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GOOD AND EVIL—THEIR ORIGIN.
BY PBOR ANDRÉ POËY.
PINIONS are profoundly divided with regard to the origin
and nature of good and evil. For Theologians : God is the
good, and the Devil is the evil. Tradition, Christ, the
apostles, the doctors, the councils, the Christian dogmas,
teach us that God has existed from eternity infinitely powerful, wise
and holy. The world and man, formed out of nothing, are the work
of his hands, and these same hands which imparted life to man, will
also give him happiness in a heavenly home. As the world is naturally
divided between good and evil, evilis the result of a fall due to his free
will, which precipitated man into sin, suffering, and eternal death.
But the omnipotent goodness of God ransomed man from the error of
his ways at the price of an infinite victim ; hence the coming of the
Messiah, the Word, and the Son * * * when divine grace was dif
fused anew over the earth. “ Here,” says M. Littré, “ the dogma is
engaged in obscure questions between this divine grace, predestination,
the small number of the elect on the one side, and on the other the free
will of man, and the goodness of God.” At flast men rise from the
dead, and are judged according to the deeds done in the flesh. The
good are rewarded, the bad punished ; the heavenly Jerusalem opens
its gates, and hell opens its portal for an order become unchangeable,
and a time become eternal. “ Viewed in its ensemble,” says M. Littré,
“ this dogmatism is a philosophy giving enough light to satisfy the
faithful about the author of the world, the world itself, man, his duties
and his destiny, while in its origin it is the rival of philosophy. It is
important to note that each theology emanating from an antecedent
theology, always carries with it a supernatural history. To be inti
mately connected with a supernatural history is the character of a pri
mordial philosophy or theology.” *
Consequently, in the theological philosophy evil is the result of a
fall due to free-will, and free-tvill, according to Bossuet,f belongs to the
soul, which, being an immaterial substance, has the faculty of willing
for its own sake, without the intervention of any motive as a deter
mining cause of its resolutions.
O
* “ La Philosophie positive.”
H&oue, 1867, vol. i, p. 9.
f “ Traité sur le Libre arbitre.”
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This theological conception of free-will is still the most advanced,
for some Christian sects and established churches have, on the con
trary, professed a bond-will, holding that, in the presence of divine
omnipotence and omniscience, man’s freedom was an impiety, a chi
mera, an immorality. According to the Presbyterian Church’s prin
ciple of predestination, the sin being foreseen, man has to submit to
free-will personified in the immutability of G-od’s omnipotence. Men
are therefore fatally foreordained to be, while on earth, good or bad,
according to their celestial missions.
If from this theological or divine conception we pass to the meta
physical or abstract, as found in the most advanced school of Locke,
J. Stuart Mill, and Prof. Bain, we find that free-will, as the theologians
understand it, is a psychological error, and that volition is not a
taculty determined by its own momentum toward this or that motive.
On the contrary, that the resolution urged by the will is determined by
this and that motive. In a word, that it is not motives which obey
volition, but volition which obeys motives.
Thus, according to theological and metaphysical philosophy, the
knowledge and practice of good and evil depend upon the will, and
this last is determined either by itself, independently of all extraneous
causes, or else by volition which obeys motives of some kind. All this,
in the first case, leaves us in the most absolute vagueness about their
origin, and in the second, we are only furnished with a point of de
parture whence we plunge into the greatest obscurity with regard to
the psychological explanation of good and evil, and their mental evolu
tion in human morality.
Theology and metaphysics being wholly powerless to furnish us the
origin of good and evil, lgt us seek it in positive psychology. When
anatomy and physiology were advanced enough in the knowledge of
the simpler functions of the human body, they were compelled to take
up immediately the more complicated functions of the brain and in
telligence. They were at once struck with the close alliance of these
two facts: that everything which changed the organ, also altered the
state of its function. Then it was observed that all the impressions
furnished us by the external world as well as our own internal im
pressions, were immediately received and transmitted by our conducting
nerves into the depths of the nerve-cells of which the cerebral mass is
composed. These cells have then as their irreducible property the
translation of these impressions into ideas and sentiments, their con
servation, their association, and their elaboration into combinations, more
or less complicated, according to the nature of the given impressions.
Although the analysis of the anatomical conditions and physiological
functions of the organs of the brain may in part be unintelligible to
some readers who are not on a level with the latest discoveries in
biology, I cannot pass it over in the conception of the new positive
doctrine which I shall shortly propound. This analysis has conducted
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us to the great discovery: that the brain is at the same time the seat
of the affections, as well as that of the intelligence. The heart has no
other function but that relating to the circulation of the blood and the
preservation of life. Gall reclaimed the intellectual functions from the
vegetative viscera, where they were believed to be situated, to place
them in the brain. Now we exclude the affective functions from the
heart, in order to bring them back to theii’ true place in the cells of
the brain, where they are elaborated simultaneously with the intellectual.
By considering the brain as the seat of the intelligence and affections,
we do not say that it has the power of creating them. The brain
creates nothing; it merely receives impressions external and internal,
and elaborates them. The function of the brain is limited to the build
ing up, so to speak, of ideas and sentiments out of the materials which
come to it from without and within our organism: that is to say, out
of external sensorial impressions, and internal instinctive impressions.
In this respect the nerve-cells of the head have a triple basis: intel
lectual, affective, and esthetic. Intellectual, or that which is attached to
the sensorial impressions; affective, or that which is dependent upon
the needs of individual life and that of the species; esthetic, or that
connected with what is emotional and pleasing in certain auditory and
visual impressions. In this the subjective or internal impression is
always blended with the objective or external impression, and can only
mean the faculty of elaboration on the part of the nerve-cells of the
brain’s hemispherical lobes. All this in the esthetic faculty gives rise
to music, architecture, sculpture, painting and poetry, idealized and
constituting with ideology and morality the psychical phenomena of
human reason.
Now that we have an idea (exact enough for our purpose) of the
anatomy and physiology of the intellectual and affective faculties, let
us proceed to consider from a more elevated point of view, the latter
only, as they are less known and accepted.
We have already said that the impressions which affect our nervous
system are of two kinds: the one, sensorial or of the senses; the other,
instinctive. At present we shall add that sensorial impressions are the
source of ideas, and instinctive impressions, the source of sentiments.
The instinctive impressions are also of two kinds: those which apper
tain to the instincts for preserving the individual life, and those which
belong to the instinct for preserving the species. The instinct of indi
vidual life depends upon self-love, which degenerates by reason of
vicious direction into selfishness. The instinct-life corresponds to love
of others, in its primordial forms of sexual attachment, maternal, filial,
national love, and finally love for humanity, by the preponderance of
altruism over selfishness. Thus, however complex may be our ideas,
they can always be reduced to ideas, the simple products of our sensa
tions ; in the same manner, however complex may be our sentiments,
they can always be reduced to one of two fundamental sentiments.
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EVIL.
Hence the founder of the positive philosophy, Auguste Comte, has
very judiciously divided all our sentiments into selfish and altruist.
The selfish sentiments relate to the conservation and safety of the indi
vidual, and the altruist sentiment to the conservation and safety of the
community or of the human species.
According as we ascend the zoological scale from the inferior ani
mals to man, we always see altruism prevail over selfishness. Among
fishes, which are cerebrally at the lowest point in the vertebrate scale
and have no conception of either family or children, the instinct
remains purely sexual. But the sentiment to which it gives birth com
mences to be manifested in many mammifers and birds; only it is but
temporary in the greatest, number of instances. Among men, the
family raises in the children love of parents, and in the parents love of
children. Afterwards are formed between families bonds of the same
kind as between the members of the family itself. In fine, from this
union and this fraternity, sociability arises here and there, and is more
and more developed.
Now mark the following: it is precisely upon this power of socia
bility, which increases from the inferior beings up to man, that Auguste
Comte has founded his static law, which serves as the basis of the
science of sociology (the present politics). This law is in its turn so
dependent upon the constitution of the brain, that it is effaced accord
ing as the cerebral mass diminishes among animals. This constitutes
among men the foundation of political economy.
Whence man is a moral being, capable of acting under selfish impulses or under altruist impulses, according as these or those prevail.
Barbarous people and certain narrow natures * in the bosom of our
society are found exactly in the former condition, on account of the
small development of their intellectual and affective faculties. Praise
worthy actions spring by the side of detestable ones, and dispute with
them the supremacy. It is only later, when man learns the profound
abyss which exists between selfish and altruist sentiments, that he can
only establish a rule of conduct.
“ Such a rule,” says M. Littré, “ which appears a very light bridle to
repress the passions, is nevertheless invincible. Its force is in nature,
which has created it; and even by this it can never be annihilated, but
is always maintained. Fixed in the mind and become a moral force, it
takes where it is violated the form of remorse in the individual, the
form of reprobation in opinion, and the form of punishment in society
and among humanity.” f
<
According as humanity grows and develops, it forms intermediate
associations of sentiments and rules, which determine and characterize
the different moralities arising in the advance of the ages. It is thus
* Unfortunately every-day business concerns place us in contact with too many
of such selfish natures.
f “ La philosophie positive.” Revue, 1867, vol. i, p. 359.
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that the moral sense, having a foundation wholly physiological and, as
a result, constant, is none the less variable, according to times and
peoples. We therefore see that, for morality as well as for human in
telligence, there is a primitive state destitute of both. In the primitive
epoch of humanity, the morality is as weak and faulty as the intelli
gence is infantile. It has been only in the lapse of time that the senti
ments have been developed, associated, and regulated, without having
yet attained in our day either form or definite stability.
Let us resume our researches into the origin of good and evil in the
three philosophies we have passed in review. In the Theological school,
free-will is a faculty of the soul, without control, and independent of
our volition; or else the free-will is in God, and man is irrevocably
predestined to act well or ill. In the first case we have only prayer,
invocation of the Supreme Being to preserve us from evil, at last pun
ishment or reward in eternity. In the second the bond-will absolves
us always in the evil as well as in the good. In the Metaphysical
school, as its principles always repose upon intimate causes, and not
upon laws, the volitional faculty is synonymous with the faculty of an
immaterial soul in the psychological properties of the brain. It is its
absolute origin which destroys the concrete cause of the determining
faculty of the volition in free-will.
In the Positivist school, soul, free-will, volition, good, evil, and all
the psychical faculties, are the simple result of the transformation of
impressions from without and within, by a physiological elaboration in
the nerve-cells of the brain into ideas and sentiments. Good and evil
become thus unstable sentiments, while the two media (external and
internal) undergo variations more or less considerable; and they can
not be morally determined so long as these media have not taken their
normal course—that is to say, so long as the sociological laws jire not
definitely known and fully practised. Hitherto not a single example
can be found where evil was not in certain circumstances the parent of
good, or vice versa. The proverb that “ there is no evil which may not
become a good,” has here its most brilliant confirmation. .
In the Positive Philosophy, instead of having recourse to personal
or divine absolution always at hand to give us peace, in order to fall
anew into the same sin, our rule of conduct and our moral force, in a
word, are powerfully rooted in the noble remorse for a bad deed, while
in the reprobation of public opinion we impose a punishment from the
hands of society and entire humanity, much keener than the vain
absolutions, punishments, and rewards, personal and selfish, beyond the
grave.
Let it be particularly noted that what we have said above about
psychical phenomena, and about the transformation within the nerve
cells of the brain of external and internal impressions into ideas and
sentiments—that all this is by no means Materialism in the sense of
the ancient school of Epikurus, of Condillac, of Locke, of D’Holbach,
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and of Buchner in our own days. They are simply facts of observa
tion, experiment, and comparison, obtained by modern anatomy and
physiology.
Following the diverse vibrations suffered by inert matter, do we not
see as remarkable effects produced in the thousand properties of heat,
light, sound, electricity, and magnetism ? Are not the physical proper
ties of inorganic matter as marvelous as the psychical properties of
organic matter ? Here, as in the cerebral mass, it is always the inor
ganic or organic matter which is manifested under the impulse of a
form of vibration determined in the diverse properties—physical, vital,
and psychical.
Thus in fine we are in possession of three grand series of funda
mental properties of matter. First—Universal Gravitation, which is
an immanent principle of matter inorganic or inert. Second—Life,
which is an immanent principle of matter organic or animated. Third
—Intelligence and Affection, which form the immanent principle of
nervous or thinking matter.
Having signalized the origin of good and evil according to theolog
ical, metaphysical and positive interpretations, let us now proceed to
establish the static and dynamic laws which govern the theory of hu
man reason.
Hippokrates and Aristotle have shown that there is nothing in the
intelligence which has not come from sensation. This law was later
badly interpreted by the materialists, who suppressed the intelligence
and only admitted the impression of sensation. Leibnitz rectified the
primitive law by saying that there are outside of us facts which we
perceive by our senses. But if we do not wish, like idiots, to contem
plate uselessly these facts, we must connect them together in order to
construct theories and establish laws. This concurrence between the
brain anc! the world for the formation of any notion whatever, has been
established above in the distinction between subjective and objective.
Completing Hippokrates, Aristotle and Leibnitz by Kant, Auguste
Comte has in fine established that the mind is not and cannot be pas
sive in its relations to the world, and that the state of the subject
causes always a modification in the appreciation of the object. All our
conceptions being at the same time objective and subjective, Comte
has thus established his first intellectual and static law: that “our
subjective constructions are always subordinated to our objective materials.”
But as in our greater flights of imagination we never cease to draw
from without the materials with which to construct our fancies, this
first law applies as well to the state of madness as to that of sanity.
In order that the internal may be subordinate to the external, it is not
sufficient that the foundation of our thought comes from sensation,
the sensation must preponderate. Hence Comte’s second law is that
“ the internal images are less vivid and exact than the external impres
sions whence they emanate.”
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“ It is thus alone,” adds Comte, “ that a veritable subordination of
the brain to its truly preponderant medium can be established. With
out such a condition the mental intercourse of man with the world ad
mits of no fixed rule. For our internal impulses come always to dis
turb our external impressions, being on the point, at times, of over
whelming our weaker appreciation.” * Nevertheless this second static
law does not altogether complete the normal state of the understand
ing, for any object whatever may create, according to the diversity of
circumstances, many different images. If these images, for example,
though all inferior to their corresponding impressions, were notwith
standing equal to each other, there would result in the mind an insur
mountable confusion. This is what takes place in symptoms of insan
ity. Comte’s third law following is still necessary : that “ the normal
image is more vivid than those which the cerebral action brings simul
taneously into existence.”
The static theory of human reason is finally completed by these
three laws. The within ceases to have power to disturb the without, but on
the contrary yields to its necessary preponderance. The external order
becomes thus, by its relation to the brain, an aliment, a stimulant and
a regulator, as it does toward all other classes of biological phenomena.
As every judgment we form results from a certain medley of ob
jective impressions and subjective elaboration, we must inquire what is
the exact degree of each of the two elements constituting the normal
state. This .degree cannot be rigorously fixed, seeing that there is no
precise boundary between reason and madness, health and sickness.
The existence of a being allows of variations within certain limits, and
it is only when their extent is overpassed that it becomes impossible.
But we can fix an ideal mean around which the reality oscillates. This
mean which the human reason always tend's to approach, furnishes us
the logical law of the First Philosophy, so well forecast by Bacon, which
consists in this new law of Comte, prescribing us “ to construct always
the simplest hypothesis permitted by the facts.”
Seeing that all our theories must finally end in representing the
world as it is, the brain will become, as far as possible, a faithful mirror of the external order. But to see things as they are, it must be
deprived of all exaggerated sentiments of malevolence, and even of
benevolence. We say with reason that hate is blind, but we also say
it of love, which amounts to the recognition that all excessive passion
hinders us from seeing justly, and forces us to make complex hypo
theses, either to condemn or to absolve. But as the mind, in a state
of unity, can think only under an affective impulse, selfish or altruist,
positive logic prescribes us to guard especially the malevolent impulses,
which are the most violent and imperious. The influence of benevo
lence is likely to become exaggerated only in case of madness, when
* “ Systeme de Politique positive,” t. iii, p. 19.
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the mind ceases to be the minister of the heart, in order to become its
slave. So, to be as simple as possible, Comte has established as an
complement to the anterior logical law, that “ our hypotheses
must be stripped as much of malevolence as of benevolence?’
The ensemble of the three static laws with the logical law of the
first philosophy and its affective complement just given, only furnish
the character of human reason in opposition to madness, but not the
*
stability of opinions whence it emanates.
If the opinions were unstable (even the variations they suffer by
more extended observation, or by the changes to which age makes our
sentiments yield), or if they were not submitted to any law, they would
then be arbitrarily free. This dynamic law which is connected with
the intellectual development of the human mind, was also discovered
by Comte and formulated in these terms: “ All human conceptions pro
ceed from the theological or fictional state to the positive or scientific
state by passing through the metaphysical or abstract state?’
Considered by itself, this law at first appears inexact. In fact, we see
illustrious geniuses recognizing the existence of a superior volition, and
bowing before it, while almost all our contemporaries are at the same
time theologians or metaphysicians in politics, and positivists in
geometry or chemistry. Does the normal state of our intelligence con
sist in employing different methods, according to the nature of the
subject of which we treat ?
A second complementary law resolves this apparent contradiction :
it is the law of the classification of our abstract conceptions into six
philosophies of the irreducible sciences, according to the complexity and
specialty increasing, or the simplicity and generality decreasing of the
phenomena with which each of them deal. The intelligence is thus
conducted from the simplest and most general speculations to those
most complex and special, in the hierarchal order of the Sciences fol
lowing, established by Comte: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology, (this last comprehending psychology,
esthetics, ideology, and morality.)
The first four sciences embrace the study of the cosmological Medium,
or inorganic creation, and the two latter the vital and social Medium,
or organic creation. Mathematics, astronomy, physics, and chemistry
being the simplest, are the earliest emancipated from all supernatural
and metaphysical intervention. Among those who the most resolutely
invoke divine mediation in human affairs, no one pretends to deprive
a railway train of all velocity by means of prayer. On .the contrary,
in biological or sociological phenomena, confined especially to psychol
ogy, or the intelligence and affections, by their greater complexity,
theology and metaphysics are yet deeply rooted.
* Eugène Sémérie., “ Des Symptômes intellectuels de la folie.”—Thèse. Paris,
1867.
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The different degrees of velocity with which each science, according
to its complexity, is susceptible of attaining its final state of positivity,
is a capital fact which confirms beyond a doubt the exactness of the
dynamic law' of the three phases of human intelligence in the inter
pretation of natural phenomena.
But from the moment that the positive method has furnished us
the true psychological and sociological laws, these theological and
metaphysical phantoms disappear from the sciences never to return.
The creation of the sociological and moral sciences conducts us then
to mental unity by a complete cerebral harmony, or, in other words,
to the stability of ideas by the Positive Philosophy, replacing definitely
the two primitive philosophies.
The study upon the origin of good and evil which we have termi
nated, is at the same time positive and negative. Positive, by the
physiological and psychical laws we have established; negative, by the
relative impotence in which we remain for want of a sufficient number
of laws to fix the true limits which separate good and evil.
But a great truth has been irrevocably acquired: 1st, that the intel
lectual and affective faculties have their single and sole seat in the
brain, where they are united by bonds of strict and intimate solidarity;
2d, that the affections arise from internal instinctive impressions, while
the ideas or intelligence are derived from external sensorial impressions;
and 3d, that the instinctive or affective impressions are of two orders:
those appertaining to the instincts for preserving the life of the indi
vidual, and those relating to the instincts for preserving the life of the
species. The first are beyond a certain limit selfish, and the second
are always altruist,
• After the affective and spontaneous faculties of the brain which
constitute human morality, follow the intellectual faculties and rules
which determine human reason. Between these two is placed a third
order of faculty, called esthetic or emotional.
The reason being merely outlined, morality in our day is in only an
embryonic state. Good and evil depend upon false and true, that is to
say, upon intellectual reasoning. We do ewl because we have a false
idea of the true, in the same way that we do good because we have a
true idea of the false. In the state of mental anarchy in which society
is sunk, we frequently confound the noblest sentiments with the basest
passions. For- example, impersonal pride is mistaken for personal self
ishness. We should only be proud of a noble and just action in the
unique interest of goodness, as it relates to our fellow-beings; but if
this pride has no other aim than our own satisfaction, what in the
first case was a legitimate virtue, in the other degenerates into un
worthy self-love. Should one be badly appreciated in his noble im
personal pride, he must never blame the author without taking into
account the extenuating and powerful circumstances which often, alas!
are but very fallacious. After a disappointment, one can only pity the
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object of his attachment, not by high disdain, but by compelling him
to return to better sentiments. In a word, pride can become a noble
and pure passion only on condition of forgetting itself. We have taken
as an example pride, because it is at once the noblest and the vilest
of passions, according to the use, good or bad, legitimate or illegitimate,
which is made of it, and according as personal selfishness or imper
sonal altruism predominates. Thus evil limits good, and they are
transmitted, the one into the other, in the form of perturbation, with
out which we cannot seize the true law which governs these two ex
treme terms.
The cause is very plain: in the affective faculties biology is not ad
vanced enough to furnish us the law of the instincts for the preserva
tion of individual life, and sociology is too much in its infancy to give
us the law of the instincts for the preservation of the species-life. Do
we not perceive in this ensemble of incontestable facts that Morality
is yet in process of creation by the sole means of human reason ?
In a second part we will regard good and evil from the dynam
ical stand-point, its evolution and periodical recurrences. In the first
case we have applied Broussais’s law upon the assimilation of the
pathological state to the physiological (or health), the former differ
ing only in a greater amplitude from the normal state which then
degenerates into perturbation. In the same way the psychical facul
ties of the nerve-cells of the brain may be exalted from the normal
state or the good to. the perturbed state or the evil. So the origin of
evil is .an exaggeration of the good. In the second place I will show
how the periodical recurrences of astronomical and physical phenom
ena, also occurs in morality, as well in the individual as in society.
As in the physical, so the more complex moral phenomena are,
the more difficult it is to foresee the period of revolution, and the
cycle is more extended. The same relation exists between eclipses
and comets of very long periods. The last part of this work is en
tirely personal, although its principles are more or less based upon
those of the Positive Philosophy.
September, 1869.
�A
THE three mental crises
OF AUGUSTE COMTE.
BY PROF. ANDRÉ
POËY.
LITTRÉ has charged Auguste Comte, since his death,
with having changed the method in the elaboration of
his two great works. In his Philosophic positive the ob
jective method presides, while in his Politique positive,
on the contrary, the subjective method principally reigns.
*
M. Littré finds the cause which drove Comte into the subjective
method in a purely psychological effect—in a word, in a mental crisis
experienced by him in 1845, preceded and followed by the following
circumstances:
“Since he finished in 1842,” says he, “the Systeme de philoso
phic positive, he never ceased to revolve in his mind his promised
book upon positive politics. Yet, not until 1845 were its character
and plan settled. This initial elaboration of his second great work
(Comte’s own expression) coincided with a grave nervous illness.” f
M. Littré cites afterwards two of Comte’s letters to Mr. J. S. Mill,
of June 27, 1845, and May 6, 1846. In tlm first, Comte speaks of in
teresting details (necessarily deferred) upon a grave nervous illness, pro
duced, doubtless, by the resumption of his philosophical composition,
which occurred some days after his last letter (May 15).
M. Littré remarks that this letter is mysterious; that one does not
promise interesting details upon a fever or fluxion ; but that this was
really a crisis in which Comte’s mind suffered profound impressions
and durable modifications. He finds this plainly set forth in the fol
lowing extract from his second letter to Mill: “. . . . The decisive
invasion of this virtuous passion (for Mme. Clotilde de Vaux) coincided
last year with the initial elaboration of my second great work. You
can thus imagine the true gravity of a nervous crisis, up to the present
imperfectly known, in which I have run a true cerebral risk, and from
the forcible personal recollections of which I have been happily saved,
without any vain medical interference ...”
In this second letter Comte speaks, not of an illness, but of a ner
vous disease. Before 1845, this disease was indeterminate, adds M.
M
* “ Auguste Comte et la Philosophie positive.” Paris, 1863, p. 126.
f Id., pp. 580-591.
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Littré. “ But the fatiguing effort of thought, as it neared completion,
encountered the impassioned love inspired by Mme. de Vaux. From ,
this time the disease took a determinate form, impressing the
seal of sentiment upon the conception elaborated. So, between pro
found meditation ruling his intellect, and passionate tenderness capti
vating his heart, the obstacles which had hitherto stopped him disap
peared, the scales fell from his eyes, and the subjective method appeared
to him a luminous guide which introduced him at the most distant
future to a humanity altogether devoted to love. From this time his
work was traced throughout; it was only a question of deduction and
combination ; and what greater mind for concatenating and following
out combinations ever existed than his ? ”
Such are the only proofs brought forward by M. Littré on Comte’s
mental crisis of 1845. His physician and one of his three testament
ary executors, Dr. Robinet, does not mention it in his life of Comte.
Mr. Lewes’ objection to Littré is very inconclusive. It is that, if the
great crisis of 1826 had no deleterious effect upon the Positive Philos
ophy, how could the trivial one of 1845, even granted that it took
place (for Lewes doubts it) vitiate his subsequent constructions ? * He
appears to think that all cerebral crises are of like character and have
similar effects. This is improbable, and Comte himself, in the present
instance, asserts the contrary, as will be seen below.
To solve this delicate question, it will suffice to refer to Comte him
self, which Littré and Lewes have not done. If they had, they would
have seen, in an affectionate profession de foi, addressed to Clotilde de
Vaux, August 5, 1845 (two months aftei' his last nervous illness), that
Comte himself acknowledges three cerebral crises, determining their
ch aranteristics and their influences upon his philosophical elaboration.
He traces with a steady hand his life, past and future, public and
private, and invokes his love, to finish his task.
These three crises took place in 1826, 1838, and 1845. This extract
from Comte establishes their existence. “To conceive more clearly the
true general relations of the two crises which circumscribe the only
part of my past career, public or private, directly interesting to you, it
will be useful to indicate a kind of intermediate crisis of less pro
nounced character but of similar nature, determined in 1838, by pass
ing from the purely scientific preamble of my great philosophical
construction to the biological element which definitively constitutes it.”
In fact, the third volume of the Positive Philosophy, closing with
Biology, bears date of February 24, 1838, and its fourth, volume, with
the dogmatic part of social Philosophy, is dated December 23, 1838.
From these two dates, his second crisis occurred in this interval of
nine months.
Comte, in continuation, determines its happy influence upon his
* “ The Fortnightly Review.” 1866, vol. iii, p. 403.
�01’
AUGUSTE
COMTE.
165
philosophical conception, in the following words : “ Although in this
second and principal half of that prolonged task, the social standpoint
had to remain almost wholly speculative, and hence could not tend to
develop in me so powerfully as at present the affective needs, still thai
epoch forms a remarkable phase in so intimate a history of my double
existence. Its principal marked result consisted in a vivid and perma
nent stimulation of my taste for the different Fine Arts, especially
poetry and music, which then received a considerable increase. You
feel immediately the spontaneous affinity with my ulterior tendency
towards a life principally affective ; and further, it very happily im
proved my work in all relating to the esthetic evolution of humanity.
In domestic affairs, this period has some interest as also intermediate
between two essential crises ; for I ceased then, for the first time, solic
iting, while still permitting a postponement of a temporary separation,and signified my firm resolution of making in the future any similar
occurrence irrevocable.”
Comte finishes the estimation of these three crises by a singular
property which has much assisted him in the clear remembrance of
them. One of his small philosophical secrets is to consolidate and aid
every intellectual or affective improvement by joining it with some phys
ical improvement, directed especially towards the continual improvement
of the diet. “ From this principle,” says he, “ is derived all the essentials
of the positive theory of sacraments, of which priestly empiricism feels
confusedly the bearing, as physical signs of different degrees of spiritual
progress. In the same way I can say that the three essential crises of
my double personal evolution, in the years 1826, 1838, and 1845, are
rendered familiarly sacred to me by the durable dietetic symptom that I
have definitely abstained, at first from coffee, next from tobacco, and
now from wine. Such are, my dear friend, the different secret indica
tions which complete the ostensible part of my difficult explanation of
the new character, public and private, belonging to the second half of
my career.” *
Thus, beyond any question, Comte’s three mental crises are fully
acknowledged by himself. The psychological study which he made
upon these affections is curious. Indeed, he states in his public covrses
and in his second work the valuable observation made upon his own
cerebral illness of 1826. An empiric treatment, he says, which pro
longed the disturbance for eight months, permitted him the better
to estimate its different states. He was able to doubly verify his “ law
of three states,” which characterizes human evolution, by going through
all its essential phases, at first inversely, then directly, without their
order ever changing.
These are his own words : “ The three months in which medical
influence developed the illness made me gradually descend, from positi
* “ Notice sur l’Œuvre et sur la Vie d’Auguste Comte,” par le Dr. Robinet.
Paris, 1864, pp. 211-213.
�66
THE
THREE
MENTAL
CRISES
vism to fetishism, stopping at monotheism, and longer at polytheism.
In the five following months, according as my spontaneity, despite the
remedies, restored normal life, I slowly reascended from fetishism to
polytheism, and from it to monotheism, whence I promptly recovered
my previous positivity. By procuring me a direct and decisive confir
mation of my ‘ law of the three states,’ and making me more plainly
feel the necessary relativity of all our knowledge, this terrible episode
aided me in identifying myself more easily with any of the human
phases. The assistance furnished by it to the whole of my historical
meditations, makes me hope that suitably instructed readers can also
utilize this summary indication of a memorable anomaly.” *
These psychological studies upon the three mental crises of Comte
deserve to be taken into serious consideration in our researches upon
the faculties and psychical products of the nerve-cells of the brain.
We deeply regret not having been able to consult the recent work of
Dr. G. Audiffrent, which would probably have thrown great light upon
this question.f It should always be remembered that these three crises
had a very diverse influence upon Comte’s philosophical elaboration.
In the first his ideas passed and repassed through the three great
periods of theology, from monotheism to fetishism, stopping at the
intermediary station of polytheism and vice versâ, until the return to
his primitive positivity. It is, moreover, a curious fact that he has
skipped, so to speak, the transitional phase of metaphysic, which he
does not mention. In fiis second crisis, Comte suffered a first though
small effusion of affection which he interprets as “ a vivid and perma
nent stimulation of his taste for different Fine Arts, especially poetry
and music.” At last, in his third crisis, this affection took colossal
dimensions under the influence of his impassioned love for Clotilde de
Vaux. “ Its influence was mystic,” says M. Littré, very truly, “ es
pecially when death, which soon came, had consecrated the recollection ;
and the mysticism was an aggravation of the subjective method.” J From
this influence arose the fine inspiration of the Religion of Humanity,
the principle of which I adopt as a moral power, but reject the form.
Unfortunately, Comte returned in his last days to a positive theol
ogy, personified in the Grand-Fetiche or the earth, the Grand-Milieu
or space, and the Grand-Etre or humanity ; § nevertheless this
positive trinity overpasses the limits of our poor human intelligence.
“ Comte’s thought,” says M. Littré, “ wavered between fictions and
chimeras ; but the idea of the cultus in the end excluded the first and
imposed the second.”
Comte’s reasoning is as follows : Subjectivity must prevail in the
universal synthesis, and fetishism, having introduced it spontaneously,
* “ Système de Politique positive.” Paris, 1853, vol. iii. p. 75.
t “ Du cerveau et de l’innervation d’après Auguste Comte,” Paris, 1869,1 vol., 8vo.
f Work cited, p. 583.
§ “ Synthèse subjective ” Paris, 1856. 8vo, pp. 840.
�OF
AUGUSTE
G 0 AI T E.
167
it must reappear in the latest period of human evolution which re
produces the initial type. The only difference is that the new fetish
ism will be subordinated to natural laws which the old did not know.
In this case we can apply to Comte his own judgment upon “ Vico’s
aberrations in the strange theory of social circularity, by specially pro
claiming the general superiority of the modern régime over the an
cient.” * M. Littré remarks that this is a “ gratuitous assertion, the
falsity of which is at once apparent, on applying it to biology, in
which neither manhood nor old age reproduces infancy.” Still, it
must be avowed there are many points of contact, yet unknown, be
tween childhood and old age, and hence the saying to fall into infancy,
specially applied to mental affections.
Comte’s life presents three great periods, distinctly characterized :
that of his philosophical construction, that of his political construc
tion, and that of his religious construction. He was, despite himself,
led insensibly from the first to the second, and from it to the third.
In the first he established an objective philosophy for the first time, in
the third he restored the primitive subjective philosophy, basing it
upon laws more or less empirical or fictional, while in the second period
his mind and heart wavered between the two methods, impelled by a
supreme effort at harmonizing them. He sought a point of union be
tween the subjective and the objective, between mind active and mind
passive, according to Kant’s fine conception. His idea was grand but
premature, and his task being placed beyond his power by fatal natural
laws, he had to succumb before the force of circumstances—that is to
say, through the failure of scientific data upon such complex problems.
Still, the sociological and moral bases established by him remain im
perishable, and will serve posterity as a foundation. The objective
Philosophy remains intact, and in the third edition (1869) M. Littré
asserts that the discoveries of forty years (since its first issue) have not
altered the organizing principle of the Positive Philosophy.f Another
century, and the great encyclopaedic series will receive its final corona
tion. A fine law of nature also places an impassable limit to the
human mind, according to the stage of intellectual progress attained
by it. Kepler, after founding celestial geometry, failed in celestial dy
namics, holding the theological conception that “ angels ” guided the
movements of the stars. His successor, Descartes, also failed, holding
the metaphysical conception in his renowned vortices. The positivity
of celestial mechanics was only reached by Newton’s discovery of the
law of universal Gravitation.
I will conclude by saying that cerebral attacks, similar to Comte’s
often occur. “ Many celebrated men,” adds M. Littré, “ have had men
tal shocks which greatly modified their characters.” Saint Paul, on
the way to Damascus, affords one of the most memorable examples.
* Letter to J. S. Mill in “ Auguste Comte et la Philosophie positive,” by Littré,
p. 460.
f “ Preface d’un disciple,” p. vii.
�168
THE
THREE
MENTAL
CRISES.
Mr. Lewes also says : “ There is nothing remarkable in the fact that Lucretius and
Cowper wrote their immortal poems during the lucid intervals of frequent cerebral
attacks. The philosophy of Lucretius has indeed been often affiliated on his in
sanity ; but the sweet piety, the delicate humor, and the sustained excellence of
Cowper have not been thus branded, and they show that the mind is lucid in its
lucid intervals. The list of illustrious madmen is a long one. Lucretius, Mahomet,
Loyola, Peter the Great, Haller, Newton, Tasso, Swift, Cowper, Donizetti, sponta
neously occur as the names of men whose occasional eclipse by no means darkens
the splendor of their achievements. To these we must add the name of Auguste
Comte, assured that, if Newton once suffered a cerebral attack without thereby for
feiting our veneration for the ‘ Principia ’ and the ‘ Optics,’ Comte may have like
wise suffered without forfeiting his claims on our veneration for the ‘ Philosophic po
sitive.’ But the best answer to this ignoble insinuation is the works themselves. If
they are the products of madness, one could wish that madness were occasionally
epidemic.” *
These temporary cerebral perturbations of great men should in no wise astonish
us, as we can trace their existence in Humanity according to the similar laws of
physical and moral phenomena, individual and collective. In fact, in 1841, Auguste
Comte pointed out that our opinions, while “ having ceased to be purely theological
without being able to become wholly scientific, constitute the metaphysical state,
regarded as a sort of transitional chronic malady, belonging to this impassable
phase of our mental evolution, individual and collective.” f Comte, in 1852, de
clared that, “ since the original dissolution of the ancient theocracies, modern
anarchy constitutes only the last term of an immense perturbation.” Consequent
ly, “ analyzed cerebrally, the occidental malady constitutes a chronic madness, es
sentially intellectual but habitually complicated with moral reactions, and often
accompanied with physical outbreaks.” J In fine, in 1855, he was still more explicit
in his letter to Dr. Audiffrent, in which he resumes the synthetic theory of diseases
by the sociological definition of the brain as an instrument for the action of the
dead upon the living. Occidental anarchy constitutes a true disease consisting in a
continuous insurrection of the living against the dead, which tends to produce a
chronic disturbance of cerebral economy. Comte connects medicine with morality,
by formulating the subjective definition of the brain thus : The double and perma
nent placenta between man and Humanity. By “ double ” he means the two simul
taneous orders of subjective relations to the past on one side, and to the future on
the other. The gravity of the disease tends to break the placenta in two ways. §
In accordance with these ideas of Comte, I propose the following definitions :
“ Mental diseases result from a failure of moral unity between two cerebra, that
is, between the individual cerebrum and the collective, between man and Human
ity.”
“ The mental diseases of nations result from a want of moral unity between the
worn-out past and the developing future.”
Individual moral perturbations, being more complex, depend simultaneously
upon the collective moral perturbations of nations, and these upon those of Human
ity at large.
Though thirty years have elapsed, it would be impossible to trace with more
fidelity the state of Europe in 1870. We are perhaps on the verge of a profound
revolutionary crisis, occasioned by political chicanery, and this evening the ultima
tum of the Emperor Napoleon to Prussia will decide the fate of Europe. Yes,
anarchy of the heart and head is deeply rooted in the bosom of our families, in
our political circles, on the rostrum, in our scientific institutions, at the church.
We are everywhere rushing against the revolutionary debris, bequeathed to us by
that portion of the eighteenth century which followed the great French crisis of 1789.
Nothing can satisfy our desires, our doubts, and our restlessness, incessantly re
newed. Always the same question without reply :—What can we do? This crisis
will only be terminated by the installation of the new spiritual power demonstrated
by science, in place of the old revealed and imposed power. On a future occasion,
I will examine the reasons which may have caused Comte to change his method in
Politics and in Religion, as well as the objections raised by M. Littré.*
§
* “ The Fortnightly Review.” 1866, vol. iii, p. 394.
f “ Cours de Philosophie positive.” Vol. V, p. 277. ■
j “ Système de Politique positive.” Vol. II, pp. 458, 459.
§ Robinet, “Notice sur l’œuvre et sur la vie d’Auguste Comte.” Paris, 1864, p
533.
�
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Good and evil - their origin
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Text
SCIENTIFIC PROPAGATION.
BY JOHN HUMPHREY NOYES.
T is generally agreed among the highest thinkers that sociology
is the science around which all other sciences are finally to be
organized. But this nucleus is manifestly complex, and we may
still inquire, where is the nucleolus ?—which of the departments
into which sociology is divisible is the center of the center ? The an
swer, if it has not yet been uttered, is fast forming in the general
mind. The vital center of sociology, toward which all eyes are turn
ing, is the science which presides over reproduction. It is becoming
clear that the foundations of scientific society are to be laid in the sci
entific propagation of human beings.
In perfecting animals we attend to two things, viz., blood and train
ing ; and we put blood first. But in the case of human beings we
have thus far left blood to take care of itself, and have given all of our
attention to training. Education is well advanced, but we are begin
ning to see that it is like the ancient writing of manuscripts, a slow
process, with many drawbacks. We labor to perfect the individual, but
what we want is the art of multiplying copies of our work. Educa
tion is waiting for its printing-press, and its printing-press is to be
scientific propagation.
The duty of the human race to improve itself by intelligent pro
creation has certainly been seen, in some dim way, from the earliest
ages. The analogy between breeding animals and breeding men is so
obvious, that it must have thrust itself upon the reflections of the wise
at least as long ago as when Jacob overreached Laban by cunningly
managing the impregnation of his flocks. Four hundred years before
the Christian era, Plato represented Socrates as urging on his pupils
this analogy and the duty resulting from it, in the following plain
terms:
Z
“ Tell me this, Glaucon; in your house I see both sporting dogs and a great
number of well-bred birds ; have you ever attended to their pairing and bringing
forth young?”
“ How? ” said he.
“ First of all, among these, though all be well-bred, are not some of them far
better than all the rest ? ”
“ They are.”
“ Do you breed, then, from all alike; or are you anxious to do so, as far as pos
sible, from the best breeds ? ”
“ From the best,”
�98
SCIENTIFIC
PROPAGATION.
“But how? from the youngest or the oldest, or from those quite iu their
prime ? ”
From those in their prime.”
“ And if they are not thus bred, you consider that the breed, both of birds and
dogs, greatly degenerates ? ”
“ I do,” replied he.
“ And what think you as to horses,” said I, “ and other animals ; is the case
otherwise with respect to them ? ”
“ It were absurd to think so,” said he.
“ How strange, my dear fellow! ” said I; “ what extremely perfect government
must we have, if the same applies to the human race ! ”
“ Nevertheless it is so,” replied he.
Republic, Book 5, Chap. 8.
Perhaps Socrates died for this bold criticism; but his thought did
_ not die. This same argument from analogy, which has thus been
pressing on the human conscience in all ages, has become actually
clamorous in modern times. The physical sciences, as they have been
successively developed, have all turned by inevitable instinct toward their
predestined center. Their drift has constantly been from the inorganic
to the organic, and from the organic to. the reproductive. Agassiz passes
from geology to biology, and finds the secret of biology in embryology.
Darwin gathers all he finds in the botany and zoology of all ages into
the demonstration that plants and animals can be molded ad libitum
by attention to the laws of reproduction.
His object was to establish a theory looking backward to the origin
of species, but the practical result of his labors has been to establish a
theory looking forward to the duty of scientific propagation. His great
theme is the plasticity of living forms. He shows, first, how nature
alone, in the countless ages of the past, has slowly transmuted plants
and animals; then how the unsystematic care of man, since the dawn
of intelligence, has hastened these changes; and finally how modern
science and skill have rapidly perfected the races that are subservient to
human use. In all this he has been at work on Plato’s argument. He
has not dared to make the application, but others have not dared to
ignore it, and to them Darwin has been an awful preacher of the law
of God.
Along with the evolution of the physical sciences, there has been
an enormous growth of zeal and skill in practical breeding. Every
plant and animal that man can lay hands upon has been put through a
course of variations and brought to high perfection. And every suc
cess in practical breeding has added emphasis to the law that com
mands man to improve his own race by scientific propagation. Every
melting pear, every red-cheeked apple, every mealy potato that modern
skill presents us, bids us go to work on the final task of producing the
best possible varieties of human beings. Every race-horse, every
straight-backed bull, every premium pig tells us what we can do and
what we must do for man. What are all our gay cattle fairs, but eloquent
reminders of the long-neglected duty of scientific human propagation ?
�SCIENTIFIC • PR OF A GA T IO N.
99
And this preaching has not been wholly without effect. There is
evidently much resulting conviction among those who read and thiuk
on scientific subjects. Nobody really attempts to obey the law pro
pounded, or even expects to ; but all approve of it. In this as in other
cases, we “ consent unto the law that it is good, but how to perform
that which is good we find not.”
Phrenologists, popular physiologists, and reformers of various kinds
have long been busy carrying over the laws of Darwin into the public
conscience, translating analogy into application ; and it is remarkable
how common it has become for books and newspapers to acknowledge
the duty of scientific propagation, and confess that in this matter “ we
are all miserable sinners.” In a rapid run through a mass of popular
literature nearest at hand, we have met with the following specimens
of out-cropping conviction:
“ With the acceptance by scientific thinkers of the principles of structural
transformation upon which Mr. Darwin’s theory is based, must needs come their
recognition by men of unscientific education, and their application to individual
life. No scientific thought, thoroughly established and wrought into the belief of
the common people, can be without its influence upon their life. Men have as
much need to apply the doctrine of Mr. Darwin to themselves as to their horses
and cattle.”—American Exchange and Review.
“ Consider agriculture, horticulture, flori-culture, the stock-raisers, even the
‘ fanciers,’ and borrow from them the lessons they practice so accurately. Think of
it! Years of study have resulted in volumes of registered observations and deduc
tions for the improvement of the brute races. The horse, the ox, the swine, and
every other domestic animal has been raised to a higher type of physical being.
Even flowers and vegetables are thought worthy of this same care ; yet the pre
cious casket of the human soul is left to dwindle down from one stage of degen
eracy to another, till a large proportion of the human race are employed in the
vocations that can only flourish upon human decay.”—Dr. Chaklotte Loziek, in
the Tribune.
“Agricultural reports have teemed with lessons for breeding and taking care of
all our stock except the most precious—that of ourselves and our children. The
Atlantic cable sinks to insignificance compared with the science of the develop
ment of man. We exhibit beautiful animal stock, but deformed, erysipelatory,
rickety, narrow-chested, dyspeptic, teeth-rotten, flabby-muscled, scrofulous, crook
ed-backed, bad-jointed girls and boys, with diseased kidneys, diseased livers, and
bad nerves. Let all agricultural orators open their mouths against these terrible
evils of the land.”—American Institute Transactions for 1858, p- 160.
“What is needed, in order to improve the physical characteristics of American
children, is. in the first place, to find out wherein they deviate from the true model,
and then to set at work influences which, under the laws of reproduction, shall
directly tend to induce conformity thereto, instead of deformity. It is just as easy
to improve the breed of children as the breeds of domestic animals ; for the human
organism is as impressible in this respect as the organisms of animals, and, I think,
rather more so—the susceptibility in this direction being in ratio to the rank.
“ If it be true that, in the case of a sheep, you can, by proper heed to certain
laws, including as these do certain conditions of living, so change a species of that
animal that, from being a small animal with a small quantity of wool, it, shall be
come a large animal with only a small quantity of wool; or from being a large ani
mal with a small quantity of wool, it shall become less in size, but with a larger
�100
SCIENTIFIC PROPAGATION.
fleece, you have reached a point in the modification of the animal structure which
may seriously affect all its vital conditions. If this can be done in the case of one
species of animals, it can in others—in truth, in all others—and man forms no ex
ception to the rule.”—Dr. Jackson, in ‘'Laws of Life.”
We ask our friends to read our extracts from Darwin attentively, and see if
they do not discern, looming in the background of the facts here presented, a most
gigantic question affecting the future of human society—that, namely, relating to
its scientific propagation. If the races of plants and animals have been so far im
proved as is there shown, by attention to selection in breeding, the question comes
up in force, what is man about at this late day, that he is not applying the same
principles and observations in a scientific manner to the improvement of his own
race ? If the farmer achieves with perfect certainty the elevation of his flocks and
herds to a certain standard of form and size, beauty and disposition, by observing
the fixed laws of propagation, why should not something be done systematically
for man in the same way ? Why should not beauty and noble grace of person, and
every other desirable quality of men and women, internal and external, be propa
gated and intensified beyond all former precedent, by the application of the same
scientific principles of breeding that produce such desirable results in the case of
sheep, cattle and horses ? Farmers and herdsmen all over the civilized world are
enthusiastic in regard to matters that relate to the improvement of stock. Socie
ties are founded, principles are discovered and practically applied, and the ends of
the earth are ransacked for desirable animals with which to cross and develop new
excellencies. But while this is true of the animals below us, man leaves the infi
nitely higher question of his own propagation to the control of chance, ignorance,
and blind passion. The place where science should rule most of all, is ruled by the
least science ; the subject around which the highest enthusiasm should cluster, is
viewed with the most indifference. Human Breeding should be the foremost ques
tion of the age, transcending in its sublime interest all present political and scien
tific questions, and should be practically studied by all. May the time hasten wheD
this shall be ! ’’—Religious Paper.
A writer in the Galaxy (a popular monthly) closes a brilliant account
of horse-breeding with the following argumentitm ad hominem :
“ In the language of the clergy, permit me to make a personal application:
At this moment ten times as much care and thought and money are devoted
to the production of perfect horses or pigs, as to men and women. By observance
of the sgme care, and application of the same rules, as above stated for horses, it is
possible to produce a race of men and women which shall be healthy, spirited, hand
some and enduring. The world is full of weedy, homely, suffering human beings,
and who is to blame ? A man has as good a right to be handsome as a pig, a
woman as a horse, certainly.
“Are we then demented? It is a very curious question, one which we com
mend to the careful consideration of the ‘ Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.’ ”
So far we have come since Plato; and yet all this is only an appli
cation of the little Socratic argument that we quoted, written two
thousand years ago.
Let us not make too much of these confessions. This swelling
flood of conviction has burst no barriers yet. It is well known that
the present constitution of society absolutely precludes, in man’s case,
anything like what has been done for plants and animals; and these
confessors have no idea of changing the constitution of society. They
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cry aloud for what ought to be done; but when they come to the how,
their voices grow feeble. Thus the writer in the Exchange and Review,
whose doughty preaching stands first among the above quotations, im
mediately after it falls off into such mumbling as this:
“ Passion ancl ignorance have too long held sway over the motives which prompt
the best of us to assume the relation upon which our own as well as the happiness
of our children depends. That ordinary mortals shall consider the future advance
ment of the race in the selection of their wives, is rather more than our knowl
edge of human nature justifies us in hoping. Nor are we quite prepared to adopt
the extreme materialistic view, and relinquish the institution of marriage in
favor of a selected class whose sole duty it shall be to improve and elevate the type
of the race. But in a general way we can suffer ourselves to be influenced in the
choice of our wives by the knowledge that the mental and physical qualities we
bring to the union must be blended and intermixed in the natures of our children ;
and the reflection that the habits of our life and thought, and the various condi
tions into which we are driven, or suffer ourselves to drift, have their immediate
and necessary outgrowth in those natures, should produce some effect upon our
own self-conduct and control.”
Galton, alate English writer, has actually gone forward a step beyond
Darwin in the Platonian argument. He demonstrates by elaborate sta
tistics that genius and all other good qualities are hereditary in human
families. Nobody doubted this before; but it is a satisfaction to have
such a point seized and fortified by science. He passes over from anal
ogy to the beginning of direct proof that human nature is as plastic
and obedient to the laws of reproduction as that of animals and plants,
and therefore as properly the subject of scientific treatment. The ob
ject of his book, he says, is to show “ that a man’s natural abilities are
derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the
form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently,
as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful
selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar
powers of running or of doing anything else, so it would be quite
practicable to produce a highly gifted race of men by judicious mar
riages during several consecutive generations.” So far Galton advances
beyond Darwin’s line. But when he comes to the point where it is
necessary to look beyond his theory to the duties it suggests, he sub
sides into the meekest conservatism. “ It would be writing to no use
ful purpose,” he says, “ were I to discuss the effect that might be pro
duced on population by such social arrangements as existed in Sparta,
[which arrangements were only a distant approach to the system which
all breeders of animals pursue.] They are so alien and repulsive to
modern feelings that it is useless to say anything about them; so I
shall confine my remarks to agencies that are actually at work, and
upon which there can be no hesitation in speaking.” Then he goes
on to show what can be done by wise marriages, much in the vein of
the phrenologists.
A writer in the new English journal of science called “ Nature,”
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even discusses, after a fashion, the possibility of improving the human
race by applying the Darwinian principles. But it is curious to see
how gingerly he touches the practical part of the subject. After show
ing that in the case of wild animals which mate without interference,
any improvement by variation must be exceedingly slow, and that in
the case of domestic animals, owing to scientific propagation, the prog
ress is incomparably more rapid, he speaks thus cautiously and mys
teriously of the human problem :
“ The case of man is intermediate in rapidity of progress to the other two.
The development of improved qualities can not be insured by judicious mating,
because as a rule human beings are capricious enough to marry without first
laying a case for opinion before Mr. Darwin. Neither would it be easy, nor perhaps
even allowable, to extend any special protection by law or custom to those who may
be, physically and intellectually, the finest examples of our race. Still, two things
may be done ; we may vary the circumstances of life by judicious legislation, and
still more easily by judicious non-legislation, so as to multiply the conditions favor
able to the development of a higher type ; and by the same means we may also
encourage, or at least abstain from discouraging, the perpetuation of the species by
the most exalted individuals for the time being to be found.”
This last hint is the boldest we have seen; and yet it is but a hint.
Thus we find the public generally, and even the most advanced
'writers, simply under conviction in the presence of the law of scientific
propagation. The commandment has come; we all acknowledge it
and preach it, and “delight, in it after the inward man, but we see
another law in our members warring against the law of our minds.”
Duty is plain; we say we ought to do it—we must do it; but we cam
not. The law of God urges us on ; but the law of society holds us
back. This is a bad position. Either our convictions ought to become
stronger and deeper till they break a way into obedience, or we ought
to be relieved of them altogether.
The boldest course is the safest. Let us take an honest and steady
look at the law. Let us march right up to this terrible analogy which
has been so long troubling the world, and find out exactly what it is,
and how far the obligation which it suggests is legitimate. What
ought to be done can be done. It is only in the timidity of ignorance
that duty seems impracticable.
In order to get clearer ideas of the analogy which is pressing upon
us, and of the duty which results from it, we propose for fresh consid
eration the following questions: 1. What has been done for plants and
animals ? 2. How has it been done ? 3. How far and by what means
can the same be done for human beings ? This last question will
require a survey of the special difficulties in the case of man, and will
lead to some criticism of existing institutions. Without much formal
ity the remainder of this article will be devoted to the discussion of
these questions.
To show what has been done for plants and animals, we cannot do
better than to put Darwin on the stand. His testimony is known to
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philosophers, but it ought to be familiar to everybody. The following
are quotations from his late work on the results of Domestication :
“ As to plants, no one supposes that our choicest productions have been pro
duced by a single variation from the aboriginal stock. We have proofs that this is
not so in some cases, in which exact records have been kept; thus, to give a very
trifling instance, the steadily increasing size of the common gooseberry may be
quoted. We see an astonishing improvement in many florists’ flowers, when the
flowers of the present' day are compared with drawings made only twenty or thirty
years ago. * * * And the gradual process of improvement through longer
periods may plainly be recognized in the increased size and beauty which we now
see in the varieties of the heartsease, rose, pelargonium, dahlia, and other plants,
when compared with the older varieties or with their parent-stocks. No one would
ever expect to get a first-rate heartsease or dahlia from the seed of a wild plant.
No one would expect to raise a first-rate melting pear from the seed of the wild
pear, though he might succeed from a poor seedling growing wild, if it had come
from a garden stock. The pear, though cultivated in classical times, appears, from
Pliny’s description, to have been a fruit of very inferior quality. The art which
has produced such splendid results from such poor materials has consisted in
always cultivating the best known variety, sowing its seeds, and, when a slightly
better variety has chanced to appear, selecting it, and so onward. * * *
11 Let us now briefly consider the steps by which domestic races of animals have
been produced, either from one or from several allied species. Some little effect
may, perhaps, be attributed to the direct action of the external conditions of life,
and some little to habit; but he would be a bold man who would account by such
agencies for the differences of a dray and a race-horse, a grayhound and blood
hound, a carrier and tumbler-pigeon. One of the most remarkable features in our
domesticated races is that we see in them adaptation, not indeed to the animal’s or
plant’s own good, but to man’s use or fancy. Some variations useful to him have
probably arisen suddenly, or by one step ; many botanists, for instance, believe that
the fuller’s teazle, with its hooks, which cannot be rivalled by any mechanical con
trivance, is only a variety of the wild Dipsacus; and this amount of change may
have suddenly arisen in a seedling. So it has probably been with the turnspit
dog ; and this is known to have been the case with the ancon sheep. But when
we compare the dray-horse and race-horse, the dromedary and camel, the various
breeds of sheep fitted either for cultivated land or mountain pasture, with the wool
of one breed good for one purpose, and that of another breed for another purpose ;
when we compare the many breeds of dogs, each good for man in very different
ways ; when we compare the game-cock, so pertinacious in battle, with other breeds
so little quarrelsome, with ‘ everlasting layers ’ which never desire to set, and with
the bantam so small and elegant; when we compare the host of agricultural, culi
nary, orchard and flower-garden races of plants, most useful to man at different
seasons and for different purposes, or so beautiful in his eyes, we must, I think, look
further than to mere variability. We cannot suppose that all the breeds were sud
denly produced as perfect and as useful as we now see them; indeed, in several
cases, we know that this has not been their history. The key is man’s power of
accumulation ; man adds them up in certain directions useful to him. In this
sense he may be said to make for himself useful breeds.
“ The great power of this principle of selection is not hypothetical. It is certain
that several of our eminent breeders have, even within a single lifetime, modified
to a large extent some breeds of cattle and sheep. In order fully to realize what
they have done, it is almost necessary to read several of the many treatises devoted
to this subject, and to inspect the animals. Breeders habitually speak of an ani
mal’s organization as something quite plastic, which they can model almost as they
please. If I had space I could quote numerous passages to this effect from highly
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competent authorities. Youatt, who was probably better acquainted with the
works of agriculturists than almost any other individual, and who was himself a
very good judge of an animal, speaks of the principle of selection as ‘that which
enables the agriculturist not only to modify the character of his flock, but to change
it altogether. It is the magician’s wand, by means of which he may summon into
life whatever form and mold he pleases.’ Lord Somerville, speaking of what
breeders have done for sheep, says :—‘ It would seem as if they had chalked out
upon a wall a form perfect in itself, and then had given it existence.’ That most
skillful breeder, Sir John Sebright, used to say, with respect to pigeons, that ‘he
would produce any given feather in three years, but it would take him six years to
obtain head and beak.’ * * *
“ What man has effected within recent times in England by methodical selec
tion, is clearly shown by our exhibitions of improved quadrupeds and fancy birds.
With respect to cattle, sheep, and pigs, we owe their great improvement to a long
series of well-known names—Bakewell, Colling, Ellman, Bates, Jonas Webb, Lords
Leicester and Western, Fisher Hobbs, and others. Agricultural writers are unani
mous on the power of selection : any number of statements to this effect could be
quoted; a few will suffice. A great breeder of shorthorns says : ‘ In the anatomy
of the shoulder modern breeders have made great improvements on the Ketton
shorthorns by correcting the defect in the knuckle or shoulder-joint, and by laying
the top of the shoulder more snugly into the crop, and thereby filling up the hol
low behind it. * * * The eye has its fashion at different periods ; at one time
the eye high and outstanding from the head, and at another time the sleepy eye
sunk into the head; but these extremes have merged into the medium of a full,
clear, and prominent eye with a placid look.’
“Again, hear what an excellent judge of pigs says: ‘The legs should be no
longer than just to prevent the animal’s belly from trailing on the ground. The
leg is the least profitable portion of the hog, and we therefore require no more of it
than is absolutely necessary for the support of the rest.’ Let any one compare the
wild boar with any improved breed, and he will see how effectually the legs have
been shortened.
“Few persons except breeders are aware of the systematic care taken in select
ing animals, and of the necessity of having a clear and almost prophetic vision into
futurity. Lord Spencer’s skill and judgment were well known ; and he writes: ‘ It
is therefore very desirable, before any man commences to breed either cattle or
sheep, that he should make up his mind as to the shape and qualities he wishes to
obtain, and steadily pursue this object.’ Lord Somerville, in speaking of the mar
velous improvement of the New Leicester sheep effected by Bakewell and his suc
cessors, says : ‘ It would seem as if they had first drawn a perfect form, and then
given it life.’ Youatt urges the necessity of annually drafting each flock, as many
animals will certainly degenerate ‘from the standard of excellence which the
breeder has established in his own mind.’ Even with a bird of such little importtance as the canary, long ago (1780-1790) rules were established, and a standard of
perfection was fixed, according to which the London fanciers tried to breed the
several sub-varieties. A great winner of prizes at the pigeon-shows, in describing
the short-faced almond tumbler, says : ‘ There are many first-rate fanciers who are
particularly partial to what is called the goldfinch beak, which is very beautiful;
others say, take a full-size round cherry; then take a barley-corn, and judiciously
placing and thrusting it into the cherry, form as it were your beak ; and that is not
all, for it will form a good head and beak, provided, as I said before, it is judi
ciously done; others take an oat; but as I think the goldfinch-beak the hand
somest, I would advise the inexperienced fancier to get the head of a goldfinch, and
keep it by him for his observation.’ Wonderfully different as is the beak of the
rock-pigeon and goldfinch, undoubtedly, as far as external shape and proportions
are concerned, the end has been nearly gained.
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“ Not only should our animals be examined with the greatest care whilst alive,
but, as Anderson remarks, their carcasses should be scrutinized, ‘ so as to breed
from the descendants of such only as, in the language of the butcher, cut up well.’
The ‘ grain of the meat’ in cattle, and'its being well marbled with fat, and the
greater or less accumulation of fat in the abdomen of our sheep, have been attended
to with success. So with poultry ; a writer, speaking of Cochin-China fowls, which
are said to differ much in the quality of their flesh, says, ‘ the best mode is to purcliase two young,brother cocks, kill, dress, and serve up one; if he be indifferent,
similarly dispose of the other, and try again ; if, however, he be fine and wellflavored, his brother will not be amiss for breeding purposes for the table.’
“ The great principle of the division of labor has been brought to bear on selection. In certain districts ‘ the breeding of bulls is confined to a very limited num
ber of persons, who. by devoting their whole attention to this department, are able
from year to year to furnish a class of bulls which are steadily improving the gene
ral breed of the district.’ The rearing and letting of choice rams has long been, as
is well known, a chief source of profit to several eminent breeders. In parts of
Germany this principle is carried with merino sheep to an extreme point. ‘ So im
portant is the proper selection of breeding animals considered, that the best flock
masters do not trust to their own judgment, or to that of their shepherds, but em
ploy persons calied “ sheep-classifiers,” who make it their special business to attend
to this part of the management of several flocks, and thus to preserve, or, if possi
ble, to improve, the best qualities of both parents in the lambs.’ In Saxony, when
the lambs are weaned, each in his turn is placed upon a table, that his wool and
form may be minutely observed. ‘The finest are selected for breeding, and receive
a first mark. When they are one year old, and prior to shearing them, another
close examination of those previously marked takes place : those in which no defect
can be found receive a second mark, and the rest are condemned. A few months
afterwards a third and last scrutiny is made ; the prime rams and ewes receive a
third and final mark ; but the slightest blemish is sufficient to cause the rejection
of the animal.' These sheep are bred and valued almost exclusively for the fine
ness of their wool; and the result corresponds with the labor bestowed on their
selection. Instruments have been invented to measure accurately the thickness
of the fibres ; and ‘ an Austrian fleece has been produced of which twelve hairs
equalled in thickness one from a Leicester sheep.’ * * *
“ The care which successful breeders take in matching their birds is surprising.
Sir John Sebright, whose fame is perpetuated by the ‘ Sebright Bantam,’ used to
spend ‘two and three days in examining, consulting, and disputing with a friend
which were the best of five or six birds.’ Mr, Bult, whose Pouter-pigeons won so
many prizes, and were exported to North America under the charge of a man sent
on purpose, told me that he always deliberated for several days before he matched
each pair. Hence we can understand the advice of an eminent fancier, who writes,
‘ I would here particularly guard you against having too great a variety of pigeons;
otherwise you will know a little of all, but nothing about one as it ought to be
known.’ Apparently it transcends the power of the human intellect to breed all
kinds : 1 it is possible that there may be a few fanciers that have a good general
knowledge of fancy pigeons ; but there are many more who labor under the delu
sion of supposing they know what they do not.’ The excellence of one sub-variety,
the almond-tumbler, lies in the plumage, carriage, head, beak, and eye ,’ but it is
too presumptuous in the beginner to try for all these points. The great judge
above quoted says, ‘there are some young fanciers who are over-covetous, who go
for all the above five properties at once; they have their reward by getting noth
ing.’ We thus see that breeding even fancy pigeons is no simple art: we may
smile at the solemnity of these precepts, but he who laughs will win no prizes.”—
Da/rwin’s Animals and Plants under Domestication.
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Our primary object in these citations was to show what has been
done for plants and animals; but they also partly answer our second
question as to the how. It is necessary, however, to bring into more
prominence two or three of the practical measures by which the domes
tic races have been perfected.
The art of the animal-breeder, so far as mere propagation is con
cerned, is all contained in two precepts, viz.: Breed from the best, and
Breed in and in; and these precepts are reducible to one; for, after a
choice stock has been commenced, breeding in and in is breeding from
the best. The second precept simply prescribes for choice varieties
what the first prescribes for choice individuals. Now it happens that
these are the very precepts of the scientific law of propagation which,
if applied to human generation, would impinge most violently on the
constitution and feelings of society. Breeding from the best means in
tolerable discrimination—suppression for some, and large liberty for
others ; and breeding in and in means incest. In order, therefore, to
get the law derived from, analogy honestly before us in all its bearings
on human interests, we must enlarge on these features of scientific
propagation.
The negative part of breeding from the best, which is the suppres
sion of the poorest, is effected in the case of the lower animals by two
measures, viz.: 1. Castration; and 2. Confinement. The positive part
of the process is carried on by selecting for propagation the best indivi
duals of both sexes, but especially males.
The special importance of selection in respect to males is founded
on the constitutional difference between the sexes as to the amount of
reproduction of which they are respectively capable. For example, a
mare can produce, at the very most, only about fifteen colts in her
whole lifetime. But a stallion can produce a hundred in a single year.
The thorough-bred horse Messenger, in the course of his life, begot a
thousand; Hambletonian begot eleven hundred; and a descendant of
Hambletonian begot twelve hundred. And for proof that the male
transmits his special qualities on this great scale, it is recorded that the
English racer, Eclipse, begot three hundred and thirty-four horses that
won races; and King Herod begot four hundred and ninety-four suc
cessful racers. So that, with reference to direct action on the character
of a single generation, the male has the advantage over the female in
the ratio of more than fifty to one. And although the female may pro
duce very great results in the second generation—since any one of her
male offspring taking her place, may produce his thousand, conveying
her characteristics—yet it must ever remain true that the principal
means of breeding choice stocks is by the selection of males. Thus the
present generation of fine horses in this country, numbering probably
its millions, is said to have come mainly from less' than a half dozen
famous stallions. A writer in the Galaxy, before referred to, gives the
following account of the process by which our national trotting horse
has been created:
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“ England has produced or perfected the race-horse; America, the road-horse.
England, by great care, great skill, and vast expenditure of money, has perfected
the race-horse ; wonderfully fine, and altogether useless. America, by great care,
great skill, and a considerable expenditure of money, has produced the trotter;
altogether valuable—that is the difference.
“ This quality—the swift trot—has been, in a sense, created by man, and is now
transmitted and perpetuated. How ?
“ By breeding from such horses as showed such a tendency, and by training the
progeny so as to create increased speed, which increased speed has been transmitted
and intensified. It has now reached a single mile in 2 minutes 171 seconds, and
twenty miles within the hour. What more can be done ? No man can tell.
“ The history of tiffs achievement in breeding can be traced. I said to Mr.
Goldsmith, the great horse-breeder at Walnut Grove, ‘ Whence comes tiffs tremen
dous trotting action, as shown in the American road-horse. Racing men assert that
the natural feist gait of the horse is the run, and that no high-bred horse trots fast
naturally.’
“ ‘ I will show you a little of the natural fast gait,’ said he.
“ Then were brought in succession three young horses, three-year-olds. They
were turned loose in the open field, and went trotting away at a great stride, head
and tail erect. Then they were scared along by running at them ; the dog went
after them, and still they trotted fast; if they broke into a run, they came down
again almost instantly; it was evident that they had a fast trot, which was the
gait they preferred.
“ ‘ What is your explanation of this matter ?’ said I.
“ ‘ I will tell you. There have stood in this country the following stallions, all,
except Bellfounder and Abdallah, thoroughbreds, and they nearly so :
Messenger, about 1795.
Baronet, about 1795.
Seagull, about 1820.
Bellfounder, about 1831-32.
American Star, about 1840.
Abdallah, about 1848-50.
And some others. Of these, Messenger, Bellfounder, American Star, and Abdallah
were natural trotters, and it is asserted that Messenger has come in at the end of a
running race on a fast trot. Out of these natural thoroughbred trotters have come
our great road horses.’ ”—G-alamy, March, 1869.
We must remind the reader that we are not now attempting to lay
down the law for human propagation, but only to give a clear idea of
the methods pursued by animal-breeders. Perhaps reasons may be
found for treating man exceptionally; and possibly the breeders have
not yet found the very best way of treating animals. However these
things may be, our present business is to exhibit without disguise or
suppression the processes by which animals are being perfected; and
for this purpose we ask some further attention to the principle of
selecting males, and the physiological facts upon which that principle
is founded.
In the propagation of any race, of course two things must be kept
in view, viz., Quantity and Quality—increase of numbers and increase
of value. And it will be seen from what we have stated above, in
regard to the difference between the sexes as to the power of reproduc
tion, that the function of the female bears a special relation to the in
crease of numbers, and that of tlie male to increase of value. To sim
plify the matter, suppose we have a hundred males and a hundred
females to breed from. Now it is evident that in order to produce the
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greatest number, we must keep all the females breeding up to their full
capacity. But it is not necessary to keep all the males thus breeding.
If ninety-nine of them out of the hundred were castrated, the one left
might fertilize all the germs in the hundred females, and the numbers
produced would be the same as if all the males were in full potency
and doing their best. Hence it is clear that, without diminishing the
quantity of production, we may exercise a very stringent discrimina
tion in selecting males. The whole doctrine of the matter may be
reduced to the following general formula : The quantity of production
will be in direct proportion to the number of fertile females; and the
value produced, so far as it depends on selection, will be nearly in in
verse proportion to the number of fertilizing males.
These are the first principles of animal breeding as it stands.
Whether and how far they will be found to be transfer able to human
generation may remain an open question. But it is best for us, at all
events, to know exactly what we are talking about when we use the
Platonian argument for scientific propagation.
Let us now look at the second precept of the animal breeders, which
requires breeding in and in. Darwin says that the object aimed at by
eminent breeders is always “to make a new strain or sub-breed, supe
rior to anything previously existing.” This, let us observe, is quite a
different matter from general efforts to improve whole races. It is one
thing to seek in any existing race the best animals we can find to breed
from, which has always been done more or less, and which implies no
segregation; and it is another tiling to start a distinct family and keep
its blood pure by separation from the mass of its own race. It is this
last method that has produced the Ayrshires and the Shorthorns and
the Leicesters. The terms “thorough-bred,” “blooded-stock,” “pure
blood,” etc., have no meaning except as they refer to this method of
segregation. This indeed is the principal work of modern science in
propagation, as distinguished from the unsystematic improvements
made in all past ages. It deserves a distinct name, and we will take
the liberty to call it. Stirpiculture.
Now it is obvious that this method of breeding must begin with a
pair, or, at most., with a small number of chosen animals, and must
proceed by propagating exclusively, or nearly so, within its own circle.
In fact it is a return to the conditions which are generally supposed to
have existed at the beginning of all species, the human race included.
It is an attempt to create a new race by selecting a new Adam and Eve,
and separating them and their progeny from all previous races. This
process implies breeding in and in, in two senses. First there must be,
in the early stages, mating between very near relatives, as there was in
Adam’s family; and secondly, there must be, in all stages, mating be
tween members of the same general .sfocZ; who are all related more or
less closely. This last kind of mating is properly called breeding in
and in, though it may not be incest in the human sense of the word.
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As a matter of fact it is well known that animal breeders pay very little
attention to the principles of the law of incest in any stage of their pro
ceedings. It is even a matter of doubt and disputation among them
whether there is any harm in the closest and longest breeding between
relatives. Darwin and the best authorities among the breeders incline
to the opinion that long-continued mating of relatives, near or remote,
leads finally to weakness of constitution and infertility. But they all
agree that breeding in and in must be the general law for choice
stocks, and that whatever infusion of foreign blood may be necessary
must be altogether exceptional. And the general opinion among them
is that the necessity of infusion of foreign blood may be obviated alto
gether by keeping several flocks of the same family in conservatories
at some distance from each other, and exchanging breeders between
them. Darwin has a long chapter on the effects of close interbreeding
and crosses, from which we quote the following specimens:
“ That evil directly follows from any degree of close interbreeding has been
denied by many persons ; but rarely by any practical breeder ; and never, as far as
I know, by one who has largely bred animals which propagate their kind quickly.
Many physiologists attribute the evil exclusively to the combination and conse
quent increase of morbid tendencies common to both parents : that this is an active
source of mischief there can be no doubt. It is unfortunately too notorious that
men and various domestic animals endowed with a wretched constitution, and with
a strong hereditary disposition to disease, if not actually ill, are fully capable of
procreating their kind. Close interbreeding, on the other hand, induces sterility;
and this indicates something quite distinct from the augmentation of morbid ten
dencies common to both parents. The evidence I have collected convinces me that
it is a great law of nature, that all organic beings profit from an occasional cross
with individuals not closely related to them in blood; and that, on the other hand,
long-continued close interbreeding is injurious.
* * * “ The evil consequences of long-continued close interbreeding are not
so easily recognized as the good effects from crossing, for the deterioration is
gradual. Nevertheless it is the general opinion of those who have had most expe
rience, especially with animals which propagate quickly, that evil does inevitably
follow sooner or later, but at different rates with different animals. No doubt a
false belief may widely prevail like a superstition ; yet it is difficult to suppose that
so many acute and original observers have all been deceived at the expense of much
cost and trouble. A male animal may sometimes be paired with his daughter,
granddaughter, and so on, even for several generations, without any manifest bad
results; but the experiment has never been tried of matching brothers and sisters,
which is considered the closest form of interbreeding, for an equal number of gen
*
erations
There is good reason to believe that by keeping the members of the
* The degrees of consanguinity, as reckoned by animal-breeders, are different
from those of either the common or the civil law. When Blackstone asks “ Why
Titius and his brother are related,” and answers, “ Because they are both derived
from the same father,” he presents but half the truth. They are related because
they are both descended from the same father u/itZ the same mother. This addition
doubles the relation, and brings them nearer to each other than they are to either
of their parents. A son has fifty per cent, of the blood of his father; but he has
one hundred per cent, of the blood of his brother; for they both have fifty per cent,
of the blood of their father and fifty per cent, of the blood of their mother, making
iu each one hundred per cent, of the same combination. Brothers having thus
absolutely the same blood, it follows that uncles have the same relation to nephews
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SCIENTIFIC
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same family in distinct bodies, especially if exposed to somewhat different condi
tions of life, and by occasionally crossing these families, the evil results may be
much diminished, or quite eliminated.
* * * “ With cattle there can be no doubt that extremely close interbreed
ing may be long carried on, advantageously with respect to external characters,
and with no manifestly apparent evil as far as constitution is concerned. The same
remark is applicable to sheep. Whether these animals have gradually been ren
dered less susceptible than others to this evil, in order to permit them to live in
herds—a habit which leads the old and vigorous males to expel all intruders, and
in consequence often to pair with their own daughters—I will not pretend to de
cide. The case of Bake well’s Longhorns, which were closely interbred for a long
period, has often been quoted; yet Youatt says the breed ‘had acquired a delicacy
of constitution inconsistent with common management,’ and ‘ the propagation of
the species was not always certain.’ But the Shorthorns offer the most striking
case of close interbreeding ; for instance, the famous bull Favorite (who was him
self the offspring of a half-brother and sister from Foljambe) was matched with his
own daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter; so that the produce of
this last union, or the great-great-granddaughter, had
or 93.75 per cent, of the
blood of Favorite in her veins. This cow was matched with the bull Wellington,
having 62.5 per cent, of Favorite blood in his veins, and produced Clarissa; Clarissa
was matched with the bull Lancaster, having 68.75 of the same blood, and she
yielded valuable offspring. Nevertheless Collings, who reared these animals, and
was a strong advocate for close breeding, once crossed his stock with a Galloway,
and the cows from this cross realized the highest prices. Bates’s herd was esteemed
the most celebrated in the world. For thirteen years he bred most closely in and
in ; but during the next seventeen years, though he had the most exalted notion of
the value of his own stock, he thrice infused fresh blood into his herd: it is said
that he did this, not to improve the form of his animals, but on account of their
lessened fertility. Mr. Bates’s own view, as given by a celebrated breeder, was,
that ‘to breed in and infiw a bad stock was ruin and devastation; yet that the
practice may be safely followed within certain limits, when the parents so related
are descended from first-rate animals.’ We thus see that there has been extremely
close interbreeding with the Shorthorns; but Nathusius, after the most careful
study of their pedigrees, says that he can find no instance of a breeder who has
strictly followed this practice during his whole life. From this study and his own
experience, he concludes that close interbreeding is necessary to ennoble the stock ;
but that in effecting this the greatest care is necessary, on account of the tendency
to infertility and weakness.®
and nieces as that of fathers to children ; and cousins, having each fifty per cent,
of the blood of brothers, i. e., of the same blood, are in the same relation to each
other as that of half-brothers. Thus, according to the breeders’ reckoning, incest
between father and daughter is precisely the same as between uncle and niece;
and incest between half-brother and sister is the same as between cousins, and so
on.—J. H. N.
* It is worth mentioning that the finest collection of thoroughbred cattle in
America—that of Walcott and Campbell, at the New York Mills, near Utica, N. Y.
—is a herd of Shorthorns descended from these very animals bred in England by
Collings and Bates. The writer of this article has a copy of the herd-book in which
their pedigrees are given. The bull Favorite is often mentioned among their pro
genitors ; and one of the finest of them is a descendant of the triple incest men
tioned above. The writer has also had the pleasure of inspecting the herd, under
the polite guidance of its manager, Mr. Gibson, and can testify, as an eye-witness,
to their wonderful size and beauty. One of the cows measures twenty-eight inches
in breadth across the hips. Eleven thousand dollars have been refused for another.
Breeding in and in is still going on in this American branch of the Shorthorn
family, as it has been for many generations in the original English stock.—J. H. N.
�SCIENTIFIC
PROPAGATION.
Ill
* * * “ With sheep there has often been long-continued interbreeding within
the limits of the same flock; but whether the nearest relations have been matched
so frequently as in the case of Shorthorn cattle, I do not know. The Messrs.
Brown, during fifty years, have never infused fresh blood into their excellent flock
of Leicesters. Since 1810 Mr. Barford has acted on the same principle with the
Foscote flock. He asserts that half a century of experience has convinced him that
when two nearly related animals are quite sound in constitution, in-and-in breed
ing does not induce degeneracy; but he adds that he ‘ does not pride himself on
breeding from the nearest affinities.’ In France the Naz flock has been bred for
sixty years without the introduction of a single strange ram. Nevertheless, most
great breeders of sheep have protested against close interbreeding prolonged for too
great a length of time. The most celebrated of recent breeders, Jonas Webb, kept
five separate families to work on, thus ‘ retaining the requisite distance of relation
ship between the sexes.’ ”
We have now perhaps a sufficient view of what has been done for
the lower races, and how it has been done. The laws of scientific
propagation, so far as analogy can teach them, are before us. It is time
to inquire how far and by what means these laws can be applied to
the human race.
In the first place, there can be no rational doubt that the laws of
physiology are in general the same for man as for other animals. In
deed the most important of these laws, so far as our present subject is
concerned, has just been scientifically fastened upon man by Mr. Galton. He demonstrates that not only the physical qualities of individ
uals and races, but their intellectual, artistic, and moral characteristics,
and even their spiritual proclivities, are as transmissible as the speed of
horses. There can be no doubt that if it were possible for men and
women to be directed in their propagation by superior beings, as ani
mals are, or by their own sincere enthusiasm for science, the results of
suppressing the poorest and breeding from the best would be the same
for them, as for cattle and sheep. There can be no doubt that, if it
were compatible with public morality and with the proper care of
women and children, to “ give special privileges to the most exalted in
dividuals in the perpetuation of the species,” as the English journal of
science suggested, the elevation of the human species would be as rapid
as that of any of the lower races. Indeed the difference between the
sexes in regard to the power of reproduction, which is the reason for
special selection of males, is even wider in the case of man than in that
of horses; and, though existing institutions wholly ignore it, we may
be sure that, in the nature of things, it gives man superior possibilities
of improvement of blood. Finally, there can be no doubt that by
segregating superior families, and by breeding them in and in, superior
varieties of human beings might be produced which would be compar
able to the thoroughbreds in all the domestic races.
We have in history at least one splendid demonstration of the
powrer of segregation and breeding in and in, which goes far toward
establishing the entire parallelism between man and the lower animals
in respect to the laws of propagation. The Jews may fairly be regarded
�112
s
c i A' /v r ii>'i c n. ft o r a <.
i ti
on
as a distinct and superior variety of the human race. Here is an exhi
bition of the interbreeding out of which that stock issued:
The curved, broken lines indicate marriages. They show that
Abraham married his sister (though she was only a half-sister, accord
ing to Genesis xx. 12); that Nalior married his niece; that Isaac mar
ried the daughter of his cousin, Bethuel, who also was son of Milcah,
another cousin ; that Lot, the progenitor of Ruth, who was a progeni
tress of David and Christ, propagated by his own daughter; that Jacob
married two of his first cousins on his mother’s side, who were also the
granddaughters of one of his father’s cousins, and great-granddaughters
of another; that Bethuel was grandson of Terah by his father, and
great-grandson by his mother; that Rebecca and Laban, the children
of Bethuel, could thus trace their lineage to Terah by two lines, i. e.,
through Nahor and Haran; that Isaac could trace his lineage to Terah
by two other lines, i. e., through Abraham and Sarah ; and conse
quently that Jacob, the child of Isaac and Rebecca, could trace his
lineage to Terah through four lines, i. e., through all four of Terah’s
children. \
These probably are not half the connections that actually existed
between the first generations of the Jewish stock. We are not in
formed where Haran, Bethuel, Lot, and Laban got their wives ; but we
may presume, from the fashion of the family, that they found them, or
some of them, within the circle of their own kindred.
Thus it is evident that the Jewish stock was at first established by
a very complicated system of breeding in and in. Afterward Moses
made laws against marriages of relatives; but it should be observed also
that the rite of circumcision and the whole moral force of the Mosaic
economy favored segregation, and was opposed to foreign marriages.
The policy of the Jewish institutions, as seen in the times of Ezra and
Nehemiab, was as severe against marriage with the heathen as against
/'a...,,
-
�SCIENTIFIC
PROPAGATION.
113
incest. The truth, therefore, is, that the original practice of breeding
in and in, though ultimately prohibited in reference to individual rela
tionships, was continued and enforced on the national scale. The
Jews, as a people, have always been breeding in and in. Mating be
tween very close relatives was necessary at the beginning, and not
necessary afterward; and so it is and must be in every development of
a new stock. As the numbers increase, close relationships can be
avoided, and yet the blood can be kept pure.
We conclude, therefore, that breeding in and in was the first and
general law of Jewish stirpiculture. At the same time it is evident
that there was an exceptional policy at work by which foreign blood
was introduced from time to time into the Jewish stock. This policy
is seen in the cases of Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, etc., and doubtless ex
isted to a large extent in less notable cases that are not seen. Infusion
of the best Gentile blood has always been an important incidental of
Jewish stirpiculture.
We have, then, as the result of this historical view, two principles
contrasted and yet cooperative—breeding in and in the first law, and
foreign infusion the second; the first controlling, the second excep
tional. These are precisely the two laws, as we have seen, that Darwin
and the cattle-breeders are promulgating. And to complete the par
allel, we can even discern in the two widely-separated colonies of
Terah’s descendants, and the interbreeding between them in the times
of Isaac and Jacob, an arrangement exactly like the separate conserva
tories recommended by our modern authorities to eliminate the evils of
breeding in and in. So that the essential laws of scientific propaga
tion, as developed in animal breeding, have, in this renowned instance,
already been carried over to human beings, and have produced the
most perfect race in history.
Though it must be conceded that, in the present state of human
passions and institutions, there are many and great difficulties in the
way of our going back to the natural simplicity of the Hebrew fathers
or forward to the scientific simplicity of the cattle-breeders, yet it is
important to know and remember that these difficulties are not physio
logical, but sentimental. As the old theologians used to say, our in
ability to obey the law of God is not natural, but moral. We are too
selfish and sensual and ignorant to do for ourselves what we have done
for animals, and we have surrounded ourselves with institutions cor
responding to and required by our selfishness and sensuality and igno
rance. But for all that we need not give up the hope of better things,
at least in some far-off future. If the difficulties in our way were
natural and physiological, no amount of science or grace could ever
overcome them; but as they are only passional and institutional, we
may set the very highest standard of thorough-breeding before us as
our goal, and believe that every advance of civilization and science is
carrying us toward it.
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SCIENTIFIC
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The advantage of holding on to our birthright of hope lies in the
fact that it keeps us in the way of free thought and free discussion.
We cannot agree with Galton that “it would be writing to no useful
purpose to discuss social arrangements that are alien and repulsive to
modern feelings,” and that we must confine our attention “ to agencies
that are actually at work.” True science does not thus wait on human
movements. We hold that the very highest premiums ought to be
offered for new social inventions favorable to the scientific propagation
of human beings. And the freest discussion of such inventions would
not necessarily involve any treason to existing society, while it would
gradually and safely prepare transitions which are inevitable.
And now,, as liege subjects of that great law which we have, been
bringing to view, and which is manifestly pressing on all men both by
analogy and by direct demonstration, we propose to set an example of
free thought and free discussion, by criticising some of the institutions
that confront that law, and by looking beyond them as far as we can
toward measures which in time to come may lead on to full obedience.
1. Undoubtedly the institution of marriage is an absolute bar to
scientific propagation. It distributes the business of procreation in a
manner similar to that of animals which pair in a wild state ; that is,
it leaves mating to be determined by a general scramble, without attempt
at scientific direction. Even if the phrenologists and scientific experts
had full power to rearrange the pairs from time to time according to
their adaptations, there would still be nothing like the systematic selec
tion of the best and suppression of the poorest, which is perfecting the
lower animals. How much progress would the horse-breeders expect
to make if they were only at liberty to bring their animals together in
exclusive pairs ?
As we have already intimated, marriage ignores thé' great difference
between the reproductive powers of the sexes, and restricts each man,
whatever may be his potency and his value, to the amount of produc
tion of which one woman, chosen blindly, may be capable. And while
this unnatural and unscientific restriction is theoretically equal for all,
practically it discriminates against the begt and in favor of the worst ;
for while the good man will be limited by his conscience to what the
law allows, the bad man, free from moral check, will distribute his seed
beyond the legal limits as widely as he dares. Moreover there is a
fundamental fallacy in the pet theory of the halfwayists that science
may somehow be insinuated into marriage by instructing the upper
classes how to mate judiciously. For what is gained in one quarter by
such management must be lost in another. The principle of the case
may be seen better in a small example than in a large one. Suppose
we have simply four candidates for pairing instead of four millions—
viz., a superior man and a superior woman, and an inferior man and
an inferior woman. The advocates of judicious mating would bring
about a union between the superior man and the superior woman ; and
�SCIENTIFIC
PROPAGATION.
115
this pair doubtless would have some fine children. But this arrange
ment would also compel a union between the inferior man and the
inferior woman, and they would certainly have some very poor chil
dren. How much would be gained on the whole by this operation,
especially if, as generally happens, the inferior pair should prove to be
most prolific ? So on the large scale, the lucky ones who get the good
mates of course leave the refuse to the unlucky ones; and the result is
simply no progress, except that of “making the rich richer, and the
poor poorer.” We are safe every way in saying that there is no possi
bility of carrying the two precepts of scientific propagation into an in
stitution which pretends to no discrimination, allows no suppression,
gives no more liberty to the best than to the worst, and which, in fact,
must inevitably discriminate the wrong way, so long as the inferior
classes are most prolific and least amenable to the admonitions of sci
ence and morality.
What then ? Are we necessarily the enemies of marriage because
we say these things ? By no means. We still concede that marriage
is the best thing for man as he is. It is the glory of marriage that it
utilizes the passions of men so as to make them provide homes for
women and children. This is a prime necessity of propagation, scien
tific or unscientific, and must be well cared for at all events, even if we
have to postpone the application of science to improvements in repro
duction. Animals are perfected, as we said at the beginning, by atten
tion to two things—training and blood. Thus far training, with home
as the indispensable means of training, has been necessarily the main
object of human institutions, and doubtless marriage has been the best
arrangement that could be devised for this single end. But it certainly
is not adapted to the final and superior object of improving blood.
We give marriage the credit that belongs to it, and hope it may remain
till institutions shall be devised that shall provide for both training
and blood.
2. As the general law of marriage forbids breeding from the best, so
the special law and public opinion against consanguineous marriages
forbids breeding in and in. And as there is no sure line of demarca
tion between incest and the allowable degrees of consanguinity in mar
riage, the tendency of high-toned moralists is generally to extend the
domain of the law of incest, and so make all approach to scientific
propagation as difficult as possible. Thus there have been movements
in various quarters within a few years to place marrying a deceased
wife’s sister under the ban of law; and the State of New Hampshire
has quite recently forbidden the marriage of first cousins as incestuous.
At the same time it must be acknowledged that an opposite tendency
has manifested itself among scientific men in Europe and in this coun
try. The pressure of analogy from animal-breeding has led physiolo
gists and ethnologists to re-examine the old doctrines in regard to con
sanguineous connections, and venture on some resistance to the pre
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SCIENTIFIC
PROPAGATION.»
vailing ideas of incest. This is done very carefully, of course, so as not
to give shocks. The most that has been attempted has been to defend
the marriages of cousins, dropping an occasional hint in extenuation
of the pairing of uncles with nieces. A memorable controversy on this
line was in progress some years ago among the savants of France, in
the course of which Dr. E. Dally read before the Anthropological
Society of Paris a learned article, entitled “ An Inquiry into Consan
guineous Marriages and Pure Races,” which article was afterwards pub
lished in the “Anthropological Review” of London (May, 1864), and
was pronounced “excellent” by Mr. Darwin. To show how far the
scrutiny of the old doctrines has proceeded, we extract from this article
as follows:
“ A distinguished pupil of the Paris hospitals, M. B----- , has communicated to
me a case of consanguineous marriage drawn from his own family. I here give a
copy of his note on the subject:
“ ‘ It seems, from information which has been handed down to me by my family,
relating to a period of about one hundred and fifty years (i. e., counting from the
great-grandfather of my father), that five generations have married among their
first cousins; the degree of relationship has never descended beyond the first
cousins, excepting in two cases, where the daughters of first cousins have been mar
ried by their second cousins. These five generations have contracted a certain num
ber of marriages which I am not able to particularize, and in which the mean num
ber of children has been three or four. The total number of branches as direct as
collaterals has been one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty. There has
been no idiot or deaf-mute, met with. I may add that the number of branches
is the more surprising since a great number of them have devoted themselves to a
life of celibacy, or have made religious professions.’
* * * “M. Périer has mentioned, according to M. Yvan, the beauty of the
inhabitants of the island of Reunion, who descend from a few couples only, and yet
have known how to preserve their purity of blood. Most of the French colonies,
where they are prosperous, offer the same character ; in fact, we may remark even
in France itself, isolated spots or isolated groups of individuals in the heart of a
mixed population ; there are very few travelers who have not noticed it, and this
has never been with a view of establishing their degeneracy. Among this number
are most of the little fishing villages on the coast of France, where the sailor-popu
lation lives side by side with the agriculturists, without ever marrying among
them. Such is Pauillac (Gironde), about which my friend, Doctor Ferrier, has
written me a letter, from which I take this extract: ‘Pauillac contains one thou
sand seven hundred inhabitants ; most of them are robust, vigorous, and well-made
sailors ; the women are renowned for their beauty aud the clearness of their com
plexion. There is, perhaps, no other place in France where consanguineous mar
riages are more frequent, and where the case of military exemption is more rare.’
The inhabitants of Batz are either workers in salt-pits or fens. Their hygienic con
dition is admirable, and misery is unknown in the country. I find, besides, from
my notes, that there are very few of the inhabitants who are relatives beyond the
sixth degree; for the most part their relationship is of the third or fifth degree:
the children are numerous, and average from two to eight in each marriaga1
“ M. Subler, in a recent journey, has been able to establish the extraordinary
beauty of the inhabitants of Gaust, in the valley of Assau, in the midst of the
Pyrenees. The custom of marrying relations is so inveterate among them that,
before marrying an inhabitant of another commune, the young men of Gaust ask
permission of the chief men of the place. Our friend, M. Maximin Legrand, has
mentioned the same facts about the town of Ecuelles, near Verdun-sur-Saone : and
�SCIENTIFIC PROPAGATION.
117
I tliink I could quote a hundred, perhaps a thousand, places in France which fulfill
the same conditions.”
*
In the course of his article Dr. Dally discusses the pure races, such
as the European aristocracies and the Jews, and concludes that in
these examples vital power and beauty have been the result of close
interbreeding.
There has been quite recently a notable tendency to similar discus
sions and conclusions among physiologists in this country; and we
have late news from England that Parliament has finally legalized the
marriage of a deceased wife’s sister. So far there is certainly a weaken
ing of the barriers against scientific propagation.
3. Besides the general difficulties which science has to contend
with in the laws of marriage and incest, defended by the whole mass
of religionists and moralists, there are particular sects which sin against
tbe law of scientific propagation in special ways, and with a high hand.
Let us look at some of them.
The Catholic Church forbids its priests to marry. But its priests
are its best men. Therefore the Catholic Church discriminates directly
and outrageously against the laws of scientific propagation. In effect
it castrates the finest animals in its flocks. It encourages the lowest
scavenger to breed ad libitum, and forbids Father Hyacinthe to leave a
single copy of himself behind him. We join Galton in the following
invective:
“ The long period of the dark ages under which Europe has lain, is due, I
believe, in a very considerable degree to the celibacy enjoined by religious orders
on their votaries. Whenever a man or woman was possessed of a gentle nature
that fitted him or her to deeds of charity, to meditation, to literature, or to art, the
social condition of the times was such that they had no refuge elsewhere than in
the bosom of the Church. But the Church chose to preach and exact celibacy.
The consequence was that these gentle natures had no continuance, and thus, by a
policy so singularly unwise and suicidal that I am hardly able to speak of it with
out impatience, the Church brutalized the breed of our forefathers. She acted pre
cisely as if she had aimed at selecting the rudest portion of the community to be,
alone, the parents of future generations. She practiced the arts which breeders
would use who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and stupid natures. No won
der that club-law prevailed for centuries ovei’ Europe ; the wonder rather is, that
enough good remained in the veins of Europeans to enable their race to rise to its
present very moderate level of natural morality.”
The Shakers are in the same position with the Catholics. They
claim to be the noblest and purest people in the world, a sacred gene
ration, raised by grace high above the rest of mankind; and yet, with
full powers to propagate their kind, they virtually castrate themselves,
and expend their labors and wealth on their own comfort and on mis
begotten adopted children, leaving the production of future genera
tions to common sinners.» Doubtless they excuse themselves by appeal
ing to the examples of Jesus and Paul; but they wrong those martyrs
of the past. Jesus and Paul were soldiers who had not where to lay
their heads, and well they might refrain from taking women and chil
dren into their terrible warfare. But the Shakers live in peace and
�118
SCIENTIFIC
PROPAGATION.
plenty, having the best of houses, farms and barns, and actually breed
the best of horses and cattle. So that they have no such excuse as the
early Christians had for refusing to breed men. We doubt not that
they are sinning in ignorance; but that only makes it the more our
duty to tell them that, with their large communistic conservatories,
and their material and spiritual wealth, they are just the people to take
hold of scientific propagation in earnest, and in advance of the rest of
the world; and they could not do a better thing for themselves or for
mankind than to expend the vast fund of self-denial and cross-bearing
purity which they have accumulated in celibacy on a conscientious and
persevering effort to institute among themselves the noble art of breed
ing from the best.
It is curious to observe that while the law of scientific propagation
on the one hand thus criticises some of the holiest institutions and
sects, on the other it finds traces of good in some of the vilest forms of
existing society. For instance, polygamy, so far as the fact of obtain
ing and supporting many wives implies that a man is superior to his
fellows, is an approximation at least to nature’s wild form of breeding
from the best, which is more than can be said of monogamic mar
riage. Again, slavery is always more or less a system of control over
propagation; and so far as the interest of masters leads to selection,
like that practiced in animal-breeding, it tends to the elevation of the
subject race. Probably the negroes have risen in the scale of being
faster than their masters, for the same reason that horses and cattle
under man’s control rise faster than man himself. Even common
licentiousness, cursed as it is, is sometimes not without compensations
in the light of the propagative law. It is very probable that the feudal
custom which gave barons the first privilege of every marriage among
their retainers, base and oppressive though it was, actually improved
the blood of the lower classes. We see that Providence frequently
allows very superior men to be also very attractive to women, and very
licentious. Perhaps with all the immediate evil that they do to morals,
they do some good to the blood of after generations. Who can say
how much the present race of men in Connecticut owe to the number
less adulteries and fornications of Pierrepont Edwards ? Corrupt as he
was, he must have distributed a good deal of the blood of his noble
father, Jonathan Edwards; and so we may hope the human race got a
secret profit out of him. Such are the compensations of nature and
Providence.
Dare we now look beyond present institutions to the possibilities
of the future ? We may at least point out briefly the main boundaries
of what is needed and must come. The institutions that shall at some
future time supercede marriage and its accessories, whatever may be
their details, must include certain essentials, negative and positive,
which can be foreseen now with entire certainty.
In the first place they must not lessen human liberty. Here we
touch the main point of difference between the cases of animals and
�SCIENTIFIC PROPAGATION.
119
men, and the point of difficulty for our whole problem. Animals,
under the unlimited control of man, can easily be kept apart and
brought together as science prescribes. But man as a race has no
visible superior. That fact declares that his destiny is self-government.
And in accordance with that destiny, the institutions that scientific
propagation waits for must be founded on self-government. The
liberty already won must not be diminished, but increased. If there
is to be suppression, it must not be by castration and confinement, as
in the case of animals, or even by law and public opinion, as men are
now controlled, but by the free choice of those who love science well
enough to “make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s
sake.” If mating is to be brought about without regard to the senti
mental specialities that now control it, this must be done only for those
whose liberty consists in obeying rational laws, because they love truth
more than sentimentalism.
There is another thing that the institutions of the future must not
do; they must not injure home. Here we touch another point of
difference between the cases of animals and human beings. Man has
a social nature that demands very different treatment from that of
animals. The best part of human happiness consists in sexual and
parental love, and the best part of human education consists in the
training of these passions in the school of home. That school must
not be superceded or weakened by the new arrangements, but must be
honored more than ever.
Can this be done consistently with the changes which scientific
propagation requires ? That is the hard question which science has
now to solve. We offer but a hint toward its solution. If home
could be enlarged to the scale, for instance, of the Shaker families, and
if men and women could be taught to enjoy love that stops short of
propagation, and if all could learn to love other children than their
own, there would be nothing to hinder scientific propagation in the
midst of homes far better than any that now exist. The Shakers claim
that by making the Church the unit of society, they have the best of
homes even now, without enjoying sexual and parental love in the
direct way. How much more complete might be their home-life if
they should some time heed our suggestion, to introduce home-propa
gation in the self-denying way which science requires, and for which
their long cross-bearing has prepared them.
Something of this kind, undertaken by intelligent and conscien
tious men, endowed with abundant wealth, and under the sanction of
government, may ultimately combine home and liberty, with scientific
propagation. And it is for such inventions as this, or others more per
tinent and hopeful, that discussion ought to be set free, and kings and
congresses, social science societies, ethnological societies, philanthro
pists of all kinds, and rich men who wish to dispose well of their
money, should be offering the very highest premiums.
At all events the practical difficulties of our problem must not turn
�120
SCIENTIFIC- PROPAGATION.
us away from the study and discussion of it. The great law which
Plato and Darwin and Galton are preaching, is pressing hard upon us,
and will never cease to press till we do our duty under it. And the
need of doing something' for the radical improvement of humanity is
imminent. Galton calls earnestly for a new race. Hear his appeal:
“ It seems to me most essential to the well-being of future generations, that the
average standard of ability of the present time should be raised. Civilization is a
new condition imposed upon man by the course of events, just as in the history of
geological changes new conditions have continually been imposed on different, races
of animals. They have had the effect either of modifying the nature of the races
through the process of natural selection, whenever the changes were sufficiently
slow and the race sufficiently pliant, or of destroying them altogether, when the
changes were too abrupt or the race unyielding. The number of the races of man
kind that have been entirely destroyed under the pressure of the requirements of
an increasing civilization, reads us a terrible lesson. Probably in no former period
of the world has the destruction of the races of any animal whatever been effected
over such wide areas, and with such startling rapidity, as in the case of savage man.
In the North American continent, in the West Indian islands, in the Cape of Good
Hope, in Australia, New Zealand, and Van Diemen’s Land, the human denizens of
vast regions have been entirely swept away in the short space of three centuries,
less by the pressure of a stronger race than through the influence of a civilization
they were incapable of supporting. And we too, the foremost laborers in creating
this civilization, are beginning to show ourselves incapable of keeping pace with
our own work. The needs of centralization, communication, and culture call for
more brains and mental stamina than the average of our race possess. We are in
crying want for a greater fund of ability in all- stations of life, for neither the classes
of statesmen, philosophers, artisans, nor laborers are up to the modern complexity
of their several professions. An extended civilization like ours comprises more in
terests than the ordinary statesmen or philosophers of our present race are capable
of dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our ordinary artisans and
laborers are capable of performing. Our race is overweighted, and appears likely
to be drudged into degeneracy by demands that exceed its powers.”
In another point of view, a tremendous crisis is upon us. The
socialisms and spiritualisms which have engaged public attention in
the last thirty years seem to have weakened the very constitution of
society. Free love, easy divorce, foeticide, general licentiousness, and
scandalous law-trials in high life, are the symptoms of the times.
Many believe that marriage is dying. • Is it not remarkable that in this
state of things the loud call for scientific propagation is rising ? Is
there not a rational and even Providential connection between these
phenomena ? If the powers above are summoning us to the great en
terprise of peopling the planet with a new race, why should not the
old institutions, which are too narrow for such an enterprise, be pass
ing away ? The birth of the new always comes with agony and rup
ture to the old. At all events, whether the time for the decease of
marriage has come or not, let us not doubt that it must come before
the will of God can be done on earth as it is in heaven; and let us be
ready, when it does come, to make sure that the formative idea of the
dispensation to come after it shall be nothing less than scientific
propagation.
�
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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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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Scientific propagation
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Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [97]-120 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed on blue paper. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. John Humphrey Noyes was an American preacher, radical religious philosopher, and Utopian socialist.
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.
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Noyes, John Humphrey, 1811-1886
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[1870]
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Eugenics
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Biology
Conway Tracts
Eugenics
Evolution
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Text
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
BY FREDERIC HARRISON.
HE interest which the system known as Positivism awakens
in public attention is so vastly in excess of any knowledge
of the writings of Comte, and of any attempts at propagandism made by his followers, that it may afford matter
for some curious reflection. On the one hand, we have one of the most
voluminous if not the most elaborate of all modern philosophies, com
posed in a foreign language and a highly technical style. Those who
have honestly studied, or even actually read, these difficult works may
be numbered on the hand; and no methodical exposition of them exists
in this country. The full adherents of this system in England are
known to be few; and they but very rarely address the public. Among
the regular students of Comte two or three alone find means occasion
ally to express their views, and that for the most part on special sub
jects. Such is the only medium through which the ideas of Comte are
promulgated—a mass of writings practically unread; a handful of
disciples for the most part silent.
On the other hand, the press and society, platform and pulpit, are
continually resounding with criticism, invective, and moral reflection
arrayed against this system. Reviews devote article after article to
demonstrate anew the absurdity or the enormity of these views. The
critics cut and thrust at will, well knowing that there is no one to re
taliate ; secure of the field to themselves, they fight the battle o’er again;
thrice have they routed all their foes, and thrice they slay the slain.
Religious journalism, too, delights to use the name of Comte as a sort
of dark relief to the glowing colors of the Scarlet Woman. Semi-re
ligious journals detect his subtle influence in everything, from the last
poem to the coming revolution. Drowsy congregations are warned
against doctrines from which they run as little risk as they do from
that of Parthenogenesis, and which they are yet less likely to under
stand. Society even knows all about it, and chirrups the last gossip or
jest at afternoon tea-tables. Yet even under this the philosophy of
Comte survives; for criticism of this kind, it need hardly be said, is
not for the most part according to knowledge.
Some such impression is left by the glaring inconsistencies which
appear among the critics themselves. They have so easy a time of it in
T
�50
THE
POSITIVIST PBOBLEM.
piling up charges against Positivism, that they, in a great degree, dis
pose of each other. According to some, for instance, it would promote
a perfect pandemonium of anarchy. With others it means only the
“paralyzing and iron rule of law.” With some it is the concentration
of all human energy on self; with others, an Utopia which is to elimi
nate self from human nature. Now it is to crush out of man every
instinct of veneration for a superior being; now it is to enthrall him in
a superstitious devotion. The followers of Comte are at once the vota
ries of disorder and of arbitrary power; of the coldest materialism and
the most ideal sentimentalism; they are blind to everything but the
facts of sensation, yet they foster the most visionary of hopes; they
execrate all that is noble in man, and yet dream of human perfectibility.
In a word, they are anarchists or absolutists; pitiless or maudlin; ma
terialists or transcendentalists, as it may suit the palette of the artist to
depict them.
Now all of these things cannot be true together. If it is proved to
the satisfaction of a thousand critics that Positivism is a mass of absur
dity, why need we hear so much about it ? How can that still be
dangerous which is hardly ever heard of but in professed refutations,
and known only through adverse critics ? It is strange that a writer,
as they tell us, of obscure French, such as no one can make sense of,
who finds in this country but an occasional student, should need such
an army to annihilate him. If he were responsible for one-tenth of the
contradictory views which are put into his mouth, he is self-condemned
already. No house so divided against itself could stand, to say nothing
of the critical batteries which thunder on it night and day—religious,
scientific, literary champions without stint, warning an intelligent
public against a new mystery of abominations. “ Dearly beloved,” cries
the priest, “beware of this soul-destroying doctrine of Humanity!”
“ Science has not a good word for it,” cries the man of physics, “ to say
nothing of its irreligion! ” and so makes a truce with the man of God.
“ And literature has a thousand ill names for it,” cry out the brazen
tongues of the press through all its hundred throats of brass. Yet,
withal, the thoughts of Comte seem still to live and grow, to flourish
without adherents, and to increase without apostles. They must be in
some way in the air; for all that men see is the refutation of that
which none study, the smiting of those who do not contend. Epur si
muove !
Those to whom the system of Comte is of serious moment would be
but of a poor spirit if they lost heart under such a combination of
assaults, or took pleasure in the signs of so wide-spread an interest. A
perpetual buzzing about a new system of thought can as little do it
good as it can do it harm. The students of Comte would be foolishly
sanguine if they set this down to real study or serious interest in his
system. They would be culpably weak if they supposed it was due to
any efforts of their own to extend it.
�THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
51
However much Positivism may desire the fullest discussion, little can
come of criticism which does not pretend to start with effective study.
As a system it demands far too much both in the way of sustained
thought and of practical action, to gain by becoming merely a subject
of social or literary causerie. The platoon firing of the professional
critics, and the buzz of the world, may become fatiguing; but both in
the main are harmless, and in any case appear to be inevitable.
But when we look below the surface a different view will appear.
However few are they who avow Positivism completely, its spirit per
meates all modem thought. Those who teach the world have all learnt
something from it. The awe-struck interest it arouses in truly relig
ious minds shows how it can touch the springs of human feeling. Men
of the world are conscious that it is a power clearly organic, and that it
is bent on results. And even the curiosity of society bears witness that
its ideas can probe our social instincts to the root.
It cannot, indeed, be denied that so general an interest in this subject
is itself a significant fact; and though it be not due to anything like a
study of Comte, and most certainly to nothing that is done by his
adherents, it has beyond question a cause. This cause is that the age
is one of Construction—and Positivism is essentially constructive.
Men in these times crave something organic and systematic. Ideas are
gaining a slow but certain ascendency. There is abroad a strange consciousne*ss of doubt, instability, and incoherence; and, withal, a secret
yearning after certainty and reorganization in thought and in life.
Even the special merits of this time, its candor, tolerance, and spirit of
inquiry, exaggerate our consciousness of mental anarchy, and give a
strange fascination to anything that promises to end it.
We have passed that stage of thought in which men hate or despise
the religious and social beliefs they have outgrown—their articles of
religion, constitutions of State, and orders of society. We feel the need
of something to replace them more and more sadly, and day by day we
grow more honestly and yet tenderly ashamed of the old faiths we once
had. At bottom mankind really longs for something like a rule of
life, something that shall embody all the phases of our multiform
knowledge, and yet slake our thirst for organic order. Now there is, it
may be said without fear, absolutely nothing which pretends to meet
all these conditions—but one thing, and that is Positivism. There are,
no doubt, religions in plenty, systems of science, theories of politics,
and the like; but there is only one system which takes as its subject
all sides of human thought, feeling, and action, and then builds these
up into a practical system of life. Hence it is that, however imperfectly
known, Positivism is continually presenting itself; and though but
little studied, and even less preached, it ceases not to work. It proposes
some solution to the problem which is silently calling for an answer in
the depths of every vigorous mind that has ceased to be satisfied with
the past. It states the problem at least, and nothing else does even
�52
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
this. Thus, in spite of every distortion from ignorance or design, the
scheme of Positivism has such affinity for the situation that it is ever
returning to men’s view. For whilst mankind, in the building of the
mighty tower of Civilization, seem for the time struck as if with a con
fusion of purpose, and the plan of the majestic edifice for the time
seems lost or forgotten, ever and anon there grows visible to the eye of
imagination the outline of an edifice in the future, of harmonious de
sign and just proportion, filling the mind with a sense of completeness
and symmetry.
An interest thus wide and increasing in a system so very imperfectly
known, proves that it strikes a chord in modern thought. And as
among those who sit in judgment on it there must be some who hon
estly desire to give it a fair hearing, a few words may not be out of
place to point out some of the postulates, as it were, of the subject, and
some of the causes which may account for criticisms so incessant and
so contradictory. It need hardly be said that these words are offered
not as by authority, or ex cathedrd, from one who pretends to speak in
the name of any body or any person whatever. They are some of the
questions which have beset the path of one who is himself a disciple
and not an apostle, and the answers which he offers are simple sugges
tions proposed only to such as may care to be fellow-hearers with him.
It is of the first importance for any serious consideration of Posi
tivism to know what is the task it proposes to itself. For the grounds
on which it is attacked are so strangely remote, and appear to be so
little connected, that perhaps no very definite conception exists of what
its true scope is. There is much discussion now as to its scientific
dogmas, now as to its forms of worship, now as to its political prin
ciples. But Positivism is not simply a new system of thought. It is
not simply a religion—much less is it a political system. It is at once
a philosophy and a polity; a system of thought and a system of life;
the aim of which is to bring all our intellectual powers and our social
sympathies into close correlation. The problem which it proposes is
twofold: to harmonize our conceptions and to systematize human life;
and furthermore, to do the first only for the sake of the second.
Now this primary notion stands at the very root of the matter, and
if well kept in view it may spare much useless discussion and many
hard words. Thus viewed, Positivism is really not in competition with
any other existing system. It is hardly in contrast with any, because
none is in pari materid—none claims the same sphere. No extant re
ligion professes to cover the same ground, and therefore with none can
Positivism be placed in contrast. Christianity, whatever it may have
claimed in the age of Aquinas and Dante, certainly in our day does not
profess to harmonize the results of science and methodize thought. On
the contrary, it is one of the boasts of Christianity that its work is ac
complished in the human heart, whatever be the forms of thought and
even of society. It cannot therefore be properly contrasted with Posi
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
53
tivism, for they are essentially disparate, and the function claimed by
the one is not that claimed by the other.
So, too, Positivism is hardly capable of comparison with any existing
philosophy. There are many systems of science and methods of thought
before the world, but they insist on being heard simply as such, and
not as being also religions, or schemes of life. They stand before the
judgment-seat of the intellect, and they call for sentence from it accord
ing to its law. Such social or moral motive as they rest on is ade
quately supplied in the love of truth and the general bearing of knowl
edge on human happiness. Their doctrines ask to stand or fall on
their own absolute strength, and are not put forward as a mere intro
duction to a form of life. Not but what, of course, philosophers,
ancient and modern, have elaborated practical applications of their
teaching to life. But no modern philosophy, as such, puts itself forth
as a part of a larger system, as a mere foundation on which to build the
society, as a major premise only in a strict syllogism of which the con
clusion is action. Now this the Positive philosophy does. Positivism
therefore is not a religion, for its first task was to found a complete
system of philosophy: nor is it á philosophy, for its doctrines are but
the intellectual basis of a definite scheme of life: nor a polity, for it
makes political progress but the corollary of moral and intellectual
movements. But, though being itself none of these three, it professes
to comprehend them all, and that in their fullest sense. Thus it
stands essentially alone, a system in antagonism strictly with none, the
function and sphere of which is claimed by no other as its own.
Criticism which ignores this primary point, which deals with a sys
tem as if its end were something other than it is, can hardly be worth
much. And thus viewed, a mass of popular objections fall to the
ground. For instance, a continual stumbling-block is found in politi
cal institutions and reforms which Positivism proposes—institutions
which are wholly alien, it is true, to our existing political atmosphere,
and which could hardly exist in it, or would be actively noxious. But
these are proposed by Positivism only on the assumption that they fol
low on and complete an intellectual, social, and moral reorganization
by which society would be previously transformed, and for which an
adequate machinery is provided. No value can attach therefore to any
judgment on the political institutions per se, tom from the soil in
which they are to be planted, crudely judged by the political tone of
the hour. No serious judgment is possible until the social and intel
lectual basis on which they are to be built has been comprehended and
weighed, and found to be inadequate or impossible. But this is what
he who criticises the system from a special point of view is unwilling
or unable to do.
So with the philosophy—we often hear indignant protests against
the attempt made by Comte to organize the investigation of nature.
Nothing is easier than to show that the organization proposed might
�54
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
check the discovery of some curious facts, or the pursuits of certain
seekers after truth. But the same would be true of any organization
whatever. The problem of human life is not to secure the greatest ac
cumulation of knowledge, or the vastest body of truth, but that which
is most valuable to man; not to stimulate to the utmost the exercise
of the intelligence, but to make it practically subservient to the happi
ness of the race. The charge therefore that the Positive philosophy
would set boundaries to the intellect by setting it a task, is not to the
purpose, even if it were true. This might be said of almost every re
ligion and any system of morality. The very point in issue is whether
the true welfare of mankind is best secured by the absolute independ
ence of the mind, going to and fro like the wind which bloweth
whither it listeth.
Thus, too, in criticising the religious side of Positivism, it is argued
that it fails to provide for this or that emotion or yearning of the re
ligious spirit; that it leaves many a solemn question unanswered, and
many a hope unsatisfied, and has no place for the mystical and the In
finite, for absolute goodness, or power, or eternity. Be it so. The
objection might have weight if Positivism were offering a new form of
theology, or came forward simply as a new sort of religion. But the
problem before us is this—whether these ideas can find a place in any
religion which is to be in living harmony with a scientific philosophy.
We are called on to decide whether, since these notions are repugnant
to rational philosophy, religion and thought must forever be divorced,
and whether we must choose thought without religion, or religion
without thought. Positivism, if it has no place for the mystical or su
pernatural, has the Widest field for the Ideal and the Abstract. It
holds out the utmost reach for any intensity of sentiment. Nor could
its believers fail in a boundless vista of hope; of hope which, while it
is substantial and real, is not less ardent, and far more unselfish, than
the ideals of' older faiths. Positivism maintains that supposing estab
lished such a scientific and moral philosophy as it conceives, inspiring
a community so full of practical energies and social sympathies as that
which it creates, a rational religion is possible, but such hopes and
yearnings would be practically obsolete, supplanted by deeper and yet
purer aspirations. They would perish of inanition in a mind or a so
ciety really imbued with the relative and social spirit. They had -no
place under the practical morality and social life of past ages. They
would have none, it argues, under the scientific philosophy and the
public activity of the future. The truth of this expectation cannot
possibly be estimated without a thorough weighing both of the philos
ophy and of the polity which it is proposed to found, and a very sys
tematic comparison of their combined effects.
To treat philosophy, religion, or polity without regard to the place
each holds in the general synthesis, is simply to beg the question. It is
much more to the purpose to argue that the general synthesis which
�THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
55
Positivism proposes to create is not needed at all, or even if needed, is
perfectly chimerical. Certainly it is a question which cannot be dis
cussed here; and perhaps it is one which cannot be settled by any dis
cussion at all. It seems one of those ultimate questions which can only
be determined by the practical issue, and which no a, priori argument
can touch. Solvetur ambulando. It has been most vigorously treated
by Mr. Mill in his estimate of Positivism, and, like all that he has said
on this subject, deserves the most diligent thought. After all, it may
be the truth that this question of questions—if human life be or be not
reducible to one harmony—is one of those highest generalizations
which the future alone can decide, and which no man can decide to be
impossible until it has been proved so.
In any case, those who have no mind to busy themselves with any
system of life or synthesis of social existence whatever—and they are
the great bulk of rqankind—may well be asked to spare themselves
many needless protestations. Positivism most certainly will not
trouble them; and the world is wide enough for them all. Still less
need of passionate disclaimers and attacks have all they who are hon
estly satisfied with their religious and social faith as it is. Positivism
looks on their convictions with the most sincere respect, and shrinks from
wounding or disturbing the very least of them. How much waste of
energy and serenity might be spared to many conscientious persons if
these simple conditions were observed! Positivism is in its very essence
unaggressive and non-destructive; for it seeks only to build up, and to
build up step by step. It must appeal to very few at present, for the first of
its conditions—the need of a new System of Life—is as yet admitted only
by a few. It must progress but slowly as yet, for its scheme is too wide
to be compatible with haste. If all of those who are alien to anything
like a new order of human life, and all those who are satisfied with the
* order they have lived under would go their own way and leave Posi
tivism to those who seek it, a great deal of needless irritation and agi
tation would be happily averted. The idea that thought and life may
some day on this earth be reduced to organic order and harmony may
be Utopian, but is it one so grotesque that it need arouse the tiresome
horseplay of every literary trifler? And though there be men so un
wise as to search after this Sangreal in a moral and intellectual re
form, is their dream so anti-social as to justify an organized hostility
which amounts to oppression? Incessant attempts to crush by the
weight of invective, fair or unfair, a new system of philosophy, which
appeals solely to opinion, and which numbers but a handful of adher
ents for the most part engaged in study, are not the highest forms of
intelligent criticism. Positivism as a system has nothing to say to any
but the very few who are at once disbelievers in the actual systems of
faith and life, and are believers in the possibility of such a system in
the future. To the few who seek it, it presents a task, as it fairly warns
them, requiring prolonged patience and labor. The rest it will scarcely
�56
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
trouble unless they seek it; and perhaps it will be better that they
should leave it alone. Little can come of eternally discussing the solu
tion of a problem which men have no wish to see solved, or of multi
plying objections to what they have no mind to investigate.
Positivism, then, consists of a philosophy, a religion, and a polity;
and to regard it as being any one of these three singly, or to criticise
any one of them separately, is simple waste of time. Its first axiom is,
that all of these spheres of life suffer from their present disorder, because
hitherto no true synthesis has been found to harmonize them. This
axiom is obviously one which must meet with opposition, and in any
case be very slowly accepted. The very notion of system and organiza
tion implies subordination in the parts, submission to control, and
mutual concession. The unbounded activity, independence, and free
dom of the present age, not to say its anarchy and incoherence, quiver,
it seems, in every nerve at the least show of discipline. Yet any species
of organization involve discipline, and any discipline involves some re
straint. Of course, therefore, any scheme to organize thought and life
presented in an age of boundless liberty and individualism meets oppo
sition at every point. To show that Positivism involves a systematic
control over thought and life is not an adequate answer to it. To prove
of a new system that it is a system is not a final settling the question
until you have first proved that no system can be good. All civilizartion and every religion, all morality and every kind of society, imply
some restraint and subordination. The question—and it is a question
which cannot be decided off-hand—is whether more is implied in the
system of Positivism than is involved in the very notion of a synthesis,
or a harmony co-extensive with human life.
It is worthy of notice how entirely new to modern thought is this
cardinal idea of Positivism—that of religion, science, and industry
working in one common life—how little such an idea can be grasped *
in the light of the spirit of the day! Yet so far is it from being an
extravagant vision, that it sleeps silently in the depths of every brain
which ever looks into the future of the race. None but they who dwell
with regret on the past, or are engrossed in the cares of the present,
doubt but what the time will come when the riddle of social life will be
read, and the powers of man work in unison together; when thought
shall be the prelude only to action or to art, and action and art be but
the realization of affection and emotion; when brain, heart, and will
have but one end, and that end be the happiness of man on earth.
And thus while priest, professor, and politician forswear the scheme
which Positivism offers, and society resounds with criticism and refu
tation, none believe it overcome or doubt its vitality; for it remains
the only conception which pretends to satisfy an undying aspiration
of the soul.
Whether the pursuit of system or harmony be carried out by Comte
extravagantly or not is, no doubt, a question of the first importance.
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POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
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It is certainly one which there is no intention of discussing here. But
in any case it is not to be decided lightly. Mr. Mill, as has been said,
has argued this question-with all that power which in him is exceeded
only by his candor. But which of the other critics have done the
like ? A criticism like that of Mr. Mill is a totally different thing,
and worthy of all attention. Nor must it be forgotten how largely, in
criticising Positivism, he accepts its substantial bases. Nothing can
be more disingenuous than to appeal to the authority of Mr. Mill as
finally disposing of the social philosophy of Comte, when Mr. Mill has
adhered to so much of the chief bases of that philosophy in general,
and has warmly justified some of the most vital features of the social
system. A system may be false, but it is not false solely because it is a
system. It might very possibly be that harmony had only been
attained by Positivism at the expense of truth or life, by doing violence
to the facts of Nature, or by destroying liberty of action. But this is
a matter depending so much on a multitude of combined arguments
and on such general considerations, that it can be decided only after
long and patient study. It clearly cannot be done piecemeal or at first
sight. And of all questions is the one in which haste and exaggeration
are most certain to mislead.
Let us follow a little further each of the three sides of Positivism—
the Philosophy, the Religion, the Polity—in order, but not independ
ently, so as to put before us the goal they propose to win and the main
obstacles in their path. The grand end which it proposes to philosophy
is to give organic unity to the whole field of our conceptions, whether
in the material or in the moral world, to order all branches of knowl
edge into their due relations, and hence to classify the sciences. Even
if the unthinking were to regard this project as idle or extravagant,
every instructed mind well knows that it is involved in the very nature
of philosophy, and has been its dream from the first. Can it be neces
sary to argue that the very meaning of philosophy is to give system to
our thoughts ? What are laws of nature but generalizations ? what
are generalizations but a multitude of facts referred to a common
idea ? what is science but the bringing the manifold under the one ?
Knowledge itself is but the study of relations; and the highest knowl
edge, the study of the ultimate relations.
And as science has no meaning but the systematizing of separate
ideas, so the grand systematizing of all ideas has been the ceaseless aim
of philosophy. What else were the strange but luminous hypotheses
of the early Greeks? what else was the colossal task of Aristotle?
what else that of the elder Bacon and his coevals, of the other Bacon,
of Descartes, of Leibnitz, of the Encyclopaedists, of Hegel ?
That order is the ultimate destiny of all our knowledge is so ob
vious that the effort to found it at once can be met only by one objec
tion worthy of an answer, and that is that the aim is premature. It is
very easy to see that the earlier attempts, when even astronomy was in
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THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
complete and the moral sciences outside the pale of law, were utterly
premature. But whether the task is premature now is entirely dif
ferent. After all, it is one of those questions which no a priori argu
ment can affect. It is not premature if it can be even approximately
done. Yet the mere suggestion of it arouses a myriad-headed oppo
sition. In every science and every sub-section of a science a specialist
starts forth to tell us that generations of observers are needed to ex
haust even his own particular corner in the field of knowledge. And
if one science is to become but the instrument of another, if one kind
of inquiry is to be subordinated to another, we should fetter, they tell
us, the freedom which has led to so many brilliant discoveries, and
leave unsolved many a curious problem.
The answer of Positivism is simply this: If the systematizing of
knowledge will be premature before all this is accomplished, it will
always be premature. The end for which we are to wait is one utterly
chimerical. No doubt there are no bounds to knowledge, any more
than there are bounds to the universe. As Aristotle says, thus one
would go on for ever without result; so that the search will be fruitless
and vain. Nay, if we go by quantity, estimate our knowledge now as
compared with the facts of the universe, we are but children still play
ing on the shore of an infinite sea. If, before philosophy can be
formed into a systematic whole, every phenomenon which the mind
can grasp in the inorganic or in the organic world has to be first ex
amined—every atom which microscope can detect, every nebula which
telescope can reach—if every living thing has to be analyzed down to
the minutest variation of its tissues, from infinitesimal protozoa to
palaeontologic monsters—if every recorded act, word, or thought of
men has to be first exhausted before the science of sciences can begin
—the task is hopeless, for the subject is infinite. A life of toil may
be baffled by the problems to be found in one drop of turbid water.
Ten generations of thinkers might perish before they had succeeded in
explaining all that it is conceivable science might detect on a withered
leaf. And whole academies of historians would not suffice fully to
raise the veil that shrouds a single human life.
Were science pursued indefinitely on this scale, not only would the
earth not contain all the books that should be written, but no conceivable
brain could grasp, much less organize, the infinite maze. The task of
organization would thus be made more hopeless each day, and philos
ophy would be as helpless as Xerxes in the midst of his countless
hosts. The radical difference between the point of view of the positive
and the current philosophy, that which feeds the internecine conflict
between them, is that between the relative and the absolute. Looked
at from the absolute point of view—that is, as the phenomena of mat
ter and life present themselves from without—the task of exhausting
I he knowledge of them is truly infinite, and that of systematizing them
is truly hopeless. From the relative point of view philosophy is called
�THE P OSITIVIST PROBLEM.
59
on to exist, not for its own sake, but as the immediate minister of life.
To utilize it, and to organize in order to utilize it, is of far higher im
portance than to extend it. It judges the value of truths, not by the
degree of intellectual brilliancy they exhibit, or the delight they afford
to the imagination, but by their relation, in a broad sense, to the prob
lem of human happiness. Till this great problem is nearer its solution,
Positivism is content to leave many a problem yet unsolved and many
a discovery unrevealed. It sees life to be surrounded by such problems
as by an atmosphere “ measureless to man; ” for life rests ever like an
island girt by an ocean of the Insoluble, and hangs like our own planet,
a firm and solid spot suspended in impenetrable space.
What is the test of true knowledge, when phenomena, facts, and
therefore truths, are actually infinite? The fact that this or that gas
has been detected in a fixed star is, no doubt, a brilliant discovery in
the absolute point of view; but, in the relative, it might possibly turn
out to be a mere feat of scientific gymnastic—the answer to a scientific
puzzle. The discoverer of many a subtle problem may be, absolutely
speaking, entitled to the honor of mankind; but relatively, if his
problem is valueless, he may have been wasting his time and his
powers. Hence the special professors of every science are the first to
resent the principles and the judgments of the relative mode of
thought. They cannot endure that their intellectual achievements
should be judged by any but scientific standards, or their inquiries
directed by any but scientific motives. The whole conception of the
relative method differs from theirs. It calls for the solution first of
those problems in each science which a systematic philosophy of them
all indicates as the most fruitful sources of inquiry: it enjoins the fol
lowing of one study and science for the sake of and as minister to
another, and of all for the sake of establishing a rational basis for human
life and activity. And this not in the vague general spirit that all
knowledge is good, and all discoveries useful to man, and no one can
tell which or how. The same objection was brought against Aristotle
and Bacon when they proposed their Organa, or clues to inquiry. All
truths may have some value, but they are not equally valuable. The
claim of the relative is to test their value by a system of referring them
to human necessities. It sees the life of man stumbling and wander
ing for the want of a foundation and guide of certain and organized
knowledge. Each hour the want of a rational philosophy to direct and
control our social activity is more pressing, yet the absolute spirit in
science, vain-glorious and unmindful of its function, shakes off the idea
of a yoke-fellow, and widens the gulf between thought and life by soli
tary flights amidst worlds of infinite phenomena.
It is sometimes pretended—it must be said rather perversely—that
this relative conception of science is akin to the stifling of thought by
the Catholic Church. It is of course true that the Holy Inquisition,
like most dominant religions, did claim the right, in virtue of its
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THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
divine mission, of dictating to the intellect certain subjects as forbid
den ground, and warning it off from these limits; it dictated to the
intellect the conclusions which it was required to establish, and the
methods it was permitted to use—and this not on intellectual, but on
religious and supernatural grounds. Positivism neither dictates to the
intellect nor hampers its activity. It calls on it on grounds of philos
ophy, and on demonstrable principles, to work in its own free light;
but by that light, and at its own discretion, to choose those spheres and
to follow those methods that shall combine harmoniously with a scheme
of active life as systematic as itself. This is utterly distinct from the
slavery of the mind, according to the Catholic or any other religious
notion. The comparison is as simple a sophistry as to argue that it is
slavery in the will deliberately to follow the dictates of conscience.
No one who has given the subject a second thought can suppose
that Positivism, in bringing the intellect into intimate union with the
other sides of human nature for the direct object of human happiness,
intends thereby to confine it to the material uses of life, or to refer
every thought to some immediate practical end. The former is mere
materialism ; the second simple empiricism; and both utterly unphilosophical. On the contrary, by far the noblest part of the task of the
mind is to minister to moral and spiritual needs. And by far the most
of its efforts are employed in strengthening its own powers, and amass
ing the materials for long series of deductions. Philosophy, as Positiv
ism conceives it, would annihilate itself by becoming either material
or empirical. Its business is to systematize the highest results of
thought; but those results are the highest which are most essential
to, and can be assimilated best by, human life as a whole.
And
no system can be the true one but as it orders all thoughts in rela
tion, first to each other, and, secondly, in relation to every power of
man.
Can it be needful again to say that the attempt of Positivism to
systematize the sciences is very far from implying that there is but one
science and one method, or that it would reduce all knowledge to one
set of laws. Its chief task has been to show the boundaries of the
sciences, to classify the different methods appropriate to each, and to
point out how visionary are all attempts at ultimate generalizations.
When men of science tell us that processes of reasoning are used indis
criminately in all sciences, and that all scientific questions are ulti
mately referable to one set of laws, they are going back to the infancy
of philosophy, effacing all that has been done to analyze reasoning, and
attempting, as of old, to reach some chimerical, because universal,
principle. It is but the materialist phase of the metaphysical problem.
Supposing all questions of science, including all social questions, as has
been proposed, not apparently in jest, could be reduced to questions of
molecular physics, how would this serve human life more than if they
were reduced to air, water, or fire ? The end of specialism is at hand
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61
if science is looking for some ultimate principle of the universe. The
search is equally unpractical, whether it be pursued by crude guessing
or by microscopes and retorts. It would not help us if we knew it;
and as Aristotle says of Plato’s idea, the highest principle would
contain none under it. It would be so general as to support no prac
tical derivatives. Like all extreme abstractions, it would bear no fruit.
Turn on whichever side we will, we meet this conflict between the
relative and the absolute point of view. The absolute burns for new
worlds to conquer; the relative insists that the empire already won,
before all things, be reduced to order, and knowledge systematized in
order to be applied. The absolute calls us to admire its brilliant dis
coveries ; the relative regrets that such efforts were not spent in dis
covering the needful thing. The absolute claims entire freedom for
itself; the relative asks that its labors be directed to a systematic end.
It is the old question between individual and associated effort—the
spontaneous and the disciplined—the special and the general point of
view'. We might imagine the case of a general with a genius for war,
such as Hannibal or Napoleon, carrying on a campaign with a hetero
geneous host and a staff of specialist subordinates. He desires to learn
the shape of a country, the powers of his artillery, the fortification of
his camp, or the engineering of his works. He seeks to master each
of these arts himself, so far as he has means, and for his ultimate end.
But with his specialists he wages a constant struggle. His geographer
has a thousand points still to observe to complete his survey. His en
gineers start curious problems in physics, and each science has its own
work, as each captain of irregulars may have his pet plan. It may be
true that much may be needed before any of the branches can be
thoroughly done ; and the scheme of some subordinate officer might
possibly destroy a certain number of the enemy. But the true general
knows that all these things are good only in a relative manner. His
end is victory, or rather conquest.
Thus it is not only intelligible, but quite inevitable, that Positivism
should meet the stoutest opposition from the science of the day, not
only in details and in estimates, but even in general conceptions, and
yet not be unscientific. The strictures of men even really eminent in
special departments are precisely what every system must encounter
which undertakes the same task. That all such should make them,
more especially if they be inclined to theology, or devotees of individ
ualism, is so entirely natural that any answer in detail must be an end
less task. By their fruits you shall know them. Let us see them pro
duce a system of thought more harmonious in itself and more applica
ble to the whole of human life. Every new philosophy which proposes to
change the very point of view of thought has always incurred fierce oppo
sition. Every new religion and social system has seemed to its predeces
sors an evil and cruel dream. How much more a system which involves
at once a new philosophy, a new religion, and a new society; which brings
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THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
to thought a change greater than that wrought by Bacon or Descartes;
which draws a spiritual bond vaster and deeper than that which was
conceived by Paul, and founds a social system that differs from our own
more than the modern differs from the ancient world.
Whether the actual solution of the problem of systematizing thought
as worked out by Comte in all its sides, his statement of natural laws,
and his classification of the sciences, be adequate or true, is a matter
which it is far from our present purpose to discuss. It would be for
eign to our immediate aim, and impossible within our present limits.
But there is a stronger reason. It would be simple charlatanry in one
without due scientific education to undertake such a task as that of
examining and reviewing a complete encyclopaedia of science. The
natural philosophy of Comte is a matter which no one could undertake
to justify in all its bearings without a systematic study of each science
in turn. Looking at it from the point of view of philosophy, and with
that relative spirit which the sense of social necessities involves, a dili
gent student of the system, who seeks to satisfy his mind on it as a
whole, can form a sufficient opinion, at least so far as to compare its
results with any other before us. After very carefully considering the
strictures passed on Comte’s classification of the sciences and his state
ment of the principal laws, it does not appear to the writer that one of
them will hold. If we are to shelter ourselves under authority, we may
be content with that of M. Littré, Mr. Mill, and Mr. Lewes. We are
too apt to forget the great distinction between philosophy and science,
and the paramount title of the former. Men of science are far too
ready to decide matters of philosophy by their own lights, matters
which depend far less on knowledge of special facts than on the gen
eral laws and history of thought, and even of society. Nor does there
appear to be any weight in some strictures which have recently been
published in this Review on the positive law of the three stages and the
classification of the sciences, the greater part of which objections have
been already anticipated and refuted by Mr. Mill—part of which are
obvious misconceptions of Comte, and part are transparent sophisms.
On the whole, it may be fairly left to any one who seriously seeks for a
philosophy of science, and is prepared to seek it with that patience
and breadth of view which such a purpose requires, to decide for him
self if he can discover any other solution of the problem, the general
co-ordination of knowledge as a basis of action.
Let us now for a moment turn to the system viewed as a religion,
not with the slightest intention of reviewing it, much less of advocating
it, but simply to see what it is, and what it proposes to do. Its funda
mental notion is that no body of truth, however complete, can effect
ually enlighten human life; no system of society can be stable or
sound without a regular power of acting on the higher emotions.
There are in human nature capacities which will not be second, and
cannot be dispensed with. There are instincts of self-devotion and of
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
63
sympathy, love, veneration, and beneficence, which ultimately control
human life, and alone can give it harmony. Though not the most
active either in the individual character, or even in the social, these
powers are in the long run supreme, because they are those only to
which the rest can permanently and harmoniously submit. Each sepa
rate soul requires, to give unity to the exercise of its powers, a motive
force outside of itself: for the highest of its powers are instinctively
turned to objects without. The joint action of every society is in the
long run due to sympathy, and to common devotion to some power on
which the whole depends. There thus arises a threefold work to be
accomplished—to give unity to the individual powers; to bind up the
individuals into harmonious action ; to keep that action true and per
manent—unity, association, discipline. Without this the most elabo
rate philosophy might become purely unpractical or essentially im
moral, the most active of societies thoroughly corrupt or oppressive,
and the result throughout the whole sphere of life—discord. Nothing
but the emotions remain as the original motive force of life in all its
sides; and none of the emotions but one can bring all the rest and all
other powers into harmony, and that is the devotion of all to a power
recognized as supreme. To moralize both Thought and Action, by
inspiring Thought with an ever-present social motive, by making
Action the embodiment only of benevolence—such is the aim of reli
gion as Positivism conceives it.
Now, without debating whether the mode in which Positivism
would affect this be true or not, adequate or not, it is plainly what
every system of religion in its higher forms has aimed at. And accord
ingly we see the singular attraction which this side of Positivism pos
sesses for many orthodox Christians. It is entirely their own claim;
and, indeed, there nowhere exists in the whole range of theological phil
osophy an argument on the necessity for and nature of religion in the
abstract at all to be compared with that in the second volume of the
“ Politique Positive.” Passing over the question whether Positivism
has carried out this aim by methods either arbitrary or excessive, it is
plain that every system which can claim to be an organized religion at
all, has had a body of doctrine, a living object of devotion, observances
of some kind, and an associated band of teachers. It is not easy to see
how there could be anything to be rightly called a religion without them,
or something with equivalent effect. A mere idea is not a religion,
such as that of the various neo-Christian and Deist schools.
The hostility, therefore, which the religious scheme of Positivism
awakens is one involved of necessity in the undertaking, and should
count for very little until it is seen that its critics are prepared fairly
to consider any such scheme at all. Those who are most disposed to
feel any interest in the scientific or political doctrines of Positivism
are just those who almost to a man reject worship, Church, and religion
altogether. This, for the most part, they have done, not on any gen
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THE
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eral philosophical reasons, but simply from antipathy to those forms of
devotion they find extant. Whether, in rejecting the actual forms of
them now or hitherto presented, the very spirit of these institutions
can be eliminated from human nature and from society, is a question
which they care neither to ask nor to answer. But in treating of the
Positive, or any scheme of religion, this is the question at issue. Nor
must it be forgotten that so much is the vital spirit of all religious
institutions extinct in modern thought, that even if the doctrines and
ceremonies of existing churches escape ridicule by virtue of habit and
association, forms less familiar, however rational in themselves, would
be certain to appear ridiculous, as doctrines far more intelligible and
capable of proof would appear chimerical to men accustomed to listen
calmly even to the Athanasian Creed.
Fully to conceive the task which Positivism as a religion has set
itself to accomplish, much more fairly to judge how its task has been
done, requires the mind to be placed in a point of view very different
from that of the actual moment. How little could the most cultivated
men of antiquity, who never looked into the inner life of their time,
estimate the force of early Christianity, or the most religious minds of
the middle ages accept the results of modern enlightenment! What
an effort of candor and patience would it have proved to any of these
men to do justice to the system which was to supersede theirs, even if
presented to their minds in its entirety and its highest form 1 It is
inherent in the nature of every scheme which involves a great social
change that it should bring into play or into new life powers of man
kind hitherto dormant or otherwise directed. Whether it be right in
so doing, or whether it do so to any purpose, is the question to decide;
but it is a question the most arduous which can be put to the intelligence,
and involves protracted labor and inexhaustible candor. Random criti
cism of any new scheme of religious union is of all things the most
easy and the most worthless. It can only amuse the leisure of a trifler,
but it deserves neither thought nor answer. Positivism in the plainest
way announces what is its religious aim and basis. The partisans of
the actual creeds may of course resist it by any means they think best.
But as it certainly does not seek them, nor address any who are at rest
within their folds, they cannot fairly complain of being scandalized by
what they may find in it for themselves. Those who attack it from
independent grounds show but small self-respect if they do so without
accepting the first condition of their own good faith, which is patiently
to weigh it as a whole. And those who fairly intend to consider it to
any purpose may be assured that they are undertaking a very long and
perplexing task; that much of it must necessarily seem repugnant to
our intellectual tone. A system which professes to be co-extensive
with life and based upon proof would be mere imposture if it could be
accepted off-hand as true or false, if it did more than assert and illus
trate general principles, or if it ended in closing the mind and leaving
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65
man but a machine. The real point in issue is whether it be possible
to direct mankind by a religion of social duty, if humanity as a whole—
past, present, and to come—can inspire a living devotion, capable of
permanently concentrating the highest forces of the soul; whether it
be possible to maintain such a religion by appropriate observances and
an organized education. This is the true problem for any serious
inquirer, and not whether a number of provisions admittedly sub
ordinate approve themselves to the first glance. To travestie a new
system by exaggerating or isolating its details is a task as easy as it
is shallow.
In its third aspect—that is, as a polity—what is it that Positivism
proposes ? It is a political system in harmony with a corresponding
social and industrial system, tempered by a practical religion, and based
upon a popular education. The leading conception is to subordinate
politics to morals by bringing the practical life into accord with the
intellectual and the emotional. The first axiom, therefore, is this—
that permanent political changes cannot be effected without previous
social and moral changes. This is a scheme which may be said to be
wholly new in political philosophy. Every political system of modern
times hitherto has proposed to produce its results by legislative, or at
all events by practical changes, and has started from the point of view
that the desired end could be obtained if the true political machinery
could be hit upon. It is the starting-point of Positivism that no machinery whatever can effect' the end without a thorough regeneration
of the social system; and when that is done, the machinery becomes
of less importance. The principal thing, then, will be to have the ma
chinery as simple and as efficient as possible. Political action, like all
practical affairs, must in the main depend on the practical instinct.
And the chief care will be to give the greatest scope for the rise and
activity of such powers. But as the social system is to be recast, not
by the light of the opinion of the hour, but by a study of the human
powers as shown over their widest field, so the leading principles in
politics will find their rational basis in no corner of modern civilization,
but in the history of the human l’ace as a whole and a complete analy
sis of the human capacities.
Let us see what this involves. From the nature of its aim it can
not be revolutionary in the ordinary sense. The very meaning of revo
lution is a radical and sudden change in the constitution of the state.
Now, apart from its condemnation of all revolutionary methods, Posi
tivism insists that all political changes so made must prove abortive.
But, besides this, it repudiates disorder as invariably evil, and insists
that every healthy movement is nothing but the development of the
past. But at the same time the change to which it looks is of the
greatest extent and importance. It is thus the only systematic attempt
to conciliate progress and order, one which effects revolutionary ends by
a truly conservative spirit. Of all charges, therefore, that could be
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THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
made against Positivism, that of being anarchical is the most super
ficial. The attempt to connect it with disorder and sedition is scan
dalously unjust. To the charge of being reactionary the best answer is
a simple statement of the future to which it looks forward. That it
contemplates a benevolent despotism is an idle sneer, for it conceives
the normal condition of public life as one in which the influence of
public opinion is at its maximum, and the sphere of government at
its minimum.
But just in proportion to the width of the system on which Positive
politics rest is the degree of opposition which it awakens. Adapting to
itself portions from each of the rival systems, it alienates each of them
in turn. It is impossible to do justice to the greatness o£*past ages, and
still more to revive anything from them, without offering a rock of
offence to all the revolutionary schools. And it.is impossible to pro
pose a reorganization of society at all without alarming the conserva
tive. These alternations of interest in and antipathy towards Positivist
politics, these bitter attacks, these contradictory charges, belong of
necessity to the undertaking, and need surprise no one. But those who
profess to know what they undertake to criticise, those to whom all
matters human and divine are open questions, who spend their time
but to hear or to tell some new thing, such, one would think, would be
careful that they understand the conditions on which a new system of
thought is based.
This hasty outline of the task which Positivism undertakes—the
mere statement of its problem—may suffice to explain the continual
interest it excites, and also the incessant hostility it meets. Let any
one fairly ask himself—if it be possible to accomplish such a task at all
without necessarily provoking a storm of opposition, and if the success
of the system as a whole could possibly be estimated without a patience
which, it may be said, it almost never receives. The mere variety of
the objects which it attempts to combine, while interesting men of the
most opposite views, of necessity presents to each some which utterly
repel him. It is impossible to reconcile a Babel of ideas without for
cing on each hearer many which he is accustomed to repudiate. The
man of science, who is attracted by the importance given to the physi
cal laws, starts back when it is proposed to extend these laws to the
science of society. The student of history, who sees the profound truth
of the philosophy of history, is scandalized by the very idea of a creed
of scientific proof. The politician foi* a time is held by the vision it
presents of social reforms, but he is disgusted at hearing that he must
take lessons from the past. The conservative delights to find his an
cient institutions so truly honored, to be shocked when he finds that
they are honored only that they may be the more thoroughly trans
formed. The man of religion is touched to find in such a quarter a
profound defence of worship and devotion, only to be struck dumb
with horror at a religion of mere humanity. The democrat, who hails
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
67
the picture of a regenerated society, turns with scorn from an attempt
to lay the bases of temporal and spiritual „authority. The reactionist
fares no better; for if he finds some comfort in the new importance
given to order, he dreads the results of an unqualified trust in popular
education and the constant appeal to public opinion. Those whom the
philosophy attracts, the religion repels. Those whom the moral the
ories strike shrink back from the science. Those who believe in the
forces of religion are no friends of scientific laws. Those who care most
for the progress of science are the first to be jealous of moral control.
It is simply impossible, therefore, to address with effect all of these
simultaneously without in turn wounding prejudices dear to each. It
could not be that the sciences could be organized without hurting the
susceptibilities of specialists everywhere, and it is the spirit of our time
to create specialists. To bridge over the vast chasm between the Past and
the Future, to co-ordinate the opinions and the emotions, to satisfy the
heart as well as the brain, to reconcile truth with feeling, duty with
happiness, the individual with society, fact and hope, order with
progress, religion with science, is no simple task. The task may be
looked on as hopeless, the solution of it may be derided as extravagant;
but if it were presented to men “ by an angel from heaven,” it would
sound strange to the bulk of hearers, men to whom such a notion is
alien, who have sympathy neither with the object nor the mode of pur
suing it. Hence the unthinking clamor which Positivism excites. To
the pure conservative it offers a fair mark for fierce denunciation. To
the jester it offers an opening for easy ridicule, for it offers to him
many things on which he has never thought. But by a critic of any
self-respect or intelligence it must be treated thoroughly, or not at all.
There are persons devoid of any solid knowledge, of the very shreds of
intellectual convictions, of any germ of social or religious sympathies,—
specialists ex hypothesis—to whom a serious effort to grapple with the
great problem of Man on earth is but the occasion for a cultivated
sneer, or a cynical appeal to the prejudices of the bigot. Non ragioniam di lor.
It must be plain to any one who gives all this a fair judgment that
the students of Comte could not possibly suffice for all such contro
versies, were they ten times as numerous as they are. The critics of
Positivism attack on a hundred quarters, and with every weapon, at
once. Only those who seriously interest themselves in the progress of
thought must remember that they are continually listening to mere
travesties, which it is worth no man’s while to expose, and to criticisms
which no one cares to answer. They would have only themselves to
blame if they choose to suppose that no answer could be given. Now
and then some striking case of misrepresentation has to be dealt with ;
but, as a rule, the students of Comte are of necessity otherwise engaged.
Controversy is alien to the whole genius of Positivism, for the range
of objections in detail is entirely infinite. Positivism must make way,
�68
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
if at all, like all efforts at construction, by its synthetic force, by its co
herence, and its fitness for the situation. If it has this, it can be
neither hindered nor promoted by any controversy, however brilliant as
a performance.
It is not an infrequent comment that the points of the Positive sys
tem are so widely remote and heterogeneous, that it appears somewhat
discursive. They are no doubt far apart from each other, and appar
ently, perhaps, disconnected. But it would be a most superficial view
to regard them as desultory. Now and then these principles are heard
of m matters of practical politics,—now in pure science, in religion, in
industry, in history, or in philosophy. But this is a necessity of the
case, and is a consequence of the connection between all these, which it
is the aim of Positivism to enforce, and of their general dependence on
common intellectual foundations. Its great principle is, that the errors
hitherto committed are due to the separate treatment of these cognate
phases of life and thought. And if it treats in turn very different sub
jects, it is by virtue of this very doctrine that each must be viewed in
its relation to the other. That individuals defending these principles
wander out of their course, and fall into inconsistencies, is their weak
ness, not that of the system. Positivism itself stands like an intrenched
camp, presenting a continuous chain of works to the beleaguring forces
around. Within its own circle the system of defence communicates
immediately to, and radiates from, its centre, while the attack, being
unorganized and ranged in a circle without, is spread over a vastly
greater area. It stands as yet almost entirely by the strength of its own
walls and the completeness of its works, and not by that of its defenders
within.
Metaphor apart, let any one in common fairness consider what stu
dents of Comte have to meet. The philosophical basis alone covers a
ground far apart from the ordinary education so wide that nothing but
general views of it can be possible. To be intelligently convinced of
the truth of the Positive Philosophy in a body in such a way as to be a
capable exponent, requires, first, a previous preparation which very few
have gained; and, secondly, a weighing of the system by that knowl
edge step by step, in bulk and in detail, which perhaps not five men in
this country have chosen to give. It need not be said that the present
writer has as little pretension to belong to one class as to the other.
But there is no reason why men, positivist in spirit and in general aim,
should feel bound to defend every point in turn in a vast body of phil
osophy for which they are not responsible, and which in its entirety
they do not pretend to teach. A student of Positivism may hold that
which he believes to be true without being concerned to maintain every
suggestion of Comte’s, which to the infinite wisdom of some critics
may appear ridiculous. Deductions of the kind they are fond of treat
ing are just what a serious student bent on mastering a body of prin
ciples leaves as open or indifferent matters, and trusts to the future to
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
69
decide. Besides, even on the assumption that many of these deduc
tions, and even some of these principles, were preposterous or false, still,
as Mr. Mill has well pointed out, the same might be said of every known
philosopher. Aristotle, Bacon, and Descartes have sown their whole
works broadcast'with the wildest blunders. What a flood of cheap rid
icule their contemporary critics had at their command I What a mass
of absurdity might not a smart reader discover who for the first time
were to glance through the Ethics of Aristotle, or the Organum of
Bacon 1 Yet even if the system of Comte were as full of absurdities as
those of these philosophers—which I am far from conceding—this
would not prevent his philosophy from being as valuable a step in
thought as any of the three. There seems a disposition to force men
who become students of Comte and accept generally the Positive sys
tem, as they might in their day have accepted the Aristotelian or the
Baconian philosophy, to defend every statement of Comte’s, as if it were
a question of verbal inspiration. It seems that men in this country
are at liberty to profess themselves adherents of every system of thought
but one. A man may—one or two do—study and uphold the princi
ples of Hegel. Benthamism is a creed with living disciples. Mr. Mill
may be called the chief of a school. A fair field is open to all of these,
at least in any field which is open to freedom of thought. But if a
man ventures to treat a public question avowedly from the Positive
point of view, he is assailed by professed friends to free inquiry as if he
were an enemy of the human race, to whom the ordinary courtesies are
denied; and some of the commonest names that he will hear for him
self are atheist, fanatic, and conspirator.
Respecting the actual adherents of Comte, perhaps a few words
may be permitted, and, indeed, a few are required. It is not usual in
this country to “ picket ” the ordinary doings of a school in politics or
opinion, even though you do happen to differ from them. But in the
case of Positivism it seems to be thought allowable to dispense with
such scruples. Accordingly, the most ordinary utterance of one of
those whom they dub as a member of the school is at once set down by
anonymous persons as some fresh act of what they are pleased to call
" this malignant sect.” The mode in use is a very old, a very simple,
but not a very candid plan: it consists only in this—the describing
every one who has adopted any Positivist principle as a professed disci
ple of Comte; next, of attributing to each of such persons everything
that any of them or that Comte has at any time countenanced; and
lastly, of ascribing to Positivism and to Comte, every act and almost
every word of any of these persons. And the world seems to relish
any preposterous bit of gossip about Positivist churches and ceremo
nies, schemes, plots, and what not 1 One can hardly keep one’s coun
tenance in doing it, but it seems necessary to state that all this illnatured gossip is the childish stuff such gossip invariably is. As to
telling the world anything about the “ sect ”—“ malignant ” or other
�70
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
wise—there is nothing to tell. Whatever else may be true about Posi
tivism, publicity is its very essence—vivre au grand jour—in thought,
word, and deed, according to the motto of Comte; and every act and
statement it makes is open to any one who cares to look. The utmost
publicity about persons, congregations, rites, and preaching, by all
means. But the gossip need not be untrue as well as impertinent. As
is well known, Dr. Richard Congreve, who has adopted the system and
practice of Comte in its entirety, has occasionally made an address to
a small audience, and has subsequently published his discourse. He
has also from time to time given a course of lectures open to the
public. Those who like himself definitely accept Positivism as a re
ligion, and regard themselves as a community, of whom it should be
said the present writer is not one, occasionally have met together. But
the various observances instituted by Comte are scarcely practicable
here. It is obvious that it must be so. A religion, a worship, and an
education such as Comte conceived them, are not possible in all their
completeness without a body of persons and families steadily desirous
of observing them. It need hardly be said that the materials for this
do not as yet exist in this country. A system like Positivism does not
easily receive complete adherents. It is not like any of the religious,
political, or socialist systems—like Swedenborgianism or CornmnuiRm
—a simple doctrine capable of awakening a dominant fanaticism. It
cannot possibly be preached beside a hedge or in a workshop, and gain
converts by the score, like Methodism or Chartism. To promulgate it
duly requires a fresh education, followed by a long course of systematic
meditation. To form an honest and solid conviction upon a body of
philosophy thus encyclopedic requires years of study. Accordingly,
the number of those who have completely accepted the system of
Comte as a religion, among whom it has been said the present writer
cannot count himself, is small. To treat every student of Positivism
and avowed adherent of Comte’s system as a member of a sort of
secret society, and then to pretend that this supposed society is engaged
in a series of religious and political plots, the amusement of some
busybodies, is an idle impertinence. These tales are worthy only of an
imperialist journal describing an apparition of the Spectre Rouge.
The fact that there are men not so nervously afraid of being associated
with an unpopular cause as to be engaging in constant controversy or
defence, is no honest ground for including them in a body to which
they do not belong, for fastening on them any design, whether they
have countenanced it or not, and any opinion,whether they adopt it or
not. That there are men who think it their duty to say plainly what
they think, and to say it always under the guarantee of their own
names, is no good cause, though it makes it easy for masked opponents,
to eke out the argumentum ad rationem by a free use of the argumen
tum ad hominem. If all such attacks, which are the portion of any
man who dares to treat a question from the Positivist point of view,
�THE
POSITIV IST PROBLEM.
are for the most part unanswered and unnoticed, the reason most as
suredly is, not that they are true, but- that they are unworthy of
answer.
But enough of such matters. These petty questions of an hour
are but dust in the balance by which this question must be weighed.
However little it may be thought that Positivism has solved its
problem, it can hardly be said that the time is not ripe for its task,
that there is nothing that calls for solution. Into what a chaos and
deadlock is opinion reduced in spiritual as in practical things! Who
seriously looks for harmony to arise out of the Babel of sects which
have arisen amid the debris of the Catholic Church ? Or are any of
the Pantheist or Deist dreams more likely to give unity to the human
race ? The 'dogmas of Christianity have been by some refined and
adapted away until nothing is left of them but an aspiration. Qan an
aspiration master the wild confusion of brain and will ? And has even
the most unsparing of adaptations brought the ancient faith really
more near to true science or to active life ? To science, that which
cannot be reduced to law is that which cannot be known, and the un
knowable is a thing of naught. Activity on earth can be regulated
only by a real not a fictitious, a natural not a supernatural standard.
By their very terms, then, the various forms of spiritualism shut them
selves off from the world of knowledge and the world of action; and,
more or less distinctly, they assume an attitude of antagonism to
both.
And yet, on the other hand, is there any better prospect of harmony
in the ignoring of religion altogether? The men of science and of
action from time to time form desperate hopes for the triumph of their
own ideas and the ultimate extinction of religious sentiment. With
them it is a morbid growth of the human mind—a weakness bred of
ignorance or inaction. They chafe under the grossness of an age which
will not be content with the pure love of truth or with the fruits of
material success. Yet to how shallow and slight a hope do they trust!
Human nature under the influence of its deepest sentiments- venera-.
tion, adoration, and devotion—rises up from time to time, and snaps
their thin webs like tow. Errors a thousand times refuted spring up
again with new life. The instinct of religious feeling is paramount as
well as indestructible, and philosophy and politics are in turn con
founded by its force. It is an internecine struggle, in which they seem
fated eternally to contend, but in which neither can crush its op
ponent.
In political matters is there any foundation more sure ? Constitu
tions, suffrages, and governments are alike discredited. Some cry for
one reform, some for another; but where is the prospect of agreement ?
The best institutions of the age men cling to at most as stop-gaps, as
the practical solution of a shifting problem. But useful as they may
be, who believes in them as things of the future, destined to guide
�72
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
man’s course as a social being ? What a chaos of plans, nostrums, and
watch-cries ?—how little trust, or hope, or rest I
In things social is the prospect brighter? Is the question of rich
and poor, of labor and capital, of health and industry, of personal free
dom and public well-being, so much nearer to its answer than it was ?
With our great cities decimated by disease, famine, pauperism—with
the war of master and servant growing louder and deeper—the corrup
tion of industry increasing—and the whole world of commerce and
manufactures swept from time to time by hurricanes of ruin and
fraud,—is it a time tb indulge in visions of content? We all have
hope, it is true, in the force of civilization, in the noble elements of
progress, and in the destiny of the human race ; but by what patl^or
course they may arrive at the goal, what man shall say ?
In such a state of things Positivism comes forward with its system
of ideas, which, at the least, is comprehensive as well as uniform. To
some its solution may appear premature, to some incomplete, to others
erroneous. But what thoughtful mind, among those to whom the
social and religious forms of the past are no longer a living thing, can
honestly assert that no such problem as it attempts to solve exists at
all, or that this problem is already solved ?
�
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The positivist problem
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Text
KING WEALTH COMING.
BY D.
GOODMAN.
HE following article was published by the writer in the Gal
axy for November, 1869. It sets forth briefly what he believes
to be the solution of the political problem in this country.
We live in an industrial age, of which the natural leaders are
the bankers, manufacturers, and merchants. We all complain of the
demoralization and corruption of our political life; what we mean is
that wealth is becoming as powerful in politics as it is in industry.
The great corporations, or rather the wealthy men who control them,
are the real rulers, and not the characterless lawyers and politicians
whom universal suffrage sends to our legislative halls. There is not a
State in the Union through which runs a great railroad, but what is
practically in the power of the corporation which controls it. The
manufacturers could do what they please with any Congress that has
sat for the last eight years, and it is quite safe to predict that for the
next fifteen years the owners of the Pacific Railroad and the giant con
solidated roads which feed it, will be the real masters of the American
people. That is to say, no Congress can by any possibility be elected
which they will not be able to control.
To this state of affairs no complete Positivist objects. We submit
to the inevitable, and can only hope to modify it by a sound philoso
phy, and the wise, practical activity it enforces. What is needed is the
moralization of wealth, and to effect this it must become personal and
responsible.
But here is the article:
T
Nearly all the evils connected with our system of government ean oe traced to
one primary cause, to wit: the influence of wealthy corporations and individuals in
controlling legislation and executive action for purely selfish ends. In other words,
in modern civilization, wealth has become an enormous power, while in this coun
try at least, it has no recognized political responsibility or well-defined public
duties. The lobby notoriously controls legislation—wealth controls the lobby, but
what controls wealth ? Nothing but the purely selfish aims of its possessor.
How is this difficulty to be met ? Shall we organize against wealth ; bind it in
fetters, legislate it out of existence, or exile its influence to some sphere outside of
political action ? We are entering upon an era when all this will be attempted;
'but, however well meant, every scheme to limit the power of wealth will inevitably
fail, and, in the opinion of the writer, ought to fail.
For we must remember that the capitalist is the true king of the industrial era
�46
KING
WEALTH COMING
When war was the normal condition of the race, the great warrior was the ruler,
and all the honors in the State were based upon military merit ; but among the
advanced natives of Christendom, industry, and not war, is now the absorbing
business of the mass of the population, and hence the banker and the manufacturer
are destined to be—nay, are the real rulers of the people. This may seem to be a
preposterous statement, in this age of equal rights and the sovereignty of the
people ; but it is nevertheless true. Who to-day is supreme in the financial, com
mercial, and manufacturing world ? Who owns the telegraph, the railway, the
manufactory, the newspaper, the land ? The capitalist, of course. He is our boss
in the shop, our employer in the field, our landlord, out care-taker on the railroad
and steamship ; he keeps our money in his bank, and looks after our souls in his
churches ; for the church of to-day, of all denominations, is the church of the capi
talist. People are under the curious hallucination that the only power which con
trols them is that exercised by the State or the nation, whereas they touch us
scarcely at all in the most intimate relations of life.
But the capitalists, the owners of the wealth, are not content with all this recog
nized authority ; they desire to control also the political power of the State and
the nation. Well, they are right. They ought to have it. There will be a
struggle against it, and the most impassioned protests will be made when their
right to rule is formally recognized ; but recognized it will be in time. While the
struggle is going on, the capitalist will rule all the same. Our legislators are
nearly all lawyers ; now, the lawyer is a creature of the capitalist. He is trained
by him, and his wit and tongue are at the service of his employer in the court, and
his vote is at his command in the législative body. Wealth, as a power unrecog
nized, without responsibility or moral accountability, is simply another name for
hideous corruption. Hence the lobby, and the sickening legislative history of our
City, State and National Government for the last fifteen years.
Now wealth, and the enormous social and political power it wields by its very
existence, is one of those facts which cannot be ignored. We must accept it, and
see what can be done about it. To destroy wealth, or take away the power it
naturally gives its possessor, is impossible. If it could be done, civilization would
perish.
What, then, are we to do ?
Accept the inevitable. Capital has the power. Make it personal, responsible.
Put the capitalist in authority instead of his creatures, the lawyers and politicians,
and then—
What then ?
Hold him responsible. The next greatest power in modern civilization, after
wealth, is public opinion. As yet it is unmoralized, unorganized ; but its influence,
even now, is mighty. When this spiritual power has its. proper recognized organs,
which it will have under Positivism—then will we be able to control wealth.
Public opinion cannot be brought to bear upon corporate bodies ; “ They have
neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be damned.” What does the ring or the
lobby care for public opinion ? Once install the individual who is the soul of the
lobby into some recognized public position, and he is sensitive enough. Abuse the
Erie Railroad Company, and who cares ? Attack Jim Fiske, Jr., and he is after you
with a sheriff’s posse or a libel suit.
Here, then, is the Positivist’s solution of our political and industrial problems.
Wealth, under the foul shapes of the ring or lobby, controls our legislation. We
say, Put the holders of this wealth in authority. Make this irresponsible power
responsible. You cannot get rid of the power ; it is one of the most enormous facts
of modern times. It exists, and will control, whether we like it or not, and hence
we must make the best of it.
The capitalist has his excuse for using the ring and the lobby. He says, “ What
else can I do? There are certain great industrial enterprises to be undertaken,
�KING
WEALTH COMING.
47
which cannot even be begun without legislative authority. The lawyers and small
politicians, who form the great bulk of the assemblies and senates, cannot rise to
the height of the great schemes which I have on foot; they oppose me ; but the
work must be done—the times demand it; and so I hire the lobby, who buy those
fellows up. I am in the habit of employing lawyers to do my business, and when
you can hire a man’s brains with money, his vote follows, as a matter of course.
Take the case of the great railway consolidations, which are so necessary: why, I
am compelled to buy the legislators outright, or these essential changes could not
be made.”
So there are two sides to the story. The capitalist has his excuse for making
our legislators scoundrels.
But how is this change to be brought about ?
The writer gives that conundrum up at once. He really does not see how it is
possible to change our republican representative system without a political con
vulsion. Hence he looks for years of grievous misrule ; of future legislative con
duct worse than any in the past. A possible solution of the trouble is a bold seizure
of the government by some representative of the capitalist class. The very men
who have made our legislative bodies dens of thieves, are just the ones to make
that corruption an excuse for seizing the government themselves ; for be it remem
bered, it is not the kings of the lobby who will be held responsible, but the politi
cians—the legislators whom they have debauched.
Our government, from natural and inevitable causes, has got to be one of exces
sive powers. The maladministration of the federal power under Adams or Jackson
was not of much account, so little were the people at large affected by its action;
but now it is very different. The authority of the central government has grown
so enormously large, that its action upon the business of the country has become
vital. Hence the necessity of a more scientific government than that we had before
the rebellion.
Let it be distinctly understood, then, that there is a class of thinkers in this
country who are profound disbelievers in the whole republican or democratic theory
of government. But we are not, therefore, either Imperialists or Monarchists. We
do not advocate going back to any obsolete political institutions. Progress is our
motto. There is something in the future as much better than republicanism as
republicanism is better than monarchy, and that is the rule of wealth controlled by
moral considerations; in other words, the capitalist in responsible authority, and he
under the dominion of a wise, all-powerful public opinion.
Our King has come. He rules already, but it is in such hideous shapes as the
Lobby—the Ring. Let us recognize, tame, ennoble him, so that he may serve the
highest interests of humanity.
�48
THE
SOCIAL
EVIL.
SERIES of articles on Prostitution in the Westminster Re
view have deservedly attracted a good deal of attention.
Without containing anything very new, they sum up the
results of past inquiries, and seemingly set at rest several
vexed social questions. Among the most important of the points
brought out by Dr. Chapman, the writer, are the following:
1. Each new crop of prostitutes does not die out in from four to
seven years, as is generally supposed. While it is true that the personnel
of that class is replaced in that time, the women do not, as a rule, die
of their riotous living, but are absorbed back into the community.
2. The amount of disease engendered by the illicit relation of the
sexes is appalling. This is one of the most serious perils of modern
civilization. While the danger to the women themselves in the matter
of longevity has been absurdly overrated, the damage done to the
health of the community by the prevalence of prostitution has scarcely
been suspected.
3. Governments from time to time have attempted to suppress and
limit prostitution, but have invariably failed. Every possible expedient
has been resorted to, but the history of legislation and government
action, though it extends over centuries, is a record not only of disap
pointment but disaster. Nor have they fared any better when recog
nizing and regulating prostitution. Notwithstanding the encomiums
which have been passed upon the French and continental systems, it
seems now to be tolerably well settled that recognition has led to wide
spread immorality, while as a check to the spread of disease, it has
bad less than no effect at all.
The remedy proposed by Dr. Chapman will hardly be deemed
satisfactory. He says the public should get rid of the notion of sin
or disgrace in connection with the illicit relations of the sexes or
the diseases they entail, and that those sick of syphilis should have the
same care and consideration as if the disease was typhus fever or dysen
tery. The best hospitals are now closed to persons afflicted with sexual
disorders, and the woman who would readily seek medical advice for
an ordinary illness, such as diarrhoea or rheumatism, is deterred from
doing so when the disorder is venereal. So she punishes society for its
non-recognition of the legitimacy of her business and its inhumanity
to her in her affliction by plying her wretched trade when diseased,
thus propagating to the innocent as well as to the guilty the most cruel
contagion known to our civilization.
It is all very well to say that society ought to recognize prostitu
tion as a legitimate because necessary business, and should treat the
strumpet with the same consideration it does the decent women, but
the difficulty is that society won’t do anything of the kind. The truth
is, prostitution is a part of the great sexual problem which science
must yet solve ; all we can do at present is to furnish the data for the
final settlement.—D. G.
A
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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King wealth coming
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Goodman, D.
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Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [45]-47 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The article was first published in Galaxy, November, 1869 and later published in Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870.
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G5427
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Industrialisation
USA
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Conway Tracts
Industrialization
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Wealth
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Text
THE LAST WORD ABOUT JESUS.
BY JOHN
FISKE.
THE JESUS OF HISTORY*
StW Jill the great founders of religions, Jesus is at once the best
.1 1 known and the least known to the modern scholar. From
/ the dogmatic point of view he is the best known, from the
historic point of view he is the least known. The Jesus of
dogma is in every lineament familiar to us from early childhood ; but
concerning the Jesus of history we possess but few facts resting upon
trustworthy evidence ; and in order to form a picture of him at once
consistent, probable, and distinct in its outlines, it is necessary to enter
upon a long and difficult investigation, in the course of which some of
the most delicate apparatus of modern criticism will not fail to be re
quired. This circumstance is sufficiently singular to require especial
*
explanation. The case of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, which
may perhaps be cited as parallel, is in reality wholly different. Not
only did Sakyamuni live five centuries earlier than Jesus, among a
people that have at no time possessed the art of insuring authenticity
in their records of events, and at an era which is at best but dimly dis
cerned through the mists of fable and legend, but the work which be
achieved lies wholly out of the course of European history, and it is
only in recent times that his career has presented itself to us as a
problem needing to be solved. Jesus, on the other hand, appeared in
an age which is familiarly and in many respects minutely known to us,
and among a people whose fortunes we can trace with historic certainty
for at least seven1 centuries previous to his birth ; while his life and
achievements have probably had a larger share in directing the entire
subsequent intellectual and moral development of Europe than those
of any other man who has ever lived. Nevertheless, the details of his
personal career are shrouded in an obscurity almost as dense as that
which envelops the life of the remote founder of Buddhism.
* The Jesus of History (Anonymous). 8vo, pp. 426. London : Williams &
Norgate, 1869. New York : Scribner, Welford & Co.
Vie De Jesus, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1867. (Thirteenth edition, revised and
partly rewritten.)
�10
THE
J ES US
OF
HISTORY.
This phenomenon, however, appears less strange and paradoxical
when we come to examine it more closely. A little reflection will dis
close to us several good reasons why the historical records of the life of
Jesus should be so scanty as they are. In the first place, the activity
of Jesus was private rather than public. Confined within exceedingly
narrow limits, both of space and of duration, it made no impression
whatever upon the politics or the literature of the time. His name
does not occur in the pages of any contemporary writer, Roman. Greek,
or Jewish. Doubtless the case would have been wholly different, had
he, like Mohammed, lived to a ripe age, and had the exigencies of his
peculiar position as the Messiah of the Jewish people brought him into
relations with the empire; though whether, in such case, the success
of his grand undertaking would have been as complete as it has
actually been, may well be doubted.
Secondly, Jesus did not, like Mohammed and Paul, leave behind
him authentic writings which might serve to throw light upon his
mental development as well as upon the external facts of his career.
Without the Koran and the four genuine Epistles of Paul, we should
be nearly as much in the dark concerning these great men as we now
are concerning the historical Jesus. We should be compelled to rely,
in the one case, upon the untrustworthy gossip of Mussulman chron
iclers, and in the other case upon the garbled statements.of the “ Acts
of the Apostles,” a book written with a distinct dogmatic pui
p
*ose,
sixty or seventy years after the occurrence of the events which it pro
fesses to record.
It is true, many of the words of Jesus, preserved by hearsay tradi
tion through the generation immediately succeeding his death, have
come down to us, probably with little alteration, in the pages of the
three earlier evangelists. These are priceless data, since, as we shall
see, they are almost the only materials at our command for forming
even a partial conception of the character of Jesus’ work. .Neverthe
less, even here the cautious inquirer has only too often to pause in face
of the difficulty of distinguishing the authentic utterances ’of the great
teacher from the later interpolations suggested by the dogmatic neces
sities of the narrators. Bitterly must the historian regret that Jesus
had no philosophic disciple, like Xenophon, to record his Memorabilia.
Of the various writings included in the New Testament, the Apocalypse
alone (and possibly the Epistle of Jude), is from the pen of a personal
acquaintance of Jesus; and besides this, the four epistles of Paul, to
the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, make up the sum of the
writings from which we may demand contemporary testimony. Yet
from these we obtain absolutely nothing of that for which we are
seeking. The brief writings of Paul are occupied exclusively with the
internal significance of Jesus’ work. The epistle of Jude—if it be
really written by Jesus’ brother of that name, which is doubtful—is
solely a polemic directed against the innovations of Paul. And the
�THE
JESUS
OF
HISTORY.
11
Apocalypse, the work of the fiery and imaginative disciple John, is con
fined to a prophetic description of the Messiah’s anticipated return, and
tells us nothing concerning the deeds of that Messiah while on the earth.
Here we touch upon our third consideration,—the consideration
which best enables us to see why the historic notices of Jesus are so
meagre. Rightly considered, the statement with which we opened this
article is its own explanation. The Jesus of history is so little known,
just because the Jesus of dogma is so well known. Other teachers—
Paul, Mohammed, Sakyamuni—have come merely as preachers of
righteousness, speaking in the name of general principles with which
their own personalities were not directly implicated. But Jesus, as we
shall see, before, the close of his life, proclaimed himself to be some
thing more than a preacher of righteousness. He announced himself—
and justly, from his own point of view—as the long-expected Messiah
sent by Jehovah to liberate the Jewish race. Thus the success of his
religious teachings became at once implicated with the question of his
personal nature and character. After the sudden and violent termina
tion of his career, it immediately became all-important with his fol
lowers to prove that he was really the Messiah, and to insist upon the
certainty of his speedy return to the earth. Thus the first generation
of disciples dogmatized about him, instead of narrating his life—a task
which to them would have seemed of little profit. For them the allabsorbing object of contemplation was the immediate future rather than
the immediate past. As all the earlier Christian literature informs us,
for nearly a century after the death of Jesus, his followers lived in daily
anticipation of his triumphant return to the earth. The end of all
things being so near-at hand, no attempt was made to ensure accurate
and complete memoirs for the use of a posterity which was destined, in
Christian imagination, never to arrive. The first Christians wrote but
little ; even Papias, at the end of a century, preferring second-hand or
third-hand oral tradition to the written gospels which were then be
ginning to come into circulation. Memoirs of the life and teachings
of Jesus were called forth by the necessity of having a written stan
dard of doctrine to which to appeal amid the growing differences of
opinion which disturbed the Church. Thus the earlier gospels exhibit,
though in different degrees, the indications of a modifying, sometimes
of an overruling dogmatic purpose. There is, indeed, no conscious
violation of historic truth, but from the varied mass of material sup
plied by tradition, such incidents are selected as are fit to support the
views of the writers concerning the personality of Jesus. Accordingly,
while the early gospels throw a strong light upon the state of Christian
opinion at the dates when they were successively composed, the infor
mation which they give concerning Jesus himself is, for that very
reason, often vague, uncritical, and contradictory. Still more is this
true of the fourth gospel, written late in the second century, in which
historic tradition is moulded in the interests of dogma until it becomes
�12
THE
JESUS
OF HISTORY.
no longer recognizable, and in the place of the human Messiah of the
earlier accounts, we have a semi-divine Logos or zEon, detached from
God and incarnate for a brief season in the likeness of man.
Not only was history subordinated to dogma by the writers of the
gospel-narratives, but in the minds of the Fathers of the Church who
assisted in determining what writings should be considered canonical,
dogmatic prepossession went very much further than critical acumen.
Nor is this strange when we reflect that critical discrimination in
questions of literary authenticity is one of the latest acquisitions of the
cultivated human mind. In the early ages of the Church, the evidence
of the genuineness of any literary production was never weighed critic
ally ; writings containing doctrines acceptable to the majority of Chris
tians, were quoted as authoritative, while writings which supplied no
dogmatic want were overlooked, or perhaps condemned as apocryphal.
A striking instance of this is furnished by the fortunes of the Apoca
lypse. Although perhaps the best authenticated work in the New
Testament collection, its millenarian doctrines caused it to become
unpopular as the Church gradually ceased to look for the speedy return
of the Messiah, and, accordingly, as the canon assumed a definite
shape, it was placed among the “ Antilegomena,” or doubtful books,
and continued to hold a precarious position until after the time of the
Protestant Reformation. On the other hand, the fourth gospel, which
was quite unknown and probably did not exist at the time of the
Quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 168), was accepted with little hesi
tation, and at the beginning of the third century is mentioned by
Irenapus, Clement, and Tertullian, as the work of the Apostle John.
To this uncritical spirit, leading to the neglect of such books as failed
to answer the dogmatic requirements of the Church, may probably be
attributed the loss of so many of the earlier gospels. It is doubtless
for this reason that we do not possess the Aramaean original of the
“Logia” of Matthew, or the “Memorabilia” of Mark, the companion
of Peter,—two works to which Papias (A. D. 120) alludes as containing
authentic reports of the utterances of Jesus.
These considerations will, we believe, sufficiently explain the curious
circumstance that, while we know the Jesus of dogma so intimately,
we know the Jesus of history so slightly. The literature of early
Christianity enables us to trace with tolerable completeness the
progress of opinion concerning the nature of Jesus, from the time of
Paul’s early missions to the time of the Nicene Council; but upon the
actual words and deeds of Jesus it throws a very unsteady light. The
dogmatic purpose everywhere obscures the historic basis.
This same dogmatic prepossession which has rendered the data for
a biography of Jesus so scanty and untrustworthy, has also until com
paratively recent times prevented any unbiased critical examination of
such data as we actually possess. Previous to the eighteenth century
any attempt to deal with the life of Jesus upon purely historical
�TSE JESUS
OE BISTORT.
13
methods would have been not only contemned as irrational, but stig
matized as impious. And even in the eighteenth century, those
writers who had become wholly emancipated from ecclesiastic tradition
were so destitute of all historic sympathy and so unskilled in scientific
methods of criticism, that they utterly failed to comprehend the re
quirements of the problem. Their aims were in the main polemic, not
historical. They thought more of overthrowing current dogmas than
of impartially examining the earliest Christian literature with a view of
eliciting its historic contents; and, accordingly, they accomplished but
little. Two brilliant exceptions must, however, be noticed. Spinoza,
in the seventeenth century, and Lessing, in the eighteenth, were men
far in advance of their age. They are the fathers of modern historical
criticism; and to Lessing in particular, with his enormous erudition
and incomparable sagacity, belongs the honor of initiating that method
of inquiry which, in the hands of the so-called Tübingen School, has
led to such striking and valuable conclusions concerning the age and
character of all the New Testament Literature. But it was long
before any one could be found fit to bend the bow which Lessing and
Spinoza had wielded. A succession of able scholars—Semler, Eich
horn, Paulus, Schleiermacher, Bretschneider, and De Wette,—were re
quired to examine, with German patience and accuracy, the details of
the subject, and to propound various untenable hypotheses, before such
a work could be performed as that of Strauss. The “ Life of Jesus,”
published by Strauss when only twenty-six years of age, is one of the
monumental works of the nineteenth century, worthy to rank, as a
historical effort, along with Niebuhr’s “ History of Rome,” Wolf’s
“ Prolegomena,” or Bentley’s “ Dissertations on Phalaris.” It instantly
superseded and rendered antiquated everything which had preceded it;
nor has any work on early Christianity been written in Germany for
the past thirty years which has not been dominated by the recollection
of that marvelous book. Nevertheless, the labors of another genera
tion of scholars have carried our knowledge of the New Testament
literature far beyond the point which it had reached when Strauss first
wrote. At that time the dates of but few of the New Testament
writings had been fixed with any approach to certainty; the age and
character of the fourth gospel, the genuineness of the Pauline epistles,
even the mutual relations of the three Synoptics, were still undeter
mined ; and, as a natural result of this uncertainty, the progress of
dogma during the first century was ill understood. At the present day
it is impossible to read the early work of Strauss without being im
pressed with the necessity of obtaining positive data as to the origin
and dogmatic character of the New Testament writings, before at
tempting to reach any conclusions as to the probable career of Jesus.
These positive data we owe to the genius and diligence of the Tübingen
School, and, above all, to its founder, Ferdinand Christian Baur. Be
ginning with the epistles of Paul, of which he distinguished four as
�14
THE JESUS
OE HISTORY.
genuine, Baur gradually worked his way through the entire New
Testament collection, detecting—with that inspired insight which only
unflinching diligence can impart to original genius—the age at which
each book was written, and the circumstances which called it forth.
To give any account of Baur’s detailed conclusions, or of the method
by which he reached them, would require a volume. They are very
scantily presented in Mr. Mackay’s work on the “ Tübingen School and
its Antecedents,” to which we may refer the reader desirous of further
information. We can here merely say that twenty years of energetic
controversy have only served to establish nearly all Baur’s leading
conclusions more firmly than ever. The priority of the so-called
gospel of Matthew, the Pauline purpose of “ Luke,” the second in date
of our gospels, the derivative and second-hand character of “ Mark,”
and the unapostolic origin of the fourth gospel, are points which may
for the future be regarded as completely established by circumstantial
evidence. So with respect to the pseudo-Pauline epistles, Baur’s work
was done so thoroughly that the only question still left open for much
discussion is that concerning the date and authorship of the first
and second “ Thessalonians,”—a point of quite inferior importance, so
far as our present subject is concerned. Seldom have such vast results
been achieved by the labor of a single scholar. Seldom has any
historical critic possessed such a combination of analytic and of co
ordinating powers as Baur. His keen criticism and his wonderful
flashes of insight, exercise upon the reader a truly poetic effect like
that which is felt in contemplating the marvels of physical discovery.
The comprehensive labors of Baur were followed up by Zeller’s able
work on the “ Acts of the Apostles,” in which that book was shown
to have been partly founded upon documents written by Luke, or
some other companion of Paul, and expanded and modified by a
much later writer with the purpose of covering up the traces of the
early schism between the Pauline and the Petrine sections of the
Church. Along with this, Schwegler’s work on the “ Post-Apostolic
Times ” deserves mention as clearing up many obscure points relating
to the early development of dogma. Finally,- the “New Life of Jesus,”
by Strauss, adopting and utilizing the principal discoveries of Baur
and his followers, and combining all into one grand historical pic
ture, worthily completes the task which the earlier work of the same
author had inaugurated.
The reader will have noticed that, with the exception of Spinoza,
every one of the names- above cited in connection with the literary
analysis and criticism of the New Testament is the name of a German.
Until xvithin the last decade, Germany has indeed possessed almost an
absolute monopoly of the science of Biblical criticism ; other countries
having remained not only unfamiliar with its methods, but even grossly
ignorant of its conspicuous results, save when some German treatise of
more than ordinary popularity has now and then been translated.
�THE
JESTS
<iE HISTORY.
15
But during the past ten years France has entered the lists ; and the
writings of Reville, Reuss, Nicolas, D’Eichthal, Scherer, and Colarie
testify to the rapidity with which the German seed has fructified upon
her soil.
None of these books, however, have achieved such wide-spread
celebrity, or done so much toward interesting the general public in this
class of historical inquiries, as the “ Life of Jesus,” by Renan. This
pre-eminence of fame is partly, but not wholly, deserved. From a
•purely literary point of view, Renan’s work doubtless merits all the
celebrity it has gained. Its author writes a style such as is perhaps
equaled by that of no other living Frenchman. It is by far the most
readable book which has ever been written concerning the life of Jesus.
And no doubt some of its popularity is due to its very faults, which,
from a critical point of view, are neither few nor small. • For Renan is
certainly very faulty, as a historical critic, when he practically ignores
the extreme meagreness of our positive knowledge of the career of
Jesus, and describes scene after scene in his life as minutely and with
as much confidence as if he had himself been present to witness it all.
Again and again the critical reader feels prompted to ask, How do you
know all this ? or why, out of two or three conflicting accounts, do you
quietly adopt some particular one, as if its superior authority were
self-evident ? But in the eye of the uncritical reader, these defects are
excellences ; for it is unpleasant to be kept in ignorance when we are
seeking after definite knowledge, and it is disheartening to read page
after page of an elaborate discussion which ends in convincing us that
.definite knowledge cannot be gained.
In the thirteenth edition of the “Vie de Jesus,” Renan has cor
rected some of the most striking errors of the original work, and in
particular has, with praiseworthy candor, abandoned, his untenable
position with regard to the age and character of the fourth gospel. As
is well known, Renan, in his earlier editions, ascribed to this gospel a
historical value superior to that of the synoptics, believing it to have
been written by an eye-witness of the events which it relates; and
from this source, accordingly, he drew the larger share of his mate
rials. Now, if there is any one conclusion concerning the New Testa
ment literature which must be regarded as incontrovertibly established
by the labors of a whole generation of scholars, it is this, that the
fourth gospel was utterly unknown until about A. D. 170, that it was
written by some one who possessed very little direct knowledge of
Palestine, that its purpose was rather to expound a dogma than to give
an accurate record of events, and that as a guide to the comprehension
of the career of Jesus it is of far less value than the three synoptic
gospels. It is impossible, in a brief review like the present, to epito
mize the evidence upon which this conclusion rests, which may more
profitably be sought in the Rev. J. J. Tayleris work on “ The Fourth
Gospel,” or in Davidson s “ Introduction to the New Testament.” It
�16
THE
JESUS
OF HISTORY.
must suffice to mention that this gospel is not cited by Papias; that
Justin, Marcion, and Valentinus make no allusion to it, though, since
it furnishes so much that is germane to their views, they would gladly
have appealed to it, had it been in existence, when those view's were as
yet questionable ; and that, finally, in the great quartodeciman contro
versy, A. D. 168, the gospel is not only not mentioned, but the authority
of John is cited by Polycarp in flat contradiction of the view after
wards taken by this evangelist. Still more, the assumption of Renan
led at once into complicated difficulties with reference to the Apoca
lypse. The fourth gospel, if it does not unmistakably announce itself
as the work of John, at least professes to be Johannine; and it cannot
for a moment be supposed that such a book, making such claims, could
have gained currency during John’s lifetime without calling forth his
indignant protest. For, in reality, no book in the New Testament col
lection would so completely have shocked the prejudices of the Johan
nine party. John’s own views are well known to us from the Apoca
lypse. John was the most enthusiastic of millenarians and the most
narrow and rigid of Judaizers. In his antagonism to the Pauline
innovations he went farther than Peter himself. Intense hatred of
Paul and his followers appears in several passages of the Apocalypse,
where they are stigmatized as “ Nicolai tans,” “ deceivers of the people,”
“ those who say they are apostles and and are not,” “ eaters of meat
offered to idols,” “ fornicators,” “pretended Jews,” “ liars,” “ synagogue
of Satan,” etc. (Chap. II.) On the other hand, the fourth gospel con
tains nothing millenarian or Judaical; it carries Pauline universalism
to a far greater extent than Paul himself ventured to carry it, even
condemning the Jews as children of darkness, and by implication con
trasting them unfavorably with the Gentiles ; and it contains a theory
of the nature of Jesus which the Ebionitish Christians, to whom John
belonged, rejected to the last.
In his present edition Renan admits the insuperable force of these
objections, and abandons his theory of the apostolic origin of the fourth
gospel. And as this has necessitated the omission or alteration of all
such passages as rested upon the authority of that gospel, the book is
to a considerable extent rewritten, and the changes are such as greatly
to increase its value as a history of Jesus. Nevertheless, the author
has so long been in the habit of shaping his conceptions of the career
of Jesus by the aid of the fourth gospel, that it has become very diffi
cult for him to pass freely to another point of view. He still clings to
the hypothesis that there is an element of historic tradition contained
in the book, drawn from memorial writings which had perhaps been
handed down from John, and which were inaccessible to the synoptists.
In a very interesting appendix, he collects the evidence in favor of this
hypothesis, which indeed is not without plausibility, since there is
*
every reason for supposing that the gospel was written at Ephesus,
which a century before had been John’s place of residence. But even
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
17
granting most of Renan’s assumptions, it must still follow that the
authority of this gospel is far inferior to that of the synoptics, and can
in no case be very confidently appealed to.“ The question is one of the
first importance to the historian of early Christianity. In inquiring
into the life of Jesus, the very first thing to do is to establish firmly in
the mind the true relations of the fourth gospel to the first three.
Until this has been done, no one is competent to write on the subject ;
and it is because he has done this so imperfectly that Renan’s work is,
from a critical point of view, so imperfectly successful.
The anonymous work entitled “ The Jesus of History,” which we
have placed at the head of this article, is in every respect noteworthy
as the first systematic attempt made in England to follow in the foot
steps of German criticism in writing a life of Jesus. We know of no
good reason why the book should be published anonymously ; for as a
historical essay it possesses extraordinary merit, and does great credit
not only to its author, but to English scholarship and acumen. It is
not, indeed, a book calculated to captivate the imagination of the read
ing public. Though written in a clear, forcible, and often elegant style,
it possesses no such wonderful rhetorical charm as the work of Renan ;
and it will probably never find half-a-dozen readers where the “ Vie de
Jésus ” has found a hundred. But the success of a book of this sort
is not to be measured by its rhetorical excellence, or by its adaptation
to the literary tastes of an uncritical and uninstructed public, but
rather by the amount of critical sagacity which it brings to bear upon
the elucidation of the many difficult and disputed points in the subject
of which it treats. Measured by this standard, the “ Jesus of History”
must rank very high indeed. To say that it throws more light upon
the career of Jesus than any work which has ever before been written
in English would be very inadequate praise, since the English language
has been singularly deficient in this branch of historical literature.We shall convey a more just idea of its merits if we say that it will
bear comparison with anything which even Germany has produced,
save only the works of Strauss, Baur, and Zeller.
The fitness of our author for the task which he has undertaken is
shown at the outset by his choice of materials. In basing his con
clusions almost exclusively upon the statements contained in the first
gospel, he is upheld by every sound principle of criticism. The times
and places at which our three synoptic gospels were written have been,
through the labors of the Tiibingen critics, determined almost to a
certainty. Of the three, “ Mark ” is unquestionably the latest ; with
the exception of about twenty verses, it is entirely made up from
“ Matthew ” and “ Luke,” the diverse Petrine and Pauline tendencies
of which it strives to neutralize in conformity to the conciliatory dis
position of the Church at Rome, at the epoch at which this gospel
was written, about A. D. 130. Thé third gospel was âlsp written at
Rome, some fifteen years earlier. In the preface, its author describes
�18
THE
JEEUE
OE HIE To RY.
it as a compilation from previously existing written materials. Among
these materials was certainly the first gospel, several passages of which
are adopted word for word by the author of “ Luke.” Yet the narra
tive varies materially from that of the first gospel in many essential
points. The arrangement of events is less natural, and, as in the
“ Acts of the Apostles ” by the same author, there is apparent through
out the design of suppressing the old discord between Paul and the
Judaizing disciples, and of representing Christianity as essentially
Pauline from the outset. How far Paul was correct in his interpreta
tion of the teachings of Jesus, it is difficult to decide. It is, no doubt,
possible that the first gospel may have lent to the words of Jesus an
Ebionite coloring in some instances,' and that now and then the third
gospel may present us with a truer account. To this supremely im
portant point we shall by and by return. For the present it must
suffice to observe that the evidences of an overruling dogmatic pur
pose are generally much more conspicuous in the third synoptist than
in the first; and that the very loose manner in which this writer has
handled his materials in the “Acts” is not calculated to inspire us
with confidence in the historical accuracy of his gospel. The writer
who, in spite of the direct testimony of Paul himself, could represent
the apostle to the Gentiles as acting under the direction of the dis
ciples at Jerusalem, and who puts Pauline sentiments into the mouth
of Peter, would certainly have been capable of unwarrantably giving
a Pauline turn to the teachings of Jesus himself. We are therefore,
as a last resort, brought back to the first gospel, which we find to
possess, as a historical narrative, far stronger claims upon our attention
than the second and third. In all probability it had assumed nearly
its present shape before A. I). 100; its origin is unmistakably Pales
tinian ; it betrays comparatively few indications of dogmatic purpose;
and there are strong reasons for believing that the speeches of Jesus
recorded in it are in substance taken from the genuine “ Logia ” of
Matthew mentioned by Papias, which must have been written as early
as A. D. 60-70, before the destruction of Jerusalem. Indeed, we are
inclined to agree with our author that the gospel, even in its present
shape (save only a few interpolated passages), may have existed as
early as A. D. 80, since it places the time of Jesus’ second coming
immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem; whereas the third
evangelist, who wrote forty-five years after that event, is careful to tell
us, “ The end is not immediately.” Moreover, it must have been
written while the Paulo-Petrine controversy was still raging, as is
shown by the parable of the “ enemy who sowed the tares,” which
manifestly refers to Paul, and also by the allusions to “ false prophets,”
(vii. 15,) to those who say, “ Lord, Lord,” and who “ cast out demons
in the name of the Lord,” (vii. 21-23,) teaching men to break the
commandinents, (v. 17-20.) There is, therefore, good reason for be
lieving that we have here a narrative written not much more than fifty
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
19
years after the death of Jesus, based partly upon the written memorials
of an apostle, and in the main trustworthy, save where it relates oc
currences of a marvelous and legendary character. Such is our
author’s conclusion, and in describing the career of the Jesus of his
tory, he relies almost exclusively upon the statements contained in the
first gospel. Let us now, after this long but inadequate introduction,
give a brief sketch of the life of Jesus, as it is to be found in our
author.
II.
Concerning the time and place of the birth of Jesus, we know next
to nothing. According to uniform tradition, based upon a statement
of the third gospel, he was about thirty years of age at the time when
he began teaching. The same gospel states, with elaborate precision,
that the public career of John the Baptist began in the fifteenth year
of Tiberius, or A. D. 28. In the winter of A. D. 35-36, Pontius Pilate
was recalled from Judaea, so that the crucifixion could not have taken
place later than in the spring of 35. Thus we have a period of about
six years during which the ministry of Jesus must have begun and
ended; and if the tradition with respect to his age be trustworthy, we
shall not be far out of the way in supposing him to have been born
somewhere between B. C. 5 and A. D. 5. He is everywhere alluded to
in the gospels as Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, where lived also his
father, mother, brothers and sisters, and where very likely he was born.
His parents’ names are said to have been Joseph and Mary. His own
name is a Hellenized form of Joshua, a name very common among the
Jews. According to the first gospel (xiii. 55), he had four brothers,—
Joseph and Simon; James, who was afterward^
one
**
of the heads of
the church at Jerusalem, and the most formidable enemy of Paul; and
Judas or Jude, who is perhaps the author of the anti-Pauline epistle
commonly ascribed to him.
Of the early youth of Jesus, and of the circumstances which guided
his intellectual development, we know absolutely nothing, nor have we
the data requisite for forming any plausible hypothesis. He first
appears in history about A. D. 29 or 30, in connection with a very
remarkable person whom the third evangelist describes as his cousin,
and who seems, from his mode of life, to have been in some way con
nected with or influenced by the Hellenizing sect of Essenes. Here
we obtain our first clue to guide us in forming a consecutive theory of
the development of Jesus’ opinions. The sect of Essenes took its rise
in the times of the Maccabees, about B. C. 170. Upon the funda
mental doctrines of Judaism it had engrafted many Pythagorean
notions, and was doubtless in the time of Jesus instrumental in
spreading Greek ideas among the people of Galilee, whei^ Judaism
was far from being so narrow and rigid as at Jerusalem. The Essenes
�20
THE
JESUS
OF HISTORY.
•attached but little importance to the Messianic expectations of the
Pharisees, and mingled scarcely at all in national politics. They lived
for the most part a strictly ascetic life, being indeed the legitimate pre
decessors of the early Christian hermits and monks. But while pre
eminent for sanctity of life, they heaped ridicule upon the entire
sacrificial service of the Temple, despised the Pharisees as hypocrites,
and insisted upon charity toward all men instead of the old. Jewish
exclusiveness.
It was once a favorite theory that both John the Baptist and Jesus
were members of the Essenian brotherhood; but that theory is now
generally abandoned. Whatever may have been the case with John,
who is said to have lived like an anchorite in the desert, there seems to
have been but little practical Essenism in Jesus, who is almost uni
formly represented as cheerful and social in demeanor, and against
whom it was expressly urged that he came eating and drinking, making
no pretence of puritanical holiness. He was neither a puritan, like the
Essence, nor a ritualist, like the Pharisees. Besides-which, both John
and Jesus seem to have begun their careers by preaching the un-Essene
doctrine of the speedy advent of the “ kingdom of heaven,” by which is
meant the reign of the Messiah upon the earth. Nevertheless, though
we cannot regard Jesus as actually a member of the Essenian commu
nity or sect, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that he, as well as
John the Baptist, had been at some time strongly influenced by Es
senian doctrines. The spiritualized conception of the “kingdom of
heaven” proclaimed by him was just what would naturally and logi
cally arise from a remodeling of the Messianic theories of the Phar
isees in conformity to advanced Essenian notions. It seems highly
probable that some such refined conception of the functions of the
Messiah was reached by John, who, stigmatizing the Pharisees and
Sadducees as a “generation of vipers,” called aloud to the people to re
pent of their sins, in view of the speedy advent of the Messiah, and to
testify to their repentance by submitting to the Essenian rite of bap
tism. There is no positive evidence that Jesus was ever a disciple of
John; yet the account of the baptism, in spite of the legendary char
acter of its details, seems to rest upon a historical basis; and perhaps
the most plausible hypothesis which can be framed is, that Jesus re
ceived baptism at John’s hands, became for awhile his disciple, and
acquired from him a knowledge of Essenian doctrines.
The career of John seems to have been very brief. His stern puritanism brought him soon into disgrace with the government of Galilee.
He was seized by Herod, thrown into prison, and beheaded. After the
brief hints given as to the intercourse between Jesus and John, we next
hear of Jesus alone in the desert, where, like Sakyamuni and Moham
med, he may have brooded in solitude over his great project. Yet we
do not find that he had as yet formed any distinct conception of his
own Messiahship. The total neglect of chronology by our authorities
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
21
renders it impossible to trace the development of his thoughts step by
step; but for some time after John’s catastrophe we find him calling
upon the people to repent, in view of the speedy approach of the Mes
siah, speaking with great and commanding personal authority, but
using no language which would indicate that he was striving to do
more than worthily fill the place and add to the good work of his late
master. The Sermon on the Mount, which the first gospel inserts in
this place, was probably never spoken as a continuous discourse; but it
no doubt for the most part contains the very words of Jesus, and repre
sents the general spirit of his teaching during this earlier portion of
his career. In this is contained nearly all that has made Christianity
so powerful in the domain of ethics. If all the rest of the gospel were
taken away, or destroyed in the night of some future barbarian inva
sion, we should still here possess the secret of the wonderful impression
which Jesus made upon those who heard him speak. Added to the
Essenian scorn of Pharisaic formalism, and the spiritualized conception
of the Messianic kingdom, which Jesus may probably have shared with
John the Baptist, we have here for the first time the distinctively
Christian conception of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
men, which ultimately insured the success of the new religion. The
special point of originality in Jesus was his conception of Deity. As
Strauss well says, “ he conceived of God, in a moral point of view, as
being identical in character with himself in the most exalted moments
of his religious life, and strengthened in turn his own religious life by
this ideal. But the most exalted religious tendency in his own con
sciousness was exactly that comprehensive love, overpowering the evil
only by the good, and which he therefore transferred to God as the
fundamental tendency of His nature.” From this conception of God,
observes Zeller, flowed naturally all the moral teaching of Jesus; the
insistance upon spiritual righteousness instead of the mere mechanical
observance of Mosaic precepts; the call to be perfect even as the Father
is perfect; the principle of the spiritual equality of men before God and
the equal duties of all men toward each other.
How far, in addition to these vitally important lessons, Jesus may
have taught doctrines of an ephemeral or visionary character, it is very
difficult to decide. We are inclined to regard the third gospel as of
some importance in settling this point. The author of that gospel rep
resents Jesus as decidedly hostile to the rich. Where Matthew has
“ Blessed are the. poor in spirit,” Luke has “ Blessed are ye poor.” In
the first gospel we read, “ Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they will be filled; ” but in the third gospel we find,
“ Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye will be filled; ” and this assur
ance is immediately followed by the denunciation, “ Woe to you that
are rich, for ye have received your consolation! Woe to you that are
full now, for ye will hunger.” The parable of Dives and Lazarus illus
trates concretely this view of the case, which is still further corroborated
�22
THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
by the account, given in both the first and the third gospels, of the
young man who came to seek everlasting life. Jesus here maintains
that righteousness is insufficient unless voluntary poverty be super
added. Though the young man has strictly fulfilled the greatest of the
commandments—»to love his neighbor as himself—he is required, as a
needful proof of his sincerity, to distribute all his vast possessions
among the poor. And when he naturally manifests a reluctance to
perform so superfluous a sacrifice, Jesus observes that it will be easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
share in the glories of the anticipated Messianic kingdom. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that we have here a very primitive and
probably authentic, tradition; and when we remember the importance
which, according to the “ Acts,” the earliest disciples attached to the
principle of communism, as illustrated in the legend of Ananias and
Sapphira,.we must admit strong reasons for believing that Jesus him
self held views which tended toward the abolition of private property.
On this point, the testimony of the third evangelist singly is of consid
erable weight; since at the time when he wrote, the communistic the
ories of the first generation of Christians had been generally abandoned,
and in the absence of any dogmatic motives, he could only have inserted
these particular traditions because he believed them to possess histori
cal value. But we- are not dependent on the third gospel alone. The
story just cited is attested by both our authorities, and is in perfect
keeping with the general views of Jesus as reported by the first evan
gelist. Thus his disciples are enjoined to leave all, and follow him; to
take no thought for the morrow; to think no more of laying up treas
ures on the earth, for in the Messianic kingdom they shall have treas
ures in abundance, which can neither be wasted nor stolen. On
making their journeys, they are to provide neither money, nor clothes,
nor food, but are to live at the expense of those whom they visit; and
if any town refuse to harbor them, the Messiah, on his arrival, will deal
with that town more severely than Jehovah dealt with the cities of the
plain. Indeed, since the end of the world was to come before the end
of the generation then living (Matt. xxiv. 34; 1 Cor. xv. 51-56; vii, 29),
there could be no need for acquiring property or making arrangements
for the future; even marriage became unnecessary. These teachings
of Jesus have a marked Essenian character, as well as his declaration
that in the Messianic kingdom there was to be no more marriage, per
haps no distinction of sex (Matt. xxii. 30). The sect of Ebionites, who
represented the earliest doctrine and practice of Christianity before it
had been modified by Paul, differed from the Essenes in no essential
respect save in the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, and the
expectation of his speedy return to the earth.
How long, or with what success, Jesus continued to preach the
coming of the Messiah in Galilee, it is impossible to conjecture. His
fellow-townsmen of Nazareth appear to have ridiculed him in his pro
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
23
phetical capacity; or, if we may trust the third evangelist, to have
arisen against him with indignation, and made an attempt upon his
life. To them he was but a carpenter, the son of a carpenter (Matt,
xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3), who told them disagreeable truths. Our author
represents his teaching in Galilee to have produced but little result,
but the gospel narratives afford no definite data for deciding this point.
We believe the most probable conclusion to be that Jesus did attract
many followers, and became famous throughout Galilee ; for Herod is
said to have regarded him as John the Baptist risen from the grave.
To escape the malice of Herod, Jesus then retired to Syro-Phoenicia,
and during this eventful journey, the consciousness of his own Messiahship seems for the first time to have distinctly dawned upon him
(Matt. xiv. 1, 13 ; xv. 21; xvi. 13-20). Already, it appears, specula
tions were rife as to the character of this wonderful preacher. Some
thought he was John the Baptist, or perhaps one of the prophets of the
Assyrian period returned to the earth. Some, in accordance with a
generally-received tradition, supposed him to be Elijah, who had never
seen death, and had now at last returned from the regions above the
firmament to announce the coming of the Messiah in the clouds. It
was generally admitted, among enthusiastic hearers, that he who spake
as never man spake before must have some divine commission to exe
cute. These speculations, coming to the ears of Jesus during his
preaching in Galilee, could not fail to excite in him a train of self-con
scious reflections. To him also must have been presented the query as
to his own proper character and functions ; and, as our author acutely
demonstrates, his only choice lay between a profitless life of exile in
Syro-Phoenicia, and a bold return to Jewish territory in some pro
nounced character. The problem being thus propounded, there could
hardly be a doubt as to what that character should be. Jesus knew
well that he was not John the Baptist; nor, however completely he
may have been dominated by his sublime enthusiasm, was it likely that
he could mistake himself for an ancient prophet arisen from the lower
world of shades, or for Elijah descended from the sky. But the Mes
siah himself he might well be. Such indeed was the almost inevitable
corollary from his own conception of Messiahship. We have seen that
he had, probably from the very outset, discarded the traditional notion
Qf a political Messiah, and recognized the truth that the happiness of a
people lies not so much in political autonomy as in the love of God and
the sincere practice of righteousness. The people were to be freed
from the bondage of sin, of meaningless formalism, of consecrated
hypocrisy,—a bondage more degrading than the payment of tribute to
the emperor. The true business of the Messiah, then, was to deliver
his people from the former bondage; it might be left to Jehovah, in
his own good time, to deliver them from the latter. Holding these
views, it was hardly possible that it should not sooner or later occur to
Jesus that he himself was the person destined to discharge this glorious
�34
THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
function, to liberate his countrymen from the thraldom of Pharisaic
ritualism, and to inaugurate the real Messianic kingdom of spiritual
righteousness. Had he not already preached the advent of this spiritual
kingdom, and been instrumental in raising many to loftier conceptions
of duty, and to a higher and purer life ? And might he not now, by a
grand attack upon Pharisaism in its central stronghold, destroy its
prestige in the eyes of the people, and cause Israel to adopt a nobler
religious and ethical doctrine ? The temerity of such a purpose
detracts nothing from its sublimity. And if that purpose should be
accomplished, Jesus would really have performed the legitimate work
of the Messiah. Thus, from his own point of view, Jesus was thor
oughly consistent and rational in announcing himself as the expected
Deliverer; and in the eyes of the impartial historian his course is fully
justified.
From that time,” says the first evangelist, “ Jesus began to show
to his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things
from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and
rise again on the third day.” Here we have, obviously, the knowledge
of the writer, after the event, reflected back and attributed to Jesus.
It is of course impossible that Jesus should have predicted with such
definiteness his approaching death ; nor is it very likely that he enter
tained any hope of being raised from the grave “ on the third day.”
To a man in that age and country, the conception of a return from the
lower world of shades was not a difficult one to frame; and it may well
be that Jesus’ sense of his own exalted position was sufficiently great
to inspire him with the confidence that, even in case of temporary fail
ure, Jehovah would rescue him from the grave and send him back with
larger powers to carry out the purpose of his mission. But the diffi
culty of distinguishing between his own words and the interpretation
put upon them by his disciples becomes here insuperable; and there
will always be room for the hypothesis that Jesus had in view no
posthumous career of his own, but only expressed his unshaken confi
dence in the success of his enterprise, even after and in spite of his
death.
At all events, the possibility of his death must now have been often
in his mind. He was undertaking a well-nigh desperate task,—to
overthrow the Pharisees in Jerusalem itself. No other alternative was
left him.' And here we believe Mr. F. W. Newman to be singularly at
fault in pronouncing this attempt of Jesus upon Jerusalem a “fool
hardy ” attempt. According to Mr. Newman, no man has any busi
ness to rush upon certain death, and it is only a crazy fanatic who will
do so. But such “ glittering generalizations ” will here help us but
little. The historic data show that to go to Jerusalem, even at the
risk of death, was absolutely necessary to the realization of Jesus’ Mes
sianic project. Mr. Newman certainly would not have had him drag
out an inglorious and baffled existence in Syro-Phoenicia. If the
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
25
Messianic kingdom was to be fairly inaugurated, there was work to be
done in Jerusalem, and Jesus must go there as one in authority,, cost
what it might- We believe him to have gone there in a spirit of grand
and careless braverv. vet seriously and soberly and under the influence
of no fanatical delusion. He knew the risks, but deliberately chose to
incur them, that the will of Jehovah might be accomplished.
We next hear of Jesus traveling down to Jerusalem by way of
Jericho,, and entering the sacred city in his character of Messiah, at
tended by a great multitude. It was near the time of the Passover,
when people from all parts of Galilee and Judaea were sure to be at
x
Jerusalem, and the nature of his reception seems to indicate that he
had already secured a considerable number of followers upon whose
assistance hc^might hope to rely, though it nowhere appears that he
intended to use other than purely moral weapons to insure a favorable
reception. We must remember that for half a century many of the
Jewish people had been constantly looking for the arrival of the Mes
siah, and there can be little doubt that the entry of Jesus riding upon
an ass in literal fulfilment of prophecy must have wrought powerfully
upon the imagination of the multitude. That the believers in him
were verv numerous must be inferred from the cautious, not to say
timid, behavior of the rulers at Jerusalem, who are represented as
Hearing to arrest him, but as deterred from taking active steps
through fear of the people. We are led to the same conclusion by his
driving the monev-changers out of the temple; an act upon which he
could hardly have ventured, had not the popular enthusiasm in his
favor been for the moment overwhelming. But the enthusiasm of a
mob is short-lived, and needs to be fed upon the excitement of brilliant
and dramatically arranged events. The calm preacher of righteousness,
or even the fierv denouncer of the scribes and Pharisees, could not
_ hope to retain nndiminished authority save by the display of extraor
dinary powers to which, so far as we know, Jesus (like Mohammed)
made no pretence. (Matt. xvi. 1—L) The ignorant and materialistic
populace could not understand the exalted conception of Messiahship
which had been formed by Jesus, and as day after day elapsed without
the appearance of any marvelous sign from Jehovah, their enthusiasm
must naturally have cooled down. Then the Pharisees appear cau
tiously endeavoring to entrap him into admissions which might render
him obnoxious to the Boman governor. He saw through their design,
however, and foiled them by the magnificent repartee, “ Render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesars, and unto God the things that are
God’s.” Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the completely non
political character of his Messianic doctrines. Nevertheless, we are
told that, failing in this attempt, the chief priests suborned false wit
nesses to testify against him: this sabbath-breaker, this derider of
Mosaic formalism, who with his Messianic pretensions excited the
people against their hereditary teachers, must at all events be put out
�26
THE JESUS
OF HIS T O R U.
of the way. Jesus must suffer the fate which society has too often had
in store for the reformer; the fate which Socrates and Savonarola,
Vanini and Bruno have suffered for being wiser than their own genera
tion. Messianic adventurers had already given much trouble to the
Roman authorities, who were not likely to scrutinize critically the
peculiar claims of Jesus. And when the chief priests accused him.
before Pilate of professing to be “ King of the Jews,” this claim could
in Roman apprehension bear but one interpretation. The offence was
treason, punishable, save in the case of Roman citizens, by crucifixion.
Such in its main outlines is the historic career of Jesus, as con
structed by our author from data furnished chiefly by the first gospel.
Connected .with the narrative there are many interesting topics of dis
cussion, of which our rapidly diminishing space will allow us to select
only one for comment. That one is perhaps the most important of all,
namely, the question as to how far Jesus anticipated the views of Paul
in admitting Gentiles to share in the privileges of the Messianic king
dom. Our author argues, writh much force, that the designs of Jesus
were entirely confined to the Jewish people, and that it was Paul
who first, by admitting Gentiles to the Christian fold without requiring
them to live like Jews, gave to Christianity the character of a universal
religion. Our author reminds us that the third gospel is not to be
depended upon in determining this point, since it manifestly puts
Pauline sentiments into the mouth of Jesus, and in particular attrib
utes to Jesus an acquaintance with heretical Samaria which the first
gospel disclaims. He argues that the apostles were in every respect
Jews, save in their belief that Jesus was the Messiah ; and he perti
nently asks, if James, who was the brother of Jesus, and Peter and
John, who were his nearest friends, unanimously opposed Paul and
stigmatized him as a liar and heretic, is it at all likely that Jesus had
ever distinctly sanctioned such views as Paul maintained ?
In the course of many years’ reflection upon this point, we have
several times been inclined to accept the narrow interpretation of
Jesus’ teaching here indicated; yet, on the whole, we do not believe it
can ever be conclusively established. In the first place it must be re
membered that if the third gospel throws a Pauline coloring .over the
events which it describes, the first gospel also shows a decidedly anti
Pauline bias, and the one party was as likely as the other to attribute
its own views to Jesus himself. One striking instance of this tendency
has been pointed out by Strauss, who has shown that the verses Matt,
v. 17-20, are an interpolation. The person who teaches men to break
the commandments is undoubtedly Paul, and in order to furnish a text
against Paul’s followers, the “ Nicolaitans,” Jesus is made to declare
that he came not to destroy one tittle of the law, but to fulfil the
whole in every particular. Such an utterance is in manifest contradic
tion to the spirit of Jesus’ teaching, as shown in the very same chapter,
and throughout a great part of the same gospel. He who taught in
�THE JESUS
OF HISTORY.
2Ÿ
his own name and not as the scribes, who proclaimed himself Lord
over the Sabbath, and who manifested from first to last a more than
Essenian contempt for rites and ceremonies, did not come to fulfil the
law of Mosaism, but to supersede it. Nor can any inference ad
verse to this conclusion be drawn from the injunction to the disciples,
(Matt. x. 5-7,) not to preach to Gentiles and Samaritans, but only “to
the lost sheep of the house of Israelfor this remark is placed before
the beginning of Jesus’ Messianic career, and the reason assigned for
the restriction is merely that the disciples will not have time even to
preach to all the Jews before the coming of the Messiah, whose ap
proach Jesus was announcing. (Matt. x. 23.)
These examples show that we must use caution in weighing the
testimony even of the first gospel, and must not too hastily cite it as
proof that Jesus supposed his mission to be restricted to the Jews.
When we come to consider what happened a few years after the death
of Jesus, we shall be still less ready to insist upon the view defended
by our anonymous author. Paul, according to his own confession, per
secuted the Christians unto death. Now what, in the theories or in
the practice of the Jewish disciples of Jesus, could have moved Paul
to such fanatic behavior ? Certainly not their spiritual interpretation
of Mosaism, for Paul himself belonged to the liberal school of Gama
liel, to the views of which the teachings and practices of Peter, James
and John might easily be accommodated. Probably not their belief in
Jesus as the Messiah, for at the riot in which Stephen was murdered
and all the Hellenist disciples driven from Jerusalem, the Jewish disci
ples were allowed to remain in the city unmolested. (See Acts viii.
1, 14.) This marked difference of treatment indicates that Paul re
garded Stephen and his friends as decidedly more heretical and obnox
ious than Peter, James and John, whom, indeed, Paul’s own master
Gamaliel had recently (Acts v. 34) defended before the council. And
this influence is fully confirmed by the account of Stephen’s death,
where his murderers charge him with maintaining that Jesus had
founded a new religion which was destined entirely to supersede and
replace Judaism. (Acts vi. 14.) The Petrine disciples never held
this view of the mission of Jesus; and to this difference it is undoubt
edly owing that Paul and his companions forbore to disturb them. It
would thus appear that even previous to Paul's conversion, within five
or six years after the death of Jesus, there was a prominent party
among the disciples which held that the new religion was not a modi
fication but an abrogation of Judaism ; and their name “ Hellenists ”
sufficiently shows either that there were Gentiles among them or that
they held fellowship with Gentiles. It was this which aroused Paul to
persecution, and upon his sudden conversion it was with these Hellen
istic doctrines that he fraternized, taking little heed of the Petrine
disciples (Galatians i. 15), who were hardly more than a Jewish
sect.
�Now the existence of these Hellenists at Jerusalem so soon after
the death of Jesus is clear proof that he had never distinctly and irrev
ocably pronounced against the admission of Gentiles to the Messianic
kingdom, and it makes it very probable that the downfall of Mosaism
as a result of his preaching was by no means unpremeditated. While,
on the other hand, the obstinacy of the Petrine party in adhering to
Jewish customs shows equally that Jesus could not have unequivocally
committed himself in favor of a new gospel for the Gentiles. Probably
Jesus was seldom brought into direct contact with others than Jews,
so that the questions concerning the admission of Gentile converts did
not come up during his lifetime; and thus the way was left open for
the controversy which soon broke out between the Petrine party and
Paul. Nevertheless, though Jesus may never have definitely pro
nounced. upon this point, it will hardly be denied that his teaching,
even as reported in the first gospel, is in its utter condemnation of for
malism far more closely allied to the Pauline than to the Petrine doc
trines. In his hands Mosaism became spiritualized until it really lost
its identity, and was transformed into a code fit for the whole Roman
world. And we do not doubt that if any one had asked Jesus whether
circumcision were an essential prerequisite for admission to the Mes
sianic kingdom, he would have given the same answer which Paul after
wards gave. We agree with Zeller and Strauss that, “as Luther was a
more liberal spirit than the Lutheran divines of the succeeding genera
tion, and Socrates a more profound thinker than Xenophon or Antisthenes, so also Jesus must be credited with having raised himself far
higher above the narrow prejudices of his nation than those of his dis
ciples who could scarcely understand the spread of Christianity among
the heathen when it had become an accomplished fact.”
THE JESUS OF DOGMA
*
HE meagerness of our information concerning the historic
career of Jesus stands in striking contrast to the mass of
information which lies within our reach concerning the
primitive character of Christologie speculation. First we
have the epistles of Paul, written from twenty to thirty years after
the crucifixion, which, although they tell us next to nothing about
T
* Saint-Paul. par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1869. (English translation. New
York : Carleton, 1869.)
Histoire du Dogme de la Divinité de Jesus-Christ, par Albert Réville.
Paris, 1869.
The End of the.World and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses by
the Rev. W. R. Alger. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.
�THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
29
what Jesus did. nevertheless give us very plain information as to
the impression which he made. Then we have the Apocalypse,
written by John, AD. 68, which exhibits the Messianic theory en
tertained by the earliest disciples. Next we have the epistles to the
Hebrews, Philippians. Colossians, and Ephesians, besides the four gos
pels, constituting altogether a connected chain of testimony to the
progress of Christian doctrine from the destruction of Jerusalem to the
time of the quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 70-170). Finallv, there
is the vast collection of apocryphal, heretical, and patristic literature,
from the writings of Justin Martin, the pseudo-Clement, and the
pseudo-Ignatius, down to the time of the Council of Nikaia. when the
official theories of Christ's person assumed very nearly the shape which
they have retained, within the orthodox churches of Christendom,
down to the present day. As we pointed out in “ The Jesus of His
tory,” while all this voluminous literature throws but an uncertain
light upon the life and teachings of the founder of Christianity, it
nevertheless furnishes nearly all the data which we could desire for
knowing what the early Christians thought of the master of their
faith. Having given a brief account of the historic career of Jesus, so
far as it can now be determined, we propose here to sketch the rise and
progress of Christologic doctrine, in its most striking features, during
the first three centuries. Beginning with the apostolic view of the
human Messiah sent to deliver Judaism from its spiritual torpor, and
prepare it for the millennial kingdom, we shall briefly trace the pro
gressive metamorphosis of this conception until it completely loses its
identity in the Athanasian theory, according to which Jesus was God
himself, the creator of the universe, incarnate in human flesh.
The earliest dogma held by the apostles concerning Jesus was that
of his resurrection from the grave after death. It was not only the
earliest, but the most essential to the success of the new religion.
Christianity might have overspread the Roman Empire, and main
tained its hold upon men’s faith until to-day, without the dogmas of
the incarnation and the Trinity; but without the dogma of the resur
rection it would probably have failed at the very outset. Its lofty
morality would not alone have sufficed to insure its success. For what
men needed then, as indeed they still need, and will always need, was
not merely a rule of life and a mirror to the heart, but also a compre
hensive and satisfactory theory of things, a philosophy or theosophy.
The times demanded intellectual as well as moral consolation; and the
disintegration of ancient theologies needed to be repaired, that the new
ethical impulse imparted by Christianity might rest upon a plausible
speculative basis. The doctrine of the resurrection was but the begin
ning of a series of speculative innovations which prepared the way for
the new religion to emancipate itself from Judaism, and achieve the
conquest of the Empire. Even the faith of the apostles in the speedy
return of their master the Messiah must have somewhat lost ground,
�30
THE JESUS
OE DOGMA.
had it not been supported by their belief in his resurrection from the
grave and his consequent transfer from Sheol, the gloomy land of
shadows, to the regions above the sky.
The origin of the dogma of the resurrection cannot be determined
with certainty. The question has, during the past century, been the
subject of much discussion, upon which it is not necessary for us
here to comment. Such apparent evidence as there is in favor of the
old theory of Jesus’ natural recovery from the effects of the cruci
fixion, may be found in Salvador’s “ Jesus-Christ et sa Doctrine
but, as Zeller has shown, the theory is utterly unsatisfactory. The
natural return of Jesus to his disciples never could have given rise to
the notion of his resurrection, since the natural explanation would
have been the more obvious one; besides which, if we were to adopt
this hypothesis, we should be obliged to account for the fact that the
historic career of Jesus ends with the crucifixion. The most probable
explanation, on the whole, is the one suggested by the accounts in the
gospels, that the dogma of the resurrection is due originally to the
excited imagination of Mary of Magdala. The testimony of Paul may
also be cited in favor of this view, since he always alludes to earlier
Christophanies in just the same language which he uses in describing
his own vision on the road to Damascus.
But the question as to how the belief in the resurrection of Jesus
originated is of less importance than the question as to how it should
have produced the effect that it did. The dogma of the resurrection
has, until recent times, been so rarely treated from the historical point
of view, that the student of history at firsts finds some difficulty in
thoroughly realizing its import to the minds of those who first pro
claimed it. We cannot hope to understand it without bearing in mind
the theories of the Jews and early Christians concerning the structure
of the world and the cosmic location of departed souls. Since the time
of Copernicus modern Christians no longer attempt to locate heaven
and hell; they are conceived merely as mysterious places remote from
the earth. The theological universe no longer corresponds to that
which physical science presents for our contemplation. It was quite
different with the Jew. His conception of the abode of Jehovah
and the angels, and of departed souls, was exceedingly simple and
definite. In the Jewish theory the universe is like a sort of threestory house. The flat earth rests upon the waters, and under the
earth’s surface is the land of graves, called Sheol, where after death the
souls of all men go, the righteous as well as the wicked, for the Jew
had not arrived at the doctrine of heaven and hell. The Hebrew Sheol
corresponds strictly to the Greek Hades, before the notions of Elysium
and Tartarus were added to it,—a land peopled with flitting shadows,
suffering no torment, but experiencing no pleasure, like those whom
Dante met in one of the upper circles of his Inferno. Sheol is the first
story of the cosmic house ; the earth is the second. Above the earth is
�TH R
JESUS
Of
DOGMA.
31
the firmament or sky, which, according to the book of Genesis (chap. i.
v. 6, Hebrew text), is a vast plate hammered out by the gods, and sup
ports a great ocean like that upon which the earth rests. Rain is
caused by the opening of little windows or trap-doors in the firmament,
through which pours the water of this upper ocean. Upon this water
rests the land of heaven, where Jehovah reigns, surrounded by hosts
of angels. To this blessed land two only of the human race had ever
been admitted,—Enoch and Elijah, the latter of whom had ascended in
a chariot of fire, and was destined to return .to earth as the herald and
forerunner of the Messiah. Heaven forms the third story of the cosmic
house. Between the firmament and the earth is the air, which is the
habitation of evil demons ruled by Satan, the “prince of the powers of
the air.”
Such was the cosmology of the ancient Jew ; and his theology was
equally simple. Sheol was the destined abode of all men after death,
and no theory of moral retribution was attached to the conception.
The rewards and punishments known to the authors of the Pentateuch
and the early Psalms are all earthly rewards and punishments. But in
course of time the prosperity of the wicked and the misfortunes of the
good man furnished a troublesome problem for the Jewish thinker;
and after the Babylonish Captivity, we find the doctrine of a resurrec
tion from Sheol devised in order to meet this case. According to this
doctrine—which was borrowed from the Zarathustrian theology of
Persia—the Messiah on his arrival was to free from Sheol all the souls
of the righteous, causing them to ascend reinvested in their bodies to a
renewed and beautiful earth, while on the other hand the wicked were
to be punished with, tortures like those of the valley of Hinnom, or
were to be immersed in liquid brimstone, like that which had rained
upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Here we get the first announcement of
a future state of retribution. The doctrine was peculiarly Pharisaic,
and the Sadducees, who were strict adherents to the letter of Mosaism,
rejected it to the last. By degrees this doctrine became coupled with
the Messianic theories of the Pharisees. The loss of Jewish independ
ence under the dominion of Persians, Macedonians and Romans, caused
the people to look over more earnestly toward the expected time when
the Messiah should appear in Jerusalem to deliver them from their
oppressors. The moral doctrines of the Psalms and earlier prophets
assumed an increasingly political aspect. The Jews were the righteous
“ under a cloud,” whose sufferings were symbolically depicted by the
younger Isaiah as the afflictions of the “ servant of Jehovah;” while on
the other hand, the “ wicked ” were the Gentile oppressors of the holy
people. Accordingly the Messiah, on his arrival, was to sit in judg
ment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, rectifying the. wrongs of his chosen
ones, condemning the Gentile tyrants to the torments of Gehenna, and
raising from Sheol all those Jews who had lived and died during the
evil times before his coming. These were to find in the Messianic
�32
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
kingdom the compensation for the ills which they had suffered in their
first earthly existence. Such are the main outlines of the theory found
in the Book of Enoch, written about B. C. 100, and it is adopted in the
Johannine Apocalypse, with little variation, save in the recognition of
Jesus as the Messiah, and in the transference to his second coming of
all these wonderful proceedings. The manner of the Messiah's coming
had been variously imagined. According to an earlier view, he was to
enter Jerusalem as a King of the house of David, and therefore of
human lineage. According to a later view, presented in the Book of
Daniel, he was to descend from the sky, and appear among the clouds.
Both these views were adopted by the disciples of Jesus, who harmo
nized them by referring the one to his first and the other to his second
appearance.
Now to the imaginations of these earliest disciples the belief in the
resurrection of Jesus presented itself as a needful guarantee of his
Messiahship. Their faith, which must have been shaken by his execu
tion and descent into Sheol, received welcome confirmation by the
springing up of the belief that he had been again seen upon the face
of the earth. Applying the imagery of Daniel, it became a logical
conclusion that he must have ascended into the sky, whence he might
shortly be expected to make his appearance, to enact the scenes foretold
in prophecy. That such was the actual process of inference is shown
by the legend of the Ascension in the first chapter of the “Acts,” and
especially by the words, “This Jesus who hath been taken up from you
into heaven, will come in the same manner in which ye beheld him
going into heaven.” In the Apocalvpse, written A. T). G8, just after
the death of Nero, this second coming is described as something im
mediately to happen, and the colors in which it is depicted show how
closely allied were the Johannine notions to those of the Pharisees.
The glories of the New Jerusalem are to be reserved for Jews, while
for the Roman tyrants of Judaea is reserved a fearful retribution.
They are to be trodden under-foot by the Messiah, like grapes in a
wine-press, until the gushing blood shall rise to the height of the
horse’s bridle.
In the writings of Paul, the dogma of the resurrection assumes a
very different aspect. Though Paul, like the older apostles, held that
Jesus, as the Messiah, was to return to the earth within a few years, yet
to his catholic mind this anticipated event had become divested of its
narrow Jewish significance. In the eyes of Paul, the religion preached
by Jesus was an abrogation of Mosaism, and the truths contained in it
were a free gift to the Gentile as well as to the Jewish world. Accord
ing to Paul, death came into the world as a punishment for the sin of
Adam. By this he meant that, had it not been for the original trans
gression, all men escaping death would either have remained upon
earth or have been conveyed to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah, in in
corruptible bodies. But in reality as a penance for disobedience, all
�THE
JESUS
OF
DOGMA.
33
men, with these two exceptions, had suffered death, and been exiled
to the gloomy caverns of Sheol. The Mosaic ritual was powerless to
free men from this repulsive doom, but it had nevertheless served a
good purpose in keeping men’s minds directed toward holiness, pre
paring them, as a schoolmaster would prepare his pupils, to receive the
vitalizing truths of Christ. Now, at last, the Messiah or Christ had
come as a second Adam, and being without sin had been raised by Je
hovah out of Sheol and taken up into heaven, as testimony to men
that the power of sin and death was at last defeated. The wav hence
forth to avoid death and escape the exile to Sheol was to live spiritually
like Jesus, and with him to be dead to sensual requirements. Faith,
in Paul’s apprehension, was not an intellectual assent to definitely pre
scribed dogmas, but, as Matthew Arnold has well pointed out, it was
an emotional striving after righteousness, a developing consciousness
of God in the soul, such as Jesus had possessed, or in Paul’s phrase
ology, a subjugation of the flesh by the spirit. All those who should
thus seek spiritual perfection should escape the original curse. The
Messiah was destined to return to the earth to establish the reign of
spiritual holiness, probably during Paul’s own lifetime. (1 Cor. xv.
51.) Then the true followers of Jesus should be clothed in ethereal
bodies, free from the imperfections of “ the flesh,” and should ascend
to heaven without suffering death, while the righteous dead should at
the same time be released from Sheol, even as Jesus himself had been
released.
To the doctrine of the resurrection, in which ethical and speculative
elements are thus happily blended by Paul, the new religion doubtless
owed in great part its rapid success. Into an account of the causes
which favored the spreading of Christianity, it is not our purpose to
enter at present. * ut we may note that the local religions of the ancient
B
pagan world had partly destroyed each other by mutual intermingling,
and had lost their hold upon people from the circumstance that their
ethical teaching no longer corresponded to the advanced ethical feeling,
of the age. Polytheism, in short, was outgrown. It was outgrown
both intellectually and morally. People were ceasing to believe in its
doctrines, and were ceasing to respect its precepts. The learned were
taking refuge in philosophy, the ignorant in mystical superstitions im
ported Trom Asia. The commanding ethical motive of ancient repub
lican times had been patriotism—devotion to the interests of the com
munity. But Roman dominion had destroyed patriotism as a guiding
principle of life, and thus in every way the minds of men were left in
a sceptical, unsatisfied state,—craving after a new theory of life, and
craving after a new stimulus to right action. Obviously the only
theology which could now be satisfactory to philosophy or to common
sense was some form of monotheism;—some system of doctrines which
should represent all men as spiritually subjected to the will of a single
God, just as they were subjected to the temporal authority of the Em
�34
THE JESUS
Of DOGMA.
peror. And similarly the only system of ethics which could have a
chance of prevailing must be some system which should clearly pre
scribe the mutual duties of all men without distinction of race or
locality. Thus the spiritual morality of Jesus, and his conception of
God as a father and of all men as brothers, appeared at once to meet
the ethical and speculative demands of the time.
Yet whatever effect these teachings might have produced, if un
aided by further doctrinal elaboration, was enhanced myriadfold by the
elaboration which they received at the hands of Paul. Philosophic
Stoics and Epicureans had arrived at the conception of the brotherhood
of men, and the Greek hymn of Kleanthes had exhibited a deep spirit
ual sense of the fatherhood of God. The originality of Christianity lay
not so much in its enunciation of new ethical precepts as in the fact
that it furnished a new ethical sanction—a commanding incentive to
holiness of living. That it might accomplish this result, it was abso
lutely necessary that it should begin by discarding both the ritualism
and the narrow theories of Judaism. The mere desire for a mono
theistic creed had led many pagans, in Paul’s time, to embrace Juda
ism, in spite of its requirements, which to Romans and Greeks were
meaningless, and often, disgusting; but such conversions could never
have been numerous. Judaism could never have conquered the Roman
world; nor is it likely that the Judaical Christianity of Peter, James,
and John would have been any more successful. The doctrine of the
resurrection, in particular, was not likely to prove attractive wheu ac
companied by the picture of the Messiah treading the Gentiles in the
wine-press of his righteous indignation. But here Paul showed his
profound originality. The condemnation of Jewish formalism which
*
Jesus had pronounced, Paul turned against the older apostles, who in
sisted upon circumcision. With marvelous flexibility of mind, Paul
placed circumcision and the Mosaic injunctions about meats upon a
level with the ritual observances of pagan nations, allowing each feeble
brother to perform such works as might tickle his fancy, but bidding
all take heed that salvation was not to be obtained after any such me
chanical method, but only by devoting the whole soul to righteousness,
after the example of Jesus.
This was the negative part of Paul’s work. This was the knocking
down of the barriers which had kept men, and would always have kept
them, from entering into the kingdom of heaven. But the positive
part of Paul’s work is contained in his theory of the salvation of men
from death through the second Adam, whom Jehovah rescued from
Sheol for his sinlessness. The resurrection of Jesus was the visible
token of the escape from death which might be achieved by all men
who, with God’s aid, should succeed in freeing themselves from thè
burden of sin which had encumbered all the children of Adam. The
end of the world was at hand, and they who would live with Christ
must figuratively die with Christ—must become dead to sin. Thus to
�THE
JESUS
OF DOGMA.
35
the pure and spiritual ethics contained in the teachings of Jesus, Paul
added an incalculably’powerful incentive to right action, and a theory
of life calculated to satisfy the speculative necessities of the pagan or
v Gentile world. To the educated and sceptical Athenian, as to the criti
cal scholar of modern times, the physical resurrection of Jesus from the
grave, and his ascent through the vaulted floor of heaven, might seem
foolishness or naïveté. But to the average. Greek or Roman the con
ception presented no serious difficulty. The cosmical theories upon
. which the conception was founded were essentially the same among
Jews and Gentiles, and indeed were but little modified until the estab
lishment of the Copernican astronomy. The doctrine of the Messiah’s
second coming was also received without opposition, and for about a
century men lived in continual anticipation of that event, until hope
long deferred produced its usual results ; the writings in which that
event was predicted were gradually explained away, ignored, or stigma
tized as uncanonical ; and the Church ended by condemning as a
heresy the very doctrine which Paul and the Judaizing apostles, who
agreed in little else, had alike made the basis of their spéculative
teachings. Nevertheless, by the dint of allegorical interpretation, the
belief has maintained an obscure existence even down to the present
time ; the Antiochus of the Book of Daniel and the Nero of the Apoc
alypse having given place to the Roman Pontiff or to the Emperor of
the French.
But as the millenarism of the primitive Church gradually died out
during the second century, the essential principles involved in it lost
none of their hold on men’s minds. As the generation contemporary
with Paul died away and was gathered into Sheol, it became apparent
that the original theory must be somewhat modified, and to this ques
tion the author of the second epistle to the Thessalonians addresses
himself. Instead of literal preservation from death, the doctrine of a
resurrection from the grave was gradually extended to the case of the
new believers, who were to share in the same glorious revival with the
righteous of ancient times. And thus by slow degrees the victory over
death, of which the resurrection of Jesus was a symbol and a witness,
became metamorphosed into the comparatively modern doctrine of the
rest of the saints in heaven, while the banishment of the unrighteous
to Sheol was -made still more dreadful by coupling with the vague con
ception of a gloomy subterranean cavern the horrible imagery of the
lake of tire and brimstone borrowed from the apocalyptic descriptions
of Gehenna. But in this modification of the original theory, the fun
damental idea of a future state of retribution was only the more dis
tinctly emphasized; although, in course of time, the original incentive
to righteousness supplied by Paul was more and more subordinated to
the comparatively degrading incentive involved in the fear of damna
tion. There can hardly be a doubt that the definiteness and vividness
• of the Pauline theory of a future life contributed very largely to the
�36
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
rapid spread of the Christian religion; nor can it be doubted that to
the desire to be holy like Jesus, in order to escape death and live with
Jesus, is due the elevating ethical influence which, even in the worst
times of ecclesiastic degeneracy, Christianity has never failed to exert.
Doubtless, as Lessing long ago observed, the notion of future reward
and punishment needs to be eliminated in order that the incentive to
holiness may be a perfectly pure one. The highest virtue is that which
takes no thought of reward or punishment; but for a conception of
this sort the mind of antiquity was not ready, nor is the average mind
of to-day yet ready; and the sudden or premature dissolution of the
Christian theory—which is fortunately impossible—would no doubt
entail a moral retrogradation.
The above is by no means intended as a complete account of the
religious philosophy of Paul. We have aimed only at a clear definition
of the character and scope of the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus,
at the time when it was first elaborated. We have now to notice the
influence of that doctrine upon the development of Christo logic specu
lation.
In neither of the four genuine epistles of Paul is Jesus described
as superhuman, or as differing in nature from other men, save in his
freedom from sin. As Baur has shown, “the proper nature of the
Pauline Christ is human. He is a man, but a spiritual man, one in
whom spirit or pneumo, was the essential principle, so that he was
spirit as well as man. The principle of an ideal humanity existed
before Christ in the bright form of a typical man, but was manifested
to mankind in the person of Christ.” Such, according to Baur, is
Paul’s interpretation of the Messianic idea. Paul knows nothing of
the miracles, of the supernatural conception, of the incarnation, or of
the Logos. The Christ whom he preaches is the man Jesus, the
founder of a new and spiritual order of humanity, as Adam was the
father of humanity after the flesh. The resurrection is uniformly
described by him as a manifestation of the power of Jehovah, not of
Jesus himself. The later conception of Christ bursting the barred
gates of Sheol, and arising by his own might to heaven, finds no
warrant in the expressions of Paul. Indeed it was essential to Paul’s
theory of the Messiah as a new Adam, that he should be human and
not divine ; for the escape of a divine being from Sheol could afford no
precedent and furnish no assurance of the future escape of human
beings. It was expressly because the man Jesus had been rescued from
the grave because of his spirituality, that other men might hope, by
becoming spiritual like him, to be rescued also. Accordingly Paul is
careful to state that “ since through man came death, through man
came also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. xv. 21); a passage
which would look like an express denial of Christ’s superhuman
character, were it probable that any of Paul’s contemporaries had ever
conceived of Jesus as other than essentially human.
�THE JESES
OE DOGMA.
But though Paul’s Christology remained in this primitive stage, it
contained the germs of a more advanced theory. For even Paul con
ceived of Jesus as a man wholly exceptional in spiritual character ; or,
in the phraseology of the time, as consisting to a larger extent of
pneuma than any man who had lived before him. The question was
sure to arise, whence came thisyuie^ma or spiritual quality? Whether
the question ever distinctly presented itself to Paul’s mind cannot be
determined. Probably it did not. In those writings of his which
have come down to us, he shows himself careless of metaphysical con
siderations. He is mainly concerned with exhibiting the unsatisfactory
character of Jewish Christianity, and with inculcating a spiritual
morality, to which the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection is made to
supply a surpassingly powerful sanction. But attempts to solve the
problem were not long in coming. According to a very early tradition,
of which the obscured traces remain in the ^noptic gospels, Jesus
received theyme/wn« at the time of his baptism, when the Holy Spirit,
or visible manifestation of the essence of Jehovah, descended upon him
and became incarnate in him. This theory, however, was exposed to
the objection that it implied a sudden and entire transformation of an
ordinary man into a person inspired or possessed by the Deity.
Though long maintained by the Ebionites or primitive Christians, it
was very soon rejected by the great body of the Church, which asserted
instead that Jesus had been inspired by the Holy Spirit from the
moment of his conception. From this it was but a step to the theory
that Jesus was actually begotten by or of the Holy Spirit; a notion
which the Hellenic mind, accustomed to the myths of Leda, Anchises,
and others, found no difficulty in entertaining. According to the
Gospel of the Hebrews, as cited by Origen, the Holy Spirit was the
mother of Jesus, and Joseph was his father. But according to the
prevailing opinion, as represented in the first and third synoptists, the
relationship was just the other way. With greater apparent plausibil
ity, the divine vEon was substituted for the human father, and a myth
sprang up, of which the materialistic details furnished to the oppo
nents of the new religion an opportunity for making the most gross
and exasperating insinuations. • The dominance of this theory marks
the era at which our first and third synoptic gospels were composed,—
from sixty to ninety years after the death of Jesus. In the luxuriant
mythologic growth there exhibited, we may yet trace the various suc
cessive phases of Christologic speculation but imperfectly blended. In
“Matthew” and “Luke” we find the original Messianic theory ex
emplified in the genealogies of Jesus, in which, contrary to historic
probability, (cf. Matt. xxii. 41-46,) but in accordance with a tihiehonored tradition, his pedigree is traced back to David ; “ Matthew ”
referring him to the royal line of Judah, while “ Luke ” more cautiously
has recourse to an assumed younger branch. Superposed upon this
primitive mythologic stratum, we find, in the same narratives, the ac-
�38
>
b
I
i
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
count of the descent of the pneumo, at the time of the baptism ; and
crowning the whole, there are the two accounts of the nativity which,
though conflicting in nearly all their details, agree in representing the
divine pneuma as the father of Jesus. Of these three stages of
Christology, the last becomes entirely irreconcilable with the first; and
nothing can better illustrate the uncritical character of the synoptists
than the fact that the assumed descent of Jesus from David through
his father Joseph is allowed to stand side by side with the account of
the miraculous conception which completely negatives it. Of this
difficulty “Matthew” is quite unconscious, and “Luke,” while vaguely
noticing it, (iii. 23,) proposes no solution, and appears .undisturbed by
the contradiction.
Thus far the Christology with which we have been dealing is pre
dominantly Jewish, though to some extent influenced by Hellenic
conceptions. None of the successive doctrines presented in Paul,
“ Matthew,” and “ Luke,” assert or imply the pre-existence of Jesus.
At this early period he was regarded as a human being raised to parti
cipation in certain attributes of divinity; and this was as far as the
dogma could be carried by the Jewish metaphysics. But soon after
the date of our third gospel, a Hellenic system of Christology arose
into prominence, in which the problem was reversed, and Jesus was
regarded as a semi-divine being temporarily lowered to participation in
certain attributes of humanity. For such a doctrine Jewish mythol
ogy supplied no precedents; but the Indo-European mind was familiar
with the conception of deity incarnate in human form, as in the
avatars of Vishnu, or even suffering in the interests of humanity, as in
the noble myth of Prometheus. The elements of Christology pre-ex
isting in the religious conceptions of Greece, India, and Persia, are too
rich and numerous to be discussed here. A very full account of them
is given in Mr. R. W. Mackay’s treatise on the “ Religious Development
of the Greeks and Hebrews,”—one of the most acute and erudite theo
logical works which this century has produced.
It was in Alexandria, where Jewish theology first came into contact
with Hellenic and Oriental ideas, that the way was prepared for the
dogma of Christ’s pre-existence. The attempt to rationalize the con
ception of deity as embodied in the Jehovah of the Old Testament,
gave rise to the class of opinions described as Gnosis, or Gnosticism.
The signification of Gnosis is simply “rationalism,”—the endeavor to
harmonize the materialistic statements of an old mythology with the
more advanced spiritualistic philosophy of the time. The Gnostics
rejected the conception of an anthropomorphic deity who had appeared
visibly and audibly to th^ patriarchs ; and they were the authors of the
doctrine, very widely spread during the second and third centuries,
that God could not in person have been the creator of the world. Ac
cording to them, God, as pure spirit, could not act directly upon vile
and gross matter. The difficulty which troubled them was curiously
�THE ,J E 8 US
OF
D () C M J
39
analogous to that which disturbed the Cartesians and followers of Leib
nitz in the seventeenth century : how was spirit to act upon matter,
without ceasing, pro tanto, to be spirit ? To meet this difficulty, the
Gnostics postulated a series of emanations from God, becoming success
ively less and less spiritual and more and more material, until at the
lowest end of the scale was reached the Demiurgus or Jehovah of the
Old Testament, who created the world and appeared, clothed in mate
rial form, to the patriarchs. According to some of the Gnostics, this
lowest mon or emanation was identical with the Jewish Satan, or Ahri
man of the Persians, who is called “ the prince of this world,” and the
creation of the world was an essentially evil act. But all did not share
in these extreme opinions. In the prevailing theory, this last of the
divine emanations was identified with the “ Sophia,” or personified
“Wisdom,” of the Book of Proverbs, (viii. 22-30,) who is described as
present with God before the foundation of the world. The totality of
these icons constituted the ptleroma, or “ fullness of God,” (Coloss. i. 20;
Ephes, i. 23,) and in a corollary which bears unmistakable marks of
Buddhist influence, it was argued that, in the final consummation of
things, matter should be eliminated and all spirit reunited with God,
from whom it had primarily flowed.
It was impossible that such .views as these should not soon be taken
up and applied to the fluctuating Christology of the time. According
to the “ Shepherd of Hermas,” an apocalyptic writing nearly contem
porary with the gospel of “ Mark,” the ¿eon or son of God who existed
previous to the creation was not the Christ, or the Sophia, but the
Pneuma or Holy Spirit, represented in the Old Testament as the
“angel of Jehovah.” Jesus, in reward for his perfect goodness, was
admitted to a share in the privileges of this Pneuma. (Reville, p. 39.)
Here, as M. Reville observes, though a Gnostic idea is adopted, Jesus is
nevertheless viewed as ascending humanity, and not as descending
divinity. The author of the “Clementine Homilies” advances a step
farther, and clearly assumes the pre-existence of Jesus, who, in his
opinion, was the pure, primitive man, successively incarnate in Adam,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and finally in the Messiah
or Christ. The author protests, in vehement language, against those
Hellenists who, misled by their polytheistic associations, would elevate
Jesus into a god. Nevertheless his own hypothesis of pre-existence
supplied at once the requisite fulcrum for those Gnostics who wished
to reconcile a strict monotheism with the ascription of divine attri
butes to Jesus. Combining With this notion of pre-existence the pneu
matic or spiritual quality attributed to Jesus in the writings of Paul,
the gnosticising Christians maintained that Christ was an mon or em
anation from God, redeeming men from the consequences entailed by
their imprisonment in matter. At this stage of Christologic specu
lation appeared the anonymous epistle to the “Hebrews,” and the
pseudo-Pauline euistles to the “Colossians,” “Ephesians,”and “Philip-
�40
THE
JESUS
OF DOGMA.
pians.” (A. D. 130.) In these epistles, which originated among the
Pauline Christians, the Gnostic theosophy is skillfully applied to the
Pauline conception of the scope and purposes of Christianity. Jesus
is described as the creator of the world, (Coloss. i. 16,) the visible image
J •
of the invisible God, the chief and ruler of the “thrones, dominions,
¡principalities and powers,” into which, in Gnostic phraseology, the em
anations of God were classified. Or, according to “ Colossians ” and
t1|
“ Ph ilippians,” all the ieons are summed up in him, in whom dwells
the pleroma, or “fullness of God.” Thus Jesus is elevated quite above
ordinary humanity, and a close approach is made to ditheism, although
he is still emphatically subordinated to God by being made the creator
of the world,—an office then regarded as incompatible with absolute
divine perfection. In the celebrated passage, “ Philippians” ii. 6-11,
the aeon Jesus is described as being the form or visible manifestation
of God, yet as humbling himself by taking on the form or semblance
of humanity, and suffering death, in return for which he is to be exalt•
ed even above the archangels. A similar view is taken in “ Hebrews ; ”
and it is probable that to the growing favor with which these doctrines
were received, we owe the omission of the miraculous conception from
the gospel of “Mark,”—a circumstance which has misled some critics
into assigning to that gospel an earlier date than to “ Matthew” and
“ Luke.” Yet the fact that in this gospel Jesus is implicitly ranked
above the angels, (Mark xiii, 32, 33,) reveals a later stage of Christologic doctrine than that reached-by the first and third synoptists; and
if is altogether probable that, in accordance with the noticeable con
ciliatory disposition of this evangelist, the supernatural conception is
omitted out of deference to the gnosticising theories of “ Colossians ”
and “Philippians,” in which this materialistic doctrine seems to have
had no assignable place. In “ Philippians ” especially, many expres
sions seem to verge upon Docefism, the extreme form of Gnosticism,
according to which the human body of Jesus was only a phan tom.
Valentinus, who was contemporary with the Pauline writers of the
second century, maintained that Jesus was not born of Mary by any
process of conception, but merely passed through her, as light traverses
a translucent substance. And finally Marcion (A. D. 140) carried the
theory to its extreme limits by declaring that Jesus was the pure Pneuma or Spirit, who contained nothing in common with carnal humanity.
The pseudo-Pauline writers steered clear of this extravagant doc
trine, which erred by breaking entirely with historic tradition, and was
consequently soon condemned as heretical. Their language, though
unmistakably Gnostic, was sufficiently neutral and indefinite to allow
of their combination with earlier and later expositions of dogma,
and they were therefore eventually received into the canon, where they
exhibit a stage of opinion midway between that of Paul and that of
the fourth gospel.
For the construction of a durable system of Christology, still
i
t
�THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
41
further elaboration was necessary. The pre-existence of Jesus, as an
emanation from God, in whom were summed up the attributes of the
pleroma or full scale of Gnostic a?ons, was now generally conceded.
Blit the relation of this pleroma to the Godhead of which it was the
visible manifestation, needed to be more-accurately defined. And here
recourse was had to the conception of the “Logos,”—a notion which
Philo had borrowed from Plato, lending to it a theosophic significance.
In the Platonic metaphysics, objective existence was attributed to
general terms, the signs of general notions. Besides each particular
man, horse, or tree, and besides all men, horses, and trees, in the
aggregate, there was supposed to exist an ideal Man, Horse, and Tree.
Each particular man, hors#, or tree consisted of abstract existence plus
a portion of the ideal man, horse, or tree. Socrates, for instance, con
sisted of Existence, plus Animality, plus Humanity, plus Socraticity.
The visible world of particulars thus existed only by virtue of its par
ticipation in the attributes of the ideal world of universals. God
created the world by encumbering each idea with an envelopment or
clothing of visible matter; and since matter is vile or imperfect, all
things are more or less perfect as they partake more or less fully of the
idea. The pure unencumbered idea, the “ Idea of ideas,” is the Logos,
or divine Reason, which represents the sum-total of the activities
which sustain the world, and serves as a mediator between the abso
lutely ideal God and the absolutely non-ideal matter. Here we arrive
at a Gnostic conception, which the Philonists of Alexandria were not
slow to appropriate. The Logos, or divine Reason, was identified with
the Sophia, or divine Wisdom of the Jewish Gnostics, which had dwelt
with God before the creation of the world. By a subtle play upon the
double meaning of the Greek term {logos = “ reason ” or “ word,”) a
distinction was drawn between the divine Reason and the divine Word.
The former was the archetypal idea or thought of God, existing from
all eternity; the latter was the external manifestation or realization of
that idea which occurred at the moment of creation, when, according
to Genesis, God spoke, and the world was.
In the middle of the second century, this Philonian theory was the
one thing needful to add metaphysical precision to the Gnostic and
Pauline speculations concerning the nature of Jesus. In the writings
of Justin Martyr, (A. D. 150-1G6,) Jesus is for the first time identified
with the Philonian logos or “Word of God.” According to Justin, an
impassable abyss exists between the Infinite Deity and the Finite
World; the one cannot act upon the other; pure spirit cannot con
taminate itself by contact with impure matter. To meet this difficulty,
God evolves from himself a secondary God, the Logos,—yet without
diminishing himself any more than a flame is diminished when it
gives birth to a second flame. Thus generated, like light begotten of
light, {lumen de lumine,) the Logos creates the world, inspires the
ancient prophets with their divine revelations, and finally reveals him
�42
THE
JESUS
OE DOGMA.
self to mankind in the person of Christ. Yet Justin sedulously guards
himself against ditheism, insisting frequently and emphatically upon
the immeasurable inferiority of the Logos as compared with the actual
God (7zo ontos theos.)
We have here reached very nearly the ultimate phase of New Tes
tament speculation concerning Jesus. The doctrines enunciated by
Justin became eventually, with slight modification, the official doc
trines of the Church : yet before they could thus be received, some
further elaboration was needed. The pre-existing Logos-Christ of
Justin was no longer the human Messiah of the firstand third gos
pels, born of a woman, inspired by the divine Pneuma, and tempted
by the Devil. There was danger that Christologie speculation might
break quite loose from historic tradition, and pass into the metaphysical
extreme of Docetism. Had this come to pass, there might perhaps
have been a fatal schism in the Church. Tradition still remained
Ebionitish ; dogma had become decidedly Gnostic ; how were the two
to be moulded into harmony with each other ? Such was the prob
lem which presented itself to the author of the fourth gospel (A. D.
170-180). As M. Réville observes, “if the doctrine of the Logos
were really to be applied to the person of Jesus, it was necessary to re
model the evangelical history.” Tradition must be moulded so as to
fit the dogma, but the dogma must be restrained by tradition from
running into Docetic extravagance. It must 'be shown historically
how “ the Word became flesh ” and dwelt on earth, (John i. 14,) how
the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth were the deeds of the incarnate Logos,
in whom was exhibited the pleroma or fullness of the divine attri
butes. The author of the fourth gospel is, like Justin, a Philonian
Gnostic; but he differs from Justin in his bold and skilful treatment
of the traditional materials supplied by the earlier gospels. The prooess of development in the theories and purposes of Jesus, which can
be traced throughout the Messianic descriptions of the first gospel,
is entirely obliterated in the fourth. Here Jesus appears at the out
set as the creator of the world, descended from his glory, but des
tined soon to be reinstated. The title “ Son of Man ” has lost its
original significance, and become synonymous with “ Son of God.”
The temptation, the transfiguration, the scene in Gethsemane, are
omitted, and for the latter is substituted a Philonian prayer. Never
theless, the author carefully avoids the extremes of Docetism or di
theism. Not only does he represent the human life of Jesus as real,
and his death as a truly physical death, but he distinctly asserts the
inferiority of the Son to the Father (John xiv. 28.) Indeed, as M. Ré
ville well observes, it is part of the very notion of the Logos that it
should be imperfect relatively to the absolute God ; since it is only its
relative imperfection which allows it to sustain relations to the world
and to men which are incompatible with absolute perfection, from the
Philonian point of view. The Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity
�THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
43
finds no support in the fourth gospel, any more than in the earlier
books collected in the New Testament.
The fourth gospel completes the speculative revolution by which
the conception of a divine being lowered to humanity was substituted
for that of a human being raised to divinity. We have here traveled a
long distance from the risen Messiah of the genuine Pauline epistles,
or the preacher of righteousness in the first gospel. Yet it does not
seem probable tliat the Church of the third century was thoroughly
aware of the discrepancy. The authors of the later Christology did not
regard themselves as adding new truths to Christianity, but merely as
giving a fuller and more consistent interpretation to what must have
been known from the outset. They were so completely destitute of the
historic sense, and so strictly confined to the dogmatic point of view,
that they projected their own theories back into the past, and vituper
ated as heretics those who adhered to tradition in its earlier and sim
pler form. Examples from more recent times are not wanting, which
show that we are dealing here with an inveterate tendency of the
human mind. New facts and new theories are at first condemned as
heretical or ridiculous; but when once firmly established, it is imme
diately maintained that every one knew them before. After the Coper
nican astronomy had won the day, it was tacitly assumed that the
ancient Hebrew astronomy was Copernican, and the Biblical concep
tion of the universe as a kind of three-story house was ignored, and has
been, except by scholars, quite forgotten. When the geologic evidence
of the earth’s immense antiquity could no longer be gainsaid, it was
suddenly ascertained that the Bible had from the outset asserted that
antiquity; and in our own day we have seen an elegant popular writer
perverting the testimony of the rocks and distorting the Elohistic cos
mogony of the Pentateuch, until the twain have been made to furnish
what Bacon long ago described as “ a heretical religion and a false
philosophy.” Now just as in the popular thought of the present day
the ancient Elohist is accredited with a knowledge of modern geology
and astronomy, so in the opinion of the fourth evangelist and his con
temporaries the doctrine of the Logos-Christ was implicitly contained
in the Old Testament and in the early traditions concerning Jesus, and
needed only to be brought into prominence by a fresh interpretation.
Hence arose the fourth gospel, which was no more a conscious violation
of historic data than Hugh Miller’s imaginative description of the
“ Mosaic Vision of Creation.” Its metaphysical discourses were readily
accepted as equally authentic with the Sermon on the Mount. Its
Philonian doctrines were imputed to Paul and the apostles, the pseudo
Pauline epistles furnishing the needful texts. The Ebionites—who
were simply Judaizing Christians, holding in nearly its original form
the doctrine of Peter, Janies, and John—were ejected from the Church
as the most pernicious of heretics ; and so completely was their historic
position misunderstood and forgotten, that, in order to account for
�44
THE JESUS
OF DOGMA.
their existence, it became necessary to invent an epoifymous heresiarch,
Ebion, who was supposed to have led them astray from the true faith I
The Christology of the fourth gospel is substantially the same as
that which was held in the next two centuries by Tertullian, Clement
of Alexandria, Origen, and Arius. When the doctrine of the Trinity
was first announced by Sabellius (A. D. 250-260), it was formally con
demned as heretical, the Church being not yet quite prepared to receive
it. In 269 the Council of Antioch solemnly declared that the Son was
not consubstantial with the Father—a declaration which, within sixty
years, the Council of Nikaia was destined as solemnly to contradict
The trinitarian Christology struggled long for acceptance, and did not
finally win the victory until the end of the fourth century. Yet from
the outset its ultimate victory was hardly doubtful. The peculiar doc
trines of the fourth gospel could retain their
integrity
*
only so long as
Gnostic ideas were prevalent. When Gnosticism declined in importtance, and its theories faded out of recollection, its peculiar phraseology
received of necessity a new interpretation. The doctrine that God
could not act directly upon the world sank gradually into oblivion as
the Church grew more and more hostile to the Neo-Platonic philoso
phy. And when this theory was once forgotten, it was inevitable that
the Logos, as the creator of the world, should be raised to an equality
or identity with God himself. In the view of the fourth evangelist, the
Creator was necessarily inferior to God; in the view of later ages, the
Creator could be none other than God. And so the very phrases which
had most emphatically asserted the subordination' of the Son were
afterward interpreted as asserting his absolute divinity. To the Gnos
tic formula, “ lumen de lumine,” was added the Athanasian scholium,
“Deum verum de Deo vero ; ” and the trinitarian dogma of the union of
persons in a single Godhead became thus the only available logical
device for preserving the purity of monotheism.
The modern theory, however, at which we seem to be slowly arriv
ing is, that light, heat, electricity, life itself, are only forms of motion,
and that death is merely the cessation of this motion; that the deity
is, throughout the universe, the embodiment (sinee that is the only
word I can think of to express myself) of motion itself; and that all
which dies, or, in other words, ceases to move, falls back into the uni
verse, and is absorbed into the deity. This was the belief of the Bud
dhist—the framer or acceptor of a pure and beautiful religion ; and to
this belief modern science and the enlargement of knowledge slowly
tend.—Macmillan’s Magazine.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The last word about Jesus
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Fiske, John
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Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [9]-48 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Extracted from Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. Includes bibliographical references. Printed on grey paper. Marks from adhesive tape on first page.
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Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ-Historicity
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Text
THE
SCIENTIFIC BASIS
ORTHODOXY.
OF
BY FRANCIS GERRY FAIRFIELD.
1.— THE NECESSARY INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY.
HE very recent declarations of Mr. John Fiske, of Harvard,
that Positivism regards itself as the legitimate successor of
theology, have resulted in directing the attention of thinkers
in this country to that subject. The speculations of Spencer,
who must be classed as a Positivist, though vastly at variance with
Comte in some of his conclusions, cannot be regarded as menacing to
orthodoxy, except in so far (if at all) as they may affect the general
cosmological and biological theorems upon which it depends. A sys
tem of philosophy—and Mr. Spencer may insult the adjective synthetic
with it, if it suits his fancy or egotism—a system of philosophy that
has no sympathy with history, must be regarded as too partial both in
its data and conclusions to affect the intellectual and moral evolution
of the oentury, except very limitedly ; and that Spencer’s system in
volves no hearty recognition of human history, is too apparent to need
elaborate demonstration. It is like a collection of bones, without moral
vitality ; and, in the putting together of the bones even, there is occa
sionally a lack of that deeper and more comprehensive synthesis which
constitutes the profounder part of philosophy. Comte has, on the
other hand, accepted the historical necessity of some religious system,
both as psychological and social; but has begun by eliminating from it
its valuable element, to wit, its supernaturalism, which, per se, is not
necessarily theistic or dependent upon the theistic idea, but belongs to
human nature and to human history as a progressive evolution of the
unconditioned from the conditioned.
Spencer’s speculations have not sufficient sympathy with evolution
as progressive — are too static. A just system of philosophy must
begin with the recognition, not only of history as the collective body
of human acts, but as the collective body of human progress in the
struggle toward ultimate freedom, in the sharpness of which struggle
the supernatural is engendered—the supernatural being understood in
its true historical sense as the sporadic manifestation, under given con
ditions, of that higher unconditioned humanity and nature, toward
T
�THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
203
which both historical and geological evolution tend, and in whicli they
end.
Orthodoxy rests fundamentally upon two historical postulates,
namely, monotheism and the progressive historical evolution of the
God-consciousness in humanity. Admit these two postulates, and
the whole body of orthodox thought must be admitted as valid. Ra
tionalism is historically illogical, because it has no historical destiny,
and omits recognition of that which is to be regarded as evidence of
the progress of the evolution of the ultimate—in a word, omits recog
nition of the supernatural in history; and, for the same reason, Comte’s
religion of humanity is inadmissible. For all the purposes of philo
sophical poiesis it matters not whether the absolute be considered as
latent in humanity, that is, subjective, or as the God of the theolo
gians, that is, objective, or as the historical ultimate of humanity. The
fundamental conception is the same in either hypothesis, and, in either
hypothesis, represents an ideal sublimate which the history of human
consciousness has demonstrated to be universal. Furthermore, any
system of philosophy which, like undiluted Positivism, neglects to take
this God-instinct into account, is essentially partial, defective, and un
satisfactory. Omitting the ethical as historically interpretive of the
idea of right, and, therefore, not germane to the investigation, the
analyses of the historical manifestation of human consciousness may be
stated as threefold:
I. Philosophical or rational poiesis, which represents the struggle
of the rational intellect (Vernunfl) to apprehend the absolute in truth.
Subjectively, its processes are: apprehension and comprehension, that
is, knowledge; hypothesis and generalization, that is, ideal evolution;
-synthesis into system, that is, unification into absolute body of knowl
edge general, of knowledge particular.
II. Imaginative poiesis—art, poetry, music, and literary creation—
which represents the toiling of the imagination to apprehend and ob
jectify the absolute in beauty. As the toiling of reason is after the
absolute or ideal in knowledge, so the toiling of the imagination is
after the realization of the absolute or ideal in form, using the word in
its most comprehensive sense.
III. Inspirational poiesis—historically illustrated by the facts of
sacred history—which represents the struggle of the God-instinct to
compass the absolute in personal consciousness. For purposes of his
torical analysis, it is not necessary to postulate the objective esse of
God as postulated by theologians. Scientific disquisition assumes sim
ply the God-instinct in humanity, which is all that is necessary in
philosophical analysis, and leaves the question of objectivity to take
care of itself.
The first finds its struggle answered in the absolute in truth ; the
second, in the absolute in realization or beauty; the third, in the ab
solute in personal consciousness, the toiling after which constitutes,
philosophically, the ground of what is termed revelation.
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THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
Subjectively, therefore, truth and beauty are pure ideas, dependent
upon reason and imagination respectively. Subjectively, too, any sys
tem of philosophy or scientific hypothesis is just as really human in
vention as is a poem or a novel—a conclusion which is as lucidly
demonstrable as any proposition in Euclid. Suppose a person unen
dowed with reason, and truth is an impossible idea; suppose the same
person destitute of imagination, and beauty is an idea equally impossi
ble. It is not necessary at this stage of the discussion to open the
question of the objective reality of either—since conception of that
reality is grounded in imaginative and rational intellect, and since the
conception is often at best mistaken for the reality itself. In the crea
tion of any philosophico-imaginative cosmogony, like that of La Place,
therefore, the evolution of system is based upon the conceptions as
material of two faculties, to wit, reason, whence the ideal in abstract,
and imagination, whence the realization of the ideal in form.
As the construction of any hypothetical cosmogony is grounded in
these two ideas uniquely, it is, therefore, necessary to reduce both to
ultimate analysis, and develop the atomic notions upon which they
respectively depend.
At first sight, the idea of truth, in all moods of consciousness,
seems to be the simplest axiom or atom of thought, of which it is pos
sible to form a conception. A more minute scrutiny, however, suggests
the hypothesis that, truth as an idea is rather deductive than atomic—
suggests, I say, the conclusion that the idea of the true is deduced from
the atomic notion of the determinate, of the fixed. The struggle of
reason (represented in philosophy) is, therefore, a toiling after the fixed,
the determinate, the absolute in knowledge. In the processes and evo
lution of philosophy, the Positivists are correct in postulating the rela
tivity of knowledge; but, in its end, if that shall ever be attained,
knowledge must be absolute. In its historical ultimate, its to think
must be succeeded by to know. In seeking to apprehend this absolute,
therefore, which forever baffles and eludes his pursuit, what seeks man
but to apprehend the mystery and solve the riddle of himself ?—for, in
the consciousness of the man is hidden the secret of the universe and
the key of the true cosmogony. Constructive philosophy necessarily
consisting of two principal parts,—the synthesis of methods and the
synthesis of doctrines,—Comte’s position as a thinker by no means covers
the whole ground. His synthesis of methods may form the basis of a
philosophical system, but is not, in itself, a system of philosophy, and
must be complemented by the synthesis of doctrines which Spencer has
attempted to constitute really a philosophical body. Mr. Fiske has been
the first to condition Positivism in definition; and its cardinal theorems
cannot be stated more lucidly than this exceedingly analytic critic has
stated them:
I. That all knowledge is relative.
II. That all unverifiable hypotheses are inadmissible.
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III. That the evolution of philosophy, whatever else it may, is a
continuous process of deanthropomorphization.
IV. That philosophy is the synthesis of the doctrines and methods
of science.
V. That the critical attitude of philosophy is not destructive, but
constructive ; not sceptical, but dogmatic ; not negative, but positive.
These, according to Mr. Fiske, are the fundamental propositions of
Positivism. The Positive Philosophy, therefore, by no means involves
radicalism. On the other hand, historically considered, radicalism has
always been the handmaid of scepticism—has universally made its
appearance in conjunction therewith, aud more or less grounded upon
it. Positivism is essentially dogmatic, but not radical and noisy; it
maintains the quiet attitude of scientific criticism, and is not declama
tory ; attacks nothing, no faith, no belief, no theological dogma; is
satisfied with science as the developing element of civilization; enun
ciates what it deems to be truth, and waits its time. Relentless as fate,
it quarrels with nobody, but tramps strongly on, stopping only with
the cessation of scientific investigation. In its relation to past systems
of philosophy it claims to adopt the verifiable, rejecting the unverifiable element. As the latest outcome of the speculative instinct, as
emphatically the philosophy of the century and interpretative of its
spirit, it represents the present result of the philosophical poiesis his
torically considered.
In historical generalization, philosophy has run through two cycles,
and begun its third cycle in the system of Comte. The first cycle is
represented by the Greek systems. In ancient philosophy the first
period is cosmological, beginning with Thales and ending with Anaxa
goras and Demokritos; the second is psychological, represented by
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle ; the third period is one of general scep
ticism ; and the fourth is represented by Proklos whose divine light is
nearly identical with the Hegelian intuition, and completes the Greek
cycle. Mr. Lewes and Mr. Fiske regard Positivism as the end of the
modern cycle; but, more properly, it begins the scientific cycle. The
modern cycle begins with the promulgation of the method of Bacon
and the cultivation of the physical sciences; the cosmological element
cropping out in Galileo and Kepler. Its first period is ontological, be
ginning with Descartes and ending with Spinoza, whose inexorable
logic brought on a crisis and resulted in the reconsideration of the
initial conceptions of metaphysics and the rejection of the validity of
the subjective method.
This led to the second or psychological period, during which, for a
century or more, ontological speculation was abandoned or subordi
nated to psychological analysis. The adoption of the first canon of
Positivism—the relativity of knowledge—resulted from the investiga
tions of this period, and was rendered necessary by the1 inexorable an
alysis of mental operations, begun by Hobbes, and continued by Locke,
Berkley, and Hume.
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THE SCIENTIFIC BASTS OF ORTHODOXY.
This brought on the third or sceptical period, of which Hume ap
peal’s as the apostle, and in which Hartley’s keen analysis demonstrated
the possibility of bringing the scientific method to bear upon psycho
logical iuquiry. Sensationalism and crude materialism represent this
period in France. Against both, as the natural swing of the philo
sophical pendulum, there ensued later the tawdry superficially spiritual
istic reaction, conducted by Laromiguiere and Cousin, whose declam
atory le cœur answers to the divine light of Proklos, and ends the cycle
in France, with a fourth or intuitional period. In Germany the cycle
ends similarly, the re-examination of the subjective method by Kant
being episodical, and preparatory to the reassertion of the intuitional
by Hegel, who, again, denies the relativity of knowledge. The great
English thinkers of the century, with a caution engendered by the
Baconian method, diverge here from the logical completion of the cycle,
with the exception, perhaps, of Coleridge, who was addicted to German
ism ; Hamilton and Mansel accepting the Kantian psychology, but
stopping short of Hegelism. Thus ends the second cycle—the third
beginning with Positivism as interpreted by Spencer, in England, and
Comte, in France, and adopting substantially the cosmological system
of La Place. Pre-eminently it may be termed the cycle of the scien
tific method ; but, as to its ultimate historical deduction, it is folly to
speculate.
From this cursory generalization of the historical struggle of the
rational intellect after the fixed, the determinate, the absolute in knowl
edge, a parallel generalization of the history of the imaginative/xuLGais, it will be seen, quite unnecessary. Endlessly it everywhere repeats
the cycle—beginning with fable, merging into poetry and allegory, de
veloping into dramatic creation, and ending in pure, natural literature.
The historical manifestation of the God-instinct presents really but
one grand cycle which commences with cosmogonies. Then comes rev
elation objective, as its first rude groping after the latent absolute in
human consciousness, with its dreams, and omens, and visions. A pe
riod of transition ensues in which priestly mysteries succeed to objec
tivity. Then comes the intuitional, prophetic, or subjective- period, in
which objective revelation is abandoned, and the God is represented in
temporary union with the human consciousness. Then the final com
pleteness of the union of the God with human consciousness in the
son of Mary is asserted and accepted. Again, a brief period of pro
phetic prediction ensues, represented by the Apocalypse of St. John, in
which the ultimate historical triumph of the God-instinct ovei’ all
condition is foretold. Then comes a period of evolution ; and the
cycle, not yet completed, ends in the realization by the human of the
absolute in oonsciousness, as the ultimate deduction of the toiling of
the God-instinct after the God. The acceptance or denial of the esse
of the objective in no way affects the validity of the subjective instinct
—in no way affects the facts of its historical manifestation. The phe32
�TBE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
207
nomena are attested ; the objectivity of deity is a question with which
philosophy has no business. Truth, beauty, and deity may be subject
ive conceptions; but the supposition that they are cannot annul their
historical validity in the manifestation of consciousness. The collect
ive body of the motion of human consciousness towards freedom in all
directions—towards the absolute, in a word—constitutes, therefore,
historical progress, history being in ultimate definition the selfexpression of humanity; and at the basis of this progress, forever
restless, forever toiling towards the realization of its freedom from con
dition, tugs the God-instinct of the ego, the motive of all that is
grand and sublimated in human thought and human action. Neces
sary as the integrity of the ego is to this deduction, it may be well
here to notice the late English hypothesis that it is constituted by the
successive ideas which finds its refutation in the fact that, in the evolu
tion of ideas the consciousness is a double one—that is, I am conscious
of myself as myself, and conscious of myself as thinking.
Three profoundly instinctive and irrepressible, even fundamental,
directions of consciousness are found, therefore, if the preceding ratio
cination be valid, to underlie the historical self-expression of humanity.
They are, if coinage of the compounds may be permitted :
I. The thought-instinct, which seeks the absolute in knowledge, in
truth, in comprehension of the processes and laws of phenomenal
evolution.
II. The art-instinct, which toils to create the absolute in form, in
beauty, in objective realization.
III. The God-instinct, which struggles for the realization of the ab
solute in personal consciousness ; which attained, the history of human
consciousness as conditioned, ends.
The collective body of results, emanating from this threefold toil
ing of the human after freedom of self-expression, constitutes the es
sential facts of history, as the ultimate realization of the goal towards
which the struggle tends, constitutes its finis.
I have proceeded thus far without a break, for the sake of logical
coherence. Let me return now, and subject to analysis the idea of
beauty.
If the idea of beauty be subjected to careful analysis, it will, I
think, be conceded to be non-atomic, that is, deduced ; and if, again,
the dissection of the few poems, the beauty of which has been univers
ally acknowledged, be entered upon, their effect will be found to depend
upon a certain dreamy undulation, like the weird waving of restless
trees under moonlight, which pervades and spiritualizes their composi
tion. The atomic notion of beauty is, therefore, the undulative, the
rhythmical, the indeterminate. It is this principle that imbues
the beautiful with its soul of Faëry. From it may be deduced the
vague, the spiritual in poetic, artistic, and musical creation. Dispel
this perspective, this atmosphere of the indeterminate—imbue beauty
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THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
with mathematical decision, and it ceases to be beauty. The jump of
iambic rhythm is less beautiful than the dreamier winding of the
anapest, or the undulative dance of the dactyl. For a similar reason,
to wit, greater sweep of undulation, the Persian rhythms are more
beautiful than the English.
It is not intended in the preceding remarks to deny the mathemat
ical relations upon which the skeleton of the beautiful in form is
grounded. In rhythmical construction the sound-waves observe a
certain mathematical regularity of recurrence, as also in music ; but
that which constitutes a mathematical system of short and long syl
lables regularly alternating, and is mere scansion, must not be con
founded with the ebb and swell of the sound-wave, the undulation of
which is the ground of the beautiful in rhythm and music. Sculpture,
painting, and the plastic arts afford, perhaps, a more distinct recogni
tion of the relation of the geometrical to the beautiful ; but, in the
study of that relation, the two must be kept separate. The mathe
matical and geometrical are, so to speak, the bones of the beautiful.
“ Beauty of favor,” says Bacon, “ is least. Beauty of color is more
than that of favor ; and the beauty of sweet and graceful motion is
best of all. There is a beauty which a picture cannot express, nor
even the first sight of life. There is no excellent beauty without some
strangeness in the proportion.” The father of the scientific method
seems here to hint indistinctly at the categories of beauty, to wit, the
beautiful in form, which is the ground of sculpture ; the beautiful in
color, which lies at the basis of painting ; the beautiful in expression,
which verges further upon the ideal than either of the preceding ; and
the beautiful in individuation, which is still subtler and more ethereal.
The last category connects the beautiful with Schelling’s tendency to
individuation, and presupposes the intimate relation of the beautiful
to the biological, the plastic, the creative ; but, in no respect, invalidates
the reference of the idea of beauty to the wave-motion, which consti
tutes the law of force.
Hogarth, who located the principle in the curve, did, it seems, ap
proximate to the solution of the problem; the principle being really
the undulative or indeterminate curve, resultant from the wave-motion
of force as it enters into morphization. Prof. Tilman, in a recent
paper, has so lucidly developed the relations of the mathematical and
geometrical, upon which the symmetrical is grounded, to the musical
and rhythmical sound-wave, that argument is really superfluous. The
subject may, in fact, be pursued to any extent of illustration by reference
to instruments for the study of wave-motion, and to the subtler inves
tigation of the wave-forces that condition the forms of plants. The
beautiful must not be confounded with its geometry. The latter is the
skeleton, of which the former is the vivifaction and soul.
This analysis is supported essentially by the psychology of imagina
tive creation. Longfellow expresses himself as one—
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209
“ Who, through long days of labor
And nights devoid of ease.
Still hears in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.”
Poe interprets the instinct when in “ Israfel ” he moans out—
“ If I could dwell where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody.
While a bolder note than his might swell
From my lyre within the sky.”
Again, depicting the poet under the similitude of a beautiful palace, he
sings—
“ And travelers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tuned law.”
Shelley, more profoundly a poet than either mentioned, typifies the
poet in his “ Skylark ” thus—
“ Higher still, and higher.
Heavenward thou springest;
Like a cloud of fire,
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.”
_
But why multiply instances, when, from the bulbul-hearted Hafiz to
ethereally musical Tennyson, no poet has left the instinct for rhythm
unexpressed—when, in fact, the undulative is grounded in the very
nature of the art-instinct ? The wave-motion is the essential element
of the beautiful in imaginative poiesis, whether it be considered as the
rhythm-wave of poetry or as the sound-wave of music, or as the line
wave of art proper. Connect the gamut of musical sound with the
spectrum of color, and it will be seen, adopting the undulatory hypo
thesis of light, that the two have a direct relation. Red, produced by
the least number of light undulations, represents the tonic; yellow, the
mediant; and blue, the dominant. The darkest color, indigo, falls on
the relative minor tonic; the brightest yellow, on the brilliant medi
ant. It would, in fact, be perfectly easy to set the Ut-Re-Mi-Fa-SolLa-Si of the sound-septave to the septave of the spectrum; the color
translating the sound to the eye harmoniously, and the mathematical
correspondence of undulation to undulation being preserved with per
fect accuracy. The deduction is that light, heat, and actinism result
from undulations of the same attenuated medium; the perception of
light and color resulting from the ratio of undulations embraced in a
single octave. The deduction, incident to this ratiocination, is, how
ever, a broader one, to wit, that the wave-motion, the rhythmical im
pulse, is inherent in the objectively beautiful, whether it be represented
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THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
in sound dolor, or form, which latter constitutes simply the perma
nence of ttave-motion—is its mummifaction, so to speak, in connec
tion with matter; and in this rhythmical impulsion is, no doubt,
grounded the aesthetic (dement of the objective, its existence consti
tuting the basis of the aesthetic perception.
The universality of the rhythmical in the operation of force has
been assumed by so acute a Positivist as Herbert Spencer, and proved;
and what has been once demonstrated under the scientific method
need not be re-argued, further than to point out the parallelism be
tween natural and psychological operations, that is, to identify the
objective principle with the subjective idea—further than to admit the
conclusion that the art-method of human consciousness is identical
with the art-method of the phenomenal.
There is nothing in Mr. Spencer’s law of rhythm, except its incor
poration as a part of the scientific method. Dreamers were aware of it
before thinkers were. Plato expressed it in his music of the spheres;
and an old English author propounded it quaintly in the apothegm:
“The verie source and, so to speak, springheade of all Musicke is the
verie pleasant sound that the trees make when they grow.” It has, too,
been one of the ever-recurring imaginings of poetry. Mrs. Browning
expresses it:
“ The divine impulsion cleaves
In dim music to the leaves,
Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted,
In the sunlight greenly sifted—
In the.sunlight and the moonlight
Greenly sifted through the trees.
Ever wave the Eden trees
In the sunlight and the moonlight,
In the nightlight and the noonlight,
Never stirred by rain or breeze.”
Or, again, here is a poetic personification of the rhythmical impulse in
nature, from “ Al Araaf
“ Ligeia, Ligeia,
My beautiful one,
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
Say is it thy will
On the breezes to toss,
Or, capriciously still.
Like the lone albatross,
Incumbent on night
As she on the air,
To direct with delight
All the harmony there ?
Indeed, it is not the uucommonness of the fancy, but the common
ness of it, which gives it dignity; and its admission into the scientific
method is valueless except as demonstrative proof of the hypothesis
�THE SCIENTIFIC BASTS OF ORTHODOXY.
211
that the æsthetic evolution of nature is identifiable with the æsthetic
evolution of art.
As philosophy, historically speaking, is a response to the rational
ideal, so art, music, poetry is a response—vague it may be as the music
of Memnon’s statue, unsatisfactory as the fatuous fire of the Will-o’the-Wisp, but a response nevertheless to the psychal ideal, to the
toiling to embody the ultimate in form. For this the musician
trickles music from his finger-tips, and the poet sets his vision to melody
of numbers; for this, the insensate blossoms into forms of supernal
loveliness ; for this, the quarried marble is fashioned into shapes of
beauty by the hand of the artist; for this, in short, the imagination
creates unto itself an ideal Eden, reflecting in form, in color, in mel
ody, its own vague prophecies of the absolute in beauty. In the
rustle of leaves, in the soughing of winds, in the muffled music of rain
upon grass, in the rhythmical laughter of rills, in the tremulous swing
ing of reeds—in all things, in a word, in which the wave-motion is ex
pressed, it seeks expression for its own sublimated conceptions of the
ideal—that ideal which is forever restless, and which, probably, no col
location of present physical forms could fully embody.
Men deficient in the art-instinct may sneer at the æsthetic inspira
tion as fare il santo, but it has its historical significance, nevertheless.
Truth, in essence, is sublime ; but its loftiest sublimity is lifeless—is
pulseless—is utterly ineffective when brought into comparison with the
inspiration of the beautiful. Dismiss rhapsody, and make a last deduc
tion—a deduction that logically ensues and offers a solution of the
riddle. It is that, the absolute in consciousness attained, man, still
ceasing not to be man, shall find in the full evolution of beauty the
historical answer to the struggle to create firms of physical loveliness.
It is that matter, mastered by consciousness and answering imme
diately, as it now answers mediately, to the art-instinct, shall yield
itself to the expression of the psychal ideal with perfect fluidity and
subjection. Whence, from beauty ephemeral is deduced beauty eternal.
The imaginative poiesis having been identified in principle with
the natural evolution of the beautiful, as the philosophical poiesis is
identifiable with the rationale of that phenomenal evolution, a more
minute analysis of the processes of the philosophical and imaginative
may be attempted. Both begin with perception, and proceed from per
ception to poiesis. The gradations from perception to philosophy in
the rational intellect are :
1. Perception of the object as object.
2. Perception of the object as subject, that is, rational cognition—
understanding.
3. Rational discursion, or pure reason—eventuating in philosophy.
The rational cognition or understanding is inclusive alike of the
cognition of the mathematical and of the logical relations of the
object.
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THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
The gradations of the imaginative or sensitive intellect are:—
1. Perception of the object as object.
2. Sensitive cognition, or cognition of the object as subject, that is,
in its relation to the idea of beauty—taste.
3. Sensitive discursion, or imagination—eventuating in artistic,
musical, or poetic creation.
Taking up the third poiesis, that is, the inspirational, springing his
torically from the theanthropic instinct, a third formulation is neces
sary to complete the formulations of the historical manifestation of the
human consciousness in what may be termed the literary form. This
third poiesis begins with the intuitional, and may be formulated
thus:
1. Intuitional perception, that is, perception of the absolute as the
ground (Urgrunde) of the relative.
2. Intuitional cognition, that is, cognition of the absolute as sub
jective—faith.
3. Intuitional discursion—eventuating in prophecy, in revelation,
or, more comprehensively stated, in theanthropomorphization.
This formulation agrees substantially with that adopted in the
phrenological scheme—which, however, can have no scientific psychol
ogy—though I may suggest that, in phrenology, that which is termed
the semi-intellectual would be more accurately described by the word
psychal, while for intellectual I should substitute rational, and for
religious, intuitional. In relation to the phenomenal, the rational
identifies itself with causation; the imaginative or psychal with
morphization; the intuitional with theanthropomorphization as the
historical deduction of consciousness and the historical destiny of
man.
Any who may wish to study the data upon which the preceding
generalizations are based, may, without subjecting themselves to the
trouble of looking further, consult Mr. Lewes’ history of philosophy,
the admirable work of M. Henry Taine, on art-criticism, and the pro
foundly philosophical treatise on sacred history, in the publication of
which Prof. Kurtz has done more to turn back the current of rational
ism than the whole body of his orthodox confreres taken together;
referring them to which, I may be permitted to take leave of historical
induction, and devote the remainder of the argument to the evolution
of a biological definition, sufficiently broad to cover not only the struc
tural, physiological, and psychological per se, but also the ultimate the
anthropomorphization which historical induction indicates as the final
historical sublimate of humanity.
I cannot, however, pass to the evolution of the biological definition
without noticing a curious and very superficial error, into which, mis
led by eminent English thinkers and savans, Mr. Fiske has fallen in
his summary lecture on Positivism. “ Since,” says that gentleman—
“ since the process of generalization has successively metamorphosed
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213
fetishism into polytheism,, and polytheism into monotheism, the in
ference is that it must eventually complete the metamorphosis of mono
theism into Positivism; and thus Positivism regards itself as the le
gitimate successor of theology.” So partial is this generalization, and
so inconsequent and unpsychological is its conclusion, that it seems
strange that Mr. Fiske should have gravely enunciated it. So far as
the historical fact is concerned, monotheism began with the beginning
of history. Historically speaking, the relapse was from monotheism
into polytheism, that is, monotheism preceded. Fetishism cannot be
postulated as the starting-point of theism: Accepting the book of
Genesis as the initial attempt at history, which is demonstrably true,
it is obvious that theology began with monotheism in the Semitic
stem. The history of this stem presents the only completed cycle of
theanthropomorphization grounded in the persistence of the mono
theistic conception. The Indo-European stem presents at the begin
ning of history a series of mythological cosmogonies essentially simi
lar, but evidently deduced from the Semitic, which, though polytheistic
in terminology, are pantheistic in ultimate analysis. The Hindoo,
Persian, Gothic, Grecian, and Roman systems constitute a group, in
which monotheism original seems, by gradual process of theanthropo
morphization, imaginative rather than historical, to have been meta
morphosed into mythologies, superficially polytheistic, but essentially
pantheistic. In their cosmological systems they are evidently deriva
tive from the Semitic, which is historically older. The Egyptian and
Assyrian systems are still more obviously derivative from the Semitic.
All these derivative mythologies begin with the postulation of a mono
theistic original, answering to the Elohim, as in the Jupiter of the
Greeks, for example, and proceed to polytheism upon the principle of
multiplication; effecting a partial return to monotheism in the pan
theism that succeeds. The Mongolian stem differs from the IndoEuropean in details of mythology and cosmology, but not so essentially
as to stand aloof from the generalization; and, again, historically con
sidered, fetishism is rather representative of a degraded monotheism
than original. In all the so-called pagan systems, there are prismatic
reflections of the original element of the theanthropomorphization
more historically developed in the Semitic system. They appear in the
Vedas, in the Zendavesta. They are written in hieroglyphics amid the
relics of Egypt. They reappear in the Gothic, Greek, and Roman
mythologies, though more feebly; and, generally, the remoter the an
tiquity of the system, the more distinctly derivative from the Semitic
are these prismatic reflections. The pagan cycle, therefore, begins with
monotheism, descends to polytheism by theistic multiplication, and
ends in pantheism by generalization of the polytheistic. The return
to monotheism is effected through the historical triumph of the Semitic
system, which, having completed its first cycle in the synthesis (theo
retical at least) of the divine consciousness with the human, assumes
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THE SCIENTIFIC BASTS OF ORTHODOXY.
universality by general diffusion and propagation, and becomes the
great developing element of an historical civilization, grounded upon
monotheism and the ultimate historical theanthropomorphization of
man. The utmost deduction of the rational intellect postulates ulti
mate cause, which the realistic instinct of the imagination transforms
into a world-soul, which is pantheism; and, as a generalization, it may
be observed that, in the ancient pagan civilizations, in the old IndoEuropean civilization generally—in which the rational and imaginative
have had the ascendency—the theistic idea has lapsed from monotheism
into polytheism, and from polytheism, by synthesis of polytheistic gen
eralizations, has ascended into pantheism, and there has been arrested.
The historical generalization is, it is seen, in substantial concord with
the psychological deduction that the dominance of the aesthetic in
stinct universally results in pantheism. Poets are inevitably pan
theistic in proportion to the dominance of the imagination—that is, in
proportion to the dominance of the psychal over the intuitional—
as artists are in ratio to the intensity of the art-insight. The phil
osophical insight, on the other hand, is neutral—neither theistic nor
atheistic—and concerns itself with the absolute in causation without
regard to the realization of the absolute in causation in some absolute
ego supposed to stand at the head of the cosmology in the attitude
of the cosmical soul. The element of theanthropomorphization, in as
far as it colors the Greek system, must be referred, partially, to the em
bers of monotheism perdu and transmuted from the Semitic, and, par
tially, to the struggle of the intuitional to assert itself in „the Greek
civilization.
The elements of polytheism and pantheism have, historically con
sidered, always been ephemeral and fluctuating. The element of mono
theism, having as its historical end the theanthropomorphization of the
human, has, on the other hand, been permanent, and constitutes the
basis of most that is valuable in the present European system of civili
zation. The historical induction, therefore, denies the validity of Mr.
Fiske’s conclusion, and leads to the hypothesis that monotheism and
theanthropomorphization will complete the cycle of history in the
realization of the latter. Thus, the present cycle of history is found to
embrace the interval of biological evolution included between the reali
zation of the ego as conditioned consciousness and the realization of
the ego as unconditioned consciousness; and thus egotism, in its better
sense, appears as the definition of history. Thus, too, biology must be
considered as divisible into two cycles, to wit, the cycle of pre-historic
evolution, and that of evolution historical; and thus, again, the histor
ical permanence of theology, as at present constituted, may be as
sumed ; the post-historical being of course represented by perfected
theanthropomorphization.
�THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
215 x
II.—THE NECESSARY BIOLOGICAL DEFINITION.
The imperfect condition of biology prevented the contemporary
appreciation of the value and significance of Hartley’s interpretation of
Lockian philosophy ; and, until the end of the eighteenth century the
glittering sensationalism of Condillac divided the philosophical laurels
with crude materialism. The first reaction was constituted by the le
cœur system advocated by Laromiguiere and Victor Cousin—a spiritu
alistic reaction of the most superficial kind, consisting in equal quan
tities of tawdry rhetoric and rhapsodical appeal to the testimony of the
heart. Having deluged France with a diarrhoea of words that meant
nothing, the system died of its own want of vitality. In England, at the
same time, the scepticism of Hume had produced a philosophical crisis.
Then came Kant, in Germany, and Comte, in France—the formel'
laying tlie foundation for Hegelism, and the latter appearing as the
founder of the Positive system, which may be conditioned as the syn
thesis of the methods and doctrines of science. The distinctively Posi
tive attitude of Galileo, Descartes, and Bacon, to the last of whom is
due the authoritative enunciation of the second canon of Positivism,
prepared the way for that system as elaborated by Comte. The first
canon of Positivism resulted from the reconsideration of the meta
physics of Spinoza, in England, and was the direct consequence of the
movement begun by Hobbes and continued by Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume. The first two canons of Positivism are, therefore, pre-Comteian. The last three propositions are peculiar to Comte and Spencer,
the two great apostles of the Positive system, the ground-theorem of
which is that the sciences can be made to furnish the materials neces
sary to the evolution of a complete, synthetic, and unified conception
of the world. Fundamentally, the practical realization of this unified
conception depends upon the biological definition which must be equal
to the covering of the metaphysical as well as the physical, and equal
to the explanation, not only of the pre-historic and historical, but also
of the post-historic. For the latest and most lucidly-arranged collec
tion and collation of the data of biology, the student is referred to
Herbert Spencer’s “ First Principles ” and his two volumes on biologi
cal science, issued by the Appletons.
The direction of foreign scientific investigation tends to lessen the
number of primary assumptions ; and it is now substantially conceded
that hardness, solidity, rigidity, impenetrability, elasticity, and the like,
are not properties of matter, but manifestations of attendant force.
“ The monstrous assumption of philosophers that the infinitely peren
nial specific quality of matter-atoms is due to infinite strength and
infinite rigidity, has for its only pretext,” says Sir William Thomson,
4f that adopted by Newton and eminent modern physicists, namely :
that it seems to account for the unalterable distinguishing qualities of
�216
Tin: SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
different kinds of matter. The movement toward the rejection of the
hypothesis that atoms are infinitely strong and infinitely rigid was t
started by Helmholtz, three years since, in his investigation of the
dynamical properties of vortex rings, from which he eliminates an
important conclusion. Describing their motion as wirbel-bewegung
(whirling motion), he concludes, from his experiments, that, if once
set up a perfect fluid, that is, a fluid with no viscosity or friction of
particles, it would be absolutely perpetual. Inertia would then be
overcome. Vortex rings may be produced by smokers by arranging
the lips so as to pronounce the letter 0, and expelling smoke from the
mouth gently, with the lips in that position. The smoke answers the
function to render the rings visible—they being just as readily pro
ducible in transparent air, as has been experimentally demonstrated.
These cylindrical rings move upward, when expelled from the mouth,
perpendicularly to their planes, revolving rapidly, as they move, around
a circular axis. This rotation corresponds in direction on the inner
side with the general motion of the ring; the outer side moving in
a contrary direction. They are not broken by impelling them one
against another, but rebound with singular elasticity, the integrity of
the ring being preserved.
It was this investigation upon which Sir Wm. Thomson grounded
his new theory of the molecular constitution of matter; its ground
theorem being that a closed vortex core is literally indivisible by any
action resultant from vortex motion. All bodies being composed of
vortex atoms, therefore, the infinitely perennial specific quality of
atoms is explicable without the Newtonian assumption.
Helmholtz, having proved that this quality exists in a perfect fluid
when the motion he terms wirbel-bewegung has been created, and
actual experiments having proved that when smoke rings in air are so
impelled as to come in collision they cannot be made to penetrate each
other, but rebound resiliently, Sir William deduces the conclusion
that, by packing them more closely than gases are packed under the
dynamical theory, the properties of liquids and solids might be ex
plained without assuming the atoms themselves to be either liquid or
solid, and the further conclusion that the number of primary as
sumptions may be lessened by one on the hypothesis that all bodies are
composed of vortex atoms in a perfectly homogeneous fluid. The
dynamic theory of gases, now received by Thomson, Tait, Joule, Helm
holtz, and others—European physicists of eminence all of them—is in
concord with Prof. Thomson’s hypothesis also, which as generalization
is of eminent value to physicists. Prof. Huxley, more recent in his
conclusions, seems to assume the matter-atom as per se dynamic, if
his biological definition is indicial of any opinion on the subject; and,
generally, it will be noted, the tendency of physical science is to lessen
the number of primary assumptions by rejecting the Newtonian enum
eration of the primary properties.
�THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
217
The same general tendency may be observed in relation to the
physical forces. Prof. Grove has proved that light and heat are moods
of the same force. Faraday long since demonstrated that magnetism
would produce electricity, with the important condition, how
ever, that the electricity so produced is static, not dynamic;
directive, not active; while Helmholtz has developed many curious
analogies in his work on the interaction of forces. Mayer has done
considerable in the same direction ; while Carpenter has brought out the
essential relation of the physical to the vital forces. These data have
been all collected by Prof. Youmans, and brought together into a single
ably edited volume.
This vortex-atomic theory involves, however, an unverifiable hy
pothesis in the determination of the specific form of the atom, which
is an assumption to be avoided if possible, and can be by postulating
that matter is dynamo-atomic. The qualities or properties of matter
are thus reducible to a single postulate, which is self-evident, to wit,
capacity for motion. Carrying the deduction a step further, from the
correlation and interaction of all forces so-called, and from the demon
strated identity of light and heat; from the proved convertibility of
forces and the demonstrated conservation of them, the generalization
is valid that force is essentially the same, and that what are termed
forces are only moods of one universal force, which may be either dy
namic or static, either directive or motive, and the law of the motion
of which is undulation, or rhythm, or, more properly, the wave or
progressive motion.
The physicist may begin, therefore, with three simple postulates,
two of which are self-evident:
I. Force, that which causes to move—affording a very simple ex
planation of gravitation, light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and con
sciousness, by reference of either to mood.
II. Matter, that which is moved—rigidly excluding all assumption
of so-called primary qualities from the definition.
III. The explanation of physical, psychal, and intellectual phenom
ena in strict accordance with the dynamical hypothesis, that is, upon
principles strictly mathematical.
The presupposition of the undulatory theory of light is that of an
ethereal and exceedingly attenuated medium, which may, perhaps,
answer the definition of the perfect homogeneous fluid necessary to
the permanence of the wirbel-bewegung in Helmholtz’s deduction or
Thomson’s vortex-atomic hypothesis. The dynamo-atomic hypothesis
presupposes the same attenuated medium or ethereal matter pervading
all cosmical interval. The cosmological evolution begins, therefore,
with a dynamic element or. causative of motion, that is, force, and a
static element or vehicle of motion, that is, matter—which, strangely
enough, answer very minutely to the ancient cosmological postulates
of the male and female principles in the genesis of cosmogonies. This
28
�218
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
force is either motive or directive, either transitive or modal. Magne
tism may be made to produce static electricity, as has been dem
onstrated by Prof. Faraday. Both electricity and magnetism may
be developed into activity by motion or revolution—the difference be
tween them being that electricity seems to be eccentric and diffusive,
while magnetism is concentric and attractive. Assuming. that polar
magnetism is magnetic force set free by revolution, and that the
magnetic force is concentric—the needle, when magnetized at only one
end, should point to the centre of the earth, which is in correspond
ence with the fact. Both ends being magnetized and the needle bal
anced, it points in the direction of the magnetic pole, parallel with the
magnetic current. Again, place a compass near the magnetic
pole and compel the needle to keep its horizontal position, and it
points any way at random ; but, if left to itself, it points downward
toward the centre of the earth, and this constitutes what is termed
the dip of the -needle, as you move it from the equator in the direction
of either pole. The conclusion is, therefore, that magnetism is concen
tric, which accounts for the facts, without supposing the interior of
the earth to be a fixed natural magnet, which is disproved by the vari
ation of the needle from year to year in the same locality, an exhaustive
investigation of the laws of which was instituted by John A. Parker
in 1866, and printed in the volume of American Institute reports for
1867, under the general head of Polar Magnetism. The conclusion is
that electricity and magnetism represent the eccentric and concentric
moods of the same force—the latter constituting the ground of what
Newton terms gravitation. The former is diffusive; the latter, attract
ive. Heat and light resulting from undulations of the same attenua
ted medium, differ materially in this: that the former varies inversely
as the length of the undulation, while the perception of the latter re
sults from the ratio of undulations embraced in a single octave; and,
again, heat appears to be attractive, while light is diffusive. Assuming
these four to represent the concentric and eccentric moods, affinity
may be postulated as their synthesis; and this completes the cosmo
logical generalization. Again, assume the vitality which is allied to
electricity as eccentric, and nervosity allied to magnetism as concen
tric, and consciousness represents the synthesis of all the moods in
biology. The cosmological analysis is formulated thus:—
Eccentric moods ------ Light-------- Electricity \
Concentric moods-------Heat-------- Magnetism
The biological formulary of the forces proceeds further, and stands
thus:—
Eccentric moods ------ Light------- Electricity
Concentric moods------ Heat------- Magnetism
Afflnity /Vitality > Consciousness.
\ Nervosity '
The classification of vitality with the eccentric, and of nervosity
with the concentric, is in concord with the fact that temperaments in
which vitality predominates are the more electric; while temperaments
�T H fí S C TEN TIFIO B J S r S O F O U T HOB O X Y.
219
having a predominance of nervosity are the more magnetic. Or. again,
the temperament of vitality develops more color; while the tempera
ment of nervosity develops more intensity. The formulation pro
pounded need not, however, be further verified, since the argument
from comparative anatomy is conclusive as to its validity—the data
being matters of every-day observation. Two points of the ground
assumption remain to be stated, to wit, the persistence of force and the
persistence of matter; the mutable element appearing in form. Of the
two former the absolute may be predicated ; the latter constitutes the
basis of phenomenal evolution and dissolution, or, in other words, the
element of non-persistence and limitation. It is, therefore, neither in
force nor in matter per se that the relative element appears, but in
morphization. The formulation of the two primary assumptions as
cosmological or biological includes, therefore, motion and form, and is
represented as : Force, that which causes motion, the law of the evolution
of which (motion) is rhythm; Matter, that in which motion appears,
either as simple and continuous, the law of which is rhythm; or as
arrested and limitedly persistent, that is, form or morphization, the law
of which is beauty. As morphization, form pertains to cosmology; as
individuation, to biology.
It is not proposed to attempt here the framing of a mécanique celeste
adopted to the dynamo-atomic theory, though, given the wirbel-bewegwig,
the elements upon which to ground a cosmological system are com
plete. Neither is it purposed to enter upon an analysis and enumera
tion of the data of biology, in which little could be added to the ad
mirable induction and collation already developed by Herbert Spencer.
The aim of this critique is, on the other hand, to develop an adequate
biological definition. The definitions thus far propounded are referable
to three generalizations, to wit:
1. Life is the tendency to individuation, which is German and con
notes the essential physical condition of the evolution of organism,
that is, individuality.
2. Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and de
composition, at once general and continuous—which is essentially
physiological and merely the assertion of a fact, rather than a general
ization from a collection of facts.
3. Life is the co-ordination of actions—which, again, is simply the
assertion of a fact, and the same fact as before, looked at from the
stand-point of the physicist rather than from that of the physiologist.
The first represents life merely as a tendency impressed upon the
constitution of matter; the second apprehends physiologically the
necessary condition of a living organism ; while the third apprehends
the same condition scientifically. The post-Kantian or Hegelian
period of German philosophy, if valuable for no other reason, is to be
credited with the only proximately satisfactory definition of life, as
well as a great many valuable contributions to' literary criticism. The
�220
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
sin of German speculators has been—owingto a certain realistic ten
dency or disposition to mistake words for things, expunged from the
Latin stock by dialectics, but still inherent in German—the seemingly
profound at the expense of the really and intelligibly profound—as all
philosophy postulated upon so-called intellectual intuition necessarily
must be. Still, it is by no means a sequitur that the postulate is to be
denied, for there can exist no doubt as to the validity of the conclusion
that, as there is a poetic intuition or imaginative insight as to the ideal
in beauty, so the highest sublimation of the rational intellect is intui
tional in its processes. Of course, it is possible to explain the seem
ingly intuitional by assuming insensible processes of deduction going
on in the mind, but not perceived as going on, and, therefore, occult ;
but the fact remains : both the imaginative vision and the rational
vision are, in their most sublimated phases, rather immediate than
mediate. The evidence of fact is ample as to this point and this mood
of intellect, the paroxysms of which are rare—are, in their illumi
nation, as if a star had burst inside of one’s head—often astonish, as
if a sun had shot athwart the heavens at midnight. Having no
method of proof, however, the rational intuition is valueless to philo
sophical speculation ; and this fact Bacon, himself most profoundly
intuitional, was sensible enough to apprehend and announce in the
promulgation of the objective method. Logically, therefore, upon
Bacon, as the father of the objective method in philosophy, and New
ton, almost the father of physical discovery, the Positive system de
pends ; and yet the evolution of the only profound biological definition
is due to one of the dreamiest disciples of the subjective.
If the wave-motion be taken as the basis of the law of rhythm in
the action of motive force, it is to be considered in itself as both pro
gressive and analogous to Helmholtz’s irirbel-bewegHng, since it has
been proved by Gerstner and Scott Russell that, in the typical wave
motion of a liquid, in the ocean-wave, for example, all the particles
revolve at the same time, in the same direction, and in vertical col
umns. This pulsating motion appears at least in a couple of species
of plants—the Hedysarum gyrans and the Colocasia esculenta, as to
the rhythmical tremor, of which latter M. Lecoq reported to the
Academy of Sciences, France, in 1867, some very curious and interest
ing observations—and upon it and its dynamical laws is, no doubt, to
be grounded the permanent hypothesis of mécanique celeste, all cos
mical creation being analogous to a limitless and palpitating heart. At
the basis of all motion lies this rhythmical impulse.
It is not scientific to assume special creations in biology. For its
purposes, evolution is the fundamental conception of organism ; and,
as Mr. Spencer has been lucid in his definition of evolution and of its
processes, quotation is admissible :
“1. An object is said to be homogeneous when one of its parts is like
every other part. An illustration is not easy to find, as perfect homo
�THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
221
geneity has probably never existed in the universe. But one may say
that a piece of gold is homogeneous as compared with a piece of wood ;
or that a wooden ball is homogeneous as compared with an orange.
“ 2. An object is said to be heterogeneous where its parts have no
resemblance to one another. All objects whatever are more or less
heterogeneous. But a tree is said to be heterogeneous as compared
with the seed from which it has sprung; and• an orange is heteroge
neous as compared to a wooden ball.
“ 3. Differentiation is the arising of an unlikeness between any two
of the units which make up an aggregate. A piece of iron, before it is
exposed to the air, is, to all intents and purposes, homogeneous. But
when, by exposure to the air, it has acquired a coating of oxide, it is
heterogeneous. The units composing its outside are unlike the units
composing its inside; or, in other words, its outside is differentiated
from its inside.
“ 4. Integration is the grouping together of those units of a hetero
geneous aggregate which resemble one another. A good example is
afforded by crystallization. The particles of the crystallizing substance,
which resemble each other, and which have no resemblance to the par
ticles of the solvent fluid, gradually unite to form the crystal; which is
that said to be integrated from the solution. Another case of integra
tion is seen in the rising of cream upon the surface of a dish of milk,
and in the frothy collection of carbonic acid bubbles covering a lately
filled glass of ale. When small pebbles, mixed with sand, are thrown
into a tumbler and gently agitated, the result is an integration of the
pebbles at the bottom of the vessel and of the sand above them.”
From these definitions, which are definitions of processes, he
deduces his definition of evolution :
“ Whether it be in the development of the earth, in the develop
ment of life upon its surface, in the development of society, of govern
ment, manufactures, of commerce, of language, literature, science, art,
this same advance from the simple to the complex, through successive
differentiations, holds uniformly. From the earliest traceable cosmical
phenomena down to the latest results of civilization, it will be found
that the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous is
that in which evolution essentially consists.”
There may be doubts as to the precision of the definition of evolu
tion as applied to biology. The tendency of matter to organization
would, perhaps, express Mr. Spencer’s meaning more definitively; the
tendency to individuation expressing with more precision that which
Mr. Spencer terms integration. In fact, the definitions of the English
philosopher pertain rather to non-biological evolution than to the evo
lution of living organism.
Pre-historically considered, the tendency of matter to organization
expresses the biological definition with sufficient precision; but, with
the advent of humanity, the necessitv for a broader and deeper gene-
�222
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF O li T H O D 0 X F.
ralization appears. The phenomenon of self-consciousness must, be
accounted for and admitted into the generalization, if it is to cover
more than the mere physical conditions of being, which are expressed
definitely enough in the first definition quoted, which is attributable
to Schelling, or in the second, proposed by De Blainville, or in the
third, which belongs to Mr. Spencer. For philosophical purposes, as
inclusive of the phenofnenon of self-consciousness, it is necessary to
attempt a deeper generalization—to begin with the beginning, that is,
with matter, and end with the result, that is, with self-consciousness.
Individuation must appear simply as a law of biological evolution ; and
the co-ordination of actions as a condition of its persistence. The
word tendency expresses the dynamic idea sufficiently lucidly, and is,
perhaps, preferable to motion or impulse for purposes of definition.
The three words, matter, as expressive of the ground of organism,
tendency, as expressive of its dynamical direction, and consciousness, as
expressive of its logical end, may, therefore, be adopted as the basis of
definition. The collateral of consciousness, to wit, self-hood, must be
included in the generalization, as also must that of realization ; and
the fabric is logically complete. Put in the form of a proposition, it
stands thus:
Life is the tendency of matter to self-consciousness.
The propositions of Schelling, De Blainville and Spencer are expres
sive simply of certain laws of evolution incident to the tendency of
matter toward the realization of self-consciousness, and may be formu
lated thus:
1. Law of evolution : progressive individuation.
2. Law of persistence : co-ordination of actions.
3. Law of physiology: twofold internal movement of composition
and decomposition, at once general and continuous.
The first might, perhaps, be better designated as the law of mor
phization, though evolution is more comprehensive, and, for philo
sophical purposes,- is the most important of the three—the two latter
pertaining merely to physics. There remains yet a fourth law, grounded
upon the ratiocination which has preceded: it is the law of beauty.
For investigation of the question, What is to be the ultimate sublimate
of humanity ? the two latter may be rejected, and the law of beauty
added. The formulary will then be expressed:
Life is the tendency of matter to self-consciousness.
1. First law of morphization : progressive individuation.
2. Second law of'morphization : progressive beauty, that is, progress
from beauty as relative to beauty as absolute, from beauty as ephemeral
to beauty as persistent and eternal.
The persistence of the dynamic and static elements in organism,
that is, force and matter, has never been denied. The morphization
has constituted the element of mutation ; and that its mutation or
want of absolute persistence is due to the imperfect realization of the
�THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOX T.
223
individual and the beautiful in organism, ensues as a logical conse
quence. Again, as the struggle of matter is to apprehend itself in con
sciousness, and as the struggle of the limited in consciousness is to
attain the absolute in consciousness, it ensues, as a logical consequence,
that the realization of the theological ideal of the historical destiny of
man is by no means undemonstrable from the data and inductions of
science. There is one law worth noting here, as to the persistence of
the dynamic element, not only per se, but in any special mood that it
may develop. The modal persistence of forcé has given occasion to
assume plurality of forces; and there is as little reason to suppose that
the mood of self-consciousness—its most sublimated mood, certainly—
is not persistent as there is to suppose that the mood of magnetism is
not persistent. Admitting, therefore, the persistence of conservation
of force, as Prof. Carpenter terms it, and the further persistence of
mood, which is demonstrable from Prof. Grove’s investigations as to
the correlation of forces—the scientific induction proves the persistence
of self-consciousness, which may be termed the individuation of force ;
demonstrating thereby the theological dogma of the immortality of
the soul.
It is obvious, therefore, that theology may be brought within the
circle of scientific induction, provided the biological definition be deep
ened in its generalization, as heretofore suggested, sa as to include the
phenomenon of consciousness. This conclusion is, of course, fatal to
the pretensions of Positivism as the successor of theology, and indi
cates, with the precision that a weather-vane indicates the direction of
an air-current, that the historical persistence of the two fundamental
propositions in which the theological system is grounded, to wit, mono
theism and the historical theanthropomorphization of humanity, is
both a valid deduction from the phenomenon of consciousness and a
valid induction of science. Moreover, this induction, valid upon the
hypothesis of the unity of force, is of equal validity, whether what are
termed forces be simply moods, or original dynamic principles. The
ego, therefore, is a persistent and indestructible individuality, the self
expression of which constitutes history, the evolution of which consti
tutes the pre-historic biology, the finality of which, historical progress
being interpreted as the struggle of the limited in consciousness to com
pass the absolute in consciousness, is theanthropy or that realization of
the absolute, which the inspirational poiesis historically foreshadows.
At first glance, the biological definition herein proposed resembles a
truism, and, if I mistake not, a truism it is. The fact, however, that it
has been overlooked in the dreary annals of physical and metaphysical
speculation,, answers sufficiently well as an apology for having inflicted
upon the reader a rather obvious train of ratiocination looking to its
elimination. So many have been the fantastic pagodas of logic upreared
with the view of topping them with the solution of the mystery of
being, that it must be refreshing to peruse something obvious—at least
�224
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ORTHODOXY.
semi-occasionally; and this is my apology for having discussed at
length and rather discursively—for having endeavored to demonstrate,
step by step, a theorem which is, in all respects, almost too self-evident
to need elaborate demonstration.
The key is simple; but, with it may be unraveled the riddle. It
unlocks the door, at least, of a reconciliation of theology with the
scientific method; and, as both must be ranked as persistent, the recon
ciliation is desirable. Simple as is its generalization, it opens the way,
too, for bringing metaphysics within the circle of scientific demonstra
tion, and founds a durable scientific basis upon which to build the
structure of theological metaphysics: for, theologically stated, the
biological definition is equally explicit in its adherence to scientific
induction. Let me state it theologically:
Life is the tendency of the material toward the spiritual, eventuating
in the consciousness of self.
Supplement this definition with a second definition, that is, a defi
nition of history from the theological point of view, and the basis of
the theological fabric is complete and grounded on inexorable scientific
induction as well. This second definition may be thus formulated :
History is the struggle of the human in the direction of theanthropy,
eventuating in incarnation, and having for its enji the ultimate his
torical synthesis of the human with the God-consciousness.
This is the goal of the toilers after knowledge, and the goal that
forever eludes their pursuit.. It is the basis of the dreams of Kepler;
of the scientific reveries of Comte; of the inexorable inductions of
Bucan, of the splendid cosmogony of La Place; of the goblin philo
sophical structures of Hegel and Schelling. It constitutes the secret
of the vain pursuit of man after the phantom of truth, of beauty, of
novelty—in short, after the distant and vaguely apprehended ideals he
seeks to attain, but to attain which were yet madness. Budderless and
compassless, he presses on, in thought, in dream, in reverie, in art, in
poetry, in philosophy, through fens of speculation and morasses of
ontology, until at last his fate overtakes him, and an epitaph is all that
is left to tell the story of his vain struggle after the Egeria of his
dreams^—the absolute.
If materialism is to be the coming philosophy, therefore, the subjec
tive tendency (or element) of matter must be admitted in order to ren
der philosophy possible. The definition of evolution as the progressive
struggle of matter in the direction of subjectivity, will then constitute
the true meaning of Mr. Spencer’s generalization; while life (in defini
tion) will be represented by matter as apprehending itself in subjec
tivity, and philosophy will return to a profounder era of metaphysics
in the explanation of the phenomenal upon psychological principles
The problem will be: Given the objective and subjective poles in mat
ter to find the x of the grand unity; and this is a problem in the study
of which theologians can join with scientists.
�
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The scientific basis of orthodoxy
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Fairfield, Francis Gerry
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [202]-224 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed in brown ink on cream paper. From Modern Thinker, no. 1,1870
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[American News Company]
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[1870]
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G5424
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Religion
Science
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The scientific basis of orthodoxy), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Conway Tracts
Orthodoxy
Science
-
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ac96bb432dc5570fbfc8c92275f1eb10
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Text
SUB LI MATED.
BY FRANCIS 'GERRY FAIRFIELD.
A
HALO round his head,
Like one who is transfigured
He was. “ Still Man, I am God-man,” he said.
He spake. His voice, at will,
It had strange power to soothe or thrill—
Music to recreate a soul, or kill.
I did not seem to hear
His voice with merely sensuous ear:
It thrilled within me: heart stood still with fear.
From him did presence well:
About him glory visible'
I saw. Upon my face in fear I fell.
“A thing of limits—laws—
Long ages since,” quoth he, “ I was—
Mistaking what was mere effect for cause.
“Upon the ultimate
I could but dream and speculate;
Then sit me sadly down—or work and wait.
“ Oft feverishly I wrought,
Quarrying out in deeds my thought;
But found a phantom in the good I sought.
“ To be—I knew not why—
To think I was, and then to die:
What after that came next ? That knew not I.
“ Through all my thought there ran
The feverish fantasy—I can
Be more than this: there’s more than this in Man.
“ So, human history—
My toil and struggle to be free!—
Thus dimly self-expression unto me.
�S UDLIMA TED.
“ As one who hath been sent,
Though, blindly to and fro I went—
Knowing not even what my message meant.
“ Would _ decipher it
And read—it was to me but fit
ful, vague, and uninterpretable writ.
“ I am,” quoth he. “ Is won
The goal. The work is ended—done:
Jehovah, God who spake, and Man are one.
4‘As if I were its soul,
Matter doth feel my weird control—
Thrills, blossoms, lives. I animate the whole.
“All things phenomenal
In quick ephemera I call. .
I will they shall be, merely: that is all
“ I need no tools—no skill—
No travail. With immediate thrill,
All stirs and palpitates: I merely will
“ I toil not, neither plod
To compass what I will or would:
Repeating in myself the self of God.
“ Yet I am Man, as when
Jehovah walked and talked with men
In dim, prismatic symbols—Man as then.
“No nation-prejudice
Have I. Broad as himself Man is;
And Earth, a single proud Cosmopolis.”
A halo round his head,
Like one who is transfigured
He was—or one who speaketh from the dead.
He ceased—was gone. Since then
Have I more faith and joy in men,
And things beyond mere philosophic ken.
For though the mist be dense,
Faith giveth me this recompense:
To see beyond as with an inner sense.
To know that, though mere clod
Or serf under the master’s rod,
There comes a Man- Historic, who is God.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Original Format
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Title
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Sublimated
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Fairfield, Francis Gerry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [151]-152 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. A poem. Francis Gerry Fairfield was a spiritualist and one of the earliest researchers into psychic phenomena.
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[American News Company]
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[1870]
Identifier
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G5420
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Sublimated), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Subject
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Poetry
Conway Tracts
Poetry in English
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4d7fc74261fd397a434a570cb1038c4a
PDF Text
Text
REBUILDING THE TEMPLE.
BY SALEM DUTCHER.
T is proposed to offer some suggestions for the better government
of these United States.
I
The Money Power.—I. Under the present system the Senate
consists of 74 members and the House of 243. A majority in
either body, or 38 in the Senate and 122 in the House, constitute a
quorum; and a majority of a quorum, or 20 in the Senate and 62 in
the House, can pass any appropriation bill. It is suggested that the
rule should be a two-thirds vote, or, as the figures now stand, 50 in the
Senate and 162 in the House. This would forbid the slipping through
of appropriations “ on a thin house,” and impede, if not prevent, appro
priations for party purposes.
e .
II. The President has no option as to the items of an appropriation;
he must approve all or reject all, and to remedy the evil growing out
of this—called “sandwiching,” or the insertion of corrupt items in a
bill otherwise fair and right—it is suggested that he should have the
power to approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appro
priation in the same bill, returning the disapproved items as in the
case of any other veto.
.
III. A practice has grown up in Congress of appropriating the pub
lic lands, money, and credit to private railway companies, which com
panies while constructing their roads out of the property of the people
of the United States, yet charge said people for the use of said roads as
fully as if they had been built with the companies’ own private means.
The corruptions superinduced by this practice are even more signal
than the injustice it embodies of charging the people for the use of
their own property; and it is suggested that Congress should be strictly
inhibited from any loan or gift of the lands, money, or credit of the
United States to any person, association, or corporation for the pur
poses of internal improvement.
New States.—The Senate consists of two representatives—aptly
termed ambassadors—from each State, and by reason of this equality
all the States are governmentally upon a par. On any given bill the
one member in the House from Nevada may vote no, and the thirty-one
members from New York vote aye, thus— supposing the vote of the
House otherwise to be equally divided—carrying the measure by thirty
majority; but on reaching the Senate the two Nevada senators are
�182
REBUILDING
THE
TEMPLE.
equal in their votes to the two from New York, and so far as any
measure turns on the States in question, Nevada puts New York at a
dead-lock. The chain being no stronger than its weakest link, it thus
appears that the political superiority of a large State to a small one is
more fanciful than real, and in this view the immense importance of
admitting a State may be perceived. And yet, just as twenty-five per
cent of Congress may appropriate millions, the same small proportion
can bring in new States. The temptation so to do for the purpose of
retaining or enlarging party power is one that these few years past haye
shown to be irresistible, and it is therefore suggested that no new States
should be admitted save by a two-thirds vote of both houses, the Senate
voting by States.
The Presidency.—Under the present system the President is eligible
indefinitely, and experience has proven that no sooner is a man chosen
to the chief magistracy than he uses the powers of that office to secure
a re-election. It is suggested, therefore, that the President be not
re-eligible.
Office.—The practice of putting up the public employments of the
United States as a prize for the victorious party at each presidential
election is too notorious an evil to need exposition. An efficient, faith
ful, and necessary public officer should not be removed so long as his
services are necessary, trustworthy and competent, always excepting
members of the Cabinet and persons in the diplomatic service, the
nature of whose employ renders it proper that the executive should
have the power to remove them at pleasure. Saving these, it is sug
gested that all public officers should be removable by the appointing
power when their services are unnecessary, or for misconduct or ineffi
ciency, and not otherwise. On this as a basis a civil service, which is.
an institution of slow growth, might be reared.
The Treaty Power.—Under the present system, it is the preroga
tive of the President, “by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present
concur.” As this latter clause puts it in the power of two-thirds of a
quorum, or but a fraction over one-third of the whole number of sena
tors, to concur in the making of any treaty proposed by the executive,
it follows, as the law now stands, that the President and any 26 out of
the 74 senators may conclude a treaty which shall be as binding upon
the United States as the Constitution itself. By such treaty, further
more, the faith of the United States may be pledged to the payment of
any large amount of money—as witness the $7,000,000 in gold coin for
Alaska—without any consultation with, or consent by, the House,
which is supposed to be so peculiarly the guardian of the public wealth
that all bills for raising revenue must originate therein, and on such
pledge the House is reduced to the alternative either of repudiating
the same and thus staining the credit of the republic, or acceding to an
appropriation which it may not approve either in object or amount.
�REBUILDING
THE
183
TEMPLE.
To do away with the evils of so anomalous a disposition of powers, it is
suggested that in case a proposed treaty calls for money, the concur
rence of the House by a two-thirds vote thereof should be obtained as
to so much of said treaty as regards the contemplated expenditure, and
then that two-thirds of all the senators elected to the Senate concur in
the treaty as a whole; all treaties not calling for money beyond a cer
tain merely ministerial amount, say $50,000, to be concurred in by a
majority of all the senators elected.
Representation.—Coming to the House, which is supposed to repre
sent population, it appears that though the popular vote at the presi
dential election of 1868 was 2,985,031 Republicans to 2,648,830 Demo
crats, the representatives stand 164 Republicans to 70 Democrats, instead
of 129 Republicans to 114 Democrats, as it should have been on the
ratio of the popular vote. This disproportion is due much less to a
defect in, than to an interference with, the electoral system. But for
extraneous violence the elections of 1868 would have given the compo
sition of the House as 124 Republicans to 119 Democrats, which would
fairly enough have represented the popular vote as above given. As
regards the general result, therefore, it does not appear but that the
present electoral system, if respected, would give a representation in
the House consonant with the political ‘ complexion of the republic at
large; but, on coming to particulars, it is evident that the representa
tion of the several States is not always a fair reflex of party strength
within them. Thus, the actual and proportionate representation
respectively of Massachusetts and Kentucky as compared with the
strength of parties within those States, is as follows :
VOTE.
REPRESENTATIVES.
Proportionate.
Actual.
Hep.
Massachusetts, . . .
Kentucky, . . . .
Dem.
R.
D.
R.
D.
132,000
40,000
63,000
116,000
7
2
3
7
10
0
0
9
To provide against such nullification of the minority as this is the
aim of minority, or proportional, representation, of which, as the elec
tion of Representatives is purely a State matter and this paper regards
the Federal polity alone, nothing will be said save so far as respects the
effect of minority representation on the House. It is carefully to be
borne in mind that, while proportional representation may give the
minority more voice, it by no means follows that it necessarily gives
that minority more power. Somewheres the majority must rule, and
that place is the representative body. On the subject of representation,
it is suggested that, whatever good results may enure to particular
States from proportional representation, a correct reflex in the House of
the whole country can be best obtained by a removal of all present re
straints upon the electoral system set forth in the Federal Constitution
and a relegation of the people of the United States to their original un
fettered right of selecting as their representatives whom they please.
�184
REBUILDING
THE TEMPLE.
The best practical manner of carrying into effect the suggestions of
this paper need not now be touched. For the present it is sufficient to
commend them on their abstract merits to the public attention.
REMARKS BY EDITOR.
In giving place to Mr. Dutcher’s paper, I wish to say, that while I
heartily approve of all the suggestions he makes, I do not believe their
adoption would restore health to the body politic. The disease is moral,
not political ; the difficulty is not so much with the machinery as with
the driving power. All our legislative bodies, municipal, state and
national, are corrupt because the moral sense of the American people
has been debauched by a series of unfavorable influences. Among
these may be mentioned :
1. The decay of theology. The Protestant sects in their days of
vigor and virulence did supply a sort of moral sense to the community
which has been gradually weakening with the growth of liberalism and
the accumulation of proofs of the unsoundness, historically and scien
tifically, of the current theological dogmas. The belief in a hell was a
low motive to influence conduct, but it had its effect when men had a
real fear of eternal torments.
2. The anti-social and individualistic character of the philosophy
which underlies American institutions is beginning to bear its bitter
fruit. In the American conception, the individual is everything—he
is the centre of the universe; hence egotism, selfishness, the pursuit of
individual good without regard to the general welfare, The Human
Rights dogma, carried out logically, can have no other result than
social and political anarchy. The Transcendental Philosophy, so-called,
Liberal Christianity; the writings of Channing, Parker, Emerson,
Beecher and Frothingham, all help in this movement toward chaos and
the moral death of the nation.
3. The ease with which wealth is acquired in this age of invention
and machinery, and the universal belief in that most damnable of all
the doctrines of the political economists, that property is a personal
appendage and not an institution to satisfy social needs, is turning the
whole nation, women as well as men, into mere selfish money grubbers.
All Americans are on the “ make.”
The only hope is in the growth of a religion and a philosophy more
in accord with the higher instincts of humanity. These in time will
indicate a polity which will restore health and soundness to the state.
The outlook to the political philosopher is very gloomy, so far as the
immediate future is concerned. We have entered upon an era of cor-'
ruption; of public and private dishonesty appalling to contemplate.
Fraud will abound and violence, I fear, will accompany it. Let the
reader cut this out and paste in his common-place book to read ten
years from now.
�
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
Rebuilding the temple
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dutcher, Salem
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [183]-184 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed on blue paper. The article concludes with a page of editorial comment on the content from D. Goodman, the editor of Modern Thinker. From Modern Thinker, no. 1 1870.
Publisher
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[American News Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1870]
Identifier
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G5428
Subject
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Government
USA
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Rebuilding the temple), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
United States-Politics and Government
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896faf5fac55feafd3329a559bf428c6
PDF Text
Text
LOVE-LIFE OF AUGUSTE COMTE.
BY JENNIE JUNE CKOLY.
T is said that no man is a hero to his wife or his valet de chambre;
and so inseparable, indeed, is some touch of weakness from poor
human nature, that we are rather apt to expect from the excep
tionally great in some respects, corresponding feebleness in
others, and charitably excuse, or else hold them up to the light, as the
excuse for our own shortcomings.
The private, or emotional life of Auguste Comte is but little known
in this country, and the impressions concerning it, derived mainly from
John ^tuart Mill, is , not’of a character to encourage strict investiga
tion. Even his disciples seem to consider his domestic relations as a
subject to be avoided, and the second part of his great life-work, the
“Politique Positive,” as more the result of the weakness of his heart
than the strength of his head.
* The aim of this brief and necessarily very imperfect sketch is sim
ply to state, facts, to show what justification existed for departure from
conventional standards, and who and what the remarkable woman was
whose brief acquaintance exercised so singular an influence upon the
mind of Comte, and inspired him with those ideas which form the
basis of his ultimate system.
Whatever the weakness or strength of its founder, there is little
doubt that the “ Religion of Humanity ” will live and continue to
attract, as heretofore, the respectful attention of the wisest and best
among us, and with its growth will spring up an interest in that epi
sode of the life of August Comte which unites his. name with that of
Clotilde de Vaux, and accepting her . as the representative of the noblest
attributes of humanity, will place her, toward its religion and its be
lievers, as Laura to Petrarch, as Beatrice to Dante,-as Heloise to Abe
lard, if not, with all reverence be it spoken, as the Virgin Mary to the
Christian Church.
“To-day,” Emerson says, “is king,” but we rarely recognize its
royalty. Laura and Beatrice may have been very ordinary persons to
their intimates, and it is possible that even Joseph saw nothing more
in his wife than many a man believes of the woman he loves. Yet who
would wish to lose the spiritual significance of the Virgin-Mother by
confronting it with the common-place fact of her daily life. Clotilde
T
�186
THE
LOVE-LIFE
OF AUGUSTE
COMTE.
de Vaux may have realized to no other person the remarkable qualities
with which Comte’s imagination invested her, but the evidence she has
left of high intellectual ability, united with singular purity and devo
tion, lifts her above the common-place, while, apart from any idealiza
tion by Comte, her personal history is clothed with a strange, sad, and
most romantic interest.
Born of a respectable but obscure family, beautiful, delicate, and
surrounded always by an air of touching sadness, which seemed a
prophecy of her future destiny, Madame de Vaux became early the wife
of a man who was subsequently convicted of a capital crime, impris
oned, and finally sent to the galleys, yet, by the laws of France, still
maintained his right and authority as her husband.
It was in this position that Comte met her.
Comte himself was born, as Robinet, his biographer, informs us, of
an admirable mother, Mme. Rosalie Boyer, a strict Catholic however,
who shared the monarchical tendencies of her husband. She is de
scribed as a woman of great heart, great character, and Comte ascribes
to her all his higher qualities. He admits also that it was through
Clotilde de Vaux that he learned to fully know and appreciate his
mother. His family were in moderate circumstances—his father being
cashier in the department of the Receiver-General. He was born in a
modest house, facing the church of Saint Eulalie, Montpellier; was
sent to school at the age of nine years, and was so precocious that at
ten he criticised with severity and judgment his teachers and their
methods of instruction.
In 1825, twenty years before he met Mme. de Vaux, he contracted a
marriage of convenience, which proved, as he afterwards declared, the
one “ serious ” fault of his life. His wife was a bookseller, an active,
capable woman of business, intelligent, but worldly, as most Parisian
women of the middle classes are, and utterly without sympathy in any
new systems of philosophy or their results. She was proud in her own
way of her husband’s ability, but wished it to be acknowledged by the
world, and she could not forgive in him the unconscious egotisms of a
powerful genius, or the loss of his material opportunities, by his obsti
nate adherence to unpopular opinions and principles.
For seventeen years they lived a life which must have been almost
unendurable to both, for Comte, released as he considered himself by
the greatness of his work from ordinary duties and obligations, was
probably one of the most exigent, exacting, and intolerable of hus
bands to a busy, ambitious, and practical wife, while she became to
him every day more an object of indifference, and even of dread.
Mahomet was happy in having for his first disciple his wife:
Madame Comte realized nothing but the obstinacy which deprived her
husband of honorable positions and material resources. She was quite
willing to assist in building up an honorable home, quite capable of
forming a sound, and even wise judgment on any of the ordinary affairs
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187
of every day; she had literary taste and talent of her own, but believed
thoroughly in putting them to practical use, in employing them to
achieve a recognized name, honor, position, money, and the good-will
of mankind, and she considered Comte’s splendid generalizations as the
chimeras of a distraught brain.
It was unfortunate for both that no children resulted from this illstarred union. The existence of these ties, and the knowledge, through
them, which they would have gained of each other, would undoubtedly
have softened their feelings, and contributed to a better mutual under
standing. But it was not to be. Day by day they drifted more and
more widely apart, until, upon April 5,1842, seventeen years after their
marriage, Mme. Comte left her husband never to return. 1
Although M. Comte had not at that time developed fully his social
theory, his natural instincts, heightened by the respect and veneration
with which his mother had always inspired him, would have compelled
him to endure to the end his self-imposed yoke, and forbidden any
sympathy with the anarchical ideas that were then becoming common
in France. The defection of his wife he accepted with the dignity
with which he had borne his matrimonial infelicity, and considered his
condition of domestic isolation as complete and final. His noble
nature, however, his truthful instincts, his affectionate disposition,
. made this severance of home ties very painful; he realized all the pos
sibilities of true marriage, all the difficulties resulting from a mistake
in this most important act of human life, and his pain was augmented
by the knowledge of the detrimental effect which his matrimonial
blunder would be likely to exert upon his public career. Believing
profoundly in the indissolubility of marriage, insisting with the whole
strength of his powerful intellect on the perfectness and perpetuity of
the marriage relation as the golden band which purifies and holds
society together, his own experience at once justified and illustrated
his theory in his own eyes, yet furnished to carping critics a choice
morsel of gossip, which they were undoubtedly willing to make the
most of.
“Behold the teacher!” “Who lives in glass houses should not
throw stones.” All this, and much more, must have made Comte feel
that a mistaken marriage was the most serious mistake of a man’s life,
and that the evils resulting from it must be borne by the individual,
not thrust upon society. Of course his situation, isolated and stigma
tized without direct act or fault of his own, enabled him more readily
to appreciate the peculiarity of the woman’s position whose name was
afterwards to be associated with his own—Madame Clotilde de Vaux.
His first meeting with this still young and gifted lady took place in
1845, three years after his wife had left him. It is admitted by all that
she possessed graces of person combined with remarkable purity, ten.derness, and dignity of character. The singular coincidence of their
position attracted them all the more powerfully toward each other,
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and the admirable delicacy and consistency which had distinguished
her conduct in her peculiarly trying and unfortunate position, estab
lished at once a claim upon Auguste Comte’s sympathies.
Moreover, Madame de Vaux, notwithstanding that she possessed a
mind of the finest order, was as little, understood by her family circle
as Comte by the rest of the world—a fact which, united with Madame
de Vaux’s convictions in regard to the moral nature and duties of
women, so different from those of her best-known contemporaries, but
•in exact accordance with Comte’s predilections, created a new bond be
tween them. Under th^se circumstances, it is not surprising that,
Clotilde de Vaux became to Comte a revelation of the power, purity,
genius, and suffering of woman, or that, having worked out his theory
of Divine Humanity, he should recognize its highest development in
her noble, self-sacrificing life.
It is a fact worthy of particular remark that, notwithstanding the
exceptional nature of their mutual positions, no breath of suspicion,
even in France, ever attached to their relationship. Slander itself was
dumb before the purity of her character, the modesty, and dignity of
her life. Her intercourse with Comte was wholly that of master and
pupil; and although he fully acknowledges that to her he was indebted
for his entire knowledge and education of the heart, yet this was un
conscious on her part, and she hardly realized that the chivalrous and
reverential nature of his sentiments toward her, and all women, owed
their development and expression mainly to herself.
But with the real claims of Madame de Vaux to the moral and in
tellectual height to which Comte elevated her, we have little to do. To
Comte she gave the key to one half, and the diviner half, of the human
race, and became at once the motive and the inspiration to that part of
his work which had been left incomplete. His discovery of sociology,
of a new philosophy of life based upon the laws of exact science, placed
him upon a level with Aristotle and Bacon; his realization of the per
fectness of moral quality, through Clotilde de Vaux, of its high uses,
unfolded to him a new religion, a religion of Man, or Humanity, which
can only be expressed by the homage paid to the moral qualities as em
bodied in their acknowledged representative, Woman. What individ
uals, Laura, Clotilde, or Beatrice, were in themselves, matters, we re
peat it, very little. It is enough that they stand as the types of Woman,
as the ideals of Mother, Daughter, Wife, Sister, Friend, or all of these
—as the embodiment of the sentiments and qualities which men most
venerate and admire, and which act upon them as the strongest incen
tive to worthy deeds.
In the preface to his Positive Catechism, which consists bf a series
of imaginary questions and answers between himself and adopted
daughter, which relation he had intended to legalize with Madame de
Vaux, if she had lived. Comte says, in reference to her—
“Through her I have at length become for Humanity, in the strict
I
�THE LOYK-LIFE
OF AUGUSTE
COMTE.
IS 9
est sense, a twofold organ, as may any one who has reaped the full
advantages of woman’s influence. My career had been that of Aris
totle, I should have wanted energy for that of St. Paul, but for her. I
had extracted sound philosophy from real science ;»I was enabled by
her to found on the basis of that philosophy the universal religion.”
If Clotilde de Vaux had left no other evidence than Comte’s com
memoration of her worthiness, she would still stand in the niche of the
Temple of Humanity as its first high-priestess—as the eternal mother
of that ideal Woman whose image is enshrined in all good men’s
hearts, and is dimly realized in the goodness, purity, and self-sacrific
ing love of some every-day sister, wife, or mother.
But young as Madame de Vaux was at the time of her death, un
fortunately suppressed as the most important work of her life was by
the interference of relatives, she still left enough behind to show that
she was a woman true to all a woman’s best instincts, to all a man’s
' noblest ideals of Womanhood. Like Comte, her nature remained unwarped by the sad issue of her own conjugal relations. Her little
work, “ Lucie,” written altogether from her own inspiration, and before
her acquaintance with Comte, reveals at once a charming tenderness,
allied with real strength. Individual unhappiness did not lead her, as
it would a weaker nature, to denounce marriage, or seek in license the
remedy for social ills. On the contrary, in this work she idealizes mar
riage, accepts motherhood as the natural function of the mass of
women, anticipates Comte’s theory of protection for women, and de
mands governmental institutions for the aid and guardianship of un
protected women. Moreover, her advocacy of a true home-life for
women had more force in France than in this country, because there
the doctrine of individualism in marriage had been to a certain extent
conceded, and the relationship already assumed a business aspect
almost unknown here. The women of the middle classes, it is well
known, nearly control the retail trade of Paris, and their mercantile
activity and preoccupation undoubtedly prevents the realization of the
comfort and domesticity which belongs to the English acceptation of
the word home ; and while it has developed shrewdness and business
tact, certainly detracts somewhat from the reserve and delicacy which
naturally belongs to women.
In Comte’s theory of marriage, individual rights are not allowed a
place. The institution he considered necessary to the happiness of in
dividuals and the well-being of society, but the former he subordinates
to the latter, and he exacts from all men and women who take upon
themselves the obligations of marriage, a stern fulfilment of its re
quirements. He quotes with great approval the remarks of Madame
de Vaux, that “great natures will not involve others in their own sor
rows and difficulties,” and insists that the mistake of an individual
should be confined as much as possible to him or herself, and not hung
as a load upon the back of society.
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THE
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AUGUSTE
COMTE.
It is for its singular truth, purity, and integrity, that Madame
Clotilde de Vaux’s contribution to the literature of her day deserves
preservation, and for this reason we reproduce it here. Her clear mind
was alike uninfluenced by custom or the sophistical ideas of anarchists
and so-called reformers. She did not give to woman all the scope that
she must claim for herself while she possesses ability, but she fully
recognized the fact that the home is the woman’s rightful domain, that
the employment of her strength, talent and energies in other directions,
and especially as a means of livelihood, should be exceptional; that
the woman cannot be the mother and also the provider, and that no
woman ever tries to fill the two positions without feeling that she is
constantly sacrificing the greater to the less.
A presentation of a theory of marriage which recognizes its full
value, its sacredness, and its indissolubility, seems particularly desir
able just now, and in this country, where individualism is making it
self strongly felt, and social evils are seeking a remedy in the easy dis
ruption of the marriage bond. The position which Comte assigns to
Woman is clearly stated in the following extract from the general View
of Positivism :
“ The social mission of Woman, in the Positive system, follows as a
natural consequence from the qualities peculiar to her nature. In
the most essential attribute of the human race, the tendency to place
social above personal feeling, she is undoubtedly superior to man.
Morally, therefore, and apart from all material considerations, she
merits always our loving veneration, as the purest and simplest im
personation of Humanity who can never be adequately represented in
any masculine form. But these qualities do not involve the possession
of political power, which is sometimes claimed for women, with or
without their own consent. In that which is the great object of life
they are superior to men, but in the various means of obtaining that
object they are undoubtedly inferior. In all kinds of force, whether
physical, intellectual, or practical, it is certain than Man surpasses
Woman in accordance with a general law which prevails throughout
the animal kingdom. Now, practical life is necessarily governed by
force rather than by affection, because it requires unremitting and
laborious activity. If there were nothing else to do but to love, as in
the Christian Utopia of a future life in which there are no material
wants, Woman would be supreme. But life is surrounded with diffi
culties, which it needs all our thoughts and energies to avoid; therefore
Man takes the command notwithstanding his inferiority in goodness.
Success in all great efforts depends more upon energy and talent than
upon moral excellence, although this condition reacts strongly upon the
others. Thus the three elements of our moral constitution do not act
in perfect harmony. Force is naturally supreme, and all that women
can do is to modify it by affection. Justly conscious of their superior
ity in strength of feeling, they endeavor to assert their influence in a
�THE
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OF AUGUSTE
COMTE.
191
way which is often attributed by superficial observers to the mere love
of power. But experience always teaches them that in a world where
the simplest necessaries of life are scarce and difficult to procure, power
must belong to the strongest, though the latter may deserve it best.
With all their efforts, they never can do more than modify the harsh
ness with which men exercise their authority. And' men submit more
readily to this modifying influence from feeling that in the highest at
tributes of humanity women are their superiors. They see that their
own supremacy is due principally to the material necessities of life,
provision for which calls into play the self-regarding rather than the
social instincts; hence we find it the case in every phase of human so
ciety, that women’s life is essentially domestic, public life being prin
cipally confined to men. Civilization, so far from effacing this natural
distinction, tends, as I shall afterwards show, to develop it, while rem
edying its abuses.”
The following “ Complement of the Dedication ” to Mad. Clotilde
de Vaux is from the pen of Auguste Comte, and will be found in his
last great work. It is followed by her novelette of “ Lucie ” and her
poem, “ Thoughts of the Flowers,” which Comte repeated every morn
ing for the nine years preceding his death.
COMPLEMENT OF THE DEDICATION.
Paris, 12th Dante, 62.
Saturday, July 27th, 1850.
In order to complete this exceptional dedication, I think I should add to it the
only composition published by my sacred colleague. This touching novel, of which
the principal situation essentially characterizes the conjugal destiny of the unhappy
Clotilde, was inserted in the columns of the “National ” on the 20th and 21st of
June, 1845. In reproducing it here, I hope to furnish competent judges with a
direct proof of the exalted nature, intellectual and moral, of the unknown angel
who presides over my second life.
Following this characteristic production, I publish my unedited letter on the
social commemoration, which would have appeared with “ Lucie,” but for the ma
levolence of a well-known journalist, who has proved himself unworthy of confi
dence. This little composition offers a certain historical interest to all those who
understand the Religion of Humanity. They -will see in it the first direct and dis
tinct germs of an immense moral and social synthesis, spontaneously arrived at
through a pure, private effusion. My normal reaction of the heart, on the mind,
was thus manifested several years before I had constructed its definitive theory.
I end this natural complement of my dedication with an unedited canzone, that
Madame de Vaux wished to place in her “ Willelmine,” although she had composed
it in 1843. These graceful strophes, of which Petrarch could have perhaps envied
the sweetness, can indicate the facility and the versatility of a talent worthy of the
highest commendation. The poetical tendency of this exalted soul showed itself
involuntarily, in her most trifling inspirations. IKwould be, for example, suffi
ciently characterized by this melancholy inscription, secretly written at the age of
twenty-two, in an old “ Journal of a Christian,” which I preserve religiously.
“ Precious souvenir of my youth, companion and guide of the holy hours which
have lived for me, and which always recall to my heart the ceremonies, grand and
sweet, of the convent chapel.”
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COMTE.
’‘LUCIE.”
A Novelette, by Clotilde De Vaux.
A few years since, the little town of----- was stupefied by the commission of a
crime complicated with extraordinary circumstances.
A young man, belonging to a distinguished family, had disappeared under a
terrible suspicion. He was accused of having assassinated a banker, his partner,
and stolen from him a considerable amount of valuables. This double crime was
attributed to the fatal passion for gaming. The culprit abandoned, after a few
months of marriage, a young wife endowed with great beauty and the most emi
nent qualities. An orphan, she remained, at twenty years of age, condemned to
isolation, misery, and a position without hope.
The laws granted her spontaneously the separation of person and wealth ; that
is to say, of all that which she had already lost. Her husband’s family lent her a
shelter and a pair of shoes. Rich men who admired her, added to her anguish of
heart insulting offers of protection as disgraceful as they were humiliating.
She was, happily, one of those noble women who accept misfortune more easily
than disgrace. Her clear mind fully unveiled to her the position she was in ; she
comprehended that she owed to her beauty the interest she excited in men ; she
foresaw the dangers that professions of sympathy hide, and wished to draw from
herself alone all mitigation of her fate. This courageous resolution having been
taken, the young wife thought only of executing it. Possessing a remarkable talent,
she proceeded to Paris to make use of it. After several trials, she was admitted as
a teacher into the house of the Abbaye-awe-Bois, where she found an honorable
asylum.
During this time, justice took its course ; active steps sought everywhere for
traces of the fugitive. Already the irritated creditors had divided the property of
the unhappy wife, whose clothing and jewels, even to the little treasures of her
girlhood, had been sold at auction. The interest she inspired was so great, that
strangers voluntarily redeemed these pledges and returned them to her.
One young girl purchased a medallion which contained her portrait, and wore
it like that of her patron saint, and the priest of the place bought her weddingdress to decorate the altar of the Virgin.
These details sensibly affected the unfortunate one. A noble pride became
joined in her heart to a profound sensibility: she felt herself sustained by these
proofs of interest that reached her from so many sources. Filled with terror at the
remembrance of her first love, she considered her chain as a barrier that she had
voluntarily placed between herself and men. The horror and peril of her position
thus escaped her mind, and she accepted without a complaint the unjust decree of
the laws.
An indestructible sentiment, a sweet and holy friendship of childhood, at first
saved this noble heart from the bitter griefs of solitude. Philosophy, so pitiful and
so arid in egotistical souls, developed its magnificent proportions in that of the
young woman. Poor, she found the means of doing good : if she rarely went into
the churches, where frivolity sits side by side with sanctity, she was often met in
the garrets of the poor, where, misfortune hides itself like shame.
Two years slipped by without any event transpiring to change this strange and
unhappy position. Time, which can only increase great sorrows, had impaired,
little by little, the admirable organization of the orphan. To her heroic courage,
to her persevering efforts to tread'the rough path marked out for her, there suc
ceeded a profound dejection. Thirteen letters which have fallen into my hands
paint better than I can the griefs of the weary heart. I ask permission to reproduce
them, and thus finish this history.
�TSE
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OF AUGUSTE
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193
FIRST LETTER.
LUCIE TO MADAM M.
I write to thee from Malzéville, where I intend to pass several months, my
beloved. My lungs had need of country air, and country milk ; and our worthy
friends have seized this pretext to invite me to share their pleasant solitude. How
much I love these excellent people ! May I not resemble them, or at least allow
my heart to share in the peace which reigns in the depths of theirs ? Meanwhile I
feel better here : nothing is so healthy as the sight of beautiful nature, and of this
laborious and uniform life which forces the mind to rule itself.
The General awaits the near arrival of his neighbor, who is reputed the bene
factor of all this little region. He is a young man of twenty-six, the possessor of a
handsome fortune, and a sincere disciple of liberal ideas. He has with him his
mother, whom he adores, and of whom they tell a great deal of good.
Thou dost advise me to cultivate flowers so as to wean me from music and
reading. Alas 1 my beloved, are not these the only pleasures that remain to me ?
When I have paid my feeble tribute to friendship, when I have read to the General
some passages in his memoirs, when we have together evoked great and sacred
recollections, or when I have shared with my friend her little domestic cares, I
resign myself to tins absorbing faculty of thinking and feeling, which has become
the resource of my existence ; and yet, no woman loves a peaceful and simple life
more than I. What brilliant pleasures would I not have sacrificed with joy to the
duties and happiness of the family circle ! What successes would not have appeared
silly compared with the caresses of my children ! 0. my friend, maternity, that is
the sentiment whose phantom rises so strong and so impetuous in my heart. This
love, which survives all others, is it not given to woman to purify and mitigate her
her sorrows ?
SECOND LETTER.
MAURICE TO
BOGER.
Roger, I have at last seen this woman, so grand, and so unhappy, of whom thou
didst speak to me with pride. Do not say that “ the die is cast,” if I avow to thee
the deep impression that I have felt at the sight of this young and beautiful martyr
to social injustice. The touching virtues of Lucie, her mind, her unconscious atti
tudes, everything about her bears forever the imprint of a profound grief. One
feels, in seeing her, that she will have need of generosity in order to love. How
ever, is she not free in all honor and reason ? By what astonishing lack of .fore
sight in the laws, may the pure and respected woman find herself chained by
society to the branded being whom it casts from its bosom ?
What do we call civil death ? Is it a phantom ? To what end does society
bind a wife to a man who can no longer give birth but to outcasts ? By what right
does it impose isolation and celibacy on one of its members ? From what motive
does it force a living death, or irregularities which it condemns ?
But I speak as if before judges. Roger, my blood is ready to boil when I see
how the apathy of men produces and seems to sanction misfortune and oppression.
I have just had a belvedere built in sight of Malzéville ; from there, with a tele
scope, I see the whole of thé General’s pretty house. Yesterday, I perceived Lucie,
who was seated on the edge of a small stream of water; her attitude was dejected.
Shall I say it to thee, her looks seemed to me to be often directed toward the south.
Alas ! in seeing her so graceful and so broken, I asked myself with disgust the
secret of certain influences over our hearts. Why do we see vulgar women fasci
nate superior intellects and become the objects of a true worship? How does it
happen that the generosity and nobleness of certain women are seen so often in the
�194
THE
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OF AUGUSTE
COMTE.
power Ol selfishness and grossness? We must give up the explanation of this
enigma.
As thou dost wish a new description of Oneil, I shall tell you, my dear Roger,
that, I have made of it one of the prettiest places in the department. They described
to me lately a recent dispute on my account between the inhabitants of the neigh
boring corporation and an old, decayed gentleman. They excited themselves with
nothing less than a discussion as to whether they owed the title of Chateau to Oneil,
and the first piece of consecrated bread to its proprietor. I have settled the ques
tion by not going to mass, and by calling the whole country my valley.
THIRD LETTER.
MAURICE TO
ROGER.
Never, Roger, never will another woman excite in me the powerful and elevated
sentiments with which the mere sight of Lucie inspires me. Friend, thou hast
spoken truth ; it is in vain that the laws, opinion, and the world raise their triple
barrier between us ; love will reunite us, I feel it. Who knows better than thou
the needs of my heart and its insurmountable repugnance to vulgar joys ? Alas !
before meeting Lucie, I have often felt that it is dangerous to refine its sensations.
A little while ago my mother made her visit to Malzeville. I was curious, I
avow it to thee, to know the impression Lucie would produce upon her. On arriving
before the grating of the little park, we saw her grafting a rose-tree. She was
dressed in white ; a large garden-hat carelessly covered her head, a simple green
ribbon defined her small and elegant waist. One would say, on seeing her, the
sweetest ideal of Galatia.
I was surprised to perceive no emotion on my mother’s face, she. ordinarily so
kind, and who finds so much pleasure in admiring ; she was dignified and cold during
our visit; the words duty and honor found a place in all her phrases. For the first
time I had a glimpse of what is bitter and implacable in feminine rivalries. Guided
by the delicate tact, that the habit of suffering gives, Lucie withdrew before we did,
under some slight pretext. Would that I had dared to follow her, and throw my
self at her feet to protest against my mother’s words.
Roger, this moment settles my fate forever ! I comprehend that it is my duty
to snatch this sweet victim from misfortune. Perish the chimeras that rise up
between us ! I feel myself strong against the false faith of opinion and the blame
of the envious ; may I also be so against the self-abnegation and grandeur of Lucie 1
FOURTH LETTER.
MAURICE
TO ROGER
One could willingly curse civilization and enlightenment, when one sees the
small number of just minds and upright hearts that there are in the world. I could
not tell thee how many pitiful and odious insinuations I have to submit to every
day on Lucie’s account. But, what is not the least shocking, all the honor rests
with these corrupters of morality who stand proudly on their small proprieties as
on a rock of impregnable virtue. It seems, in truth, that success only accompanies
hypocrisy and deceit.
I have just had a painful conversation with my mother, which has only more
strongly confirmed my loyalty and devotion. The latter is a magnificent virtue : it
lives, however, much more willingly on enjoyments than on sacrifices. I have
lately met in the world the young Countess of -------- , whose husband is in the
galleys. She was twenty-four years of age when this fatality overtook her; she
was remarkably pretty and amiable. The worthy L-------- fell in love with her,
and they are united. Well! she told me that what she has had to suffer from her
�TH£
LOVE-LIFE
OF AUGUSTE
COMTE.
195
own family is incalculable. When I expressed to her my astonishment, seeing
their advanced ideas in everything, she answered me, “ Are you still in your cate
chism in regard to men ? They authorize me to be an atheist, but not to do with
out the sacraments.”
So it is, my worthy Roger, that this admirable humanity is not yet well rid of
its debt toward the monkeys, from whom several doctors insist that it is directly
descended.
FIFTH LETTER.
MAURICE TO LUCIE.
What have you done, Lucie ? What fatal thought have you obeyed in remov
ing yourself from me ? Alas! it is in vain that I seek to justify your silence; it
weighs on my heart like an icy burden. And meanwhile, only yesterday you made
me cherish my life. Your soul seemed to open itself to hope. When a trifling
danger menaced me on the border of the lake, you came to my assistance without
appearing to fear the presence of those around us. How beautiful you were at that
instant, and how womanly in your devotion ! Have you not read in every glance
the enthusiasm of which you were the object? 0 Lucie, when it was only neces
sary, perhaps, for you to show yourself as you are to soften my mother’s heart, by
what inconceivable misfortune do we find ourselves separated ? But perhaps you
are not the angelic woman that I thought I had discovered; perhaps a generous
love is beyond your powers ? Perhaps !—But of what use are these doubts ? You
alone can restore the peace that you have taken away ; I await a line from you, a
word that may teach me what are your future plans. Think of it! I will not
answer for myself if you continue to overwhelm me with your silence. Manuel is
going post-haste to Paris : in ten hours I may have your reply.
SIXTH LETTER.
MAURICE TO ROGER.
Must it then be so ? Roger, to have been acquainted with her, to know that
which contains this exalted heart, this delicate mind, and perhaps, in a few hours,
to have to deplore her loss! May my misery fall again on those who caused it!
Alas! when 1 accused her with what I have suffered, she was struck down with the
violence of her struggles and her love. I wander like a fool around the General’s
house, interrogating his people unceasingly, and receiving from them only vague
and unsatisfactory answers. Happily, the physician is ignorant of who I am, and
three times a day he forces the truth on my heart. I have this moment quitted
him ; he looked so sad, he seemed so overwhelmed that I conjured him not to hide
the worst from me. He assured me that she still exists ; but he expects a terrible
and inevitable crisis.
P.S.-jShe is saved! One should love as I love to comprehend the magic of
such news. I threw myself at the feet of the physician ; I asked him for his
friendship. In vain he preserved a serious manner; I felt ready to perform any
folly in his presence. He is a distinguished man ; he spoke of Lucie with an enthu
siasm almost equal to my own. But, one thing struck me: he observed me often
with thoughtfulness, and seemed ready to confide a secret to me. I have vainly
endeavored several times to make him speak his mind. He always ends our con
versations about Lucie with this phrase : Society is very culpable.
I have often remarked that prudence is the vice of men in this profession, whose
profound knowledge renders so capable of assisting the social movement. What
important modifications could be produced in the laws by the sole authority of cer
tain scientific facts which remain eternally hidden from the vulgar ! I wish that a
great physician would publish his memoirs ; it would be, in my opinion, a very
useful book to humanity.
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AUGUSTE
COMTE
SEVENTH LETTER.
MAURICE TO ROGER.
x
Friend, I have seen her again ! Alas ! one dares not think that she still belongs
to earth, so much is her beauty invested with an ideal and celestial character. She
has consented to take her first walk leaning on my arm, and I was astonished at.
the simplicity with which she described to me her sufferings. If I do not deceive
myself, a gleam of hope has crept into her heart; but I have not been able to
explain to myself the meaning of several of her words. As we rested in the shade,
of a little ruined chapel, a villager’s wedding party passed before us. There was
so much happiness and freedom from care on their open countenances, that I could
not suppress a bitter reflection in comparing our destinies. Lucie trembled as she
heard me.
“ 0, my friend I” she exclaimed, “ they are happy ; but it is because their good
fortune neither afflicts nor offends any one.”
I looked at her with surprise ; her face was slightly flushed; she placed my
hand on her heart; then she resumed in a voice serious and moved : “ Maurice, it
is in vain that our misfortune forees us to set ourselves against society ; its institu
tions are great and venerable as the work of ages ; it is unworthy of great natures
to inflict upon others the sorrows that they feel.”
I would have answered her, but she made me a sign with her hand to indicate
that she felt very feeble. It began to grow late. The worthy doctor, who was
already anxious at not seeing Lucie return, came to meet us, and he assisted me in
supporting her as far as the entrance to the park of Malzeville, where it was neces
sary for us to separate.
Roger, all the obstacles that surround me frighten me less than Lucie’s natural
greatness. It is not to false prejudices, I feel it, that such a woman has been able
thus far to immolate the sweetest desires of her heart
EIGHTH LETTER.
LUCIE TO MADAM M.
My Cherished Friend:—Hope has overtaken me on my return to health; Maurice
consents to raise his powerful voice in a protest against the terrible abuse that
separates us. His mother has pressed me to her heart; I shall never forget the
delicious sensations that were mingled at that moment with the bitterness of my
recollections.
O my beloved 1 the love of a pure and good man is a sentiment full of power.
How much do I need courage and strength to resist it! But Maurice’s interests
and honor are dearer to me than my own happiness can be ; and I am also sustained
by the pride of seeing him attempt a noble enterprise ; for it seems to me, that in
it I also shall have accomplished something for humanity.
It was only yesterday that our fate was decided. We had spent the evening
with the worthy physician, whose sentiments are at the same time so gentle and
so elevated. Hardly had we left him, when Maurice impetuously seized my hand ;
and, pressing it to his heart, he swore to protect me in spite of the world, and no
longer permit me to forsake him. I collected my strength to struggle against
these sweet yet terrible emotions. I represented to him that duty commanded him
to endeavor to free me from my bonds, in claiming a wise and just law. I employed
to affect him the arguments which have the most influence on his great heart. I
described with ardor the advantages that society would receive from this courageous
attempt. For him, it was not difficult to interest him in the fate of those beings,
young, feeble, and defenceless, whom an odious bond consigns to despair. He
agreed that the injurious effects of the laws result mainly from the apathy of men,
and that it is always honorable and useful to struggle against oppression.
�THE LOVE-LIFE
OF AUGUSTE
COMTE.
197
We considered then our position from all points of view. Maurice agreed that
a tie like that which he was advising me to contract would suffice for happiness,
and that he would renounce, without the least regret, a world which sacrifices true
happiness to prejudices arrogantly adorned with the title of propriety. I confessed
to him that I did not feel myself high enough or low enough to brave opinion, and
that it would be sweet to me to be able to surround our love with the respect of
honest families.
He gently combated my ideas ; but the thought of his mother was joined in his
heart with all the elevated sentiments that belong to him. He finished by prom
ising me to address a petition to the Chamber of Deputies, and to await patiently
the result.
I threw myself at the feet of this man so dear, shedding tears of gratitude and
love. The efforts that I had made to control myself had so exhausted my strength
that it seemed to me that life was going to abandon me. I never felt its value so
much as at that moment.
O, my friend I thou who dost live calm and happy with the man of thy choice,
thou wilt comprehend all that passes in my heart. Thou knowest if I share the
ridicule poured upon those women who wish to be deputies, or who ride on horse
back to demonstrate that they could be at need excellent colonels of dragoons. But
thou knowest that I feel sensibly oppression where it is real. It is in striking a
blow at the true and modest happiness of woman, that the laws force her out of her
sphere, and make her at times forget her sublime destiny. Henrietta, what pleas
ures can exceed those of devotion ? To surround with comfort the man whom we
love, to be good and simple in the family, worthy and self-forgetting outside of it,
is not this our sweetest office and the one which suits us best ? It seems to me
that from the family circle radiates communities and the world, and is it not woman
who is the inspiration of them ?
NINTH LETTER.
MAUBICE TO
ROGER.
. A new grief has just burst upon her ; the monster who chains her to himself
lias been arrested on the frontier and conducted to the galleys at Toulon, where he
goes to suffer his penalty.
This event, which gives such great force to our demands, seems meanwhile to
have weakened Lucie’s courage. This heart so tender has fainted with terror
before the horrible denotement with which the laws associate her. The name that
she still bears echoes within her, loaded with infamy, and re-awakens all her
gloomy recollections. Her imperishable goodness has just added compassion to all
her wrongs. May her strength not be exhausted in this cruel struggle I No, I feel
it, laws cannot be voluntarily immoral and absurd. Evidence strikes men ; they
will break this odious bond which chains the purest being to a galley-slave.
Lucie will still suffer much ; but various circumstances have enlightened me on
all her sentiments, and I shall not sacrifice one of them to love. This noble woman
shall be a proud wife and mother, pure, true, and loving friend. The sacrifices that
she would valiantly accept for herself, she cannot bear the thought of bequeathing
to her children. May she find at last the reward of these sweet virtues ! I shall
rally my strength and my courage to subdue my impatience. 0 Roger! life has
hard trials. I send thee a copy of my petition to the Chamber.
“ Gentlemen Deputies :—There exists in the bosom of the. laws an abuse of
which the extent is frightful; permit me to signalize it by a striking example.
"A woman of twenty-two years, whose heart is pure and full of honor, finds
herself chained by marriage to a galley-slave. Fifteen years of imprisonment,
infamy, scorn, all that which separates virtue from vice, materially annuls this
odious bond.
�198
th/:
L(> rn-i.rPK
o f
augusth
comte.
" The man is civilly (lead; the woman, declared free by the tribunals, regains
possession of his fortune, which she already manages. All her rights are evident;
yet she must renounce the most precious of them, that of using the liberty of her
heart. By an inconceivable lack of foresight in the laws, this woman finds herself
" expelled from their protection, and placed by them between two abysses, misfor
tune and immorality. Which choice dare we assign her ? To adorn herself with
a barren heroism, shall she renounce love and motherhood, those beautiful and
noble rights of the wife ?
“ If isolation weighs like a sentence of death on her heart, and forces her to
contract a tie hostile to society, who will protect her against the evil testimony of
opinion, and against all the dangers attached to a false position ?
“ Between these two, there is a third, into which falls many oppressed and fee
ble natures—it is baseness.
“ Gentlemen deputies, I call your attention to this question of high morals, and
I solicit a law which establishes divorce for a single act of an infamous and criminal
character.”
TENTH LETTER.
MAURICE TO
ROGER.
Our hearts are calmer. Lucie seems happy in seeing me submissive to the laws
which govern society. May she reap the fruit of my patience !
Perhaps I have truly performed a duty. I have suffered so much for some time,
that I can no longer be a very good’judge on matters of wisdom. Abuses shock
me, and oppression inspires me with such horror that I would willingly flee before
it instead of contending with it. It may be that Lucie, in her heroism, is much
nearer than I to simple justice and morality. Few women unite as she does pene
tration and sensibility ; she is eminently loyal and spiritual. The better I under
stand this heart so tender, the more I feel that I could not too well repay her love.
How slowly each day brings the moment that unites us ! I love to surprise her
in the midst of the occupations which she invents for herself, while expecting me,,
she tells me. Yesterday I found her very busy copying a large boo’k of insignifi
cant music designed for schools. As I evinced my astonishment with much per
sistency, she ended by confessing that this work was one of her means of living. I
could not tell thee, Roger, the painful impression that this discovery made upon
me. The true duty of woman, is it not to surround man with the joys and affections
of the domestic hearth, and receive from him in exchange all the means of exist
ence that labor procures ? I would rather see the mother of a poor family washing
hei children s CiOthes, than see her earning a livelihood by her talents away from
home. I except, let it be understood, the eminent woman whose genius forces her
out of the family sphere. Such an one should find in society her free develop
ment ; for other minds are kindled by the exhibition of their powers.
I would not only that women might find in their fathers, their brothers, and
their husbands natural support; but that these supports failing them, they should
be sustained by governments. Institutions should be founded in which to unite
them and make use ot their various talents. There are many kinds of work that
can only be done by women. These labors could be performed in these establish
ments, where feeble and desolate women would at least be assured of a resource
against the wrongs which menace them in a struggle with the world without.
Our- towns would then have vast bazars where wealthy women would go to
choose their attire. We should no longer see poor girls attenuated by forced labor,
often obliged to walk all day to dispose of their work. These means, or others
analogous, would establish a slight proportion between the strength and the duties
of women, which are often so little in harmony.
�ELEVENTH LETTER.
MAURICE
TO ROGER.
Where to find a remnant of zeal in this weary, money-loving society ? Money !
that is the key to their dictionary, the word which we must absolutely grasp to
comprehend them.
I had confided to Count J--------our present position and my proceeding with
the Chamber. He thought he would benefit me by introducing me to several of the
men whom they call wise, no doubt because they have sacrificed the heart for the
good of the head. I did not believe that bluntness could go so far. The conversa
tion of these men resembled a veritable operation in stocks. It was a curious thing
to see their efforts to convert an unworldly person.
The obliging manner in which Count J----- — had introduced me to his circle
made me, in spite of myself, give my evidence. Forced to speak of my sentiments
and my opinions, I became at once the target for the whole assembly. They
defeated me in philosophy and morals. They were going to declare me sublime in
order to get rid of me, when one of the most influential men of the period took
me aside.
“ You resemble,” said he to me, “ a crow which pulls down walnuts. Do not
err thus. You have just offended men who were able and willing to serve you.
Arrange your affairs quickly ; and believe that a hero with fifteen thousand livres
rental is not strong enough to walk alone.”
This language astonished me so much that I remained silent.
“ You come,” he continued, “ to demand divorce; you are authorized by an
example striking enough. Truly, justice and reason are with you. A law restricted
like that which you demand, would pass without the least difficulty, and would be
a real benefit. Very well ! nevertheless, this law, it is a hundred to one, that you
will not obtain it.”
“ It is my conviction,” added he, while I repressed with difficulty a painful im
patience, “ the fault is yours, entirely yours. Wishing to play giant, foolishly
despising the hierarchy, refusing it deference, and exploring for all support the
arsenal of old words, is it not voluntarily taking the role of a dupe, and running,
dagger in hand, into the midst of a pigeon match ? Listen,” said he, “ if you were
not so young, you would be a fool. But that infirmity excuses everything. I offer
you, then, my influence with the ambassador of-------- . You have some position,
a noble figure ; you can advance yourself with him. You love a remarkable
woman, you will give her a station worthy of her; and believe me, love does very
well without marriage.”
Finishing his period, my worthy mentor threw me a significant glance and left,
me. I went to shake hands with Count J—
, so superior to the men by whom
he is surrounded, and I returned to Oneil with rage in my heart.
Roger, I shall promptly investigate what this man has said to me, and see if
there is no longer any trace of justice and honor in humanity. Lucie is too grand
and too pure to stoop before it.
TWELFTH LETTER.
LUCIE TO
MAURICE.
Maurice, you are noble and good. What heart can be more capable than yours
of comprehending justice and reason? 0 best and most generous of men, you to
whom I could have sacrificed with joy the peace of my whole life, could you but
know to what extent yours has been dear and sacred to me ! My beloved, it is in
vain that we attempt to struggle any longer against destiny. My soul is completely
broken under its blows. Alas ! when I gave myself up to the happiness of loving
�200
THE
LOVE-LIFE
OF
AUGUSTE
COMTE.
you, I thought to be able, in my turn, to add a charm to your life. Let me collect
my last powers in one consoling thought, hoping you will restore again to society
and your mother that which they have lost by your devotion to me. How often
have I seen your great soul incensed at the sight of the afflictions that fill the
world ! 0 Maurice! it is delicious to experience all generous emotions. What
destiny is at the same time greater and sweeter than that of the useful man ! Do
you not remember having often envied poor artisans the glory of a trifling dis
covery ? You who can do so much more than they, would you remain inactive ?
Dear, very dear friend, live to imprint on the earth your noble steps. When a man
like you appears in the midst of society, he should either bring to it his tribute of
light and virtue, or condemn himself to the silence and coldness of selfishness. I
know your soul; it is rich, and glowing as the clouds in a beautiful sky; never
would you have found happiness in isolation. Do not renounce family joys ; chil
dren will create great interests in your existence. You will find pleasure in devel
oping in them the noble germs that they will inherit from you. You will make
of their young hearts so many hearths in which the flame of yours will be diffused.
They will surround you with respect and love. O Maurice 1 are not all the felici
ties of life summed up in this single word ?
.
LAST LETTER.
DR.
L--------
TO
DR.
B--------.
My old friend, I approve the means you take in caring for yourself in turn. For
us. who believe in good, it is a painful spectacle that of society in disorder, where
nothing that is noble and great can succeed any longer. I have just witnessed
again one of those sacrifices which shock the heart and the reason. The unfortu
nate young woman whose history I have written to you, expired yesterday in my
arms, broken by sorrows that I refrain from describing to you. The man whom
she loved survived her but a few moments ; it seems as if he could comprehend
only his despair. In vain I tried to lead him to reason and calmness ; he blew out
his brains beside the death-bed. before I was able to prevent his fatal design.
Those who have known the interesting and unhappy woman whose loss I deplore, .
will comprehend the fatal passion that she inspired. She had one of those rare
organizations in which the heart and mind are equally balanced. No woman felt
more than she the possibilities of her position. She might have been an accom
plished mother and wife. Alas ! in seeing her die in my arms at the age when one
should live, I have painfully appreciated how little power is given to man to
repair the evil that he causes.
�
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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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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Love-life of Auguste Comte
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Croly, Jennie June [1829-1901]
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Place of publication: New York
Collation: [185]-201 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. Printed in red on pale yellow paper. The pseudonym of Jane Cunningham Croly, an English-born American journalist and clubwoman whose popular writings and socially conscious advocacy reflected her belief that equal rights and economic independence for women would allow them to become fully responsible, productive citizens. Includes a letter from Auguste Comte to Clothilde de Vaux, 'Lucie' a novelette by Vaux and her poem 'The Thoughts of a Flower'.
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Philosophy
Auguste Comte
Clothilde de Vaux
Conway Tracts
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Text
WHAT OF THE FUTURE.
BY D.
G.
CBOLY.
INTRODUCTORY.
N the chapters which follow this preface I shall try to forecast
something of the future. That the attempt is a presumptous
one, I am well aware; but l am certain it is quite time that some
one should lead the way in showing the advantages of studying
or at least speculating about our earthly hereafter. We are too apt to
animadvert upon the Chinese for their elaborate worship of ancestors;
but while we do not pay homage to our progenitors in a religious sense,
surely too much of the attention of our best and wisest scholars and
writers is given to the annals of the past. I insist that the only value
of history, apart from a natural curiosity as to what has taken place on
the earth before we came into conscious existence, is to give us data by
which we may forecast the future. So long as the race believed that
infinite Caprice in the form of supernatural and irresponsible wills gov
erned the universe, there could be no hope of a science of history.
This was impossible until the conception of universal law accounting
for all phenomena, the course of human events included, became cur
rent among the advanced thinkers of the race. We have had a good
deal, especially in modern times, of what is known as the philosophy
of history. Indeed all recent annalists have generalized more or less;
but' their theories of events are confined exclusively to the past, and
explain with greater or less accuracy what has already taken place, and
why it has come about. But the age demands something in advance
of this; the time has- come when the attempt at least should be made
to lay the foundations of what may be termed the science of human af
fairs. It is idle to speculate upon history and attempt to explain the
laws which govern the movements of human society, without endeavor
ing to apply the knowledge of the laws thus obtained in trying to realize
in thought what may occur hereafter. In the progress of this induction
I shall, of course, make many, very many, serious mistakes, but some
one must make the attempt; and it is inevitable that whoever does so
will help other inquirers in the same field by his very failures.
There is a very natural curiosity felt by every intelligent person
touching what will take place after he has passed from this earthly
sphere—what our children and our children’s children will do—what
T
�74
WHAT
OF
THE FUTURE.
they will probably believe—what form or forms of government will
control them—what will be the material condition of the masses of
mankind—what changes in the maps of the world—what inventions
to aid man’s control over the forces of nature, and what effect all Wiese
changes will have upon human conditions. The belief is becoming
general that man himself can very largely control his own future;
that the race can be, and in many respects even now is, a “ ruling prov-'
idence” to itself, and that the natural laws which govern human society
can be modified in their complex relations by the interposition of
human will—not arbitrary will, but intelligent human volition, having
definite objects in view, and itself controlled by necessary material con
ditions.
In the articles which are to follow I beg of my readers to give me
their indulgence. They must understand that the field is almost
wholly untrodden, and it is inevitable that some very wild guesses will
be made. This much, however, I can confidently predict, that the
most incredible statements I shall venture will really be the most trust
worthy, and that I shall be more apt to make mistakes in that depart
ment of inquiry in which I shall be least questioned ; that is to say, in
speculating upon the future of religion, of the movements of popula
tion, of the course of opinion, and of the social changes which will
take place, I shall very likely be most at fault, because the data for
these speculations have not as yet been formulated. The most aston
ishing results in the future will be brought about by the command to
be yet obtained by man over nature, by the discovery of mechanical
and chemical appliances which will add marvelously to the happiness
and comfort of the race. To illustrate: If at the beginning of this
century some theorizer should have set out upon the same inquiry upon
which I have dared to enter and should have speculated upon the
course of opinions, the fluctuations of religion, the social changes to
take place, he would probably have been heard with attention, and if
his reasoning was apparently sound, would have secured many assent
ing listeners; but if he had attempted to foretell the future of tele
graphy or the application of steam to transportation, he would have been
set down as a lunatic, a dreamer of fantastic dreams. Now, the most
marvelous changes in human conditions, in the future as in the past, will
be brought about by the discoveries of science as applied to the arts.
What some of these discoveries may be, I shall try to state in the'
papers which are to follow in this series; and just here, where I really
stand upon the most solid ground, I shall seem most wild in my vati
cinations. A simple invention may do more to alleviate certain forms
of human misery than the preachings of thousands of clergymen and
the wailings of as many poets. The “ Song of the Shirt ” stirred our
sympathies, but the sewing machine—what pen or tongue can tell the good it has accomplished for myriads of working women ? Could the
press and pulpit combined have had a tithe of the effect of this one
�WHAT
OF
THE
FUTURE.
75
beneficent invention ? But speculations as to the religious future, or
the social future, will necessarily be incomplete by reason of the com
plexity of the phenomena which will accompany them, and the as yet
unformalized science of society. In the present state of knowledge—
especially that which relates to the conditions of human society—the
ripest and most cultivated intellect would be at fault, not only by rea
son of the want of information, but because of his preconceived theories
and notions. It is very evident that in speculating upon the future,
men will be controlled very largely by their settled convictions and per
haps by the religious faith in which they have been nurtured. Suppose,
for instance, an intelligent Christian, a sceptic, and a scientist, were
each to give his views upon the future ; it is very clear, that although
each might mean to tell the truth, still each would give a different solu
tion of the problem before him—none of them could help being influ
enced by their preconceived impressions. From this cause of distrac
tion the writer is not of course free. Indeed any scheme of the future
—any hope of what is to come hereafter—must be based in great part
upon a religious theory; that is, a theory which embraces a conception
of the social and religious future as well as of man’s history.
The science of history was not possible so long as merely super
natural wills were understood to be the controlling powers in the uni
verse; but with the conception of invariable law, then a science of
human affairs becomes possible ; but that very conception is in itself
essentially a religious one.
There is still another element of uncertainty in endeavoring to fore
cast the hereafter, and that is the surprising results which sometimes
are brought about by accidental discoveries in science. The share
played by accident is as discreditable to man’s invention as it is morti
fying to his vanity. Bacon points this out in the 59th Aphorism of
his Novum Organum, in which, besides giving examples, he says:—
“ We may also derive some reason for hope from the circumstance of several
actual inventions being of such a nature, that scarcely any one could have formed a
conjecture about them previously to their discovery, but would rather have ridi
culed them as impossible. ********
We may therefore well hope that many excellent and useful matters are yet
treasured up in the bosom of nature, bearing no relation or analogy to our actual
discoveries, but out of the common track of the imagination, and still undiscovered,
and which will doubtless be brought to light in the course and lapse of years, as
others have been before them.”
*******
Conscious of his own deficiencies, the present writer cannot but
think that however poor his execution may be, such a work as this can
not but be suggestive, and may lead to the discovery of data by which
we may in a measure forecast the future. It is the first serious attempt
ever made to estimate accurately the forces at work in society, and to
point out what may result unless new agencies are brought into play.
Every existing human institution has a history which changes with
�76
THE
FUTURE
OF MARRIAGE.
the course of time. Now, in what direction do these changes tend?
This is the inquiry to which the papers that follow will be a partial
answer.
Those who are disposed to criticise the shortcomings of what is to
follow, would do well to bear in mind the acute remark of Herbert
Spencer, who says:
“ Not directly, but by successive approximations, do mankind reach correct con
clusions ; and those who first think in'the right direction—loose as may be their
reasonings, and wide of the mark as their inferences may be—yield indispensable
aid by framing provisional conceptions, and giving a bent to inquiry.”
CHAPTER I.
THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE.
The relations of the sexes ; what will they be thirty, fifty, one hun
dred years hence ? Is it possible to estimate the force of the agencies
at work modifying the old ideal of the institution of marriage, and to
point out what will be the probable issue ? Any one who has observed
the course of modem history, cannot but have been impressed with
certain tendencies concerning which there can be no chance of mistake.
During the middle ages and down to the reformation, marriage was
a sacrament of the church. It was God, according to this view, who
brought people together, and his command was that whom he had
joined no man should put asunder. Children, also, under this general
theory, were a gift of God ; it was by his will and not by man’s agency
that they were brought into existence.
This, however, is not the modern theory of the relation of the sexes.
Protestant Christendom regards marriage as a purely human institu
tion, and each State now claims the authority to separate those whom
it has joined together in the event of certain infractions of the law
regulating the institution. Roman Catholicism still sternly adhères
to its historical traditions of the sacramental character and to the
indissolubility of marriage, but the modern theory has beaten the
old church on its own ground, and in communities composed almost
exclusively of its own members. Indeed, this “free love” movement
was a potent force in the original outbreak against the church of
Rome ; as witness Luther’s marriage with a nun, his subsequent
acknowledgment of the validity of the union of a German prince to a
second wife, the first being still alive ; and also the tremendous conse
quences of Pope Clement’s refusal to divorce Henry VIII from Queen
Catherine. In every modern nation the first victory over the sacerdotal
power of mother church is signalized by the substitution of the civil
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Tt
for the sacramental marriage, and the passage of laws admitting of
divorce under certain contingencies. The recent enactment of a civil
marriage law in Austria was made the occasion of a national holiday ;
the Spanish revolution was signalized by the recognition of the legiti
macy of such unions ; and the highest courts in Italy, in spite of the
protests of the. church, have solemnly affirmed the legal validity of the
marriage of priests.
But the substitution of the civil for the sacerdotal marriage was
only one step in this social revolution. The personal theory or the
relation of the sexes is what now obtains the widest sanction. In this
view marriage is a mere contract between two persons ; living together
is a sufficient proof that the couple are man and wife. This is the
American idea of marriage, which needs the sanction of neither church
nor state—only the consent of the two persons directly interested to
insure the respectability of the connection and legitimatize the off
spring.
Nor is this all ; this theory of mere consent giving validity to the
relation involves the further consequence that a separation may ensue
when either party becomes dissatisfied. If .marriage is a mere matter
of human convenience or pleasure, then it can be dissolved at will ; the
same persons who made the contract for their mutual happiness should
have the power to dissolve it when their comfort is not enhanced by
complying with its conditions. And this is the exact view taken by
John Stuart Mill, who represents, probably more than any other living
writer, the most advanced view of the times on all topics of social
concern.
And as a consequence of this growing conception of marriage as a
mere personal matter between individuals, what do we see in society at
large ? Why a constant tendency to loosen the ties which bind the
sexes together ? The statement may be broadly made that since the
reformation all legislation in modern Christendom has been in thé
direction of the entire freedom of the affections. Not a single instance
can be furnished of legal enactment to bind still firmer the marriage
bonds, or to go back to a stricter law of divorce. On the contrary,
every change or amendment of the ordinances which society imposes
on the sexes for its protection and their happiness tends to make the
bonds lighter and separation more easy. In our own country, which
Booner than any other adopts all the so-called improvements in legisla
tion, divorce laws are notoriously lax and the number of separations
extraordinarily large. Even in so conservative, and in one sense reli
gious a State as Vermont, there is an average of one separation to every
eleven marriages, and in Connecticut (among Americans), one to nine.
Of course, in other States, especially those settled by emigrants from
New England, the proportion is still greater.
Nor do I see in any quarter a desire to go back to a more stringent
rule. There is occasionally a feeble protest from some old-fashioned
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divine, but the church as a body has taken no action, and seems quite
willing that the marriage laws should be practically abrogated in time.
And here it may be remarked that our present monogamic mar
riage is not a Christian institution.- The Bible was written by and for
a nation of polygamists. There is not a text of Scripture, from Genesis
to Revelation, which prescribes that the man shall have but one wife,
and the woman but one husband. It is true there was such a limita
tion so far as bishops were concerned in the early church, but this Very
exception proved the rule to have been otherwise. Luther recognized
this in an instance I have already mentioned. And here again it must
be borne in mind that the relation of the sexes is purely conventional;
there is no absolute rule governing all the nations. We must dis
criminate between a permanent and a transient morality. In all ages,
and among all people, it has been considered wrong to murder, lie, or
steal; but there has been no general rule recognized among men gov
erning the relation of the sexes. It has varied widely in every age and
clime. There was a time when men married their sisters, and the
priests blessed the union. The law,“ Thou shalt not commit adultery,”
was given to a polygamous people, and was understood very differently
from the way we regard it.
The brothel is deemed infamous in New York, but is a govern
ment institution in Paris; while the tea-gardens as they are called in
Japan are as respectable as the school-house or tfie temples, and are
supposed to be quite as useful in their way. Hence in discussing this
subject of marriage, we must bear in mind that our conventional
standards are not common to the entire race, but only to a small part
of it, and have not therefore the same sanction as those rules of con
duct which are recognized universally.
So far there have been the following variations of the sexual rela
tions recognized openly or tacitly by mankind:
1. Polyandry, or several men the husbands of one wife. This was
probably the prevalent institution when the race was in its infancy
and still in a very savage state—when man was the hunted rather than
the hunters of beasts of prey; and hence what was needed to fight the
wild beasts of the forest was the strong male rather than the child-bear
ing female. This accounts for the custom which still obtains in the
East of killing female infants at birth. Polyandry is still a custom in
Thibet, and in other parts of Asia.
2. Polygamy was the next form of marriage, and the one which has
always been held in the highest favor by the great mass of mankind
within the historic period. Probably three-fourths of the race to-day
practice or tolerate polygamy.
3. Monogamy. This is undoubtedly the very highest form of the
relation of the sexes so far instituted among men, and has given us the
noblest types of women, as wife and mother, of the race. Some form
of the monogamic marriage is always associated with an advanced
civilization.
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4. Concubinage. This is a real institution of monogamic commu
nities, though in disrepute, and not recognized legally. Statistics
would show, if it were possible to collect them accurately, that in all
nations where the one-wife rule obtains legally, there are a certain defi
nite number of women who act as the temporary or permanent second
wives of married or unmarried men. Among the Jews the concubine
was but an inferior kind of wife, which is just what the kept mistress
is with us—only the position of the latter is disreputable, which was
not the case with the Jewish concubine.
5. Prostitution. This is also an institution almost exclusively pecu
liar to monogamic communities. Wherever the one-wife system pre
vails, whoredom is an inevitable accompaniment. In modern Europe
and America it is estimated that one woman in every sixty practically
ignores the conventional law 'of marriage either as a prostitute or as a
kept mistress, or by indulging in occasional liaisons. From the nature
of the case it is difficult to get at exact figures, but it is known that
each of these three classes bear a certain fixed proportion to the popu
*
lation in all single-wife communities.
6. Celibacy. It is perhaps a misnomer to class this state under the
head of the relation of the sexes, when in fact it signifies'an absence
of relation; but old maids form so large and growing a proportion of
'our population, that they must be considered in any discussion of the
general subject of marriage, especially the future of marriage. Celibacv
is probably the most cruel of all the institutions which control women;
it entails vastly more physical and mental suffering than prostitution,
apart, of course, from the contagion engendered by the latter, because
it affects such numbers of the sex. There are probably two hundred
* Since writing the above, further thought on the subject has led me to the
conclusion that prostitution is simply polyandry under another name. Both insti
tutions spring from the same real or fancied necessities of the race. In both a few
women are set apart for the satisfaction of the sexual passions of many men. Poly
andry, however, involves offspring, and is hence an honorable estate among the
savages who practice it: while prostitution has no aim beyond satisfying a sexual
appetite on the part of the male. The one is a permanent relation, and was and is
sanctified by habit and affection; the other is a transient flirtation, in nine cases out
of ten wholly animal. Concubinage also is simply the polygamy of monogamic
communities. It has been said that there was more polygamy in London than in
Constantinople, and this is probably true, only in the one case it is an honored in> stitution, and in the other a disreputable gratification, yet both satisfying pressing
social needs.
Hugh Miller, in combating the theories of progress rife in his time, attempted
to prove from geology that a process of degradation or retrogression was going on
as well as progression. What he did show was that upon the advent of a new race
of superior beings, the one which had before held the vantage ground fell back in
the scale of creation. Thus all living animal types were better represented on this
planet than they have been since the advent of man.
The same law seems to hold good with human institutions. Polyandry and
polygamy, which were once legal and honored institutions, have become degraded
in the presence of the highest form of the relation of the sexes as yet known to
large masses of men, viz., monogamy; yet it must not be forgotten that prostitu
tion and concubinage are real, permanent institutions in our present civilization,
which zoill exert themselves as social forces, and which cannot be ignored by the
sociologist.
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unmated women for every one prostitute, and in some respects the
latter has an advantage over the former. Her instinct of sex is grati
fied to the uttermost, while every purely womanly passion in the old
maid, widow, or young maid unmated, is a matter of secret shame and
perpetual disappointment. To make matters worse, the whole past
education of women has been to train them for marriage, as their sole
business in life. That so large a proportion of women are permanently
unmated in our modern civilization is proof positive that the theories
which have heretofore obtained touching theii’ exclusive devotion to
domestic life do not meet all the wants of society. And then the num
ber of involuntary celibates tends constantly to increase. For this
there are many causes, among which are the higher standard of com
fort and luxury, the greater industrial activity of women, and especially
the emigrating tendencies of men caused by the cheapness and rapidity
of modern travel. In England it is estimated that of every one hun
dred grown women only fifty-five are married; the rest are unmated.
So much for the past and the present.
But now what of the future ? What changes or variations may we
expect in marriage before the year 2000 ? Let us apply Comte’s concep
tion of historical filiation or Herbert Spencer’s law of evolution to
this subject, and see whither we are tending.
Historically, then, it is evident that we are passing from a super
natural to a purely human conception of marriage. It is no longer a
mystic rite or sacrament; it is an institution designed to perpetuate
the race and add to human happiness. All existing criticisms on mar
riage are from a purely human standpoint. Hence the tendency is to
greater individual freedom of action. All legislation, without any ex
ception in modern Christendom, is in this direction. Individual con
sent is now the bond between the sexes, not sacerdotal authority. The
metaphysical and anarchical doctrine of human rights, now urged with
so much vehemence all over the Christian world, is disintegrating mar
riage.
So much for the historical tendency, as any one can see who keeps
his eyes open. And now what does the law of evolution lead us to
expect ? This law is that in human institutions as well as in the or
ganic world about us, the tendency is from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous, from the simple to the complex ; that what are at first
apparently accidental variations, become at length permanent character
istics ; in short, that a process of differentiation is constantly going on.
Now, if this is true, it will lead to some consequences, in considering
marriage, which will startle conservative people. Yet it is very evident
that in comparing a savage with a civilized people, one of the marked
distinctions will be the simplicity of the marriage institution in the
one, and the complex character of the relation of the sexes in the other.
A rude, simple community will tolerate but one rule or practice, but a
score of variations from the conventional requirement is winked at in
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81
Rome, London, and Paris. As I have shown, monogamic communities
are forced to tolerate Polyandry and Pologamy in the form of Pfostitution and Concubinage, but there are many variations of the sexual re
lation that do not come under those heads which need not be par
ticularized here, and which are practised in all civilized communities.
This differentiation will, I think, go on until the scientific law or
laws governing the relation of the sexes has been discovered. What
these variations may be, it is now our business to try and point out.
One variation of marriage is that of the present Protestant theory
of the relation of the sexes carried to its logical conclusion. This in
volves marriage and divorce at will, without recognizing the authority
of any one or any organization outside of the couple most interested.
Practically we have almost reached that stage now. There is nothing
to hinder people separating and forming new unions, provided both
parties interested are willing. The embarrassment in the way is the
dependence of the woman, especially if she has children; but the equal
rights agitation is teaching her self-help, and the necessity of women
working and being pecuniarily independent of men. This general
form of marriage may be defined as the Protestant or individual sov
ereignty marriage, and has in itself many variations. So far it involves
an idea of faithfulness to each other while living together, but if there
is to be no check to individual freedom—if the man or woman is not
responsible to any one but him or herself, it is no one’s business but
their own with whom they consort, or how often they change partners.
Thus we come to absolute free love, and there is no logical stopping
place short of that on the prevalent individual rights theory. In a
greater or less degree this is the outcome of the marriage relation in
Protestant Christendom. The prevalent free-trade, no-government,
and every-man-for-himself notions which are generated by our political,
woman’s rights and social discussions, intensifies this tendency. Were
there no children to be considered, and were women as self-helpful as
men, there is no doubt that this form of the relation of the sexes
would soon be very common in Protestant and sceptical communities.
But the great bulk of women are not independent of men pecunia
rily, and children will be born, however undesirable they may be deemed
by those who wish to realize the theory of marriage which Protestant
communities are consciously or unconsciously working out.
The class of women workers, however, are constantly increasing,
and in a short time tens of thousands of the sex as artists, writers,
physicians, professors, teachers, and heads of establishments, will have
employment which they will not give up to fill the station of life in
volved in the old theory of marriage. Hence will come partial unions
which may be for a time or for life, which may involve absolute faith
fulness to each other or entire freedom of change. All this is certain
to come about whether we like it or not, and very probably in the next
generation. It is very likelv that for the next two generations the
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monogamic form of marriage will obtain with the great mass of people,
but th«Tirregular unions I have pointed out will be not only tolerated—
they will not be under any social ban, for many worthy people will, in
all likelihood, deliberately rid themselves of the marriage fetters which
society now imposes. I expect very soon that among the large class of
professional women who will earn their own livelihood and whose oc
cupation do not admit of household cares, it will not be deemed dis
reputable to have children without any marriage formality. At first, of
course, this will create scandal, but if it is countenanced by a few women
of real character, standing, and professional reputation, it will soon be
tolerated, especially if it is done deliberately and in accordance with
some social and religious theory then prevailing, or which may be
promulgated to sanction such practices. An assumed noble motive or
religious conviction will give respectability to the wildest social aber
rations. A man or woman of recognized professional ability, who is
known to be honest, public-spirited and self-denying, could easily set a
fashion of this kind, which would be generally tolerated, though not
often imitated. A marriage contract for a limited time has been
seriously discussed in several of the Woman’s Rights and Spiritualist
journals. It is noticeable that it is the women who propose those
schemes. Here is a specimen and one very likely to be tried during
the coming years:
Ellen Storge sends a communication to the Woman’s Advocate, of Dayton, 0., •
in which she proposes the following social platform :
“ 1. Let the marriage contract be limited to from one to three years, at the coi
tion of the contracting parties.
“2. Discard the erroneous idea that this contract is divine; admit that this is
but a human transaction, intended to perpetuate the species and produce human
happiness.
“ 3. Make both parties equal; do not exact, special promises or terms from one
sex to its disadvantage and the advantage of the other. Exact pledges of mutual
fidelity and co-operation during continuance of the marital contract; but let love
alone. Love is a sensitive, spontaneous outgrowth of the heart, subject to the con
trol of treatment and circumstances rather than formal promises ; it is too tender,
too sacred, for the public gaze.
“ 4. Let the marriage contract embrace the contingency of issue, with full and
unequivocal provision therefor. If one child, let its custody devolve by written and
recorded agreement, void during coverture ; if two or more children, the same, or
division by such agreement, provided that the party refusing to renew the expired
contract, at the instance of the other party, or the offender in case of premature an
nulment, shall be compelled to maintain the offspring and be the custodian thereof,
at the option of the opposite party.
“ 5. Enact just laws for the determination of all such contingencies as might
arise under this new order of things : make them applicable only to those now un
married ; let there be no ex post facto taint about the matter. During coverture,
us also in the event of non-renewal of the contract., let each party control its own
finances ; of that they shall have together amassed, let there be an equal division.”
The complex marriage: ‘ this is what obtains at. present, in the
Oneida Community, and is simply organized free love. Wives and
w
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83
husbands are alike common. To make this relation practicable, as
may be well understood, the very strongest social and religious influ
ence must be brought to bear, as the tendency would naturally be toward
pure- license, and a riot of the passions, with no care or even thought
of offspring. It could never be even tried except in a community
dominated by a strong will, or a stringent public opinion based upon a
definite social and religious creed. The complex marriage involves : A
non-recognition of preference between two persons of opposite sex, ex
cept for the time being. As a consequence, “ sweet love is slain,”—that
is to say, the romantic and sentimental side of that passion, which
invariably involves a conception of absolute possession as well as con
tinuance and perpetuity, is sternly reprohibited and stamped out. Love
in any of its so-called higher phases, involves exclusive possession of
the loved object, and this brings in jealousy, a feeling which'cannot be
tolerated in a community where all the men and women are common.
This necessary crucifixion of the sentimental side of love leaves merely
the animal passion to be gratified, and replaces the sense of personal
attachment by a conception of womanhood very different from that
which now obtains.
The Oneida Communists have practiced this complex marriage for
some twenty years. It is the most novel experiment in the relations of
the sexes ever tried, and deserves the most serious study from the
sociologist. This community is also testing some of the problems of
stirpiculture, or the scientific propagation of human beings. It is
needless to point out the very great value of the data they are collect
ing upon this most important of all the mysteries connected with the
life of the race upon this planet.
Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that the current theories with
regard to scientific breeding will have their effect in giving us several
new variations of the sexual relation. One well known writer has
seriously proposed that married men who are conscious of their own
unfitness for paternity, should introduce men of superior strains of
blood to their marriage bed. “Why,” he asks, “should not a man
desire splendid children in his home as well as carefully cultivated
flowers in his garden, or superior animals on his farm ?” So far this
has been urged privately ; but I have no doubt the writer will, in a
short time, make his views public. It will seem a monstrous proposi
tion to ninety-nine persons in a hundred, but here and there a few
crotchety people may make the experiment. If public opinion would
permit, there are to-day hundreds of well-to-do women who would have
children by men they admire, but whom they cannot or would not marry.
There is still another form of the sexual relation suggested by
Madame Clémence Royer, whicfy has been described as follows :
“ Her mode of mobilizing the family is to abolish the family. Woman, she
says, needs and must always have a permanent abode. She cannot rove, as man can
and must do ; therefore let her be no longer tied to any man in particular, or any
�»4
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man to her. ‘We must then/ she says, ‘ mobilize the family, destroy its indissolu
bility. This is the only way of saving it from shipwreck ; it is only in reforming
courageously that we can prevent its falling into complete desuetude.’ So she pro
poses that the marriage-contract should be dissolved on the simple request of either
of the parties, and that there should be instituted a kind of marriage correspond
ing to the confa/rreatio of the Romans, sufficient to legitimize the woman’s position
and the birth of her children, but not binding on her or her husband longer than
he or she pleases. The woman being the more permanent person, Madame Royer
proposes that she, and not the father, should give her name to the children and be
the legal head of the family, the father being relegated to a secondary position, and
constituting in domestic life a kind of shadowy auxiliary, of no moral influence or
weight, and not necessarily known to his children ; and the mother taking as many
husbands in succession as her fancy or circumstances suggested; the result being
perfect happiness, purity, and freedom for all concerned, and an end, total and com
plete, to the quarrelings, falsehood, and oppression of the present system. The
scheme is worked out with much ability, and its bearings on property and other
social arrangements are fairly considered.”
This may seem very chimerical now, yet it but needs a place in
some religious or social scheme to have it tried almost any day.
There will be other variations of the marriage relation which it is
impossible to forecast now, but we may be sure that great diversity will
result from the individualistic theories which now obtain. The future
is in this respect anything but reassuring to the social philosopher and
philanthropist; it is easy enough to write calmly and in cold blood of
these possible experiments on the social relations, but they will all in
volve much human misery and some terrible heart tragedies.
For myself I have no faith in the permanence of the Individual Sov
ereignty conceptions of the relation of the sexes. It may endure for a
generation or two, but because it is individual it is necessarily anti-social,
and therefore unscientific. Whatever is purely egoistic and selfish is an
archical and self-destructive. Hence, while all these theories of marriage
will be worked out,—indeed it is indispensable to the real progress of the
race that they should all be tested by actual experiment,—they cannot
endure after their unsoundness as solutions of the great problem have
been demonstrated. For there is really a most notable problem to
solve. Our present marriage relation is not what it should be; it is a
makeshift, and must be scientifically reconstructed. The woes, disease,
miseries, divorces and murders which are incidental to the present sys
tem, or rather want of system, must give place to something which
will work out better results, especially in the way of offspring. What
that future relation may be it would be premature to point out now;
it is, however, certain it will not take the form of free love, but will be
an institution purer, more chaste, more self-denying, more altruistic
than any form of marriage which has yet been established among men.
Until the problem is solved all true reformers will watch and wait,
and conform in their own lives to the noble ideal of the monogamic mar
riage propounded by Auguste Comte—a marriage which admits of no
divorce for anyjsause, and which decrees eternal widowhood to the sur
viving partner.'
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CHAPTER II.
STEAM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIOLOGY.
The use of steam and its application to transportation are so mod
em, that we as yet scarcely realize what wonders it has accomplished,
much less the marvels it has in store for us. We know in a general
way of the conveniences of railway and steam travel; but thus far no
one has apprehended all the consequences which will result from this
rapid method of intercommunication. We know that one of the first
effects of railway traffic was to develop and enrich the centers of popu
lation. Cities grew at the expense of the rural districts. This has
been true of all parts of the world into which railroads have been intro
duced. Another effect has been the rapid equalization of prices. The
inability of agriculturists to market their crops economically at the
centers of population, led in the past to great differences in prices.
During the last century, and up to the first third of the present, it was
a matter of frequent occurrence for all but bankrupt families in En
gland, to retire to some rural district on the continent to recruit their
fortunes, being able in that way to live on one-quarter or one-fifth of
their expense at home. In theory it was supposed that the building
of railroads would reduce prices at the centers of population ; but such
does not seem to have been the case. The converse fact, however, is
true, that it has largely enhanced prices in the rural districts.
Wherever railroads have run, the prices of agricultural products have
increased and have been equalized with the prices which formerly ob
tained in the large centers and controlling markets of the world. In
this country it is not so long since the cost of living away from the
large cities was very small. It is within the experience of us all that
as means of communication were established, country living became
more and more costly. This equalization of prices is having a most
important effect upon accumulation of wealth, and the relation of the
city to the country. Our farming class are becoming enriched. The
comparative poverty which characterized the agricultural community in
the past, has given way in these more recent years to comfort and in
some cases to affluence. The labor of the agriculturist is better paid
and the enjoyments of civilized life have been extended to an enlarged
and constantly enlarging class of people. What effect this will have
upon the education, the intelligence and the refinement of the farming
community, it is needless here to dwell upon.
Curiously enough, while the first effect of railroads has been to
build up great centers of population, it has had and is having a dispersing
effect upon these same centers. For instance, New York and London
have grown enormously since the general use of railroads, but, as an
�V
86
STEAM
AS
A
I
..
FACTOR.
offset to this packing of population, the railroad is coming in as a dis
persive agency also. It has added hundreds of square miles to the
available area of very large cities. The street railways, the dummies,
and the swarm of local steam railroads, which spring up to accommo
date the traffic between large cities and their suburbs, are having the
effect of scattering dense populations. Travelers in Europe may have
noticed that all the old cities, such as Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Vienna
and others, are notable for the extreme height of the houses, many of
them having from ten to fourteen stories. The reason for this packing
of population upon a small area of ground, was manifestly the impos
sibility of living at any great distance from the actual place of busi
ness. There was a limit to the spread of population with the growth
of business, and hence the people who could not be accommodated by
a lateral extension, remedied the difficulty by piling story upon story
of their houses. This is the secret of the “ Paris Flats,” so called,
which some of our unthinking architects have been trying to intro
duce into our American cities. The plea of necessity for either tene
ment houses or flats no longer exists ; all that is needed is the proper
extension of railroad facilities, the complete systematizing of trans
portation of local passengers; and the ground to be occupied is practi
cably illimitable. This is a matter of supreme importance to the resi
dents of large citiqs, and it is one which has as yet been almost entirely
overlooked. The remedy for the overcrowding of cities, is not the
erection of model lodging-houses or improved tenement-houses, or
“ Paris flats,” or any contrivance for packing people together in dense
masses. It is to be found in the extension of our railroad system, so
that every city business or working man may have his own home—his
own vine and apple-tree.
There is a larger view to take of the application of steam to rail
way and ocean navigation, which also has been hardly thought out,
and that is its effect upon the distribution of population. We have
seen that one of the most palpable effects of railway extension is the
equalization of the prices of produce ; and that further along in their
history, the equalizing of the wages of labor between city and country.
It will also be noticed that there is a dispersing as well as concentrating
action in the development of railroad traffic. Applying this conception
to the whole civilized world, we can readily see what changes may yet be
made in the distribution of population. History shows us how unequal
the distribution of population has been in all countries, in some deiise,
in others very sparse, the cause always being the dearness and difficulty
of transportation between the densely populated parts of the earth’s sur
face and. the portions not populated at all. But steam navigation is just
beginning to change all this. Its cheapness and rapidity is bringing it
year by year more and more within the means of the poorer classes.
One of the most extraordinary phenomena of modern times is the
equalizing of populations by the emigration of vast numbers of people.
�STEAM
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Such voluntary-quovement of masses of men and women as have been
witnessed since the introduction of steam power for the purposes of
transportation, were never known or even dreamed of before. Travel
has increased a hundred, aye, a thousand fold. We are still in only the
beginning of these enormous movements of population from one part
of the earth’s surface to another. Indeed this mighty flux of nations is
to be one of the most conspicuous features of the travel of the future.
When the post-horse system had reached its perfection in England
at the beginning of the present century, it ia estimated that there were
never more than eighty thousand persons per day traveling at any one
time. It is now estimated that in England alone, the railroads are
patronized by nearly one million persons per day. We have no figures
touching the rapid interchange of population by means of railroads in
this country, but from the general wealth of the community, and the
mental and bodily activity of the people, we know that the change
must have been far greater here, and it is not too much to say that five
hundred persons now travel by railway for every one person who trav
eled by stage-coach in the first years of the history of the Republic.
This easily generalized fact will show us that some of the problems of
modern society are to be solved by this ease of transit, in a way quite
unexpected to past writers upon political economy. Free travel will b$
found to be a mightier agency for elevating pauperized populations
than free trade. The common people of Ireland, of Germany, and of
England have begun to find out that there is an opening on other por
tions of the earth’s surface, and that there is no real necessity for them
to remain in their old homes, and starve, when they can go elsewhere
and live in abundance; and hence the armies, mightier than those com
manded by Timour, Genghis Khan or Attila, or led by Peter the Her
mit—armies not with weapons of war in their hands, but with instru
ments of labor, and willing and able to work, which are on the march
to attack the wild portions of the globe with the view of making them
the homes of civilized peoples. Hence the rush of population to our
Western Territories and the Pacific coast, the overflowing of New Zea
land, Australia, and the Islands of the Indian Ocean, and the rapid
extension of population even in South Africa. The streams, of emigra
tion from Southern Europe which have set in toward Brazil and other
parts of South America are indices of a mightier influx of population
in the future. The most portentous of these changes has already com
menced upon our Pacific coast. The Mongolians have discovered the
enormous riches of California, and are only waiting for proper facilities,
such as steam will yet afford, to overrun the whole of the Western
coast of the United States; and if not interrupted, millions of that
race will yet find their way into the Mississippi Valley, and even to the
North Atlantic coast.
*
This article was written in 1867.—Author.
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It is not so difficult, though the magnitude of the result may be
surprising, to forecast the effect of these changes of population upon
human conditions. All can be predicted with tolerable accuracy. The
agricultural poor of England are to-day the most debased of any class
in Europe—are the worst fed, worst used, and worst paid. This cheap
agricultural labor lies at the very basis of the aristocratic features of
English landed property, and of their whole tenant system Let the emi
gration fever once reach this lowest strata of English-Society—and it is
reaching it—and a heavy blow will have been dealt at the great tenant
farming interest of that country, and at the wealth of the large aristo
cratic landed establishments. A very small advance in the wages of
English agricultural laborers, will make the raising of wheat and of all
the cereals an unprofitable business in that country. It has already to
a great extent done so, and hence the attention which has been paid in
the last fifteen or twenty years to the growth and development of supe
rior cattle. But here again the equalizing tendencies of steam naviga
tion comes into play. While meat is extremely dear in England and
the west of Europe, owing to the density of the population and the
small amount of ground available for pasture, there are portions of the
earth’s surface where meat is worth scarcely anything. The problem is
¿o transport the meat from the place where it is very plenty to the
place where it is very scarce. Science is now at work upon the proper
method of preserving the meat; and it is believed that if this be not
as yet accomplished, it is on the very point of accomplishment. Steam
navigation will most certainly supply the necessary facilities for bring
ing the cheap meat and the dear meat countries into intimate relation;
and then another heavy blow will be dealt at the farming and aristo
cratic interests of Great Britain. Wages will be raised in that country
and food cheapened.
But the most important problem for us to solve in connection with
this coming flux of nations is, what shall we do with the millions of hea
thens willing to work for little more than a bare livelihood, who will be
swarming upon us from Eastern and Southern Asia ? What will become
of our working classes if this practically inexhaustible supply of laborers
be available for our industrial wants ? It is idle to talk of restrictive laws,
though they will undoubtedly be tried; indeed they have been tried.
The spirit of the age is all against this stoppage of emigration. We
may pile act of Congress upon act of Congress, and station war-ships
before every port in the Pacific, yet it would be impossible practically
to prevent this influx of Chinese and Hindoos upon our western coast.
Nothing will do it but the equalization of the prices of labor in Asia
and America. Undoubtedly there is trouble, a great deal of it, in the
future working of this question. We have already experienced some
of the effects of the influx of cheap labor from Europe ; but so far, our
mechanics have had such ready access to cheap lands, that the price of
labor has been upheld in the fact of a very large emigration. As the
�STEAM AS A
FACTOR.
89
foreigners arrived and embarked in the various trades, the American
mechanics started for the West and secured homes of their own. But
this change of employment will soon reach its limit. It will not/ be
many years before all the public lands will be taken up, and then will
commence the enhancement of the price of all the lands of this coun
try. The solution of this labor problem, it will be found, is not a local
matter; it is not confined to any one country, and no one nation will
be able to pass laws or create any conditions by which its own poor
will be well used, well fed and properly educated, without also taking into
consideration the feeding and educating of all peoples upon the globe.
The trades-unions in England, despite of all that has been said against
them, have really had the effect of raising the rate of wages in that
country, but in all those occupations in which the unionists succeeded
in banding together, they found that the chief obstacle in the way of
the success of their strikes and demands for higher wages, was the
ability of the English manufacturers to import laborers from France
and Belgium. This has, in a measure, been prevented by the English
workmen through the forming of labor-unions in Belgium and France,
and by having an understanding that there should be no competition
between the workmen of either of the three nations. This furnishes a
hint as to the solution of this labor problem. Steam is bringing about
that dream of the French socialists, the solidarity of the nations. The
working classes will find out that to permanently better their condi
tion, they must take into consideration, not only the workmen in their
own locality, but the laboring class of every other population under the
sun, and in time they will realize that, with the extremely rapid and
cheap system of transportation which is about to obtain all over the
world, there can be no very great differences of condition between the
laboring population of different countries; and this fact may yet bring
about that dream of the past:
“ Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new ;
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.”
This rapid interchange of populations will also have other and far
wider effects. What becomes of local patriotism in the face of a chang
ing fluctuating population ? The farmers in the country and the
bouseholders in the city may have sentiments of local attachment, but
the great trading community, the traveling and working population
who have no stake in the soil—what will they care for one country
more than another ? What attachment will then exist to bind them
to any particular spot of earth ? Is it not reasonable to suppose that
the extension of this agent of modern civilization, steam, may tend to
increase the number of cosmopolitans, people who care more for the
whole earth than for any particular part of it, for the race at large
rather than any of its natural divisions ?
Then again as to government, do we not already see that the ex
�90
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tension of the railroad has had most important effects in changing the
map of the world. The “ shrieks of locality ” are no longer heeded;
state lines have no longer the sacredness formerly attributed to them.
The history of modern governments is the history of the growth of
centralization. All efforts of late years towards rebellion or secession
have miserably failed. The South could not escape from the grasp of
the North. Hungary was beaten in her attempt to separate from
Austria. Ireland failed, entirely in her moral agitation to effect a repeal
of the act of union with Great Britain. Not so with efforts to consoli
date nations. Prussia to-day represents some forty smaller nationalities
that existed but a few short years ago. Italy is one nation where but
yesterday were six or seven. The United States Government keeps
adding steadily to its possessions; Russia encroaches upon Central Asia;
England extends her dominions in Southern Asia; and so as the means
of intercommunication multiply, the smaller become merged in the
larger nations. Contemporaneously with this enlargement of the
boundaries of great states, we find another curious and hitherto unsus
pected effect of the influence of modern steam travel, which is the
extension of suffrage to larger and still larger classes of the community.
There is no doubt whatever that this rapid flux of population is really
at the bottom of this equalizing of men’s position as regards the gov
ernment. In England, in America, in France, in Germany, in Italy,
in Spain—in every civilized nation, we see that greater and still greater
concessions are being made to the laboring population in the way of
political power. But strangely enough, and yet naturally enough, if
we regard it in the right light, with the extension of the voting privi
lege to the laboring classes we see a greater concentration of power in
the central authority. This follows naturally from the obliteration of
localities. All can see that New York State at large, through its legis
lature at Albany, takes the power away from New York City; that
Washington absorbs much of the power formerly centering in Albany.
Berlin to-day represents twenty small capitals of ten years ago. Paris,
in the van of civilization, has.long been the virtual head of all France.
The reason for this change is obvious. When the doctrine of States
rights in this country was preached in its early vigor, Washington was
in point of fact at a greater distance from the city of New York than it
is to-day from the city of Delhi. In point of actual time, it took
over two weeks to reach Maine from the capital, and a still greater
length of time to reach New Orleans. There could be no wise govern
ment of provinces which were so distant in point of time, where infor
mation to head-quarters took so long to go, and commands therefrom
so long to come. And this has been the real force of the argument in
favor of the exclusive government of localities by the people thereof;
but human conditions have changed marvelously within the last few
years, and distance in relation to time is practically annihilated by the
use of the telegraph, while space has been greatly abridged by the
�STEAM AS
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91
application of steam to transportation. The telegraphic wires have
become the real nerves of the human race. They communicate sensa
tion from all parts of the body politic, and in the fullness of time there
must be, as in the human organism, one great brain to which this sen
sation will be transmitted, and which must act intelligently for all
parts of the corporate body. I do not see how statesmen, political
economists, and philosophers generally can avoid realizing that the
mighty change in human conditions created by the use of steam will
change radically (indeed is changing radically) the relations of locali
ties to the central authority; and that while the equality of human
conditions brought about by steam and electricity has had the effect to
extend the right of the choice of rulers to wider circles of population,
and may yet include even women, it has taken more and more power
from localities, and concentrated it in the central governments. In no
part of the world to-day do we see any powers taken away from the
central governments; in every part of the world, with the extension of
suffrage we see more and more power added to the central authority.
In fact, when the active intelligent and effective part of the population
are rapidly moving from place to place, locality to locality, they are no
longer any better judges of the interests of that locality than are people
who permanently live at a distance. If in the future, therefore, an agi
tation in favor of local rights and State authority should prove feebler
than in past times in the history of our government, it can be readily
understood that this change is made by the agency of steam in effect
ing rapid intercommunication between all parts of the country.
To sum up, then, the effects of the application of steam to transpor
tation—
1. It has built up the centers of population at the expense of the
rural districts, thus stimulating the growth of large cities.
2. In its fullest development it will have a dispersive effect upon
large cities, and prevent overcrowding by rendering available larger
areas of country for business purposes. Cheap steam travel is the real
and certain cure for the tenement-house horror, and most of the evils
of overcrowding. One cheap, swift road, reaching out into the country
from the heart of a great city, is a greater beneficence to the poor than
could be conferred upon them by a generation of Peabodys.
3. Steam travel is equalizing the price of all commodities as well as
the wages of labor. So far the effect has been to enhance prices when
they were low; the reverse effect has rarely taken place; the leveling
has been up, not down. This is a fact upon which depends conse
quences most momentous to the future of the working classes the
world over.
4. Steam is giving an immense impetus to emigration, and is solv
ing the problem of over-population, or perhaps it would be more pre
cise to say, is making that problem one upon which the whole race
must sit in judgment rather than any one people. Like water, wages.
�92
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prices, and population will find their level. The most momentous fact
of the immediate future will be the “flux of nations,” the emigration
of the laboring poor from places where land is dear to where it is
cheap, and from crowded communities to sparsely inhabited settle
ments.
5. This vast emigration will make the social future of the working
class a cosmopolitan question, and will in effect bring about that dream
of the continental socialists, the “ solidarity of the peoples.”
6. The railroad and telegraph, in helping to conquer time and
space, is bringing about the reign of a centralized democracy all over
the world. They tend on the one hand to extend the privilege of the
ballot to every grown human being, and on the other to center more
power in the general government. Localities are constantly getting to
be of less account.
Note.—The three chapters above given will form part of a book upon “ The
Future,” should I ever find time to write it. One other chapter, “ By 1900, What ? ”
was published in Appleton's Journal. In addition I have the rough drafts of about
a dozen other chapters, the contents of which may be judged by their titles, as
follows:
1. The Future of Language.
2. Synthetic Chemistry, and what it will Accomplish.
3. The Future of Money and Prices.
4. Will the Coming Man Sleep ?
5. Can Human Life be Prolonged, and How ?
6. The Food of the Future, and its probable effect upon the Structure of the
Human Body.
7. On the Equalization of the Temperature of the Globe.
8. The Probable Governments of the Future.
9. The Tendency of Educational Changes.
Of course the range of topics is endless, and none of them in the present state of
Sociological Science can be discussed with the intelligence they demand to be made
profitable as objects of serious study. The test of science, as Comte pointed out, is
prevision, and the foundations of a science of human affairs canndt be said to have
been begun until we are able speculatively to anticipate the future. Now all I can
do is to try and point out the tendency or drift of things. I may be mistaken on
every point, but of one thing I am sure—that those who follow me will succeed
where I have failed. All the value I claim for my speculations is the attempt to
deliberately foreeast the future. Now I firmly believe this not only can be done,
but some time or other it will be done.
D. G. C.
�THE SEXUAL QUESTION.
*
T is to the conspicuous disgrace of the medical profession, that so
far it has not supplied the public with any standard work upon
the intimate relations of the sexes. Of all the subjects relating to
the7 life of man upon this planet, there is no one of such prime
importance as the generative act between the sexes. So far it has prac
tically been regarded as a brute instinct, and an indecent shame has
prevented the wise, pure and good of both sexes from fully under
standing all about the act, as well as all the consequences it entails.
The curiosity with regard’to the sexual organs and their uses, not
withstanding this conventional, indelicate reticence, in every one con
scious of sex is necessarily very great, but it has to be gratified illegiti
mately. Mothers do not instruct their daughters, nor fathers their
sons touching this most important of all the relations of their life, not
only because of the sinful shame they feel in conversing upon such
topics with their children, but because of their own amazing ignorance
of the antecedents to and consequences of the act by which the race is
continued.
It may be broadly stated that there as yet has never been written
or published in any language one comprehensive and exhaustive work
upon the generative organs, their uses and abuses. Science has not
yet occupied that field: it has been left to quackery and empiricism.
The works appended are useful as an indication that some few
physicians at least, are becoming aware that these matters must be
discussed from a scientific standpoint, and that the knowledge in the
possession of the medical profession must be given to the public. The
real difficulty in the way, however, is the singular unacquaintance of
the profession with all that relates to the sociological side of this dis
cussion. Comte complained that in his day physicians were little
better than horse doctors when they came to regard man sexually.
They looked upon the male as an animal, and paid no attention to the
enormous modifications brought about by society, and the course of his
tory upon the human family. And this fruitful field is even yet left
unoccupied. Now that women are getting into the medical profession
there is reason to hope for some intelligent discussion of the sexual
question; for it is remarkable to note that the women are far less
squeamish than the men when this topic is broached in the press or on
I
* The Preventive Obstacle.—Dr. Bergeyet.
den&r. Common Sense.—Dr. Foote.
Conjugal Sin A—Dr. Garr-
�94
THE
SEXUAL
QUESTION.
the platform. All pure women feel what all artists and poets have ever
felt, that there is no sin or shame in any of the legitimate gratifications
of the sense of sex. And in considering this subject women seem to
realize more truly than men the social aspects of the case. These are
now up for comment and settlement, especially so far as they relate to
the means to be used in limiting the size of families.
The different methods in use to keep down population or prevent
an undesirable increase in families in times past, may be summed up as
follows:
1. The killing of infants after they are horn.—This is the most
ancient practice, and obtains to this day in the East and in exceptional
cases among the very poor in so-called civilized communities. The
Spartans made a wise use of this practice to rid themselves of mal
formed children, as well as those who should not have been generated.
2. Abortion—the killing of the foetus in the womb.—This is done to
a fearful extent in all " civilized ” communities. It is a worse practice
than infanticide, as it entails far more physical and moral evil. It
generally injures the physical system of the mother and prevents the
birth of desirable as well as undesirable offspring. Then, in spite of
all efforts, a number of half-killed children are born, and live to add to
the sum of human misery. Our laws tacitly recognize the right of
mothers to kill their unborn offspring. Throughout Christendom
there is not a law on any statute-book forbidding or punishing a
woman for killing the unborn fruit of her womb. It is only those who
make a business of committing abortion upon women who are dis
countenanced by law; but all enactments on this subject are practically
null. In New York city abortion is an open and lucrative profession,
as witness the advertisements in the papers and Mad. Restell’s splendid
mansion on Fifth Avenue.
3. Preventative measures.—George Sand is reputed to have said,
apropos of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, that the great
concern in the life of a Parisian woman was not “ how to conceive
without sin, but how to sin without conceiving.” Omitting all notion
of sin in the matter, this is the problem nearly all married couples in
modern civilization are compelled to try and solve. How is it possible to
nave sexual intercourse without resulting offspring ? That this is done
in myriads of cases every one is aware, but can these various practices be
kept up without peril to health ? As yet medical science has given no
decisive or satisfactory answer; but what little the profession does say
is against all attempts to interfere with the propagative act. Bergeret,
Gardener, Mayer, as well as nearly all who have written on the subject,
assert that all preventative measures are hurtful, and that the increase
of uterine diseases among women is due to them. But it is evident
from the loose popular way in which these books are written, that as
yet this problem is without a scientific solution which is likely to be
generally accepted. By commo’h consent it is considered desirable that
�THE
SEXUAL
QUESTION.
95
men and women should marry in order to satisfy the most intense and
exacting of all human passions; but at the same time the foremost
minds of the age insist upon the necessity of married people control
ling the number of their offspring. John Stuart Mill, who represents
the most advanced wing of the political economists, never tires of bear
ing testimony to the criminality of bringing more children into the
world than the family can well take care of, and the common sense of
the community supports this view.
We are agreed as to the'what, but how ? asks the married men and
women most interested.
Science has as yet no answer; the medical profession so far as it
has spoken says, “ absolute continence except when you are willing to
assume the responsibilities of paternity.” Here, then, is the dilemma.
All the best social influences conspire to induce people to marry; when
married, every consideration of prudence -and common sense prompt
them to try and control propagation; but the physicians say this cannot
be done without peril to health, except by complete abstention, some
times extending over years; for, according to Bergeret and his medical
confreres, no intercourse is allowable during pregnancy and lactation,
nor after the woman’s “turn of life.” Yet, every one knows that these
canons of conduct in the sexual relation are universally disregarded.
The Oneida communists profess to have solved this problem by
what they call “ male continence.” The sexes have intercourse, but the
male stops short of the emission of semen. But this is one of the
practices which Bergeret declares is destructive of health. Per contra,
the communists insist that they are not injured but benefited in health
by this peculiar custom, which has been in vogue among them for over
a score of years, and they point to their exemption from disease and
longevity as compared with their neighbors, as a proof of the truth of
their claim.
The simple truth is, the relations of the' sexes have not yet been
put under scientific co-ordination. Marriage and propagation are not
subject to the “ higher law.” Hence prostitution, celibacy, polygamy,
free love, disease, the gratification of mere brute instincts in marriage
and out of it, and, as a consequence, the social disturbance, the propa
gation of faulty human beings as well as the generation of hideous
diseases. The work to be done is to collect all the verified facts rela
ting to the intercourse of the sexes, and generalize the laws which con
trol them. When we have discovered those laws, all there is to do is to
obey them. In the preliminary discussions, what is needed is pure
thinking and plain speaking. The tawdry sentimentalizing which dis
tinguishes Dr. Gardener’s book, for instance, is extremely offensive.
Things must be called by their right names; but it must never be for
gotten that, as the sexual act involves the highest interests of society,
it must be lifted out of the slough of mere animality and discussed
from a religious point of view.
�96
UNIVERSOL OGY.
TEPHEN PEARL ANDREWS’S «Primary Synopsis of Universology,” embraces his scheme of a scientific universal lan
guage. • It is a condensation of another work, covering the
whole field of philosophy, as yet unpublished. I do not
propose to pass any verdict upon this preliminary work. Its author
makes a most tremendous claim. He alleges that he has discovered
the Science of Sciences—that he has supplied the connecting link
between the body of all human knowledges. In other words, he has
not only discovered a new Method, but the Method of Methods. If
this claim can be established, America has at length produced a philos
opher of the very highest type—a greater than Aristotle, Bacon, Des
cartes, Spinoza, or Comte. The audacity of Mr. Andrews’s claim can
not but challenge attention from the scientific world. It is quite safe
to predict that, whether his work has any value or not, it will be re
ceived with a storm of derision from all the old schools of thought.
The Modern Thinker, however, declines to pass a verdict until all the
testimony is in. Mr. Andrews is undoubtedly a man of unusual powers
of mind—he is an acute thinker, and has rare powers of persuasion
and exposition. We say this much because ordinary readers who take
up his book will be repelled by its terminology. Comte points out the
great value it would be to mankind if all phenomena could be referred
to some one law, such, for instance, as that of gravitation, but in the
same chaptei’ he denies that it is possible to formulate such a law.
Man is finite, and the universe is infinite, and therefore it is chimerical
to expect ever to discover the secret of the grand Unity, if indeed there
is a Unity. Now Mr. Andrews declares that what Comte pronounced
an eternally impossible feat he has accomplished. The very splendoi’
of the claim ought to command respect, at least; but I judge it will
not, and that for a long time to come he will have to submit to a good
deal of abuse and ridicule.
I am inclined to believe that Mr. Andrews has made a real discovery
in his universal language; at least, if he has not solved the problem
himself, he has pointed out how it may be done by some one else.
There are about sixty-four primary sounds in all languages. Every
one of these, Mr. Andrews alleges, is charged by nature with certain
meanings, which he prints in his new vocabulary. The instances Mr.
Andrews gives to prove his claim will carry a great deal of weight with
philologists who have made a study of phonetics. As there is a science
of harmony, which was not invented, but discovered, so, says our
author, there is a science of sound, expressing sense, which we must
find out by careful induction. When discovered, we will have the
Language of Man, which must, in time, be common to the whole planet.
It is possible that Mr. Andrews has been bedeviled by analogies; indeed
his universology is confessedly a science of analogies; but I believe he
has in this conception of a universal language hit upon something of
supreme importance to the race.—D. G.
S
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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What of the future
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Croly, David Goodman [1829-1889]
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Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [73]-96 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Croly was an American journalist. From 1870 to 1873, he published the journal Modern Thinker which served as a vehicle for the positivist and Spencerian positions of himself and a small circle of colleagues. Chapter headings: The Future of Marriage; Steam as a Factor of Sociology; The Sexual Question. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870.||(BND) Some uncut pages. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in red ink on cream paper.
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[American News Company]
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[1870]
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G5416
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Society
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (What of the future), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Future Life
Industrialization
Marriage
Sexual Behavior