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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
The Stage
and the Drama
IN THEIR RELATION TO SOCIETY.
i’ccturi'
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 11th, 1880,
BY
J. PANTON HAM.
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Ut '
Ätea'Im IL
ILonìian :
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
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AM
SYLLABUS.
The Drama, as a specific difference of literature, dignified by
the place of Shakespeare in literary history.
The correlation of the Drama and the Stage.
The taste for Dramatic literature essentially a Theatrical taste,
and an evidence of Theatrical recognition and sympathy.
The Stage, the platform of culture and product of civilization.
The unique facilities of the Stage for its appropriate purposes.
A social illustration of the Stage-ministry.
The dictum of Shakespeare on the uses of the Theatre and the
true functions of Dramatic and Histrionic Art.
The Theatric Idea and its demands on the Theatrical Profes
sion.
The Stage, as a Camera, the reflector of the actual and ideal.
Art, as a term applied to the Drama and the-Stage.
Acting, its claim to High-art kindred.
Dramatic and Theatric Art inspired and sustained by the
Genius of Humanity,
Vulgar notions of the Drama and the Stage, and their influence
on the reputation of the Theatre and the Theatrical Profession.
�THE STAGE AND THE DRAMA.
T is saying all that is necessary to be said in the
expression of our admiration of the Drama, to say
that, rich as is our English literature in all departments
of human interest and inquiry, its finest genius was a
dramatist, and its grandest product a collection of works
specifically dramatic. By common consent Shakespeare
stands at the head of British literature. He has achieved
for himself, without any literary ambition, or even inten
tion, the proud position he occupies ; and he has done so
because his instinct was strongly dramatic, his imagina
tion finely dramatic, the form of his thought plastically
dramatic. The Drama was his inspiration and expres
sion, and on its wings he ascended into the empyrean of
his lofty elevation, where he reigns a Jove without any
compeer,—a sun around whom all the literary lights of
his country revolve as subordinate and dependent planets.
The Drama gave birth to Shakespeare, and in giving him
birth brought forth the most splendid literary genius of
the modern world. When literature is questioned about
its crowning achievement, its unhesitating answer is—
The dramatic works of William Shakespeare, who has
earned for himself the first place in the republic of letters,
and received the imperishable bays of its one immortal
laureate.
The place of Shakespeare in the literary history of
England has for ever decided the literary dignity of the
Drama as a specific form of literature. The chrism of his
genius has consecrated the Drama, and claimed for it the
reverence of all civilised people. An inquiry into the
birth and development of the dramatic genius, with the
object of vindicating its legitimacy and illustrating its
historical splendour, need not, therefore, detain us at the
present time. Let it suffice to say that the genius of the
Drama is the genius of humanity. In the still divided
sentiments of British society on the subject of the
I
�4
The Stage and the Drama
Theatre and the Theatrical Profession, it is more to the
purpose to show’, as it may be very plainly shown, that
the Drama implies the Stage,—that the Stage is the
proper correlative of the Drama,—and that, until the
Drama finds its way to the boards of the theatre, it not
only does not have its necessary conditions and natural
development, but hardly has any reason for its existence.
The Drama and the Stage are inseparable. You cannot
compliment the one as serious literature and sneer at the
other as trivial amusement. If the Stage is not a legiti
mate fact, the Drama must be branded with literary bas
tardy. Shakespeare owes his literary super-eminence
wholly to his histrionic genius. The unrivalled splendour
of his position is due to the fact that the Stage inspired
him, and the theatre claimed and received the fruit of his
labours. The glory of Shakespeare is not mere literary
glory, it is pre-eminently theatrical glory. If the theatre
had not existed, Shakespeare had not written. The
splendour of Shakespeare is thus the splendour of the
Stage fact,—the halo of surpassing brilliancy around the
theatric idea. To claim the written Drama for literature,
and to dissever it from the acted Drama, is to perpetrate
a larceny on the Stage. The written Drama is not the
whole of the Drama—the Stage and the Actors are inte
grant and vital parts of it. Dramatic literature is strictly
a theatrical legacy, as literally theatrical property as the
dresses and scenery of the theatre. If dramatic literature
is admirable and held in high repute, then logically and
essentially the Stage, ideally considered, is both admirable
and reputable.
I wish to emphasize the fact that the Drama and the
Stage are inseparably united. They are correlates : each
implies the other. The genuine admirer of dramatic
literature is by implication and inevitably an admirer of
the Stage. He may not, perhaps, frequent the theatre,
but he is essentially theatrical in his sympathy and taste.
He cannot detach the Stage from the Drama. He, of
necessity, enters the theatre in imagination, and takes
his seat before the Stage, whenever he opens his favourite
dramatic author. Why does he not visit the theatre?
He excuses his habitual absence from it, not on the
. grounds of objection to the theatre itself, but because the
�in their Relation to Society.
5
state of histrionic art does not satisfy his ideal. Like
Charles Lamb, he is too ideally histrionic for the condi
tion of the actual theatre. He is, in fact, more intensely
theatrical than the extant Stage and the professors of the
theatric art. I am entitled to claim all readers and lovers
of the literary Drama as virtually admirers and friends
of the theatre. I may say, without fear of challenge,
that the highest literary culture virtually accepts and
honours the theatre. Intelligence, poetic feeling, refined
taste, delicacy of intellectual and moral perception, fine
spiritual and moral sensibilities, exquisite sense of humour,
quick apprehension and appreciation of sterling wit,
sensitively responsive sympathy,—all the highest elements
of culture and refinement, of genius and sensibility, vir
tually offer their profoundest homage to the theatre. As
the focus of the best culture, the cynosure of taste and
refinement, the theatre must have its social ascension
with every step forward in the progress of civilization.
I do not,—indeed it is not easy to exaggerate the
native dignity of the theatre. As the natural home of
culture, it is a grand element of civilization, and takes its
place among the foremost agencies in elevating and re
fining human character. The thoughts of the poetical
Drama are the loftiest inspirations of the human mind
set in forms of speech as ravishingly ethereal as the
thoughts themselves,—precious gems of imagination con
tained in caskets of the costliest materials and workman
ship. The high class poetical Drama is a very mine of
intellectual treasure. And all this galaxy of intellectual
brilliancy,—these rich veins of precious metal,—these
gems of dazzling lustre, are the creations, the ornaments,
and possessions of the theatre. If intellect in its noblest
stature is truly imperial, what a halo of majesty surrounds
the theatre as the palatial home of its chosen residence !
It is there where intellect lives, and speaks, and lavishes
its wealth. It is there where intellect is incarnated, be
comes substantive, quickening, communicative, and com
panionable. It is there where intellect sits on the throne
of its empire, and proclaims the universality of its
sovereign sway. It is there where the true-bred cour
tiers of intellect come together in state solemnity, in
spired by sentiments of admiration and reverence. The
�6
The Stage and the Drama
ideal theatre is this, and commands this but it is more
than this.
If, as the poet says, “the proper study of mankind is
man,” then the theatre affords unique facilities for this
study on a scale largely in excess of the educational expe
dients and the ordinary individual experiences of life, and
with a thoroughness of analysis which the profoundest
complexities of human character and action are incapable
of defying. It is not merely scholastically, but specifi
cally and substantively, the school of the humanities,
The philosophy and logic of human life are here
set forth in practical metaphysics and arguments. Its
belles-lettres are not abstract, but concrete studies.
The rhetoric of the Stage is not a prosaic lesson on its
principles and methods, but a practical illustration in its
spirit and power. Philology here does not amuse the
archasologically curious and the critical, but amazes by
the electric shock and force of words. History is not a
reminiscence and retrospect, but a resurrection and living
reality. The mimetic art of the Stage, to speak a para
dox, is nature in its vividest and most substantive realiz
ations. The Stage teaches par excellence, because it
teaches by the living instance and the actual example.
The intrusive thought that you are present at a mimic
show fails to disenchant you of the illusion: the scene
is so thrilling, the acting is so real, you feel, and you
delight to feel, that it is all fact and truth. The show
has engaged all your intellectual and emotional powers;
it has thrilled your moral being through every nerve;
it has touched your conscience to the very quick of its
keenest sensitiveness ; it has stormed your heart with a
very hurricane of passion, or melted it into a yielding
fluid of tender and responsive feeling. All human life
is mapped out for you, on the Stage, in its broad conti
nents and open seas, in its islands and peninsulas, in its
rocks and shoals ; and you journey or sail all its world
over, seeing its terrible grandeurs and quiet beauties,
marking its perilous heights and treacherous shallows,
and, like a great traveller of vast and varied experiences,
you are conscious of being wiser and better. The theatre
has been the Alma Mater in the humanities for multitudes
who have had no other opportunity of a liberal education,
�in their Relation to Society.
7-
and -but for which they had never been students- of the
most interesting and eventful phenomena of their nature,
and had never known, except by the agony of personal
experiment, how critical are the contingencies, and capri
cious, and often disastrous, the most coveted fortunes of
life. The charm of the instruction within the walls of
the theatre has drawn out the faculty of observation,
constrained the metaphysical habit of mental analysis, and
inspired an enthusiastic inquisitiveness into' some of the
profoundest problems of psychology and moral philo
sophy. The theatre, I maintain, is forming the studious
habits of a large section of society in reference to the
highest subjects of human thought and interest,—a sec
tion who would otherwise learn in no other school than
in the straitened, aud often degraded environments of
their own daily life. The enforced associations of a con
siderable proportion of the lower and lowest strata of the
community would be a state of mental and moral perdi
tion, but for the opportunities of escape afforded by the
fascinations of the Stage, and the lessons of refinement
in mind and heart inculcated in, what I take leave to
call, the Stage-ministry. The elevation of their seats has
obtained for the occupants of the gallery the humorous
epithet of “ the gods.” There is probably as much truth
as facetiousness in the designation. Not a few of them,
perhaps, are never so conscious of the divinity within
them, as when occupying their allotted seats in the
theatre. Thence they look down on other aspects of
human life than those they are unhappily familiar with,
and hear another speech than their own too often revolt
ing and defiling tongue. To such as these, beyond all
dispute, the theatre is, in no mean degree, a ministry of
redemption. Culture, morality, piety—all should have a
kind, sympathetic, admiring word for the gallery of a
theatre ; and, if ever innovation threatens to abolish the
theatrical institution of “the gods,” should be the first
aiid the loudest to utter their protest against the wrong.
The higher the quality of the theatrical entertainment
the greater should be the public interest in the place and
the presence of “ the gods.”
It is strange that the famous dictum of Shakespeare on
the primary uses of the theatre and the true functions of
�8
Th e Stage and the Drama
dramatic and histrionic art should be so familiar, and yet
so often practically forgotten in the expression of theatri
cal judgments and the allowance of theatre-going habits.
The highest dramatic authority tells us that the purpose
of playing is “to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to
nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form
and pressure.”
We take a long stride in the measure of the Stage idea
when we pass from the conception of it as simply diver
sion to this elevated Shakespearean notion of the primary
and artistic purpose of Stage representations. Our great
dramatist magnifies the Stage and its special art to their
most imposing proportions when he lifts the idea of true
histrionics into the moral sphere, and claims for them the
highest moral purpose as the champion of virtue and the
scourge of vice. That the high-class Drama, in its two
divisions of tragedy and comedy, involves moral elements,
is composed with moral sentiments and aims, awakens
moral sympathies and antipathies, and produces moral
impressions, neither is, nor can be, with reflecting per
sons, a question of dispute. No genuine tragedy or
comedy can be possibly constructed apart from moral
ideas in the writer and moral tendencies in his work.
Humanity being its dramatic theme and its histrionic in
strument, a genuine dramatic work must of necessity take
a 'moral form and be presented under moral conditions.
All this is so obvious that it is passing strange any public
writers on the Stage and theatrical affairs should have
the audacity to say that moral considerations, in a dra
matic performance, are the mawkish conceits of sickly
sentimentalists, and that the Drama, qua Drama, ignores
them altogether. The argument with such writers is
better maintained, on our own side, by shifting the de
fence to the dignity and authority of Shakespeare. Let
them make good, if they can, the position they have taken
in the view of the famous dictum on the purpose of
playing.
That genial writer, Charles Lamb, has, indeed, said of
the characters in such plays as those of Congreve and
Wycherley, “ When we are among them we are amongst
a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our
�in their Relation to Society.
9
usages.” In replv to this, Macaulay says, “ In the
name of art, as well as in the name of virtue, we protest
against the principle that the world of pure comedy is
one into which no moral enters. If comedy be an nni ation, under whatever conventions, of real life, how is it
possible that it can have no reference to the great rule
which directs life, and to feelings which are called forth
by every incident of life? If what Mr. Charles Lamb
says were correct, the inference would be that these
matists did not in the least understand the very first
principles of their craft. Pure landscape-painting into 1
which no light or shade enters, pure portrait-painting
into which no expression enters, are phrases less at va;riance with sound criticism than pure comedy into which
no moral enters.”
Of how much worth this theatric function as a moral
reflector is, let the poet Wordsworth remind us when he
exclaims,
“ How much is overlooked
In human nature and her subtle ways,
As studied first in our own hearts, and then
In life among the passions of mankind!”
As a student of human nature he says of himself, and
the actor may adopt his language as descriptive of the
aims and spirit of his own art,—that he is
“ Compelled
In hardy independence, to stand up
Amid conflicting interests, and the shock
Of various tempers; to endure and note
What was not understood, though known to be;
Among the mysteries of love and hate,
Honour and shame, looking to right and left,
Unchecked by innocence too delicate,
And moral notions too intolerant,
Sympathies too contracted.”
The theatric idea is, that the Stage is a reflector of men
and manners, a photographic camera to catch and fix, for
more careful observation, the actual facts and particular
features of human life. This reflecting function demands
for the Stage a breadth as wide, and a depth as pro
found, as humanity itself; and claims for it a liberty of
the amplest range consistent with the canons of correct
taste and the sentiments of social decorum. The objects
�10
The Stage and the Drama
of its reflecting function being human, the Stage, neces
sarily, does more than simply reflect concrete facts and
forms ; it reflects also abstractions and accidents,, prin
ciples and essences, motives and feelings, qualities and
textures. It possesses, in its dramatic art, the faculties of
abstraction and analysis, and uses them with the utmost
freedom, delicacy of discrimination and manipulation, in
order that individuals and societies may understand their
real composition, and be made acquainted with all the
inward contents of their personalities. It has thus a
metaphysical and moral, a microscopic and magnifying
power, and throws on its broad disc the results of its
minutest and subtlest observations. Without this meta
physical subtlety and analytical delicacy, the reflecting
function of the Stage would be incapable of the human
demands on it. “ Virtue ” reveals her own feature only
to the art that can raise with delicate hand the veil which
hides it; and the naked image of “ Scorn ” is only to be
discovered by the closely scanning art which penetrates
all its disguises, and is only exposed to view by the
morally courageous art which tears away all the thick
folds of its concealment. Humour, refined and robust,
pathetic and quaint, tragic and comic, grave and gay, has
to be delved for out of the profound human depths and
brought to the surface, that its diversified moods may be
incarnated in faithful impersonations, and reproduced in
the verisimilitude of fact and truth. When we contem
plate the reflecting function of the Stage as involving the
finding of its own objects, and that these objects are only
to be sought and found by the delicate feeling, and con
summate art, of the genius of humanity, what an aureola
of intellectual and moral lustre encircles the theatre as
the temple of an unique art, and how broadly apart
from, and immeasurably high it stands in character and
position, in occupation and aim above all the vulgar
resorts of mere amusement! Its proper elevation is on
the Olympian height among the academies and porticoes
of philosophy and fine art. Its rank is that of Royal
Societies and Royal Academies, universities and high
schools of liberal culture; and the professors of its’
particular art are graduates of honourable distinction,
deserving of high social repute, and worthy of the
�in their Relation to Society.
11
conventional compliments and rewards of a discriminat
ing and reverential public favour.
What museums of antiquities do for the past, the
Stage, by its reflecting function, does for the present,—
it collects and exhibits contemporaneous facts. To “ catch
the manners living as they rise,” is one of its mirror
functions. It is thus the chronicle of the hour and the
collector of the materials of what hereafter will be
history. History cannot be satisfactorily written with
out resort to dramatic literature which the Stage creates in
the fulfilment of its reflective function. This function
of reflecting living feelings and manners has a present
as well as a future value,—a living as well as a posthumous
interest. Portraits are not wholly for posterities, they
are valued by their originals as showing them what
manner of men and women they are. The Stage has its
uses to place before people their “ counterfeit present
ment,” to let them see themselves objectively, to invite
them to meet and spend an hour in company with their
own duplicates. A man, we are told by a sacred writer,
will look sometimes at himself in a glass and straightway
forget what manner of man he is : but it is hardly pos
sible to meet his flesh and blood counterpart on the Stage
without being instinctively sensible of the resemblance,
and retentively mindful of him after the parting. The
incident has been so unexpected and startling, the
likeness so unmistakable and minutely correspondent, the
effrontery so familiarly bold, that, whether the present
ment has been serious or ludicrous, it has been felt to be
irresistible and will ever be memorable. There is no other
way than by the camera of the Stage that we can obtain
a fac-simile likeness of our own inner personalities. The
photographs of the Stage show us the inside, as well as
the outside of ourselves. The Stage keeps no secrets,
and it is a marvellous searcher out of secret things.
Whatever we are in the privacy of our life, out we come
with all our lights and shades duly distributed according
to fact and truth. The Stage knows us well, knows all
our stops, can pluck out the heart of our mystery, sound
us from our lowest note to the top of our compass. Many
a man has left the theatre amazed at himself, struck dumb
with wonder at the discovery of the kind of person he
�12
The Stage and the Drama
really is, astounded that all through his long life he never
saw himself in the same light, a good deal concerned now
what people must think of him if they shall happen to
know him as well as he now knows himself.
As dramatic art is concerned not only with what is
actual, but also with what is ideal, so the reflecting
function of the Stage embraces the whole scope of possible
and conceivable, as well as actual human existence.
When histrionic art crosses the boundary of the actual
and visible into the region of the ideal, it ceases to be
mimetic and becomes creative,—it ascends from the servility
of imitation to the sovereignty of pure art. At this point
the Stage joins the fraternity of the highest artistic and
moral estates, not excluding that of the ministry of
religion. It has its ethereal ideas, its prophetic inspira
tion, its pulpit sanctity. The Stage is, here, a revealer
of invisible things, a quickener of spiritual sensibilities, a
preacher of high and divine truths, a path-finder through
the dark ways into the dawn of the true light. It holds
the mirror up to Nature in her ideality, reflects the
spirituality and essential beauty of nature,-—nature in her
purest truth and holiest forms, and demonstrates the
unity, or rather the identity, of ideal moral nature with
divine religion. Here the Stage is as reverential as the
Church, for it glorifies and worships the true holiness,
the holiness of nature’s God, the holiness of pure nature.
Its work is here coincident with that of the Church, for
it takes of the things of God in the holy temple of nature
and lifts them up for the admiration and desire of all
people. I may say, without fear of contradiction, that
the Stage, in the discharge of its highest, its idealistic
reflecting function, is often the teacher of as pure and
undefiled religion as the Church ; often a purer religion,
because it is the teacher of a religiousness which never
conflicts with the voices of nature, a religiousness which
is essentially spirit and life. Here the Drama is, verily,
a holy scripture, and the theatre a temple of divine
worship.
Some persons may be quite disposed to concede this
high spiritual idealism to the Drama as literature, but
not to the theatre as the place of the acted Drama.
Charles Lamb, for instance, says, “ What we see upon a
�in their Relation to Society.
13
Stage is body and bodily action; what we are conscious
of in reading is almost exclusively the mind and its
movements ; and this, I think, may sufficiently account
for the very different sort of delight with which the same
play so often affects us in the reading and the seeing.”
Surely this criticism is but a partial and a very imperfect
statement of the fact of what we see in the impersonations
of the actor. The criticism would be questionable even
of the rudest pantomimic exhibitions on the Stage; but
to say of all acting that, what we see is merely “ body
a,nd bodily action,” is a very inadequate account of the
art and achievements of the actor. I need not repeat
what I have said on the impossibility of divorcing the
Drama from the Stage. I may add, to what has been
already said, that the idealism of the Drama is largely
dependent on the histrionic art of the Stage for its adequate
realistic expressions. All art, and, therefore, histrionic
art, graduates in its upward ascent in the degree of its
power to realize the ideal. The action, often much more
than the words, is suggestive and representative of the
ideal. Permit me a few observations on the term art as
applied to the Drama and the Stage.
We are accustomed to speak of dramatic art, of his
trionic or theatric art. Now, let us keep distinctly in
view that the Drama and the Stage are indivisible ; and
therefore it is not competent for any one to say, that the
Drama, as a specific difference of high class literature, is a
noble art, but the Stage, as the platform of the player, and
a place of mere public amusement, exemplifies a vulgar and
inferior art. The Drama and the Stage are one indivisible
unity—they stand and fall together. The dignity of
the Drama is the dignity of the Stage; the degradation
of the Stage is the degradation of the Drama. The
honour of the Drama cannot be saved at the expense of
the Stage. So inveterate has been the prejudice against
the Stage for several centuries in England, so unwilling
has been the social disposition to think of its art as of
any more noble quality than that of the rank of a public
amusement, and of its professors as anything more than
players, that its low estimation has been, in no small
degree, reflected on the dramatist; and a writer for the
Stage,—unless some accidents of his social position and
�14
The Stage and the Drama
literary fame interfere to • save him,—has been con
temptuously dubbed a “ play-wright,” and considered a
wandering and fallen star from the heaven of literary
repute. Surely, the time is come for the adjustment of
the question, whether Stage association is artistic or
essentially and irredeemably vulgar. If what I have said
be true about the theatric idea and function, then it
follows, that the theatre is the place of a distinct art, as
much so as the Royal Academy is the place of a distinct
art or arts ; and that its art is as far removed from
meanness and vulgarity as that of the Royal Academicians
in painting and sculpture. Let us look at their honour
able and honoured arts, and see wherein they so essentially
dilfer from the art of acting as to entitle them to this
precedence and exclusive reputation.
Both painting and sculpture are distinctly and essen
tially imitative arts,—they imitate the actual and the
ideal. Painters and sculptors are professional mimics
and poetical creators. Wherein do they dilfer from the
actor ? Does he not do precisely the same things ; is he
not both these characters ? One paints his imitations on
canvas with a brush, the other carves his imitations in
stone with a chisel, the actor personates his imitations
by means of the mental, moral, and emotional resources
of his humanity. What should make two of these arts,
and the third, no art,—two of these imitative arts,
honourable, and the third, contemptible ? Is the secret
of the difference in the comparative merits of the instru
mentalities—the painting brush, the chisel, the living
man; and we are to conclude that the living man, as a
medium, or instrumentality of art, is inferior to a
painting brush or a chisel ? Is the secret in the cunning
of the skill, and the completeness of the imitation ? Let
the poet Campbell reply ;
“ For ill can Poetry express
Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And Painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance of time:
But by the mighty Actor brought,
Illusion’s perfect triumphs come ;
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And Sculpture, to be dumb.”
We have only to bring the theatric art side by side
�in their Relation to Society.
15
with its sister arts to discover, at once, how thoroughly
it is of the art kindred; and that, so far from occupying
a lowly place in the art family, it is one of its most dis
tinguished members. Lowly, forsooth! is there not
something really imperial in the art of acting? Does it
not ask for the highest mental culture, the greatest
delicacy of mental and moral perception, the keenest
insight into the mysteries of mind and heart, and a most
versatile faculty of expressing all the subtle workings of
thought and feeling, of pourtraying all the lights and
shadows of character and conduct ? Does it not, like a
skilled musician, command all the notes of our being,
from the deepest base to the highest treble ;—know how
to combine them in all their concords and discords, and
to bring out, in full sonorous swell, the grand diapason
of our humanity ? Does it not command the services of
all the other arts,—even as the Church does,—poetry,
painting, sculpture, music, whose choicest productions
and finest masterpieces are loyally laid at its feet ? When
the art is in perfection, is not the Stage universally
acknowledged as the professorial chair of the vernacular
tongue, the place to be instructed in its purity and pro
prieties, and to be charmed with the graces of its elocu
tion? Whenever the Stage stands forth in its native
grandeur, in the regal consciousness of its own majesty,
is it not the place towards which instantly and reverently
turn all the culture and refinement, all the intellect and
art-feeling, all the moral nobility of the land? May it
not, then, in the sublimity of its elevation, justly smile
at, and pity the littleness of a carping prejudice,—con
temptuously put aside with its foot the snarling and
snapping of the little curs at its heels, and claim with
confidence the homage of all enlightened and free souls
who seek after the true, the beautiful, and the good?
Yes, verily, the theatre is a temple of art, in its highest,
widest, and grandest significance, for there all the arts
gather together to do honour to the art of which it is the
consecrated home.
And what, let me ask, is the distinctive character of
this special art of the theatre that it should deserve the
courtesy of all other arts, and receive from them their
willing, yea, their loving and best service ? It is the art
�16
The Stage and the Drama
which, above all the arts, makes Humanity both its theme
and its instrument. It is the most human of all arts f
humanity is its end and its means. It thus comes as
close as possible to the objects and methods of pure
religion. If art may ever be pronounced sacred because
of its subject, then with how much greater reason may
histrionic art claim this hallowed quality ? It is the art
of depicting by living portraiture the intellectual and
moral, the spiritual and emotional contents of humanity;
it is the art of reflecting human nature in its loftiest con
ceptions and noblest possibilities. It thus answers the
true definition of art, and exhausts its whole meaning as
an imitative and creative faculty. High art is this, and
no more than this ; and since theatric art has the widest
range for the exercise of this twofold faculty, and pos
sesses capabilities greatly in excess of every other art, for
the fulfilment of its imitative and creative functions, it
virtually claims, and ought to be considered, to be in the
van of all the arts—the art of arts—and deservedly
entitled to the highest seat of honour in the truly grand
assembly of art nobility.
It is, surely, important for all who are interested in
the reputation and fortunes of the theatre to bear in
mind the fact that it is the Humanity on the Stage that
gives the theatre its true dignity and its honourable hold
on the public mind. This fact cannot be practically lost
sight of in any individual instance of theatrical perversion,
but at the penalty of destroying the theatrical idea and
service. Only let the mere amusement idea come too
prominently to the front, and the theatrical idea vanishes
out of sight. The theatre is the place, not primarily and
objectively for amusement, but for humanity, both behind
and before the footlights. Humanity is its distinctive
property and function ; humanity is its supreme concern
and sole appeal. The Stage is nothing if not human.
The perfection of the correlated dramatical and theatrical
idea is the perception and enthusiasm of humanity.
I am confident that I cannot urge too pointedly and per
suasively this conception of the essential idea and purpose
of the theatre. I am personally constrained to advocate
and commend the Stage for this paramount reason. The
most serious fact of theatrical declension, and that which
�17
in their Relation to Society.
is the most prolific parent of whatever declension there
may be in the extant Stage itself, seems to me to be this .
the declension of thought in the public mind about the
theatre and. its uses. “ A change seems coming over the
state of the Stage,” writes Mr. George Henry Lewes,
“ and there are signs of a revival of the once-splendid art
of the actor. To effect this revival there must be not
only accomplished artists and an eager public; there
must be a more enlightened public. The critical pit, filled
with playgoers who were familiar with fine acting and
had trained judgments, has disappeared; in its place
there is a mass of amusement-seekers, not without a Ducleus
of intelligent spectators, but of this nucleus only a small
minority has very accurate ideas of what constitutes good
art.” The too prevalent idea of the theatre, as a place
of mere amusement, is derogatory to the theatre itself,
and a disgrace to the intelligence of the age ; it is as false
as it is mischievous, and needs to be exposed and rebuked.
Sought only as a sensuous entertainment and for the
consumption of vacant hours at the fag-end of each day s
life, the theatre is not only gravely misunderstood, but
is insulted and abused. It does not stand to the serious
occupations of life as a playground to the counting-house
and the workshop, or as light literature to more important
studies ; it is in itself a serious occupation and a severe
study to both artists and audiences, whether its subject
be grave or gav. Its proper dignity and place is among
the noblest institutions, and the rarest opportunities of
our culture. We may say of it, in the words of »Words* worth, what we say of all the means of our best educa
tion :
“ So build we up the Being that we are ;
Thus, deeply drinking-in the soul of tilings,
We shall be wise perforce.
#
-Top;
>i
*
*
*
*
*
Whate’er we see
Or feel, shall tend to quicken and refine ;
Shall fix in calmer seats of moral strength
Earthly desires ; and raise, to loftier heights
Of divine love, our intellectual soul.”
And now to conclude. The theatre is an institution
of very high antiquity, and is found in almost all
nationalities, and under the most diversified forms of
�18
The Stage and the Drama
civilization. It has always been especially honoured,
and has always more especially flourished, in the midst
of intellectual, moral, and æst.hetical conditions. Culture
has always inaugurated the theatre, passionately cherished
it, lavishly enriched it, and encircled it with sentiments of
respect and affection. Its fascination has been universal,
and its influence has always been acknowledged by the
philosopher and the moralist, the priest and the philan
thropist, the politician and the statesman. It has been
a too general fact, too spontaneous, too tenacious of root
and germinant, too vital and enduring, that its rise
should be attributed to a capricious whim or humour, or
the chance of mere accident, or local tastes and peculiari
ties. It must be credited with owing its existence to
nature and reason, to instinct and feeling, to social exi
gence and human necessity. I say, it must be so credited,
and the dogmatism is justified by the fact of its universal
presence in civilized society, and its inextinguishable
vitality even in its most degraded and corrupt condition
of existence. It has had its seasons of sickness—of even
loathsome and mortal disease—but has found healing and
health ; it has been crushed under the weight of hostile
public opinion and State despotism, and has risen up
elastically against both and conquered both ; it has been
trodden under the feet of social repudiation and odium,
been defiled in the mire of indignant moral censure,
been cursed by the anathemas of a scornful and irre
concilable Church, and, notwithstanding, at this hour it
is. standing self-reliantly erect, claiming the social recog- è
nition, challenging the severest moral sentiments, and
commanding the testimony and defence of the ministers
of religion. Plainly, there is vitality in the theatre ; and
there must be reason, intrinsic worth, and virtue, too, or
its corruption would have been its dissolution, and it
could have found no place for repentance, and no oppor
tunity of self-assertion and restoration.
The claim of the theatre to the general social recogni
tion will have to be conceded, and when it is conceded,
it will be under far more reasonable and favourable con
ditions of theatrical development and repute than the
theatre has hitherto enjoyed, even in the best period of
its history in this country. Natural instinct, culture,
�in their Relation to Society.
19
taste, pure moral feeling, religious sentiment, are all
enlisted on its side, and will sooner or later assert
themselves in the brave vindication of an institution
so richly endowed with high educational forces as the
Stage—the place of the acted Drama. Wherever the
purely artificial pressure of what I do not call religious,
but ecclesiastical prejudice is intelligently and religiously
resisted these influences immediately assert themselves
in behalf of the theatre and its legitimate perform
ances. Nothing but an ecclesiastical artificiality of
sentiment stops the way, and the intelligence and
earnestness of modern society will eventually sweep
this last lingering obstruction altogether out of the way.
English society, I am confident, as it grows in intelligence,
will never submit to be the docile sheep of a tradition
bound and narrow-minded ecclesiasticism of any church,
whether Established or nan-established. All weak social
prejudices of every kind will be driven to the wall in the
steady onward march of enlightenment and manly inde
pendence. The Stage is still one of the victims of such
prejudice, and it will conquer this prejudice as it has con
quered the deadlier assaults of its own historical corrup
tion. Assert the Stage both in your sentiments and
allowances. Be very exacting in your demands on the
Stage, and thus you will best declare your jealousy of it,
and your profound respect for it and its profession, and
at the same time make it the obligation and interest of
all theatrical managers to purge the Stage of incompe
tence and vulgarity, and raise it higher and higher to
wards its own native ideal. Possessing, as we do, the
greatest dramatist of any country, we, surely, ought to
possess a purely British Stage for the encouragement of
British dramatic art and British histrionic genius. The
time must come when the theatrical profession will form
a guild of artistic culture, and occupy its honourable
place among the art faculties. Your theatrical patriotism
and severity of theatrical exaction will inevitably bring
this about. Complain not of the Stage,—do not whine
over the decline of the Drama,—indulge in no invidious
comparisons of theatres and their respective management; .
think rather of yourselves, for the Stage is always what
the people who frequent or neglect it make it. Let us
�20
.The Stage and the Drama.
ask ourselves how far we ourselves have graduated towards
the dramatic and theatrical ideal,—how far we have en
couraged or discouraged the elevation of the Stage. The
theatre is a bequest—the Stage is a social inheritance;
and we are all, in one way or other, responsible for what
it is now, and we cannot, and ought not if we could,
evade our responsibility for what it is in our own genera
tion, and what it shall be when we bequeath it to the
generation which is to follow.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLAGE,
On S UNDA Y Afternoons, at FO Ult o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-pour Lectures (in three series), ending 25th April,
1880, will be given.
Members’ AT 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 Three
each lecture.
pence
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);—
Sixpence and One Penny.
KENNY & CO., PRINTERS, 25, CAJIDEN ROAD, LONDON, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The stage and the drama in their relation to society : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday Afternoon, April 11th, 1880
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Ham, J. Panton
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 18 cm.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1880
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Theatre
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Drama
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Text
G
2S 2. >
THE
BORDERLAND BETWEEN LIVING
AND NON-LIVING THINGS.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
WAWIK AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 5th, 1882.
BY
EDWARD B. AVELING, D.Sc.Lond.,
Fellow cf University College, London.
bonbon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1883.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�THE BORDERLAND BETWEEN LIVING
AND NON-LIVING THINGS.
STRANGE fascination has always hung around the
-EL border-lands of human knowledge. By border
lands I mean those regions where one order of phe
nomena glides into another. The fascination was once
due to the fact that men believed it possible to draw hard
and fast lines between diverse orders of phenomena, and
anything on either side of these imaginary lines was of
deep interest. But now-a-days the fascination of studies
such as these, lies mainly in the fact that the old lines
of demarcation are fading into indistinctness in the light
of advancing knowledge. They were shadows due to the
night of ignorance. They were as imaginary as the
equator, or the earth’s axis. The interest in the study
of border-lands to-day lies in the truth that is growing
towards universal recognition that Nature is one vast
continuous whole, whose parts are all connected, and in
whose infinite history no break, no interposition from
without occurs. The charm, therefore, of the investiga
tion of these regions now lies in the indistinctness of
their outlines, in the exquisite gradation of one order of
phenomena into another.
Much attention has been given to the connexion be
tween man and the lower animals, and to the gliding of
the kingdoms of the plants and of the animals one into
�ERRATA.
Syllabus, line 2. For 44 Archebiosis (the beginning of
^'6ad 4 4 Abiogenesis (living from non-living.
Page 4, line 6. For “ Archebiosis ” read “ Abiogenesis.”
labor, and it is to this subject that we now turn once
again. This subject, once discussed under the name,
Spontaneous Generation, is now dealt with under that of
Archebiosis.
A brief historical survey of the great question as to
the origin of living matter, certain definitions of life, the
way in which the question has undergone simplification
with the advance of time, certain facts bearing on the
subject under discussion, and the relation of that subject
to the great truths of Evolution, will constitute the plan
of this lecture.
A.—Historical.
Human thought on almost all points 'takes first one
extreme view, then its opposite, then settles down be
tween these two extremes. The thoughts of man in
regard to the origin of living matter have followed this
general law. At first men imagined that living things
habitually or at least frequently were developed from the
non-living. Spontaneous generation, as this process was
called, was assumed to occur very generally. Later the
opposite extreme of thought was reached. Men imagined
that living things never were developed, and never had
been developed from non-living. To-day we are balancing
in our thought between these two extremes, each of which
is probably equally erroneous. We are striking a mean
between the two antagonistic ideas, and many have come
to the conclusion that whilst the ancient spontaneous
generation is far less general than it was once believed to
be, yet the evidence is in favor of Abiogenesis, or the
evolution of living matter from non-living, in the past,
and of its possible evolution to-day.
�4
The Borderland between
the other. The relation between the living and the
non-living has also had the devotion of no inconsiderable
labor, and it is to this subject that we now turn once
again. This subject, once discussed under the name,
Spontaneous Generation, is now dealt with under that of
Archebiosis.
A brief historical survey of the great question as to
the origin of living matter, certain definitions of life, the
way in which the question has undergone simplification
with the advance of time, certain facts bearing on the
subject under discussion, and the relation of that subject
to the great truths of Evolution, will constitute the plan
of this lecture.
A.—Historical.
Human thought on almost all points 'takes first one
extreme view, then its opposite, then settles down be
tween these two extremes. The thoughts of man in
regard to the origin of living matter have followed this
general law. At first men imagined that living things
habitually or at least frequently were developed from the
non-living. Spontaneous generation, as this process was
called, was assumed to occur very generally. Later the
opposite extreme of thought was reached. Men imagined
that living things never were developed, and never had
been developed from non-living. To-day we are balancing
in our thought between these two extremes, each of which
is probably equally erroneous. We are striking a mean
between the two antagonistic ideas, and many have come
to the conclusion that whilst the ancient spontaneous
generation is far less general than it was once believed to
be, yet the evidence is in favor of Abiogenesis, or the
evolution of living matter from non-living, in the past,
and of its possible evolution to-day.
�Living and Non-Living Things.
The ancient thinkers considered spontaneous genera
tion of very frequent occurrence. Aristotle held that
eels were generated from the mud of rivers, insects from
the dew-drops on the plants, parasites on animals from
the decaying matter of their integuments. Lucretius and
Ovid, 200 years later, had like fancies. When the flood
ended, and the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha
became men and women, lower animals and the plants
were produced from the inanimate earth and the dead
waters.
Possibly with Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation
of the blood, and certainly with Redi, a physician of
Florence, the inevitable reaction against the old order of
thought set in. Harvey’s position is a little doubtful,
and, as Professor Bastian puts it, “ grave doubts may be
entertained as to the propriety of expressing Harvey’s
doctrine by the phrase, ‘ Omne vivum ex ovo ’ (every living
thing from an egg).” In 1638 Bedi exploded once and
for ever one of the ancient fallacies. He showed that
the maggots in putrefying meat were due to eggs that had
been laid by flies. More than a century later the extreme
of opposed thought, which is as inevitable as the reaction
that precedes it, found its utterance in the writings of
Spallanzani. It is to this Italian thinker that we owe the
idea of Panspermism. Panspermism—from “7ras,” all,
and “ ovrep/xa,” seed—is the name for an idea largely held
for the last hundred years, that every living thing takes
origin from an egg or ovum that is produced by a pre
existing living thing. Panspermists hold that no organic
being can originate by any other method than the fertili
sation of an egg. Omne vivum ex ovo is their motto; and
by a slight and natural extension of their central idea
omne vivum ex vivo follows. This order of thought is, as
I have said, the extreme antagonist of spontaneous gener
�6
The Borderland between
ation, the conception of the very early thinkers. It is
possibly, as I have said, as inaccurate as the thought to
which it is opposed. If Panspermism means that not
only to-day are living things produced from pre-existing
things but that this has always been the case, it is impos
sible to avoid the conclusion that Panspermism “ doth
protest too much ”; for the obvious inquiry arises as to
the origin of the first living thing. And the only answer
to this, on the theory of Panspermism, is in the ominous
words “ special creation.”
Whilst it is hardly possible to say that the scientific
thought of to-day has yet struck out the happy medium
between the two extreme ideas of spontaneous generation
and Panspermism, signs are not wanting that the opinions
of men are settling down to something between these two.
It is true that some of our most illustrious observers deny,
not altogether without a suspicion of virulence, that
abiogenesis, or origin of living things from non-living,
ever occurs. All the world knows that much controversy
has, within the last few years, taken place in respect to
this question. The distinguished Frenchman, Pasteur,
cosmopolitan in his thought and in his benefactions to
mankind, does not believe that the organic can arise from
the inorganic. Our great Englishmen, Huxley and
Tyndall, as the result of a large number of experiments,
all of which, as some of us think, have little or no
bearing upon the ultimate question at issue, have declared
that abiogenesis does not take place to-day. I have
written above, the “ ultimate question.” For whilst these
experiments of Pasteur, Huxley, and Tyndall may prove
that under certain conditions to-day the inorganic is not
transformed into the organic, they are by no means con
vincing to many minds in respect to the great question
of the first production of organic matters on the earth :
�Living and Non-Living Things.
7
and it may be said that whilst the two illustrious
Englishmen are firm in their belief that abiogenesis did
not occur in such experiments as they conducted, in all
probability neither of them would be prepared to say that
abiogenesis has never happened.
As that of an antagonist, even upon experimental
grounds, to the three men just mentioned, the name of
Dr. Bastian must be given. Whether we accept the
result of Dr. Bastian’s experiments or not, whether we
hold or join issue with him in his conclusion that even
at the present time inorganic matter is transformed into
organic, we must at least be grateful to him for the his
torical information he has collated on the question, and
for the great help he has given all men towards its solu
tion.
B.—Definitions
of
Life.
As we are dealing with living matter, it will be well to
remind ourselves of some of the definitions that have been
given of life. The definitions of life are almost as numer
ous as Jiving people. But some four or five are, by
the common consent of educated people, regarded as
ranking in accuracy and completeness higher than their
fellows; I quote those of Schelling, Bicherand, de Blainville, Lewes, and Spencer.
Schelling.—The tendency to individuation.
Perhaps the greatest objection to this is the word ten
dency. Something seems wanting in the definition of so
distinct a series of phenomena as those which we call
life, when it is spoken of only as “ a tendency.”
Richerand.—The collection of phenomena which suc
ceed one another in an organised body during a limited
time.
This definition would appear to be an instance of
�8
The Borderland between
petitio principii; for an organised body is none other
than a living one.
De Blainville.—The twofold internal movement of com
position and decomposition, general and continuous.
As Mr. Herbert Spencer has pointed out, this definition
applies equally well to a galvanic battery. And, at pre
sent, no one is prepared to call a galvanic battery a liv
ing thing.
Lewes.—Definite successive changes in structure and
composition without loss of identity.
An important new idea, and one that seems necessary,
is introduced in the last four words. But life seems to
imply changes not only of matter, but of motion, and the
latter changes are apparently ignored in this definition.
Spencer.—The continuous adjustment of internal to
external relations.
This is the definition given by Mr. Spencei- after his
review of those already quoted.
C.—Advancing Simplification
of the
Question.
As time has elapsed, the question as to the origin of
living matter has, like many other questions, undergone
successive simplifications. Originally, the question was
as to the origin of large and complex animals. As long
as people, with Aristotle, thought insects, maggots, and
eels were produced from inorganic matter, so long the
question was one of overwhelming difficulty. But while
the difficulty is still apparent, no doubt can exist that it
has been considerably lessened. When Redi showed that
maggots were due to eggs deposited by flies, he led human
thought a considerable distance in the direction of simpli
fication. Many years later, when the researches of
Schwann and Schleiden convinced the scientific world
that all plants and animals were made up of cells more
�Living and Non-Living Things.
9
or less modified, a gigantic stride was made. These
acute observers, after much patient investigation, arrived
at the majestic generalisation which has nevei' yet been
gainsaid, that all the tissues of organic bodies are made
up of cells. Further, it has been shown that every organic
body begins as a single cell, and also that the lowest
organic bodies are, throughout their existence, nothing
more than single, simple cells. As therefore the lowest
plants and animals consisted only of one cell, as every plant
and animal began its existence as one cell, and as every
tissue of every plant and animal was in the ultimate analy
sis reduceable to cells, the question as to the origin of
living matter centred in the cell. Now a cell is a semi
fluid mass invested by a membrane, and containing within
it a more solid portion or nucleus. A cell, in short,
from without inwards consists of cell-membrane, cell
contents (usually protoplasm), and cell-nucleus.
Further investigation has shown that the cell is not
the simplest form of living matter. The discoveries of
Ernst Haeckel in 1864 and succeeding years, confirmed
and extended by Cienkowsky and Von Kleinenberg,
revealed the important fact, that organisms exist in sea
water and fresh-water, whose structure is even simpler
than that of the cell. These Monera consist of cells
destitute of nuclei. To such a structure the name cytod
is given. Thus the question as to the origin of living
matter has, by these investigations, been narrowed down
to the question as to the origin of cytods. But simpler
structures even than the cytods have been discovered by
the aid of our improved microscopes, and by our improved
methods of observation. Imagine a cell, not only desti
tute of nucleus, but of the external investing membrane ;
imagine, in short, a microscopic piece of protoplasm, and
you have the conception of the simplest form of living
�10
The Borderland between
matter known at the present time. Such a piece of pro
toplasm we know to be made of carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, and perhaps of traces of sulphur and
phosphorus. We know it to be semi-fluid ; we know it
to be contractile, and we call it living. The vast question
as to whence living matter originated is no longer, there
fore, a question as to the origin of complex animals, nor
as to the origin of a cell with its membrane, contents,
and nucleus, nor as to the origin of a cytod with its
membrane and contents. It is as to the origin of exceed
ingly minute portions of protoplasm. And, with the
advancing simplification of this question, the possibility
of its solution increases hour by hour.
D.—Facts Bearing on the Subject
under
Discussion.
Direct evidence as to archebiosis is, confessedly,
difficult to obtain. According to some, its attainment is
impossible. Whether at the present time inorganic
matter does, on occasion, pass into the organic condition
is at least doubtful. But there is no doubt, that when
the first passage of inorganic into the organic occurred,
no man was living to observe that passage. Hence, con
fining our attention to the primary origin of living matter,
it is clear that no direct evidence is obtainable. Our
only resource, therefore, is the study of indirect evidence.
In this question, as in the almost equally important
question as to the origin of man, it is as foolish as it is
hopeless to ask for or to expect direct evidence. All that
the reasonable thinker has expectation of finding is, in
direct or circumstantial evidence that may aid him in his
decision. It may be well, however, to remind a certain
order of thinkers, that whilst there is no direct evidence
of man’s origin from the lower animals, or of the origin of
organic matter from inorganic, there is equally no direct
�Living and Non-Living Things.
11
evidence of the special creation of man, or the special
creation of living matter. As far as direct evidence is
concerned, the two antagonistic theories are on a level.
Just as no man has ever seen living matter evolve, so no
man has ever seen living matter created. There is abso
lutely no single direct fact in support of the view, either
of the evolutionist or of the special creationist on these
two points. But while the two antagonistic views are
thus on a level in regard to direct evidence, they are very
widely asunder in regard to indirect evidence. Bor there
is not one single fact that is indirectly in support of the
idea of special creation, whilst the facts in support of the
idea of evolution of the living from the non-living are
many. It is not denied that there are difficulties in the
way of this last conception. Of these difficulties, the
special creationists, in their amiable fashion, do not cease
to remind us. But they may be in their turn reminded,
that to point out the difficulties of a particular theory is
no proof of its converse. They may be reminded that
there is something of ungraciousness in the ceaseless
repetition of the difficulties not yet surmounted, when
that repetition is made by those who have done absolutely
nothing in the good work already accomplished, and
when it is made to those who by patient endeavor have
cleared our path to some extent at least.
Of the many facts that indirectly support the view that
living matter has evolved from non-living, one or two of
the most prominent will now be quoted :—
1. The first of these is the manufacture of organic sub
stances. Not many years ago we were told that man
would never be able to manufacture organic substances.
Such things as starch, sugar, and alcohol, manufactured
by the plant and the animal, were never to be made in the
laboratory of the chemist. It was impossible for man
�12
The Borderland between
ever to obtain these organic compounds in any other way
than from plants and animals. But these very organic
compounds are now in several cases manufactured by
man, and manufactured by him out of inorganic sub
stances. Wöhler has converted the inorganic salt ammonium cyanate, H4NCNO, into the organic substance
urea, CO<dH2N-. Again alcohol, C2H6O, clearly an
organic body, is now manufactured in the laboratory out
of carbon, hydrogen, and sulphuric acid, H2SO4. Tartaric
acid, C4H6O6, a well-known product of the vegetable
kingdom, is also by somewhat complex processes manu
factured by man, and alizarine, C14H8O4, the principle
of the color matter of the dye madder, has comparatively
recently been prepared artificially. These four, urea,
which is a product of animal bodies, alcohol, tartaric
acid, and alizarine, the product of vegetable bodies,
are at the present time manufactured out of inorganic
substances. If then man, with his limited knowledge,
limited powers, and limited time has been able to prepare
the organic from the inorganic, it is at least conceivable
that in the enormous time during which this earth has
been in existence, certain collocations of mineral matters
may have occurred, ultimating in the production of what
is called organic matter. If man so soon has been able to
work this momentous result, it is exceedingly probable
that in Nature the same result has been produced times
and again.
2. The great Food Cycle.—We may see the trans
formation of the inorganic into the organic going on
around us, and even in us at the present time. Let us
consider the food of plants and of animals. The food of
plants is in the main mineral matter. Its three chief
constituents are carbonic acid, water, ammonia. Puttingon one side the cases of insectivorous plants, these three
�Living and Non-Living Things.
13
binary compounds, together with certain salts that are
met with in the soil, constitute the chief food stuffs of
plants. The plant kingdom, in short, feeds upon the
mineral. Here then in the life of every plant we have
the constant building up of the organic plant-substances
from the inorganic. The carbonic acid, water, ammonia,
and salts are built up into starch, sugar, gluten, quinine,
and a thousand more complex compounds. For these
plant substances are ternary and quaternary, that is, con
sist of three or four chemical elements. And the number
of atoms of these elements is large as compared with the
number in the simpler compounds taken in as food. Thus
carbonic acid has symbol CO2, water, H2O, ammonia,
H;!N. But starch has symbol C6H10O5 ; sugar, C12
H22OX1 ; quinine, C20H24N2O2. So that we see, I re
peat, in the plant life the inorganic simple compounds
constantly built up into the organic more complex com
pounds.
The food of animals is derived mainly from the vege
table kingdom. Even the carnivorous animal devours
herbivorous ones that are in their turn feeders upon the
plants. By the animal, the complex organic substances
of the plant are built up into yet more complex
bodies. The sugar, starch, gluten, become albumen and
its fellows, quaternary compounds, or compounds that
may contain even five or six different chemical ele
ments in their individual molecules, whilst the number of
atoms of each element is very large. So complex are
these organic bodies of animal nature, that for the most
part they are at present not representable by definite
chemical symbols. Their percentage composition alone
can, as yet, be given.
Thus then the mineral or inorganic is even at this hour
built up undei’ our eyes, into the vegetable, and this last
�14
The Borderland between
into the animal, organic bodies. But animal and plant
alike, as they decay, break up into mineral compounds.
Every organic being ultimately is resolved into carbonic
acid, water, ammonia, salts, into, in a word, the inorganic
compounds with which our vast, unending food-cycle
began. Erom mineral to vegetable, from vegetable to
animal, from vegetable and animal to mineral once
again. The organic ever returns to the inorganic, whence
it came.
At no place in this food-cycle is there any room for the
intervention of the supernatural. The series of natural
changes is without a hiatus. And if, in view of these
facts, we bear in mind the momentous generalisation
that the life of every individual is a brief, condensed
epitome of the life of the race, a new light breaks in upon
us. Every living being in its own life-history passes
with exceeding swiftness through all the stages of develop
ment that its ancestors have slowly traversed in the long
past. Every stage in their lengthy evolution is repre
sented by some transient condition in the life of each of
their descendants. If we apply this majestic generalisa
tion to organic beings in regard to their food-history, we
are forced to believe that as to-day the complex organic
substances of living bodies are fashioned out of mineral
matters, so in the past, living matter was first formed
out of non-living. That which we see take place rapidly in
the life of each individual, the upbuilding of the mineral
into the organic, probably took place very much more
slowly in the infinitely remote past. The transformation
of non-living substances into living so swiftly effected to
day tells us that in a very distant yesterday such a trans
formation occurred for the first time.
3. Experiments.—It has been said already that the
elaborate and carefully conducted experiments made by
�Living and Non-Living Things.
15
so many excellent observers have little or no bearing
upon the real question as to the origin of life in the
past. For all the results of these experiments admit of
two explanations, one of which is, at least, as reasonable
as the other. On the one hand, we are told that the
heating of solutions, the filtering air through cotton wool,
the subjecting that air to high temperatures and to the
action of acids, destroy “ invisible germs ” that, untam
pered with, would and do develop into living pieces
of protoplasm. But another explanation, at least as
reasonable, is that this filtering, this heating, this passing
through acids, this rough treatment thermally and che
mically, have altered the nature of the inorganic materials
concerned, and prevented the possibility of their con
junction and mutual reaction. The one school says
invisible germs are destroyed. The other school replies
that the physical and chemical properties of the mineral
matters are altered. The former tells us that no living
matter appears because its parent germs are killed. The
latter tells us that with the great change in the properties
of the inorganic substances wrought by the treatment to
which they are subjected, all their potentiality for combi
nation into the new order of matter called living is
destroyed. To some of us the later voices seem to speak
the greater truth.
E.-—Evolution.
The name of the great principle of modern thought
suggests another kind of indirect evidence in favour of
abiogenesis. There is neither need, to-day, to explain
the principle nor to give facts in order to its establish
ment. All that is needed is to continue the accumulation
of facts with a view to the strengthening of our beautiful
faith. Its foundations are laid firmly enough. It re
mains for us to build upon them.
�16 Borderland between Living $ Non-Living Things.
The. whole of the evidence for Evolution is so much in
direct evidence in favor of the origin of living matter from
non-living. Eor, let it be remembered, the only other
alternative before us is that of special creation, of super
natural intervention. Of this last absolutely no evidence
is in existence throughout the long series of advancing
evolution in plants and animals. Clearly, then, to invoke
it in respect to the appearance of organic bodies on the
earth is unphilosophical. If the great principle holds, it
holds throughout. Who will be the Canute to cry to
this great sea—Thus far shalt thou go and no farther ?”
Supernaturalism has failed us all along the line. Super
naturalism tried to explain man’s mind as essentially
different from other functions and from other forces. It
failed. Supernaturalism tried to explain man’s origin
as different from that of other animals. It failed. Super
naturalism tried to separate the animal world from the
vegetable, and to make us believe that the two orders
of organic things were distinct creations. It failed.
Supernaturalism is trying to-day to separate the king
doms of the living and the dead by a hard and fast line.
It will fail.
But where Supernaturalism has thus been found want
ing, the purely natural explanation of Evolution has been
our guide and comfort. Evolution has shown us that
man’s mind is developed from lower minds, that man’s
body is the outcome of the advancement from lower
forms, that the animal and plant kingdom glide one into
the other. And it tells us, also, as we think, that the
living and the dead are akin, that the inorganic in the
past became organic, that the mineral is the ancestor of
the plant and of the animal, that here, as everywhere,
no gap occurs, but in the long ages by slow degrees living
matter has been evolved from the non-living.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The borderland between living and non-living things: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, November 5th, 1882
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Aveling, Edward B. [1849-1898]
Sunday Lecture Society
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Errata slip inserted at p.4-5.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1883
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Science
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Life
Morris Tracts
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE INFLUENCE OF
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY
IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN MIED
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 25th FEBRUARY, 1877,
By
A. ELLEY
FINCH.
ISanUcm :
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1877.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author,
now printed, are—on
“ Erasmus ; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of the Refor
mation.” (Price 3d.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern Safe-guards,
and Future Prospects.” (Price 3d.)
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between Lord Bacon
and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes and Authorities, (pp. 100,
cloth 8vo., price 5s.)
“ The Pursuit oe Truth ; as Exemplified in the Principles of Evidence
—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With Notes and Authorities,
(pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s.)
Can be obtained of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq.,
15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of
Lecture; or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street.
�SYLLABUS.
Earliest notions respecting the Stars. Genesis. Socrates.
Astronomy as Science is the result of mental calculation based on exact
observation of the Heavenly Bodies, by aid of the Telescope and other
modern scientific instruments.
The Human Understanding previously to the growth of Astronomical
Science was under the dominion of the Imagination.
Illustration of the pre-scientific type of mind—Plato.
The conception of the size and nature of the World was imaginary.
Illustration from their description by Cosmas.
The destiny of the Universe, and man’s position in it were also imaginary.
Illustration from the works of the Fathers and Schoolmen.
Sketch of the true System of the World as made known through the
great Astronomical Discoveries. Hipparchus (160 a.c.)—Ptolemy (140 a.d.)
—Copernicus (1542)—Invention of the Telescope (1609)—Kepler (1619)—
Galileo (1632)—Sir Isaac Newton (1687)—Lagrange and Laplace (1776—
1825)—Adams (1846), and others.
Astronomical Discovery has displaced the theological scheme of existence
by the substitution of a scientific platform; correcting, enlarging, and
elevating men’s views by transferring the intellectual position of the
observer from the Earth to the Sun.
In demonstrating the stability of our Solar System it has destroyed the
theological dogma of the approaching end of the World, with all its
demoralizing influences.
It reveals the Universe as a realm of Law, and Laws of Nature as Laws
of Reason.
It proves a Reign of Reason to be paramount the Dominion of the
Imagination. Illustration from astronomical measurements, magnitudes,
and distances beyond the realization of the Imagination.
It exhibits the reason of man as part of the universal reason, and both
as correlated with a material basis. Illustration from the discovery and
connection of Conic Sections, the curvature of the Planetary Orbits, and
the Law of Gravitation.
It unfolds an Order of Nature as the criterion of Truth, the area of
Knowledge, and the standard of Proportion.
In displaying a real power of Prediction, it has rescued Science from
Theology and Metaphysics.
. It has sapped Superstition, i.e., Belief inconsistent with the unbiassed
dictates of Reason and the verified course of Nature.
In encom-aging a love of inquiry in the spirit of Truth, it has invigorated
Culture and reformed Education.
In eradicating vicious views and false beliefs, it has purified Moral
Principles and augmented Human Happiness.
Illustration of the scientific type of mind—J. S. Mill.
’ Plato and Mill—a parallel.
ILLUSTRATIVE DIAGRAMS.
1. Conic Sections.—2. The Orbit of a Planet round the Sun.—3. Phases of
the Planet Venus as shown by the Telescope.—4. Our Solar System.
��IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN MIND.
HE earliest astronomical sentiments of the human race find
their simplest expression in our
nursery
Tdating back probably to those primevalfamiliarwhen, in therhyme,
times
cloudless
serenity of an oriental night, Shepherd-priests of the Chaldean
plains, awe-subdued and silent, intently watch the star-studded
expanse, glittering so mysteriously above and around them—
“ Twinkle, twinkle little Star,
How I wonder what you are ! ”
That the stars were very small bodies, that they could never
be more to man than objects of wonder, were the intellectual beliefs
of ages—even in the time of the cultured Greeks, we find the great
Athenian Socrates pronouncing Astronomy (that science which now
exhibits the highest perfection, and most exact power of prediction
to which the human mind has ever attained) to be a Divine mystery,
impossible to understand, and impious to investigate ; whilst their
illustrious Philosopher, Anaxagoras, was accused of blasphemy,
for daring to dispersonify their Sun-God Helios, in attempting to
assign invariable laws to the Solar phenomena !
But a writer, more ancient than Socrates, perhaps no less
illustrious than the Grecian Sage, has ventured to narrate to us,
as a fact, the Creation of the little Stars. Thus, he writes—“ And
God made two great Lights .... He made the Stars also. And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth.” Those twinkling points of light are thus regarded as
�6
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
some small addition to the Sun and Moon, without the least
suspicion that each one of their glorious host was itself a mighty
Sun, in comparison with whose bulk that of our earth shrinks to
insignificance !
Now, one of the most certain, as well as important, of the
discoveries of modern Critical Research, has shown us that the
Pentateuch is the composition of several writers, put together
out of different sources, prior documents or legends; and it may, I
trust, be said without improperly shocking the prejudices of any
intelligent person, that the statement I have cited from the book
of Genesis, as to the inferior size, and apparent purpose of the
Stars, is entirely contradicted by the discoveries of Astronomical
Science, and that the fact of such a statement having for so long
a period retained its hold over human beliefs, as supernaturallyinspired truth, must now be attributed mainly to its sublime
audacity.
Mere observation of the Heavens, or Star-gazing, however long
continued, could never have created a Science of Astronomy. The
Chinese, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, all in
ancient times, made and recorded numerous observations of the
Heavenly bodies, but they seldom arrived at scientific conceptions.
Physical Science indeed is not of Asiatic descent, its parentage is
European.
Astronomical Science, that knowledge which enables us to com
prehend the past and future state of the system of the World, has
resulted from a series of marvellous discoveries made by the
intellect of European Man. As Science, Astronomy is even yet
the youthful offspring of the unprejudiced reason, being the result
of mental calculation, based upon an accurate observation of the
Heavenly bodies, by aid of the Telescope, and other modern
scientific Instruments.
The discovery of the real motions of the Earth ; and the other
Planets revolving round the Sun; of the laws which regulate these
motions; of the principle of universal gravitation, as the cause of
these laws; of the actual form of the planetary orbits, and the rate
of speed at which they are traversed; so that the future position of
the vast celestial orbs, rolling incessantly through space, can be
accurately predicted; has been work accomplished, not so much by
the human eye, as by the human brain.
If, when surveying the history of human opinion, we attempt
�Development of the Human Mind.
7
to range its several schools on one side or the other of a single
line of demarcation, we find that the minds of men seem separable
into two almost opposite types. The one being that in which the
Imagination is found to predominate as the ruling intellectual
faculty, the other type being that in which the Beason is regarded
as the ultimate arbiter of both what is true and what is right.
This remarkable mental distinction appears to have prevailed from
very early times. In reference to its organic source, the poet
Coleridge has, in one of his writings, remarked, that all men are
born to be disciples either of Plato or of Aristotle; these
intellectual chiefs of classical antiquity, showing throughout their
writings the very marked mental distinction to which I am
alluding.
With respect to the bearing of this two-fold intellectual organi
zation upon the times in which we are living, and the subjects that
are being so passionately discussed in our day, I will venture to
designate the one, which looks to Imagination as its supreme and
ruling mental power, The theological type of mind: and the other,
which relies on Beason as its ultimate appeal and last resort,
The scientific type of mind. Both types do indeed make use of
reason and imagination too, but they are distinguished by this
peculiarity, that the theological type reasons from premises which
the exalted imagination supplies, under various specious disguises,
such as intuitions, facts of consciousness, innate ideas, and the
like; whilst the scientific type of mind controls the imagination by
the reason, and reasons from premises, directly or indirectly,
derived from experience of the facts of Nature.
Of the theological type of mind, Plato is perhaps the most
memorable example with which history supplies us. One of the
most brilliant thinkers the world has ever produced, he may be
said to be the father of that Metaphysical Philosophy which
constitutes the body of doctrine that the mind builds up by means
of abstract ideas, largely evolved from its inner consciousness, or,
at least, based upon its own intuitions and emotions. Hence it is
the Philosophy of Plato that has been the great secular authority
with Theologians ; its abstractedness from the visible or natural
world recommending it strongly to their imaginations and feelings.
This theological type of mind not only characterised the culture
of antiquity, it coloured deeply the thoughts of men throughout
the middle ages, continuing its overshadowing influence, until, as
�8
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
I am about to show you, it was, to a great extent, displaced by the
development of Astronomical Discovery. Meanwhile, however,
so paramount was its spirit, that the historian of “ Civilization
in Europe,” Monsieur Guizot,- has declared that, previously to
the 17th century, all opinions were saturated with it; that
questions philosophical, political, historical, were all regarded
from a theological point of view ; that even the mathematical and
physical sciences were subordinated to the dogmas of theology.
We cannot wonder that, in such an intellectual condition of
Society, man’s conception of the size and nature of the globe he
inhabited should be purely imaginary. Passing over the views of
heathen antiquity, embodied for the most part in the fascinating
fables of the Greeks, and selecting an illustration from times
believed to be illuminated on the subject by the teaching of inspired
Scriptures, I will cite a work of acknowledged ability, and un
deniable authority at the time when it was published, viz., the
treatise of Cosmas on the Nature of the World.
In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, about the year 535, there
was living at Alexandria a monk named Cosmas, noted for his
inquisitive mind, his scientific attainments, and his knowledge of
the relation between Science and Scripture. At the request of
some learned men he composed and published a considerable work,
entitled “ Christian Opinion concerning the World.” According
to this authority the World was a flat parallelogram or plain. In
the centre is the Earth we inhabit, surrounded by the Ocean, and
encircled by another Earth. To the north is a high conical
mountain, around which the Sun and Moon revolve. When the
Sun is behind the mountain, it is Night, when the Sun is in front
of the mountain, it is Day. The Sky is fixed to the edges of the
outer Earth. It consists of four high walls rising to a great
height, and then meeting in a vast concave roof. The whole is
an immense edifice, of which the World is the floor. The idea that
the World could possibly be inhabited on any other side than its
flat upper surface was treated generally with incredulous scorn.
The great Fathers Augustin and Lactantius especially deriding it,
as the preposterous notion that men could exist hanging down
wards with their feet higher than their heads !
Such being the generally received opinion, even amongst the
learned, of the nature of the Earth and Sky, we must not be
surprised to find that their opinions of the destiny of the World,
�Development of the Haman Mind..
9
and man’s position in it, were also purely imaginary. In fact
their whole system of theological belief rested on the notion that
the Universe was ordained for Man!
Of course, if our Earth were the great central object of the
Universe, man, being the highest existing object on Earth, would
be, apparently, the centre of all things. Accordingly, every
startling phenomenon was believed to have some bearing upon his
proceedings. The darkness of the Eclipse, the Comet’s fiery tail,
the dazzling Meteor, were all pointed at as preternatural portents,
manifestations of Divine Displeasure, intended to operate on the
mind of man, as threatenings, or warnings to him. His whole
career is linked with them—
“ The warrior’s fate is blazon’d, in the skies !
A world is darken’d when a hero dies ! ”
Turning from the ideal World and its phantoms, which the
imaginations of men have created, to the consideration of that real
Universe which Astronomical Science has revealed to us, we find
that from the earliest ages the scientific type of mind has existed
along with the theological type, although, owing to the want of
material in the shape of ascertained physical facts and laws of
nature (which have been of slow, and comparatively recent,
discovery), there were no means for its discipline, or scope for its
growth. Still, its nature being to require facts as the basis of
reasoning, and to draw its conclusions from real premises, it has
ever been the great instrument of scientific discovery. The
scientific type of mind was conspicuous in Plato’s great disciple,
Aristotle, whose method of arriving at real knowledge contrasts
very remarkably with that of his illustrious master. Aristotle’s
method was not to begin with ideas furnished by the mind, but,
with the facts of sense derived from observation of Nature. A
thingy with him was not to be regarded as true, because the
Imagination had suggested it, or because it was amenable to
dialectical treatment, but, because the Reason could verify it
inductively by an appeal to experience.
The Astronomers have been from a very early period the chief
exemplars of the scientific type of mind, showing how (in the
words of Professor Tyndall) “ Imagination, bounded and con
ditioned by co-operant Reason, becomes the mightiest instrument
of the physical discoverer.” Observations of the Heavenly bodies,
�10
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
as accurate as could be made by means of the unassisted senses, or
with such rude instruments as at the time could be constructed;
carefully, continuously, and systematically recorded, built up by
degrees a body of ascertained celestial facts; and, so far back as
about 200 years before Christ, we recognise Astronomy (which
chiefly then consisted of such observed facts) developing into
Science, by virtue of the early Greek geometers applying to it
mathematical calculations, whereby they were enabled to detect
the principle of uniformity, or law, which regulates the motions of
the Heavenly bodies, and so became enabled to predict, to a certain
extent, what would be the state of the sky at a future time.
It was during the reign of the Ptolemies (descendants of Philip
of Macedon), commenced at Alexandria, some 300 years before the
Christian era, that Astronomy, under the munificent patronage of
those princes, began to be cultivated as a science of combined
observation and theory.
The History, Method, and Instruments of Ancient Astronomy
formed the subject of an interesting lecture delivered here in the
month of April last by our friend Mr. Seabroke. I can now only
refer to a few leading names, but, I may single out Hipparchus,
who flourished at Alexandria about 160 years before Christ. It is
to him that the origin of Astronomy, as a science of mental calcula
tion, is chiefly to be attributed. He, being a mathematician as
well as an observer, well knew that mere observation cannot
constitute Science, and the mode in which he applied, his reasoning
faculty to obtain theoretical results is in the highest degree
interesting. One of his many discoveries I will mention, since it
is the earliest known example, in the history of Astronomy, of the
correction of an apparent fact of sense, by the intellectual com
parison of two distant observations. In the days of Hipparchus,
the length of the tropical year (an important astronomical datum)
was supposed to consist of exactly 365 days and a quarter of a day.
Hipparchus approached this problem with doubt and enquiry.
Hr first himself observed a solstice (that is the position of the sun
on the longest day), and then proceeded to compare it with a
solstice observed by the astronomer Aristarchus 147 years earlier,
and thereby he found that the Sun arrived at the same place
twelve hours sooner than it should have done if the year were of
the length I have mentioned. Hipparchus thereupon worked out
mentally the correction, viz., that the true length of the year
�Development of the Human Mind.
11
was less than 365 days and a quarter by -j^oth part, and that is
now known: to be almost exactly the true length of the tropical
year. But the great importance of this mental calculation of
Hipparchus is not so much its result, as its having inaugurated
the scientific method of obtaining real astronomical knowledge.
The works of this illustrious man have not come down to us.
They perished, along with many other priceless relics of the past,
in that great calamity for the human race, the conflagration of the
Alexandrian Library. Hence our knowledge of the discoveries of
Hipparchus is derived from the work of his celebrated successor,
the Astronomer and Geographer, Ptolemseus, or Ptolemy, who
flourished about the year 140. He is the author of one of the
greatest astronomical books in existence, the Syntaxis, as it is
called in Greek, more generally known by its Arabian name of the
Almagest—a most valuable monument of antiquity, since it con
tains nearly all the knowledge we possess of the Astronomy of the
Ancients.
Many of you know that Ptolemy adopted, as the basis of his
theory, that system of the world which places the Earth immovable
in the centre of the Universe. The Sun, the Moon, and the
Planets being supposed to revolve severally in orbits of different
magnitudes ; the entire Heavens turning round the earth in every
twenty-four hours. It had, of course, been matter of very early
observation that some few of the more brilliant of the stars move
continually about in a very erratic manner. Hence was given to
them the name of Planets (from the Greek verb 7rXavaw, to wander).
To account for the irregular motions of the Planets, Ptolemy, and
his astronomical precursors, had invented an ingenious theory of
epicycles and eccentrics, based upon imaginary circular orbits,
which was considered sufficient to explain them.
Such in brief was the supposed nature of the Universe that
became so well known as the Ptolemaic System, and which, in the
long conflict between Science and Theology, maintained its ground
for upwards of thirteen centuries !
Now, the Ptolemaic System did sufficiently account for all the
appearances that the Heavens presented to the ordinary observer.
With reference to the Stars, for instance, it is the same thing to
the spectator whether the Heavens, that is all space with its
contents, revolve round him in one direction, or the earth on which
he stands revolve within them in the opposite direction, that is,
�12
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
the diurnal phenomena would be in no way different. To believe,
however, that the fixed Stars really revolved round the Earth in
twenty-four hours required the most enormous stretch of credulity,
for, it was generally conceded, what indeed it had become impossible
rationally to doubt, that the fixed Stars must be bodies immensely
distant from the Earth, as it had been also matter of observation
that these Stars, no matter from what point they were viewed, mani
fested not the slightest variation of position amongst themselves.
The nicest measurement of the apparent angular distance of any
two Stars from each other, at whatever point of the Earth’s surface
(I might almost say the Earth’s orbit) it is performed, gives
results actually identical; that is, the fixed Stars present to the
spectator no parallax (the astronomical name for any variation of
such angular distance when found to exist). In other words,
the dimensions of the Earth, large as it is, are simply imperceptible
when compared with the vast distance which separates the Stars
from the Earth.
If, then, the Stars were so immensely distant, and of such
enormous size, as they were thus shown to be, to suppose that
they could nevertheless revolve round the Earth in twenty-four
hours is rationally inconceivable. To the theological type of mind
this difficulty of conception was of course as nothing, but, to the
scientific type of mind, the difficulty is insuperable; for science,
being based on the conviction of the uniformity of Nature, views
the Heavenly bodies and their movements, not as without, but, as
within the pale of analogy and experience, and regards Astronomy,
not as a mystery, but as a Science of cause and effect.
When, therefore, about the year 1537, Copernicus (adopting the
opinion of Pythagoras) propounded his geometrical conception,
based upon the supposition of the Earth’s double motion, its
rotation on its axis, and its translation through space in an orbit
round the Sun, a rationally conceivable account was given of every
motion that the Heavens presented to the Astronomer; an
account showing that they could all intelligibly cohere without
contradicting each other, and without any violation of the nature
of things as concluded from human experience. It was, indeed,
though not altogether original, a marvellous conception, for
Copernicus neither did nor could, in the then state of science,
explain the mechanical origin of the movements he supposed, or
assign them any dependence on physical causes. That, however,
�Development of the Human Mind.
13
was subsequently done, as we shall presently see when glancing at
the discoveries of Kepler, of Galileo, and of Newton.
*This is an ordinary representation of the chief features of the
Copernican or Solar System, showing the Sun in the centre, and
the several principal Planets in their respective orbits 'round the
Sun. It represents what the eye would see if looking down on
the system from a great elevation on the north side. It has,
however, one misleading feature, to which I beg your particular
attention. It shows the orbits of the several Planets as Circles.
Such is not the real fact. It was indeed long supposed that the
Planets moved in circles round the Sun. It was strenously
argued that they must do so. It was, however, discovered that
they don’t—that they move not in circles, but in ovals of peculiar
mathematical form.
Many were the objections raised against the startling theory of
Copernicus, The chief of them was that it contradicted Scripture,
which had taught people that it was the Sun, and not the Earth,
that moved. Amongst others, it was urged, with regard to the
Planets that are nearer to the Sun than the Earth—Venus for
example—that if she so revolved round the Sun, she would show,
when looked at from the Earth, various phases as our Moon does,
that is, she would be seen at times partly in shadow, and so exhibit
a broken, or crescent-like shape; whereas, in point of fact, nothing
of the kind, as respects the Planet Venus, had ever been observed.
Many of you have probably often gazed upon this brilliant and
singularly dazzling star without ever having observed any peculiarity
of shape about it. In truth, the objection was, at the time, un
answerable, and was by many accepted as fatal to the truth of the
theory. But, the year 1609 saw the production of one of the
most wonderful instruments ever invented by human ingenuity,
which may be said virtually to have connected the eye of the mind
with the eye of the body by means of a new sense, enabling the
observer to see the Heavens with a precision, and to an extent,
hitherto undreamt of, and, when the Telescope, in the grasp of
Galileo, was turned towards the Planet Venus, the phases attri
buted to her by the Copernican theory appeared, actually as
the testimony of the Heavens themselves, in attestation of its
accuracy!
* See Diagram, page 14.
�14
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
�Development of the Human Mind.
Here you see the phases of the
Planet as the Telescope shows
them. They are photographic as
well as telescopic appearances, but
they show clearly the various opti
Ld
cal sizes and shapes of the Planet Q_
resulting from her moving in an O
orbit round the Sun interior to o
CO
that of our Earth.
Lil
Still several important details _l
remained unexplained. For in Ld
stance—the observed motions of Ithe Planets seemed still so erratic, Ld
that the complicated scheme of I
cycles and epicycles had been H
retained by Copernicus to account >
for them. At length the actual CD
form of the orbits of the Planets
was discovered by the Astronomer Z
£
Kepler, and subsequently eluci
o
dated in a manner that proves I
a most remarkable coincidence, not co
to say identity, between the reason
co
of man and the reason that regu <
lates the movements of the Uni
co
verse !
Now, some 1800 years before D
Z
the Astronomer Kepler discovered id
the precise form of the planetary >
orbits round the Sun, and the Ll
beautiful laws which regulate them, O
the Mathematicians of Ancient
Greece had acutely divined, that if co
Ld
a right-angled triangle be made co
to revolve round one of its sides <
containing the right angle, there I
will be described a figure having 0very remarkable properties, des
tined (though undesigned by them)
to lead eventually to very sur
prising results.
15
�16
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
K
This is a right-angled triangle
and, if I were to make it
revolve round its vertical side as _ a fixed axis, the figure so
described would obviously be> this. A This figure, in its solid
this,
sugar-loaf shape, is termed a Cone, / \ and, if it be intersected
C
or cut by a plane in certain particular -- directions, there are pro- .
duced several distinct forms of Curves.
This is the figure of a right Cone.* If it be intersected in a line
parallel to its base, the resulting closed curve is a Circle. If cut
through at an angle to its base, the resulting closed curve is an
Ellipse. If cut parallel to one of its sloping sides, the resulting
curve is a Parabola, and if the plane cut only one side of the
cone, and not parallel to the other, the curve produced is the
Hyperbola.
Now these Curves, or Conic Sections, are susceptible of mathe
matical treatment of a singularly interesting and elegant character,
and the ancient Greek Geometers, particularly Apollonius and
Archimedes, have left us mathematical works showing that they
took intense delight in following out such speculations.
Why they should have been thus fascinated cannot be doubtful
to us, for the vast development of physico-mathematical science in
our day has shown conclusively that the intellect of man is so
constituted as to be ever in affinity with scientific truth, to have a
natural relish and love for it; and the Greek Geometers, in their
invention of Conic Sections, had lighted upon a truth of Nature of
the most expansive and recondite character, although they neither
knew nor suspected what they led to, and what the illustrious
Kepler, by their assistance, discovered, viz.: That the Planets
actually move round the Sun in that one of these Conic Sections
termed an Ellipse (the Ellipse and a planet’s Orbit are, you observe,
in form identicalt); and, moreover (as was demonstrated by Sir
Isaac Newton), regard being had to the laws of motion (discovered
by Galileo), and the principle of universal Gravitation (discovered
by Newton himself), it would be physically impossible for the
Heavenly bodies to move in any other orbit than one or other of
the Conic Sections !
Thus then there became revealed the immense chain of truths
that connects geometrical propositions conceived by the reason
of man with the most sublime and majestic phenomena of Universal
See Diagram, page 17. + See Ibid, and Diagram, p. 23.
�C O N IC
17
HYPERBOLA
SECTIONS.
Development of the Human Mind.
�18
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Nature, showing them to be the unerring results of the operation
of mathematical, that is, intellectual, Laws I
As our argument particularly regards Astronomical Discovery
as resulting chiefly from the exercise* of the human reason, I will
try to show you somewhat more distinctly some of the great
intellectual truths that the genius of Kepler, of Galileo, and of
Newton, combined, succeeded in establishing.
Copernicus had not in reality attacked the principle of the
Ptolemaic or Epicyclical theory. He had rather sought to render
it more simple; and, though he had correctly pointed out that the
Sun was the centre of the planetary system, he had not discovered
that the Sun had any physical connection with the Planets as the
centre of their motions. Now, Kepler, in the course of his con
summate researches, demonstrated the important fact, that the
planes of the orbits of all the Planets, and the lines of force
joining their apsides (the points of their orbital extremities) passed
through the Sun; thereby establishing a most important relation
between the Sun and the Planets. This family connection (as it
has been called) Kepler further demonstrated by discovering the
three remarkable laws which regulate all the planetary motions.
The first of these celebrated Laws is : That a Planet moves in
the Conic Section termed an Ellipse, having the Sun, not in the
centre, but in one of its foci. The second law is : That the
Planet’s radius vector (an imaginary line joining the Planet to the
Sun*) will, as it moves, describe about its centre equal areas in
equal times. A full explanation of these two laws would involve
us in mathematics, but presently I will give you an illustration
showing the peculiar combination of force by which the elliptic
orbit is formed, and equal areas swept out by the Planet’s vector
in equal times. Kepler’s third law applies to all the Planets
considered in conjunction with the Sun as their common focus,
and may be expressed thus : That the squares of the times of the
planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean
distances from the Sun; which is a result of the Sun and the whole
of the Planets reciprocally affecting one another.
It is a necessary inference from this law that it must be one and
the same force (subsequently discovered, as we shall see, by Sir
Isaac Newton), modified only by distance from the Sun, that
retains all the Planets in their respective orbits round about the
Sun.
See Diagram, p. 23.
�Development of the Human Mind.
19
Such were the three remarkable Laws whose discovery we owe
to the sagacity of Kepler. Their immutable truth may be taken as
conclusively proved, inasmuch as, since Kepler’s time, the number
of discovered bodies in our Solar System has more than trebled,
and all have in turn verified these laws.
Upon these propositions of Kepler it was reserved for Sir Isaac
Newton to bring to bear those matchless powers of generalization
which enabled him to discover the cause of the whole of them,
aided, however, by the acute discoveries of the laws of motion by
Galileo (Galileo, whose persecution by the infallible Church, on
account of his scientific verification of the Earth’s motion, is at last
becoming a common place of history !).
Galileo then discovered the first great Law of motion or inertia,
viz.: That all motion is rectilinear and uniform—that is, a body
impelled by a single force will move in a right line, and with an
invariable velocity. He also discovered the Law of acceleration,
which regulates the motion of a falling body, viz.: That the
velocity and the space traversed are proportioned—the one to the
time and the other to its square. He also discovered that most
important law of the co-existence of force, viz.: That any motion
common to all the bodies of any system whatever does not affect
the particular motions of such bodies with regard to each other.
At length came the grand discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, up
to which I have desired to lead you through the discoveries of
his predecessors, because it is commonly supposed that Newton’s
discoveries were something immeasurably superior to, and utterly
unlike, everything that had gone before—That in short
“ Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night;
God said—‘ Let Newton be!’—and all was Light! ”
This, however, is more of a poetic fancy than a scientific truth.
The magnificent genius of Newton required no such flattery at the
hands of his countryman. In point of fact Newton’s illustrious
precursors, whose discoveries we have been considering, and other
Astronomers, especially Huyghens, Borelli, Halley, and Hooke,
whom I can now only name, had approached exceedingly near to
what Newton accomplished, so that his grand discoveries, though
going further, really supplement and harmonise with their previous
labours, illustrating clearly the law of continuity that regulates, by
successive steps, the graduated progress of human intelligence.
�20
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
It should be remarked too, because it has been often thought other
wise, that though Newton, in the propositions of the “ Principia,”
has described his discoveries through the medium of a singularly con
cise mathematical synthesis, yet (as pointed out by Laplace in his
“ Systéme du Monde”) Newton actually made those discoveries
by following the analytical method of Induction, so luminously ex
pounded by Lord Bacon in the aphorisms of the “Novum Organum.”
The great discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, as mathematically
developed in his immortal “ Principia” (published in the year 1687),
were mainly these. His chief discovery was that of the Law or
Principle of Universal Gravitation, viz.: That every particle of
matter in existence attracts every other particle with a force, vary
ing inversely as the square of their mutual distances, and directly
as the mass of the attracting particle. It is related that Newton
was led to arrive at the knowledge of this fundamental law of the
Universe by observing an apple fall from a tree before him, and,
though the anecdote is not well authenticated, there seems nothing
improbable in conceiving that, though a common incident to
common minds, it should have roused such a mind as Newton’s to
reflect upon it. It is certain, however, that he first tested his
discovery by applying it to the observed motions of the Moon, and
it is an attested fact, that, on finding his calculations were about
to show results verifying his hypothesis, he became so agitated as
to require the assistance of a friend to complete them. Thus
Newton developed his grand thought, that the movements of the
Heavenly bodies occur according to the same laws as the move
ments here on Earth!
Newton’s second great discovery consisted in demonstrating as
mathematical truths the laws of the planetary motions discovered
by Kepler, showing that they are the result of the attraction of
gravitation, a centripetal (or centre-seeking) force varying inversely
as the square of the distance of the Planets from the Sun as their
focus, and proving mathematically that no curve can be the
trajectory of a body moving in obedience to such a force other than
the curve of one or other of the Conic Sections !
These amazing discoveries enabled Newton to ascertain that the
most mysterious Comets are members of our Solar System, moving
periodically round the Sun in elongated ellipses.
Now, as soon as it is ascertained that a Comet moves in an
ellipse, it is known that the Comet must return to us—the ellipse
�Development of the Human Mind.
21
being a closed curve.* Hence Newton was able to calculate and
define precisely the elliptic orbit which takes the great Comet,
whose reappearance has been recorded but four times within the
period of human memory, exactly 575 years to go away and come
back to us again !
Thus became established the fundamental truths of the Coper
nican system; the Ptolemaic theory of eccentrics and epicycles
completely overthrown; the elliptical theory established in its
stead; and the motions of the Heavenly Bodies, especially the
Planets, shown to be the effects of mathematical laws. The elliptic
elements of the Planetary Orbits I will now very briefly try to
explain.
The orbital motion of a Planet round the Sun is the resultant of
two forces. The one is a force, which, by itself, would simply
cause the Planet to move in a right line and with constant velocity.
How such a force originated, or what the cause of it, is, at present,
unknown. It may be, as Mary Somerville defined it, an impulse
or momentum imparted to the Planet when it was first projected
into space. The other force is one, whose nature as we have seen,
was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, viz.: The attraction of
Gravitation. By itself, it would simply cause the Planet to fall or
be drawn into the Sun, by reason of the Sun’s vastly superior re
lative size. This latter force, combined with the former, deflects
the right line of the Planet’s motion into a curve.
I will give you a simple illustration of the combination of these
forces :—
Suppose this small ball to represent a Planet, and this large ball
the Sun, my hand as imparting to the Planet its momentum, or
force of projection, and this string, connecting the two, to represent
the force of gravitation attracting the Planet to the Sun. Now, if
the force of the Planet’s projection were perpendicular to the force
of gravitation, and if the two forces acted simply in balanced
combination, the velocity of the Planet would be constant, and its
Orbit round the Sun would be exactly the Conic Section termed a
circle. (The small ball is whirled round.)
Now, if the force of gravitation were to cease, that is, if my
string were to break, the Planet would not continue a curved
motion, but would fly off its orbit at a tangent. (Marked on the
* See Diagram, page 17.
�22
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
diagram.*) If the Planet’s momentum were destroyed, the Planet,
yielding to the force of gravitation, would fall, or be drawn into
the Sun.
The two forces, however, do not affect the Planet equally; the
direction of its momentum not being perpendicular but oblique to
the force of gravitation, and the force of gravitation varying
inversely as the square of the distance of the Planet from the Sun.
Hence the Planet moves, not with a constant, but with an ever
varying velocity, and in an Orbit, which is not circular but elliptic,
or oval.
A B C D show the elliptic path of P a planet round S the Sunt.
The Planet moves from C to D in the same time that it moves
from A to B, although the distances differ, by reason of the area
C S D being equal to the area A S B.
Now this equal movement is thus effected. Bear in mind that
the force of gravitation varies inversely as the square of the
distance of the Planet from the Sun; so that when this varying
force of gravitation (represented again by this string) is increased,
which of course it is as the Planet approaches the Sun, there is an
increase of its angular and linear velocity, and a rapid quickening
of its periodic time, showing the compensation by which its equable
description of areas is maintained under a constantly diminishing
distance. Thus (as the small ball is whirled round, the string is
wound upon the handle), you observe that as the distance of the
Planet from the Sun decreases, its motion becomes more rapid. Now,
such is the nature of the Planet’s motion taking place in one part of
its orbit, viz., from C to D, where it is being drawn nearer to the
Sun.
On the other hand, when the varying force of gravitation is
diminished, which of course it is as the Planet passes away from
the Sun, then the Planet’s time is slower, whilst the velocity is
lessened. Thus (as the small ball is whirled round, the string is
unwound from the handle), you observe, that as the distance of
the Planet from the Sun increases, its motion becomes slower.
Now, such is the nature of the Planet’s motion taking place in
another part of its orbit, viz., from A to B, where it is receding
further off from the Sun.
The combination then of the oblique direction of the Planet’s
* See Diagram, page 23.
t Ibid.
�Development of the Human Mind.
ORBIT OF A PLANET ROUND THE SUN.
Slowest in Aphelion.
Fastest in Perihelion.
23
�24
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
momentum, with the ever-varying force of gravitation, compels the
Planet to move in the Conic Section, termed an Ellipse, and causes
the radius vector of the Planet to sweep out equal areas in equal times.
Such is the rationale of the astonishing phenomena first dis
covered to be Physical Laws by Kepler, and afterwards demon
strated as mathematical truths by Newton !
Remarkable corollaries have since been dedueed from the Coper
nican System, especially by the Astronomers Clairaut, Lagrange,
and Laplace.
We owe to the Astronomer Lagrange the demonstration of the
stability of the system. The conclusion he arrived at was indeed
most astounding. He discovered that the mean distances of the
several planets are really not subject to any variation whatever.
They are merely affected by a series of inequalities and inclinations
that in successive periods mutually compensate themselves ; so
that, throughout an indefinite lapse of ages the mean motions of „
the planets, including our Earth, must have remained, and must
still remain, unaltered—a striking proof of the unerring order
which reigns among the vast bodies of the Universe, and of the
immutable laws by which they are controlled in their courses.
The great geometer Laplace supplemented his abstruse astrono
mical researches by the composition of a work (Traité de Méchanique Céleste), showing that the entire mechanism of the celestial
bodies is strictly in accordance with the principles and laws of
mathematical science. This profound and luminous treatise of
Laplace is the most wonderful performance perhaps (Newton’s
immortal “ Principia ” excepted) that has ever proceeded from the
human pen. In it, all that had been perceptible to the eye of
scientific analogy, or could be theoretically deduced from the
great Newtonian principle of Cosmical order, is so fully developed
and mathematically demonstrated, that at length this material
mechanism of the Heavens comes to strike the astonished student
as being, in itself, the very highest exponent of mind !
I cannot conclude this rapid and imperfect sketch without some
reference, however slight, to the brilliant discovery of the Planet
N eptune by the Astronomers Leverrier and Adams, in the year
1846. The Planet Uranus* showed such perturbations of its orbit as
made it appear a conspicuous exception to the laws of Kepler.
The cause of these perturbations was surmised by Adams to be
See Diagram, p. 14.
�Development of the Human Mind.
25
the attraction of some undiscovered body in the Heavens, at such
a distance, and of such a mass, as would exhibit an attractive force
sufficient to account for them.
On this hypothesis Adams proceeded to calculate from the •
irregularities in the motions of Uranus, as data, what should be
the mass and the elements of the orbit of the disturbing body, and
what therefore would be the exact spot in the sky in which it
should be found, and he forwarded his calculations to the Astro
nomer Royal. The disturbing body, thus pointed at, was soon
afterwards found (by Dr. Galle) in the place indicated, being the
planet to which the name of Neptune* has been given.
The amazing difficulty of working out such a recondite mathe
matical problem can be conceived. Indeed, the intellectual
grandeur of this discovery surpasses probably everything preceding
it, and, by the test of resolving the inverse problem of perturbations
—that is, “ given the disturbance, to find, as unknown quantities,
the orbit of the disturbing body, and its place in that orbit,”
corroborates conclusively the truth of the theoretical views of
Copernicus, of Kepler, and of Newton.
Thus have I essayed to lead you to the threshold of the
Sanctuary of Astronomical Science. Time does not permit, even
if I possessed the power, to lift the veil, that we might behold the
intellectual treasures of the Shrine within !
Here then we may pause; to contemplate with more intelligence
than the Chaldean of old, but, with none the less reverence, the
glorious splendours of the starry host! “Heaven’s golden alphabet,
emblazed to seize the sight!
“ The prospect vast, what is it ? viewed aright,
’Tis Nature’s system of Divinity;
*********
’Tis elder Scripture, writ by God’s own hand,
Scripture authentic, uncorrupt by man.
*********
’Tis unconfined
To Christian Land or Jewry; fairly writ,
In Language universal to Mankind,
A Language worthy the Great Mind that Speaks ! ”
Though my sketch of so lofty a theme has necessarily been of
the slightest character, I hope I have succeeded in showing you
that the noble Study of Astronomy, though, by reason of the
* See Diagram, p. 14.
�26
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
stupendous phenomena with which it deals, does not, like Chem
istry, permit of experiment, yet presents to us the purest type of
true scientific method, viz., the free and unbiassed exercise of the
■highest powers of Reason upon the most carefully observed facts
and phenomena of Nature; proving that these are subject to
invariable Laws, and imparting to man, whose life, even whose
species, occupies a mere point in the duration of the World,
knowledge that embraces myriads of ages.
And now let us endeavour to realise the more striking eifects of
the marvellous Astronomical Discoveries that have revealed to us
the true system of our Universe.
The first idea that must occur to us is, that our point of outward
view should be the surface of the Sun. Taking our intellectual
stand at the Sun,* the Heavenly bodies of our system appear before
us in all the Majesty of the Divine Order of their due proportions.
Our Earth is seen, as it really is, not the world, but comparatively
a very small globular star, not the centre of anything, but, circula
ting in its place and season, among the other planets, round the
Sun.f The petty theological schemes, that were composed by men
when they believed the earth to be a flat plain, the centre of the
Universe, disappear altogether, like ghosts before the rising light
of dawn!
Our views then, whether religious or otherwise, are at once
corrected, expanded, and elevated, to a degree that must convince
us that not only are isolated statements in the Hebrew Scriptures
discredited, but that the whole Theology of the Christian Lathers
is deprived of its fundamental basis.
Our knowledge, derived from Astronomy, of the small size, and
double motion, of the Planet we inhabit, has, in truth, destroyed
intellectually every system of theological belief that has been based
on the notion that the entire Universe was ordained for man.
But, more than this, Astronomical discovery has proved to us
that the order maintained on Earth, and throughout our System,
is not dependent upon theological dogma, however much belief in
it be backed up by authority and tradition, but, results from the
universal simple gravitation of its parts. Eor gravitation not only
regulates every physical efiect; there can be no mental calculation,
no moral feeling, no social custom into which the law of gravita
tion has not, in some shape, at some time, entered as a factor.
See Diagram, p. 14. t Ibid.
�Development of the Human Mind.
27
Another most important consequence has been this. Previously
to the proof obtained through Astronomical discovery of the per
manence of the surrounding physical conditions of life (so con
clusively demonstrated by Lagrange), the very conception of
stability in human association was inadmissable. Anything like a
social science was impossible. Even attempts at social improve
ment seemed waste of energy, for, in the ignorance of its astro
nomical conditions, it was believed that the World was shortly
coming to an end ! and, indeed, as a device designed by Priestcraft
for exciting terror, the notion that the World was shortly coming
to an end was assiduously asserted, and as credulously accepted.
In the early ages of Christianity this terrorising conception was
thoroughly believed in. The Christian Gospels were interpreted
as being saturated with its spirit. John the Baptist and Christ
himself were understood to be clear and emphatic that the end of
all earthly things was at hand! Of course such a prospect com
pletely paralysed all attempts to improve the conditions of social
life. To retreat from the World to a monastery or a nunnery,
there to await the awful event, seemed the only wise and holy course.
In the 10th century the minds of men were- so impregnated
with this appalling opinion that people of wealth and intelligence
actually commenced their last Wills and solemn documents with
language such as this: “In the expectation of the approaching
end of the World I devise and bequeath,” so and so.
In the 16th century the inhabitants of Europe were nearly
driven mad with fright by a theological prediction of a second
Deluge being about to happen. The people of Toulouse in Erance
building themselves a huge vessel, after the pattern of Noah’s
Ark, to save themselves from the expected impending destruction!
But the predicted day came and passed, and still the Seasons run
their appointed courses.
The disastrous influence of this demoralising dogma can of course
be imagined. Astronomical discovery, in showing the permanent
stability of our Solar System, has at length, in the minds of
nearly all rational persons, utterly exploded it.
Another scarcely less important deduction from Astronomical
Science is this : it exhibits the Universe as a region of uniformity
or realm of Law, and the Laws of Nature as Laws of Beason.
Eor, it is obvious, from the regidarity of its grand disclosures, that
our World is ruled by Natural Law, and not by Supernatural
�28
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Will. That one reason pervades and governs all Nature, and that,
unless the laws of our Reason and the laws of Nature were
identical, it would be impossible to comprehend the latter to the
extent Astronomers have done. It has proved to us also that the
reign of Reason dominates the dominion of the Imagination; for
Astronomical Science, fathoming the abysses of space, has measured
magnitudes, computed distances, and calculated results (proved in
verified predictions) that are utterly beyond the realisation of the
human Imagination.
Astronomical discovery also shows (I know not why we should
shrink from its avowal) that the Reason pervading the Universe,
and the Reason of man flow from, or are correlated with, a mate
rial source.
The Astronomer, who has weighed the worlds, penetrated space
to the depths of infinity, and learnt the laws that rule every
motion of the heavenly bodies, still finds himself in presence of a
mystery, and, reflecting upon the material brain that produces
thought, the material cone that yields its curve, the material globes
of heaven winging their measured flight in orbits, whose curvature
thought has formulated, the material principle of universal gravi
tation, that human thought has unveiled, the material energy that
brings us light from the remotest stars, feels impelled to ask (and,
like the physicist, he asks in vain)—divorced from Matter, where
is Mind to be found ?
Astronomical discovery has also revealed to us an Order of
Nature, as the Criterion of objective Truth, and the Area of real
Knowledge. It has also supplied us with a just Standard of Pro
portion—as regards external Nature, in proving to us that our
Earth is not the World, but only a very small proportionate part
of it—as respects the Human Mind, in proving to us, that the
Imagination cannot rightfully be the dominating intellectual
faculty, since the Reason is shown to excel it.
Astronomical discovery has also armed man with a real power
of Prediction, that is, a power enabling him to foretell beforehand
events that will happen, and to indicate clearly the precise time
and place at which they will appear. All of you know that, either
in the Nautical Almanac, or the periodical press, it is pointed out
long previously when there will occur an eclipse of the Sun or
Moon, or an occultation or transit of a Planet, or an extraordinary
high Tide, even the return of a Comet, and you know, by your own
�Development of the Human Mind.
29
experience more or less, that such prediction is exactly fulfilled to
the day and hour. In this precise power of prediction, Science,
whose great object is prevision, savoir pour prévoir—-to see in order
to foresee-—has effectually rescued herself from all Theology and
Metaphysics, whose mystifying and interminable controversies,
now continued through more than 2,000 years, have never been
able to prophecy accurately anything. The whole compass of
sacred literature does not contain a single undisputed instance of
a theological prophecy being even so much as intelligible until after
the happening of the event, which then indeed, but not until then,
is alleged to have been predicted.
Another most ennobling influence on the human mind of Astro
nomical Science has been its extirpation of Superstitions, or Beliefs
inconsistent with the unbiassed dictates of Beason, and the expe
rienced course of Nature. This it has accomplished in showing
that the basis of all our real knowledge may be traced by our
Beason to the laws of Astronomical phenomena, and so accounted
for, without any necessity of resorting to the supposition of super
natural interference, or the intrusion into the course of life of
any providential power contrary to the order of Beason.
Again, Astronomical discovery, in encouraging a love of enquiry
in the spirit of Truth, has both invigorated Culture and reformed
Education. Previously to the growth of Astronomical Science and
the subsidiary sciences to which it led, especially biological science,
with which Astronomy is closely connected (it being impossible to
form a scientific conception of the conditions of vital existence
without taking into account the Astronomical elements that charac
terise the planet which is the home of that existence), the principle
branches of the higher Academical Culture consisted in the study
of the Mythology, the History, and the Literature of Classical
Antiquity, the verbal Logic of Aristotle, and the Theology and
Metaphysics of the early Christian and Middle Ages, usually
accompanied by a course of Mathematics, though, respecting the
utility of mathematics, a difference of opinion actually prevailed.
That intellectual refinement and fastidious taste were produced by
the discipline of these studies is undoubted. They were, however,
not rarely accompanied by a want of appreciation of the Truths of
Nature, by a tendency to believe whatever was inculcated by
authority, and by an inordinate reverence for whatever was old':
and the result was sometimes seen in an emasculation of mind, or
�30
The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
atrophy of the investigating and sceptical faculties. The essence
of such a curriculum might almost be distilled into a single phrase
—The Cultivation of Credulity !
Science has very considerably improved all this, and if we look
at the course of studies now pursued at our academies,-even at the
old conservative Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, we per
ceive that an attempt is honestly being made to impart to Youth
some portion of that positive or scientific knowledge which forms
the backbone of our European Civilization; and that the object in
view, in the training of the mind, is no longer to impress upon the
scholar—“ To acquiesce, to remember, and to believe ”—but,- “ To
doubt, to enquire, and to compare.” In one important study, that
of Mathematics, their transition, through the advance of physical
science, from pure to applied—that is, their alliance with, or appli
cation to, the facts and processes of Nature, has converted mathe
matics, from being used as a basis of mere dialectics, into the most
powerful deductive instrument for the discovery of the Laws of
Natural Phenomena, and for the verification of scientific knowledge.
Lastly, I will add, that, when we call to mind the false theolo
gical views of the nature of the World we inhabit, the spurious
theological beliefs respecting its method of government, which
Astronomical discovery has exorcised, setting free the mind from
the fear which they inspired, we cannot doubt how greatly it has
aided in the purifying of Moral Principles, and in the increasing of
Human Happiness.
Human happiness, the greatest good of social man. Virtuous
happiness was the goal which the speculations of Plato were
intended to reach, and it was the ethical standard at which were
aimed the lifelong studies of one whom I am now going to name
in contrast with Plato,—John Stuart Mill.
If the occasion permitted, willingly would I dwell on the many
points in common that characterised and adorned the genius of
these greatly-gifted men; each of whom was endowed with an
order of mind the loftiest which our species has ever exhibited.
But the one, Plato, as we have seen, lived before the rise of
Astronomical Science, and those subsidiary sciences that have
followed its lead; whilst the other, Mill, presents to us the ripest
results of scientific culture. Both were enthusiasts in their love
of right and hatred of wrong; but Plato was a visionary, Mill an
utilitarian. To summarise the Philosophy of Plato has ever been
�Development of the Human Mind.
31
a logical impossibility, for he never seems to have had any steady
convictions to guide him. Though the most influential thinker of
antiquity, it is difficult to point out any real important truths
that he can be said to have established. His subjective method of
enquiry accounts for this. He thought that the source of know
ledge was Reflection, which gives us ideas—and not Experience,
which gives us facts. Hence there is a shadowy unsubstantial
vein pervading his writings, which, when deprived of the halo of
their exquisite style and language, so charming to the lover of
literature, leave a void in the mind of the student seeking to
attain some solid foothold for support and counsel in the battle ot
actual life. How different is this from Mill, who has taught us
that all real knowledge is derived from Experience, and that the
grand sources of human suffering are conquerable by human
energy and scientific effort.
I will mention, by way of further contrast, but a single work
of each—-Plato’s “Republic”—Mill’s “Political Economy.” The
college recluse may indeed continue to prefer the former, and
scornfully smile at the simplicity of our juxtaposition of these
celebrated Treatises ; but, to the man of common sense and common
humanity, whose pulse beats strongly with the desire of doing
something practical towards elevating the moral and material con
dition of the humblest of his fellow creatures, and who fain would
leave his little corner of the world better and happier than he
found it—the superiority, in solid truth, in moral worth, in social
utility, of the great work of Mill, does not admit of the shadow
of a doubt.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o'clock precisely
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 29th April, 1877, will
be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket transfer
able (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reservedseat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence each
lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny;—Sixpence;—and (Reserved Seats)
One Shilling.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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The influence of astronomical discovery in the development of the human mind : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 25th February, 1877
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national secular society
BODY AND MIND.
&
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 1st NOVEMBER, 1874.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprintedfrom the ‘Fortnightly Review,' by kind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1875.
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.
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 2nd May,
1875, 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
�BODY AND MIND.
HE subject of this Lecture is one in regard to which
a great change has recently taken place in the public
mind. Some time ago it was the custom to look with sus
picion upon all questions of a metaphysical nature as being
questions that could not be discussed with any good result,
and which, leading inquirers round and round in the same
circle, never came to an end. But quite of late years there
is an indication that a large number of people are waking
up to the fact that Science has something to say upon these
subjects ; and the English people have always been very
ready to hear what Science can say—understanding by
Science what we shall now understand by it, that is,
organised common sense.
When I say Science, I do not mean what some people
are pleased to call Philosophy. The word “philosopher,”
which meant originally “ lover of wisdom,” has come in
some strange way to mean a man who thinks it his business
to explain everything in a certain number of large books.
It will be found, I think, that in proportion to his colossal
ignorance is the perfection and symmetry of the system
which he sets up; because it is so much easier to put an
empty room tidy than a full one. A man of science, on
the other hand, explains as much as ever he can, and then
he says, “ This is all I can do ; for the rest, you must ask
the next man.” And with regard to such explanations as
he has given, whether the next man comes at all, whether
there is any next man or any further explanation or no (and
we may have to wait hundreds or even thousands of years
before another step is made), yet if the original step was
a scientific step, was made by true scientific methods, and
was an organization of the normal experience of healthy
men, that step will remain good for ever, no matter how
much is left unexplained by it.
Now the supposition that this subject in itself is neces
sarily one which cannot be discussed to good purpose, that
is to say, in such a way as to lead to definite results, is a
T
�4
Body and Mind.
mistake. The fact that the subject has been discussed
for many hundreds of years to no good purpose, and with
out leading to definite results, by great numbers of people,
is due to the method which was employed, and not to the
subject itself; and, in fact, if we like to look in the same
way upon other subjects as we have been accustomed to
look upon metaphysics—if we regard every man who has
written about mathematics or mechanics as having just
the same right to speak and to be heard that we give to
every man who has written about metaphysics—then I
think we shall find that exactly the same thing can be said
about the most certain regions of human science.
Those who like to read the last number of the Edinburgh
Revieiv, for example, will find, from an article on “ Comets,”
that it is at present quite an open question whether bodies
which are shot out from the sun by eruptive force may not
come to circle about the sun in orbits which are like those
of the planets. Now that is not an open question ; the
supposition is an utterly absurd one, and has been utterly
absurd from the time of Kepler. Again, those who are
curious enough to read a number of pamphlets that are to
be found here and there, may think it is an open question
whether the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its dia
meter may not be expressed by certain finite numbers. It
is not an open question to Science; it is only open to those
people who do not know any Trigonometry, and who will
not learn it. In exactly the same way there are numbers
of questions relating to the connection of the mind with
the body which have ceased to be open questions, because
Science has had her word to say about them; and they are
only open now to people who do not know what that word
of Science is, and who will not try to learn it.
The whole field of human knowledge may be divided
roughly, for the sake of convenience, into three great
regions. There are first of all what we call par
excellence the Physical Sciences—those which deal with
inanimate matter. Next, there are those sciences which
deal with organic bodies—the bodies of living things,
whether plants or animals, and the rules according to
which those things move. And lastly, there are those
sciences which make a further supposition—which suppose
that besides this physical world, including both organic
�Body and Mind.
5
and inorganic bodies, there are also certain other facts,
namely, that other men besides me, and most likely other
animals besides men, are conscious. The sciences which
make that supposition are the sciences of Ethics and
Politics, which are still in the practical stage, and especially
the more advanced science which is now to be considered
■—Psychology, the Science of Mind itself; that is to say,
the science of the laws which regulate the succession of
feelings in any one consciousness.. Each of these three
great divisions began in the form of a number of per
fectly disconnected subjects, between which nobody knew
of any relation; but in the history of science each of them
has been woven together, in consequence of connections
being found between the different subjects included in it,
into a complete whole ; and the further progress of the
history of science requires that each of these great threads,
into which all the little threads have been twined, should
themselves be twined together into a single string.
Now with regard to the first, two groups, the group of
mechanical sciences as we may call them, or the physics
of inorganic bodies, and the group of biological sciences, or
the physics of organic bodies—the gulf between these two
has in these last days been firmly bridged over. A
description of that bridge, and an account of the doctrines
which form it, will be found in Professor Huxley’s admirable
lecture delivered at Belfast before the British Association,
which is printed in the November number of the Fortnightly
Review. That bridge, as we have it now, is, in the con
ception of it, mainly due to Descartes ; but parts of it have
been worked out since his time by a vast number of physio
logists, with the expenditure of an enormous amount of
labour and thought. Such facts as that discovered by
Harvey, that the movement of the blood was a mere question
of Hydrodynamics, and was to be explained upon the same
principles as the motion of water in pipes—facts like these
have been piled up, one upon another, and have gradually
led to the conclusion that the science of organic bodies is
only a complication of the science of inorganic bodies.
It would not be advisable here to describe in detail the
stones which compose this bridge ; but we have to ask
whether it is possible to construct some similar bridge
between the now united Science of Physics, which deals
�6
Body and Mind.
with all phenomena, whether organic or inorganic, in fact
with all the material world, and the other science, the
Science of Consciousness, which deals with the Laws of
Mind and with the subject of Ethics. This is the question
which we have now to discuss.
In order to make this bridge a firm one, so that it will
not break down like those which philosophers have made,
it is necessary to observe with great care what is the exact
difference between the two classes of facts. If we confuse
the two things together to begin with, if we do not recog
nise the great difference between them, we shall not be
likely to find any explanation which will reduce them to
some common term. The first thing, therefore, that we
have to do is to realise as clearly as possible how profound
the gulf is between the facts which we call Physical facts
and the facts which we call Mental facts. The difference
is one which has been observed from primeval times, when
man or his prehuman ancestor found it not good to be
alone ; for the very earliest precept that we find set forth
in all societies to regulate the lives of those who belong
to them, is, “Put yourself in his place;” that is to say,
ascribe to other men a consciousness which is like your
own. And this belief which the lowest savage got, that
there was something else than the physical organization in
other men, is the foundation of Natural Ethics as well as of
the modern Science of Consciousness. But in very early
times an hypothesis was formed which was supposed to
make this belief easier. If you eat too much you will
dream when you are asleep ; if you eat too little you will
dream when you are awake, or have visions; and those
dreams of savages whose food was very precarious led them
to a biological hypothesis. They saw in those dreams
their fellows, other men, when it appeared from evidence
furnished to them afterwards that those other men were
not there when they were dreaming. Consequently, they
supposed that the actions of the organic body were caused
by some other body which was not physical in the ordinary
sense, which was not made of ordinary matter, and this
other body was called the Soul. Animism, as Mr. Tylor
calls this belief, was at first, then, an hypothesis in the
domain of biology. It was a physical hypothesis to account
for the peculiar way in which living things went about.
�Body and Mind.
7
But then when people had got this belief in another body
which was not a physical body, after a long series of years
they reasoned in this way. It is very difficult indeed to
suppose that the ordinary matter which makes a man’s
body can be conscious. This Me is quite different from
the flesh and blood which make up a man; but then as to
this other body, or soul, we do not know anything about it,
so that it may as well be conscious as not. That hypo
thesis put upon the soul, whose basis was in the phenomena
of dreams, the explanation of the consciousness which we
cannot help believing to exist in other men. I have men
tioned this early hypothesis on the subject, because out of
it grew the almost universal custom of holding at this
time of the year the Festival of the Dead which we preserve
in our All Souls’ Day.
But now let us see what it is that Science can tell us,
and what we can believe in place of that early hypothesis
of our savage ancestors. In the first place, let us consider
a little more narrowly what we mean by the body, and
more especially what we mean by the nervous system ; for
it is the great discovery of Descartes that the nervous
system is that part of the body which is related directly
to the mind. This can hardly be better expressed than it
is by the first of that series of propositions which Pro
fessor Huxley has stated in his lecture.
I. “ The brain is the organ of sensation, thought, and
■emotion; that is to say, some change in the condition of
the matter of this organ is the invariable antecedent of
the state of consciousness to which each of these terms
is applied.” We may complete this statement by saying
not only that some change in the matter of this organ
is the invariable antecedent, but that some other change is
the invariable concomitant of sensation, thought, and
■emotion; and that is rather an important remark, as you
will see presently.
Let us now look at the general structure of the brain
and see what it is like. We can easily make a rough
picture of it, which will serve our present purpose (see
p. 12). A parachute is a round piece of paper, like the
top of a parasol, with strings going from its circumference
to a cork. Let us imagine a parachute with two corks, a
red and a blue one; each of these corks being attached by
�8
Body and Mind,
strings, not only to the circumference of our piece of
paper, but to innumerable points in the inside of it.
Moreover, let innumerable other strings go across from
point to point of the paper, like a spider’s web spun in the
inside of a parasol. And the corks themselves must be
tied to each other and to a third cork, say the white one,
while from all three streamers fly away in all directions.
This is our diagram. Now the sheet of paper repre
sents the cerebral hemispheres, a great sheet of grey
nervous matter which forms the outside of your brain, and
lies just under your skull. Our red and blue corks are two
other masses of grey matter lying at the base of the brain,
and called the optic thalami and the corpora striata
respectively. The white cork is another mass of grey
matter called the medulla oblongata, which is the top of
the spinal cord. Our strings which tie part of the para
chute together, and our streamers which go out in all
directions from the corks represent the nerves, white
threads that run all over the body. And they are of two
kinds; there are some which go to the brain from any
part of the body, and others which come from the brain
to it. As regards the position of the nerves this is the
same thing for both of them, but it is not the same thing
with regard to what they do. The nerves which are called
Sensory nerves, and which go to the brain, are those
which are excited whenever any part of the body is
touched. When your finger is touched a certain excite
ment is given to the nerves which end in your finger, and
that excitement is carried along your arm and away up to
the medulla, represented by our white cork. But when
you are going to move your arm the excitement starts from
the brain, and goes along the other set of nerves which
are called Motor nerves, or moving nerves, and goes to the
muscles which work the part of the arm which you want
to move. And that excitement of the nerves by purely
mechanical means makes those muscles contract so as to
move the part which you want to move. We have then a con
nection between the brain and any part of the body which
is of a double kind: there is the means of sending a
message to the brain from this part of the body, and the
means of taking a message from the brain to this part.
The nerves which carry the message to the brain are called
�Body and Mind.
9
the “Sensory nerves” because they accompany what we
call sensation; the nerves which carry the message from
the brain are called “Motor nerves” because they are the
agents in the motion of that part of the body.
All this is expressed in Professor Huxley’s second and
third propositions.
II. “ The movements of animals are due to the change of
form of the muscles, which shorten and, become thicker; and
this change of form in a muscle arises from a motion of the
substance contained within the nerves which go to the
muscle.”
III. “ The sensations of animals are due to a motion of
the substance of the nerves which connect the sensory organs
with the brain.”
I pass on to his fourth proposition:—
IV. “ The motion of the matter of a sensory nerve mag
be transmitted through the brain to motor nerves, and thereby
give rise to a contraction of the muscles to which these motor
nerves are distributed; and this reflection of motion from a
sensory into a motor nerve may take place without volition^
or even contrary to it.”
Let us take that organ of sense which always occurs to
us as a type, of the others, because it is the most perfect—
the eye. The optic nerve which runs from the eye towards
the brain may be represented by one of our streamers going tothe red cork, to which it is fastened by a knot that is called
the “ Optic ganglion.” Supposing that you move your hand
rapidly towards anybody’s eye, a message with news of this
movement goes along the nerve to the optic ganglion, and
it comes away back again by another streamer, not direct
from the ganglion, but from a point on the blue cork very
near it, to the muscles which move the eyelid, and that
makes the eye wink. You know that the winking of the
eye, when anybody moves his hand very rapidly towards it, is
not a thing which you determine to do, and which you con
sider about; it is a thing which happens without your in
terference with it; and in fact it is not you who wink your
eye, but your body that does it. This is called Automatic
■ or involuntary motion, or again it is called Reflex action,
because it is a purely mechanical thing. A wave runs
along that nerve, and comes back on another nerve, and
that without any deliberation; and at the point where it
�IO
Body and Mind.
stops and comes back it is just a reflection like the wave
which you send along a string and which comes back from
the end of the string, or like a wave of water which is sent
up against a sea-wall, and which reflects itself back along
the sea.
V. The. motion of any given portion of the matter of
the brain excited by the motion of a sensory nerve, leaves
behind it a readiness to be moved in the same way in that
part, and anything which resuscitates the motion gives rise
to the appropriate feeling. This is the physical mechanism
of memory.” We can, perhaps, make this a little more
clear in the following manner :—Suppose two messages are
sent at once to the brain ; each of them is reflected back,
but the two disturbances which they set up in the brain
create, in some way or other, a link between them, so that
when one of these disturbances is set up afterwards the
other one is also set up. It is as if every time two bells of
a house were rung together, that of itself made a string to
tie them together, so that when you rang one bell it was
necessary to ring the other bell in consequence. That, re
member, is purely a physical circumstance which we know
happens. There is a physical excitation or disturbance
which is sent along two different nerves, and which pro
duces two different disturbances in the brain, and the effect
of these two disturbances taking place together is to make
a change in the character of the brain itself, so that when
the one of them takes place it produces the other.
Now there are two different ways in which a stimulus
coming to the eye can be made to move the hand. In the
first place, suppose you are copying out a book; you have
the book before you, and you read the book whilst you are
copying with your hand, and consequently the light coming
, into your eye from the book directs your hand to move in
a certain way. It is possible for this light impinging upon
the eye to send a message along the optic nerve into the
ganglion, and that message may go almost, though not
quite, direct to the hand, so as to make the hand move, and
that causes the hand to describe the letter which you have
seen in the book; or else the message may go by a longer
route which takes more time. A simple experiment to dis
tinguish between these processes was tried by Donders, the
great Dutch physiologist. He made a sign to a man at a
�Body and Mind.
11
distance, and when he made this sign the man was to put
down a key with his hand. He measured the time which
was taken in this process, that is to say, the time which
was taken by the message in going from the eye to the gan
glion, and then to the hand. Measurements of the rate of
nerve-motions have also been made by Helmholtz. The
velocity varies to a certain extent in different people, but it
is something like one hundred feet a second. But Donders
also made another measurement. Suppose it is not decided
beforehand whether the man is to move the key with his
right or his left hand, and this is to be determined by the
nature of the signal, then before he can move his hand he
has to decide which hand he will use. The time taken for
that process of decision was also measured. That process of
decision, when looked at from the physical side, means
this. The message goes up from the eye to the ganglion.
It is immediately connected there with the mass of grey
matter represented by our red cork. From that mass of
grey matter there go white threads away to the whole of
the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, or the paper of our
parachute, and they take that message, therefore, which
comes from the eye to the ganglion away to all this grey
matter which is put round the inside of your skull. There
are also white threads which connect all the parts of this
grey matter together, and they run across from every part
of it to almost every other part of it. As soon as a message
has been taken to this grey matter, there is a vast inter
change of messages going on between those parts; but
finally, as the result of that, a number of messages come
upon other white threads to another piece of grey matter,
which is represented by our blue cork ; from that the
message is then taken to the muscles of the hand. There
are then two different ways in which a message may go from
the eye to the hand. It may go to the optic ganglion, and
then almost straight to the hand, and in that case you do
not know much about it—you only know that something
has taken place, you do not think that you have done it
yourself; or it may go to the optic ganglion, and be sent
up to the cerebral hemispheres, and then be sent back to
the sensory tract and then on to the hand. But that takes
more time, and it implies that you have deliberated upon
the act.
�12
Body and Mind.
and H is the hand.
The curve C C represents the
cerebral hemispheres, or the top of our parachute. If the
action is so habitually associated with the signal that it
takes place involuntarily, without any effort of the will,
the message goes from the eye to the hand along the line
E B B H. This may happen with a practised performer
when it is settled beforehand which hand he is to use.
But if it is necessary to deliberate about the action, to call
in the exercise of the will, the message goes round the
loop-line, E B C 0 B H ; from the eye to the optic thalami,
from them to the cerebrum, thence to the corpora striata,
and so through the medulla to the hand.
Besides this fact which we have j ust explained, the fact
of a message going from one part of the body to the brain
and coming out in the motion of some other part of the
body, there is another thing which is going on continually,
and that is this. There is a faint reproduction of some
excitement which has previously existed in the cerebral
hemispheres, and which calls up, by the process which we
have just now described, all those that have become
associated with it; and it is continually sending down
faint messages which do not actually tell the muscles to
move, but which begin to tell them to move as it were.
They are not always strong enough to produce actual
motions, but they produce just the beginnings of those
motions: and that process goes on even when there is
apparently no sensation and no motion. If a man is in a
�Body and Mind.
i3
brpwn study, with his eyes shut, although he apparently
sees and feels nothing at all, there is a certain action going
on inside his brain which is not sensation, but is like it,
because it is the transmission to the cerebral hemispheres
of faint messages which are copies of previous sensations ;
and it does not produce motion, but it produces something
like it; it produces incipient motion, the beginnings of
motion which do not actually take effect. Sometimes a
train of thought may so increase in strength as to produce
motion. A man may get so excited by a train of thought
that he jumps up and does something in consequence.
And the sensory impressions which are taken from the
ganglia to the hemispheres may be so strong as to produce
an illusion ; he may think that he sees something, he may
think that he sees a ghost, when he does not. This con
tinuous action of the brain depends upon the presence of
blood ; so long as a proper amount of blood is sent to the
brain it is active, and when the blood is taken away it
becomes inactive. And it is a curious property of the
nervous system that it can direct the supply of blood
which is to be sent to a particular part of it. It is possible,
by directing your attention to a particular part of your
hand, to make a determination of blood to that part which
shall in time become a sore place. Some people have
given this explanation, which seems a very probable one,
of what has happened to those saints who have meditated
so long upon the crucifixion, that they have got what are
called stigmata, that is, marks of wounds corresponding to
the wounds in what they were thinking about.
That, then, is the general character of the nervous
system which we have to consider in connection with the
mind. There is a train of facts between stimulus and
motion which may be of two kinds ; it may be direct or it
may be indirect, it may go round the loop-line or not; and
also there is a continuous action of the brain even when
these steps are not taking place in completeness. More
over, when two actions take place simultaneously they form
a sort of link between them, so that if one of them is
afterwards repeated the other gets repeated with it. That
is what we have to remember chiefly as to the character of
the brain.
Now let us consider the other class of facts and the con
�14
Body and Mind.
nections between them—the facts of consciousness. An
eminent divine once said to me that he thought there were
only'two kinds of consciousness—to have a feeling and to
know that you have a feeling. Now it seems to me that
there is only one kind of consciousness, and that is to have
fifty thousand feelings at once, and to know them all in
different degrees. Whenever I try to analyse any particular
state of consciousness in which I am, I find that it is an ex
tremely complex one. I cannot help at this moment having
a consciousness of all the different parts of this hall, and
of a great sea of faces before me; and I cannot help having
the consciousness, at the same time, of all the suggestions
that that picture makes, that each face represents a person
sitting there and listening or not, as the case may be. And
I cannot help combining with them at the same moment a
number of actions which they suggest to me, and in par
ticular the action of going on speaking. There are a great
number of elements of complexity which I cannot describe,
because I am so faintly conscious of them that I cannot
remember them. Any state of our consciousness, then, as
we are at present constituted, is an exceedingly complex
thing ; but it certainly possesses this property, that if two
feelings have occurred together, and one of them afterwards
occurs again, it is very likely that the other will be called
up by it. That is to say, two states of consciousness which
have taken place at the same moment produce a link
between them, so that a repetition of the one cafis up a
repetition of the other.
Again I find a certain train of facts between my sensa
tions and my exertions. When I see a thing, I may go
through a long process of deliberation as to what I shall do
with it, and then afterwards I may do that which I have
deliberated and decided upon. But, on the other hand, I
may, by seeing a thing, be quite suddenly forced into doing
something without any chance of deliberation at all. If I
suddenly see a cab coming upon me from the corner of a
street where I did not at all expect it, I jump out of the
way without thinking that it is a very desirable thing to
get out of the way of the cab. But if I see a cab a little
while before, and have more time to think about it, then it
occurs to me that it will be unpleasant and undesirable to
be run over by that cab, and that I can avoid it by walking
�Body and Mind.
!5
out of the way. You here see that there are in the case of
the mind two distinct trains of facts between sensation and
exertion. There is an involuntary train of facts when the
exertion follows the sensation without asking my leave,
and there is a voluntary train in which it does ask my
leave.
Then, again, there is this fact : that even when there is
no actual sensation and no actual exertion, there may still
be a long train of facts and sensations which hang
together; there may be faint reproductions of sensation
which are not so vivid as are the sensations themselves,
but which form a series of pictures of sensations which
pass continually before my mind; and there will be faint
beginnings of action. Now the sense in which there are
faint beginnings of action is very instructive. Any beginning
of an action is what we call a judgment. When you see a
thing, you in the first instance form no judgment about it
at all—you are not prepared to assert any proposition—
you merely have the feeling of a certain sight or sound
presented to you ; but after a very short space of time, so
short that you cannot perceive it, you begin to frame pro
positions. If you consider what a proposition means, you
will see that it must correspond to the beginning of some
sort of exertion. When you say that A is B, you mean
that you are going to act as if A were B. If I see water
with a particularly dull surface, and with stones resting
upon the surface of it, then, first of all, I have merely an
impression of a certain sheet of colour, and of ‘ certain
objects which interrupt the colour of that sheet. But the
second thing that I do is to come to the conclusion that the
water is frozen, and that therefore I may walk upon it.
The assertion that the water is frozen implies a bundle of
resolves ; which means, given certain other conditions, I
shall go and walk upon it. So, then, an act of judgment
or an assertion of any kind implies a certain incipient
action of the muscles, not actually carried out at that time
and place, but preparing a certain condition of the mind
such as afterwards, when the occasion comes, will guide the
action that we shall take up.
Now, then, what is it that we mean by the character of
a person ? You judge of a person’s character by what be
thinks and does under certain circumstances. Let us see
�16
Body and Mind.
what determines this. We can only be speaking here of
voluntary actions—those actions in which the person is con
sulted, and which are not done by his body without his
leave. In those voluntary actions what takes place is,
that a certain sensation is communicated to the mind, that
sensation is manipulated by the mind, and conclusions are
drawn from it, and then a message is sent out which causes
certain motions to take place. Now the character of the
person is evidently determined by the nature of this
manipulation. If the sensation suggests a wrong thing,
the character of the person will be bad; if the sensation
suggests in the great majority of cases a right thing, you
will say that the character of the person is good. So,
then, it is the character of the mind which determines
what it will do with a given sensation, and what act will
follow from it, which determines what we call the per
sonality of any person ; and that character is persistent in
the main, although it is continually changing a little.
The vast mass of it is a thing which lasts through the
whole of every individual’s life, although everything which
happens to him makes some small change in it, and that
constitutes the education of the man.
Now, then, the question arises, is there anything else in
your consciousness of a different nature from what we have
here described ? That is a question which every man has
to decide by examining his own consciousness. I do not
find anything else in mine. If you find anything else in
yours, it is extremely important that you should analyse it
and find out all that you possibly can about it, and state it
in the clearest form to other people ; because it is one of the
most important problems of philosophy to account for the
whole of consciousness out of individual feelings. It seems
to me that the account of which I have only given a very
rough sketch, which was begun by Locke and Hume, and
has been carried out by their successors, chiefly in this
country, is in its great general features complete, and
leaves nothing but more detailed explanations to be de
sired. It seems to me that I find nothing in myself which
is not accounted for when I describe myself as a stream of
feelings such that each of them is capable of a faint repeti
tion, and that when two of them have occurred together the
repetition of the one calls up the other, and that there are
�Body and Mind.
17
rules according to which the resuscitated feeling calls up
its fellows. These are, in the main, fixed rules which de
termine and are determined by my character ; but my cha
racter is gradually changing in consequence of the education
of life. It seems to me that this is a complete account of
all the kinds of facts which I can find in myself ■ and, as I
said before, if anybody finds any other kinds of facts in
himself, it is an exceedingly important thing that he should
describe them as clearly as he possibly can.
We have described two classes of facts ; let us now notice
the parallelism between them. First, we have these two
parallel facts, that two actions of the brain which occur to
gether form a link between themselves, so that the one
being called up the other is called up; and two states of
consciousness which occur together form a link between
them, so that when one is called up the other is called up.
But also we find a train of facts between the physical fact
of the stimulus of light going into the eye and the physical
fact of the motion of the muscles. Corresponding to a part of
that train, we have found a train of fact between sensation,
the mental fact which corresponds to a message arriving
from the eye, and exertion, the mental fact which corre
sponds to the motion of the hand by a message going out
along the nerves. And we have found a correspondence
between the continuous action of the brain and the con
tinuous existence of consciousness apparently independent
of sensation and exertion.
But let us look at this correspondence a little more
closely; we shall find that there are one or two things
which can be established with practical certainty. In the
first place, it is not the whole of the physical train of
facts which corresponds to the mental train of facts. The
beginning of the physical train consists of light going into
the eye and exciting the retina, and then of that wave of
excitation being carried along the optic nerve to the gan
glion. For all we know, and it is a very probable thing,
the mental fact begins here, at the ganglion. There is no
sensation till the message has got to the optic ganglion for
this reason, that if you press the optic nerve behind the eye
you can produce the sensation of light. It is like tapping
a telegraph, and sending a message which has not come
from the station from which it ought to have come;
B
�18
Body and Mind.
nobody at the other end can tell whether it has come from
that station or not. The optic ganglion cannot tell whether
this message which comes along the nerve has come from
the eye or is the result of a tapping of the telegraph,
whether it is produced by light or by pressure upon the
nerve. It is a fact of immense importance that all these
nerves are exactly of the same kind. The only thing
which the nerve does is to transmit a message which has
been given to it; it does not transmit a message in any
other way than the telegraph wire transmits a message—
that is to say, it is excited at certain intervals, and the
succession of these intervals determines what this message
is, not the nature of the excitation which passes along the
wire. So that if we watched the nerve excited by pressure
the message going along to the ganglion would be exactly
the same as if it were the actual sight of the eye. We may
draw from this the conclusion that the mental fact does not
begin anywhere before the optic ganglion. Again, a man
who has had one of his legs cut off can try to move his toes,
which he feels as if they were still there ; and that shows
that the consciousness of the motor impulse which is sent
out along the nerve does not go to the end to see whether
it is obeyed or not. The only way in which we know
whether 'our orders, given to any parts of our body, are
obeyed, is by having a message sent back to say that they
are obeyed. If I tell my hand to press against this black
board, the only way in which I know that it does press is
by having a message sent back by my skin to say that it is
pressed. But supposing there is no skin there, I can have
the exertion that precedes the action without actually per
forming it, because I can send out a message, and con
sciousness stops with the sending of the message, and does
not know anything further. So that the mental fact is
somewhere or other in the region B 0 0 B of the diagram,
and does not include the two ends. That is to say, it is
not the whole of the bodily fact that the mental fact cor
responds to, but only an intermediate part of it. If it just
passes through the points R B, without going round the
loop from C to 0, then we merely have the sensation that
something has taken place—we have had no voice in the
nature of it and no choice about it. If it has gone round
from C to C we have a much larger fact—we have that
�Body and Mind.
J9
fact which we call choice, or the exercise of vojition. We
may conclude, then—I am not able in so short a space as
I have to give you the whole evidence which goes to an
assertion of this kind; but there is evidence which is suffi
cient to satisfy any competent scientific man of this day—
that every fact of consciousness is parallel to some disturb
ance of nerve matter, although there are some nervous dis
turbances which have no parallel in consciousness, properly
so called ; that is to say, disturbances of my nerves may
exist which have no parallel in my consciousness.
We have now observed two classes of facts and the
parallelism between them. Let us next observe what an
^enormous gulf there is between these two classes of facts.
"The state of a man’s brain and the actions which go
•along it are things which every other man can perceive,
observe, measure, and tabulate • but the state of a man’s
own consciousness is known to him only, and not to any
other person. Things which appear to us and which we
•can observe are called objects or pAenomewa. Facts in a
man’s consciousness are not objects or phenomena to any
■other man ; they are capable of being observed only by
him. We have no possible ground, therefore, for speaking
of another man’s consciousness as in any sense a part of
the physical world of objects or phenomena. It is a thing
entirely separate from it; and all the evidence that we
have goes to show that the physical world gets along
entirely by itself, according to practically universal rules.
That is to say, the laws which hold good in the physical
world hold good everywhere in it—they hold good with
practical universality, and there is no reason to suppose
anything else but those laws in order to account for any
physical fact; there is no reason to suppose anything but
the universal laws of mechanics in order to account for
the motion of organic bodies. The train of physical facts
between the stimulus sent into the eye, or to any one of
our senses, and the exertion which follows it, and the train
of physical facts which goes on in the brain, even when
there is no stimulus and no exertion, these are perfectly
complete physical trains, and every step is fully accounted
for by mechanical conditions. In order to show what is
meant by that, I will endeavour to explain another supposi
tion which might be made ; that when stimulus comes
�20
Body and Mind,
into the eye there is a certain amount of energy transferred
from the ether, which fills space, to this nerve; and this
energy travels along into the ganglion, and sets the
ganglion into a state of disturbance which may use up
some energy previously stored in it. The amount of
energy is the same as before by the law of the conserva
tion of energy. That energy is spread over a number of
threads which go out to the brain, and it comes back again
and is reflected from there. It may be supposed that a
very small portion of energy is created in that process,
and that while the stimulus is going round this loop-line it
gets a little push somewhere, and then, when it comes back
to the ganglia, it goes away to the muscle and sets loose a
store of - energy in the muscle so that it moves the limb.
Now the question is, Is there any creation of energy any
where ? Is there any part of the physical progress which
cannot be included within ordinary physical laws ? It has
been supposed, I say, by some people, as it seems to me
merely by a confusion of ideas, that there is, at some part
or other of this process, a creation of energy ; but there is
no reason whatever why we should suppose this. The
difficulty in proving a negative in these cases is similar to
that in proving a negative about anything which exists on
the other side of the moon. It is quite true that I am not
absolutely certain that the law of the conservation of energy
is exactly true; but there is no more reason why I should
suppose a particular exception to occur in the brain than any
where else. I might just as well assert that whenever any
thing passes over the Line, when it goes from the north side
of the Equator to the south, there is a certain creation of
energy, as that there is a creation of energy in the brain..
If I chose to say that the amount was so small that none
of our present measurements could appreciate it, it would
be difficult or indeed impossible for anybody to disprovethat assertion ; but I should have no reason whatever for
making it. There being, then, an absence of positive
evidence that the conditions are exceptional, the reasons
which lead us to assert that there is no loss of energy in
organic any more than in inorganic bodies are absolutely
overwhelming. There is no more reason to assert that
there is a creation of energy in any part of an organic body,
because we are not absolutely sure of the exact nature of
�Body and Mind.
21
the law, than there is reason, because we do not know what
there is on the other side of the moon, to assert that there
is a sky-blue peacock there with forty-five eyes in his tail.
Then it is not a right thing to say, for example, that
the mind is a force, because if the mind were a force we
should be able to perceive it. I should be able to perceive
your mind and to measure it, but I cannot; I have abso
lutely no means of perceiving your mind. I judge by
analogy that it exists, and the instinct which leads me to
come to that conclusion is the social instinct, as it has
been formed in me by generations during which men have
lived together, and they could not have lived together
unless they had gone upon that supposition. But I may
very well say that among the physical facts which go along
at the same time with mental facts there are forces at work.
That is perfectly true, but the two things are on two
utterly different platforms—the physical facts go along by
themselves, and the mental facts go along by themselves.
There is a parallelism between them, but there is no inter
ference of one with the other. Again, if anybody says that
the will influences matter, the statement is not untrue, but
it is nonsense. The will is not a material thing, it is not
a mode of material motion. Such an assertion belongs to
the crude materialism of the savage. Now the only thing
which influences matter is the position of surrounding
matter or the motion of surrounding matter. It may be
conceived that at the same time with every exercise of
volition there is a disturbance of the physical laws; but
this disturbance, being perceptible to me, would be a
physical fact accompanying the volition, and could not be
the volition itself, which is not perceptible to me. Whether
there is such a disturbance of the physical laws or no, is a
question of fact to which we have the best of reasons for
giving a negative answer ; but the assertion that another
man’s volition, a feeling in his consciousness which I cannot
perceive, is part of the train of physical facts which I may
perceive, this is neither true nor untrue, but nonsense ; it
is a combination of words whose corresponding ideas will
not go together.
Then we are to regard the body as a physical machine,
which goes by itself according to a physical law, that is to
say, is automatic. An automaton is a thing which goes by
�22
Body and Mind.
itself when it is wound up, and we go by ourselves when*
we have had food. Excepting the fact that other men areconscious, there is no reason why we should not regard the
human body as merely an exceedingly complicated machine
which is wound up by putting food into the mouth. But
it is not merely a machine, because consciousness goes with
it. The mind, then, is to be regarded as a stream of
feelings which runs parallel to, and simultaneous with, a
certain part of the action of the body, that is to say, that
particular part of the action of the brain in which thecerebrum and the sensory tract are excited.
Then, you say, if we are automata what becomes of thefreedom of the will ? The freedom of the will, according,
to Kant, is that property which enables us to originate
events independently of foreign determining causes ; which,,
it seems to me, amounts to saying precisely that we areautomata, that is, that we go by ourselves, and do not want
anybody to push or pull us. The distinction between an
automaton and a puppet is, that the one goes by itself
when it is wound up and the other requires to be pushed
or pulled by wires or strings. We do not want any stimulusfrom without, but we go by ourselves when we have our
food, and therefore so far as that distinction goes we arc
automata. But we are more than automata, because we areconscious ; mental facts go along with the bodily facts.
That does not hinder us from describing the bodily factsby themselves, and if we restrict our attention to them we
must describe ourselves as automata.
The objection which many people feel to this doctrine is
derived, I think, from the conception of such automata as
are made by man. In that case there is somebody outside
the automaton who has constructed it in a certain definite
way, with definite intentions, and has meant it to go in
that way; and the whole action of the automaton is deter
mined by such person outside. Of course, if we consider,
for example, a machine such as Frankenstein made, and
imagine ourselves to have been put together as that fearful
machine was put together by a German student, the con
ception naturally strikes us with horror ; but if we consider
the actual fact, we shall see that our own case is not an
analogous one. For, as a matter of fact, we were not made
by any Frankenstein, but we made ourselves. I do not
�Body and Mind.
^3
mean that every individual has made the whole of his own
character, hut that the human race as a whole has made
itself during the process of ages. The action of the whole
race at any given time determines what the character . ot
the race shall be in the future. From the continual storing
up of the effects of such actions, graven into the character
of the race, there arises in process of time that exact human
constitution which we now have. By that process ot
Natural Selection all the actions of our ancestors are built
into us and form our character, and in that sense it may
be said that the human race has made itself. In that
sense also we are individually responsible for what the
human race will be in the future, because every one of our
actions goes to determine what the character of the race
shall be to-morrow. If, on the contrary, we suppose that
in the action of the brain there is some point where
physical causes do not apply, and where there is a discon
tinuity, then it will follow that some of our actions are not
dependent upon our character. Provided the action which
goes on in my brain is a continuous one, subject to physical
rules then it will depend upon what the character of my
brain is ; or if I look at it from the mental side, it will
depend upon what my mental character is; but if there is
a certain point where the law of causation does not app y,
where my action does not follow by regular physical causes
from what I am, then I am not responsible for it, because
it is not I that do it. So you see the notion that we. are
not automata destroys responsibility; because, if my actions
are not determined by my character in accordance with the
particular circumstances which occur, then I am not re
sponsible for them, and it is not I that do them.
Moreover, if we once admit that physical causes are not
continuous, but that there is some break, then we_ leave
the way open for the doctrine of a destiny or a providence
outside of us, overruling human efforts and guiding history
to a foregone conclusion. Now of course it is the business
of the seeker after truth to find out whether a proposition
is true or no, and not what are the moral consequences
which may be expected to follow from it. But I do think
that if it is right to call any doctrine immoral, it is right
so to call this doctrine ; when we remember how often it
has paralysed the efforts of those who were climbing
�24
Body and Mind.
honestly up the hillside towards the light and the right
and how often it has nerved the sacrilegious arm of the
society °r
adventurer wlao was conspiring against
I want now, very briefly indeed, to consider to what
extent these doctrines furnish a bridge between the two
c asses of facts. I have said that the series of mental facts
corresponds to only a portion of the action of the organism
Hut we have to consider not only ourselves, but also those
animals which are next below us in the scale of organisalon, and we cannot help ascribing to them a consciousness
which is.analogous to our own. We find, when we attempt
to enter into that and to judge by their actions what sort
of consciousness they possess, that it differs from our own
in precisely the. same way that their brains differ from our
rams. There is less of the co-ordination which is implied
by a message going round the loop-line. A much larger
number of the messages which go in at a cat’s eyes and
come out at her paws go straight through without any
loop-line at all than do m the case of a man ; but still there
is a Lttle loop-line left. And the lower we go down in the
scale of organisation the less of this loop-line there is; yet
we cannot suppose that so enormous a jump from one
creature to another should have occurred at any point in
the process of evolution as the introduction of a fact entirely
different and absolutely separate from the physical fact. It
is impossible for anybody to point out the particular place
in the line of descent where that event can be supposed to
have, taken place. The only thing that we can come to, if
we accept the doctrine of evolution at all, is that even in
the very lowest organisms, even in the Amceba which swims
about in our own blood, there is something or other, incon
ceivably simple to us, which is of the same nature with
our own consciousness, although not of the same complexity
that is to say (for we cannot stop at organic matter,
knowing as we do that it must have arisen by continuous
physical processes out of inorganic matter), we are obliged to
assume, m order to save continuity in our belief, that along
wit every motion of .matter, whether organic or inorganic,
there is some fact which corresponds to the mental fact in
ourse ves. The mental fact in ourselves is an exceedingly
■complex thing ; so also our brain is an exceedingly complex
�Body and Mind.
thing. We may assume that the quasi-mental fact which
corresponds and which goes along with the motion of. every
particle of matter is of such inconceivable simplicity, as
compared with our own mental fact, with our consciousness,
as the motion of a molecule of matter is of inconceivable
simplicity when compared with the motion in our brain.
This doctrine is not merely a speculation, but is a, result
to which all the greatest minds that have studied this
question in the right way have gradually been approxi
mating for a long time.
Again, let us consider what takes place when we perceive
anything by means of our eye. A certain picture is pro
duced upon the retina of the eye, which is like the picture
on the ground-glass plate in a photographic camera ; but
it is not there that the consciousness begins, as I have
shown before. When I see anything there is a picture
produced on the retina, but I am not conscious of it there ;
and in order that I may be conscious the message must be
taken from each point of this picture along the special
nerve-fibre to the ganglion. These innumerable fine nerves
which come away from the retina go each of them to a
particular point of the ganglion, and the result is that,
corresponding to that picture at the back of the retina,
there is a disturbance of a great number of centres of. grey
matter in the ganglion. If certain parts of the retina of
my eye, having light thrown upon them, are disturbed so
as to produce the figure of a square, then certain little
pieces of grey matter, in this ganglion, which are distributed
we do not know how, will also be disturbed, and the impres
sion corresponding to that is a square. Consciousness
belongs to this disturbance of the ganglion, and not to the
picture in the eye; and therefore it is something quite
different from the thing which is perceived.. But at the
same time, if we consider another man looking at some
thing, we shall say that the fact is this there is something
outside of him which is matter in motion, and that which
corresponds inside of him is also matter in motion. The
external motion of matter produces, in the optic ganglion
something which corresponds to it, but is. not like it.
Although for every point in the object there is a point, of
disturbance in the optic ganglion, and for every connection
between two points in the object there is a connection be-
�26
Body and Mind.
tween two disturbances, yet they are not like one another.
Nevertheless they are made of the same stuff; the object
outside and the optic ganglion are both matter, and that
matter is made of molecules moving about in ether. When
I consider the impression which is produced upon my mind
of any fact, that is just a part of my mind ; the impression
is a part of me. The hall which I see now is just an
impression produced on my mind by something outside of
it, and that impression is a part of me.
We may conclude from this theory of sensation, which is
established by the discoveries of Helmholtz, that the feeling
which I have in my mind—the picture of this hall—is some
thing corresponding, point for point, to the actual reality
outside. Though every small part of the reality which is
outside corresponds to a small part of my picture, though
every connection between two parts of that reality outside
corresponds to a connection between two parts of my picture,
yet the two things are not alike. They correspond to one
another, just as a map may be said in a certain sense to
correspond with the country of which it is a map, or as a
written sentence may be said to correspond to a spoken
sentence. But then I may conclude, from what I said
before, that, although the two corresponding things are
not alike, yet they are made of the same stuff. Now what
is my picture made of ? My picture is made of exceedingly
simple mental facts, so simple that I only feel them in
groups. My picture is made up of these elements ; and I
am therefore to conclude that the real thing which is out
side me, and which corresponds to my picture, is made up
of similar things ; that is to say, the reality which under
lies matter, the reality which we perceive as matter, is that
same stuff which, being compounded together in a particular
way, produces mind. What I perceive as your brain is
really in itself your consciousness, is You ; but then, that
which I call your brain, the material fact, is merely my
perception. Suppose we put a certain man in the middle
of the hall, and we all looked at him. We should all have
perceptions of his brain ; those would be facts in our con
sciousness, but they would be all different facts. My
perception would be different from the picture produced
upon you, and it would be another picture, although it
might be very like it. So that corresponding to all those
�Body and Mind.
27
pictures which are produced in our minds from an external
object there is a reality which is not like the pictures, but
which’ corresponds to them point for point, and which is
made of the same stuff that the pictures are The actual
reality which underlies what we call matter is not the
same thing as the mind, is not the same thing as our per
ception, but it is made of the same stuff. To use the wor
o/the old disputants, we may say that matter is not of
the same substance as mind, not Z^m^.but it is ot
ZiA-e substance, it is made of similar stuff differently com
pacted together, homoi-ousion.
, , , .,
~
With the exception of just this last bridge connec g
the two great regions of inquiry that we have been discuss
ing, the whole of what I have said is a body of doctrine
which is accepted now, as far as I know, by all compe e
people who have considered the subject There are of
course, individual exceptions with regard to particular
points, such as that I have mentioned about the possible
creation of energy in the brain ; but these are few, an
they occur mainly, I think, among those who are sa
exceedingly well acquainted with one side of the subJ
that they regard the whole of it from the pom o v
of that side, and do not sufficiently weigh what may come
from the other side. With such exceptions as those, and
with the exception of the last speculation of all,
&
doctrine which I have expounded to you is the doctrine of
Science at the present day.’
These results may now be applied to the considera
of certain questions which have always been 0 grea
interest. The application which I shall make is a pure y
tentative one, and must be regarded as merely indica ingthat such an application becomes more possible every day.
The first of these questions is that of the possible existence
of consciousness apart from a nervous system of mind
without body. Let us first of all consider the effect upon
this question of the doctrines which are. admitted by all
competent scientific men. All the consciousness
a we
know of is associated with a brain in a certain definite
manner, namely, it is built up out of elements m the same
way as part of the action of the brain is built up out ot
elements: an element of one corresponds to an element in
the other ; and the mode of connection, the shape ot the
�28
Body and Mind.
building, is the same in the two cases. The mere fact
that all the consciousness we know of is associated with
certain complex forms of matter need only make us
exceedingly cautious not to imagine any consciousness
apart from matter without very good reason indeed ; just
as the fact of all swans having turned out white up to a
certain time made us quite rightly careful about accepting
stories that involved black swans. But the fact that mind
and brain are associated in a definite way, and in that
particular way that I have mentioned, affords a very strong
presumption that we have here something which can be
explained; that it is possible to find a reason for this
exact correspondence. If such a reason can be found, the
case is entirely altered • instead of a provisional proba
bility which may rightly make us cautious, we should have
the highest assurance that Science can give, a practical
certainty.on which we are bound to act, that there is no
mind without a brain. Whatever, therefore, is the
probability that an explanation exists of the connection of
mind with brain in action, such is also the probability that
each of them involves the other.
If, however, that particular explanation which I have
ventured to offer should turn out to be the true one, the
case becomes even stronger. If mind is the reality or
substance of that which appears to us as brain-action, the
supposition of mind without brain is the supposition of an
organised material substance not affecting other substances
(for if it did it might be perceived), and therefore not
affected by them; in other words, it is the supposition of
immaterial matter, a contradiction in terms to the funda
mental assumption of uniformity of nature, without
practically believing in which we should none of us have
been here to-day. But if mind without brain is a con
tradiction, is it not still possible that an organisation like
the brain can exist without being perceived, without our
being able to hold it fast, and weigh it, and cut it up ?
Now this is a physical question, and we know quite enough
about the physical world to say, “ Certainly not.” It is made
of atoms and ether, and there is no room in it for ghosts.
The other question which may be asked is this : Can we
regard the universe, or that part of it which immediately
surrounds us, as a vast brain, and therefore the reality
�Body and Mind.
29
which underlies it as a conscious mind ? This question has
been considered by the great naturalist Du Bois Reymond,
and has received from him that negative answer which I
think we also must give. For we found that the particular
organisation of the brain which enables its action to run
parallel with consciousness amounts to this—that dis
turbances run along definite channels, and that two
disturbances which occur together establish links between
the channels along which they run, so that they naturally
occur together again. Now it will, I think, be clear to
every one that these are not characteristics of the great
interplanetary spaces. Is it not possible, however, that
the stars we can see are just atoms in some vast organism,
bearing some such relation to it as the atoms which make
up our brains bear to us ? I am sure I do not know. But
it seems clear that the knowledge of such an organism
could not extend to events taking place on the earth, and
that its volition could not be concerned in them. And
if some vast brain existed far away in space, being
invisible because not self-luminous, then, according to the
laws of matter at present known to us, it could affect the
solar system only by its weight.
On the whole, therefore, we seem entitled to conclude
that during such time as we can have evidence of, no
intelligence or volition has been concerned in events
happening within the range of the solar system, except
that of animals living on the planets. The weight of
such probabilities is, of course, estimated differently by
different people, and the questions are only just beginning
to receive the right sort of attention. But it does seem to
me that we may expect in time to have negative evidence
on this point of the same kind and of the same cogency
as that which forbids us to assume the existence between
the Earth and Venus of a planet as large as either of them.
• Now about these conclusions which I have described as
probable ones, there are two things that may be said. In
the first place it may be said that they make the world a
blank, because they take away the objects of very impor
tant and widespread emotions of hope and reverence and
love, which are human faculties and require to be exercised,
and that they destroy the motives for good conduct. To
this it may be answered that we have no right to call the
�3°
Body and Mind.
world a blank while it is full of men and women, even
though our one friend may be lost to us. And in the
regular everyday facts of this common life of men, and in
the promise which it holds out for the future, there is
room enough and to spare for all the high and noble
emotions of which our nature is capable. Moreover,
healthy emotions are felt about facts and not about
phantoms; and the question is not “ What conclusion will
be most pleasing or elevating to my feelings ? ” but “What
is the truth ? ” For it is not all human faculties that have
to be exercised, but only the good ones. It is not right
to exercise the faculty of feeling terror or of resisting
evidence. And if there are any faculties which prevent
us from accepting the truth and guiding our conduct by
it, these faculties ought not to be exercised. As for the
assertion that these conclusions destroy the motive for
good conduct, it seems to me that it is not only utterly
untrue, but, because of its great influence upon human
action, one of the most dangerous doctrines that can be
set forth. The two questions which we have last dis
cussed are exceedingly difficult and complex questions; the
ideas and the knowledge which we used in their discussion
are the product of long centuries of laborious investigation
and thought; and perhaps, although we all make our little
guesses, there is not one man in a million who has any
right to a definite opinion about them. But it is not
necessary to answer these questions in order to tell an
honest man from a rogue. The distinction of right and
wrong grows up in the broad light of day out of natural
causes wherever men live together; and the only right
motive to right action is to be found in the social
instincts which have been bred into mankind by hundreds
of generations of social life. In the target of every true
Englishman’s allegiance, the bull’s-eye belongs to his
countrymen, who are visible and palpable and who stand
around him ; not to any far-off shadowy centre beyond
the hills, ultra monies, either at Rome or in heaven.
Duty to one’s countrymen and fellow-citizens, which is the
social instinct guided by reason, is in all healthy com
munities the one thing sacred and supreme. If the course
of things is guided by some unseen intelligent person, then
this instinct is his highest and clearest voice, and because
�Body and Mind.
3i
of it we may call him good. But if the course .of things
is not so guided, that voice loses nothing of its sacred
ness, nothing of its clearness, nothing of its obligation.
In the second place it may be said that Science ought
not to deal with these questions at all; that while
scientific men are concerned with physical facts, they
are clans leur droit, but that in treating of such subjects
as these they are going out of their domain, and must
do harm.
What is the domain of Science ? It is all possible
human knowledge which can rightly be used to guide
human conduct.
In many parts of Europe it is customary, to leave a
part of the field untilled for the Brownie to live in,
because he cannot live in cultivated ground. And if you
grant him this grace, he will do a great deal of your
household work for you in the night while you sleep.
In Scotland the piece of ground which is left wild for the
devil to live in is called “ the good man’s croft.” Now,
there are people who indulge a hope that the ploughshare
of Science will leave a sort of good man’s croft around the
field of reasoned truth ; and they promise that in that
case a good deal of our civilising work shall be done for us
in the dark, by means we know nothing of. I do not share
this hope ; and I feel very sure that it will not be realised.
I think that we should do our work with our own hands
in a healthy straightforward way, and not leave any croft
to the good man from which his arrow may fly by night
and in which his pestilence may walk in the noonday. It
is idle to set bounds to the purifying and organising work
of Science. Without mercy and without resentment she
ploughs up weed and briar; from her footsteps behind her
grow up corn and healing flowers; and no corner is far
enough to escape her furrow. Provided only that we take
as our motto and our rule of action, Man speed the plough.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
��
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Body and mind, a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 1st November, 1874
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Text
DREAMS AND GHOSTS.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 7th FEBRUARY, 1875.
BY
G. G. ZERFFI, Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S., F.R.S.L.,
Lecturer on Historic Ornament, National Art Training School,
South Kensington.
Author of Goethe's 1 Faust, with Commentaries,' '■Spiritualism and
Animal Magnetism,’ <fc, <fc.
BOND ON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1875.
Price Threepence.
�SYLLABUS.
Naturalism and Spiritualism.
Astrologers and Philosophers.
Perceptions either sensual or cerebral.
Dreams. Object and subject blended into one.
“ Noctambulatio.”
Dreams of reality.
Hallucinations.
Nikolai of Berlin. Abercrombie. Brierre de
Boismont.
Natural or Supernatural agencies.
Hysteria and Revivals.
Are Ghosts possible ?
How to treat those who see them.
Shakespeare’s Ghosts.
Some practical points to be taken into con
sideration.
Conclusion. .
�DREAMS AND GHOSTS.
IND is assumed to be opposed to Matter,
Nature to be different from Spirit, and
Reality to be unconnected with Ideality. These
assumptions, and a continuous misuse of words, have
for thousands of years produced misunderstandings
of the utmost importance to Science and the welfare
of Humanity.
Mysticism and Rationalism, Naturalism and
Spiritualism, have been arrayed against one another
like two hostile armies ; and whilst the one party
took everything literally, and required a certain
notion to be attached to every word, as the result
of a clear perception, the other roamed into the field
of the allegorical or parabolical, performed tropological gambols with exquisite cunning, and terrified
us by an anagogical treatment of the simplest
matters. If a certain substance was stated to be
black or white, it might be black only in substance,
whilst in essence it was white ; all depended whether
it was taken in its reality or in its ideality.
A fluid may be in substance, say, oil, but in
essence fire ; allegorically it may be food for hungry
souls; tropologically it may represent virtue gliding
smoothly through the heavenly gates, and anagogically it may be spiritual balm on our wounded
hearts to cool their passionate throbbing for the
vanities and pleasures of this world.
The difficulties were made still greater by the
combinations of these four categories ; a thing might
be to one mind allegorico-tropological, whilst to
another it appeared litero-anagogical. The term
B
M
�4
Drtams and Ghosts.
allegorical is used when you say one thing and
mean another ; the terms tropological or symbolic
are synonymous, and imply when you mean one
thing and say another; and anagogical, is to argue
from generalities to particulars; namely, “ all men
are sinners ; Joe Smith is a man, therefore he must
be a sinner.” A syllogism, which, at all events, is
not very complimentary to Joe Smith.
For centuries, nay for thousands of years, science
had often no other task than to sift the allegoricotropologico-anagogical nonsense that was propounded
by mystics, dogmatists, and metaphysicians, who
brought confusion into the simplest phenomena of
this world. The differences between mystics and
rationalists often existed in mere words,—the one
trying to oppose a common-sense explanation upon
which the other insisted. Obstinacy on both sides
made the struggle still fiercer and hindered the real
progress of knowledge. I said in one of my Lec
tures, that the “unknown” had always a mysterious
charm for man. Astrologers need not know as much
as philosophers. The astrologer gazes at the stars,
sees threads millions of miles in length extending
from certain stars to particular individuals, and
talks of the influence these mystic ties must exer
cise on the destinies of those thus attached to
heavenly bodies. If the individual believes in this
star-theory, the philosopher tries in vain to detach
him from his star, and all he can do is to prove the
impossibility of the man’s having anything to do
with the star or the star with him. So it is with
the great question in dispute concerning mind and
matter. If people start with the conviction that
there is something above nature, or as they call it
“ supernatural,” that impressions on our senses are
possible, even though an outward object to create
such impressions be wanting, that there exists
beyond nature a realm peopled by various strange
beings, how are we to proceed to argue the point ?
�Dreams and Ghosts.
5
■ What is Supernatural ?
The very expression, though continually used,
designates in itself a “ nonentity.” All things must
exist in space and time; space and time are the
first conditions of anything existent, but all nature
with its attributes of space and time fills the Uni
verse, and there is undoubtedly no room for any
thing above or beyond nature as a Universe.
Super-earthly or supersensual might have some
meaning as referring to that which is beyond our
globe, but supernatural has certainly no sense.
In discoursing on dreams and ghosts, I shall
endeavour to avoid being dogmatic, and simply take
up certain psychological phenomena, lay them before
you, and you will be kind enough to draw your
own conclusions.
First of all it must be borne in mind that our
perceptions of the outer world are not only sen
sual (by means of our senses) but also intellectual
(by means of ideas produced in the brain), that is
cerebral. The senses produce nothing but mere
sensations in their special organs, furnishing thus
the material from which intellect, by applying the
laws of causation, forms the outer world under the
existing conditions of space and time.
All our perceptions when in a waking and nor
mal state, are certainly results of impressions on
our senses, which produce an effect of which our
intellect causes us to become conscious. Now is it
possible that impressions may reach our brain from
quite a different source than the outer world,
impressions produced by our own organisation, work
ing on our brain exactly like impressions of the outer
world ? If this be possible, we should endeavour
to find out the relation in which such a phenomenon
would stand to its effect, and whether such
effect would afford us means of making ourselves
acquainted with its real cause; and we should be
at once obliged, as in the material world, to investi-
�6
Dreams and Ghosts.
gate the apparition, that is the outward impression
on our senses in its relation to its own reality.
People do dream, have dreamt, and will dream;
Apparitions, or to speak more colloquially, ghosts
have been really seen.
Dreams and spectral visions are the strong points
of those who assume an Empire of Spirits altogether
independent of matter. There was probably a time
in the phase of the progressive development of
humanity, when man was not yet able to discrimi
nate between dreams and reality. I am inclined to
consider the whole period during which myths, nur
sery tales, miracles, and pious wonders, such as flying
monks and nuns who “ levitated ” from the ground,
were assumed to be realities—a period of dreams.
For the question, whether perceptible visions, as
perfect and distinct as those caused by the impres
sions of the material world can be produced in the
brain, must be answered in the affirmative ; pheno
mena known to us all, phenomena, the effects of
which we experience nearly every night, prove this
with incontestable force, namely Dreams !
What are dreams ?
They are not, as has been assumed, a mere play of
our fancy, an echo of our imaginary faculty, or an
epilogue of those outward impressions which we
received when still awake. Fancies, as the effects
of our imagination, are weak, imperfect, and transi
tory ; so that the most vivid imagination is scarcely
able to reproduce the image of an absent person,
even for a few seconds. In oui' dreams everything
affecting our perceptive faculty appears as exterior
to ourselves as are the impressions received from
the outer world. All objects appear clear and defined,
exactly as in reality, not only with regard to our
selves, but perfectly finished in all their details,
surrounded by all real impediments; every body
with its shadow, every object with its peculiar form
and special substance. That our dreams are entirely ■.
�Dreams and Ghosts.
7
objective is shown by the actions that take place in
them being often contrary to our expectations and
our wishes. Our astonishment is excited by the
dramatic truth of the characters and their actions;
so much so that it may almost be asserted that a
person dreaming is, for the time, a kind of Shake
speare.
The deception produced by dreams is sometimes
so great that, reality stepping into its rights when
we awake, has to combat our vivid impressions to
prove that what has been was only the airy creation
of a dream. This goes far to prove that dreams are
not a function of our brain, and totally distinct
from its power of imagination. Aristotle already
called “ sleep a special sense,” and made the obser
vation that in dreams our imagination is often
engaged in representing extraneous objects. This
leads us to the conclusion that during dreams our
faculty of imagination is at our disposal, and that
this cannot be at the same time the in strum ent or
organ of our dreams.
Dreams resemble madness, they may be called a
short and passing madness, whilst madness is a long
and sometimes lasting dream. The essential con
dition of dreams is sleep, in which the normal
activity of our brain and senses is suspended.
Only when this activity ceases dreams begin to
work; just as the pictures of a magic lantern
appear in a room deprived of light. It is a further
-fact that in our very dreams our reasoning faculty
is often at work: we reason about their incongruity, their ridiculous combinations. There is,
therefore, in us a force by means of which
we can fill space with forms, we can hear and
understand voices, can see, smell, and taste with
out any outward influences on our senses ; which
influences are necessary when we are awake;
we ourselves, therefore, are the sole cause, object,
and empirical basis of our thoughts, though in no
�8
Dreams and Ghosts.
way identical with them. In working on our
imagination this force does not gather impressions
through our senses from without—but undoubtedly
from within. For our senses are closed to the
outer world, and all the objects of our dreams
appear to be the creations of our own subjectivity.
Object and subject are thus blended into one. Let
us not lose sight of this important assertion ; for
I intend to lead you step by step to the most
incredible phenomena, which, however, are facts,
and may be explained in a very rational way. We
must.only give up the old “shell and kernel theory,”
and see that there is no contest between the within
and without, but that mind and matter, however
complicated, marvellous, and incomprehensible their
functions may be, are one. The “ gross and brutal
materialism” and the “moonshiny, dreamy idealism”
formulae must be given up. If dreams are facts
whilst we are asleep, might dreams not be possible
whilst we are half or entirely awake ?
The Scotch have for this state an excellent term
—they call it “ second sightwhilst one sight
through our eyes is going on, another faculty of
seeing, as in our dreams, is at work in us. We see
and at the same time create what we see. Our
imagination is impressed, but its impressions are
produced by an inner force of our own. The term
“ second sight,” however, is applicable to a “ species ”
of our mental and bodily functions, we cannot use
it for the genus. To designate that indisputable
and undeniable force in us which produces per
ceptions without any outward influences on our
senses, we will use the expression “ organ of
dreams.” So soon as we assume an organ we
naturally wish to know its construction and mode
of acting, and, in fact, are anxious to see the
machine and its working; I must content myself at
this moment with merely giving you some further
effects of which this organ must be the cause.
�Dreams and Ghosts.
9
There are undoubtedly different degrees of dreams;
of some we are only dimly conscious, of others we
often are in doubt whether the incidents of our
dream did not happen in reality. We have dreams
in which we dream only of those realities which
surround us. What we dream is at the same time
true and real. It is as if our skull were trans
parent, as if the outer world were directly affecting
our brain, instead of impressing it by means of our
senses.
This mysterious state we might call “half
dreams,” or, still better, “ dreams of reality.”
These dreams often reach a higher phase when the
horizon of the dreamer is enlarged so as to enable
him to see beyond the walls of his bedroom. Our
“ organ of dreams ” appears often to lead us to
distant places, often utterly unknown to us, never
before seen. Instances of this are numberless.
Recently a gentleman wrote to a newspaper “ that
he was lifted up, or rather levitated on the tower
of St. Mark at Venice; that he looked down upon
the town, seeing it in all its reality as clearly as if
he had known the place before, though he had
never been at Venice.” Of course he might have
seen many engravings or paintings of the town,
and have read many descriptions of it; to this he
does not allude, but, at all events, we can have no
reason to doubt that, whilst asleep, he was trans
ferred to Venice, and was impressed by the visionary
city as though it had been the real one.
A still higher effect of which the “ organ of
dreams ” may be assumed to be the cause is “ Noctambulatio,” described by the Greeks as “upnobateia” (sleep-wandering), that is somnambulism.
It is very common in Austria and Germany, France
and Italy; less common in England, but more fre
quent in Scotland. Somnambulists dream, and at
the same time often perform their daily occupa
tions ; some have copied music, others have made
�IO
Dreams and Ghosts.
notes of sermons, others have put their rooms in
order, others have climbed dangerous heights, or
walked on parapets; and though their senses are
perfectly asleep, all the sensual functions are
performed.
They see, they feel, they avoid
chairs, tables they move about, and hear the noise
they make; this is also the case with people arti
ficially put into this peculiar state. The brain
appears to be in the deepest sleep, that is in perfect
inactivity—what organ is there active in us ? Have
we after all really a double life; is there something
active in us whilst our brain, the organ of our
mighty intellectual faculties, is at rest ? If so,
there must be in us a separate Spirit that enters
and leaves our body, and is strangely occupied not
only when still attached to us, but also when it has
left the shell and floats through the infinite. But
is this so ? I think that the theory of psycholo
gists and physiologists is much more likely to be
near the truth, than the assumption that there are
lively sprites in us which are altogether independent
of our material organisation. Modern psycholo
gists assume that in such a state as I have alluded
to, a total depression of the vital functions of-the
brain and an accumulation of all vital force in the
ganglia take place.
These ganglia have their
centre in the “ plexus Solaris,” or “ cerebrum abdominale,” (the brain of the stomach), which con
sists of a few annular vessels filled with a nervous
fluid, standing in the same relation to the ganglia
as the brain to our nervous system. This has given
origin to the hypothesis that dreams have a special
organ, which during a total depression of the func
tions of the brain is most active, so much so “ that
apparently an accumulation of all the vital force
takes place in the ganglia, whose larger tissues,
with the ‘plexus Solaris,’ are turned into a sensorium, which, as if by substitution, performs the
functions of the brain, dispensing with the aid of
�Dreams and Ghosts.
11
the senses to receive impressions from without, and
still exercising all the faculties of the brain, some
times even with greater perfection than when
awake.”—(See my work, ‘Spiritualism and Animal
Magnetism.’ London: Robert Hardwicke. 1872.
Second Edition, page 33.) By this means we may
trace a positive, self-conscious force in us, and a
negative or unconscious force ; a positive and nega
tive element in our nature. The equilibrium of
these forces or elements may be disturbed ; the
brain or the positive force may be with all its glo
rious structure, its intricate and complicated wind
ings, its admirable power of consciousness, if de
ranged, lowered, depressed, exhausted under the in
fluence of the ganglia, and the brain of the stomach
may rule the brain of the head. That is, the
“ organ of dreams ” becomes master of the “ organ
of intellect.” It is a well-authenticated fact that
somnambulists move with great decision, extreme
quickness, that they conform to anything surround
ing them ; that they observe everything with the
“ organ of dreams,” that they dare more when led
by this mysterious organ than when awake.
Our nerves of motion originate in the spine, they
are connected by the “ medulla oblongata ” with
the cerebellum, the regulator of our motions, which
again is connected with the cerebrum, the seat of
our consciousness and perception. Now, how is it
possible that perceptions which determine our
motives for movements, when transferred to the
tissue of the ganglia in the stomach, should direct
the steps of a somnambulist with the swiftness of
lightning ? All we can assume is that the cerebral
force of the somnambulist in such a state is not
entirely asleep, but only sufficiently awake to direct
his steps, to receive impressions through organs
which are different from our senses; thus dreams,
half-dreams, and somnambulism are but effects of a
special organ in us which becomes the more active
�12
Dreams and Ghosts.
the more passive our brain is. We must consider
a still stranger state, arising from a complication of
the disturbed balance between the functions of the
brain and those of the “ plexus Solaris.”
Let us assume a state in which our brain is, at
least, partially awake; we see the objects in our
room with perfect clearness; the lamp on our
writing table, the books on our shelves, the pictures,
&c., and still we suddenly see a figure before us,—
a dear relation not long dead, a beloved child, whose
last parting words still resound in our ears. Such
cases are recorded by perfectly credible persons.
How is this ? Our answer would be: we do not
doubt your assertion; we believe your having seen
your dead mother, but you were in a half-dream ;
your brain was, in spite of its partial capacity of
receiving certain impressions through your senses,
depressed, and your ganglionic system hard at work
to make you dream, whilst in this state. All cases
of hallucinations and spectral visions may be
reduced to this natural cause. If we admit that
our “ organ of dreams ” can produce impressions on
our senses when asleep, we may assume, with great
probability, and without leaving the firm ground of
physical possibility, that this organ may work in us
whilst our senses of vision and hearing are awake.
The perceptive faculties of our brain ’ will be
influenced exactly as in our dreams, though we be
not asleep. The phantom or object of our visual
organ will stand before us in a given form, as perfect
as any object of our dreams. But its immediate
cause of existence must be looked for in our own
inner organism. These phantoms, in accordance
with the faculties of our “ organ of dreams,” will
assume form, colour; emit sounds which will affect
us like the language of living beings; and if our
organ of dreams is in an excited state of activity,
the phantoms presenting themselves will be hazy in
appearance, pale, greyish, ghastly, nearly transpa-
�Dreams and Ghosts.
13
rent; their voices will be hollow and whispering, or
hoarse and whistling. A heavy supper (say, a Welsh
rare-bit,) nervous debility, over-work, great grief,
or a glass of grog as an overdose, will produce the
most important changes in these phantoms ; but as
soon as the visionary tries to bring his faculty of
reasoning into play, that is, as soon as his positive
or cerebral force becomes master of the negative or
abdominal element, the phantoms vanish. Nothing
can more speedily cure our propensity to see spectres
than a firm will to verify, by close investigation, the
reality, the substance of the apparition.
Spectres, like dealers in mysticism and dogmatic
incredibilities, prefer above all the twilight, or rather
no light at all. Visionaries of whatever sort and
stamp do not like to be disturbed in their manipu
lations by candles and gas-jets, and least of all by
some rays of common sense and sound logic. Mid
night, dark abodes with painted windows, have been
set down from old as the time and places when not
only Erin’s but “ any clouds are hung round with
ghosts.”
That visions and apparitions are facts produced
by our own selves cannot be denied, but they do not
prove anything extraneous to us, or the existence
of some undiscovered country from whose bourne
some travellers do return.
We may now investigate their causes, and we shall
find that some very material physical derangement
of our constitution is the principal one. Already
Hippokrates and Galen drew the attention of medi
cal men to phenomena of this kind, and tried to
classify the diseases according to the visions of the
sick person. It is pretty well known that those
suffering from “ delirium tremens ” generally see
rats, cats, mice, serpents, black dogs, elephants,
devils with big horns, grotesque monkeys, or some
terrifying monster of the animal kingdom. So
much so, that even the visionary realm of ghosts
�14
Dreams and Ghosts.
appears to abominate drunkenness as something
loathsome and bestial. Those suffering from con
sumption have pleasant visions; bright, sunny plains,
beautiful cool woods, present themselves to their
eyes; they see angels in long robes with broad, airy
wings, and hear strange melodies resounding through
space. The sooner people having such visions con
sult a physician the better. Madness is, not neces
sarily always, but frequently accompanied by
hallucinations.
There are some rare cases, perfectly authenticated,
in which apparitions have been seen by individuals
who at least were in a state of perfect bodily
health. The most known is that of Nikolai,' the
celebrated author and bookseller of Berlin. This
case was laid before the Academy of Sciences at
Berlin, 1799. Nikolai’s statement was the follow
ing :—“ On the 24th of February, 1791, after a sharp
altercation (the excited, nervous state of the vision
ary is to be taken into special consideration), I
suddenly perceived, at the distance of ten paces, a
dead body. (The great accuracy with which the
distance is recorded shows at once that Nikolai was
altogether dreaming; whoever heard of a man seeing
a dead body before him and trying to measure the
distance between the apparition and himself.) I
inquired of my wife whether she did not see it. My
question alarmed her. The apparition lasted eight
minutes. (Another peculiarity of these kind of
visionaries is that they always are most particular
with regard to dates and time. Is anybody childish
enough to suppose that a man seeing a dead body
takes out his watch, and counts the minutes, and
notes them down ? The tale, as told, bears in its
intrinsic evidence all the usual traces of impossi
bility which we may study in all reports on so-called
“ supernatural ” matters.) At four in the afternoon
the same vision appeared. I was then alone and
much disturbed by it. I went to my wife’s apart-
�Dreams and Ghosts.
ment. The vision followed me. At six I perceived
several figures that had no connection with the
former vision.” Nikolai was undoubtedly dreaming
whilst awake : he was bled by a judicious medical
man, and the vision did not return.
“A. stranger in Edinburgh died suddenly in an
omnibus. The corpse was exposed, and a medical
man called in to report on the cause of death. After
several days’ close study of a medical subject, he
perceived, on raising his eyes, the form of the dead
stranger opposite him, as distinctly as he had seen
him on the table of the police office.” The.over
wrought cerebral faculty was under the dominion of
the sympathetic nerve, which, in its turn, still
affected by the impression of the corpse, represented
it to the debilitated powers of the brain.
Abercrombie, in his ‘ Inquiries Concerning the
Intellectual Powers ’ (11th Ed., Lond., 1841, p. 380),
relates the case of a man who was beset with hallu
cinations all his life. “ His disposition was such
that, when he met a friend in the streets, he was
uncertain whether he were a real person or a
phantom.”
Unscientifically trained persons often give them
selves up to credulity, and to that craving after
abnormal supernatural agencies which has done so
much evil throughout the whole progressive develop
ment of humanity. They take these kind of visions
for granted, and jump at the conclusion that, as
visions were seen, they must be substances or
essences from another world. I recommend any
body suffering from “ Psycho-mania,” or from
“ Table-danceology,” or paralysis of the brain from
knock-conversation, or who has “levitation fits,”
or “ air-floating paroxysms,” to read Brierre de
Boismont ‘On Hallucination,’ 1845. His cases are,
unhappily, neither systematically arranged nor
psychologically or physiologically explained; yet
they must convince anybody believing in super-
�16
Dreams and Ghosts.
sensual agencies, that strange things may happen,
all taking their origin in a derangement of our ner
vous and cerebral system, without troubling any
spirits from another world. If spirits really exist,
why have they not yet proven themselves useful ?
Why do they not appear half-an-hour before a ship
burns down, and 400 human beings are killed and
drowned, to warn the captain ; or why do they not
alter the signals of a railway in right time to prevent
a collision and to save an infinity of wretchedness ?
Because they do not choose to do it—might be the
answer of some “ Supernaturalistbut why should
spirits come and talk nonsense at the bidding of A
or B, and why not teach us in an evening the
multiplication table, or give us some information
which might be turned to some use or comfort for
humanity ?
Hysteria on the one hand, and a reaction against
the growing materialistic and utilitarian tendencies
of our times on the other, drive those who are
endowed with a vivid emotional nature into the
regions of ghostly shadows. They tremble that
there should be no more mysteries; no more tidings
from another world, no more communications with
dear pretty angels, no horrible monsters to frighten
young and old babies ! Why do they not throw
themselves into the arms of poetry and art, num
berless spirits and fancy-wrought forms may be
brought up from the depths of our cultivated minds.
We ought not allow ourselves to be dragged into a
lowering of our cerebral powers, our faculty of
reasoning, by the inordinate use of our sympathetic
nerves, or the unconscious emotional, ganglionic
element in us. For there can be no doubt that an
unusual mental excitement, paired with bodily
depression, may abnormally develope the emotional
element in us, and produce the most destructive and
pernicious results. This statement was born, out
during the period of St. John s “ dance mania 5
�Dreams and Ghosts.
17
people in their paroxysms saw the Saviour enthroned
with the Virgin Mary. We do not doubt these
visions ; we only are convinced that Christ and the
Virgin Mary were no realities; they formed no
more the outer phenomena that impressed the
visionaries than do the forms we see in our dreams,
but the excited organs of dreams produced them.
For Ghosts are impossibilities—they can neither be
seen nor heard; except they are bodies—but then
there is an end of the so-called spiritual kingdom.
So that those who call themselves Spiritualists, are
the greatest materialists, and work into the hands
of those who intend to reduce everything to mere
ponderable and calculable substances.
In order to see—a body or a substance is required,
which by means of reflection of the rays of light
acts on our retina; in order to hear—a body or
substance is required to act by means of the vibra
tion of the air on our tympanum. All that
visionaries or ghost-see-ers may justly assert, is that
they are conscious of the impression on their per
ceptive faculties of something that reflects light,
creates sounds, though there is nothing which could
produce these phenomena—that is they dream—for
all other phenomena, if they really happen, how
ever mysterious they may appear, however incredible,
are mere deceptions a la Dr. Lynn, or Maskelyne
and Cooke, and of course not worthy of any scientific
treatment.
The danger in playing with the so-called super
natural ” is that the derangement in one individual
becomes contagious. One hysteric girl in a school
is capable of infecting all the others. But for any
such derangement the best cures are rational ones,
or wherever these do not suffice a drastic physical
one will do. An English physician was called into
a ladies’ school, where one hysterical girl had infec
ted many others ; after he had in vain tried various
remedies, he one day observed to the mistress of the
�18
Dreams and Ghosts.
establishment in the hearing of the patients that
there remained but one chance of effecting a cure,—
the application of a red-hot iron to the spine of the
patients so as to quiet their nervously excited sys
tem. Strange to say, the red-hot iron was never
applied, for the hysterical attacks ceased as if by
magic. The same was the case with a revival
mania in a large school near Cologne ; Government
sent an inspector down ; the boys pretended to
have visions of Jesus Christ, but the implacable
officer threatened to close the school if any other
spiritual inspector should interfere with his business,
and the students should be for ever excluded from
pursuing their studies : the effect was as magical as
the red-hot iron remedy—the revivals ceased at
once.
Shakespeare, that master-mind, who knew the
most hidden recesses of our hearts, whose writings
form the most complete and exhaustive psycho
logical essays, who made many a ghost “ revisit the
glimpses of the moon, to make night hideous,” has
solved the “Spirit Question” in a clear, commonsense, and exhaustive way in “ Macbeth,” when he
makes the ambitious thane exclaim :—
“ Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand 1 Come, let me clutch thee !
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight ? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ? ”
To beware of false creations in science and
religion, not to allow our heat-oppressed brain an
unruly dominion over our intellectual faculties, is
conveyed by those few lines of our immortal bard.
The brief consideration of dreams and ghosts
which I have placed before you may be summed up
in the following points :—
�Dreams and Ghosts.
’9
1. That we have an organ in us which can act
on the perceptive faculties of our brain from
within.
2. That this “ organ of dreams ” has its seat in
the centre of our ganglionic system or the sym
pathetic nerves, namely in the “ plexus Solaris.”
3. That our cerebral faculties may be lowered
and the faculty of our ganglia heightened.
4. That spectral visions, religious excitements,
emotional extravagances, mysticism, and symbolic
charlatanism are merely products of a deranged
balance between our vegetable or ganglionic and
our cerebral or intellectual life.
5. That there is nothing in nature that ought
not to be capable of explanation from a natural
point of view, as there is no room for anything to
be above or without nature.
6. That instead of admitting in some instances
our ignorance of the laws of nature with regard to
certain phenomena, to assume some “ supernatural ”
interference is an insult to the all-pervading spirit of
the Creator, who cannot allow his spirits to wander
about to serve small table-talk. Anything beyond
the horizon of human intellect is of evil. This
evil peopled heaven and earth with gods, goddesses,
angels, and demons ; it formed a strong element in
our double nature, and took its origin in our
craving to fathom the unfathomable. It is, in fact,
nothing but a piece of pride. We think ourselves
better than others when we have dear little
apparitions which others have not; we consider
ourselves chosen, elected, specially inspired, small
prophets, benighted evangelists, and mighty instru
ments to testify that God takes us more into his
councils than others. The roaming in the Empire
of Ghosts, the taking of dreams for realities, the
neglect of this world for the sake of other distant
unknown worlds is nothing but inordinate pride.
If I have erred in trying to explain hypotheti-
�20
Dreams and Ghosts.
cally some curious phenomena of our nature, I can
only plead that the striving of finite beings in
whom the cerebral functions are not lowered by
tropological or anagogical studies should be after
truth in the sense of the immortal Lessing :—
“If God were to hold in His right hand all
truth, and in his left the everlasting active desire
for truth though veiled in eternal error, and were to
bid me choose, I would humbly grasp his left,
praying, Almighty Father, grant me this gift—
absolute truth is for Thee alone.”
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 2nd May,
1875, 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 Penny ;—Sixpence
and
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
PRINTED BY C. W. RRYNELL, LITTLE PULTBNBY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dreams and ghosts. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday Afternoon, 7th February, 1875
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Zerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1875
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Spiritualism
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Conway Tracts
Dreams
Ghosts
Naturalism
Spiritualism
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
PAST AND PRESENT
OF THE
HERESY LAWS.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 1st DECEMBER, 1878,
BY
‘ W. A. HUNTER, M.A.,
Barrister-at-Law, Professor of Jurisprudence, University College
London.
’
Hontian:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
1878.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
Mr. Lecky’s views on the causes of Persecution.
Dogma and Persecution arose from the struggle of the clergy
for political supremacy.
I. Punishment of Heresy as a crime.
1. By the Ecclesiastical Courts.
2. By judge and law.
3. By statute.
4. Proposed article in the New Criminal Code.
II. Deprivation of Civil Rights of Heretics.
1. Nullification of contracts tainted with heresy.
2. Illegality of heretical trusts.
3. Guardianship of children.
4. The refusal of evidence. Oaths. Witnesses.
III. Heresy in morals.
IV. The Persecuting Spirit as perverting the administration
of justice.
�HISTORY OF THE HERESY LAWS.
HE History of Persecution presents to the philosophic
mind a strange problem. Why should men cruelly
maltreat and murder their fellow-men, who do them no
harm, because of a mere difference of opinion regarding
super-terrestrial objects ? The question is not easy to
answer. It implies, on the part of the persecuting sects,
intellectual blindness and moral callousness. For surely
—from a mere intellectual standpoint—nothing can be
more absurd than to punish a man for his belief. To
inflict evil upon a man because his reason does not
recommend a popular creed may make him a hypocrite,
but by no possibility a believer. It implies not less moral
obliquity. For the simplest rule of morals is that we
should do unto others as we would have others do unto
us. But the persecutor never admits that it is right to
punish him for his opinions. His opinions, he tells us,
are right opinions, and it would be highly criminal to
punish a man for holding right opinions. Thus reasons
the bigot with himself. Sometimes indeed he tries to
evade this difficulty. He will tell us, with engaging
candour, that persecution is always right in principle,
however unfortunate it may sometimes be in its applica
tion. He will assure us that he persecutes because he
believes it right to suppress error; and he admits that if
his party is the weaker it would be right to persecute
him in turn. By this ingenuous admission he hopes to
shelter himself under the golden rule; but it is to be
observed that such a confession is never made when there
is any opportunity of testing his sincerity. If this candid
gentleman were to find himself among the persecuted, he
would be the first to call out most lustily against the
wickedness of his persecutors. When, therefore, we
take a persecutor and calmly examine him, we find his
moral sense as much at fault as his intellect; both his
T
�4
The Past and Present
intelligence and his conscience are clouded; in a word, he
is both a rogue and a fool.
In putting the issue on that broad and simple basis I
make an assumption. I assume that the bigot is sincere
according to his light. I assume that he reverences
truth; that he wishes to see truth prevail among man
kind, and that error be driven away. It is from this
point of view that Mr. Lecky, the distinguished historian
of Rationalism in Europe, discusses that most melancholy
chapter in the history of the human race, the rise and
progress of persecution. He ascribes the tremendous
energy of the spirit of persecution to the doctrine of
eternal punishment for religious error, and in a vigorous
passage he thus denounces a cause of untold suffering to
the human race:—*
“If men believe with an intense and realising faith
that their own view of a disputed question is true beyond
all possibility of mistake, if they further believe that those
who adopt other views will be doomed by the Almighty
to an eternity of misery which, with the same moral dis
position but with a different belief, they would have
escaped, these men will, sooner or later, persecute to the
full extent of their power. If you speak to them of the
physical and mental suffering which persecution produces,
or of the sincerity and unselfish heroism of its victims,
they will reply that such arguments rest altogether on the
inadequacy of your realisation of the doctrine they believe.
What suffering that man can inflict can be comparable to
the eternal misery of all who embrace the doctrine of the
heretic? What claim can human virtues have to our
forbearance, if the Almighty punishes the mere profession
of error as a crime of the deepest turpitude ? If you en
countered a lunatic who, in his frenzy, was inflicting on
multitudes around him a death of the most prolonged and
excruciating agony, would you not feel justified in arrest
ing his career by every means in your power—by taking
his life if you could not otherwise attain your object?
But if you knew that this man was inflicting not temporal
but eternal death, if he was not a guiltless though danger* “ Rationalism in Europe,” Lecky, vol. ii. page 1.
�of the Heresy Laws.
5
ous madman, but one whose conduct you believed to involve
the most heinous criminality, would you not act with still
less compunction or hesitation ? ”
Mr. Lecky enforces his argument by a short and
striking sentence from Thomas Aquinas, the great orthodox
logician of mediaeval Catholicism. “If dealers in false
money or other malefactors are forthwith justly delivered
to death by secular princes, much more ought heretics,
the moment they are convicted of heresy, to be at once,
not merely excommunicated, but justly put to death.”
This sentence is worthy a moment’s consideration. It
has the appearance of an argument; in form it professes
to be reasoning; but even a glance is sufficient to show
that it possesses merely the form and not in any degree the
substance of reasoning. The premiss is that dealers in
false money are justly put to death; the conclusion is that
heretics ought to be put to death. But, heretics are not
coiners of bad money; and it would just be as logical to
say—because murderers are justly executed, therefore
those who eat meat on Fridays ought to be executed.
The conclusion has simply no relation to the premiss
whatever. Viewed as a logical proposition, which it pro
fesses in form to be, the saying of St. Thomas Aquinas is
a rank and childish absurdity. But, if we are to under
stand it aright, we must discard the pretentious form of
logic in which it is enveloped. What it really means is
that the writer, and those whom he addressed, considered
heresy to be a worse crime than coining false money or
murder, and upon that assumption St. Thomas Aquinas
is logical enough in saying it ought to be visited with the
penalty of death. If it be a greater crime to doubt or
deny any proposition which the Church of Borne puts
forward as true—for that is the meaning of “ heresy ” in
the mouth of St. Thomas Aquinas—if that be a greater
crime than forgery or murder, then truly it is difficult to
say that heretics ought not to be slain.
But, is heresy a crime worse than murder ? In the
days of Thomas Aquinas this was a question that
admitted neither denial nor doubt. To have said a
word for the heretic would have been to incur imminent
risk of the fate of the heretic. At the present day, so
�6
The Past and Present
deep, so wide, is the revolt from the Church of Borne,
that a person who should gravely maintain the thesis of
the saintly doctor would incur universal ridicule. The
greatest spiritual dominion which Europe has ever known
has been broken up. The sceptre has departed from
Borne, and the Pope has no longer the power of killing
those whom he calls rebels; he can do no more than
brandish the empty thunderbolts of excommunication.
That is why heresy is no longer a crime. Heresy was to
the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope what treason is to
the secular authority of kings. Heresy denied the right
of the priesthood to lord it over the consciences of men.
By denying the dogmas which the priests promulgated
the heretic assailed them in their tenderest point. If
their dogmas were not true, then were they downright
impostors, and the very bread they ate was got by false
pretences. The most cursory examination of the history
of the Christian Church shows that dogma w’as the bond
by which the priesthood reared the extraordinary fabric
of the papacy, an institution which claimed to over-ride
sovereigns, and to exercise the power, without incurring
the responsibility, of secular government. To support
dogma the crime of heresy was invented. The aggrandise
ment of the priesthood was the end to be accomplished;
the punishment of heretics was the means. To achieve
so holy an end the priests had no scruple in recommending
the destruction of those who stood in the way. The end
not merely justified but sanctified and glorified the means.
Is it a marvel, when the clergy had preached for
some hundreds of years the sacred doctrine of the murder
of their enemies and illustrated it, whenever they had
the chance, by practical example, that in the days of
St. Thomas Aquinas every voice in Christendom acknow
ledged the guilt of heresy ?
It seems to me, therefore, that Mr. Lecky, in tracing
the practice of persecution up to the doctrine of eternal
punishment for erroneous belief, misses a most important
element in the problem. Without grave confusion of
ideas mankind could never have fallen into the horrible
crime of persecution; but, even under the narrowest
doctrine of eternal punishment, men would have stopped
�oj- the Heresy Laws.
7
short of murdering heretics, but that their hatred was
inflamed by the sinister ambition of an insatiable priest
hood. The ghastly catalogue of crime would not have
been so long had there been no dupes; but it never
would have existed at all if there had not been a design
ing oligarchy of churchmen building up for themselves
a throne higher than that of the oldest and proudest
monarchies of Europe. Worldly ambition, using as its
tools the fears and passions of its dupes, is the real
parent of persecution. Jesus Christ said, my kingdom
is not of this world; but the priests, who pretended to
be His followers, resolved that their kingdom should be
of this world, and that they should sit on the necks of
kings, and they pursued this scheme of universal dominion
with pitiless cruelty. The tortures of the inquisition
will be remembered with a shudder when the blackest
crimes perpetrated by individual ambition have fallen into
oblivion. It is well to bear this in mind. The true
source of persecution is not erroneous religious opinion,
but priestcraft. Heresy, it is asserted, is disloyalty to
truth. But not for that reason was it punished with
death. It was disloyalty to the priests that fired their
bitter indignation, and rooted out of their breasts those
feelings of tenderness and humanity which we may
believe they shared at their birth with the generality of
mankind.
This sad story in the history of our race is well illustrated
by the relation of Christianity to the Roman Empire. Books
have been written to show the benign influence which
Christianity is alleged to have exercised on Roman
Civilization and Roman Law. It was under Constantine,
and by his help, that in the year a.d. 312, Christianity
was adopted as the religion of the Roman Empire. I have
carefully read the jurisprudence of Rome before Christi
anity was introduced and afterwards. And what do
I find? That a spirit of humanity and justice was
breathed into the dry bones of heathen law ? Nothing of
the sort. Humanity and justice reached their highest
development under such heathens as Antoninus Pius and
Marcus Aurelius. You will search in vain through the
Law of Rome for any traces of reform under Christianity;
�8
The Past and Present
but, there are two things of which you will get more than
enough. You will get laws intended to aggrandise the
priests, to shield them from civil and criminal responsibility,
and to enable them to extort money with ease and hoard
it with safety. You will, also, find many statutes passed
to despoil of their property, to banish, and even to kill,
all those sects of Christians who did not bow the knee
to Rome, but were guilty of the crime of understanding
the teaching of Christ differently from the Roman Bishops.
Rew people are aware of the ruthless violence with which
all dissent from the Church of Rome was stamped out.
Before a century had passed under the Christian emperors,
the catalogue of Rome’s victims were to be reckoned by hun
dreds of thousands. In a statute passed in the year a.d. 428
against heretics we have a curious enumeration of sects,
as regards some of whom even ecclesiastical antiquaries
are silent. They were:—Arians and Macedonians,
Pneumatomachi and Apollinariani and Novatiani or
Sabbatiani, Eunomiani, Tetraditae, Valenteniani, Papianistse, Montanists or Priscillianists, Marcianists, Borboriani, Messaliani, Eutychitse or Enthusiastse, Donatists,
Audiani, Hydroparastatae, Tascodrogitae, Batrachitae, Hermeieciani, Photiniani, Pauliani, Marcelliani, Ophitae,
Encratitae, Apotactitae, Saccophori, and worst of all
Manichaeans and Nestorians. Here is a list of about
thirty sects who were broken up and destroyed by the
criminal law. That is how the marvellous unity of the
Catholic Church was obtained. It won its conquests by
blood and iron; by the same means it maintained them ;
but it lasted long enough to show that truth is stronger
than tyranny, and that the sword of the Spirit can cut
deeper than any weapons of steel.
In the course of time the priests invented an ingenious
plan for perpetuating their dominion. Owing to the pro
found ignorance of the population, it was easy to teach
the people that the principal calamities that affected them
were due to the prevalence of heresy. In one of the
enactments of the Christian Emperor, Justinian, we find
the philosophy of heresy, from the priestly point of view,
stated with the most naive absurdity. The reason for
killing heretics was that famines, earthquakes, and pesti-
�of the Heresy Laws.
17
deprivation of civil rights in respect of contract or trusts
seriously interferes with or even hampers the propaganda
of heretical opinions. While, however, such a state of the
law does nothing to protect orthodoxy, it does act as an
encouragement to immorality, and enables a few persons,
on rare occasions, to break their promise with impunity.
But the portion of the law which we have now to consider
does not possess this harmless character. The law, when
ever it operates at all, works with the cruellest injustice..
The law as to the guardianship of children may be
summed-up in a sentence—it sacrifices the mother to the
father, and it sacrifices both father and mother to religious
bigotry. The rule of law is almost inexorable that a
child must be brought up in the religion of its father,
even after he is dead, and when he has never expressed
even the slightest wish that the widowed mother should
be robbed of the care of her offspring. A Protestant
widow will be compelled to bring up her infant daughter
in the Roman Catholic faith, if the father was a Roman
Catholic in profession merely, and was really indifferent
as to the religion his children should be taught. I cannot
use more forcible language to describe this law than that
which was employed by V. C. Wickens in a case where
he was obliged to give judgment against a mother:—
“To direct that this ward shall be brought up in the
Roman Catholic faith will be to create a barrier between a
widowed mother and her only child; to annul the mother’s
influence over her daughter on the most important of
all subjects with the almost inevitable effect of weakening
it on all others; to introduce a disturbing element into a
union which ought to be as close, as warm, and as abso
lute, as any known to man; and lastly, to inflict severe
pain on both mother and child. But it is clear that no
argument which would recognize any right in the widowed
mother to bring up her child in a religion different from
the father’s can be allowed to weigh with me at all.
According to the law of this court a mother has no such
right.” (Hawksworth v. Hawksworth, 6 L.R. Ch.).
The recent Agar-Ellis case still more illustrates the
strength of the father’s legal position. Even an express
antenuptial promise, without which the marriage would
�18
The Past and Present
never have taken place, that the children should be brought
up in the religion of the mother, had not, in a Court of
Equity, so much as the weight of a feather to outweigh
the father’s claims. So strong is the father’s power, that
he cannot legally divest himself of it by such a contract
as would suffice to settle ten million pounds. By the
law as it stands, a man may induce a woman to marry
him by promising her the enjoyment of what she may
regard as a particular boon — the preparation of her
infant children for eternity—and when the marriage
takes place, he can cast his promise to the winds, and
bring up the children in principles which, according to the
mother’s belief, will assign them to everlasting torments.
But the rights of the father, while strong as a band of
iron to crush the mother, snap like a reed when they come
into collision with the interests of orthodoxy. Charity,
parental affection, the sweet influences of home—all must
give way to the paramount object of stuffing the child with
a particular set of theological opinions. Even eccentric,
although not blasphemous, opinions on religion have been
held sufficient to rob a father of his children. In giving
judgment in Thomas v. Roberts (3 D.Gr. & S. 758), Lord
Justice Knight Bruce, then Vice-Chancellor, is reported
as distinguishing the degree of eccentricity which might
not be absolutely fatal from that which in law disqualifies
a man from having the custody of his own children.
“ I doubt whether a man, who, having been ordained a
minister of religion, as a Christian in a Christian com
munity, has designedly and systematically given up
attending any place of worship (whatever his private
feelings and whatever hymns he may sing) ought in any
condition of circumstances to be permitted in this country
to have the guardianship or care of an English child, for
whose maintenance and education there exist any other
means of providing, though the child be his own. But
that particular question I think it not, in the present
instance, necessary to decide, and I wish to be understood
as giving no opinion upon it.”
“ However this may be, I apprehend that in England a
man who holds the opinion that prayer—I mean prayer
in the sense of entreaty and supplication to the Almighty
�of the Heresy Laws.
19
—is no part of duty; who considers moreover that there
is not any day of the week which ought to be observed
as a Sabbath, as a day of peculiar rest, or as one of
peculiar holiness, or in a manner distinct from other
days, must be deemed to entertain opinions noxious to
society, adverse to civilization, opposed to the usages of
Christendom, contrary (in the case of prayer at least) to
the express command of the New Testament, and, finally,
pernicious necessarily in the highest degree to any young
person unhappy enough to be imbued with them. I say
in England.”
This passage needs no remark, for the final limitation
converts the whole reasoning into absurdity; but I may
observe that the Vice-Chancellor is a good deal more
straightlaced in his orthodoxy than Saint Paul. We read
in Romans (xiv. 5), “ One man esteemeth one day above
another ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”
4. Refused of the Evidence of Heretics—Oaths.—The
confusion of ideas that so long covered the question
of admissibility of witnesses with deep darkness attests in
a remarkable degree the weakness of the human under
standing when it is swayed by strong passion. Eirst of
all, our judges and writers on law have uniformily assigned,
as one of the conclusive and irresistible arguments for
religious persecution, that the administration of justice
rests upon oaths, and oaths rest upon religion, therefore,
to weaken religion is to shake the administration of justice.
With more truth it might be urged that it is only the
power to punish false evidence with imprisonment that
prevents oaths degenerating into an unmeaning farce; for
experience shows that men will habitually take oaths which
they never mean to observe, as in the case of so many
official oaths, when no temporal punishment is annexed to
the perjury.
To refuse the testimony of an unbeliever involved even
a more glaring solecism. If an unbeliever dissembled or
denied his opinion, the English law accepted his testimony
without hesitation or scruple; but if he openly avowed
his opinions, and thereby showed his conscientiousness,
honesty, and courage, he was dismissed from the witness
�20
The Past and Present
box as unworthy of credence. At last, in the years 1869
and 1870, the grave reproach on our law was removed,
and now, in England, although not in Scotland, a solemn
affirmation is to be taken instead of an oath by those who
were formerly disqualified from giving evidence through
defect of religious belief.
III.—Resteiction on Feeedom oe Discussion
in
Mosals.
Recent events in Germany have attracted notice to a
subject akin to religious heresy, namely, social or
moral heresy. Under the influence of a disgraceful
panic, the German Parliament has allowed itself to be
come the author of a political inquisition. It has sanc
tioned a law bad in principle, and still worse in respect
of the authority by which it is to be carried out. Power
has been given to the Executive Government to rob and
maltreat all persons guilty of the heresy of Socialism, by
which is understood opinions hostile to the existing
social institutions, and aiming at a reconstruction of
human society in respect of its deepest foundations.
The teaching of experience has been ignored, for, if one
thing is certain, it is that persecution of Socialist heretics
will increase their power, and add to the danger of their
error. It may be a gross error to say with Proudhon,
for example, that property is theft, or to say, with Mr.
Noyes, that the institution of the family is a relic of bar
barism ; but surely the proper way to deal with their
errors is to exhibit the fallacy of their reasoning, and not
to knock them down by brute force. Just as improve
ment in the art of government is impossible without free
and unsparing discussion of proposed and actual legisla
tion ; just as true views regarding the constitution of the
universe and the destiny of man are impossible under a
regime of clerical terrorism ; just as a scientific knowledge
of nature is only possible in a country which freely
handles even the most revered names, so progress in
morals, an improvement in the conduct of mankind, can
only be attained by unqualified freedom in discussing
every moral question. If, in a country where polygamy
is sanctioned, it is a crime to condemn polygamy, or in a
�of the Heresy Laws.
21
country where monogamy is established, it is a crime to
say anything against monogamy, how is it possible for
mankind to change for the better? Whatever reasons
exist in favour of political or religious liberty apply with
equal force for freedom in the sphere of human conduct
or morals.
Yet it is a strange fact, and one not generally known,
that so far as the law is concerned, England has the
unenviable distinction of anticipating the recent fanatical
legislation of Germany. Until within the last year most
Englishmen supposed that to preach a moral heresy in
this country was even less a crime than to doubt the
infallible truth of the XXXIX. Articles. Yet, at the
present moment, it is undoubtedly law that any one who
publishes a book on any subject that can be comprehended
in the vague designation of “ morality ” does so with a
halter round his neck, for if his opinions are unpopular,
or if they should happen to differ from those of twelve
men picked up by chance and put in a jury box, he is
liable to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The
way in which this has come about inspires us with a pro
found sense of the mystery of the law. The case of
blasphemy helps us partially to understand it. Blasphemy,
in its popular acceptation, means language insulting to
the Deity; by a process of judicial interpretation it was
held that it meant any opinions contrary to the generally
accepted doctrines of Christianity. The word “ obscene,”
one should think, had a perfectly distinct, not to say a
“ pungent ” meaning; but, inasmuch as all obscenity is
contrary to morality, it has been decided by a process of
logic, which the students of Aristotle will find it difficult
to follow, that whatever is contrary to morality is
obscenity. In this way it has now been established
that any publication of opinions which a jury may
be pleased to regard as contrary to their notions of
morality is an indictable offence. We have all great
respect for English juries in their right place ; but it is
hardly the right place for a jury to sit on the chair of
infallibility and ape the ridiculous pretensions of the Pope
of Rome. It is a subject, I think, of unqualified regret
that the new Criminal Code aggravates the mischief of
�22
The Past and Present
recent decisions If that code should become law, the
advocates of what may be considered moral heresy may
say with truth, that whereas the Common Law whipped
them with cords the Criminal Code lashes them Sith
scorpions.
IV-—Bervertino
Administration-
or
Justice.
Heresy may be struck out of the Criminal Law, it may
cease to deny to the citizen his civil rights, and there is
sp .
re lgious antipathies to cause a miscarriage
of justice. I may mention, by way of illustration, the
IRBI °f Tha<?ai?gh V‘ Edwards’in the Common Pleas, in
cm ?! rCtS we^e simple- Mr- Bradlaugh had hired
a fieid to deliver a lecture in Devonport, as the public
halls m the town had been forbidden to him. The
superintendent of the police interfered to prevent the
meeting, and finally arrested Mr. Bradlaugh and put him
in prison. The next day, Mr. Bradlaugh was brought
before the magistrates, and, as there was not even a
pretence for the charge of assault trumped-up against him,
he was discharged. He then brought an action against
the superintendent of police for false imprisonment. The
tacts were notorious, and even the prejudiced jury
who tried the case could not refuse a verdict for Mr.
Bradlaugh; but they gave only a farthing of damages,
and so compelled him to pay his own costs. Upon that
ground Mr. Bradlaugh moved in the Court of Common
- ea® . a n®w
as the damages were ridiculously
insufficient. Lord Chief Justice Erie, in giving judgment,
Finsing a new trial, expressed the somewhat strange
Ï idea that it was a real blessing to a freethought lecturer
to deprive him of his liberty without excuse. Upon the
same ground a jury of farmers might think that a ducking
m a horse pond was a real benefit to the misguided secthe ^pourers’ Union. The Chief Justice
®ai^’ d.re.are opinions which are in law a crime. .
H the plaintiff wanted to use his liberty for the purpose
ot disseminating opinions which were in reality of that
pernicious description, and the defendant prevented him
from doing that which might be a very pernicious act to
those who heard him, it might be that thé jury thought
�of the Heresy Laws.
23
the act of imprisonment was in reality not an injury,
but, on the contrary, an act which, in its real substantial
result, was beneficial to the plaintiff, and so the nominal
wrong would be abundantly compensated by the small
sum given.”
This brief sketch of the Heresy Laws brings before us
one of the most melancholy aberrations of legislation.
These laws have caused prodigious suffering, but they
never conferred on the human race one iota of counter
vailing advantage. They represent a dead loss to the
credit side of human happiness, and the passions which
gave rise to them are an unmitigated and unredeemed
evil. Black is the guilt of those who have abused their
position as the guides and instructors of mankind to
pl a,nt in the infant mind the seeds of unfounded and
irrational hatred, and so have helped to pile up that great
mountain of persecution of man’s inhumanity to man,
which has made countless thousands mourn.
�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, Literatuie, and Art; especially in their bearing upon the
impiovement and social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARB DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
i o?YE^??YKOrrR lectures (in three series), ending 20th April,
lo/y, 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 Three
each lecture.
pence
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 Penny;—Sixpence;—and
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The past and present of the heresy laws : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society [.....]1st December, 1878
Creator
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Hunter, W.A.
Sunday Lecture Society
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Publisher's advertisements on back page. Includes Mr Lecky's views on the causes of persecution. Includes bibliographical references. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1878
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N318
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Heresy
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Heresy
Heresy-Great Britain-Law and Legislation
NSS
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
kJ 05^
THE
JOINT EDUCATION
OF
YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN
IN THE
AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
BEING A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
On 27th
of
April, 1873,
BY
MARY E. BEEDY, M.A.,
Graduate of Antioch College, U.S.
LONDON:PUBLISHED
by the
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1873.
Price Threepence.
�SUifoerttsentent.
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 improve
ment 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 3rd May,
1874, will be given.
Members’ LI 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), or for any
eight consecutive lectures, as below :
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s. being at the rate of Three
pence each lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer,
Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde
Park, W.
Payment at the door
One Penny
Sixpence ■—and
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
�JOINT EDUCATION
OF
YOUNG MEM AND WOMEN.
HE American colonists carried with them their
practical English tendencies.
They were
impressed with a deep sense of the advantages of
education, but it had to be got at the least expense.
In the towns and cities they could have schools
for boys and schools for girls, but in the sparselypopulated rural districts separate schools were
impossible. It was almost more than the farmp.rs
could do to pay the cost of one. All the boys and
girls within a radius of two or three miles met
together in the same school. They were companions
and rivals in their pastimes, and it probably did not
occur to any one to consider whether there could
be any danger in continuing this rivalry in their
lessons. In the rapid growth of the population
some of these rural centres gradually became vil
lages and towns, but the joint education of the
girls and boys went on.
Iwo leading principles in school economy are, to
secure the smallest number of classes, and the
greatest equality of attainment between the pupils
in each class; and these principles favour large
schools rather than numerous schools. Schools
affording a higher grade of instruction, and known
T
�4
"Joint Education of
as academies, sprang up here and there. These
were private enterprises, and the commercial aim
was to furnish the best educational advantages
for the largest number of pupils at the least ex
pense. The teacher wanted to make as much money
as he could, and the parents had in general but little
to spend for the education of their sons and daughters.
The same economical views made these joint schools :
fewer teachers were required. These academies,
with the district schools I have before mentioned,
met almost the entire educational demands of the
rural and village population. A few of the more
ambitious boys went from these academies to the
universities, and a few of the girls went to young
ladies’ boarding-schools; but these were exceptional
cases.
You probably know that we have no men of
wealth and leisure living in the country. The soil
is owned by the men who work it, and the rich
men live in the cities. And I suppose you also know
that in any generation of American men the large
majority of those who lead in commerce, in politics,
and in the professions are the sons of farmers^
who in their boyhood worked on the farms and'
went to these rural schools in the leisure season;
the wives of these men having had for the most
part the same rural training. You can readily
see from this that the peculiarities of our rural
life, the circumstances that gave these men and
women the energy to bring themselves to the front
Tank of society, were likely to mefit with approval.
However, joint education was simply looked upon
as one of the necessities of our youthful life till
about twenty years ago. Men who rose to positions
of wealth and honour upon the basis of the educa
�Young Men and Women.
5
tion received in these schools did not praise joint
education any more than they praised the other
natural and frugal habits that attended their rural
life. No one had philosophised upon this system,
and there was no occasion to think of it. It had
simply been the most natural means of meeting a
great need. In both the district schools and in the
academies the boys and girls did about the same
work. They liked. to keep together. Now and
then a boy went a little farther in mathematics
than the girls did, in the prospect of a business
career and a life in the city; or he learned more Latin
and Greek in preparation for the university. There
was no question about difference of capacity or
difference of tastes between boys and girls; there
was nothing to suggest it. They liked to do the
same things, and the one did as well as the other.
Forty years ago, in one of the academies near Bos
ton, a number of girls went with a set of their school
boy-friends through the entire preparation for Har
vard University. The girls knew mathematics and
Greek as well as the boys did, and formed a plan for
going to the university with them. I cannot say
whether the plan grew out of a keen zest forknow
ledge, or out of an unwillingness to break off the
very pleasant companionship. Probably from both.
The girls did not think there could be much objection
to admitting them at the university. They thought
the reason there were no girls at the universities
was that none had wanted to go, or had been pre
pared to go. They proposed to live at home; so there
would be no difficulty on the score of college resi
dence. However, as their request was new, it
occurred to them that a little diplomacy might be
required in presenting it; so they deputed the most
�6
J
’ oint Education of
prudent of the party to do the talking, and imposed
strict silenee upon the youngest and most impulsive
one, from whom I have the story. The girls called
upon old President Quincy ; they told him what they
had done in their studies,—that they had passed
the examinations with the boys, and wished to be
admitted to the university. He listened'to their
story, and evinced so much admiration for their
work and aims that they at first felt sure of success.
But President Quincy seemed slow in coming to the
point. He talked of the newness and difficulties of
the scheme, and proposed other opportunities of
study for them, till at length this youngest one,
forgetting in her impatience her promise to keep
silent, said, “Well, President Quincy, you feel sure
the trustees will let us come, don’t you ? ”
0, by
no means,” was the reply :“ this is a place only for
men.”' The girl of sixteen burst into tears, and
exclaimed with vehemence, “ I wish I could anni
hilate the women, and let the men have every
thing to themselves! ”
This, so far as I know, was the first effort made
by women to get into an American university, but
the incident was too trifling to make any impression,
and I narrate it only as marking the beginning of
the demand for university advantages for women.
About the same time Oberlin College was founded
in Northern Ohio. It grew out of a great practical
everyday-life demand. There was a wide-spread
desire on the part of well-to-do people for larger
educational advantages than the ordinary rural
schools provided. They could not afford the expense
of the city schools : besides, they wanted their sons
and daughters to go on together in their school work ;
they were unwilling to subject either to the dangers
�Young Men and Women.
7
of boarding-school life without the companionship
and guardianship of the other. Oberlin College was
founded on the strictest principles of economy. It
was located in a rural village in the West, where the
habits were simple and the living inexpensive. In
the third year of its existence it had 500 students,
and since the first ten years it has averaged nearly
1,200, the proportion of young women varying from
one-third to one-half. There was a university
course of study for the young men, and a shorter
ladies’ course for the young women, which omitted
all the Greek, most of the Latin, and the higher
mathematics. It was not anticipated that the
young women would desire the extended university
course, but so far as the two courses accorded the
instruction was given to the young men and the
young women in common. But the young women
were allowed to attend any of the classes they chose,
and at the end of six years a few of them had pre
pared themselves for the B.A. examination, and
were allowed upon passing it to receive the degree.
The college authorities did not seem to consider
that B.A. and M.A. were especially masculine
designations. They regarded them only as marks of
scholastic attainments, which belonged equally to
men and women when they had reached a certain
standard of scholarship. Not many Women could
stay, or cared to stay, long enough to get these
degrees. The “ ladies’ course ” required nearly two
years’ less-time, and contained a larger proportion of
the subjects that women are expected to know. The
number of women who have received the university
degrees from Oberlin is still less than a hundred,
making an average of only two or three for each
year. Oberlin sent out staunch men and women.
�"8
"Joint Education of
Wherever these men and women went it was ob
served that they worked with a will and with effect.
The eminent success of Oberlin led many parents
in different parts of the country to desire its advan
tages for their sons and daughters. But Oberlin was
a long way off from New England and from many
other parts of the country; besides some thought
it an uncomfortably religious place; negroes were
admitted, and it was altogether very democratic,
much more so than many people liked. So parents
began to say, 11 Why can’t we have other colleges
that shall provide all the advantages of Oberlin and
omit the peculiarities we dislike.” Now began the
discussion upon the real merits of this economical
system of joint education. It had sprung up like
an indigenous plant. It had met a necessity remark
ably . well, and it was only when, its advantages
becoming recognised, it began to press itself into
the cities and among people where it was not a ne
cessity, that it evoked any discussion. This was a
little more than twenty years ago. People who had
observed the working of the joint schools were alto
gether in favour of them. The wealthier people in
the towns and cities, who were accustomed to having
boys and girls educated apart, preferred separate
schools, and thought joint education would be a dan
gerous innovation ; that in the institution adopting
it the girls would lose their modesty and refinement,
and the boys would waste their time. Leading edu
cators were divided upon this question: „ those who
were familiar with the joint schools were the most
uncompromising advocates of that system; those
who had known only the schools where girls and
boys were educated apart for the most part preferred
separate education, where it could be afforded. Not
�Young Men and Women.
9
all, however, for many had developed the theory of
joint education out of an opposite experience. In
girls’ schools they had felt the want of adequate
stimulants for thorough work. They had seen the
strong tendency in girls to fit themselves for society
rather than for the severer duties of life ; they be
lieved that if girls were associated with boys and
young men in their studies, they would not only be
better scholars, but that they would remain longer
in school, that they would have less eagerness to
get out of school into society. And many who
were familiar with boys’ schools felt the dangers
attendant upon the absence of domestic influence,
and saw that it might be very largely supplied by
the presence of sisters and schoolfellows’ sisters.
They saw too that the tendencies to a coarse
physical development, which are found in an ex
clusive- society of men, might be counteracted by
the presence of women. In short, all who were
acquainted with joint education gave it their most
unqualified approval; while those who knew only
the system of separate education were for the most
part disposed to favour that, though many of these
saw the need of something in girls’ schools which the
presence of boys would introduce, and something in
boys’ schools which the presence of girls would sup
ply. The advocacy of joint education was valiantly
led by Horace Mann, the greatest American educator,
the man who stands with us where Dr Arnold
stands in the hearts of English people.
About this time Antioch College was founded in
Southern Ohio, and Mr Mann was invited to take
charge of it. Its object was to provide educational
facilities as nearly equal to those found at the best
New England universities as possible, and it
was
�io
Joint Education of
founded avowedly upon the principle that joint
education per se was a good thing; that it was
natural; that it was a great advantage to have
brothers and sisters in the same school; that girls
were both more scholarly and more womanly when
associated with boys, and boys were more gentle
manly and more moral when associated with girls ;
and that both girls and boys come out of joint
schools with juster views of life, and a larger sense
of moral obligation.
Other new colleges followed the example of
Antioch, and some of the old ones began to open their
doors to women. To-day the national free schools
and public schools in most of the cities of the North
educate boys and girls together. In some of the older
cities, particularly Boston, New York, and Phila
delphia, the schools are for the most part conducted
on the original plan of separate schools. The school
buildings are not arranged for the accommodation of
boys and girls together, and there is still a strong
sentiment against the plan, though it is gradually,
and I may say rapidly, giving way. In tire Western
cities, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St Louis, the boys
and girls study together throughout the entire
course, that is, till they are ready to go to the
universities ; though in St Louis, and perhaps in
the other two cities, there are a few of the grammar
schools where they are still apart, the buildings not
being arranged for the accommodation of both.
The system prevails in the rural schools almost
without exception, and almost as generally in the
public schools' of the towns and cities, with the
exceptions that I have mentioned ; there are now
over thirty colleges and universities that offer univer
sity degrees to women on the same conditions as
�Young Men and Women.
11
to men. On the other hand, there is still a large
number of private schools in the towns and cities
which are generally either boys’ schools or girls’
schools. They are for the most part schools esta
blished for teaching the children of some pai-ticular
religious denomination, for fitting boys for a com
mercial career, or for giving especial drill for the
universities; or, in the case of girls’ schools, for
giving especial training for society: but the public
schools are rapidly drawing into them the children
of the best educated families, for the simple reason
that they are the best schools of the country.
The oldest universities and colleges still keep
their doors shut against women. Harvard, within
the last year, has appointed a committee to consider
the demand made by women, but their report was
adverse. The committee recognised the success of
the system elsewhere, but thought it not wise to
attempt the change in Harvard.
Michigan University, a free state university,
which stands second to none in educational advan
tages, except Harvard and Yale, and has double the
number of students of either of these, admitted
women three years ago. And Cornell University,
which has as good prospects as any in the country,
has just received its first class of women.
I heard it announced with great gravity in the
British Association a year-and-a-half ago in Edin
burgh, that girls had no difficulty in learning arith
metic, and no one smiled. So completely is this
question settled with us, that I think such .an
announcement would have been received by a
public assembly in America with a derisive laugh.
Joint schools and colleges have settled the question
whether girls can learn not only arithmetic, but
�12
'Joint Education of
also the higher mathematics, logic, and metaphysics;
and have established beyond a doubt in the minds
of American educators, that in acute perception,
in the ability to grasp abstruse principles, the
feminine mind is in no wise inferior to the mascu
line. But the question is still open, whether
women have the physical strength to endure the
continuous mental work requisite for the greatest
breadth and completeness of comprehension. This
can be determined only by experiments which shall
extend through a longer series of years devoted to
study. The records at Oberlin indicate that the
young women are no more likely to break down in
health than the young men are. The records of
the city schools do not seem to be quite the same
upon this point, but the same difference would
doubtless appear if the girls were not in school; and
this failure in health cannot be attributed to the
school work, but rather to the more indoor life of the
girls. The Oberlin statistics also indicate that the
women who have taken the university degrees have
not diminished their chance of longevity by this
severe work in their youth. Women have less phy
sical strength than men have, but there seems to be
in them a tendency to a more economical expendi
ture of strength. Their energy is less driving, and
there is, in consequence, less waste from friction.
In regard to the social morality at these schools
the results are equally satisfactory. At the rural
schools boys and girls. have almost unrestricted
companionship; they have just the same freedom
in their home intercourse, but improper or even
objectionable conduct is a'thing unknown at the
schools, and almost equally unknown in the associa
tion outside the schools. Brothers and brothers’
�Young Men and Women.
13
friends guard the sister, and sisters and their friends
o-uard the brother. In cases where it is necessary
for the pupils to reside at the school there is more
love-making, but it is mostly repressed by want of
time; besides, there are few occasions for meeting,
except in the presence of the class, and where there
is an acquaintance with so many on about equal
terms an especial regard for one is less likely to be
formed. The admiration of the boys is suie to
centre upon the girls who are nearest the head
of the class; but these girls have not time to return
it and keep their position, and to lose their position
would be to lose the admiration; and the same is
true with the boys.
I am sure it would be surprising to any one who
is not familiar with these schools to observe to what
very practical and common-sense principles all these
otherwise romantic and illusory relations are sub
jected. In this mutual intellectual rivalship the
conjectural differences between the sexes, and the
fancied charms of the one over the other, are sub
mitted to very practical tests. A disagreeable boy
is not likely to be considered a hero in virtue of his
assumed bearing and physical strength; nor is a
silly girl, by* dint of her coquettish airs likely to
be thought a fairy with magical gifts. Girls know
boys as boys know each other; and boys know girls
as girls know each other. Hence the subtle charms
that evade human logic find little opportunity to
blind and mislead in the constant presence of unmistakeable facts.
In all the time I was at Antioch College no word
of disreputable scandal ever came to my ears, and
in recent years I have repeatedly heard from young
men who were there when I was, that in their whole
�14
Joint Education of
five or six years they never heard the faintest shadow
of imputation against any young woman in the
institution. And so stern was the morality, that
smoking, beer-drinking, and card-playing were
all considered crimes,, and banished from the
premises.
You have now heard my statement respecting the
effectiveness of joint education, and, though it is
made from a very extended and thorough acquaint
ance with the system, I shall not ask you to accept
it without the support of other and authoritative
testimony. Abundant confirmation of my state
ment will be found in all Official Reports and in
treatises that review this system, while no testi
mony of a contrary character is anywhere to be
found. I will first quote from the published
. Report of Mr Harris, Superintendent of the Public
Schools in St Louis. He is well known to the
leading students of German philosophy in all the
countries of Europe, and I think I may say in
his own country is recognised as standing in the
front rank of American educators. No other man
has brought so much philosophical insight to the
study of dur public school system. I quote from
Mr Harris’s Report of 1871 a condensed summary
of the results- of this system of joint education as
they have developed themselves under his observa
tion and direction. He says :—
- “ Within the last fifteen years the schools of St Louis have
been remodelled upon the plan of the joint education of the
sexes, and the results have proved so admirable that a few
remarks may be ventured on the experience which they
furnish.
. “ I-—Economy has been secured, for, unless pupils of widely
different attainments are brought together in the same classes,
�Young Men and Women.
15
the separation of the boys and girls requires a great increase
in the number of teachers.
“II.—Discipline has improved continually by the adoption
of joint schools ; our change in St Louis has been so gradual
that we have been able to weigh with great exactness every
point of comparison between the two systems. The joining
of the male and female departments of a school has always
been followed by an improvement in discipline ; not merely
on the part of the boys, but with the girls as well. The rude
ness and abandon which prevails among boys when separate
at once gives place to self-restraint in the presence of girls,
and the sentimentality engendered in girls when educated
apart from boys disappears in these joint schools, and in its
place there comes a dignified self-possession. The few schools
that have given examples of efforts to secure clandestine asso
ciation are those few where there are as yet only girls.
“ HI.—The quality of instruction is improved. Where the
boys and girls are separate, methods of instruction tend to
extremes, that may be called masculine and feminine. Each
needs the other as a counter-check. We find in these joint
schools a prevalent healthy tone which our schools on the
separate system lack—more rapid progress is the conse
quence.
“ IV.—The development of individual character is, as
already indicated, far more sound and healthy. . It has been
found that schools composed exclusively of girls or boys
require a much more strict surveillance on the part of the
teachers. Confined by themselves and shut off from inter
course with society in its normal form, morbid fancies and
interests are developed which this daily association in the
class-room prevents. Here boys and girls test themselves
with each other on an intellectual plane. Each sees the
strength and weakness of the other, and learns to esteem
those qualities that are of true value. Sudden likes, capri
cious fancies, and romantic ideas give way to sober judgments
not easily deceived by mere externals. This is the basis of
the dignified self-possession before alluded to, and it forms a
striking point of contrast between the girls and boys edu
cated in joint schools and those educated in schools exclu
sively for one sex. Our experience in St Louis has been
entirely in favour of the joint education of the sexes, in all
the respects mentioned and in many minor ones.”
�16
Joint Education of
I give Mr Harris’s statement as representative of
the sentiment of those who are engaged in public
school instruction in America. As I said before, in
some of the older cities, where the public schools
were earliest organised, the joint system has been
accepted as yet only partially, and the teachers, who
are only familiar with the separate system, gene
rally prefer it. But a very large proportion of
the public schools of the country are joint schools,
and a still larger proportion of the instructors and
managers of public schools favour the system of
joint education. Mr Harris’s testimony applies to
city schools, when the pupils reside at home.
I now quote to you from another authority, addi
tionally valuable inasmuch as it represents the
results of this system of education upon young men
and women who reside at the school and away from
the guardianship of parents.
In 1868 a meeting was called of all the College
Presidents of the country, to discuss questions
relating to college discipline and instruction. As
Oberlin was the oldest college that had adopted
the system of joint instruction, a strong desire
was felt to secure a critical and comprehensive
statement of the results of the system there. Dr
Fairchild, the present President of Oberlin, was
deputed to make the Report. He had at that
time been connected with Oberlin seven years
as a student and twenty-five years as professor,
and has long had the reputation of being the most
accomplished scholar and acute thinkei' among the
Oberlin professors. His statements may therefore
be accepted as absolute in point of fact, and as
wholly representative of the opinion of those who
have conducted the instruction and discipline at
�Young Men and Women.
!7
Oberlin. But my chief reason for selecting this out
of the accumulated published testimony is that it
.seems to me the best digest of the subject that I
have seen.
Dr Fairchild says :—
“ 1st.—On the point of economy In the higher depart
ments of instruction, where the chief expense is involved,
the. expense is no greater on account of the presence of the
ladies.
“ 2nd.—Convenience to the patrons of the school:—It is a
matter of interest to notice the number of cases where a
brother is followed by a sister, or a sister by a brother. This
is an interesting and prominent feature in our work. Each is
safer in the presence of the other.
“3rd.—The wholesome incitements to study, which the
system affords :—The social influence arising from the consti
tution of our classes operates continuously and upon all.
Each desires for himself the best standing he is capable of,
and there is no lack of motive to exertion. It will be observed,
too, that the stimulus is of the same kind as will operate in
after life. The young man going out into the world does
not leave behind him the forces that have helped him on.
They are the ordinary forces of society.
“ 4th.-—The tendency to good order that we find in the
system :—The ease with which the discipline of so large a
school is conducted has not ceased to be a matter of wonder
to ourselves. More than one thousand students are gathered
from every State in the Union, from every class in society, of
every grade of culture, the great mass of them bent on im
provement, but numbers are sent by anxious friends with the
hope that they may be saved or reclaimed from every evil
tendency. Yet the disorders incident to such gatherings are
essentially unknown among us. Our streets are as quiet
by day and by night as in any other country town. This
result we attribute greatly to the wholesome influence of the
system of joint education. College tricks lose their attrac
tiveness in a community thus constituted. They scarcely
appear among us. We have had no difficulty in reference to
the conduct and manners in the college dining-hall. There is
an entire absence of the irregularities and roughness so often
complained of in the college commons.
“ 5th.—Another manifest advantage is the relation of the
B
�18
Joint Education of
school to the community. A cordial feeling of goodwill and
the absence of that antagonism between town and college
which in general belongs to the history of universities and
colleges. The constitution of the school is so similar to that
of the community that any conflict is unnatural; the usual
provocation seems to be wanting,
“ 6th.—It can hardly be doubted that people educated
under such conditions are kept in harmony with society at
large, and are prepared to appreciate the responsibilities of
life, and to enter upon its work. If we are not utterly de
ceived in our position, our students naturally and readily find
their position in the world, because they have been trained in
sympathy with the world. These are among the advantages
of the system that have forced themselves upon our attention.
The list might be extended and expanded, but you will wish
especially to know whether'we have not encountered disad
vantages and difficulties which more than counterbalance
these advantages.
“ As to the question whether young ladies have the mental
vigour and physical health to maintain a fair standing in a
class with voung men, I must say, where there has been the
same preparatory training, we find no difference in ability to
maintain themselves in the class-room and at the examina
tions. The strong and the weak scholars are equally distri
buted between the sexes.
“ Whether ladies need a course of study especially adapted
to their nature and prospective work ?—The theory of our
school has never been that men and women are alike in
mental constitution, or that they naturally and properly
occupy the same position in their work of life. The educa
tion furnished is general, not professional, designed to fit men
and women for any position or work to which they may pro
perly be called. The womanly nature will appropriate the
material to its own necessities under its own laws.' Young
men and women sit at the same table and parta.ke of the
same food, and we have no apprehension that the vital forces
will fail to elaborate from the common material the osseous,
fibrous, and nervous tissues adapted to each frame and
constitution.
.
<£ Apprehension is felt that character will deteriorate on
the one side or the other,—that young men will become
frivolous or effeminate, and young women coarse and mas
culine.
�Toung Men and Women.
T9
“ That young men should lose their manly attributes and
character from proper association with, cultivated young
women is antecedently improbable and false in fact. It is
the natural atmosphere for the development of the higher
qualities of manhood—magnanimity, generosity, true chivalry,
and earnestness. The animal man is kept subordinate in the
prevalence of these higher qualities.
“We have found it the surest way to make men of boys
and gentlemen of rowdies.
“ On the other hand, will not the young woman, pursuing
her studies with young men, take on their manners, and
aspirations, and aims, and be turned aside from the true ideal
of womanly life and character ? The thing is scarcely con
ceivable. The natural response of woman to the exhibition
of manly traits is in the correlative qualities of gentleness,
delicacy, and grace.
“ It might better be questioned whether, the finer shadings
of woman’s character can be developed without this natural
stimulus ; but it is my duty not to reason, but to speak from
the limited historical view assigned me.
“You wish to know whether the result with us has been a
large accession to the number of coarse, strong-minded women,
in the disagreeable sense of the word; and I say, without
hesitation, that I do not know a single instance of such a
product as the result of our system of education.
“ Is there not danger that young men and young women
thus brought together in the critical period of fife, when the
distinctive social tendencies act with greatest intensity, will
fail of the necessary regulative force, and fall into undesirable
and unprofitable relations ? Will not such association result
in weak and foolish love affairs ? It is not strange that such
apprehension is felt, nor would it be easy to give an a priori
answer to such difficulties ; but if we may judge from our
experience, the difficulties are without foundation. The
danger in this direction results from excited imagination,
from the glowing exaggerations of youthful fancy, and the
best remedy is to displace these fancies by every-day facts
and realities.
“Theyoung man shut out from the society of ladies, with
the help of the high-wrought representations of life which
poets and novelists afford, with only a distant vision of the
reality, is the one who is in danger. The women whom he
sees are glorified by his fancy, and are wrought into his day
�io
Joint Education of
dreams and night dreams as beings of supernatural loveliness.
It would be different if he met them day by day in the class
room, in a common encounter with a mathematical problem,
or at a table sharing in the common want of bread and butter.
There is still room for the fancy to work, but the materials
for the picture are more reliable and enduring. Such associa
tion does not take all the romance out of life, but it gives as
favourable conditions for sensible views and actions upon
these delicate questions as can be afforded to human nature.
“ But is this method adapted to schools in general, or is the
success attained at Oberlin due to peculiar features of the
place, which can rarely be found or reproduced elsewhere,
and can it be introduced into men’s colleges with their tradi
tional customs and habits of action and thought ? Might not
the changes required occasion difficulty at the outset and
peril the experiment ? On this point I have no experience,
but I have such confidence in the inherent vitality and
adaptability of the system that I should be entirely willing to
see it subjected to this test.”
I am sorry not to give you a more lengthened
account of Dr Fairchild’s Report, but the time warns
me to hasten.
Respecting economy, school discipline, social
order, and the improved character of both young
men and young women, and the high scholar
ship attained by young women, you see that Dr
Fairchild’s statement fully corroborates my own
and that of Mr Harris. He agrees with us that
the grade of scholarship of the young men is in no
wise lowered by this joint work, but, on the con
trary, that the average is higher.
To be definite upon this point, my own opinion
is that those marvellous feats of scholarship that
sometimes occur in boys’ schools are not so likely to
occur in a joint school, where a little more of the
domestic and social element is found. On the other
hand, from a long and close observation, I feel fully
justified in saying the average scholarship is higher.
�Young Men and 'Women.
21
There is a more general stimulus for good scholar
ship. The standard of respectability is somewhat
different from what it is in a school exclusively for
boys. A boy may secure the respect of his boy
associates by being an adept on the playground or
generally a good fellow, but as he is known to the
girls only through his class work, he feels more
especially bound to make this creditable.
I should like to accumulate authority upon these
points, but I must ask you to accept my statement
that the opinions I have' given you are those held
by the very large majority of the educators of the
country.
In this system of joint education you see that
the difficulty of getting funds to establish schools
scarcely appears as an obstacle to the higher edu
cation of women. It requires so little more to edu
cate girls along with boys than it does to educate
boys alone, and lack of the masculine incentive to
study is largely supplied to the girls by class
rivalry. The girls like to remain at school, and
they like to do as much work and as good work as
the boys do; and the boys are equally eager to keep
the companionship of the girls, and to keep up the
competition in all the departments of the work.
There is a mutual rivalry which both enjoy, and
the girls work with zest, without thinking whether
there is to be any reward beyond the simple enjoy
ment of their work, without considering whether it
will ever bring them any farther returns.
The work of the girls in the joint schools has
done much to force up the standard in the exclu
sively girls’ schools. These schools could not afford
the disparaging comparison. So the teachers intro
duce the same studies as are found in the joint
�22
Joint Education of
schools, and do the best they can to get as good
work from their girls. But in most of the girls’
schools I have ever visited, the work will not com
pare with the work of girls in the joint schools.
When Dr Fairchild says he does not know a '
single instance in which a coarse, strong-minded
woman, in the disagreeable sense, has been the pro
duct of the Oberlin system of education, it must not
be understood that there have been no women of that
type at Oberlin, for there have been, and Oberlin
lias done much to soften them and refine them,
but it could not wholly change their natures and
previously-acquired habits. Upon this point there
is a pernicious popular delusion, and I am at a loss
to account for its origin. It is not association with
men that developes this type of character. The
reverse of this is the case, as Dr Fairchild has
indicated. It is true that many highly-intellectual
and highly-educated women have been peculiar,
have developed peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of
character or habit which lessened their companion
able and womanly attractiveness, but these women
have generally worked by themselves, away from
society, apart from the companionship of men.
Joint schools are the most complete corrective of
these tendencies. Whatever elevates women in the
eyes of men they are disposed to cultivate in the
presence of men, and whatever elevates men in the
eyes of women they cultivate in the presence of
women. There is little danger of careless toilet
with young women who are constantly meeting
young men; little danger of angular movement, of
unamiable sharpness, of egotism, and pronounced
self-assertion.
The disagreeable women, the women contemp-
�Toung Men and Women.
23
tuously called strong-minded, are women who have
not known a genial social atmosphere. Crotchety
men and crotchety women are the product of isola
tion from society, and formerly women could not
mount the heights of knowledge except in isolation.
The attractive women, the women who seem to have
a genius for womanliness, are the women who have
been much in the society of men,—women at court,
women in political and diplomatic circles, women
who are familiar with the thought and’ experience
of men, women who talk with men and work with
men.
Social intercourse at these joint schools is not of
course left to chance. Girls and boys need and get
as careful attention at school as in their homes.
Usually they enter and leave the school building
by different doors, and indeed meet only when they
are receiving instruction from the teachers, where
they occupy separate forms on different sides of the
room. Among the older pupils, at all times, except
at the lecture hours, the girls usually have their own
rooms and the boys theirs,'and no communication
between them is possible, except as the teachers
choose to grant permission, which is not asked with
out explaining the occasion. The boys do not
appear to care very much to talk to the girls, at
least they would not be willing to have it seen that
they did. At the boarding-schools the young men
and young women usually have their private apart
ments in different buildings, but meet in a common
dining-hall in the building occupied by the young
■ women. Here they arrange themselves as they
like, the size of the company and the presence of
teachers being quite sufficient to exclude objection
able manners. At the times allowed for recreation
�24
.•
Joint Education of
the arrangements are such as to preclude for the
most part opportunities for young men and young
women to meet, though there are very frequent
receptions at .the homes of the professors or at the
general parlours, when they meet as they would at
any ordinary social party. At a few of the smaller
boarding-schools much more freedom, of intercourse
has been allowed, and with very admirable results ;
but this requires great wisdom and care on the part
of the teachers, more than they are generally able
to give in a large school. Where the pupils live at
home no very especial care is required on the part
of the teachers, further than would under any
circumstances be necessary to secure general good
order.
This system of education developes self-reliance
and a sense of responsibility, to such a degree that,
as I quoted from Dr Fairchild, it is a constant sur
prise to see how little direction they need. A good
many times while I was at Antioch College, young
men who had got into disgrace, or had been dis
missed from young men’s colleges, were sent there
to be reclaimed from their bad habits, and it is
surprising what effect this home-like association
had upon them.
I have already mentioned Michigan University
as the best institution that has as yet opened its
doors to women. This was done three years ago.
For ten years the question had been pending before
the trustees. A letter was addressed to Horace
Mann, asking for minute information concerning
the working of Antioch, and seeking counsel in
reference to the advisability of attempting the
tame plan at the Michigan University. Mr Mann
replied, that though he was an ardent advocate
�Toung Men and Women. '
25
of joint education and was satisfied with the
results achieved at Antioch, he should be afraid
to attempt the plan in a large town, where college
residence was not required. This ‘letter settled
the matter for the time. The trustees said:—
“ We cannot, endanger the morality of our students,
and the reputation of our institution, to accommo
date the few women who wish to come. We give
them our sympathy, but can at present do nothing
more.” But every now and then, with the change
of trustees, the question was revived. The men of
this new rich State felt ashamed to do so much less
for their daughters than for their sons, and they
were particularly sensitive to the argument that the
privileges of the institution could be extended to
the young women with almost no increase in the
expenses. Three years ago the opposition found
itself in the minority, and a resolution was passed
admitting women to all the classes of the university.
The dangers Horace Mann feared have not, and
in all probability will not come. Even the young
men, who in anticipation dreaded an invasion of
women into their realm of free-and-easy habits,
now unite in the most cordial approval of the plan.
They find a genial element added to their college
life in place of a chafing restraint.
The first year only one woman came into the
Arts-classes. This bold venturer was the daughter
of a deceased professor, by whom she had been
trained up to a point a good deal in advance of the
requisites for entrance. This enabled her to step at
once into the front rank of the class of two hundred
young men, who had been in the university a year
before her. No sooner was she there than the
dread and anticipated restraint on the part of the
�26
*
'Joint Education of
young men were forgotten, and the most chivalric
feeling sprang up in its place.
For a whole year Miss Stockwell was alone in
the Arts-classes among seven or eight hundred young
men, yet nothing ever occurred to make her feel in
the slightest degree uncomfortable. She took her
B.A. degree last summer as the first Greek scholar
in the university. There are now a hundred young
women or more in the various departments of
the university. The Professor of Civil Engineer
ing has been in the habit of giving to his class
every year a particular mathematical problem,
a sort of pons asinorum, as a test of their
ability. Not once during fifteen years had any
member of the class solved it, though the professor
states that during that time he has propounded it
to fifteen hundred young men. Last year, as usual,
the old problem was again presented to the class.
A Miss White alone, of all the class, brought in the
solution. The best student in the Law school last
year was a woman.
I could tell you many other stories of the suc
cesses of women in these joint schools, but it would
not be safe to conclude from these accounts that the
young women in America are superior to the young
men ; for, as you would naturally suppose, the few
women who at present avail themselves of university
training, in opposition to the popular notion of what
is wise and becoming, are for the most part above
the average of the women of the country. I think
I may say, however, that girls are a little more
likely to lead the classes in the schools than boys
are. They are, perhaps, a little more conscientious
in doing the work assigned them, and have a little
more school ambition.
�Toung Men and Women.
27
I quote the following from the Annual Report of
the Michigan University for the year ending 1872 :—
■ “ In the Medical Department the women receive instruc
tion by themselves. In the other departments all instruction
is given to both sexes in common.
“ It is manifestly not wise to leap to hasty generalisations
from our short experience in furnishing education to both
sexes in our university. But I think all w’ho have been
familiar with the inner life of the university for the past
three years will admit that, thus far, no reason for doubting
the wisdom of the action of the trustees in opening the uni
versity to women has appeared.
“Hardly one of the many embarrassments which some
have feared have confronted us. The young women have
addressed themselves to their work with great zeal, and have
shown themselves quite capable of meeting the demands of
severe studies as successfully as their classmates of the other
sex. Their work, so far, does not evince less variety of apti
tude or less power of grappling even with the higher mathe
matics than we find in the young men. They receive no
favour, and desire none. They are subjected to precisely the
same tests as the men. Nor does their work seem to put a
dangerous strain upon their physical powers. Their absences
by reason of illness do not proportionably exceed those of the
men. Their presence has not called for the enactment of a
single new law, nor for the slightest change in our methods of
government or grade of work.
“If we are asked still to regard the reception of women
into our classes as an experiment, it must certainly be deemed
a most hopeful experiment. The numerous inquiries that
have been sent to us from various parts of this country, and
even from England, concerning the results of their admission
to the university, show that a profound and wide-spread
interest in the subject has been awakened.”
I can say for myself, that I have never known
any one who has spent a few days at one of these
colleges who has not become a convert to the
scheme.
There is in America a strong and constantly
growing conviction, that the best plan for educating
.
�28
"Joint Education of
both boys and girls is for them to reside at home
and attend day schools; that this avoids the defects
attendant upon the system of governesses and
tutors, and also the dangers that are inherent in
the congregated life of boarding-schools; and as
American families seldom leave home for, at most,
more than a few weeks in midsummer, this plan is
easily carried out. In accordance with this con
viction, the citizens of Boston have recently erected
and endowed a large university in the centre of
their city, although the time-honoured Harvard
stands scarcely two miles beyond their precincts.
The Boston University, which starts with larger
available funds than those of Harvard, will be
opened this autumn, and as a second step in the
direction of the popular educational sentiment, the
trustees have decided to offer its advantages and
honours to young women on the same conditions as
to young men.
There is evidently a disposition in America to
open all lines of study to women, and a few women
have entered each of the three learned professions,
but the time is too short and the number too small
for us to be able as yet to generalise upon the fitness
of women for professions, or their inclination to
choose them.
Most of our women—I think I may almost say
all of our women—expect to marry, and most of
them do marry. We have not that redundancy of
women to trouble and puzzle the advocates of
domesticity that you have here; and as fortunes are
more easily made, men are not timid in incurring
domestic responsibilities. As a consequence of this,
the industrial occupations that women seek, other
than domestic, are expected to be only temporary,
�Young Men and Women.
ig
and are such as may be entered upon without
much especial professional training, and may be
given up without involving much sacrifice of pre
vious study or discipline. I think I may say there
is a very general disposition to seek those that will
especially contribute to their fitness for domestic
life.
This brings me to a peculiar feature of American
education—the prevalence of women teachers. In
the public schools of St Louis there are forty men
teachers and over four hundred women teachers;
only about one-twelfth of the whole number are
men, and this I think would be about the general
average for the cities of the north. The primary
schools are taught exclusively by women—most of
the grammar schools have only a man at the head of
them, and in the high schools there is about an
equal number of men and women.
In two of the most successful grammar schools in
St Louis there are only women teachers. Recent
experiments in placing women at the head of several
of the grammar schools in Cleveland, Ohio, give
still stronger confirmation of the marked governing
power of women as contrasted with men.
Women teachers have been employed in the
schools in preference to men as a matter of economy,
but underneath this cloak of economy an unex
pected virtue has been found. It is now pretty
well settled that with equal experience and scholarly
attainments women teach better than men do, and
that they manage the pupils with more tact; that
is, they succeed in getting from the pupils what
they want, with more ease and less disturbance of
temper.
Where women do precisely the, same work as
�jo
Joint Education of
men in teaching, they get less pay. Wages have
followed the law of supply and demand. The guar
dians of the public school treasures have generally
not felt at liberty to offer more than the regular
market prices for work. But I am glad to say the
more enlightened public feeling is beginning to make
a change in this respect. A few women are paid
men’s wages—are paid what they ought to have,
rather than what they could command in an open
market.
Teaching in America, as I have indicated, is for
the most part a temporary occupation ; it is chiefly
done by young people between the ages of eighteen
and thirty who have no intention of making it a
profession. The women marry and the men enter
other occupations. How much the schools lose by
the immaturity and inexperience of the teachers it
is difficult to estimate accurately; but that they
gain much by the freshness and enthusiasm of these
young minds is unquestionable. Young teachers
get into closer sympathy with pupils, and can more
readily understand the movements of their minds
and apprehend their difficulties.
The plan of teaching for a few years is very
popular among young people, from the general
belief that it furnishes the best possible discipline
for a successful life. This experience in teaching is
considered valuable for young men, but still more
valuable for young women, and many young women
who have no need to earn money teach for a few
years .after leaving school, sometimes from their
own choice, but much oftener from the choice of
their parents, who wish to supplement the daughter’s
education with the more varied discipline that
teaching affords.
�Toung Men and Women.
31
Thus the teaching of women is encouraged from
four considerations :—
First. According to the present arrangement of
wages it is economical.
Second. Women seem to have an especial natural
aptitude for the work as compared with men.
Third. The general welfare of society demands
that wage-giving industries shall be provided for
women.
Fourth. Of all the employments offered to women,
teaching seems the best suited to fit them for
domestic life, the life that lies before the most of
them, and so positive are its claims in this direction
that it is being sought as an employment with that
single end in view.
A few years of teaching forms so prominent a
feature in the education of leading American
women, that I could not omit it in any general
consideration of this subject.
Note.—The Times of' January 3rd, 1874, gives the following
extracts from “Circulars of Information,” just published by the
United States Bureau of Education:—The total number of
degrees conferred in 1873 by the Higher Colleges was 4,493, and
376 honorary. One hundred and ninety-one ladies received
degrees. Illinois has thirteen Colleges, in which women have
the same or equal facilities with men ; Wisconsin has four, Iowa
three, Missouri four, Ohio ten, and Indiana nine; New York has
seven, and Pennsylvania, seven.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
��
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The joint education of young men and women in the American schools and colleges : being a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on 27th of April, 1873
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Beedy, Mary E.
Sunday Lecture Society
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Advertisement for Sunday Lecture Society on p.[2], delivered at St George's Hall, Langham Place. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Haymarket, London. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Education
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Coeducation-United States
Education
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■f*.
CHRISTIANITY.
I.
THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY FROM A STRICTLY
HISTORICAL POINT OF VIEW,
BEING
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
SUNDAY, 21st NOVEMBER, 1880,
Dr. G. G. ZERFFI, F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1881.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�How to obtain a clear and intelligible notion of the Origin of
Christianity.
The component elements of Christianity.
Some questions to be answered by Historians of other creeds.
Universalism pervading Christianity
The Finite and the Infinite in the East and West.
The Jews and their Sects. The Pharisees, Zaducees, Essenes,
Ebionites, Therapeutics and Samaritans, Hebraism and Hel
lenism.
Description of the Social Condition of Humanity at the birth
of Jesus of Nazareth.
Universal Love the Essence of Christianity. An Arab Legend.
Christ’s conception of the Deity.
Reason, Science, and Truth.
The Historical Causes of the Spread of Christianity.
Buddha and Christ.
Difference between Christianity and Buddhism.
Early Christian Sects.—Dogmatists, Sophists, Talmudists,
Apologists, Fathers, Scholastics, Theologians. General History.
Justin Martyr.
Conclusion. The Second Lecture to treat of the Fathers
“ majorum gentium” and “minorum gentium.”
�CHRISTIANITY
I.
The Origin of Christianity from, a strictly Historical Point
of View.
ISTORIANS may be divided into three distinct
classes—
(1.) The Obstructives,
(2.) The Destructives, and
(3.) The Constructives.
Until recently almost all theological historians were,
by their very nature, Obstructives—that is, they were
compelled to abide by facts as transmitted to them by
tradition, or in sacred records, and were therefore neces
sarily stationary. To inquire was in itself a dangerous
action—undermining the very foundations of faith. To
this class of historians belong the Brahmans, Bonzes,
Rabbis, Priests of the Romish Church, Ulemas, Clergy
men of the Anglican Church, or other Protestant sects,
and their disciples, educated in the same stationary way,
forced to regard certain assertions concerning events, or
certain calculations concerning the time in which these
events happened as facts—though they may have been
anything but facts. We may best classify these writers
as Orientalists. The past, in the received form of some
Sacred Book, was everything with them. The very word
History signified to them a sacrilegious attempt to un
settle the assumed truth of their particular facts,—which
alone could be true; whilst they asserted with admirable
self-reliance and conceit that the records of all other
nations were nothing but falsehoods.
Next we have the Destructives, in whom doubt and
scepticism work supreme; who do not see how one and
the same fact could have happened in two different ways;
why one witness should be credited more than another;
or how two witnesses could have seen one and the same
fact happening in different places, under entirely different
circumstances, and with altogether different results.
H
�4
Christianity.
The Destructives began timidly to pull down, they shook
the foundation of credulity, they suddenly saw the whole
past tumble into ruins. Horrified at the havoc which
they had brought about, they stopped half-way, and the
past became nothing but a heap of dust, lumber, and
fact-rubbish. We may best classify these people as
Galileans. They are a necessary element in the progres
sive development of Humanity, for unless the old tottering
building of assumed facts, cemented together with dog
matic lime and sand were first destroyed, no new building
could be erected.
And last we have the Gonstructives—those who re-arrange
facts on the principles of probability and possibility; who
consult the ancient documents of different nations, not
with a mind filled with hatred and contempt for everything
not contained in their own sacred records, which they
were made to choose by mere chance of birth, education,
and established custom, but with an equal veneration for
those periods in which each tribe, race, and nation, had
their own sacred book—sacred because transmitted to them
from father to son; and what is more sacred to a son
than that which a kind and loving father has left him ?
That the ancient nations throughout the world, in the
fulness of their grateful hearts, should have assumed that
the first father who spoke to them was God Himself,
proves only the Sameness and Oneness of Humanity, arti
ficially divided into innumerable quarrelling sects, tribes,
and peoples. The Constructives, therefore, compare,
draw analogies, separate the separables, dissect myths,
explain symbols, connect equals, inquire, sift, and finally
build up their historical edifice on the firm basis of cau
sation with facts that are facts, and cement them with
common sense—discarding all arbitrariness, all exceptional
providential interference in favour of Brahmans, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Bomans,
Scotch or Irish—anxious to discover what we have in
common as human beings—never fostering dissent, ani
mosity, contempt or hatred, but sympathy, forbearance,
kindness, and love. We may best classify the Construc
tive Historians as the Hellenic-Teuton element in Hu
manity.
The spirit of these three groups of historians may be
�Christianity.
5
studied in. three works recently published on the “ Life
of Jesus,” by an anonymous English Professor of one of
our Universities, by Renan, the Frenchman, and by Dr.
Strauss, the German.
The Englishman is obstructive, the Frenchman destruc
tive, and the German constructive.
Dr. Strauss is learned, conscientious, and systematic.
He is full of veneration, and yet unflinchingly truthful
without predilection, bias, or prejudice, and gives us the
true history of the foundation of Christianity. His
great merit lies in his having drawn a distinction between
the historical and mythical Jesus of Nazareth. Histori
cally he describes the birth of Jesus, His relation to John
the Baptist, the laws of Moses, the Gentiles, and the
belief in His being the expected Messiah. The mythical
account is divided into three chapters and twelve sub
divisions concerning the pre-historic myths of Jesus, the
mythical account of the life of Jesus, and the mythical
record of His suffering, death, and resurrection. Dr.
Strauss wrote his work with the view of furthering
Protestantism on the firm basis of historical continuity,
and eliminating from the glorious teachings of Jesus of
Nazareth whatever was merely accidental, secondary,
symbolic, and allegorical, borrowed from more ancient
creeds, which at the time of Christ were in a state of
spontaneous and natural dissolution. For whoever
wishes to have a clear and unbiassed notion of the his
torical Christ, must free Him and His doctrine from the
obscuring veil of dogmatism.
The Frenchman, Renan, is learned, but his learning is
too much tainted with emotional outbursts of refined
phrases; his imagination outruns his criticism, and his
criticism loses itself in romantic dreams and visions. He
is far more bent on destroying an idol of the Romish
Church, than on discovering to what extent it had become
in time an entity, to dissolve which will need more than
the superficial pen-strokes of a witty Frenchman.
The English professor is grave—very grave. He pub
lished his work under the title of “ Ecce Homo,” but he
has neither the learning nor the courage of Dr. Strauss,
nor the sprightliness and imagination of Renan. He has,
however, his inherited predilections, which are apparently
�6
Christianity.
shaken by his studies and the intellectual atmosphere of
the nineteenth century. He has heard of Strauss with
conventional horror; he has heard of Renan with in
herited contempt, and he wishes to free his soul from all
doubts by arguing himself out of doubt; and yet, of the
three books, this one, written with apparent obstructive
faith, is the most destructive. It must necessarily lead to
a despairing scepticism, because the positive assertions are
made so timidly, that one sees the trembling writer afraid
to touch his subject, lest his dogmatic Christ might crumble
into dust under his own hands, and turn into a true
“ Ecce Homo,”—“ Behold a Man! ”
To be able to give a clear and intelligible picture of the
origin and spread of Christianity from a strictly historical
point of view, we must make ourselves acquainted with
the moral, political, religious, and intellectual elements
that pervaded Humanity at the advent of Christ. To
detach Christianity from the influences of the different
creeds that preceded its foundation, is to know nothing of
Christianity. The essence of the teachings of all law
givers and founders of religious systems was the redemp
tion of man from the bondage of his animal nature, and
the development and culture of his higher intellectual and
spiritual nature. ' To separate Christianity from the
causes of which its origin and working were a necessary
effect or sequence, is to transport it into the realm of
miracles. But in assuming Christianity to have been a
miracle, we raise terrible phantoms of doubt, or rather
of piety and veneration for the Biety, in the shape of
grave questions which necessarily present themselves to
the thinking mind:
Why was the advent of this miracle so long delayed ?
Why were millions and millions of creatures left with
out salvation, and, as some pious divines will have it,
predestined to eternal damnation ?
Why should the sanguinary miracle of a self-sacrificing
God have had so partial and slow an effect 1
■ Why was the miracle not made universally known ?
Why had Christianity to be established in torrents
of blood, amidst the horrible shrieks of tortured and
martyred human sacrifices ?
Why was the efficacy of the miracle quite imperceptible,
�Christianity.
7
save in such progress as was natural to any creed, sup
ported by fire and sword, by money, and state authority ?
Why should the early Christian authorities have deli
berately destroyed all writings bearing on the origin,
growth, and development of Christianity, if it was a
miracle ordained by God ?
Why should the Emperor Theodosius have felt him
self compelled to issue the following proclamation?:—
“We decree, therefore, that all writings whatever
which Porphyry, or any one else, has written against the
Christian religion, in the possession of whomsoever they
shall be found, should be committed to the fire; for we
would not suffer any of these things so much as to come
to men’s ears, which tend to provoke God and so offend
the minds of the pious.”
In a spirit of true tolerance, the same Emperor ordered,
“that all those who should object to the dogma of the
Trinity, besides the condemnation of Divine justice,
would have to expect to suffer the severe penalties which
our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, may think
proper to inflict upon them.”
Why should it have been an axiom of the Church
“ that it was an act of virtue to deceive and to lie, when b v
that means the interest of the Church might be promoted?”
Why all these threatening laws, these anxious jealousies,
the falsifications of documents, the oppression of learning,
the abhorrence of our reasoning power, if this was a
miraculously ordained divine act, performed for the sal
vation of Humanity ?
In historically analysing the elements which compose
Christianity, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that it
has become the universal storehouse of all the different
creeds that have swayed the human mind from the first
dawn of its arising consciousness. We find in Christianity
the strictest Monotheism mixed with the Trinitarian mys
teries of the Brahmans, Buddhists, and Egyptians; the
Incarnation and Atonement theories of the Indians and
Egyptians; the dualistic principle of the Avesta; the
Jewish and Persian assumptions of angels and devils; the
lofty moral enactments of Confucius and Sokrates; the
dreamy idealism of Plato, and the more practical realism
of Aristotle.
�8
Christianity.
Mystics and Rationalists, Believers and Free-thinkers,
Fanatics and Latitudinarians, Spirit-rappers and Philo
sophers, rich and poor, mighty and weak, learned and
ignorant, may find in the tenets of Christianity some
congenial and sympathetic, some suggestive and comfort
ing elements.
The most important fact with regard to the “ new
faith ” was that Christianity became but another name for
those universal principles and eternal laws which, if
recognised, and put in motion, stimulate the innate dor
mant moral and intellectual forces of our human nature
into activity. This fact must explain the superior vitality
of Christianity, which has led Humanity in the West and
North-West, of the world slowly, gradually, yet unin
terruptedly on the path of progress in arts, discoveries,
inventions, and sciences to the very highest achievements.
The followers of any other creed must endeavour to
answer the following questions in their turn: Why did
empires and communities professing other beliefs remain
stationary in their development, in spite of their undoubted
priority in many useful arts and inventions? and why
should the Christians have succeeded, by degrees, in
working out wise and beneficial laws, in producing poetical
works of unsurpassed excellence, and in raising sciences
to a climax never attained before ? Suns and planets are
measured by Christians; the rays of light analysed; the
gradual formation of the earth’s crust is recognised; the
different chemical elements, in apparently indivisible
atoms, are traced; Christians speak by means of electri
city at distances of thousands of miles, reducing space in
its dimensions; and travel by means of fire and water
at an unheard-of speed, reducing time in its duration.
The Universalism pervading true Christianity alone
can serve as an explanation of this phenomenon. As we
may trace in nature positive and negative electricity, so we
can see the working of positive and negative intellectual
currents in humanity.
The currents in the East were generally negative. To
look backwards, to hope, as it were, everything from the
past, was the characteristic of Oriental nations. The
intellectual currents in the West were positive; to look to
and to trust in the future, whether worldly or spiritual,
�Christianity.
9
was and is the distinguishing feature of the Western
World. Man in the East shuns new spheres of thought,
and is content to move round and round in the ever
unchangeable circle of fixed notions, ceremonies, and
customs. Man in the West strives for freedom and an
eternal activity; he must have some goal to long for,
which presents itself in the form of religious enthusiasm,
chivalrous daring, a thirst for inquiry and learning, a
contempt for all danger, and a struggle with real or
imaginary monsters.
The finite submitted in humble acquiescence to the
infinite in the East. In the West the finite strove to
grasp the infinite, and to bring harmony into the dis
cordant elements of good and evil, light and darkness,
mind and matter, God and nature. These contradictory
phenomena led the East very early to endeavour to cast
a light upon the mysterious nature of self-conscious man,
the mystic phenomena of nature, and to attempt the
solution of the riddle of life by means of allegories, sym
bols, wild fictions, incredible fables, and inspired guesses.
The nation that felt the double nature of humanity
most keenly, and first proclaimed a more spiritual concep
tion of a God, was the Jewish. In the mystic schools of
the priests of Egypt, their leaders were made acquainted
with the universal “ Monotheos,” but the Jews deprived
Him of his universality, and transformed Him into a
national Deity, who was only a merciful Grod to His
chosen people, under certain outward ceremonial con
ditions, and a God of wrath and merciless persecution to
all those who had not the good fortune to belong by
mere chance of birth to that chosen people. The Chinese
taught Humanity filial love, and social order; the Indians
unravelled the beauties of the universe in the eternal
Trinitarian process of Creation, Preservation, and Trans
formation; the Egyptians established the “ I am I” mys
tery; the Persians endeavoured to practice purity in
thoughts, purity in words, and purity in deeds; the
Greeks fostered taste and refinement in arts, exalted
humane feelings in their poetry, and manifested a deep
critical discernment in philosophy; the Homans organised,
regulated, conquered, and developed an unsurpassed
patriotism ; and the Jews ?—they taught humanity reli
�10
Christianity,
gious exclusiveness, proud and fanatical intolerance, and
have had themselves to suffer under these curses for more
than 2,900 years.
Even at this very moment we see them harassed and
persecuted in Germany, a country which boasts of the
highest civilization, a country which produced a Lessing,
the Apostle of true Christian Tolerance, and a Herder,
the founder of “ Humanism.” To the honour of that
country, it may be said that every distinguished German,
every learned Historian, and every true Christian abhors
the anachronistic movement of the Ultramontanes, which
is worthy of the dark middle ages of superstition and
gross ignorance. The Jews, as ever in the past, are
still at war with the Gentiles all over the world; they
use ,up the Gentiles for their special purposes, but never
look upon them as their equals. The Jews hoping
against hope, sublimely singing and prophesying in their
despair, loudly proclaiming their thirst after God, their
fervid longing for righteousness and holiness, formed
with their theological sentiments a terrible sanguinary
leaven of a new faith, which was a possibility only after
Persian ethics, Brahmanic tenets, Egyptian mysteries
and rituals, Buddhistic miracles and dogmas, Jewish
prophesies, Greek philosophical researches, and Boman
disciplinary organisations, had been pounded together by
the pestle of time in the mortar of History.
The Jews beeame the most important element in the
historical development of Humanity. They inherited the
dualistic theory of God and Devil from the Egyptians
and Persians, and worked it out theologically through
their deeply-learned prophets, who saw the terrible con
flict manifested in virtue and sin, of which they became
conscious at an earlier period and in a higher sense. By
means of this consciousness they approached a state of
reconciliation; for self-conscious virtue must be based on
a self-conscious knowledge of evil, bringing harmony into
man’s animal and spiritual nature, developing to the
utmost his moral and intellectual faculties. In spite of
this higher moral state, they found themselves cruelly
oppressed. They prayed, sighed, and mourned at Babylon,
and mingled their scalding tears with the waves of the
Euphrates; they were driven from state to state; they
�Christianity.
11
waited and watched; they fought like despairing lions;
they clung to their God, who had so few blessings, and so
many sufferings for them on earth. They were still con
vinced “that the sceptre should not depart from Judah;
and unto him should the gathering of the people beand
yet they were trampled under foot by Boman Tetrarchs
and Praetors, had no political or social freedom, and were
themselves divided by religious sects and factions.
Amongst these were the Pharisees, who clung to the
dead letter of the law.
The Gaulonites or Galileans, a still more fanatical
branch of the Pharisees, who professed “that no one
must obey any mortal in authority, for God alone is our
Lord.” (This sentence enables us to understand those
Pharisaical survivals who, under the pretence of obeying
the self-constituted authority of their God, defy the law
of the land, and turn true religion into mockery.) These
fanatics hoped everything from the internal dissolution of
the Boman Empire. The Pharisees brought into religion
the most contemptible spirit of trading; they always
tried to make a profitable bargain with their God.
Plenty on earth was the reward of godliness. Their
piety had to manifest itself in eating and drinking. “ At
even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be
filled with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord
your God,” was the foundation of the egotistical creed of
the Pharisees. To eat and drink was, with the Jews, the
most solemn initiation and termination of all their reli
gious ceremonies. The Greeks cultivated man’s higher
artistic and philosophical aspirations; the Persians ruled,
the Bomans legislated; the Egyptians built imperishable
monuments; the Indians worked out mystic problems—
the Jews did eat and drink. When the seventy (properly
seventy-two) elders accompanied Moses on Mount Sinai
and saw the God of Israel, they did eat and drink. If
we do not correctly study the principles of the different
Jewish sects of this period, we can never properly under
stand the peculiar fanatics, intolerant bigots, eating and
drinking pious hypocrites, who still grace our own social
organisation, as so many survivals in the flesh of a preChristian world.
The Sadducees (the just) were next in importance
�12
Christianity.
to the Pharisees; they were the broad-minded followers of
Zadak. They rejected all artificial explanations of the
Scriptures, and studied the prophets most diligently; they
had a supreme contempt for all those who continually
occupied their minds with mysterious benedictions, sancti
fications, days of atonement, fasting and feasting, leavened
or unleavened bread, palm branches, trumpets, sacred
vessels, offerings, defiled or undefiled gifts, trespasses, red
cows, the blood of calves and goats, scarlet wool, hyssop,
and dead bodies; and despised all those who neglected
doing good to their fellow creatures. The Sadducees
believed neither in the immortality of the soul, nor in
punishment or reward after death. They denied the
existence of angels and devils—although they thoroughly
believed in the Scriptures. They were notorious for their
virtue, honesty, tolerance, learning, and, above all, for
their justice and humanity.
The Essenes, so called from the Hebrew “ asa ” or the
Chaldsean “ asaya,” meaning “to heal”—or according to
others “ the retired ”—were still more important. They
lived a solitary life ; they devoted themselves to the study
of medicine, to the art of working miracles, and to pre
dicting the future. They practised baptism. In con
formity with the ancient Indians and Egyptians, water
was with them the mysterious life-giving element.
Water had been the essence of life when the earth was
still barren and uninhabited. They considered water to
be the fountain of regeneration, the symbol of life ; man
to be good and free from sin was to be born anew of
water. Water mystically washed away the sins of the
world. Water made the Essenes, like the Indians, twice
born. John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth were both
Essenes, and were both baptized. The opinions advanced
by Matthew Tyndal in a work, published 150 years ago,
entitled “ Christianity as old as the Creation,” are borne
out by Eusebius, who has a whole chapter under the title,
“ The Religion published by Jesus Christ is neither new
nor strange; ” and this author also states, in the most
unqualified manner, in the 17th Chapter of his 2nd Book
that the ancient Therapeutics were Christians, and that
their ancient writings were our Gospels and Epistles.
The Therapeutics, Ebionites or Essenes were “ Chres-
�Christianity.
13
tianae,” from “ Chrestos,” good. They were Eclectics ;
they held Plato in the highest esteem, though they
scrupled not to add to his doctrines whatever they
thought conformable to reason in the tenets and opinions
of other philosophers. According to Thomas Burnet,
the Essenes were offshoots of the Brahmans and Bud
dhists, devoting themselves to the contemplation of the
transitoriness of human life.
At last we must mention the Samabitans, who were
the independent among the Jews. They considered Jews
and Heathens equal, if good and kind, and because of
this very cosmopolitan sentiment were held in abomina
tion by all the other Jewish sects, who most furiously
quarrelled both with the outer world and amongst them
selves.—When the Jewish Scriptures became more gene
rally known through the Greek translation, the “ Septuagint” there suddenly sprang into unparalleled activity—
Hebraism as the static, Jand Hellenism as the dynamic
force, working in Humanity, in History, and Religion.
Dogmatism and morals were so closely interwoven in
these Scriptures that the study of history became a
religious duty. The past was to be taken on faith ; the
assertions of the Hebrew writers were not to be doubted;
everything was to be declared credible or incredible by
reference to some scriptural passage and inquiry, and
Scepticism was to be banished from the world. This
banishment aroused a mighty spirit of controversy; the
classic writers were looked upon as perverse liars, desti
tute of light, since they had not known the True God
who had revealed Himself exclusively to the Jews. An
infinite number of lying spirits were assumed to have
deluded Humanity. The glorious works of art, sculp
ture, architecture, poetry and philosophy of the numerous
nations of the Earth were suddenly decried as the out
growths of sin, inherited from Adam. The Greeks had
been taught by Satan; the Persians, Assyrians, and
Babylonians had been annihilated by the God of Israel
for their idolatry; the Indians were children of Beelzebub;
the Buddhists horrible Atheists. All the monuments
of antiquity became objectionable works, conceived in
pride by the fallen angels ; all the historical writings and
records of all nations were considered false and untrue,
�14
Christianity.
and the Jewish records placed above them as the only
true revealed Word of God who had forsaken and
abandoned all His other creatures, and held communica
tion exclusively with the Jews.
From that moment up to our own times, there has been
something wonderfully majestic in this terrible conflict
between Hebraism and Hellenism, keeping humanity in a
continuous exertion of its moral and intellectual forces;
now devoting every thought to theology, then again pro
moting the loftiest inquiries of science, leading us to a
state in which morals and knowledge will no more be
considered as antagonistic, but completing elements of
man’s progressive development.
We have to deal with the beginning of the new his
torical phase of a spiritual life that took its origin in
the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
False prophets and philosophical teachers abounded
everywhere. Greek mock philosophers discussed the most
abstruse spiritual problems in the market-places. Egyptian
priests of Osiris, Isis and Horus, divulged the unintel
ligible symbolisms of their ancient creed; and the Persian
worship of Mithras (meaning the Redeemer or Inter
mediator) was revived with all its deep mysticism.
Numbers of Roman legal casuists engaged in searching
for lawsuits, discussed everything, whilst knowing very
little of anything. The Jewish sects, in spite of their
dissensions and mutual hatred, were all equally oppressed
and plundered by Herod the Great; superstition, ignor
ance, despair and credulity were the distinguishing fea
tures of the Roman world.
The East was crowded with dreamers, visionaries,
traders in charms, augurs, horoscopists, miracle-workers
(Thaumaturgi), soothsayers, cabalists and priests of an
infinite variety of gods and goddesses. All was spiritual
chaos, like that at the dawn of the Creation of the
material world, when Jesus of Nazareth was Born.
We have very little reliable historical information con
cerning the life of “ Christ,” meaning the Anointed. So
much we do know, that we may make of Christ what we
please; we may comment upon His recorded teachings
exegetically or in any othei’ form. We may altogether
deny the whole later Ecclesiastical structure, built upon
�Christianity.
15
His utterances. We may demonstrate that all that was
asserted of Him, was also believed of Melchisedech,
Krishna, Osiris, Buddha, Apollo or Mithras. We may
trace in Him and to Him all the legends of divine incar
nations through which man, having become conscious,
wished to find an explanation of his own low animal
desires, and the lofty intellectual longings of his mind,
thus working out divine models of human beings, or gods
in human form.
We may study the Gospels and their contradictory
views, and critically wade through the still more contra
dictory writings of the Bathers. We may show how
dogma after dogma was attributed to Christ, which He
neither enunciated nor ever could have thought of,
because, whatever contradictions may be recorded of Him,
there was no contradiction between His teachings, and
His own self-sacrificing life. We may prove how the
Councils of the Church changed the true doctrine of
Christ, misunderstanding it altogether; we may reject
the dictates of certain synods and accept others. We
may be Papists, Episcopalians or Methodists, Presby
terians or Ritualists, Lutherans or Quakers, Dissenters
or Shakers, Idealists or Realists, Believers or Free
thinkers ; we may quarrel and hate one another with the
same fervour as did the Jewish sects, and curse every one
who does not hold our own opinions as to the sensations
of the beatitude, the length of the wings of the angels
in heaven, or the horns of the devils in hell.
We may laugh at our petty controversialists who talk
of vestments and postures, candlesticks, crosses, rubrics,
grace, conscience, transubstantiation, real and unreal
presence, and the thousand and one unintelligible, anagogical, parabolical, allegorical and symbolic niceties and
difficulties, which may all be easily settled, if no one asks
questions, and if all men have faith, and do not use their
thinking and reasoning faculty, the brightest gift of the
Creator, under whatever name He be worshipped.
But we cannot deny the immense influence which
Christ’s teachings have exercised on the Western mind.
Let all the circumstances and details have been what they
may, historians must deal with Christ’s Spirit, as it pre
sents itself, as one of the greatest of historical phenomena.
�16
Christianity.
For though we may divest Christ of all the miracles,
rightly or falsely attributed to Him, we cannot divest
Him of one grand immortal fact, “ That he died for Love,
murdered by those whom He taught with a heart full of
universal love—that the whole of humanity was one great
brotherhood ; that every human being was to love his
neighbour as himself; that every human being was the
cherished child of one Father, who loved all His children
equally, and who was in heaven ! ” Had but this simple
doctrine of mutual and universal love been taught for the
last 1880 years with the same fervour as the mystic
dogmas with which Christ’s teachings were perverted,
and which were each and all borrowed from Egyptian,
Assyrian, Persian, Indian and Boman religious systems,
the world would undoubtedly be more Christian, and
humanity would have saved millions of precious lives
which have been wasted on the propagation, not of
Christianity, but “ of prejudiced credulity, and priestly
tyranny.” We have, unfortunately, failed to learn to look
upon Christ as He is characterised in the following ancient
Arab legend:—“ A dog had stolen some meat from a Jewish
butcher’s shop; the dog was stoned, then hanged, then
thrown into the street, and the angry Jews formed a circle
round the dog, spat on him and cursed him; all at once a
mild and gentle voice was heard asking the enraged crowd,
whether they could find nothing worthy of admiration in
the poor dead animal; there was suddenly a deep silence,
and the speaker pointed to the beautiful pearly-white
teeth of the dog. The people grumbled, and it was
whispered among them that the speaker must be Jesus of
Nazareth, for He alone was capable of finding something
good even in a dead dog ! ”
This is Christianity.
The Deity of the Jews was a stern, and revengeful
Despot; Christ’s God was a loving Father. The beginning
of wisdom with the Jews was fear; with Christ, the
beginning of wisdom was love. With the Jews, God was
a God of wrath, persecution and slaughter; with Christ,
a God of mercy, forgiveness, and boundless love.
The God of the Jews, who, like the inexorable Fate of
the Greeks, or the sanguinary monsters enthroned in the
Imperial purple of Borne, punished the sins of the
�Christianity.
17
fathers unto the third and fourth generation, and de
manded holocausts of murdered sacrifices, was changed by
Christ into a God of infinite kindness, rejoicing over
one repentant sinner more than over ninety and nine
just persons. Christ’s doctrine in its primitive purity
was the ever true Law of Peace, Love and Tolerance,
satisfying Beason, leading to Science, and to the Search
for Truth. These are the fundamental elements of Chris
tianity, towards which, freed of all dogmatic unintelligi
bilities, humanity is striving consciously or unconsciously,
in spite of the thousands of sects, and the numberless
commentators who have done their uttermost to destroy
the simplicity and universality of Christ’s teachings. But
Beason cannot be stifled by persecution ; Science cannot
be annihilated by superstition; and Truth cannot be
silenced by blind fanaticism. Christianity checked He
braism, fostered Hellenism, brought life into the Ancient
World, and established Humanism, the last possible phase
in the development of Humanity.
If we look for the principal historical causes of the
sudden spread of Christianity, we have :
1st. The extent of the Boman Empire, with two prin
cipal languages—Greek and Latin.
2nd. The scattering ofthe Jews and the Jewish Christians.
3rd. The general tendency to mysticism, fanaticism,
and symbolism, and the total absence of a correct know
ledge of the Laws of Nature.
4th. The immense number of freed men, slaves, and
beggars. To such people equality was preached; equality
before a God in whose eyes the living visible God on
earth—the Emperor was no more than the lowest beggar.
The poor grew proud, and condescended to admit the
rich into their now blessed community; and the rich,
terrified by the hungry and haggard looks of the people,
enervated by profligacy and licentiousness, were glad to
be made partakers of a future kingdom of bliss, since
they did not feel very safe on earth, and trembled equally
before the covetousness of the tyrants in power, and the
daily increasing number of homeless slaves.
5th. The decline of faith in the old gods of the
classical world, who were now proved to have been
mere idols of stone, or brass, as otherwise they could
�18
Christianity.
not have permitted humanity to sink to such a depth of
immorality as was reached under the Emperors, for men’s
lives had no value, justice was nowhere to be found.
6th. The sanguinary political and religious persecution
which the Emperors repeatedly ordered against the everincreasing Christians.
The Greeks and Romans were in general extremely
tolerant in religious matters. They had either a personal or
a political interest in persecuting some single individual,
and used the religious fanaticism of the mob as the means to
attain their special political or worldly object. They
never had priests in our sense of the word. The early
Christians began slowly to find favour at Court in conse
quence of their universalism. They proved that they did
not hold all the exclusive, national opinions of the Jews,
who would not recognise any other authority but that of
" Javeh—they honestly referred to Christ’s command :
“ Render therefore unto Csesar the things which are
Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s ”—
and the new Religion was at last introduced at Court
under the Emperor Alexander Severus, whose mother,
Mammsea, was said to have been a true Christian. Decius
tried in vain to stamp out the Christians. Under
Gallienus they enjoyed peace ; and the last vain attempts
to abolish Christianity by means of sanguinary persecu
tions were made under the Emperor Diocletian. As is
invariably the case, cruelty only served the more to
develop the whole vitality of Christianity. At this
period certain causes were at work, which altogether
changed, if not the essence, at least the form of Chris
tianity. Some sudden disturbances occurred in the
provinces, situated between China aud the Caspian Sea,
which had been conquered about the first Century of
the Christian Era. “ It appears that, in consequence
of these convulsions, the Samanaeans, disciples of Buddha,
(who probably lived about the time of the Israelitish
Kingdom of the Ten Tribes,) departed from their former
seat, the ancient Aria, and took refuge in the mountains
of Cashmere and Thibet.” Some of these disciples must
have also settled in the more western parts of Asia, and
must have come into contact with the then more and
more spreading Christians, who endeavoured with all the
�Christianity.
19
activity of their intellectual power to bring Christianity
into a system—a dogmatic system. In many of their
details, the tenets of Buddha bear the greatest resem
blance to certain superadded Christian dogmas; “ For
the chief doctrine of the Samanaean Bonzes was, that
Buddha was of Royal descent, born of the Virgin Maja,
worthy of adoration as next in dignity to God whose
ninth incarnation he was, and that he would assume
at the end of all earthly things his tenth incarnation
as Kali, and appear on a white horse to judge the quick
and the dead.” The Samansean priesthood taught men
to prepare for this event, to lead a retired contemplative
life, to suffer persecution but never to persecute, humbly
to submit to any lay power, since this world was a mere
fleeting, transitory abode of misery and decay, prepara
tory to a higher spiritual life to be enjoyed in Eternity in
Nirvana, the unceasing contemplation of the Deity in
His eternal peace and glory. Christianity absorbed all
these elements, but with the Christians, the endeavour to
spread this belief in the bliss of redemption became a
sacred duty, which they thought thems'elves justified in
performing by means of violence, inexorable cruelty, cruci
fixions, boilings and burnings, by fire and sword “Ad
majorem Dei gloriam.”
Here the striking difference between Buddhism and
Christianity becomes apparent. Buddhism is passive
contemplation ; Christianity is positive activity. The
one remained stationary, the other progressively developed
and is still developing. The one acquiesced in any form
so long as the worship of Buddha was the aim ; the other
devoted itself to an unparalleled spiritual activity, en
dowing Christianity with mystic meanings, allegorical
beauties, dressed in the shreds of myths and fables, col
lected from all the religious systems of the ancient
world, adorned with Platonic dreams and visions, and
Aristotelian sophistries and dialectics. Intolerance and
fanaticism spread more and more; and delusion and
ignorance served to build up that glorious spiritual
Revolution which brought new life into the world.
Scarcely had Christ expired on the Cross when a host
of pious preachers and teachers inundated the world with
descriptions of the details of His private and public life.
�20
Christianity.
St. Luke informs us “ that many have taken in hand
to set forth those things which are most surely believed
among us.” There were about 146 independent sacred
writings, among which were 34 Gospels, 20 Epistles,
22 Acts, 5 Revelations, and 22 miscellaneous works ;
several books published under the name of James, and
books under the name of Peter. That these works existed,
is undeniable, for the various diverging and quarrelling
sects of early Christianity were founded on the very
possession of these different sacred books. Letters were
forged, interpolations fabricated, omissions resorted to,
fictions invented, exaggerations propounded, miracles pro
claimed, and interpretations given, so that it is exceed
ingly difficult to gather any reliable facts. To prove how
far such deceptions went, we may point out that Gregory,
of Tours, in the sixth Century a.d., firmly believed that
he possessed the authenticated account of the miracles at
the death and resurrection of Christ in the very docu
ment which Pilate had sent to the Emperor Tiberius.
Lucian, in the latter half of the second Century after
the birth of Christ, bitterly complained that the Christians
were so reserved respecting their mysteries.
Tacitus, Pliny, and others could not understand why
morals and truth should be proclaimed by miracle
workers, magicians and necromancers, who began to
drive a very profitable trade. At first, Jewish and
Pagan priests had heaped opprobrious calumnies upon
the Christians on account of the simplicity of their
worship, esteeming them little better than Atheists,
because they had no temples, altars, sacrifices, priests nor
any of that external pomp in which the vulgar are so
prone to place the essence of religion. The rulers of the
Christians now adopted external, mystic ceremonies, and
suddenly the primitive simplicity which had characterised
the first followers of Christ was gone, and a multitude of
half-Jewish and half-Pagan enthusiasts, visionaries, theosophists, snake-charmers, and adepts abounded in the Chris
tian communities, and proclaimed themselves to be Ascetic,
self-denying, miracle-working Christians. Mysticism and
symbolism became the leading elements in Christianity.
The mysteries engendered sects, in accordance with the
various explanations given to the meaning of the different
�Christianity.
21
symbols, allegories, types, prophesies, gospels, epistles, or
any vague traditions. Sects persecuted sects, each stig
matising their opponents as heretics. Every one of these
sects pretended to have received certain traditions from
the founder of Christianity Himself, or at least from
prophets, apostles, or pious men who had stood near to
Christ; yet subsequently, all their dogmas were declared
to have been heresies by later councils and synods.
The Gnostics, Ebionites, Marcionites, Alogians, Manichseans, Novitians, Sabellians, Patripassians, and Arians,
&c., may be adduced to prove that Christianity was at first
broad-hearted and broad-minded, so long as it was not
yet fettered by the inexorable power of the State. Dog
matists were permitted to put forward new dogmas and
mysteries, but unfortunately Constantine, in the fourth
century a.d., adopted Christianity as a state religion, and
employed learned converted Talmudists and Sophists to
shape the simple tenets of Christ, and from that time down
to the Reformation everything received a theological basis,
and was looked upon from a one-sided religious point of
view. Gregory of Nazianzen says of this period ; “ the
learned diatribes of Stoics, Platonists, Aristotelians, and
even the teachings of the most important Fathers were
silenced, and every “ shop-boy” preached and talked on
the Trinity in Unity of God the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, or on the “ Hypostasis,” meaning the subor
dinate substances of the Trinity. The City of Constan
tinople was full of working men and slaves who were
profound theologians, and preached in their workshops
and in the streets. If you wanted of anyone change for
a silver coin, he informed you of the distinction between
Father and Son; if you asked for the price of a loaf of
bread, you were lectured on the inferiority of the Son to
the Father; and if you asked whether the bread were
baked, the rejoinder was that the Son had been created
out of nothing.”
It was in vain that Justin Martyr, one of the most
zealous defenders of Christianity, proved with trenchant
conviction that Christ was the Logos, or “ Universal
Reason,” of which mankind were all partakers; and,
therefore, those who lived according to the Logos or
Reason, were Christians, notwithstanding that they
�22
Christianity.
might pass for Atheists. Such among the Greeks were
Sokrat is and Herakleitos, and the like; and such among
the Barbarians were Abraham and Ananias, and many
others. So on the other hand, those who had lived in
former times in defiance of the Logos or Reason were
evil, and enemies to Christ, and murderers of such as
lived according to the Logos or Reason; but those who
made or make the Logos or Reason the rule of their
actions, were and are “ Christians, and men without fear
and trembling.”
It is deeply to be regretted that Christ’s teachings
were deprived of their charming simplicity. But it could
not be otherwise. By the daily increasing number of
theological Sophists, Greek and Boman Dialecticians,
converted Talmudists and Cabalists, who made it their
duty to obscure every intelligible passage in the Old and
New Testaments; to find types where there were none;
to take allegories and metaphors to the letter; and to
transform into deep symbols what had been the literal
record of some every-day occurrence. Man was to be
forced into the narrow Procrustean bed of Dogmatism,
and to know nothing but incomprehensible mysteries.
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy raised their spiteful and
venomous heads, aud spread like dragons the fire of
destructive disunion throughout the world. Councils
and Synods denounced and persecuted, excommunicated
and succeeded in bringing about a dead silence in the
realm of thought, or submissive professions of the pre
scribed religious formulae.
In the sixth century after Christ the Church, with the
aid of the lay power, at last was enabled to stamp out
by fire and sword all the so-called Heretics, and the
Fathers, Apologists, and the Church dignitaries began to
rule supreme. The writings of the Fathers are the only
important literary products of these times which throw a
considerable light on the gradual development of Chris
tianity from the second to the twelfth century a.d.
The Fathers, like the ancient Patricians of Pagan
Rome, were divided into two classes. Those from the
second to the sixth century a.d. were the “ Patres majorum gentiumwhilst those from the seventh to the
twelfth century a.d. were the “ Patres minorum gentium.”
�Christianity.
23
During the mediaeval period of history the priests of the
Romish Church, occupying themselves with writing on or
discussing theology, were called “ Scholastics,” and only
since the Reformation the Clergy treating religious mat
ters philosophically or ethically, assumed the title of
“ Theologians” (Scientists of God). We cannot fail to
perceive that the struggle between faith or religion, and
reason or science was the vital force that made it possible
for Christians to progress, morally as well as intellec
tually.
The principal tendency of the most learned and most
honest theologians of our day (like Dean Stanley, Prin
cipals Tulloch and Caird,—Stopford Brooke and many
others) is to restore to Christianity that universal spirit
of tolerance which will make culture and true civilisation
a common good, not dependent on rubrics, eastern postures,
vestments, or articles, but on a correct understanding of
our nature, humanising even the bigoted middle classes;
purifying society and making it a general philanthropic
brotherhood, turning capital into a blessing instead of a
curse ; and endowing our dogmatic and arbitrary educa
tional institutions with one analogous system, fitted to
bring out all our higher reasoning faculties. Thus the
pure spirit of true Christianity will once more sway our
hearts and vivify our lifeless and cold, yet eternally
quarrelling, denominational sects. Science and art will
work together, spiritualising our higher nature, foster
ing. Hellenic-Teuton culture instead of Romano-Hebrew
narrow-mindedness, leading us to a universal bodily
and mental happiness, and establishing a practical—not
clerical—“ Millenium.”
We shall endeavour in future lectures to trace how the
' historical development of Christianity commenced in a
controversial thunderstorm, fierce, terrible and destructive
at first; followed by a gloomy calm, silent, deadening
and obstructive; and at last arousing science, purifying
our moral and intellectual atmosphere, spreading the
broad daylight of culture in union with morals, enabling
humanity to be free, good, and truly constructive.
�
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Christianity I: The origin of Christianity from a strictly historical point of view, being a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday, 21st November, 1880
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Zerffi, G. G.
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In this lecture Dr. G. G. Zerffi explores the history of Christianity, including the origins and spreading of the religion, as well as a comparison with Buddhism.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm
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1881
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Christianity I: The origin of Christianity from a strictly historical point of view, being a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday, 21st November, 1880), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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Text
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Christianity
Buddhism
Christianity
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CT 8}
COMMON SOURCE OF ERROR IN
SEEING AND BELIEVING.
iCccturc
DELIVERED BEFORE
SUNDAY LECTURE
THE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 27th FEBRUARY, 1881,
By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D.,
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1881.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�Works by the same Author:
“ The Pathology of Mind.” Being the Third Edition of the Second
Part of the “ Physiology and Pathology of Mind,” re-cast, much
enlarged, and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s.
“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 In
fluence, especially 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 iu 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 24th April, 1881, will
be given.
Members’ annual subscription, £1, entitles them to a ticket, transferable
(and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat
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�SYLLABUS.
1. The influence of preconceived idea and of feeling to vitiate observation.
Illustrations:
a. Illusions of Sense.
b. Hallucinations of Sense.
c. Erroneous observation.
d. Miracles.
2. The influence of feeling and belief to vitiate reasoning.
a. Individuals.
b. In communities.
3. The relation of feeling to intellect in the progress of the race.
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�COMMON SOURCE OF ERROR IN
SEEING AND BELIEVING.
PROPOSE not in this lecture to enumerate and discuss all the
mistakes which we are liable to make when we see and draw
conclusions from what we see—all the fallacies, that is to say, to
which observation and reasoning are exposed; I purpose only to
note and illustrate now one very common and prolific source of
wrong observation and inference. It is certain we do not see and
judge rightly by instinct; too often, although we have eyes, we
see not truly, and although we have reason, we use it to come to
wrong conclusions. Reason, we know, man claims as his almost
exclusive prerogative, defining himself—for he has that advantage
over other animals—as pre-eminently the reasoning animal; and
one need not cavil at the definition so long as it is not understood
to mean that everybody reasons rightly, or even commonly bases
his beliefs upon reason. To say of the great majority of persons
that they reason at all in the highest sense of the word is to say
what is not true, since their opinions are plainly either got by
inheritance, or engrafted by education, or moulded by particular
life-experiences, or imposed by authority of some kind, and are
then worn by them, as they wear their clothes, after the fashion.
Governed by their habits of opinion as they are by their habits of
life they find it as hard a matter to change the one as to change
the other. If all men reasoned truly and adequately on every
subject, it is evident that all men would be agreed, which is not
quite the case; we should not be meeting here this afternoon to
broach opinions which will not be perhaps in harmony with those
which have been preached from a thousand pulpits this morning;
the heresy of yesterday would not be, as it often is, the common
sense of to-day, and the common sense of to-day the nonsense of
to-morrow; the majority would not have found it necessary to
stone, burn, poison, cut asunder, crucify, or otherwise silence the
voices of the few who, in the succession of the ages, have not
I
�6
Common Source of Error in
failed to appear from time to time to inspire and to raise men to
higher planes of thought and duty; the world would have been
without the history of its noble army of martyrs of humanity.
This being so, it is a good thing, I think, from time to time to
make a particular study of the common errors to which we are
liable in observation and thinking, and to take note how far
wrong they may carry us. My attention is drawn often and
forcibly to this matter, because, in the course of my professional
work, I meet with persons who, of sound understanding in respect
of all ordinary matters, entertain some extraordinary delusions in
respect of one or two subjects, and cannot be convinced of their
errors by the plainest evidence and argument. Naturally one asks
oneself how it comes to pass that they form and entertain notions
which are absurd to the common sense of mankind, holding to
them in the face of conclusive disproof, and notwithstanding that
they cannot find a single person in the world to agree with them.
The vulgar saying is that they have “ lost their senses,” but it is
not so; their senses are in full work, but somehow they fail to
perform their proper offices. In seeking the explanations of these
remarkable distractions of mind one comes to perceive that, after
all, these people have only carried to an extreme pitch, to an
insane height, a kind of faulty observation and reasoning which
is common enough among persons who are not in the least out of
their minds. ’Tis not true perhaps, as is sometimes said, that
everybody is a little mad, but it is true -that everybody makes day
by day the same sort of errors in observation and reasoning as
those which lead madmen to their delusions.
I go at once to the heart of what I have to say by laying down
the broad proposition that in looking at things a person sees what
he believes he sees, not necessarily that which really is : his notion
of what he sees may correspond with the reality or not, but in
any case he does not see the reality purely ; he sees it through the
idea or notion which he has of it. Had I been born blind, and
were my eyes opened at this moment for the first time to see a
human face before me, I should not know it to be such by my
sense of sight alone: I know a human face, when I see it, only
because of the training in seeing which has been going on ever
since I was born, the unceasing, if unconscious, education which
I have had. The idea has been organised gradually in my mind—
abstract, so to speak, from a multitude of impressions—and when
it is stirred into activity by the proper impression made upon
sight it instantly interprets that impression, so that I recognise
�Seeing and Believing.
7
the object.
*
If my idea were very active and at the same time
did not fit the reality, it might mislead sight, making me mistake
the identity of a face which I saw—just as Don Quixote, possessed
with his fixed idea of giants and enchanted castles, mistook the
sails of a windmill for the arms of a giant—or even, in a more
extreme case, making me actually see a face where there was no face
at all. You have perhaps seen a person who has been put into
what is called the mesmeric state and noticed the extraordinary
illusions which he can be made to suffer: the operator bids him
take a glass of simple water, assuring him at the same time that it
is exceedingly bitter and nasty, and he forthwith spits it out as if
it were poison, with every expression of disgust; he is told that a
wasp is buzzing about his face and he instantly makes frantic
movements to strike it away; he is introduced to a stranger as his
mother or sister and he immediately embraces her. There is
scarcely a mistake of sense, however extravagant, of which he
may not be made the victim if he is duly susceptible and the
operator skilful and confident. Now what is it which takes place ?
This: the idea suggested by the operator becomes so very active
in the subject’s mind, takes such exclusive possession of it, that all
other ideas are inhibited or silenced; they are inactive, in abey
ance, asleep, so to speak, unable therefore to comment upon or
correct it; accordingly the person sees, hears, or otherwise per
ceives all impressions through the active idea, which interprets
them instantly into the language of its own nature : being the
only part of the mind which is then sensible to stimulus and in
function, it cannot of necessity reveal anything which it does notice
but in terms of itself. The person does not see the real thing but
his notion of what the real thing is and that does not in this
case accord with what really is. Here then is an experiment
which plainly shows us that an idea in the mind may reach such a
pitch of exclusive activity as to put to silence other ideas and to
completely befool the senses. It is what happens also to the mad
man who, having the delusion that he is the victim of a malignant
persecution, sees or hears his persecutors pursue or threaten him
where no one else can see or hear anything of them.
I now go a step further and note that something of the same
sort takes place in dreams. When we are asleep we see nothing
* The common saying that “seeing is believing” may then be applied
in a double sense—not alone in the understood sense that we believe by
what we see, but also in the sense that we see by what we believe.
�8
Common Source of Error in
outside us: our eyes being shut it is impossible we should ; never
theless we do see very remarkable scenes if we dream, seeing them
too as if they were outside us and more vividly perhaps than we
do see real things when we are awake. What happens is that the
thoughts of the dreamer as they occur to him become instantly
visible as sensory presentations ; the idea of a thing, so soon as it
becomes active, takes form as the sensible object, is translated into
the outward reality; the idea of a person, for example, becomes
the seen person, the idea of a voice the heard voice. >80 before the
dreamer’s eyes as a visible pageant, a scenic show, moves the train
of succeeding ideas; it is as if each vague thought which came
into the mind as we walked along the street absorbed in reverie
was visible as an actual scene ; in which case it is plain we
should be surrounded by an ideal world which would be the real
world to us, while the real world would be faint and shadowy or
quite unperceived. Now this happens the more easily in dreams
for two reasons—first, because the active idea has for the time
almost exclusive possession of the mind, the rest of it being asleep,
and, secondly, because the closure of the senses by sleep to all
outward things, preventing that distraction of them by other
objects which is taking place more or less during waking even in
the deepest reverie, leaves them at the mercy of the idea. Here
there is another instance where an idea or notion vividly experi
enced imposes itself upon sense, becomes an actual hallucination.
Take another case: people don’t see ghosts nowadays when they
go through churchyards by night, as they used often to do in olden
times. Why is that ? It is because, not believing in ghosts, they
do not expect to see them: they have not in their minds the idea
of a ghost which may step solemnly forth from behind a tombstone
or glide away like a guilty thing ashamed. ’Tis an instance of the
excellent philosophy which is never wanting in Shakspeare, that
he makes Hamlet see his father’s ghost at midnight, when the air
is bitterly cold, not a mouse stirring, on the lonely and rocky
platform before the castle of Elsinore, after he had been informed
in solemnly impressive tones of its previous appearances, when he
himself is there in a tremor of expectation to see it, and immedi
ately after Horatio’s exclamation “ Look, my lord, it comes!”
Again: there is an event which has happened sometimes to
dying persons, well fitted to make a solemn and startling impres
sion on those about them. When at the point of death or nearly
so, the dying person, gazing intently before him, as if he saw some
one there, may pronounce suddenly the name of a long dead
�9
Seeing and Believing.
Relative, exclaim perhaps “ Mother,” and soon after expire. Natu
rally people suppose that the spirit of his dead mother has appeared
to him, and are happy to think that he has joined in a better world
those who were taken away from him in this world. So they take
CQmfort to themselves when they lose by death one who is near
and dear to them in the belief that although he shall not return to
them they shall go to him. That may or may not be, but certainly
the apparition is not proof of it, since it is no more than one of
the hallucinations which a dying person is liable to have; for when
he is near death and the failing functions of his brain portend
their near impending extinction, wandering thoughts of the far
distant past, impressions of childhood perhaps, seemingly long
effaced, but never actually effaced, may flicker in the mind and,
taking visible form as thoughts take form in dreams, be seen as
visions. You will remember that Shakspeare makes Falstaff,
when dying in a London tavern after a life of the most gross
debauchery, a worn out old libertine, go back in this way to the
memories of more innocent days and “babble of green fields.”*
These broken reversions, as I may call them, are the last ebbing
functions of the brain which, as Shakspeare puts it, then
“ Doth by the idle comments that it makes
Foretell the ending of mortality.”
'
I might go on to multiply instances of this production of hallu
cination by idea, since they are to be met with in all quarters.
You have heard perhaps that there has lately been an apparition
of the Virgin Mary at Lather Ignatius’s Monastery - of Llanthonev
Abbey, which was seen first in a meadow by four boys of the
Abbey, after that by a brother of the Abbey, and last of all
by Father Ignatius himself. This is his account of what he
saw:—
“ About eight o’clock on Wednesday evening, the 15th inst. (after
the last service of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin) we all
* It is very doubtful, however, whether Shakspeare ever wrote what is
now the received text. In the first authentic edition (1623) the words
were not “ ’a babbled of green fields,” but “ a table of green fields,” which
was nonsense. It was changed by an anonymous critic to “ ’a talked of
green fields,” which Theobald altered into the present reading. Thirty
years ago, however, an annotated copy of the edition of 1632 was found,
which, among a great number of corrections of the text, substituted for
“’a.table of green fields,” the words “on a table of green frieze ”—£<?.,
“ His nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green frieze.” Dr. Newman
makes use of these discrepancies for the purposes of his argument in
Grammar of Assent (p. 265), and it is from him that I quote them.
�10
Common Source of Error in
came to the porch door. I held the processional crucifix. With
me were the brothers, Mr. Bouse, and a gentleman from Oxford
who had visited the Monastery for the purpose of endeavouring
to see the vision. The boys were kneeling in front of us, Sister
Janet was kneeling in the meadow. It was a very wet night. We
were singing the ‘Aves.’ We had sung three ‘Aves ’ in honour
of the Holy Trinity, and we had just finished a fourth to the
Blessed Virgin, when, all of a sudden, when I was not expecting
anything of the kind, I saw a tremendous outburst of light from
the dark, heavy clouds over the farm building. It seemed to
burst right upon the buildings. The light was all in bulging circles.
In the very centre of the light there appeared, coming down upon
us, a human form. It was a very commanding^ stately figure.
I could only see sideways. The face was turned towards the bush.
I could only see it momentarily, as it were in the 1 twinkling of an
eye.’ But in that moment it stood out so distinctly and startling
that I am sure that it was darker than the light. Had it been
clothed in cloth of silver, or cloth of gold, it might have produced
the same effect—the darkness against the light. There was an
intense reality about the figure. It was momentary, as I before
said, and yet it seemed that it might have been an hour’s vision,
so intensely real was it. In the majesty of the figure, and in its
being dark against the light, it reminded me of Dore’s picture,
‘The triumph of Christianity over Paganism.’ There were
flashings of light about the figure. In a moment, as I looked, it
vanished. Before it vanished it had appeared as if it would have
descended upon the church door or the church roof. I feel sure
that it must have been the figure of the Blessed Virgin, because,
although I could not discern the dress it wore, I could see that it
was fully draped; whereas in the visions which others have seen,
when they have seen a male figure, it has always appeared with
simply a cloth round the loins, as our Lord is represented in
baptism, and at other times. I also feel sure that it was the
Virgin, because the figure appeared immediately after we had
sung the ‘ Ave ’ in her honour. The figure also had its face
turned towards the bush, where our Ladye had first been seen. I
have further confirmation in the fact that about two or three
minutes afterwards the Blessed Virgin’s figure was seen by the
gentleman who was watching with us, and by one of the boys,
nearer to the ground.” *
* South Wales Daily News, September 13th and 27th, 1880.
�Seeing and Believing.
11
“ These,” he says, “ are extraordinary and absolute facts. The
sceptic may and will scoff, but his scoffing will not explain or
diminish the truth or supernatural character of these absolute and
incontrovertible facts * * * No amount of contradiction, ridicule,
or unbelief can alter the fact that Monday, August 30th, 1880, be
tween the hours of 9 and 11 a.m., the Blessed Virgin appeared in
dazzling light to four boys and did what no earthly being could do
before their eyes.”. With such positive and incontrovertible testi
mony of eye-witnesses, are you of so little faith as to doubt that
the Blessed Virgin appeared ? Probably you have great doubts, as
I have; and perhaps I may venture to think that I shall carry your
sympathetic doubts with me in my sceptical interpretation of
another vivid vision of an apparition in circumstances particularly
favourable to its occurrence.
The vision in this case happened to a woman whom we may
believe to have been predisposed in some measure to hallucination,
since we are told of her that she had once had seven devils cast
out of her; a story which, in modern scientific interpretation,
means that she had once been insane and had recovered. In all
likelihood, therefore, she was one of those persons, susceptible or
sensitive, as mesmerists call them, whose unstably balanced nervecentres were easily liable to take on that sort of irregular action
which issues in hallucination and delusion. The woman I refer
to is Mary Magdalene, who visited the sepulchre of Christ on the
third day aft.er His burial, and who, according to the gospel of St.
John, saw two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the
other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain. I say accord
ing to John, because the stories of the resurrection told by the
writers of the different gospels differ considerably in details;
amongst other things, not agreeing as to whether there was one
angel or whether there were two angels, or as to the persons who
saw the apparition or apparitions. Discrepancies in the stories of
supernatural phenomena are not of course to be wondered at;
they are the natural results of an inspiration more than natural
pouring itself into natural channels. Those, however, whose
understandings are informed by observation and experience of
nature, not by inspiration from outside nature, may suspect
perhaps that Mary Magdalene, having an excitable brain, was the
victim of a hallucination. She ran to the sepulchre in hot excite
ment, eagerly expectant to see something extraordinary, and she
saw something extraordinary: a flitting impression on sight, pro
bably the “ linen clothes lying there, and the napkin that was
�12
Common Source of Error in
about the head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped
together in a place by itself,” suggested two angels, and the ideas
of the angels so suggested took visible form, dominating the sense,
just as the gleaming whiteness of a tombstone suggesting the idea
of a ghost to the walker through a churchyard by night was trans
formed instantly into a ghost.
This dominion of the idea over the senses, which has its con
summate effect in the production of hallucination, is really the most
fruitful source of error and defect in common observation, an ever
active, and never to be neglected, cause of fallacy. Men see not
the reality purely, but see it in the coloured light of the notions
which they have of it. Hence no two persons see an event exactly
alike; two witnesses go into the witness-box and give widely different accounts of the same transaction at which they were present
together ; two newspaper reporters, of different politics, believing
themselves sincere and truthful, send home to their respective
employers nearly opposite accounts of the same occurrences; in
each case there is the individual mind behind the eye. Has any
one got a belief, no matter how he got it—whether through his
understanding, as he flatters himself he gets all his beliefs, or
through his feelings, as he actually gets most of them—his mind
yields willing access to all facts which are in keeping with it, and
very Unwilling access to any fact which does not consist with it,
insomuch that the belief comes to determine much of what he sees,
to govern his actual observation of things. The stronger, more
over, the feeling associated with a preconceived idea or belief, the
more completely does it rule sense and vitiate observation. What
infatuated lover ever fails to see “ Helen’s beauty in a brow of
-Egypt?” What excited onlooker at a spectacle of horror could
ever give an accurate account of it ? At one time it was a firmlyrooted superstition that the wounds on the body of a murdered
person would bleed afresh when the murderer was made to touch
the corpse, and witnesses testified frequently to having seen that
happen. Two respectable clergymen, for example, swore at a trial
in the time of Charles I. (1628-9) that the body having been taken
out of the grave and laid on the grass, thirty days after death, and
one of the parties accused of murder required to touch it, “ the
brain of the dead began to have a dew or gentle sweat arise on it,
which increased by degrees till the sweat ran down in drops on
the face; the brow turned to a lively flesh-colour, and the deceased
opened one of her eyes and shut it again ; and this opening of the
eye was done three several times ; she likewise thrust out the ring,
�Seeing and Believing.
13
or marriage finger, three times, and pulled it in again; and the
finger dropped blood from it on the grass.” Here was evidence
against the accused which, if true, must have convinced even him
that he ought to be hanged. Of course, it was not true ; the
witnesses, however, were not wilfully or wittingly deceiving, they
were themselves deceived; they saw not the real thing, but the
imagination of what the real thing was. One may be permitted
to judge, by this example, of the value of the unsifted testimony
of the believer who has seen a miracle. ’Tis not that he has
really seen a miracle, but that. he has made a miracle of what he
has mis-seen.
It may be urged perhaps in respect of miracles that it is ex
tremely improbable, if not impossible, that several persons attest
ing them could be deceived in the same way at the same time. On
the contrary, nothing more easy in certain circumstances : a great
wave of emotion passing through a number of people, as emotion
does pass by the quick infection of sympathy, will carry belief with
it and make them see and testify to a quite impossible occurrence.
Hence miracles have always abounded where there was a great
fever of religious enthusiasm. The greater the heat of feeling the
less the coolness of observation and the more plentiful the mira
cles. Nay, it needs not much heat of feeling to see a miracle if a
number of persons be collected together intently expecting to see
something extraordinary happen: the ghost .seldom fails to appear
where the spectators are gathered together to see it. Every
religion has had its miracles and its multitudinous witnesses to
them. We do not believe it any the more on that account; we
ought indeed to believe it rather the less, since the miracle is pre
sumption, if not proof, of bad observation by the witnesses. The
lowest religion will have the most miracles, a higher religion will
have few of them, and the highest of all will probably have none
at ail. What we may fairly conclude from the testimony of hot
believers is that, by reason of their strong belief, they were not
witnesses to be depended upon, as observers. The interest of
miracles at this day, I take it, is not that which could attach to an
occurrence out of the fixed order of nature, but that which attaches
to the study of the defective, irregular, or actually morbid action
of the human brain, especially under conditions of unusual excite
ment ; it is not whether the body of a dead man which had lain in
the grave until it had begun to putrefy came to life again, but why
people thought and said so. When the belief in miracles has
become extinct they will be received by psychology into its domain
�14
Common Source of Error in
and they will be of lasting interest there. Indeed, it will be a
most instructive study of the future to elucidate and set forth the
exact relations of beliefs in supernatural phenomena to defective
or morbid functions of the brain. Supernaturalism will take its
proper place as an interesting chapter in psychology.
Thus much then with regard to the action which idea may exert
upon the senses; an action plainly so strong sometimes as to sub
due them into a complete subjection to it. In any case it is almost
impossible for one who has a preconceived notion in his mind to
help seeing in an event that only which is agreeable to the notion,
that which sorts or suits with it. Those who have not thought of
this tendency as an active source of fallacy in observation, and
realised how deeply, widely, constantly and unconsciously it works
are not qualified to weigh the value of testimony; they are like
those who should accept without question an assertion that the
trees and grass were blue from one who was looking at the country
through blue spectacles. To denote, moreover, this action of idea
upon sense vaguely as imagination or even as mental carries us no
further forward ; to rest satisfied there is simply to make a word
do duty for a conception; there is neither explanation nor definite
meaning in the statement. Whether we like it or not, we shall
have to acknowledge, first or last, that the process is at bottom
physical, and that we can have no explanation worth thinking
about until we find out what the physical basis is. Unhappily we
are yet a long way from that discovery; we must be satisfied for
the present to figure grossly to ourselves what takes place in the
intimate, most delicate and hidden operations of nerve molecules,
by the help of conceptions derived from the grosser operations in
physics which we can observe and manipulate. When the impres
sion on sense vibrates to the same note as the idea, we may say, it
is perceived and intensifies the idea—that is to say, is assimilated
mentally; when it does not vibrate in unison with it there is no
response, it is not perceived; the active idea responds to the note
that is in harmony with it, just as the string of a harp gives back
in consonant vibrations its proper note when that note is struck
near it.
I proceed now to mark the operation of the same sort of error
in the higher region of thought—in reasoning, that is, about what
we get from the senses when we have got the facts correctly.
Even then we are liable to go all wrong in the opinions or infer
ences which we form. The predominant bias sways the judgment.
Two persons shall have the same facts presented to them, and
�Seeing and Believing.
15
shall not differ as to the facts, yet it is notorious that they will,
according to the bias of their respective opinions, feelings, interests,
differ widely in the conclusions they draw from them, just as two
judges will give very unequal sentences for the same kind of
offence. How is it that the one sees a conclusion plainly and
thinks the other, who does not see it, blinded by prejudice to the
most obvious truth?' The reason of course is that each looks at
the circumstances from his own standpoint, and sees only or
mainly that which is in accord with the bias of his mind, over
looking that which is not; he sees vividly the reasons which
support his opinion, and which the other sees dimly or not at all;
he sees only dimly, or not at all, the reasons which go counter to
it, and which the other sees vividly. Now, how would a third
person, undertaking to bring these two to the same conclusion, go
about to accomplish it ? Certainly he would not treat them as
purely reasoning beings, and encourage them to go on arguing, by
which they would only heat themselves the more, but he would
handle each as if he was anything but an exact reasoning being;
he would not consider only the truth of what he had to say to
him, but would take account of his feelings, principles, prejudices,
character, and endeavour to bring this truth into the best relations
possible with these predominant lines of disposition, making it
pleasing or agreeable—that is to say, able to agree—and so to get
it accepted; he would in fact persuade by agreeing more than by
convincing, remembering the adage—
“ A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.”
Dealing in this insinuating way with both he brings them gently
and skilfully over their difference to the same conclusion, and that
the right conclusion if the affair be properly managed. One must
have the feelings of a person engaged in favour of reason before he
can see reason, must prejudice him in favour of an argument
before he can feel the force of it. Is not this a proof how very far
man is from being the good reasoning machine which he imagines
himself?
There is not a day, not an hour of the day perhaps, in any
one’s life which does not yield examples of this sort of biassed
or one-sided perception and reasoning. The moods of the moment
notably colour strongly our views of the character or issue of an
event, notwithstanding that the dry light of reason ought to
demonstrate a plain and certain conclusion. Optimism or pessi
mism is a matter of temperament, not of reason ; life-despair may
�16
Common Source of Error in
be the intellectual expression, and suicide the outcome in act, of
deranged organic feeling in a sadly tuned temperament. In that
extreme state of morbid depression of mind which we call
melancholia the sufferer cannot perceive a ray of hope, a glimmer
of comfort anywhere; he sees every undertaking, every scheme,
moving towards the same goal of ruin; he can follow the argu
ments which prove that his fears are groundless, but they produce
no effect upon him ; they reach his understanding, but they do
not touch his gloom-enshrouded heart, and accordingly they “no
more avail than breath against the wind.” Assuredly we credit
ourselves with a great deal larger measure of reason in the forma
tion and change of our beliefs than ever enters into them. On
the one hand, strong and convincing argument will sometimes not
compel belief; on the other hand, a change will sometimes take
place in an individual’s belief, while the reasons in favour of it are
as strong as ever; as Cardinal Newman has remarked, he does
not know how or when the belief has gone, but he finds out some
day that it is gone ; the perception of the old argument remains,
but some change in feeling in himself arising out of condition, age,
interests, occupation, &c., has worked a change of belief.
I shall not go on now to give any more illustrations from
individual experience, because I am anxious, in the time which
remains at my disposal, to point out how this source of error
in reasoning infects the belief of whole peoples, and leads them
to the most illogical conclusions. Do we not oftentimes see
nations swept by epidemics of feeling and belief, good or bad ?
Have wars been rational undertakings, or have they not been, in
nine cases out of ten, the results of insane suspicion and insaner
folly ? When one looks quietly back at the history of man’s
thoughts and doings upon earth, considering at the same time
his claim to be pre-eminently a reasoning animal, it is impossible
to help being amazed at the utterly irrational belief which pro
fessedly rational beings have formed and sincerely cherished.
More wonder, perhaps, that as they were so irrational as to form
and hold them they were ever rational enough to get rid of them.
It may be said, no doubt, that as they got better knowledge they
abandoned them, but I doubt whether knowledge has nearly so
much to do directly with human progress as we are in the easy
habit of assuming. It has always been as positive a piece of
knowledge as it is now that every one must die—that to be mortal
is not to be immortal—and that when a person is dead and buried
he does not come to life again ; that certainly is as long and sure
�Seeing and Believing.
17
an experience as human beings have had, since it dates from the
beginning of experience ; yet, in spite of that experience, the
greater part of those ranking amongst the most civilized and
enlightened of the earth, and marking therefore the highest water
mark of human progress, solemnly believe at this moment that
there have been men who have not died, and others who, after
being dead, have come to life again. And at great expense, and
through many perils, they send missionaries into all parts of the
earth to teach that wisdom to those whose sad ignorance of it
they compassionate. The very creed of the Christian is that the
God whom he worships became a man, was crucified on the cross,
died and was buried, and on the third day rose again and ascended
into heaven. That is a matter of solemn belief, but can we truly
say that it is a matter of rational knowledge ? Looked at in the
dry light of the understanding, we must admit that there could
not well be a doctrine more improbable, more revolting to reason.
How it strikes the unbiassed minds of those who have not been
trained from youth upwards to accept it we know by the experience
of the Jesuit missionaries in China, who found the dogma of a
crucified God so great an obstacle in the way of conversions that
they quietly suppressed it; they preached Jesus Christ triumphant,
not Jesus Christ crucified. It is beyond question then that there
is in man a power deeper and stronger than knowledge which
decides in some cases what he shall believe, and that the most
complete contradiction of observation and reason which it is
possible to conceive can be accepted as a solemn truth, if it be in
harmony with the prevailing tone or feeling of mind. Thereupon
all the powers of the understanding are brought into play, not to
prove it by a searching trial of its worth, but in order to find out
reasons why it should be believed. Meanwhile, all the reasons in
the world against it will not seriously touch it so long as there is
no fundamental change of feeling : when that takes place, how
ever, the whole fabric of belief tumbles easily to pieces without
any serious assault being made upon it. So far from rational im
probability being a difficulty to theological faith, the greater the
mystery the greater the faith of the true believer, until he reaches
the logical climax of sublime credulity in the acceptance of
Tertullian’s maxim—Credo quia impossible est, I believe it because
it is impossible.
Look back for a moment at the beginnings of Christianity.
How little had knowledge to do with its origin and progress I It
was born of the heart, not of the understanding of mankind, in the
�18
Common Source of Error in
stable not in the Academy or the Lyceum. The great and learned
of that time looked down on it with scorn as a pernicious supersti
tion, and it found acceptance among the poor and ignorant, the
publicans and sinners.
*
Let us note well the meaning of that:
the greatest revolutionary—or rather evolutionary—force which
has moved human society was not the product of the intellect, but
was an outcome of a glowing feeling of the universal brotherhood
of mankind; a feeling so deep and strong and true that it has
inspired and kept alive to this day many beliefs which outrage the
understanding. Can we believe then that the next great revolu
tionary force which shall move society afresh will spring from the
understanding and be governed by its rules? It needs little
reflection, I think, to show that a great social reform will never
come from a Senate or a House of Lords or other sort of upper
chamber, however cultivated and benevolent its members. No;
the impulse will come deep out of the heart of the people,
announcing itself many times beforehand no doubt in blind
yearnings, in wild explosions of social discontent, perhaps in reck
less uprisings of turbulence and violence, a great unreflecting
force, which it should be the function of intelligence to guide in
the right way. You may stop a revolution which has been
hatched in the intellect, by cutting off the heads of the few who
have knowledge ; you will never stop a revolution which has been
bred in the heart of the people by cutting off their heads. Instead
of denouncing wildly the social interest and visionary aspirations
which find outlets in communistic, socialistic, nihilistic, and
similar doctrines and disorders, it would be more wise to try to
understand their meaning; since it may be they are the blind,
* “ It is profitable to remind ourselves,” says Dr. Newman, “ that our Lord
Himself was a sort of smith, and made ploughs and cattle-yokes. Four
Apostles were fishermen, one a petty-tax collector, two husbandmen, one
is said to have been a coachman, and another a market gardener.” Peter
and John are spoken of as “illiterate men and of the lower sort.” Their
converts were of the same rank. They are, says Celsus, “ weavers, shoe
makers, fullers, illiterate clowns.” “ Fools, low-born fellows,” says
Trypho. “ Men collected from the lowest dregs of the people ; ignorant,
credulous women; ” “ unpolished, boors, illiterate, ignorant even of the
sordid arts of life; they do not understand civil matters, how can they
understand divine ? ” says Ccecilius. “ They deceive women, servants and
slaves,” says Julian. The Fathers themselves give similar testimony as to
their brethren. “ Ignorant men, mechanics, and old women,” says Athenagoras. “They are gathered,” says Jerome, “not from the Academy or
the Lyceum, but from the low populace.” Of meaner sort and more de
spised than the Communisis of Paris; and yet they overturned the world!
�Seeing and Believing.
19
instinctive, dimly prophetic impulses of a truth which, coming
from the suffering and brooding heart of society, lies deeper than
knowledge and which knowledge will one day have to reckon
with. No man’s intellect measures his character; from the un
fathomed depths of his being comes not only that which he shall
feel and do but in great measure also that which he shall think.
So it is with humanity as a whole. It is feeling which inspires
and stirs its great pulses, the intellect fashioning the moulds into
which the feeling shall flow. How momentously important then
that the people should have understanding, should learn know
ledge, so that neither craft of superstition, nor craft of ruler, nor
any other craft may again take possession of its forces and turn
them to its profit I
We are so comfortably confident of the stability of our progress
in these days that we do not give the heed we should to the lessons
of the past and consider seriously, as we might well do from time
to time, to what destructive issues uninstructed popular feeling
may one day carry us. There can be little doubt that each of the
mighty nations of the past believed that its kingdom would endure
and that it was impossible its gains should ever be lost to man
kind. But Home, and Greece, and Egypt are now but the
shadows of great names, and the once powerful Empires of the
East have disappeared so completely that even the places where
their mighty cities stood are hardly known. We may be sure that
there were sagacious men in each of these dead nations who fore
saw the end, perceived the causes that were leading straight to it,
and raised their unregarded voices in warning to the people. But
it is the eternal fate of Cassandra to be unheeded. In vain are the
most obvious truths preached to a people possessed by an impulse
of feeling with which they are not in harmony ; the nation which
is declining to its fall is as deaf to the admonitions of the few
thoughtful men who perceive and try to stay its course of folly
as it is blind to the plainest lessons of its own experience;
elementary principles of morality and the commonest maxims of
prudence go down alike before the current of feeling, and the
audacious charlatan who most cleverly flatters, fans, and directs
its sentiments is acclaimed and obeyed as a hero. This has
always been so, and it would be taking much too hopeful a view
of human nature to believe that it will not be so again. In spite
of all the gains of modern knowledge, which we think so certain,
but which, after all, are the real work and possession of only a
few, it is not at all out of the range of possible occurence that a
�20
Common Source of Error in
great turbid wave of superstition may overflow and overwhelm our
civilization, as other civilizations have been overwhelmed before it.
Do you think perhaps that the foundations of modern knowledge
are laid so deep and sure that it is incredible that they should ever
be swept away ? Well, it is a very sanguine belief: one might
have thought it as sure a truth as could well be that a person once
dead will not come to life again, but while multitudes believe the
opposite of that very plain experience, are the foundations of
belief so very sure ? xMen are not moved by knowledge, let me
say again, but by feeling, and were a strong wave of superstitious
feeling to pass through them they would see and believe nothing
that was not in harmony with it, would see and believe every
thing that was in harmony with it, would move on, until it was
spent, a huge devastating force, so far as pure reason was
concerned.
There is something too much of complacent self-deception in the
loud praise which we give to pure truth and in the high-flown devo
tion which we loudly profess to it; we make up by our theoretical
enthusiasm for it for much practical dislike and intolerance of it.
Truth is not so acceptable as illusion, since we live in perpetual
illusion, deceived and deceiving. We seem what we are not, and
make others believe that we think them what they are not. No
one speaks the truth sincerely to another, or talks of him in his
presence as he does in his absence. There is no one who would
not think himself grossly insulted if he had truth told of him, nor
would any one who adopted the practice of speaking the truth
always find it easy to keep himself out of an asylum. We hate the
speaker of truth, although the truth which hurts our self-love may
be most useful to us;. and love the flatterer, although we know the
flattery to be false and injurious. The ardent profession which
we make of a love of pure truth is itself a comfortable illusion
which we create for ourselves. From cradle to grave we are occu
pied—wisely, I dare say—in nursing our illusions, putting away
one, when we have worn it out, to take up another more fitting
the new desires which experience and years give us. If a person
really believed at the outset of life, as he knows at the end of it,
that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, would he have sufficient
motive to live ? Had there been no illusory prospect of Elysian
fields, or happy hunting grounds, or other sort of paradise beyond
the miseries of this world, where those who had suffered much and
unjustly here might hope to find recompense, one may doubt
almost whether faith in virtue could have been kept alive, whether
�*
‘Seeing and Believing.
21
the social organism would have held together ; at any rate, thou
sands of dreary lives would have been more dreary than they were,
thousands of self-sacrifices of work, of wealth, of duty, would never
have been made, the hopes, aspirations, and prayers which have
consoled and sustained thousands of heavy-laden hearts would not
have been. What then will be the consequence if science, as it
seems to threaten, shatters these hopes as illusions ? Will the
multitude be able to bear the pain, to face the fearful void, of so
great a loss ? Will man be able to live what the Bishop of Peter
borough has described lately as. “ a joyless existence, uncheered by
the hope of a happier hereafter, undignified by the consciousness of
divine descent and the heirship of immortality,” if science makes
him sincerely realise, as it seems to be going to work to do, that
he has no hope whatever of a happier hereafter, that his descent is
not divine but simian, that his last heirship is the corruption of
the grave ? Will not the bereaved people, craving for something
to satisfy the needs of the heart which knowledge cannot give, fly
for refuge in despair to some creed or church in which they may
find again the hopes, and consolation, and support of which they
have been robbed ?
Here lies the strength of the position of the Church of Rome.
Possessing an organization the most complete which the world
has ever known, served by its ministers with a devotion which
counts nothing gain that is not its gain, inspired with the theory
that the meanest human soul is worthy of all its energies, it offers
what seems a safe haven of refuge in the midst of the surging tur
moil of doubts, perplexities, and despair, the perfect rest of absolute
truth delivered into its keeping from the beginning: Come unto
me, might be its cry, all ye that are weary of spirit, with many
doubts and heavyladen of heart with the burden of your fears,
and I will give yon rest.
*
It is admirably adapted by its organi
* “ Thus it is sometimes spoken of as a hardship that a Catholic is not
allowed to inquire into the truth of his Creed ; of course he cannot if he
would retain the name of believer. He cannot be both inside and outside
of the Church at once. It is merely common sense to tell him that, if he
is seeking, he has not found. If seeking includes doubting, and doubting
excludes believing, then the Catholic who sets about inquiring thereby
declares that he is not a Catholic. He has already lost faith.”
J. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent. p. 184.
“ For, since we have the truth, and truth cannot change, how can we
possibly change in our belief, except indeed through our own weakness
or. fickleness.” p. 186.
�22
Common Source of Error in
zation, its ordinances, and its doctrine to respond to all the appeals
of the weak side of human nature. And I make no doubt many
will flee to it in the coming conflicts. But not of the people, we
may predict; not of the masses which constitute the foundation
and strength of the social organism. Its converts will come from
the tired votaries of fashion, weary of the dreary frivolities of
their lives, and eager to replace their exhausted desires by new
sentiments; from those who are educated enough to perceive
difficulties and perplexities of thought, without being courageous
and capable enough to face them sincerely and to think them out
thoroughly; from those again who, in the mortal struggle of new
thought for existence, have not the strength of understanding and
character to stay through the course, but falling by the wayside,
eagerly in their need lay hold of the helping hand which authority
holds out to them. These and the like are the classes from which
its converts will mainly come. The strong pulsations of popular feel
ing which make themselves felt in different nations, have no affini
ties with the Church of Rome nor has it shown the least sympathy
with them ; on the contrary they are essentially hostile to it, since
it has committed what seems to an outsider the fatal mistake of
allying itself with caste, privilege, power, and of alienating the
great liberal forces with which lies the determination of the
future : Catholic in name it has lost all claim to be Catholic in
fact. It is a rash thing to prophesy, but if I may venture a
prophesy here, it is that it will be by these great popular forces,
not by the knowledge of the learned, that it will be overthrown in
the final struggle. The French Revolution, momentous as an
event, was perhaps more momentous as a prophesy.
If what I have said thus far be true, what is the function of
those who have faith in the future of mankind, who are sanguine
enough to nurse enthusiastic hopes of its glorious destiny ? As
suredly to work well together, while it is time, to enlighten the
giant, so that when he puts forth his strength he may use it wisely,
to give him the understanding to direct his might in the right way.
Although intellect does not move the world it should guide directly
the forces which do move it, and so modify indirectly, as it will by
degrees, the deeper sources in which they take their instinctive
origin. One thing is certain whatever else may be doubtful: that
the true and honest method to pursue is directly the opposite of
that which the Churches have striven to enforce ; it is not to incul
cate credulity, to stifle doubt, to foster prej udice, in order that the
beliefs which are may continue to be. That method we know to be
�Seeing and Believing.
23
false. It is to seek truth and pursue it, at whatever cost, whether
it bring us sorrow or joy, peace or tribulation. Doubt, be it never
so disquieting, must go before enquiry, and enquiry before the
discovery of new truth. Scepticism is guilt in the eyes only of those
who fear truth, since it is the essential prerequisite of it. It is
impossible to foresee what fate the future has in store for the race
of man on earth; one may fain hope a more peaceful and happy
career than that which he has had in the past, since to look back
through his history from the beginning unto now is to look back
through succeeding chapters of wars, treachery, tortures, cruelties
and atrocities of all sorts and degrees by which “ man’s inhumanity
to man” has “made countless thousands mourn;” a spectacle of
horrors so appalling that, could we compass it in imagination, it
might well warrant the belief, if matters ended now, of a malevo
lent, not a benevolent, scheme of creation. We shall do well to
cherish the hope, or if not the hope the illusion, that matters will
not end here; that a brighter day will come when knowledge and
peace shall spread through the whole earth, and man’s humanity
to man leave few to mourn; that the past traditions of a golden
age, when all was plenty and peace, and the later aspirations for
a Paradise to come, in which sorrow and sin shall be no more,
may be not entire fable and illusion, but essentially dim fore
feelings, the prophetic instincts, of that which one day shall have
a measure of fulfilment upon earth.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
The SOCIETY’S LECTURES NOW PRINTED are .—
Miss Mary E. Beedy. On “Joint Education of Young Men and Women
in the American Schools and Colleges.”
Rev. J. F. Blake. On “The Geological Results of Arctic Exploration.”
Professor G. S. Boulger. On “The Physiological Unity of Plants and
Animals.”
Professor Clifford. On “ The bearing of Morals on Religion.”
On “Right and Wrong; the scientific ground of their distinction.”
Mr. T. W. Rhys Davids. On “ Is life worth having ? and the eternal
Hope. An Answer from Buddha’s First Sermon.”
Mr. W. H. Domvtlle. On “ The Rights and Duties of Parents in regard
to their children’s religious education and beliefs.” With notes.
Mr. A. Elley Finch. On “The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in
the Development of the Human Mind.” With woodcut illustrations.
On “ Civilization; its modern safeguards and future prospects.”
On “The Principles of Political Economy; their scientific basis, and
practical application to Social Well-being.”
On “The English Freethinkers of the Eighteenth Century.”
On “ The Science of Life Worth Living.”
On “The Victories of Science in its Warfare with Superstition.”
Rev. J. Panton Ham. On “The Stage and Drama in relation to Society.”
Professor W. A. Hunter. On “A sketch of the English Law of
Heresy past and present.”
Mr. M. Macfie. On “ The impending contact of Turanian and Aryan
Races;—the Physical and Economic results of Chinese migrations
to the West.”
On “ Religious Parallelisms and Symbolisms, Ancient and Modern.”
Dr. H. Maudsley. On “ Lessons of Materialism.”
On “ The Physical Basis of Will.”
On “ Common Source of Error in Seeing and Believing.”
Mrs. Fenwick Miller. “ The Lessons of a Life :—Harriet Martineau.”
Dr. Andrew Wilson. On “ The Origin of Nerves.”
Dr. G. G. Zerffi. On “ The spontaneous dissolution of Ancient Creeds.”
On “ Dogma and Science.”
On “ The Eastern Question; from a Religious and Social point of view.”
On “ Jesuitism, and the Priest in Absolution.”
On “ Pre-Adamites ; or, Prejudice and Science.”
On “ Long and short Chronologists.”
On “ The Origin of Christianity from a strictly historical point of View.”
The price of each of the above Lectures is 3d., or post-free 3)d.
Mr. A. Elley Finch. On “The Pursuit of Truth.” Cloth 8vo„
pp. 106. “ The Inductive Philosophy.” Cloth 8vo„ pp. 100.
The price of each of these Lectures is 5s., or post-free 5s. 3d.
Two vols. of Lectures (1st and 3rd Selection), cloth-bound, price 5s.
each, or post-free 5s. 6d., contain Lectures otherwise out of print, viz.:
by the late Mr. Geo. Browning and Professor Clifford, and by
Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Clodd, Mr. Edward Maitland, Mr. Plumptre,
and Dr. Zerffi. Table of contents of these vols. sent on application.
Can be obtained (on remittance, by letter, of postage stamps or order) of
the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domvtlle, Esq., 15, Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of Lecturi;
or ofTAv. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158, Oxford Street, W.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Common source of error in seeing and believing : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 27th February, 1881
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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. Includes bibliographical references. List of Sunday Society Society lectures on back page.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1881
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CT87
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Christianity
Bible
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Conway Tracts
Fallacies
Miracles
New Testament
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national SECULAR SOOT'™
tJil£
THE DOCTRIKE
HUMAN- AUTOMATISM.
A LECTURE
(WITH ADDITIONS}
delivered before
THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
On Sunday Afternoon, 7th March, 1875.
BY
w. B. CARPENTER, LL.D., M.D.,
F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S.
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE,
AND REGISTRAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. 1
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTUBE SOCIETY,
18 75,'
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.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALE, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-eour Lectures (in three series), ending 2nd May, 1875, will
be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket (trans
ferable, 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 Penny
Sixpence ■—and (Reserved
Seats) One Shilling.
�IS MAN AN AUTOMATON?
Ladies and Gentlemen,—In. introducing to you the
■question which is to be the subject of my address this
evening—the question, Is Man an Automaton ?■—it is
perhaps well that I should define, at the commencement,
the sense in which I intend to use these words ; and it will
be more convenient to take the second first—What do I
mean by an Automaton ? The word automaton is derived
■from two Greek words, which mean self-moving. Well, of
•course, man is a self-moving being, and in that sense he is
an automaton. But the word automaton, as we use it, has
& different signification. It means a structure which moves
by a mechanism, and which can only move in a certain
way. I.might take as illustrations various automata which
are exhibited from time to time—I remember to have seen
in my boyhood many remarkable collections. But I will
draw my illustration from this very hall in which we are
met. The great organ behind me is blown, I understand,
by water power. You know, I daresay, that formerly
organs were blown by manual or human power. The
bellows-blower had before him what is called a “ tell-tale,”
a little weight so hung as to indicate the amount of wind in
the organ; and his business was to work the bellows so as
■always to keep the “ tell-tale ” below a certain point On
the other hand, by a piece of mechanism constructed for
the purpose with a great deal of skill, the organ is now
blown by water-pressure. The water-pressure so acts, that
when the organist requires a large supply of wind, as when
he is playing loud through a great many pipes, the bellows
�4
move faster ancl supply that wind ; while, on the otherhand, when he plays softly, and little wind is required, the
bellows move more slowly. If that apparatus were incased
in the frame of a human figure, and made to work the
bellows-handle up and down, we should call it an auto
maton.
.
Now, let us see on what the working of that automaton
depends. It depends, in the first place, upon its structure.
The mechanist who has constructed that apparatus has soarranged the play of its various parts, that it shall work
with the' power communicated to it, in accordance with the
oro-anist’s requirements. Then its working depends upon
the force supplied by the water-pressure; that force being •
made, by the construction of the machine, to exert itself
in moving the bellows at the rate determined by the playing
of the organist. Without a sufficient water-pressure the
machine will not work; and when the organist ceases to
touch the keys, the movement of the ■ bellows comes to a>
stand. There you have then a machine which is moved,
on the one hand, by a certain power, and the action of
which is regulated by another set of circumstances external
to itself. Now that is, I think, what we mean by an
automaton—a machine which has within itself the power
of motion, under conditions fixed for it, but not by it A
watch, for instance, is an automaton. You wind it upand give it the power of movement; while you make it
regulate itself by its balance, which you can so adjust as to
make it keep accurate time. Any piece of mechanism of
that sort, self-moving and self-regulating, is an automaton.
But then all these machines are made to answer certain
purposes, and cannot go beyond. They are entirely de
pendent, first, upon their original construction, secondly,
upon the force which is applied to them, and thirdly, upon
the conditions under which that force is .made to act. -^he
question then is, whether Man is a machine of that kind .
his original constitution, derived from his ancestry, in the
first place, shaping the mechanism of his body; and in the
second place, the circumstances acting upon him through the
whole period of his growth, and modifying the formation ot
his body, also, in the same manner, determining the con
stitution of his mind. Are we to regard the whole subse-
�5
(mental aS Wel1 as bodily) of eacp individual,
with his course of action in the world, as a necessary
consequence or resultant of these conditions—as strictly
•determined by his inherited and acquired organisation, and
-by the external circumstances which act upon it?
We must now consider what we understand by Man. I
do not mean Man according to the zoologist’s definition—
• a Vertebrate animal, belonging to the class Mammalia,
older Bimana, genus and species Homo sapiens ; but Man
as he is familiarly known to us, and as we have to regard
him m our present inquiry-the bodily man and the mental
man. We cannot help separating these two existences in
thought, although my own course of study has been directed
o the investigation of the nature of their relation. The
-metaphysician considers man simply in his mental aspect;
ih/^
eltCiallng With the organs of sensation;
d the mode in which man acquires his knowledge of the
external wor d through those organs; nor can°he help
cea mg with the subject of voluntary action, and with the
movements which express mental emotions. The physio
logist, on the other hand, looks simply at the body of man-and yet he cannot help dealing with the physiological con
ditions of mental activity—the way in which we become
conscious of the impressions made upon the organs of sense
appatatim °dVritl111011
Upon the muscu1^
appaiatus. A little consideration will shew that we mav
justly regard the body of man as the instrument by which
ns mind comes into relation with the external world. We
exteraTworld Z m/3a.ns/omething distinct from the
personalitZ
convenieilt to call that
feels think?7?
^tm term Ago. This Ego-which
eels thinks, reasons judges, and determines—receives
all its impressions of the external world through the
Ze ZZ Z °f
Again’ a11
action of
e E^o upon the external world—including in that term
the mmds m other men—is exerted through the instru
mentality of the body. What am I doing "at the ZseZ
time?—endeavouring to excite in your minds certain Ideas
meais ?f paSSmg throufh W own. How do I do so?—by
means of my organs of speech, which are regulated bv
my nervous system; that apparatus being the instrument
' '
�6
through which my mind expresses my ideas in spoken
laimuao'e. The sounds I utter, transmitted to you by
vibrations of the air falling upon your ears, excite m the
nerves with which those organs are supplied certain changes
which are propagated through them to the sensonum, that
wonderful organ through the medium of which a certain
state of consciousness is aroused in your minds; and my aim
is, by the use of appropriate words, to suggest to your minds
the ideas I desire to implant in them.
Such is the aspect under which I would have you con
sider Man’s body this evening. I do not say it is the only
aspect: but it best suits our present discussion to consider
the body as the instrument by which the mind of each
individual is made conscious of what is taking place
around him, and by which he is able to act upon the ex
ternal world; thus becoming the instrument of communi
cation between one mind and another. To illustrate what
I would have you keep before you strongly—that the Mind
is the essential Ego—I will ask your attention to one or
two facts of very familiar experience. It must have hap
pened to most of you to have formed impressions of other
individuals without any knowledge of their bodily appear
ance. We do not know them m the flesh at all, but we
know them intimately, or think we do, in the spirit.. 1
remember, in the year 1851, the year of the first, great
. Exhibition, being told that a number of the Telegraph
establishments in the country having given their clerks a
free ticket to London, to enable them to go up and see
the world’s fair—as it was called—m Hyde Park almost
every clerk on first coming to Town before going; to the
great Exhibition, went down to the telegraph office in
city to fraternise with his chum. You P^^ably know that
telegraph clerks very soon find out who is at the o
end.” Several clerks occasionally work a particulai ^s
ment, and each comes to know in half a dozen
w
has - gone on.” They recognise the style of telegjaphm,,
just as you would recognise the handwilting
+o i;ve
After a'little there is some one whom eachcomess wlike
better than others; A communicates individually with_ ,
and B with A; and beginning with the exchange>of lrttfe
friendly messages at odd times, intimacies, I have been
�7
assured, of the most fraternal kind, frequently spring up
between those who have never seen each other. I daresay,
now that young ladies are employed in telegraphing—and
a most fitting employment it is for them—some more
tender relations may spring up in the same manner.
Take again another illustration—the way in which our
sympathies are aroused with an author, when we come to
. know his mind as presented in his writings. A great many
of you felt when Dickens died, as if you had lost a personal
friend—one with whose mind your own had grown into
dose relation, whose thoughts had exercised a most valu
able influence on yours, and whom you felt to be nearer
to you than many so-called friends.
Let me give you an instance from my own experience.
I have been for some years a great admirer of an American
writer, whose books I have read with the deepest interest,
because I found in these books expressions of some of my
own best thoughts, a great deal better put forth than I
could put them forth myself—the products of a similar
course of scientific inquiry, worked out with the aid of
great poetic insight and a great fund of human sympathy,
—a large human capacity altogether. In his writings I
have felt as if I had one of my nearest and truest friends.
Circumstances lately drew forth a letter from him to myself,
in which he did me the honour to say that I had been his
teacher in science; but I felt he was completely my master
in everything that gives the best expression to scientific
thoughts. Now if I were to go to America, the first man
with whom I should seek to make acquaintance, with the cer
tainty that we should meet as old personal friends, is Oliver
Wendel Holmes.—I do not speak of Ralph Waldo Emer
son, because we have long been personal friends. In the
preface to a book I have lately received from him, he'sums
up all I have been now saying in these pregnant words—
“ Thoughts rule the world.”
Thus it is the mind that reciprocates the mind, much
more than the body reciprocates the body. The body is
the symbol of the mind, just as spoken or written words
are symbols of ideas ; and when we think of a friend whom
we know personally, we combine with the conception of
his personality our whole knowledge and conception of his
�8
character. When yon say, “ I met my friend so and so in
the street,” you do not mean you met simply his body, but
that you met the man—the whole man. But when you
say that you know a man “ by sight” only, you mean that
you know his outside body and nothing more.
In considering the body as the instrument of the mind,
I shall shew you, first, the large amount of automatism in
the human body, as to which I want you to have clear
ideas. I do not wish, for any purpose whatever, to lead
you away from this truth. I wish that you should be in the
position yourselves to appreciate facts, so as not to be led
away by one-sided statements. I desire particularly that
my statements should not be one-sided; and so far as time
will allow, I will place before you the whole of the moat
important considerations relating to this subject.
We must separate our body into two parts; and shall
first consider the part that is most important as the instru
ment of our mind—that which physiologists call the apparratus of animal life. This takes in the nervous system—
the recipient of impressions made by the external world
upon our organs of sense, the instrument through which
these impressions are enabled to affect our conscious minds,
and conversely the medium through which our minds ex
press themselves in action on our bodies. Then, again,
there is the muscular apparatus, which is called into action
through the nervous system, and the framework of bones
and joints by which this muscular apparatus gives move
ment to the several parts of the body.
But this “apparatus of animal life” cannot be maintained
in its integrity, and cannot perform the actions which it is
adapted to execute, without certain conditions. It must be
maintained by nutrition, because it is always wearing and
wasting by its very action, and is. in constant need of
repair; and the material for this repair must be supplied
by the blood-circulation. Again, the power it puts forth is
dependent upon the operation of oxygen on the material of
its tissues or of the blood which circulates through them;
and this is as essential a condition as the pressure of water
is upon the bellows of the organ.
Then the circulation of the blood involves the prepara
tion of the blood from food, and its exposure to the atmo-
�9
■sphere in the lungs, so as to get rid of the carbonic
■acid which is the product of the chemical change that
generates nervo-muscular energy, and may take in a fresh
supply of oxygen ; and hence there is required an apparatus
of organic life. This apparatus consists of all the organs
which take in the food, which digest it, prepare it, and
convert it into blood, those which circulate the blood, and
also those which subject the blood to the influence of the
air. The working of this apparatus in man involves the
action of certain nerves and muscles•, though it is not so with
many of the lower animals, which are provided with a much
simpler mechanism. In the case of man we have the need
of muscles to take in and swallow the food, and of muscles
to move the coats of the stomach in the process of its
digestion; and we require a powerful muscle—the heart
•—to circulate the blood through the body by the alternate
contraction of its several chambers; while powerful muscles
of respiration alternately fill and empty the lungs.
Now, the first point I would lay stress upon is, that
all these actions are essentially and originally automatic.
When I say originally, I mean from the very beginning—
from the moment when the child comes into the world, or
oven before. We know that the first thing the new-born
infant does is to draw a long breath; and from that time
breathing never ceases,—the cessation of breathing being
the cessation of life. The heart’s action has been going
on for months before birth; and its entire suspension for
■& very short time, whether before or after birth, would
bring the whole vital activity of the body to an end.
These motions are executed by the nervo-muscular
apparatus, in a way that does not involve our conscious
ness at all. We do not even know of our heart’s action
unless it be very violent, or we be in such a position that
we feel it knocking against our side. But still it is going
on regularly and tranquilly, though it may not be felt
from one day’s end to another. We cannot stop it, if we
would, by-any effort of the will; but it is affected by our
'©motional states.
So, again, we do not know that we are breathing, unless
we attend to it. The moment that we direct our attention
to it, we become aware of the fact; but if we are studying
a2
�10
closely, or listening to a discourse, or attending to some
piece of music, or, indeed, doing anything that engages our
consciousness, we are no more aware of our breathing than
we are during sleep. This shews you, then, that when
breathing goes on regularly the action is purely automatic.
But we have a very considerable control over our muscles
of respiration. If my respiratory movements were as purely
automatic as those of an insect, I could not be addressing
vou to-night; because the whole act of speech depends upon
the regulation of those movements. We must have such
power over the muscles, as to be able to breathe forth succes
sive jets, as it were, of air, which, by the apparatus of arti
culation, are converted into sounding words. Though we
have power over the respiratory organs to a certain extent,
we cannot “ hold our breath” many seconds. In the West
Indies the overworked negroes used formerly to try to
commit suicide by holding their breath, but could not do
it, except by doubling their tongues back so as to stop the
aperture of the glottis; for the impulse and' necessity forbreathing became so imperative, that they could no longer
resist the tendency to draw in a breath. Thus, whilst, we
have a certain voluntary control over this act of breathing,
so as to be enabled to regulate it to our purposes, we can
not suspend its automatic performance long enough to
interfere seriously with the aeration of the blood.
Let me briefly notice some of our other automatic
actions. In the act of swallowing, which properly begins
at the back of the throat, the “swallow” lays hold of the
food or the drink brought to it by the muscles of the mouth,,
and carries this down into the stomach. We are quit®
unconscious of its passage thither, unless we have taken
a larger morsel or something hotter or colder than ordinary.
This is an instance of purely automatic action. If you
carry a feather, for instance, a little way clown into the
“swallow,” it is laid hold of and carried down involuntarily,
unless drawn back with your fingers.
Take as another instance, the act of coughing. What
does that proceed from ? You may have allowed a drop of
water or a crumb of bread to “go the wrong way,” and get
into the air-passages. It has no business there, and will
excite a cough. This consists, in the first place, in the-
�closure of the glottis—the narrow fissure which gives
passage to the air—and then in a sort of convulsive action
of the expiratory muscles, which sends a blast of air
through the aperture, that serves to carry away the
offending substance. Nothing can be more purpose-like
than that action, yet it is purely automatic. You cannot
help it. You may try to stifle a cough for the sake of the
audience or the lecturer, but the impulse is too strong for
you. You see, then, the purely involuntary nature of this
action. The person who feels inclined to cough may
endeavour to overcome the automatic tendency by an
effort of his will. He may succeed to a certain degree,
but cannot always do so.
Now, although we cannot voluntarily stifle a cough when
it is strongly excited, we can cough voluntarily, with no
excitement at all. You can cough, if you choose, to interrupt
the lecturer, as in the House of Commons coughing is some
times used to put down a troublesome speaker; and little
coughs are sometimes got up to give signals to some friend
privately. Or, again, the lecturer, who may feel his voice
husky in consequence of some little mucus in his throat,
wishes to clear it away; its presence does not excite the
movement, but he coughs intentionally to get rid of it.
Now, I would have you fix your attention on these two
points : in the first place, coughing as an involuntary move
ment excited by a stimulus in the throat; and in the second
place, as a voluntary movement executed by a determinate
effort. This distinction is the key to the whole study of
the nature of the relation between the mind of man and
his muscular apparatus.
The automatic movements of which I have been speaking
depend upon a certain part of the nervous centres, which
does not enter into the structure of the brain properly so
called; namely, the medulla oblongata, or the upward
prolongation of the spinal marrow—the spinal cord, as
physiologists call it—into the skull (a, figs. 1, 2).
The effect of the stimulus or irritation in the windpipe
may not be felt as tickling; for coughing will take place in
a state of profound insensibility. An impression is made
upon the nerves which go to the medulla oblongata, and
in that centre' excites a change. It is the fashion now to call
�12-
this change a “movement of moleculesbut it is nothing ■
more than a name for
the action excited there,
;of the nature of which
we know very little. I
• do not think that this
expression is really very
much better than the old
doctrine of “vibrations”
put forth by Hartley
& more than a century ago.
The change thus excited
produces a converse ac
tion in the mo tor.nerves
which go to the muscles,
and thus calls forth the
combined muscular move
ment of which I have
spoken. This is a typi
Fig. 1.—Under Surface oe Brain.— cal example of what the
a. Medulla oblongata, cut off from physiologist terms
the spinal cord; b, pons varolii; c, “reflex action.”
infundibulum; d, portion of the
The whole Spinal Cord
convoluted surface of the cerebrum;
■ e, portion of the same laid open, is a centre of “ reflex
shewing the difference between the action,” in virtue of the
grey or ganglionic substance of the grey or ganglionic mat
convolutions, and the white or fibrous
substance; /, cerebellum; 1, olfac ter it contains, in addi
tory ganglion; 2, optic nerves; 3-9, tion to the white strands
which form the connec
successive cranial nerves.
tion between the spinal nerves and the brain j and this grey
matter is present in different parts of the cord in different
amounts, in proportion to the size of the nerves connected
with each. Each ordinary spinal nerve contains both
sensory and motor fibres, bound up in the same trunk, blit
these are separate at its roots (fig. 3) ; and a part of each
set of fibres has its centre in the grey matter of the spinal
cord itself, whilst another part is continued into its white
strands. Although, however, we speak of “ sensory
fibres, we do not mean that impressions on them always
call forth sensations. For in the case of many involuntary
acts, ascertain impression is made on the sensory nerve,
�■:I3
.and a reflex influence excited by this. acts through the
corresponding motor nerve without calling forth any sen
sation. Ah impression is conveyed towards the ganglionic
centre, which possesses a
• power of reflexion — not
reflection in the mental
sense, but in the optical
sense of the reflection of fffy'
rays from a mirror. If we
break any part' of this
a nervous circle,” ‘ as Sir
Charles Bell called it, its
action is destroyed.' Cut
the sensory ' nerves, and
no reflex action can be
excited. Cut the motor
nerves? and no muscular
contraction can be called
forth. Destroy the centre, Fig. 2.—Vertical Section of Brain
THROUGH ITS MIDDLE PLANE;
and you will not have the shewing the relation of the Cere
reflexion. The complete brum A and the Cerebellum B, to
nervous circle is necessary the Sensori-motor Tract, which
for the performance of may be considered as the upward
extension of the
every one of these reflex a, and includes medulla oblongata,
the parts lettered
actions. • ■
cl, e,f -, at h is shewn in section the
What I want first to corpus callosum, or great transverse
impress upon you is, that commissure uniting the two cere
the reflex movements im bral hemispheres; and at g the
longitudinal
connect
mediately concerned in the ing the frontcommissure, parts of
and back
maintenance of Organic ’ each; i, optic nerve.
life all take place through
this lower portion of the nervous system, which has no
necessary connection with either sensation or will. That
is to say, that if there were no higher part of the nervous
System than the spinal cord, we should still have reflex
action without the Ego having anything to do with it.
■ -I may illustrate this by the act of sucking, which in
volves a curious combination of respiratory movements with
movements of the lips. This act can be performed without
any brain at all; for infants have come into the world with. out the brain, properly so-called—with nothing higher than.
�14
the prolongation of the spinal cord—and have sacked,
-pibreathed, and even cried
for some hours; and all the
true brain has beenremoved
experimentally from new
born puppies, which still
Fig. 3.—Transvep.se Section of
Spinal Cord ; shewing its grey or sucked at the finger when
ganglionic core, enclosed in its moistened with milk and
white strands; a, r, anterior or put between their lips. This
motor roots;
r, posterior or shews how purely automatic
sensory roots.
these actions are.
But we now come to that other class of movements—
namely, those properly belonging to the apparatus of
Animal life—which are concerned in the obtaining of food and in carrying on ordinary
locomotion. I have to shew you to what a
large extent, among some of the lower ani
mals, these movements are originally auto
matic ; and, on the other hand, to inquire
into their nature in Man.
We will go to the class of Insects and their
allies the Centipedes, as giving the best illus
tration of the primary automatic movements
of animal life. Here (fig. 4) is a diagram of a
Centipede. Every child who has dug in the
ground knows the “ hundred-legs,” and is
pretty sure to have chopped one in two, and.
noticed that each half continues to run. This
is in virtue of the ganglion existing in every
joint of the body, which is the centre of the
reflex action of the legs belonging to it, and
which keeps each joint in motion even after
it is separated from the body. If one of these
creatures is cut into half a dozen pieces, every
one of them will continue to run along. But,
again, if we divide the nervous cord which
connects the ganglia, the sight of an obstacle
Fig. 4.—Gan may cause the animal to stop the movement
gliated Ner of its fore legs, yet the hind legs will continue
vous Cord of to push it on. If you take out the middle por
Centipede.
tion of the chain of ganglia, the legs of that
�15
part will not move J but the legs of the front part will move
or not, according to the direction of the ganglia of the head,
•which seem to control the action of the other ganglia in vir
tue of their connection with the eyes; and the legs of the
hind part will continue to move as before.
When one of these creatures goes out of the way of an
•object before it, we may assume that it sees the object;
for although we have no absolute proof that insects do
see anything, I cannot see that there is any disproof of a
conclusion to which all analogy points. Certainly it seems
to me that if I try to catch a fly, and if it jumps or flies
away, or if I go out and try to catch a butterfly with a
net, and it flies off, it does so because it sees the net.
Those who have watched bees, when a storm is coming on,
flying straight down from many yards’ distance to the en
trance of the hive, can scarcely help concluding that they see
the entrance. At any rate, it is not proved that they do not.
Well, then, the Centipede avoids an obstacle. A visual
impression is made on the eyes, and by their agency is.com
municated to the large ganglia in the head; the reflex
action of which controls that of the other ganglia, and
directs the movement of the body.
We find that the size of these cephalic ganglia in flying
Insects has a very close relation to the development of their
eyes; the eyes being most highly developed in the most
active insects, and the ganglia connected with them the
largest; while the general movements of these insects are
most obviously guided by their sight. Here is a clear case
of Original or primary automatism; because these actions
are all performed by the insect almost immediately that it
comes forth from the chrysalis or pupa state; as soon as
its wings have dried, it begins to fly; and obviously sees
and avoids obstacles just as well as if it had been practising
these movements all its life.
Then, in the case of Insects, we notice that very remark
able uniformity of action, which we characterise as “instinc
tive.” They execute most remarkable constructions after a
Certain plan or pattern, with such extraordinary uniformity
and absence of guidance from experience, that we infer
that they must have inherent in them a tendency to
perform those actions.
�16
We see this in the case of hive bees, which are distin
guished for theii* elaborate architecture, and for their rem arkable domestic economy. I do not say that there is no
rationality in insects, and that there is nothing done with
conception and purpose; because some of their actions seem
to indicate this, especially those which are described in
recent accounts of ants given by Mr. Belt in his “ Naturalist
in Nicaragua.” Sir John Lubbock’s experiments also cer
tainly do seem to indicate a power of adaptation to changes of
circumstances that were not likely to have frequently oc
curred naturally in the history of the race, so as to have
become habitual—changes brought about by human agency,
so foreign to the ordinary habits and instincts of the crea
tures, that we can scarcely attribute their consequent action
to anything but a conscious adaptation to these ends. Bub
this is a matter to be still cleared up—how far experience
modifies the actions of insects. As a general fact, I may say
that they carry Automatism to its very highest extreme. .
To give another illustration—the Mantis religiosa (fig. 5),.
an insect which is allied to the crickets and grasshoppers, but
which does not habitu
ally either jump or fly.
It is a very savage insect,
and lies in wait for its
prey like a tiger. You
can see the curious form
of the long fore-legs,
which act as arms, and
are waved about in the
air; and it rests on the
two hinder pairs of legs.
Now, observe that the
front pair are supported^,
upon a very long first
segment of the thorax;
the two other segments
bearing the wings and
the two other pairs of
legs. Each of these
he centre of the move
ments of the limbs attached to it. The insect is always
�IT
lying in wait; and if any unlucky insect comes sufficiently
near, the arms dose round it and dig-in a pair of hooks,
with which the feet are furnished. By this act the unfor
tunate victim is soon put out of existence. Now if the
head Of this Mantis be cut off, the arms still go on moviim
-the
aild if anything is brought
Wife! their reach, they impress the hooks upon whatever
&SSSP’ Fhe 6FS Simply direct their action>the a^ion
itself being dependent on the ganglion from which the
nerves of these members proceed. Further, if we cut off that
«Vision and separate it from the hind part of the bodyithe
same thing will go on If anything is put within its grasp,
the arms close round it and impress the hooks with just
W game automatic action as we see in the Venus’s fly-trap.
Not only
but if you try to upset the body, it will
balance, and rise again upon the hind kgs.
Ibis shews you how completely automatic the move
ments are. The name of Mantis religiosa is derived from
the curious attitude in which this insect habitually livesT? -tS TT prayer’ We have not this insect
Britain; but the French call it the Prie Dieu
is equivalent to religiosa. •
’
C°nie thS 10A7r Vertebrate animals, of which
We my take the Frog as the best illustration. Its Spinal
’V
�18
Cord may be considered as the representative of the chain
of ganglia in the centipede ; the principal difference being
that its ganglionic matter forms a continuous tract, instead
of being broken up into distinct segments. But we find in the
head, instead of the one pair of ganglia connected with the
eyes, a series of ganglia connected with the several Organs
of sense, together with two masses of which we have no
distinct represent*
It
atives among the
lower animals —
namely, the cere
brum and the cere
bellum. The rela
tion of these to the
other
ganglion»
centres is shewn in
tig. 6, which represents the brain oi
the Turtle; A being
the olfactive lobe,,
or ganglion of smell,
from which proceed
the olfactory nerve»;
B the cerebrum; C
the optic lobe or
ganglion of sight,
from which proceed
the optic nerves;
D, the cerebellum;
and E, the spinal
cord. In mOTi
fishes the cerebrum
is actually smaller
Tig. 7.—Diagram of Brain, shewing the than the optic lobes;
relations of its principal parts: a, spinal but as we ascend in
cord; b, b, cerebellum divided so as to lay the series towards
open the fourth ventricle, 4, which sepa man, we find it borates it from the medulla oblongata ;
c, corpora quadrigemina ; d, optic thalami; coming relatively
f, corpora striata, forming the sensori-motor larger and larger;
tract; g, g, cerebral hemispheres ; h, corpus so that it covers-in
callosum; i, fornix; 1,1, lateral ventricles;
piJes the series
Hr
3, third ventricle; 5, fifth ventricle.
�19
«f ganglionic centres lying along the floor of the skull.
These sensori-motor ganglia, (fig. 7, c, d, f), though com
monly regarded as appendages to the cerebrum, really con
stitute the fundamental portion of the brain; they may be
regarded as an upward continuation of the spinal cord; and
I have been accustomed to designate this whole series of
centres (excluding the cerebrum and cerebellum) as the
axial cord In this all the nerves of sense terminate, and
irom it all the nerves of motion arise, the cerebrum having
only an indirect connection with either.
°
The proportional size of the Cerebrum in different animals
compared with that of their axial cord, corresponds so
closely with the manifestations of intelligence (that is, the
'^itentional adaptation of means to ends, under the Guid
ance o experience) as contrasted with blind unreasoning
instinct, that there can be no doubt of its being the instn”
Xnent of the reasoning faculty. The cerebrum attains its
maximum size and complexity in Man ; on the other hand,
111} froS it is relatively much smaller than in the turtle •
and it would seem that the actions of this animal are pro
wled for almost entirely by the reflex power of its auto
matic apparatus—namely, the spinal cord with the ganglia
Z-ITe’rJ.1Su?P°?e that we divide tlie spinal cord in the
»Welle of the back, between the fore legs and the hind le^s
•what nappens? We find that the animal can no longer move
tte hind legs by any power of its own, but that they can be
made to move by pinching the skin of the foot. If acid
SS put on one leg, the other will try to wipe it off: and a
Wimber of movements of that kind are called forth by
»famuli of various kinds. Yet we feel justified in saying
A® frog does not feel them. We know, as a matter of
penence that if a man receives a severe injury to his
—
Wy Often in
Md also, I
through his^tT5’ am0I1S tlle.slliPPing “ ‘he docks&h his stukmg some projecting object in falling
8o,T oomF,eteIy paralysed. He hal no feeling £
tat shock
power of moving them. But after the
S a„fe?„?fl, hera7dent has passed off- if y°u “»He
the lei »™fnhlS feet’ or aPPly a hot plate to them,
« +u-e£S a^e drawn UP- The man will tell you he feels
othmg whatever, and would not know what had taken
�20
■ place if he did not see the movement. A case of this bir d
occurred to the celebrated surgeon, John Hunter, who asked
a man, 11 Do you feel this in your legs'?”“ No, sir,” he
replied, (e but my legs do.” That was not scientifically
correct, because his legs could not be properly said to feel
that of which the Ego was unconscious ; but it expressed
the fact that the irritation called’forth a respondent motion.
■ • There is only one other mode of explaining this action';
namely, that by dividing the spinal cord.we have made a
second Ego—a new centre of sensation—in the lower part
of the cord. In that case we make as many Egos in the
centipede as we cut the body in pieces; and we might make
three separate Egos in the frog—the head, the upper part of
the trunk with the fore-legs, and the lower part with the
hind legs, each acting independently. This seems, to me
inconceivable; I entirely go with those who maintain that
these actions are provided for by a purely automatic
mechanism.
' .
. - A” still more remarkable fact is, that if we remove
• the higher nervous centres, leaving only the Spinal Cord,
and with it the Cerebellum (which appears to have the
■ power of combining or co-ordinating the movements), we
find that the general actions of locomotion are per
formed as in the uninjured animal. Thus the frog will
continue to sit up in its natural position ; and if we throw
it into the water it will strike out with its limbs and swim,
just as if the whole nervous system.was intact. * This is
■ the case also with the Dytiscus marginalis, a water-beetle,
which, when the ganglia of the head have been removed,
' will remain unon a hard substance without any movement;
' yet, if dropped into water, will begin to strike out, swim
ming in the usual way, but without any. avoidance o±
obstacles. So the frog, if a stimulus is applied, will jump
- just as if the brain had been left. If put on the hand it sits
. there perfectly quiet, and would remain so unless stimulated
to action; but if the hand be inclined very gently and slowly,
so that the frog would naturally slip oil', the creature s *pre"
feet are shifted on to the edge of the hand until he can just
prevent himself from falling. If. the turning of the hand be
■ slowly continued, he mounts up with great care and deli
beration, putting first one leg forward and then the other,
�.21;
nnial he balances himself with perfect precision upon the
edge; ancl if the turning of the hand is continued, over he
goes through the opposite set of operations, until he comes
to be seated in security upon the back of the hand. All
this is done after the brain proper has been removed,
shewing how completely automatic this action is. Another
remarkable fact is, that if you stroke one particular part of
the skin, the frog will croak.
*
.. .
Precisely parallel experiments were made by Flourens.
By removing the brain of a Pigeon he found that the anwal
retained its position, and would fly when thrown into the
air* If the optic ganglia were left, he found evidence that
animal either saw, or that its movements were guided by
impressions received through its eyes. The head of the
pigeon would move round and round if a light was moved
round in front of the eyes. So in the frog it was found that,
if the optic ganglia were left, it would avoid obstacles placed
in front of it, when excited to jump.
Thus we see how completely automatic these movements,
are, and how entirely they are dependent on the reflex
■action of the axial cord, the Cerebrum not being necessary
for their performance. The removal of that organ, how
ever, seems to deprive the animal of all spontaneity; it
remains at rest unless excited to move, and seems to do
nothing with a purpose.
Let us now go to Man, and examine the nature of his
movements. You have all seen a child learning to walk.
You know that it does not get upon its legs to walk all at
©nee, like a newly-dropped lamb ; but that its muscles have
to be trained, and this training is a very long process. The
child learning to walk, as Paley says, is the greatest
posture-master in the world. It requires a long course
■bf experience to acquire the power of moving its limbs in
® proper .manner to execute the successive steps; but far
more training is required in balancing. This balancing
of the body is one of the most curious things in our
mechanism. No automaton has ever been made to walk.
I once saw an automaton that professed to walk; but it had
only a gliding motion; and upon looking at the feet I found
some concealed springs beneath, so that neither foot was
ever really lifted.
�22
The act of walking requires a. continual shifting, of the
centre of gravity from side to side, so as to keep it over
the base during every step; and it is this shifting from side
to side, that constitutes the great difficulty, in. the act of
walking. Almost every muscle in the body is in action in
the maintenance of our balance and in the forward move
ment. The muscles of the eyes, even, are in operation in
keeping our gaze fixed upon what is before us, and thus
guiding our onward movement. But when this movement
has been once acquired, it goes on unconsciously. If you.are
walking with a friend and engaged in earnest conversation,
you may walk a mile and not be the least conscious all the
time of your having been successively advancing one leg
after another; and you do exactly the same thing, while
walking in a state of mental abstraction. So, again, you
are guided by your sight, when you have once set out,
along the line you are accustomed to take. I am in the
habit of walking down the Regent’s Park every lawful, day,
as you call it in Scotland, to my office at the University of
London. I frequently fall into some train of thought—as
latelv about this lecture; and I follow on that train of
thought, not only unconscious of the movements of my legs,
but unaware of the directing action of my vision. Yet I
know that my eyes have been directing me. When I have
come into the crowded streets, I have not. run against my
fellow passengers, or knocked myself against a lamp-post.
My legs have been moving the whole time, and have
brought me to my destination, sometimes to my surprise.
This must have been the experience of all of you who are
accustomed frequently to walk along a certain line. It has
even been the case that when you have set out with the
intention of departing from your accustomed line, for some
little business or other, and have , fallen into a tram ot
thought, through pre-formed association you keep m the
habitual line. After getting half way down a street you
suddenlv find that you have not gone out of your way, as
you intended to do. I regard such habitual action as
purely automatic; not primarily, but secondarily automatic,
the automatism not being original but acquired. . Ihis. is
the most universal of all forms of acquired automatic action
�23
in Man—not only the motion of the limbs, but the direction
of their movements by the sight.
The act of walking may become so automatic as to be
performed during sleep. Soldiers fatigued by a long march
continue to plod onward when sound asleep. If there are
Bo obstacles they go steadily onwards, just like the centi
pede when its head has been cut off. The Indian punkahpullers—men who are engaged the whole day pulling a
string backwards and forwards, to move the great fan
which produces a current of air in every room—often go
on as well when they are asleep as when they are awak®.
These are two instances of acquired automatism; and I
might add a great many more, because everything that
becomes habitual to a man is occasionally performed auto
matically in the state called absence of mind. Thus when
& gentleman goes up to his dressing-room to dress for a
party, the first thing he commonly does is to take out his
Wtch and lay it on the table. The next thing he often
does— I have done it myself—is to wind up his watch,
as if he was retiring for the night. I have known a
case in which the gentleman completed his undressing
and then went to bed-; so that when his wife came in
Search of him, he was comfortably resting from his day’s
Work. That was a case of pure automatism ; and I could
relate many more instances of the same kind, but you
must all have noticed such things in your own experience.
A particular manual operation can be done, if it is one not
requiring the constant direction of the mind, quite autoinatically. A man can plane a board, for instance, or work
his loom, while his mind is entirely occupied in another
direction. A musician will play a piece of music, and yet
maintain a continuous conversation at the same time.
There is a very amusing and suggestive book which I
recommend you to peruse, “ The Autobiography of Robert
Moudin, the Conjurer,” who describes the training by which
he prepared himself for the performance of various of his
feats of dexterity. Amongst other things, he tells us that
he devoted a great deal of time and attention in early life
to the acquirement of the faculty of being able to read a
book continuously, and at the same time to keep up balls
in the air. He brought himself to be able to keep up four
�24'
balls in the air, without detaching his mind from his book
for a moment. He could continue the tram of thought
that the book suggested, without giving his attention at
all to the keeping up of the balls; this action being only
a more elaborate form of the trained automatism that 1
have spoken of. The thought occurred to him, when
writing his autobiography, that he would try whether,
after thirtv years’ cessation from this performance, he
could still execute it. He stops, and then continues his
memoii-: “ I have tried this, and find I can keep up three
balls ” There, I believe, the nervo-muscular combination
that was required, had come by early training to be a part of
his physical constitution, and had been kept up by nutrition.
Whatever, in fact, we learn to do in the period of growth, .
we can continue to do without practice after the growth
has been completed; whilst acquirements that we make
subsequently are more easily lost when we are out o
practice.” I think all experience shews that; and I believe it
is for this physiological reason—that the bodily and mental
constitution'acquired during the period of growth becomes
“a second nature,” and is maintained throughout life,
whilst any modification it may undergo afterwards is some
thing superadded to that basis, and is the first to decline
when the habit of action ceases.
.
We now pass to the other part of our subject—the rela
tion between the higher part of our nature, the Ego, and
these automatic actions. What I shall endeavour to shew
you very briefly is this, that the whole of the neryomuscular apparatus concerned in executing the mandates
of the mind acts as a framed automaton. Anything which
' we mentally determine to do “we will, as we say. In
using the word “will” I do not mean a separate faculty,
I mean the Ego in a state of action. The Ego determines
to do a certain action, and commands the automaton to do it
*The will does not, as physiologists used to believe, thio
itself into a particular set of muscles; but says to the auto
maton, “do this,” and it does it. There are manF
which the Ego desires to do, but which he cannot make the
automaton do for want of training. For instance, manyof
you may strongly desire to be able to play a musical instru
ment. You may be able to read the music, and by watchmo
�25
a performer may see precisely how to do it, but you cannot
do it, simply for want of training. The same is the case with
a great many other actions which we can only acquire by
practice. Again, you may wish to do something physicallv
impossible. The Ego may earnestly desire and intend to
make some great effort—to take a great leap, for instance, to
save his life. He may will to hang on to a cord as long as
xaay be necessary to prevent his falling from a height.
The Ego wills this with all his energy; but his muscles will
not. obey him, because it is not in their nature to maintain
their tension for longer than a certain period.
Let me give you a little experiment that I think every
One will find instruction in performing on himself; it
occurred to me while lecturing on physiology as suited to
conduct my students exactly to the idea I wished to impress
upon them. There happened to be a bust opposite me,
and I said, “ Now, I will to look at that bust, and I will
at the same time to move my head from side to side.” I
told, them to watch my eyes, and they could all see them
rolling from side to side in their sockets,—as you can see
for yourselves by looking at your own eyes in a lookingglasSj and turning your head from side to side. You do not
feel that you are using the slightest exertion, and would not
be aware of the motion of your eyes unless you knew it
as a matter of fact, or some one else told you that you were
<at>ing so. You have said to your automaton, “Look at it”
(whatever it may be), and at the same time “ move your
head round.; ’ and the automaton rolls its eyes in the conteary direction, and thus keeps the image on the same part
•of the retina.
r
That is what I maintain to be the general doctrine of
the automatism of the body, directed and controlled by the
will;—the Ego willing the result, and leaving it to the
automaton to work it out; as when I set my automaton to
walk to a certain place, and direct my thoughts to some
thing altogether different.
kave now, in the last place, to consider how far the
Mind of man acts automatically. This is a subject con
fessedly of very great difficulty. There are those who consider that the mind of man is essentially and entirely
c ependent upon his bodily organisation, although they may
�26
still hold the separate existence of the mind. They find.it,.
indeed, very difficult to conceive that there can be anything
else than automatic action; because they see to what a
very large extent our mental activity is conditioned by the
physical constitution of the body.
The Physiologist can have no more doubt that there is a
mechanism of thought and feeling, of intellect and imagina
tion, of which the Cerebrum is the instrument, than that
there is a mechanism of instinct of which the Axial Cord is
the instrument. "When one idea suggests a second, in accor
dance with a preformed association, the second a third, and
so on, constituting what we call a “train of thought,” without
any order from ourselves, we seem fully justified by a large
body of evidence in affirming that this is the mental ex
pression of a succession of automatic changes, each causing
the next, in the ganglionic matter which forms the con
voluted surface-layer of the Cerebrum. These changes may
or may not result in bodily motion. What we call the
“ movements of expression,” are the involuntary signs of
the state of our feelings ; and so the movements executed
by sleep-walkers are the expressions of the ideas with
which their minds are possessed. So great talkers, like
Coleridge, sometimes run on automatically, when they have
got patient listeners; one subject suggesting another, with
no more exertion or direction of the will than we use in
walking along a course that has become habitual. All this
may be regarded, physiologically, as the “reflex action of
the cerebrum,” the physical mechanism of which is partly
shaped by its inherited constitution, and partly by the
training to which it has been subjected, whether by inten
tional education, or by the education of. circumstances—the
brain “ crowing to” the mode in which it is habiuually
worked, &just a's the mechanism of our bodily movement
shapes itself to the work we habitually call on it to peiform.
We constantly see that mental faculties are inherited, as
well as bodily powers ; that children brought up after the
parents’ death, shew most remarkably the mental tendencies
of one or both of them. They do a number.of things in
exactly the same manner that the parent did, have the
same moral and intellectual tendencies, and present an
extraordinarily striking resemblance in general character.
�27
This principle of the hereditary transmission of facultiesthrough the physical organisation is now generally admitted;,
and what is more, I think it is clear that many of these
Acuities and tendencies have been acquired and superin
duced, as it were, in the constitution of the parent, upon
what it originally possessed. There is one very remarkable
and too common example of this hereditary transmission,
namely, the tendency to alcoholic excess. I remember
a friend telling me he had known a man who for forty years
got up every morning with the strong apprehension of being
unable to resist that craving, which was an essential and
inherent part of his nature, inherited from the unhappy
indulgence of his father. That man fought a most heroic
fight every day of his life. Every now and then he fell,
but recovered himself; and, to my mind, fall as he did, his
recovery shewed him to possess a far higher moral nature
than that of the man who never yieids because he is never
tempted. I cite this merely as one example of acquired
tendency hereditarily transmitted; all of us are familiar
with cases more or less resembling it.
But the question is, whether the Ego is completely
under the necessary domination of his original or inherited
tendencies, modified by subsequent education ; or whether
he possesses within himself any power of directing ancl
controlling these tendencies ? It is urged by some that as
the physical structure of his Cerebrum at any one moment
is the resultant of its whole previous activity, so its reflex
action, determined by that physical structure, must be
really automatic; the only difference between a voluntary
oi’ rational, and an involuntary or instinctive action, lying
in the complexity of the antecedent conditions in the
former case, as distinguished from their simplicity in the
latter. And it is held, in like manner, by many who
look at the question from the mental side, and who do
not trouble themselves at all about the physiological aspect
of it, that a man cannot act in any other way than in
accordance with his character; and that his character at
any one moment is the general resultant of his whole
previous mental life. But even John Stuart Mill, the
most able and conspicuous advocate of this doctrine, felt
that in making every man entirely dependent upon his in
�28
herited constitution, and his subsequent “circumstances,” it
excluded all possibility of real seZ/-direction, all hope of selfimprovement ; and this, he tells us in his autobiography,
■weighed on his existence like an incubus. “ I felt,” he
says, “ as if I was scientifically proved to be the helpless
slave of antecedent circumstances, as if my character and
that of all others had been formed for us by agencies •
beyond our control, and was wholly out of our own power.”
'The way out of this darkness he found in what seems to
have struck him as a new discovery, although it was
fa.mil 13,r enough to many who had previously studied the
action of the mind,—“that we have real power over the
formation of our own character; that our will, by influenc
ing some of our circumstances, can modify our future
"habits or capacities of willing.”
Now, this I hold to be accordant with the experience of
every one who has thought and observed, without troubling
himself with philosophical theories. "VVe all perceive that
in the earlier period of our lives, our characters have been
formed for us, rather than by us. But we also recognise
the fact, that there comes a time when each Ego 'may
take in hand thé formation of his own character ; and that
it thenceforth depends mainly upon himself what course
its development shall take,-—the most valuable result of
early training being that which prepares him to be his
own master, keeping in subjection his lower appetites and
passions, and giving the most favourable direction to the
exercise of his higher faculties. And I shall now explain
to you what seems to me the process by which this is
■ effected.
Every one knows that he can determinately fix h%s
attention upon some one object of sense, to the. more or
less complete exclusion of all others. In looking at a
picture, for instance, he can examine each part of it sepa
rately; or, if he has a “musical ear,” he can single out any
one instrument in an orchestra, and follow it through its
whole performance. Now, just in the same manner we
can fix our attention upon one state of consciousness (a
thought or feeling) to the exclusion of others. Supposing
that you are endeavouring to fix your mind upon a certain
object of study, or are reading a book that requires much
�29
thought to follow it, or are trying to master a mathe
matical problem, or are desiring to work out a certain
question as to the conduct of your own lives, and you are
attracted by the coming-in of a book or a newspaper which
you would like to look at, or are distracted by noises or
the playing of a musical instrument, you feel that it is in
your power to fix and maintain your attention by a suffi
cient effort. That determinate effort is what we call an
act of the will; and I believe that the power of so fixing.
Our attention is the source of all that is highest and best
in our intellectual self-education, as, in another direction, it.
is the source of all our moral self-improvement.
The automatist will say that your doing so is merely
the result of the preponderance of one motive over the
other,—the desire to go on with your study being stronger
than the attractive or distracting influence. But if this
be the whole account of the matter, why should we have
to “ make an effort,”—to struggle against that influence ?We choose, as it seems to me, which is the thing that we
deem preferable; and we then throw the force of the Ego
into the doing of it, just like a man who makes a powerful
muscular exertion to free himself from some restraint.
And I hold that just as the Ego can turn to his own
account the automatic action of his nervo-muscular appa
ratus, regulating and directing his bodily movements, .so
ha can turn to his own account the automatic activity of
his cerebrum, regulating and directing the succession of
his thoughts, the play of his emotions. That succession
is in itself automatic; you cannot produce anything, other
wise than by utilising what may spontaneously present,
itself; and you do so by the selective attention of which I
have spoken, intensifying your mental gaze so as to make ,
the object before you call up some other, until you get
what you are seeking for. This you may readily trace
out for yourselves if you will observe your own mental
experiences, in trying to recollect something. And what
shews the essentially automatic action of the cerebral
mechanism in this familiar operation, is that after you
have been for some time trying in vain to recall some
forgotten name or some recent occurrence which has
“ escaped your memory,” it will often flash into your mind
�30
some little time afterwards, when yon have turned your
attention to something else. In the same manner many
important inventions and discoveries have proceeded from
the automatic working of the Cerebrum, set going in the
first place by the determinate fixation of the attention on
the object to be attained; the success of the result being
due to the whole previous “ training” of the organ.
The act of fixing the attention, in my belief, lies at the
foundation of all education, and is one to be fostered and
encouraged in every child. It is better to begin with only
a few minutes at a time; gradually, by encouragement, the
child comes to feel that it has a power of its own to pro
long its attention; and at last the encouragement is no
longer needed, for the child that has been judiciously
trained will exert all its determination to learn its lesson,
in spite of temptations to go out and play or to amuse itself
in any other mode. But if this determination were simply
the expression of a preponderance of motive, I do not see
why an effort should have to be made. If the motive to fix
the attention be stronger than the attraction of any other
object, or the prospective influence of the good to be
gained be more powerful than the distracting influence, the
mere preponderance of the one over the other would produce
the result. But we know and feel that the making such a
determinate effort, involves more expenditure, “ takes more
out of you,” than the continuous sustained attention when
there is no distracting influence; therefore, I say there
is something here beyond the automatic preponderance of
motive—the mark and measure of the independent exertion
of the will.
Now this power, call it what we may, is capable of being
strengthened by exercise—no power more so; neglected
children being generally most deficient in it, and most
carried away by their own impulses. No doubt a greater
power of concentration is natural to some, and a greater
mobility to others. But still I believe there is no healthy
mind in which this power is not capable of being developed
by training, just like the power of the limbs in walking. Its
possession is the foundation of all intellectual discipline;
without it we can do nothing good in intellectual study.
Look, now, at the moral side, and see how it operates
�there. We begin by saying, “ I ought not” to do so and
SOj*—assuming a moral standard. Take the case, which is
unfortunately so common a one, of a man who has a strong
temptation to alcoholic indulgence. He .knows perfectly
well that an habitual yielding to that temptation will be
his ruin. I have heard of a man who said that if a glass
of spirits was put before him, and he knew that the pit of
hell was yawning between, he must take it. This is an
instance of the overpowering attraction it has for some
individuals ; but this generally results from habit; and it
is over the formation of habits that the will can exert its
greatest power, by fixing the attention on one set of motives
to the exclusion of other motives. I do not say that a man
can bring motives before his mind. He cannot do that—
we can only take what comes into our minds; but he can
direct his thoughts in a certain line, as it were, so as to
find them. He can think of his family or the future, and
80 exclusively fix his attention on the consequences, as to
withdraw it from the immediate attraction. That I take
to be the best mode. A struggle goes on in the mind of
many a man subject to temptation; but if he has strength
of principle enough to resist the immediate tendency to
wrong action, and so gets time to deliberate, he may thus
Herve himself for the conflict. Many good resolutions are
formed—we know what place is said to be paved with them
and we hope to realise them. We determine in ourselves
that we will avoid particular indulgences. We may have
Some strong disposition to apply our powers to ill uses, to
play some mean trick, or something of that kind. Most of
us have temptations of self-interest—not less strong be
cause not pecuniary,-—as to gain credit that does not belong
to us, and so on. We hold back—•“ puli ourselves together ”
is the phrase of the present time—and summon all our
resolution and determination not to yield. There is some
thing more, here, than mere preponderance of motive; for
we determinately direct our attention to the reasons why
we should or should not do the particular act. I believe
that in such cases the mind is best withdrawn from the
temptation, fixing the attention upon something else. That
is the real secret of victory. By fixing our mind upon the
object, and saying “I won’t do it.” the temptation still
�32
keeps haunting us. I have known many a struggle of this
kind relieved by the determination to follow an entirely
different course. We know that in cases of insanity, where
a man is led by, physical disorder to take a miserable view
of everything relating to himself, the medical man sends
him abroad, where he is attracted by a new set of objects
—something which prevents his mind from brooding over
his gloomy thoughts; and in that way, as his physical health
improves, the man comes to feel that he can voluntarily
transfer his attention from them to objects of interest
round him. This, I believe, is the manner in which we
should distract our minds from anything we feel and know
to be unworthy of our attention;—we should find out
something more worthy, and pursue it with determination.
I ask you to take as your guiding star, as it were, in the
conduct of your lives, these four words—“I am,” “ I ought,”
“I can,” “I will.”—“I am” is the expression of reflection
and self-consciousness, the looking-in upon our own trains
of thought. If we do not feel “ I am" we do not think of
ourselves and our own nature—we surrender ourselves. “ I
ought"—expresses the sense of moral obligation. By steadily
fixing our attention on the “I ought,” the course of action
is first directed right, and its continuance m that path
becomes habitual. “ Turn to the right and keep straight
on,” and you will find the doing so easy in proportion.
Every right act, every struggle of the will against wrong, is
the exercise of a power which strengthens with use, and
will make the next act easier to you. On the other hand,
every time you surrender your will to the temptations of
self-interest, or sensual gratification, or anything that turns
you from the straight path, there is a loss of power which
makes the next effort more difficult. Then, “I can"—the
consciousness of power, is the foundation of all effort.
And, lastly, it is not enough to say, “ I ought to do it, and
I can do it,” but we must will to do it. The “ I am,” “ I
ought,” “I can,” “I will,” of the Ego, can train the
mental as well as the bodily Automaton, and make it do
anything it is capable of executing.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The doctrine of human automatism : a lecture (with additions) delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 7th March, 1875
Creator
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Carpenter, William Benjamin
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. : ill. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Sunday Lecture Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1875
Identifier
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N116
Subject
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Free will
Rights
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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 doctrine of human automatism : a lecture (with additions) delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 7th March, 1875), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Automatism
NSS