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AN
HOUR IN A LIBRARY,
IH SEARCH OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
its relation to Literature, to Culture, and to Conduct.
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DELIVERED BEFORE THE
’\Z01TJ I’d
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 28th JANUARY, 1883,
BY
A.
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ELLEY
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^anbun:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1883.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
j!/. to c' H
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, are—on
“Erasmus: his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Now out of Print.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.”
“The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Development of the Human Mind.”
“The Principles of Political Economy: their Scientific
Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
“The English Free-thinkers
tury.”
of the
Eighteenth Cen
“ The Science of Life worth Living.”
“ The Victories of Science
stition.”
in its
Warfare
with
Super
“ An Aspiration of Science : ‘ On Earth Peace, Good-will to
wards Menrescued from the New Testament Revision.”
“An Hour in
ledge.”
a
Library,
in search of
Natural Know
Price of each of the above Lectures 3rf., or post free 3^d.
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between
Lord Bacon and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 100, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post free
5s. 3d.)
“ The Pursuit of Truth : as Exemplified in the Principles of
Evidence—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post free
5s. 3d.)
The Lectures still in print can be obtained (on remittance, by letter
of postage stamps or order payable Porchester Road, w.) of
the Hon. Treas., W. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of
Lecture, or of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 350, Oxford Street,
W., or Messrs. Cattell & Co., 84, Fleet Street, E. C.
�SYLLABUS.
Popular division of Knowledge into Natural and Supernatural.
These distinctive terms current in England since the establish
ment of the Royal Society in 1662.
Historically the distinction is traceable in Europe beyond the
fourth century before Christ.
Natural Knowledge is the result of human Observation, Ex
periment, and Reasoning, and is here regarded as embraced by
the Physical, Mental, and Moral Sciences; hence Religions,
Theologies, Metaphysics, and works of mere Imagination, are
excluded from the definition.
Natural Knowledge is primarily derivable, as regards the
Physical Sciences, through work (questioning of Nature) in the
Observatory and Laboratory; as regards the Moral Sciences,
through experience (knowledge of the World) in real life.
Illustrations from Astronomy and the Sky. Chemistry and
the Crucible. Anatomy and the Dissecting Table. Jurispru
dence and the Court of Justice.
Natural Knowledge is secondarily derivable through the ve
hicle of its Literature. To others than Specialists therefore,
a Library is the most available source and depository of such
knowledge.
The companionship and solace of Books.
The Literature of Natural knowledge is distinguished from
other Literature by its logical method. Two such methods dis
cernible, viz.:
Scholastic Logic—allied to authority—purely deductive and
subjective.
Scientific Logic—related to research—mainly inductive and
objective.
Illustrations of the logical method of authority from “ the
Classics,” Theology, and “ the Belles lettres,” e.g., Homer’s Iliad,
Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Illustrations of the logical method of research from the Lite
rature of Science, e.g., Darwin’s Origin of Species and Descent
of Man.
�Natural Knowledge is characterised by lucidity. Tt demon
strates an inverse ratio between Superstition and Science. It
is essential for completing Culture, and conciliating Conduct
into compliance with the established Order of Nature, through
whose invariable laws human life is known to be inexorably
governed.
Man’s position in Nature, his moral constitution, and his
history show, that his progress and happiness are correspondent
to the cultivation of Natural Knowledge, which forms the real
basis of, and security for the prosperity of our Western Civili
zation.
Chronological selection of Books cited in illustration of the
argument of the Lecture.
The Subjective Method of Authority.
Homer’s Iliad—Plato’s Dialogues—Herodotus’s Grecian History
—Livy’s History of Pome—Virgil’s (Eneid—The Works of the
School-men passim—Pearson on the Creed—Milton’s Paradise
Lost—Spinoza’s Ethics—Butler’s Analogy—Paley’s Evidences
—Newman’s Grammar of Assent—Matthew Arnold’s Litera
ture and Dogma.
The Objective Method of Research.
Aristotle’s Organon—Archimedes on the Sphere and Cylinder—
Thucidides’ Grecian History—Lucretius on the Nature of
Things—Galileo’s Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican
Systems — Bacon’s Novum Organon — Newton’s Principia—
Malthus on the Principle of Population—Comte’s Philosophy
Positive— Mill’s System of Logic—Buckle’s History of Civili
zation—Maudsley’s Physiology of the Mind—Darwin’s Origin
of Species and Descent of Man — Tyndall’s Heat a Mode of
Motion—Lewes’s Study of Psychology—Huxley’s Physiography
—Herbert Spencer’s Study of Sociology — Leslie Stephen’s
Science of Ethics.
Y
I Hit moil ih’p
�AN HOUR IN A LIBRARY,
IN SEARCH OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
ITS RELATION TO LITERATURE, TO CULTURE,
AND TO CONDUCT.
------ ♦------
F the simple invitation of our unpretending Society
to come and spend an hour in a Library, on this
Sunday afternoon, even in imagination, can bring to
gether the numerous and expectant audience whom I have
the honour of addressing, we can easily appreciate the
extent of the deprivation inflicted upon thousands of our
fellow subjects, through the persistent resolution of the
Legislature, or municipal authorities, to keep closed against
them on Sundays the Public and Free Libraries established
in the several large Towns throughout the Kingdom.
The reason given for this irrational, and cruel inflic
tion, as said by some, is to diminish, or discourage Sunday
labour. Why, there is probably more Sunday labour em
ployed in taking a Bishop of the Established Church in
his carriage to and fro his devotional services on a Sun
day, than would suffice to keep open, and take care of
the Public, or Peoples’ Library in his Cathedral City,
during the entire day. Others again tell us that the
recreation involved in acquiring the secular information
which a miscellaneous Library affords would, if indulged
I
�6
An Hour in a Library,
in on a Sunday, be irreligious. Not “ seeing,” as Shake
speare told the bigots of his day—
“ Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
What is it, however, that we mean by Knowledge ? In
its largest sense, Knowledge may be defined as human
perception of all that has been said, or done, or has
happened in the World. Knowledge, so widely regarded,
is at once divisible into that which is believed to be Super
natural, and that which is known to be simply Natural.
In the present day we may further say that Super
natural Knowledge is, with unimportant exceptions,
embraced by Religion, whilst Natural Knowledge is
almost synonymous with Science.
This division is however modern, and, until quite
recently, Supernatural Knowledge would have been held
to include such antiquated subjects as Witchcraft, Divina
tion, Exorcism, Sorcery, and Magic—subjects, which, in
our day, have dwindled into the phantom impostures
of Spirit rapping, and Table turning, with practising
which the weak and superstitious minds amongst us still
divert themselves.
It is not many generations ago since it was otherwise ;
and, to so great an extent did the practise of what has
been called ‘ The Black Art ’ prevail in this Country in
the reign of Charles the 2nd, that a few intelligent per
sons were then induced to associate themselves together,
and to found a Society for the purpose of cultivating
those branches of Natural Knowledge that are based
upon Observation and Experiment—what we now term
the Physical Sciences ; and in the year 1662 they were
incorporated by the King under the style and title of
‘ The Royal Societytheir object being, as stated in the
Charter of Incorporation, “ The improvement of Natural
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
7
Knowledge”; and, from that date, we have become
familiar with the distinctive appellations of Supernatural
and Natural Knowledge.
But the distinction itself is far more ancient. It can
be traced in Europe to remote antiquity, and we find it
conspicuous in that age of enlightenment in ancient
Greece, the third and fourth centuries before Christ,
when the supernatural-knowledge-mongers of that day
found themselves in antagonism to the natural reasonings
of such powerful investigators and thinkers as Thales,
Anaxagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Euclid,
Apollonius, Archimedes, and some others.
Natural Knowledge, as we are now viewing it, and as
distinguished from opinion, is purely the result of human
observation of the facts of Nature, aided by experiment,
and perfected by reasoning or reflection thereon. It is
comprehended by the Physical, Mental, and Moral
Sciences, such as Astronomy, Geology, Mineralogy, Che
mistry, Zoology, Physiology, Psychology, and that great
Moral Science Jurisprudence, which erects in civilized
countries a supreme or sovereign standard for regulating
the actions of man towards his fellow man, upon the
basis of general justice, and equal rights before the Law.
We exclude then from our definition Religions, The
ologies, Metaphysics, works of fiction and pure imagi
nation of all kinds, and they are thus precluded from
embarassing or confusing the simplicity (and I hope the
clearness), of my discourse this afternoon.
Now, when we come to look into the nature of the
knowledge which forms the material of the Physical
Sciences, say, for example, Astronomy, Chemistry and
Physiology, we find that it is not primarily derived from
anything that has been simply asserted in speech or
writing by men however eminent or venerable, nor from
anything alleged to be a revelation from a supernatural
�8
An Hour in a Library,
source, but that it consists of natural facts discovered by.
careful observation, or by experiment, which is indeed
only observation artificially assisted by instruments in
vented by human ingenuity for the purpose, so to speak,
of more closely questioning Nature.
To go to physical Astronomy for an illustration. Astro
nomical knowledge is gained primarily by carefully
observing the sky through the Telescope, aided by the
Equatorial, the Transit, the Sextant and other instru
ments, with, clockwork conveniently fixed and, arranged
in the Observatory. By these means the existence, size,
and movements, of the heavenly bodies are accurately
observed, and registered. It is thus that our knowledge
of a comet, for instance, has been derived.
“ The blazing Star,
Threat’ning the World with famine, plague, and war! ”
Verifying a startling theory propounded by Sir Isaac
Newton in his Principia, the illustrious Astronomers
Halley and Clairaut succeeded in discovering that Comets,
appearing to move more slowly or swiftly according to
the position of the Earth, must have an annual parallax,
and belong to the region of the planets—that they are
in truth members of our Solar System, circulating in
conic sections round the Sun in rigid conformity to the
universal law of gravitation, or attractive force varying
directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the
distance.
Three astronomical observations taken of a Comet on
its passage through space usually suffice for ascertaining
its orbit, or path in the sky, and for calculating its rate
of movement. If its orbit be elliptical then (an ellipse
being a closed curve) the comet’s return can be foretold
and timed. To so great an extent have Astronomers
observed and studied the appearance of Comets, that
upwards of 500 of these wandering visitors have been
�9
in Search of Natural Knowledge.
recorded; of them, the orbits of nearly 300 have been
mathematically calculated ; 19 of such orbits being ellip
tical, and 54 subsequent returns of comets have already
been registered.
Now, through this natural knowledge of comets, the
ancient terrifying superstitions respecting them, that
they were ominous of the wrath of Heaven, the har
bingers of wars and famines, of the dethronement of
Monarchs, and the dissolution of Empires, have been
completely exploded!
If Chemistry be the science under consideration, then
the accurate and exhaustive analysis required to solve
one of its problems can only be completely accomplished
in the laboratory. Looking at Chemistry in its general
sense as the science of the constitution of bodies, ascer
tained through the laws of composition and decomposi
tion, i.e., the modification all substances may undergo in
virtue of their molecular reactions, it has for one of its
chief objects really this—The properties of simple bodies
being given, to find those of all compound bodies that
may be formed from them. The study and practice of
Chemistry therefore is a constant training of our faculties
in the great art of experimentation, carried on in the
furnace, the retort and the crucible, the latter being a
vessel, in which substances may be analysed, dissolved, or
combined, by means of the application of heat.
The invaluable inventions of the science of Chemistry
are sufficiently indicated in alluding to one only of its
many thousand useful discoveries, viz.—hydrogen or in
flammable gas, whose familiar flame is now becoming
eclipsed by the superior splendour of the electric light.
If the science of Physiology is being pursued, then, as
to one branch of it, a correct knowledge of the various
physical constituents of the human being, such as the skin,
the muscles, the veins, the arteries, and the nerves; this
B
�10
An Hour in a .Library,
is obtained through precise and minute anatomy of the
human body, practised in the dissecting room. I will
illustrate this by reference to the serious malady known
as the aneurism of an artery (a tumour formed by its
morbid enlargement).
Until recent times this formidable, and mostly fatal,
disease was very rarely cured, without amputation of the
limb in which the artery was situate ; but now, owing to
an acute discovery made by the consummate anatomist
John Hunter, practically followed up by the great sur
geon Abernethy, a successful operation is performed,
consisting of tying the artery at a distance from the sac of
the aneurism the seat of the disease, instead of cutting
into it, whereby the arterial blood, whose continuous flow
prevents the cure, is diverted into other channels, and,
by this apparently simple expedient, thousands of lives
have been saved. But observe, neither a correct diagnosis
of the disease, nor the successful method of curing it
could have been arrived at otherwise than through that
actual contact of the intelligent sense of man with the
physiological facts of Nature that takes place in the
manual process of dissection.
So far the physical sciences; but the same principle
underlies our knowledge of the mental and moral
sciences.
To take an illustration from that grandest of the moral
sciences, Jurisprudence or the science of Law, the pride
(as it . has been called) of the human intellect, which,
with all its defects, redundances and errors, is the
collected reason of ages, combining the principles of
original justice with the infinite variety of human con
cerns—“ A science in which the greatest powers of under
standing are applied to the greatest number of facts.”
On first impression it would appear that Law is a
science of a purely literary character. A Law library
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
11
would be supposed to comprise all that was necessary to
be known upon the subject. In truth however, it is so
far otherwise, that it would hardly be possible for anyone
correctly to comprehend a single legal treatise, unless he
had been educated to the law ; an essential part of a
legal education consisting in the actual experience derived
from practice in personally attending Courts of justice,
and there becoming familiar with human nature itself, in
that phase of real life, where it must be studied in the
characters, the habits, and peculiarities of Judges, Jury
men, Counsel, and Witnesses.
In that grand epoch of history, when the physical and
moral sciences were experiencing, as it were, a new birth,
that period, when, in our country, we boasted the great
names of Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Harvey, and
Hooker, the revival of the science of the law was not
behindhand, and in the name of Lord Chief Justice Coke
we have one of the most profound and scientific lawyers
of which even this great and free country (where the
certainty and impartiality of the law are rightly reverenced
as the guarantee cf real freedom) is so justly proud.
Lord Coke, in his first Institute, (familiarly known in
legal circles, as ‘ Coke upon Littleton ’) expressly points
out to the law-students that, though law is indeed the
very perfection of reason, “ that must be understood, not
as every man’s undisciplined reason but, as the reason
gotten by long study, observation, and experience, which
will be gained, when he heareth a case vouched and
applied in Westminster Hall, where it is necessary for
him to be a diligent hearer and observer of cases of law.”
Scientific knowledge then we see is primarily derivable
from Nature herself. It is not obtained at first hand from
literature, and no one can become a real specialist in any
science without the faculty or practice of appealing
directly to Nature, and acquiring, through the medium
�12
An Hour in a Library,
of his senses, actual knowledge or touch of those pro
perties of things which are only derivatively learnt
through the medium of language.
Science then, you observe, is a knowledge of things
rather than a knowledge of books.
Now of the indispensable acquisition of such know
ledge towards the perfecting of human life the mere
literary world is apparently, even yet, in a state of un
conscious ignorance.
Professor Matthew Arnold, in the course of his bril
liant Rede Lecture, lately delivered before the University
of Cambridge, told that learned assembly that, his studies
having been almost wholly in letters, his visits to the
field of the Natural Sciences had been very slight and in
adequate, although, he naively observed, those sciences
strongly moved his curiosity. This remarkable utterance
was quite in the spirit of the old classical culture.
I trust that I have been able to place the nature of
scientific knowledge sufficiently before you, even in the
few observations time permits me now to make, as to
impress you with the conviction that the Natural Sciences
are something more than mere matters of curiosity. They
are indeed subjects of the very highest concern to the daily
life of our modern civilization. One would have thought
that their utility or vast practical advantage was by this
time obvious to the merest tyro, as well as their wide in
fluence in strengthening and raising up the intellectual
and moral faculties of our understanding, by emancipating
human existence from the pressure of debasing super
stitions, from whose stupefying terrorism, not the Classics,
nor Letters, nor the finical culture that is bred solely
of them, but, the rise and progress of Natural Knowledge
have now so effectually freed it.
It would however be a sad look out for the world at
large, if no one could hope to obtain Natural Knowledge
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
13
excepting in the Observatory and Laboratory, where com
paratively few can enter, and, in. truth, the diffusion of
such knowledge is really carried on derivatively through
the vehicle of Literature; consisting chiefly of those
treatises on Scientific Knowledge which we owe to the
Men of Science themselves, whose humane desire to en
lighten and benefit their fellow creatures has invariably
led them to seek to disseminate their special knowledge
by writing books about it; and therefore, it is undoubtedly
the fact, that to the intelligent general reader, that is, to
all who are not specialists, and to specialists themselves,
in all branches of Natural Knowledge in which they are
not specialists, a library is the available source and de
pository of such knowledge. And so it has come to pass
that the thirst for knowledge is most usually gratified
through the passion or taste for reading, and books come
to be rightly regarded as the readiest sources of informa
tion. And such is the genuine pleasure arising from ac
quiring knowledge of any sort, that books in all their
variety are by everyone more or less resorted to for
solace or amusement, as well as for instruction, and they'
yield, to the dwellers in cities especially, and to the sons
and daughters of toil, for the most part innocent and
elevating recreation.
“ Books beloved, ye are to me
An unretorting family.
Ye for each day’s irritation,
Always bring a compensation,
Curing all sad perturbations
With your silent inspirations.
How should sadness come, or gloom,
While ye lie about my room,
Or look down from friendly nooks ?
My benison upon ye, Books.”
We now approach a very interesting and instructive
characteristic, which separates, almost by a sharp line, the
literature embodying Natural Knowledge, from literature
�14
i
■
An Hour in a Library,
of every other kind. I am alluding to the intellectual
method upon which it is composed.
Looking at literature or books in the mass, we easily
distinguish two very distinct logical methods of literary
composition—the one method, which I will call the method
of authority, characterises all books which are written on
the principle of taking for granted, or on the authority of
ancient or individual assertion or opinion or belief, the
ultimate premises from which the reasonings and discus
sions contained in them are deduced, and this method
may therefore be described as the deductive method; then,
as the facts and arguments are drawn from the human
mind, rather than from external Nature, the method in
question may also be fitly called subjective.
This deductive and subjective logical method will be
found to underlie more or less all literature, with the
exception of the literature relating to Natural Knowledge.
The other logical method, which I will call the method
of research, is remarkably different from the method of
authority. In the method of research the premises of a
dissertation or discussion are not taken from human
assertion, or opinion or belief, however ancient or vener
able, or from the intuitions of the mind, but, from those
facts of nature which have been derived from the study of
Nature herself, and are traceable to the verification or
.
stamp of truth that has been impressed upon them in the
Observatory or Laboratory; that is, the premises from
which the reasoning proceeds have been obtained by the
process of induction. The method therefore may be
described as the inductive method, and, as the premises
have not been drawn from the human mind, but from the
observation and interrogation of Nature, the method now
being characterised may also be fitly called objective.
Now the opposition I am pointing out, between the
deductive subjective method of authority, and the induc
tive objective method of research, is not simply a dialec
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
15
tical distinction, it is one of substance, and of great
moment; for I may without hesitation assert that, though
the old logic of authority is ever multiplying opinions, it
has never produced any increase of real knowledge, or
brought about the discovery of new truth, nor has it ever
practically resulted in relieving one pang of pain, or in
lifting an ounce of the burden of human misery; whilst,
on the other hand, the modern logic of research has made,
by means of its marvellous discoveries, a considerable
share of material comfort the common heritage of all
civilized men.
I could make this quite plain to you, as well as greatly
increase the interest of the subject, by giving you various
illustrations from almost the entire realm of literature.
You will observe in my syllabus (which is I hope in your
hands) that I have drawn up two lists of books respectively
cited in support of this argument. These lists may per
haps appear to some of you rather formidable, whilst to
others of you, especially those who might be disposed to
dispute my propositions, they may appear altogether too
meagre, whilst there are among you others who would
probably make a somewhat different choice.
Well, you will not forget that we are now supposed to
be assembled in a Library, and that, in the mind’s eye, we
see around us many thousands of volumes, which, being
the depository of the thoughts of mankind, contain much
wisdom, and also many absurdities, some things that are
true, but a great many that are false. Hence it is, that
book knowledge is not always real knowledge. My task
therefore is one of search and of selection, and, bearing in
mind, that I am speaking within the compass of an hour,
such selection is necessarily very restricted, assisted,
though I am, by this admirably classified Catalogue of
the Library of the Royal Institution. I think however
the books cited will be found sufficient in number and
character for my purpose. At any rate they comprise on
�’16
An Hour in a Library,
either side several of the acknowledged masterpieces of
the human mind.
Everyone present is, I feel sure, more or less familiar
with some of them. Who, for instance, has not felt the
stirring strains of old Homer’s Iliad, even through the
medium of a translation ? That exciting episode in the
siege of Troy—
“ Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered ....
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain.”
Who again has not been moved by Milton’s melodious
muse, which in “ Paradise Lost ” sings so sacredly, (how
ever superstitiously)—
“ Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, ’till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.”
Probably too, the youngest lad amongst us this day has
had his mind indirectly illuminated, thanks to our Board
Schools, by a knowledge more or less of those trans
cendent truths of Nature, which radiated originally from
the sublime cosmical conception of Copernicus, or the
glorious and immortal Principia of Sir Isaac Newton.
Well then, to save our time I think I may suggest to
you that, without further particular reference to my array
of books, I should be allowed to take them as read, and
so be enabled to proceed to make a few observations upon
one or two of them.
Returning then to the grand epic of Homer, we find
that its exquisite verse, its dramatic force of incident, its
exuberant invention, its marvellously realistic descriptions
of the characters, manners and customs of the ancient
Grecians, and its abounding literary graces are all, from
the point of view of Natural Knowledge, tarnished by
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
17
their intimate association with the false and sensual
mythology of the ancient heathens, a mythology that
strikes our rational minds with astonishment, when we
find it related that battles are encouraged or interfered
with by Gods and Goddesses descending to the Earth,
and ensuring victory or defeat by enveloping the com
batants in clouds, or, sometimes, by dragging them bodily
away from their enemies.
Then again, when we read, that during the Siege of
Troy epidemic fever wasted the Grecian Caiip, the God
Apollo is presumed to have been offended, and the remedy
is sought in some sacerdotal sacrifice to appease him. In
our day, during the Siege of Sebastopol epidemic fever
also wasted the British Camp, but the remedy was sought
in better ventilation and improved drainage. No super
stitious priesthood were implored to propitiate an angry
God, but scientific physicians prescribed that doses of
quinine should be administered to the suffering soldiers.
Turning to the majestic numbers of Milton we find
them for the most part marred in like manner. In the
poem of Paradise Lost we may observe a remarkable
analogy of ideas with the poem of the Iliad. In both
there is the same association of the story and its heroes
with supernatural agencies. In the one, the Iliad, the
supernatural machinery is that of the mythology of
the ancient Greeks. In the other, the Paradise Lost,
the supernatural machinery is that of the mythology
of the semi-barbarous Hebrews.
But, what I desire to call your attention to is, the
different effect produced on our minds by the perusal of
these two magnificent epic poems.
We have been educated to ignore, to despise, and to
laugh at the heathen religions of the ancient Classical
World, and we only smile amused when we read in
Homer’s Iliad that, in the very crisis of the mortal combat
�18
An Hour in a Library,
between Menelaus and Paris, and as the latter is on the
point of being throttled by the former’s grip of his
helmet’s band—
“ Then had his ruin crown’d Atrides’ joy
But Venus trembled for the Prince of Troy.
Unseen she came, and burst the golden band,
And left an empty helmet in his hand.
The Queen of Love her favored champion shrouds
(For Gods can all things) in a veil of clouds.”
On the other hand, we have been brought up from
infancy to believe as positively true the Semitic supersti
tions of the semi-barbarous Hebrews, and those, whose
credulity still compels them to accept such superstitions as
the scheme of a living religion, seriously read in Milton’s
Paradise Lost, without being shocked at its amazing
absurdity, how an imaginary supernatural evil power, an
arch-fiend termed Satan—“Prince and Chief of many
throned Powers, that led the embattled Seraphim to
war”—actually entered, first into the body of a cormorant,
and then, into that of a serpent, in order to tempt Eve
to eat of the forbidden fruit. How she, meditating on
such temptation, -thus reflects—
................... “ In the day we eat
Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die.
How dies the Serpent ? He hath eaten, and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,
Irrational till then. For us alone
Was death invented p Or to us denied
This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?
......................... . . This fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wise. What hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind ?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she eat!
Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost! ”
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
19
Now, from this difference in our early training in
respect of the mythologies referred to, the grand poem
of Homer has probably been a source of intelligent
interest, of unalloyed pleasure, and of innocent instruc
tion to its millions of modern readers, whilst the study of
the grand poem of Milton has probably done more to
obstruct the progress of Natural Knowledge, and to
intensify the Mosaic superstitions enshrined in' its har
monious numbers, than all the reading of the book of
Genesis ; the magic influence of its fascinating fable over
whelming the reason of its reader, whilst enchanting his
enraptured and spell-bound imagination.
To the student of Natural Knowledge the respective '
mythologies of the ancient Greeks and the semi-bar
barous Hebrews are, in point of historical credibility,
about on a par, and they are alike by him regarded as
the probable product of that credulous condition of the
emotional faculties of fear and wonder, as they existed in
the dawning intelligence, and dazed imagination of primi
tive barbarian man. Our knowledge of such childhood of
religions is however quite recent, and for much of it we
are indebted to the sceptical and truth-seeking minds of
critical scholars still living amongst us.
When Bishop Colenso, one of the greatest biblical critics
of the present age, published his profound work on the
Pentateuch, he had to deplore the dense prejudices and
superstitions of the half-educated classes in this country,
who seemed to be positively incapable of comprehending
his thorough exposure of the errors, the absurdities, and
the contradictions to science contained in the book of
Genesis, and the other earlier books of the Bible; but, he
remarks in one of the prefaces to his learned work, that
the opposition his views had to encounter was evidently
not derived from any actual knowledge his assailants had
of the Bible itself (which they had never probably read,
�20
An Hour in a Library,
except through the spectacles of their theology) but that
it for the most part proceeded from the fact of their
having been saturated in early youth with the poems of
Milton. We, observed Colenso, literally groan, even in
the present day, under the burden of Milton’s mythology.
Now, the spirit of the remarks I have been making on
the poems of Homer and Milton is really applicable, in
various degree, to all literature that has been composed
and written on the subjective method of authority. That
is to say, so much of it is mere imagination, or is taken
for granted, or is assumed without evidence or due veri
fication through the reason, that you have no guarantee
whatever for its objective truth, and it is in fact all more
or less blended with fictions or fallacies, or irrational be
liefs of one kind or another.
Turning now to the literature of Science, which is the
result of the unprejudiced search into Nature, which
founds its reasonings and inferences exclusively upon the
natural facts that have been arrived at through the obser
vation and questioning of Nature, which assumes nothing,
takes nothing for granted, and declines to adopt human
assertion or belief however venerable or authoritative,
without its having been duly verified by an appeal to
Nature, we shall come upon some very striking differences
from the class of literature we have just been engaged
upon.
As an apposite illustration of such differences, I will,
from my list of books, very briefly direct your attention
to the two principal works of our late illustrious VicePresident, Charles Darwin—‘ The Origin of Species ’ and
‘ The Descent of Man?
These memorable monographs are amongst the finest
examples of scientific literature in our language. Their
superstructure is erected upon a massive foundation of
natural facts, their generalisations are based upon indue
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
21
lions from a vast survey and cross-examination of most
various premises, their reasonings are ethical as well as
logical, that is, they everywhere evince an ardent desire
to arrive at truth, and a conscientious care to distinguish
certainties from probabilities, and never to press the
latter beyond their legitimate weight.
We have all heard and read a great deal about Charles
Darwin since his surprising and impressive funeral in
Westminster Abbey; when the Church, which had so
reviled him whilst living, solemnly recanted at his grave.
With her Cathedral Service sanctifying the truth of his
astonishing discoveries, and in her choral anthem’s
swelling peal, confessing—
“ Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and getteth under
standing.
“ She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou
canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
“ Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand
riches and honour.
» “ His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore ! ”
Our accomplished Vice-President Dr. Richardson re
cently gave us a most interesting lecture upon Charles
Darwin, but even the capacity of Dr. Richardson could
not exhaust so fertile a theme as the works of Darwin in
a single lecture, and I think that the way in which I
will try to present to you the grand genius and brilliant
discoveries that have encircled the name of Darwin with
the halo of world-wide renown, may have a freshness to
many of you even yet.
Now it is remarkable that there has never been any
great intellectual discovery which, when it came to, be
known, and looked at historically, that is in connection
with the previous knowledge existent at the time of such
discovery, has not appeared to have -been, to a great ex
tent, anticipated by previous discoveries. This has been
the case with respect to Lord Bacon’s Novum Organon ;
�22
An Hour in a Library,
it was so in reference to the startling cosmical conception
of Copernicus; it was so with the discoveries of Gralileo;
with that of the circulation of the blood by William
Harvey; with the discovery of universal gravitation by
Newton; with that of the functions of the brain by Dr.
Grail; and with others I could mention; and it has been
so with regard to the discoveries of Charles Darwin, as we
indeed heard from Dr. Richardson, and as you will pre
sently hear further from me.
The truth would seem to be, that Natural Knowledge,
or the human discovery of new truth, does not proceed by
leaps and bounds, but only by small or graduated steps
throughout the effluxion of time.
The existing state of knowledge and opinion on the
subject of Darwin’s great work ‘ The Origin of Species?
at the time when its appearance took the scientific
world captive by its overpowering force and originality,
may be very briefly stated. I am now of course going to
speak as little in the language of technical science as
possible, and the term ‘ Species,’ so bewildering in its
zoological and botanical variety, may, for our present pur
pose, be taken as meaning, the commonly distinguished
classes of individuals composing the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, i.e., the several kinds of Beasts, Birds, Reptiles,
Dishes, Insects, Plants, and Blowers.
Up to a comparatively recent period all such indivi
duals were supposed to be the-/ac simile descendants or
copies of those of like kind which had been suddenly,
that is within a period of six days, brought into exis
tence at the Creation, as described in the Book of Grenesis,
and subsequently, when the flood came, preserved in
Noah’s Ark. That from such time to the present there
had been no variation in them, and, to those who be
lieved this (chiefly the theological world), the invariability
or fixity of Species was simply a dogma.
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
23
The noble Science of Geology however had very rudely
disturbed this belief, and it had shown, more especially in
the masterly works of our late deceased member Sir
Charles Lyell, that, amongst other matters, millions of
species, altogether different from those now in existence,
had at various times in past ages inhabited this earth, and
that, if they had been created at all, such creation must
have occupied ages in the process, and most certainly did
not take place in the order, any more than in the time,
described in the Book of Genesis—Genesis in brief, from
the point of view of Geological Science, stood absolutely
discredited : and the mind of man, being freed from the
shackles of the Mosaic Cosmogony was left at liberty to in
vestigate when and how all this enormous amount and
apparent waste of life originated.
The most rational scientific hypothesis on the subject,
the credit of which is chiefly due to the illustrious French
naturalist Lamarck, was simply that, existing species
were not copies, but were the modified or transformed
descendants of previous species that had died out, such
modification having arisen by changes singly impercep
tible, but perpetually accumulating throughout the enor
mously long period of time, during which it was proved
by geological monuments that life in its various extinct
forms had existed on this earth. Hence the scientific
world had come firmly to believe in the new doctrine of
the variability or transmutation of Species.Now, in this diverse condition of knowledge and
opinion, the startling effect produced by the publication
of Darwin’s great work was the result of his having not
only thereby confirmed the scientific view of the trans
mutation of species, by the marvellous assemblage of
natural facts which he had collected and classified on the
subject by years of travel, voyage, and intellectual toil,
including most interesting experiments conducted by
�24
An Hour in a Library,
himself in the selective breeding of pigeons (altogether
amounting to a resistless accumulation of proofs), but, by
his having shown with all the clearness of his consummate
genius actually how and why such transmutation must
have taken place.
That is to say, he first pointed attention to the re
markable fact which, if previously known, had not
hitherto been correctly appreciated, viz.—that Nature,
in every species of life, produces a vast number of in
dividuals in excess of those for whom there is or can be
subsistence. That this vast number so produced must
therefore perish—That in fact they do perish, but not
without a struggle or food-scramble—A battle for life
everywhere ensues, in which, Darwin acutely inferred,
the strongest or most capable must conquer and live, whilst
the weakest will be defeated and die. This striking dis
covery Darwin luminously defined as ‘Natural Selection,’
or survival of the fittest. Darwin then drew particular
attention to his sagacious inference that the survivors
must have had superior qualities, as evidenced by their
victory in the battle, and that, in virtue of the known
natural law of hereditary transmission and adaptation,
such superior qualities would be more or less transmitted
to their offspring. In the next ensuing struggle there
would be then a further natural selection amongst these,
and another survival of the fittest of them ; and this
struggle and survival ever repeating itself in the course
of almost endless generations of such transitional forms,
a divergence of superiority or improved modification,
though at first Scarcely perceptible, would become so
augmented by gradual development as to cause the pro
duction, naturally, of all the various species now existing
amongst us, from predecessors so remote as to be utterly
different from them in nearly every conceivable character
istic ; so that, for example, Birds would really be the
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
25
modified or transformed descendants of Reptiles; a con
ception which, however difficult of realisation by our
minds, has now been established as a natural fact through
the original research of Professor Huxley who, guided by
Darwin’s theory, has actually spotted ‘ the missing link ’
in the remains of a creature that was, when living, half a
Bird and half a Reptile !
I will further concisely illustrate the process and
meaning of Natural Selection as discovered by Darwin by
a brief reference to the eye, our organ of sight. In some
of the early struggles for existence occurring ages ago
amongst the low organisms obtaining their food chiefly
by the use of their eyesight, those individuals which had
the best power of vision would be those best enabled to
live, and would naturally be the survivors; and the almost
endless repetition of such struggles occurring in the
course of ages, by successive and minute stages of im
provement in the visual organ would naturally and
inevitably result in the present perfection of the eye.
Now the animal kingdom, aided by geological research,
brings before us a series of creatures, in whom can be
traced by comparative anatomy, a regular, graduated, and
successive improvement in the mechanism, range, and
power of their eyesight, slowly evolved in the lapse of
enormous periods of time; whereby the eye, from being
in the lowest animal a simple spot of pigment incapable
of even reflecting images of external objects, and at most
distinguishing different rays of light, has at length de
veloped into the marvellously complex and exquisitely
perfect apparatus for sight , that we living now possess
and enjoy.
These enormous periods of time I am referring to are,
by some minds, very difficult to realise, and are held to
be obstacles to belief in Darwin’s theories—That is to
say, people do not reflect, that however enormously long
�26
An Hour in a Library,
a lapse of time the human mind would, or can conceive,
it is hut a span in comparison with eternity, which both
precedes and follows it.
My observations on the other great work of Darwin
‘ The Descent of Man ’ need not detain us long. Although
it was not obvious to the popular mind that the facts and
reasonings of the essay on ‘ The Origin of Species ’ must
equally apply to the Origin of Man himself, no scientific
investigator of the subject could have had any doubt about
it; but the publication of ‘ The Descent of Man’ brought
the whole subject home to the general reading public, and
raised a perfect storm of dissent and disapprobation,
showing how little the views of its illustrious author, as
expounded in ‘ The Origin of Species’ had been compre
hended, or reflected upon.
The question raised was simply this—when and how
did Man make his first appearance on our Planet ? It
was proved by Geological research that the Earth, and
animal life upon its surface had existed for ages before
man’s appearance.
The only specific account we have of man’s origin is
that contained in the book of Genesis, which tells us that
he was made from the dust of the Earth. But the scien
tific authority of that book had been, as I have observed,
utterly discredited, and the human mind had been set free
to enquire and reflect upon the matter.
Now, the alternative put forward by Darwin was very
briefly this—Due regard being had to what is known geolo
gically, zoologically, and embryologically of the ascending
gradations of animal life, including especially the develop
mental changes in the embryo of man himself, it is as
certain as reasoning from such premises can make it, that
man is the evolution or development of ’ lower animal
forms. Such evolution or development having taken
place gradually throughout the Succession of a long course
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
27
of ages, during which such lower animal forms, by the
continued constant struggle for existence and survival of
the fittest, were slowly and gradually acquiring all those
superior attributes, qualities and characteristics, more
especially those we term mental, that at length culminated
in the production of a creature viz., primeval savage
barbarous man; a being distinguishable in degree rather
than in kind from his immediate animal parents, from
whom he probably differed less than he would be found
to differ from his civilized European descendant of the
present day; and that such descent, or, one might say,
ascent, from the lower animal life, was the true natural
pedigree of Man.
I told you just now that you would hear also from me
by whom Darwin’s discoveries had been to some extent
anticipated, and I will single out one who was named by
the modest and candid mind of Darwin himself as having,
in a very remarkable and original work, pointed out to
him the constant fact of the ever continuing struggle or
intense competition for the means of subsistence, owing to
the vastly greater number of individuals Nature, uncon
trolled by human intelligence, brings into existence, than
can possibly be provided for. It is the name of one
whose profound and truthful views have had to contend
against, and have nearly been suppressed by, the pre
judices and superstitions of the age in which he lived;
but I will here describe him as a discoverer who will cer
tainly in due time be recognised as one of the greatest
benefactors of our race. It is to the celebrated Essay
on the Principle of Population in its relation to Human
Happiness, written by the benevolent Malthus, that Darwin
states he was indebted for his knowledge of the principle
underlying the discoveries of his own great works, and I
will venture now to say, that sooner or later it will be
acknowledged that not the least of the services rendered
�28
A n Hour in a Library,
to mankind by the illustrious Darv^n has been his cor
roboration and elucidation of the profound and important
truths enunciated by the scarcely less illustrio.us Malthus
—when it will come to be generally known that the dis
coveries of Malthus and Darwin have in reality effected
for our knowledge of the Order of Nature in the organic
Kingdom, what, in a manner somewhat similar, the dis
coveries of Copernicus and Newton effected for our
knowledge of the Order of Nature in the inorganic
Kingdom.
We are now, I think, in a position to point out several
characteristics of Natural Knowledge. Its most striking
peculiarity in relation to other knowledge is its lucidity.
It is truth,- and truth of the clearest and simplest kind.
Nature, when questioned, answers, not evasively or am
biguously, but in the most direct and positive manner.
She does not express herself with that confusion or
obscurity of ideas and language which are found more or
less pervading the literary lucubrations of man.
Natural Knowledge, as the verified basis of conscien
tious Belief, also exhibits to us the antagonism existing
between Superstition or assumed manifestations of the
Supernatural, and Science, and enables us to formulate as
an axiom—‘ The more Natural Knowledge, the less Super
stition’—No Culture then can be complete without Natural
Knowledge, which is indeed its better part, as seems
obvious on the slightest reflection—For what should we
understand by culture ? It has been defined by its chief
apostle as, “ Knowing (through literature) the best that
has been thought and said in the world.” That is, I
submit to you, an imperfect definition, though it neces
sarily includes some library knowledge of Science, since it
would be difficult to find anything in the world really
better than what Science has revealed to us. For Science
has shown us that Nature is the expression of a definite
�in Search of Natural Knoioledge.
29
order, or invariable succession of phenomena, termed laws
of Nature, with which nothing interferes, and that man,
to exert his full powers, and to live uprightly and happily,
must master that order, and govern himself accordingly ;
and thereby Science has added to the conventional defini
tion of culture, by compelling it to include such a disci
pline of the human mind in scientific method as will teach
it to rise superior to Superstition, and so instruct man
to regard as his highest duty the regulation of his conduct
in obedience to the dictates of the natural moral law.
Natural Knowledge therefore is not a knowledge
merely of physical inorganic Nature, but it comprises
that knowledge which is the result of our enquiries into
the nature of man himself, his moral and social con
stitution, and its relations to his environment; and, if we
turn to the records of the history of civilized communities,
we find, that, separating the actual knowledge men have
possessed from their superstitious beliefs, we are enabled
to trace such happiness and progress as they have enjoyed
to their real source in the cultivation of Natural Know
ledge.
It is the increase and spread of such knowledge, and
the inventions and discoveries that have arisen from
man’s study and interrogation of Nature—the true, the
useful, and the practical—that distinguish, in so remark
able a manner, the modern nations of Europe from the
barbarous and classical nations of antiquity, and there
can be no doubt that Theologies and Metaphysics, with
their endless and confusing jargons and their senseless
beliefs, have decayed and are dying out, in proportion as
the culture of Natural Knowledge has increased and is
increasing; whereby human progress, not only in indi
vidual or selfish happiness, but in the recognition of right
or humanity towards every member of the great human
family, has advanced, has become vivified, and is being
�30
A n Hour in a Library.
practically acted upon; so that the secular moral virtues
Veracity and Justice are at last gradually becoming the
universally accepted criterion of Conduct, the acknow
ledged standard of human actions.
Finally it is this Natural Knowledge that forms the
sure basis of, and affords the most effectual security for
the stability and prosperity of that enlightened and
rationally regulated Liberty, which, in contrast with the
ignorance, the superstition, the slavery, and the inhu
manity of Barbarism, Classicism, Medievalism, and
Orientalism, is so significantly termed—Otjb Westebn
Civilization.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Koad, N.W.
�
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An hour in a library, in search of natural knowledge, its relation to literature, to culture, and to conduct. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 28th January, 1883
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5.
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Finch, A. Elley
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1883
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Sunday Lecture Society
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Text
AN
“On Earth Peace, Good-will towards Men”; rescued from
the New Testament Revision.
Jetta
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 19th FEBRUARY, 1882,
BY
A. ELLEY FINCH.
bonbon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1882.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—
physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and
Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement and
social well-being of mankind.
PRESIDENT.
W. B. Carpenter, Esq., C.B., LL.D„ M.D., F.R.S., &c.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
Professor Alexander
Bain.
Charles Darwin, Esq.,
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq.,
D.C.L., Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S.,
F.S.A.
Right Hon. Sir Arthur Hob
house, K.C.S.I.
Thomas Henry Huxley,
Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S.
Benjamin Ward Richard
son, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.
Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode,
Esq.,
LL.D., Pres.R.S.
John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D.,
F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May.)
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series) ending 23rd April,
1882, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket,
transferable (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets, available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Three
pence each lecture.
For tickets, and for list of the Lectures published by the
Society, apply (by letter) to the Hob. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq,, 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Shilling (Reserved Seats);—
Sixpence and One Penny.
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, are—on
“ Erasmus ; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Now out of Print.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.”
“The Influence of Astronomical Discovery
Development of the Human Mind.”
in the
“ The Principles of Political Economy ; their Scientific
Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
“The English Free-thinkers
tury.”
of the
Eighteenth Cen
“ The Science jof Life worth Living.”
“ The Victories
stition.”
of
Science in
its
Warfare
with Super
“ An Aspiration of Science : ‘ On Earth Peace, Good-will to
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�SYLLABUS.
Origin and history of the English authorised text (a.d. 1611)
Luke ch. 2, v. 14, before quoted, and its Greek and Latin source8
since the invention of printing. Erasmus (1516). Tyndale
(1534). R. Stephens (1551). Genevan-English Version (1557-60).
Beza (1580).
Our authorised form of this text not found in the great uncial
Greek nor in the Latin Manuscripts, nor in the printed Latin
Vulgate (decreed as authentic by the Council of Trent).
Ambiguous evidence in support of this text as embodying an
actual utterance by the heavenly host.
Its inconsistency with the declaration of Christ (Matt. ch. 10,
v. 34): “ Think not that I am come to send Peace on Earth,”
&c.
Its want of fulfilment as a prophecy. Hence probably ex
punged by the Revisers.
Divergent aims of Theology and Science—the one regarding
the Glory of God—the other the Well-being of Man.
Illustrations from some of the chief Theologies of the world,
showing that the Well-being of Man is therein subordinated to
the Glory of God.
Hence the conflict between Theology and Science. Its rise and
nature.
The text explained as an Aspiration of Science.
Illustrations of the primary care (good-will) of Science for
Humanity from its discoveries, deductions, and teachings in re
ference to (e.g.):—•
1. The Order of nature.
2. The Constitution of Man.
3. Health.
4. Education.
5. Morality (Virtue, Happiness).
6. Aversion from War.
7. International Arbitration.
Concluding inferences.
Editions
Scriptures shown in Illustration
of the Lecture:
TheEditio princeps of the Greek New Testament, by Erasmus,
in which the text ‘ good-will towards men ’ (ai>0pd>7rois eiboKia
—hominibus bona voluntas) is first met with in print (Basilese,
1519).
The first Bible in which the Scriptures are separated into
verses, and the text “ towards men good-will ” first appears in
the English language. (Geneva, 1560.)
The Greek and Latin New Testament of Beza. (Editio tertia,
1580.)
of the
�AN ASPIRATION OF SCIENCE:
“ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD-WILL TOWARDS MEN";
RESCUED FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT REVISION.
T is a remarkable circumstance connected with the
origin of the Christian Religion, that no authentic
record of the Life and Doctrines of its founder should
now exist, or ever have existed, written in the language
of the country where Jesus lived and talked; the only
language in which he could have been listened to and
understood by the majority of his disciples, or the com
mon people, who, we are told expressly, heard him gladly.
This reflection must often have occurred to, and more
or less embarrassed, the numerous scholars and critics,
whose investigations into the authenticity and genuine
ness of the New Testament Scriptures form so consider
able a portion of the vast library of Christian theology
and history.
It is a reflection, moreover, that must be borne in mind
when considering the value and authority of the various
translations,, commentaries, and revisions that appear
from time to time, and whose production indeed follows
a natural law, arising as they do out of the necessity of
accommodating these ancient writings to the continuous,
however slow, progress of human thought and intelligence;
that is to say, the spirit of the age requires to be read
into them before it-can be read out.
This view of the function of the commentator, trans
lator, or reviser is not indeed quite obvious, nor is it the
I
�6
An Aspiration of Science,
ostensible reason put forward for undertaking their
work; that reason is invariably alleged to be, in order to
make the translation or revision in question more accurate
in reference to the original; a task which, if we only had
the original as a standard to refer to, might be a not
unprofitable proceeding, but any such original, in the
sense I have adverted to, is not now, and never was, to
be met with.
For the New Testament Scriptures were at the very
first written in a foreign tongue, that is, the Greek
language. We cannot even except the Gospel according
to St. Matthew, for, though there is a probable tradition
that Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Syro-Chaldaic
dialect (the colloquial language of the Hebrews in Pales
tine), this supposition can hardly be accepted as more
than a tradition, since we have not only no positive
proof of it, but not even such a consensus of biblical
critics as might warrant our receiving such supposition
as an admitted fact.
Now the Greek version of the sayings and discourses
of Jesus and others narrated in the Gospels, however
ancient, can no more be regarded as the original of such
sayings and discourses, than an Italian report of one of
the splendid speeches of Mr. Gladstone could be regarded
as the original of what that great English orator may
actually have spoken.
These reflections are especially applicable to the con
sideration of the narrative which St. Luke gives in the
second chapter of his Gospel, part of which, as English
Protestants have hitherto understood it, I have taken for
the subject of the present lecture.
St. Luke, probably a Grecian, at any rate writing in
Greek, tells us (according to our authorised version of
the year 1611) that, shortly after the birth of Jesus in
Bethlehem, ‘ there were in the same country shepherds
�An Aspiration of Science.
7
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by
night, and lo! the Angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and
they were sore afraid. And the Angel said unto them,
fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy
which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day
in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of
the heavenly host praising God, and saying—Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth Peace, Good-will
towards men.’
We are now told, on the authority of the eminent
scholars and divines constituting the company of the New
Testament Devisers, that Luke’s relation of this remark
able supernatural occurrence is not accurately given in
our authorised version. That what Luke really wrote
must be translated or rendered into English thus—‘ Glory
to God in the highest, and on Earth peace among men in
whom he is well pleased.’
This correction, or corruption, of so venerable a text
will be variously regarded, according to the critic’s point
of view. To the pious mind, accustomed to revere the
Scriptures as inspired Oracles, the shock must be great
on finding that he has been imposed upon in being taught
to believe that so sublime an utterance ever formed a
genuine portion of the Gospels, and his dismay will
hardly be diminished on finding further that it has long
been, and will still remain, notwithstanding the revision,
a matter of dispute amongst biblical experts what it really
was that St. Luke actually wrote. The critical scholar,
uninfluenced by dogmatic or doctrinal prepossessions,
will still probably retain his sceptical ©pinion on the sub
ject ; whilst the man of science must consider that what
Luke may himself have written, if not a matter of con
jecture altogether, can be of very little real importance,
�8
An Aspiration of Science.
seeing that he is no authority whatever for what the
heavenly host did really say. For Luke was not present
on the occasion, he does not allege that he received the
report from those who were present, his account of it is
therefore simply hearsay, and, whatever the very words
were, it is morally certain they could not have been
spoken in Greek, that being a language utterly unintelli
gible, an unknown tongue indeed to the shepherds of
Bethlehem, so that, putting it at the highest, if we were
sure, or were agreed, that we were in possession of the
exact language of Luke, it would only in itself amount to
a version or translation of a non-existent, and long since
vanished original.
The man of science, however, will not care to reject
the reviser’s alteration, for he knows that the sublime
aspiration of our text enshrines a truth having higher
intrinsic value than ancient manuscripts, or biblical
critics can confer, and, that though it may henceforth
cease to be received as part of authentic Scripture, it
will live, where in truth it originated, in the noble
inspirations of the human mind, yearning in its benevolence
to ameliorate the lot of man. That it is one of those
scientific forecasts which, flashing from human genius,
are found in history sparsely strewed along the path of
human progress, not confined to creeds, but illuminating
the entire earthly highway towards that goal of human
happiness which all good men are now striving to attain,
for others as well as for themselves.
Before finally parting with our text from the Scrip
ture record, it may be interesting very briefly to trace
its origin and history, to see how and when, in point
of fact, it came to get into our authorised version of
1611.
At the time of the birth of Jesus Christ the language
of the Jews, the Hebrew language, had long ceased to be
�An Aspiration of Science.
9
current amongst the inhabitants of Syria, and their
vernacular speech was that known to scholars as the
Aramaen or Syro-Chaldaic, a dialect very little used as
the vehicle of literature. Hence it happened that the
written accounts or narratives of the life and discourses
of Jesus Christ came from the very first to be composed
in the Greek language ; that language being not only the
language of the learned, but, dispersed through the con
quests of Alexander, was very generally familiar to
educated people of the ancient civilised world, even
amongst the Romans, though their vulgar tongue was
Latin, St. Paul, for instance, when writing his grand
Epistle to the Romans, using the Greek and not the
Latin language.
In the earliest churches established after the death of
Jesus and the spread of a knowledge of his religion, in
the churches, for instance, of Jerusalem, Antioch,
Ephesus, Alexandria, and Rome, the Greek manuscript
gospels had not only to be copied for the purpose of their
dissemination, but, as regards Rome and Alexandria
(Northern Egypt being then a province of the Roman Em
pire), as the religion became dispersed amongst the people
at large, the gospel had to be translated into the latin
tongue, and such translation took place so early, and to so
great an extent, that of the at present existing ancient
manuscripts of the Scriptures the Latin are not only more
numerous than the Greek, but it is by no means a matter
of agreement amongst scholars which of such manuscripts
are the highest in point of authority for what the orginal
writings or autographs of the Apostles (long since utterly
lost), actually contained. Protestant theologians and
critics consider the Greek to be the higher authority.
On the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church consider
the Latin to be now the more reliable source.
Amongst other arguments relied upon by the Roman
�10
An Aspiration of Science.
Church is this, that the most ancient existing latin manu
scripts, even if not more ancient than the existing greek
ones, are known to be recensions of a text that was re
vised in the 4th century by St. Eusebius, and also by St.
Jerome, through comparison with greek manuscripts con
fessedly more ancient than any now existing, or of which
we have now any other knowledge; and from that early
period up to the time of the Reformation, that is for
upwards of 1,000 years, the only Bible of western chris
tendom was a latin book, generally known as the Latin
Vulgate, the text of which was decreed to be authentic
by the Council of Trent (in the year 1546).
The first English translation of the New Testament of
any note was that executed by John Wiclif (the gospel
doctor, as the people called him) about the year 1380.
This was evidently made from the latin version, such
appearing to be the case, not only from internal evidence,
but from the fact that at that time greek manuscripts
were scarce in Europe, and a knowledge of the greek
language rarely possessed by englishmen, and almost
certainly not by Wiclif. His translation therefore simply
followed the latin.
Previously to the next stage in the history we are
following there occurred two memorable events. The one
was the invention of the printing press in the year 1440,
and the very first book that was printed was the splendid
latin bible of the Cardinal Mazarin. The other event was
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in the year
1453. Its immediate consequence was the diffusion of
greek manuscripts, and greek scholars throughout the
chief European cities.
The first published New Testament in the greek lan
guage, the Editio princeps, was compiled and edited
by the illustrious Erasmus, being printed for him by
Eroben of Basle in the year 1516. Erasmus’s second and
�An Aspiration of Science.
11
greatly improved impression (which I possess here) being
printed in the year 1519.
Now it is observable that in none of the latin manu
scripts, nor in the printed latin version of the Scriptures
do we find the text “ good-will towards men.” The text
of the latin version invariably runs thus: “ Peace on
earth towards men of good-will.” The meaning of which,
as seemingly held by the Roman Church, being, “ Peace
of mind amongst true believers”; such being of course
Roman Catholics.
When Erasmus published his New Testament he gave
to the world a version from Greek Manuscripts that could
not be so rendered. Along with the Greek text he printed
a literal latin translation of his own, differing greatly in
many important particulars from the Latin Vulgate, and,
in reference to the text we are considering, he gave in
latin, more plainly to mark his meaning, the words
‘ hominibus bona voluntas’ ‘ good-will towards men.’
It is really then to this illustrious scholar, who, I venture
to say, was, in learning and scholastic accomplishments,
in liberal-mindedness, in large-heartedness, in love of
toleration, and in disrelish of dogma, the very proto
type of our late lamented Arthur Stanley, Dean of West
minster—it is to Erasmus we really owe our first distinct
knowledge of the sublime expression ‘ On Earth Peace,
towards men Good-will.’
To those of you who are not acquainted with Greek it
may be surprising to hear that the whole difference
between the two renderings turns upon a single letter of
a single word. That is to say, if the G-reek word were
eiSoKla ending with the letter a, as it is found in some
manuscripts, then the literal translation would be ‘ towards
men good-will,” but if the word were euSoKtas, having the
letter s, as it is found in other manuscripts, then the
rendering would be ‘ towards men of good-will ’ or some
�12
A n Aspiration of Science.
equivalent phrase, even so far fetched, and apparently
strained as that formulated by the Revisers, viz.: “ among
men in whom he is well pleased.”
From Erasmus we may at once turn to our great
countryman and reformer, William Tyndale. He had
probably become personally acquainted with Erasmus on
one of his visits to this country. Tyndale being at
Magdalen Hall, Oxford, whilst Erasmus was at Magdalen
College. Tyndale had great admiration for the erudition
of Erasmus, and had read his Greek Testament, for we
find him paraphrasing the paraclesis prefixed to this
impression of 1519. Tyndale, in his English Translation
of the New Testament (first published in 1526), had
evidently the Greek text of Erasmus in his mind, for his
translation widely differs from the Vulgate Latin, and he
renders our text thus—‘ Peace on Earth, and unto men
rejoicing.’
Erasmus was more closely followed by Robert Stephens
of Paris, who in his fourth edition of the Greek New
Testament (published at Geneva in 1551) not only
reprinted the Greek text of Erasmus with slight variation,
but adopted his latin version verbatim. This Edition of
Stephens is noticeable also as being the first in which the
Scriptures were divided into verses, that is so numbered,
not altogether broken up into verses; that was first done
in the Genevan-English version which I am now going to
mention.
The Greek and Latin texts of Erasmus and Stephens
are the foundation of the valuable translation of the New
Testament executed by the English Exiles at Geneva in
Queen Mary’s reign (in the year 1557). This, together
with their English translation of the Old Testament pub
lished in 1560 (the second year of Queen Elizabeth) formed
for many years the favourite popular household Bible in
in this country (I possess it here). Erasmus and Stephens
�An A spiration of Science.
13
were also further followed on the Continent by the
weighty authority of Theodore Beza, the eminent Genevan
Reformer, and discoverer of the ancient uncial Codex
Bezse, presented by him to Cambridge University, and
whose Greek and elegant Latin Testament of 1580 I also
have here.
In the Anglo-Genevan version we meet with the text
under consideration for the first time printed in the
English language as it was subsequently given in the
authorised version of 1611, the translators of which were
commanded by King James to show especial regard to
this Genevan-English version. Now such as we there
find the text it has ever since remained, and been
accepted by the Protestant English nation and all englishspeaking protestant peoples, until the revision of the New
Testament published last year, that is from the year 1557
down to the year 1881, when we find this time-hallowed
text expunged, and in place of it the strained expression
I have already quoted, that the Peace on Earth, instead
of being for all men, is only for those in whom he is
well pleased; and thus we have the angelic announcement
of ‘ good tidings of great joy to all people ’ cut down and
narrowed by the utterance of the heavenly host (as
interpreted by the revisers), to some portion only of the
great human race.
Now I must not be understood as dissenting from, or
in any way presuming to criticise what the revisers have
accomplished. Erom a doctrinal point of view, there were
doubtless many inducements tempting them to tamper
with the text, and to get rid if possible of the elevated
conception primarily presented to us in print through the
critical acumen of Erasmus. In the first place ‘ Peace
on earth, Good-will towards men’ as general Christian
sentiments, are strikingly inconsistent with the subse
quent declaration of Christ himself. (Matt. ch. x. v. 34.)
�14
An Aspiration of Science.
“ Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth ?
I tell ye, Nay, but rather division. Think not that I
came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace
but a sword. For I am come to set a man at vari
ance against his father, and the daughter against her
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-inlaw.”
Then again, if regarded in any prophetic sense, the
announcement has had no fulfilment. Indeed the history
of the world since the coming of Christ fully and fear
fully contradicts it. Not only has there been no increase
of peace on the earth, there have probably been more
wars and bloodshed arising out of Christianity, or since
its birth, than ever took place before. An eloquent his
torian has remarked ‘ That from the very commencement
of the Christian era the sword has accompanied the Cross,
a sword that has never found and never will find a
scabbard, till superstitious creeds and immoral dogmas
shall be abandoned as things invented in the dark ages of
the world, as things directly calculated to sow the seeds
of discord in society, create feuds between man and man,
and perpetuate those animosities which turn the sweets
of life into wormwood. This dogmatic Christianity has
done in every age and in every country into which it has
been introduced. Wherever the Cross has been raised
thither have followed fire and sword, horrid burnings,
brutal massacres. All history teems with accounts of its
savage wars, its deluging bloodshed.’ Even at this very
time our common humanity is being outraged by the
atrocities of the Christian persecution of the Jews now
being carried on in ‘ Holy’ Russia!
From a theologian’s point of view therefore the
authorized text of 1611 might well be considered as a
stumbling block, and the reasoning above adverted to may
not improbably have contributed, even unconsciously, to
�An Aspiration of Science.
15
the decision which has now expunged, or attempted to
expunge, the text, entirely from our English Bible.
If however we are to lose the sublime sentiment of
‘good-will towards men’ from the gospel, it may be
worth while to consider whether we are compelled to part
with it altogether. If it be not inspired Scripture, and
if dogmatic theology disown it, may it not find its true
home to be with Science ? Let us consider shortly how
this may be.
The conspicuous conflict between Theology and Science
which characterises our transitional progress from the age
of Eaith to the age of Reason, when looked into with
the object of ascertaining its less obvious causes, will be
found to arise out of the divergent ends which each of
these great systems of thought appears to be aiming at.
Theology will be found to have for its ultimate realisation
the Glory of Grod. The Aspirations of Science, on the
other hand, are wholly directed towards the well-being of
Man.
I could give you abundant illustration of the aim of
Theology taken from any of the great book-religions of
the world enumerated in my lecture of last year, showing,
as they unmistakeably do, that the glory of Grod and the
well-being of Man are very often not altogether consis
tent ; but it will amply suffice for my present argument
to confine my illustrations to those two great Theologies
the Jewish and the Christian, which are embraced in the
single volume of the Bible, and in the creeds and con
fessions of faith that have been deduced from its pages,
and which are supposed, more plainly than Holy writ
itself, to explain its meaning.
In the very first book of that volume we find the Deity
represented as cursing man and the whole human race his
descendants on account of his having partaken of the
forbidden fruit. The fearful fate thus decreed to man
�16
An Aspiration of Science.
kind universally, though subsequently a comparative few
termed “the Elect” were excepted, is better known
through the adroitly devised and necessarily subdued tone
of it that has been evolved through ecclesiastical subtlety,
such, for instance, as we find it moulded in that authorita
tive theological standard the Westminster Confession of
Eaith, presented by the Assembly of Divines to both
Houses of Parliament in the year 1646, and wherein it
is thus expressed: “ By the decree of God, for the mani
festation of his glory some men and angels are predes
tined unto everlasting life, and others foredained to
everlasting death. God hath appointed the elect unto
glory. The rest of mankind God has pleased, according
to the unsearchable counsels of his own will, for the glory
of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and
ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the
praise of his glorious justice I ”
I need hardly quote familiar passages from the book of
Psalms and other books of the Old Testament showing
the many fearful human calamities ordained or practised,
even to the sacrifice of the lives of human beings, all for
the glory of God! If we turn to the New Testament
Scriptures the awful idea we are contemplating culmi
nates in the appalling announcement of the everlasting
punishment of Hell!
Now the God of Theology is an idea of the human
mind. Like the Poet’s, the Theologian’s eye
“ Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the theologian's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.’'
Even the ghastly conception of eternal torments, and
the foredoomed fate of millions of human beings is all
�An Aspiration of Science.
declared by theologians to be for the glory of God.
the grim irony of Burns expresses it—
17
As
I Oh Thou, wha in the heav’ns dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel,
Sends ane to Heaven, and ten to Hell
A’ for thy glory,
And no for ony guid or ill
They’ve done afore thee.”
If we turn from theological theory to the practice of
theologians, as exhibited in history, we plainly perceive
how their treatment of mankind has ever corresponded
with the cruel character of their credentials. The
reproachful summing up of their conduct by the learned
historian Buckle is only too true. ‘ The theologians,’ he
declares, ‘considered as a class, have in every country
and in every age deliberately opposed themselves to
gratifications which are essential to the happiness of an
overwhelming majority of the human race. Eaising up
a God of their own creation, whom they hold out as a
lover of penance, of sacrifice, and of mortification, they,
under this pretence, forbid enjoyments which are not only
innocent but praiseworthy ... It must be admitted
by whoever will take a comprehensive view of what they
have done, that they have not only been the most bitter
foes of human happiness, but the most successful ones.
In their high and palmy days, when they reigned supreme,
when credulity was universal, and doubt unknown, they
afflicted mankind in every possible way, enjoining fasts,
and penances, and pilgrimages, teaching their simple and
ignorant victims every kind of austerity, teaching them
to flog their own bodies, to tear their own flesh, and to
mortify the most natural of their appetites.’ And Buckle
emphatically warns us, ‘ that we shall assuredly sink under
the accumulated pressure of our high and complex
civilization if we imitate the credulity of our forefathers,
�18
An Aspiration of Science.
who allowed their energies to be cramped and weakened
by those pernicious notions which the clergy, partly
from ignorance, and partly from interest, have in every
age palmed upon the people, and have thereby diminished
the national happiness, and retarded the march of the
national prosperity.’
As we are now accepting it as settled by the New
Testament Revision, that the text ‘ Peace on Earth,
Good-will towards men ’ was no part of original Scripture,
and is discarded by theology, it becomes the privilege of
Science, with the right hand of fellowship, to bid it wel
come. It embodies indeed her most cherished aspirations,
for we shall see that, as the ultimate end of Science is to
bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest num
ber, ‘ Good-will towards men,’ that is human well-being,
and ‘ Peace on earth ’ have ever been objects Science has
had nearest and dearest to her, are indeed of the very
essence of her transcendent faith.
And here I call to mind that the leading idea of my
lecture was a few years since, with almost prophetic
foresight of the work of the New Testament Revisers,
shadowed forth in the luminous and lofty language of a
pioneer of progress, one of the bravest and soundest of
our sons of Science. In professor Tyndall’s Presidential
Address on ‘ Science and Man,’ delivered before the
Midland Institute in October, 1877, he asks “ Does the
song of the herald angels ‘ Glory to God on the highest,
and on earth Peace, Good-will toward men,’ express the
exaltation and the yearning of a human soul, or does it
describe an optical and acoustical fact, a visible host, and
an audible song ? If the former, the exaltation and the
yearning are man’s imperishable possession, if the latter,
then belief in the entire transaction is wrecked by nonfulfilment. The promise of ‘ Peace on Earth, Good-will
toward men’ is a dream ruined by the experience of
�.An Aspiration of Science.
19
eighteen centuries, and in that ruin are involved the
claim of the heavenly host to prophetic vision. But,
though the mechanical theory proves untenable, the
immortal song, and the feelings it expresses are still ours,
to be incorporated, let us hope, in the poetry, philosophy,
and practice of the future.”
Now we seem to breathe the free atmosphere of
Science; Science so variously defined, so differently
understood in the past ages of the world. To us, Science,
in its general sense, is simply real knowledge—know
ledge that may be tested and known to be real by verifi
cation through, or comparison with, the facts of Nature.
This is no mere verbal definition, for, side by side with
real knowledge has always existed the persuasion of false
knowledge. This distinction helps to explain, too, how it
has come to happen that Theology and Science are so often
seen in conflict. To say, as is sometimes done, that
Theology is based on supernatural knowledge, whilst
Science is limited to knowledge that is natural, does not
really solve the problem. It might account for difference
in their respective degrees of knowledge, but not, if both
be true, for downright contradiction between them.
The conflict, in its present proportions, has really
arisen in comparatively recent times, and we shall best
get at its source and nature by glancing at it historically.
In the ancient world, and throughout what might be
termed the golden age of Theology, Science was very dif
ferently conceived to what is now regarded as its right
meaning. In that subtle dialogue of Plato,—Theaitetos,
which is a discussion concerning what is meant by Science,
(written nearly 400 years before the Christian Era,) we
find that Socrates could only define or conceive Science
as being the inmost perception of the mind, or inner
consciousness, concerning any matter. He thought that
there could be no external standard, and that what the
�20
An Aspiration of Science.
individual mind arrives at through pure reflection as
true, must be regarded as the truth by that mind. Such
was the only conclusion that consummate thinker could
come to as to the nature of Science. In Plato’s more
mature Dialogue ‘The Republic’ we again find the nature
and end of Science repeatedly referred to. Thus, with
reference to the Sciences of Arithmetic and Geometry,
Plato thought nothing of any worldly use they might
serve. The object of the study of the properties of num
bers, he says, is to habituate the mind to the contempla
tion of pure and abstract truth, and so to raise us above
the material universe.
In these writings of Plato we have then distinctly
stated the end of Science, and also its method, as he
regarded them; such method being, in the majority of
instances, utterly fallacious, viz.:—That the intuition of
the mind, or the idea which is subjectively conceived, is
to be accepted as the equivalent or correlative of an
objective fact. This fallacy may be detected underlying
those metaphysical systems of philosophy that so authori
tatively prevailed until they were displaced by the modern
inductive method of research, which is based, not on
mental intuitions, but on material facts, ascertained
through the senses, and so marshalled as to constitute an
objective criterion, to which speculative propositions may
be referred, for the purpose of testing which are true and
which are false.
Now the Platonic idea of Science was very early
pressed into the service of Theology. The late Bishop
Hampden, in his learned lectures on the Scholastic Phil
osophy, has acutely explained how this arose, and he
remarks that its abstractedness from the visible world
was one chief reason why Platonism became established
as the orthodox system of the Western Church. This
Platonic notion of Science, having thus become combined
�An Aspiration of Science.
21
with, or subordinated to the dogmas of Theology, with its
universal panacea of prayer, really continued, not always
in practice, but, in intellectual theory, until the advent of
our illustrious countryman Lord Bacon. Bacon, by the
exercise of his marvellous insight, penetrated to the very
core of real knowledge, showing, especially in that latin
casket of scientific gems, the Novum Organum (published
in 1620), that the first thing necessary in the search of
truth is intellectual light—‘ lumen siccum ’ pure light,
unobscured by the mists of superstition, passion, preju
dice, or interest. But then he at once points out that
the intellect left to itself, like the naked hand, can effect
little, that it must be assisted by helps and by instru
ments, and that its intuitions must be corrected, or duly
verified by the observation, or interrogation through ex
periment, of the facts of Nature. That ‘wre scire esse
per causas scire ’—we only truly know anything when we
know its cause.
Utterly ignoring the jargon of theology concerning the
Kingdom of Heaven, Bacon avowed his object was to
establish on Earth the Kingdom of Man, whose sovereignty
would rest on Science, which was not a thing to be
demanded back from the darkness of antiquity, but
must be sought from the light of Nature.
That Science was not derived from human authority,
but is the offspring or fruit resulting ‘ commercio mentis et
rerum’ from the intercourse of mind and matter, or, as
he quaintly phrases it, ‘ the happy marriage between the
mind of man and the nature of things.’
But Bacon’s sagacious discovery, or, at least, his vigorous
presentment in clear and cogent logic of the right method
of arriving at the source of real knowledge, was only a
portion, though a magnificently grand one, of the ser
vices he has rendered to mankind. He proceeded further,
and showed that the speculations of the ancient Philoso
�22
An Aspiration of Science.
phers were comparatively worthless, as not having in view
the true end of Science, which was not, he averred, an
intellectual pastime, or ‘ web of the wit,’ woven merely to
amuse or mystify the dialectical faculties of the human
mind, but was an investigation into Nature, in order to
establish the well-being, and bring about the happiness
of the human race. The end of Science was to consist in
the multiplying of human enjoyments, and the mitigating
of human miseries, concisely it was, to use his own preg
nant words, ‘the relief of man’s estate’; and this is the
sense in which we are to understand his often-repeated
aphorism ‘ Scientia est Potentia,’ real knowledge is power
—power enabling man to grapple with and overcome the
evils of life.
And thus, through the exhaustive exposition of Bacon,
Science was no longer limited by the definitions or ideas
of Plato, the human intellect became liberated from the
bondage of verbal disputation, and Was turned to the con
sideration of useful truths. Science came to be seen as
we now know it, that is, as the process of discovery, by
man’s natural faculties, of the order or laws of Nature.
The laboratory of Science being, according to Plato,
the inner sanctuary of the mind, and the materials of
Science being, according to Bacon, facts, acquired through
the senses, from the outer World of Nature. So con
sidered, the sphere of Science comprehends everything
that, by the constitution of the human faculties, can be
positively known; the region of reality, as distinguished
from the realm of visionary knowledge, that has been
built up, by means of unverified mental intuitions, into
theological and metaphysical systems.
Now what the genuis of Bacon was so powerfully
propounding in precept, others were almost simul
taneously performing in practice.
In our own country we find William Harvey, the
�An Aspiration of Science.
23
friend and physician of Bacon, discovering, by the aid of
experiment, the circulation of the blood, and, in his con
cise ‘exerdtatio de motu Cordis et Sanguinis’, explaining
this grand truth (published in 1628, two years after the
death of Bacon), and also in his larger work ‘ de generatione
Animalium ’ (published in 1651) we may, I think, perceive
many passages proving the extent to which Harvey was
indebted intellectually to his great predecessor Bacon.
Another almost immediate result of the profound
impression made upon thinking minds by the extra
ordinary brilliancy of Bacon’s philosophical writings
appears in the very striking treatise of Richd. Cumberland
on the Laws of Nature, his ‘ de legibus Natures disquisitio’
(published in 1672). “In this work” (says Hallam)
“ the Bathers and Schoolmen, the Canonists and Casuists,
have vanished like ghosts at the first daylight.* The con
tinued appeal is to experience, and never to authority,
unless it be to the authority of the great apostles of
experimental philosophy.”
And thus piety was becoming purified from the dross
of dogma, for with Science, ‘ laborare est orare ’—prayer
consists in work, and the world was being aroused from
the supineness of superstitious sloth to the activity of
intelligent industry.
And now we may distinctly observe what is the relation
which the Baconian or Inductive Science holds towards
Theology. I pass by the attempts that were made by the
Church to strangle it in its birth. The persecution of
Science by the Church when it possessed power, and of
scientific men, the great men who have been the inter
preters of Nature,
“ Their only crime that they should dare
To think, and then their thought declare ”—
is indeed a theme painfully familiar, but happily it forms
no part of my present argument. We are now only
�24
An Aspiration of Science.
referring to the intellectual influence of Science, which
is by Buckle thus tersely summarised, and contrasted
with Theology:—
“ Inductive Science takes for its basis individual and
specific experience, and seeks by that means to overthrow
the general and traditional notions on which all church
power is founded. Its plan is to refuse to accept prin
ciples which cannot be substantiated by facts. In Theology
certain principles are taken for granted, and it is deemed
impious to question them. In England, the rise of the
Baconian Philosophy, with its determination to subordi
nate ancient principles to modern experience, was the
heaviest blow which has ever been inflicted on the Theo
logians, whose method is to begin, not with experience,
but with principles which are said to be inscrutable.
That is, they proceed from arbitrary assumptions, for
which they have no proof, except by appealing to other
assumptions equally arbitrary, and equally unproven.
Over the inferior order of minds our clergy still wield
great influence, but the Baconian Philosophy, bv bring
ing their favourite method into disrepute, has sapped the
very base of their system. From the moment that their
method of investigation was discredited, the secret of
their power was gone.”
And the present attitude of the Church towards
Science is thus graphically portrayed by Dr. Draper :—
“ At length the Church has fastened its eyes on Science.
Under that dreaded name there stands before it what
seems to be a spectre of uncertain form, of hourly dilating
proportions, of threatening aspect.
Sometimes the
Church addresses this stupendous apparition in words of
courtesy, sometimes in tones of denunciation.” This
mingled and trembling tone of courtesy and defiance, of
welcome and of dread, may I think be detected in nearly
all the great theological utterances going on around us.
�An Aspiration of Science.
25
We however may in Science recognise the spirit that
has promised to lead us into all truth, and we may hail
as the children of light those who are endowed with the
intelligence enabling them to follow whithersoever such
spirit may lead, and therefore, when the Bishop of Man
chester asks, as he did in his somewhat singular sermon
preached before the British Association in August last
—“ Is Science to tell me what I am to believe, and how
I am to act,” let us, however respectfully, ask empha
tically, Why not ? For it has now been demonstrated
by experience, that only by belief in Science, and by
acting in accordance with its teaching of Grood-will to
wards man, can the great miseries of human life, its
pinching poverty, its depraving intemperance, its de
moralising vices, its agonising diseases, its premature
deaths, with their attendant train of heartrending sorrows
and corroding griefs, be banished, and life on earth ren
dered tolerably happy. It is only by belief in Science,
and by following its teaching, that wars will ever be
abolished, and ‘ Peace on Earth ’ practically realised.
I need not now dilate on illustrations of the primary
care of Science for humanity, as manifested in its dis
coveries, deductions, and teachings in reference to the
Order of Nature, to the Constitution of Man. The great
astronomical and physiological discoveries are more or
less known to every one. On the subject of Health, so
essential to our happiness, I will dwell for a few moments.
The theological theory of disease (explained in my lecture
last year) has been completely exploded from the creed of
the educated classes, and it is now acknowledged that
Health is entirely dependent on the observance of immu
table and imperative laws of Nature. Diseases are
now distinctly traceable to infringement of these
laws, and several diseases are indissolubly associated
with the poisonous nature of some of the food we
�26
An Aspiration of Science.
eat, and the liquids we drink. But the scientific
knowledge of the subject requires diffusing, to be more
generally taught, and brought vividly home to the reason
and common sense of the people.
Now, some of you may remember that in a former
lecture I deplored the paucity of scientific tracts and texts
or axioms disseminated amongst us, compared with the
number of superstitious stories with which we are literally
deluged by theological Societies. Yet I think that scien
tific teaching might to a great extent be carried on in a
similar manner. Let me hazard a suggestion, illustrative
of my meaning. Some of you I dare say have observed
the scripture text that is engraved above a drinking foun
tain within a quarter of a mile from our doors : “ Whoso
ever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whoso
ever drinketh of the water I shall give him shall never
thirst.”
Now, don’t assume that I am quoting this text for the
purpose of scoffing. I only now say, it is not Science,
but it strikes me as pointing out to us a corresponding
method of diffusing scientific knowledge, and that we
might well have our fountains engraved with some scien
tific axiom or truth in connection with their use. Thus,
we might have written over them some such scientific
axiom as the following : “ Whosoever drinketh of water
polluted with organic germs shall be in danger of disease
and death; but whosoever drinketh of water purified
therefrom by Science shall escape taking thereby diarrhoea,
dysentery, cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria.”
Going to the subject of Education I may point out
that in our Great Schools and Colleges the curriculum
of studies has been considerably changed since society
has come to appreciate the educational value of the study
of the Physical Sciences, not only as regards the real and
useful knowledge thereby imparted of the material world
�An Aspiration of Science.
27
and our actual mode of existence, but in reference to the
discipline of the mental faculties involved in learning their
precise and accurate methods of investigating and veri
fying truth, and showing what concrete truth consists in.
In the Parliamentary Report of the Public Schools Com
mission published in the year 1864 we find Professor
Owen, the late Sir Charles Lyell, and Professor Faraday,
our esteemed President Dr. Carpenter, Professor Tyndall,
and other eminent scientists giving the most clear and
convincing testimony to the value of such study in training
a class of mental faculties which are almost ignored by
purely classical and mathematical culture; such as the dis
tinguishing things from words ; the accurate observation,
and classification of the facts of Nature, and the exercise
of the reasoning faculties on such facts ; the teaching to
the student the principles of real evidence; and how, in
the unprejudiced pursuit of truth, to estimate correctly
the weight of such evidence.
But perhaps the greatest blow that enlightenment has
publicly dealt to superstition in our day was inflicted by
the Elementary Education Act of 1870—under which
Board Schools have been so widely established for impart
ing some amount of really useful secular common-sense
knowledge to the children of the masses of our people,
in the place of the Bible reading and Hymn singing, in
the learning of which their precious time was so much
consumed in the old Church Schools. By Sec. 7 of that
Act of Parliament it is expressly provided, that no religious
observance, or instruction in religious subjects shall be
given during the necessary school hours. That no scholar
shall be bound to attend any religious observance or in
struction, and that it shall be no part of the duty of Her
Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools to enquire into any
instruction in any religious subjects given at such school,
or to examine any scholar therein. Now, bearing in mind
�28
An Aspiration of Science.
that the term religious instruction used in the Act has
especial reference to the jarring and discordant theologies
of the rival religious sects, all of whom were contending
to get the child under their special influence, and that the
prohibition in the Act of Parliament of religious instruction
was resorted to as the only practicable course of getting
rid of the obstructive opposition of such sects; I don’t
think I am going too far in characterising the enactment
in question as the greatest legislative blow dealt at super
stition since the passing of the Act of the 9th of Greo. II.
which repealed that astounding statute of James I., which
had actually recognised as realities the theological delu
sions of witchcraft, conjuration, and dealing with evil
and wicked Spirits, and authorised prosecutions, con
victions, and the infliction of barbarous punishments,
for the alleged commission of such purely imaginary
crimes 1
Now we are all taught in our youth to believe that
Theology or our Religious System is the source or sanc
tion of all morality. If Boman Catholics we are taught
that in matters of Faith and Morals the Pope is the in
fallible authority; a dogma the more astonishing, inas
much as it must be obvious to unprejudiced historical
students that, as the power of the Pope has decayed, the
moral tone of European society has improved. But, in
the decomposition, or decline of theological belief every
where going on, there must exist a danger that what has
been supposed an essential part of its teaching may
decline too. Hence has arisen the necessity of showing,
as the fact is, that the true foundation of morality, or the
right conduct of man towards man, is scientific or secular,
and not essentially theological at all.
Now, that pure morality is absolutely independent of
all theology has been known to Science from the time of
Aristotle, whose demonstration of the doctrine is con
�An Aspiration of Science.
29
tained in his profound and sagacious treatise the Nicomachean Ethics.
Turning then to the consideration of virtue, as the
supreme moral end, we shall see what Science has dis
covered and taught us as the indestructible basis of the
duty of doing, not only what is just and right, but what
is calculated for the happiness of mankind, all of which
are comprehended in that felicitously compendious ex
pression, ‘ good-will towards men.’
It is to the illustrious Grotius (whose great work on the
principles of human conduct I somewhat fully referred to
in my lecture of last year) that we are indebted, according
to his able editor the late Dr. Whewell, for the first
clear enunciation of the true source of moral science.
Man, says Grotius, following the lead of Aristotle, is by
his nature a rational and social being. He can only exist
in the society of his fellow-creatures, and he must live
with them, not anyhow, but according to his instincts,
his faculties, and his desires, that is, peacefully and hap
pily. Human Nature then is the mother of moral right,
and the moral guilt or rectitude of any action is deter
mined by its agreement or disagreement with our rational
and social nature.
These ideas of Aristotle and Grotius have been admirably
developed by (amongst others) Jeremy Bentham, John S.
Mill, and Herbert Spencer. ‘ Nature (says Bentham) has
placed mankind under the government of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point
out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what
we shall do. The standard of right and wrong is fastened
to their throne. In words a man may pretend to abjure
their empire, but in reality he will remain subject to it
all the while. The principle of utility recognises this
subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that
system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity
�30
An Aspiration of Science.
by the hand of reason and of law. Systems which
attempt to question it deal in sound instead of sense, in
caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.’
This scientific foundation of morals, general utility, or
the greatest happiness principle (adds John S. Mill) holds
that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. This utilitarian standard, however, is not
the agent’s own greatest happiness but, the greatest
amount of happiness altogether. Utilitarianism there
fore can only attain its end by the general cultivation of
nobleness of character, and the multiplication of happiness
is, according to such standard of ethics, the object of
virtue. Thus it embraces not only our duties, but by
what test we may know them. And the highest life,
says Herbert Spencer, is that which includes the greatest
happiness, and ‘that happiness is the supreme virtuous
end is beyond question true, for it is the concomitant of
that ultimate end which every theory of moral guidance
has distinctly, or vaguely in view.
Such shortly is the ideal of Science in regard to the
true nature of virtue, but so backward is our present
social state, that so far from our being able to realise
such an ideal, the greater part of our present virtue
consists in practising the duty of self-denial, lest the
attempted gratification of our own faculties aud activities
should interfere with corresponding gratifications on the
part of others. For (says Herbert Spencer) the main
tenance of equitable relations all round is the condition
to the attainment of the greatest happiness of all..
There is probably no subject respecting which the
teachings of Theology and Science are more at variance
than in their respective views concerning the dreadful
ordeal of War. You know, if you consult the pages of
the Bible, you find that War is treated as almost, under
�An A spiration of Science.
31
certain circumstances, a normal condition of human
existence. I will not stay to quote texts illustrating this
conclusion, in which the Deity is represented as the Lord
of Hosts, as the Grod of Battles, as a Man of War, over
and over again taking part in and encouraging warfare,
and even expressly commanding Wars to be undertaken.
What the human mind may be degraded into believing
through the too exclusive study of Theology, and the too
confiding credulity in all that we find written in the old
historical books of the semi-barbarous Hebrews, may be
gathered from a recent utterance of one of our learned
Bishops, who declared that he believed War was one of
the means by which the Almighty carried on the govern
ment of the world, and promoted civilization!
Now Science cannot conceive an Almighty power
governing or encouraging a world of human beings
through the dreadful horrors of war, and such power
could not, in any scientific sense, be regarded as benefi
cent, if he were really capable of coolly carrying on human
government by means of the atrocious machinery of
warfare. According to Science, such an idea can only
be a delusion of the morbid imagination, enfeebled through
unreflecting faith in the senseless suggestions of supersti
tion. Science can indeed show that it is quite unneces
sary to attribute war to the intentional Will of an
Almighty Supernatural Being, for it can trace its causes
to the passions of human nature, acting in ignorance or
disregard of those preventives of war which the human
understanding, enlightened by Science, has succeeded in
discovering, and by following which wars might be alto
gether banished from the face of the earth, or, at least,
from amongst the Nations of Europe. Hence in nearly
all such Nations have arisen Peace Societies, founded for
the purpose of diffusing such intelligence amongst the
people at large, that they, being instructed to recognise
�32
An Aspiration of Science.
that their true interest always lies on the side of Peace,
may, through enlightened public opinion, bring pressure
to bear upon their rulers, in order that Peace may be
preserved, and the horrors of War avoided. That this
could even now be effected, through the instrumentality
of International Arbitration, can hardly be doubted by
those who have considered the subject from a scientific
point of view.
I may now then conclude by affirming that the senti
ments ‘ Good-will towards men ’ and ‘ Peace on Earth,’
though expelled from Sacred Scripture, and disowned by
dogmatic Theology, are the inalienable heritage of Science,
and under its guardianship will remain, to exemplify the
sublime sympathies of those noble-minded men, whose
fervent thoughts and dignified lives are devoted to the
realisation of their spontaneous aspirations to improve, to
lift up, and to sweeten the earthly lives of their fellow
creatures ; aspirations which superstition has not suc
ceeded in suppressing, because they are the natural
promptings of the uncorrupted heart, and mind, and con
science of man, civilized through Science.
KENNY & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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An aspiration of science : "On earth peace, good-will towards men", rescued from the New Testament revision. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 19th February, 1882
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5.
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Finch, A. Elley
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1883
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Sunday Lecture Society
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G3429
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Bible
Science
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<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 (An aspiration of science : "On earth peace, good-will towards men", rescued from the New Testament revision. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 19th February, 1882), 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
Morris Tracts
Science
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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>
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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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Title
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The Edda songs and sagas of Iceland. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place on Sunday afternoon, 13th February 1876
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Browning, George
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 45, [3], p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Art-historical and ethnographical lectures
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Haymarket, London. Other works by the author, and a list of his Art-Historical & Ethnographical Lectures, afternoon meetings for 1876 given on unnumbered pages at the end. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1876
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G5169
N112
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Iceland
Mythology
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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 Edda songs and sagas of Iceland. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place on Sunday afternoon, 13th February 1876), 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
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Eddas
Iceland
NSS
Sagas
Songs
-
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Text
HIS
LIFE,
WORKS,
AND
INFLUENCE
UPON THE
SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION.
fuinrt
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 28th FEBRUARY, 1875.
A.
ELLEY FINCH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. H THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�SYLLABUS.
Intellectual and Ecclesiastical condition of Europe about
the beginning of the sixteenth century. Characterised by
the awakening of the human mind from the long slumber of
the Middle Ages, stimulated mainly by three memorable
events :—
1. The invention of the Printing Press (1440).
2. The dispersion of Scholars on the fall of the Eastern
Empire of the Bomans (1453).
3. The actual discovery of the shape and smallness, of the
Earth through the voyages Of Columbus and Vasco
de Gama (1492-7), and Magellan’s Squadron (1522).
Sketch of the Life of Erasmus (1467-1536). His visits to
England and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. His
friendships with Colet, Linacre, Grocyn, More, Fisher, and
others of our learned -men. His zeal and travels for restoring
the culture of Classical Literature. His Works—‘Praise of
Folly,’ ‘ Adages,’ Edition of the Greek Testament, ‘ Familiar
Colloquies,’ ‘ Complaint of Peace,’ Editions of Classical Authors
and Christian Fathers, &c.
Bise of the Beformation, and its outbreak (1517) through
the intrepid preaching and conduct of Luther. His contro
versy with Erasmus. Divergence of their views.
Two aspects of the Beformation :—
1. Theological—A contest respecting the standard of
Beligious Truth. Ended in the substitution of an
assumed infallible Book for an alleged infallible
Church. (Luther.)
2. Historical-—The emancipation of the human reason
from the yoke of ecclesiastical authority through
the revival of learning. Still in progress by the
advance of culture and the freedom of discussion.
(Erasmus.)
�Syllabus.
Erasmus’s ‘Greek Testament’ (pditio princeps) 1516,followed
by Robert Stephens’s third (first critical) edition, 1550; Elzevir’s
(textus receptus), 1624; Mill’s, 1707 ; Wetstein’s, 1751; Matthsei’s, 1782-8 ; Griesbach’s, 1796 ; Scholz, 1830-6 ; Lachmann’s,
1831 ; Tischendorf’s, 1841, and other critical editions, embrac
ing the collation of upwards of six hundred manuscripts, and
the discovery of more than one hundred thousand various
readings, and no “ immaculate ” text, necessitates the science
of biblical criticism, i.e., the application of scientific truths
and tests, methods of inquiry and canons of evidence to the
investigation of the genuineness, authenticity, and true inter
pretation of the Christian Records.
Illustration of various readings—First Epistle General of
John, chap, v., verses 7, 8.
Concise account of the following ancient existing Scripture
Manuscripts :—
Language.
t----------------------------------
Source or
Text.
Date.
Latin.
Greek.
Codex Alexandrinus . 1 Codex Brixianus .... Byzantium (4th to
J 7th
(in the Gospels) J
„ Versio Vulgata . Palestine . j Cent.
„ Vaticanus ....
,, Vercellencis . . . Alexandria
A.D.
,, Cantabrigiensis.
The Spirit of the Reformation—the assertion of the principle
of private judgment arising from Reason and the Moral Sense,
in opposition to the practice of persecution resulting from the
spirit of dogmatism—is hostile to Priestcraft, but friendly to
Truth, by respecting the rights of conscience, and encouraging
the fearless advancement of Religious Knowledge through
Liberty of Inquiry, Freedom of Thought, and Honesty of
Expression.
�ERASMUS:
HIS LIFE, WORFS, AND INFLUENCE UPON THE SPIRIT OF
THE REFORMATION.
Throughout the greater part of the times historically
known, as the Middle Ages, down to so late a period as
the end of the 15th century, the Christian Countries of
Europe were ruled in reality by the Popes of Rome.
They were mapped out into Ecclesiastical Provinces,
each presided over by a Roman Archbishop ; Provinces’
were divided into Dioceses, and these into Parishes, each
with its Romish Priest, forming altogether an ecclesiasti
cal network, the strings of which were grasped at Rome
by the Pope and the College of Cardinals. In addition
to this clergy there were numerous orders of begging
Monks and Friars, Benedictines, Cistercians, Domini
cans, Franciscans, and Augustinians, whose numbers
swarmed everywhere; there being in most towns from
one to half-a-dozen Monasteries or Religious Houses.
The Power wielded through this ecclesiastical system
was enormous. Kings even were not secure of their
crowns till they had the sanction of the Church ; for, by
whatever jesuitical casuistry Vatican Decrees are now
sought to be explained away, in the days we are speak
ing of, Sovereigns were dethroned, their kingdoms laid
under interdicts, and their subjects were absolved from
their allegiance, by the usurped deposing power of the
Pope. The Roman Catholic Clergy alone baptized and
married, and buried, or refused Christian burial, they
alone disposed of dead men’s goods. No man’s Will
could take effect until proved in an Ecclesiastical Court.
If their claims were disputed remonstrants were handed
over to the secular arm or Civil Power, which acted in
abject submission to the arbitrary dictates of the
Church.
The Revenues of this Priesthood were immense.
�6
Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
Even the Monks, under their vows of poverty begging
alms for bread in return for prayers, obtaining bound
less wealth from the superstitious credulity of those who
thought that by giving them their property they could
save their souls.
But the ecclesiastical was not the only power in
Europe that was Roman. The whole learned world
was linked to Rome through the subtleties of the* scho
lastic system. All scholars talked and wrote in Latin,
the language of Rome. Learned people of all sorts were
looked upon as belonging to the Clergy. In England,
a man charged with crime, if he could only show such a
modicum of learning as being able to read and write,
could claim “benefit of clergy,” that is, be tried in an
ecclesiastical Court, which practically amounted to an
exemption from the punishments of the criminal law of
the Land. This tended to give all learning a clerical caste,
so that matters of real knowledge or science, which
could only be proved by observation of the facts of
Nature,—such, for instauce, as, whether the Sun moved
round the Earth, or the Earth round the Sun, were
settled by texts taken from the Bible I Whilst, as to
the Christian Religion itself, it had ceased to be what it
was in the days of Christ and the Apostles, an affair of
the heart; it had become a Theology, which is a thing of
the head.
About the beginning of the 16th century the restless
ness of the human mind under this servile system
becomes very observable, and is distinctly traceable to
the influence of certain memorable events, which were
then of recent occurrence. One was the invention of
the Printing-press, which occurred in about the year
1440, and which operated in two ways—in the multi
plying and cheapening of books, thereby diffusing
knowledge, and in substituting reading or private study
for oral instruction. Previously to the invention of
Printing, books were in manuscripts, comparatively so
few in number, that teaching was of necessity chiefly
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
7
carried on by means of Lectures or Sermons. Now, the
oral teacher unavoidably exerts over his audience a sym
pathetic influence, imbuing them with the bias of his
own views, and the gain to Truth must have been con
siderable, when the solitary student, intent only on its
pursuit, could acquire knowledge through the mute
medium of the printed page, and exercise upon it his
own powers of reflection, unprejudiced by the presence of
a personal Instructor. Thus it was that the PrintingPress came to deprive the Pulpit of its supremacy, and
to subordinate the Sermon to the Newspaper.
Another event was the taking of Constantinople by
the Turks, in the year 1453. This celebrated city had
been the home, or the refuge, of learning since its founda
tion by the Emperor Constantine in the year 330. On
its fall, learned Greeks and Jews, driven from the East,
were dispersed over Europe, and mostly settled in Italy.
The Greek and Hebrew languages were again studied,
and thence there resulted a remarkable revival of
classical learning, and there arose an intelligent criti
cism of the Latin credentials of the Roman Catholic
Faith. What (said the faculty of theology in Paris),
what will become of our religion, if the study of Greek
and Hebrew be permitted ? Time has verified this
prophetic fear of the Romish Church, and has shown,
that the prevalence of the Latin tongue was an essential
condition of her power.
The third event I shall advert to was the discovery of
the rounded form, and relative smallness, of our Earth,
through the Voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama
in the years 1492-7, and of Magellan’s expedition in the
years 1519-1522. The effect on the human mind of this
physical discovery must have been very powerful, since
it shocked directly some of the most cherished religious
notions of those days. Fact had now falsified faith ;
for the infallible Church had transmuted a geographical
problem into a theological dogma, by committing her
self against the figure of the Earth being round. Her
�8
Erasmus; his Life, Works3 and Influence
teaching was now shown to be untrue, and the authority
of her fervid Fathers Lactantius and Augustin proved to
be worthless, by the astounding achievement of the
actual circumnavigation of the Globe !
It should be observed that the spread of knowledge
at the period we are referring to was remarkably rapid.
Schools of learning were numerous, many of them dating
from their foundation by Charlemagne in the ninth cen
tury ; and Europe was dotted over by Universities, all
of which were more or less in close connection with one
another. The one language, Latin, was common to them
all, and students passed freely from one to another,
flocking often in great numbers to an University where
there happened to be a famous Professor.
Such, shortly, was the ecclesiastical and intellectual
condition of Western Christendom about the time of
the advent of the illustrious scholar, whose career we
are going slightly to trace. It was a time, when:—
“ Much was believ’d, but little understood,
And to be dull was constru’d to be good;
A second deluge Learning had o’er-run,
And the Monks finish’d what the Goths begun.
At length Erasmus, that great injur’d name,
(The glory of the Priesthood, and the shame!)
Stem’d the wild torrent of a barb’rous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.”
Desiderius Erasmus was born at Rotterdam in about
the year 1467. His parents were, one Gerard, a native
of Tergouw, and Margaret, the daughter of a Physician
at Zevenbergen in Brabant. Gerard in the Dutch
language signifies “ beloved,” and the son, following a
quaint fashion of the times, called himself by its Latin
and Greek equivalents—that is “ Desiderius ” in Latin
and “Erasmus” (more accurately Erasmios) in Greek.
As a boy he was considered slow at learning, and was
early placed in the choir of the Cathedral of Utrecht,butat
the age of nine he was removed to a then distinguished
school at Deventer, a town on the Yssel, where he had as a
schoolfellow a future Pope, Adrian the VI., and where
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
9
he made astonishing progress, causing Zinthius, one of
the masters, to prophecy that Erasmus would eventually
reach the highest pinnacle of learning. On leaving
school he was, much against his will, induced by his
guardians (he was already an orphan, having lost both
his parents), to enter the Augustinian Monastery of
Steyn, and to become a Monk. Whilst an inmate, he
was allowed by way of solace, to occupy the greater
portion of his time in study, especially of such of the
Greek and Latin classics as could there be met with.
His deliverance from the monastery was owing to his
accomplished scholarship, and happened thus. In the
year 1491 the Bishop of Cambray, being about to set
out for Rome in the hope of becoming a Cardinal, was
in search of a scholar to be his secretary and companion,
and he selected Erasmus. Erom Cambray Erasmus
(leaving the service of the Bishop, who did not go to
Rome after all) proceeded to Paris, and mastered the
studies that were then taught to the students of its
University (chiefly the scholastic philosophy or science
of sophistry, a metaphysical jargon enabling doctors
of theology endlessly to confute one another), living
very poorly, and more or less in pecuniary difficulty,
supported partly by presents, that it was customary for
the rich and noble to make to students, and partly by
begging, which was a common practice of the Monks
of the Mendicant Orders. In 1498 Erasmus visited
this country, remaining here until the year 1500, em
ploying his time a good deal at the. University of
Oxford, and in making the acquaintance of the most
learned and noted Englishmen of that day, especially
Thomas Linacre, Physician to Henry the 8th, William
Grocyn who was engaged at Oxford in giving Lectures
on the Greek Language, Thomas Latimer the theologian,
Thomas More, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Colet,
Dean of St Paul’s and founder of St Paul’s School.
Erasmus appears to have been greatly delighted with
this visit to England, and was much impressed with the
�io Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
number of our learned men, and they too were equally
taken with the varied scholarship of their visitor, almost
inducing him to’ settle at Oxford and give lectures
there. On leaving England, Erasmus was struck down
by fever at Orleans. He recovered, he says, through
the intercession of Saint Genevieve, though not without
the help of a good Physician. In the year 1506 Erasmus
paid a second visit to this country, staying about a year,
renewing his intercourse with his old friends, and visit
ing for the first time the University of Cambridge,
where he was made a Bachelor of Divinity. Leaving
England he again visited Paris, and afterwards crossed
the Alps to see the Cities of Italy, Turin, Venice, and
Rome, always pursuing his studies, and making the
acquaintance of great men and scholars, with whom he
carried on a voluminous and instructive correspondence.
He now obtained from the Pope a release from his
monastic vows. It seems to have long been his ambi
tion to pay a visit to Italy, then renowned through the
world for her antiquities, her arts, and her learning,
where the old classical memories had never died out, and
where, in the days of Erasmus, they were recovering their
influence.
In the year 1509 we find Erasmus again in London,
living with his friend Sir Thomas More, and it was
whilst with him that he produced one of his most bril
liant works—one, indeed, of the most famous satires of
world. Erasmus, reflecting on the name of his friend the
More, thinking how strange so wise a man should bear
the name of fool—(More being the Latin for folly)—
thinking too how many fools there were in the world,
and what various forms folly assumed, conceived the
idea of satirising and turning the weak side of all classes
of men into ridicule, under the pretence of eulogising
folly. Such was the origin of his book ‘Encomium
Morise,’ or ‘ Praise of Eolly.’ In this masterly per
formance, abounding in wit and eloquence, the super
stitions of the Monks of his time, the pride, avarice and
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
11
tyranny of the Nobles are exposed in a vein of scathing
satire. The Miracle-mongers, the traffickers in Pardons,
and the theologians generally are attacked with great
force of humour, and exhibited in lights that make them
appear really ridiculous ; the schoolmen, the Mendicant
Friars, even the Pope himself, being handled in a vein of
sarcastic pleasantry. The fame of this remarkable book
was immense. In a few months it went through seven
editions; Kings, Bishops, Cardinals appear to have
been delighted with it, the great Pope Leo the 10th
reading it through from beginning to end. Of course it
was attacked, though it was long before the Monks
broke silence. Their dull brains did not at first take in
the fact that they were being turned into ridicule, and
that, (to use the expression of Dorpius), their heads
were being fitted with asses’ ears.
The enlightening influence of this little book, in
rousing men to a consideration of the ecclesiastical state
of things around them, forcing them to ask themselves
whether all that they had been taught to believe could
be true, must have been very great.
Soon after this second arrival of Erasmus in England
he was invited to Cambridge University by Fisher the
then Chancellor, a very learned man and a warm patron
of letters, and who was labouring to improve the studies
of the University, which were scarcely so advanced as
those of Oxford in the culture of the great classical
authors and the Greek Language. At Cambridge
Erasmus gave the first Lectures ever given there on
Greek, and was appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of
Divinity. His stay at Cambridge was, however, com
paratively short; he complained that the living and bad
wine did not agree with him, and we soon find him
again travelling about the world, particularly at Ghent,
at Strasburg, and at Basle.
In the year 1508 there appeared from the printing
press of Manutius Aldus in Venice, in a greatly im
proved edition, another very remarkable work of
�12 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
Erasmus termed the 1 Adages,’ that is, proverbs, or
impressive sayings and maxims, which he had labori
ously culled from the whole compass of classical and
polite literature, for the most part derived with diffi
culty from hidden and defaced manuscripts, many of
them in the Greek language. A perfect cyclopaedia of
wit and wisdom, interspersed with reflections and disser
tations of his own, exposing, with admirable humour and
irony, the superstitions and follies of monks and kings.
The Proverbs collected in this vast magazine (one of the
most astonishing monuments of literary diligence exist
ing in the world) amount to upwards of four thousand.
An immense number of copies were sold, and distributed
amongst the thinking portion of the European Public.
In allusion to the Printing-press, as the unconscious
agent in this diffusion of book-knowledge, Erasmus
finely remarks, “ whilst the vast Alexandrian library of
the great Ptolemy was confined to the walls of a single
building, Aldus our printer is constructing a library
which will have no limits but those of the literary
world! ”
Bearing in mind that these brilliant and attractive
Works of Erasmus, diffusing a knowledge of classical
literature, assailing (under the mask of playful wit) the
conduct of Popes, Monarchs, and Ecclesiastics, and
satirising the vices, impostures, and scandals of the
Church and Court of Rome, were being published
during the years immediately preceding the rise of the
Reformation, we cannot doubt how much they effected
in preparing the world for coming events.
But the prodigious learning and resources of Erasmus
were far from being exhausted, and, in the year 1516, he
gave to the learned world, through the printing press of
Froben at Basle, the entire New Testament in Greek,
with a Latin translation and annotations. The work
was dedicated to the Pope, with an account of the ancient
manuscripts that had been used in its production. They
were indeed few in number compared with those that
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
13
have since been discovered and collated, and, with refer
ence to the Apocalypse, there was but one Greek manu
script, and that so defective that Erasmus had to make
up the Greek version by translations of his own from the
Latin. The book was not indeed, in several particulars,
faultless, yet, having regard to the time when it was
composed, to the existing means of accomplishing so
great a work, to the fact that it was the “ editio princeps,” or first edition, of the Greek Testament that had
ever been printed (for, at the time when Erasmus pro
duced his Greek Testament, as well as for centuries
before, the Church Bible was a Latin version of the
Scriptures), and, judging it even by all that has been
effected by the research and accomplishments of the
numerous subsequent critical editors, it is impossible to
deny, that it was a very marvel of ability and industry.
The sale of it was very rapid; upwards of 3,300 folio
copies were disposed of almost immediately. At length
Scholars and Divines, and Princes and Nobility, were
enabled to possess an actual copy of the Christian Scrip
tures in their original tongue. Of course curiosity led
to translations into the vernacular languages which soon
followed, and, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the
debt which we, living now, owe to Erasmus for this
splendid monument of his scholarship, of which, as I
shall have occasion again to refer to it, I will only now
remark, that the annotations are distinguished by that
boldness of criticism which in our day is denounced as
rationalistic. As usual, the book provoked enmity and
censure, again the malevolence of the Monks was
aroused. In reference to his emendations of the vulgate
or Latin text they accused him of impiety in presuming
to correct the Holy Ghost. “Is every fool then,” he
retorted, “to be permitted to corrupt the manuscripts
of the gospels, and a scholar to be declared impious for
restoring what has been corrupted ?” It was also
bitterly attacked by rival scholars, but, when his Greek
was charged with want of elegance, Erasmus simply
�14 Erasmus; his Life, Works} and Influence
replied, “ The apostles did not learn their Greek from
the orations of Demosthenes.”
The next work of importance that engaged the pen of
Erasmus was an edition of the ‘Life and Works of St.
Jerome.’ This was published in July, 1516, in nine
splendid folio volumes. As in former works, so in this,
Erasmus accompanied the text with learned scholia,
that is, brief critical and explanatory notes, in which
all the resources of his vast erudition were called into
requisition to elucidate obscure and doubtful points.
The work was dedicated to Warham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and speedily passed through three editions.
During all this time Erasmus was continually travelling
about, making ceaseless journeys to Churches, Monas
teries, and Universities containing rare or noted manu
scripts, thereby rescuing for the Printing Press those
immortal works of the wise ancients that were hourly
perishing with the worm-eaten parchments on which
they were traced. He had left England for Basle in
1515, but we find him back here again in 1517. Still
however he declined to remain amongst us, partly, he
states in a letter to the Physician of the Cardinal of
• York, on account of the sweating sicknesses, plagues,
and contagious fevers that were of so frequent occur
rence here in the 16th century, arising chiefly, accord
ing to Erasmus (whose observations exhibit consider
able sanitary knowledge), from our disregard of the
laws of health, in the filthy and stifling state, and
defective ventilation, of the ordinary residences of the
people.
This year 1517 signalised the outbreak of the Refor
mation in Germany, and Erasmus was at once involved
in correspondence with Luther, Cardinal Wolsey, Albert
Prince Elector and Cardinal Archbishop of Maintz, and
with the Pope himself. He appears to have been inde
cisive in his theological opinions, and desirous to bring
about some middle course between the antagonistic
views of the Church and the Reformers; but the quarrel
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
i$
soon became too embittered for mediators, and Erasmus,
though clinging to the Roman Church, incurred severe
censure from both sides. As I shall presently more
particularly discuss his position in relation to Luther,
I pass on to the consideration of his principal remaining
literary productions.
There is a work of Erasmus I must mention, for it
shows clearly his humane nature and correct moral prin
ciples. This was his book called ‘ The Complaint of
Peace.’ No man ever detested war more cordially than
he did, and, even in that warlike age, he lifted up his
voice loudly against it. Nothing, he shows, can be more
utterly at variance with war than Christianity, whose
founder is emphatically called “The Prince of Peace.”
He is powerfully severe on the Clergy of his time for
the way in which they foment the warlike passions of
princes and people. “ Priests and Bishops,” he ob
serves, “ leave their churches and follow armies to the
field, waving above the contending hosts the holy Cross,
thus made the symbol of war by those whose mission it
is, before all things, to preserve peace. Their prayers
must indeed be a mere mockery to God, when their very
cannon are named after the Apostles, and engraved with
the images of the Saints !”
In 1524 Erasmus published a paraphrase of the New
Testament, which was esteemed so highly that a copy
of it, translated into English by Nicholas Udal, Master
of Eton College, was, by an order in Council, directed
to be placed in every Parish Church in this Country
beside the Bible.
The last work of the great Scholar I shall mention
was that which is the best known of all—viz., ‘ The
Familiar Colloquies,’ published in 1526, professedly
designed for the instruction of youth, and long de
servedly much read in our schools. It consists of a
large number of conversations on a great variety of
subjects, conducted in the most natural manner, full of
delicate humour, keen irony, and subtle wit. In it the
�16 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
clergy are everywhere represented as idle and corrupt.
Indulgences, auricular confession, and eating fish on
fast days, are satirically laughed at. Again and again
the coarse, overfed, ignorant monks are lashed with
ridicule, and their lives and conduct exposed. The
indignation of the clerical world was now really roused
to resentment, but the success of the work was splendid.
It is related that a publisher in Paris, Colineus, hearing
that it was about to be condemned by the University,
printed no less than 24,000 copies, and sold them all.
However, in the end, the reading of the book was pro
hibited by the Faculty of Theology, on the grounds,
amongst others, that Christians are discouraged by it
from becoming monks, that grammatical is preferred to
theological erudition, and that it contained “ erroneous,
scandalous, and impious propositions, in which the
author, as though he were a heathen, ridicules, satirises,
and sneers at the holy ceremonies and observances of
the Christian Religion.”
From this time Erasmus became the object of attack
by theologians on all sides, and had to defend himself
from the censures of the Sorbonne in Paris. There can
be no doubt that these controversies, and the works from
which they proceeded, had much effect in undermining
the power of the monkish party, in laughing down their
superstitions, and bringing their whole system into con
tempt. But it was not only the monks that were to
blame. Erasmus saw, he says, a new set of fanatics
arising on the reformed side, as ignorant, as presump
tuous, as hostile to liberal culture as the fanatics of the
Church. He dreaded lest the world, instead of being
freed from the yoke of superstition, should merely expe
rience a change of masters. This new Gospel (he writes
of the views of the ignorant adherents of Luther) is pro
ducing a new set of men, so impudent, hypocritical, and
abusive, such liars and sycophants and ranters, agreeing
neither with one another nor with any one else, so uni
versally offensive and seditious, in short, so distasteful
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
17
to me, that if I knew any city in which I should be free
from them I would go there at once.
The enemies of Erasmus of course increased with the
bitterness of his scornful attacks upon their miser
able superstitions, and their gross illiterate ignorance.
“ Every goose now hisses at Erasmus ” (he writes). But,
in his retreat at Basle, on the banks of the Rhine, the
great champion of literary culture still carried on the
theological feud. One of his most characteristic pieces
is the letter of farewell to his assailants that he pub
lished in 1525, in which they are contemptuously styled
“ certain impudent jackdaws, young men, whose igno
rance is matched only by their arrogance.”
In the year 1529 the progress of the reformed faith,
and the violence of the mob, in attacking and defacing
the members and Churches of the Roman Catholic Reli
gion, compelled Erasmus to remove to Friburg. His
account of his flight, given in a letter to a friend, is
extremely graphic and sarcastic. “ The rabble,” he says,
“ heaped such insults on the images of the Saints and
the Crucifix itself, that it was astonishing there was no
miracle, considering how many there always used to be
whenever the saints were even but slightly offended.”
In the year 1534 affairs were sufficiently quiet to
enable Erasmus to return to Basle, where,—whilst re
posing in the hospitable home of his friend Jerome
Froben, the famous printer, and engaged in revising,
“ segra manu ” (he tells us), his latest works, and shortly
after hearing of the tyrannical murder of his eminent
friend Sir Thomas More,—Erasmus was summoned to
meet his last enemy, and on the 12th of February, 1536,
being in the 69th year of his age, he there succumbed to
the attack of death.
Though of the Roman Catholic Faith, no priestly
mummeries were enacted round his death-bed. “He
has died,” exclaimed the illiterate monks in their dogLatin, “ sine Lux, sine Crux.” But the liberal and
beneficent city of Basle knew better how to celebrate the
B
�18 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
event of a great man, whatever his creed, having closed
his career in their midst. The Magistrates, with the
Professors and Students of the University, shared among
them the envied honour of carrying to their last restingplace in Basle Cathedral (a sanctuary for the literary
dead) the remains of the great luminary of the age, the
greatest scholar perhaps of any age, lamented by all
lovers of learning, respected by every crowned head in
Europe, hated only by ecclesiastics incapable, through
ignorance, of appreciating his merits—merits, which, on
any candid review, must ever appear most remarkable.
His attainments were indeed stupendous, and, in his own
age, his powers of reason, imagination, and caustic wit
were unmatched. Though neither physically nor men
tally cast in the heroic mould of Luther ; quite unable,
like him, to have stood alone against the united power
of Church and State, yet, with pen in hand, and sur
rounded by his books, the whole learned world in ex
pectation of what he should utter, Erasmus reigned
supreme I His sarcasms were hurled against vice, igno
rance, and error, with crushing effect. At a time when
literary ignorance was the besetting sin, his variety of
erudition, and unrivalled powers of diffusing knowledge
and inspiring the love of literary culture, were invalu
able. The faculty of humour appears to have been his
most original mental quality. That civil irony, by
whose unsparing use he succeeded in making the super
stitions of his day supremely ridiculous, has never been
surpassed. The dogmas of theology were his aversion.
The sum of our religion, he avers, is Peace, which is to
be preserved by defining only primary points, leaving
the rest to every one’s own judgment. That a man’s
Faith should be looked for in the life he led, not in the
creed he professed. His desire was to correct the
abuses of the Church without rebelling from her autho
rity, to reform her discipline, and recall religion from
ritualistic rites and ceremonies to the simplicity of the
Gospels. His great weapon for effecting such reform
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
19
was knowledge combined with common sense and the
use of reason. Far before his own age, he embodied in
himself what we now term the modern spirit—the spirit,
of doubt and free enquiry. Like the Broad Churchmen
of our day, he had outgrown the narrow orthodoxy of
his Church, and, like them, he conscientiously refused
to separate himself from her communion. He broke off
from Luther, as we shall presently see, .when Luther’s
dogmatic theology and impetuous conduct threatened
rebellion rather than reform, and when reason, literary
culture, and freedom of speech were becoming stifled by
the violent conduct of the Reformers. The sagacious
mind of Erasmus was rather sceptical and critical than
affirmative and dogmatic. In religious strife, the arena
of argument and discussion was his vantage-ground, and
to aid in educating the mind to the skilful use of these
intellectual weapons by means of his well-reasoned
writings was no insignificant contribution to the reli
gious crisis of his age, the great contest with the fana
ticism of the 16th century.
Of the person and manners of Erasmus his friend
Beatus Rhenanus has told us that he had a cheerful
countenance and an agreeable utterance, was a pleasant
companion, a constant friend, generous and charitable.
Leaving the grave of our incomparable scholar, we
must now revert to events which my narrative has some
what outstripped.
In the year 1517 the magnificent taste of John de
Medici, Pope Leo the 10th, was engaged in, ^amongst
other splendid works, the erection of the Church of
St. Peter’s at Rome, and he was pressed for supplies of
money. To replenish his exhausted exchequer he com
missioned Tetzel, a Dominican Friar, to preach through
out Germany a sale of Indulgences, that is, a remittance
from the pains of purgatory and all other punishments
of sin, in consideration of money payments made to the
Pope. A sale of Indulgences for the perpetration of sin,
however nefarious, was nothing novel. It was a recog-
�20 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
nised practice of the Roman Catholic Church ; but the
proceedings of Tetzel, who had been created an Inquisitor
to. give more influence to his mission, were conducted
with unusual indecency and audacity. Travelling
through towns and villages, hawking them about at
fairs, market places, and taverns, his conduct respmhlnd
that of a mountebank or quack doctor, and the temper
of the times was foreboding some intellectual explosion.
Tetzel’s profanity appears to have excited deep disgust
and indignation in the mind of an Augustinian Monk,
Martin Luther, who first remonstrated and then publicly
denounced Tetzel’s whole proceedings as a gigantic
scandal. Drawing up propositions denying the right of
the Pope to pardon sin, denying that Indulgences could
possibly be more than a release from the censures of the
Church, he reduced these to the form of scholastic theses
for discussion, and, on the 31st Oct., 1517, nailed them
publicly to the door of the Church at Wittenberg, with a
challenge to Tetzel and all others whom it might concern
to come forward and publicly confute them. This
slight, but significant, act of an almost obscure Monk
was the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation .’ Almost
all Germany, who had no idea of allowing their money
to be drained to Rome, took up the cause of Luther, who
proceeded to denounce numerous other religious rites
and ceremonies as errors and superstitions of the
Romish Church.
The Pope, failing methods of conciliation, on the
15th of June, 1520, issued a Bull, in which Luther’s
opinions were condemned as heresies, and his books
ordered to be publicly burnt. This proceeding of the
Pope was instantly met by Luther, in a manner and
with a spirit, that at once showed the intrepid and impe
rious character of the man. Causing a huge bonfire to
be lit within the walls of Wittenberg he, on the
20th Dec., 1520, committed the Pope’s Bull to the
flames, together with the Canons and Decretals that set
forth the Pope’s supremacy.
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
21
All communion with the Church of Rome was thus for
ever renounced, and the reformed churches date their
origin from this transaction.
Now, for many years previously to this outbreak, long
before Luther was heard of, Erasmus had been working
for the reformation of the Church ; but a reform, not a
revolution, had been his cherished idea, to be brought
about by the advancement of learning, and the diffusion
of a knowledge of the Scriptures, but to be so effected as
not to create schism, and so that the unity of Chris
tendom under one head should remain unimpaired. The
reckless impulse of the dauntless Luther, who had
sought to shatter the fabric of the Papacy at a single
blow, simply shocked the nervous Erasmus, causing him
to conclude that the advance of knowledge, through
peaceful discussion, and the consequent reform of abuses,
the improvement of morals, and extinction of supersti
tions, would be retarded, rather than aided, by Luther’s
defiant acts.
These illustrious characters were undoubtedly actuated
originally by like motives, and were, at the outset, sin
cerely desirous of acting in concert, mutually discussing
their respective views in a serious written correspondence;
but Erasmus, unable to agree with the Augustinian
theology of Luther, and terrified by his extreme course
of action, had broken off from him, and now indeed
stood aghast at the conflagration, moral and material, that
was spreading from the burning of the Pope’s Bull.
The religious questions at issue between Rome and the
Reformers were thenceforth discussed in Diets or Poli
tical assemblies. The Reformers and their tenets were
condemned by an edict of the Diet of Worms in 1521,
which excommunicated Luther and all his adherents.
At the first Diet of Spires in 1526 it was resolved that
the cruel and persecuting Edict of Worms should not be
carried out, but, at the Second Diet of Spires in 1529
the decision of its First Diet was ruthlessly reversed.
The iniquitous decree of this Second Diet of Spires was
�22 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
solemnly protested against by the Elector of Saxony, the
Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, and other
political powers and great men, whence, as you may
remember, the Reformers derived their designation of
Protestants, by which term all Christian sects that differ
from Rome have ever since been styled.
The religious dissensions still continued, followed, as
always has been the case, by holy wars! in which the
excesses of German peasants and Dutch Anabaptists
were extinguished in the blood of 80,000 victims; but
they were ultimately brought to an end in the year
1555 in an imperial Diet, which decreed that Protestants
who embraced the theological propositions known as
“ The Confession of Augsburg ” should be entirely
exempted from the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff.
And thus at last was reached the first stage of what
religious rulers have termed Toleration, which is, the
insolent permission of men in power, granted to other
men to think and believe on religious questions, and to
worship the Deity, as their reason and conscience may
dictate.
The grand Protestant Reformation, whose historical
outline I have so barely sketched, in order to be under
stood must be considered under two aspects, the Theo
logical and the Historical.
Theologically regarded, the Reformation was the
result of a contest respecting the standard of Religious
Truth, that is to say, whether it was to be found in the
Church or in the Bible, and it has hitherto been, prac
tically, very little more than a change of theological
dogmas ; for, though it effected the abolition of Saint
Worship, and the ceremony of the Mass, the destruction
of images, the eradication of Monkery and the free cir
culation of the Scriptures, it ended in imposing upon
the human mind theological propositions stereotyped in
ecclesiastical creeds, confessions of faith, and articles of
Religion dialectically deduced from the language of an
assumed infallible book, but substituted as bonds, in the
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
23
place of other theological propositions that had been
dogmatically decreed by an alleged infallible church.
Yet, to this extent, it was an immense step in advance,
and even now, notwithstanding all our scientific and
moral progress, a large majority of protestant Christians
firmly adhere to the religious conclusions that were then
arrived at, the basis of which, as the ultimate standard
of theological faith, is thus forcibly described by Chil
lingworth writing in the year 1637 :—
“ The Bible I say, the Bible only, is the Religion of
Protestants. Propose me anything out of this book, and
require whether I believe it or no, and, seem it never so
incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it
with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can
be stronger than this—God hath said so—therefore it is
true.”
Regarded historically, the essential principle of the
great Reformation appears to be of a more profound and
general nature. In the struggle that is ever progressing
between the efforts of the human reason, on the one
hand, to assert its own freedom, and, on the other hand,
the coercion exercised over it by ecclesiastical power, a
struggle that, in our day, is rapidly attaining the pro
portions of an impending conflict between Superstition
and Science, the Reformation may be described as the
sudden expansion of the human mind, invigorated
through the revival of learning, to burst asunder the
bonds of priestly tyranny; to assert the right of every
man to exercise his own judgment in matters of the
highest importance to him ; to inquire into and discuss
them, and to seek for Truth, unfettered by any dogmatic
authority whatsoever, and in the freedom of his indi
vidual reason and conscience.
Seen from this historical point of view, it is not the
dogmatic and unlettered Luther, “bellowing in bad Latin,”
but rather, the cultured and rationalising Erasmus—
“ Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer,
The lord of irony, that master spell— ”
�24 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
who appears as the chief apostle of the Reformation, and
the principles abounding in his writings to be those to
which we now owe our present liberty of religious
thought. He, though but the precursor of bolder
prophets than himself, was the first distinguished enemy
to ignorance and superstition, the first restorer of morality
on the Gospel precepts. If, as was said at the time by
the monks, “ Erasmus laid the egg, but Luther hatched
it,” we may now add, that the continued and still soaring
flight of its vigorous offspring is owing to the prolific
power of the parent, and to those principles of nurture
which the prophetic genius of Erasmus descried. It is
to the development of that culture of the understanding
which he had at heart, and to the freedom of intellectual
discussion which is its natural fruit, that the enlightened
religious opinions of our own day are chiefly owing, and
their resistless advance in this country, since the days
of Chilling worth, is remarkably conspicuous, when read
in the light of the judgment of the judicial Committee
of the Privy Council delivered, in Wilson v. Fendall, the
case of Essays and Reviews, on the 8th of February.,
1864. By virtue of that well-advised and authoritative
declaration of the law, all, both cleric and lay, are
secured in their liberty, as respects the interpretation of
the Bible, to accept “ as parable, or poetry, or legend, the
story of a serpent tempter, of an ass speaking with man’s
voice, of an arresting of the earth’s motion, of water
standing in a solid heap, of an universal deluge dried up
by the wind, of the personality of Satan, together with
many other alleged miraculous events.” All are by that
judgment legally entitled advisedly to maintain and affirm,
that “ the Scriptures are not entirely God’s Word, though
the Word of God is contained in Scripture, and that
the dark patches of human passion and error that
form a partial crust upon it, are to be separated and
distinguished from the bright centre of spiritual truth
within.”
Now our present more accurate knowledge of the nature
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
2$
and contents of the Bible has resulted from the progress
of Biblical Criticism, a secular science, for which, in its
origin, we are very much indebted to the great learning
and labours of Erasmus. Almost the very first general
demand that was created by the revival of letters was to
obtain a sight of the Christian Scriptures, but at that
time they positively had no existence for the people at
large, for they were to be found only in manuscripts
in the Greek, Syriac, Latin, and other ancient or
oriental tongues, few in number, and buried in the
sacristies of Churches, and the libraries of Monasteries
and Universities scattered over Europe. It was the work
of Erasmus, by means of unwearied travel and inces
sant toil, to copy and collate some of the more important
of these, and to publish the first printed edition of the
New Testament in its original tongue. This gigantic
task accomplished, the rest has been comparatively easy.
Thousands of copies of this first edition of the printed
Christian Scriptures were issued and disseminated, and
translations into the vernacular languages were imme
diately made, and then, to some extent, the people at
large obtained the opportunity of reading them, and
comparing with their simple spiritual and moral teach
ing the pompous ceremonial, and ritualistic apparatus, of
the Romish Church. Other editions also rapidly fol
lowed. Industrious scholars vied with one another in
a critical examination of ancient manuscripts, and in
publishing the results. In 1550 the renowned printer
Robert Stephens published his 3rd edition of the Greek
Testament, which contained in the margin notes of the
various readings of the manuscripts he had consulted.
This, the first critical edition, was succeeded by others
on a similar plan, the chief of which you will find speci
fied in the syllabus in your hands, and a conclusion has
been thereby arrived at, which, stated in its simplest
form, you will probably think sufficiently striking, viz.,
That the careful collation of upwards of 600 ancient
manuscripts of New Testament Writings exhibits a total
�26 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
of more than 100,000. various readings, and the discovery
of no single text that can be selected as immaculate.
Such was the condition of things which brought into
existence that most important branch of modern scholar
ship, the secular science of Biblical Criticism, which may
be defined as an intellectual method or discipline, based
on reason and evidence, for applying the truths, the
tests, the logic and canons of proof, of the more exact
sciences to the investigation of the genuineness, the
authenticity, and the true interpretation of the Christian
Records. The light which is now flowing in upon us
from the free, but conscientious, pursuit of this important
study, especially in Germany, Holland, Erance, and
England can hardly be exceeded. It has made its way
in this country where, a generation or so ago, it would
have been thought incredible. It has shown that our
authorised version of the Bible, in many respects
indeed most admirable, is nevertheless so imperfect, that
two companies of translators appointed by authority are
now engaged in revising and correcting it.
Of the various readings in the ancient manuscripts I
will call your attention to one, as the discussion of it
chiefly dates from the publication of Erasmus’s Edition
of the Greek Testament. It is the passage contained
in the 7th and 8th verses of the 5th chapter of the
first General Epistle of St John, known controversially
as “ The Text of the three heavenly witnesses.” It is
commonly found in the Latin, but not in the Greek
Manuscripts.
In your Bibles you will find it in these words—“w
heaven the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and
these three are one. 8. And there are three that bear
witness in earth.” These words you observe are wanting
in the original Greek. It is a text almost crucial with
reference to the theological dogma of the Trinity, and
the controversy respecting it has been, whether the
Trinitarians interpolated it, or the Arians expunged it.
The passage in question was omitted by Erasmus from
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
27
his first and second editions, but was inserted by him in
his third edition, on the presumed authority of a single
Greek manuscript, which was pressed upon him by
Edward Lee, Chaplain to King Henry the 8th and after
wards Archbishop of York. This manuscript, the Codex
Montfortianus, now in the library of Trinity College,
Dublin, was not, apparently, ever seen by Erasmus him
self, and is believed to have been forged between the
years 1519 and 1522 for the express purpose of betray
ing Erasmus into making the desired alteration in his
printed text. At any rate, since the decisive controversy between Professor Porson and Archdeacon Travis
in the year 1790, respecting the genuineness of this
text, the ablest critics are unanimous in rejecting it as
spurious, all the Greek manuscripts of undoubted anti
quity and integrity alike omitting it. As, notwithstand
ing such rejection, our authorised English version,
though professing to be translated from the original
Greek, at present retains it, it is a matter of expectant
curiosity to see what our “ New Testament Company of
Translators ” will do with it.
A concise account of some of the most ancient exist
ing manuscripts of the New Testament will place in
perhaps yet stronger light the source of, and necessity
for, the science of biblical criticism.
,
The autographs or manuscripts that were written
by the Apostles or their amanuenses have long since
perished, and we have no information whatever con
cerning their history. No manuscript of the Scriptures
now extant can be traced higher than .the fourth century
after Christ.
At the commencement of the Christian era the Latin,
as a general language, was gradually supplanting the
Greek, and it appears from the testimony of Augustin
that the Latin Church possessed numerous versions of
the Scriptures in the Latin language made at the first
introduction of Christianity. Hence, of the most ancient
now existing manuscripts of the New Testament Scrip-
�2 8 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
tures, some are in Latin, and some are in Greek ; and it
has not been possible to ascertain with certainty which
of these are the oldest.
The interesting subject of the date, integrity, and
authenticity of the numerous manuscripts of the Chris
tian Scriptures is involved in so wide a controversy and
variety of critical opinion, that even the few facts I
shall allege in such observations as I can now venture
to make must be accepted partly as probabilities only,
in which very eminent scholars concur.
Of the most ancient and important existing Greek
manuscripts, there are three, respectively known as the
Codex Alexandrinus, the Codex Vaticanus, and the
Codex Cantabrigiensis or Bezse; and there are three,
- equally in some respects, important Latin manuscripts,
probably as ancient, or perhaps more so, than the three
Greek ones—viz., the Codex Brixianus, the Versio
Vulgata, and the Codex Vercellencis. None of these
manuscripts are perfect, and all differ more or less from
one another. They exhibit, however, three distinct
classes of text, respectively traceable to the territories
whence they were originally derived—viz., Constan
tinople or Byzantium, Palestine, and Egypt or Alex
andria. Viewed under this threefold distribution, the
ancient Latin manuscripts coincide so remarkably, in
style and arrangement of language, with the ancient
Greek ones, that I can conveniently group them together
in the following remarks.
The Greek Codex Alexandrinus is a manuscript pre
served in our British Museum, where part of it may be
seen open in a glass case. It consists of four volumes,
three of which contain the Old, and the fourth the New
Testament and other writings. Its Pedigree has been
traced with singular success. It was a present to King
Charles the First from Cyrillus Lucaris, Patriarch of
Constantinople in the year 1628. Cyrillus found it in a
monastery on Mount Athos, and took it with him to
Alexandria, whence he brought it to this country. It
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
29
was written, according to tradition, by Thecla the martyress, a noble Egyptian lady, shortly after the Council
of Nice, which assembled in the year 325. Its delicate
penmanship is characteristic of a female hand. It is
written on vellum in uncial or capital letters, an acknow
ledged mark of high antiquity. A fac-simile of so much
of this manuscript as contains the New Testament was
published in London in 1786 by the late Dr. Woide,
with types that were cast for the purpose.
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Codex Alexandrinus in the Gospels is the Codex
Brixianus, a manuscript of great beauty and of the most
expensive character, being written on purple vellum in
silver characters. It is attributed to the learned Philastrius Brixiensis, who was Bishop of Brescia in Italy in
the year 381, and it is preserved at Brescia in the church
there of his name. It has often been inspected by
scholars. The text represents the ancient Italic version
of the Scriptures previously to its revision by St. Jerome,
in the latter part of the 4th century.
These Codices Alexandrinus in the Gospels, and
Brixianus entirely, are exemplars of what is termed the
Constantinopolitan recension, or Byzantine Text.
The Greek Codex Vaticanus is a manuscript preserved
in the Library of the Vatican at Rome. It is written on
vellum in uncial letters, in three columns in each page,
but without any division of chapters or verses. The
uniform shape of the letters and colour of the ink seem
to show that it was written throughout by the same
hand. This manuscript contains, with some exceptions,
the entire Bible, and is thought to contest the palm of
antiquity with the Codex Alexandrinus already referred
to. It has been repeatedly collated. Fac-similes of parts
of it have, from time to time, been published, and an
entire printed edition of it appeared a few years ago at
Rome under the auspices of the Cardinal Angelo Mai—
a version that has been received with a not unnatural
shyness on the part of Protestant Divines.
�30 Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Greek Codex Vaticanus is the Versio Vulgata, which
is a manuscript representing the Latin text as it was
corrected by St. Jerome at the instance of Pope Damusus,
who flourished about the year 366. It is also preserved
in the library of the Vatican, and forms the foundation
of the Roman Catholic authorised Bible, declared to be
authentic by the Council of Trent, and which, as many
of you know, is still, as it has always been, a book in the
Latin language styled ‘ Biblia Sacra.’
These Codices Vaticanus and Versio Vulgata are
archetypes of the Palestine Text.
The Greek Codex Cantabrigiensis or Bezaa is a manu
script preserved in the Library of Cambridge University
(where it can be seen under a glass case), to which it
was presented in the year 1581 by Theodore Beza, a
French Protestant and refugee. In his letter of pre
sentation Beza states that it was found in the monastery
of St. Irenaeus, at Lyons, where it had evidently lain for a
long time. It contains only the Gospels and the Acts of
the Apostles. It has, of course, been often collated, and
an exact facsimile of it was published under the patronage
of the University in the year 1793. It is also written in
uncial letters, and is confessedly of a very high antiquity,
written probably between the fifth and seventh centuries.
The ancient Latin manuscript that corresponds with
the Codex Cantabrigiensis is the Codex Vercellencis, a
manuscript that has been immemorially ascribed to
Eusebius, Bishop of Verceli, as being the result of a
revision of the then existing text, undertaken by him at
the desire of his friend Pope Julius, who flourished about
the year 331. It is deposited among the relics which
are reverently preserved and shown in St. Eusebius’s
Church at Verceli in Piedmont. There is no reason to
doubt its extreme antiquity, or its originality.
These Codices Cantabrigiensis and Vercellencis, and
parts of the Codex Alexandrinus are now the most ancient
existing source of the Egyptian or Alexandrine Text.
�upon the Spirit of the Reformation.
31
These several manuscripts, with the Codex Sinaiticus
(discovered by Tischendorf in a monastery on Mount
Sinai in 1859, probably the oldest MS. extant), and
one of the ancient Syriac version (of which time does
not permit further mention), carry the critical inquirer
as near to the source of the sacred writings as it is now
possible to ascend. Not one of them can be accepted as
exhibiting an immaculate text. The utmost that an
orthodox critic of the highest authority, the late eminent
scholar Dr. Bentley, could say with reference to the
textual veracity of Scripture is, that the real text of the
sacred writers does not now (since the originals have
been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edi
tion, but is dispersed in them all. Whilst another
accomplished critic, Dr. Nolan, in his learned work
on the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, has declared,
that “ the notion of a literary identity between the
present manuscripts of the inspired text and the originals
which were published by the sacred writers is a vulgar
error, with as little foundation in reason as justification
in fact.”
The truth seems to be that the Scriptures, in common
with all other ancient writings, have been preserved and
diffused by human transcription; hence the admission of
mistakes has been unavoidable. These, increasing with
the multitude of copies, necessarily produced a great
variety of different readings, the majority of which, it
should however be observed, are very minute, and, did
they not relate to a book of which, though it be but a
modern version of the lost original, it has again and
again, and still continues to be, solemnly asserted by
our evangelical theologians that every word of it is
inspired, would be regarded as of a trifling and insigni
ficant character.
Returning to the argument of the Lecture, I conclude
by affirming that the essential Spirit of the Protestant
Reformation, and its cardinal principle, are to be sought
for under that which I have characterised as its his-
�32
Erasmus; his Life, Works, &c.
torical aspect, with which are associated the name and
labours of Erasmus, and that they are manifested in the
irrepressible aspirations of the human mind, enlightened
by advancing Science, to establish the right of every
individual to judge for himself, that is, to follow, in
matters most deeply affecting his welfare and peace of
mind, the decisions of his reason, and the dictates of his
moral sense, thereby to emancipate himself from the
yoke of ecclesiastical systems, and the thraldom of
theological creeds, which superstition has invented, and
sacerdotalism has transmitted, and which, all history
assures us, have ever been enforced by the pestilent
practice of Religious Persecution. This Spirit of the
Reformation, however hostile to priestcraft, is friendly
to Truth, by respecting the rights of conscience, and by
encouraging the fearless advance of religious knowledge,
through liberty of inquiry, freedom of thought, and out
spoken honesty of expression.
And, whilst we have amongst us men like Darwin,
Huxley, Tyndall, Carpenter, to keep alive the lamp of
Science ; others, like Dean Stanley, and Bishop Colenso,
to rival the illustrious Erasmus in sacred scholarship
and in critical acumen; others again, like the singleminded and unselfish Voysey, who, however much
resenting the tyranny of the letter, are moved by the
spirit of Truth to proclaim for all the loving Father
hood of God, we may rest assured that the sceptre of
knowledge must, eventually, be wholly wrested from the
grasp of superstition, and that, meanwhile, the Progress
of the Reformation cannot be stayed.
PRINTED BY C W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, LONDON, W.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Erasmus : his life, works, and influence upon the spirit of the Reformation.
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Finch, A. Elley
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London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 28th February 1875. Printed by C.W. Reynell. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1875
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Desiderius Erasmus
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Conway Tracts
Desiderius Erasmus
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CHRISTIANITY.
FOURTH PART.
THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY.
BEING
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY, 29th JANUARY, 1882,
BY
Dr. G. G. ZERFFI, F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
Hanbon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1882.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
The development of human culture from a general historical point of
view.
Our modern method of studying.
The Free-Thinkers of England, France, and Germany.
Evolution.
Myths and Miracles.
Astronomy, Geology, and Zoology.
Chemistry and Archaeology.
Cosmogony, Gqpthe, Alexander von Humboldt, Darwin.
Comparative Philology, Mythology, and Religion.
Comparative General History and Politics.
Emotion and Reason.
Art and Science.
Biology and Sociology.
Dr. Strauss, Biblical Criticism.
Agnosticism and Atheism.
The future of Christianity.
Conclusion.
�CHRISTIANITY.
II Emotion and Reason. Art and Science. Common Sense and Theology.
The attainment of a perfect balance between the static (moral), and
|
the dynamic (intellectual) forces working in Humanity. The
future of Christianity.
HAT Christianity had an historical development I endeavoured
to
my three previous lectures. Pure
Tbasedshow inunalloyed principles of its founder, wasChristianity,
on the
sadly changed,
and dogmatic Christianity, with its admixture of Hebraism and
Heathenism, remained stationary for a time. Its assumed spiritual
authority was entirely devoted to a one-sided culture of emotional
credulity in man, and with very few isolated exceptions in single
individuals, it failed to keep pace with the suddenly aroused scien
tific tendencies of the seventeenth century.
In considering the development of humanity from a general
historical point of view, we must necessarily become conscious
of the fact that religion played a prominent part in the destinies
of mankind;
In modern times we have learnt to combine facts, to draw
analogies, and to decipher allegories. We point out similarities,
ignore incongruities, trace affinities, and have thus succeeded in
establishing, through a more logical treatment of our emotional
(religious), and reasoning (scientific) faculties, a “ oneness ’’ and
“ sameness ” in the most discordant moral and philosophical
systems. Alan in history had invariably to pass through certain
stages of culture, which can be as clearly defined as the different
geological strata in the formation of the earth’s crust.
All was separation and isolation with the Orientals, as I en
deavoured to prove in my former lectures. Their mystic sym
bolism exclusively occupied itself with the “One,” the Monotheos,
the “Nuk pu Nuk,” the “ I am I,” the Javeh, the Brahma. This
mystic first cause was symbolized or personified in clay, stone,
�4
Christianity.
marble, in concrete, or as with the Jews in abstracto, as an elderly
human Being, whose actions were assumed to be arbitrary, cruel,
jealous, revengeful, despotic, and full of wrath. The glance of his
eyes was lightning; his voice was thunder. Fire and water were
the paternal means which he used to correct, and punish his sinful,
trembling, and crouching children. To terrify and horrify was his
aim. This false conception of the Deity had its origin in a gross
ignorance of the phenomena of nature, as I showed in my lecture
“ On Natural Phenomena and their Influence on Different Reli
gious Systems ” (1873). This ignorance was first dispersed by the
Greeks, who, through their religious combinations and mythological
conceptions in poetry and art, deprived the hideous divine phantoms
of the East of their revolting attributes. The Greeks had a far
purer notion of the abstract powers of the Deity, and of the phe
nomena of nature, which they personified as beautiful concrete
gods and goddesses. They thus succeeded in blending the Divine
with the Human, making their gods more humane, and raising
men towards the Divine. This harmonious union between the
universal or divine, and the special or human, is the most impor
tant feature in Greek thought.
During the mythical period, the natural causes of cosmical phe
nomena being unknown, they were assumed to be miracles, and
miracles were transferred to the incidents of everyday life in a
thousand different forms. This tendency still exists, as a survival
of those times, amongst our prejudiced and untutored believers, or,
as they prefer calling themselves, “religious people.” The “mythi
cal ” was followed by a “ symbolic ” period, which again changed
into a period of confused “ dogmatism.” The leaders of the people,
the priests or religious teachers, and their subordinates, the kings
and lay rulers, did not strive to promote knowledge or truth, but
for thousands of years worked upon certain phenomena in politics,
religion, and science, as the hidden, though sometimes revealed,
mysteries of a God or several gods, or of some wicked and diabolical
power, and they strove by sacrificial performances and prescribed
prayers to appease the former, or to conquer and pacify the latter.
A similar change took place in the simple teachings of Christ,
W'hich were made wholly unintelligible by means of a complicated
theological and dogmatic system, borrowed from the ancient
heathen priests, and often directly opposed to the fundamental
principles of true ethics.
With the Seventeenth Century a new impetus was given to the
�Christianity.
5
intellectual development of humanity through the revival of the
study of the ancient classics on their own general, moral, and
scientific merits, and the study of nature inaugurated by Francis
Lord Bacon (1560-1626). This advance was followed up by the
inquiring intellects of the world, and the “ theological ” age had to
yield to a “philosophically speculative,”and this again to a “purely
scientific” age, in which our knowledge of the marvellous proper
ties of matter has been increased to such an extent that we are
in danger of assuming, that we ought to shun all speculation as
vain word juggling, restrict our researches exclusively to mere
matter, looking upon philosophy, art, history and religion (in
the pthical meaning of the word), as so much idle and useless
waste of time.
The mental condition of humanity, fostered by this realistic one
sidedness, is, however, far less perilous than that engendered by
an exclusive culture of the emotional and ideal, for the ignorant
masses have been, and are always much more easily led by abstract
speculations than by a hard study of facts, and their causes and
effects. It is not without a terrible struggle that man will give up
supernatural authorities, petrified into mental idols, which save
him all the trouble of inquiry, ratiocination, and investigation.
What Bacon began in philosophy, “ was afterwards carried into
politics by Cromwell; ” and “ during that very generation was en
forced in theology by Chillingworth, Owen, and Hales ; in meta
physics by Hobbes and Glanvil; and in the theory of government
by Harrington, Sidney, and Locke.”* The transition from blind
credulity into violent scepticism may best be studied in the writings
of Sir Thomas Brown (1606-1682). In his “Beligio Medici,”
published about 1633, he shares in all the vagaries of religious
obscurantism. He professes his firm belief in spirits, tutelary
angels, predestination, palmistry, and witches, and even goes so
far as to say that those who deny the existence of witches “ are
not merely infidels, but atheists.” He loves to keep the road in
divinity. He follows the great wheel of the church, by which he
moves. He has no gap for heresy, schisms, or errors of which
he “ has no taint or tincture.” And yet we may trace in this work
a mighty undercurrent of scepticism. The book was translated
into French, German, Italian, and Dutch, and produced more than
* See “ History of Civilization in England,” by H. T. Buckle, vol. i,,.
p. 333. London, 1858.
�6
. Christianity.
thirty independent works on the religion of soldiers, lawyers,
noblemen, princes, bookworms, laymen, stoics, clergymen, philoso
phers, gentiles, and churchmen.
Only thirteen years after the publication of this apparently
orthodox work, the same author published his still more celebrated
“ Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors.” His faith in the
infallibility of dogmatism, witches, and the philosopher’s stone had
disappeared as if by magic. He clearly and sharply pointed out
that the two great pillars of truth “are experience and solid
reason.” “ Adherence to authority,” “ neglect of inquiry,” and
“ credulity,” he set down as the main causes of error. He exposed
some of the innumerable blunders of the Fathers, and to his in
fluence may be ascribed the fact that Christians began to doubt,
to inquire, to discover, and to seek to establish a correct and wellbalanced union between empiricism and speculative philosophy, for
the two are so closely allied that only a culture of both has pro
duced our most modern unparalleled advance in sciences. It was
Sir Isaac Newton (1642—1727) who, through the mystic w®rd
“ gravitation,” solved many unintelligible phenomena of the visible
world in space and time. He did away with isolation in the
material world by showing that cosmical bodies acted on other
cosmieal bodies, and that the minutest particles composing these
bodies were all subject to immutable laws of combination and
dissolution.
Why should these laws not apply equally to the variegated
phenomena in plants and animals, and finally be found in man’s
historical development ? Up to the Seventeenth Century, in spite
of Greek philosophers and Boman orators,—Christian Casuists,
miracle-mongers, and inspired emotionalists, Jewish Babbis, Tal
mudists and Cabalists, learned mediaeval Bealists and Nominalists,
Boman Catholics, Inquisitors, and Protestant witch-finders, Cal
vinists and Methodists, had continually confounded cause and
effect, and pandered to credulity, prejudice, and mere authorita
tive assumptions, based on misunderstood and unexplained facts.
John Locke (1632-1704) broke the spell, and showed humanity
that we can know nothing beyond what our senses can grasp.
Impressions, sensations (or emotions), and consciousness, are the
only gates, windows, openings, and crevices, through which the
dark night of our intellect may receive some rays of knowledge.
From the times of the patriarchal beginnings of man’s social con
dition, the efforts of all priesthoods have been directed to taking
�Christianity.
1
possession of this earth, whilst creating somewhere in infinite space
a more glorious abode for those who blindly followed their dictates.
Through the whole sanguinary period of mediaeval feudalism,
during the Reformation, and down to our own times, all sorts of
means were used to create false impressions, which produced cor
responding false sensations or emotions, and having once become
conscious of them, we cherished, fostered, propagated, and left
them as sacred inheritances to future generations, thus sadly hin
dering, preventing, and retarding man’s progressive culture. Single
phrases, often single words, kept up false knowledge and credulity,
and all this was done under the mystic pretext of religion which
often showed itself to be the greatest irreligion, especially from a
Christian point of view.
One of the greatest fallacies, blocking the path of inquiry, was
the assumption that a thing must be true, because millions and
millions believed in it. The question how, and in what way did
these millions come to take some prejudice, some ignorant assertion
for truth, was not even thought of, and never inquired into.
“ Credulity, however widespread, is no proof of truth,” said Locke;
and he went further, and insisted that “ even revelation ought to
stand the test of reason,” and that “ fanaticism was no criterion
for the divine origin of any creed.” Locke thus broke still more
with the old traditional authorities in Philosophy and Theology.
Basedow (1723-1790), in Germany, worked out a systematic
method of education by means of “ object lessons,” without any
intermixture of texts, or sentimental tales about sickly boys and
girls who became little angels, playing endless hymns on harps
that never required tuning. Before children became sectarians
they were to be trained to be good, intellectual, and useful human
beings, thinking, inventing, and arguing for themselves. Through
the efforts of our liberal government we have, in most recent
times, introduced the same system by rooting out denominationalism in our Board Schools; and these unsectarian schools are
sure to become the foundation of that broader Religiousness which
was already dreamt of by the great philosopher Spinoza (1632—
1677), who opposed the priests of every nation, sect, or denomi
nation as fostering hatred, and transforming synagogues, mosques,
temples,, churches, and chapels into mock-stages on which dog
matists were heard, “ who did not care to instruct the people, but
rather to excite their admiration, and to condemn publicly those
who held different opinions, and to preach only what was new, in
�8
Christianity.
comprehensible, and most delighted the crowd.” We have still many
survivals of this species of “prsedicatores” amongst us, industriously
spreading “ odium theologicum.” If these praedicatores “ possessed
but one spark of the Divine light they would not be so senselessly
proud, and would learn to worship God more wisely; and, instead
of distinguishing themselves by hatred, would foster love towards
everyone.” Dor such ideas Spinoza was stamped an atheist—
though he was one of the most pious Philosophers.
We may look upon the Seventeenth Century as a transition
period during which a wholesome reaction against some of the most
objectionable teachings of Luther and Calvin set in. Both repu
diated “ good works.” The one declared them “ mortal sins; ” the
other went not so far, but asserted “that God pays no attention
to good works;” whilst some divines in England insisted “that
works done before the grace of Christ, are not only not pleasant to
God, but have the nature of sin.” In 1618 (after Bacon had
published his “Novum Organum ”) the Calvinist synod had the
audacity to proclaim “thatmorality had nothing to do with justifica
tion.” This teaching culminated in the Westminster Confession of
Faith, asserting “ that God has chosen those of mankind that are
predestinated into life before the foundation of the world was laid,
without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance
in either of them, and that the rest of mankind God was pleased
to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their
sins, to the praise of his glorious justice.”
Horrified at these monstrous assertions, which trampled all moral
laws under foot, the Eighteenth Century was ushered in by a long
row of independent thinkers, who could only have been produced
by a correct understanding of the truly moral in Christianity.
The “Patres majorum gentium” of Free-thought, pure reasoning,
and logical criticism began to proclaim the modern “ gospel of
common sense,” and to turn the scapegoat of dogmatism into the
wilderness, burdened with the dark sins of ignorance and super
stition.
These “Fathers of free thought” were all Englishmen—their
ideas were transcribed into French and German, and their homilies,
essays, sermons, epistles, and commentaries, form the very elements
of that progressive intellectual air which we are now allowed to
breathe, without being compelled to filter it through a theological
respirator. At their head stood the Earl of Shaftbsbuky (16711713), one of those independent thinkers so often found in the
�Christianity.
9
ranks of the English aristocracy. The glorious spirit that inspired
the Chandos on the battle-field, has never left some of the nobles of
England on the subtle fighting-ground of advanced thought and
free inquiry. Shaftesbury’s works were to a certain degree the
revival of the ideas of Plato, tempered by the notions of Aristotle,
modified by an interval of more than 2,000 years, and transcribed
into practical, plain English. To Shaftesbury “ the world existed in
all her glory and beauty through eternally contrasting, acting and
reacting forces that formed a marvellous picture of light and shade.”
Life around us consisted of an everlasting change of matter. Plants
died away, to foster with their death the life of animals and men;
and animals and men died, to give life to plants in their turn. The
air that surrounded us, the vapours that rose from the water, the
meteors that shot above our heads, all followed their laws, and
contributed to the preservation of the whole.
Next to Shaftesbury stood Toland (1670-1722), whose most
important work, amongst many others, was “ Christianity not
*
Mysterious ” (1696). Though the book gave great offence, it was
one of the most remarkable signs of the times, foreshadowing a
treatment of Christianity which, after a lapse of nearly two cen
turies, is undoubtedly becoming more and more general.
The tendency to keep up mysticism is certainly on the wane.
Astronomy has lost none of its importance or truthfulness because
we have substituted the heliocentric theory for the geocentric, or
because we no longer assume that the 365 days of the year are
presided over by so many guardian saints, some of them of a rather
doubtful character. The animal kingdom has not been deprived of
its marvels, nor have public morals deteriorated, because we now
know that Moses, in spite of his inspiration, was not deeply versed
in zoology or geology. The sun has lost nothing of his splendour,
because we are convinced that he is no Divine charioteer, driving
across the heavens in a fiery chariot, drawn by four horses. Nor
has the earth been degraded, because in opposition to inspired
geography, it has been proved to be spherical in form, and not
square or flat. Our moral sense has not suffered, even though
we have learnt through chemistry that there are more than four
elements. Are the master-works of art less glorious because
through a correct knowledge of archaeology we are able to trace in
* “ Abeisidsemon,” “ Nazarenus,” “ Tetradynamus,” and “ Pantheisticon,”
works scarcely known even by name in our educational establishments.
I
L
�10
Christianity.'
them a gradual and slow development from the most primitive
stone weapons and pottery of pre-historic times ?
Have religions been deprived of their moral grandeur and the
Creator of His omnipotence, because we are convinced, as was
already Collins (1676-1729), that “all religions were everywhere
at first natural and simple, plain and intelligible ” ? Sir William
Jones (Diss. vi. on the Persians) confirms the views of Collins, for
he says: “ The primeval religion of Iran, on the authorities
adduced by Monsani Farft, was that which Newton calls the oldest
(and it may justly be called the noblest) of all religions; a firm
belief that ‘ one supreme God made the world by His power ’
(acting on matter through motion, and thus producing all the
different phenomena in the universe) ; continually governed it by
His providence (manifesting itself as immutable law of causation;
same cause producing the same effect); a pious fear, love, and
adoration of Him (which can be best effected in reverential silence,
and a deep study of His direct works in nature, or in the works
of art and science made by the instrumentality of man) ; and due
reverence for parents and aged persons; a fraternal affection for
the whole human species ; and a compassionate tenderness even
for the brute creation. But like every other religion its simplicity
was changed.” “ Myths and fables were added,” as Collins says ;
“ sacrifices, whether real or typical, were introduced which had to
be paid for; the priests grew wealthy and fat, and the people
became poor and lean.” What we want in modern times is not
exactly to invert the relation of leanness and fatness between
people and priests, but in a true Christian sense to give only such
hire to the labourer as he is worthy of. Would religion lose any
thing of its moral efficacy, if we were to assume with Dr. Matthew
Tyndal (1657-1733) that “ Christianity is as old as the Creation,”
instead of having myths and miracles of our own, whilst constantly
discrediting the myths and miracles of others? Would it not be
far more reasonable to assume that the moral laws of Christianity
must have existed from eternity, “ as God acts (and has acted) in
conformity to the Beason and Nature of things,” and has never
contradicted Himself by entering into old or new covenants with
certain people, neglecting others ? Dogmatically, only the chosen
people and believers in certain “ formulae ” are to be saved. Accord
ing to the Bomans “ the welfare, or rather safety, of the Bepublic
(of course of their own Bepublic, to the detriment and destruction
of all the other surrounding States), was the foundation of all
�>
Christianity.
11
morals ; ” whilst Tyndal proclaimed “ the good of the people to be
the supreme law.”
William Wollaston (1659-1724), more than 150 years ago,
endeavoured to improve the religious feelings of the masses. He
demanded that instead of being based on unintelligible dogmas,
the whole of our State organization should have for its firm
foundation the Triad: “Beason, Truth, and Happiness.” His
celebrated work, which appeared under the title of “ The Religion
of Nature Delineated,” and the principles laid down in it are still
applicable to the burning questions that agitate our own times.
The demand for the disestablishment of the Church, and its separa
tion from the State, as well as the refusal of the masses in Ger
many, Belgium, France, and Italy to leave education exclusively
in the hands of the clergy, are natural out-growths of that intel
lectual movement which was inaugurated in England, and which,
after an apparent inactivity of more than a century and a half,
begins anew to disturb the dogmatic slumber of our stationary
believers.
In studying the writings of Mandeville (?—1733), and the accu
sations which theological charity hurled against him, we may learn
that a free-thinker may be a far better Christian than those who
throw their sharp missiles of abuse at him. Mandeville published
in 1714 a poem under the title of “ The Grumbling Hive, or
Knaves Turned Honest,” and re-published the same in 1723 under
the title of “ The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices made Public
Benefits; with an Essay on Charity and Charity Schools, and a
Search into the Nature of Society.” One hundred and fifty-nine
years ago a keen and honest writer, in a truly prophetic spirit,
already exposed our present workhouses and their shortcomings;
our charities and their atrocious uncharitableness ; our hospitals,
where a patient may hear an abundance of cant, but can never be
sure that when a pious sister is engaged in meditation on the
salvation of her soul, she may not make a mistake, and give him
poison instead of quinine; our charity and industrial schools,
where pious masters and mistresses flog the children of the poor
almost to death, stint them in food, and leave them in the most
revolting ignorance, consoling them with some reflections on the
wickedness of poverty. As to the “ Nature of our Society,” we
need only glance superficially over our so-called “ Society papers,”
to convince ourselves that even if orthodox Theology, under the
banner of dogmatism, may have regained the ground lost in the
�12
C hristianity.
Eighteenth Century, true practical Christianity has been left where
it was 160 years ago. Mandeville was especially accused of having
collected all the false notions of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, and
Bayle; of having openly blasphemed, and denied the doctrine of
the ever-blessed Trinity. He was further charged with having
endeavoured to revive the Arian Heresy, with believing in Fate,
and denying Providence; with attempting to undermine the order
and discipline of the Church; with maliciously and falsely decry
ing the Universities, in order to prevent them from instructing
youth in the Christian religion; and with recommending luxury,
avarice, pride, and all the vices, as necessary to public welfare.
Mandeville committed none of all these grave crimes. He showed
that in the highly artificial society of his times, gross selfishness
and unscrupulous egotism prospered—exactly as in our own day—
that knavery and flattery could boast of success, whilst honesty and
straightforwardness did not always bear out the modern theory of
the survival of the fittest. This accusation can, however, no longer
be advanced against the majority of our people, who, in opposition
to dogmatism and social flunkeyism, have fortunately begun to free
themselves from the fetters of prejudice, forged on the anvil of
ignorance by dialectical blacksmiths.
Mandeville asserted further that falsehood, hypocrisy and crime
ruled supreme, if their votaries could only succeed in making
money. Money is still a very great factor in our social organi
zation. In no direction are the enactments of Christ more
discarded and ignored than in the paths of money-making. That
all sorts of falsehoods are often propounded, that hypocrisy is made
use of, that even crimes against widows and orphans, who are
robbed of all they possess, are committed for the purpose of making
money, cannot be denied. Let a statistical compiler collect the
sums of money that have been extorted under the false pretence of
“ life and insurance companies,” “ co-operative stores,” “ commer
cial, railway, navigation, canal, building, and mining companies and
societies,” and we shall find that the longing for turning an honest
penny with Pecksniffian hypocrisy into a dishonest pound, is far
from being extinguished. On the other hand, we must admit that
our honest manufacturers, merchants, traders, and working men
have on the whole become convinced that the opinion a man holds
about “ the colour of the beatitude,” “ the efficacy of grace,” or
“ the power of election ” has very little to do with his merchandise
or his productions. It is the distinguishing feature of progressive
�Christianity.
13
Christianity that it has step by step given up wild hatred and
frantic religious “ boycotting,” the merciless torturing and burning
of so-called heretics, the drowning and hanging of witches, Noncon
formists, Papists, Latitudinarians, and Socinians. It has changed
the cruel “Act of Uniformity ” into an “Edict of Tolerance,”
emancipated Dissenters, Papists, and Jews, and will finally per
mit every one to be saved according to his own light. Bronze and
marble statues are now erected to John Huss, Giordano Bruno,
and Savonarola, who were burnt alive by the very ancestors of
those who now, with truer Christian feelings, honour the memory
of these fearless martyrs of free-thought. Christians at last have
extended equal rights to their most hostile religious antagonists.
We have public officials of many various religious creeds. Unitatarians, Jews, Papists, and Nonconformists sit on the benches of
our highest Courts of Justice. In this broadness of tolerance lies
the power of Christianity, and all those who attempt to diminish
this equalization of humanity, are men without any higher princi
ples.
Mobgan (?—1743) felt all this more than 150 years ago. The
religion of pure reason alone was divine with him. Discussions
on the parabolical or symbolical, the typical or mystical, or any
thing remote from human understanding, he treated with the
utmost contempt. The salvation of persons “ elected ” could never
be attained, save by their own individual moral exertions.
Thomas Chubb (1697-1747) was more systematic than any of
his predecessors. He must be considered the very founder of a
regulated system of secular Christianity, which is still looked upon
as very heretical in certain quarters. Chubb was “ the partner of
a tallow-chandler,” and, no historian can deny, that he kindled a
fiery torch of enlightenment which spread tolerance and freedom not
only throughout all the classes of English society, but extended its
rays to the mighty philosophers of France and Germany, and the
entire Continent. He could not see the necessity of mysticism ;
his brain was not made for senseless impressions, producing dim
and inexplicable emotions. He wished to honour the “ Father,”
in asserting His supremacy ; he opposed the immoral doctrine of
“ Predestination,” destroying in man all his moral responsibility ;
he controverted the degrading assumption of “ original sin,” and
contradicted the equally pernicious doctrine, that “ man was
naturally incapable of doing anything good.”
The last, and by far,the most celebrated of these English Fathers
�14
Christianity.
of Free-thought, was the witty and learned Viscount Bolingbboke
(1672-1751), the contemporary of Vico in Italy, and the fore
runner of Herder in Germany and Voltaire in France. His
“Letters on the Study and Use of History,” published for the
first time in 1735, have become the corner-stone of that broad,
ever-widening edifice of modern culture, in which all branches of
arts and sciences are cultivated on entirely different principles.
In accordance with Bolingbroke’s teachings, history became, and
is, and must continue to be, the most important branch of educa
tion. We must fight on for political freedom, but at the same
time not allow ourselves to be fettered by dogmatism, otherwise
our so-called freedom will prove a delusion. What is the use of
our being free to grumble at a half-penny tax, when we are for
bidden to compare one religion with another; when we are socially
(and social tyranny is far worse than any other autocracy) bound
to believe dates which we know must be wrong, or a cosmogony
which is certainly contrary to the very laws which God teaches us
in His Nature. Why should we not be permitted to draw analo
gies between the mythological and religious systems of different
nations ? Some persons consider that it poisons the mind of the
people to tell them that Zerdusht (Zoroaster), long before Con
fucius, said, “ Hold it not meet to do unto others what thou
wouldest not have done to thyselfand that Confucius, nearly
500 years before Christ exhorted his disciples “ to do to another
what you would he should do unto you; and not do unto another
what you would not should be done unto you ”; adding the memor
able words, •“ Thou only needest this law alone, it is the founda
tion and principle of all the rest.” Is telling the truth poison to
the mind ? Are we to be allowed to state truth only so far as it
may suit the distorters of all history: and must we store our minds
with crude undigested facts and sentences, with fables and myths,
with improbabilities and impossibilities ; are we not to be allowed
to awaken in ourselves and others the latent energy of reason, and
to find out a connection between cause and effect ? Bolingbroke
already scorned the idea of filling our brains with assumptions and
details; with facts that never happened; with oracular sayings
that have generally been written down long after the facts pre
dicted had occurred. The ponderous works of Scaliger, Bochart,
Petavius, Usher, and even of Marsham, were robbed of their dim
halo of authority. These writers, like the generality of theological
arguers, did not write to find out facts in their possible or probable
�Christianity.
15
truthfulness, but continually practised deception, to prove, that
what they assumed and believed to have happened, must have
occurred. It is of little avail to connect disjointed passages, to
use fantastic similitudes of sounds, in order to prop up some pre
conceived historical system. Egyptology, Assyriology; the decyphering of hieroglyphs and cuneiform inscriptions, have on all
sides helped us to unmask the pompous dignitaries of stationary
sal learning, however loudly the survivals of by-gone scholastic systems
:ur may clamour. Eor nearly 1800 years general history, and the comparative historical studies of special countries and nations have been
iiZ distorted. Dates or facts, whole epochs of civilization and com
bi plicated religious systems have been, either altogether ignored, or
'ji if mentioned, the dates of their development altered. The priority
Jp of moral principles in other religions has been denied, and the
| world taught to believe them taken from later systems. All our
■±a| studies have been made subservient to the requirements of the
i < dialectical banner-bearers of some arbitrarily worked out theoloi J gical system, who held aloft the flimsy flag of prejudice and bigotry,
nil under which they gather the ignorant, and terrify independent
ujl inquirers and votaries of true morals and pure Christianity.
j Eor more than half a century the reactionary opponents of proigI gress were in the ascendant. This terrible. period of Reaction,
uj| distinguished by an increasing power of stationary dogmatism and
despotism, was due to that political, moral, and religious cataclysm,
m which took place in Erance. The Erench people had been left
njl in utter ignorance by aristocrats, bureaucrats, priests, and monks ;
iis the normal development of the intellectual and moral welfare of
B| the masses was prevented; everything was exaggerated, and all
■B the ties of society were forcibly broken. Neither reason, nor a
i'j regulated emotion, but obstinate passion and fanaticism, the out
re growths of that very religious system which some wished to support,
jj ruled supreme, and plunged Europe into mad rebellions and sanre guinary wars. Whilst in Erance the demented lawgivers of the
j Convention deposed God (on the 7th of May, 1794) ; in England
penal or civil laws began to protect old-fashioned theological noI tions; and in Germany the rulers gave up the supernatural to the
$ people as a bone of contention, but kept them in strict order by
ffl means of severe police overregulation. The practical was to formthe only aim of tl^p English people; the Erench, with an utter
contempt for all religion, began to occupy themselves with politics ;
whilst in Germany the spirit of inquiry was to find vent in ponnJ
fw
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�16
Christianity.
derous critical volumes on all sorts of metaphysical and religious
subjects. Only thus we can explain the following apparently
incredible fact.
A chair for geology was founded at the Cambridge University in
1815, and down to 1830 not one student dared to attend the pro
posed Lectures of the Rev. Mr. Sedgwick for fear of being at once
looked down upon as a heretic, and so blighting the whole of his
worldly career. That this state of narrow-mindedness has con
siderably changed is in some part owing to a few English Bivines.
We have learnt to rise from particular and detached, to general and
connected knowledge; from single incoherent facts to a higher
study of the universal causal connection between incidents and in
cidents, and periods and periods. What is the use of all such
studies is still the terrible question asked by tens of thousands, if
they only serve “ to disturb the peace of mind of believers.” A
peace of mind, based on ignorance, is a very poor peace.
This was deeply felt by the master minds of France and Ger
many. At the head of the French reformers stood Montesquieu
(1689-1755), who had seen and studied England, and who united
in himself all the brilliant qualities of a Frenchman with the stern
virtues of an independent Englishman. Next to him stood Vol
taire (1694-1778), the prophet, apostle, teacher, and idol of a
court and people which produced a Louis XIV., a Louis XV., a
Robespierre, and a Marat. Voltaire, though a firm believer in a
God, was accused of Atheism, because he devoted all his genial
powers to denouncing the false doctrines according to which
Church and State ruled, oppressed, insulted, and beggared the
people on the Continent. Only a Titanic spirit, like his, could have
succeeded in counteracting the growing immorality of the State,
the rampant hypocrisy of the Church, the revolting cant of priests,
the foolish pretensions of the scholastics and Jesuits, and the
sentimental distortions of the Jansenists. Voltaire was honoured,
protected, and admired by Frederick the Great of Prussia, who
never looked upon genius, truthfulness, and satire as dangerous
foes, but, on the contrary, welcomed them as worthy helpmates to
purify the sunken moral and intellectual state of Europe. That
Voltaire was used by low scoffers and sarcastic critics, that he was
misunderstood, and made a tool in the hands of headless revolu
tionaries in France, was not his fault. Nothjng can excuse the
duplicity of those aristocrats, bureaucrats, priests, monks, and
bigots who, instead of studying his writings, and learning from
�Christianity.
17
them, considered it their duty to abuse, vilify, and curse him.
His spirit has never died away, and is even at this present moment
far more active than the priests suspect. In France, as in Ger
many, if an idol of the past has once been dissolved in its compo
nent particles, and if these particles are found to have been incon
gruously put together, the idol is for ever destroyed. Not so in
England. The powerful vested interests, living, thriving, and pros
pering on antiquated ideas, sometimes relax in their static force,
and permit a dynamic current of progress to pervade the intellec
tual atmosphere of the people; but, trembling for their tempo
ralities, they soon rouse themselves to oppose the progressive
continuity of new ideas.
When the courageous Lessing (1729-1781) once attacked idling
monks and nuns, bigoted pastors and ignorant preachers; monks
and nuns began to vanish, and pastors and preachers were com
pelled to study, and to endeavour to attain the same degree of learn
ing as that possessed by the better informed lay-world. This fact
may serve to explain the existence of that phalanx of fearless
Theologians in Germany who, during the Eighteenth and Nine
teenth Centuries, influenced the Christians of all countries. After
Lessing had exposed pedants to ridicule; hypocrisy to scorn; falsi
fiers to contempt; dialecticians to derision, and false moralists to
mockery, men like Gesenius, Jost, Schleiermacher, Niebuhr, Schel
ling, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, were enabled, individually and
collectively, to use the ponderous clubs of their deep learning and
correct reasoning to prepare the way for the immortal Darwin, who
put an end to the assumption of a detached, arbitrary, and special
creation, and established the fact of “ evolution,” as the firm founda
tion of all bur studies. Mental reforms are no longer hated,
critical inquiries no longer despised, analogies and comparisons
may be drawn even at the University of Oxford.
According to Dean Ramsay, four millions of sermons are
preached annually in Great Britain; these four millions of sermons
are only listened to by thirty per cent, of our population, whilst
seventy per cent, can do without them. The 100 per cent, however,
have to pay annually £ 10,211,321 (exclusive of payments made by
Boman Catholics and Jews). All this is at the very lowest com
putation, and yet even these four millions of sermons represent a
lamentable waste of time. Assuming that each sermon takes up
only 30 minutes, we arrive at a period of 83,333 days, or 22|
years, half at least of which are annually spent by the combined
�18
Cliristianity.
efforts of the clergy in. discussing dogmatic matters. As to
material,—if every sermon were only 15 pages in length, the'
amount spoken annually would furnish us with 60,000,000 of
pages, or 83,333 vols. of 720 pages each.
It would be as well to enquire how much of this collective
brain-force, and complex lung-power has been used to bring about
a union between Christ’s enactments, and our often diametrically
opposed social organization, without which, however, our present
state of civilization would be impossible.
Christ said: “ Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for
the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof ” (Matt. vi. 34). If we were to
live according to this precept we should have long given up all
progress in arts, sciences, discoveries, and inventions. We should
have lived like Buddhist mendicants, and lost ourselves in useless
meditations ; mean poverty would have been our lot, and in
carrying out the command of God the Son, we should have acted
in direct opposition to the dictates of Grod the Father who
endowed us with intellect and reason.
Christ said: “ Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt. x. 8).
And what do the heads of the different denominations do ? They
freely demand money, and as freely keep it. Church dignitaries
are liberally paid, and leave the hard working curates to some 300
charity organizations.
Christ said: “ Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in
your purses ” (Matt. x. 9, Luke ix. 3, x. 4, xxii. 35). The eternal
collections, the everlasting sending round of plates, the merciless
exactions of tithes are in contradiction to this law.
Christ said: “ I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by
heaven . . . nor by the earth . . . neither shalt thou
swear by thy head . . . But let your communication be, Yea,
yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
(Matt. v. 34-37.)
We boastfully call England a “God-fearing and Christian”
country, and yet we ignore God’s direct, and most explicit com
mand: “swear not.” After many tardy steps in tolerance, we
are sure not to stop half way. The greatest and wisest in the
land will out-number the prejudiced and narrow-minded, and free
every citizen from all the shackles of religious qualification. Not
what a man “ professes to believe,” but how he acts, ought to
be taken as the criterion of his character.
�Christianity.
19
M
The higher inner life of the masses, in spite of the. 4,000,000
W of annual sermons, was till lately sorely neglected. We at last
lai attained the conviction that Reason, Politics, and Science, as well
sb I as Emotion, Religion, and Art, had their rights. We have learnt
ft that Reason cannot be satisfied with mere dogmatic assumptions,
[B and, that to be truly free, we must emancipate ourselves from all
$ fetters imposed on our development as human beings.
What is Man ?
Man consists of matter, forming the constituent particles of his
id body. The study of this, his material constitution, has led to
ff Biology. Biology must not be treated one-sidedly, as if there were
For man consists also of mind, a
T! in man nothing but matter.
q power of doing work, receiving impressions, which produce sensa
ii tions, of which we become conscious. Man has, therefore, a double
Both matter and mind
fi nature, composed of matter and mind.
R) can only be brought into life and activity by a force ; and wherever
ft . we are able to trace a force, we can trace law. We may thus treat
ft man scientifically as a unit, and consequently we can similarly con
This is done by Sociology and
E8 sider any number of these units.
a \ General History. For, any principle applicable to the unit, must
a ' similarly affect any number composed of the same units.
All natural science is based on tracing the working of acting
B and counteracting, combining or dissolving forces. In mechanics
i those forces are assumed to be two in number, the one static, the
o other dynamic. The first manifests itself as the law of conserva
d tion of force or energy, the second as the ever-varying, creating,
3 changing, combining, transforming force of activity.
We here face the mystic Indian Trimurty (Trinity), as Creator,
i Preserver, and Transformer; or the great Egyptian “Unity in
E Trinity” of their more advanced religious and philosophical de
Leaving the
'.i velopment—as “ Creator, Created, and Creature.”
Creator, in humble reverence, we have around us the Created world
) (the phenomenal) and the Creature (as the embodiment of the
Ct noumenal), and in this Creature we find combined the two acting
and reacting forces, pervading the universe as static and dynamic
£
energy, which manifests itself in man as morals and intellect.
$ Morals are and can only be static; they are a restraining, correcting
•1 force—they are the passive element in our nature: moral laws are
I generally given in the negative form. On the other hand, intellect
d is undoubtedly the dynamic pushing, inquiring, inventing force—
1 the active element; for all efforts in arts, sciences, and discoveries
�20
Christianity.
are of a positive nature. The working of these two forces may be
either conflicting, or harmonious, and on the greater or less degree
of harmony must depend the progressive development of single
individuals, and that of whole communities, nations, and Humanity
at large. We may thus scientifically reduce all the phenomena of
history to a plus or minus in the relative quantities of the two acting
and reacting forces in man.
Those who, under the pretext of religion, wish one-sidedly to
cultivate the moral force in humanity, often commit the most re
volting immoralities. We have on one side the Mormons, a sect
living in polygamy, according to the practice of the Patriarchs as
recorded in the Old Testament, and we have opposed to them the
state authority quoting the same sacred Book, protesting against
polygamy, and endeavouring to put it down by the force of law.
And intellect, reason that could alone decide between the two sects,
is abhorred by both. For controversy and contradictions are the
eternal outgrowths of so called sacred Books which, assumed to
have been inspired by infinite wisdom, are so little understood by
finite commentators that they have led to nothing but confusion in
our most important social relations.
A popular preacher protests against “ vivisection,” and this
preacher feeds on killed fishes, eats oysters with delight, enjoys a
brace of partridges, and has no condemnation for fox-hunting, deer
stalking, pigeon-shooting, &c. Now, if a Buddhist priest or teacher
who never touched food that was derived from any creature once
alive, were to speak against the dissection of living animals, with
the object of extending our knowledge of physiology and biology,
in order to lessen the sufferings of our more highly developed
fellow-creatures, we could understand his horror of the practice;
but it can only be mere verbiage and hypocritical rodomontade
when some priests, who feed on mutton, beef, and pork, rave
against vivisection in order to stop the prying into the wonderful,
and awful mysteries of God, and declare that the Darwins and
Huxleys of our times should not be furnished with more facts for
their unorthodox theories.
These contradictions between practical life, and the enactments
of religious books, at last led men, like Mr. Houston, to devote
themselves to biblical criticism in the spirit of simple reason,
unassisted by assumptions, theological dictates, dialectical distinc
tions and differences, and the amount of work since done in this
direction is incredible. Houston published in 1813 a book under
�C hristianity.
21
kb the title “ Ecce Homo,” or a “ Rational Analysis of the Gospels,”
V- which created a tremendous sensation.
The clergy took no trouble
>$! to refute the writer, but set the courts of j ustice in motion, and
III Houston was condemned to two years’ imprisonment, and a fine
oil of <£200 to be paid to the king!
The enactment of “judge not that ye be not judged” (Matt,
«|
V ; vii. 1) was disregarded by King and Judges. Neither Houston,
nor Dr. Strauss in more recent times, did “judge.” They simply
applied the commonest rules of criticism to a compilation of
writings which were pronounced to be infallible; and for this use
& of their reason, the one was imprisoned and fined, and the other
8 sent out of the country as a detestable heretic, and nearly mur
»| dered by a fanatical mob in Switzerland.
The enemies of progress, the controversialists on doctrine, the
1 propounders of revelations had continually to take refuge behind
I , new inspirations and new revelations, till the people became
8> I convinced that a revelation which produces so many contradictory
M deductions, must be after all simply a revelation worked out in
jI the inner consciousness of the prophets and revealers themselves.
[| But as feelings, emotions, and ideas, through self-consciousness,
1 have but a subjective meaning, the independent thinkers of Christ
ianity have now turned to a more correct contemplation of nature
with an entirely objective tendency. The province of the emotional
has been thus assigned to art, morals are studied as natural effects
> of our very bodily organization, the quarrels about formulae have
i become fainter, and man begins to understand true religion.
What is religion in a Christian sense ?
It is neither Pessimism, nor Agnosticism, and least of all,
Atheism.
Pessimism is a morbid craving after an ideal world, which con
>. demns the present variegated reality, because optimism has not
r worked itself into a tangible entity.
Agnosticism goes as far as our finite senses can go in grasping
£ the phenomenal outward nature, and stops at the first cause of
! which it professes to know nothing.
Atheism has, in its dogmatic assertions, the most repulsive
3, similarity to orthodoxy. It is, in fact, nothing but an illogical
I negation of a positive assertion, and has therefore no sense at all.
True religion, according to the origin of the Latin word “religo,”
f, means to honour, to take care of, to order, to treat, to observe
> carefully, or to be bound down, which does not mean to observe or
�22
Christianity.
to be bound down to ritualistic performances, the burning of can
dles, embroidered altar-cloths, sacrificial symbols and types, but to
take care of, and honour a close study and understanding of the
laws of nature in a clear recognition of our relations to our fellow
creatures.
Mind and matter : the one the cause, the other the effect; the
one the pervading ideality, the other the pervaded reality; these
two completing each other, and manifesting themselves as com
bined elements in the variegated phenomena of the universe, can
be the only objects of study for Christianity in the Future.
Christianity which is the only Religion through which inward
reflection, and outward contemplation may be best evolved in man,
as a complex power to balance morals and intellect, emotion, and
reason in us, will have to accomplish the following glorious tasks :—
(a.) To bring back Christ’s teachings to their primitive purity and
simplicity ; to eliminate everything that has been imported into it
from older heathen religions and creeds, in the shape of ceremonies
and contradictory mysteries.
(6.) To fulfil what the Reformation began in the sixteenth cen
tury, and not to stop half-way in the purification of faith, allowing
dogmatic petrifications to hinder the progressive development of
Humanity. We must try to establish a perfect balance between
our morals and our intellect, basing all our actions on such
principles as are universal, and easily understood by reason.
(c.) To educate our clergy in all the branches of true knowledge,
that the people may not accustom themselves to look down upon
them as survivals of a by-gone, bigoted, ante-intellectual period,
and only attend their sermons because it is respectable to be seen
amongst one’s neighbours at a place of worship on a Sunday. Let
the teachers of the more than two hundred quarrelling uncharitable
sects of Christendom stand on the common platform of human
nature, loving and not hating those who, through self thought and
indefatigable study, have acquired a different mode of seeing,
judging, and believing, and they will be sure to regain that bene
ficial influence on the fields of pure ethics which they have lost in
the dark labyrinths of mysticism.
(cZ.) To find a common ground in Brahmanism, Zoroastrianism,
Buddhism, Confucianism, Sokratian principles, Hebraism, and
Mahometanism, connecting all that is pure, moral, and intellectual
in all the different religious sects into one grand whole, cemented
together with brotherly love and forbearance, allowing to art and
�Christianity.
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science their free, purifying, and elevating influences, and fostering
them to the fullest possible extent.
Similar notions were already set forth in the Twelfth Century
within the Romish Church, in a new gospel, called “ Evangelium
Eternum,” preached for some time by Joachim, the Abbot of Sora,
in Calabria. This gospel was also called the Covenant of Peace,
or the Gospel of the Holy Ghost. It taught that the two imper
fect ages, that of the Father and of the Son, represented by the
Old and New Testaments, were past, and that that of the Holy
Ghost, the perfect one, was at hand. According to this gospel
Jews, Christians, Mahometans, and all other sects were to be
united into one loving brotherhood. For upwards of thirty years
the Roman See supported this gospel. In 1250 A.D. a Franciscan
*
monk, Gerhard, published an introduction to it, in which he pro
phesied the destruction of the Roman See, in 1260 ; but neither
the moon nor the stars fell from heaven to bring about the Millenium
—so the prophecy is yet to be fulfilled; and we still wait for the
time when Indians and Chinese, philosophers and free-thinkers,
Hebrews, Mahometans and Christians, will be enabled to raise to
their different teachers one grand Walhalla in which all who have
contributed to the fulfilment of Christ’s promise of One Shepherd
(God in Heaven, or first cause in the universe), and one fold
(enclosing the whole of Humanity), might find a place.
To sum up, we have individually and collectively :
(1.) to purify Christianity of all Dogmatism and Mysticism ;
(2.) to make morals, which are ingrafted in our very nature, the
foundation of our social organization ;
(3.) to enlarge religion through genuine tolerance into a code of
our duties towards our fellow-creatures ;
(4.) to educate our public teachers so that with broad hearts and
independent thoughts they may propagate the beauties of art and
the truths of science.
So MAY IT BE I
* For further information see “The Gospel History and Doctrinal Teach
ing” critically examined by the Author of “Mankind, their Origin and
Destiny.” London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1873.
�
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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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Christianity: fourth part. The future of Christianity, being a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's, Langham Place, on Sunday 29th January 1882
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Zerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
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An account of the resource
In the fourth part of his series of lectures on the history of Christianity, Dr. G. G. Zerffi explores current and future issues affecting the faith such as evolution, atheism and free thought.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 18 cm
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5. A list of the Society's lectures by the same author which have been printed listed on unnumbered final page.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1882
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G3434
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Christianity
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Christianity: fourth part. The future of Christianity, being a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's, Langham Place, on Sunday 29th January 1882), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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English
Christianity
Morris Tracts
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VICTORIES OF SCIENCE
IN ITS
WARFARE WITH SUPERSTITION.
•
’ *
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 20th FEBRUARY, 1881,
2U■
BY
A. ELLEY
FINCH.
j'lwdu* 1
i-niiHfirhi
-sawi)
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1881..
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to
encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical,
intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially
in their bearing upon the improvement and social well-being of
mankind.
PRESIDENT.
W. B. Carpenter, Esq., C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
Professor Alexander
Bain.
Charles
Darwin, Esq.,
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq.,
D.C.L., Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S.,
F.S.A.
Ser Arthur
Hobhouse,
K.C.S.I.
Thomas Henry Huxley,
Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S.
Benjamin Ward Richard
son, Esq., M.D., F.R.S.
Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode,
Esq.,
LL.D., Pres.R.S.
John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D.,
F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ABE DELIVERED AT
ST.. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May.)
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series) ending 25th April,
1881, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, trans
ferable (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single
resOrved-seat tickets, available for. any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
•
To the Shilling Reserved Seats —5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets, and for list of the Lectures published by the Society,
apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville,
Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Shilling (Reserved Seats);—Six
pence
and One Penny. . .
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author,
now printed, are—on
,
“ Erasmus ; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Price 3d., or post free 3|d.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modem
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.” (Price 3d., or post
free 3jd.)
“The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Development of the Human Mind.” (Price 3d., or post
free 3^d.)
“The Principles of Political Economy; their Scientific
Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
(Price 3d., or post free 3£d.)
“The English Free-thinkers of the Eighteenth Cen
tury.” (Price 3d., or post free 3jd.)
“The Science
. free 3 jd.)
of
Life worth Living.” (Price 3d., or post
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between
Lord Bacon and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 100, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post
free 5s. 3d.)
“ The Pursuit of Truth : as Exemplified in the Principles of
Evidence—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post
free 5s. 3d.)
.
• .
’9 f
Can be obtained (on remittance by letter of postage stamps or
order) of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15,
Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days
of Lecture; or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street, W.
�SYLLABUS.
Vast number, variety, and vacillation of Religious Beliefs, pre
sented to us by the history of the Human Race.
Distribution amongst mankind of the eight great Theologies
(book-religions) of the present day, viz., Zoroastrianism—
Brahmanism—Buddhism—Confucianism —Tao-ism—Mosaism—
Christianism—Mahommedanism.
No generally acknowledged standard of Theological truth,
and why.
Theology explained as a human (logical) system, based upon
the blending of Religion with Superstition.
Religion as defined by Herbert Spencer, the late Lord Amberley,
and Dr. James Martineau.
Superstition defined as credulity concerning manifestations
of the Supernatural inconsistent with the experienced order and
veracity of Reason and Nature.
Science explained as generalized human knowledge of Natural
Phenomena.
The criticism of Science purifies Theology by purging it of
Superstitions, thereby compelling it to undergo transmutations
corresponding to the progress of human intelligence.
Illustrations from the conflict of Science with the following
Superstitions:—
1. The relative magnitude, flat form, and immobility of the
Earth. (Conflict with Astronomical Science.)
2. The six days creation of the world 6,000 years ago.
(Conflict with Geological Science.)
3. The government of human life by Special Providence.
(Conflict with Physical Science.)
4. The Theological theory of disease, involving miracle-cure,
relic-cure, prayer-cure, &c. (Cwflict with Sanitary
Science.)
5. Anthropomorphic conceptions of the Nature, Attributes,
and Will of Deity. (Conflict with Mental and Mol'd
Science.)
Probability that popular Theologies are still saturated with
Superstitions (e.g., belief in the objective efficacy of sacerdotal
supplications, humiliations, and asceticisms, supernatural revela
tions, and exclusive salvations) which the expansion of Science
must eventually explode.
Summary of evils of life inflicted by Superstition, and ameli
orations of human well-being achieved by Science, showing that
the increase of Health, Happiness, and the Moral Virtues is
coincident with the decline of Superstition and the advancement
of Science.
The debt Religion owes to Science.
�THE VICTORIES OF SCIENCE
IN ITS
WARFARE WITH SUPERSTITION.
HE modern student 'of Universal History, seeking
T to enlarge and generalize his conception of human
nature by the contemplation of the life of man in almost
every discovered clime, and throughout the ages of
recorded time, finds himself at the confluence of the
greatest number of streams of knowledge that have ever
been found flowing and converging together; greatly
embarrassed therefore, not to say overwhelmed, by the
multiplicity and diversity of his materials. .
Even limiting his research to that emotional and
imaginative yet transcendently interesting aspect of the
human mind presented by religious phenomena, he
quickly discovers that he is surrounded by a vast number,
variety, and almost incessant fluctuation of Beliefs con
cerning the supernatural, that have everywhere been
found more or less prevailing from the earliest dawn of
authentic history.
On the one hand, it is remarkable that no people, or
trace of a people, has hitherto been discovered absolutely
destitute of some of the ultimate elements or sentiments
of Beligion, Travellers and thinkers entertaining diverse
views on historical, political, and social questions, who
have made the early history of man, or his most savage
condition subjects of careful study, are really agreed on
this fundamental point.
On the other hand, the most civilized and polished
nations on the fa,ce of the globe have exhibited, and still
�6
The Victories of Science in its
exhibit almost endless differences, divisions, and distinc
tions in their theological creeds, rites, and ceremonies.
The time now at our disposal would not suffice for
the slightest allusion to the numerous Religions or
Mythologies of even the chief Nations of the ancient
world. Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians,
Arabians (before conversion), Greeks, Romans, various
Teuton, Celtic, and Sclavonic Nations, the Astecs of
Mexico, the Incas of Peru—all having their indigenous
and various ways of regarding and. worshipping the
supernatural—must now be passed by, in order that I
may concentrate some general observations, suggested by
so endless a variety of supernatural beliefs, upon those
great Theologies or book-religions which constitute the
religious faiths of the present inhabitants of our globe—
viz.—(taking them in the order of their antiquity)—
Zoroastrianism, with its sacred Zend-Avesta, the religion
of the Parsees, descendants of the ancient Persians—
Brahmanism and Buddhism, with their sacred Vedas and
Tripitaka, the chief religions of the inhabitants of the
great Indian Peninsula.— Confucianism and Tao-ism
with their sacred books of Kings and Tad-te-King, the
religions of the Chinese — Mosaism with the Hebrew
Scriptures, the religion of the Jews—Christianity with
the New Testament, the religion of modem Europeans
and Americans—and Mahommedanism, with its sacred
volume the Koran, the religion of the Turks and
Arabians, and other considerable peoples in Asia.
The numbers of the respective members of these
several faiths, as given in Johnston’s Physical Atlas,
may be summed up thus—assuming the entire population
of the earth at 1,000 millions, the Christians constitute
340 millions, the Buddhists 300 millions, the Brahmins
130 millions, the Mahommedans 124 millions, the Jews
6 millions, and all other religions 100 millions. A some
�Warfare' with Superstition.
7
what different proportion is cited by Professor Max
Muller from the geography of Berghaus; where the
Buddhists are stated to constitute 31 per cent, of the
entire population of the globe, the Christians 30 per
cent., the Mahommedans 15 per cent., the Brahmins
13 per cent, the Jews a fraction of 3, and all other
religions 8 per cent. These different estimates call of
course be only roughly approximate, but either is
sufficiently near for illustrating our present purpose.
If we looked somewhat closer we should find that
these several religious faiths are mostly subdivided in
ternally into numerous conflicting sects. Christianity,
the religion of the most intellectual and cultured peoples
in existence, is almost infinitely so divided. In Pro
fessor Schaff’s comprehensive and learned work upon
‘ The Creeds of Christendom ’ we are furnished with the
literal texts of nearly 100 distinct creeds, confessions,
articles and formularies of faith of the almost endless
denominations among which dogmatic Christianity has
now become dispersed.
i“
When the mind is thus brought into the simultaneous
presence of the irreconcilable dogmas of the numerous
and conflicting theological faiths, all devoutly believed
in by their respective worshippers, it is difficult to
conceive how any one of them can be considered as
constituting a supernatural universal scheme necessary
for the Salvation of Mankind, seeing th^it it has not,
after upwards of 1,800 years, been believed in, or even
sb much as heard of by more than about a third part
of the great human race.
In view of such manifold differences of theological
belief as a simple comparison of creeds discloses, it is
almost obvious to observe that there can be no generally
acknowledged standard or infallible test of theological
truth. To use the words of a late accomplished historian—-
�8
The Victories of Science in its
Henry Thomas Buckle—“ Theological systems are sub
jects upon which different persons and different nations,
equally honest, equally enlightened, and equally com
petent, have entertained and still entertain the most
different opinions, which they advocate with the greatest
confidence, and support by arguments perfectly satis
factory to themselves, but contemptuously rejected by
their opponents.”
It is so very difficult to place oneself at the point of
view of any religion save our own that we invariably
hear with amazement the arguments or evidence adduced
by the advocates of other religions. Dr. Sprenger, in
the course of a theological discussion, was seriously
asked by a Mussulman how he could possibly disbelieve
the religion of Islam, seeing that Mahomet’s name was
written on the gates of Paradise I and Dr. Morell, in his
thoughtful work on “ The Philosophy of Religion,” relates
the following authentic incident. A distinguished friend
of his in the East had been arguing for some time with
a Mahommedan upon the evidences of Christianity, and
apparently with some success. At length the Mahom
medan, who had been listening attentively, exclaimed—
“ I tell you what it is, Rajah. You Franks are very clever
people; God has given you the power to make ships and
houses and penknives, and to do a great many wonderful
things, but he has granted to us what he has denied to
you—the knowledge of the true Religion.”
The philosopher, though he is confident that all theo
logical systems cannot be wholly true, yet feels that in
the search after truth it must be possible, however
difficult, to arrive at some explanation that may seem
to reconcile the existence of so many divergent faiths;
and if we look a little carefully into the constituents
of theology we may I think discover a clue to the desired
solution. Now we find on examination of any theology
�Warfare with Superstition.
9
or book-religion that it essentially consists of a body of
connected propositions, logically deduced by the human
mind from certain assumed to be inspired writings.
So long then as to err is human, and man remains
short of being infallible, it is clear that such a system of
knowledge must contain some amount of error, and we
may therefore assert with tolerable accuracy, that every
theology the world has seen will be found on analysis to
be compounded of two elements—viz., a germ or sub
stratum of probable truth, and a superstructure or ad
mixture of positive error. The substratum of truth must
ultimately be the same in all theologies, but their several
superstructures of error will be found to vary; partly in
accordance with difference of climate and other geogra
phical circumstances ; partly on account of the differing
race or genius of the peoples, and their stage of civilization,
amongst whom the various theologies have respectively
arisen, or by whom they have since been adopted; and
partly from the dissimilar mental idiosyncracies of their
respective founders or principal expositors.
For the purpose of our argument this afternoon, we
may conveniently designate the substratum of truth as
Religion, and the superstructure of error as Superstition.
Now, keeping this simple distinction clearly in view, we
shall find that notwithstanding the abuse and vituperation
which the Religious World (as it is phrased), have so
incessantly heaped upon Science and its professors, men
of science, whose noble purpose ever is simply to arrive
at truth, and who, for that end, would impress on us the
duty of enquiry, and the folly of credulity, have in reality
never attacked Religion at all, but that in their discoveries
and contentions for the purpose of enabling truth to pre
vail, they have only been attacking or unmasking the
falsehood and error that are ever found lurking in the
guise of Superstition. Superstition—that incubus upon
�IO
The Victories of Science in its
the human mind, whose malediction was so eloquently
pronounced by Buckle, who declared that against the
vitality of that dark and ill-omened principle there was
only one weapon, and that weapon was Science.
I will now define more exactly what we should under
stand by the terms Religion and Superstition, in connection
with the present discourse.
Religion, whatever other quality we claim for it, must
certainly be regarded as true. Its intellectual meaning
then must be strictly limited to assertions that cannot be
contradicted by the discoveries of Science now or hereafter,
or by the truly religious assumption of any theology
whatever; for religious and scientific truth must ever be
one. In reference to this its fundamental requisite, we
find that Religion has been defined by many thoughtful
minds. Thus, our profound philosopher Herbert Spencer
has described it as “ our consciousness of an Inscrutable
Power or Cause manifested to us through all phenomena,
but whose nature transcends intuition, and is beyond
imagination.” The late lamented Lord Amberley, in his
exhaustive “ Analysis of Religious Belief,” describes Re
ligion as ‘ an abstract indefinable pervading sentiment
corresponding to the relation subsisting between the
hyperphysical (or supernatural) power in the Universe,
and the hyperphysical entity in Man.” Dr. James
Martineau, one of the most highly cultured and liberalminded of our theologians, has defined or distinguished
Religion and Science thus—“Science discloses the method
of the World, Religion its cause, and there is no conflict
between them, except when either forgets its ignorance of
what the other alone can know.”
Dr. Martineau however does not leave his definition
there. He boldly ventures into the region of assumptions,
and affirms “that the universe which includes us and folds
us round is the life-dwelling of an Eternal Mind ; that the
�Warfare with Superstition.
•
11
world of our abode is the scene of a moral government
incipient but not yet complete; and that the upper zones
of human affection above the clouds of self and passion
raise us into the sphere of a Divine Communion.” These
three assumptions he considers to be independent of any
possible result of the natural sciences.
Now let us turn to the consideration of what we are
to understand by the term Superstition. Here we have
to deal with something that should be regarded as the
opposite of Religion, for it is something, which taking its
rise from the faculty of fear or dread of the unknown,
imaginatively figures to itself the features of some super
natural or super-human power which is manifested in
ways that are inconsistent with our knowledge of the
established order of nature and the veracity of human
reason; based as such knowledge is on the verified dis
coveries of science and on the uniformity and analogy of
invariable human experience. Superstition then is that
which assumes thus to know and to describe the super
natural. But what, we may ask, is the supernatural ?
It was well argued by the sublime philosopher Spinoza
(whose noble moral life, and subtle thoughts have lately
been so powerfully portrayed by the pen of our good
friend and lecturer Frederick Pollock) that “ we cannot
pretend to determine the boundary between the natural
and the supernatural until the whole of nature shall be
open to our knowledge,” and the late Oxford professor,
Baden Powell, in his striking Essay on the Order of
Nature has remarked, and in approval of this acute
observation of Spinoza, that the supernatural can really
never be a matter of science or knowledge at all, for
the moment it is brought within the cognizance of
reason it ceases to be supernatural; and he affirms that
all assumed knowledge of the supernatural is the off-
�12
.
The Victones of Science in its
spring of ignorance, and the parent of superstition and
idolatry.
Now let us briefly consider what, in connection with
our subject, we should understand by the term Science.
Science you know does not pretend to deal with the
supernatural. Its views and its researches are limited
entirely to Nature. The natural phenomena, matter,
force, and energy are its sources of knowledge, whilst
its organon of induction, or methods of investigation
subordinate the suggestions of the imagination and the
emotions to the dictates of Beason and the evidence
of Nature — Science then simply signifies methodized
or reasoned knowledge of the experienced course of
Nature, i.e. those invariable co-existences and successions
of phenomena — which the human mind discovers by
accurate observation and reflection, and then generalizes
as laws of Nature or unalterable rules constituting the
actual or ultimate government of the course of our
lives. In an abstract sense these laws, being inferences
drawn by the human mind from the observed uniformity
of Nature, may be said to possess in themselves no
governing power ; and that the force we seem to observe
in natural law may in reality be a force behind Nature.
This criticism many of you may remember was most
ably and lucidly submitted to us by our respected Presi
dent Dr. Carpenter in the opening lecture of this year.
But the practical danger of pressing this metaphysical
assumption of some recondite force, of which Science
knows and can know nothing, appears to be this, that it
has a manifest tendency to cause us to retrogade from
Science back to Superstition, for the mystery it involves
inevitably allures the mind to disregard the clearly
observed Law, and to make its appeal to the force or
power assumed to exist behind the law.
�Warfare with Superstition.
13
Now, so far as scientific knowledge extends, the exis
tence of any such force has nowhere been proved.
Natural law is apparently universal and ultimate. “ The
growing belief” observes Herbert Spencer “in the uni
versality of law is so conspicuous to cultivated minds as
scarcely to need illustration, but,” (he shrewdly adds,)
“ Though the fact is sufficiently familiar, the philosophy
of the fact is not so.” “ A natural philosopher,” (says
Professor Jowett) “ capable of seeing creation with a real
scientific insight, would behold the reign of law every
where ; one and continuous in all the different spheres
of knowledge, in all the different realms of Nature,
throughout all time, and over all space.” “ And,” (says
Dr. Carpenter, referring for instance to the law of gravi
tation) “ we feel an assurance of its truth which nothing
save a complete revolution in the world of matter or in
the world of mind can ever shake.”
Although then the inference which the mind draws
from observing the uniformity of Nature is, at the out
set, simply a scientific assumption, similar to the meta
physical assumption of a force existing behind Nature,
yet the substantial difference between the two is really
this—that whilst the metaphysical assumption ever
remains an assumption, the scientific assumption becomes
verified as true through the evidence of universal
experience.
Such undoubtedly are the conclusions of science, and
if they cannot be disproved I submit to you, not specu
latively, but as an important practical matter, that we
should be counselled to regulate our lives in obedience to,
or conformity with the discovered and verified Law of
Nature, and not in reference to some unknown force
assumed to exist behind Nature.
If now we turn and limit our attention to the more
recent history of European Communities we find that
�14
The Victories of Science in its
their advance in civilization, that is in material and
social comfort, and in the conveniences and even neces
saries of civilized life, has progressed in a remarkable
manner parallel with the development of Science. There
is scarcely an improvement in real life that is not strictly
traceable to scientific discovery or invention, and all
such discovery and invention being the result of the
exercise of natural human sagacity is, by its very nature,
antagonistic to Superstition; and the process of continu
ally ascertaining and applying the natural law, by which
the events of life on earth are found to be really regu
lated, has the necessary gradual effect of purifying
theology, so far. as it superstitiously attributes such
events to the immediate action of supernatural causes,
and thereby of compelling theology to undergo interpre
tations and modifications corresponding more or less
closely, to the continual progress of human intelligence.
We shall I think meet with ample evidence of this
progressive change in theological beliefs if we examine,
by way of illustration, some few of the more con
spicuous examples of that ceaseless conflict which Science,
since the establishment of Christianity in Europe, has
ever had to wage with superstition, and where it has
come into collision with the prevailing theological dogmas
of the day.
The first of these memorable contests which I will
mention relates to the supposed magnitude, immobility,
and flat form of the Earth. At the time when this con
flict seriously arose (about the beginning of the 16th
century), the Bible was universally believed to be an
inspired supernatural authority for every matter asserted
or treated of within its various pages, and its true
interpretation in any ambiguous matter to have been
authoritatively declared in the dogmas decreed by suc
cessive Councils of the Church, or in the commentaries
�Warfare with Superstition.
15
of a succession of personages of extraordinary learning
and sanctity termed the Fathers, and it was not only
thought to be utterly fallacious but to be awfully wicked
for anyone to set up an opinion adverse to so revered a
weight of authority as the Bible, Councils, and Fathers
combined was held to be.
Amongst other matters of fact, believed to have been
thereby decided as infallibly true, were the size and
shape of the Earth. It was declared to be the largest
Or chief body in the Universe, and in form or shape to
be a flat plane—and relatively immoveable—and that the
sun, moon, and stars all moved round it; and every
attempt to show, from observation of Nature or calcula
tions of the reason based on such observation, that these
views were physically untrue was met for a long time
with simple scorn and derision : which only became con
verted into the actual persecution of Science and its
professors when so large an amount of evidence to the
contrary had been collected, and marshalled in such a
way as to produce a profound impression upon the lay
intelligence of the age, and when therefore the scientific
views could no longer be safely ignored by ecclesiastical
power.
This evidence I can only glance at, and indeed we are
all now of course more or less familiar with it. For
instance, the voyages of those adventurous navigators
Columbus and Vasco de Gama in the years 1492—97,
and of Magellan in the year 1519, who had amongst them
actually sailed round the earth, proving to demonstration
by this astonishing achievment that it was of definite and
comparatively small size, and not in form a flat plane, but
a circular or globular body. Then the startling astro
nomical researches of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and
Kepler, had resulted in demonstrating the Earth’s motion
round the Sun. That it was the Sun that was stationary
�16
The Victories of Science in its
and not the Earth: and then Galileo who, supplementing
previous discoveries by his own, and by the aid of the
telescope, then recently invented, verified, visually as well
as mathematically, the great outline of our Solar System
in a manner that utterly contradicted and indeed outraged
all that men had been taught to believe, and did then
verily believe, on the faith of scriptural and patristic
authority.
The discoveries resulting from the invention of the
telescope were indeed simply astounding, and they exer
cised such a withering influence upon the prevailing
orthodox theories that many of the theologians refused
even to look through the telescope, being afraid to behold
the heavenly phenomena then revealed for the first time
to mortal eyes. A most amusing letter on the subject
from Galileo to Kepler, written in the year 1609 has
been preserved: “Oh, my dear Kepler,” he writes, “how
I wish we could have one hearty laugh together. Here,
at Padua, is the professor of Philosophy, whom I have
repeatedly requested to look at the moon and planets
through my glass, pertinaciously refusing to do so.
Why are you not here ? What laughter we should have
at this glorious folly, and to hear the professor labouring
before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as with
magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the
sky! ”
Now Galileo, you remember, was accused of having
attacked Religion; he was prosecuted accordingly, and,
though the consummate audacity of the infallible Roman
Church has since been equal to the denial of its com
plicity in his condemnation—he was summoned before
the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, the grand ecclesi
astical Court of the time, and he was made, as you know,
to recant all his scientific convictions. We have the
exact words of his recantation, and they sre still worthy
�Warfare with Superstition.
17
of being repeated. Galileo was compelled to declare—
first, bis proposition, “that the Sun is the Centre of the
World and immovable from its place,” is absurd, philo
sophically false, and formally heretical, because it is
expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. Secondly, his
proposition, “ that the Earth is not the Centre of the
World nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a
diurnal motion,” is absurd, philosophically false, and
theologically considered, erroneous in faith.
Now it should be observed that the Cardinal Inquisi
tors who sentenced Galileo were amongst the most
enlightened ecclesiastics of their age; they were not bad
men, they acted conscientiously according to their light,
and their views were in harmony with the generally
accepted religious knowledge and sentiments of the
time.
The case therefore was one in which it was solemnly
adjudged by theologians that Science had attacked and
was in conflict with Religion. We, living now, know
perfectly well that it was nothing of the sort—that it
was Science in possession of the truth, sapping the
superstitions that formed the superstructure of the theo
logical system of the day; and now every Schoolboy is
taught that Galileo’s recanted propositions are matters of
verified astronomical science, and therefore cannot be
contradictory to, but must be in harmony with, real re
ligious truth. Thus the discoveries and reasoning of these
astronomers and their illustrious successors Newton,
Laplace, Herschel, and divers others, constitute the
first complete victory achieved by Science over Super
stition.
I need not stop to dilate upon the deep importance to
our thoughts and lives of the transcendent truths dis
covered by Astronomers, having given a summary of the
subject in a lecture delivered here four years ago, and
�18
The Victories of Science in its
still in print, “ On the Influence of Astronomical discovery
“ in the development of the human Mind.”
We will now turn to a second illustration of the main
argument of the present lecture. Until quite recently,
almost within the memory of living men, we were sup
posed to possess in the Bible a supernatural revelation of
the Creation of the World, and the time when and the
manner in which it took place. There are ecclesiastical
commentaries on the book of Genesis which undertake to
inform the reader by means of biblical interpretation the
exact month and day of the week when this stupendous
event occurred. Generally however, what is known as
Archbishop Ussher’s chronology was believed as a part of
religious faith, and that system of dates placed the Crea
tion as occurring precisely 4004 years before the birth of
Christ; and the authority of other books of the Penta
teuch is explicit and confirmatory of the Creation having
been accomplished in six days, and according to the
method described in the opening chapters of Genesis.
We read therein, amongst other amazing assertions,
that God rested on the seventh day, and we, or those to
whom these writings are assumed to have been addressed,
are commanded to keep the seventh day holy on that
account, and there can be no doubt of belief in these
narrative and injunction being considered as an essen
tial part of religious faith. Indeed the wearying gloom
and austerity in which the religious world still struggle
to retain our Sunday are strictly traceable to credulity
in the superstition in question.
Now, the science of Geology, which, as most of you
know, consists primarily of an actual examination of the
Earth’s crust or surface and strata beneath for the pur
pose of ascertaining what they may teach concerning the
Earth’s age and history, establishes the existence of a
multiplicity of facts which are utterly contradictory to
�Warfare with Superstition.
19
and subversive of^-first, the alleged creation of the Earth
only some 6,000 years ago, and secondly, of its present
order of inhabitants, vegetable, animal, and human,
having then been brought into existence in the course
of the six days mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and
in the order of succession therein particularised. How
thoroughly irreconcileable with the Biblical account of
the Creation are the scientific conclusions of Geology
will sufficiently appear from the consideration of, amongst
others, the two following well-established geological con
clusions :—Evidence has been obtained in Egypt of the
existence of inhabitants to some extent civilized in that
country 13,000 years ago, and geologists of eminence,
however differing on the details of their science are
agreed that the present condition of the rocks over and
near to which flow the Falls of Niagara evidencing the
recession of the falls from Queenstown to their present
site, has been occasioned by the continuous action of
water throughout a period of 30,000 years—and the
most trustworthy and recent geological authorities, such as
Lyell, Croll, Darwin, Haeckel, Boyd-Dawkins, and Geikie
concur in considering that the antiquity of man is to be
reckoned not by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of
thousands of years !
But I need not occupy your time by considerations
showing how utterly fallacious were the religious notions
on the subject derived simply from the study of the
Scriptures—their fallacy is now on all hands conceded.
I may quote as recent theological authority for our
present scientific views the statement of the Bev. Bobert
Main, Badcliffe observer in the University of Oxford:—
“ Some school books,” he remarks, “ still teach to the
ignorant that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and that
all things were created in six days—No well educated
person of the present day shares in the delusion. What-
�20
The Victories of Science in its
ever the meaning of the six days, ending with the seventh
day’s mystical and symbolical rest, indisputably we
cannot accept them in their literal meaning, they as
plainly do not denote the order of succession of all the
individual creations.” And Dr. James Martineau has
declared emphatically “ that the whole history of the'
genesis of things Religion must now unconditionally
surrender to Science.”
Well, but there is hardly any class of scientific men
who have been more vehemently denounced for attacking
religion than the geologists. The great argument used
to discredit their researches was the old cry that their
conclusions contradicted Scripture, and accordingly
volumes upon volumes have been published all composed
on the same argumentative basis, viz., That what contra
dicts Scripture cannot be true—an argument as some
of you may have heard, as old at least as the time of
Galileo. “If nature contradicts Scripture” (said the
schoolmen to Galileo), “ Nature must be mistaken, for
we know that the Scriptures are true! ”
And now how does the case stand as regards our
illustration. Geological science being true could not
have been attacking religion, but only those parts of the
theological system which had been constructed from the
superstitions of the day, and thus it has come to pass
that, through the discoveries of the geologists, a second
great victory has been achieved by Science in its warfare
with Superstition.
A third illustration I will refer to relates to the super
stition which I have mentioned in the syllabus of the
Lecture as belief in the government of human life by
special Providence;—the question being whether the
affairs of life are carried on subject to incessant super
natural intervention, or Whether they take place through
the operation of constant invariable natural law.
�Warfare with Superstition.
21
Previously to the rise of the physical Sciences, especially
Astronomy and Geology, the almost universal belief of
Christian Europe was that every significant act #nd
occurrence of life was the direct result of the exercise of
the providence of God, or the power of the Devil. Not
only was this conclusion directly deducible from the
literal interpretation of the language of the Bible, but,
it being the manifest interest of a priesthood, (whose
aim is ever to stand between the prayer of the Votary
and the providential act,) to encourage this belief, books
of devotion are composed by them based upon this idea,
in which instructions are given to enable the worshipper
to beseech the Almighty in a becoming manner for
almost every conceivable thing the circumstances of his
life may for the time being seem to require.
The church of England book of Common Prayer com
piled more than three centuries ago, that is long before
the Physical Sciences had been popularly heard of in this
Country, need only to be opened at random to confirm
what I am now submitting to you. But the progress
of Science has proved beyond rational doubt, that those
circumstances of our lives which were theologically re
ferred to as direct Providential or Satanic interventions,
the inflictions, chastisement, temptations, judgments, or
whatever other sacerdotal phrases are employed to define
supposed manifestations of supernatural Will, are the
result of the operation of natural Law, that is, they are
the direct consequences of the disregard of SQme natural
law which might have been observed and obeyed by the
sagacious use of man’s natural and moral intelligence.
So now, in reference, for example, to the cause and cure
of sickness, our attention is being most usefully drawn
away by Science from miserably moping over manuals
of devotion to the exhilirating study of handy books on
the laws of health—and thus it is, in the words of
�22
The Victories of Science in its
Professor Huxley, that “ Science is teaching the World
that the ultimate Court of Appeal is observation and
experiment, and not theological authority, she is teaching
us to estimate the value of evidence, she is creating a
firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral
and physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the
highest possible aim of an intelligent being.”
No one then who has impartially watched the course
and improvement of human life, since we have come
to study and to treat its healthy physical and moral exis
tence as immediately dependent upon the observance
of natural law, can doubt that the illustration we are
considering constitutes another most important triumph
of Science over Superstition.
Connected with the last illustration, or rather a con
tinuation of it, is what we may not inaptly term the
theological theory of disease—viz. the notion that diseases,
and epidemics especially, were punishments or judgments
inflicted by the hand of the Almighty for some individual
or national sins, and that they are to be cured sometimes
by a miracle, sometimes by devotion to the shrine or relics
of a Saint, and sometimes by simple prayer addressed to
the Supreme. All these various ways and practices of
appealing for relief to supernatural power were until
quite recent times devoutly believed in throughout almost
the whole of Europe, and were supposed to form essential
parts of religious faith.
Even now in visiting Boman Catholic Churches, espe
cially on the Continent, you cannot fail to observe the
number of Votive offerings that are fixed or suspended
round the shrine and image of a favorite Saint by those
who believe that they have recovered from diseases or
misfortunes through the intervention of the Saint in
answer to the invocations of the patient. This practice,
(like the Ritualistic lighting of candles on the Altars of
�Warfare with Superstition,
23
Churches in the day time,) has been copied from the ser
vice of the Temples of the Pagan religions which prevailed
in Ancient Rome at the time of the establishment of
Christianity in the reign of the Emperor Constantine.
Well therefore asks the astute Middleton, in his instruc
tive “Letter from Rome,”—“ what is all this but a revival
of the old impostures, with no other difference, than what
the Pagan priests ascribed to the imaginary help of their
Deities, the Romish priests as foolishly impute to the
favor of their Saints.” Of course it has been the policy
of the Church to discourage the physician and his science.
He interfered too much with the gifts to and profits of
the shrines.
At one time it was a constant practice on the breaking
out of an epidemic to carry the relics of the Patron Saint
of the locality round the infected districts to drive the
disease away. The superstitious belief we are considering
had become so extravagant, and the practice in connection
with it had obtained a height so ludicrous, that no longer
ago than the end of the last century, the clergy in Spain
induced the people to believe that a pestilence then raging
was caused by their allowing the performance of so un
godly an entertainment as the opera, and it is a fact
that the opera had actually on that account to be put a
stop to 1
Although sanitary science has now in this country com
pletely triumphed over the Superstition in question, yet
owing to our still continued narrow theological teaching
very lamentable occurrences are occasionally seen to
happen. For instance, it is still taught at those strong
holds of sacredotalism, our two great Universities, that
the Bible is in every part of it supernaturally inspired
truth. Mr. Burgon, recently one of the select preachers
at Oxford, in a work addressed to the junior members of
the University, thus expressed himself:—“ The Bible is
�24
The Victories of Science in its
none other than the Voice of Him that sitteth upon the
Throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every
verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, every
letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High.
The Bible is none other than the Word of God—not
some part of it more some part of it less, but all alike the
utterance of Him who sitteth upon the Throne—absolute,
faultlegs, unerring, supreme ! ” We cannot wonder then
that there should be persons who repose faith in its verbal
teaching as applicable at the present time, and who seek
to derive benefit from strictly and literally following its
plainly expressed precepts. One of the apparently plainest
of its injunctions is contained in the general Epistle of
St. James the 5th chap, and the 14th and 15th verses.
“ Is any sick among you ?, Let him call for the elders of
the Church, and let them pray over him anointing him
with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith
shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.”
A religious sect known as the Peculiar People rigidly
follow this injunction in cases of sickness, and it is not so
long since we were scandalized by the spectacle of a cri
minal prosecution, on account of the death of a child
whose parents had treated it biblically and not medically,
and the Magistrate, (Bible and University theological
teaching non obstante,) found the Parents to have been
guilty of culpable neglect for relying on the Bible, with
out calling in medical assistance, and punished them
accordingly.
This case strikingly illustrates the spirit of our age,
showing as it does that secular teaching is in point of
intelligence very far in advance of theological teaching ;
yet it is impossible not to feel commiseration for the
unfortunate people who are so drugged with dognfa that
their religious beliefs actually become conducive to the
deaths of their own offspring, and who are only roused
�Warfare with Superstition.
25
out of their superstitions by finding them thus rudely
shocked by the judgment and penal sentence of the law.
With this exception we in England may be said to
have entirely freed ourselves from the folly of this
branch of superstition, unless it may be thought still to
linger at Guy’s Hospital, where, as we have lately seen,
praying nurses are placed in authority over scientific
physicians !
The only further illustration I will now give you has
reference to those anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity
which have more or less disfigured all the theological
systems of the world,.and until recently characterised
our own conception of the God of Christianity, who is
of course the historical continuation of the Jehovah of
the Hebrew Scriptures ; for, though the Deity of the
New Testament has attributes somewhat different from
those of Jehovah (to which I shall presently refer), He is
evidently the same God throughout.
It might not be easy, it would indeed be impracticable
within the time now at our disposal, to exhibit the
successive steps which have resulted in generally endow
ing the foremost minds of our generation with that
correct and exalted standard of morality or moral sense
by which our social actions, opinions, and beliefs are
righteously judged in the last resort, and whereby the
practice of life has become so mild and humane and
unselfish compared with that of our ancestors, or other
semi-barbarous peoples.
One great effort to improve the morality of Princes
and Rulers stands out conspicuous—I mean the great
work of Hugo Grotius published at Paris in the year
1625 and entitled, “ Three books concerning the Rights
of War and Peacea work whose main objects were,
First—To induce nations to abstain as far as possible
from resorting to the dreadful ordeal of war. and to
�26
The Victories of Science in its
cultivate that noble ideal of the lovers of mankind—a
perpetual peace. To recognise the sovereignty of the
moral or social law, and to submit their quarrels and
conflicting claims to be judged at the bar of conscience.
To this end to establish Courts of Conciliation, and
agree to settle international disputes by arbitration.
Secondly—when that could not be done, or war avoided,
to conduct their warfare with as generous a humanity as
possible. And thirdly—To treat prisoners of war with the
clemency due to them as human beings and brothers, and
not with the relentless cruelties that were then habitu
ally practised towards those unfortunate persons.
The chief contents of Grotius’ grand work consist of
discussions historical and moral enlivened and embel
lished with abundant and interesting citations from the
most celebrated authors of classical and sacred antiquity
—poets, orators, historians, philosophers, and sages of
all times and nations are, with the very splendour of
learning, laid under contributions for the purpose of
supporting, by their conspiring sentiments and reason
ings, the benevolent objects of the good and great
Grotius ; showing in short the unanimity of the higher
order of minds of the whole human race on the great
rules of duty, and the fundamental principles of morals.
If we, studying the lofty argument of Grotius at the
present day,’ can hardly fail to find our views of virtue
and humanity expanded and inspired by so impressive a
display of the principles it expounds, we can easily be
lieve what is related of it when first published—viz. that
it at once fascinated all the sovereigns and ministers and
great men of the time ; that the king of Sweden,
Gustavus Adolphus carried it about with him and kept
it under his pillow ; that a professorship was founded to
teach and diffuse its doctrines ; and that it was translated
(from its original latin) into most modern languages.
�Warfare with Superstition.
27
There has been of course, since the time of the illustri
ous Grrotius, a succession of similar though lesser lights,
whom I will not now stop to name, all exhibiting and
enforcing his humane and philanthropic views.
Another cause operating in the same direction has
been the gradual improvement in the nature and number
of criminal punishments. The penal codes of all Euro
pean nations during the times of theological ascendency
were painfully disfigured by the practice of judicial torture
and arbitrary imprisonments, and the cruel and vindictive
punishments inflicted upon criminals. Bearing in mind
too how large an extent the moral sense or conscience of
a community is a reflection of its legal system, the pre
sent mitigated severity and graduated scale of punish
ments, more or less proportioned to the nature and
gravity of the offence, and to the frailty of and tempta
tion besetting the offender, must have materially assisted
in maturing and refining the public moral sentiment.
A similar effect is also observable as proceeding from
the more civilized character of our popular amusements
—bear baiting, bull baiting, badger baiting, dog fighting,
cock fighting and shying, and other cruel and depraving
sports have now almost ceased amongst us, and if we
desire an example to show the connection between such
barbarous cruelties and the influence of Superstition, we
need only turn our gaze towards Spain, where we see the
most brutalizing of sports—bull-fighting—is still the
principle pastime of the most superstitious people on the
face of Europe.
Now that the cause of our advance in intelligence and
morality, and of our more earnest love of toleration and
truth, has' been scientific or secular, and not theological,
seems plain from the fact that it has resulted in causing
us to view with a sentiment akin to horror, some of the
anthropomorphic attributes and commands of Deity that
�28
The Victories of Science in its
we find recorded in the books of the Bible, and which
previously to the scientific culture and elevation of our
moral sense were generally acquiesced in quite as a matter
of course; were to be believed (suggested an eminent
theologian, the late Dean Mansel,) as God’s temporary
suspensions of the laws of moral obligation, or moral
miracles ! Thus, in the old Testament the Almighty is
represented as walking on the Earth, eating with Abra
ham, wrestling with Jacob, appearing in a visible form to
Moses, .tempting men, and speaking with human speech.
Then the shocking stories related, such as the Divine
sanction of the frightful massacres of the Canaanites and
Levites, with the ruthless slaughter of women and childred, the divine patronage of the odious Jacob—and
numerous instances of extraordinary cruelties ascribed
to Jehovah in the books of the Pentateuch, making him
out to be a man of war, cruel, capricious, revengeful,
and not to be trusted.
In the New Testament indeed we find an improved
character of the Deity, and one in many important aspects
widely different. There is however attributed to the God
of the New Testament what, if rigorously balanced against
the failings ascribed to Jehovah, must be considered to
outweigh them all; viz., the eternity of punishment which
he will inflict in a future life. No efforts of the disci
plined human reason, which is guided by the conscious
ness of right, can discover any justification for the creation
of beings whose lives are to terminate in endless torment.
The enlightened intellectual and moral capacity of civil
ized man rejects the idea of eternal punishment as utterly
revolting to its sense of justice, mercy, and charity,, and
any attempt to realise ‘ in the unpolluted temple of the
mind ’ an enormity so awful causes it to recoil from its
imputed author, who (as is alleged) could create the human
race with the infallible foreknowledge, and therefore
�Warfare with Superstition.
29
with the intention, that the majority, or even some were
eventually to be consigned to the horrible and everlasting
torture of Hell-fire I
From the slight review we have now taken of the influ
ence of Science upon Superstition, and the modifications
that religious creeds have thereby undergone, we may feel
assured that the process is not yet ended, and that popu
lar theologies are still disfigured by superstitions which
expanding science will explode. Such for instance prob
ably, as belief in the objective efficacy of the supplications,
humiliations, fastings, and other asceticisms prescribed by
preistcraft, and not improbably, I venture to think, our
beliefs in supernatural revelations and exclusive salva
tions.
We now know through the Science of Geology, whose
connected sequence of events was so admirably summar
ised by Professor Ramsay, in his Presidential address last
year to the British Association for the advancement of
Science, that in the physical government of the world,
throughout the long ages whose history is embraced by
this marvellous science, all progress has been continuous
and orderly, not varying in kind and intensity from that
of which we now have experience, is indeed the effect of
causes still in full operation, that is, without cataclysms
or catastrophes of any kind. Reasoning by analogy we
should say that if such has been the course of the mate
rial world the course of the spiritual world (the sphere
of religious development) has most probably been similar,
and that if there has been no physical cataclysm in the
one world, neither has there been a spiritual cataclysm
in the other, such as a sudden supernatural revelation
accompanied by miracles would undoubtedly be, but that
throughout the ages all spiritual enlightenment has pro
gressed by the same means and in the same manner as at
the present moment.
�30
The Victories of Science in its
Probably therefore it may come to be generally believed
that the only real revelation is in Science, which, as Herbert
Spencer observes, is a continuous disclosure, through the
intelligence with which we are endowed, of the established
order of the Universe.
If time permitted me now to enter upon a catalogue
of the evil effects wrought by Superstition, that is false
demoralising beliefs relating to the supernatural, we
should find that there is scarcely a single one of the great
miseries of life that is not distinctly traceable to this,
cause. I will only now recall to your mind the horrors
of the Crusades, the numerous religious wars, the Spanish
Inquisition, the persecutions, burnings, martyrdoms,
massacres, and other hideous atrocities that for ages
formed part of the very staple of European history, and
which directly arose out of the superstitious beliefs en
gendered by their dogmatic Theology, which, in its merci
less endeavours to crush freedom of thought and speech,
has impelled man to inflict upon his fellow-man every
species of cruelty and calamity that bigotted and intoler
ant fanaticism could devise.
Now one of the habits engendered by superstitious
belief is of course a tendency to assume that everything
happens through the interposition of providence, and.
must accordingly be right however unscrutable; and,,
however disastrous, yet sent for some good purpose and
to chasten or to benefit us somehow and eventually.
Of course such a tendency operates mischievously by its
withdrawing our minds and energies and precious time
from the search in this world for those natural causes of
misery which when discovered show that it is remediable
by scientific effort, in other words, that it is to be alleviated
by the application of our natural intelligence, and not by
our taking refuge in that sanctuary of Superstition (pro
fanely called) the Will of God.
�Warfare with Superstition*
31
To enumerate the ameliorations of human well-being
that have been achieved through the exercise of man’s
natural intelligence would be a theme almost exhaustless.
In reference to these I will now confine myself to
merely quoting to you the striking summing-up by
Macaulay in his brilliant Essay on Lord Bacon, of the
utilitarian result of the development of scientific method,
so luminously expounded to his contemporaries, and
impressed upon his posterity by the genius of the great
English Philosopher, who enunciated the fruitful axiom
that true philosophy, whatever its theory, is practically
the application of the discoveries and methods of the
sciences to the regulation of the affairs and conduct of
our lives
“ Ask a follower of Bacon what Science has effected for man->
kind and his answer is ready. It has lengthened life; it has
mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased
the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the
mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has
spanned great rivers with bridges of form unknown to our
fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven
•to earth ; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the
day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has
multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated
motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated inter
course, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of
business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the
sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious
recesses of the earth; to traverse the land in carriages which
whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which run
ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its
fruits, and of its first fruits—for Science never rests, its law is
progress.”
But in truth every page of the history of civilization
shows us that improvement in the health, the happiness,
and the virtue of mankind has taken place entirely
through the intellectual and moral progress resulting
from the teaching of Science. You will find the un
answerable details of this history very clearly exhibited
in Dr. Draper’s remarkable work on “ The intellectual
development of Europe,” and also in its condensed and
�32 Victories of Science in its Warfare with Superstition.
lucid summary, published under the title of ‘ The Con
flict between Religion and Science.’ An unhappy
misnomer this title, however, if the argument of my
lecture be a sound one, viz., That it is not Religion that
Science has attacked or come into conflict with—but
only the superstitions of the hour, that were ignorantly
and erroneously supposed to form parts of Religion, and
that were 1 intent on offering to the Author of Truth
the unclean sacrifice of a lie.’ Now, in exposing and
stamping out Superstition and that old theological spirit
which has brought so much misery upon the world,
Science has actually rendered the most vital service to
Religion; for the true beliefs which Science has thus
compelled Theology to adopt are far more really reli
gious than the superstitious beliefs which Science has
from time to time forced Theology to surrender.
Let us rejoice, in the cause of Humanity, that such
has been the case, and moreover that this purifying
process is yet proceeding, and that Science, whose coura
geous career has hitherto been unstained by cruelty,
oppression, or crime, will, in her warfare with Supersti
tion, still continue marching on to Victories alike
beneficent and bloodless; for
Science is a child as yet,
And her power and scope shall grow,
And her triumphs in the future
Shall diminish toil and woe.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, N.W.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The victories of science in its warfare with superstitions: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 20th February 1881
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Finch, A. Elley
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5. The Society's lectures by the same author on p. [3].
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1881
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G3428
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Science
Superstition
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (The victories of science in its warfare with superstitions: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 20th February 1881), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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English
Morris Tracts
Science and Religion
Superstition
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nationalsecularsociety
,
J i
THE LESSONS OF A LIFE;
HARRIET
MARTINEAU.
51 tnta
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST, GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM ELACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON,
lltft
MARCH, 1877.
FLORENCE FENWICK MILLER.
■
------------------ - ------ _ \
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET
HAYMARKET, W,
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
—physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May). '
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending April, 1877,
will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2sej being at the rate of Threepence:
each lecture.
For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter, enclos
ing postage-stamps, order, or cheque), to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm.
Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
�tYTef
H 3<UT9M YA<1W3
SYLLAB US.
The lessons to be drawn from this Life are partly direct
partly indirect.
A lesson for the Lecturer.
Indirect lessons from the moulding influences of Harriet
Martineau’s career:
a. Her relationships—of birth and affection.
Z>. Her religious growth.
c. Her work, and the criticism it received.
Some of the direct lessons taught by her writings.
political work, and its lesson for men.
and its lesson for women.
Posthumous fame and influence.
Her
Her work for her sex,
�THE LESSONS OF A LIFE:
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
N a summery evening in the month of June, in last year,
there was quenched one of the shining lights of our
time. After such a lifetime as falls to the lot of but few
human beings—still more of but few women ; after a long life
of physical suffering, and of such torture as could be inflicted
on such a mind by misrepresentation, slander, and abuse of
her convictions ; but withal a life full of work, full of thought,
full of purpose, and crowned with result—on that day Harriet
Martineau ended her labours, and entered into eternal rest.
All England felt that one of the most remarkable women
that ever lived had departed from amidst us. Perhaps she
has had really no predecessor in history, if we except Deborah,
who dispensed judgment from her seat under the palm-tree to
all Israel. Other women have had an equal and a greater
influence upon the course of events in their own time, but not
under anything like analogous circumstances. Aspasia ruled
by the impress of her great mind upon the great men who
sat at her feet, and Madame de Pompadour and not a few others
have ruled by the power which passion lent them over men who
swayed the destinies of states; while Elizabeth of England and
Catherine of Russia were placed by birth in a position which
gave scope for the exercise of their natural powers of govern
ment. But Harriet Martineau was born to no high station;
her influence was not the backstairs influence of the beautiful
and intriguing favourite ; she was not even hidden from view,
while the credit of her thoughts and deeds was usurped, by
any man whatever. She was a political power in our land;
our highest statesmen asked and followed her wise counsel;
O
�6
The Lessons of a Life :
thinking for herself, and uttering her thoughts fearlessly, she
gained respect for her opinions when she gave them her name,
and wrote words winged with power to find their way straight
to men’s hearts even when they were not known as her utter
ances. Taking into account the effect of her acknowledged
writings (such as her 1 Tales in Political Economy/ and her
‘ Illustrations of Taxation’), the direct influence which she
had with various leaders of politics, and the unknown extent
to which she educated men as a leader-writer and reviewer, it
will be seen how much she has impressed herself upon her
time, and what political power she has exercised.
The story of such a life cannot fail to be fraught with both
the keenest interest and the highest and most important
lessons, over and above those which may be gained from every
good biography. Probably no life, even the most insignificant,
could be truthfully delineated without conveying some new
thought, some fresh lesson, to the wise and careful student
of human nature. But if this is so with even the careers which
are as commonplace as the story of any one blade of grass,
or any one grain of sand upon the sea-shore, how much more
must it not be so when the subject of study is a life
so full of variety and of individuality as that of Harriet
Martineau ?
The lessons which we may learn here, and carry away with
us to our daily task, are of a twofold character. First, there
are the lessons which are given indirectly by the moulding
influences of her life. There is a keen interest in watching
the growth of a flower, of a fish, or any other mere physical
development; but there is far more in tracing the processes
by which a mind has increased to its full strength and beauty.
We cannot but eagerly strive to see how this one particular
mind became greater than its fellows ; what are the conditions
which seem to have aided and what those which have trammelled
its progress ? Secondly, there are the direct lessons which
this teacher of men spent her life in enforcing; the lessons
taught in her written words, and living in the printed page
upon which the eyes of so many have rested, and have yet to
rest.
And foremost among these lessons is one for me in my
present position—one which Harriet Martineau taught both
by precept and example—that of complete candour in speaking
�Harriet Martineau.
7
■of the impressions produced upon me by her works and the
record of her life. In the preface to her ‘Biographical
Sketches/ reprinted from the Daily News, she says:
“ The true principle of biographical delineation . . . is to tell, in
the spirit of justice, the whole truth about the characters of persons im
portant enough to have their lives publicly treated at all. . . In old
age, and on the borders of the grave, what do distinguished persons
desire for themselves ? How do they like the prospect of sickly praise,
of the magnifying of the trifles of their days, of any playing fast and
loose with right and wrong for the sake of their repute, of any cheating
of society of its rights in their experience of mistake and failure, as well
as of gain and achievement ? Do they not claim to be measured with
the same measure with which they mete their fellows,—to leave the world,
not under any sort of disguise, but delivering over their lives, if at all,
in their genuine aspect and condition,—to be known hereafter, if at all,
for what they are ? ”
After these words of precept for those who, in any way,
shall speak of her life after she has ceased to be, there comes
the example of her own biographical sketches. These short
essays, which treat of a large proportion of the eminent
statesmen, philosophers, and scientific and literary men and
women who have died within the last fifteen years, are truly
noteworthy for their candour, and a lesson in that respect to
all future memoir writers. They are candid not only in
blaming—candour which is all verjuice is only spite called by
another name; but praise and appreciation are given to the
worthy works and the noble qualities of even those who had
proved incapable of reaching a high standard of moral and
mental excellence in every respect. Two of these short
memoirs are those of Lockhart and John Wilson Croker. A
reference to the autobiography will show how bitterly Harriet
Martineau felt the treatment which she received at the hands
of these men (of which I must speak again farther on). But
no reader of the notices of their lives would guess that the
writer who gives them all the credit which was their due for
wit and ability was a woman whom they had joined them
selves together to pursue for years with insult, slander, and
misrepresentation. On the other hand, her dearest friends,
as Lord Durham, are treated with a calm, dispassionate con
sideration, answering that requirement of honesty laid down
in the words which I have quoted.
The first lesson, therefore, which meets me is one for
�8
The Lessons of a Life :
myself—one given by my illustrious subject both in words
and in deeds; to say honestly the truth which I see, not to
yield to the natural inclination to speak only of that which
we must all reverence—her greatness of mind and. life, but if
there be spots upon the sun which has lightened so much
darkness, to recognise their presence, though it be half
concealed by the glory, and account for them as best we
may.
First, then, let me say that I am somewhat disappointed in
the autobiography. In parts, it wins the reader completely;
one rejoices with her in her successes, and sympathises in her
disappointments and annoyances. Then there will come some
arrogant expression about the people around her, some glori
fying of others simply because they were her friends, some
scorn, or some other unpleasant egotistical feature, which
breaks the spell for pages.
The pleasantest parts of the book are those in which she
treats of hei’ own inner experiences—where the interest is so
strong that she forgets that she is revealing herself, and talks
naturally, openly, boldly, without self-consciousness. The
least pleasant parts are those in which she speaks of the inci
dents of her life, and the people who were connected, with her
in them.
It must not be imagined that there is in the book any undue
laudation of her own works—any of what would be commonly
called “ conceit.” The reverse is even unpleasantly the case.
It is not agreeable to hear that Miss Martineau thought
Margaret Fuller a “ gorgeous pedant,” that she never had any
respect for Lord Brougham, and that she believed Macaulay
to have “ no heart,” “ honesty,” or “ capacity for philosophy;”
it is not agreeable to contrast with this and very much more
of the same kind, her opinion of Mr. Atkinson, and of some of
her servants; it is even less pleasant to read of the petty per
sonal insults offered her by Mrs. A. and Lady Dash, which she
might well have ignored, or at all events forgotten; but least
pleasant of all is it to read her depreciation of her own works,
her declaration about first one and then another, that she
“dares not read it over now”—she “knows she should des
pise it now,” and so on.
All these drawbacks to the reader’s satisfaction seem to me
to arise from (certainly not “ conceit,” but) the self-conscious-
�Harriet Martineau.
9
ness which is almost inevitable during the writing of a memoir
of one’s self. Could any one of you, my hearers, write out your
whole heart and life unmoved by the knowledge that thousands
of ears are open to receive the story, and that friends and
enemies will sit in judgment upon it, coldly canvassing your
tenderest emotions ? It is impossible; and the very effort
which has to be made to be candid under such circumstances
is in itself the destruction of naturalness and subjective
individuality.
For this reason it is that I never read the autobiography of
any person of whom I had already formed an opinion, from
published writings or public works, without some feeling of
disappointment, except in the single case of Leigh Hunt. This
exception I imagine to arise from the fact that Leigh Hunt
wrote always—poems and essays alike—with his individuality
in his own mind, and brought before the mind of his reader.
Probably Thomas Carlyle would write an autobiography
equally true to the idea of him gained from a perusal of his
Writings, and for the same reason—that all his works are
written with the desire that his readers shall think about the
writer as they read.
In almost every other case, however, the aim of the author
is to keep his personality out of sight, and remembrance of
himself merges in his subject. The result is that he writes
with a freedom and unconsciousness of self which make him
reveal the true inner man far more honestly and unaffectedly
than he can possibly do when he sits down for the express
purpose of telling the world all about his own life.
For this reason, I shall consider Harriet Martineau’s works
as throwing light upon her life to as full an extent as the
autobiography itself, and even more satisfactorily.
Passing on to consider the indirect lessons which may be
gathered from the moulding influences of her career, I come
first to those which acted upon her through the affections—her
relationships of birth or of emotion. Let us see the con
ditions which surrounded this great mind in its early years.
Harriet Martineau might almost be considered as a proof of
the correctness of the doctrine that suffering is necessary to
mental excellence. Born in 1802, the sixth child of a wellto-do Norwich manufacturer, she passed a childhood and youth
of wretchedness both of body and mind; and her misfortunes, to
B
�io
The Lessons of a Life:
all appearance, culminated in early womanhood in the total
loss of fortune. Her deafness was known before her death by
almost every one acquainted with her name, as adding to the
marvel of her accomplishments; but she was not deprived of
this sense during her earliest years. She did not begin to
become deaf until she was twelve years old. She now records,
however, that she never had the sense of smell ; and as this
and taste are most intimately joined together, neither could
she taste. The senses are our only methods of communication
with the outer world; they are the gates by which pleasure as
well as pain enter into the citadel where consciousness resides.
Of all the senses, those which most frequently give entrance
to pleasure and seldomest to pain, were those which she had
lost. Here, then, were two, and soon three, of the avenues of
enjoyment shut. To this physical deprivation was .added the
misery of want of tenderness in family life. Her mother was
a woman of, apparently, much intellect, but deficient in the
gentler qualities, and wanting in the wisdom of the heart.
Miss Martineau speaks of this parent always with the utmost
respect, and indeed affection ; but she does not attempt to dis
guise the melancholy truth that, throughout her childhood, she
was as desolate a little soul as ever felt the burden of life with
out love in workhouse or orphan asylum. She had but small
natural talent for housewifely work, and what she had was
turned into awkwardness by her fear of displeasing her mother.
She remembers once upsetting a basin of sugar into a gibletpie from sheer nervousness ; and she was always so anxious
when sent to look for anything that she never could find it, and
“ her heart sank” when she received an order to fetch a thing.
“ I had,” she says, “ a devouring passion for justice,—justice
first to my own precious self, and then to other oppressed
people. Justice was precisely what was least understood in
our house in regard to servants and children. . . . Toward
one person I was habitually untruthful, from fear. To my
mother I would in childhood assert or deny anything that
would bring me through most easily. I remember denying
various harmless things, and often without any apparent
reason : and this was so exclusively to one person that, though
there was remonstrance and punishment, I was never regarded
as a liar in the family. When I left home all temptation to
untruth ceased.”
�Harriet Martineau.
ii
And this was the “mothering ” of a singularly affectionate
xjhild—‘of one who treasured up in her memory every kind word,
and was so grateful for a little loving gentleness as to prove
how cruel was the deprivation of it! “The least word of
tenderness,” she says, melted me instantly, in spite of the
strongest predeterminations to be hard and offensive. I really
think if I had once conceived that anybody cared for me,
nearly all the sins and sorrows of my anxious childhood
would have been spared me.” She was devotedly attached
to the children who were younger than herself—a sister, and
the brother who has grown up to be known to so wide a public
as Dr. James Martineau. When, at the age of fifteen, she was
sent away to stay with an aunt at Bristol—the first person of
whom she was never afraid—she says, “ My home affections
seem to have been all the stronger for having been repressed
and baulked. Certainly, I passionately loved my family, each
and all, from the very hour that parted us ; and I was physic
ally ill with expectation when their letters were due,—letters
which I could hardly read when they came, between my dread
•of something wrong and the beating heart and swimming eyes
with which I received letters in those days.”
Can one hope that the lesson for parents taught in this por
tion of the story will have effect upon those who are erring
in their treatment of their children in the same way; who are
feeding and caring for the body while neglecting the affections,
and leaving them to pine and grow savage under starvation ;
who are ignoring and neglecting one child of their family,
and filling it with a bitter sense of injustice and desolation ?
Ah, the lesSon has been preached many a time—never more
impressively than in Hans Andersen’s fable of the ugly duck
ling—and with yet little effect. Would that parents would
remember that “ Parents, provoke not your children to wrath,”
■is as urgent a moral command as “ Children, obey your
parents.”
One good, however, this hard discipline doubtless worked in
Harriet Martineau’s character. It gave her endurance under
coldness from those whom she loved. Out of the fear of her
mother’s wrath she grew to that fearlessness which distin
guished her whole after life—she learnt how to suffer and be
still when the cause of right demanded her sacrifice.
I have dwelt thus upon her passionately emotional childhood,
�12
The Lessons of a Life:
however, as being necessary for the due appreciation of the
fact that she lived solitary, and died unfettered and unhelped
by marriage. The suffering which want of love caused her in
her childhood is a token of how capable she was of affection.
The commonplace supposition that the emotions are crowded
out of a mind by the development of the intellect is an utterly
false one, founded upon ignorance of both physiology and
facts.
Before there came the great awakening of the heart in
Harriet Martineau, came her first appearance in print. In
1821, when she was 19 years of age, she wrote a paper upon
“Female Writers of Divinity,” which appeared in a Unitarian
paper conducted by Mr. Moncure Conway’s predecessor at
South-place. She wrote this essay at her brother James’s
suggestion, to console herself upon his departure for
College.
*
When she was two years older than this, she saw for the
first time the man who drew forth her love. Their union was
prevented at the time “ by one who had much to answer for
in what he did.” Then came a failure in her father’s busi
ness, and his heart-broken sinking into the grave ; and when
she was in trouble and difficulties, her lover returned to her.
The cloud which had kept him away was dispelled by this
storm, and he went back and asked her to marry him. She
was in a state of great uncertainty of mind, between her fears
that she would not make him happy, and her love for him;
between her duty to others and to the one to whom her affec
tion was given. “ Many a time,” she says, “ did I wish, in
my fear that I should fail, that I had never seen him. But
just when I was growing happy, surmounting my fears and
doubts, and enjoying his attachment, the consequences of his
long struggle and suspense overtook him. He became sud
denly insane; and after months of illness of body and mind,
he died.”
If we had to rely upon the autobiography for information
as to how this affected Miss Martineau’s character, we should
learn but little about it. It is a proof of what I before said
about the almost impossibility of any person consciously baring
his inner self to the careless gaze of the whole world. One
or two essays published at the time tell us far more both what
love and its loss were to her than she has consented to deli-
�Harriet Martineau.
ij
berately inform the world. These essays bear the general
title of 1 Sabbath. Musings.’ In the preface to the volume in
which they were published, in 1836, she said that the majority
of the pieces therein contained were purely impersonal, de
scriptive of states of thought as she imagined them; but that
a few (which she would not be expected to indicate) were
truly drawn from her own experience. Read with her
autobiography, there is no difficulty in discovering these
latter.
As works of literary art alone, the quotations which I pur
pose giving would be worth listening to; for these are poems.
Her Daily News leaders long after had that term applied to
them ; but here it is more justly used. If, as Mr. Mill said,
“Whoeverwrites out truly any human feeling,writes poetry,”
then these are poems for that reason; but when added to this
there is a wealth of language and of imagery, no one will
venture to deny their right to the title.
But I quote them for a far more important reason than their
poetic beauty. I quote them to show that Harriet Martineau
had a heart—and that she knew she had a heart. I am not
sure but that the most fatal mistake made by the party who
would free mankind from superstition and priestcraft is not
the very fact that they neglect and skim over such subjects.
Priestcraft has its most unassailable stronghold in the inter
mixing of its rites and ceremonies with human interests. The
birth of the child, the union of the life, the burial of the dead,
are the events which appeal to every sympathy—which touch
the coldest hearts, and make them impressible for the moment.
All systems of religion, accordingly, and the Christian (espe
cially the Roman Catholic) religion before all others, have
bound up these moments with sacred observances, so that the
mind may be impressed as the priest desires at its most
ductile moments. Human nature remains and must remain
the same in all ages and climes. If there is any reason to
suppose that development of the intellect means crushing of
the affections; if there is an impression abroad that the Reli
gion of Humanity is the blasphemy of individual emotion; if
it is believed by the masses that only priestcraft recognises
and hallows the most solemn occasions of life ; then, indeed,
Will priestcraft flourish. For human affections will assert
their sway. Every man or woman who loves knows' that his
�14
The Lessons of a Life :
emotion makes him higher and better; every parent who leans1
over the couch of his first child feels that the existence of that
little creature is almost as a new birth to his own spirit; every
human being who lays in the grave the object of his dearest
love, gone for ever from his sight, knows that sorrow is not
to be reasoned away, and if lightened at all is to be lightened
only by the sympathy of the great heart of the race and the
universe with his bleeding soul.
Therefore, I feel that I am doing good service in showing:
that the development of reason means the simultaneous increase
of the power of loving; that to be possessed of mental power
and capacity for breaking away from early-implanted super
stitions does not mean to be incapable for affection and sharing
in the highest and deepest of human emotions. It was much
that John Stuart Mill showed for men the compatibility of
the highest order of intellect and the deepest and most pro
found studies, with a singularly devoted, earnest, and faithful
attachment. Now, let Harriet Martineau show the same for
women; let her show how a woman with an intellect of the
highest order, and occupying it upon the most abstruse sub
jects within the range of human comprehension, could appre
ciate love, and could suffer for the very strength of her
affections. The first passage which I quote seems to have
been written before her bereavement. The marriage to which
she refers is, doubtless, that of her elder sister. The .essay is
entitled^ “ In a Hermit’s Cave.”
“ . . . The altar of the human heart, on which alone a fire is
kindled from above to shine in the faces of all true worshippers for ever.
Where this flame, the glow of human love, is burning, there is the temple
of worship, be it only beside the humblest village hearth: where it has
not been kindled there is no sanctuary; and the loftiest amphitheatre of
mountains, lighted up by the ever-burning stars, is no more the dwelling
place of Jehovah than the Temple of Solomon before it was filled with,
the glory of the Presence.
“ Yes, Love is worship, authorised and approved........................... Many
are the gradations through which this service rises until it has reached
that on which God has bestowed His most manifest benediction, on
which Jesus smiled at Cana, but which the devotee presumed to
decline. Not more express were the ordinances of Sinai than the
Divine provisions for wedded love ; never was it more certain that
Jehovah benignantly regarded the festivals of His people than
it is daily that He appointed those mutual rejoicings of the affec
tions, which need but to be referred to Him to become a holy homage.
....................Would that all could know how from the first flow of
�Harriet Martineau^
T5
the affections, until they are shed abroad in their plenitude, the purposes
of creation become fulfilled. Would that all could know how, by
this mighty impulse, new strength is given to every power; how the
intellect is vivified and enlarged; how the spirit .becomes bold to explore
the path of life, and clear-sighted to discern its issues. .... For
that piety which has humanity for its object—must not that heart feel
most of which tenderness has become the element? must not the spirit
which is most exercised in hope and fear be most familiar with hope
and fear wherever found ?
“ How distinctly I saw all this in those who are .now sanctifying their
first, Sabbath of wedded love....................... To those who know them as
I know them, they appear already possessed of an experience in com
parison with which it would appear little fo have looked abroad from,
the Andes, or explored the treasure-caves of the deep, or to have con
versed with every nation under the sun. If they could see all that the
eyes of the firmament look upon, and hear all the whispered secrets that
the roving winds bear in their bosoms, they could learn but little new I
for the deepest mysteries are those of human love, and the vastest
knowledge is that of the human heart.”
The next quotation is a very small portion of an essay
entitled, “ A Death Chamber.” This was obviously written
immediately after the death of her lover. The piece is,
to a certain extent, spoiled by being mutilated; but I
have no option but to give only the following few lines
from it:—
“All is dull, cold, and dreary before me, until I also can escape to
the region where there is no bereavement, no blasting root and branch,
no rending of the heart-strings. What is aught to me, in the midst of this
all-pervading thrilling torture, when all I want is to be dead? The
future is loathsome, and I will not look upon it—the past, too, which it
breaks my heart to think about—what has it been? It might have been
happy, if there is such a thing as happiness ; but I myself embittered it
at the time, and for ever. What a folly has mine been! Multitudes
of sins now rise up in the shape of besetting griefs. Looks of rebuke
from those now in the grave: thoughts which they would have rebuked
if. they had known them: moments of anger, of coldness; sympathy
withheld when looked for; repression of its signs through selfish pride ;
and worse, far worse even than this .... all comes over me
now. O 1 if there be pity, if there be pardon, let it come in the form
of insensibility; for these long echoes of condemnation will make me
desperate.
“But was there ever human love unwithered by crime—by crime of
which no human law takes cognisance, but the unwritten, everlasting
laws of the affections? Many will call me thus innocent. The departed
breathed out thanks and blessing, and I felt them not then as reproaches.
If, indeed, I am only as others, shame, shame on the impurity of human
affections ; or rather, alas! for the infirmity of the human heart! Fori
know not that I could love more than I have loved.
�16
The Lessons of a Life :
“ Since the love itself is wrecked, let me gather up its relics, and
guard them more tenderly, more steadily, more gratefully. 0 grant me
power to retain them—the light and music of emotion, the flow of
domestic wisdom and chastened mirth, the life-long watchfulness of
benevolence, the thousand thoughts—are these gone in their reality ?
Must I forget them as others forget ?”
And for this Harriet Martineau lived her life alone—a happy
life, one full of all human interests; doing good to her ser
vants, her animals, and her poorer neighbours, for her domestic
pleasures, and for relief from cares of state and thoughts sub
lime. Thus she saved herself from that degenerating into
selfishness which is the special danger of an independent
single life for either men or women. Whether she might not
have been better and happier in marriage, had her lover been
spared to her, it is impossible to imagine. “ When I see,”
she writes, “what conjugal love is, in the extremely rare cases
in which it is seen in its perfection, I feel that there is a power
of attachment in me that has never been touched. When I
am among little children, it frightens me to think what my
idolatry of my own children would have been. But . . the
older I have grown, the more serious and irremediable have
seemed to me the evils and disadvantages of married life as it
exists among us at this time.” And here, no doubt, she is
right. The vicious state of the marriage laws and social
arrangements, the consequence of the imperfect system by
which regulations have been made for both sexes and their
mutual interests by the partial knowledge and wisdom of one
sex alone, does make marriage a terribly dangerous step for a
woman. And she was probably wise when she added, “ Thus,
I am not only entirely satisfied with my lot, but think it the
very best for me.”
As regards the cultivation which Harriet Martineau’s intel
lect received in her childhood, there is a very significant
fact to be noted: that she adds one more to the long list of
illustrious women who have, through some happy accident,
'1been educated “ like boys.” When one remembers that this
phrase means nothing more than that the education has been
thorough in its method, and has included careful mathematical
and classical teaching, no surprise can be felt at the frequency
with which eminent women are found to have shared in the
tutorial advantages of their brothers. The moral is obvious.
Now for her religious growth. Miss Martineau was born
�Harriet Martineau.
17
<of Unitarian parents, and educated theologically in the tenets
of that sect. When she was twenty-eight years old, she dis
tinguished herself among the members of the Unitarian body
fey gaining three prizes, which had been offered for public
competition, for essays designed to convert Jews, Mahommedans, and Roman Catholics respectively, to the more
advanced faith. Although she was still, at that period,
sufficiently an orthodox Unitarian to perform this argumenta
tive exploit to the satisfaction and admiration of the leaders of
the sect, yet she had long before emancipated her mind, to some
extent, from even the comparatively light chains of that faith.
So early as when she was but eleven years old, she remembers
asking her elder brother Thomas that question which has
been the first stumbling-block in the path of faith to so many.
She asked—If God foreknew from eternity all the evil deeds
that every one of us should do in our lives, how can He justly
punish us for those actions, when the time comes that we are
born, and in due course commit them ? And her brother replied
that she was not yet old enough to understand the point.
Whether she ever did become old enough to understand, the
course of her mental history will show.
By-and-by, under the guidance of Dr. Carpenter, of
Bristol, she became a student of the philosophy of Locke and
Hartley; and in time she raised herself to the reception of the
philosophical doctrine of Necessity. But she had a terrible
season of doubt and struggle with early-implanted impressions
to encounter, before she could permit herself to let go one
fraction of her theology. C’est le premier pas qui coute;
and she probably suffered more in this first step onward than
in all her future progress. Her description of her agonies of
doubt is most forcible; but it is only the experience which all
who have equally cut themselves loose from their early belief
have felt, and I quote it for the benefit of the persons who
are so constituted as to be incapable of ever knowing it
in their own lives, and who are apt to believe that the
rejection of belief is a pleasant process, wilfully entered on
by those who are guilty of it, and affording to them great
present delights.
“What can be the retribution of guilt if the horrors of doubt are
what I have felt them? What can be the penalties of vice if those of
mere ignorance are so agonising? While in my childhood I ignorantly
�I&
The Lessons of a Life :
believed what men had told me of God, much that was true, mixed with
much that I now see to be puerile, or absurd, or superstitious, or impious
I was at peace with men, and, as I then believed, with God. But when
an experience over which I had no control shook my confidence in that
which I held; when I had discovered and rejected some of the falsehoods,
of my creed, and when I was really wiser than before the torment
began which was destined to well nigh wrench life from my bosom
or reason from my brain ... I could not divest myself of the
conviction that my doubts were so many sins. Men told me, and I
could not but believe, that to want faith was a crime ; that misery like
mine was but a qualification for punishment, and that every evil of
which I now complained would be aggravated hereafter. Alas! what
was to become of me if I could find no rest even in my grave ?—if the
death I longed for was to be only apparent—if the brightness which I
found so oppressive here should prove only like the day-spring in com
parison with the glow of the eternal fires, amidst which my spirit must
stand hereafter ? In such moments, feeling that there was no return to
the ignorance of the child or the apathy of common men, I prayed, to
whom I know not, for madness!
“Yet I would not that the cup had passed from me. Far nobler is
the most humiliating depression of doubt than the false security of
acquiescence in human delusion. Far safer are the wanderings of a
mind which by original vigour has freed itself from the shackles of
human authority, than the apathy of weak minds which makes them
content to be led blindfold wheresoever their priestly guides shall choose.
The happiest lot of all is to be born into the way of truth . . . but
where, as in my case, it is not so ordained, the next best privilege is to
be roused to a conflict with human opinions (provided there is strength
to carry it through), though it be fought in darkness, in horror, in
despair.”
At length, as the final words of this passage convey, she made
her way to her first definite standpoint, and settled by her
reason the question which her faith had never been able to
solve satisfactorily. She fully accepted the Necessitarian doc
trine that we are what we are, we do what we do, because of
the impulses given by our previous training and circum
stances ; and that the way to improve any human beings or all
humanity is to improve their education, and to give them good
surroundings and influences, and mental associations: in
short, that . physical and psychological phenomena alike
depend upon antecedent phenomena, called causes. She
writes:—
“I fairly laid hold of the conception of general laws, while still far
from being. prepared to let go the notion of a special Providence.
Though at times almost overwhelmed by the vastness of the view opened
to me, and by the prodigious change requisite in my moral views and
self-management, the revolution was safely gone through. My labouring
�Harriet Martineau.
19
brain and beating heart grew quiet, and something more like peace than
I had ever yet known settled down upon my anxious mind. ....
I am bound to add that the moral effect of this process was most salu
tary and cheering. From the time when I became convinced of the
certainty of the action of laws, of the importance of good influences and
good habits—of the firmness, in short, of the ground I was treading, and.
of the security of the results which I should take the right means to
attain, a new vigour pervaded my whole life, a new light spread through
my mind, and I began to experience a steady growth in self-command,,
courage, and consequent integrity and disinterestedness. I was feeble
and selfish enough at best; but yet I was like a new creature in the
strength of a sound conviction. Life also was something fresh and won
derfully interesting now that I held in my hand this key whereby toi
interpret some of the most conspicuous of its mysteries.
“ . . . For above thirty years I have seen more and more clearly
how awful, and how irremediable except by the spread of a true philo
sophy, are the evils which arise from that monstrous remnant of old
superstition—the supposition of a self-determining power, independent
of laws, in the human will; and I can truly say that if I have had the
blessing of any available strength under sorrow, perplexity, sickness and
toil, during a life which has been anything but easy, it is owing to my.
repose upon eternal and irreversible laws, working in every department
of the universe, without any interference from any random will, humanor Divine.”
When her mind became fairly settled in the doctrine of
necessity, she could not but perceive the uselessness of prayer ;
since to petition the Supreme Power for any given thing is to
imply a belief that It can or will set aside the action of fixed
laws. First, therefore, she ceased supplicating for benefits;
and, in time, she came to feel that even the expression of
desires for spiritual goods was “ demoralising.” “ I found
myself,” she says, “ best, according to all trustworthy tests of
goodness, when I thought least about the matter.” As to
praise, she soon “ drew back in shame from offering to a
Divine Being a homage which would be offensive to an
earthly one.” And at last, when “prayer” in the ordinary
sense had become quite impossible to her—
“My devotions consisted of aspiration—very frequent and heartfelt—
under all circumstances and influences, and much as I meditate now,,
almost hourly, on the mysteries of life and the universe, and the great
science and art of human duty. In proportion as the taint of fear and
desire and self-regard fell off, and the meditation had fact instead of
passion for its subject, the aspiration became freer and sweeter, till at
length, when the selfish superstition had wholly gone out of it, it spread
its charm through every change of every waking hour—and does now,
when life itself is expiring.”
• ask 4-- -’
�20
The Lessons of a Life :
Gradation by gradation she went on : not willing altogether
to give up belief in Christianity, in the Divine authorisation
of the mission of Jesus, she “ lingered long in the regions of
speculation and taste.” At last came the illness to which I
have already referred; and in it, with leisure for contempla
tion, she rose by degrees to the highest religious state of all—
rejecting theological figments, refusing to believe in a God of
love and mercy who yet made a world with evil in it, and con
demned the creatures whom he exposed to its irresistible
temptations, to eternal torment—an infinite punishment for
finite sins. She saw that all conception of the mode of origin,
or the scheme or nature of the universe, is above and beyond
the comprehension of man ; she saw that our work here is to
*
‘do our best for the improvement of ourselves and those who
shall come after us; that all our “ looking before and after,”
all our attempts to pierce the veil which is around us, all our
foolish vain imaginings, based upon the ridiculous assumption
that this world is the centre of the universe, and man its
highest product—all are but vanity and vexation of spirit,
and must be discarded at the dictates of reason and scientific
fact.
This state of conviction was farther strengthened and con
firmed by a visit which she paid in 1846 to the East—the
birthplace of the Christian religion, and its progenitors, the
Hebrew and Egyptian. In connection with the book which
she wrote upon her return home, she seriously considered
whether she should avow her dissent, which by this time was
■complete, from all theologies. Finally, she decided that this
book was not the proper place for it.
In 1850 appeared ‘ Letters between H. Martineau and
H. G. Atkinson, on Man’s Nature and Development.’ I am
not criticising Mr. Henry G. Atkinson, or I should find it neces
* “ I began to see that we, with our mere human faculty, are nnt in
the least likely to understand it, anymore than the minnow in the creek,
as Carlyle has it, can comprehend the perturbations caused in his world
of existence by the tides. I saw that no revelation can by possibility
set men right on these matters, for want of faculty in man to understand
anything beyond human ken ; as all instruction whatever offered to the
minnow mnst fail to make it comprehend the actions of the moon on
the. oceans of the earth, or receive the barest conception of any such
action.”—‘ Autobiography,' vol. ii., p. 185.
�Harriet Martineau.
21
sary to say a great deal about this book. Fortunately, I am
not called upon to say anything about it more than this—that,
as both Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau avow several times
over, the book is really his work. She did the literary arrange
ment and supervision; and she wrote short letters to serve as
a groundwork for Mr. Atkinson’s disquisitions.
The only important connection which Miss Martineau
had with this book was giving it her name, and thus
announcing to the world her total disbelief in all theologies.
It is hardly necessary to say that she never stepped back
from this advanced position. It is one of the special excel
lences which persuasions grounded upon reason have over
beliefs resting upon unreasoning faith, that any alterations in
them (provided the logical apparatus remains sound), must of
necessity be changes in the direction of still farther throwing
off shackles upon thought.
Intellectual fearlessness is one of the great lessons taught
by this branch of Harriet Martineau’s life history. She
carried the powerful reason which she possessed into every
question; and having found that which satisfied her mind
of its truth, she never hesitated to avow it. Stand
ing, as she believed, on the very brink of the grave
when she wrote her autobiography, she contemplated death
with happy calmness, content with having done her share for
the advancement of her age, and fully convinced that others
would rise to take up the work which she laid down. Satis
fied to hope for rest in the grave instead of a personal immor
tality, rejoicing in the belief that the human race is slowly
but surely progressing toward higher things, and that the
greatest privilege that any man or woman can have had is to
have aided that progress if but one fraction of a step, she
was ready to spend the remainder of her life in workingfor her fellows, and in enjoying the sympathy and love of her
associates.
Singularly enough, twenty years of life remained to her after
she wrote the closing words of her autobiography. The heart
disease which then threatened to kill her every day did not
do so for twenty years longer. And so well did she employ
that time, that those who could not see with her clearness
were constrained to believe that God helped her against her own
will to be happy and holy; that some of hei’ friends rejoiced
�22
The Lessons of a Life :
■when she died that heaven itself was now her habitation;
and that her Christian relatives could not omit the bad taste
-of having a Christian religious service, full of that hope of
immortality which she had not, read over the grave where
they laid her.
It were to be wished that the lesson hereby taught of the
-complete compatibility of a most truly moral and holy life
with a total disbelief in any future and eternal punishments
would be laid to heart by the persons who need it most. There
is small hope that it will be ; for the same fact has been shown
by many a noble life before, as well as by a priori reasoning
upon the small practical effect which far-distant punishments,
rendered likewise uncertain by a scheme of redemption through
faith, not works, can ever have on the mind; but still its
possibility is denied ! “ Dogmatic faith compels the best minds
and hearts to narrowness and insolence. Even such as these
cannot conceive lof being happy in any way but theirs, or
that there may be views whose operation they do not under
stand.”* There the lesson is, however, be it received or
rejected.
It is an interesting inquiry whether Miss Martineau herself
would have sanctioned the use in this connection of the word
^‘religious.” In a chapter in which Mrs. Chapman gives
recollections of conversations with her (and in which there
are several things that might better have been omitted, since
no authorisation for their publicity can have been given by
Miss Martineau), her biographer says that she objected to such
a use of the term “ religion.” My own judgment is the reverse.
I cannot see how we are to avoid the word so long as we wish
to express the idea. By the word religion, we mean always
all those impulses to good and right, all that seeking for holi
ness, all that desire for the best in living, all that longing for
truth, purity, and strength in righteousness as we see these
things, which are our highest and sweetest emotions. What
other word can we use to express all this, except the one which
always has been used ? It is therefore a satisfaction to me to
be able to place against Mrs. Chapman’s report from memory
Harriet Martineau’s own words in the Daily News autobio
graphical memoir. ■“ Her latest opinions were, in her own
* ‘ Autobiography,’ vol. ii., p. 442.
�Harriet Martineau.
23
view, the most religious, the most congenial with the
emotional as well as the rational department of human
■nature.”*
I have purposely given the story of her religious growth in
her own words, without unnecessary interpolation of my own
expressions, and without criticising any of her opinions from
■an individual point of view.
Harriet Martineau never shrank from giving any work to
the world for fear of the criticism it might receive. In 1829,
she, with her mother and sister, was reduced to utter destitu
tion by the failure of the concern in which all their property
was invested. Two years later appeared the first of the
works which made her fame, but in relation to one of which
she was most bitterly attacked—her ‘ Tales in Political
Economy.’
During this two years she supported herself by her needle ;
and when she first made known that she intended to exchange
that little implement for the pen, there were not wanting
several persons to tell her that such a course would be both
unwise and improper, that needle-work was her proper sphere
as a woman, and that she should confine her efforts to doing
what it was certain she could do. Had she taken this orthodox
counsel she would have bent over her stitches from morning
to night for a miserable pittance, and the world would have
lost all she has given it.
Unknown outside the despised and small sect to which she
then belonged, she had great difficulty in getting a •publisher
to undertake her books; and they were at last issued upon
terms which gave her all the risk, and her publisher about
seventy per cent, of the profits. When this arrangement was
settled, she was in such poverty that she could not afford to
ride even part of the way from the publisher’s office to the
* And again. . . . . “ The best state of mind was to be found,
however it might be accounted for, in those who were called philoso
phical atheists....................I told her that I knew several of that class
—some avowed, and some not; and that I had for several years felt
that they were among my most honoured acquaintances and friends;
and that now I knew them more deeply and thoroughly, I must say that,
for conscientiousness, sincerity, integrity, seriousness, effective intellect,
and the. true religious spirit I knew nothing like them.”—‘ Autobio
graphy,’ yo\. ii., p. 188.
�24
The Lessons of a Life:
house of the relative with whom she was staying in London ;
and she relates that she became so weary and faint as she
walked, that she leant to rest upon a railing somewhere near
Shoreditch, apparently contemplating a cabbage-bed, but
really saying to herself, with shut eyes, “ My books will do
yet 1 ”
And they did “ do.” No sooner had the first volume ap
peared than the poor little deaf Unitarian was famous, and
hailed as a new light among men. As she went on, illus
trating with scientific precision and clearness first one and
then another of the principal doctrines of Political Economy,
the attention of the great men of her day was drawn to her
work. She went through a course of flattery and attempts
at “ lionising ” which would have ruined a weaker character ;
and the chief political men of her time, from the Ministry
downwards, made overtures for her valuable co-operation in
preparing the public mind for their schemes.
But popularity could not spoil her. She knew the dangers
she would have to encounter in treating some subjects ; but, she
said, what was influence worth except to be used in propa
gating truth
Accordingly, when she came to the proper
point for illustrating the population doctrine, she unhesitat
ingly treated it, as she had done all preceding parts of her
subject. Her book was called 1 Weal and Woe in Garveloch.’ The story showed how the inhabitants of a small
island had gone on recklessly increasing their numbers, and
how a temporary failure in some of their sources of food
supply reduced them immediately to the utmost destitution.
The scientific moral was taught that it is dangerous and wrong
to multiply the population even up to the extreme limit of its
food-supply, and that sickness and famine will eventually step
in, in such a case, to do that which prudence should have done
before—equalise the food and its consumers.
Mr. Malthus’s name has become so associated among us
with a doctrine, has been so much used to express a scientific
principle, that he is to us quite an impersonal being; and it is
interesting to read Miss Martineau’s account of him as an
individual. She describes him as one of the mildest and most
benignant of men, full of domestic affections.
Upon the issue of this number she was attacked by Lock
hart and John Wilson Croker, in the Quarterly Review, in the
�Harriet Martineau, i.
>25
most violent and scandalous manner. One cannot but wonder
that such expressions and insinuations should have been tole
rated by the readers of such a periodical. Seldom has so
malicious and cruel a personal attack disfigured the pages of
a respectable review. Croker openly said that he expected
to lose his pension very shortly, and being wishful to make
himself a literary position before that event happened
he had begun by “ tomahawking Miss Martineau.” All that
could be painful to her as a woman, and injurious to her
as a writer, was said, or attempted to be conveyed, in this
article.
It pained her intensely, but it eventually did her good.
She had one of those temperaments which belong to all
leaders of men, whether in physical or moral warfare ; danger
was to her a stimulus, and her courage rose the higher the
greater the demand upon it.
The lesson which we are to learn from it is the one already
impressed upon us by this life of fearless speaking the truth,
as we may see it, irrespective of its consequences to ourselves.
Our eyes are weak, and cannot pierce the veil which covers
the future. The only safe course for any one of us to pursue
is to do that which we see and know to be right at the
moment, leaving our future to take care of itself; to act up
to our principles, assured that a policy of unprincipled tem
porary expediency must end at last in failure and dismay.
Encouragement, too, for speaking our truth, whatever it
be, we may get from this history; though it must be acknow
ledged that those who require such encouragement will
seldom be the ones to utter dangerous truths. Five times in
her literary history did Harriet Martineau, print that which
she had cause to believe might ruin her prospects, close her
career, and silence her voice for ever; yet she died honoured
and respected by all classes and conditions of people, and
having had her words listened to always with the fullest
respect and readiness.
Another of the subjects upon which she wrote, and fer
which she was severely criticised, was Mesmerism. From
1839 to 1844, Miss Martineau was a confirmed invalid, con
fined to her couch, unable to stand upright, constantly sick,
and full of pain. She was pronounced incurable by Sir
Charles Clarke in 1841. For three years she took iodide of
�o6
The Lessons of a Life ;
iron, and was continually under the influence of opiates. There
was no improvement in her condition in the summer of 1844,
when she consented to be mesmerised, first by Mr. Spencer
Hall, and later by Mrs. Wynyard, the widow of a clergyman.
In five months she was well enough to start off to the English
lakes, and visiting among her relatives, and presently even to
go away upon her fatiguing tour in the East.
I have neither time this afternoon, nor inclination at present,
to offer any comment upon this case. There were the
remarkable facts, whatever their explanation; and Harriet
Martineau was not one to shrink from the public avowal of
what she knew, for fear of the abuse or pain it might bring
to her. As a swimmer grows stronger with breasting the
waves, so did her mind gain in strength every time it was
necessary for her to come into direct collision with popular
opinion.
Her writings contain many direct lessons, some of which have
been already referred to, that the world either has learnt or
yet must learn. Prominent among the latter are the lessons
which her works ever taught to men as to the estimation in
which they have to hold the sex to which the writer belonged.
There has been far too much heard in past time of men’s
opinions both of women and of themselves; now we must
begin to hear the reverse—both what women think of men,
and what women know and think about women.
Miss Martineau, in common with every other woman of
intellect and courage in this age, of necessity most earnestly
desired the success of what is known as “ the woman move
ment,” and did her best for its advancement. Long before
the claim for suffrage for women became a “ movement
before the women who desire its concession had banded them
selves together to obtain it, she had lifted up her voice as one
crying in the wilderness. In her early years, she wrote, in an
essay upon Walter Scott, a noble protest against the crushing
of women’s capacities, the condemning them to waste their
energies upon petty trifles and ignoble ends, the frittering
away of their existence, and then the presumptuous reproach
of them for not doing great things, of which men have
dared to be guilty. In the book which she published about
* Society in America,’ in 1837, she wrote:—
“ The Emperor of Russia discovers when a eoat-of-arms and title do
�Harriet Martineau.
27
not agree with a subject prince: the King of France early discovers that
the air of Paris does not agree with a free-thinking foreigner. The
English Tories feel the hardship that it would be to impose the franchise
■on every artisan, busy as he is in getting bread. The Georgian Planter
perceives the hardship that freedom would be to his slaves. And the
best friends of half the human race peremptorily decide for them as to
their rights, their duties, their feelings, and their powers. In all these
cases, the persons thus cared for feel that the abstract decision rests
with themselves, that though they may be compelled to submit they need
not acquiesce.
It is pleaded that half the human race does acquiesce in the decision
of the other half as to their rights and duties. . . . Such acquies
cence proves nothing but the degradation of the injured party. It
inspires the same emotions of pity as the supplication of the freed slave
\to his master to restore him to slavery that he may have his animal
wants supplied, without being troubled with human rights and duties.
Acquiescence like this is an argument which cuts the wrong way for
those who use it.
“ But this acquiescence is only partial; and to give any semblance of
strength to the plea, the acquiescence must be complete. I for one do
not acquiesce. I declare that whatever obedience I yield to the laws of
society is a matter between, not the community and myself, but my
judgment and my will: any punishment inflicted upon me for the breach
of thbse laws I should regard as so much gratuitous injury : for to those
laws I have never, actually or virtually, assented. I know that there
are women in England, I know that there are women in America, who
agree with me in this. The plea of acquiescence is invalidated by us.”
But this same lesson of the right and the duty of women to
participate in the public work for the public weal, Harriet
Martineau taught to men far more emphatically by what she
did than by what she said. No words, however eloquent, no
pleadings, however forcible, could have the effect which the
story of her life’s work must have. Bor this member of a sex
“ which loves personal government,” was the author of some
of the most emphatic warnings against meddling legislation
that ever were penned.
*
This member of a sex “ by nature
slaves to superstition,” did as much as any one living in this
century to clear away the dust from men’s eyes, and encourage
freedom of thought. This member of a sex “ opposed to all
liberal movements,” was a shining light of the most Radical
of Radical parties. This member of a sex “ incapable of un
derstanding politics,” was secretly provided by the Ministry
with facts in the hope that she would use them to instruct the
‘ The Factory Controversy,’ 1855.—‘ Autobiography,’ vol. ii., p. 449.
�28
The Lessons of a Life :
people upon the forthcoming budget; was implored by the
Excise Commissioners to use their facts for the same end :
was entreated by Oscar of Sweden to make the world ac
quainted with the politics and position of his country—by
Daniel O’Connell to plead the cause of Ireland as none other
had done or could do, calmly, truthfully, understanding^, and
without fear or favour—and by Count Porro to lend the
strength of her exposition to Lombardy against Austria : nay,
was even the source of a great part of the political education and
opinions of the very men who presume to make such asser
tions, through her one thousand six hundred and forty-two
leading articles in the principal Liberal newspaper, the Daily
News.
Yes, Harriet Martineau’s life teaches a most valuable lesson
to men—both to those who oppose and to those who support
the giving a political existence to women. To those who
oppose it, she has shown the fallacy of their confidentlyexpressed belief about women; she has shown them that it is
impossible to predict the action of others in a position in which
they never yet have been seen; she has shown them that their
audacious certainties about the necessary influence of sex upon
thought are so many ignorant and contemptible assumptions;
she has shown them—what general history might have shown
them, had they been capable of reading its lessons—that to
give liberty is the only way to procure the virtues of freedom,
and that the course of human beings in emancipation must in
the nature of things be other than their course in subjection.
And to the men who have already determined that right and
justice must be done, irrespective of any minor considerations,
this life’s work gives encouragement: it gives them faith in
the principle of justice ; it helps them to see the good which
their efforts will at last produce—the improvement in women
and the aid to progress; it assists them to despise the fore
bodings of the politically ignorant who now echo those fears
which have always preceded reforms, and always been falsified ;
it makes them believe more firmly that all women will dis
prove the prophets’ declamations when the thing comes
which must come, as Harriet Martineau has disproved them
already.
To women she teaches a similar lesson, both directly and
indirectly. She teaches us to do something. Her purse and
�Harriet Martineau.
29
her pea alike were ever ready to aid women’s causes ; but far
more than these could do she has done by her whole life’s work.
And every woman who does any one thing well, humble though
it may appear; every woman who dares to think, to speak, and
to act for herself, has learnt the great lesson, and does more for
her sex than the most eloquent words or the most untiring
effort of the greatest of men can do for us. We must help
ourselves ; and we must do it by proving our capacity in our
varied spheres, from housekeeping up to leader-writing, and
by our mental vigour and independence.
Posthumous fame was as nought to Harriet Martineau. She
knew that, as the poet of our era, Tennyson, has it:
“The fame that follows death is nothing to us.”
And as the whole of her life shows, she never did anything so
unworthy, and so sure to result in disgrace, as following any
•course for the sake of the reputation and influence it would
bring her. Nevertheless, she must ever stand prominent in
the history of this wonderful century. For it is a wonderful
century, though we may be too close to it to recognise its
greatness, and though it must be left for the children of our
children’s children to compare it with other epochs, and mark
its wondrousness. In an earlier age, a Harriet Martineau
would have been impossible. Her existence, and the work she
did, are at once tokens and results of civilisation and progress.
The development of mind has brought the moment for the exer
cise of the power which resides in the physically weak. The
age which has the telescope wherewith to explore the distant
universe; the age which has the microscope, to reveal undreamt
of life and hidden mysteries; which has the electric telegraph
and the steam-engine to carry thought around the globe; which
has the printing-press to multiply the words of the thinker until
they can reach all who are ready to hear them; is an age such
as the world never knew before, and for which new provisions
and social arrangements must be made. This century has
either discovered or applied to practical use all these marvels ;
this century has repealed the Corn Laws, recognising in free
trade the brotherhood of all mankind,—has freed the slave in
civilised lands,—has emancipated other slaves from the serfdom
in which wealth had so long held them,—and now only needs to
cast aside for ever the slavery of sex to give it immortal pre-
�30
The Lessons of a Life : Harriet Martineau.
eminence. Yes, although we are too close to the achievements
of onr time to see all its glories, as
“King Arthur’s self to Lady Guinevere was flat,”
yet it is a glorious age, one worth the living in, worth the
working in. And she who has shared in so many of its great
nesses, who has wrought in so many of its nobly-successful
struggles, must live with it, so that future ages shall honour
the name of Harriet Martineau.
FEINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�The Society’s Lectures now Printed are—
Miss MARY E. BEE DY. On “Joint Education of Young
Men and Women in the American Schools and Colleges.”
Mr. G. BROWNING. “ The Edda Songs and Sagas of Iceland.”
Dr. W. B. CARPENTER. On “ The Doctrine of Human Au
tomatism.”
Professor CLIFFORD. On “ Body and Mind.”
On “ The first and the last Catastrophe : A criticism on some
recent speculations about the duration of the Universe.”
On “ Right and Wrong ; the scientific ground of their distinction.”
Mr. EDWARD CLODD. On “The birth and growth of
Myth, and its survival in Folk Lore, Legend and Dogma.”
Mr. WM. HENRY DOMVILLE. On “The Rights and
Duties of Parents in regard to their children’s religious
education and beliefs.” With notes.
Mr. A. ELLEY FINCH. On “ Erasmus, his Life, Works, and
Influence upon the Spirit of the Reformation.”
On “Civilization; its modern safeguardsand future prospects.”On “ The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the Develop
ment of the Human Mind.” With Woodcut Illustrations.
Miss F. FENWICK MILLER. On “ The Lessons of a Life :
Harriet Martineau.”
Dr. G. G. ZERFFI. “ A Dissertation on the Origin and the
abstract and concrete Nature of the Devil.”
On “ The spontaneous Dissolution of Ancient Creeds.”
On “ Ethics and ^Esthetics; or, Art in its influence on our
Social Progress.”
On “ Dogma and Science.”
The price of each of the above Lectures is 3d., or post-free 3|d.
Professor CLIFFORD. On “ Atoms ; being an Explanation of
what is Definitely Known about them.” Price Id. Two,
post-free, 2|d.
Mr. A. ELLEY FIN CH. On “ The Pursuit of Truth ; as
exemplified in the Principles of Evidence—Theological,
Scientific, and Judicial.” With copious Notes and Authori
ties. Price 5s., oi' post-free 5s. 3d., cloth 8vo., pp. 106.
On “ The Inductive Philosophy: with a parallel between
Lord Bacon and A. Comte.” With Notes and Authorities.
Same price. Cloth 8vo., pp. 100.
Mr. EDWARD MAITLAND. On “ Jewish Literature and
Modern Education ; or, the use and misuse of the Bible in
the Schoolroom,” Price Is. 6d., or post-free Is. 8d.
Dr. PATRICK BLACK. On “ Respiration; or, Why do we
breathe ? ” Price Is. 6d. or Is. 8d. post-free.
Can be obtained (on remittance of postage stamps) of the Hon.
Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Cres
cent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of Lecture;
or of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158 Oxford Street, W.
�$ .
*
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The lessons of a life : Harriet Martineau. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 11th March, 1877
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Miller, Florence Fenwick
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Publisher's list inside back cover. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Harriet Martineau was a British social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist. Florence Fenwick Miller (sometimes Fenwick-Miller, 1854–1935) was an English journalist, author and social reformer of the late 19th and early 20th century. She was for four years the editor and proprietor of The Woman's Signal, an early and influential feminist journal. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1877
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Harriet Martineau
Women's rights
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Harriet Martineau
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
FIRST & THE LAST CATASTROPHE ;
A CRITICISM
ON SOME RECENT SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE
DURATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY
AFTERNOON,
12 th
APRIL,
1874.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprinted from the ‘ Fortnightly Review,' by hind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�SYLLABUS.
Professor Clerk Maxwell, in his lecture on
“ Molecules,” delivered to the British Association at
Bradford, argued from the absolute similarity of
certain molecules in the Sun and Stars and upon
the earth’s surface, that they can neither have been
evolved by any natural process nor have existed
from all eternity. In the first part of the lecture it
will be argued that we have no evidence of such
absolute exactness as would warrant the first con
clusion, and that a theory of the evolution of matter
may yet be looked upon as a possibility.
Sir William Thomson has remarked that if,
assuming Fourier’s laws of the conduction of heat,
we endeavoui’ to calculate the past history of any
portion of matter, this calculation is only successful
for a limited time, and that at a certain date this
portion of matter must have been in a state which
cannot have resulted by the conduction of heat from
any previous state. Some writers (Mr. Murphy,
'Scientific Bases of Faith;’ Professor Jevons,
' Principles of Science,’ p. 438) have inferred from
this that we have evidence either of a beginning of
the universe or of a change in the laws of nature at
a distant date. The Second Part of the Lecture will
be devoted to showing that this inference is not a
valid one, and that we have no such evidence of a
beginning of the present order of things.
Finally, it will be pointed out that the field of
healthy human interest is limited to so much of the
past as can serve as guide to our actions, and so
much of the future as may be appreciably affected
by them.
�THE
FIRST & THE LAST CATASTROPHE;
A CRITICISM
ON SOME RECENT SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE
DURATION OF THE UNIVERSE.
PROPOSE in this lecture to consider speculations of
quite recent days about the beginning and the end of
the world. The world is a very interesting thing, and I
suppose that from the earliest times that men began to form
any coherent idea of it at all, they began to guess in some
way or other how it was that it all began, and how it was
all going to end. But there is one peculiarity about these
speculations which I wish now to consider, that makes them
quite different from the early guesses of which we read in
many ancient books. These modern speculations are
attempts to find out how things began, and how they are
to end, by consideration of the way in which they are
going on now. And it is just that character of these
speculations that gives them their interest for you and for
me; for we have only to consider these questions from the
scientific point of view. By the scientific point of view,
I mean one which attempts to apply past experience to new
circumstances according to an observed order of nature.
So that we shall only consider the way in which things
began, and the way in which they are to end, in so far as
we seem able to draw inferences about those questions
from facts which we know about the way in which things
are going on now. And, in fact, the great interest of the
subject to me lies in the amount of illustration which it
offers of the degree of knowledge which we have now
attained of the way in which the universe is going on.
I
�4
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
The first of these speculations is one set forth by Pro
fessor Clerk Maxwell, in a lecture on Molecules, delivered
before the British Association at Bradford. By a coinci
dence, which to me is a happy one, at this moment Pro
fessor Maxwell is lecturing to the Chemical Society of
London upon the evidences of the molecular constitution
of matter.
*
Now, this argument of his, which he put
before the British Association at Bradford, depends entirely
upon the modern theory of the molecular constitution of
matter. I think this the more important, because a great
number of people appear to have been led to the conclusion
that this theory is very similar to the guesses which we
find in ancient writers—Democritus and Lucretius. It so
happens that these ancient writers did hold a view of the
constitution of things which in many striking respects
agrees with the view which we hold in modern times.
This parallelism has been brought recently before the
public by Professor Tyndall in his excellent address at
Belfast. And it is perhaps on account of the parallelism,
which he pointed out at that place, between the theories
held amongst the ancients and the theory now held amongst
the moderns, that many people who are acquainted with
classic literature have thought that a knowledge of the
views of Democritus and Lucretius would enable them to
understand and criticise the modern theory of matter.
That, however, is a mistake. The difference between the
two is mainly this : the atomic theory of Democritus was
a guess, and no more than a guess. Everybody around
him was guessing about the origin of things, and they
guessed in a great number of ways ; but he happened to
make a guess which was more near the right thing than
any of the others. This view was right in its main hypo
thesis, that all things are made up of elementary parts,
and that the different properties of different things depend
rather upon difference of arrangement than upon ultimate
difference in the substance of which they are composed.
* See Nature, vol. viii., pp. 441, and vol. xi., pp. 357,374.
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
$
Although this was contained in the atomic theory of
Democritus, as expounded by Lucretius, yet it will be
found by any one who examines further the consequences
which are drawn from it, that it very soon diverges from
the truth of things, as we might naturally expect it
would. On the contrary, the view of the constitution of
matter which is held by scientific men in the present day
is not a guess at all.
In the first place I will endeavour to explain what are
the main points in this theory. First of all we must take
the simplest form of matter, which turns out to be a gas,
—such, for example, as the air in this room. The belief
of scientific men in the present day is that this air is not
a continuous thing, that it does not fill the whole of th®
space in the room, but is made up of an enormous num
ber of exceedingly small particles. There are two sorts of
particles : one sort of particle is oxygen, and another sort
of particle nitrogen. All the particles of oxygen are as
near as possible alike in these two respects ; first in weighty
and secondly in certain peculiarities of mechanical struc
ture. These small molecules are not at rest in the room,
but are flying about in all directions with a mean velocity
of seventeen miles a minute. They do not fly far in one
direction ; but any particular molecule, after going over an
incredibly short distance—the measure of which has been
made—meets another, not exactly plump, but a little on
one side, so that they behave to one another somewhat in
the same way as two people do who are dancing Sir Roger
de Coverley; they join hands, swing round, and then fly
away in different directions. All these molecules are con
stantly changing the direction of each other’s motion;
they are flying about with very different velocities, although,
as I have said, their mean velocity is about seventeen miles
a minute. If the velocities were all marked off on a scale,
they would be found distributed about the mean velocity
just as shots are distributed about a mark. If a great
many shots are fired at a target, the hits will be found
thickest at the bull’s-eye, and they will gradually diminish
�6
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
as we go away from that, according to a certain law, which
is called the law of error. It was first stated clearly by
La Place ; and it is one of the most remarkable conse
quences of theory that the molecules of a gas have
their velocities distributed amongst them precisely accord
ing to this law of error. In the case of a liquid, it is
believed that the state of things is quite different. We
said that in the gas the molecules are moved in straight
lines, and that it is only during a small portion of their
motion that they are deflected by other molecules ; but in
a liquid we may say that the molecules go about as if they
were dancing the grand chain in the Lancers. Every mole
cule after parting company with one finds another, and so
is constantly going about in a curved path, and never gets
quite clear away from the sphere of action of the surround
ing molecules. But notwithstanding that, all molecules in
a liquid are constantly changing their places, and it is for
that reason that diffusion takes place in the liquid. Take
a large tank of water and drop a little iodine into it, and
you will find after a certain time all the water turned
slightly blue. That is because all the iodine molecules
have changed like the others and spread themselves over
the whole of the tank. Because, however, you cannot see
this, except where you use different colours, you must not
suppose that it does not take place where the colours are
the same. In every liquid all the molecules are running
about and continually changing and mixing themselves up
in fresh forms. In the case of a solid quite a different
thing takes place. In a solid every molecule has a place
which it keeps ; that is to say, it is not at rest any more
than a molecule of a liquid or a gas, but it has a certain
mean position which it is always vibrating about and keep
ing fairly near to, and it is kept from losing that position
by the action of the surrounding molecules. These are
the main points of the theory of the constitution of matter
as at present believed.
It differs from the theory of Democritus in this way.
There is no doubt that in the first origin of it, when
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
7
it was suggested to the mind of Daniel Bernouilli as an
explanation of the pressure of gases, or to. the mind of
Dalton as an explanation of chemical reactions, it was a
guess; that is to say, it was a supposition which would
explain these facts of physics and chemistry,.but which was
not known to be true. Some theories are still in that posi
tion ; other theories are known to be true, because they
can be argued back to from the facts. In order to make
out that your supposition is true, it is necessary to show,
not merely that that particular supposition will explain the
facts, but also that no other one will. Now, by the efforts
of Clausius and Clerk Maxwell, the molecular theory or
matter has been put in this other position. Namely,.instead
no.w of saying, Let us suppose that such and such things are
true, and then deducing from that supposition what the con
sequences ought to be, and showing that these consequences
are just the facts which we observe ; instead of doing that, I
say, we make-certain experiments, we show that certain facts
are’undoubtedly true, and from these facts we go back by a
direct chain of logical reasoning, which there is. no way of
getting out of, to the statement that all matter is made up
of separate pieces or molecules, and that in matter of a
given kind, in oxygen, or in hydrogen, or in nitrogen, these
molecules are of very nearly the same weight, and have
certain mechanical properties which are common to all of
them. In order to show you something of the kind of
■evidence for that statement, I must mention another theory
which, as it seems to me, is in the same position; namely,
the doctrine of the luminiferous ether, or that wonderful
substance which is distributed all over space, and which
carries light and radiant heat. By means of certain experi
ments upon interference of light, we can show, not by any
hypothesis, not by any guess at all, but by a pure interpre
tation of the experiment—we can show that in every ray
of light there is some change or other, whatever it is,
which is periodic in time and in place. By saying it is
periodic in time, I mean that at a given point of the ray
of light, this change increases up to a certain instant, then
�8
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
decreases, then increases in the opposite direction, and
then decreases again, and so on alternately. That is
shown by experiments of interference; it is not a theory
which will explain the facts, but it is a fact which is
got out of observation. By saying that this pheno
menon is periodic in space, I mean that, if at any given
instant you could examine the ray of light, you would
find that some change or disturbance, whatever it is
has taken place all along it in different degrees.
It
vanishes at certain points, and between these it increases
gradually to a maximum on one side and the other alter
nately. That is to say, in travelling along a ray of light
there. is a certain change (which can be observed by
experiments, by operating upon a ray of light with other
rays of light), which goes through a periodic variation in
amount. The height of the sea, as you know if you travel
along it, goes through certain periodic changes ; it increases
and decreases, and increases and decreases again at definite
intervals. And if you take the case of waves travelling
over the sea, and place yourself at a given point, say you
put a cork upon the surface, you will find that the cork
will rise up and down, that is to say, there will be a change
or displacement of the cork s position, which is periodic in
time, .which increases and decreases, then increases in the
opposite direction, and decreases again. Now, this fact,
which is established by experiment, and which is not a
guess at all, the fact that light is a phenomenon, periodic
in time and space, is what we call the wave theory of
light. The word theory here does not mean a guess; it
means an organised account of the facts, such that from
it you may deduce results which are applicable to future
experiments, the like of which have not yet been made.
But we can see more than this. So far we say that
light consists of waves, merely in the sense that it consists
of some phenomenon or other which is periodic in time
and in place ; but we know that a ray of light or heat is
capable of doing work. Radiant heat, for example, striking
on a body, will warm it and enable it to do work by ex*
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
9
pansion; therefore this periodic phenomenon which takes
place in a ray of light is something or other which possesses
mechanical energy, which is capable of doing work. We
may make it, if you like, a mere matter of definition, and
say: Any change which possesses energy is a motion of
matter; and this is perhaps the most intelligible definition
of matter that we can frame. In that sense, and in that
sense only, it is a matter of demonstration, and not a
matter of guess, that light consists of the periodic motion
of matter, of something which is between the luminous
object and our eyes.
But that something is not matter in the ordinary
sense of the term, it is not made up of such molecules
as gases and liquids and solids are made up of. This
last statement again is no guess, but a proved fact.
There are people who ask, Why is it necessary to
suppose a luminiferous ether to be anything else except
molecules of matter in space, in order to carry light
about ? The answer is a very simple one. In order that
separate molecules may carry about a disturbance, it is
necessary that they should travel at least as fast as the
disturbance travels. Now we know by means that I shall
afterwards come to, that the molecules of gas travel at a
very ordinary rate, about twenty times as fast as a good
train. But, on the contrary, we know by the most certain
of all evidence, by five or six different means, that the velo
city of light is 200,000 miles a second. By that very simple
consideration we are able to tell that it is quite impossible
for light to be carried by the molecules of ordinary matter,
and that it wants something else that lies between those
molecules to carry the light. Now remembering the
evidence which we have for the existence of this ether,
let us consider another piece of evidence, let us now
consider what evidence we have that the molecules of ~a
gas are separate from one another and have something
between them. We find out, by experiment again, that the
different colours of light depend upon the various rapidity
of these waves, depend upon the size and upon the length
�io
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
of the waves that travel through the ether, and that when
we send light through glass or any transparent medium
except a vacuum, the waves of different lengths travel
with different velocities. That is the case with the sea;
we find that long waves travel faster than short ones. In
much the same way, when light comes out of a vacuum
and impinges upon any transparent medium, say upon
glass, we find that the rate of transmission of all the light
is diminished, that it goes slower when it gets inside of
a material body ; and that this change is greater in the
case of small waves than of large ones. The small waves
correspond to blue light and the large waves correspond to
red light. The waves of red light are not .made to travel
so slowly as the waves of blue light, but, as in the case of
waves travelling over the sea, when light moves in the
interior of a transparent body the largest waves travel
most quickly. Well, then, by using such a body as will
separate out the different colours—a prism—we are able
to affirm what are the constituents of the light which
strikes upon it. The light that comes from the sun is
made up of waves of various lengths; but making it pass
through a prism we can separate it out into a spectrum,
and in that way we find a band of light instead of a spot
coming from the sun, and to every band in the spectrum
corresponds a wave of a certain definite length and definite
time in vibration. Now we come to a very singular
phenomenon. If you take a gas such as chlorine and
interpose it in the path of that light, you will find that
certain particular rays of the spectrum are absorbed, while
others are not. Now how is it that certain particular rates
of vibration can be absorbed by this chlorine gas while
others are not ? That happens in this way, that the
chlorine gas consists of a great number of very small struc
tures, each of which is capable of vibrating internally.
Each of these structures is complicated, and is capable of a
change of relative position amongst its parts of a vibratory
character. We know that molecules are capable of such
internal vibrations, for this reason, that if we heat any
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
11
solid body sufficiently it will in time give out light; that
is to say, the molecules are got into such a state of vibration
that they start the ether vibrating, and they start the
ether vibrating at the same rate at which they vibrate
themselves. So that what we learn from the absorption of
certain particular rays of light by chlorine gas, is that the
molecules of that gas are structures which have certain
natural rates of vibration which they absorb, precisely those
rates of vibration which belong to the molecules naturally.
If you sing a certain note to a string of a piano, that string if
in tune will vibrate. If, therefore, a screen of such strings
were put across a room, and you sang a note on one side,
a person on the other side would hear the note very weakly
or not at all, because it would be absorbed by the strings ;
but if you sang another note, not one to which the strings
naturally vibrated, then it would pass through, and would
not be eaten up by setting the strings vibrating. Now this
question arises. Let us put the molecules aside for a
moment. Suppose we do not know of their existence, and
say, is this rate of vibration which naturally belongs to the
gas, a thing which belongs to it as a whole, or does it
belong -to separate parts of it ? You might suppose that it
belongs to the gas as a whole. A jar of water if you shake
it has a perfectly definite time in which it oscillates, and
that is very easily measured. That time of oscillation
belongs to the jar of water as a whole. It depends upon
the weight of the water and the shape of the jar. But
now, by a very certain method, we know that the time of
vibration which corresponds to a certain definite gas, does
not belong to it as a whole, but belongs to the separate
parts of it, for this reason : that if you squeeze the gas you
do not alter the time of vibration. Let us suppose that we
have a great number of fiddles in a room which are all in
contact, and have strings accurately tuned to vibrate to
certain notes. If you sang one of those notes all the fiddles
would answer ; but if you compress them you clearly put
them all out of tune. They are all in contact, and they will
not answer to the note with the same precision as before.
�12
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
But if you have a room which is full of fiddles, placed at a
certain distance from one another, then if you bring them
within shorter distances of one another, so that they still
don’t touch, they will not be put out of tune, they will answer
exactly to the same note as before. We see, therefore, that
since compression of a gas within certain limits does not alter
the rate of vibration which belongs to it, that rate of vibra
tion cannot belong to the body of gas as a whole, but it must
belong to the individual parts of it. Now, by such reason
ing as this it seems to me that the modern theory of the
constitution of matter is put upon a basis which is abso
lutely independent of hypothesis. The theory is simply an
organised statement of the facts, a statement, that is, which
is rather different from the experiments, being made out
from them in just such a way as to be most convenient for
finding out from them what will be the results of other
experiments. That is all we mean at present by scientific
theory.
Upon this theory Professor Clerk Maxwell founded a
certain argument in his lecture before the British Associa
tion at Bradford. It is a consequence of the molecular
theory, as I said before, that all the molecules of a certain
given substance, say oxygen, are as near as possible alike
in two respects—first in weight, and secondly in their times
of vibration. Now Professor Clerk Maxwell’s argument
was this. He first of all said that the theory required us
to believe not that these molecules were as near as may be
alike, but that they were exactly alike in these two respects—
at least the argument appeared to me to require that. Then
he said all the oxygen we know of, whatever processes it
has gone through—whether it is got out of the atmosphere,
or out of some oxide of iron or carbon, or whether it belongs
to the sun or the fixed stars or the planets or the nebulae—
all this oxygen is alike. And all these molecules of oxygen
we find upon the earth must have existed unaltered, or
appreciably unaltered, during the whole of the time the
earth has been evolved. Whatever vicissitudes they have
gone through, how many times they have entered into
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
13
combination with iron or carbon and been carried down
beneath the crust of the earth, or set free and sent up
again through the atmosphere, they have remained stead
fast to their original form unaltered, the monuments of
what they were when the world began. Now Professor
Clerk Maxwell argues that things which are unalterable,
and are exactly alike, cannot have been formed by any
natural process. Moreover, being exactly alike, they cannot
have existed for ever, and therefore they must have been
made. As Sir John Herschell said, “they bear the stamp
of the manufactured article.”
Now, into these further deductions I do not propose to
enter at all. I confine myself strictly to the first of the
deductions which Professor Clerk Maxwell made from the
molecular theory. He said that because these molecules
are exactly alike, and because they have not been in the
least altered since the beginning of time, therefore they
cannot have been produced by any process of evolution.
It is just that question which I want to discuss. I want
to consider whether the evidence that we have to prove
that these molecules are exactly alike is sufficient to make
it impossible that they can have been produced by any
process of evolution.
The position, that this evidence is not sufficient, is
evidently by far the easier to defend; because the negative
iS proverbially hard to prove ; and if any one should
prove that a process of evolution was impossible, it would
be an entirely unique thing in science and philosophy.
In fact, we may see from this example precisely how
great is the influence of authority in matters of science.
If there is any name among contemporary natural philo
sophers to whom is due the reverence of all true students
of science, it is that of Professor Clerk Maxwell. But if
any one, not possessing his great authority, had put
forward an argument founded apparently upon a scientific
basis, in which there occurred assumptions about what
things can and what things cannot have existed from
eternity, and about the exact similarity of two or more
�14
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
things established by experiment, we should say, “ Past
eternity; absolute exactness; this won’t do; ” and we should
pass on to another book. The experience of all scientific
culture for all ages during which it has been a light to men,
has shown us that we never do get at any conclusions of that
sort. We do not get at conclusions about infinite time or
infinite exactness. We get at conclusions which are as
nearly true as experiment can show, and sometimes which
are a great deal more- correct than direct experiment can
be, so that we are able actually to correct one experiment
by deductions from another ; but we never get at con
clusions which we have a right to say are absolutely exact;
so that even if we find a man of the highest powers
saying that he had reason to believe a certain statement to
be exactly true, or that he believed a certain thing to have
existed from the beginning exactly as it is now, we must
say, “It is quite possible that a man of so great eminence
may have found out something which is entirely different
from the whole of our previous knowledge, and the thing
must be inquired into.- But, notwithstanding that, it
remains a fact that this piece of knowledge will be abso
lutely of a different kind from anything that We knew
before.”
Now let us examine the evidence by which we know
that the molecules of the same gas are as near as may be
• alike in weight and in rates of vibration. There were
experiments made by Dr. Graham, late Master of the
Mint, upon the rate at which different gases were mixed
together. He found that if he divided a vessel by a thin
partition made of black-lead or graphite, and put different
gases on the two opposite sides, they would mix together
nearly as fast as though there was nothing between them.
The difference was that the plate of graphite made it
more easy to measure the rate of mixture; and Dr.
Graham made measurements and came to conclusions
which are exactly such as are required by the molecular
theory. It is found by a process of mathematical calcula
tion that the rate of diffusion of different gases depends
�The First and the Fast Catastrophe.
15
upon the weight of the molecules. A molecule of oxygen
is sixteen times as heavy as a molecule of hydrogen,
and it is found upon experiment that hydrogen goes
through a septum or wall of graphite four times as fast as
oxygen does. Four times four are sixteen. We express
that rule in mathematics by saying that the rate of diffu
sion of gas is inversely as the square root of the mass of
its molecules. If one molecule is-thirty-six times as heavy
as another—the molecule of chlorine is nearly that multi
ple of hydrogen—it- will diffuse itself at one-sixth of
the rate.
This rule is a deduction from the molecular theory, and
it is found, like innumerable other such deductions, to come
right in practice. But now observe what is the conse
quence of this. Suppose that, instead of taking one gas and
making it diffuse itself through a wall, we take a mixture of
two gases. Suppose we put oxygen and hydrogen into one
side of a vessel which is divided into two parte by a wall of
graphite, and we exhaust the air from the other side, then the
hydrogen will go through this wall four times as fast as the
oxygen will. Consequently, as soon as the other side is full
there will be a great deal more hydrogen in it than oxygen
•—that is to say, that we shall have sifted the oxygen from
the hydrogen, not.completely, but in a great measure, pre
cisely as by means of a screen we can sift large coals from
small ones. Now, suppose when we have oxygen gas
unmixed with any other, the molecules are of two sorts
and of two different weights. Then you see that if we
make that gas pass through a porous wall, the lighter par
ticles would pass through first, and we should get two dif
ferent specimens of oxygen gas, in one of which the mole
cules would be lighter than in the other. The properties
of one of these specimens of oxygen gas would necessarily
be different from those of the other, and that difference
might be found by very easy processes. If there were any
perceptible difference between the average weight of the
molecules on the two sides of the septum, there would be
no difficulty in finding that out. No such difference has
�16
The First and the Last Catastrophe,
ever been observed. If we put any single gas into a
vessel, and we filter it through a septum of black-lead into
another vessel, we find no difference between the gas on
one side of the wall and the gas on the other side. That
is to say, if there is any difference it is too small to be
perceived by our present means of observation. It is
upon that sort of evidence that the statement rests that
the molecules of a given gas are all very nearly of the
same weight. Why do I say very nearly ? Because evi
dence of that sort can never prove that they are exactly
of the same weight. The means of measurement we have
may be exceedingly correct, but a certain limit must
always be allowed for deviation ; and if the deviation of
molecules of oxygen from a certain standard of weight
were very small, and restricted within small limits, it would
be quite possible for our experiments to give us the results
which they do now. Suppose, for example, the variation
in the size of «the oxygen atoms was as great as that in the
weight of different men, then it would be very difficult
indeed to tell by such a process of sifting what that dif
ference was, or in fact to establish that it existed at all.
But, on the other hand, if we suppose the forces which
originally caused all those molecules to be so nearly alike
as they are, to be constantly acting and setting the thing
right as soon as by any sort of experiment we set it wrong,
then the small oxygen atoms on one side would be made
up to their right size, and it would be impossible to test
the difference by any experiment which was not quicker
than the processes by which they were made right again.
There is another reason why we are obliged to regard
that experiment as only approximate, and as not giving us
any exact results. There is very strong evidence, although
it is not conclusive, that in a given gas—say in a vessel
full of carbonic acid—the molecules are not all of the
same weight. If we compress the gas, we find that when
in the state of a perfect gas, or nearly so, the pressure
increases just in the ratio that the volume diminishes.
That law is entirely explained by means of the molecular
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
iy
It is what ought to exist if the molecular theoryIf we compress the gas further, we find that the •
pressure is smaller than it ought to be according to this law..
This can be explained in two ways. First of all we may sup
pose that the molecules are so crowded that the time during
which they are sufficiently near to attract each other sensibly
becomes too large a proportion of the whole time to be
neglected; and this will account for the change in the
law. There is, however, another explanation. We may
suppose, for illustration, that two molecules approach one
another, and that the speed at which one is going relatively
to the other is very small, and then that they so direct one
another that they get caught together, and go on circling,
making only one molecule. This, on scientific principles,
will account for our fact, that the pressure in a gas which
is near a liquid state is too small—that instead of the
molecules going about singly, some are hung together in
couples and some in larger numbers, and making still larger
molecules. This supposition is confirmed very strikingly
by the spectroscope. If we take the case of chlorine gas,
we find that it changes colour—that it gets darker as it
approaches the liquid condition. This change of colour
means that there is a change in the rate of vibration which
belongs to its -component parts; and it is a very simple
mechanical deduction that the larger molecules will, as a
rule, have a slower rate of vibration than the smaller ones
—very much in the same way as a short string gives a
higher note than a long one. The colour of chlorine
changes just in the way we should expect if the molecules
instead of going about separately, were hanging together
m couples; and the same thing is true of a great number
of the metals. Mr. Lockyer, in his admirable researches
has shown that several of the metals and metalloids have
various spectra, according to the temperature and the
pressure to which they are exposed; and he has made it
exceedingly probable that these various spectra, that is,
the rates of vibration of the molecules, depend upon the
molecules being actually of different sizes. Dr. Roscoe
theory.
is true.
B
�18
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
has, a few months ago, shown an entirely new spectrum of
the metal sodium, whereby it appears that this metal exists
in a gaseous state in four different degrees of aggregation,
as a simple molecule, and as three or four or eight mole
cules together. Every increase in the complication of the
molecules—every extra molecule you hang on to the aggre
gate that goes about together, will make a difference in
the rate of the vibration of that system, and so will make
a difference in the colour of the substance.
So then we have an evidence, you see, of an entirely
extraneous character, that in a given gas the actual mole
cules that exist are not all of the same weight. Any
experiment which failed to detect this would fail to detect
any smaller difference. And here also we can see a reason
why, although a difference in the size of the molecules
does exist, yet we do not find that out by sifting. Suppose
you take oxygen gas consisting of single molecules and
double molecules, and you sift it through a plate ; the
single molecules get through first, but when they get
through, some of them join themselves together as double
molecules; and although more double molecules are left on
the other side, yet some of them separate up and make
single molecules ; so the process of sifting, which ought to
give you single molecules on the one side anti double on the
other, merely gives you a mixture of single and double on
both sides ; because the reasons which originally decided
that there should be just those two forms are always at
work, and continually setting things right.
Now let us take the other point in which molecules
are very nearly alike; viz., that they have very nearly the
same rate of vibration. The metal sodium in the common
salt upon the earth has two rates of vibration ; it sounds
two notes as it were, which are very near to each other.
They form the well-known double line D, in the yellow
part of the spectrum. These two bright yellow lines
are very easy to observe. They occur in the spectra
of a great number of stars. They occur in the solar
spectrum as dark lines, showing that there is sodium in
�The First and the Fast Catastrophe.
i9
the outer rim of the sun, which is stopping and shutting
off the light of the bright parts behind. All these
lines of sodium are just in the same position in the
spectrum, showing that the rates of vibration of all these
molecules of sodium all over the universe, so far as we
know, are as near as possible alike. That implies a
similarity of molecular structure, which is a great deal
more delicate than, mere test of weight. You may weigh
two fiddles until you are tired, and you will never find out
whether they are in tune; the one test is a great deal more
■delicate than the other, Let us see how delicate this test
is. Lord Eayleigh has remarked that there is a natural
limit for the precise position of a given line in the spec
trum, and for this reason. If a body which is emitting a
sound comes towards you, you will find that the pitch of
the sound is altered. Suppose that omnibuses run every
ten minutes in the streets, and you walk in a direction *
opposite to that in which they are coming, you will
obviously pass more omnibuses in an hour °than if you
walked in an opposite direction. If a body emitting light
is coming towards you, you will find more waves in a
certain direction than if it was going from you; conse
quently, if you are approaching a body emitting light, the
waves will come at shorter intervals, the vibration will be
of shorter period, and the light will be higher up in the
spectrum—it will be more blue. If you are going away
from the body, then the rate is slower, the light is lower
down on the spectrum, and consequently more red. By
means of such variations in the positions of certain known
lines, the actual rate of approach of certain fixed stars to
the earth has been measured, and the rate of going away
of certain other fixed stars has also been measured. Suppose
we have a gas which is glowing in a state of incandescence,
all the molecules are giving out light at a certain
specified rate of V.bration; but some of these are
coming towards us at a rate much greater than seven
teen miles a minute, because the temperature is higher
when the gas is glowing, and others are also going
�20
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
away at a much higher rate than that. The consequence is,
that instead of having one sharply defined line on the spec
trum, instead of having light of exactly one bright colour,
we have light which varies between certain limits. If
the actual rate of the vibration of the molecules of the
gas were marked down upon the spectrum, we should not
get that single bright line there, but we should get a
bright band overlapping it on each side. Lord Eayleigh
calculated that, in the most favourable circumstances, the
breadth of this band would not be less than one-hundredth
of the distance between the sodium lines. It is precisely
upon that experiment that the evidence of the exact
similarity of molecules rests. We see, therefore, from the
nature of the experiment, that we should get exactly the
same results if the rates of vibration of all the molecules
were not exactly equal, but varied within certain very
small limits.
If, for example, the rates of vibration
varied in the same way as the heads of different men,
then we should get very much what we get now from the
experiment.
From the evidence of these two facts, then, the evidence
that molecules are of the same weight and degree of
vibration, all that we can conclude is that whatever
differences there are in their weights, and whatever differ
ences there are in their degrees of vibration, these
differences are too small to be found out by our present
modes of measurement. And that is precisely all that we
can conclude in every similar question of science.
Now, how does this apply to the question whether it is
possible for molecules to have been evolved by natural
processes ? I do not understand, myself, how, even sup
posing we knew that they were 'exactly alike, we could
infer, for certain, that they had not been evolved;
because there is only one case of evolution that we know
anything at all about—and that we know very little about
yet__namely, the evolution of organised beings.
The
processes by which that evolution takes place are long,
cumbrous, and wasteful processes of natural selection and
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
21
hereditary descent. They are processes which act slowly,
which take a great lapse of ages to produce their natural
effects. But it seems to me quite possible to conceive, in
our entire ignorance of the subject, that there may be
other processes of evolution which result in a definite
number of forms,—those of the chemical elements,—just
as these processess of the evolution of organised beings
have resulted in a greater number of forms. All that we
know of the ether shows that its actions are of a rapidity
very much exceeding anything we know of the motions
of visible matter. It is a possible thing, for example,
that mechanical conditions should exist, according to
which all bodies must be made of regular solids, that
molecules should all have flat sides, and that these sides
should all be of the same shape. I suppose that it is just
conceivable that it might be impossible for a molecule to
exist with two of its faces different. In that case we
know there would be just five shapes for a molecule to exist
in, and these would be produced by process of evolution.
Now the forms of various matter that we know, and that
chemists call elements, seem to be related one to another
very much in that sort of way; that is, as if they rose out
of mechanical conditions which only rendered it possible
for a certain definite number of forms to exist, and which,
whenever any molecule deviates slightly from one of these
forms, would immediately operate to set it right again. I
do not know at all—we have nothing definite to go upon
—what the shape of a molecule is, or what is the nature
of the vibration it undergoes, or what its condition is com
pared with the ether; and in our absolute ignorance
it would be impossible to make any conception of the
mode in which it grew up. When we know as much about
the shape of a molecule as we do about the solar system,
for example, we may be as sure of its mode of evolution
as we are of the way in which the solar system came
about; but in our present ignorance all we have to do is to
show that such experiments as we can make do not give us
.evidence that it is absolutely impossible for molecules of
�22
The First and the .Last Catastrophe.
matter to have been evolved out of ether by natural
processes.
The evidence which tells us that the molecules of a
given substance are alike, is only approximate. The theory
leaves room for certain small deviations, and consequently
if there are any conditions at work in the nature of the
ether, which render it impossible for other forms of matter
than those we know of to exist, the great probability is,
that when by any process we contrive to sift molecules of
one. kind from molecules of another, these very conditions
at once bring them back and restore to us a mass of gas
consisting of molecules whose average type is a normal one.
Now I want to consider a speculation of an entirely dif
ferent character. A remark was made about thirty years ago,
by Sir William Thomson, upon the nature of certain pro
blems in the conduction of heat. These problems had been
solved by Fourier, many years before, in a beautiful
treatise. The theory was that if you knew the degree of
warmth of a body, then you could find what would happen
to it afterwards, you would find how the body would
gradually cool. Suppose you put the end of a poker in
the fire and make it red hot, that end is very much hotter
than the other end, and if you take it out and let it cool,
you will find that heat is travelling from the hot end to
the cool end, and the amount of this travelling, and the
temperature at either end of the poker can be calculated
with great accuracy. This, comes out of Fourier’s theory.
Now suppose you try to go backwards in time, and take the
poker at any instant when it is about half cool, and say,
“ this equation,—does it give me the means of finding out
what was happening to it before this time, in so far as the
present state of things has been produced by cooling?”
You will find the equation will give you an account of the
state of the poker before the time when it came into your
hands, with great accuracy up to a certain point, but beyond
that point it refuses to give you any more information, and
it begins to talk nonsense. It is in the nature of a problem
of the conduction of heat, that it allows you to trace the
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
23
forward history of it to any extent you like ; but it will
not allow you to trace the history of it backward, beyond
a certain point. There is another case in which a similar
thing happens. There is an experiment in the excellent
manual, ‘ The Boy’s Own Book,’ which tells you that if you
half fill a glass with beer, and put some paper on it, and
then pour in water carefully, and draw the paper out
without disturbing the two liquids, the water will rest on
the beer. The problem then is to drink the beer without
drinking the water, and it is accomplished by means of a
straw. Let us suppose these two liquids resting in contact ;
we shall find they begin to mix, and it is possible to write
down an equation which is exactly of the same form as
the equation for the conduction of heat, which would tell
you how much water had passed into the beer at any given
time after the mixture began. So that given the water and
the beer half mixed, you could trace forward the process of
mixing, and measure it with accuracy, and give a perfect
*
account of it; but if you attempt to trace that back you
will have a point where the equation will stop, and will
begin to talk nonsense. That is the point where you took
away the paper, and allowed the mixing to begin. If we
apply that same consideration to the case of the poker,
and try to trace back its history, you will find that the
point where the equation begins to talk nonsense is the
point where you took it out of the fire. The mathematical
theory supposes that the process of conduction of heat has
gone on in a quiet manner, according to certain defined
laws, and that if at any time there was a catastrophe, one
not included in the laws of the conduction of heat, then
the equation could give you no account of it. There is
another thing which is of the same kind, namely, the
transmission of fluid friction. If you take your tea in
your cup, and stir it round with a spoon, it won’t go on
circulating round for ever, but will come to a stop ; and
the reason is that there is a certain friction of the liquid
against the sides of the cup, and of the different parts of
the liquid with one another. Now the friction of the
�24
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
different parts of a liquid or a gas is precisely a matter of
mixing. The particles which are going fast, and are in
the middle, not having been stopped by the side, get mixed,
and the particles at the side going slow, get mixed with
the particles in the middle. This process of mixing can
be calculated, and it leads to an equation of exactly the
same sort as that which applies to the conduction of heat.
We have, therefore, in these problems a natural process
which consists in mixing things together, and this always
has the propei’ty that you can go on mixing them for ever,
without coming to anything impossible ; but if you attempt
to trace the history of the thing backward, you must
always come to a state which could not have been produced
by mixing, namely, a state of complete separation.
Now upon this remark of Sir W. Thomson’s, the true
consequences of which you will find correctly stated in
Mr. Balfour Stewart’s book on the ‘ Conservation of
Energy,’ a most singular doctrine has been founded.
These writers have been speaking of a particular pro
blem, on which they were employed at the moment.
Sir W. Thomson was speaking of the conduction of
heat, and he said this heat problem leads you back
to a state which could not have been produced by the
conduction of heat. And so Professor Clerk Maxwell,
speaking of the same problem, and also of the diffusion of
gases, said there was evidence of a limit in past time to
the existing order of things, when something else than
mixing took place. But a most eminent man, who has
done a great deal of service to mankind, Professor Stanley
Jevons, in his very admirable book, the ‘ Principles of
Science,’ which is simply marvellous for the number of
examples illustrating logical principles which he has drawn
from all kinds of regions of science, and for the small
number of mistakes that occur in it, takes this remark of
Sir W. Thomson’s, and takes out two very important
words, and puts in two other very important words. He
says, “We have here evidence of a limit of a state of
things which could not have been produced by the previous
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
2.5
state of things according to the known laws of nature.’’
It is not according to the known laws of nature, it is
according to the known laws of conduction of heat, that
Sir William Thomson is speaking; and from this . we
may see the fallacy of concluding, that if we consider
the case of the whole universe we should be able, suppose
we had paper and ink enough, to write down an equation
which would enable us to make out the history of the
world forward, as far forward as we liked to go, but if we
attempted to calculate the history of the world backward,
we should come to a point where the equation would begin
to talk nonsense, we should come to a state of things which
could not have been produced from any previous state of
things, by any known natural laws. You will see at once
that that is an entirely different statement. The same
doctrine has been used by Mr. Murphy, in a very able
book, 1 The Scientific Basis of Faith,’ to build upon it an
enormous superstructure—I think the restoration of the
Irish Church was one of the results of it. But this doctrine
is founded, as I think, upon a pure misconception. It is
founded entirely upon forgetfulness of the condition
under which the remark was originally made. All these
physical writers, knowing what they were writing about,
simply drew such conclusions from the facts which were
before them as could be reasonably drawn. They say
*
here is a state of things which could not have been pro
duced by the circumstances we are at present investigating.
Then your speculator comes, he reads a sentence and says,
Here is an opportunity for me to have my fling. And he
has his fling and makes a purely baseless theory about the
necessary origin of the present order of nature at some
definite point of time which might "be calculated. But if
we consider the matter, we shall see that this is not in any
way a consequence of the theory of the conduction of heat;
because the conduction of heat is not the only process that
goes on in the universe.
If we apply that theory to the case of the earth, we find
that at present there is evidence of a certain distribution of
�26
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
temperature in the interior of it; there is a certain rate at
which the temperature increases as we go down, and no
doubt if we made further investigations, we should find that
if we went deeper an accurate law would be found, accord
ing to which the temperature increases in the interior.
Now, assuming this to be so, taking this as the basis of
our problem, we might endeavour to find out what was the
history of the earth in past times, and when it began
cooling down. That is exactly what Sir William Thom
son has done. When we attempt it, we find that there is a
definite point to which we can go, and at which our equa
tion talks nonsense. But we do not conclude that at that point
the laws of nature began to be what they are; we only
conclude that the earth began to solidify. Now solidifica
tion is not a process of the conduction of heat, and so the
thing cannot be given by our equation. That point is
given definitely as a point of time, not with great accuracy
but still as near as we can expect to get it with such means
of measuring as we have, and Sir William Thomson has
calculated that the earth must have solidified at some time
a hundred millions or two hundred millions of years ago;
and there we arrive at the beginning of the present state
of things; the process of cooling the earth which is
going on now. Before that it was cooling as a liquid, and
in passing from the liquid to the solid state there was a
catastrophe which introduced a new rate of cooling. So
that by means of that law we do come to a time when the
earth began to assume its present' state. We do not find
the time of the commencement of the universe, but simply
of the present structure of the earth. If we went farther
back, we might make more calculations and find how
long the earth had been in a liquid state. We should
come to another catastrophe, and say at that time, not that
the universe began to exist, but that the present earth
passed from the gaseous to the liquid state.. And if we
went farther back still we should probably find the earth
falling together out of a great ring of matter surrounding
the sun and distributed over its orbit. The same thing is
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
27
true of every body of matter : if we trace its history back,
we come to a certain time at which a catastrophe took
place, and if we were to trace back the history of all the
bodies of the universe in that way we should continually
see them separating up into smaller parts. What t ey
have actually done is to fall together and get solid. If we
could reverse the process we should see them separating
and getting fluid, and, as a limit to that, at an indefinite
distance in past time, we should find that all these Jodies
would be resolved into molecules, and all these would be
flying away from each other. There would be no limit to »
that process, and we could trace it as far back as ever we
liked to trace it. So that on the assumption, a very large
assumption, that the present constitution of the laws of
geometry and mechanics has held good during the whole ot
past time, we should be led to the conclusion that at an
inconceivably long time ago the universe did consist of
ultimate molecules, all separate from one another, and
approaching one another. Then they would meet together
and form a great number of small hot bodies. Then you
would have the process of cooling going on in these bodies,
exactly as we find it going on now. But you will observe
that we have no evidence of such a catastrophe as implies
a beginning of the laws of nature. We do not come to
something of which we cannot make any further calcula
tion- we find that however far we like to go back, we
approximate to a certain state of things, but never actually
get to it.
„
Here, then, we have a doctrine about the beginning ot
things. ' First, we have a probability, about as great as
science can make it, of the beginning of the present state
of things on the earth, of the fitness of the earth for habi
tation ; and then we have a probability about the beginning
of the universe as a whole which is so small, that it is
better put in this form, that we do not know anything at
all about it. The reason why I say that we do not know
anything at all of the beginning of the universe, is that
we have no reason whatever fob believing that what we
�28
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
at present know of the laws of geometry and mechanics
are exactly and absolutely true at present, or that they have
been even approximately true for any period of time,
further than we have direct evidence of. The evidence we
have of them is founded on experience, and we should have
exactly the same experience of them now, if those laws
were not exactly and absolutely true, but were only so
nearly true that we could not observe the difference. So
that in making the assumption we may argue upon the
absolute uniformity of nature, and "suppose these laws to
e have remained exactly as they are, we are assuming some
thing we know nothing about. My conclusion then is, that
we do know, with great probability, of the beginning of
the habitability of the earth about one hundred or two
hundred millions of years back, but that of a beginning of
the universe we know nothing at all.
Now let us consider what we can find out about the end
of things. The life which exists upon the earth is made
by the sun’s action, and it depends upon the sun for its
continuance. We know that the sun is wearing out, that
it is cooling, and although this heat which it loses day by
day is made up in some measure, perhaps completely at
present, by the contraction of its mass, yet that process
cannot go on for ever. There is only a certain amount of
energy in the present constitution of the sun, and when
that has been used up, the sun cannot go on giving out
any more heat. Supposing, therefore, the earth remains
in her present orbit about the sun, seeing that the sun
must be cooled down at some time, we shall all be frozen
out. On the other hand, we have no reason to believe
that the orbit of the earth about the sun is an absolutely
stable thing. It has been maintained for a long time that
there is a certain resisting medium which the planets have
to move through, and it may be argued from that, that in
time all the planets must be gradually made to move
in smaller orbits, and so to fall in towards the sun.
But, on the other hand, the evidences upon which this
assertion was based, the movement of Encke’s comet and
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
<1$
others, has been quite recently entirely overturned by
Professor Tait. He supposes that these comets consist of
bodies of meteors. Now, it was proved a long time ago,
that a mass of small bodies travelling together m an orbit
about a central body, will always tend to fall in towards it,
and that is the case with the rings of Saturn. So that,
in fact, the movement of Encke’s comet is entirely accounted
for on the supposition that it is a swarm , of meteors, with
out regarding the assumption of a resisting medium. On
the other hand, it seems exceedingly natural to suppme
that some matter in a very thin state is diffused about the
planetary spaces. Then we have another consideration,
just as the sun and moon make tides upon the sea, so the
planets make tides upon the sun. If we consider the ti e
which the earth makes upon the sun, instead of being a
great wave lifting the mass of the sun up directly under
the earth, it is carried forward by the sun’s rotation ; the
result is, that the earth instead of being attracted to tha
sun’s centre, is attracted to a point before the centre. The
immediate tendency is to accelerate the earth s motion,
and the final effect of this upon the planet is to make
its orbit larger. That planet disturbing all the other
planets, the consequence is that we have the earth gradually
going away from the sun, instead of falling into it.
*
In any case, all we know is that the sun is going out.
If we fall into the sun then we shall be fried; if we go
away from the sun, or the sun goes out, then we shall be
frozen. So that, so far as the earth is concerned, we have
no means of determining what will be the character of the
end, but we know that one of these two things must take
place in time: But in regard to the whole universe, if we
were to travel forward as we have travelled backward in
time, consider things as falling together, we should come
finally to a great central mass, all in one piece, which
would send out waves of heat through a perfectly empty
* I learn from Sir W Thomson that the ultimate effect of tidal defor
mation ona number of bodies is to reduce them to two, which move as if
they were rigidly connected.
�jo
The First and the Last Catastrophe.
ether, and gradually cool itself down. As this mass got
cool it would be deprived of all life or motion ; it would
be just a mere enormous frozen block in the middle of the
ether. But that conclusion, which is like the one that we
discussed about the beginning of the world, is one which
we have no right whatever to rest upon. It depends upon
the same assumption that the laws of geometry and
mechanics are exactly and absolutely true ; and that they
will continue exactly and absolutely true for ever and
ever. Such an assumption we have no right whatever to
make. We may therefore, I think, conclude about the
end of things that so far as the earth is concerned, an end
of life upon it is as probable as science can make any
thing ; but that in regard to the universe we have no right
to draw any conclusion at all.
So far, we have considered simply the material existence
of the earth; but of course our greatest interest lies
not so much with the material life upon it, the organised
beings, as with another fact which goes along with that,
and which is an entirely different one—the fact of the
consciousness that exists upon the earth. We find very
good reason indeed to believe that this consciousness
in the case of any organism is itself a very complex
thing, and that it corresponds part for part to the action
of the nervous system, and more particularly of the
brain of that organised thing. There are some whom
such evidence has led to the conclusion that the destruc
tion which we have seen reason to think probable of all
organised beings upon the earth, will lead also to the final
destruction of the consciousness that goes with them.
Upon this point I know there is great difference of opinion
amongst those who have a right to speak. But to those
who do see the cogency of the evidences of modern physio
logy and’ modern psychology in this direction, it is a very
serious thing to consider that not only the earth itself
and all that beautiful face of nature we see, but also the
living things upon it, and all the consciousness of men,
and the ideas of society, which have grown up upon the
�The First and the Last Catastrophe.
3i
surface, must come to an end. We who hold that belief
must just face the fact and make the best of it; and 1
think we are helped in this by the words of that Jew
philosopher, who was himself a worthy crown to the
splendid achievements of his race in the cause of progress
during the Middle Ages, Benedict Spinoza. He said
“ The free man thinks of nothing so little as of death, and
his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.
ur
interest lies with so much of the past as may serve
to guide our actions in the present, and to intensify our
pious allegiance to the fathers who' have gone before us
and the brethren who are with us ; and our interest lies
with so much of the future as we may hope will be
appreciably affected by our good actions now. Beyond
that, as it seems to me, we do not know, and we ought no
to care. Do I seem to say, “ Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die ? ” Far from it; on. the contrary I say,
“ Let us take hands and help, for this day we are alive
together.”
PRINTED BY C. IV. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENBY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETYS LECTURES
AKE DELIVERED AT
ST GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 23rd April,
1876, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,_
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s.
6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and
�
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The first & the last catastrophe : a criticism on some recent speculations about the duration of the universe : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 12th April, 1874
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
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Cosmology
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B 333#
N7M
THE
EASTERN QUESTION;
FROM A
RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL POINT OF VIEW.
Q
lecture
DELIVERED
SUNDAY
BEFORE
THE
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE'S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 25th MARCH, 1877,
By Dr. G. G. ZERFFI, F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
lEonbon :
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1877.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�Origin of the Eastern Question.
Constantine the Great.
State of Society in the East.
Believers and Heretics.
The Hierarchy and the different Christian Sects.
Dissension amongst Christians.
The Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Homousion and Ilomoiusion.
Idolatry in the West; Iconoclasm in the East.
The Arabs.
Mahomet.
The Koran and its Tenets.
Crusades and Scholasticism.
Influence of the East on the West.
Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks.
Social and Religious Organization of Turkey.
Home Rule and Foreign Affairs. Arts and Sciences.
Position of Women in Turkey.
Christians, Jews, Greeks, and Turks.
Russia. The Cross and the Crescent.
Possibility of a Solution of the Eastern Question.
Conclusion.
�THE EASTERN QUESTION;
FROM A
RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL POINT OF VIEW.
HE Eastern Question has come upon us like a political and
intellectual thunderstorm. Thunderstorms in the
world,
Tlike those in the real, are produced by accumulationsidealacting and
of
counteracting electric or religious and social streams or currents.
The negative and positive electric currents rise up and concentrate,
some motion of air brings them into collision, and the storm with
its fierce lightnings and roaring thunder bursts out, often devasta
ting whole districts, but always purifying the air, and leaving
traces of a beneficial influence behind it. Eor more than a year
the thunderstorm of the “ Eastern Question ” has been raging
amongst us with the lightning of well-set, sensational phrases,
real or unreal atrocities, flashes of horrifying contradictory tele
graphic messages, reports of special, unspecial, “ our own,” and
“nobody else’s correspondents,” and the thunders of angry
pamphlets and platform speeches, delivered at boisterous indigna
tion meetings. East and West are one again, not in mutual love,
but in mutual hatred and animosity. There are people who would
like to see Cross and Crescent arrayed against one another in
deadly combat, and who would like to see the Turks leave Europe
at a moment’s notice with “ bag and baggage.”
What is this Eastern Question ? Has it been asked only
recently, or is it a historical problem, that has long stood before
the eves of Europe awaiting a solution ? How and when did this
Eastern Question arise ? Where and when did it originate ?
The Eastern Question began with Constantine the Great, when
he saw a burning cross hovering above the sun with the inscrip
tion “in hoc signo vinces ! ” (in this sign thou wilt conquer). The
same night, according to Bishop Eusebius, Christ appeared to
Constantine, and ordered him to have a banner made, bearing the
sign he had seen during the day, and assuring him that under this
banner (the labarum) he would conquer. It so happened that
Constantine disposed his troops with consummate skill, while his
�4
The Eastern Question; from a
adversary, Maxentius, occupied a very spacious plain, having the
Tiber in the rear of his army, which rendered retreat impossible.
The cavalry of Maxentius was composed of unwieldy cuirassiers,
or light Moors and Numidians, whilst Constantine had at his
disposal the vigour of splendid gallic horse “ which possessed
more activity than the one and more firmness than the other.”
The defeat of the hostile army was—in consequence of his better
tactics, and not in consequence of his dream and vision—complete.
Maxentius was driven into the Tiber, his head was cut oft’ and
publicly exposed, and Constantine became master of the Roman
Empire, after having put the two sons of Maxentius to death, and
extirpated his whole race. Constantine undoubtedly abolished the
Praetorian guards by the sword, deprived the Senate and people of
their dignities, exposed Rome to the insults or neglect of the
Emperors, and transferred the seat of the Roman Emperors to
Byzantium, which as Constantinople became from that time a new
Rome, and the centre point of the Eastern Question. Constantine
was an ambitious and genial character, as cunning as he was
generous, and as bigoted as he was cruel. He recognised in Chris
tianity a means for effectually destroying the old heathen world
(for monotheism stands so much nearer to “monodespotism ” than
polytheism), and exalting himself as omnipotent ruler on earth
and in heaven through the newr state religion.
The means he employed were not very Christian. He had his
own son, Crispus, executed on an unsupported charge brought
against him by his stepmother, Fausta; at the same time he
murdered his nephew, the son of Licinius ; and finally, convinced
of the groundlessness of the charge brought against his son, he
had his wife, Fausta, killed. Murder, superstition, visions,
dreams, apparitions, and sacred symbolic signs, mixed with
heathen ceremonies and a theocratic organization of the Church,
were the elements of which Constantine formed a new Christianity
in the East.
The Church suddenly raised to power soon arrogated to herself
infallibility, and assumed the terrible right of taliation, waging
sanguinary war against those who were not of her opinion.
Having the mighty arm of the lay power at her disposal, the
Church became by degrees omnipotent, and Christ’s simple teach
ing “ of a kingdom that is not of this world ” wTas used, to
found the most sanguinary Empire.
At the beginning of Christianity there were only loving com
munities that chose their own elders ; the communities increased,
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5
and overseers of the elders were found necessary; the overseers
again required patriarchs, and the patriarchs needed one above
them, the Bishop of Rome. This hierarchical crystallisation went
on gradually and slowly, became sterner and more powerful
through the increasing number of false prophets, mock-philosophers,
necromancers, Taumathurgi, miracle-workers, Egyptian priests of
Isis, Persian Magi, Jewish controversialists, and Greek casuists,
who all united to seek first, a living, and then a position, in order to
prosper through the credulity, superstition, and ignorance of the
masses. There was at that period a vast crowd of adventurers in
the East, who all traded in mystic doctrines, symbolic little
charms, incredible miracles, visions, dreams, and prophetic calcula
tions.
The Spiritualists abounded; they filled the market-places,
where they exhibited the most incredible feats before the eyes
of the gazing, wondering, and believing masses. In reading
history backwards, we may imagine what the effect of those
tricksters in supernatural wares must have been, when we find
in the nineteenth century, in spite of our advanced state of
civilization and learning, numbers of weak-minded men and
women, even of the better classes, who believe in any nonsense,
so soon as it is labelled “ supernatural.”
So long as the Church had no material support from the State,
Christianity spread through love and persuasion in spite of
competing miracle-workers, in spite of treachery, deceit and in
numerable incredibilities that hindered its progress amongst the
so-called educated classes. When Constantine took it up, and
lent it the imperial sword; when the tiaras and Mitres felt
themselves supported by the consuls, pro-consuls, magistrates,
lictors, and especially the executioners of the Roman Empire—
then the miracles ceased, and the supernatural became quite
natural. “ Woe” to any one who would have doubted that the
supernatural was not quite natural, and yet the dissensions
amongst the Christians, the heresies amongst the believers, and
the views the unbelievers took, were of an astonishing variety. But
the mighty State Church was equal to the terrible task which faith
imposed upon it. The massacres and executions of the unbelievers,
infidels, and heretics increased in a corresponding ratio with the
wealth and power, the sweet humility and self-abnegation of those
who styled themselves the followers of Christ. The unification of
the Christian Church, the purification of the different doctrines all
more or less tainted with abominable heresy, became the supreme
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The Eastern Question; from a
duty of the Church. It is a well-known and indisputable fact, that
after the death of Christ, his disciples dispersed, and formed nearly
as many sects as there were disciples.
There were the Gnostics, who most elaborately worked out the
theory of good and evil, of original sin and emanation, but they
could not see “ how the word became flesh,” and though they
believed Christ to be the Demiurgos, that is, an emanation of the
supreme Deity, they were extirpated as heretics in the sixth
century, a.d.
There were the Kerinthians, who could not see how any human
being could be born of a virgin ; they did not doubt that Joseph was
the father of Christ, but they could not believe in the resurrection
of Christ, and were extirpated in the sixth century, a.d.
The Ebionites objected to the genealogy of S. Matthew. Through
one of their leaders, Symmac, they propounded that Jesus was
never incarnate, that the Jews crucified one Simon the Kyerenian,
that Christ witnessed his own execution, ascended into heaven to
join his father, and was neither known by angels nor by men.
These theorists were extirpated in the sixth century, a d.
The Karpokratians believed in Christ as a superior human being,
endowed with a divine genius, but they disbelieved the resurrection
of the body, and they were extirpated in the sixth century, a.d.
The Cainists looked upon Judaism as full of immorality, and did
not believe that Christ could have come into the world to fulfil the
old law. They were also extirpated about the sixth century, a.d.
Marcion dared to teach that the gospels contradicted one another:
fortunately he founded no school, and when the authenticity of the
four gospels was settled by Church and State, there was no more
room for such wicked doubts.
The Alogians rejected the gospel of St. John, but were sacrificed
to that terrible error, and extirpated in the sixth century, a.d.
The Manicheans founded by Manes, who believed himself the
promised “Paraklitos” (St. John, xiv. 26), wished to bring harmony
into the comfortless teachings of the Gnostics and Zoroastrians, and
maintained a general return to God of all purified emanations.
Manes did not believe in the annihilation of matter, assuming it to
have been uncreated. This in itself was, of course, a most wicked
and erroneous assumption. Though Manes believed that Christ
and the Holy Ghost were sent into this world by God in order to
save humanity from the triumphant spirit of egotism, embodied in
Judaism and heathenism; though he himself and his followers led
a life of virtuous simplicity and ascetic self-denial, he was put to
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1
death 274 a.d., and his followers extirpated by fire and sword with
all possible love and kindness in the sixth century, a.d.
The Montanists, founded by Montanus, a Phrygian, who without
the permission of the Church believed himself, like Manes, to be the
promised “ Paraklitos,” professed Buddhistic tenets with the most
irreproachable vigour. “To renounce this world, was according to
Montanus, the duty of every free Christian, to live in God and to
rejoice in death his only aim.” lie proclaimed all knowledge and
earthly enjoyments as sinful. Until the sixth century, a.d., the
Montanists formed a special sect, but their tenets concerning the
duty of profound ignorance, and the sinfulness of all earthly en
joyments, found favour with the State Church, and they were kindly
received in the motherly bosom of Catholicism.
Arians, Novitians and Donatists fared no better than the others,
they were extirpated by fire and sword during the sixth century, a.d.
But the fathers and apologists, primitive writers and propounders
of Christianity, were not less numerous in their divergent opinions
with reference to tenets and dogmas, gospels and writings than
these sects. Simeon and Cleobius published works in the name of
Christ and bis Apostles. Eusebius published a letter from Christ
to King Abgarus, but Pope Gelasius declared this document a
forgery. A letter from the Virgin Mary to the inhabitants of
Messina is preserved in that town, dated Jerusalem, 42 a.d.
Though this was a clear forgery, a Jesuit, Inchofer, proved its
genuineness with great lucidity, and one must be obdurate indeed
not to be convinced by his proofs.
St. Justinus the martyr refers to certain documents relating to
Christ which must have been lost or voluntarily destroyed.
Tertullian mentions that Pontius Pilate sent the minutes of the
trial of Jesus of Nazareth or Bethlehem to the Emperor Tiberius,
who was so struck with the innocence of Christ that he ordered
the Senate to pay divine honours to the memory of Christ, which
the Roman Senate refused, not having been directly asked by those
concerned in the matter. It is scarcely necessary to mention that
this statement of things induced many pious forgers to write
reports in the name of Pilate. Gregory of Tours sternly believed
that he possessed the authenticated accounts of the miracles at the
death and the resurrection of Christ, just as Pilate sent them to
Tiberius. Scarcely had Christ expired on the cross with a prayer
for his enemies on his lips, when a host of forgers inundated the
world with descriptions and details of his private and public life.
S. Luke informs us “that many have taken in hand to set forth
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The Eastern Question; from a
those things which are most surely believed among us” (c. i. v. 1),
and notwithstanding that S. Mark and S. Matthew had written
their accounts, S. Ambrosius, Theophylaktes and other learned
commentators, assure us that this Evangelist only undertook to
write his gospel in order to counteract the great number of false
gospels, which S. Jerome finds too long to enumerate (ennumerare
longissimum esl). Origen, S. Ambrosius, S. Jerome and others,
mention a gospel of the twelve apostles: there were gospels of
S. Barnabas, S. Andrew, S. Bartholomew, S. Mathias, S. Peter
and S. James the younger; there were gospels of the Egyptians,
Hebrews, Nazarenes and a gospel of Truth. According to some,
there were some seventy and according to others about 146 in all.
With Constantine the Great, at last, some kind of harmony was
brought into the discordant spiritual life of the believing, but
disagreeing, Christians. This union was not fostered by persua
sion leading to conviction; but by the inexorable formula of old
Imperial Rome, that was suddenly enunciated in matters of faith.
The “ sic volo, sic jubeo ” of the episcopal majority at the council
of Nicea brought about union, but at the same time the most
sanguinary dissension between the Western and Eastern Churches.
They both agreed in the persecution of so-called heretics, who
could not at once detach themselves from the ancient holy books,
holy dogmas, and holy symbols which they had received on trust
from those who had stood so much nearer to the founder of
Christianity, and who could not follow the new theological casuists
into all their intricate windings of Egypto-Hebrew and Indo
Greek mysticism.
West and East, however, separated.
The small letter i was the real cause of that deadly separation.
“ Equal but not like,” and “like and equal,” this “ equal likeness ”
and “ equality but not likeness ” worked marvels of animosity,
hatred, and persecution amongst those who received the eternal
divine command, “ Love thy neighbour as thyself! ” The disputes
all bore upon the nature of Christ, not upon his glorious enact
ments of love and forgiveness, tolerance and peace, but upon the
mystic words, “Homousion,” meaning equality, sameness, or
oneness of essence or substance or being, and the equally mystic
word, “ Homoiusion,” meaning likeness of essence or substance or
being—as if anything could be like and not equal, or equal and
not like. With the East, Christ’s nature was like God the Father,
but not equal—not one and the same : and in the West, Christ’s
nature was not only like and equal, but the same as that of the
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9
Father. The East began to abhor this blasphemous assumption,
and to prove their subtle distinction with fire and sword. The
West, on the other hand, began to introduce more and more Pagan
ceremonies and festivities, the worship of saints, whose images
were painted and sculptured, in order to bring the originals
nearer to the senses of the believers, and to exhort them through
visible concrete forms to a more exalted spiritual life. No lover of
art will find fault with this tendency. Those painted walls and
painted windows, the sculptured saints and prophets served
Christianity as our modern illustrated alphabets or spelling books.
The child remembers so much easier that A stands for archer, if
it has at the same time the picture of a big-faced, fierce-looking
archer before it, who stands with crooked legs, letting fly an
immense arrow at an enormous black eagle with big claws, or at a
clumsy-looking frog ; or that B stands for butcher, killing a
ferocious, well-chained bull. Whilst the West laid down the
foundations of architectural, sculptural, and pictorial art, the East
demolished statues and quarrelled over abstruse formula. Turn
ing from statues to human beings, the Eastern Church extirpated
sectarians root and branch, murdered and poisoned and changed the
Christian religion into a perfect mockery, a system of most incredible
superstition and hypocrisy, and nameless crimes defiled the
once flourishing, glorious provinces of Asia Minor and the Greek
Peninsula. Temples and statues were hurled into ruin and dust.
In the West the old heathen gods and goddesses became Christian
saints : A enus was revived as the Virgin Mary: Minerva was
turned into St. Sophia: in Hermes,the good shepherd, and Apollo,
the sungod, they worshipped Christ; Bacchus became St. Paul:
J anus was turned into St. Peter; Hercules into St. Christopher:
Poseidon into St. Nicholas ; the “ Lares ” of the Romans were
advanced to household saints; St. Florian had to watch over fire,
like Vulcanus or Hepheistos ; the Titans were declared to have
been the fallen angels, and Cupid or Eros was revived as Asmodaeus, a mischief-making demon in matters of love. The forces
of nature that had been personified as lovely nymphs, tritons,
naiads, and nereids were degraded to uglv witches, imps, devils, or
infernal spectres. Whilst this idolatrous transformation scene
took place in the West, the East, with iconoclastic rage, disputed
on how the hand should be held when blessing, whether the
three fingers should be stretched out, or whether the thumb
should be joined to the third finger, and the first twro
fingers alone held up erect with the fourth, whether to have
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The Eastern Question ; from a
carved or only painted saints on a gold ground, and similarly
important questions.
In the meantime, trade, industry, commerce, arts and sciences
languished, and the new faith that ought to have stimulated the
vitality of humanity into new activity of love and kindness,
excited it to an utter dissolution of the religious and social
condition of the Byzantine Empire. Add to all this the variety
of nationalities, the scattered remnants of house and homeless
Jews, Greek sophists, Egyptian mystics, Roman plunderers,
Persian necromencers, fantastic gipsy cabbalists, and you will have
some idea of the Eastern Question that is to be solved once more
after 1552 years of continuous confusion.
Free from all such dissensions at this period were the direct
descendants of Abraham or Joktan, the son of Heber, or of
Ishmael, the Semitic race of the Arabs, who lived under Sheiks or
Emirs. They were divided into three principal groups : (1) the
Arabs or Aribahs, the direct descendants of Iram or Aram, the
son of Shein; (2) the Mouta-Aribahs, or the settled descendants
of Joktan or Jokatan, according to Erevtag from “Katana,” to
take up a fixed abode, the son of Heber, son of Salah, son of
Arphaxad, son of Shein: and (3) the Mousta-Aribahs, the
descendants of Ishmael (he who was born in the desert). They
had their sanguinary feuds, not referring to theological niceties
but to their tribal genealogical tables—each of the Sheiks or
Emirs priding himself on a purer and more direct descent from
Abraham. They were valorous, loved their independence above
all, and combined the perfect freedom of a nomadic and pastoral
life with the courteous refinement of daring traders. They
possessed settlements, but they hated the corruption of large towns;
they were proud of their one god, one sanctuary, the Caaba, one
horse, one sword, one bow, and as many arrows as they could
carry. They were chivalrous, wild in their love as in their hatred
and sanguinary revenge, but they were like the northern Teutons
of Europe, honest and tolerant of those who had not the honour
of being direct descendants of Abraham, or Joktan or Ishmael.
There were all the elements of a great historical future in these
wandering tribes if they could but be inspired with one common
thought, for one common cause; if they could but be made
conscious of their irresistible power, if once united to destroy
quarrelling and dogmatising Christianity in the East, to spread
one creed all over the world, to instal one God as the Supreme
Lord of the Universe. The moving power to accomplish this
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11
appeared in Mahomet at the right moment. Every right-minded
man must blush when he refers to our so-called learned Encyclo
pedias and finds if he looks for the article Mahomet, the assertion
made with surprising unanimity that Mahomet was “ one of the
greatest impostors.” This false notion, this contemptible ignoring
of the grandeur and intellectual and moral power of individuals,
so soon as they are not of our opinion, produces those entangled
questions between East and West, nations and nations that have
cost humanity torrents of blood. Ideas, which we would resent
with indignation if taught of us, are taught in schools for thousands
of years to millions and millions of human beings, and then we
are astonished if after having sown contempt and wild hatred we
find we cannot reap forbearance and love. If Christians cannot
afford to be charitable, when is charity to come into the world ?
Mahomet when he appeared on the stage of the world found
human society in a state of dissolution analogous to that which had
existed at the advent of Christ. The Arabs were addicted to a
rude kind of idolatry; they had but one unseemly sanctuary, the
Caaba, a simple square building, by the side of the well in which
Hagar found water for her pining Ishmael. The building contained
a black stone, the grand national talisman, a meteor which the
Arabs believed had been dropped from heaven by their supreme
deity Allah or Allah-Taala (the male or active principle of creation),
in honour of Alilath (the female or passive principle of creation);
the Greek Bacchus and Venus. This black stone was placed in the
south-western corner of the Caaba, at Mecca, and was consecrated
to Sabba, or Abbah (the Abads of the Zend-people in the centre of
Asia, and the Asen of the Teutons in the farthest north of Europe),
and entrusted to the care of the Koreish tribe, more particularly
to the Hashem family of which Mahomet was a descendant.
Abul Kasem Muhammed (the glorious) was born 571 in the sixth
century, a.d.—and died 632 (61 years old). His father was
Abdallah (the beautiful) who married Amina, and on this occasion
two hundred ladies are said to have expired of jealousy and despair.
His grandfather was Abdul Motalleb, who saved Mecca from the
Abyssinians, and triumphantly carried away the talisman, the black
stone, and had it replaced in the sanctuary. His great-grand
father was Hashem, who succeeded in averting a famine by sacrific
ing all his worldly goods to the suffering. What wonder that a
boy, with such a pedigree, should have become a religious dreamer
and a fanatic, in times, when he heard nothing but theological
discussions. The Persian legends assert that at the birth of
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The Eastern Question; from a
Mahomet the eternal fires on the altars of the Magi were ex
tinguished. It was further said that on the night of his birth all
heathen and Christian idols sighed and shrieked, and that a wise
Jew proclaimed from a watch-tower that the star of Messiah had
just risen, and that the Saviour of the world had been born. It
was said, that the first spiritual ray proceeding from Allah was
Mahomet’s soul, of which God proclaimed: “In thee dwells my
light, for thy sake let the earth expand itself, and I create paradise
and hell. The divine first ray had burned in Adam and Seth, in
Abraham and Moses, the prophets and Christ, but became flesh in
Mahomet.” When such ideas with reference to any mortal teacher
are spread, taught, and continually repeated from father to son, he
must in time become a mighty spiritual agent, and sway the minds
of millions and millions of people.
Divested of all “supernatural” cant, Mahomet must have been a
great and powerfid mind. He was undoubtedly a wise man in his
generation. When twenty-five years old he married an elderly but
rich widow Cadijah, and at the age of forty-one he first confessed
that he had received a divine revelation, which commanded him to put
an end to the idolatrous state of humanity and to teach in the true
Semitic sense the absolute indivisible unity of the one indivisible
Deity. Mahomet was illiterate and uneducated in theological
casuistry, but he read and studied the book of human nature. He
travelled as a keenly observant merchant, came into contact with
men of all nations and denominations, drew comparisons and
analogies between the creeds of all nations, and discovered with a
clear perception of combinations the weakness of the fallen Persian
and Roman Empires. He saw with a terrified and troubled heart
the degeneracy, profligacy, licentiousness of his times, and the
division, animosity and hatred amongst the Christian, Jewish,
Greek, and Egyptian absolute and dissolute theologians; he con
versed with Jewish rabbis, Persian parsees, Syrian monks, and
Christian sectarians who found refuge and protection amongst the
wild sons of the desert; he made himself acquainted with the laws
of Moses, the abstruse doctrines of Zoroaster, and the pure vivifying
teachings of Christ. Each year during the month of Ramadan
he withdrew from the world in the cave of Hera, three miles
from Mecca, and there he dreamt dreams, had lively visions,
spiritualistic communications from God, and visits from the angel
Namaus (Gabriel), who thundered into his ears these grand words:
“Devote thyself to the service of Allah (the one God), the Lord of
the East and West, of Winter and Summer; for there is no other
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13
God but He!” During fully three years he succeeded in converting
no more than seven or fourteen persons. The majority of his
family and the leaders of the Koreish tribe were violently opposed
to the reformer, seventy of the latter swore to plunge their swords
into his irreligious heart. Mahomet’s house was surrounded by
these wild fanatics, but he escaped (622 a.d. 16tb of July)- Ten
years later, Syria, the territories on the Euphrates and the Greek
Empire were invaded and Mecca taken by the victorious followers
of Mahomet, and the surrounding country as far as the Arabian
Gulf was conquered and placed under the dominion of this mighty
Puritan monotheistic ruler and his sword. Up to the period of his
flight Mahomet had wished to teach by persuasion: he was kind and
tolerant, but through violent resistance and unexpected victory his
wild Asiatic nature and his Semitic egotistic character gained the
upper hand. He then declared war—sanguinary war against all
those who did not share his religious opinions, and sacrificed them
to the wrath of his Allah. The Koran was to be the only holv
book of the world, written by the pen of light on God’s tablet,
containing the eternal decrees of God himself.
Mahomet’s faith stood to the other religions of the East exactly
in the same relation as Puritanism to the Established Church in
England; his soldiers were the mighty valiant covenanters of the
East, who rushed with their Koran as these with their Bibles into
battle and conquered. “To believe in the one God, to fast, to drink
no wine (which neither our covenanters have observed, and least of all
their descendants do observe), to remove the sense of speciality and
consequent separation from the infinite, arising from bodily limita
tion, and to give alms, that is, to get rid of particular private
possession,” were Mahomet’s principal injunctions; but the highest
merit in a believer on earth was his dving for the orthodox faith of
the prophet. “He who perished for this faith in battle after having
killed at least one infidel, was sure of Paradise.” Eor twelve
centuries Mahomet’s ideas have ruled the daily life, the hopes in a
future world, the prayers, morals and destinies of nearly one-fifth
of the human race. Since he first proclaimed his revelation to the
world, 3765 generations have passed away, amounting to about
thirty-six thousand millions of human beings (at a low rate), who
all acknowledge him as a special messenger from God. His
followers kindled in the West an analogous fanatic religious ex
citement, first in Charlemagne, who was a Christian Mahomet,
wielding the cross instead of the crescent, obeying a pope, instead
of Allah and his prophet; next in the mighty crusaders. Through
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The Eastern Question; from a
the Mahometans poetry, arts and sciences, chivalry and philosophy
were revived in the West. Scholasticism with all its brilliant
negative successes, its division into realists and nominalists, its
fierce battles on inherited sin and grace, regeneration, predestina
tion, and the eucharist—and its final positive results, showing at
last the utter uselessness of the dry, barren, dialectical efforts
leading to mere verbiage —or to speak with Hamlet to “words—
words—words!” — had its root in Mahometanism. Whilst our
ecclesiastical wise men contended that it is sinful to use blood, or
to eat things strangled, to partake of lard, to wear rings on the
fingers, that the priests ought to have beards, and that at baptism
men ought not to be contented with one single immersion, the
Arabs in the East still retained a high degree of zeal for the culture
of the sciences. They studied astronomy, arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, anatomy, chemistry, botany, and above all geography
and philosophy, especially in the more practical sense of Aristotle
through the immortal Averroes. Architecture and decorative
art received new impulses—for as long as Persians and Arabs
were the apostles of Mahometanism it had vitality. Thirtysix thousand fortified camps and places in Persia, Asia Minor,
Africa, and Europe were stormed and taken. More than twenty
thousand four hundred mosques, pointing with their slim minarets
to heaven, were constructed from the borders of the Ebro in Spain
to the shores of the Granges, from the Oxus and Euphrates to the
Atlantic Ocean, proclaiming the glory of Allah. All this was
accomplished a few decades after Mahomet's flight to Medina.
Without the quarrelling Christians there could have been no
Mahometans. The appearance and success of Mahomet prove the
eternal law of action and reaction in the intellectual as well as in
the physical world. The disturbed balance between morals and
intellect, between professions and actions, between mind and matter,
was to be adjusted in the East, and Mahomet with his faith worked
at this task. Religion was freed from all metaphysical subtleties.
The simplicity of faith was concentrated in one single indisputable
sentence : “There is but one Grod”—or “one first incomprehensible
cause.” Allah was to be the Grod of all, whether poor or rich, wise
or ignorant, who believed in Him, and his worship was to be purely
intellectual. No ceremonies, no symbols, no mystic representations,
no images of animals or men were tolerated. When Omar came
from Medina on a camel, carrying only two bags, one with rice,
the other with dates, a wooden dish and a leathern water-bottle,
constituting the whole of his furniture, and took possession of
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15
Jerusalem, the sacred town of Judaism and Christianity, he proved
the power of the fanatic faith on which Mahometanism was based.
In opposition to the Christian Church, pomp and vanity were to
give way to stern and shapeless faith. Theological discussions had
to yield to a deeper study of nature and science. The ink of the
doctors, not discussing incomprehensible mysteries, but the powers
of nature or the abstractions of geometry and mathematics, was
considered “equally valuable with the blood of martyrs.” Under
the gentle sway of the Caliphs, paradise was as much for him who
had rightly used his pen, not in questions of faith, (for these were
all settled in the Koran), but in subjects of medicine or alchemy,
as for him who had fallen by the sword. The world was declared
to be sustained by/our things: the learning of the wise, the justice
of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave.
Instead of erecting dim-looking churches and splendidly decorated
public-houses in close vicinity, they built the school near the
mosque, and often the mosques were merely schools. Every thing
changed, when by degrees the wild Mongol hordes came down
from the highlands of Northern Asia, took possession of the
kingdom of the Caliphs, superseded the gentler rule of the Persians
and Arabs, and developed all the hidden faults and incongruities of
the Koran. The Eastern question became from that moment not
a religious, but a racial or tribal and social question. About 1100
a.d. the Mahometans were divided into several states, namely, the
Persian, Syrian, Median, Khorasan and the territory beyond the
Oxus river. The Tartars rose to power in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, and these hordes, under their leader Osman, meaning the
“ bone-breaker,” strengthened by robbers, fugitive Christian slaves,
founded a mighty Ottoman Empire on the ruins of the Seldshooks,
Arabs and Persians, aided by the dissensions of the degenerated
subjects of the Byzantine Emperors. This Empire expanded under
his successors, especially Mahomet I., who advanced as far as
Salzburg and Bavaria, whilst the pious fathers of Western Europe
tried to give spiritual peace to the Church by burning Huss at
Constance and deposing three popes. His son Murad II. though
opposed by the heroic Skanderbeg, and the still more heroic
Johannes Hunnyady, augmented the Empire till Mahomet II. took
Constantinople on the 29th of May, 1453, with the help of Christian
soldiers, who felt themselves more comfortable under the sway of
the Turks and Tartars than under their more implacable theological
masters. We may sneer at the Turks, who struck terror into all
Europe by their conquests, but it is a fact, that for three centuries
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The Eastern Question; from a
and a half, under twelve heroic sultans, they were invincible: they
subdued Egypt, the Barbary States, and all the Arabian Coasts on
the Bed Sea. “ In Europe they conquered the Crimea, and the
countries along the Danube; they overran Hungary and Tran
sylvania, and repeatedly laid siege to A ienna. At sea, notwith
standing the gallant resistance of the Venetians, they subdued
Rhodes, Kyprus, and all the Greek islands,” says the immortal
Cobden in his pamphlet on Russia, written exactly a quarter of a
century ago, in which he gave us sound advice with reference to
Turkey. He was, however, a preacher in the desert. Cobden
referred to the social and religious organization of the Turks, which
dates from 1538, when Soliman united in the Sultan the dignities
of the A ice-regent of the Prophet and the lay-ruler. The Koran
became from that time the only guide in social and political
matters: all other fields of learning and art were cordially despised.
The Turks are religiously ignorant of all that forms the education
of an Italian, Englishman, Frenchman or German. A Turk, or
rather Ottoman, knows nothing of the countries beyond the bounds
of the Sultan's dominions. “Notwithstanding that this people
have been for nearly four centuries in absolute possession of all the
noblest remains of ancient art, they have evinced no taste for
architecture or sculpture, whilst painting and music are equally
unknown to them.” But why? Because they have to bow down
to the most bigoted and intolerant branch of the Mahometan faith.
They have become what we should have become if the intolerant
bigots had borne all before them. Our own bigots whitewashed
our sacred buildings, smashed in our painted windows, abominated
sculptured men and women, whether saints or heathen gods and
goddesses. They tried to stop all progress, cursed astronomy,
zoology and geology as contrary to the word of God, despised
learning as creating sceptics and infidels; and some of their leaders,
who pretend to learning, even now force chronology in the narrow
time-boundaries of Rabbi Hillel’s and Bishop Usher’s dates. They
composed garbled inscriptions in our own British Museum, which
they keep closed ou Sundays, fearing lest the masses should find
greater spiritual delight in draughts of knowledge than in alcoholic
spirits. They are afraid that comparative mythology might dawn
upon the people; that Egyptian monuments and relics might teach
them that their important symbols, about which they quarrel with
the same bitterness as the Turkish theologians on the knotty point,
“whether the feet should be washed at rising, or only rubbed with
the dry hand,” are only purloined from old heathens; that their
�Religious and Social Point of View.
17
eastern and western postures are as irrevalent to piety, as the
Turk’s turning towards Mecca (the birth-place of the prophet), in
saying his prayers.
■ From the moment when the Turks placed their home-rule and
foreign affairs under the stable, immovable dictates of the Koran
progress became impossible. For the. nomadic character of the
shepherd predominates in them. “ The Divine Glory,” is said, in
a speech of Mohamet’s, “ is among the shepherds; vanity and
impudence among the agriculturists.” The accredited collections
of traditions tell the following of Abu Umama al-Bahili : “ Once
on seeing a ploughshare and another agricultural implement, he
said, 1 heard the prophet sav : “ These implements do not
enter into the house of a nation, unless that Allah causes lowmindedness to enter in there at the same time.”—(Abuchan
Recueil). Of Chalif Omar the Turks believe, that when dying he
recommended in his political testament the Bedawi (nomads) to
his successors, “ ff»r they are the root of the Arabs and the germ of
Islam,” and “ how little this Arabian politician could appreciate
the importance of agriculture,” says Dr. Goldziher in his work,
“Mythology among the Hebrews” (London: Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1877), “ is evident from the edict in which he most
strictly forbade the Arabs to acquire landed possession and
practise agriculture in the conquered districts. The only mode of
life equally privileged with the roving nomad life, was held to be the
equally roving military profession, or life of nomads without herds
and with arms.” These few lines permit us a deep insight into
the state of Turkey. The Turks keep too faithfully to their
sacred book and the traditions of the military founders of their
faith.
We advance because we possess the great talent of bringing
our sacred laws into harmony with the exigencies of our times and
social condition. It is enacted that “ the hare because he cheweth
the cud (which the hare, however, does not do), but divideth not
the hoof (which the hare most extraordinarily does), he is unclean
unto von ; ” but we eat it. It is enacted that “ the swine, though
he divided the hoof and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the
cud, he is unclean to you ; ” yet we eat bacon for breakfast, and
pork in many ways. It is enacted “ that if anyone asks your
coat, we ought to give him our cloak: ” but if anyone writes to
us a mere begging letter, we give him in charge as au impostor,
and leave him to the tender mercies of the police, or of a Rev.
County magistrate, who sends a little girl of nine years of age to
�18
The Eastern Question ; from a
jail, because she picks up a few potatoes or a half-rotten cabbage
in some rich farmer's field. It is enacted “ that if anyone smites
your right cheek, you should turn to him your left; ” but if any
good believer were to smite anybody’s right cheek, he would soon
find out in a police-cell that we refuse to hold out our left cheek,
but have, in the interest of society, the man locked up who would
dare to live up to the literal sense of our holv book. Unhappily
with the Turks all this is not the case. They still believe with
blind faith in fatalism, or as we call it, in predestination. “ What
must happen will happen ! ” For Allah's will must be done.
1 have often had the pleasure of visiting mighty Pashas in the
East, they lived in castles and fortressess at Belgrad, Widdin,
Rustshuk, Varna, and Constantinople; half the windows were
broken, sometimes mended with paper, sometimes left broken—
“ Allah will mend them
but Allah does not do so. The Pasha,
however, who lived in a castle with broken windows, dilapidated
staircases, broken doors, without any furniture, smoked a “tshibuk”
that had an amber mouthpiece set with diamonds worth from two
to three thousand pounds ; the coffee was brought in on a tray of
pure gold, and served in “ filtchans ” of gold studded with precious
stones. Everything here still betrays the nomadic character—they
hoard moveable goods, but have no concern with agriculture or a
settled state of life. Their administration is as bad as was that in
France before the grand and sanguinary revolution. The judges
administer justice according to the dictates of the Koran. The
tax-gatherers are farmers of the public revenue. “ The situations
of Pasha, cadi, or judge are all given to the highest bidders,” and
all offices are publicly sold. Under such an administration pro
gress must be very slow or altogether impossible. A fierce
unmitigated military despotism, swayed bv a gloomy, religious
fanaticism, that teaches its followers to rely solely on Allah and
the sword crushes all vitality in the state-body, checks arts, and
makes science subservient to the requirements of the army or
navy, hinders the growth of cities, the increase of knowledge, and
the accumulation of wealth. The first step with the Ottomans in
the direction of reform must be to separate politics and religion,
and obtain an honest and conscientious administration for Greeks,
Turks, Jews, Christians, Roman Catholics, Nestorians, Unitarians,
Armenians, and Bashi-Bozouks. Above all they must emancipate
their women !
The Turks, like all oriental nations, especially those of the Semitic
branch of humanity, degrade the position of women. We ourselves
�Religious and Social Point of View.
19
are struggling against the religious remnants of Asiatic customs,
tempered to a certain degree by our Teutonic forefathers, and the
teachings of Christianity. We still look upon women as inferior
creatures, teach them less than men, and leave them more at the
mercy of the spiritual advisers, who often use the powerful female
element to create serious mischief in families and even States.
Neither Russian police officers, nor Kosacks, nor a mixed com
mittee of European statesmen, none of whom will agree with the
other, each of whom will strive to promote some secondary object
in the East, will be of any service in the regeneration of Turkey—
but the advantage to be gained by replacing woman into her legiti
mate social and family position would be incalculable.
Neither Cross nor Crescent can bring about freedom and a
salutary reform in the East till woman is reinstated in her rights
in Eastern society, freed from the stupifying and brutalising
influences of the Harem. Women are the teachers of our next
generations during the most sacred time of our lives, the dawn of
our consciousness, when all impressions are most vivid and leave
imperishable traces. And what are the women in the East ? They
must be elevated to be the companions of the Turk’s social life in
which woman ought to shine as the static, passive element of
humanity, softening man's passions, guiding his taste, and elevating
his more boisterous nature. Woman in the East has no share in
the administration of the Empire, except the brutal influence under
sensual impulses. The disturbed relations between men and
women in Turkey practically transform morality into immorality,
checking in men the use of their brain-power, and making them
peevish women. Men and women, thus deprived of freedom of
action, can neither establish the rule of intellect nor the sway of
genuine morals. There are, however, many good qualities in the
Turks. Air. W. R. S. Ralston has pointed them out in a masterly
article on “ Turkish Story-books ” in the first number of “ The
Nineteenth Century Review.” “ All who know the Turkish common
people intimately speak well of them. Sober, honest, and
industrious, the Turk, so long as he is poor and lowly, is a
respectable member of society.” We must not forget that the
Turks keep guard with guns and swords at the grave of Christ at
Jerusalem, and prevent the dissenting Greeks and Roman
Catholics, Armenians, and Nestorians from discussing their theo
logical differences with blows at that sacred place. There is
undoubtedly more cohesion amongst the Turks than amongst the
motley crowd of Greeks, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, who all
�20
The Eastern Question; from a
hate one another, persecute one another, and prefer to bend under
the government of their common foe, the Turk, than to allow any
of the other tribes or denominations to rule over them. The
Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and Roman Catholics are all free under
the Turks, but all of them persecute one another. The Jew must
not possess in Servia, the Greek is hunted down in Bosnia, the
united Armenian will have nothing to do with a Greek not
united believer, and to this religious animosity must be added
the national idiosinerasies. The Slavons hate the Greeks, the
Bosnians detest the Bulgarians, the Greeks return the feeling
with interest to the Slavons. The Turks have not hitherto been
able to bring union and cohesion into these antagonistic elements.
How then might this difficult question be solved ? So long as Sir
Stratford Canning (now Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) ruled
supreme in Constantinople, Turkey prospered and advanced steadily;
for to assert that nothing has improved in Turkey during the last fifty
years is a deliberate untruth, or the outburst of utter ignorance ; but
since Lord Stratford de Redclifle left, the Turks have relapsed into
their “koranic” apathy of fatalism. We ought to send out English
administrators to teach the Turks how to rule and become masters
of the eternal intrigues of Slavon agitators, conspirators, emissaries,
spies, diplomatic agents, missionaries, theologians, and special
correspondents, who go out from here, without any historical or
social knowledge of the country, and who on arrival become
“ atrocity-mongers ”—reporting one-sidedly, according to the cue
thev receive—endeavouring to excite a Russian crusade in the
name of down-trodden Christianity. Are we perhaps to revive
the old rule of the Greek Christian Emperors in the East—are we
to have a repetition of the misdeeds that disgraced humanity, and
produced the Mahometan reaction ? Do we aspire to see another
Basilios murder Michael and usurp his throne ; is a second Con
stantine to rule by the grace of his mother, and priests and
monks ? Is another Theophana to poison her husbands ; a second
Tzimiskes to become Emperor, after he had murdered Nikepheros
in his bed room, to be slowly poisoned in his turn to make room
for another murderer? Do we want to see another Basilios II.
(976—1015) blind 15,000 Bulgarians, sending them back to
their country, because they dared to attack him? The Turks had
in the Christian rulers, that swayed the destinies of the East
before them, not exactly the most forgiving teachers in the practice
of forbearance and tolerance. Are these times to be revived ?
Can we hope anything for Turkey from mere diplomatic agents,
�Religious and Social Point of View.
21
settling the destinies of 30,000,000 of human beings with pen and
ink ? If we are not prepared to support our protocols with
Armstrongs and Woolwich infants, with “blood and iron,” as
Bismarck would say, it would be better for us to pour oil on the
troubled waters, instead of fanning the flames of rebellion in the
East bv frightening the Turks, rousing their fanaticism, or by
encouraging the Slavons to disobedience, and then leaving them to
the tender mercies of their terrified task-masters, abusing them in
their turn, when they dared to imitate our ways to put down a
rebellion. The Austrian Government, after it restored peace in
Hungary with 80,000 Russians, had more than 1000 of the
noblest Hungarian patriots hanged and shot: Louis Napoleon III.,
after having dragonaded the Bourgeoisie of Paris, shooting down
some 4000 human beings, bombarding the Boulevards des Italiens,
had from 20—30,000 Trench citizens, who dared to adhere to the
legitimate Republican Government, transported to Cayenne. Men
and women were seized in the dead of the night and hurled away to
perish in misery and want. Are the riders of Turkey to govern
according to these noble examples? We must teach the Turks to
rely upon themselves. Exhausted, down-trodden, over-regulated,
the Hungarians gloriously attained their rights and privileges,
their freedom and happiness, not through foreign intervention or
protocols, newspaper articles, and one-sided speeches, to make
political capital out of the sufferings, agonies and despair of
Christians and Turks—but by relying on themselves.
Russia can, and will never solve the Eastern question. Of
her Government Herzen says in his work, “ Russia, and her
Social Condition : ” “ Terrible, nay fearful is the lot prepared for
him who dares in Russia to lift his head above the yoke imposed
upon us by the imperial Sceptre. The history of Russian litera
ture is a list of martyrs, or a register of criminals.” Rylejeff was
hanged. Pushkin was shot, when scarcely twenty-eight years old.
Gribojedoff was murdered at Taheran. Lermontoff was killed in
the Caucasus. Wenewitinoff perished, when thirtv-two years old,
through the influences of a dissolute society. Kolzoff was per
secuted to death by a bigoted relative, and died of grief at the age
of thirty-three. Belinsky, when thirty-five, starved to death in
misery. Polejaeff died in exile. Bestusheff died when quite young
in the Caucasus as a private soldier, after having served a period of
hard labour in Siberia. These are the Russian Byrons, Words
worths, Swinburnes, Buchanans, Macaulays. Maurices, and Carlyles,
who are treated in this merciless style. From Russia we have to
�22
The Eastern Question; from a
hope nothing for the regeneration of the East, neither from an
intellectual nor commercial point of view. Freedom and tolerance
are even less practised in Russia than in Turkey.
We may hope everything from an internal movement of the
united populations of Turkey. Let them become conscious of the
beauty, fertility and resources of their soil, which extends from 34
to 48 degrees north within the temperate zone, upon the same
parallels as France, Spain, and all the best portion of the United
States. Let them revive industry and agriculture, for “ Turkey in
many parts is more fruitful than the richest plains in Sicily.
When grazed by the rudest plough, it yields a more abundant
harvest than the finest fields between the Eure and the Loire, the
granary of France. Mines of silver and copper and iron still exist
(and could be worked to the benefit of the country), and salt
abounds. Tobacco, cotton and silk might be made the staple
exports of this region, and their culture admits of almost unlimited
extension throughout the Turkish territory: whilst some of the
native wines are equal to those of Burgundy. The heights of the
Danube are clad with apple, plum, cherry, and apricot trees—whole
forests cover the hills of Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus. The olive,
orange, mastic, fig and pomegranate, the laurel, myrtle, and nearly
all the beautiful and aromatic shrubs and plants are natural to the
soil. Nor are the animal productions less valuable than those of
vegetable life. The finest horses have been drawn from this
quarter to improve the breeds of Western Europe; and the rich
pastures of European Turkey are, probably, the best adapted in the
world for rearing the largest growth of cattle and sheep.”
Let the Turks above all discard all religious prejudices and
national animosities, and unite in one brotherhood to free their
country for the benefit of every citizen of whatever nationality or
religion. Freedom will be a stronger bond of union than Russian
battalions. But freedom never comes from heaven downwards, it
must take root in the lowest layers of a people here on earth and
grow upwards, and when grown it will apparently shower down its
blessings from above.
Neither Sultan nor Czar will free men, they must do it for
themselves. Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Armenians and
Turks must hope everything from themselves: they must not
refuse to go to their so-called mock-parliament, they must go and
make their brethren hear the public voice of wants and complaints,
of right and justice. They must take their constitution as we took
ours, cherish and fondle it, nurse it during its childhood, educate
�Religious and Social Point of View.
23
it into boyhood and rear it in time into manhood. They must
learn to do as we did, and not think that neglected nations can
grow over-night into patterns of freely constituted societies. They
must, however, do all their reforms amongst themselves, on their
own soil unaided, uninspired by foreign secret societies.
“Man’s fate lies in his own hand,” is an old apophthegm, and it
stands for nations as well; for nations are but multiplications of
individuals. The destinies of nations have generally been most
retarded or altogether ruined by foreign meddling.
Our duty in England is to watch over Turkey with a heart full of
love for freedom and justice. We have only the sacred interests of
humanity to guard, we have nothing in common with the clandestine
Bulgarian conspirators nor their mysterious instigators, or the
Servian rebels, nor with the wild and wrathful Bashi-Bozouks: we
must try to bring them all to their senses and relative duties.
Why does diplomacy not venture to interfere with our Home
rulers or our Fenians or our prosecutions of spiritualists or
refractory ritualistic priests? Simply because we have learned to
manage our own business. Why did no one attempt to interfere
with the North American presidential elections and ask for an
international committee for the protection of Republicans and
Democrats ? Because the American people know how to manage
their own business. We should teach the Turks that Bible and
Koran, missal and hymn book might go together; that Patriarchs
and Sheik-Ul-Islams, Imams and Papas, preachers and Khatibs,
rabbis and priests, Great-Logethets and Khakham-Bashis can be
made to agree, if they live under an enlightened lay-government
that knows how to enforce respect for the laws, and grants perfect
freedom to the individual to develop as an independent member of
a well regulated society. A new life would arise on the golden
horn—Constantinople would become the most splendid city in
Europe, the most attractive resort for civilized Europeans, a kind
of 1 ans of the East. F reedom and equality of religion would
bring the three monotheistic religions into fraternal union and
glorious harmony—the demoralizing position of women would be
changed—Greek, Slavon and Arab, poets and learned men would
vie with one another on the fields of glowing imagination and cool
reflecting reason. Instead of a burning Eastern question we
should then have a solution worthy of the spirit of our age, and
should give a new life to Turkey in the North of Asia, as we have
given to India in the South.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S
LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 29tli April, 1877, will
be given.
Members’ .£1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket transfer
able (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reservedseat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence each
lecture.
For tickets, also for printed lectures, apply (by letter) to the lion.
Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde
Park, W.
Payment at the doorOne Penny;—Sixpence;—and (Reserved Seats)
One Shilling.
The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, which have
been printed, are—on
“ Natural Phenomena and their Influence on different Religious Systems.”
“ The Vedas and the Zend-Avesta : the First Dawn of Religious Conscious
ness in Humanity.”
The above are out of print.
“ The Origin and the Abstract and Concrete Nature of the Devil.”
“ Dreams and Ghosts.”
” Ethics and ^Esthetics.”
“ The Spontaneous Dissolution of Ancient Creeds.”
“ Dogma and Science.”
All price 3d., or post-free, 3bd.
By the same Author are the following Works:—
“ Faust,” by Goethe, with Critical and Explanatory Notes. Second Edition.
London: David Nutt, 270, Strand. 18(52.
“ Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism.” Third Edition. London: Hardwicke & Bogue, 192, Piccadilly. 1870.
“ A Manual of the Historical Development of Art: Pre-historic, Ancient,
Classic, and Early Christian.” London: Hardwick & Bogue, 192,
Piccadilly. 1876.
Kenny & Co., Printbbs, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The Eastern question from a religious and social point of view : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on 25th March, 1877
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Zerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements on back page. In diplomatic history, the "Eastern Question" refers to the strategic competition and political considerations of the European Great Powers in light of the political and economic instability in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th centuries. [Source: Wikipedia, 3/2018].
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1877
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N701
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Ottoman Empire
Religion
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Eastern Question
NSS
Ottoman Empire
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Text
CT &
i'ctturc
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 6th APRIL, 1879,
By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D.,
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University College, London.
[Reprinted, from the “ Fortnightly Review,” by kind permission of the
Editor.]
llonhon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1879.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
The doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism.
Why Materialism is looked upon as inferior and degrading.
Every function of mind dependent upon organization.
Milton an avowed Materialist.
Materialism not inconsistent with the belief of a future life, but incon
sistent with the doctrine of a contempt of the body.
The human body the last and greatest product of organic development.
Differences of size and development between the brain of the lowest savage
and that of an ordinary European.
Corresponding differences of intellectual and moral capacities.
The reign of law in human evolution.
The reign of law in human degeneracy.
Morality the essential condition of complex social development.
Intellectual and moral lessons of Materialism.
�LESSONS OF MATERIALISM.
T is well known that from an early period of speculative thought
two doctrines have been held with regard to the sort of
connection which exists between a man’s mind and his body. On
the one hand, there are those who maintain that mind is an
outcome and function of matter in a certain state of organization,
coming with it, growing with it, decaying with it, inseparable
from it: they are the so-called materialists. On the other hand,
there are those who hold that mind is an independent spiritual
essence which has entered into the body as its dwelling-place for
a time, which makes use of it as its mortal instrument, and which
will take on its independent life when the body, worn out by the
operation of natural decay, returns to the earth of which it is made :
they are the spiritualists. Without entering into a discussion as
to which is the true doctrine, it will be sufficient in this lecture to
accept, and proceed from the basis of, the generally admitted fact
that all the manifestations of mind which we have to do with in
this world are connected with organization, dependent upon it,
whether as cause or instrument; that they are never met with
apart from it any more than electricity or any other natural force
is met with apart from matter ; that higher organization must
go along with higher mental function. What is the state of things
in another world—whether the disembodied or celestially embodied
spirits of the countless myriads of the human race that have come
and gone through countless ages are now living higher lives—I do
not venture to inquire. One hope and one certitude in the matter
every one may be allowed to have and to express—the hope that
if they are living now, it is a higher life than they lived upon
earth ; the certitude that if they are living the higher life, most of
them must have had a vast deal to unlearn.
Many persons who readily admit in general terms the depend
ence of mental function on cerebral structure are inclined, when
brought to the particular test, to make an exception in favour of
the moral feeling or conscience. They are content to rest in the
uncertain position which satisfied Dr. Abercrombie, the dis
tinguished author of the well-known Inquiry concerning the In
tellectual Powers, who, having pointed out plainly the dependence
of mental function on organization, and, as a matter of fact which
I
�4
Lessons of Materialism.
cannot be denied, that there are individuals in whom every correct
feeling in regard to moral relations is obliterated, while the
judgment is unimpaired in all other relations, stops there, without
attempting to prosecute inquiry into the cause of the remarkable
fact which he justly emphasises. “ That this power,” he says,
“ should so completely lose its sway, while reason remains un
impaired, is a point in the moral constitution of man which it does
not belong to the physician to investigate. The fact is unquestion
able ; the solution is to be sought in the records of eternal truth.”
And with this lame and somewhat melancholy conclusion he leaves
his readers impotent before a problem, which is not only of deep
scientific interest, but of momentous practical importance. The
observation which makes plain the fact does not, however,
leave us entirely without information concerning the cause of it,
when we pursue it faithfully, since it reveals as distinct a depen
dence of moral faculty upon organization as of any other faculty.
Many instructive examples of the pervading mental effects of
physical injury of the brain might be quoted, but two or three,
recently recorded, will suffice. An American medical man was
called one day to see a youth, aged eighteen, who had been struck
down insensible by the kick of a horse. There was a depressed
fracture of the skull a little above the left temple. The skull was
trephined, and the loose fragments of bone that pressed upon the
brain were removed, whereupon the patient came to his senses.
The doctor thought it a good opportunity to make an experiment,
as there was a hole in the skull through which he could easily
make pressure upon the brain. He asked the boy a question, and
before there was time to answer it he pressed firmly with his finger
upon the exposed brain. As long as the pressure was kept up the
boy was mute, but the instant it was removed he made a reply,
never suspecting that he had not answered at once. The experi
ment was repeated several times with precisely the same result,
the boy’s thoughts being stopped and started again on each
occasion as easily and certainly as the engineer stops and starts
his locomotive.
On another occasion the same doctor was called to see a groom
who had been kicked on the head by a mare called Dolly, and
whom he found quite insensible. There was a fracture of the
skull, with depression of bone at the upper part of the forehead.
As soon as the portion of bone which was pressing upon the brain
was removed the patient called out with great energy, “Whoa,
Dolly! ” and then stared about him in blank amazement, asking,
�Lessons of Materialism.
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“Where is the mare?” “Where am I?” Three hours had
passed since the accident, during which the words which he was
just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up, as
they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go
the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The patient
did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare had
kicked him ; the last thing before he was insensible which he did
remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid back her
ears viciously.
Cases of this kind show how entirely dependent every function
of mind is upon a sound state of the mechanism of the brain.
Just as we can, by pressing firmly upon the sensory nerve of the
arm, prevent an impression made upon the finger being carried to
the brain and felt there, so by pressing upon the brain we can as
certainly stop a thought or a volition. In both cases a good
recovery presently followed the removal of the pressure upon the
brain ; but it would be of no little medical interest to have the
after-histories of the persons, since it happens sometimes after a
serious injury to the head that, despite an immediate recovery,
slow degenerative changes are set up in the brain months or years
afterwards, which go on to cause a gradual weakening, and perhaps
eventual destruction, of mind. Now the instructive matter in this
case is that the moral character is usually impaired first, and some
times is completely perverted, without a corresponding deterior
ation of the understanding; the person is a thoroughly changed
character for the worse. The injury has produced disorder in the
most delicate part of the mental organization, that which is
separated from actual contact with the skull only by the thin
investing membranes of the brain: and, once damaged, it is
seldom that it is ever restored completely to its former state of
soundness. However, happy recoveries are now and then made
from mental derangement caused by physical injury of the brain.
Some years ago a miner was sent to the Ayrshire District Asylum
who, four years before, had been struck to the ground insensible
by a mass of falling coal, which fractured his skull. He lay
unconscious for four days after the accident, then came gradually
to himself, and was able in four weeks to resume his work in the
pit. But his wife noticed a steadily increasing change for the
worse in his character and habits ; whereas he had formerly been
cheerful, sociable, and good-natured, always kind and affectionate
to her and his children, he now became irritable, moody, surly,
suspicious, shunning the company of his fellow-workmen, and
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impatient with her and the children. This bad state increased•
he was often excited, used threats of violence to his wife and
others, finally became quite maniacal, attempted to kill them, had
a succession of epileptic fits, and was sent to the asylum as a
dangerous lunatic. There he showed himself extremely suspicious
and surly, entertained a fixed delusion that he was the'victim of a
conspiracy on the part of his wife and others, and displayed bitter
and resentful feelings. At the place where the skull had been
fractured there was a well-marked depression of bone, and the
depressed portion was eventually removed by the trephine. From
that time an improvement took place in his disposition, his old self
coming gradually back; he became cheerful again, active and
obliging, regained and displayed all his former affection for his
wife and children, and was at last discharged recovered. No
plainer example could be wished to show the direct connection
ot cause and effect—the great deterioration of moral character
produced by the physical injury of the supreme nerve-centres of
the brain: when the cause was taken away the effect went also.
. Going a step further, let me point out that disease will some
times do as plain and positive damage to moral character as any
which direct injury of the brain will do. A fever has sometimes
deranged it as deeply as a blow on the head ; a child’s conscience
has been clean effaced by a succession of epileptic convulsions, just
as the memory is sometimes effaced; and those who see much of
epilepsy know well the extreme but passing moral transformations
which occur in connection with its seizures. The person may be
as unlike himself as possible when he is threatened with a fit;
although naturally cheerful, good-tempered, sociable and obliging,
he becomes irritable, surly, and morose, very suspicious, takes
offence at the most innocent remark or act, and is apt to resent
imaginary offences with great violence. The change might be
compared well with that which happens when a clear and cloudless
sky is overcast suddenly with dark and threatening thunder-clouds;
and just as the darkly clouded sky is cleared by the thunderstorm
which it portends, so the gloomy moral perturbation is discharged
and the mental atmosphere cleared by an epileptic fit or a succes
sion of such fits. In a few remarkable cases, however, the patient
does not come to himself immediately after the fit, but is left by it
in a peculiar state of quasi-somnambulism, during which he acts
like an automaton, doing strange, absurd, and sometimes even
criminal things, without knowing apparently at the time what he
is doing, and certainly without remembering in the least what he
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has done when he comes to himself. Of excellent moral character
habitually, he may turn thief in one of these states, or perpetrate
some other criminal offence by which he gets himself into trouble
with the police.
There are other diseases which, in like manner, play havoc with
moral feeling. Almost every sort of mental derangement begins
with a moral alienation, slight, perhaps, at the outset, but soon so
great that a prudent, temperate, chaste, and truthful person shall
be changed to exactly the opposite of what he was. This alienation
of character continues throughout the course of the disease, and
is frequently found to last for a while after all disorder of intelli
gence has gone. Indeed, the experienced physician never feels
confident that the recovery is stable and sure, until the person is
restored to his natural sentiments and affections. Thus it appears
that when mind undergoes decadence, the moral feeling is the first
to suffer ; the highest acquisition of mental evolution, it is the first
to witness to mental degeneracy. One form of mental disease,
known as general paralysis, is usually accompanied with a singu
larly complete paralysis of the moral sense from the outset; and a
not uncommon feature of it, very striking in some cases, is a
persistent tendency to steal, the person stealing in a weak-minded
manner what he has no particular need of, and makes no use of
when he has stolen it.
The victim of this fatal disease is
frequently sent to prison and treated as a common criminal in the
first instance, notwithstanding that a medical man who knows his
business might be able to say with entire certitude that the
supposed criminal was suffering from organic disease of the brain,
which had destroyed moral sense at the outset, which would go on
to destroy all the other faculties of his mind in succession, and
which in the end would destroy life itself. There is no question in
such case of moral guilt; it is not sin but disease that we are con
fronted with: and after the victim’s death we find the plainest
evidence of disease of brain which has gone along with the decay
of mind. Had the holiest saint in the calendar been afflicted as he
was, he could not have helped doing as he did.
I need not dwell any longer upon the morality-sapping effects of
particular diseases, but shall simply call to mind the profound
deterioration of moral sense and will which is produced by the
long-continued and excessive use of alcohol and opium. There is
nowhere a more miserable specimen of degradation of moral feeling
and of impotence of will, than the debauchee who has made
himself the abject slave of either of these pernicious excesses.
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Insensible to the interests of his family, to his personal responsi
bilities, to the obligations of duty, he is utterly untruthful and
untrustworthy, and in the worst end there is not a meanness of
pretence or of conduct that he will not descend to, not a lie he will
not tell, in order to gain the means to gratify his overruling
craving. It is not merely that passion is strengthened and will
weakened by indulgence as a moral effect, but the alcohol or opium
which is absorbed into his blood is carried by it to the brain and
acts injuriously upon its tissues : the chemist will, indeed, extract
alcohol from the besotted brain of the worst drunkard, as he will
detect morphia in the secretions of a person who is taking large
doses of opium. Seldom, therefore, is it of the least use to
preach reformation to these people, until they have been restrained
forcibly from their besetting indulgence for a long enough period
to allow the brain to get rid of the poison, and its tissues to regain
a healthier tone. Too often it is of little use then; the tissues
have been damaged beyond the possibility of complete restoration.
Moreover, observation has shown that the drink-craving is often
times hereditary, so that a taste for the poison is ingrained in the
tissues, and is quickly kindled by gratification into uncontrollable
desire.
Thus far it appears, then, that moral feeling may be impaired or
destroyed by direct injury of the brain, by the disorganizing action
of disease, and by the chemical action of certain substances which,
when taken in excess, are poisons to the nervous system. When
we look sincerely at the facts, we cannot help perceiving that it is
just as closely dependent upon organization as is the meanest
function of mind; that there is not an argument to prove the
so-called materialism of one part of mind which does not apply
with equal force to the whole mind. Seeing that we know
no more essentially what matter is than what mind is, being
unable in either case to go beyond the phenomena of which we
have experience, it is of interest to ask why the spiritualist
considers his theory to be of so much higher and intellectual and
moral order than materialism, and looks down with undisguised
pity and contempt on the latter as inferior, degrading, and even
dangerous ; why the materialist should be deemed guilty, not of
intellectual error only, but of something like moral guilt. His
philosophy has been lately denounced as a “ philosophy of dirt.”
An eminent prelate of the English Church, in an outburst of moral
indignation, once described him as possibly “ the most odious and
ridiculous being in all the multiform creation; ” and a recent writer
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in a French philosophical journal uses still stronger language of
abhorrance—“ I abhor them,” he says, “ with all the force of my
soul. ... I detest and abominate them from the bottom of
my heart, and I feel an invincible repugnance and horror when
they dare to reduce psychology and ethics to their bestial phy
siology—that is, in short, to make of man a brute, of the brute a
plant, of the plant a machine. . . . This school is a living
and crying negation of humanity.” The question is, what there is
in materialism to warrant the sincere feeling and earnest expression
of so great a horror of it. Is the abhorrence well founded, or is
it, perhaps, that the doctrine is hated, as the individual oftentimes
is, because misunderstood?
This must certainly be allowed to be a fair inquiry by those who
reflect that no less eminent a person and good a Christian than
Milton was a decided materialist. Several scattered passages in
Paradise Lost plainly betray his opinions ; but it is not necessary
to lay any stress upon them, because in his Treatise on Christian
Doctrine he sets them forth in the most plain and uncompromising
way, and supports them with an elaborate detail of argument. He
is particularly earnest to prove that the common doctrine that the
spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a
perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere
said in Scripture, and is at variance both with nature and reason ;
and he declares that “ man is a living being, intrinsically and
properly one and individual, not compound and separable, not,
according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two
distinct parts, as of soul and body.” Another illustrious instance
of a good Christian who, for a great part of his life, avowed his
belief that “ the nature of man is simple and uniform, and that the
thinking power and faculties are the result of a certain organization
of matter,” was the eloquent preacher and writer, Robert Hall.
It is true that he abandoned this opinion at a later period of his
life; indeed, his biographer tells us with much satisfaction that
“ he buried materialism in his father’s grave ; ” and a theological
professor in American college has in a recent article exultantly
claimed this fact as triumphant proof that the materialist’s “ gloomy
and unnatural creed ” cannot stand before such a sad feeling as
grief at a father’s death. One may be excused, perhaps, for not
seeing quite so clearly as these gentlemen the soundness of the
logic of the connection. On the whole, logic is usually sounder
and stronger when it is not under the pressure of great feeling.
The truth is that a great many people have the deeply-rooted
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feeling that materialism is destructive of the hope of immortality,
and dread and detest it for that reason. When they watch the
body decay and die, considering furthermore that after its death it
is surely resolved into the simple elements from which all matter is
formed, and know that these released elements go in turn to build
up other bodies, so that the material is used over and over again,
being compounded and decompounded incessantly in the long
stream, of life, they cannot realise the possibility of a resurrection
of the individual body. They cannot conceive how matter which
has thus been used over and over again can remake so many
distinct bodies, and they think that to uphold a bodily resurrection
is to give up practically the doctrine of a future life. It is a
natural, but not a necessary conclusion, as the examples of Milton
and Robert Hall prove, since they, though materialists, were
devout believers in a resurrection of the dead. Moreover, there
are many vehement antagonists of materialism, who readily admit
that it is not inconsistent with the belief in a life after death.
Indeed, they could not well do otherwise, when they recollect
what the Apostle Paul said in his very energetic way, addressing
the objector to a bodily resurrection as “ Thou fool,” and what
happened to the rich man who died and was buried; for it is told
of him that “ in hell he lifted up his eyes, and cried and said,
Rather Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he
may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I
am tormented in this flame.” Now if he had eyes to lift up and a
tongue to be cooled, it is plain that he had a body of some kind in
hell; and if Lazarus, who was in another place, had a finger to dip
in water, he also must have had a body of some kind there.
Leaving this matter, however, without attempting to explain the
mystery of the body celestial, I go on to mention a second reason
why materialism is considered to be bad doctrine. It is this : that
with the rise and growth of Christianity there came in the fashion
of looking down on the body with contempt as the vile and
despicable part of man, the seat of those fleshly lusts which warred
against the higher aspirations of the soul. It was held to be the
favourite province of the devil, who, having intrenched himself
there, lay in wait to entice or to betray to sin ; the wiles of Satan
and the lusts of the flesh were spoken of in the same breath, as in
the service of the English Church prayer is made for “ whatsoever
has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by his
own carnal will and frailness ; ” and all men are taught to look
forward to the time when “ he shall change this vile body and make
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it like unto his glorious body.” It was the extreme but logical
outcome of this manner of despising the body to subject it to all
the penances, and to treat it with all the rigour, of the most rigid
asceticism—to neglect it, to starve it, to scourge it, to mortify it in
every possible way. One holy ascetic would never wash himself,
or cut his toe-nails, or wipe his nose; another suffered maggots
to burrow unchecked into the neglected ulcers of his emaciated
body; others, like St. Francis, stripped themselves naked and
appeared in public without clothes. St. Macarius threw away his
clothes and remained naked for six months in a marsh, exposed to
the bite of every insect; St. Simeon Stylites spent thirty years on
the top of a column which had been gradually raised to a height of
sixty feet, passing a great part of his time in bending his
meagre body successively with his head towards his feet, and so
industriously that a curious spectator, after counting one thousand
two hundred and forty-four repetitions, desisted counting from
weariness. And for these things—these insanities of conduct may
we not call them—they were accounted most holy, and received
the honours of saintship. Contrast this unworthy view of the
body with that which the ancient Greeks took of it. They found
no other object in nature which satisfied so well their sensejof
proportion and manly strength, of attractive grace and beauty : and
their reproductions of it in marble we preserve now as priceless
treasures of art, albeit we still babble the despicable doctrine of
contempt of it. The more strange, since it is a matter of sober
scientific truth that the human body is the highest and most
wonderful work in nature, the last and best achievement of her
creative skill; it is a most complex and admirably constructed
organism, “ fearfully and wonderfully made,” which contains, as it
were in a microcosm, all the ingenuity and harmony and beauty
of the macrocosm. And it is this supreme product of evolution
that fanatics have gained the honour of saintship by disfiguring
and torturing!
These, then, are two great reasons of the repugnance which is
felt to materialism, namely, the notion that it is destructive of the
hope of a resurrection, and the contempt of the body which has
been inculcated as a religious duty. And yet on these very points
materialism seems fitted to teach the spiritualist lessons of humility
and reverence, for it teaches him, in the first place, not to despise
and call unclean the last and best work of his Creator’s hand; and,
secondly, not impiously to circumscribe supernatural power by the
narrow limits of his understanding, but to bethink himself that it
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were just as easy in the beginning, or now, or at any time, for the
omnipotent Creator of matter and its properties to make it think
as to make mind think.
Passing from these incidental lessons of humility and reverence,
I go now to show that materialism has it moral lessons, and that
these, rightly apprehended, are not at all of a low intellectual and
moral order, but, on the contrary, in some respects more elevating
than the moral lessons of spiritualism. I shall content myself
with two or three of these lessons, not because there are not more
of them, but because they will be enough to occupy the time at mv
disposal.
. It is a pretty . well accepted scientific doctrine that our fardistant prehistoric ancestors were a very much lower order of
beings than we are, even if they did not inherit directly from the
monkey; that they were very much like, in conformation, habits,
intelligence, and moral feeling, the lowest existing savages ; and
that we have risen to our present level of being by a slow process
of evolution which has been going on gradually through untold
generations. Whether or not “ through the ages one increasing
purpose runs,” as the poet has it, it is certainly true that “ the
,thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” Now
when we examine the brain of the lowest savage, whom we need
not be too proud to look upon as our ancestor in the flesh—say a
native Australian or a Bushman—we find it to be considerably
smaller than an ordinary European brain ; its convolutions, which
are the highest nerve-centres of mind, are decidedly fewer in
number, more simple in character, and more symmetrical in
arrangement. These are marks of inferiority, for in those things
in which it differs from the ordinary European brain it gets nearer
in structure to the still much inferior brain of the monkey ; it
represents, we may say, a stage of development in the long distance which has been traversed between the two. A comparison
of the relative brain-weights will give a rude notion of the
differences : the brain-weight of an average European male is
49 oz.; that of a Bushman is, I believe, about 33 oz.; and that of
a Negro, who comes between them in brain-size, as in intelligence,
is 44 oz. The small brain-weight of the Bushman is indeed
equaled among civilised nations by that of a small-headed or socalled microcephalic idiot. There can be no doubt, then, of a
great difference of development between the highest and the lowest
existing human brain.
There can be no doubt, furthermore, that the gross differences
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which there are between the size and development of the brain of
a low savage and of an average European, go along with as great
differences of intellectual and moral capacities—that lower mental
function answers to lower cerebral structure. It is a well-known
fact that many savages cannot count beyond five, and that they
have no words in their vocabulary for the higher qualities of
human nature, such as virtue, justice, humanity, and their
Opposites, vice, injustice, and cruelty, or for the more abstract
ideas. The native Australian, for example, who is in this case,
having no words for justice, love, mercy, and the like, would not
in the least know what remorse meant; if any one showed it in
his presence, he would think probably that he had got a bad
bellyache. He has no words to express the higher sentiments and
thoughts because he has never felt and thought them, and has
never had, therefore, the need to express them ; he has not in his
inferior brain the nervous substrata which should minister to such
sentiments and thoughts, and cannot have them in his present
state of social evolution, any more than he could make a particular
movement of his body if the proper muscles were wanting. Nor
could any amount of training in the world, we may be sure, ever
make him equal in this respect to the average European, any more
than it could add substance to the brain of a small-headed idiot
and raise it to the ordinary level. Were any one, indeed, to make
the experiment of taking the young child of an Australian savage
and of bringing it up side by side with an average European child,
taking great pains to give them exactly the same education in
every respect, he would certainly have widely different results in
the end : in the one case he would have to do with a well-organized
instrument, ready to give out good intellectual notes and a fine
harmony of moral feeling when properly handled; in the other
case, an imperfectly organized instrument, from which it would be
out of the power of the most patient and skilful touch to elicit more
than a few feeble intellectual notes and a very rude and primitive
sort of moral feeling. A little better feeling, certainly, than that
of its fathers, but still most primitive ; for many savages regard as
virtues most of the big vices and crimes, such as theft, rape,
murder, at any rate when they are practised at the expense of
neighbouring tribes. Their moral feeling, such as it is, is extremely
circumscribed, being limited in application to the tribe. In Europe
we have happily got further than that, since we are not, as savages
are and our forefathers probably were, divided into a multitude of
tribes eager to injure and even extirpate one another from motives •
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o£ tribal patriotism; but mankind seems to be far off the goal of
its high calling so long as, divided into jealous and hostile nations,
it suffers national divisions to limit the application of moral feeling,
counts it a high virtue to violate it under the profaned name of
patriotism, and uses the words “ humanitarianism” and “cosmo
politanism ” as crushing names of reproach. There is plainly room
yet for a wider expansion of moral feeling.
Now what do the discoveries of science warrant us to conclude
respecting the larger and more complex brain of the civilised man
and its higher capacities of thought and feeling ? They teach us
this : that it has reached its higher level not by any sudden and
big creative act, nor by a succession of small creative acts, but by
the slow and gradual operation of processes of natural evolution
going on through countless ages. Each new insight into natural
phenomena on the part of man, each act of wiser doing founded
on truer insight, each bettered feeling which has been developed
from wiser conduct, has tended to determine by degrees a corre
sponding structual change of the brain, which has been transmitted
as an innate endowment to succeeding generations, just as the
acquired habit of a parent animal becomes sometimes the instinct
of its offspring; and the accumulated results of these slow and
minute gains, transmitted by hereditary action, have culminated in
the higher cerebral organization, in which they are now, as it
were, capitalised. Thus the added structure embodies in itself the
superior intellectual and moral capacities of abstract reasoning and
moral feeling which have been the slow acquisitions of the ages,
and it gives them out again in its functions when it discharges its
functions rightly. If we were to have a person born in this
country with a brain of no higher development than that of the
low savage—destitute, that is, of the higher nervons substrata of
thought and feeling—if, in fact, our far remote prehistoric ancestor
were to come to life among us now—we should have more or
less of an imbecile, who could not compete on equal terms with
other persons, but must perish, unless charitably cared for, just as
the native Australian perishes when he comes into contact and
competition with the white man. The only way in which the
native Australian could be raised to the level of civilised feeling
and thought would be by cultivation continued through many
generations—by a process of evolution similar to that which lies
back between our savage ancestors and us.
That is one aspect of the operation of natural law in human
events—the operation of the law of heredity in development, in
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carrying mankind forward, that is, to a higher level of being. It
teaches us plainly enough that the highest qualities of mind bear
witness to the reign of law in nature as certainly as do the lowest
properties of matter, and that if we are to go on progressing in
time to come it must be by observation of, and obedience to, the
laws of development. But there is another vastly important
aspect of the law of heredity which it concerns us to bear sincerely
in mind—its operation in working out human degeneracy, in
carrying mankind downwards, that is, to a lower level of being.
It is certain that man may degenerate as well as develop ; that he
has been doing so both as nation and individual ever since we have
records of his doings on earth. There is a broad and easy way of
dissolution, national, social, or individual, which is the opposite of
the steep and narrow way of evolution. Now what it behoves us
to realise distinctly is that there is not anything more miraculous
about the degeneracy and extinction of a nation or of a family
than there is about its rise and development; that both are the
work of natural law. A nation does not sink into decadence, I
presume, so long as it keeps fresh those virtues of character
through which it became great among nations ; it is when it suffers
them to be eaten away by luxury, corruption, and other enervating
vices, that it undergoes that degeneration of character which
prepares and makes easy its over-throw. In like manner a family,
reckless of the laws of physical and moral hygiene, may go through
a process of degeneracy until it becomes extinct. It was no mere
dream of prophetic frenzy that when the fathers have eaten
sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge, nor was it a
meaningless menace that the sins of the fathers shall be visited
upon the children unto the third and fourth generations ; it was
an actual insight into the natural law by which degeneracy increases
through generations—by which one generation reaps the wrong
which its fathers have sown, as its children in turn will reap the
wrong which it has sown. What we call insanity or mental
derangement is truly, in most cases, a form of human degeneracy,
a phase in the working out of it; and if we were to suffer this
degeneracy to take it course unchecked through generations, the
natural termination would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the
family. A curious despot would find it impossible, were he to
make the experiment, to breed and propagate a race of insane
people; nature, unwilling to continue a morbid variety of the
human kind, would bring his experiment to an end by the
production of sterile idiocy. If man will but make himself the
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subject of serious scientific study, he shall find that this working
out of degeneracy through generations affords him a rational
explanation of most of those evil impulses of the heart which he
has been content to attribute to the wiles and instigations of the
devil; that the evil spirit which has taken possession of the
wicked man is often the legacy of parental or ancestral error,
misfortune, or wrong-doing. It will be made plain to him that
insanity, idiocy, and every other form of human degeneracy is not
casualty, but defect which comes by cause ; that it is just as much
the definite consequent of definite antecedents as any other event
in nature; and that these antecedents many times are within human
controul, being the palpable outcome of ignorance or of neglect of
the laws of moral and physical hygiene. Let me illustrate by an
example the nature and bearing of this scientific study.
I will take for this purpose a case which every physician who
has had much experience must have been asked some time or
other to consider and advise about: a quite young child, which is
causing its parents alarm and distress by the precocious display
of vicious desires and tendencies of all sorts, that are quite out of
keeping with its tender years, and by the utter failure of either
precept, or example, or punishment to imbue it with good feeling
and with the desire to do right. It may not be notably deficient
in intelligence; on the contrary, it may be capable of learning
quickly when it likes, and extremely cunning in lying, in stealing,
in gratifying other perverse inclinations; and it cannot be said
not to know right from wrong, since it invariably eschews the
right and chooses the wrong, showing an amazing acuteness in
escaping detection and the punishment which follows detection.
It is, in truth, congenitally conscienceless, by nature destitute of
moral sense and actively imbued with an immoral sense. Now
this unfortunate creature is of so tender an age that the theory of
Satanic agency is not thought to offer an adequate explanation of
its evil impulses ; in the end everybody who has to do with it feels
that it is not responsible for its vicious conduct, perceives that
punishment does not and cannot in the least reform it, and is
persuaded that there is some native defect of mind which renders
it a proper case for medical advice. Where, then, is the fault that
a human being is born into the world who will go wrong, nay, who
must go wrong, in virtue of a bad organization ? The fault lies
somewhere in its hereditary antecedents. We can seldom find
the exact cause and trace definitely the mode of its operation—the
study is much too complex and difficult for such exactness at
�Lessons of Materialism.
17
present—but we shall not fail to discover the broad fact of the
frequency of insanity or other mental degeneracy in the direct line
of the child’s inheritance. The experienced physician seldom feels
any doubt of that when he meets with a case of the kind. It is
indeed most certain that men are not bred well or ill by accident
any more than the animals are; but while most persons are ready
to acknowledge this fact in a general way, very few pursue the
admission to its exact and rigorous consequences, and fewer still
suffer it to influence their conduct.
It may be set down, then, as a fact of observation that mental
degeneracy in one generation is sometimes the evident cause of an
innate deficiency or absence of moral sense in the next generation.
The child bears the burden of its ancestral infirmities or wrong
doings. Here then and in this relation may be noted the in
structive fact, that just as moral feeling was the first function to
be affected at the beginning of mental derangement in the
individual, so now the defect or absence of it is seen to mark the
way of degeneracy through generations. It was the latest
acquisition of mental evolution; it is the first to go in mental
dissolution.
A second fact of observation may be set down as worthy of con
sideration, if not of immediate acceptation, namely, that an absence
of moral feeling in one generation, as shown by a mean, selfish,
and persistent disregard of moral action in the conduct of life, may
be the cause of mental derangement in the next generation. In
fact, a person may succeed in manufacturing insanity in his
progeny by a persistent disuse of moral feeling, and a persistent
exercise, throughout his life, of those selfish, mean, and anti-social
tendencies which are a negation of the highest moral relations of
mankind. He does not ever exercise the nervous substrata which
minister to moral functions, wherefore they undergo atrophy in
him, and he runs the risk of transmitting them to his progeny in
So imperfect a state, that they are incapable of full development of
function in them ; just as the instinct of the animal which is not
exercised for many generations on account of changed conditions
of life, becomes less distinct by degrees and in the end, perhaps,
extinct. People are apt to talk as if they believed that insanity
might be got rid of were only sufficient care taken to prevent its
direct propagation by the marriages of those who had suffered it
or were like to do so. A vain imagination assuredly ! Were all the
insanity in the world at the present time clean sweptaway to-morrow,
men would breed it afresh before to-morrow’s to-morrow by their
�18
Lessons of Materialism.
errors, their excesses, their wrong-doings of all sorts. Rightly,
then, may the scientific inquirer echo the words of the preacher,
that however prosperous a man may have seemed in his life, judge
him not blessed before his death : for he shall be known in his
children: they shall not have the confidence of their good descent.
In sober truth, the lessons of morality which were proclaimed by
the prophets of old, as indispensable to the stability and well-being
of families and nations, were not mere visions of vague fancy ;
founded upon actual observation and intuition of the laws of
nature working in human events, they were insights into the
eternal truths of human evolution.
Whether, then, man goes upwards or downwards, undergoes
development or degeneration, we have equally to do with matters
of stern law. Provision has been made for both ways ; it has been
left to him to find out and determine which way he shall take. And
it is plain that he must find the right path of evolution, and avoid the
wrong path of degeneracy, by observation and experience, pursuing
the same method of positive inquiry which has served him so w7ell
in the different sciences. Being pre-eminently and essentially a
social being, each one the member of one body—the unit, that is,
in a social organism—the laws which he has to observe and obey
are not the physical laws of nature only, but also those higher laws
which govern the relations of individuals in the social state. If
he make his observations sincerely and adequately in this way, he
cannot fail to perceive that the laws of morality were not really
miraculous revelations from heaven any more than was the •
discovery of the law of gravitation, but that they were the essential
conditions of social evolution, and were learned practicallv by the
stern lessons of experience. He has learnt his duty to his
neighbour as he has learnt his duty to nature ; it is implicit in
the constitution of a complex society of men dwelling together in
peace and unity, and has been revealed explicitly by the intuition
of a few extraordinary men of sublime moral genius.
As it is not a true, it cannot be a useful, notion to foster, that
morality was the special gift to man, or is the special property, of
any theological system, and that its vitality is in the least bound
up with the life of any such creed. Whether men believed in
Heaven and Hell or not, in Jupiter or in Jehovah, in Buddha or in
Jesus, they could not fail to find out that some obedience to moral
law is essential to social evolution. The golden rule of morals
itself—“ Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you”—
was perceived and proclaimed long before it received its highest
/
�Lessons of Materialism.
19
Christian expression.* We ought to be just and to confess
the truth: there were good Christians in the world before
Christ. It is not, indeed, religious creed which has invented
and been the basis of morality, but morality which has been the
bulwark of religions. And as a matter of fact it is too true that
morality has suffered many times not a little from its connection
with theological creeds; that its truths have been laid hands on
and used to support demoralising supersitions which were no part
of it; that doctrines essentially immoral have been even taught in
the name of religion; and that religious systems in their struggles
to establish their supremacy have oftentimes shown small respect
to the claims of morality. Had religion been true to its nature and
function, had it beenas wide as morality and humanity, it should have
been the bond of unity to hold mankind together in one brother
hood, linking them in good feeling, good-will, and good work
towards one another ; but it has in reality been that which has most
divided men, and the cause of more hatreds, more disorders, more
persecutions, more bloodshed, more cruelties than most other
causes put together. In order to maintain peace and order, there
fore, the State in modern times has been compelled to hold itself
practically aloof from religion, and to leave to each hostile sect
liberty to do as it likes so long as it meddles not by its tenets and
ceremonials with the interests of civil government. That is the
present outcome of a religion of peace on earth and goodwill
among men ! On the whole it may be thought to be fortunate for
the interests of morality that it is not bound up essentially with
any form of religious creed, but that it survives when creeds die,
having its more secure foundations in the hard-won experience of
mankind.
The inquiry which, taking a sincere survey of the facts, finds
the basis and sanction of morality in experience, by no means
* There appears to be no doubt that Confucius, among others, has the
clearest apprehension of it and expressly taught it; and the Buddhist
religion of perfection is certainly founded upon self-conquest and self
sacrifice. They are its very corner-stone: the purification of the mind
from unholy desires and passions, and a devotion to the good of others,
which rises to an enthusiasm for humanity, in order to escape from the
miseries of this life and to attain to a perfect moral repose. “ Let all the
sins that have been committed fall upon me, in order that the world may
be delivered,” Buddha says. And of the son or disciple of Buddha it is
said, “ When reviled he revileth not again; when smitten he bears the
blow without resentment; when treated with anger and passion he returns
love and good-will; when threatened with death he bears no malice.”
�20
Lessons of Materialism.
arrives in the end at easy lessons of self-indulgence for the
individual and the race, but, on the contrary, at the hardest
lessons of self-renunciation. Disclosing to man the stern and
uniform reign of law in nature, even in the evolution and
degeneracy of his own nature, it takes from him the comfortable
but demoralising doctrine that he or others can escape the penalty
of his ignorance, error, or wrong-doings either by penitence or
prayer, and holds him to the strictest account for them. Dis
carding the notion that the observed uniformity of nature is but a
uniformity of sequence at will which may be interrupted whenever
its interruption is earnestly enough asked for—a notion which,
were it more than lip-doctrine, must necessarily deprive him of his
most urgent motive to study patiently the laws of nature in order
to conform to them—it enforces a stern feeling of responsibility
to search out painfully the right path of obedience and to follow it,
inexorably laying upon man the responsibility of the future of his
race. If it be most certain, as it is, that all disobedience of natural
law, whether physical or moral, is avenged inexorably in its conse
quences on earth, eithei’ upon the individual himself, or more often,
perhaps, upon others—that the violated law cannot be bribed to
stay its arm by burnt-offerings nor placated by prayers—it is a
harmful doctrine, as tending directly to undermine understanding
and to weaken will, to teach that either prayer or sacrifice will
obviate the consequences of want of foresight or want of self
discipline, or that reliance on supernatural aid will make amends
for lack of intelligent will. We still pray half-heartedly in our
churches, as our forefathers prayed with their whole hearts, when
we are afflicted with a plague or pestilence, that God will “ accept
of an atonement and command the destroying angel to cease from
punishing ; ” and when we are suffering from too much rain we
ask him to send fine weather “ although we for our iniquities have
worthily deserved a plague of rain and water.” Is there a person
of sincere understanding who, uttering that prayer, now believes
it in his heart to be the successful way to stay a fever, plague, or
pestilence ? He knows well that, if it is to be answered, he must
clean away dirt, purify drains, disinfect houses, and put in force
those other sanitary measures which experience has proved to be
efficacious, and that the aid vouchsafed to the prayer will only be
given when, these being by themselves successful, the prayer is
superfluous. Had men gone on believing, as they once believed,
that prayer would stay disease, they would never have learned and
adopted sanitary measures, any more than the savage of Africa,
�Lessons of Materialism.
21
who prays to his fetish to cure disease, does now. To get rid of
the notion of supernatural interposition was the essential condition
of true knowledge and self-help in that matter.
Looking at the matter in the light of scientific knowledge, it is
hard to see how any one can think otherwise. However, one may
easily overrate the depth to which such knowledge goes in the
general mind: at best it is but a thin surface-dressing. Only a
few days ago, on opening a book at random, I hit on the following
extract from a sermon on the Miracles of Prayer, by a well-known
clergyman :—
“ But we have prayed, and not been heard, at least in the present visita
tion. Have we deserved to be heard? In former visitations it was
observed commonly how the cholera lessened from the day of public
humiliation. When we dreaded famine from a long-continued drought
on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our head was of brass ; the
clear burning sky showed no token of change. Men looked with awe on
its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was a cloud like a man’s hand •
the relief was come.”
’
This is from a sermon preached by no mean citizen of no mean
city; it was preached at Oxford, in 1866, and the preacher was
Dr. Pusey, who goes on to say that it describes what he himself
saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on returning from the
early communion at St. Mary’s, at eight. The change occurred in
the evening. A good instance, one would be apt to say, of a very
common fallacy of observation and reasoning—the fallacy that an
event which happens after another necessarily happens in conse
quence of it! But what I would point out is, that if Dr. Pusey’s
interpretation of the matter be true, all our scientific knowledge of
the order of nature has no stable foundation; it is no better than
a baseless fabric, which has come like wind and like wind may go.
And most certain it is that if such views were universal, the result
would be to carry us back straight to the ignorance and barbarism
which prevailed in Europe before the Reformation and the dawn
of modern science. Consider how much it means, that a man of
Dr. Pusey’s culture and eminence should so little apprehend the
fundamental principles of modern science, should be so blind to
the conception of the reign of law in nature ; consider again how
the great majority of the people are in his case, and that the torch
of modern science is after all really carried by some hundred men
or so in Europe and America, and would be pretty nigh extin
guished by their simultaneous deaths ; and consider, lastly, that
we have everywhere in our midst a most complete and powerful
Organisation which, holding that all truth has been given into
�22
Lessons of Materialism.
the keeping of the church from the beginning, and cannot be
either added to or taken from, is truly a gigantic and unsleeping
conspiracy against the human intellect;—consider these things
fairly, I say, and then ask yourselves soberly whether modern pro
gress is so stable and assured a thing as we are apt to take it for
granted it is. For my part, I would not give much for it if the
Roman Catholic Church had its way for fifty or a hundred years.
In all ages of the world, I make no doubt, there have been a few
persons with too much insight to accept the fables which have
satisfied the vulgar, but who dared not utter their thoughts, or,
uttering them, were quickly extinguished; the torch of knowledge
has been again and again lit and again and again put out; and
truth never will be made secure until it has been driven down
into the hearts of the masses of the people by a right method of
education from generation to generation.
Many persons who could not confidently express their belief in
the power of prayer to stop a plague or a deluge of rain, or who
actually disbelieve it, still have a sincere hold of the belief of its
miraculous power in the moral or spiritual world. Nevertheless, if
the matter be made one simply of scientific observation, it must be
confessed that all the evidence goes to prove that the events of
the moral world are matters of law and order equally with those
of the physical world, and that supernatural interpositions have no
more place in the one than in the other; that he who prays for
the creation of a clean heart and the renewal of a right spirit
within him, if he gets at last what he prays for, gets it by the
operation of the ordinary laws of moral growth and development,
in consequence of painstaking watchfulness over himself and the
continual exercise of good resolves. Only when he gets it in that
way will he get the benefit of supernatural aid ; and if it rests in
the belief of supernatural aid, without taking pains to get it
entirely in that way, he will do himself moral harm ; for if he
cannot rely upon special interpositions in the moral any more than
in the physical world, if he has to do entirely with those
secondary laws of nature through which alone the supernatural is
made natural, the invisible visible, it needs no demonstration that
the opposite belief cannot strengthen, but must weaken, the under
standing and will. It is plain that true moral hygiene is as
impossible to the person who relies upon his fetish to change his
heart in answer to prayer, as sanitary science is impossible to the
savage who relies upon his fetish to stay a pestilence in answer to
prayer.
�Lessons of Materialism.
23
So far from materialism being a menace to morality, when it is
properly understood, it not only sets before man a higher intellec
tual aim than he is ever likely to reach by spiritual paths, but it
even raises a more self-sacrificing moral standard. For when all
has been said, it is not the most elevated or the most healthy
business for a person to be occupied continually with anxieties and
apprehensions and cares about the salvation of his own soul, and
to be earnest to do well in this life in order that he may escape
eternal suffering and gain eternal happiness in a life to come. The
disbeliever might find room to argue that here was an instance
showing how theology has taken possession of the moral instinct and
vitiated it. Having set before man a selfish instead of an altruistic
end as the prime motive of well-doing—his own good rather than the
good of others—it is in no little danger of taking away his strongest
motive to do uprightly, if so be the dead rise not. Indeed, it
makes the question of the apostle a most natural one : “ If, after
the manner of man, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what
advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? ” Materialism cannot
hesitate in the least to declare that it is best for a man’s self and
best for his kind to have fought with the beasts of unrighteousness,
at Ephesus or elsewhere, even if the dead rise not. Perceiving
and teaching that he is essentially a social being, that all the
mental faculties by which he so much excels the animals below
him, and even the language in which he expresses his mental func
tions, have been progressive developments of his social relations,
it enforces the plain and inevitable conclusion that it is the true
scientific function, and at the same time the highest development,
of the individual, to promote the well-being of the social organiza
tion—that is, to make his life subserve the good of his kind. It
is no new morality, indeed, which it teaches ; it simply brings men
back to that which has been the central lesson and the real stay
of the great religions of the world, and which is implicit in the
constitution of society; but it does this by a way which promises
to bring the understanding into entire harmony with moral
feeling, and so to promote by a close and consistent interaction
their accordant growth and development; and it strips morality
of the livery of superstition in which theological creeds have
dressed and disfigured it, presenting it to the adoration of mankind
in its natural purity and strength.
�“ The Pathology Of Mind.” By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D. Being the Third
Edition of the Seeond Part of the “Physiology and Pathology of
Mind,” recast, much enlarged and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s.
By the same Author.
“ The Physiology of Mind.” Being the First Part of a Third Edition
revised, enlarged, and re-written, of “ The Physiology and Pathology
of Mind.” Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
“Body and Mind An Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influ
ence, specially with reference to Mental Disorders. Second Edition,
enlarged and revised, with Psychological Essays added. Crown 8vo.,
6s. 6d.
Macmillan & Co., London.
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
President.—W. B. Carpenter, C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c.
Vice-Presidents.
Professor Alexander Bain.
Sir Arthur Hobhouse, K.C.S.I.
James Booth, Esq., C.B.
Thomas Henry Huxley, Esq., LL.D.,
Charles Darwin, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S.
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq., D.C.L., Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode, Esq., LL.D., P.R.S.
Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ABE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-four Lectures (in three series), commencing Sunday, the 2nd
of November, 1879, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, transferable
(and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat
tickets, available for any lecture. .
For tickets, and for the Lectures published by the Society, of which lists
can be obtained on application, apply (by letter enclosing cheques, post
office orders or postage stamps) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., lb, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W. The Lectures
can also be obtained of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158, Oxford Street, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny; —Sixpence;—and (Reserved
Seats) One Shilling.
Kenny & Oo., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Lessons of materialism : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 6th April, 1879
Creator
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Maudsley, Henry [1835-1918]
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight. List of the Society's Sunday Lectures on unnumbered page at the end. From Fortnightly Review (August 1879). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5. Reprinted from the 'Fortnightly Review' [Title page]. The author is Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University College, London.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1879
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N478
CT85
G3422
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Materialism
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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 (Lessons of materialism) 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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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Materialism
Morris Tracts