot possibly
enter the Kingdom of Heaven until they learn, not to
bequeath their riches to good causes when they die, or
devote them to ecclesiastical purposes while they live,
and be made famous, but so to conduct their business
affairs from day to day as to preclude the possibility of
ever becoming rich. Instead of that, they are doing
their utmost to perpetuate and accentuate the terrible
injustices, inequalities, and artificial distinctions that
now obtain in Society. Our reason tells us how iniquitous
the present condition of things is, and our reason, guided
by our heart, dictates the only true remedy ; and if we
only had the courage to apply the remedy all would soon
be well. Christianity has been in the world for nineteen
hundred years, but has ignominiously failed to set it
right. Indeed, it has often succeeded in setting it quite
wrong. The reason is that it is pre-eminently the
religion of the world to come, and, consequently, concerns
itself but little with the affairs of this. When we have
detached ourselves from it we shall have time to fulfil
the common duties of the common day, and, as a result,
to restore our relations to ourselves and to one another
to their normal and healthy condition.
My story is told, and I am at rest, and can face the
future without dread. I know whence I came and
whither I am going, and I greet the unseen, whatever it
may be, with a cheer. I take my stand with Ernst
Haeckel in the tabernacle of wonder and admiration,
and I join the great Goethe in the sanctuary of sorrow
and sympathy, reconsecrating myself to the service of
the huge army of the wronged and sinned against, the
suffering and the sad. Great and honorable is the work
that lies before us, and I call upon the reader and myself
�TO SECULAR PLATfoRM
59
to awake from sloth and begin with glowing hearts to do
it. Let us unite in a grandly altruistic mission to rid
the world of debasing superstitions, to dethrone all
existing evils, to establish right relations between man
and man, to promote good will and genuine brotherhood
all round, and to fill the days and hours of this earthly
life, the only life of which we are sure, with merry
laughter- and songful joy. Such is the beneficent ministry
of the only true gospel.
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From Christian pulpit to secular platform
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nationalsecularsociety
HUMAN ORIGINS
�WORKS B y SAMUEL LAING
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.
A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN.
2s. net.
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE.
HUMAN ORIGINS.
2S. net.
2s. net.
2s. net.
The above are the original editions, bound in cloth, and pub
lished at 3s. 6d. each. Only a limited number can be supplied at
2s. each net, or by post 2s. 5^- The four vols. will be sent carriage
paid for 9s.
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
QUEEN VICTORIA’S REIGN. By Constance E. Plumptre.
THE MIRACLES OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF: A Reply to the
Rev. Frank Ballard’s Miracles of Unbelief. By Charles Watts.
The postage on each of these net booklets is 2d., or the five will
be sent carriage paid for 2s. nd. Copies may be had in cloth at
is. each net, by post is. 3d. or the five carriage paid for 5s. 6d.
�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
mulated to such an extent that there are
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
MAN, with an Appreciation of the Author by Frederic Harrison.
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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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Text
NATIONAL SECuLAR^^^lETY
r .
J &
A
WOODEN GOD
BY
COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL
ONE
PENNY
London:
THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, Ltd.
2 Newcastle Street, Farringdon Street, E.C.
1903.
�PRINTED BY
THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, LTD.,
2 NEWCASTLE-STREET, FARRINGDON-STREET, LONDON, E.C.
�6 257^2.
N4
INTRODUCTION.
---- 4—- The contents of this pamphlet are reprinted from the complete
• ‘ Dresden Edition ’ ’ of the works of the late Colonel Ingersoll;
and the title there attached has been retained on the present
title-page. “A Wooden God” was written by Colonel Ingersoll
on March 27, 1880, in the form of a letter to the Chicago Times.
It is now published in England for the first time—with just the
omission of the opening words “To the Editor.” The lapse of
t .verity-three years has not impaired its pertinence or its value.
It is still a very useful criticism on the dealings of the Christian
nations with China.
�A WOODEN GOD
—•—♦——-
To-day Messrs. Wright, Dickey, O’Connor, and Murch,
of the select committee on the causes of the present
depression of labor, presented the majority special report
upon Chinese immigration.
These gentlemen are in great fear for the future of
our most holy and perfectly authenticated religion, and
have, like faithful watchmen, from the walls and towers
of Zion, hastened to give the alarm. They have in
formed Congress that “Joss has his temple of worship
in the Chinese quarters, in San Francisco. Within the
walls of a dilapidated structure is exposed to the view
of the faithful the god of the Chinaman, and here are
his altars of worship. Here he tears up his pieces of
paper; here he offers up his prayers; here he receives
his religious consolations, and here is his road to the
celestial land
that “ Joss is located in a long, narrow
room in a building in a back alley, upon a kind of
altar;” that “ he is a wooden image, looking as much
like an alligator as a human being; ” that the Chinese
“think there is such a place as heaven;” that “all
classes of Chinamen worship idols;” that “the temple
is open every day at all hours;” that “the Chinese
�5
have no Sunday;” and this heathen god has “huge
jaws, a big red tongue, large white teeth, a half-dozen
arms, and big, fiery eyeballs. About him are placed
offerings of meat and other eatables —a sacrificial
offering.”
No wonder that these members of the committee were
shocked at such an image of God, knowing as they did
that the only true God was correctly described by the
inspired lunatic of Patmos in the following words “ And there sat in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with
a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with
a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like
wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of
fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned
in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of
his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword: and his
countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”
Certainly a large mouth filled with white teeth is pre
ferable to one used as the scabbard of a sharp, twoedged sword. Why should these gentlemen object to a
god with big, fiery eyeballs, when their own Deity has
eyes like a flame of fire ?
Is it not a little late in the day to object to peopie
because they sacrifice meat and other eatables to their
•god ? We all know that for thousands of years the
“ real ” God was exceedingly fond of roasted meat; that
he loved the savor of burning flesh, and delighted in the
perfume of fresh, warm blood.
The following account of the manner in which the
living God ” desired that his chosen people should
�6
sacrifice, tends to show the degradation and religious
blindness of the Chinese;—
“ Aaron therefore went unto the altar, and slew the
calf of the sin offering, which was for himself. And the
sons of Aaron brought the blood unto him: and he
dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the
horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the
bottom of the altar: But the fat, and the kidneys, and
the caul above the liver of the sin-offering, he burnt
upon the altar ; as the Lord commanded Moses. And
the flesh and the hide he burnt with fire without the
camp. And he slew the burnt offering; and Aaron’s
sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled
round about upon the altar.......And he brought the
meat offering, and took a handful thereof, and burnt it
upon the altar.......He slew also the bullock and the ram
for a sacrifice of peace offering., which was for the
people: and Aaron’s sons presented unto him the blood,,
which he sprinkled upon the altar round about, and the
fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump, and that
which covereth the inwards and the kidneys, and the
caul above the liver, and they put the fat upon the
breasts, and he burnt the fat upon the altar. And the
breast and the right shoulder Aaron waved for a wave
offering before the Lord, as Moses commanded.”
If the Chinese only did something like this, we would
know that they worshipped the “ living ” God. The
idea that the supreme head of the “ American system
cf religion” can be placated with a little meat and
“ ordinary eatables ’* is simply preposterous. He has
always asked for blood, and has always asserted that
without the shedding of blood there is no remission of
sin.
The world is also informed by these gentlemen that
“ the idolatry of the Chinese produces a demoralising;
�effect upon our American youth by bringing sacred
things into disrespect, and making religion a theme of
disgust and contempt.”
In San Francisco there are some three hundred thou
sand people. Is it possible that a few Chinese can
bring our “ holy religion ” into disgust and contempt ?
I n that city there are fifty times as many churches as
joss-houses. Scores of sermons are uttered every week;
religious books and papers are plentiful as leaves in
autumn, and somewhat dryer; thousands of Bibles are
within the reach of all. And there, too, is the example
of a Christian City.
Why should we send missionaries to China if we can
not convert the heathen when they come here ? When
missionaries go to a foreign land, the poor, benighted
people have to take their word for the blessings
showered upon a Christian people ; but when the
heathen come here they can see for themselves. What
was simply a story becomes a demonstrated fact. They
come in contact with people who love their enemies.
They see that in a Christian land men tell the truth ;
that they will not take advantage of strangers; that
they are just and patient, kind and tender ; that they
never resort to force; that they have no prejudice on
account of color, race or religion; that they look upon
mankind as brethren; that they speak of God as a
universal Father, and are willing to work, and even to
suffer, for the good not only of their own countrymen,
but of the heathen as well. All this the Chinese see
and know, and why they still cling to the religion of
their country is to me a matter ot amazement.
We all know that the disciples of Jesus do unto
.others as they would that others should do unto them,
�8
and that those of Confucius do not unto others anything
that they would not that others should do unto them.
Surely, such peoples ought to live together in perfect
peace.
Rising with the subject, growing heated with a kind
of holy indignation, these Christian representatives of a
Christian people most solemnly declare that:—
“ Anyone who is really endowed with a correct know
ledge of our religious system, which acknowledges the
existence of a living God and an accountability to him,
and a future state of reward and punishment, who feels
that he has an apology for this abominable pagan
worship is not a fit person to be ranked as a good
citizen of the American Union. It is absurd to make
any apology for its toleration. It must be abolished
and the sooner the decree goes forth by the power of
this Government the better it will be for the interests of
this land.”
I take this, the earliest opportunity, to inform these
gentlemen composing a majority of the committee that
we have in the United States no “religious system;”
that this is a secular Government; that it has no
religious creed; that it does not believe or disbelieve in
a future state of reward and punishment; that it neither
affirms nor denies the existence of a “ living Godand
that the only god, so far as this Government is con
cerned, is the legally expressed will of a majority of the
people. Under our flag the Chinese have the same
right to worship a wooden God that you have to worship
any other.
The Constitution protects equally the
church of Jehovah and the house of Joss. Whatever
their relative positions may be in heaven, they stand
upon a perfect equality in the United States.
This Government is an Infidel Government. We
�9
have a Constitution with man put in and God left out ;
and it is the glory of this country that we have such a
Constitution.
It may be surprising to you that I have an apology
for pagan worship, yet I have. And it is the same one
that I have for the writers of this report. I account for
both by the word superstition. Why should we object
to their worshipping God as they please ? If the
worship is improper, the protestation should come not
from a committee of Congress, but from God himself.
If he is satisfied that is sufficient.
Our religion can only be brought into contempt by
the actions of those who profess to be governed by its
teachings. This report will do more in that direction
than millions of Chinese could do by burning pieces of
paper before a wooden image. If you wish to impress
the Chinese with the value of your religion, of what you
are pleased to call “the American system,” show them
that Christians are better than heathens. Prove to
them that what you are pleased to call the “living God”
teaches higher and holier things, a grander and purer
code of morals than can be found upon pagan pages.
Excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in rever
ence for parents, in cleanliness, in frugality; and above
all by advocating the absolute liberty of humah thought.
Do not trample upon these people because they have a
different conception of things about which even this
committee knows nothing.
Give them the sariae privilege you enjoy of making a
God after their own fashion. And let them describe
him as they will. Would you be willing to have them
remain, if One of their race, thousands of years ago, had
pretended to have seen God, and had written of him as
follows
�IO
“There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire
out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it,
....... and he rode upon a cherub and did fly.”
"Why should you object to these people on account of
their religion? Your objection has in it the spirit of
hate and intolerance. Of that spirit the Inquisition was
born. That spirit lighted the fagot, made the thumb
screw, put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the
backs of men. The same spirit bought and sold,
captured and kidnapped human beings; sold babes, and
justified all the horrors of slavery.
Congress has nothing to do with the religion of the
people. Its members are not responsible to God for the
opinions of their constituents, and it may tend to the
happiness of the constituents for me to state that they
are in no way responsible for the religion of the mem
bers. Religion is an individual, not a national matter.
And where the nation interferes with the right of con
science, the liberties of the people are devoured by the
monster superstition.
If you wish to drive out the Chinese, do not make a
pretext of religion. Do not pretend that you are trying
to do God a favor. Injustice in his name is doubly
detestable. The assassin cannot sanctify his dagger by
falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if
it be uttered as a prayer. Religion, used to intensify
the hatred of men towards men under the pretence of
pleasing God, has cursed this world.
A portion of this most remarkable report is intensely
religious. There is in it almost the odor of sanctity;
and when reading it, one is impressed with the living
piety of its authors. But on the twenty-fifth page there
are a few passages that must pain the hearts of true
�11
Believers. Leaving their religious views, the members
immediately betake themselves to philosophy and pre
diction. Listen:—
“ The Chinese race and the American citizen,
■whether native-born or one who is eligible to our
naturalisation laws and becomes a citizen, are in a state
of antagonism. They cannot, or will not, ever meet
upon common ground, and occupy together the same
social level. This is impossible. The pagan and the
Christian travel different paths. This one believes in a
living God ; and that one in a type of monsters and the
worship of wood and stone. Thus in the religion of the
two races of men they are as wide apart as the poles of
the two hemispheres. They cannot now and never will
approach the same religious altar. The Christian will
not recede to barbarism, nor will the Chinese advance
to the enlightened belt (whatever it is) of civilisation......
He cannot be converted to those modern ideas of
religious worship which have been accepted by Europe
and which crown the American system.”
Christians used to believe that through their religion
all the nations of the earth were finally to be blest. In
accordance with that belief missionaries have been sent
to every land, and untold wealth has been expended for
what has been called the spread of the gospel.
I am almost sure that I have read somewhere that
“ Christ died for all men,” and that “God is no respecter
of persons.” It was once taught that it was the duty
of Christians to tell all people the “ tidings of great
joy.” I have never believed these things myself, but
have always contended that an honest merchant was
the best missionary. Commerce makes friends, religion
makes enemies; the one enriches, and the other im
poverishes ; the one thrives best where the truth is told,
�12
the other where falsehoods are believed. For myself, I
have but little confidence in any business, or enterprise,
or investment that promises dividends only after the
death of the stockholders.
But I am astonished that four Christian statesmen,
four members of Congress, in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, who seriously object to people on
account of their religious convictions, should still assert
that the very religion in which they believe—and the
only religion established by the “ living God,” head of
the American system—is not adapted to the spiritual
needs of one-third of the human race. It is amazing that
these four gentlemen have, in the defence of the Christian
religion, announced the discovery that it is wholly in
adequate for the civilisation of mankind; that the light of
the cross can never penetrate the darkness of China;
“ that all the labors of the missionary, the example of the
good, the exalted character of our civilisation, make no
impression upon the pagan life of the Chinese; ” and
that even the report of this committee will not tend to
elevate, refine, and Christianise the yellow heathen of
the Pacific coast. In the name of religion these gentle
men have denied its power, and mocked at the enthu
siasm of its founder.
Worse than this, they have
predicted for the Chinese a future of ignorance and
idolatry in this world, and, if the “ American system ”
of religion is true, hell-fire in the next.
For the benefit of these four philosophers and prophets
I will give a few extracts from the writings of Con
fucius, that will, in my judgment, compare favorably
with the best passages of their report:—
“ My doctrine is that man must be true to the
�i3
principles of his nature, and the benevolent exercise of
them toward others.
“.With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and
with my bended arm for a pillow, I still have joy.
“ .Riches and honor acquired by injustice are to me
but floating clouds.
“ The man who, in view of gain, thinks of righteous
ness; who, in view of danger, forgets life, and who
remembers an old agreement, however far back it
extends, such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
“ Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with
kindness.
“ There is one word which may serve as a rule of
practice for all one’s life ; Reciprocity is that word.”
When the ancestors of the four Christian Congress
men were barbarians, when they lived in caves, gnawed
bones, and worshipped dried snakes, the infamous
Chinese were reading these sublime sentences of Con
fucius.
When the forefathers of these Christian
statesmen were hunting toads to get the jewels out of
their heads, to be used as charms, the wretched Chinese
were calculating eclipses, and measuring the circum
ference of the earth. When the progenitors of these
representatives of the “ American system of religion ”
were burning women charged with nursing devils, the
people “ incapable of being influenced by the exalted
character of our civilisation ” were building asylums for
the insane.
Neither should it be forgotten that, for thousands of
years the Chinese have honestly practised the great
principle known as Civil Service Reform—a something
that even the administration of Mr. Hayes has reached
only through the proxy of promise.
If we wish to prevent the immigration of the Chinese,
�J4
iet us reform our treaties with the vast empire from
whence they came. For thousands of years the Chinese
secluded themselves from the rest of the world. They
did not deem the Christian nations fit to associate with.
We forced ourselves upon them. We called, not with
cards, but with cannon. The English battered down
the door in the names of opium and Christ. This
infamy was regarded as another triumph for the gospel.
At last, in self-defence, the Chinese allowed Christians to
touch their shores. Their wise men, their philosophers
protested, and prophesied that time would show that
Christians could not be trusted. This report proves
that the wise men were not only philosophers but
prophets.
Treat China as you would England. Keep a treaty
while it is in force. Change it if you will, according to
the laws of nations, but on no account excuse a breach
of national faith by pretending that we are dishonest for
God’s sake.
�WORKS BY THE LATE R. G. INGERSOLL
The House of Death.
Funeral Orations and
Addresses, is.
Mistakes of Moses, is.
Cloth, 2s. 6d.
The Devil. 6d.
Superstition. 6d.
Shakespeare. 6d. •
The Gods. 6d.
The Holy Bible. 6d.
Reply to
Gladstone.
With an Introduction by
G. W. Foote. 4d.
Rome or Reason ? A
Reply to Cardinal Man
ning. 4d.
Crimes against Criminals
3dOration on Walt Whit
man.
3d.
Oration on Voltaire. 3d.
Oration on Lincoln. 3dPaine the Pioneer. 2d.
Humanity’s
Debt
to
Thomas Paine. 2d.
Ernest Renan and Jesus
Christ. 2d.
Three Philanthropists.
2d.
Love the Redeemer. 2d.
The Ghosts. 3d.
What Must We do to be
Saved ? 2d.
Take a Road of Your
Own. id.
What is Religion ? 2d.
Defence of
Freethought. 4d.
Is Suicide a Sin ? 2d.
Last Words on Suicide.
2d.
God and the State. 2d.
Faith and Fact.
Reply
to Dr. Field. 2d.
God and Man.
Second
reply to Dr. Field. 2d.
The Dying Creed. 2d.
The Limits of Tolera
tion.
A Discussion
with the Hon. F. D.
Coudert and Gov. S. L.
Woodford. 2d.
Household of Faith. 2d.
Art and Morality. 2d.
Do I Blaspheme ? 2d.
Social Salvation. 2d.
Marriage & Divorce. 2d.
Skulls. 2d.
Live Topics, id.
Myth and Miracle, id.
Real Blasphemy, id.
Why am I an Agnostic? 2d.
Christ and Miracles, id.
I Creeds&Spirituality, id.
i The Christian Religion.
I
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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
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>
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
A wooden god
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: First published 1880 as a letter to the Chicago Times (27 March) and reprinted from the Dresden edition of Ingersoll's works. No. 96b in Stein checklist.||(WIT) Publisher's advertisements ("Works by the late R.G. Ingersoll") inside back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Please note that this pamphlet contains language and ideas that may be upsetting to readers. These reflect the time in which the pamphlet was written and the ideologies of the author.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1903
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N414
Subject
The topic of the resource
Missionaries
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 (A wooden god), 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
China
Missionaries-China
NSS