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THE SCIENCE OF LIFE
WORTH LIVING.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 22nd, FEBRUARY, 1880,
By A. ELLEY FINCH.
London:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
PRICE THEEPENCE.
�The Society’s Leetures by the same Author,
now printed, are—on
Erasmus; his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Price 3d., or post free 3jd.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modem
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Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
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“ The English Free-thinkers of the Eighteenth Cen
tury.” (Price 3d., or post free 3^d.)
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between
Lord Bacon and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 100, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post
free 5s. 3d.)
“ The Pursuit of Truth : as Exemplified in the Principles of
Evidence—Theological, Scientific and Judicial.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post
free 5s. 3d.)
Can be obtained (on remittance by letter of postage stamps or
order) of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15,
Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days
of Lecture: or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street, W.
�SYLLABUS.
The two theories of the Universe and of Human Life, derived
respectively from Superstition and Science.
1. The theory derived from Superstition stated, with indica
tions of its source.
Biassed belief in this (theological) theory arising from early
training in creeds, catechisms, and sermons, and from the in
fluence of proselyting societies. Illustrations from the Reports
of the Sunday School Union Society; the British and Foreign
Bible Society; the Religious Tract Society.
Our actual condition (or practice) of life shown to be based
upon the theological theory. Illustrations of its overcrowding,
poverty, intemperance, disease, crime, premature death, &c.,
from the Census Population Returns. The Registrar General’s
Returns. Fry’s Royal Guide to the London Charities. Statistics
of Prisons and Lunatic Asylums.
The present attitude of Science in relation to these features of
human existence.
2. The theory of the Universe and of Human Life (physio
logical) derived from Science stated, with indications of its source.
Illustrations from Newton’s Principia. Darwin’s Descent of
Man.
Remarkable absence of Societies for spreading knowledge of
and inducing belief in the theory derived from Science.
Summary of the Natural Law by virtue of which organised
bodies are multiplied in excess of their means of subsistence.
Illustrations of the inexorable operation of this law from
Haeckel’s History of the Creation. Darwin’s Origin of Species.
Walford’s Famines of the World.
The first canon of scientific culture of life involves limitation
of numbers, and the controlling of physical conditions of repro
duction through the application of human intelligence.
How the continuity or similarity of structure and function
between human, animal, and vegetal organisms, enables Science
(through comparative research) to acquire knowledge of the
nature of the constitution of man, and to originate rules for its
right treatment and progressive improvement. Illustrations
from Huxley’s Man’s place in Nature—Galton’s Hereditary
Genius.
Responsibility (taught by Science) in becoming a factor of
posterity.
To what extent, by applying (analogically) to the rearing of
the Human Being the scientific methods that have produced the
exquisite growth, maturity, and beauty of cultivated Flowers
and Fruit, and the joyousness, hilarity, and perfection of form,
temper, and disposition of the thorough-bred Animal, the evils
of our present existence might be eliminated, its morality puri
fied and elevated, its course converted into a career of virtuous
enjoyment, and Life practically made worth Living.
��THE
SCIENCE OF LIFE WORTH LIVING.
----- !-----
Iw the arena of European thought there are at the pre
sent time conspicuous two conflicting conceptions or
theories concerning the nature of the Universe, and the
origin and nature of Human Life.
One of these theories is based upon supposed Super
natural Knowledge, and, inasmuch as, from the point of
view of Science, all alleged knowledge of what transcends
Nature relates to the region of the emotional imagination,
I will, for the sake of distinction, designate the concep
tion I am now alluding to as—;the theofy derived from
Superstition.
The other conception is one which has slowly emerged
from the long series of human discoveries that have
gradually brought to light those facts and laws of Nature
upon the truth and experience of which it will be found
to be exclusively based. I will designate it therefore as
—the theory derived from Science.
You all know, more or less, what are the salient points
of these respective theories, having probably learnt them
by rote. I am going to restate them now, because the
argument of the Lecture is founded upon an endeavour
to realise them by our reason, and to reflect upon them
by way of comparison; notwithstanding that it has be
come the intellectual fashion with a certain school to en
courage subtle and plausible attempts to reconcile these
theories—or hopelessly to confuse the separate provinces
of reason and faith.
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Now the prior-mentioned theory may I think be shortly
stated thus—First, with regard to the Universe; that it
came into existence by the fiat of the Will of an Almighty
Power, which, somewhere about six thousand years ago,
created it out of nothing in six days. That the principle
part of this Universe consists of the World our Earth,
which is a fixed plain or vast floor, arched over by a con
cave vault. The Sun and Moon, and the Stars which
stud this vault or firmament, and which move round the
fixed earth, are simply greater and lesser lights created
subordinate to, and called into existence for the purpose
of the earth, and to give light thereon.
Secondly, with respect to the origin and nature of
Man, the theory under consideration is more complex, as
well as of more serious interest, and can only be com
prehended (so far as human reason can comprehend any
thing so mysterious,) by entering into somewhat more
detail.
It is related then that the Almighty Power created
man by forming him out of the dust of the ground, and
breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, whereby
man became a living soul; and the other sex we are told
was created by the causing of a deep sleep to fall upon
the man, and the taking out of one of his ribs, and the
closing up of the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which
was so taken from the man was made into a woman; and
this first-created pair were commanded to be fruitful and
multiply.
The theory then goes on to relate that the man and
woman, thus created pure and sinless, were immediately
tempted into sin by Satan in the form of a serpent. That
this sin of our first parents brought a curse upon the
Earth, and incurred the penalty of death for themselves
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and for all their posterity. That the human race thence
forth became more wicked, so that the Almighty repented
that he had made man, and destroyed by a deluge all the
inhabitants of the Earth, with the exception of eight per
sons who had feared him, chiefly Noah and his sons; who
also were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. This
sweeping purification however was as futile as the origi
nal design, and men became more wicked than ever, and
the final remedy devised by the Almighty for the salva
tion of his human creatures was the incarnation of him
self in the person of his only Son (the second person of a
mysterious trinity). That the death of such only Son
upon the Cross, the innocent for the guilty, was a vi
carious expiation or atonement of the sins of the World;
provided however that all this should be believed; faith
or belief in it being made the condition upon which
alone such salvation is possible.
The theory does not however stop there. It declares
that everything which happens upon the Earth is the
direct effect of the exercise of the Will of this Almighty
Power, so that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without his sanction or knowledge, and moreover that the
ills of life are to be remedied by means of prayer or en
treaty directed to him. Man therefore is emphatically
counselled to be constant in prayer; to pray without
ceasing. He is assured that the prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. That the prayer of faith shall save
the sick. That when two or three are gathered in the
name of the Almighty he will grant their requests, and
that whatsoever any man shall ask Him in the name of
Christ (his only son before mentioned) it shall be granted
to him.
Then, as to our state of life; the theory inculcates that
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poverty on Earth is a condition pleasing to the Almighty,
and will be rewarded by riches in Heaven, and that the
aim of our life here should be to qualify ourselves for ob
taining this heavenly reward. That wealth and happiness
on Earth are not therefore the ends in view at all, but are
rather obstacles than otherwise to attaining Life everlast
ing in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That our brief existence in this World is a transitory
state of probation, merely accessory or a passage to an
other, where life will be endless ; eternal bliss in Heaven
to those who have believed in this theory, eternal torment
in Hell to those who have disbelieved in it.
Such, in short compass, is an outline of the one theory
of the Universe, and of the origin and nature of the life
of Man.
Now it is by no means easy to point out the source of
the theory I have been slightly sketching. It is commonly
supposed to be contained in the Bible. Partly no doubt
it is so, partly it is even more ancient, for India and
Egypt share in its origin with Palestine and Syria. As
a whole it is the theory of theology; that is to say, it has
been, in its ultimate shape, elaborated from the metaphy
sical and scholastic subtleties of that remarkable class of
men the Patres et Doctores—the Fathers and Schoolmen
who flourished throughout the early centuries of the
Christian era, and during that period of scientific dark
ness termed the middle ages; and, so potent has been the
indirect influence of their speculative interpretations of
the oriental metaphors of scripture, that it is quite doubt
ful whether any of us now living are capable of reading
the Bible free from the prejudices and preconceptions
that, partly by inheritance, and partly by education, we
have imbibed from such speculations, and which, in the
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&
mystifying form of creeds, catechisms, confessions of
faith, and other ecclesiastical devices, are now found to
stand between man’s unsophisticated reason and the,
unique language of Holy Writ.
We are educated then to believe in this theological
theory, and our belief is not only thus biassed from birth
to manhood, but throughout our whole lives the most
extraordinary pains are taken to retain our understand
ings in its thraldom.
It may surprise some of you to hear that there are in
this metropolis alone upwards of 150 Missionary, Bible,
Beligious Tract, Christian evidence, and other proselyting
Societies applying large funds and exercising wide ranging
influence in spreading the knowledge of, and persuading
to the belief in this theological theory. Some idea may
be gained of the extent of the operations of these societies
if I give you a very few of the published statistics of some
two or three of them.
First I will instance the Sunday School Union Society,
who, in their Annual lieport for last year of what they
term their threefold work of pioneering, extension, and
consolidation, and the overcoming of prejudices, sophisms,
and personal antipathies, state that they have now in
London upwards of 830 schools, 20,000 teachers, and.
231,000 scholars.
I may here very appositely remark in reference gene
rally to the academical system of this country, that there
is not even yet a single one of our great Public Schools
that is presided over by a head master who is not a theo
logian. When therefore we read of a Conference of Head
Masters, such as was held on 22nd of December last, we.
must not be shocked to find that an adequate or more
thorough teaching of Science formed no part of their pro
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gramme, and that they should be largely occupied in
discussing such subjects as “de flagellatione corporis” and
“ de cerevisia potendo ”—that is—concerning the flogging
of the little boys, and stopping the beer of the big ones.
Next I will take a very few facts and figures from the
last Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It
is therein stated that in the year 1878 the Society had
issued and circulated upwards of 3,340,000 copies of the
scriptures in whole or in part. That from the commence
ment of the Society’s operations in the year 1804, upwards
of eighty-five millions of such copies had been circulated,
and they calculate that they have thereby rendered the
Bible available to seven hundred millions of the human
family!
I will lastly turn to the Report of the Religious Tract
Society for the year 1878. There I find it stated that the
total circulation from London alone of the various mis
cellaneous issues of this energetic body had reached the
astounding total of upwards of sixty millions, of which
28,500,000 were religious tracts; so that I think we may
conclude that the community is tolerably saturated with
this species of literature, even if we did not know, what
is probably within the experience of nearly every one
present, viz.: That you cannot walk the streets without
having these publications thrust upon you, and that you
can hardly enter a Railway Station or a room in a Hotel
throughout the Kingdom which is not supplied with the
scriptures gratis, and partly adorned by a display of theo
logical tracts and texts.
We cannot wonder then if we find, as the fact is, that
the actual condition or practice of our lives is based upon
the theological theory, and that whatever may be the
prevalent form of ailment with society or any of its
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members, the sovereign cure suggested by our accredited
teachers is resort to the theological agency of Prayer,
Intercession, or Thanksgiving to the Supernatural Pro
vidence assumed by the theory to be specially regulating
the affairs of life. Things serious and trivial are alike
affected by it.
If bells are to be hung in a Church, they must first be
blessed by the ministers of supernatural grace. If a
vessel of war is to be named, a christening or theological
ceremony must be performed over it. If new colours are
presented to a regiment of soldiers, the approval of the
supernatural must be invoked. If an epidemic prevails,
prayer is to be resorted to to drive it away. If the
weather is such that the crops will not ripen, the super
natural is appealed to to change it. If, notwithstanding
such appeal, the weather continues disastrous, the crops
are destroyed, and the farmer is ruined, so inveterate are
our theological habits that a harvest Thanksgiving to the
supernatural must nevertheless be held 1
Even the sick room is overshadowed by this superstition,
and sometimes becomes converted into the chamber of
death, by reason of the physician’s skill being baffled, not
by the symptoms of the disease but by the patient’s
nervous depression and anxiety resulting from terrified
belief in the theological theory.
And now, if we turn to the characteristics of our life
carried on under the influence of this theory, what do we
find them to be ? I think I do not err if I describe them
as being for the most part divers forms and shapes of
misery, and variety of wretchedness—I am not of course
alluding to the lives of the upper ten thousand, who are
by their special circumstances exceptionally placed in
relation to any theory, but I am referring more particu
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larly to the lives of the masses of those who compose the
middle and lower ranks of society.
In verification of this assertion I will again appeal to
the irrefutable logic of statistics. If we turn to the
Population Census returns we find that whilst, in the
judgment of the Registrar-General (whose conclusion I
may add is confirmed by the reasonings and research of
our friend Dr. Richardson), the fair natural limit of the
life of the human being is stated to be 100 years, yet the
average length of life in this country, taking all of us
together, is only between forty and fifty years, whilst, if
we confine our calculation to those who constitute our
toiling millions, their actual average length of life is only
between twenty and thirty years. It may be literally said
that the natural length of life is ground out of them by
over-work, by overcrowding, by intemperance, by disease,
and by destitution. So short a span of existence can in
deed be to many of them little more than the prolonged
agony of a slow death. “We don’t live,”—said many of
the street folk to Horace Mayhew, when he was enquiring
into the habits of the London poor,—“ We don’t live—
we starve.”
Again, in the Registrar-General’s summary of births,
deaths, and marriages for the year 1878 we find it recorded
that out of the 83,000 deaths that occurred in London in
that year, upwards of 42,000 took place at ages under
twenty years, and it appears as a general inference from
his figures that of the children that are brought into
existence upwards of 40 per cent, of them perish under
five years of age ! "
Now these are very fearful facts, in whatever light we
may view them, and the amount of human misery they
involve can hardly be realised by means of languages
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though if it were necessary to paint with sadder colours
the sorrows of our existence I would refer to Fry’s Royal
Guide to the London Charities, amongst which are enume
rated no less than some seventy Hospitals, having an
annual aggregate of nearly 1,000,000 in-and-out-door
patients 1
All honour indeed to those whose munificence supports
these beneficent Institutions, but, what we are now con
cerned to notice is the appalling mass of disease and
destitution that renders them necessary, and fills to over
flowing their tens of thousands of beds and appliances.
I might7 even still further darken the picture of life if
I summed up, however briefly, the statistics of our habits
of intemperance and the numbers of committals to jails
and of the inmates of lunatic asylums; but I think that
what I have stated may at any rate be regarded as suffi
ciently justifying the Apostle of Superstition, who has
lately been heard to enquire so despairingly—Is Life
worth Living ?
Now, remembering that in obedience to the theological
theory millions of prayers, in every conceivable variety
that the will of man can devise, have been, and are being
continually uttered imploring supernatural relief from
the evils of this world of woe, I think we might well
reply to the above enquiry by asking—Is it not time
seriously to try something else ?
There is no doubt that in one sense enlightened minds
have been for a long time engaged in endeavouring to
lessen the ills of life by the application of the teachings
of Science. Philanthropists have especially sought to
show that in matters relating to health, diseases for
instance, chiefly result from the disregard of certain
natural laws; but, between Superstition and Science there
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is really no ratio, and, whilst the one appeals to super
natural Providence for the cure of evil, and the other
would rouse up the human reason to discover the law of
nature which the presence of evil shows us has been dis
regarded, it is in fact impracticable effectually to graft
the resources of science upon the theological theory, and,
in attempting it, we are only engaged in the delusive
practice of pouring new wine into old bottles. The old
bottles of theology are indeed from time to time burst,
while the new wine of science is mostly spilt and lost.
Not but what a summary of the achievements of science
during even the present century would show us very
remarkable changes bearing upon the progress of our
every day life,—commerce freed from restrictions; trade
monopolies broken down; the necessaries of life cheapened;
important political, economic, and legal reforms effected;
locomotion and the means of communication marvellously
expedited ; vast improvements in the medical art; pain
mitigated, diseases diminished, life itself lengthened.
Yet the conclusion I desire to put to you is, that the
expected beneficial results of these scientific achievements
have been more or less neutralized or impeded through
the influence of the theological theory, by the stimulus
they have thereby been encouraged to impart to the irra
tional and reckless over production of human beings, so
that their most striking effect has been the excessive, that
is, the too rapid increase of our population, especially of
the indigent or wage receiving class, whose miserable
lives and untimely deaths are but too surely vouched for
by those remorseless returns of the Registrar General.
It appears by the published digest of the last census
that the population of England and Wales, which, in the
year 1801 was nine millions, had doubled its numbers by
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the year 1851, and, by the year 1871, had increased to
twenty-three millions I
Then in relation to our education on the theological
basis, the attitude of science is thus humourously de
scribed by Professor Huxley. “The educational tree,” he
remarks, “ seems to have its roots in the air, its leaves
and flowers in the ground, and I confess I should like to
turn it upside down, so that its roots might be solidly
embedded among the facts of nature, and draw thence a
sound nutriment for its foliage and fruit of literature and
of art. I think I do not err in saying that if Science
were made the foundation of education instead of being
at most stuck on as a cornice to the edifice, the present
state of things could not exist.”
Let us now turn to the consideration of the theory of
the Universe, and of the origin an-d nature of Human Life
which we have derived from the discoveries of Science.
When you look up at the sky on a bright cLear night
of course you see the vast apparent dome over your heads
profusely studded with constellations and multitudes of
stars. You observe that the great majority of these
appear to be fixed in their relative positions, always
appearing in their accustomed places, no matter where .
the observer may be, but that with regard to some few of
the-stars, which appear to be larger than the rest, and to
shine with a more brilliant and attractive light, these
you observe to be perpetually shifting their positions,
only some of them appearing together on any particular
night.
,
Now the marvellous discoveries of astronomical science
respecting the stars are shortly this. Those that are
never seen to move out of their relative positions, and
therefore called the fixed stars, are at an enormous,
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practically an incalculable distance from the Earth, and
are of vast size compared with it, many of them being
indeed suns, the centres of systems similar to what is
termed our solar system. They are altogether so removed
from us as to exert no appreciable influence upon the
earth, and they may be dismissed from present considera
tion with the single observation, that they powerfully
impress us with the vastness of the universe according to
the scientific conception of it, far beyond realisation by
the human imagination, and convince us that our earth can
not be the world that the theological theory asserts, but that
it is really only a very minute portion of the vast creation.
To attain anything like a realisable idea of our World
according to Science we must limit our reflections to those
few moving stars whose larger size and softer brilliancy
seem so to fascinate our sight and thoughts, and which are,
relatively to the fixed stars, very near to us. These mov
ing stars then are the planets that circle round our Sun.
The Earth is known by science to be one of such planets,
and to an observer placed upon the surface of any of the
others the earth would appear very much like what they
appear to us, though indeed, as to some of them, the
planet Jupiter for instance with its four satellites or
moons and whose bulk is some 1300 times larger than
that of the Earth, our planet with its one moon would
appear to an inhabitant of Jupiter, if visible at all, as a
very insignificant star indeed.
‘ To comprehend this more clearly we must mentally
separate this planetary system from the rest of the starry
universe, and contemplate it distinctly by itself.
Here you have an ordinary representation of a few of
the chief bodies of the system,* showing the Sun in the
* See diagram on opposite page.
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URANUS'^..
17
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centre and the several principle planets in their respec
tive orbits round the Sun. It tolerably represents what
the eye would see, supposing we were not upon the Earth,
but looking down on the system from a great elevation
on its north side.
Now, of this majestic system Science explains the pro
bable formation. That is to say—It is known, from tele
scopic observations and mathematical calculations, that
the moving bodies in this system are all similar in form,
being globes not quite spherical or round but oblate, that
is, flattened at their poles. ( That they all severally ro
tate upon their axes in the same direction. That they
all move through space in the same common direction
from West to East. That the curve of their respective
orbits is not mathematically circular but elliptical. That
the eccentricity of their orbits is very slight, and the incli
nation of their planes very small in comparison with that
of the Solar Equator, and that all these planetary bodies
revolve round the central Sun in particular periodic
times.
Now these discovered facts, considered in connection
with the known natural laws of gravitation, of motion,
and of heat, and the known laws that rule the human in
tellect in its search after truth, impel our reason towards
certain conclusions, viz.: That the former state of the
solar atmosphere, myriads of ages ago, was that of a vast
zone of nebulous or gaseous matter in a state of extreme
heat, extending to the utmost limits of the system, under
going a gradual process of progressive cooling, contrac
tion, and condensation, and that the present state of the
system is simply the necessary physical result of such
natural process of cooling, contracting, and condensing .
by virtue of which the nebulous mass broke up, or sepa
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rated into its several component moving bodies, at first
liquid, then becoming solid and such as we now see them.
The entire system, which, as you have seen, is but a
fragment of the starry cosmos, is yet of a size almost
beyond the grasp of our understanding. Thus, the central
Sun is a body 883,000 miles in diameter and is at a dis
tance from our Earth of 93 millions of miles. The Sun’s
distance from the planet Jupiter is 496 millions of miles,
and its distance from the planet Neptune is more than
2,800 millions of miles. These figures help to give us
some idea of the immense magnitude of this relatively
small system.
Now the points to which I wish to draw your attention
are that science has further discovered that this system
and every portion of it is governed by, as well as being
the result of the operation of, fixed natural laws, especially
the laws of gravitation, of motion, of light, and of heat.
That these laws operate uniformly and continuously upon
each one of the bodies of this system as a part of the
whole, and that, with regard to some of these laws—the
law of gravitation for example, it could not possibly be
suspended or altered (physically speaking) in reference to
any one of these bodies, without affecting the relation
subsisting between it and all the other bodies of the
system, so as to perturb, probably annihilate its cosmic,
harmony, as we have it mathematically demonstrated in
the immortal “ Principia ” of Sir Isaac Newton.
You need not then be startled to hear that some of the
greatest astronomers the world has seen, men who have
made the laws of this stupendous system their profoundest
study, notably the illustrious Laplace and Lalande, have
declared that they had been unable to detect in the recon
dite mechanism of its invariable order any indication what
ever of the God of theology.
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The system, so far as human knowledge of it extends,
may be described as a realm of Natural invariable law,
Such as we see it now, it has existed through countless
ages, and such it must continue to exist for countless
ages to come!
Therefore, whilst theologians for the last 1800 years
have been perpetually preaching the approaching end of
the World, astronomers have only recently calculated the
coming variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit
for a million years following the year 1800 I
Hence Science teaches us that the general laws of the
astronomical phenomena of our solar system constitute
the basis of all our real knowledge.
So a venerated philosopher has said—•
“ Two things I contemplate with ceaseles awe;
The Stars of Heaven, and man’s sense of Law.”
Turning now from the system, we must concentrate
our attention upon a very small, but integral portion of
it, a body scarcely 8000 miles in diameter, that globe
which we call the Earth; for obviously we can form no
scientific theory of human existence without knowing the
scientific elements that characterise the planet which is
the home of that existence. The sciences then of As
tronomy and Geology, which together give us the space
scale and the time scale of our world, armed with the
knowledge of the natural laws already referred to, have
been able to trace the formation, the shape, and the his
tory of the Earth for ages before man appeared upon it,
and to tell us that plants and animals came into existence
by slow degrees, and that the condition to which they
had severally attained at the time of man’s appearance
was the result of variation or natural selection progress
ing by means of the physiological interaction of adapta
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
21
tion, and inheritance and survival of the fittest operating
throughout, not six days, but enormously long periods of
time. In fact, as to the progress or change in every
thing taking place on our planet, including the seemingly
capricious phenomena of human actions, and even, (as
Dr. Maudesley put it to us so clearly last Sunday), the
apparent freedom of the will, Science has discovered that
all is regulated by the operation of invariable natural law,
linked together, that is, in a chain of secondary causation,
whose only modification is brought about by the interven
tion of human intelligence.
Thus Science is assured that the law of gravitation
would annihilate in an instant the most pious person in
the kingdom, if he lost his footing on a mountain without
having first placed himself in circumstances to counteract
the inexorable operation of such law, or, that if he inno
cently swallowed what the laws of physiology have shown
to be a fatal dose of prussic acid, not all the prayers of
Christendom could avail to save his life.
We are thus according to Science living under the reign
of invariable natural law, and not according to Theology
under the reign of arbitrary supernatural will, and there
fore the aim of the human mind should be to find out and
to study Natural Law, rather than to keep on seeking by
perpetual entreaty to influence Supernatural Will.
These few facts, which for our present purpose may be
accepted as sufficiently representing an outline of the
theory of the Universe derived from Science, are no longer
questioned by competent minds, and I should hardly think
that anyone capable of giving them unprejudiced con
sideration could fail to perceive, that they are contradictory
to, and incompatible with the theory derived from Super-?
stition, which I commenced by describing.
�22
The Science of Life Worth Living.
Now, with reference to the first appearance or creation
of man, Science can at present furnish us only with proba
bilities. These are however the logical outcome of an ap
paratus of evidence almost irresistable.
The scientific view of the origin of the human species
is that which has been made more or less familiar to us
by the works of our illustrious countryman Charles Darwin.
The logic of his argument is really very clear, as well as
cogent, and the result of it may, I think, be thus in
telligibly stated. Due regard being had to what is now
known geologically, zoologically, and embryologically of
the ascending gradations of animal life, especially in the
vertebrate series, and regard being also had to the known
continuity of Nature, it is highly probable that man is the
evolution or development of some lower animal form of
the simian or ape species, from the individuals of which
he is found to differ organically less than the higher and
lower apes differ from each other.
Observe—Darwin does not say that Man came from a
monkey. No one capable of comprehending his great
argument would give utterance to such an absurdity; but,
if Darwin’s biological theory embodies the truth, then
there must have been some ancestral link in the pedigree
of man which has not yet been discovered.
Man, observes Darwin, must be included with other
organic beings in any general conclusion respecting the
manner of his appearance on this earth. And Professor
Huxley, in his treatise on Man’s place in Nature, has
clearly shown from exhaustive observation of biological
phenomena, that the mode of origin and the early stages
of the development of man are identical with those of the
animals below him in the scale.
But, be man’s origin what it may, that with which we
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
23
are more immediately concerned is a scientifically estab
lished fact, viz., his unity of organization with the higher
animals, which again are scientifically found to be organi
cally co-ordinated with the entire series of life below them.
So that it may be said all the organisms on our planet are
related through their structural and functional resem
blances—the human being similar to the animal organism,
only higher in degree.
Such then is the conception of the origin and nature of
Human Life derived from the discoveries of Science.
Now it is remarkable that with regard to the scientific
theory of the Universe, and of the origin and nature of
Man, there is an almost total absence of proselyting
societies for diffusing knowledge of the theory and bringing
about belief in it. There is no Sunday Science School
Society. There is no gratuitous distribution of scientific
tracts or texts.
Indeed, with the exception of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, and the Society under
whose auspices I am now addressing you, I can scarcely
call to mind a single Society whose main object it is to
circulate the knowledge of scientific truth amongst the
people at large, and not only so, but we may call to mind
that on this day of the week at this very hour there are
being delivered from thousands of pulpits exciting exhor
tations to persuade or to frighten men and women (chiefly
I suspect the latter) still to go on, supinely acquiescing
in the theological theory; whilst, with reference to our
Society’s Lectures delivered here, they have, on the part
of the public press, been simply welcomed ■with the con
spiracy of silence.
Yet I do not think the people, if encouraging oppor
tunities were affored them, would be found generally
�24
The Science of Life Worth Living,
indifferent to the acquisition of scientific truth, insensible
to its sublimity, or regardless of its utility.
The Archbishop of York, in his sermon preached on
the occasion of the meeting of the British Association in
August last, declared that “ he did not know how it
would fare with them if none but scientific theories were
to guide them, for ” (said his Grace) “ the great majority
of men did not take an interest in scientific generalisa
tions, they could not appreciate them.” Well, 1 think it
might fairly be replied to these observations that the
majority of men are simply kept in ignorance of science,
and have really at present no available means provided
for their gaining scientific knowledge; but, if they had, I
will venture to say most advisedly that they would soon
be found to prefer Science to Superstition, quickly become
able to distinguish the light of nature from the darkness
of dogma, and eager to guide themselves by scientific
authority.
The scientific theory, having then explained to us the
probable origin, and the physiological nature of man#
proceeds to enlighten us concerning the conditions under
which he is found to increase and multiply.
Now the fundamental natural law discovered by science
in relation to the multiplication of living organisms is
simply this,—that they are everywhere, and under purely
physical conditions, produced in excess of their means of
subsistence. In other words, many more are born than
can possibly survive. Hence the great struggle for exist
ence, so graphically described, especially in relation to
plants and animals, in Haeckel’s “ History of the
Creation,” and in Darwin’s great works.
But this primordial natural law is proved to apply
equally to the production of human beings, and our
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
25
. interest at the present moment is the consideration of the
effect of its operation and consequent struggle for exist
ence on the human race.
If we carry our minds to the populations of the East
we can have no difficulty in realising this problem. In
Cornelius Walford’s instructive book on “the Famines of
the World,” we read accounts of “Nature’s terrible cor
rectives of redundancy ” in all their unmitigated horror.
The recent famine in India has destroyed in one Presidency
alone more than 500,000 people by starvation! and has
thrown a million and a half more upon charity. It has
indeed been recently stated on authority that 1,250,000
persons have perished of this famine. Such is the
appalling result of the people recklessly multiplying
beyond their means of subsistence.
We are blind however to the operation of the law of
population amongst ourselves. We fail to see its working
in the premature deaths of the forty per cent, of all that
are born under five years of age, in the 42,000 deaths
under twenty years of age out of the 83,000 annual
deaths in this metropolis, so blinded are we to the
warnings of Nature through our biassed belief in the
theological theory. Yet the great majority of our un
timely deaths are truly traceable to the very causes that
in uncivilised countries terminate in actual starvation!
The first canon of scientific culture of life therefore
requires that reckless or irrational multiplication should
be restrained, and that man should apply his intelligence
towards controlling the purely physical and mechanical
conditions of reproduction.
We see this canon systematically carried out by the
florist in his culture of flowers. Seeds are sown, but
when they come up they are carefully thinned out, in
�26
The Science of Life Worth Living.
order that, there - being no overcrowding, healthy and
beautiful flowers may be produced by those that are left.
We see the same principle in operation where fine fruit
is desired. The buds are thinned out upon the trees, in
order that the diminished number that are left may attain
perfection of size and maturity. The agriculturist follows
precisely the same course. He is careful, as regards his
stock, that only a limited number of offspring shall be
produced or allowed to survive, and, moreover, that their
parentage shall be the result of careful selection.
Some idea may be gained of the value and importance
of such selective breeding from a case recently decided in
our Law Courts, in which a well known grazier recovered
a sum of =£750 damages for the injury inflicted on his
herd by the fraudulent introduction of an animal with a
false pedigree, but guaranteed, when he purchased it, to
be thorough bred.
Can we doubt what might be the improvement of the
human race, if even the slightest similar care were taken
with our own marriages ?
“ Man’s natural qualities,” observes Francis Gallon, in
his masterly work on Hereditary Genius, “are derived
by inheritance under exactly the same conditions as are
the form and the physical features of the whole organic
world.” “ Man,” says Darwin, “ scans with scrupulous
care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and
dogs before he matches them, but when he comes to his
own marriage, he rarely or never takes any such care.
Yet he might by selection do something, not only for the
bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for
their intellectual and moral qualities.”
Now the continuity of structure and function, that
has been traced by biological science to exist between
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
27
human, animal, and vegetal organisms, has enabled
Science by comparative research, that is, by observation
and experiment upon the lower animals, and even upon
individuals of the vegetable kingdom, to acquire remark
ably useful knowledge of the organic nature and constitu
tion of the human being, and, through these means, to
suggest most important rules for its treatment and pro
gressive improvement.
This is no new idea even in this country. Sir Richard
Steele, writing in the “ Tatler ” 150 years ago, told his
readers that “ one might wear any passion out of a family
by culture, as skilful gardeners blot a colour out of a
tulip that hurts its beauty.”
Science in short shows us that the life of man, like
that of all other living organisms on our planet, is
governed by fixed natural laws, and that by the use of his
understanding man can improve his life through the dis
covery of these laws, and by regulating his. conduct in
obedience to their dictates. That all his faculties are
adapted to his existence in this world of Nature; that
they do not inform him of any Super-natural world,
thereby suggesting that prosperity and enjoyment on
earth are the real moral ends to be desired, and that his
noblest aspirations should be transmuted into good and
useful actions for mankind, and not consumed in senseless
supplications addressed to Supernatural Power.
Thus Science shows us that the discovery by man of
the physiological laws will enable him to enjoy health and
good spirits—of the intellectual laws to acquire know
ledge and mental power—of the economic laws to gain
wealth or competency—of the social and moral laws to
practice virtue, to delight in duty, and to attain to
happiness.
�28
The Science of Life Worth Living.
Therefore Science, which yearns to see mankind re
joicing in life and action, counsels us that one great object
of education should be the study of these laws—to in
culcate obedience to them, and to train our understandings
so that we may conform our lives to their unalterable
nature.
In illustration of these propositions I observe, for
example, that Science has established beyond controversy
that the qualities, whether good or bad, of the parent are
transmitted to, or are inherited by the offspring, and that
this result is as certainly true of the human being as it is
of the lower animal. Hence we are taught what grave
responsibility does in reality rest upon us in becoming
the factors of posterity—in other words, in bringing
children into the world, for we are thus shown that the
future of human life will be what we make it. So true is
what our late friend Professor Clifford told us, “ that man
has made himself,” to which therefore let us add, “ man
can make himself better.”
The theological theory indeed assumes a supernatural
mystery in the matter. Its favourite text, “Be fruitful
and multiply,” addressed, you remember, to Noah, when
nearly all the inhabitants of the earth had been destroyed,
is supposed to be applicable to the teeming millions of
the crowded cities of this nineteenth century! and it is
correspondingly asserted by the theological theory that
“ when God sends mouths he sends meat to fill them.”
But Science reads us a very different lesson, and I will
quote, as pointedly expressing its salutary teaching, what
Professor Matthew Arnold, in his remarkable book
“ Culture and Anarchy,” has said upon that subject.
“ A man’s children ” (he declares) “ are not sent any
more than the pictures upon his walls or the-horses in
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
29
his stable are sent, and to bring people into the world
when one cannot afford to keep them and oneself
decently .... or to bring more of them into the world
than one can offord so to keep.... is by no means an
accomplishment of the divine will, or a fulfilment of
Nature’s simplest laws, but is just as wrong, just as con
trary to the will of God, as for a man to have horses, or
carriages, or pictures when he cannot afford them, or to
have more of them than he can afford.”
This extract from Matthew Arnold’s writings, you may
think is very plain speaking, but, as J. Stuart Mill has
remarked, no one would guess from ordinary talk, that
man had any voice or choice in the matter, so complete is
the confusion of ideas on the whole subject, owing to the
mystery in which it is shrouded by a spurious delicacy,
and that the diseases of society can no more than corporal
maladies be prevented or cured without being spoken
about in plain language.
Now I think we may observe amongst our men of
science, especially those whose minds are most free from
the taint of that inherited mental malady Superstition,
a growing tendency towards advocating the application
to the culture of the Human Being of those scientific me
thods that have proved so successful in producing the ex
quisite growth, maturity, and beauty of cultivated Flowers
and Fruit, and the joyousuess, hilarity, and perfection of
form, temper, and disposition of the thorough - bred
Animal.
Such methods can of course only be applied to man by
way of analogy—that is to say, in reference for instance
to overpopulation, human beings cannot, like flowers, be
destroyed after they are once born, nor can they be
treated by mechanical methods as the lower animals are,
�30
The Science of Life Worth Living.
but man’s intelligence can be appealed to in his own
behalf, his reason can be aroused, and his moral senti
ments interested, and the mode by which the reckless
increase of his numbers should be diminished will un
doubtedly be by inducing fewer births, so as to put a stop
to premature deaths, and the diseases by which premature
deaths are ushered in, diseases, which should plainly in
struct us that, somehow the laws of Nature are being
outraged.
Now, if this were to any appreciable extent accomp
lished it can hardly be doubted that a vast amount of
human misery, that, viz., which is scientifically attribu
table to overpopulation, might be gradually eliminated.
Even war could eventually be deprived of its victims, and
the hideous vice that haunts the public places of our
cities, so reproachful to our boasted civilization and the
moral spirit of our age, might to a great extent be got rid
of; so too the large amount of crime that results from
temptation, so sorely pressing upon the indigent, made
indigent by the competition of the overwhelming numbers
that throng the labour market and depress the rate of
wages, would almost disappear; the savagery of personal
assaults especially upon wives, so often traceable to the
irritability arising from overcrowding, and the demora
lising effect of its vitiated atmosphere, would be found to
vanish; and thus in fine our low-toned morality, which is
the despair of the theologian, would in many respects be
purified and elevated, the course of our existence tend to
become converted into a career of virtuous enjoyment, and
earthly Life, whose inborn delight is at present so em
bittered to all of us by its blendings, or surroundings of
suffering, sorrow, and sin, might, not merely in theory,
but really, and practically be made worth Living.
�
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The science of life worth living: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 22nd February, 1880
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. : ill. (diag.) ; 18 cm
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SECOND PART.
THE
:E OF THE “FATHERS” ON THE FURTHER
DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY.
BEING
Iferture
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY, 27th MARCH, 1881,
Dr. G. G. ZERFFI, F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1881.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
Some of the most influential Fathers of the First Century.
Objections of the Jews and Heathens to Christianity.
Celsus, Lucian, Porphyrius, and Julian.
The Apologists: Athenagoras, Tatian and his Disciples.
Clemens of Alexandria.
Falsification of History.
Origen, his character and great talent.
Eusebius and Basil, Cyril and Hypatia.
Tertullian and Ambrose.
Augustine. He studies Aristotle and Plato. His influence on the Theology
of our own times. His Confessions. Pride in prayer. “ In the be
ginning.”
The Trinity. “ The City of God.”
The “ Original Sin.” A Chinese Mandarin.
Augustine and Rousseau compared.
Heathen customs and principles mixed with Christianity.
Effects of the Controversialists and Casuists on the simplicity of Christ’s
teachings.
The Third Lecture to treat on Monasticism and Scholaticism.
Conclusion.
�CHRISTIANITY.
II.
The Influence of the “ Fathers ” on the Further Development oj
C hristianity.
IHE ancient world, with its plurality of godsT ceremonies,
oracles, festivities, political and social organisation', its' moral
laws and philosophy did not die very quickly. During the first
Century of our era, the Christians were merely a small sect of re
formed Jews, called “Nazarenes,” who met secretly, often in the
dead of night, in burial places and catacombs. The few existing
records were written only in Hebrew or Syriac.
The first change brought about in the new faith, was the more
exclusive use of the Greek language, not in its classical purity,
but in a colloquial form, in order to make the teachings of the
converted Hebrews more popular. The next step was the aboli
tion of some of the most striking social arrangements of the new
sect with regard to possessing “ all things in common.”
The Indian and Egyptian priests, the Pythagoreans, Essenes,
and Buddhistic monks, had long before possessed a similar organi
sation. They were compelled to give up their private property
and to divide it amongst the members of the community which
they joined. Notwithstanding all attempts to deny, distort, or
falsify them, the records of the Evangelists, and the acts clearly
prove that the germs of “ Communism ” and “ Socialism ” may be
traced to the primitive constitution of the oldest Christian Sects.
Barnabas, one of the earliest Fathers, whose real name was Joses,
a rich Levite, sold all he possessed, and gave everything to the
Apostles. He wrote a Gospel, but this was declared apocryphal.
Hermas, another of the Fathers of the first Century, also a rich
Jow, who lived at Borne, gave up his property, followed St. Paul,
and represented Christ as an angelic shepherd preaching doctrines
of love and equality. The sudden and miraculous deaths of Ana
nias and his wife Sapphira for concealing, and not giving up their
own goods to the. community, prove conclusively that “ Communism ”
was the basis of the first Hebrew-Christian Sect. Another funda
mental creed of primitive Christianity, that concerning the return
1
�4
Christianity.
of the Son in the glory of his Father, with his angels, to bring
peace on earth, which was to happen during the lifetime of those
to whom the promise had been made, was reluctantly given up as
hopeless. The belief in this promise goes far to prove that the
first Christians must have looked upon Christ as a powerful hero
who would vanquish his enemies, and bestow worldly grandeur on
his followers.
Doubt and controversy very early pervaded the assertions of the
fathers.
Ignatius was assumed to have been the “little child” held up by
Christ to the people at Capernaum, but Chrysostom, another
Father, says that Ignatius never beheld Christ. The writings of
Ignatius were looked upon as forgeries, as they are saturated with
dogmas of a later period, and could not have been written before
the 5th or 6th Century.
The same must be said of the writings of Dionysius, of Athens,
who was a well educated man, a member of the highest tribunal,
the Areopagus, and therefore called the “ Areopagite ”; he was
made an overseer by St. Paul, and works “ On the Order of the
Heavenly Spirits,” “ On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy” (which was
not then in existence), “ On God’s Name,” “ On Mystic Theology,”
&c., were attributed to him. The very title of the last work, how
ever, proves that it could not possibly have been written in the
first Century, as mystic theology was certainly wholly unknown
at that period. The works are full of theological and dialectical
controversies not then thought of; they refer to dogmas and cere
monies, the introduction of which was of a far later date; the very
word “ Monakos,” which occurs in them, and which only came into
use about the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth
century, convincingly proves that these writings, like so many
others, were pious forgeries.
During the first centuries terrible accusations were hurled
against Christianity by both Jews and Heathens. The Jews were
more violent than the Gentiles. They saw in Christ a faithless
deserter from their own ranks. They accused him of having
taught Atheism; of having destroyed the unity of the Godhead;
of having without any right proclaimed himself the Messiah.
They complained that he bad propounded utterly impracticable
laws, commanding men “ to give to him that asketh; ” “ not to
hate, but to pray for our enemies,”—that he had asserted that the
Father in Heaven ‘f maketh the Sun to rise on the evil and on the
�Christianity.
5
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;” and that
it would be “ easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven! ” If Christ’s
teachings were true, they would do away with the rich, and make
the poor masters of the world I What would become of trade and
commerce, of barter and exchange, of all the glorious promises of
plenty on earth, if the poor had any right to such exaltation ?
Humanity would sink into barbarism, and the whole covenant
with the chosen people be cancelled. The Mosaic law would be
abolished if men were no longer to be allowed “ to take an eye for
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; ” or forced to hold out their left
cheek when smitten on the right. Christ had forbidden man to go
to law, for he had enacted, “ if any take away thy coat, let him have
thy cloak also 1 ” All this the Jews thought shocking, horrible,
and impossible! What was to become of the law and lawyers, of
the learned in the Scripture, and of the expounders, and teachers
of true morals? Were men no longer to be allowed to hate fer
vently, to despise cordially, to persecute, to flog, to stone, and to
crucify ? They recoiled from such a prospect, and asserted that
this Jeshua had been a dreamer, a blasphemer, nay, they even
doubted the fact of his very existence, and looked upon everything
that had been reported of his life, miracles, and resurrection, as
mere inventions. They attempted to show that he had never
taught anything new, and that everything practical and moral, he
said, was contained in the Old Testament, which he had despised
by breaking the Sabbath, and blaspheming God, whilst pretending
to be God himself.
It is a historical fact that the Jews could never comprehend a
faith based on love and mutual forbearance, and unfortunately
more than eighteen hundred years have been required to teach
Christians to understand Christ’s most valuable enactments, which
were to be taken in the spirit, and not to the letter.
The Heathens objected to Christianity because it was a social
and political revolution. It declared all men equal, and denied the
ancient gods that had ruled for thousands of years. The Christ
ians were accused of despising emperors, consuls, pro-consuls,
high priests, and philosophers, whilst they worshipped and paid
divine honours to a crucified rebel. They were called deceiving
“ Sibylists ”; dealers in mysteries, pretending to perform miracles
which they had learned from Indian and Egyptian mountebanks,
and impostors. They were taunted with objecting to the gods in
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human form, whilst they themselves were “ anthropolatrae ” (idola
trous worshippers of a man). It was said that whilst they were
opposed to the eating of certain parts of the flesh of the sacrifices,
they were themselves “ Theophagi” (god-eaters)—eating the flesh
and drinking the blood of their own God. The Old and New
Testaments were said to be full of incredible stories, contradic
tions, and fables, teeming with ignorance, and contrary to com
mon sense and reason. The Christians were accused of asserting
that all the laws of Nature had been suspended and acted against
by the eternal gods for the glorification of One who had not been
able to save himself from the most ignominious death. The Christ
ians were accused to hate humanity, to blaspheme God, and to
court death. They were charged with the grossest immorality, with
eating their own children, and with committing incest; they were
called conspirators, assassins, perjurers, infidels, communists, and
atheists ! They were also contemptuously designated Nazarenes,
Galileans, Men of the Magical Superstition, Plautinians, Corne
lians, Synedrians, Cyrillians, Apostatics, Nestorians, Arians, Eustathians, Cataphrygians, and Homousians. These different appel
lations prove that from the earliest times Christianity must have
been divided into many antagonistic sects.
The attacks on both sides became fiercer, the more plainly the
Jews and Pagans perceived that their dominion was at an end, and
that humanity was adopting entirely new principles upon which
to build up an altogether different political and social organisation.
One of the most determined opponents of Christianity (about
150 a.d.) was Celsus, who could not see the necessity of mys
ticism and secrecy in a work of general redemption. Lucian
wrote “ Three Dialogues ” against Christianity, characterising it as
a dreamy superstition, based on falsehoods. Pobphybius (Malchus
of Tyre) was said to have been a Christian, but returned to Pagan
ism. He wrote fifteen books “ On Christianity,” which have been
entirely destroyed, with the exception of a few fragments selected
by Eusebius for the purpose of refutation.
Hiebokles of Nikomedia, a philosopher under Diocletian, was
one of the principal instigators of the persecution of the Chris
tians by this emperor, as he described them as dangerous fanatics
and reckless conspirators. He endeavoured to prove that Christ
had in fact been Apollonius Tyannseus, who could see distant
occurrences, and who gave an account of the murder of Domitian
in the open market place at Ephesus, at the very moment when
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the terrible deed was done at Rome. Apollonius was said to have
had interviews with spirits, to have revived a dead young woman,
and to have died at the age of one hundred years. The Pagans
often confounded this contemporary of Jesus with Christ himself,
and the deeds of the one were attributed to the other.
The last but not least formidable antagonist of Christianity was
Julian the Apostate, so called because he returned to Paganism
after his conversion. He wrote seven books “On Christianity,”
which are entirely lost, with the exception of a few quotations in
the ten controversial books against him by Cyril of Alexandria.
The works of Julian may be divided into four principal groups :—
(a.) Treatises which he himself calls, Discourses of a more or
less sophistical character.
(A) Satires, written in the style of Lucian, concerning his con
temporaries, and his relations to science.
(c.) Letters, partly official, which he had written when regent,
and partly unofficial, addressed to friends and mere ac
quaintances.
(cZ.) His diatribes against Christianity.
Julian was one of the most important and cultivated men of his
time; he possessed a determined character, was an industrious
and clever administrator, promoted education, and reveals to us
more clearly than any other writer the entirely changed condition
of the world. He endeavoured to transform the religion of the
ancients into a mystic-symbolic system, to satisfy the wants of
the people, and to oppose the subversive tendencies of Christianity,
which already began to revel in gloomy superstitions, and to
discard the simplicity and lofty grandeur of Christ’s teachings.
The violent attacks on Christianity produced an entirely new
science, cultivated to the detriment of real truth up to our own
times, that of “ Apologetics.”
There are two modes of becoming an Apologist. The one is to
ignore your opponent altogether; this is the passive method.
Never mention his works; destroy every vestige of his writings,
and silence him to death. This passive mode of controversy is
exceedingly efficacious, and the least troublesome; it requires no
great effort, and after all is capable of upholding errors, preju
dices, and superstitions. The other method is active; you must
try to refute ytjur opponents. You must state first what they say
and be careful to quote only what you are able to refute; or quote
so as to turn your opponent’s statements into the grossest absurd-
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ities. To illustrate this method with an example from our own
times I need only refer to a mighty genius who has devoted him
self to the minute study of the mineral, vegetable, and animal
kingdoms, who saw everywhere connecting links and analogous
laws, and has built on these the striking theory of evolution. Do
not read Darwin’s book, but simply say:—“ Bah ! He proves
that we are all monkeys; that we are descended from monkeys,
and that there is nothing higher than a monkey !” By this means
you at once horrify the immense majority of monkeys, who dread
nothing so much as self-knowledge, and you may hope to cause
your antagonist’s theories to remain for ages a dead letter. By
this calumniating method you may most efficaciously obstruct pro
gress on whatever field of inquiry.
The primitive Christian Apologists made it a point, by fair or any
other means, to defend Christianity, and to silence their antagonists.
They were, above all, firmly convinced of the superiority of their
religion, which required no study, no particular training, no philo
sophy, but simply faith—nothing but faith; faith was to move moun
tains ; faith was to serve as the panacea for every evil to which our
flesh and spirit was heir. As long as this faith was only demanded
for the levelling enactments of Christ proclaiming the universal bro
therhood of men, it worked miracles. When, at a later period, the
Fathers called in the aid of Pagan philosophy and dialectics, when
they endeavoured to prove, in order to gain as many votaries as
possible, that Christianity contained all the dogmas of the most
influential ruling religious systems, their task became gigantic, and
we must honestly confess that many of the Apologists showed an
undoubted superiority over their enervated adversaries. The
Apologists inaugurated through their writings a struggle between
faith or religion, and reason or science, which was the principal
and vital cause of the uninterrupted progressive development of
Christianity. The mystic dogmas and incredible assertions made
with the smooth plausibility of a G-reek sophist, or the trenchant
dialectics of a Boman casuist pleading before some court of just
ice, provoked contradiction, self-thought, inquiry, and argumenta
tion. This fact explains the fierce intellectual thunderstorm of
controversy which swept over the world, silencing all contradiction
in time.
When Athenagobas (177 a.d.) proclaimed Plato and Christ to
be in perfect harmony, he united Pagan philosophy with the
Christian faith. He endeavoured to bring about a balance between
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the intellectual and moral faculties of men. But he was emotional,
and explained with assumptions and assertions what he did not
know. That his writings were altered in passing through the
hands of ignorant copyists or interested church dignitaries, may
be fairly assumed; for we find side by side with passages written
under the distinct influence of the Neo-Platonic school, others
that are altogether opposed to their mode of thinking. Some
other passages, again, are full of Hebraism in contradiction to his
Hellenism. He earnestly protested against the re-marriage of
widows, and propounded wild and fantastic speculations on the
“ fallen angels,” dividing them into two Categories, such as were
lost to all sense of justice, and such as had still something good
left in them ; that is, bad and good evil-spirits.
Tatian, who was born in Syria, devoted himself to the gloomy
Study of Gnosticism. He looked upon matter as the fountain of all
evil, recommended the mortification of the body, and introduced
Indian, Persian, and, above all, Buddhistic ideas into Christianity.
His disciples abjured all the comforts and enjoyments of life, and
abstained from wine with such rigorous obstinacy, that at the
Lord’s Supper they used nothing but water, holding that God’s will
would transform water into blood, as it had formerly transformed
it into wine. Tatian constantly referred to a Universal Soul or
Spirit pervading the universe in contradistinction to the Creator
of all things. He borrowed this idea from Plato, who took it
from the Egyptians, who had inherited it from the Indian Pan
theists.
There can be no doubt that the ancient classics with their dry
formalism no longer sufficed to satisfy man’s restless emotional
nature, craving for a deeper knowledge of the supernatural. The
theological spirit of mysticism borrowed from the East was drawn
into the mighty vortex of man’s speculative activity, and opened new
fields to the moral and intellectual forces working in Humanity.
The union between God and man, formally accomplished by the
classical world, was now to be spiritually completed. The divine
Power which had assumed form in the unsurpassed artistic, poetitical, and philosophical works of antiquity, was with Clemens of
Alexandria to become flesh, vivified by the Spirit of the East,
and newly moulded as one mystic, incomprehensible, and super
natural whole, by Christianity. The mythological conceptions of
the Greeks, the theosophies of the Hebrews, and the mysteries of
the Egyptians, were to be blended with the simple, yet sublime,
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teachings of Christ. As the prophets, Moses, Aaron, and Elijah,
had devoted themselves to the Lord; as kings had sacrificed their
heirs on the walls of their besieged towns to force the enemy to
abandon their assaults ; as Jephthah had been ready to sacrifice his
daughter—so Christ had been a sacrifice to the Most High for
humanity. The Apologists, however, ignored the fact that the
same had been said of Kama and Krishna by the Indians, of Osiris
by the Egyptians, of the Kentaur, Cheiron, of Apollo, as Adonai
or Adonis by the Hellens, and of Curtius by the Bomans. The
descendants of those who had believed in these self-sacrifices were
easily persuaded that the founder of their religion bad offered
himself as the most precious sacrifice to appease the wrath of an
angry father.
Clemens introduced Hebraism most prominently into Christ
ianity. He held that there was no truth except in the Books of
Moses and the Prophets, and that the writings known as the Old
Testament were the only reliable, the only true books, and older
than any of the writings of any other nation, and that whatever
had been asserted by whomsoever had been taken, copied, or
transcribed from these writings. This monstrous historical falsifi
cation obstructed the progress of humanity for more than 1,400
years. His misstatements were turned into articles of faith, re
peated year by year, hour by hour, in the principal Christian
schools, and thus were transformed into brain-crystallizations and
petrifactions in the believing, but not reasoning and inquiring
minds of the people. A systematic falsification of history was thus
established, fostered, and kept up by a well organised hierarchy,
supported at a later period by the wealth and power of states,
which left the whole machinery of national, collegiate, and uni
versity education in clerical hands, and imposed upon the masses
by means of penal laws, fire and sword, the gallows and the stake,
certain historical statements, chronological assertions, astronomi
cal errors, and geological impossibilities, as so many indisputable
facts.
If we have reason to complain of the primitive apologists of
Christianity, who showed at least a certain candour and probity,
we have still stronger grounds to be dissatisfied with those who
used sophistry and pious frauds. The Fathers, generally, appear
to have been destitute of penetration, learning, system, application,
and talent. They used arguments to dazzle the fancy, and not to
enlighten or convince the mind. They assumed the antiquity of a
�Clbristianit^-.
Il
doctrine to be evidence of its truth. But all these facts must not
blind us to acknowledge the great ability, and even genius of some
of them, who, notwithstanding certain brain-petrifactions really
endeavoured to promote truth, although truth had unfortunately
been already settled for them as such, by the terrible power of
credulity and undisputed authority.
These petrifactions became in time whole ranges of granite
blocks of superstition. Many a tiny barque of inquiry on the
vast ocean of free-thought, sailing with a fair wind of common
sense, guided by the compass of reason, has been dashed to pieces
and sunk by these terrible, apparently immoveable rocks! But
after all the stable rock with its resistence excited the activity of
the dashing sea-farers.
To the honour of the human intellect it must be confessed that
the credulous, who wished to persuade themselves and others that
they were right in their belief of the incredible, contributed much
to the possibility of the dissolution of their own superstitions.
Foremost in the rank of the free-thinking fathers stood Origen.
The historical development of Christianity must remain for ever
an unintelligible riddle without a thorough acquaintance with the
writings of Origen. This father endeavoured to look on the
Scriptures from a rational point of view, and shook “ Bibliolatry ”
to its very foundation. He cast aside the literal interpretation,
finding the mere letter often unintelligible and contradictory,
sought for hidden meanings, and asserted that the Scriptures
ought to be read by the light of reason. He had a higher con
ception of the Deity, believed in the pre-existence of pure
angelic souls and their fall into mortal bodies, and in a “final
restoration of all intelligent beings to order and happiness.”
This was equivalent to denying eternal hell-fire, and was too much
for the loving hearts of his contemporary Christians, so that he
was, therefore, condemned as a heretic. It is most satisfactory to
find that in our own times several Divines, and among them
Canon Farrar, have dared, in the spirit of Origen, to shake the
deluding and maddening hell-fire petrifaction in the brains of
some believers, and to free the Deity from the reproach of being an
irreconcilable and wrathful Avenger without mercy or pity.
Origen was followed by Eusebius, the Father of Christian
Historiography. He worked out a chronology which, in spite
of geology, Egyptian monuments, Assyrian inscriptions, Indian
philology, and Chinese records, serves some of our bigoted
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historians as a basis for their historical distortions. Eusebius
collected most of the raw historical material of ancient times,
and of his own age. He wrote with one aim, to prove the
superiority of Christian morals, and in doing so would not admit
that there could have been anything good in other far more
ancient religious systems. He had to sift facts and to record only
such as served his one-sided and special assumption, and this mode
of writing history is still the most cherished method of historical
sectarians of whatever denomination or tribal division.
To strike the principal death-blow at pure Christianity was
reserved to Athanasius, who borrowed Ins mystic, “ Three in
one,” from the Egyptians. To this incomprehensible “ idol,” once
petrified, thousands and thousands of human beings were sacrificed.
The Council of Nice, which, in 325 A.D., determined the Duality
of God as “ Father and Son,” (the Trinitarian dogma having
passed only in 381 A.D.), selected also the four gospels as the
only canonical books from a quantity of other gospels then
existing. The proceedings on that memorable occasion were the
following according to Pappus in his Synodicon to the council.
“ The fathers, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, placed pro
miscuously under a communion table, in front of which the
Council was assembled, all the Gospels which were known at that
time. They then prayed devoutly to God beseeching him ‘ that
the inspired writings might get upon the table, whilst the spurious
ones remained underneath.’ After the prayer a miracle took
place. The gospels which Gelasius ought to burn remained under
the table, and the four inspired ones got upon it, and were declared
to be canonical.”
A still greater miracle happened. “ It was agreed that in order
to make the Council valid, all the fathers should sign the records.
Two bishops, however, Musonius and Chrisantes, died during the
Council without having signed them. The difficulty was great, for
the Council was invalid without their signatures, but the fathers
caused guards to be placed round the tombs of the bishops, and
placed in them the Acts of the Council, which, as is well known,
were divided into sections. The fathers passed the night in
prayer, and the next day they found that the deceased bishops had
fortunately signed the records of the Council.” (See “ On Man
kind their Origin and Destiny.” By an M.A. of Baliol College,
Oxford. London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1872., pp. 166 and
167.)
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Basil and Gregory of Nazianzen were the founders of the
Eastern, whilst Tertullian and Augustine must he considered
as the bulwarks of the Western Church. They all became so many
crystallized authorities in Theology. They established obstinacy
and blind faith as the most Christian virtues, and supported their
theory with the most involved intricacies of dialectics. The pheno
menon that astonishes us is, that the learned world, until very
recently, should have applied their two-edged dialectical weapons
for one purpose—to prove what they assumed to be necessary for
the salvation of Humanity. All doubt in that which they asserted
to be an incontestable fact, they punished with stoning, crucifixion,
hanging, or burning. The intellectual, reasoning, thinking, and
inquiring faculty—in a word, the dynamic force, with which
Humanity is endowed, was to be exclusively directed to supernatural
matters and authoritative enactments settled beforehand. At this
period, the greatest calumny against God, the Creator, and Man,
His creature was brought into a systematic form. All was tempta
tion, sinfulness, and horrible wickedness. Nature was to be ex
pelled from nature. Man was to see in every other man an offspring
of hell, sent into this world to do wrong. Hatred and contempt,
trembling and fear, were thus made the chemical elements of which
man’s moral and social condition was to be composed, and a strange
mixture they produced I We need not be astonished that the
false Christians, once come to power, should have fostered an
unrelenting hatred against anything stepping into their obstructive
path. Cyril had nothing but death for the beautiful Hypatia,
who dared to think, to reason, and to inquire, when thinking was
already considered a deadly sin, reasoning a crime, and inquiry a
blasphemy! Tertullian went so far as to state in his “De Idolatria”
that all astronomers, sculptors, mythologists, and merchants were
idolaters and servants of the “Evil One.” Man was so afflicted
by the general reaction which took place in consequence of the
over-strained action of . the ancient classic times, that he lost all
self-reliance, self-thought, self-respect, and entered upon a life
which in reality was no life, or at all events no intellectual life.
That the dynamic force in Humanity cannot be stifled may be
best studied in the writings of Tertullian who exhibits in his
works a mingling of virtues and defects, of learning and ignorance,
of piety and worldliness, which makes him appear on one page as
the most profound scholar, whilst on another, he evinces the most
hopeless superstition and credulity. Through this his double nature
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Christianity.
he exercised great influence on the Scholastics of the Mediaeval
period.
Par greater in character and genius than the works of Tertullian
are the six books “ On the Creation,” by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.
In his obstinacy, and in his firm convictions, he was the very
model of an ecclesiastical prince. He was no Sophist or orator in
the pulpit, but a kind-hearted administrator, stern and active, who
said what he meant, and was firmly convinced that whatever he
said or wrote, was intended for the good of Humanity. In his
works we may study the transition of primitive Christianity into
a complicated system of hierarchical feudalism. Passive submission,
faith and self-abnegation were established in contradiction to the
ancient philosophers who enjoined active energy, self-conscious
conviction, and honest virtue. Ambrose insisted, above all, on
“ Faith.” He, however, attempted to distinguish between the
strictly doctrinal, and the less reliable historical parts of the Old
and New Testaments. Origen and Ambrose were the principal
founders of a broader treatment of the Bible, which led on the
uninterrupted path of progressive continuity to our most modern
theological criticism. Ambrose looked upon the emotional in
Humanity as the only force to be developed and cultivated, to be
restrained and regulated. Poetry, painting, sculpture, and music,
were to strengthen this force, and we owe to him the introduction
of a higher culture of the Arts in the Western Christian Churches.
More important than any of the other Fathers was Augustine
(Aurelius Augustinus), who in the 4th and 5th centuries a.d.,
gave Christianity an entirely new dialectical and theological shape,
widely differing from that simplicity and universal humanism
which we find in Christ’s teachings. He was born 354 a.d., at
Tageste, in Numidia. His father, Patricius, was a Pagan, and his
mother, Monica, a Christian—Paganism and Christianity being
thus blended into one in him through his parents. In his youth
at Carthage he led a wild, reckless, and immoral life; but he was
suddenly reformed through the study of “Hortensius” by Cicero,
a book unfortunately lost, and a diligent reading of the works of
Aristotle. He joined the sect of the Manichseans, went to Rome
to teach rhetorics—(philosophy and elocution)—and thence pro
ceeded to Milan, where he taught with great success. He there
made the acquaintance of Ambrose, who instructed him in the
tenets of the then already to a great degree crystallized orthodox
Christianity. Augustine renounced Manichaeism, and at once
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denounced it, with the fervour usual in converts, as the most per
nicious heresy. He now devoted himself to the exclusive study of
Plato, with the aid of whose ideal philosophical assumptions he
succeeded in constructing an abstruse metaphysical system of
Christian theology.
The influence of his works on the culture and further dog
matic development of Christianity was unbounded. His ideas
inspired the dissertations and controversies between Abelard and
Bernhard. His subtle and dialectical theories may be traced in
the dissensions between Calvinists and Lutherans, Churchmen and
Ritualists, Baptists and Methodists. The struggle between the
Jansenists and Jesuits was principally called forth by his ideas on
abstruse subjects. The influence of Augustine may be traced in
the following utterly meaningless utterances of one of our noble
Lords, who said a week or two ago, “that no law was needed to
sanction or proclaim that the Sabbath was of divine origin. The
profound wisdom inducing it, and the absolute necessity of such a
day, must be apparent to all, whilst no human mind could have
evolved such a scheme of Sunday observance; ” and immediately
after he complains that the observance which needed no law was
being jeopardised by the lawgivers of England, who intended to
abolish the law with reference to the keeping of the Sabbath ; and
thus an institution, which no human mind could have evolved,
would vanish for ever. The ignorance of the noble Lord is
stupendous; he apparently does not know that he is really de
fending an institution which took its origin in the worship of the
heathenish God, “ Sab,” which the nomadic Jews carried about in
an ark, and which they deposited every seventh day in a “ bath ”
(tent) called Sabbath, the “ tent of Sab,” and not “ tabernacle; ”
and he seems to be equally unaware of the fact that the Phoenicians,
Assyrians, and Chaldseans possessed similar movable “ sun-oracles.”
Such senseless utterances have occupied, and still occupy, more
than seven-eights of Christianity. The first great dialectical wars
which Augustine waged were directed against the Manichaeans,
Donatists, and, above all, the Pelagians, the followers of Pelagius,
a British Monk, who dared to teach that death had not been
introduced into the world by Adam, but that, on the contrary,
man was necessarily, and by nature mortal, so that even had Adam
not sinned, he would nevertheless have died; and that further, the
consequences of Adam’s sin were confined to himself, and did not
affect his posterity. Erom these premises, Pelagius drew certain
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important conclusions—which necessarily went against the inherited
sin theory, the necessity of an atonement, and the numberless calum
nies against our miserable, wretched, wicked, sinful, abominable,
and horrible nature. Pelagius shook the very foundation of the
theological structure, which in its details and dogmas began to be
far more Pagan than Christian. Augustine was in arms against
these blasphemies; and historians can trace in this quarrel between
the wild and passionate Monk, and the cool and rational British
Priest, a more developed germ of the Reformation, the seed of
which had been sown long before by the not very edifying quarrels
between St. Paul and St. Peter, as representatives of Hellenism
and Hebraism.
A Synod held at Diopolis acquitted Pelagius of heresy. Pope
Innocent I. condemned him. The next Pope, Zosimus, declared
the opinions of Pelagius perfectly orthodox, but in spite of this,
Augustine craftily obtained a decree from the Emperor, declaring
Pelagius a heretic, condemning him and his adherents to exile and
confiscating all their worldly goods.
To obtain an insight into the arguing practised and taught by
Augustine, it will be well to consider a few passages from the
11th, 12th, and 13th books of his “ Confessions.”
He of course begins by praying “that God will give him to
understand the Scriptures, and will open their meaning to him,”
and declares at once “that in them there is nothing superfluous,
but that the words have a manifold meaning.” The apparent
humility of this prayer really conceals the most inordinate pride.
First he prayed, then comes the terrible assumption that God must
have heard his prayer—and then all his utterances and writings
become embodiments of God’s spirit, and the most unscientific,
confused and incoherent loquacity is taken as spoken or written
under God’s holy inspiration.
Having invoked the help of God, Augustine begins to argue and
apparently to contradict Scripture; but as he contradicts with the
purpose of refuting his own contradictions, the doubts which he
raises are so childish, that it does not require much ingenuity to
dispose of them. This is the method generally followed bv theo
logically trained minds, a method calculated to deceive ignorant
men and emotional women.
With pomp and vanity Augustine says :—
“ The face of creation testifies that there has been a Creator;
but at once arises the question, How and when did He make
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heaven and earth ? They could not have been’made in heaven and
earth; the world could not have been made in the world, nor
could they have been made when there was nothing to make
them of.”
The solution Augustine finds is extremely simple :—
“ Thou spakest, and they were made! ” he exclaims, but does not
tell us where the Deity spoke; in or beyond the world.
The speaking of the Deity involves him in new perplexities, for
he says:—
“ The syllables thus uttered by God came forth in succession,
and there must have been some created thing to express the words.
This created thing must therefore have existed before heaven and
earth, and yet there could have been no corporeal thing before heaven
and earth. It must have been a creature because the words passed
away and came to an end; but we know that the word of the
Lord endureth for ever! Moreover, it is plain that the words
thus spoken could not have been spoken successively, but simulta
neously, else there would have been time and change; succession
in its nature implying time, whereas there was then nothing but
eternity and immortality. God knows and says eternally what
takes place in time.”
There is time and yet there is no time, there is eternity but that
is not time. There is an eternally speaking Deity, but the words
this Deity speaks could not have been spoken successively, but
must.have been spoken simultaneously and eternally. A superficial
analysis of these and similar phrases amply suffices to show their
utter hollowness and senselessness.
The next difficulty Augustine finds in the mystic words : “ In
the beginning.”
What was there before the Beginning began? He suddenly
saves himself from the terrible aspect of a beginning Beginning,
and exclaims:—
“ How wonderful are Thy works, 0 Lord! in wisdom hast Thou
made them all. This wisdom is the beginning, and in that Begin
ning the Lord created heaven and earth. But,” he adds, “ some
one may ask: ‘ What was God doing before He made the heaven
and earth ?’ for, if at any particular moment He began to employ
Himself, that means time, not eternity. In eternity nothing
transpires ; the whole is present.”
He at once answers the indirect question with one of those
direct assertions, insinuating that, though he did not intend to say
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anything, yet that he was well acquainted with the doings of the
Deity:—
“ I will not answer this question by saying that He was pre
paring Hell for pryers into his mysteries. I say that before God
made heaven and earth He did not make anything; for no crea
ture could be made before any creature was made. Time itself is
a creature, and hence it could not possibly exist before creation.
What then is time ? The past is not, the future is not, the pre
sent—who can tell what it is, unless it be that which has no dura
tion between two nonentities ? There is no such thing as 4 a long
time,’ or ‘ a short time,’ for there are no such things as the past
and the future. They have no existence, except in the soul.”
Such incoherent, rhapsodical assertions as these have been looked
upon as learned disquisitions on sacred and scientific subjects for
more than fourteen hundred years. We might quote the whole of
Augustine’s works, line by line, to prove that they are nothing but
inflated and arrogant conversations between the writer and his
assumed God. These utterances may be looked upon as those of
an individual suffering from religious hallucination, which have
become to a high degree methodical; and we may well exclaim
with Polonius : 44 Though this be madness, yet there is method
in it.”
And such mystic madness stimulated men’s thinking faculties
into action, and in time produced a Bacon, a Newton, a Leibnitz,
a Des Cartes, and a Kant.
Another passage from the twelfth book is still more charac
teristic in its originality, but less methodical:—
44 This, then, is what I conceive, O, my God,” when I hear the
Scripture saying, 4 In the beginning God made heaven and earth;
and the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was
upon the deep,’ and not mentioning what day thou createdst them;
this is what I conceive, that because of the heaven of heavens—that
intellectual heaven whose intelligence knows all at once, not in
part, not darkly, not through a glass, but as a whole, in manifesta
tion, face to face; not this thing now, and that thing anon; but
(as I said) know all at once, without any succession of times ; and
because of the earth, invisible and without form, without any
succession of times, which succession presents this thing now, that
thing anon, because where there is no form there is no distinction
of things; it is, then, on account of these two, a primitive formed,
and a primitive formless; the one heaven, but the heaven of
�Christianity.
19
heavens; the other, earth, but the earth moveable and without
form; because of these two, do I conceive did the Scripture
say, without mention of days, ‘ In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.’ For, forthwith it subjoined what
earth it spake of, and also in that firmament is recorded to be
created the second day, and called heaven, it conveys to us of
which heaven He before spake without mention of days. Wondrous
depth of Thy words I Whose surface, behold! is before us, inviting
to little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth, O, my God—a
wondrous depth I It is awful to look therein; an awfulness of
honour, and a trembling of love. The enemies, therefore, I hate
vehemently; O that Thou wouldst slay them with Thy two-edged
sword, that they might no longer be enemies to it; for so do I love
to have them slain unto themselves, that they may live unto Thee!”
Greek philosophy was turned by this passionate African fanatic
into rambling sophistry, and the teachings of Christ, full of love
and forgiveness, into a system of bloodthirsty persecution. Science
was scorned, and continually abused, but barefaced stupidity,
heartless pride, and insolent arrogance were used to destroy and
degrade pure Christianity, to transform it into a code of implacable
hatred, and to foster persecution and wholesale murder.
In the thirteenth Book of his “ Confessions,” Augustine touches
the grand Mystery of Mysteries, the “ Trinity,” and proves it to
be contained in the teachings of the immortal Jewish lawgiver,
Moses.
In great excitement, he says :—
“ Lo, now the Trinity appears unto me in a glass darkly, which
is Thou, my God, because Thou, O Father, in Him who is the
beginning of our wisdom, which is Thy wisdom, born of Thyself,
equal unto Thee, and co-eternal, that is, in Thy Son, createdst
heaven and earth. Much now have we said of the heaven of the
heavens, and of the earth, invisible and without form, and of the
darksome deep, in reference to the wandering instability of its
spiritual deformity, unless it had been converted unto Him, from
whom it. had its then degree of life, and by His enlightening became
a beauteous life, and the heaven of that heaven, which was after
wards set between water and water. And under the name of God
I now beheld the Father, who made these things ; and under the
name of the beginning, the Son in whom He made these things ;
and believing as I did, my God as the Trinity; I searched further
in His holy words, and lo! Thy Spirit moved upon the waters.
�20
Christianity.
Behold the Trinity, my God! Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost,
Creator of all Creation ! ”
As a contrast to this let us turn to a passage from the Indian
Bamayana, a poem written by Valmikis, in 24,000 double verses
(about 1200 b.c., according to the great bibliographer, Dr. Graesse).
In the Ram ay ana, no conceited monk discusses the Deity; in
directly threatening all who may dare to pry into His mysteries
with hell-fire, whilst he thinks himself authorised to commit pre
cisely the same indiscretion; but the gods are assembled in
heaven, and one of them addresses the incomprehensible first
Cause in the following lofty and sublime strain :—
“ O Thou, whom threefold might and splendour veil,
'
Maker, Preserver, and Transformer, hail!
Thy gaze surveys this world from clime to clime,
Thyself immeasurable in space and time:
To no corrupt desires, no passions prone:
Unconquered conqueror, infinite, unknown ;
«
Though in one form Thou veil’st Thy might divine,
Still, at Thy pleasure, every form is Thine.
Pure crystals thus prismatic hues assume
As varying light and varying tints illume;
Men think Thee absent; Thou art ever near,
Pitying those sorrows, which Thou ne’er canst fear.
Unsordid penance Thou alone canst pay;
Unchanged, unchanging—old without decay:
Thou knowest all things—who Thy praise can state ?
Createdst all things—Thyself uncreate! ”
What a difference in language, purity and grandeur of concep
tion I The three in one is the Universe pervaded by a Divine
Force, manifesting itself in the tri-une phenomena of Creation,
Preservation, and Transformation in space and time throughout
eternity.
In imitation of Plato’s “ State ” and Pliny’s “ History of Na
ture,” Augustine wrote a work entitled “De civitate Dei, Libri
XXII.” (The City of God, in twentv-two books). He here divides
humanity into two groups :
1. Such as have mere carnal ideas, and are damned. And—
2. Such as live in the spirit, and must be saved.
Augustine thus assumed two States, of which one would perish
in the general conflagration on the day o£ judgment. Of this
perishable State the Devil was supreme ruler; it was based on
Egotism and a contempt of God. The other he asserted to be a
heavenly State, in which God is King: the State itself being based
�Christianity.
21
on Love to God, and contempt of ourselves. The phenomenal or
visible world was with Augustine a realm of sin, wickedness,
misery, crime and wretchedness, in opposition to an ideal world of
faith and blissfulness, of purity and eternal salvation.
Reality was with him corrupt, and he left reality to the lay
power, which by degrees began to feel its strength: and the
struggle between Pope and Emperor, the Kingdom of God and the
Kingdom of the Devil commenced. This struggle was foreshadowed
in Augustine’s writings ; it lasted for more than a thousand years,
and ended in our century with the abolition of the temporal power,
of the Pope.
Augustine, in his “ City of God,” condemns all worldly endeavour
or activity as sinful; he assumes a spiritual government over all
earthly matters, and settles all moral, dogmatic and scientific sub
jects from a theological point of view.
Augustine worked out the hypotheses of “ Predestination,”
“ Special Grace,” and “ Eree Willconfusing assumptions with
an utterly false moral foundation. . If “ Predestination ” were
made the ruling force of humanity, what would become of our
self-conscious moral responsibility ? If we were to admit a higher,
more powerful, independent force not within, but without or above
us, which directly or even indirectly regulated the destinies of
individuals, nations, and humanity—individuals, nations, and
humanity would be released from all moral responsibility, and
could not become masters of their fate; their actions having been
predisposed, pre-arranged, and providentially predestined, by
“ Special Grace,” or any other arbitrary grant over which the
individual had no control, could not come under the influence of
order and law.
The hypotheses of “ Predestination ” and “ Special Grace ”
transformed man into a mere puppet, with a mighty divine wire
puller behind him ; and history enacted by such puppets could be
nothing but an incoherent pantomime, in which the scientific men
were the clowns, and the theologians the managers, directing both,
their self-constituted wire-pulling Deity and the besotted puppets,
and continually preparing “.the last transformation scene,”
illumined with the lurid glare of hell-fire.
Augustine and his theological disciples looked upon the phe-.
nomena of nature, and of man’s higher moral and intellectual
activity, as mere chance effects of the working of some supernatural
power.
. .
�22
Christianity.
Contrary to Confucius, mediaeval Christianity on the principles
laid down by Augustine did not follow out the axiom—“ The wise
man seeks the cause of his defects in himself ; but the fool, avoid
ing himself, seeks it in all others beside himself.” The bigoted
and uneducated under theological training look for redress in proud
humbleness and blind faith, from any force or power without, and
not within themselves, and by this means fall an easy prey to their
ecclesiastical or political task-masters. It is either “ despotism,”
pure and simple, assuming the incompetence of the masses to
govern themselves, that plays at “ Providence,” “ Predestination,”
“ Special Grace by the Will of Godor it is “ Clericalism ” in a
thousand different forms, which, in accordance with Augustine,
builds up, arranges, furnishes, decorates, and adorns “ a higher
state ” of spiritual blissfulness in unapproachable regions, where
archangels, angels, saints, confessors, martyrs, deacons, sextons,
ringers, and beadles, rule supreme in opposition to this world, in
which the masses are misled by devils, demons, infidels, unbelievers,
agnostics, pantheists, and, worst of all, scientific inquirers, who
dare to pry into the “ wonderful ” and “ awful ” mysteries of God.
Rousseau, like Augustine, wrote “Confessions”—the one from a
political, and the other from a purely theological point of view.
Both were fanatics, and both strove to improve the fate of
humanity.
Augustine, like Rousseau, gives us a precise history of his own
inner life, which he finishes by adopting the Christian religion;
the other, who began as a pious Christian child, abjured Christi
anity, became an atheist, and tells us the causes which induced him
to change his opinions on matters divine and human.
Augustine looks upon history as something utterly indifferent,
and far beneath the dignity of his consideration. He is convinced
that in all historical matters God and Predestination are doing
what is right, and that no amount of study and knowledge can
change what has been ordained by God to happen, whether in
politics or in every man’s private life. This ruling conviction still
excludes the study of General History on a scientific basis from
nearly all our educational establishments, and may serve to explain
the unanimity with which the University of Oxford hailed the
introduction of the study of Scandinavian languages and antiqui
ties, and the delight which one of our most liberal papers expressed
on this occasion, finding it perfectly clear that there could be no
taint of heresy, or of radicalism, in Scandinavian studies. The
�Christianity.
23
study of General History by reason of its drawing of analogies and
comparisons, rectifying of dates, and analysing of different religious
systems, is thought to be tainted with the horrible poison of heresy,
and the bigoted fear, lest we might learn from history that man
at all times, and in all places, had very analogous notions with
reference to the means by which his higher moral progress was to
be effected.
Bousseau on the other hand, like Vico, Guicciardini, Bolingbroke,
Herder and Lessing before him, clearly saw the necessity of the
study of history, and assigned to it the greatest importance. But
whilst Bousseau often misunderstood history, we are compelled
to admit that Augustine thoroughly grasped the wants of super
stitious and ignorant humanity. Scepticism and mere negation
are even more bleak and despairing than the most childish
“ emotionalism,” leading through fear of punishment, and hope for
reward to a certain kind of practical morals. Bousseau saw only
chance, misery, and wretchedness in the progressive development
of civilisation, and wanted to lead us back to the bosom of mother
nature. Augustine traced all the miseries besetting humanity,
not to a misunderstanding of the laws of nature, but to a Father
who mercifully punished his children for a sin committed by Adam
in Paradise—which was called “ the original sin,” and he advised
humanity to rely on this Father with childlike submission, to eat,
to drink, to sleep, but above all to pray, to sing, to believe, and
not to inquire, as we had only one destiny on earth, to atone for
the terrible inheritance left us by Adam, “ the original sin.”
Augustine heard in the first cry of a new-born child a heart
rending lament over the sinfulness of this world, which had been
created by a benevolent first Cause.
The degrading theory of an original sin cannot possibly exercise
any elevating influence on our moral development. In connection
with this it may be instructive to consider the impression this pre
posterous and impious assumption made on the mind of a cul
tivated Chinese Mandarin, who had been brought up in the
moral principles of Confucius. He met a missionary and hearing
of the superiority of the Christian religion, was ready patiently to
listen, and to allow himself to be instructed. The creation of the
world by a God was admitted; then came the special creation of
man, and the “ inherited Sin ”—and the assertion that “ by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The Mandarin
�24
Christianity.
rose in wrath, clutched a bamboo, and asked the following ques
tions : Who created the world “? “ God,” was the answer. And
who created man ? “ God,” was the next answer. And who made
man sin, and created him mortal ? The missionary hesitated, and
the Mandarin thereupon gave him a sound thrashing, and ex
claimed, “ I will teach you to have a higher notion of the Deity,
and to have a loftier conception of his most perfect and wonderful
creature—man, with all his exalted virtues of family love, know
ledge, industry, arts and sciences. Go, and annoy me no longer
with your blasphemous assumptions for which you have not a
word in the teachings of Christ.”
The fundamental theory upon which a degrading system of
morals had been constructed was, in Augustine’s time,- already
opposed by great divines and was altogether discarded by Rousseau
who, in his sceptic atheism, was more pious in assuming that
nature could not have done any wrong. Whilst Augustine insisted
upon faith, prayer and contemplation, as the only means of con
quering our sunken, sinful nature, and thus poisoned the pure
moral atmosphere of man,—Rousseau demanded practical sciences,
technical skill—anything that would strengthen the inventive and
reasoning faculty.
Both agree that the young ought to be made acquainted with
truth; but, unhappily, this word has many relative significations,
and cannot be grasped by finite beings in its absolute sense. They
both wished intellect to be cultivated; the one that it might see
the glories of the heavens, and the other, to improve man’s earthly
happiness. Both were equally blind to the fact that only in a
perfectly harmonious culture of imagination and reason, of heart
and head, of morals and intellect, could an approximate solution
of our destiny be found.
Augustine should be read side by side with Rousseau; but we
must be careful not to take the opinions of either for dogmatic
truths or mathematical rules of life. Many of their guesses at
the causes of the evils rampant among us are correct; but they are
mere suggestions thrown out, according to the spirit of the time
in which both lived. Augustine is the alpha of a theologicophilosophical system that swayed humanity to its detriment for
more than fourteen hundred years, and Rousseau is the politico
social omega produced by the same wild and fantastic theological
system. Both—in preaching faith and common sense, hope and
practical reason, charity, freedom, and equality—produced blood
�Christianity.
25
shed, hatred, despair, despotism, and political and religious perse
cution.
The forces working in Humanity were disturbed by both, be
cause they started with preconceived ideas; the one with “ a con
crete original sin,” the other with “ an abstract purity of nature
both powerfully impressed those whom they addressed, and both
failed to readjust the balance between morals and intellect in a
truly Christian sense.
There was, however, something wonderfully beneficial in the
blending of heathen notions and principles with Christianity; the
thread of continuity was kept up, isolation avoided, and humanity
appears to the assiduous student of true history as one great whole,
swayed by immutable laws.
By placing religion and science in a conflicting and antagonistic
relation the Fathers aroused a spirit of inquiry, and controversial
ists and theological casuists who sought to lead us away from the
first simple teachings of Christ were in reality instrumental in
bringing us back to them.
In Church and State an apparently retrograde movement to the
benefit of humanity at large is fortunately perceptible. The State
gives up more and more an assumed fantastic prestige of national
honour, diplomatic niceties and double dealings—the stronger a
State is, the more it can afford to be equitable and just. In reli
gion we endeavour to turn back to the primitive sources of Chris
tianity which, like all streams, was far purer, more lucid and
refreshing at its source than in its continually broadening course,
when it became mixed with the quicksands of sophistry, the shoals
of dogmatic rubbish, and coloured red by the torrents of blood
shed by the fanatics of all sects.
The Fathers benefited humanity, for they tried—
(a.) To be scientific, though they opposed science.
(6.) They used the Greek philosophical and historical writers,
though they declared them profane and heretical.
(c.) They wrote in Latin, and thus kept up the knowledge of
the language of Cicero, Caesar, Tacitus, Pliny, and Seneca.
(d.) They cursed and abused nature, prohibited its study as a
prying into the awful mysteries of God, and by degrees,
on the principle “ nitimur in vetitum ” (we crave for the
forbidden), promoted a systematic study of nature.
(e.) They used the Hebrew Scriptures, and blended the Oriental
and Hellenic mode of thinking into one.
�26
Christianity.
(/.) They fostered mysticism, and called forth the study of man
and nature, of astronomy, chemistry, physiology and psycho
logy; abounding in far greater and more intelligible mysteries
than any of the Fathers ever dreamt of.
(</.) They preached love, humility, and forbearance, and yet
openly practised hatred, pride, and persecution, by which
means they kept man’s moral and intellectual powers in a
continuous motion of action and reaction.
(A.) They introduced a controversial spirit into theology, which
stimulated and disciplined man’s mental activity, and led
Humanity through the dark cloisters of monasteries into
the broad daylight of inventions and discoveries, that put an
end to all the distorted theological conceptions of the Deity.
Thus Man began to be studied in his slow and gradual historical
development, not on false and imaginary principles, but on the
foundation of his own human nature. The calumnious assertion
that man, from the moment he entered into this world, had been
destined for evil is dying out; and the assumption that the whole
of his earthly pilgrimage is to be simply a dim attempt to answer
the inane question: “ Is life worth living ? ” is contemptuously
looked upon as the utterance of attitudinizing Pessimists, who
think that we have only one task to fulfil—to sigh and to crouch
in everlasting terror of a curse which Humanity is said to have
been blessed with by the merciful Creator of all things visible
and invisible.
�
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Christianity : second part. The influence of the "Fathers" on the further development of Christianity, being a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday, 27th March, 1881
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Zerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
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In this lecture Dr. G. G. Zerffi explores the most notable and influential "Fathers" and their effect on the development of Christianity.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 26, [2] p. ; 18 cm
Notes: Publisher's series list on unnumbered pages at the end.
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1881
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Christianity
Christianity
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Text
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL UNITY
OF
■ PLANTS AND ANIMALS.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ox
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 30th JANUARY, 1881,
BY
Q. S. BOULGER, F.L.S., F.G.S.
bonbon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1881.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to
encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,—physical,
intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially
on 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) are given in each year.
Members’ annual subscription, £1.
For Tickets and the printed Lectures, and for lists of all the
Lectures published by the Society, apply (by letter) to the Hon.
Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent,
Hyde Park.
SYLLABUS OF THIS LECTURE.
The progress of science consists in the connection of phe
nomena previously considered isolated.
The old Three Kingdoms of Nature now seen to be in many
points one, in most essential characteristics only two: the
Organic and the Inorganic, or Living and Not-Living.
Plants and animals identical in their ultimate chemical con
stituents; Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus,
Sulphur, Potassium, Iron: in most of their proximate principles;
Water, Carbonic acid, Sugar, Starch, Cellulose, Fibrin, Casein,
Chlorophyll, Protoplasm.
Structural identity of the lower groups—Hackel’s Protista.
Functions of living beings.
Identity in Respiration.
Identity in Nutrition, the presence of ferments, pepsin, diges
tive acid and peptones—The Chlorophyllian property—The
Conversion of starch into sugar.
The functions of Relation; Sensation, Nervous action and
Motion—The nerve-like action of protoplasm in Drosera—Motion
by pseudopodia or cilia.
Reproduction by fission, gemmation and ovulation—Ova and
Spermatozoa.
�THE PHYSIOLOGICAL UNITY OF
PLANTS AND ANIMALS.
NE of the cardinal laws of the modern philosophy
of evolution is that the history of the development
of the race is summarised in that of the individual. This
is exemplified in the growth of human knowledge, es
pecially of accurate knowledge or science: as a child
learns a number of detached words, chiefly nouns, before
it can frame a connected train of thought, and notices
with unreasoning surprise each phenomenon of nature
which it encounters, so in the progress of science the
human race learns to trace the general laws which govern
phenomena that it once looked upon as isolated and
marvellous.
Thus mankind were for ages content to talk of the
“Three Kingdoms of Nature,” and to look upon minerals,
plants, and animals, as three distinct categories having
little or nothing in common. We now know, however,
that in many respects these three are one, and that in
all essential characteristics they can only be considered
as two. They are subject to the same physical and
chemical laws: plants and animals contain no chemical
element not existing in inorganic minerals, even carbon
occurring in meteoric stones; their mode of growth is
not so radically unlike that of a collection of small crys
tals in a nutrient fluid as has been supposed; nor are the
simple geometrical beginnings of organic structure wholly
unlike crystallisation. The words “ inorganic ” or “ un
organised ” are as applicable to the lowest animals as to
the starch manufactured by chemical synthesis from its
elements in the laboratory; for it is a mere contradiction
in terms to term that an organism which is absolutely
destitute of organs. It would be extremely difficult to
show that in life we have more than an assemblage of
forces possessed individually, at least in some degree, by
the inorganic world ; and we still look upon the dead
body of plant or animal as being plant or animal when
not only is the individual dead, but even when no single
O
�4
The Physiological Unity of
tissue evinces lingering vitality by responding to stimu
lation. Thus the distinction between living and notliving is scarcely more precise than that between organic
and inorganic.
Still, however, though the boundary-line be not easily
definable, there are distinctions readily perceptible be
tween nearly all things that either do live or have lived
and those that have not.
Living beings have curved outlines ; they have much
of their structure in a soft condition; if alive, they ex
hibit numerous functions; they consist chiefly of complex
carbon compounds.
Between plants and animals, at first sight, there may
seem to be distinctions equally simple ; but this seeming
only arises from our thinking of types rather than of the
whole groups, and even popular natural history recog
nises the difficulty in detail in terming one group of
animals “ zoophytes,” or animal plants.
Plants and animals are identical in their ultimate
chemical constituents, i.e., in the elements or simple sub
stances, of which they are composed, the chief of which
are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus,
sulphur, potassium, and iron. The proportion in which
these elements occur varies, however, to some extent in
the two groups, carbon being relatively more abundant in
the vegetable, and nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus in
the animal kingdom. These elements occur probably,
however, in every plant and in every animal. Oxygen
and hydrogen form water (H2 O), which constitutes from
14 to 94 per cent, of plants, 67 per cent, of the human
body, and far more in some other animals. Carbon and
oxygen form carbonic acid (C O2), and nitrogen and
hydrogen form ammonia (N H3), invariable products of
the disintegration of the bodies of plants and animals.
All vital actions in both plants and animals—growth,
assimilation, reproduction, nervous action, &c.—are con
ducted by the complex substances known as albuminoids,
which have an average pei’ centage composition of 53 of
carbon, 22 of oxygen, 16 of nitrogen, 7 of hydrogen, 1 of
sulphur, and a trace of phosphorus. Iron, the great
colouring matter of nature, necessary alike to the produc
tion of the green chlorophyll of leaves and of red blood, is
probably universally present; and potassium, which seems
�Plants and Animals.
5
in some way essential to the formation of starch and cellu
lose—those carbo-hydrates, so abundant in most plants,
so rare in animals—occurs, though in small quantities,
probably in all animals.
Many of the chief compounds or proximate principles
are also common to the two groups. Not to mention
further such products of decomposition as carbonic acid
and ammonia, or water, in the absence of which vitality is
impossible; starch (C6 H10 O5) has been detected in the
human brain and elsewhere; cellulose (C61I1O O5) occurs
in the “ mantle ” of the Tunicata, or marine Ascidians ;
fibrin, the chief ingredient of blood and meat, is all but
identical with the gluten of cereal grains ; casein, the
curd of milk, it represented most closely in those most
concentrated of vegetable foods, the seeds of peas and
lentils; chlorophyll even, that green colouring matter
which we look upon as so characteristic of the vegetable
world, not only exists in a score of animals belonging to
most varied groups,1 but in them has the same marked
effect upon the atmosphere that it exerts in plants; and
lastly, that protoplasm, or sarcode, which Professor
Huxley has so well termed “ the physical basis of life,”
appears absolutely identical in both divisions of the
organic kingdom. In either case it would seem to be
very probably a combination of a phosphamide and a sulphamide of some highly complex base containing carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
If we leave composition and pass on to structure,
looking, as rational philosophy teaches us, at the base of
the diverging branches rather than at their summits, we
find the identity so close that the shrewdest naturalists
are baffled in their attempts to draw a boundary line; so
that Professor Hackel has been led to cut the gordian
1 The following list of these chlorophyllian animals has been
drawn up by Professor Ray Lankester:—
Foramimfera.
Ccelentera.
Radiolaria.
Hydra viridis.
Anthea smaragdina.
Rhaphiophrys viridis.
Heterophrys myriapoda.
Vermes.
Mesostomum viride.
Infusoria.
Stentor Mulleri, &c.
Boneilia viridis.
Chsetopterus Valenciennesii.
Spongida.
Crustacea (Isopoda).
Spongilla fluviatilis.
Idotsea viridis.
�6
The Physiological Unity of
knot by establishing the intermediate group of Protista,
neither plants nor animals, thus simply doubling the
difficulty.
I hope to show to-day that, without confining our
attention to these lowly forms, we may see an identity
in function superadded to these identities in composi
tion and structure, each leading physiological function
of the animal being represented among plants, and vice
versa.
Now the functions may be classified into three main
groups : those of nutrition, of primary importance, and
co-extensive in time with life, as being necessary to the
support of the individual; those of relation, useful in
bringing the organism into relation with its environment
(primarily evolved, no doubt, as aids to nutrition and selfdefence) ; and lastly, those of reproduction developed
when a mature size has been reached, or, as it has been
well put, when nutrition becomes discontinuous and
secures the permanence of the race.
Subsidiary to nutrition is the important function of
respiration, by which the body is supplied with atmos
pheric oxygen which is utilised in the breaking up or
waste of effete complex compounds in the body, and by
which also the resulting carbonic acid is exhaled. This
function, which it is convenient to discuss first, is univer
sally identical in plants and animals.
We are not concerned with the mechanism of respira
tion whether it be lungs, as in our own bodies, or gills,
or the general surface, as in many of the lower animals.
In both plants and animals oxygen is taken from the
inhaled air, and carbonic acid is exhaled. This breathing
continues as long as life lasts, by night as well as by
day, and even under the influence of anaesthetics, such as
chloroform. Among plants it is clearly observed in the
case of germinating seeds, as in the evolution of carbonic
acid in the artificially-produced sprouting of corn, known
as “ maltingin the action of fungi (which it would be
absurd to class as other than plants) upon the air, as
seen in the like evolution from brewers’ yeast; in the
effect on the atmosphere of any ordinary green plants
during the night or in the dark; and lastly, as we learn
from the luminous experiments due to the marvellous
acumen of the lamented Claude Bernard, in the effect on
�Plants and Animals.
7
their atmosphere of such ordinary green plants when put
under the influence of anaesthetics.
Green plants in the daylight, not under anaesthetics,
have an effect upon the atmosphere the converse of that
of animals, and have accordingly been said to inhale car
bonic acid, and to exhale oxygen.2 This is, however, to
render the physiological term “respiration” meaningless;
and is moreover conclusively disproved by Claude Ber
nard’s experiments, which show that a true respiration is
continually going on in these plants, and polluting the
air with additional carbonic acid, though the effects on
the atmosphere of this function are masked by the more
powerful chlorophyllian property which has a diametri
cally opposite effect. This remarkable action of the green
colouring-matter of leaves, under the influence of sun
light, in causing the removal of carbonic acid from the
air, is part of the nutritive functions properly so-called,
and, though more general among them, is by no means
confined to plants, as shown by the table of animals
belonging to most distant groups which contain chloro
phyll, as evidenced in several cases by the specific name
of “viridis.” (See note 1 p. 5.) This animal chloro
phyll has, moreover, been recently shown to produce the
same effect upon the air as does that of the plants. Many
plants, too—namely, the whole of the fungi—are without
chlorophyll.
This leads us to the functions of nutrition, to which
respiration is merely subsidiary. Most plants derive
their food from two sources : water, and saline substances
dissolved in it, from the soil, through their roots, and
carbon, from the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, ab
sorbed by their green leaves. Their nitrogen they un
doubtedly derive chiefly from nitrates in the soil; their
phosphorus from phosphates. Most animals, on the other
hand, are unable to build up the complex compounds of
which they consist from inorganic materials, subsisting
entirely on food previously assimilated by plants or other
2 I cannot at all agree with Dr. J. H. Gilbert, when he says
(Presidential Address to the Chemical Section of the British
Association at Swansea): “ It may, I think, be a question
whether there is any advantage in thus attempting to establish
a parallelism between animal and vegetable processes.”
See Mr. Corenwinder’s researches in “Revue Scientifique,” 1874.
�8
The Physiological Unity of
animals. This apparent contrast will not, however, hold
universally. Fungi and all parasitic plants depend, either
wholly or in a great measure, on food already assimilated;
whilst, on the other hand, those animals which contain
chlorophyll appear to be able to assimilate inorganic
matter.
The identity of the nutritive processes can, however, be
shown in much greater detail if we describe that even of
one of the higher animals, such as man, and refer in the
comparison partly to those plants which have been termed
“ carnivorous.”3 The food of a man, consisting of pre
viously elaborated animal and vegetable matter, is first
ingested or taken into the alimentary tract. In the mouth
it is masticated and mixed with saliva, a neutral or alkaline
watery fluid, containing a small quantity of ptyalin, a
nitrogenous substance, which, acting as a zymase, i.e., in
a manner similar to that of yeast and other ferments,
converts the insoluble starch into soluble glucose or grape
sugar (C6 H12 O6). The food than passes into the closed
stomach, the glands of which secrete an acid gastric
3 This term may be applied more or less fully to the following
plants belonging to widely different groups:—
Accidentally.
e.g. Lychnis (Campion). Caryophyllacese.
Saxifraga tridactylites. Saxifragacese.
Saprophagous, i.e., only absorbing the products
of decomposition ’? Dipsacus (.Teazle). Dipsacese.
With pitchers - Sarracenia.
Darlingtonia.
>Sarraceniacese.
.Heliamphora.
J
Utricularia.
1
With utricles Polypompholyx. }• Lentibulariacese.
Genlisea.
J
Digesting.
? Helleborus. Eanunculaceae.
? Parnassia. Saxifragacese.
Coelenterate.
Cephalotus. Saxifragacese.
Nepenthes. Nepenthacese.
Motile.
Pinguicula. Lentibulariacese.
Drosera (Sundew).
)
Drosopliyllum.
|
Dionsea (Venus’ Fly-trap). |
Aldxo vanda.
)
�Plants and Animals.
9
juice, containing pepsin, another nitrogenous ferment or
zymase, which acts upon the albuminoid constituents of
the food, rendering them soluble, or digesting them, when
they are known as peptones—substances that readily ooze
through a membrane. The entrance of food into the
stomach stimulates the nerves in its walls, and the neigh
bouring arteries swell so as to produce a blushing of the
surface. After quitting the stomach the conversion of
starch into sugar is completed by the pancreatin in the
intestinal juice of the small intestine, which is neutralised
by the alkaline bile. At the same time, the fatty portions
of the food are emulsionised, i.e.; separated into fine
particles suspended in the fluid, and to some extent sapo
nified, i.e., rendered more soluble by a conversion into
soap by the alkaline bile, just as animal and vegetable fats
and oils are converted into soap, in the_arts, by treatment
with caustic alkali; whilst any remaining albuminoids are
also digested.
The nutrient matter passes through the membranes of
the alimentary canal into the capillaries, or finest blood
vessels, and by the blood, the vehicle of circulation, it is
conveyed to every part of the body to be assimilated, or
taken up, by any organs requiring repair. Any subse
quent changes it may undergo are comprehended under
the term “ metastasis.”
In making this comparison we must not lose sight of
the fact that in the lowest animals we have no specialised
organs or structures to perform these varied functions.
Now, if we turn to plants in general, we find that the
watery solution taken in by the roots penetrates through
the cell-membranes, as the peptones do through those of
the alimentary canal in the animal, and that it is caused
to ascend to the leaves and growing parts by the evapora
tion from the surface. The air enters the stomata, or
pores, in the epidermis, and penetrates the cell-mem
branes, as it does in the air-cells of the bronchial tubes
in our own lungs. The primary product of the union of
this gaseous with this watery food seems to be the forma
tion of protoplasm, that complex albuminoid containing
not only carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, but
also sulphur and phosphorus. Only plants that contain
chlorophyll are able to utilise the carbon of the air in
forming protoplasm or assimilation, others must obtain
�10
The Physiological Unity of
it elsewhere. Chlorophyll is formed in the protoplasm,
only in the presence of iron, and generally in daylight;
plants grown in the dark being bleached by its imperfect
formation. The presence of chlorophyll is necessary to
the formation of starch, though the latter is a very simple
substance.
Starch is therefore absent from the fungi.
Recent researches4 point to the conclusion that starch
is formed by the protoplasm under the influence of light
filtered, so to speak, through chlorophyll. Though in
soluble, starch seems to be readily rendered soluble, as,
though chiefly formed in the leaves, it is rapidly trans
ferred to the stem, the seeds and other parts, where it
is stored up as a food-reserve. It is from these stores
that man obtains some of the most important of his
food-stuffs—the flour of wheat, the sago from the stem
of the sago-palm, and the starchy tuber of the potato.
Agricultural chemists have come to the conclusion that
animals derive their fat from the carbo-hydrates of their
food,5* i.e., from cellulose, starch, and sugar—more es
8
pecially from the two lattei’; and it would seem highly
probable that the similar fatty oils in fruits and seeds,
such as the olive and the oil-palm, are due to the
transformation of starch. A more important change is
that into glucose and soluble starch in germination, in the
spring sap, and such cases, which is brought about by a
ferment or zymase, known as diastase, all but identical
with the similarly acting ptyalin of our own saliva.
While starch is formed by day, by night the proto
plasm originates cellulose, the cells divide and the plant
grows.
Assimilation thus proceeds mainly by day;
growth by night. Some new evidence on this part of
the subject has been educed by Dr. Siemens’s experiments
on plants under the electric light.
In germinating seeds the albuminoids are converted
into substances closely resembling the peptones of animal
4 Those of Pringsheim, remarkably confirmed by Mr. George
Murray, of the British Museum, who has shown that lichenine, a
form of starch occurring in lichens, is formed not in the chloro
phyll-containing “ gonidial layer,” but in the subjacent cells.
8 See Dr. J. H. Gilbert’s Presidential Address to the Chemical
Section of the British Association at Swansea.
�Plants and Animals.
11
digestion ; and in the transfer of these, of soluble starch,
dextrine, and sugar, to the growing parts, we have a close
analogy to animal circulation.6
In the various complex processes of change, known as
metastasis, acid-salts and free acids are formed in plants,
with instances of which we are all familiar, such as the
rhubarb, apple, gooseberry, and orange. Now free acids
are nearly always deleterious to organic tissues. These
acids are therefore either metamorphosed or neutralised,
or to some extent excreted by being stored up in glands
near the surface, as in the orange. Such embedded glands
are very common, as are also the thin-skinned glandular
hairs, which often have a viscid secretion, as in the catch
flies or campions of the genus Lychnis in Saxifraga tri
dactylites, in Pinguicula and in most Droseracec/e. Mr.
Darwin has shown7 that these hairs in Saxifrages,
Droseras, Primula, and Pelargonium, will absorb am
monia from a solution; hence they might obtain it from
dew, in which it occurs in small quantities. It is also
probable that they derive some benefit from the nitro
genous matter in the bodies of flies, with which Saxifraga tridactylites is always covered.
Flies are constantly drowned in the pitcher formed by
the two united leaves of the common teazle, into which
Dr. Francis Darwin thinks he has detected delicate pro
toplasmic threads protruded from the cells of the stem,
like the pseudopodia of a Foraminifer.8
Several plants, belonging to widely separated orders,
have their leaves modified into pitchers, or utricles, in
which insects get drowned and decay, the products of
decay being absorbed by glands on the inner surface of6
8
*
6 The presence of a pepsin-like ferment, or peptogene, which
might have been inferred from the transference of albuminoids
from one part of the plant to another, has been shown in the seeds
of Vetch by Gorup-Besanez. A similar substance occurs in the
milky juice of the papaw (Carica Papaya), which, like the gastric
juice of animals and the secretion from the leaves of the sundew
(Drosera), has the two-fold property of acting as an antiseptic by
destroying the microzymes, or organisms that induce putrefaction,
and of acting as a solvent or peptogene on albuminoids.
“Insectivorous Plants.” London, 1875.
8 Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 1878.
�12
The Physiological Unity of
the organ? Such is the case with the Sarracenias and
their allies, an order related to the water-lilies, and with
the Utricularias or bladder worts, which are related to
the butterwort, Pinguicula, and less closely to the prim
rose tribe. In the true pitcher-plants, however, the
Cephdlotus and the Nepenthes, plants in no way related
morphologically, we reach a much higher physiological
grade. The leaves in this case develope pitchers strictly
comparable to the animal stomach. The glands on the
inner surface of these pitchers secrete a watery fluid
which is slightly acid. Albuminoid matter, whether ani
mal or vegetable, immersed in this fluid, even when
removed from the pitcher, is converted into soluble pep
tones, as in the gastric juice, and this change occurs so
rapidly that we naturally infer the presence of some
pepsin-like ferment. Mere acidulated water, without a
ferment, takes several days to digest albuminoid matter ;
though Professor Frankland has shown that, though dif
fering in the intensity of their action, nearly all acids
will effect such a digestion. After absorbing albuminoid
matter the glands of these pitchers become a bright red
colour, strangely reminding us of the blushing of the walls
of the stomach.
In Pinguicula and in the Droseracece, though we have no
stomach-like pitchers, we have a somewhat higher grade
in the introduction of motion to aid in the nutritive
processes.
The simple leaves of the butterwort are
covered with viscid, glandular hairs, the secretion from
which exerts a remarkable effect upon milk, coagulating
it; whence the name butterwort. When flies stick to
the hairs the leaves roll up at their margins, the secretion
becomes acid, and the albuminoid matter is digested and
absorbed. The absorption is shown by the fact that the
protoplasm in the cells of the glands becomes aggregated
or contracted. If milk is left on the leaves it is first
coagulated, and then its casein is absorbed.
We then come to a most interesting group, the Droseraceoe—a group not represented by any considerable
number of forms, but of world-wide distribution.
A
9 See, on the subject generally, Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Hooker’s
Address to the British Association at Belfast, in 1874, in “ Nature,”
vol. X., and Mr. Darwin’s work before referred to; on Cephalo
tus, Dr. Dickson, in the “Journal of Botany ” for 1878.
�• \ *«* * • r>.Y *.’••’• *
Plants and Animals.
’.• ’.':> '*} ’• »"^
,v? ';/<</ F v’A .\
13
large proportion of the species are natives of Australia;
but they occur also in Patagonia, whilst our British
species range throughout Europe, Siberia, to the Hima
layas, in Kamschatka and in America, from the'Arctic
Circle to Florida and Brazils.
So we may safely say
that they have been successful in the struggle for ex
istence. It affords a strong confirmation to our views as
to the source of their main food-supply that Sarracenias,
Utricularias, Pinguiculas, Nepenthes, and the Droseracece
are in all cases either submerged aquatic plants, or in
habitants of marshes, where they are often seen growing
on pure sand which can only yield them pure water.
Their roots are very small; in Aldrovanda they are
altogether absent.
The round-leaved sundew of our own marshes, which
grows under the protection of the Board of Works on
Hampstead Heath, in Epping Forest, and on Keston
Common, whence Mr. Darwin has procured his specimens,
has its leaves prolonged into glandular hairs or tentacles,
each surmounted by a drop of viscid secretion to which
they owe their name of sundew. The stickiness of this
secretion will amply suffice to detain a small fly by the leg.
On doing so, not only does that particular drop become acid,
but all the other glands instantaneously become aware of
the capture of some nitrogenous matter; their secretions
become acid, and they bend forward till the fly is carried
to the centre of the leaf, covered by the glands. Com
plete digestion then ensues, occupying a time which
varies according to the size of the prey, and the peptones
and other soluble results are absorbed by the glands of
the leaf, the protoplasm of which becomes aggregated.
A substance analogous to pepsin has been detected in the
secretion by Dr. Lawson Tait, who terms it droserin, and
the acid has been determined to be either propionic
(C3 H6 O2), or a mixture of acetic (C2 H4 O2), and butyric
(C4 H8 O2). It is noteworthy that the secretion has also
antiseptic properties, herein also resembling gastric juice.
Chlorophyll is but scantily developed in the mature leaves,
suggesting that organised food renders that derived di
rectly from the atmosphere to a large degree unnecessary.
That the plant derives a decided advantage from this
leaf-absorbed nitrogen is conclusively proved by Dr.
Francis Darwin’s comparative experiment, in which he
�14
The Physiological Unity of
grew some hundred meat-fed plants side by side with a
like number of others not so fed, the former proving
the superior in weight, number of off-sets, of flower
stalks, of flowers, and of seeds, and in the weight of their
seeds.
It is, however, in the exotic ally of our sundew, the
Venus’s fly-trap (Dioncea muscipula) of North Carolina,
perhaps, that we have the highest degree of specialisation
for nutrition in the direction we are considering. In this
plant, rapid movement produced by an electro-magnetic
change in the condition of the blade of the leaf on stim
ulation, takes the place of a viscid secretion. The blade
of the leaf is orbicular, divided by a hinge-like midrib,
and surrounded by spinous prolongations corresponding
to the tentacles of Drosera. Its upper surface is covered
with glands, and bears long sensitive hairs, generally three
on each lobe. These, from their action, I think I may
venture to term vibrissce, i.e., rudimentary sense-organs.
These vibrissae are extremely sensitive to the touch, the
two halves of the leaf instantly closing, their spinous
tentacles becoming interlocked like the teeth of a gin.
Dr. Burdon Sanderson has shown 10 the existence in the
leaf of a normal electric current precisely similar to that
of animal muscle; and that, on the vibrissae being touched,
a deflection of this current, which can be observed with
the galvanometer, is produced, precisely as in the con
traction of muscle under nervous stimulation. Though it
is an anticipation of the next division of my subject, I
must here call your attention also to the remarkable
analogy we have here presented with that deflection of a
normal electric current in the optic nerve which has been
recently shown by Professors McKendrick and Dewar to
be produced by the action of light on the eye in most
animals. The motor impulse, both in this plant and in
Prosera, is transmitted not only by the vascular tissue,
but also by the cellular. The glands are both secretive
and absorptive, but do not secrete until stimulated by
absorption. The acid secretion in the temporarily-formed
stomach acts like that of Drosera. In neither case is fat
absorbed, nor — which is rather remarkable — casein,
though cheese produces an abundant flow of the acid
10 Proc. Royal Society, vol. xxi., and. ‘Nature,’ vol. x.
�Plants and Animals.
15
secretion. In digesting this albuminoid, the butterwort
(Pinguicula) is more active; but perhaps we should look
upon the leaf-digestion in plants as a recently-acquired
function—geologically speaking—so their digestive powers
may as yet be weak. Over-feeding seems to have a fatal
effect either on leaves or on whole plants.
In leaving the subject of nutrition, I hope it will not
be supposed that in dwelling thus at length upon these
plants, I look upon their functions as exceptional. They
are well exhibited for purposes of experiment and com
parison in these so-called “ carnivorous ” plants; but
they are represented in the processes of assimilation and
metastasis throughout the plant-world.11
The functions of relation are motion, sensation, and
nervosity. Some few animals lose the power of moving
from place to place, a power possessed only by the very
lowest plants. Higher plants, however, are carried as
winged fruits or seeds to a distance, and in many cases
possess as much power of relative movement, i.e., the
movement of certain of their parts as do many animals,
e.g., the circum-nutation, as Mr. Darwin has termed it, or
revolving motion of tendrils, twining plants and shoots,
and the irritability of stamens, as in the barberry, or of
carpels as in the balsam. Motion is effected
pseudo
podia in the Myxomycetes and some other Thallophytes,
as much as in the lowest animals, and by cilia in some
what higher members of both groups, whilst muscles are,
of course, as absent in the Protozoa as in plants.
The definitions of sensation, given in most manuals of
physiology, presuppose the existence of nerves and nerve
ganglia. These occur in no animals lower than the
Jellyfishes; yet, I think, most naturalists would rather
look upon protoplasm as a diffused nerve-matter, as
suggested by the late Dr. Bowerbank, than deny sensation
altogether to the Protozoa. Leaving out of consideration
the remarkably rapid action of the sensitive-plant (Mimosa
pudica) and the related movements in various compound
leaves, known as “ sleep,” as being still problematical, I
would ask whether the instantaneous reaction of the
secretion in Drosera (its becoming acid) on stimulation, or
11 I endeavoured to elucidate this point in an article on ‘ Plant
Nutrition ’ in the Gardenerd Chronicle for 1878, vol. ix., p. 202.
�16 The Physiological Unity of Plants and Animals.
the electric action of Dioncea, is not entitled to be con
sidered as the same in kind with animal sensation.
The function of reproduction is performed in three
different ways: by fission, by budding or gemmation, or
by ovulation. Each of these processes is represented both
among plants and among animals, though fission and gem
mation are termed vegetative functions—functions, that is,
of mere discontinuous growth as distinguished from ovu
lation or sexual reproduction. Eission, or cell-division,
is the normal method of reproduction among the lowest
cellular plants (Protophyta), and even a sea-anemone,
when cut in half, has healed to form two perfect indi
viduals. Gemmation, or the production of off-sets more
or less distinct, familiar to us in ferns, bulbs, and straw
berry runners, occurs also in the freshwater polyp {Hydra)
and other animals higher in the scale.
In the processes of sexual reproduction we have, how
ever, perhaps the most striking of all the parallelisms
beween plants and animals. In both we have the im
pregnation of a germ-cell or ovum by a sperm-cell, the
male element: in Cryptogamic plants, and in animals,
this male element is a minute body furnished with one or
more cilia, known as a,spermatozoid: in both kingdoms the
ovum is a single cell originated within its parent cell by
what is termed free-cell formation: in both this ovum
subdivides to form the embryo ; and in the egg of the one,
as in the seed of the other, there is often, in addition to
the embryo, a food-supply for its early nourishment. In
fairness it must be noticed that the animal ovum is seg
mented into four, eight, sixteen or more segments, whilst
that of the plant forms in general a filament (hypha or
suspensor), at the end of which the embryo originates;
and secondly, that flowering plants have perhaps advanced
a grade beyond animals in substituting the fovilla of
pollen for the spermatozoid.
I have thus in detail endeavoured to trace a funda
mental identity, in nutrition, in relation, and in repro
duction, in plants and animals. My object in so doing
has been to extend, as far as our knowledge permits us,
the reign of law and uniformity; and to show that the
study of the physiology even of plants may not be with
out its practical lessons to so exalted an animal as Man.
Kenny & CO., Printers, 25, Camden Road, N.W.
�
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The physiological unity of plants and animals: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 30th January, 1881
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Place of publication: London
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1881
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ETHICS AND .ESTHETICS
OB,
ART AND ITS INFLUENCE ON OUR
SOCIAL PROGRESS.
‘Stctnre
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 5th MARCH, 1876.
BY
Dfi. G. G. ZERFFI, F.R.S.L., F.R. Hist. S.
One of the Lecturers in IUI. Department of Science and Art.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1876.
Price Threepence.
�SYLLABUS.
1. The component elements of man’s nature.
2. Reason and imagination.
3. Ethics and ^Esthetics.
4. The Cosmical Laws in Nature and Art.
5. Distinction between “ Sublime ” and “ Beau
tiful.”
6. The most important conditions of Art.
7. Art as it shows itself in the three groups of
mankind.
8. Religion has been always one of the prin
cipal agents in exciting our innate dynamic force
to produce works of Art. The relative changes
in Religions reflect corresponding changes in Art.
9. Oriental and Greek Art. Architecture and
Sculpture.
10. Christian Art, and its distinguishing fea
tures from Ancient Art. Carving and Painting.
11. Gothicism, a revival of Indo-Buddhism and
Renaissance, a revival of Grseco-Romanism. Ideal
ism and Realism.
12. Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, the English, Ger
mans, Italians, and French on Art. Our social
progress as reflected in Art. Hogarth and Flax
man, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gainsborough.
Neglect of ^Esthetics. Symmetrophobia. China
mania. Rinkomania. Conclusion.
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS ;
OB,
ART AND ITS INFLUENCE ON OUR SOCIAL PROGRESS.
HERE can be no doubt that there are con
flicting and often contradictory constituent
elements in man. He is God’s fairest creature, but
often capable of the meanest and most cruel actions,
of which no animal is guilty. This is, and will always
be the case, whenever these conflicting elements
are not properly developed and trained. Man, at
times, is more stupid than an animal; the assertion
that he learnt his first steps in art from plants and
animals, beginning with the lowest animals, is not
a mere hypothetical assertion, but a fact. Man, in
his first periods of development, often acts on mere
unconscious impulses.
He recognises outward
objects, sees them only as detached incoherent units,
and cannot yet observe them as the emanations of
one general idea, according to which they are
formed. At a later period, however, he becomes
conscious of his power to recognise detached objects
in their coherence, and traces in them general
features which unite them into grand harmonious
groups. The more he extends this latter power,
the more he becomes master of the surrounding
phenomena of the outer world, and the more his
artistic powers develope. The force to create is
as inborn in man as the force to think. The former
power is based on imagination affecting his emo
tional element, the latter on reason affecting his
intellectual capacity. Our reason must be guided
and cultivated as carefully as the art of walking.
A child left to itself would scarcely ever learn how
T
�4
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
to walk upright—it must be taught to do so. Our
imagination requires the same training as our
reason. Necessity is the mother of invention, and
all that is unnecessary is looked upon as superfluous
and useless. But necessity is not the only mother
that leads us on to activity. As soon as we have
satisfied our wants, they cease to excite us to
further action, and we step into a second stage of
our intellectual faculty; we strive to embellish, to
beautify the means by which we have succeeded in
satisfying our wants. A knife with an ornamented
or carved handle does not cut better than one with
a plain handle; neither does a heavy club kill a
brother more quickly because its handle is ingeni
ously decorated with geometrical patterns ; a plain
pint jar does not hold more water because it is
glazed or painted with flowers and groups of dancing
nymphs, and still even savages decorate, ornament,
and embellish their every-day utensils, their huts,
and their very bodies. The faculty, the striving to
improve upon nature, is as much part of our entity
as breathing, eating, drinking, and money-making.
The power of enjoying and becoming conscious of
the cause of our enjoyment ought to be as much
cultivated as our endeavours to know. To cultivate
our reasoning faculty one-sidedly, and to pretend that
the world is a mere machine, is one of the most objec
tionable fundamental errors, one which would turn
humanity into a grand fraternity of “ Bounderbys ”
continually echoing the question into your ears,
What is the good of flowers on a carpet, or of
mouldings on a house, if only the sewage be good,
the ventilation perfect, and the wet kept out ? So
long as a nation is in a transition state from bar
barism into civilization, these “ Bounderbys ” reign
supreme ; but the moment that higher ethics take
the place of low conceptions concerning God and
the world, the inborn force of aesthetics begins to
ferment, to work in man, and to drive him to resign
�5
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
his Hebrew-Puritan coarseness, and to begin to orna
ment, to improve the outer aspect of his houses and
towns, his every-day utensils, and to foster with
great energy the culture of the Fine Arts. As little
as birds can rise and sing in the heavens whilst the
storm is raging, but will wait until it is abated, so
it is with artists; their hearts and imagination are
dumb whilst utilitarian indifference oppresses the
social atmosphere, or political passionsrageinanation.
If the Fine Arts could be imported, as tallow is from
Russia, indigo from India, or turnips from Sweden, we
might do a tolerably good trade ; but the Fine Arts
do not grow like mushrooms in musty and moist,
in dark and hidden places, but only in the broad
daylight of general culture. It is not in vain that
we speak in the artistic world so much of our
“ stars.” Stars shine only when there is night;
the darker the night the brighter are the stars,
which often lose their lustre in the light of a tole
rably bright full-moon of criticism. We can see,
however, the bright dawn of a greater love of art
tinting our horizon; but we must learn, above all,
to look upon aesthetics as an important branch of
our education. We are living in the amiable con
ceit that a knowledge of the “ Beautiful” is a mere
matter of opinion. We wrap ourselves in the say
ing “de gustibus non est disputandum.” But we
dispute about the eastern postures, the real presence,
the right of believing in a personal devil, the es
sence of the Divinity, and the efficacy of embroid
ered petticoats for dancing priests, who patronise a
kind of art which has long gone out of fashion, and
will as little come into general use as “ tattooing ”
or pretty silk tailcoats in union with iron armour,
spears, cross-bows, and helmets.
If there be no absolute law in aesthetics, there is
none in ethics. For ethics, in fact, regulate relative
beauty in actions, whilst aesthetics regulate relative
taste in forms. Ethics teach us how to act rightly ;
B
�6
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
eesthetics, how to see and appreciate beauty. The
one discerns between good and evil; the other be
tween beautiful and ugly. The one is philosophy
of action ; the other philosophy of form. The one
may be stated to be the logic of virtue; the other
the logic of taste. But between virtue and taste
there is merely a formal difference : the one affect
ing, as I have said, reason ; the other imagination
both constituent faculties of our mind. Ethics
teach us the idealisation of our nature, elevatingus into true human beings ; and aesthetics teach us.
the idealization of nature, transfiguring her worksinto works of art. The difference between the twolies in the fact that the moral teacher influencesever-changing agents and agencies, whilst the
aesthetical teacher influences the highest god-like
nature of man, through which works, that may de
light humanity for thousands of years, can be cre
ated in stone, on paper, or on canvas. Morality
is an utterly abstract and at the same time re
lative notion, like “ beauty:” but both may be
defined as based on the laws of the “ Cosmosand.
the Greeks used the same word for “ beautiful” asfor the “ universe.” The laws of nature form the
basis of all our right actions, and only so far as our
actions are in accordance with these eternal laws
can we say that we are really moral. It is a factthat the more nations deviated from these laws, the
more they built themselves “codes,” based on a
heated imagination ; the more monstrosities they
created in arts, the more sanguinary cruelties they
perpetrated in history. For morals and arts have
one and the same basis—namely, conformity to the
laws of nature. Morals consist in our becoming
masters of our own nature, and make us fit to live
as human beings in a social condition. This is ex
actly what eesthetics teach us with reference to the
forms of nature. We have to learn how to use the
laws of nature in creating anything so as to make
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
7
it a real work of art. The question whether our
reason or our sentiment was to be most affected by
a work of art led to two different schools, which
still leave it unsettled. Sentiment was to be placed
above sensation, or imagination above emotion ; as
though we could have sensations and emotions with
out our sentiments being aroused by our imagina
tion through outward impressions. The question
cannot rest on effects, but first on causes, producing
certain effects. The cause of all our striving after
emotions is found in the intellectual force with
which we are endowed, and which, driven into
false grooves through an imagination wrongly acted
upon, may seek for emotions which are either false,
ugly, pernicious, or monstrous. Nature everywhere
shows forces forming endless forms in space and
time. Here she differs from art, which has to bring
in space and time the creations of an unlimited
imagination into limited shapes and forms. Tnfinity
is the attribute of nature; finiteness the element of
art. Still, whilst nature in her infinity works
only to transform, or apparently to destroy, art
produces in her finiteness works which, stamped
with the power of intellect, outlast the works
of nature, and can be said to be immortal. How
many beautiful men and women passed away
whilst the marble-wrought gods of Phidias still live
amongst us. Where are TEschylos, Sophokles, Euri
pides, Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe ? The crea
tures of their imagination still live amongst us.
We hear the unrestrained curses of “ Prometheus
Bound ” resounding in our hearts ; we mourn with
Antigone ■ we are horrified with Medea; Brutus,
Antony, have vanished, but their memories, their
very speeches, have been recorded for ever by the
immortal Shakespeare ; Mary Stuart has been
clothed in an eternal, never-fading beauty by
Schiller; and Faust and the Devil have become
incarnations of a higher type through Goethe’s
master-mind.
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
Gazing at the heavens on a starry night, we see, in
addition to myriads of sparkling worlds floating in
the air, a great quantity of nebulse. Either decayed
systems of worlds, or worlds in formation. Worlds
which have lost their centre of gravity and fallen
to pieces ; or worlds which are seeking, according to
the general law of gravitation, to form a central
body by the attraction of cosmical ether. The one
phenomenon is that of destruction, the other that of
formation. This double cosmical process is continu
ally repeating itself in the development of art. Art
is like a mirror—whatever looks into it is reflected
by it. If a poor untrained imagination stares into
the mirror, no one must be astonished that poor and
distorted images result. Nature furnishes us with
mortar and stones for the building, but the archi
tect’s intellectual force has to arrange the elements
and to bring them into an artistic shape. Nature
furnishes us with flowers, trees, animals, and men ;
but the artist has to reproduce and to group them so
as to impress the objective forms of nature with his
own intellectual subjectivity. To become thoroughly
conscious of the distinction between the “ sublime ”
and “ beautiful ” is the first step towards a correct
understanding of works of art.
During the long period of the geological formation
of the earth, when mountains were towered upon
mountains, rocks upheaved, islands subsided ; when
air, water, fire, and solid matter seemed engaged in
never-ending conflict—nature was sublime. The
dynamic force appeared to be the only working
element in nature, and the counterbalancing static
force seemed to be without influence. Gradually,
vegetable and animal life in their first crude forms
commenced to show themselves. Zoophytes deve
loped into megatheriums and mastadons. Mam
moths and elks sported on plains which now form
the mountain-tops of our continents.
Scarcely
visible coral insects were still engaged in construct-
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
9
ing mountain chains, and a luxuriant vegetation
covered the small continents which were surrounded
by apparently endless seas. Such changes, trans
formations, and convulsions are gigantic, grand,
awe-inspiring—sublime—but not beautiful. When
ever nature is at work disturbing the air with elec
tric currents or shaking huge mountains so that they
bow their lofty summits, or when the dry soil is rent
asunder, and sends forth streams of glowing lava,
we are in the presence of the sublime—but not of
the beautiful. Whenever man’s nature is overawed,
whenever he is made to feel his impotence by the
phenomena of nature, he faces the sublime. When,
however, the cosmical forces had expended their
exuberant powers, when a diversified climate had
produced those plants and animals that surround
us, when man appeared in his threefold develop
ment, as black, yellow, and white man on this re
volving planet, and by degrees reached his highest
development, then only art acquired, through man’s
consciousness of what is beautiful, a real meaning
and existence on earth. Science eternally tries to
vanquish error. Industry subdues matter, and uses
it for utilitarian purposes : but the vocation of art
is to produce beauty for beauty’s sake, and to idealise
nature.
Nature produces like art. It is characteristic that
some people continually talk of the Divinity as a
“ maker,” which at once shows the low conception
they have of the incomprehensible first cause. We
may talk of a “ watchmaker ” or a “ shoemaker,”
but to speak of a “ world-maker ” degrades the
divinity which endows matter with inherent laws,
and then, according to the immutable law of causation, allows it unconsciously to assume its varie
gated forms. The products of art, on the other
hand, are the results of the conscious intellectual
power of the artist. It is the free yet well-regu
lated consciousness of the artist that elevates his
�IO
ETHICS AND ^ESTHETICS.
productions into works of art. Undoubtedly the
great store-house of the artist is nature ; he learns
from her how to create, but he has to discern, to
combine, to adapt, to select his forms, and to know
the laws of combination, adaptation, and, above all,
selection; for the whole success of an artist, in what
ever branch he works, depends on his power of
selection and rejection. This power of selection
varies in the three groups of mankind.
The negro is triangular-headed (prognathos), with
his facial lines drawn downwards; lie is the fossil,
or the antediluvian man, and as such indulges in an
antediluvian taste ; his mechanical skill is that of
a child; he never goes beyond geometrical figures
and glaringly bright colours. The negro is still the
woolly-headed, animal-faced being represented on
the tombs of the Pharaohs, because his bodily struc
ture and facial lines have not altered during thou
sands of years. In studying his artistic products,
his customs and manners, we are struck with their
resemblance to those which our more direct fore
fathers, the Turanians and Aryans, used when still
in a savage state. They used, and still use, the
same kind of flint instruments ; their pottery is the
same; their clubs, paddles, the cross-beams of their
huts, are adorned with the same rope and serpent
like windings and twistings.
Next we have the Turanian (from “ tura,” swift
ness of a horse); he is square and short-headed,
(brachikephalos), the traditionary yellow man. His
face is flat, his nose deeply sunken between his
prominent cheeks, and his reasoning faculty only
developed to a certain degree. He has small, oblique
eyes, the lines of his face being turned upwards,
expressing cunning and jocularity. He is an excel
lent rider, but a slow, though steady walker. He
looks on nature with a nomadic shepherd’s eye, and
not with that of a settled artist. He possesses
remarkable technical ability, has great powers of
�ETHICS AND ^ESTHETICS.
11
imitation, can produce geometrical ornamentations
of the most complicated and ingenious character,
and excels in a realistic reproduction of flowers,
fishes, butterflies, and birds; he has no sense for
perspective, and no talent for modelling by means
of shade and light. He is incapable of drawing a
dog, a horse, or a human being.
Finally, we have the Aryan, the long or oval
headed man (dolichokephalos), the historical white
man, the crowning product of the cosmical forces
of nature so far as our globe is concerned. His
facial lines are composed of the emblems of the two
conflicting forces working throughout nature, the
static, represented by a horizontal, and the dynamic
by a vertical line, both framed in by an oval. To
him alone we owe art in its progressive develop
ment and its highest sense. He surpasses the two
other groups of humanity not only in technical
skill, but especially in his inventive and reasoning
power, critical discernment, and purity of artistic
taste. The white man was unquestionably the
founder of all the different religious systems. He
tried with his inborn faculty of intellect to answer
the three questions : Where from ? what for ? and
where to ? He measured synthetically the three
dimensions of space and time ; he tried to trace the
three ever-stable and still ever-varying phenomena
of creation, preservation, and transformation. Art
was the most important means to give utterance in
forms to these answers ; and thus the art-forms of
the Orientals, as well as of the Greeks, are but con
tinuous commentaries on their religious conceptions.
It is this fact that necessitates a correct knowledge
of the phases, developments, and changes in the
different religions, as the abstract products of our
endeavours to solve the mysterious questions forced
upon us by nature, and their concrete results in
visible forms by means of works of art. The In
dians, in striving to give shape and form to abstract
�12
ETHICS AND ESTHETICS.
notions, lost themselves through an ill-trained, over
whelming imagination, and produced caricatures.
The Persians, in worshipping the Deity in pure
thoughts, engendering pure words and producing
pure deeds, built magnificent palaces, but scarcely
any temples. We have no representations of their
Divinities ; neither of Ormuzd nor of Ahriman, but
we have Fervers and Devas, the former as winged
human beings, the latter as winged animals or com
positions of animals, chimeras, or as symbols of the
King’s power. The theological, religious, and sym
bolical elements are altogether neglected in the
Perso-Assyrian and Babylonian reliefs. We have
the friends, relations, attendants, and servants, of
the King; tributaries submitting to Kings ; officers
holding fly-flaps of feathers; horses crossing rivers ;
kings hunting and slaying lions ; armies before be
sieged towns; warriors returning from battle; in
fantry and horse with spears, bows and arrows;
boats floating on rivers; galleys going to sea;
damsels and children with musical instruments;
and mathematical tablets with calculations of square
roots. We might study all this and verify what I say
at this moment, if our magnificent British Museum
were not a book, provided with the seven seals of
Sabbatarian bigotry, closed to the nation as a means
of higher education on the Sunday. We should see
in these Assyrian works of art the very opposite of
Egyptian art; the one the outgrowth of man’s capa
city as a human being, and the other the result of agloomy, mighty hierarchy looking on man as created
for another world—neglecting houses, but construct
ing monumental temples in honour of the gods. In
every form Egyptian art reflects the stifling influ
ences of a hierarchy. But the East never succeeded,
whether in Asia or Africa, in freeing itself from the
influence of the marvellous. Now the marvellous
can only form a certain constituent part in man’s
artistic products; so far as it reflects the sublime
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
13
impressions of natural phenomena. These impres
sions, working through our senses on our intellect,
must come under the regulating and checking in
fluences of reason, engendering symmetry, eurythmy,
proportion, action, and expression. The Indians
tried to explain the phenomena of nature in an ab
stract sense, and to bring metaphysics into outward
shapes ; the Persians were bent on the glorification
of power, visible on earth in the person of the despot,
and their sculptures are but monotonous rows of
stiff attendants as far as the men are concerned.
The animals are treated with greater freedom, be
cause the artist was not tied down by court rules or
ceremonials, as in the treatment of the King and
his myrmidons. The Egyptians tried to copy the
material phenomena of nature, brought them into geo
metrical forms, and marked them with realistically
drawn symbols. When a deity as some force of nature
was invested with a form, the form being one with
some religious dogma or mystic emblem of the power
of the gods, such form could not be changed; for it
became in art what technical words are in science.
When once a form with its symbols and emblems
was settled, as that of Brahma, Vishnu, S’iva, Osiris,
or Isis, or the serpent fixed as the symbol of
eternity, the hawk as that of light, the inner spi
ritual life of the artist was tied down to outward
forms with special inward meanings, and the con
straining sway of misunderstood nature on one side,
and the stationary precepts of an omnipotent hier
archy on the other, entangled the artist’s imagina
tion and paralysed every effort of his individual
subjectivity. The different artistic forms of the
Eastern nations became by degrees petrified and
immutable national and religious incrustations.
Even when geometrical figures, flowers or leaves,
and animals were used, the combinations were
marred by a want of harmony between the dynamic
and static elements in their composition. There is
�14
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
always a “too much,” rarely a “too little.” The
East rent nature asunder, looked upon matter as
evil, and yet matter was to be used to bring the
eternal spirit into form. The element of S’iva,
Ahriman, or Typhon was to give expression to the
essence of Brahma, Ormuzd, or Osiris. What
wonder, then, that the artists succeeded so badly,
and that their gods looked in abstracto as. well as
in concreto so much like infernal monstrosities., So
long as the Greeks were in these Asiatic fetters
they produced similar forms, as also did Christian
art in its infancy, as may be seen in the South
Kensington Museum in the splendid cast of the
Buddhistic gate of the Sanchi Tope, which is close
to a cast by Veit Stoss, a Nuremberg sculptor of the
fifteenth century. But as soon as the self-conscious
spirit of youthful humanity was aroused in the
Greeks through their poets and philosophers, art
improved in the same ratio as the hierarchical
power and the superstitious belief in their gods
diminished. Feelings and emotions were as much
fostered with the Greeks as the consciousness of
these phenomena. Prometheus may be said to
have been the best and most intelligible emblem of
classic heathen humanity, as Faust may be con
sidered the representative of romantic Christian
humanity. Prometheus longed to bring matter
into form; Faust to know what kept matter and
spirit together, and what became of the spirit if
once freed from matter. Prometheus made man of
clay, stole fire from heaven, and vivified the image
with his stolen fire. Faust knew that the heavenly
fire was a force over which he had no control, and
he called upon a spirit of the lower burning regions
to teach him — “how all one whole harmonious
weaves, each in the other works and lives. The
formal outer-form is the longing of the Greek
Faust, and the spiritual inner-life the aspiration of
the Teuton Prometheus. Architecture and sculp-
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
I5
ture were the distinguishing characters of Greek
art; carving and painting were the elements of
Christian art, especially in its first slow develop
ment, struggling to free itself in architecture as
well as in sciences from the oppressive influences of
an Indo-Egyptian hierarchy. To the immortal
honoui- of that hierarchy it must be recorded that
they helped humanity in the development of art
with all their power. I will not enter into a pain
ful inquiry as to how far they endeavoured, like
the Egyptian priests or the Buddhistic Bonzes, to
divert mankind from thinking and reasoning through
the erection of mighty churches. These edifices
were constructed in the old Egyptian sense so far
as the subterranean vaults were concerned. The
superstructures were simply revivals of IndoBuddhistic rock-hewn temples, placed as detached,
free -standing monuments in the midst of crooked
small streets, with crooked little houses in which
very crooked-thinking beings must have lived, shut
ting out the glorious daylight by means of painted
glass or numberless leaden hexagons—probably so
many symbols of the fetters which humanity had
to shake off through a revival of Grseco-Romanism
in art and in our modes of thinking, building, and
painting. How intimately our intellectual and sci
entific progress is interwoven with our progress in
morals and political freedom may nowhere be
studied to greater advantage than in the artistic
life of the Greeks under Perikles, and the artistic
movement of Italy during the sixteenth century,
when the invention of the art of printing, the dis
covery of America, the study of the ancient classics
and the Reformation brought new life, new ideas
amongst the masses ; and we must all be convinced
that art requires a certain moral and intellectual
condition under which alone it will live. If the
intellectual or moral atmosphere be changed, the
artists either work in an Egyptian or Indo-Assyrian
�16
ETHICS AND ^ESTHETICS.
style. If a continual abhorrence of the body as theseat of thousands of devils be preached, we shall be
furnished by our artists with those emaciated, elon
gated, spider-armed and legged saints that adorned
the churches with their meagre half-starved frames
during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. We
shall have pictures representing men and women
roasted, boiled, quartered, pinched with iron tongs,
or broken on the wheel, or starved in dungeons.
The influence of such an art must have been
terrible on the ethical or moral education of man
kind. For what pity could man have for his fel
low-creatures when his eyes rested on the frightful
scenes of the torments which St. Catherine under
went when broken on the wheel; St. Primatius,
who was burnt alive ; St. Peter, who was crucified
with his head downwards; or St. Lambert, who was
beaten with a club, and so on ? Could men be ex
pected to have treated their wretched fellow sinners
with great kindness, when they could point to a
crucified God, and to his best followers tormented to
death ? How much art was the mere reflection of
this diabolical spirit of the darkest ages, and how
much art again contributed to the demoralised hard
ening of the masses, it would be difficult to decide.
It is a further fact that, with the revival of classic
feelings in poetry and sciences, art turned with
horror from these ugly scenes, and painted the
Virgin with the child, bringing men through a more
humane representation of the divinity into nearer
relations with our higher aspirations. But if the
surroundings of the artists be changed again through
the superstitions of an ignorant mob, the despotic
organisation of a government, or the rule of a wild
and bigoted party, the artistic force will also change
or die out altogether. The artist acts only to a cer
tain extent on the public, whilst the public re-acts
with a combined and often entirely crushing “ vis
inertias ” on the artist. I have only here to mention
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
17
the evils which Puritanism, with its Hebrew hatred of
art and refinement, produced in this once“ merry Old
England.” Artists can often only reflect the intel
lectual atmosphere in which they live. How is a
man who sees nothing but emaciated, beggarly, or
sanctimonious faces, thin limbs, hungry looks, dwel
lings bare of all domestic comfort, decayed brick
houses and crumbling walls, to paint convivial
scenes of happiness and joy ? Or let me draw
another picture; how is a man to paint mighty
dramatic scenes on a canvas, when he has to live in
an atmosphere of so-called modern respectability,
seeing always the same bland smiles around him,
the same trimmed whiskers, the same stiff collars,
with the same faultless but not less stiff bows, hear
ing the same stereotyped insignificant phrases about
the weather, the funds, the high prices of coals or
butcher’s meat, receiving an order for a so-called
nice little picture, with plenty of sentiment in a
dead cock-robin, and the important question put
under it, “ Who killed cock-robin ?” in old Gothic
letters ; or another for a yawning Christ, who, tired
of his daily work, does not enjoy his god-head,
brightly looking towards the hour when he is with
his last breath on the Cross to redeem humanity.
Such a poetical conception, painted yawning, is
truly a sign of our times, but not one of the most
encouraging. We are just passing through a crisis.
We were too strongly Platonists in our notion of
art until recently. Plato used to place artists in
the same category with hair-dressers, cooks, and
eheats, who continually try to belie us. This is a
mean view for so divine a philosopher to take,
but nothing is too mean for a divine philoso
pher to assert when it suits his preconceived hypo
theses. Aristotle improved on Plato, and advocated
“ limitation,” “ order,” and “ symmetry.” Aristotle
already treats of “ reality” in art, which has to as
sume the concrete form of beauty, and wishes that
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
our “imitation. ” (jiipr)cris') of nature should be done
under the influence of purification (icaOapais), and he
admits the effect which art must have on the gene
ral improvement of morals as they work ethically,
pathetically, and practically. Plotinus, of the
Alexandrian school, is next to be studied. Self
motion is with him the essence of absolute beauty,
which self-motion is to be expressed in a work of art.
With him a beautiful work of art is not a mere re
production of reality, but he requires to see in it
the reflection of the “ moving (subjective) spirit” of
the artist j as soon as the moving idea is not to be
traced, he condemns the work as “ ugly.” Influ
enced by the spreading “ spiritualism ” of Christia
nity, he assumes “matter” as “evil,” as the nega
tive element of the “ ideal ” of “ good.” The vivi
fying and idealising element giving form to thoughts
is the essential element of beautv. He goes beyond
the principles of antiquity in sculpture and wishes
the art of painting to concentrate all its efforts on
the expression of an inner life through the eye. For
nearly 1500 years art is left without a theoretical
guide. After a life of beauty in the antique, we
have a revived second life. This resurrection took
place through the Renaissance, this true and mighty
offspring of the Reformation. “ Love,” in its most
sublime meaning, became the fundamental basis of
modern art. It was in this glorious island that
aesthetics received, like “ political economy,” a sys
tematic form for the first time. We have continued
to cultivate the study of political economy, with its
regulations of demand and supply; we have even
gone so far as richly to reward fat cocks and pigs,
cows and bulls, big-eared rabbits, goitered pigeons,
and have our horse, baby, and barmaid shows ; but
we have not continued the study of aesthetics, and
have shut out the very word from our modern phi
losophical writings. Hutcheson, however (16941747), revived the study of the beautiful, and Cousin
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
I9
is honest enough to accord to the Englishman the
priority in having placed sentiment above sensa
tion, and written on the laws of the beautiful.
Hutcheson distinguished the faculty which perceives
pure beauty from the two which were generally sup
posed to comprise the entire soul, namely, under
standing and physical sensibility. The idea that
art would decline when metaphysics, as some mate
rialists chose to call aesthetics, flourished, is not borne
out by facts in art-history ; neither is that perni
cious idea correct, “ that the arts of poetry, painting
and sculpture may exclusively flourish under a
despotic government.” Those who have studied art
history may point to the period of Perikles, under
whom art flourished, and attained the very highest
development in sculpture and architecture. Art
began to flourish during the Middle Ages in the freetowns of Germany and Italy, and not under the
despotic sway of the Imperial House of Hapsburg.
French art revived under the Republic and during
the Liberal Government of Louis Philippe; it flour
ished, and continues to flourish, under the sway of
the liberal-minded Hohenzollerns in Prussia; it was
neither under the despotic King John, nor under
Henry VIII., but under the great and immortal
Queen Elizabeth that Shakespeare wrote his master
works, his divine historical paintings in words.
Freedom of thought in poetry and art may exist
often under a despot, whilst even a Commonwealth,
if swayed by purely utilitarian ideas, will stifle and
kill art altogether. Quetelet is incorrect in saying
that “modern art has suffered from a too servile
imitation of the ancients.” Art has suffered
from a neglect of the study of the antique, and
from the false notion that a slavish imitation
of nature could be art. Whilst Germans and French
continued in the path which Hutcheson was the
first to point out, and introduced the study of
aesthetics into all their schools, whilst no great
�20
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
French or German philosopher could dare to separate
ethics and aesthetics, our great thinkers consider the
emotional beneath their dignity. They propound
that only what can be weighed, demonstrated, or
calculated deserves an earnest man’s attention. It
was that matter of fact, philosophical Bounderby,
Feed, who said that the “ Fine arts are nothing else
but the language of nature, which we brought into
the world with us, and have unlearned by disuse,
and so find the greatest difficulty in recovering it.
Abolish the use of articulate sounds and writing
among mankind for a century and every man would
be a painter, an actor, and an orator.” It is per
fectly astounding at times to see what some of our
authorities venture to put on paper. Is there a
single fact in the whole history of humanity to bear
out this bold paradoxical assertion of a not entirely
dementicated writer. But the mischief was done.
In vain did Sir Joshua Reynolds try through theory
and practice to raise art from the contempt into
which it had fallen with us; in vain did many
masters like Gainsborough paint; in vain did Flax
man with his chisel endeavour to revive classic
sculpture, in surpassing many antique products and
emulating the very best works of antiquity; in
vain did Haydon sigh for higher aims in art, for
historical paintings, and sacrifice himself at last,
seeking despairingly death rather than a life under
the baneful influence of indifference. Hogarth, this
immortal Walter Scott in colours, Shaftesbury,
Henry Home, and Edmund Burke also contributed
some extraordinary theories on the study of aesthetics.
It was the pride of Hogarth to have discovered the
t( serpent-line,” or rather the waving line, as the
line of beauty; so that a wriggling worm is the
eternal prototype of beauty. The French early
advocated a coarse realism, whilst the Germans are
often too metaphysical and, to the detriment of
technical execution, lay too much stress on the idea
�ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
21
which the artist intends to carry out. We have in
later years made gigantic strides towards a correct
study and appreciation of taste in general. We
have done much towards an improvement in art.
We possess more means for cultivating art than any
other nation. No second British Museum, no
second South Kensington Museum exists in the
world. We need only employ the same energy
with which we collect old, quaint-looking China,
always with a keen eye to business, to attain great
artistic results. We admire plates dressed as ladies
in brocade and silk with flounces and lace, and
ladies or mandarins walking about like tea-pots or
flower-vases. Our symmetrophobia, which makes
us hate every straight line, and our Chinamania
are excellent signs, not less than our Rinkomania.
and Cookomania. We have at last awakened to
the emotional, if not yet in the right, at least in a
better direction. It is no more the lisping spiritual
adviser that interests us at a game of croquet. We
prefer an old plate with bright flowers to him, and
paper our walls with cups and saucers instead of
whitewashing them; we do not discuss any longer
the last dull sermon ; we slide on little wheels on
asphalte-ice, and prove to the world that with horse
racing, rowing, and rinking we intend to be the
ancient Greeks in modern Ulster coats ! All these
freaks of a misdirected taste will die out; and now
that the emotional is aroused, it will, when directed
into a proper groove, produce marvels. We had
once a Michael Angelo in words, what hinders us
from having a Shakespeare in colours. Nothing
but the indifference and tastelessness of the public.
Let us only treat aesthetics at the central seats ot
our learning, in our colleges, but essentially in our
ladies’ schools, with the same fervour as ethics, and
cur symmetrophobia, Chinamania and Rinkomania
will soon become matters of the past. There ought
not to be a town with a mayor in this wealthy
�22
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
kingdom that has not its public library, its museum,
and, above all, its picture-gallery filled with the
products of our talented, striving, home artists.
Wedgwood made his fortune, and raised English
'china to works of art, through English artists;
Minton did the same; and the Doulton manufactory
of terra-cotta, &c. has recently sent for the Inter
national Exhibition at Philadelphia works of art,
exclusively the work of English artists, that will do
honour to our progress in this long neglected branch.
We must try to support talent wherever we find it,
and not only pay fabulous sums to those who
happen to be fashionable, but to all those who strive
to improve their artistic powers, and could do so
still more if they received half the support an old
China tea-pot or a Japanese monstrosity is capable
of commanding, or is afforded to the establishment
of rinks, which display angular gymnastics to the
detriment of our sound limbs. Courses on aesthetics
proving their identity with sound ethics, arousing
and satisfying our emotional nature in a higher
direction, would be of inestimable advantage to our
political economy, our taste, and our fame as an
artistic nation.
In conclusion, I may draw your attention to the
three different points from which we may study
aesthetics. We may do this from a realistic, an his
torical, or a philosophical point of view.
Realism and idealism may be traced in a con
tinual conflict in the domains of aesthetics as in
the domains of ethics. The realistic school of art
has in later years had an immense influence with
us. In the same ratio, I may say, as the realistic
school in science. But whilst the realistic school in
science continually tries to prove some general pro
position, which is to be converted from a mere
hypothesis into a systematically proven theory, art
critics have gone so far as to demand from artists
the very stratification of rocks, or of the different
�ETHICS AND .ESTHETICS.
23
kinds of soil, to such an extent that the farmer
should be able to recognise the ground in which tosow his oats or wheat. Pictures, according to these
gesthetical wiseacres, should be geological maps or
mineralogical surveys; as far as flowers are con
cerned they ought to be perfect specimens fit for a
herbarium ; and as to the human body they should
present correct diagrams of veins and sinews and
strongly-protruding muscles. When these critics
take up the archaeological branch of art they advo
cate with indomitable tenacity the old forms and
check the imagination wherever they can. Art is
only to be a reflex of old Greek or Gothic forms, of
Chinese or Indian curiosities, or a slavish reproduc
tion of the Renaissance. The self-creative origi
nality of the artist is neither guided nor even taken
into consideration by this school.
The art-historians proceed in the right direction.
They endeavour to bring before our eyes the past,
so as to enable us to understand the present and to
influence the future of our art. But the historians
have driven us into two divergent backward direc
tions. They either advocate the antique, or they
are consistent Goths—sham Goths generally; the
one holding that everything beautiful must be a
fret, a meander, or a Korinthian pattern, or they
delight in symbolic trefoils, finials, pinnacles, but
tresses, thin and lofty spires, pointed arches, and
darkish-painted windows; neither seeing what an
anachronism is advocated. The philosophical school
at last often indulges in tall phrases—the more un
intelligible the better. We hear of the depth and
breadth of the picture, of deep sentiment and nice
feeling, of perspective in the clouds, &c. We are
startled with hypothetical paradoxes, with specu
lations of the wildest sort on grouping, expression,
and the flowing lines of the composition. As on
theological and medical matters, everyone thinks
himself justified to have an opinion of his or her
�■24
ETHICS AND AESTHETICS.
own on art matters ; as though ethics and aesthetics,
like medicine, were not the results of thousands of
years—now progressive, then again retrograde, but
always onward striving movements of humanity.
Music, poetry, and art have, as well as our morals,
laws which must be known and studied. Music
speaks in sounds, poetry in words, art in forms,
morals in actions. But without harmony, music
would became dissonance; without rhythm, poetry
■would be but an inflated prose ; art without aesthe
tics, a vulgar and objectionable caricature ; and our
morals without ethics, an arbitrary confusion of
whimsical actions. Ethics and aesthetics will fur
nish us with that bright and real worship of God
and his nature, reflected in our creative powers,
for which so many of us yearn with eager hearts;
they will bring to us that bright future in which
men, freed from all fetters of prejudice and super
stition, will unite reason, as the father of science,
with emotion, as the mother of art.
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).
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter, enclos
ing postage-stamps, order, or cheque), to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm.
Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
PRINTED BY c. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Ethics and aesthetics; or, Art and its influence on our social progress. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 5th March, 1876
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l-ITS
C(
THE
PHYSICAL BASIS OF WILL.
jKite
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
EUNBAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 15th, 1880,
BY
HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D.
Honban:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author,
now printed, are—
“ Lessons of Materialism.” (Price 3d., or 3jd. by Post.)
“The Physical Basis
of
Will.” (Same Price.)
Can be obtained (on remittance by letter of postage stamps or
order) of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq,., 15,
Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days
of Lecture; or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street, W.
Works by the same Author:
“ The Pathology of Minh.” 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 Influence, specially with reference to Mental Dis
orders. Second Edition, enlarged and revised, with Psycho
logical Essays added. Crown 8vo, 6s. 6d.
Macmillan & Co., London.
�SYLLABUS.
Is there a physical basis of will ?
Statement of the doctrine of free will.
The difficulties of the doctrine—(1) In its relation to universal
causation; (2) In its relation to supernatural workings on the
mind.
The practical life of mankind always in conformity with the
theory that the will is not outside causation, but is determined
by motives.
What are the grounds of the conviction of a free will ?
The value of the testimony of consciousness as a witness;
what it does say, and does not say.
The physiological basis of will: nervous functions which go
along with its functions and may be its material equivalents.
Observed dependence of will upon organization; impairment
of will accompanying the beginnings of physical derangement.
The formation of will is the formation of character by means
of good training on a sound physical basis.
The apprehension of the reign of law in mind as in matter not
inconsistent with moral feeling and responsibility, but necessary
in order to infix and develop a rational sense of responsibility.
The limited range of all human knowledge.
��THE
PHYSICAL BASIS OF WILL.
N a lecture which I gave here last year, and published
afterwards in the Fortnightly Review * I pointed out
that moral feeling is just as closely dependent upon
organization as is the meanest function of mind, and
asserted broadly “that there was not an argument to
prove the so-called materialism of one part of mind which
did not apply with equal force to the whole mind.” For
this statement I was taken to task in an article in the
Spectator, the critic in that journal summoning up to
confront and confound me the alleged self-determining
power of human will—the freedom of the will. I pro
pose, then, to make this lecture supplementary to the
former one in some respects, by considering now whether
we are entitled to assume, as I hold, a Physical Basis of
Will, or whether, as my critic thinks, we have in the Will
a self-sustained spiritual entity, which owns no cause,
obeys not law, and has no sort of affinity with matter.
’Tis not a discussion of much lively or fruitful promise,
but inasmuch as those who engage in the Freewill con
troversy, ■while repeating the old and trite arguments, for
the most part leave out of sight the physical aspect of the
subject, it may be instructive to bring that more into
notice, and to show that those who uphold a material
basis of will have some plain facts to go upon.
They who maintain that the will is not determined
I
* “ Materialism and its Lessons.”
�6
The Physical Basis of Will.
by motives, but is self-determined, free, do not for the
most part go so far as to imply that motives are not at
work in the mind, and that the will takes no account of
them; they affirm that there is not the uniform, in
separable connection between motive and will which
there is between cause and effect in physical nature. The
will is not the unconditionally necessary consequent of
its antecedent motives. It, or some other mysterious
entity in the individual which, having virtually abstracted
from the actual individual, they call his non-bodily self, has,
they allege, an independent, perfectly spontaneous, arbi
trary power to make this or that motive predominate as
it pleases ; to chose this or that one among motives and
make it the motive; in doing which this self-determining
principle is presumed by some, I believe, to act without
motive, of its own pure motion, without cause or reason;
by others to act from motives so high and fine, that they
constrain it instantly, without weighing at all upon its
*
freedom.
Clearly then we have here a very singular
power in nature, which we might call supernatural were
* “The noumenon, ding-an-sich, real self,” “is unknowable,
inscrutable,” “ exists outside Time, Space, and Causality, is ab
solutely free,” “ in itself, per se, is unchangeable; ” “ and, as it is
my only real being, my primitive and inborn self, it must be
present as a factor in every change and every action of which
my phenomenal Self, my empirical character, is capable.” That
is to say, itself outside Time, Space, and Causality, it is the
moving principle of every change in Time, Space, and Causality
which takes place through me. Of a truth a wonderful power
which can thus be actually and not be theoretically at the same
time in and outside Time, Space, and Causality! But more.
Why does a truthful man who has told a falsehood feel a remorse ?
Because “his conscience tells him that he is responsible,not indeed
for this particular act— since this he could not help—but for not
being a better man.” “ Blame not the action, then, but the man
for being capable of such an action. Whip him, not for telling
this particular lie, but for being a liar at heart, in his inmost
nature. For this inmost nature, his real Self, his ding-an-sich,
which, as a noumenon, is in some inscrutable manner emanci
pated from the laws of Time and Causality, from the operation
of motives, is absolutely free.” But surely it will be, on the
one hand, a singularly hard matter to lay hold of and whip the
inmost nature, the real self, the noumenon, when “ it exists out-
�The Physical Basis of Will.
7
it not that it is allowed to be a part of nature acting in
and upon it, although coming from a mysterious source
outside it; but being thus an important agent in nature,
without being of the same kind or having anything in
common with anything else there—any sympathy, affinity,
or relationship whatever with the things which it works
in and upon—-we may fairly call it unnatural.
If there be a power of this kind in the Universe, the
reflection which occurs instantly is that causation is not
universal, as people are in the habit of assuming, but that
there is a large region of human events which is exempt
from the otherwise uniform law of cause and effect, the
region, that is to say, of man’s highei’ mental operations.
A great deal of the force which works in them and by
which they work on the external world obeys not the
law of conservation of energy. Now this is a rather
startling reflection, seeing that the great natural argu
ment for the existence of God is that everything must
have a cause, and that for cause of all things, therefore,
there must be a cause of causes, a great First Cause. At
the outset, then, we come to a perplexing dilemma—to
the obligation of concluding either that the will, like
other things, must have a cause, or that a great first cause
is not a necessity of human thought.
side of Time, Space, and Causality,” and, on the other hand,
rather unfair to whip vicariously the empirical character which
cannot help itself, when the real culprit escapes. How whip it,
too, in any case, seeing that it is a thing-in-itself, incorporeal,
spiritual, “as the air invulnerable”? The foregoing extracts are
taken from, an account of Kant’s Philosophy, by Professor Bowen,
of Harvard College, U.S., in his work on Modern Philosophy.
At the end of his exposition and comments, he says: “ And thus
the deep and dark problem of fixed fate and freewill is solved,
the two contradictories being reconciled with each other.” No
doubt they are reconciled in the minds of those who, like Pro
fessor Bowen, can believe at the same instant two contradictories.
Sir W. Hamilton laid it down that one of two inconceivable con
tradictories must be true, and it passed for a long time for high
philosophy that a man should be able so to conceive inconceivables as to know them to be contradictory. Here we have
a step farther in philosophy, since we have two conceivable con
tradictories which are both true.
�8
The Physical Basis of Will.
But this is only a first difficulty. We are taught by
those who uphold the freedom of the will that although it
is not governed by motives, but is a self-determining
principle in us, it is wrought upon continually and most
powerfully by supernatural agency. A Divine grace is
ever near to help it in time of need, strengthening it to
do well, weakening it to do ill. It is God’s good purpose
to “master our will,” and to make us “surrender and
resign it to his just, wise, and gracious will; ” and to
make good his right, says that eloquent divine, Dr. I.
Barrow, “ God bendeth all his forces and applieth all his
means both of sweetness and severity, persuading us by
arguments, soliciting us by entreaties, alluring us by fair
promises, scaring us by fierce menaces, indulging ample
benefits to us, inflicting sore corrections on us, working
in and upon us by secret influences of grace, by visible
dispensations of providence.” A stupendous array of
motives this, which it is a wonder any one ever withstands,
especially when it is borne in mind that they are worked
by the unlimited power of Omnipotence, which has fore
known and fore-ordained the result from all eternity I
However, we are not to suppose that these mighty agencies
are anywise incompatible with the freedom of will; indeed,
when it has surrendered itself to entire obedience it is
enjoying the most perfect freedom'; when it is in the
grasp of Omnipotence it is most free. Hard sayings no
doubt for reason, but not at all hard to faith seemingly,
since many persons persuade themselves that they have
intelligent apprehension of them.
The will is assailed very powerfully in a second super
natural way—namely, by the Devil, if the Devil, that is
to say, be not defunct. Bor it seems to be an open
question now whether he has not undergone by evolution
such a transformation of kind as to have lost all his per
sonality and much of his power. At the time when he
paid Luther a memorable visit he was a distinct being
enough, with great horns and a tail and cloven hoofs;
later on, when Milton described him, he had lost these
appendages, and become the great Archfiend, above his
fellows “ in shape and gesture proudly eminent,” who
�The Physical Basis of Will.
9
amid the torments of a new-found Hell still flung defiance
at the Omnipotent, with unconquered will declaring it
better to “reign in Hell than serve in Heaven;” still
later he underwent philosophic transformation into the
polished, cultivated, intellectually subtile, but mocking,
doubting, cynical, Mephistopheles of Faust. What form
and substance has he now, if form and substance he has
any ? Those whose professional work it is to do battle
with him, and to frustrate his ever active wiles and malice,
and who ought therefore to know him best, do not tell us
clearly what their exact ideas on the subject are, if they
have clear and exact ideas ; they apparently like to believe
in him as much in a vague and cloudy way as they dislike
to believe in him in any precise and definite way, or at
any rate dislike to be asked to define precisely their belief;
but although they may not be very sure of his present
form and dwelling-place, they have no doubt in a general
way of the evil desires and passions with which he inspires
poor human hearts, and of his open and insidious assaults
on the higher aspirations of human will, which he, un
tiring enemy, besets, besieges, beleaguers, bombards con
tinually. Again then we have a large region of human
events—a region the limits of which it is impossible to
define or to get defined—which is outside the natural
law of causation, and cannot ever be made matter of
scientific study. For as it is plain that we have no means
by which we can measure and register the quantity and
kind of energy which the Devil thus exerts continually
upon the will—no Satanometer or Diabolometer so to
speak—human events, so far as they are effects of his
counsels and instigations, must lie outside the range of
positive knowledge. But once more we are not to suppose
that these supernatural workings upon the will abridge in
the least degree its perfect freedom.
These are difficulties one might suppose great enough
to make even the theologico-metaphysical theorist pause,
but they have no effect to shake his faith in his dogma,
or to lessen his scorn of the profane persons who
doubt and dispute the freedom of the will. He is bold
enough in the last resort to affirm that man’s thoughts,
B
�10
The Physical Basis of Will.
feelings, and doings on earth are not proper subjects of
enquiry by a scientific method, and to avow that true
knowledge of them must come either by an extraordinary
metaphysical intuition or by revelation and faith. The
last key to the problem for him is indeed not “Search and
know,” but “God spake these words and said;” not know
ledge by the well-tried paths of observation and reason,
but “ He that believeth not shall be damned.” Of which
text 1 hope it is not irreverent to sav here that whosoever
believeth, whether it be on the authority of Holy Church
or of Holy Scripture, that which contradicts reason abso
lutely needs no further damnation; he has done himself
damage enough already as a rational being.
Meanwhile mankind has lived always and still lives in
conformity with quite an opposite theory of human will—
namely, that it is governed by natural motives. The
problem of freewill is a problem of the study, it never
has been a problem of practical life; a theoretical dogma
of faith, not a working belief, the doctrine has flourished
in an atmosphere of vague and cloudy phrases, and all
discussions about it have been in the air; it has shifted
its ground too and changed its form so often that it is
not possible to know where and how to seize and hold it.
Laws have been systematically made and punishments
inflicted upon those who broke them under a very deflnite
conviction that the will is not an uncaused power, but
does move in obedience to motive, and may be fashioned
to act in this way or that. The execution of a murderer
does not fail to influence his likeminded fellow, who cer
tainly has not the freedom of will to be unaffected thereby;
the aim and use of the punishment are to determine his
will, and it could not be of the least use if the will were
self-determined. We observe historically the past actions
of men in different situations and circumstances in order
to gain a knowledge of the springs of human action which
shall be of use to us in our present and future dealings.
The person who has had much experience, whether in
politics, business, or any other special department of
human labour, is esteemed a wiser guide than a new
comer, because of the certainty that the thoughts and
�The Physical Basis of Will.
11
acts of men are not in any respect chance-events, but
that what they have done before, that they will do again
when actuated by similar motives.
Prudence and forethought in the conduct of affairs, the
provisions made for education, social institutions and
usages, all the operations of daily life in the intercourse
of sane men are based upon the tacit implication that acts
of will are never motiveless, but conform to law and may
be counted upon. There is not a single department of
practical life which is not an implicit denial of a free self
determining power in each individual, and an implicit
recognition of a common nature in men affected by common
influences, and taking a common development in conse
quence. The only person who answers at all to the
metaphysical definition of a self-determining will is the
madman, since he exults in the most vivid consciousness
of freedom and power, sets reason at naught, and often
does things which no one can predict, because he acts
without motives, or at any rate from motives which no
one can penetrate. Did sane men possess freewill they,
like the madman, would be free from responsibility, since
their wills would act independently of their characters,
just as they listed, not otherwise than as men used to
declare, before they knew better, that “• the wind bloweth
where it listeth,” and no one would have much, if any,
motive left to try to improve his character.
We may take it then to be true that the explicit setting
forth, in formal knowledge, of what is implicit in the
course of human life would be a system of philosophy in
which a self-determining principle had no part nor place,
in which freewill would be a wrnrd void of meaning—
nonsense. But true knowledge has its foundation in
experience, and is really the conscious exposition of what
is implicit in human progress ; it is implicit in action
before it is explicit in thought. Men do not divine
truth and then work to it consciously; it is instinct in
them before it is understanding; and when in mature
time the unconscious breaks forth into consciousness, it
is the man of genius who is the organ through which the
expansion takes place; he is the interpreter of its blind
�12
The Physical Basis of Will.
impulses to the age, and gives them thenceforth clear
utterance and definite aim. The truth then, as testified
practically by the experience of the whole world from the
beginning until now, is that will is a power which does
not stand outside the range of natural causation, but one
which is moved habitually by motive in every man from
his cradle to his grave. The freewill problem might be
compared well to that great logical puzzle which so long
and so much perplexed the philosophers : I mean the
race between Achilles and the tortoise, where the tortoise
being allowed a certain start, and Achilles supposed to
run ten times as fast, it was proved that he never could
logically overtake it. For if we suppose the tortoise to
have a thousand yards’ start, it would have run a hundred
yards when Achilles had run the thousand yards; when
Achilles again had run the hundred yards, the tortoise
would be ten yards ahead; when Achilles had run the
ten yards, the tortoise would have gone one yard; when
Achilles had done the one yard, the tortoise would lead it
by the tenth of a yard; when Achilles had got over the
tenth of a yard, he would still be the hundredth of a yard
behind; and so on by successive subdivisions of the
diminishing space for ever. Clearly then Achilles never
could logically overtake the tortoise, whatever he might
do actually. So it has been with the freewill puzzle : the
philosophers, confusing themselves and others with a
juggling statement of the problem, have applied the word
free to the will instead of to the man, who has always
known himself to be free, not to will, but to do what he
willed when not hindered from doing it by internal or
external causes, just as they proved that Achilles would
not overtake the tortoise, by treating a finite space which
was infinitely divisible as if it were infinite.
*
Put the
race problem in a plain way, without ambiguous use of
words, and the result is plain enough : when Achilles had
run one thousand yards, the tortoise would have run one
* One is required to go on subdividing a unit indefinitely, and
to be surprised that the sum of the diminishing fractions never
can reach 1.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
13
hundred, but when Achilles had run two thousand yards,
where would the tortoise be ? Why, it would have run
two hundred yards altogether, and would of course be
eight hundred yards behind.
So much then for the facts in their relation to freewill.
Now what are the grounds of the metaphysician’s clear
conviction that he has a will and that it is free ? His
consciousness tells him so, he says, and all the arguments
in the world will not invalidate its direct and positive
testimony. But does it really tell him so ? One may
meet that statement truly by affirming that his conscious
ness does not tell him anything like that which he is in
the easy habit of supposing and declaring it to do.
Certainly it is not true that we know immediately by
consciousness that we have such a power as the meta
physician means by will. One-tenth only of that con
fident dogma is the direct deliverance of consciousness,
the other nine-tenths are pure and gratuitous hypothesis.
Consciousness tells us nothing whatever of an abstract
will-entity; it makes known a particular volition when
we have it and no more; the creation of an abstract will
which is supposed to execute the particular volition on
each occasion, and its further fashioning into a spiritual
entity, is an assumption as unwarranted as any that has
ever been made by the crudest materialism. It would be
no whit more absurd to make a spiritual entity of sensa
tion and to maintain that this abstract entity was
necessary to produce each sensation; or to postulate a
special emotional entity which operates in each emotion;
or to create a spirit of greenness and to detect it at work
in each green thing; or to discover the spirit of stoneness
in every stone by the roadside. What the metaphysician
has done has been to convert into an entity the abstract
word which embraces the multitude of particular volitions,
varying infinitely in degree and quality, just as at an
earlier period of thought, when the metaphysical spirit
had more life and sway than it has now, he explained the
sleep-producing properties of opium by a soporific essence
in it, and the difficulty of getting a vacuum by Nature’s
abhorrence of a vacuum; or as at a still earlier period of
�14
The Physical Basis of Will.
thought he put a Naiad in the fountain, a Dryad in the
tree, a Sun-god in the sun.
But, in the second place, while consciousness does not
tell him that he has a will such as he supposes, no more
has it the authority to tell him that his will is free.
Consciousness only illumines directly the mental state of
the moment; it reveals nothing of the long train of
antecedent states of which that state is the outcome—all
is dark beyond where its light directly falls; and it
cannot testify anything as an eyewitness concerning what
is happening there, any more than a person in the light
can testify of what is taking place in the dark. Let
there be a solitary gas-lamp lit in a large square on a
pitchdark night, it enables you to see immediately around
it, but it does not show what is going on in any other
part of the square; and if any one standing near it
chanced to get a severe blow on the head from a stone
coming out of the darkness, he would think it small
satisfaction to be told that the blow was by a selfdetermined stone. So it is with consciousness ; it makes
known the present volition, it does not make known its
causes; and that, as Spinoza pointed out long ago, is the
origin of the illusion of Freewill. How, indeed, could a
present state of consciousness reveal immediately another
state of consciousness; in other words, how could it be
itself and a formei' state of consciousness at the same
time ? But whosoever will be at the pains to carry his
self-inspection patiently back from the present state of
consciousness to that state which went before it, and
from that again to its antecedent state, and so backwards
along the train of activity which has issued in the latest
mental outcome, lighting up in succession as well as he
can each link in an intricate chain of many-junctioned
associations, may easily assure himself that he would never
have present states of feeling were it not for past states of
feeling. Let the will be as free as any one chooses to sup
pose, it is certainly as impotent to will without previous
acts of will, as a child is to walk before it has learned to
step: the present volition contains the abstracts, so to
speak, of a multitude of former volitions: by them it is in
�The Physical Basis of Will.
15
formed. The most eager metaphysician, when he is not
thinking of his abstract dogma of freewill, or of an equally
abstract reason whose supreme dominion over will is sup
posed to constitute its singular freedom, will not deny
*
that an individual’s thinking, feeling, or acting as he does at
any moment of his life is the outcome of his nature and
training, the expression of his character; that his present
being is the organic development of his past being ; that
he is fast linked in a chain of causation which does not
suffer him ever to get out of himself. It is a chain, too,
which, if he reflects, he must perceive to reach a long
way farther back in an ancestral past than he can
estimate. We see plainly how a person inherits a father’s,
grandfather’s, or more remote ancestor’s tricks of speech,
of walk, of handwriting, and the like, without imitation
on his part, since the father or grandfather may have
died before he was born; and in the same way he inherits
moods of feeling, modes of thought, impulses of will, and
exhibits them in thoughts, feelings and acts which seem
essentially spontaneous, most his own. Has he done
well in some great and urgent emergency of life in which
he knew not what he did at the instant, he may justly
give thanks to the dead father or grandfather who en
dowed him with the actuating impulse or the happy
aptitude which served him so well on the critical occasion.
We little think, for the most part, how much we owe
to those who have gone before us. There is not a word
which I have used, or shall use, in this lecture which does
not attest by its origin and growth countless generations
of human culture extending from our far distant Aryan
forefathers of the Indian plains down to us ; in like
manner there is not a thought or feeling or volition
which any one in this room can have which he could have,
had not countless generations of human beings thought
and felt and willed before him, and had not he himself
been thinking, feeling, and willing ever since he left his
cradle. It is in vain we attempt by self-inspection to
make plain all the links of causation of any feeling or
* See note at the end of the lecture.
�16
The Physical Basis of Will.
volition; the impossibility is to seize and weigh each
minute and remote operative element—to bring all the
contributory factors into the light of consciousness. So
much is unconscious agency—temperament, character,
instinct, habit, potential thought and feeling, what you
will—something which lies deeper than direct self-obser
vation or even the utmost labours of self-analysis can
reach. Hence spring the illusions into which men often
times fall with regard to their motives on particular
occasions, the remarkable self-deceptions of which they
are capable. They think, perhaps, that they have acted
in their freedom from certain high motives of which
they were conscious when these were not the real
motives which actuated them.
*
From the unlit depths
of his being, the deep and silent stream of the indi
vidual’s nature, rise the forces which break on the sur
face in the currents and eddies of consciousness. One
may get a truer explanation • sometimes of a person’s
conduct on a particular occasion by a knowledge of the
characters of his near relations than by his own expla
nation of his motives or one’s own speculations about
them ; for in their traits we may see displayed in full
detail what is potential mainly and of occasional out
comein him. When acts appear to be quite incommen
surate with motives, or when the same motive appears to
produce different acts, the just conclusion is not that an
arbitrary freewill has capriciously meddled and upset
calculation, but that the motives which we discover are
only a part of the complex causation, and that the most
important part thereof lies in the dark. Self-conscious
ness is a very incompetent witness in that matter: you
might as well try to illuminate the interior of St. Paul’s
with a rushlight. A motiveless will may be compared,
* A desire or motive does not generally go the direct way to
its issue in action any more than a person necessarily goes the
direct way from London to Edinburgh. He may go two or three
ways, or he might go all round by Exeter, and still get there.
So with desire, which goes a roundabout and very intricate way
sometimes, carrying with it, so to speak, something from each
place at which it has stopped on its journey.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
17
perhaps, to a foundling baby; respecting which wise men
conclude, not that it had no parents and came by chance,
but that they do not know who its parents are.
The metaphysicians have yet another argument of
which they make much. They lay great stress upon
their assertion that there is nothing in the operations of
the body which is in the least like the energy we are
conscious of as will, and that we cannot put a finger on
anything in all the functions of the nervous system which
can conceivably serve as a physical basis of will. Let us
enquire then if that be so. The simplest nervous opera
tion, that which is the elemental type of which the more
complex functions are built up, as a great house is built
up of simple bricks, is what we call a reflex act: an
impression is made upon some part of the body, the
molecular change produced thereby is conducted along a
sensory nerve to a nerve-centre and arouses the energy
thereof, and that energy is thereupon transmitted or
reflected along a connected motor nerve and accomplishes
a particular movement, which may be purposive or not.
Tor example, a strong light falls upon the retina and the
pupil instantly contracts in order to exclude the excess of
light; a blow is threatened to the eye and the eyelids
wink involuntary to protect it : a lump of food gets to
the back of the throat and as soon as it is felt there the
muscles contract and push it on. These are operations
of the body in which, although they accomplish a purpose,
the will has no part whatever; they take place in spile of
the will, as everybody knows, and one of them even
when a person is completely unconscious.
A more
striking instance of an instructive reflex act is afforded
by a well-known experiment on the frog : if its right
thigh is irritated by a drop of acid it rubs it off with the
foot of that side, but if it is prevented from using that
foot for the purpose it makes use of the opposite leg.
Intelligent purpose and deliberate will, one would natur
ally say; but when the frog’s head is cut off and the
experiment made then the result is the same; it tries
first to use its right foot, and that being impossible bends
the other leg across and wipes off the acid with it. As
�18
The Physical Basis of Will.
its head has been cut off it is certain that it has not
conscious intelligence and will in any definite and proper
signification of those terms ; it does not know what it is
doing although it acts with admirable purpose, any more
than the pupil does when it contracts in a strong light or
than the steam engine does when it performs its useful
*
work.
The concluson which we must come to and
emphasize is that the nervous system has the power,
instinct in its constitution or acquired by training, to
execute mechanically acts which have the semblance
of being designed and voluntary, without there being
the least consciousness or will in them. Have we not
here then a pretty fair physical foundation of a rudi
mentary will ?
Let us now go a step further. The will, as we know,
has not the power to execute only, but it has the power
to prevent execution, to hold impulses in check; indeed,
its higher energies are most tasked, and its highest
qualities shown, in the exercise of this controlling function.
Our appetites and passions urge us to immediate gratifica
tions ; it is the noble function of will to curb these lowei
*
* A critic of my book on the “ Physiology of Mind,” in the
“Journal of Mental Science.” of January last, defines the theory
of. freewill thus: “ that in every determination to act which con
stitutes a volition the determinant is not a mere datum of nerves,
or seuse, or passion, but?s an idea actively taken up, formulated
as an adecpiate end, and stamped as an element of happiness by
that noubodily entity which we call self. . . . This is the
simple key to the whole problem of Responsibility.” The italics
are his. We may take notice here how admirably the acts of
the. decapitated frog fit this definiton. It evidently takes up
actively the idea of getting rid of the pain, formulates it as an
adequate end, and stamps it as an element of happiness by that
nonbodily entity (clearly very much, if not entirely, non-bodily
seeing that it is headless) which we call self! Thus it gives
us the key to the whole problem of Responsibility. It were
well, perhaps, if all those who write about mind would follow
Spinoza’s advice—first study sufficiently the functions of the
body, so as to “ learn by experience what the body can do and
what it cannot do by the simple laws of its corporeal nature and
without receiving any determination from the mind.” They
might then, perhaps, as Schopenhauer thought, “ leave many
German scribblers unread.”
�The Physical Basis of Will.
19.
impulses of our nature. Is there anything, then, in the
operations of the nervous system which can possibly be
the basis of this exalted governing function? Let us
take preliminary note here that there are reflex actions
going on in the body which are essential to life, but over
which this mighty despot of the mind, the will, has no
authority whatever—the movements of the heart and of
the intestines, for example; they go on regularly night
and day; if they did not we should die; bat we cannot
slacken or quicken or stop them by any exertion of will
which we can make. The movements of breathing, which
are also reflex, we can control partially; we can breathe
quickly or slowly as we please, or even stop breathing for
a time, but not for long, since no one can kill himself
by simply holding his breath. The physiologist, however,
can easily quicken or retard the beatings of an animal’s
heart at will, by stimulating directly the proper nerves.
By irritating a nerve which goes to it—the so-called vagus
nerve—he can retard them, and by irritating another
nerve connected with it—the so-called sympathetic—he
can quicken them. He can do with its pulsations as the
coachman can with his horses, pull them in to go slowly
or send them on quickly. But more—and this is the
point I wish to come to—he can affect them not only in
the direct way which I have mentioned, but also indirectly
by a sharp impression on some part of the body. Bor
example, if he suspends a frog by its legs and then taps
sharply on its belly, he instantly stops its heart for a
time. What happens is that the stimulus of the tap is
carried by a nerve to a nerve-centre in the brain near
that centre from which a controlling nerve of the heart
proceeds, and so acts upon it as in the result to prevent
or inhibit the action of the heart; in other words, what
we have to apprehend and perpend in the experiment is
that the physiological sympathy of nerve-centres in the
organization of the nervous system is such that one
centre, when stimulated to function, has the power to
inhibit physically the function of another centre, just as
the will inhibits the movements of breathing.
This
temporary arrest of the heart’s beats by an intercurrent
�20
The Physical Basis of Will.
stimulus somewhere into its reflex arc is after all not
very unlike to temporary arrest of respiration by an in
tercurrent volition into its reflex arc.
Did time permit, I might bring forward many more,
and more striking, instances of this kind of inhibitory
action, selecting them from the operations of the human
body both in health and in disease; but it must suffice
for the present to set down and emphasize the broad con
clusion which they warrant, namely, that one nervous
centre, when stimulated into activity, may so act upon
another centre as either to help, or to hinder, or to suspend
its function by pure physiological mechanism. Have we
not here, then, a physical basis of the inhibitory power of
will ? Place the fact by the side of the fact on which I
laid emphatic stress just now—namely, that the nervous
system has the power of executing purposive acts without
any intervention of consciousness or will; and it is plain
we have in the two physical functions something which
runs closely parallel with the rudiments of volition and
may well be their material equivalents—that is to say,
power to command execution of a purpose and power to
stop execution.
Metaphysicians * get their theories of will by considering
its highest displays in a much cultivated self-conscious
ness, where the difficulties of satisfactory analysis are
insuperable; but a complete and sincere study of it must
deal with its small beginnings as well as with its finest
displays—ought, in fact, to commence with them; for to
ignore the facts of its genesis and development is to make
an artificial philosophy which may serve well for intel
lectual gymnastics in scholastic exercises, but has no
practical bearing on the concerns of real life. Let us
then examine the simplest instances of primitive volition
in the animal and in the infant. When a dog, in obedi
ence to its natural instinct, seizes a piece of meat which
* They appear to be desirous of abandoning their old name of
metaphysicians in favour of the new name of idealists. But they
have no right to that term, which is properly applicable only to
one who upholds the Berkleian theory.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
21
lies near it and is punished for the theft, the memory of
what it was made to suffer intervenes on another occasion
between the impression on sight and the ensuing impulse,
and checks or inhibits it; in like manner when an infant
grasps something bright which attracts its gaze and is
burnt, its memory of the pain which it suffered checks
or inhibits a similar hasty movement on another occasion.
Here then we have the simplest instance of will; the
animal or infant voluntarily refrains from doing what its
first impulse is to do—of two courses chooses the best.
But what is the probable physical side of the process ?
In the first case, where the dog seized the meat, an im
pression upon the sense of sight, the conduction of the
molecular change to the nerve-centre, and the production
of a special sensation, as the ingoing process; after which,
as the outgoing process, the transmission of the energy
along a motor nerve to muscle and a consequent adaptive
movement—a sensorimotor process; in the second event,
when a punishment was inflicted, the association of this
sensorimotor process with the painful stimulation of
another nerve-centre : and in the third case, when the
dog seeing the meat refrained from touching it, instead
of the instant reflexion of the sensation into movement,
there was the stimulation by it of the associated centre in
which the memory of the pain was registered, the conse
quence of which was the inhibition of the movement.
One of two catenated physiological centres was in fact
excited to inhibit the other. If we multiply in an endless
complexity this simple scheme of nerves and nerve-centres
we get the constitution of the brain, indeed of the whole
nervous system, which contains an innumerable multitude
of interconnected nerve-centres ready to be awakened into
action by suitable stimulation to increase, to combine, to
modify, to restrain one another’s functions. As counter
part on the mental side to this exceeding complexity of
physical structure, we have very complex deliberation
going before the formation of will, which comes out at
last from the intricate interactions of so many hopes,
fears, inclinations, promptings, desires, reflections, and
the like, of so many constituent elements of character,
�22
The Physical Basis of Will.
that we are unable to analyze them and so to specify the
exact factors in its complex causation : it is the resultant
of a very intricate composition of forces. To me it seems
then a fair conclusion that in the inhibitory action of one
nerve-centre upon another, as disclosed by physiological
observation, and in the simplest instance of volition, as
known by consciousness, we have two processes which go
along together parallel, and not unfair therefore to main
tain that we have as good authority to believe in a physical
basis of will as in a physical basis of any mental state
whatever.
The plain truth is, when we look the facts fairly in the
face, that we never meet with will except in connection
with a certain organization of matter, varying with its
variations, and exhibiting every proof of being dependent
upon it. It is notably infantile in the child, imbecile in
the idiot, grows in power, range, and quality as the
mental powers grow by education, is mature in the adult,
falls sick with the body’s sicknesses, and becomes decrepit
in the decrepitude of age. However free and independent
in theory, it never shows its power in fact except from a
good physical basis. The aim, the use, and the result of
a sound moral training are to fashion a strong will; and
assuredly all training acts through the intimate develop
ment of the nervous system which it produces. Good
moral habits, like other habits, are formed by the structure
growing to the modes of its exercise. When the physical
basis is congenitally defective, as in the idiot, no excellence
of training will succeed in developing a normal will, any
more than much thought will add one cubit to the stature
of a dwarf. And when we make a survey of the various
forms of mental derangement, which we know to be the
deranged functions of disordered brain, we observe that
a first symptom of mischief is always a loss of power of
will over the thoughts and feelings : that is the sad sign
which portends the coming calamity. The person who is
about to fall into acute mania has ideas and feelings surge
up in his mind in the most irregular and tumultuous
fashion, and is impelled by them to strange and disorderly
acts. It is painfully interesting to watch the .struggle
�The Physical Basis of Will.
23
which goes on sometimes at the beginning of the attack
before the failing will undergoes complete dissolution :
the patient will succeed by a strong effort in controlling
himself for a few moments when he knows that some one
is looking at him, or when he is spoken to, and in acting
and answering calmly and coherently, but the enfeebled
will cannot hold on to the reins, and he relapses soon into
incoherent thought, speech and conduct, becoming, as the
disease makes progress, incapable of even an instant’s
real self-control. The person who is falling melancholic
is tormented with painful thoughts and feelings, blasphe
mous or otherwise afflicting, which come into his mind
against his most earnest wish, cause him unspeakable
distress, and cannot be repressed or expelled by all the
efforts of his agitated will; so hateful are they to him, so
independent do they seem of his true self, that he ends
perhaps by thinking them the direct inspiration of Satan
and himself given over to eternal damnation. The mono
maniac broods upon some idea of greatness or of suspicion,
rooted in its congenial feeling of exaltation or of distrust,
until the weakened will looses all hold of it and it grows
to the height of an insane delusion; then he imagines
himself to be emperor, prophet, or some other great per
sonage, or believes all the world to be in a conspiracy
against him. The sufferer who is afflicted with a frequently
upstarting impulse to do harm to himself or to others,
conscious all the while of the horrible nature of the im
pulse, which he fights against with frenzied energy, goes
through agonies of distress in the struggles to prevent his
true will being mastered by it. Everywhere we observe
impaired will to go along with the beginnings of physical
derangement. And if we look to the last term of the
mental degeneration, as we have it in the demented
person in whom all traces of mind are well-nigh extin
guished, who must be fed, clothed, cared for in every way,
whose existence is little more than vegetative, we find an
almost complete abolition of rational will accompanying
extreme disorganization of special structure.
The lessons of mental pathology admit of no misread
ing ; they make known everywhere an entire dependence
�24
The Physical Basis of Will.
of will on physical organization. Bnt there is an im
portant aspect of the matter which I ought not to pass
by altogether, although my allusion to it now must
necessarily be the briefest.
It is this converse and
weighty truth—that actual derangement of the structure
of an organ can be brought about by the continuance of
excessive or disordered function ; that the habitual indul
gence of evil passions, ill-regulated thoughts, and de
praved will does lead to corresponding physical changes
in the brain ; and that every person has thus in the patient
fashioning and timely exercise of will no mean power
over himself to prevent insanity. For the praises of such
a well-fashioned will, I cannot do better than borrow the
lines of Tennyson :—
Oh ! well for him whose will is strong !
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock,
Nor all calamities hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock
That, compassed round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.
But assuredly we shall not have a will of that kind
formed by treating it as a free, independent, arbitrary entity
which has no affinities, is not moved by motive, and owns no
law but self-caprice; it can be formed only by painful
degrees, in conformity with stern laws of moral develop
ment, by one who is solicitous uniformly to use motives
and make good use of them, patiently watchful to with
stand and check the earliest invasion of his mind by low
motives, earnest to cultivate good feelings and noble aspi
rations, steadfast always to strengthen the will by habitual
practice in right doing—who aims, indeed, to make it, as
it should be, the highest and fullest expression of a wellformed character.
The acknowledgment that human
will is included within the law of causation—the appre
hension of the universal reign of law in mind and in
matter—so far from tending to dishearten men and to
�The Physical Basis of Will,
25
paralyze their highest efforts by driving them into a dreary
fatalism, seems to me to be essential in ordei’ to infix and
develop in their minds a vital sense of responsibility to
search out intelligently and to pursue deliberately the right
path of human progress; a responsibility, be it said, which
the metaphysical dogma of free-will not merely weakens
but logically destroys. Men have not been paralyzed in
intelligence or effort, but have gained in both immeasur
ably, by perceiving and comprehending the law of gravita
tion ; and in like manner by apprehending the reign of law
in mind they will lose only the freedom to make ignorant
blunders and to waste their forces unintelligently : they
will obey the law whose service is their best freedom.
Knowing that their efforts rest securely upon eternal law,
they will know that their labours cannot be in vain: that
they have the power of the universe at their backs, “ the
everlasting arms ” beneath them.
It is unfortunate that people, scared by a horror of
materialism, the “uncreating word” before which freedom
of will and responsibility die, as a writer has described
it lately, cannot see that the application of a scientific
method of enquiry to human thoughts, feelings, and
doings in no way touches injuriously the supreme autho
rity of moral law and the power and wish to obey it.
Neither moral feeling nor responsibility would be taken
out of life were a purely materialistic evolution proved
doctrine ; on the contrary, the course of that evolution in
the past would remain the best guarantee and yield the
strongest assurance of a further moral and intellectual
progress in the future. If it be true that men have risen
by a gradual evolution from a pre-moral state of barbarism
to their present height of intelligence and moral feeling,
and if it be, as it certainly is, the essential principle of
evolution to pass upwards from more simple and general
to more complex and special organisation, it is surely a
rational inference and a sound expectation that intelli
gence and moral feeling will reach a still higher develop
ment in the future. Science is only organised knowledge
and does not pretend to do more than find out and set
forth how things are as they are, and by help of what it
�26
The Physical Basis of Will.
thus learns to forecast what they will be in the future; it
perceives clearly how inexorably its range is limited by
the limitations of our few and feeble senses, and how
impossible it is that it should ever discover anything about
the primal origin of things—about the why and whence, of
the mysterious universe of its observations. Evolution,
the modern name of that conception which the old Greek
philosophers, when they first formed it, called nature or
the becoming of things (</>v<ns), is only a more exact and
true exposition of how things have become, not in the
least an explanation of the mystery of their why. By
the help of knowledge slowly widening we can look back
in retrospective imagination to the time and manner in
which our planet and the other planets of our solar
system took form by nebular condensation and started
on their several orbits; we can trace with patient
thought the successive changes which have taken place on
the surface of the earth and have culminated in man and
his achievements ; we may foresee, perhaps, a time when
a few miserable human beings, living degraded lives in
snow huts near the equator, shall represent all that is
left of the vanished myriads of the human race, or a still
later period when the earth, fallen to the condition in
which the moon now is, rolls on its solitary way through
space, a frozen and barren globe, the tomb of a Dead
Humanity ;—we may, if we look far enough before and
after, do all that, but we can never tell what minute frac
tion our solar system may be—what a vortex-molecule,
so to speak—of countless other systems in the inconceiv
able immensities of space which lie beyond our utmost
ken, and what essential relations it may have to them;
we cannot tell why matter on earth has formed an ascend
ing series of more and more complex compounds, why
having reached a certain complexity of composition it
became living, why organic evolution have gone on to
higher and ever higher achievements until it reached the
complexity of human organization and gave birth to con
sciousness ; and we cannot tell in the least what will
happen in the long long time to come, when all the
operations of our solar system are ended, past as com
�The Physical Basis of Will.
27
pletely as the light of the first human eyes that gazed on
them in wonder. Science is confined to a finite space
between two infinities—the eternal past and eternity to
come; it measures only a single pulsation, so to speak,
in the working of a power whose source and end are
past finding out, which was and is, and is to come, from
everlasting to everlasting; beyond that range, narrow it
is true, but more than wide enough to give full scope to
all human affections and to occupy usefully all human
energies, there is absolute nescience—agnosticism if you
will. Organised as we are we can no more know about
it than the oyster in its narrow home and with its very
limited sentiency can know of the events of the human
world—of the noise and turmoil, say, of an English electior,
or of the interesting chronicles of the “ Court Circular.”
What science repudiates and condemns, I believe, is the
presumptuous pretence on the part of theology to know
and tell all about the inscrutable, to put forward as
truths, not ever to be questioned, childish explanations
which are an insult to the understanding and would be
its suicide if really accepted, to demand reverent assent
to doctrines which sometimes outrage moral feeling, and
to declare solemnly that whosoever believeth not the
fables which it proclaims “ shall without doubt perish
everlastingly.”
What it may furthermore well repudiate and condemn
is the evident want of sincerity of heart and veracity of
thought shown by those who proffer and accept these
explanations, by reason of which they do not honestly
sound their beliefs and pursue them rigidly to their
logical issues, but suffer themselves to use words habitu
ally in a non-natural sense, and to hold side by side
inconsistent and even directly contradictory doctrines,
without being troubled by their manifest inconsistencies.
The scientific spirit claims entire veracity of thought,
whatever the result, knows that truth does not depend
upon our sympathies and antipathies, is resolute to follow
it to the end even at the sacrifice of the most cherished
beliefs. It cannot but think it to be as demoralizing in
tendency as it is insincere in fact, to profess to hold a
�•28
The Physical Basis of Will.
faith in entire reverence after having given up most of
what is characteristic of it, and as certain in the end to lead
to grossly inconsistent conduct. Such disingenuous deal
ing with momentous matters marks indeed an unveracity
of thought which would be lamentable hypocrisy were it
not more often intellectual timidity and unconscious
self-deception. But whether the insincerity be conscious
or unconscious, it is incompatible with that rigid, hearty,
and entire devotion to truth in thought, feeling, and ex
pression which is the aim and at the same time the
strength of a good understanding.
Note to Page 15.—Kant's doctrine is that there is a determi
nation of the will by pure reason, that so reason gets practical
reality, and that in this absolute obedience the will has absolute
assurance of its freedom. The moral law is a law spontaneously
imposed on the will by pure reason: it stands high above all the
motives, sensuous and their like, which determine the empirical
will; it pays no respect to them, but with an inward, irresistible
necessity, orders us, in independence of them, to follow it abso
lutely and unconditionally—’tis a categorical imperative, universal,
and binding on every rational will. A happy thing, certainly, that
a will determined to unconditional obedience by so absolute an
authority retains nevertheless the absolute assurance of its free
dom. But then comes the not unimportant question—What is
it that practical reason categorically commands ? How are we
to know what the moral law dictates and forbids ? The easiest
thing in the world, thinks Kant: let only those maxims of con
duct derived from experience be adopted as motives which are
susceptible of being made of universal validity—which are fit to
be regarded as universal laws of reason to govern the actions of
all mankind. I do right when I do what all persons would
think right in similar circumstances. Very good, without doubt,
although very like the common-place maxim of every ethical
system ; but my difficulty has been to know in a particular case
what all intelligent beings would think right. How am I to get
at the universal standard or precept and apply it to my particu
lar occasion, so as to know absolutely what I ought then to do?
Kant helps me by means of two remarkable illustrations. Suicide
is one. Is suicide, under the strongest temptation conceivable,
ever right ? I must ask myself then, “ Is the principle of the
admission that suicide is ever right fit to become a universal
law ?” No, says Kant, it is not fit, since the universal practice
�fhe Physical Basis of Will.
29
of suicide would reduce the world to chaos. Very true, but it is
sadly disappointing to perceive that the sublime and supreme
reason has, in order to become practical reality, found it neces
sary to come down from its supersensuous heights and to be no
better than gross Utilitarianism. All that it can tell me, panting
for its supreme utterance, is that suicide is inexpedient as a
universal principle of conduct—in fact, it makes use of the
common motives of an experience which is nowise supersen
suous, and instead of helping me to an absolute precept or
standard to measure them by, actually comes to them for its
authority. Kant’s philosophy, of which the metaphysical mind
is getting re-enamoured in some quarters at the present day, has
its head high in the clouds and dreams there sublimely; but
it finds it necessary to have its feet on the ground when the time
comes for it to march.
The second instance is no more helpful. May a person in the
greatest need of a loan, which he knows he will not get unless
he makes a solemn promise to repay what he is perfectly certain
he never will be able to repay, make the promise? No, says
Kant, for if it were a universal law, all faith in promises would
be destroyed, and nobody would lend money. In other words,
in the long run it would be very bad for society that faith in
promises should be destroyed. An excellent truth, which no
body can deny, but it evidently smacks much of the earth
earthy; indeed, it would seem that those who discover the
basis of morality in the social sanction may claim Kant, when
he is not in the clouds, as an out-and-out supporter. It is dif
ferent when he is busy spinning empty supersensuous theories
which have no relation to actual life, and amusing his disciples
with the magnificent dissolving views of his metaphysical magic
lantern. First he presents a splendid view of supreme reason
to the spectator who, as he admires it, sees the picture dissolve
gradually and in its place appear the grand features of Moral
Law, which shared with the Starry Heaven Kant’s ever new
and rising admiration and reverence; as the gaze is fixed in ad
miration upon this view it melts into indistinctness, and. as it
does so, there comes by degrees into clear definition the mighty
figure of freewill. Thereupon, informing his enthusiastic audience
that there are not really three pictures, as they might suppose,
but one picture, the three being one and the one being three,
Reason being Will and Will Reason, and that they cannot fail
to perceive, when they reflect properly upon what they have
seen, that the belief in God and immortality have now been
made safe for ever, he retires amidst unbounded applause.
Meanwhile, the critic who has not been blinded by the magnificent
metaphysical display, and who feels that he does not live, move,
and have his being in an abstract land beyond physics, asks him
self with regard to the philosophy—Will it march ?—and is not
�30
The Physical Basis of Will.
much surprised to find that when it begins to march it can only
do so on well-worn Utilitarian tracks.
All theories of freewill seem to come to this—that the will
which is swayed by low motives is not free, that the will which
is swayed by the higher motives is more free, and that the will
which is swayed by the highest motives is most free; conse
quently, when a person is blamed for having done ill, he is not
blamed for not having acted without motives, but for not having
been actuated by the highest motives. Create an artificial world
of names apart from the real world of facts—a world which shall
simply be made up of negations of all qualities of which we have
actual experience—and let the highest motives be known in it
as the Will of God or abstract Supreme Reason, you will get
your service which you may please yourself to call perfect
freedom. And there does not appear to be any reason why you
may not create and take refuge in another still more ideal world
beyond that, if persons of a positive spirit should show any dis
position to invade ideal word No. 1 with inconvenient enquiries.
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The physical basis of will : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, February 15th, 1880
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Maudsley, Henry [1835-1918]
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight. Includes bibliographical references. List of the Society's Sunday Lectures on unnumbered pages at the end.
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Conway Tracts
Free Will and Determinism
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i3'3'
*
NATIONALSECULARSOCIETY
, MO) 3
RIGHT AND WRONG:
THE SCIENTIFIC GROUND OF THEIR DISTINCTION.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 7tJi NOVEMBER,
1876.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprinted from the ‘Fortnightly Review,’ by kind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
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1876. ’
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�SYLLABUS.
We feel that, it is wrong to steal or tell lies, and right to
take care of our families ; .and that we are responsible for
our actions. The aggregate of such feelings we call.Conscience,
or the Moral Sense.
In this lecture it is proposed to consider what account can
be given of these facts by the scientific. method. This is a
method of getting knowledge by inference ; first of pheno
mena from phenomena, on the assumption of uniformity of
nature, and secondly of mental facts simultaneous with and
underlying these phenomena, on the assumption that other
men have feelings like mine. Each of these assumptions
rests on a moral basis; it is our duty to guide our beliefs in
this way.
A man is morally responsible for an action in so far as he
has a conscience which might direct it. Moral approbation
and reprobation are used as means of strengthening this con
science and bringing it to bear upon the action. The use of
this means involves the assumption that the man is the same
man at different times, i.e., that the effect of events is pre
served in his character ; and that his actions depend upon
his character and the circumstances. The notion of respon
sibility is founded on the observed uniformity of this connec
tion.
The question of right or wrong in a particular case is
primarily determined by the conscience of the individual.
The further question of what is the best conscience (the
question of abstract or absolute right) is only to be deter
mined by knowledge of the function or purpose of the con
�4
Syllabus.
science ; and this must be got at by study of its origin and
evolution. This leads to Mr. Darwin’s doctrine that the pur
pose of conscience is the advantage of the community as such
in the struggle for existence. There are two kinds of pur
pose : one due to natural selection, the survival of the best
adaptation, the other (design) due to a complex nervous
system in which an image or symbol of the end determines
the use of the means. The conscience must always be based
on an instinct serving a purpose of the first kind ; but it may
be directed by a purpose of the second kind.
Allegiance to the community, or piety, is thus the first
principle of morals. This involves the negative duty of
abstaining from obvious injury to others, and the positive
duty of being a good citizen in each department of life. It is
to be distinguished from altruism, and from a sentimental
shrinking from the idea of suffering.
Truth, or straightforwardness, is a consequence of piety,
and depends upon faith in man. The duty of searching after
truth is based upon the great importance to mankind of a
true conception of the universe. Belief is a sacred thing,
which must not be profanely wasted on unproved statements.
It is not necessary even for other people to believe what is
false in order to do what is right.
�RIGHT AND WRONG:
THE SCIENTIFIC GROUND OF THEIR DISTINCTION.
HE questions which are here to be considered are
especially and peculiarly everybody’s questions.
It is not everybody’s business to be an engineer, or a
doctor, or a carpenter, or a soldier ; but it is evervbody’s
business to be a citizen. The doctrines and precepts
which guide the practice of the good engineer are of inter
est to him who uses them and to those whose business it
is to investigate them by mechanical science ; the rest
■of us neither obey nor disobey them. But the doctrines
and precepts of morality, which guide the practice of
the good citizen, are of interest to all; they must be
either obeyed or disobeyed by every human being who
is not hopelessly and for ever separated from the rest of
mankind. No one can say, therefore, that in this inquiry
we are not minding our own business, that we are med
dling with other men’s affairs. We are in fact studying
the principles of our profession, so far as we are able;
a necessary thing for every man who wishes to do good
work in it.
Along with the character of universal interest which
belongs to our subject there goes another. What is
everybody’s practical business is also to a large extent
what everybody knows; and it may be reasonably ex
pected that a discourse about Right and W rong will be
full of platitudes and truisms. The expectation is a
just one. The considerations I have to offer are of the
very oldest and the very simplest commonplace and
common sense ; and no one can be more astonished than
I am that there should be any reason to speak of them
at all. But there is reason to speak of them, because
platitudes are not all of one kind. Some platitudes
have a definite meaning and a practical application, and
are established by the uniform and long-continued ex-
JL
B
�6
Right and Wrong.
perience of all people. Other platitudes, having 11»
definite meaning and no practical application, seem not
to be worth anybody’s while to test; and these are quite
sufficiently established by mere assertion, if it is auda
cious enough to begin with and persistent enough after
wards. It is in order to distinguish these two kinds of
platitude from one another, and to make sure that those
which we retain form a body of doctrine consistent with
itself and with the rest of our beliefs, that we undertake
this examination of obvious and widespread principles.
First of all, then, what are the facts ?
We say that it is wrong to murder, to steal, to tell
lies, and that it is right to take care of our families.
When we say in this sense that one action is right
and another wrong, we have a certain feeling towards
the action which is peculiar and not quite like any other
feeling. It is clearly a feeling towards the action and
not towards the man who does it; because we speak of
hating the sin and loving the sinner. We might reason
ably dislike a man whom we knew or suspected to be a
murderer, because of the natural fear that he might
murder us ; and we might like our own parents for
taking care of us. But everybody knows that these
feelings are something quite different from the feeling
which condemns murder as a wrong thing, and approves
parental care as a right thing. I say nothing here about
the possibility of analyzing this feeling, or proving that
it arises by combination of other feelings ; all I want to
notice is that it is as distinct and recognisable as the
feeling of pleasure in a sweet taste or of displeasure at
a toothache. In speaking of right and wrong, we speak
of qualities of actions which arouse definite feelings that
everybody knows and recognises. It is not necessary,
then, to give a definition at the outset; we are going to
use familiar terms which have a definite meaning in the
same sense in which everybody uses them. We may
ultimately come to something like a definition; but
what we have to do first is to collect the facts and see
what can be made of them, just as if we were going to
talk about limestone, or parents and children, or fuel.
*
* These subjects were treated in the lectures which immediately preceded
and followed the present one.
�Right and PFrong.
7
It is easy to conceive that murder and theft and
neglect of the young might be considered wrong in a
very simple state of society. But we find at present
that the condemnation of these actions does not stand
alone; it goes with the condemnation of a great number
of other actions which seem to be included with the ob
viously criminal action in a sort of general rule. The
wrongness of murder, for example, belongs in a less
degree to any form of bodily injury that one man may
inflict on another ; and it is even extended so as to in
clude injuries to his reputation or his feelings. I make
these more refined precepts follow in the train of the
more obvious and rough ones, because this appears to
have been the traditional order of their establishment.
“ He that makes his neighbour blush in public,” says the
Mishna, “ is as if he had shed his blood.” In the same
way the rough condemnation of stealing carries with it a
condemnation of more refined forms of dishonesty: we
do not hesitate to say that it is wrong for a tradesman
to adulterate his goods, or for a labourer to scamp his
work. We not only say that it is wrong to tell lies, but
that it is wrong to deceive in other more ingenious ways;
wrong to use words so that they shall have one sense to
some people and another sense to other people ; wrong
to suppress the truth when that suppression leads to
false belief in others. And again, the duty of parents
towards their children is seen to be a special case of a
very large and varied class of duties towards that great
family to which we belong—to the fatherland and them
that dwell therein. The word duty which I have here
used, has as definite a sense to the general mind as the
words right and wrong; we say that it is right to do our
duty, and wrong to neglect it. These duties to the
community serve in our minds to explain and define our
duties to individuals. It is wrong to kill any one ; unless
we are an executioner, when it may be our duty to kill a
Criminal; or a soldier, when it may be our duty to kill
the enemy of our country ; and in general it is wrong to
injure any man in any way in our private capacity and
for our own sakes. Thus if a man injures us, it is only
right to retaliate on behalf of other men. Of two men
in a desert island, if one takes away the other’s cloak, it
�8
Right and Wrong.
may or may not be right for the other to let him have
his coat also ; but if a man takes away my cloak while
we both live in society, it is my duty to use such means
as I can to prevent him from taking away other people’s
cloaks. Observe that I am endeavouring to describe
the facts of the moral feelings of Englishmen, such as
they are now.
The last remark leads us to another platitude of ex
ceedingly ancient date. We said that it was wrong to
injure any man in our private capacity and for our own
sakes. A rule like this differs from all the others that
we have considered, because it not only deals with phy
sical acts, words and deeds which can be observed and
known by others, but also with thoughts which are
known only to the man himself. Who can tell whether a
given act of punishment was done from a private or from
a public motive ? Only the agent himself. And yet if
the punishment was just and within the law, we should
condemn the man in the one case and approve him. m the
other. This pursuit of the actions of men to their very
sources, in the feelings which they only can know, is as
ancient as any morality we know of, and extends to the
whole range of it. Injury to another man arises from
anger, malice, hatred, revenge; these feelings are. con
demned as wrong. But feelings are not immediately
under our control, in the same way that, overt actions
are : I can shake anybody by the hand if I like, but 1
cannot always feel friendly to him. Nevertheless we
can pay attention to such aspects of the circumstances,
and we can put ourselves into such conditions, that our
feelings get gradually modified in one way or the.other;
we form a habit of checking our anger by calling up
certain images and considerations, whereby in time the
offending passion is brought into subjection and control.
Accordingly, we say that it is right to acquire and to exer
cise this control; and the control is supposed to exist when
ever we say that one feeling or disposition of mind is right
and another wrong. Thus, in connection with the pre
cept against stealing, we condemn envy, and covetous
ness ; we applaud a sensitive honesty which shudders, at
anything underhand or dishonourable. In connection
with the rough precept against lying, we have built up
�Right and Wrong.
9
and are still building a great fabric of intellectual.mora
lity, whereby a man is forbidden to tell lies to himself,
and is commanded to practise candour and fairness and
open-mindedness in his judgments, and to labour zea
lously in pursuit of the truth. And in connection with
the duty to our families, we say that it is right to culti
vate public spirit, a quick sense of sympathy, and all that
belongs to a social disposition.
Two other words are used in this connection which it
seems necessary to mention. When we regard an action
as right or wrong for ourselves, this feeling about the
action impels us to do it or not to do it, as the case may
be. We may say that the moral sense acts in this case as
a motive ; meaning by moral sense only the feeling in
regard to an action which is considered as right or
wrong, and by motive something which impels us to act.
Of course there may be other motives at work at the
same time, and it does not at all follow that we shall do
the right action or abstain from the wrong one. This
we all know to our cost. But still our feeling about the
rightness or wrongness of an action does operate as a
motive when we think of the action as being done by us ;
and when so operating it is called conscience. I have
nothing to do at present with the questions about con
science, whether it is a result of education, whether it
can be explained by self-love, and so forth ; I am only
concerned in describing well-known facts, and in getting
as clear as I can about the meaning of well-known words.
Conscience, then, is the whole aggregate of our feelings
about actions as being right or wrong, regarded as tend
ing to make us do the right actions and avoid the wrong
ones. We also say sometimes, in answer to the question,
“ How do you know that this is right or wrong ? ” “ My
conscience tells me so.” And this way of speaking is
quite analogous to other expressions of the same form;
thus if I put my hand into water, and you ask me how I
know that it is hot, I might say, “ My feeling of warmth
tells me so.”
When we consider a right or a wrong action as done
by another person, we think of that person as worthy of
moral approbation or reprobation. He may be punished
or not; but in any case this feeling towards him is quite
�IO
Right and Wrong.
different from the feeling of dislike of a person injurious
to us, or of disappointment at a machine which will not
go. Whenever we can morally approve or disapprove a
man for his action, we say that he is morally responsible
for it, and vice versa. To say that a man is not morally
responsible for his actions, is the same thing as to say
that it would be unreasonable to praise or blame him for
them.
The statement that we ourselves are morally respon
sible is somewhat more complicated, but the meaning is
very easily made out; namely, that another person may
reasonably regard our actions as right or wrong, and
may praise or blame us for them.
We can now, I suppose, understand one another pretty
clearly in using the words right and wrong, conscience,
responsibility; and we have made a rapid survey of the
facts of the case in our own country at the present time.
Of course I do not pretend that this survey in any way
approaches to completeness; but it will supply us at
least with enough facts to enable us to deal always with
concrete examples instead of remaining in generalities ;
and it may serve to show pretty fairly what the moral
sense of an Englishman is like. We must next consider
what account we can give of these facts by the scientific
method.
But first let us stop to note that we really have used
the scientific method in making this first step; and also
that to the same extent the method has been used by all
serious moralists. Some would have us define virtue, to
begin with, in terms of some other thing which is not
virtue, and then work out from our definition all the de
tails of what we ought to do. So Plato said that virtue was
knowledge, Aristotle that it was the golden mean, and
Benthan} said that the right action was that which con
duced to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
But so also, in physical speculations ; Thales said that
everything was Water, and Heraclitus said it was All
becoming, and Empedocles said it was made’out of Four
Elements, and Pythagoras said it was Number. But we
only began to know about things when people looked
straight at the facts, and made what they could out of
them; and that is the only way in which we can know
�Right and Wrong.
II
anything about right and wrong. Moreover, it is the
way in which the great moralists have set to work, when
they came to treat of verifiable things and not of
theories all in the air. A great many people think of
a prophet as a man who, all by himself, or from some
secret source, gets the belief that this thing is right and
that thing wrong. And then (they imagine) he gets
up. and goes about persuading other people to feel as
he does about it; and so it becomes a part of their con
science, and a new duty is created. This may be in some
*
cases, but I have never met with any example of it in
history. When Socrates puzzled the Greeks by asking
them what they precisely meant by Goodness and Justice
and Virtue, the mere existence of the words shows that
the people, as a whole, possessed a moral sense, and
felt that certain things were right and others wrong.
What the moralist did was to show the connection be
tween different virtues, the likeness of virtue to certain
other things, the implications which a thoughtful man
could find in the common language. Wherever the
Greek moral sense had come from, it was there in the
people before it could be enforced by a prophet or dis
cussed by a philosopher. Again, we find a wonderful
collection of moral aphorisms in those shrewd sayings of
the Jewish fathers which are preserved in the Mishna
or oral law. Some of this teaching is familiar to us all
from the popular exposition of it which is contained in
the three first Gospels. But the very plainness and
homeliness of the precepts shows that, they are just
acute statements of what was already felt by the popular
■common sense; protesting, in many cases, against the for
malism of the ceremonial law with which,they arecuriously
mixed up. The rabbis even show a jealousy of prophetic
interference, as if they knew well that it takes not one
man, but many men, to feel what is right. When a cer
tain Rabbi Eliezer, being worsted in argument, cried
out,, “ If I am right, let heaven pronounce in my favour 1”
there was heard a Bath-kol or voice from the skies, say
ing, “ Do you venture to dispute with Rabbi Eliezer,
who is an authority on all religious questions ? ” But ,
Rabbi Joshua rose and said, “ Our law is not in heaven,
but in the book which dates from , Sinai, and, which j,
�12
Right and Wrong.
teaches us that in matters of discussion the majority"
makes the law.”*
One of the most important expressions of the moral
sense for all time is that of the Stoic philosophy, espe
cially after its reception among the Romans. It is here
that we find the enthusiasm of humanity—the caritas
generis liumani—which is so large and important a
feature in all modern conceptions of morality, and whose
widespread influence upon Roman citizens may be traced
in the Epistles of St. Paul. In the Stoic emperors, also,
we find probably the earliest example of great moral
principles consciously applied to legislation on a large
scale. But are we to attribute this to the individual in
sight of the Stoic philosophers ? It might seem at first
sight that we must, if we are to listen to that vulgar vitu
peration of the older culture, which has descended to us
from those who had everything to gain by its destruc
tion.f We hear enough of the luxurious feasting of the
Roman capital, how it would almost have taxed the
resources of a modern pastrycook; of the cruelty of
gladiatorial shows, how they were nearly as bad as autida-fe, except that a man had bis fair chance, and was
* Treatise Bab. bathr. 59. b. I derive this story and reference from a
most interesting book, Koi K6re (vox clamantis), La Bible, le Talmud, et
l’Evangile; par le R. Elie Soloweyczyk. Paris : E. Brifere. 1870.
+ Compare these passages from Merivale (‘ Romans under the Empire,’
vi.), to whom “ it seems a duty to protest against the common tendency of
Christian moralists to dwell only on the dark side of Pagan society, in order
to heighten by contrast the blessings of the Gospel.”
“Much candour and discrimination are required in comparing the sins of
one age with those of another................. the cruelty of our inquisitions
and sectarian persecutions, of our laws against sorcery, our serfdom and
our slavery; the petty fraudulence we tolerate in almost every class and
calling of the community; the bold front worn by our open sensuality; the
deeper degradation of that which is concealed; all these leave us little
room for boasting of our modern discipline, and must deter the thoughtful
inquirer from too confidently contrasting the morals of the old world and
the new.”
“ Even at Rome, in the worst of times. ... all the relations of life
were adorned in turn with bright instances of devotion, and mankind
transacted their business with an ordinary confidence in the force of con
science and right reason. The steady development of enlightened legal
principles conclusively proves the general dependence upon law as a guide
and corrector of manners. In the camp, however, more especially as the
chief sphere of this purifying activity, the great qualities of the Roman
character continued to be plainly manifested. The history of the Caesars
presents to us a constant succession of brave, patient, resolute, and faithful
soldiers, men deeply impressed with a sense of duty, superior to vanity,
despisers of boasting, content to toil in obscurity and shed their blood at
the frontiers of the empire, unrepining at the cold mistrust of their masters,
not clamourous for the honours so sparingly awarded to them, but satisfied
in the daily work of their hands, and full of faith in the national destiny
which they were daily accomplishing.”
�Right and Wrong.
13
not tortured for torture’s sake ; of the oppression of
provincials by people like Verres, of whom it may even
be said that if they had been the East India Company
they could not have been worse; of the complaints of
Tacitus against bad and mad emperors (as Sir Henry
Maine says) ; and of the still more serious complaints of
the modern historian against the excessive taxation
*
which was one great cause of the fall of the empire.
Of all this we are told a great deal; but we are not told
of the many thousands of honourable men who carried
civilisation to the ends of the known world, and adminis
tered a mighty empire so that it was loved and worshipped
to the furthest corner of it. It is to these men and their
common action that we must attribute the morality
which found its organised expression in the writings of
the Stoic philosophers. From these three cases we may
gather that Right is a thing which must be done before
it can be talked about, although after that it may only
too easily be talked about without being done. . Indivi
dual effort and energy may insist upon getting that
done which was already felt to be right; and individual
insight and acumen may point out consequences of an
action which bring it under previously known moral
rules. There is another dispute of the rabbis that may
serve to show what is meant by this. It was forbidden
by the law to have any dealings with the Sabasan idola
ters during the week preceding their idolatrous feasts.
But the doctors discussed the case in which one of these
idolaters owes you a bill; are you to let him pay it
during that week or not ? The school of Shammai said
“ No ; for he will want all his money to enjoy himself at
the feast.” But the school of Hillel said “ Yes, let him
pay it; for how can he enjoy his feast while his bills are
unpaid ?” The question here is about the consequences
of an action; but there is no dispute about the moral
principle, which is that consideration and kindness are
to be shown to idolaters, even in the matter of their
idolatrous rites.
It seems, then, that we are no worse off than anybody
else who has studied this subject, in finding our mate
rials ready made for us; sufficiently definite meanings
* Finlay, ‘ Greece under the Romans.’
�Right and Wrong.
given in the common speech to the words right and
wrong, good and bad, with which we have to deal; a
fair body of facts familiarly known, which we have to
organise and account for as best we can. But our
special inquiry is, what account can be given of these
facts by the scientific method ? to which end we cannot
do better than fix our ideas as well as we can upon the
character and scope of that method.
Now the scientific method is a method of getting
knowledge by inference, and that of two different kinds.
One kind of inference is that which is used in the phy
sical and natural sciences, and it enables us to go from
known phenomena to unknown phenomena. Because a
stone is heavy in the morning, I infer that it will be
heavy in the afternoon; and i infer this by assuming a
certain uniformity of nature. The sort of uniformity
that I assume depends upon the extent of my scientific
education; the rules of inference become more and more
definite as we go on. At first I might assume that all
things are always alike; this would not be true, but it
has to be assumed in a vague way, in order that a thing
may have the same name at different times. Afterwards
I get the more definite belief that certain particular
qualities, like weight, have nothing to do with the time
of day; and subsequently I find that weight has nothing
to do with the shape of the stone, but only with the
quantity of it. The uniformity which we assume, then,
isnot that vague one that we started with, but a chastened
and corrected uniformity. I might go on to suppose, for
example, that the weight of the stone had nothing to do
with the place where it was ; and a great deal might be
said for this supposition. It would, however, have to be
corrected when it was found that the weight varies
slightly in different latitudes. On the other hand, I
should find that this variation was just the same for my
stone as for a piece of iron or wood; that it had nothing
to do with the kind of matter. And so I might be led
to the conclusion that all matter is heavy, and that the
weight of it depends only on its quantity and its position
relative to the earth. You see here that I go on arriving
at conclusions always of this form; that some one cir
cumstance or quality has nothing to do with some other
�Right and Wrong.
*5x
circumstance or quality. I begin by assuming that it is
independent of everything; I end by finding . that it is
independent of some definite things. That is, I begin
by assuming a vague uniformity, and I end by assuming
a clear and definite uniformity. I always use this assump
tion to infer from some one fact a .great number of other
facts ; but as my education proceeds, I get to know what
sort of things may be inferred and what may not. An
observer of scientific mind takes note of just those things
from which inferences may be drawn, and passes by the
rest. If an astronomer, observing the sun, were to record
the fact that at the moment when a sun-spot began to
shrink there was a rap at his front door, we should know
that he was not up to his work. But if he records that
sun-spots are thickest every eleven years, and that this
is. also the period of extra cloudiness in Jupiter, the
observation may or may not be confirmed, and it may or
may not lead to inferences of importance; but still it is
the kind of thing from which inferences may be drawn.
There is always a certain instinct among instructed people
which tells them in this way what kinds of inferences
my be drawn; and this is. the unconscious effect of the
definite uniformity which they have been led to assume
in nature. It may subsequently be organised into a law
or general truth, and no doubt becomes a surer guide by.
that process. Then it goes to form the more precise
instinct of the next generation.
What we have said about this first kind of inference,
which goes from phenomena to phenomena, is shortly this.
It proceeds upon an assumption of uniformity in nature ;
and this assumption is not fixed and made once for all,
but is. a changing and growing thing, becoming more
definite as we go on.
If I were told to pick out some one character which
especially colours this guiding conception of uniformity
in our present stage of science, I should certainly reply,
Atomism. The form of this with which we are most
familiar is the molecular theory of bodies; which repre
sents all bodies as made up of small elements of uniform ,
character, each practically having relations only with the,
adjacent ones, and these relations the same all through
—namely, some simple mechanical action upon each
�i6
Right and Throng.
other’s motions. But this is only a particular case. A
palace, a cottage, the tunnel of the underground railway,
and a factory chimney, are all built of bricks ; the bricks
are alike in all these cases, each brick is practically
related only to the adjacent ones, and the relation is
throughout the same, namely, two flat sides are stuck
together with mortar. There is an atomism in the sci
ences of number, of quantity, of’space; the theorems of
geometry are groupings of individual points, each related
only to the adjacent ones by certain definite laws. But
what concerns us chiefly at present is the atomism
of human physiology. Just as every solid is built up of
molecules, so the nervous system is built up of nerve
threads and nerve-corpuscles. We owe to Mr. Lewes our
very best thanks for the stress which he has laid on the
doctrine that nerve-fibre is uniform in structure and func
tion, and for the word neurility, which expresses its com
mon properties. And similar gratitude is due to Dr.
Hughlings Jackson for his long defence of the proposition
that the element of nervous structure and function is a
sensori-motor process. In structure, this is two fibres
or bundles of fibres going to the same grey corpuscle ; in
function it is a message travelling up one fibre or bundle
to the corpuscle, and then down the other fibre or bundle.
*
Out of this, as a brick, the house of our life is built. All
these simple elementary processes are alike, and each is
practically related only to the adjacent ones; the relation
being in all cases of the same kind, viz., the passage from
a simple to a complex message, or vice versa.
The result of atomism in any form, dealing with any
subject, is that the principle of uniformity is hunted
down into the elements of things ; it is resolved into the
uniformity of these elements or atoms, and of the rela
tions of those which are next to each other. By an ele
ment or an atom we do not here mean something
absolutely simple or indivisible, for a molecule, a brick,
and a nerve process are all very complex things. We
only mean that, for the purpose in hand, the properties
of the still more complex thing which is made of them
have nothing to do with the complexities or the differ* Mr. Herbert Spencer bad assigned a slightly different element. Prin
ciples of Psychology, vol. 1, p. 28.
�Right and Wrong.
17
ences of these elements. The solid made of molecules,
the house made of bricks, the nervous system made of
sensori-motor processes, are nothing more than collec
tions of these practically uniform elements, having cer
tain relations of nextness, and behaviour uniform y
depending on that nextness.
,
The inference of phenomena from phenomena, then, is
based upon an assumption of uniformity, which m the
present stage of science may be called an atomic uni-
The^other mode of inference which belongs to the
scientific method is that which is used in what are called
mental and moral sciences ; and it enables us to go from
phenomena to the facts which underlie phenomena, and
which are themselves not phenomena at all. it 1 pmch
your arm, and you draw it away and make a face, I infer
that you have felt pain. I infer this by assuming that
you have a consciousness similar to my own, and related
to your perception of your body as my consciousness is
related to my perception of my body. Now is this
the same assumption as before, a mere assumption o
the uniformity of nature ? It certainly seems like it at
first • but if we think about it we shall find that there is
a very profound difference between them. In physical
inference I go from phenomena to phenomena ; that is,
from the knowledge of certain appearances or represen
tations actually present to my mind I infer certain other
appearances that might be present to my mind. I rom
the weight of a stone in the morning—that is, from my
feeling of its weight, or my perception of the process of
weighing it, I infer that the stone will be heavy mthe
afternoon—that is, I infer the possibility of similar feel
ings and perceptions in me at another time. The whole
process relates to me and my perceptions, to things con
tained in my mind. But when I infer that you are
conscious from what you say or do, I pass from that
which is my feeling or perception, which is in my mind
and part of me, to that which is not my feeling at all
which is outside me altogether, namely your feelings and
perceptions. Now there is no possible physical inference,
no inference of phenomena from phenomena, that will
help me over that gulf. I am obliged to admit that this
�18
Right and Wrong.
second kind of inference depends upon another assump
tion, not included in the assumption of the uniformity of
phenomena.
How does a dream differ from waking life ? In a
fairly coherent dream everything seems quite real, and
it is rare, I think, with most people to know in a dream
that they are dreaming. Now, if a dream is sufficiently
vivid and coherent, all physical inferences are just as
valid in it as they are in waking life. In a hazy or im
perfect dream, it is true, things melt into one another
unexpectedly and unaccountably ; we fly, remove moun
tains, and stop runaway horses with a finger. But there’
is nothing in the mere nature of a dream to hinder it
from being an exact copy of waking experience. If I find
a stone heavy in one part of my dream, and infer that it
is heavy at some subsequent part, the inference will be
verified if the dream is coherent enough; I shall go to
the stone, lift it up, and find it as heavy as before. And
the same thing is true of all inferences of phenomena
from phenomena. For physical purposes a dream is just
as good as real life; the only difference is in vividness
and coherence.
What, then, hinders us from Saying that life is all-a
dream ? If the phenomena we dream of are just as good
and real phenomena as those we see and feel when we
are awake, what right have we to say that the material
universe has any more existence apart from our minds than
the things we see and feel in our dreams ? The answer
which Berkeley gave to that question was, No right at
all. The physical universe which I see and feel and
infer, is just my dream and nothing else; that which you
see is your dream ; only it so happens that all our dreams
agree in many respects. This doctrine of Berkeley’s has
now been so far confirmed by the physiology of the
senses, that it is no longer a metaphysical speculation
*
but a scientifically established fact.
But there is a difference between dreams and waking
life, which is of far too great importance for any of us to
be in danger of neglecting it. When I see a man in my
-dream, there is just as good'a body as if I were awake;
muscles, nerves, circulation, capability of adapting means
to ends. If only the dream is coherent enough, no
�Right and Wrong.
*9
physical test can establish that it is a dream. In both
cases I see and feel the same thing. In both cases I
assume the existence of more than I can see and feel,
namely the consciousness of this other man. Bnt now
here is a great difference, and the only difference: in a
dream this assumption is wrong ; in waking life, it is
right. The man I see in my dream is a mere machine; a
bundle of phenomena with no underlying reality ; there
is no consciousness involved except my consciousness,,
no feeling in the case except my feelings. The man I
see in waking life is more than a bundle of phenomena ;
his body and its actions are phenomena, but these pheno
mena are merely the symbols and representatives in my
mind of a reality which is outside my mind, namely, the
consciousness of the man himself which is represented by
the working of his brain, and the simpler quasi-mental
facts, not woven into his consciousness, which are
represented by the working of the rest of his body.
What makes life not to be a dream is the existence of
those facts which we arrive at by our second process
of inference ; the consciousness of men and the higher
animals, the sub-consciousness of lower organisms, and
the quasi-mental facts which go along with the motions
of inanimate matter. In a book which is very largely
and deservedly known by heart, ‘Through the Looking
glass,’ there is a very instructive discussion upon this
point, Alice has been taken to see the Bed King as he
lies snoring; and Tweedledee asks, “ Do you know what
he is dreaming about?” “Nobody can guess that,”
replies Alice. “ Why, about you,” he says triumphantly.
“ And if he stopped dreaming about you, where do you
suppose you’d be?” “Where I am now, of course,”
said Alice. “Not you,” said Tweedledee, “you’d be
nowhere. You are only a sort of thing in his dream.”
“If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum,
“ you’d go out, bang! just like a candle.” Alice was
quite right in regarding these remarks as unphilosophical.
The fact that she could see, think, and feel was proof
positive that she was not a sort of thing in anybody’s
dream. This is the meaning of that saying, Cogito ergo
sum, of Descartes. By him, and by Spinoza after him,
the verb cogito and the substantive cogitatio were used to
�20
Right and Wrong.
denote consciousness in general, any kind of feelinoeven what we now call subconsciousness. The saying
means that feeling exists in and for itself, not as a
quality or modification or state or manifestation of any
thing else.
We are obliged in every hour of our lives to act upon
beliefs which have been arrived at by inferences of these
two kinds ; inferences based on the assumption of uni
formity in nature, and inferences which add to this the
assumption of feelings which are not our own. By orga
nising the “common sense ” which embodies the first
class of inferences, we build up the physical sciences;
that is to say, all those sciences which deal with the phy
sical, material, or phenomenal universe, whether animate
or inanimate. And so by organising the common
sense which embodies the second class of inferences, we
build up various sciences of mind. The description and
classification of feelings, the facts of their association
with each other, and of their simultaneity with pheno
mena of nerve-action, all this belongs to psychology,
which may be historical and comparative. The doctrine
of certain special classes of feeling's is organized into
the special sciences of those feelings; thus the facts
about the feelings which we are now considering, about
the feelings of moral approbation and reprobation, are
organized into the science of ethics, and the facts about
the feeling of beauty or ugliness are organized into the
science of aesthetics, or, as it is sometimes called, the
philosophy of art. For all of these the uniformity of
nature has to be assumed as a basis of inference; but
over and above that it is necessary to assume that other
men are conscious in the same way that I am. Now in
these sciences of mind, just as in the physical sciences,
the uniformity which is assumed in the inferred mental
facts is a growing thing which becomes more definite as
we go on, and each successive generation of observers
knows better what to observe and what sort of inferences
may be drawn from observed things. But, moreover, it
is as true of the mental sciences as of the physical ones,
that the uniformity is in the present stage of science an
atomic uniformity. We have learned to regard our
consciousness as made up of elements practically alike,
�Right and Wrong.
21
having relations of succession in time and of contiguity
at each instant, which relations are in all cases practi
cally the same. The element of consciousness is the
transference of an impression into the beginning of
action. Our mental life is a structure made out of such
elements just as the working of our nervous system is
made out of sensorimotor processes. And accordingly
the interaction of the two branches of science leads us
to regard the mental facts as the realities or things-inthemselves, of which the material phenomena are mere
pictures or symbols. The final result seems to be that
atomism is carried beyond phenomena into the realities
which phenomena represent; and that the observed uni
formities of nature, in so far as they can be expressed
in the language of atomism, are actual uniformities of
things in themselves.
So much for the two things which I have promised to
bring together; the facts of our moral feelings, and
the scientific method. It may appear that the latter
has been expounded at more length than was necessary
for the treatment of this particular subject; but the
justification for this length is to be found in certain
common objections to the claims of science to be the
sole judge of mental and moral questions. Some of the
chief of these objections I will now mention.
It is sometimes said that science can only deal
with what is, but that art and morals deal with what
ought to be. The saying is perfectly true, but it is
quite consistent with what is equally true, that the
facts of art and morals are fit subject-matter of science.
I may describe all that I have in my house, and I may
state everything that I want in my house ; these are two
very different things, but they are equally statements of
facts. One is a statement about phenomena, about the
objects which are actually in my possession ; the other
is a statement about my feelings, about my wants and
desires. There are facts, to be got at by common sense,
about the kind of thing that a man of a certain character
and occupation will like to have in his house, and these
facts may be organized into general statements on the
assumption of uniformity in nature. Now the organized
results of common sense dealing with facts are just
�22
Right and Wrong.
science and nothing else. And. in the same way I may
say what men do at the present day, “ how we live now,”
or I may say what we ought to do, namely, what course
of conduct, if adopted, we should morally approve ; and
no doubt these would be two- very different things.
But each of them would be a- statement of facts. One
would belong to the sociology of our time; in so far
as men’s deeds could not be adequately described to
us without some account of their feelings and inten
tions, it would involve facts belonging to psychology as
well as facts belonging to the physical sciences. But
the other would be an account of a particular class of
our feelings^ namely, those which we feel towards an
action when it is regarded as right or wrong. These
facts may be organized by common sense on the assump
tion of uniformity in nature just as well as any other
facts. And we shall see farther on, that not only in this
sense, but in a deeper and more abstract sense, “ what
ought to be done ” is a question for scientific inquiry.
The same objection is sometimes put into another
form. It is said that laws of chemistry, for example,
are general statements about what happens when bodies
are treated in a certain way, and that such laws are fit
matter for science; but that moral laws are different,
because they tell us to do certain things, and we may or
may not obey therm The mood of the one is indicative,
of the other imperative. Now it is quite true that the
word
in the expression “ law of nature,” and in the
expressions “ law of morals,” “law of the land,” has two
totally different meanings, which no educated person
will confound; and I am not aware that any one has
rested the claim of science to judge moral questions on
what is no better than a stale and unprofitable pun.
But two different things may be equally matters of
scientific investigation, even when their names are alike
in sound, A telegraph post is not the same thing as a
post in the War Office, and yet the same intelligence
may be used to investigate the conditions of the one and
the other. That such and such things are right or
wrong, that such and such laws are laws of morals or
laws; of the land, these are facts, just, as the laws of
chemistry are facts; and all facts belong to science, and
are her portion for ever.
�Again, it is sometimes Said that moral questions have
been authoritatively settled by other methods; that we
ought to accept this decision, and not to question it by
any method of scientific inquiry; and that reason should
give way to revelation On such matters. I hope before
I have done to show just cause why we Should pronounce
*
on such teaching aS this no light sentence of moral con
demnation : first, because it is our duty to form those
beliefs which are to guide our actions by the two
scientific modes of inference, and by these alone; and,
secondly, because the proposed mode of settling ethical
questions by authority is contrary to the very nature of
right and wrong.
Leaving this, then, for the present, I pass on to the
most formidable objection that has been made to a
scientific treatment of ethics. The objection is that the
scientific method is not applicable to human action,
because the rule of uniformity does not hold good.
Whenever a man exercises his will, and makes a volun
tary choice of one out of various possible courses, an
event occurs whose relation to contiguous events cannot
be included in a general statement applicable to all
similar cases. There is something wholly capricious and
disorderly, belonging to that moment only; and we have
no right to conclude that if the circumstances were ex
actly repeated, and the man himself absolutely unaltered,
he would choose the same course.
It is clear that if the doctrine here stated is true, the
ground is really cat from under our feet, and we cannot
deal with human action by the scientific method. I
shall endeavour to show, moreover, that in this case,
although we might still have a feeling of moral appro
bation or reprobation towards actions, yet we could not
reasonably praise or blame men for their deeds, nor
regard them as morally responsible. So that, if my
contention is just, to deprive us of the scientific method
is practically to deprive us of morals altogether. On
both grounds, therefore, it is of the greatest importance
that we should define our position in regard to this con
troversy; if, indeed, that can be called a controversy in
which the practical belief of all mankind and the consent
of nearly all serious writers' are on one side.
�24
Right and Wrong.
Let us in the first place consider a little more closely
the connection between conscience and responsibility.
Words in common use, such as these two, have their
meanings practically fixed before difficult controversies
arise; but after the controversy has arisen, each party
gives that slight tinge to the meaning which best suits
its own view of the question. Thus it appears to each
that the common language obviously supports that view,
that this is the natural and primary view of the matter,
and that the opponents are using words in a new mean
ing and wresting them from their proper sense. Now
this is just my position. I have endeavoured so far to
use all words in their common every-day sense, only
making this as precise as I can; and, with two excep
tions, of which due warning will be given, I shall do my
best to continue this practice in future. I seem to my
self to be talking the most obvious platitudes; but it
must be remembered that those who take the opposite
view will think I am perverting the English language.
There is a common meaning of the word “ responsible,”
which though not the same as that of the phrase “ mo
rally responsible,” may throw some light upon it. If
we say of a book, “A is responsible for the preface and
the first half, and B is responsible for the rest,” we mean
that A wrote the preface and the first half. If two
people go into a shop and choose a blue silk dress to
gether, it might be said that A was responsible for its
being silk and B for its being blue. Before they chose,
the dress was undetermined both in colour and in material.
A’s choice fixed the material, and then it was undeter
mined only in colour. B’s choice fixed the colour ; and
if we suppose that there were no more variable condi
tions (only one blue silk dress in the shop), the dress was
then completely determined. In this sense of the word
we say that a man is responsible for that part of an event
which was undetermined when he was left out of account,
and which became determined when he was taken account
of. Suppose two narrow streets, one lying north and
south, one east and west, and crossing one another. A
man is put down where they cross, and has to walk.
Then he must walk either north, south, east, or west,
and he is not responsible for that; what he is responsi-
�Right and Wrong.
25
hie for is the choice of one of these four directions.
May we not say in the present sense of the word that
the external circumstances are responsible for the restric
tion on his choice? we should mean only that the fact
of his going in one or other of the four directions was
due to external circumstances, and not to him. Again,
suppose I have a number of punches of various shapes,
some square, some oblong, some oval, some round, and
that I am going to punch a hole in a piece of paper.
Where I shall punch the hole may be fixed by any kind
of circumstances ; but the shape of the hole depends on
the punch I take. May we say that the punch is lesponsible for the shape of the hole, but not for the posi
tion of it ?
It may be said that this is not the whole of the mean
ing of the word “ responsible,” even in its loosest sense ;
that it ought never to be used except of a conscious
agent. Still this is part of its meaning; if we regard
an event as determined by a variety of circumstances, a
man’s choice being among them, we say that he is
responsible for just that choice which is left him by the
other circumstances.
When we ask the practical question, “ Who is respon
sible for so-and-so ?” we want to find out who is to be
got at in order that so-and-so may be altered. If I want
to change the shape of the hole I make in my paper, I
must change my punch; but this will be of no use if I
want to change the position of the hole. If I want the
colour of the dress changed from blue to green, it is B,
and not A, that I must persuade.
We mean something more than this when we say that
a man is morally responsible for an action. It seems to
me that moral responsibility and conscience go together,
both in regard to the man and in regard to the action.
In order that a man may be morally responsible for an
action, the man must have a conscience, and the action
must be one in regard to which conscience is capable of
acting as a motive, that is, the action must be capable of
being right or wrong. If a child were left on a desert
island and grew up wholly without a conscience, and
then were brought among men, he would not be morally
responsible for his actions until he had acquired a con
�2.6
Right and Wrong.
science by education. He would of course be responsible
m the sense just explained, for that part of them which
was left undetermined by external circumstances, and if
we wanted to alter his actions in these respects we
should have to do it by altering him. But it would be
useless and unreasonable to attempt to do this by means
of praise or blame, the expression of moral approbation
or disapprobation, until he had acquired a conscience
which could be worked upon by such means.
It seems, then, that in order that a man may be
morally responsible for an action, three things are ne
cessary :—
1. He might have done something else; that is to sayz
the action was not wholly determined by external cir
cumstances, and he is responsible only for the choice
which was left him.
2. He had a conscience.
3. The action was one in regard to the doing or not
doing of which conscience might be a sufficient motive.
These three things are necessary, but it does not fol
low that they are sufficient. It is very commonly said
that the action must be a voluntary one. It will be
found, I think, that this is contained in my third con
dition, and also that the form of statement I have
adopted exhibits more clearly the reason why the con
dition is necessary. We may say that an action is in
voluntary either when it is instinctive, or when one
motive is so strong that there is no voluntary choice
between motives. An involuntary cough produced by
irritation of the glottis is no proper subject for blame or
praise. A man is not responsible for it because it is
done by a part of his body without consulting him.
What is meant by him in thia case will require further
investigation. Again, when a dipsomaniac has so great
and overmastering an inclination to drink that we cannot
conceive of conscience being strong enough to conquer
it, he is not responsible for that act, though he may
be responsible for having got himself into the state..
But if it is conceivable that a very strong conscience
fully brought to bear might succeed in conquering the
inclination, we may take a lenient view of the fall and
say there was a very strong temptation, but we shall
�Right and hRrong.
'^T
still regard it as a fall, and say that the man is respon
sible and a wrong has been done.
But since it is just in this distinction between volun
tary and involuntary action that the whole crux ot the
matter lies, let us examine more closely into it. 1 say
that when I cough or sneeze involuntarily, it is ready
not I that cough or sneeze, but a part of iny body which
acts without consulting me. This action is determined
for me by the circumstances, and. is not part of the choice
that is left to me, so that I am not responsible for it.
The question comes then to determining how much is to
be called circumstances, and how much is to be called
m Now I want to describe what happens when I volun
tarily do anything, and there are two courses open to
me. I may describe the things m themselves, my feel
ings and the general course of my consciousness, trust
ing to the analogy between my consciousness and yours
to make me understood ; or I may describe these things
as nature describes them to your senses, namely, in terms
of the phenomena of my nervous system, appealing to
your memory of phenomena and your knowledge of phy
sical action. I shall do both, because in some respects
our knowledge is more, complete from the one source,
and in some respects from the other. When I look back
and reflect upon a voluntary action, I seem to find that
it differs from an involuntary action in the fact that a
certain portion of my character has been consulted.
There is always a suggestion of some sort, either the end
of a train of thought or a new sensation ; and there is an
action ensuing, either the movement of a muscle or set
of muscles, or the fixing of attention upon something.
But between these two there is a consultation, as it were,
of my past history. The suggestion is viewed in the
light of everything bearing on it that I think of at the
time, and in virtue of this light it moves me to act m
one or more ways. Bet us first suppose that no hesita
tion is involved, that only one way of acting is sugges
ted, and I yield to this impulse and act in the particu
lar way. This is the simplest kind of voluntary action.
It differs from involuntary or instinctive action in the
fact that with the latter there is no such conscious con-
�28
Right and Wrong.
saltation of past history. If we describe these facts in
terms of the phenomena which picture them to other
minds, we shall say that in involuntary action a message
passes straight through from the sensory to the motor
centre, and so on to the muscles, without consulting the
cerebrum; while in voluntary action the message is
passed on from the sensory centre to the cerebrum, there
translated into appropriate motor stimuli, carried down
to the motor centre, and so on to the muscles. There
may be other differences, but at least there is this differ
ence. Now, on the physical side, that which determines
what groups of cerebral fibres shall be set at work by
i.en^Ven rnessaSe’ and what groups of motor stimuli
shall be set at work by these, is the mechanism of my
brain at the time; and on the mental side, that which
determines what memories shall be called up by the
given sensation, and what motives these memories shall
bring into action, is my mental character. We may
say, then, in this simplest case of voluntary action, that
w en the suggestion is given it is the character of me
which determines the character of the ensuing action ;
and consequently that I am responsible for choosing that
particular course out of those which were left open to
me by the external circumstances.
This is when I yield to the impulse. But suppose I
do not; suppose that the original suggestion, viewed in
the light of memory, sets various motives in action, each
motive belonging to a certain class of things which I
remember. Then I choose which of these motives shall
prevail. Those who carefully watch themselves find out
that a particular motive is made to prevail by the fixing
of the attention upon that class of remembered things
which calls up the motive. The physical side of this is
the sending of blood to a certain set of nerves—namely,
those whose action corresponds to the memories which
are to be attended to. The sending of blood is accom
plished by the pinching of arteries ; and there are special
nerves, called vaso-motor nerves, whose business it is to
carry messages to the walls of the arteries and get them
pinched. Now this act of directing the attention may
be voluntary or involuntary, just like any other act.
en tn© transformed and reinforced nerve-message
�Right and Wrong.
29
gets to the vaso-motor centre, some part of it may be so
predominant that a message goes straight off to the arte
ries, and sends a quantity of blood to the nerves supply
ing that part; or the call for blood may be sent back for
revision by the cerebrum, which is thus again consulted.
To say the same thing in terms of my feelings, a particular
class of memories roused by the original suggestion may
seize upon my attention before I have time to choose
what I will attend to; or the appeal may be carried to
a deeper part of my character, dealing with wider and
more abstract conceptions, which views the conflicting
motives in the light of a past experience of motives, and
by that light is drawn to one or the other of them.
We thus get to a sort of motive of the second order or
motive of motives. Is there any reason why we should
not go on to a motive of the third order, and the fourth,
and so on ? None whatever that I know of, except that
no one has ever observed such a thing. There seems
plenty of room for the requisite mechanism on the phy
sical side; and no one can say, on the mental side, how
complex is the working of his consciousness. But we
must carefully distinguish between the intellectual deli
beration about motives, which applies to the future and
the past, and the practical choice of motives in the
moment of will. The former may be a train of any
length and complexity ; we have no reason to believe
that the latter is more than engine and tender.
We are now in a position to classify actions in respect
of the kind of responsibility which belongs to them :
namely, we have—
1. Involuntary or instinctive actions.
2. Voluntary actions in which the choice of motives
is involuntary.
3. Voluntary actions in which the choice of motives is
voluntary.
In each of these cases what is responsible is that part
of my character which determines what the action shall
be. For instinctive actions we do not say that I am
responsible, because the choice is made before I know
anything about it. For voluntary actions I am respon
sible, because I make the choice; that is, the character
of me is what determines the character of the action.
�jo
Right and Wvwig„
In me, then, for this purpose, is included the aggregate
of links of association which determines what memories
shall be called up by a given suggestion, and what mo
tives shall be set at work by these memories. But we
distinguish this mass of passions and pleasures, desire
and knowledge and pain, which makes up most of my
character at the moment, from that inner and deeper
motive-choosing self which is called Reason, and the
Will, and the Ego; which is only responsible when
motives are voluntarily chosen by directing attention to
them. It is responsible only forthe choice of one motive
out of those presented to it, not for the nature of the
motives which arc presented.
But again, I may reasonably be blamed for what I did
yesterday, or a week ago, or last year. This is because
I am permanent; in so far as from my actions of that
date an inference may be drawn about my character
now, it is reasonable that I should be treated as praise
worthy or blameable. And within certain limits I am
for the same reason responsible for what I am now,
because within certain limits I have made myself. Even
instinctive actions are dependent, in many cases, upon
habits which may be altered by proper attention and
care; and still more the nature of the connections
between sensation and action, the associations of memory
and motive, may be voluntarily modified if I choose to
try. The habit of choosing among motives is one which
may be acquired and strengthened by practice, and the
strength of particular motives, by continually directing
attention to them, may be almost indefinitely increased
or diminished. Thus, if by me is meant not the instan
taneous me of this moment, but the aggregate me of my
past life, or even of the last year, the range of my
responsibility is very largely increased. I am responsible
for a very large portion of the circumstances which are
now external to me ; that is to say, I am responsible for
certain of the restrictions on my own freedom. As the
eagle was shot with an arrow that flew on its own
feather, so I find myself bound with fetters of my proper
forging.
Let us now endeavour to conceive an action which is
not determined in any way by the character of the agent.
�Right and Wrong,
3<
If we ask, 11 What makes it to be that action and noother ? ” we are told, “ The man’s Ego.” The wordsare here used, it seems to me, in some non-natural sense,
if in any sense at all. One thing makes another to be
what it is when the characters of the two things are
connected together by some general statement or rule.
But we have to suppose that the character of the action
is not connected with the character of the Ego by any
general statement or rule. With the same Ego and the
same circumstances of all kinds, anything within the
limits imposed by the circumstances may happen at any
moment. I find myself unable to conceive any distinct
sense in which responsibility could apply in this case
nor do I see at all how it would be reasonable to use
praise or blame. If the action does not depend on the
character, what is the use of trying to alter the character ?
Suppose, however, that this indeterminateness is only
partial; that the character does add some restrictions tothose already imposed by circumstances, but leaves the
choice between certain actions undetermined to besettled by chance or the transcendental Ego. Is it not
clear that the man would be responsible for precisely
that part of the character of the action which was deter
mined by his character, and not for what was left un
determined by it? For it is just that part which was
determined by his character which it is reasonable totry to alter by altering him.
We who believe in uniformity are not the only peopleunable to conceive responsibility without it. These are
the words of Sir W. Hamilton, as quoted by Mr. J. S.
Mill*
“Nay, were we even to admit as true, what we cannot think
as possible, still the doctrine of a motiveless volition would beonly casualism; and the free acts of an indifferent are, morally
and rationally, as worthless as the pre-ordered passions of a deter
mined will.”
“That, though inconceivable, a motiveless volition would, if
conceived, be conceived as morally worthless, only shows our
impotence more clearly. ”
“ Is the person an original undetermined cause of the determina
tion of his will? If he be not, then he is not a free agent, and the
scheme of necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first place, it is
impossible to conceive the possibility of this ; and in the second, if
* Examination, p. 556.
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Right and IVrong.
the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is impossible to see
how a cause, undetermined by any motive, can be a rational,
moral, and accountable cause. ”
It is true that Hamilton also says that the scheme of
necessity is inconceivable, because it leads to an infinite
non-commencement; and that “the possibility of morality
depends on the possibility of liberty; for if a man be not
a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and
has, therefore, no responsibility—no moral personality
at all.”
I know nothing about necessity; I only believe that
nature is practically uniform even in human action. I
know nothing about an infinitely distant past; I only
know that I ought to base on uniformity those infer
ences which are to guide my actions. But that man is
a free agent appears to me obvious, and that in the natu
ral sense of the words. We need ask for no better defi
nition than Kant’s :—•
“ Will is that kind of causality attributed to living agents, in
so far as they are possessed of reason; and freedom is such a pro
perty of that causality as enables them to originate events inde
pendently of foreign determining causes ; as, on the other hand
(mechanical), necessity is that property of the causality of irra
tionals, whereby their activity is excited and determined by the
influence of foreign causes.”*
I believe that I am a free agent when my actions are
independent of the control of circumstances outside mej
and it seems a misuse of language to call me a free
agent if my actions are determined by a transcendental
Ego who is independent of the circumstances inside me
—that is to say, of my character. The expression “ free
will” has unfortunately been imported into mental
science from a theological controversy rather different
from the one we are now considering. It is surely too
much to expect that good and serviceable English words
should be sacrificed to a phantom.
In an admirable book, ‘ The Methods of Ethics,’ Mr.
Henry Sidgwick has stated, with supreme fairness and
impartiality, both sides of this question. After setting
forth the “almost overwhelming cumulative proof” of
uniformity in human action, he says that it seems “ more
* ‘ Metaphysic of Ethics, ’ chap. iii.
�Right and Wrong.
33
than balanced by a single argument on the other side:
the immediate affirmation of consciousness m the moment
of deliberate volition.” “ No amount of experience of
the sway of motives ever tends to make me distrust my
intuitive consciousness that in resolving, after delibera
tion, I exercise free choice as to which of the motives
acting upon me shall prevail.”
. , ,
, <t
The only answer to this argument is that it is not on
the other side.” There is no doubt about the deliver
ance of consciousness ; and even if our powers of self
observation had not been acute enough to discover it,
the existence of some choice between motives would be
proved by the existence of vaso-motor. nerves. But
perhaps the most instructive way of meeting arguments
of this kind is to inquire what consciousness ought to
say in order that its deliverances may be of any use
in the controversy. It is affirmed, on the side of uni
formity, that the feelings in my consciousness m the
moment of voluntary choice have been preceded by
facts out of my consciousness which are related to them
in a uniform manner, so that if the previous facts had
been accurately known the voluntary choice might have
been predicted. On the other side this is denied. To
be of any use in the controversy, then, the immediate
deliverance of my consciousness must be competent to
assure me of the non-existence of something which by
hypothesis is not in my consciousness. Given an abso
lutely dark room, can my sense of sight assure me that
there is no one but myself in it ? Can my sense of
hearing assure me that nothing inaudible is going.on?
As little can the immediate deliverance of my conscious
ness assure me that the uniformity of nature does not
apply to human actions.
It is perhaps necessary, in connection with this ques
tion, to refer to that singular Materialism of high
authority and recent date which makes consciousness a
physical agent, “ correlates ” it with Light and Nerve
force, and so reduces it to an objective phenomenon.
This doctrine is founded on a common and very useful
mode of speech, in which we say, for example, that a
good fire is a source of pleasure on a cold day, and that
a man’s feeling of chill may make him run to it. But
�34
Right and Wrong.
so also we say that the sun rises and seta every morn and
night, although the man in the moon sees clearly that
this is due to the rotation of the earth. One cannot be
pedantic all day. But if we choose for once to be
pedantic, the matter is after all very simple. Suppose
that I am made to run by a feeling of chill. When I
begin to move my leg, I may observe if I like a double
series of facts. I have the feeling of effort, the sensa
tion of motion in my leg; I feel the pressure of my foot
-on the ground. Along with this I may see with my
eyes, or feel with my hands, the motion of my leg as a
material object. The first series of facts belongs to me
alone; the second may be equally observed by anybody
-else. The mental series began first; I willed to move
my leg before I saw it move. But when I know more
about the matter, I can trace the material series further
back,, and find nerve messages going to the muscles of
my leg to make it move. But I had a feeling of chill
before I chose to move my leg. Accordingly, I can find
nerve messages, excited by the contraction due to the
Tow temperature, going to my brain from the chilled
skin. Assuming the uniformity of nature, I carry
forward and backward both the mental and the material
series. A uniformity is observed in each, and a paral
lelism is observed between them, whenever observations
can be made. But sometimes one series is known
better, and sometimes the other; so that in telling a
story we quite naturally speak sometimes of mental
facts and sometimes' of material facts. A feeling of chill
made a man run; strictly speaking, the nervous disturb
ance which coexisted with that feeling of chill made him
run, if we want to talk about material facts; or the
feeling of chill produced the form of sub-consciousness •
which coexists with the motion of legs, if we want to
talk about mental facts. But we know nothing about
the special nervous disturbance which coexists with a
feeling of chill, because it has not yet been localised in
the brain ; and we know nothing about the form of sub
consciousness which coexists with the motion of legs;
although there is very good reason for believing in the
existence of both. So we talk about the feeling of chill
and the running, because in one case we know the
�Right and Wrong.
3.5
mental side, and in the other the material side. A man
nanght show me a picture of the battle of Gravelotte, and
say, “ You can’t see the battle, because it is all over,
but there is a picture of it.” And then he might put a
chassepot into my hand, and say, “We could not repre
sent the whole construction of a ehassepot in the picture,
but you. can examine this one, and find it out.” If I
now insisted on mixing up the two modes of communi
cation of knowledge, if I expected that the chassepots in
the picture would go off, and said that the one in my
hand was painted on heavy canvas, I should be acting
exactly in the spirit of the new materialism. For the
material facts are a representation or symbol of the
mental facts, just as a picture is a representation or
symbol of a. battle. And my own mind is a reality from
which I can judge by analogy of the realities represen
ted by other men’s brains, just as the chassepot in my
hand is a reality from which I can judge by analogy of
the chassepots represented in the picture. When,
therefore, we ask, “What is the physical link between
the ingoing message from chilled skin and the outgoing
message which moves the leg? ” and the answer is, “A
man’s Will,” we have as much right to be amused as if
we had asked our friend with the picture what pigment
was used in painting the cannon in the foreground, and
received the answer, “ Wrought iron.” . It will be found
excellent practice in the mental operations required by
this doctrine to imagine a train, the fore part of which is
an engine and three carriages linked with iron couplings,
and the hind part three other carriages linked with iron
couplings ; the bond between the two parts being made
out of the sentiments of amity subsisting between the
stoker and the guard.
To sum up ; the: uniformity of nature in human actions
has been denied on the ground that it takes away re
sponsibility, that it is contradicted by the testimony of
consciousness, and that there is a physical correlation
between mind and matter. We have replied that the
uniformity of nature is necessary to responsibility, that
it is affirmed by the testimony of consciousness when
ever consciousness is competent to testify, and that
matter is the phenomenon or symbol of which mind or
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Right and Wrong.
quasi-mind is the symbolized and represented thing. We
are now free to continue our inquiries on the supposition
that nature is uniform.
We began by describing the moral sense of an English
man. No doubt the description would serve very well for
the more civilised nations of Europe; most closely for
Germans and Dutch. But the fact that we can speak in
this way discloses that there is more than one moral sense,
and that what I feel to be right another man may feel
to be wrong. Thus we cannot help asking whether there
is any reason for preferring one moral sense to another;
whether the question, “What is right to do ?” has in any
one set of circumstances a single answer which can be
definitely known.
Now clearly in the first rough sense of the word this is
not true. What is right for me to do now, seeing that
I am here with a certain character, and a certain moral
sense as part of it, is just what I feel to be right. The
individual conscience is, in the moment of volition, the
only possible judge of what is right; there is no con
flicting claim. But if we are deliberating about the
future, we know that we can modify our conscience
gradually by associating with certain people, reading
certain books, and paying attention to certain ideas and
feelings ; and we may ask ourselves, “ How shall we
modify our conscience, if at all? what kind of conscience
shall we try to get ? what is the best conscience ?” We
may ask similar questions about our sense of taste. There
is no doubt at present that the nicest things to me are the
things I like; but I know that I can train myself to like
some things and dislike others, and that things which are
very nasty at one time may come to be great delicacies
at another. I may ask, “ How shall I train myself ?
What is the best taste ?” And this leads very naturally
to putting the question in another form, namely, “ What
is taste good for? What is the purpose or function of
taste?” We should probably find as the answer to that
question that the purpose or function of taste is to dis
criminate wholesome food from unwholesome; that it is a
matter of stomach and digestion. It will follow from
this that the best taste is that which prefers wholesome
food, and that by cultivating a preference for wholesome and
�Right and Wrong.
37
nutritious things I shall be training my palate in the way
it should go. In just the same way our question about
the best conscience will resolve itself into a question about
the purpose or function of the conscience—why we have
got it, and what it is good for.
Now to my mind the simplest and clearest and most
profound philosophy that was ever written upon this sub
ject is to be found in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Mr.
Darwin’s ‘ Descent of Man.’ In these chapters it appears
that just as most physical characteristics of organisms have
been evolved and preserved because they were useful to the
individual in the struggle for existence against other indi
viduals and other species, so this particular feeling has been
evolved and preserved because it is useful to the tribe or
community in the struggle for existence against othei’
tribes, and against the environment as a whole. The func
tion of conscience is the preservation of the tribe as a tribe.
And we shall rightly train our consciences if we learn to
approve those actions which tend to the advantage of the
community in the struggle for existence.
There are here some words, however, which require care
ful definition. And first the word purpose. A thing serves
a purpose when it is adapted to some end ; thus a corkscrew
is adapted to the end of extracting corks from bottles, and
our lungs are adapted to the end of respiration. We may
say that the extraction of corks is the purpose of the cork
screw, and that respiration is the purpose of the lungs. But
here we shall have used the word in two different senses.
A man made the corkscrew with a purpose in his mind,
and he knew and intended that it should be used for pulling
out corks. But nobody made our lungs with a purpose in
his mind, and intended that they should be used for
breathing. The respiratory apparatus was adapted to its
purpose by natural selection—namely, by the gradual pre
servation of better and better adaptations, and the killing
off of the worse and imperfect adaptations. In using the
word purpose for the result of this unconscious process of
adaptation by survival of the fittest, I know that I am
somewhat extending its ordinary sense, which implies con
sciousness. But it seems to me that on the score of conve
nience there is a great deal to be said for this extension of
meaning. We want a word to express the adaptation of
D
�38
Right and JVrong.
means to an end, whether involving consciousness or not;
the word purpose will do very well, and the adjective pur
posive has already been used in this sense. But if the use
is admitted, we must distinguish two kinds of purpose.
There is the unconscious purpose which is attained by
natural selection, in which no consciousness need be con
cerned ; and there is the conscious purpose of an intelligence
which designs a thing that it may serve to do something
which he desires to be done. The distinguishing mark of
this second kind, design or conscious purpose, is that in the
consciousness of the agent there is an image or symbol of
the end which he desires, and this precedes and determines
the use of the means. Thus the man who first invented a
corkscrew must have previously known that corks were in
bottles, and have desired to get them out. We may
describe this if we like in terms of matter, and say that a
purpose of the second kind implies a complex nervous
system, in which there can be formed an image or symbol
of the end, and that this symbol determines the use of the
means. The nervous image or symbol of anything is that
mode of working of part of my brain which goes on simul
taneously and is correlated with my thinking of the thing.
Aristotle defines an organism as that in which the
part exists for the sake of the whole. It is not that
the existence of the part depends on the existence of
the whole, for every whole exists only as an aggregate
of parts related in a certain way; but that the shape
and nature of the part are determined by the wants of
the whole. Thus the shape and nature of my foot are
what they are, not for the sake of my foot itself, but
for the sake of my whole body, and because it wants
to move about. That which the part has to do for the
whole is called its function. Thus the function of my foot
is to support me, and assist in locomotion. Not ail the
nature of the part is necessarily for the sake of the whole;
the comparative callosity of the skin of my sole is for the
protection of my foot itself.
Society is an organism, and man in society is part of an
organism according to this definition, in so far as some
portion of the nature of man is what it is for the sake of
the whole—society. Now conscience is such a portion of
the nature of man, and its function is the preservation of
�Right and Wrong.
39
society in the struggle for existence. We may be able to
define this function more closely when we know more about
the way in which conscience tends to preserve society.
Next let us endeavour to make precise the meaning of
the words community and society. It is clear that at dif
ferent times men may be divided into groups of greater or
less extent—tribes, clans, families, nations, towns. If a
certain number of clans are struggling for existence, that
portion of the conscience will be developed which tends to
the preservation of the clan; so, if towns or families are
struggling, we shall get a moral sense adapted to the ad
vantage of the town or the family. In this way different
portions of the moral sense may be developed at different
stages of progress. Now it is clear that for the purpose of
the conscience, the word community at any time will mean
a group of that size and nature which is being selected or
not selected for survival as a whole. Selection may be
going on at the same time among many different kinds of
groups. And ultimately the moral sense will be composed
of various portions relating to various groups, the function
or purpose of each portion being the advantage of that
group to which it relates in the struggle for existence.
Thus we have a sense of family duty, of municipal duty, of
national duty, and of duties towards all mankind.
It is to be noticed that part of the nature of a smaller
group may be what it is for the sake of a larger group to
which it belongs; and then we may speak of the function
of the smaller group. Thus it appears probable that the
family, in the form in which it now exists among us, is
’determined by the good of the nation ; and we may say
that the function of the family is to promote the advan
tage of the nation or larger society in some certain ways.
But I do not think it would be right to follow Auguste
Comte in speaking of the function of humanity; because
humanity is obviously not a part of any larger organism
for whose sake it is what it is.
Now that we have cleared up the meanings of some of
our words, we are still a great way from the definite solu
tion of our question, “ What is the best conscience ? or
what ought I to think right ? ” For we do not yet know
what is for the advantage of the community in the struggle
for existence. If we choose to learn by the analogy of an
�4°
Right and Wrong.
individual organism, we may see that no permanent or
final answer can be given, because the organism grows in
consequence of the struggle, and develops new wants while
it is satisfying the old ones. But at any given time it has
quite enough to do to keep alive and to avoid dangers and
diseases. So we may expect that the wants and even the
necessities of the social organism will grow with its growth
and that it is impossible to predict what may tend in the
distant future to its advantage in the struggle for existence.
But still, in this vague and general statement of the func
tions of conscience, we shall find that we have already
established a great deal.
In the first place, right is an affair of the community,
and must not be referred to anything else. To go back to
our analogy of taste ; if I tried to persuade you that the
best palate was that which preferred things pretty to look
at, you might condemn me a priori without any experience,
by merely knowing that taste is an affair of stomach and
digestion—that its function is to select wholesome food.
And so, if any one tries to persuade us that the best con
science is that which thinks it right to obey the will of
some individual, as a deity or a monarch, he is condemned
a priori in the very nature of right and wrong. In order
that the worship of a deity may be consistent with natural
ethics, he must be regarded as the friend and helper of
humanity, and his character must be judged from his
actions by a moral standard which is independent of him.
And this, it must be admitted, is the position which has
been taken by most English divines, as long as they were
Englishmen first and divines afterwards. The worship of a
deity who is represented as unfair or unfriendly to any
portion of the community is a wrong thing, howevcr great
may be the threats and promises by which it is commended.
And still worse, the reference of right and wrong to his
arbitrary will as a standard, the diversion of the allegiance
of the moral sense from the community to him, is the most
insidious and fatal of social diseases. It was against this
that the Teutonic conscience protested in the Reformation.
Again, in monarchical countries, in order that allegiance to
the sovereign may be consistent with natural ethics, he
must be regarded as the servant and symbol of the national
unity, capable of rebellion and punishable for it. And this
�Right and Wrong.
41
has been the theory of the English constitution from time
immemorial.
The first principle of natural ethics, then, is the sole and
supreme allegiance of conscience to the community. I
venture to call this piety, in accordance with the older
meaning of the word. Even if it should turn out impossible
to sever it from the unfortunate associations which have
clung to its later meaning, still it seems worth while
to try.
An immediate deduction from our principle is that there
are no self-regarding virtues properly so called ; those quali
ties which tend to the advantage and preservation of the
individual being only morally right in so far as they make
him a more useful citizen. And this conclusion is in some
cases of great practical importance. The virtue of purity,
for example, attains in this way a fairly exact definition :
purity in a man is that course of conduct which makes him
to be a good husband and father, in a woman that which
makes her to be a good wife and mother, or which helps
other people so to prepare and keep themselves. It is easy
to see how many false ideas and pernicious precepts are
swept away by even so simple a definition as that.
Next, we may fairly define our position in regard to that
moral system which has deservedly found favour with the
great mass of our countrymen. In the common statement
of utilitarianism, the end of right action is defined to be
the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It seems
to me that the reason and the ample justification of the
success of this system is that it explicitly sets forth the
community as the object of moral allegiance. But our
determination of the purpose of the conscience will oblige
us to make a change in the statement of it. Happiness is
not the end of right action. My happiness is of no use to
the community except in so far as it makes me a more
efficient citizen ; that is to say, it is rightly desired as a
means and not as an end. The end may be described as
the greatest efficiency of all citizens as such. No doubt
happiness will in the long run accrue to the community as
a consequence of right conduct; but the right is deter
mined independently of the happiness, and, as Plato says,
it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
*
* The word altruism seems to me unfortunate, because the community,
(my neighbour) is to be regarded not as other, but as myself. I have endea
voured to defend this view elsewhere.
�42
Right and Wrong.
In conclusion, I would add some words on the relation
of Veracity to the first principle of Piety. It is clear that
veracity is founded on faith in man; you tell a man the
truth when you can trust him with it and are not afraid.
This perhaps is made more evident by considering the case
of exception allowed by all moralists—namely, that if a
man asks you the way with a view to committing a murder,
it is right to tell a lie and misdirect him. The reason why
he must not have the truth told him is that he would make
a bad use of it, he cannot be trusted with it. About these
cases of exception an important remark must be made in
passing. When we hear that a man has told a lie under
such circumstances, we are indeed ready to admit that for
once it was right, mensonge admirable; but we always have
a sort of feeling that it must not occur again. And the
same thing applies to cases of conflicting obligations, when
for example the family conscience and the national con
science disagree. In such cases no general rule can be laid
down ; we have to choose the less of two evils; but this is
not right altogether in the same sense as it is right to speak
the truth. There is something wrong in the circumstances
that we should have to choose an evil at all. The actual
course to be pursued will vary with the progress of society;
that evil which at first was greater will become less, and in
a perfect society the conflict will be resolved into harmony.
But meanwhile these cases of exception must be carefully
kept distinct from the straightforward cases of right and
wrong, and they always imply an obligation to mend the
circumstances if we can.
Veracity to an individual is not only enjoined by piety
in virtue of the obvious advantage which attends a straight
forward and mutually trusting community as compared
with others, but also because deception is in all cases a per
sonal injury. Still more is this true of veracity to the
community itself. The conception of the universe or aggre
gate of beliefs which forms the link between sensation and
action for each individual is a public and not a private
matter; it is formed by society and for society. Of what
enormous importance it is to the community that this should
be a true conception I need not attempt to describe. Now
to the attainment of this true conception two things are
necessary.
�Right and Wrong.
43
First, if we study the history of those methods by which
true beliefs and false beliefs have been attained,we shall
see that it is our duty to guide our beliefs by inference
from experience on the assumption of uniformity of nature
and consciousness in other men, and by this only. ppty
upon this moral basis can the foundations of the empirical
method be justified.
Secondly, veracity to the community depends upon faith
in man. Surely I ought to be talking platitudes when I
say that it is not English to tell a man a lie, or to suggest
a lie by your silence or your actions, because you are afraid
that he is not prepared for the truth, because you don t
quite know what he will do when he knows it, because
perhaps after all this lie is a better thing for him than the
truth would be; this same man being all the time an
honest fellow-citizen whom you have every reason to trust.
Surely I have heard that this craven crookedness is the
object of our national detestation. And yet it is constantly
whispered that it would be dangerous to divulge certain
truths to the masses. “ I know the whole thing is untrue :
but then it is so useful for the people; you don t know
what harm you might do by shaking their faith in it.
Crooked ways are none the less crooked because they are
meant to deceive great masses of people instead of indivi
duals. If a thing is true, let us all believe it, rich and
poor, men, women, and children. If a thing is untrue, let
us all disbelieve it, rich and poor, men, women, and children.
Truth is a thing to be shouted from the housetops, not to
be whispered over rose-water after dinner when the ladies
are gone away.
Even in those whom I would most reverence, who would
shrink with horror from such actual deception as I have
just mentioned, I find traces of a want of faith in man.
Even that noble thinker, to whom we of this generation
owe more than I can tell, seemed to say in one of his post
humous essays that in regard to questions of great public
importance we might encourage a hope in excess of the
evidence (which would infallibly grow into a belief and
defy evidence) if we found that life was made easier by it.
As if we should not lose infinitely more by nourishing a
tendency to falsehood than we could gain by the delusion
of a pleasing fancy. Life must first of all be made straight
�44
Right and Wrong.
and true ; it may get easier through the help this brings to
the commonwealth. And the great historian of mate*
rialism says that the amount of false belief necessary to
morality in a given society is a matter of taste. I cannot
believe that any falsehood whatever is necessary to mo
rality. It cannot be true of my race and yours that to
keep ourselves from becoming scoundrels we must needs
believe a lie. The sense of right grew up among healthy
men and was fixed by the practice of comradeship. It has
never had help from phantoms and falsehoods, and it never
can want any. By faith in man and piety towards man we
have taught each other the right hitherto ; with faith in
man and piety towards man we shall never more depart
from it.
* Lange, ‘ Geschichte des Materialismus.’
PRINTED BY C. W. liEYNELL, LITTLE rULTENET 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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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Right and wrong : the scientific origin of their distinction : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 7th November, 1876
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 44 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1876
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N093
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Ethics
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Ethics
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Right and wrong
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CHRISTIANITY.
I.
THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY FROM A STRICTLY
H HISTORICAL POINT OF VIEW, •
BEING
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY, 21st NOVEMBER, 1880,
BY
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 Constructives—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 Gfod 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-elassify 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
“ Bcce Homo,”—“ Behold a Man I ”
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 Diety, 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 sloiv 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 by
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 God 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 Romans 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 Grentiles 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 became 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 Phabisees, 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
Chaldaean “ 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
horn. 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
tianse,” 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 Samakttans, 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, ’and 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 historical phase of a spiritual life that took its origin in
the Eastern provinces of the Boman 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 Bedeemer or Inter
mediator) was revived with all its deep mysticism.
Numbers of Boman 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 Boman 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 oe 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 other 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 miud.
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 mystiff
dogmas with which Christ’s teachings were perverted,
and which were each and all borrowed from Egyptian,
Assyrian, Persian, Indian and Homan 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 Chbistiajstity.
The Deity of the Jews was a stem, and revengeful
Despot; Christ’s Gfod 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 Home, 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 Season, 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 Caesar 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 Samanseans, 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; “Bor
the chief doctrine of the Sainansean 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 ail
these elements, but with the Christians, the endeavour to
spread this belief in the bliss of redemption became a
sacred duty, which they thought themselves 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 quarrellinosects 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 ro 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, Manichaeans, 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
Sokrates 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 Beason; 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 Roman 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
Bathers, Apologists, and the Church dignitaries began to
rule supreme. The writings of the Bathers 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 Bathers, 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 mediseval 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 oisZrucZwe; 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.
�The Society’s Lectures by Dr. Zerffi, which have been printed, are—
On “Natural Phenomena and their Influence on different Religious
Systems.”
On “The Vedas and the Zend-Avesta: the first Dawn of Religious Con
sciousness in Humanity.”
On “The Origin aud the Abstract and Concrete Nature of the Devil.”
On “ Dreams and Ghosts.”
On “ Ethics and ^Esthetics.”
The above are out of print.
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; or Egypt from a Religious, Social,
and Historical point of view.”
All price 3d., or post-free 3|d.
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 PLAGE,
On SUNT)A Y Afternoons, at FO UR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May.)
Twenty-four Lectures (in three series), ending 24th April, 1881,
will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, trans
ferable (and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single
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, and the printed Lectures, and for list of all 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.
�
Dublin Core
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Christianity: 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. (Gustavus George)
Description
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: List of the Society's lectures on unnumbered page at the end. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed at the Industrial Press Works, Greek Street, Soho, London.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1881
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CT89
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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 (Christianity: The origin of Christianity from a strictly historical point of view), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
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Christianity
Christianity
Conway Tracts
-
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Is life worth having? and the eternal hope: an answer from Buddha's first sermon to some questions of to-day. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, January 19th, 1879
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Davids, T. W. Rhys (Thomas William Rhys)
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 21, [1] p. ; 18 cm
List of the Society's lectures on unnumbered page at the end. Reprinted from the Fortnightly Review. Inscription on bound volume: Presented by Miss Morris, November 1904.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1880
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N187, G3420
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Is life worth having? and the eternal hope: an answer from Buddha's first sermon to some questions of to-day. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, January 19th, 1879), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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Buddhism-Doctrines
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
BEARING
ON
OF
MORALS
RELIGION.
$ Tnta
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
.SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 4th 'MARCH, 1877.
BY
Professor W. K. CLIFFORD, F.R.S.
Reprinted from the ‘ Fortnightly Review,' by kind permission of the Editor.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1877.
Price Threepence.
��THE BEARING OF MORALS
ON RELIGION.
HE word religion is used in many different mea^
ings and there have been not a few- controversy
the main difference between the contending
parties was only this, that they understood by religion
two different things. I will therefore begin by settog
forth as clearly aB I can one or two of the mea g
which the word appears to have in P°Pa y SP
Kr8t’ Sse “TyheX“tha o^e°Vh“ehgion ■”
“?nTisPseX’ce5‘ The religion of Buddha teaches that
the soul is not a distinct substance.
Opinions differ
upon the question what doctrines may properly be callei
religious ^some people holding that there can be no r^
ligion without belief in a god and in a future life jso^ hat
n their judgment the body of doctrines must necessarily
include these two : while others would insist upon other
special dogmas being included, before they could consent
to call thelystem by this name. But the number of such
Deonle is daily diminishing, by reason of. the spread an
thePincrease of our knowledge about distant countries
and races. To me, indeed, it would seem rash to asse
of any doctrine or its contrary that it might not for
part of a religion. But, fortunately, it is not necessary
to any part of the discussion on which I propose to ente ,
that this question should be settled.
.
Secondly, religion may mean a ceremonial or cuLt, m
volving an organized priesthood and a machinery of
T
�6
The Bearing of Morals
sacred things and places. In this sense we speak of the
clergy as ministers of religion, or of a state as tolerating
the practice of certain religions. There is a somewhat
wider meaning which it will be convenient to consider
together with this one, and as a mere extension of it,
namely, that in which religion stands for the influence of
a certain priesthood. A religion is sometimes said to
have been successful when it has got its priests into
power; thus some writers speak of the wonderfully rapid
success of Christianity. A nation is said to have em
braced a religion when the authorities of that nation have
granted privileges to the clergy, have made them as far
as possible the leaders of society, and have given them a
considerable share in the management of public affairs.
So the northern nations of Europe are said to have em
braced the Catholic religion at an early date. The rea
son why it seems to me convenient to take these two
meanings together is, that they are both related to the
priesthood. Although the priesthood itself is not called
religion, so far as I know, yet the word is used for the
general influence and professional acts of the priest
hood.
Thirdly, religion may mean a body of precepts or code
of rules, intended to guide human conduct, as in this
sentence of the authorised version of the New Testa
ment : “ Pure religion and undefiled before God and the
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
(James i. 27). It is sometimes difficult to draw the line
bet ween this meaning and the last, for it is a mark of the
great majority of religions that they confound ceremonial
observances with duties having real moral obligation.
Thus in the Jewish decalogue the command to do no
work on Saturdays is found side by side with the prohi
bition of murder and theft. It might seem to be the
more correct as well as the more philosophical course to
follow in this matter the distinction made by Butler be
tween moral and positive commands, and to class all those
�.on Religion.
7
precepts which are not of universal moral obligation
under the head of ceremonial. And, in fact, when we
come to examine the matter from the point of view of
morality, the distinction is of course of the utmost im
portance. But from the point of view of religion there
are difficulties in making it. ' In the first place, the dis
tinction is not made, or is not understood, by religious
folk in general. Innumerable tracts and pretty stories
impress upon us that Sabbath-breaking is rather worse
than stealing, and leads naturally on to materialism and
murder. Less than a hundred years ago sacrilege was
punishable by burning in France, and murder by simple
decapitation. In the next place, ifwe pick out a religion
at haphazard, we shall find that it is not at all easy to
divide its precepts into those which are really of moral
obligation and those which are indifferent and of a cere
monial character. We may find precepts unconnected
with any ceremonial, and yet positively immoral; and
ceremonials may be immoral in themselves, or construc
tively immoral, on account of their known symbolism.
On the whole, it seems to me most convenient to draw
the plain and obvious distinction between those actions
which a religion prescribes to all its followers, whether
the actions are ceremonial or not, and those which are
prescribed only as professional actions of a sacerdotal
-class. The latter will come under what I have called the
second meaning of religion, the professional acts and the
influence of a priesthood. In the third meaning will be
included all that practically guides the life of a layman,
in so far as this guidance is supplied to him by his re
ligion.
..
Fourthly, and lastly, there is a meaning of the word.
religion which has been coming more and more promi
nently forward of late years, till it has even threatened
to supersede all the others. Religion has been defined
as morality touched with emotion. I will not here adopt
this definition, because I wish to deal with the concrete
in the first place, and only to pass on to the abstract m
�8
The Bearing of Morals
so far as that previous study appears to lead to it. I
wish to consider the facts of religion as we find them,,
and not ideal possibilities. “ Yes, but,” every one will
say, “ if you mean my own religion, it is already, as a
matter of fact, morality touched with emotion. It is thehighest morality touched with the purest emotion, an
emotion directed towards the most worthy of objects.”
Unfortunately we do not mean your religion alone, but
all manner of heresies and heathenisms along with it:
the religions of the Thug, of the Jesuit, of the South Sea
cannibal, of Confucius, of the poor Indian with his un
tutored mind, of the Peculiar People, of the Mormons,
and of the old cat-worshipping Egyptian. It must be
clear that we shall restrict ourselves to a very narrow
circle of what are commonly called religious facts, unless
we include in our considerations not only morality
touched with emotion, but also immorality touched with
emotion. In fact, what is really touched with emotion
in any case is that body of precepts for the guidance of a
layman’s life which we have taken to be the third mean
ing of religion. In that collection of precepts there may
be some agreeable to morality, and some repugnant to it,
and some indifferent, but being all enjoined by the reli
gion they will all be touched by the same religious emo
tion. Shall we then say that religion means a feeling,
an emotion, an habitual attitude of mind towards some
object or objects, or towards life in general, which has a
bearing upon the way in which men regard the rules of
conduct ? I think the last phrase should be left out.
An habitual attitude of mind, of a religious character,
does always have some bearing upon the way in which
men regard the rules of conduct; but it seems sometimes
as if this were an accident, and not the essence of the
religious feeling. Some devout people prefer to have
their devotion pure and simple, without admixture of any
such application—they do not want to listen to “cauld
morality.” And it seems as if the religious feeling of the
Greeks, and partly also of our own ancestors, was so far
�on Religion.
9
divorced from morality that it affected it only, as it were,
by a side-wind, through the influence of the character
and example of the gods. So that it. seems only likely
to create confusion if we mix up morality with this fourth
meaning of religion. Sometimes religion means a code
of precepts, and sometimes it means a devotional habit ot
mind ; the two things are sometimes connected, but also
they are sometimes quite distinct. But that the connec
tion of these two things is more and more insisted on,
that it is the key-note of the apparent revival of religion
which has taken place in this century, is a very significant
fact, about which there is more to be said.
As to the nature of this devotional habit of mind, there
are no doubt many who would like a closer definition.
But I am not at all prepared to say what attitude of mind
may properly be called religious, and what may not.
Some will hold that religion must have a person for its
object; but Buddha was filled with religious feeling, and
yet he had no personal object. Spinoza,.the god-intoxi
cated man, had no personal object for his devotion. It
might be possible to frame a definition which would
fairly include all cases, but it would require the expendi
ture of vast ingenuity and research, and would not,
I am inclined to think, be of much use when it was ob
tained.
Nor is the difficulty to be got over by taking any de
finite and well-organized sect, whose principles are settled
in black and white ; for example, the Boman Catholic
Church, whose seamless unity has just been exhibited
and protected by an (Ecumenical Council. Shall we
listen to Mr. Mivart, who “ execrates without reserve
Marian persecutions, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and all similar acts ?” or to the editor of the Dublin
Review, who thinks that a teacher of false doctrines
should be visited by the law with just that amount of
severity which the public sentiment willj. bear ?Eor
assuredly common-sense morality will passjvery different
judgments on these two distinct religions, although it
�IO
The Bearing of Morals
appears that experts have found room for both of them'
within the limits of the Vatican definitions.
Moreover, there is very great good to be got by widen
ing our view of what may be contained in religion. If
we go to a man and propose to test his own religion by
the canons of common-sense morality, he will be, most
likely, offended, for he will say that his religion is far too
sublime and exalted to be affected by considerations of
that sort. But he will have no such objection in the case
of other people’s religion. And when he has found that
in the name of religion other people, in other circum
stances, have believed in doctrines that were false, have
supported priesthoods that were social evils, have taken
wrong for right, and have even poisoned the very sources
of morality, he may be tempted to ask himself, “Is there
no trace of any of these evils in my own religion, or at
least in my own conception and practice of it ?” And
that is just what we want him to do. Bring your doc
trines, your priesthoods, your precepts, yea, even the
inner devotion of your soul, before the tribunal of con
science ; she is no man’s and no god’s vicar, but the
supreme judge of men and gods.
Let us inquire, then, what morality has to say in re
gard to religious doctrines. It deals with the manner
of religious belief directly, and with the matter indirectly.
Religious beliefs must be founded on evidence; if they
are not so founded, it is wrong to hold them. The rule
of right conduct in this matter is exactly the opposite of
that implied in the t^vo famous texts : “ He that believeth
not shall be damned,” and “ Blessed are they that have
not seen and yet have believed.” For a man who clearly
felt and recognised the duty of intellectual honesty, of
carefully testing every belief before he received it, and
especially before he recommended it to others, it would
be impossible to ascribe the profoundly immoral teaching
of these texts to a true prophet or worthy leader of
humanity. It will comfort those who wish to preserve
their reverence for the character of a great teacher to-
�on Religion.
11
remember that one of these sayings is in the well-known
forged passage at the end of the second gospel, and that
the other occurs only in the late and legendary fourth
gospel; both being described as spoken under utterly
impossible circumstances. These precepts belong to the
Church and not to the Gospel. But whoever wrote either
of them down as a deliverance of one whom he supposed
to be a divine teacher, has thereby written down himself
as a man void of intellectual honesty, as a man whose
word cannot be trusted, as a man who would accept and
spread about any kind of baseless fiction for fear of be
lieving too little.
So far as to the manner of religious belief. Let us
now inquire what bearing morality has upon its matter.
We may see at once that this can only be indirect; for
the rightness or wrongness of belief in a doctrine de
pends only upon the nature of the evidence for it, and
not upon what the doctrine is. But there is a very im
portant way in which religious doctrine may lead to
morality or immorality, and in which, therefore, morality
has a bearing upon doctrine. It is when that doctrine
declares the character and actions of the gods who are
regarded as objects of reverence and worship. If a god
is represented as doing that which is clearly wrong, and
is still held up to the reverence of men, they will be
tempted to think that in doing this wrong thing they
are not so very wrong after all, but are only following
an example which all men respect. So says Plato : —
*
“We must not tell a youthful listener that he ■will be doing
nothing extraordinary if he commit the foulest crimes, nor yet if
he chastise the crimes of a father in the most unscrupulous man
ner, but will simply be doing what the first and greatest of the
gods have done before him. ...
“ Nor yet is it proper to say in any case—what is indeed untrue
—that gods wage war against gods, and intrigue and fight among
themselves ; that is, if the future guardians of our state are to
deem it a most disgraceful thing to quarrel lightly with one
another: far less ought we to select as subjects for fiction and
Rep. ii. 378. Tr. Davies and Vaughan.
�12
The Bearing of Morals
embroidery, the battles of the giants, and numerous other feuds of
all sorts, in which gods and heroes fight against their own kith
and kin. But if there is any possibility of persuading them, that
to quarrel with one’s fellow is a sin of which no member of a state
was ever guilty, such ought rather to be the language held to our
children from the first, by old men and old women, and all elderly
persons; and such is the strain in which our poets must be com
pelled to write. But stories like the chaining of Here by her son,
and the flinging of Hephaistos out of heaven for trying to take his
mother’s part when his father was beating her, and all those battles
of the gods which are to be found in Homer, must be refused ad
mittance into our state, whether they be allegorical or not. For
a child cannot discriminate between what is allegory and what is
not; and whatever at that age is adopted as a matter of belief,
has a tendency to become fixed and indelible, and therefore, per
haps, we ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the
fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most
perfect manner to the promotion of virtue. ”
And Seneca says the same thing, with still more rea
son in his day and country : “ What else is this appeal
to the precedent of the gods for, but to inflame our lusts,
and to furnish licence and excuse for the corrupt act
under the divine protection ?” And again, of the cha
racter of Jupiter as described in the popular legends :
“ This has led to no other result than to deprive sin of
its shame in man’s eyes, by showing him the god no
better than himself.” In Imperial Rome, the sink of all
nations, it was not uncommon to find “ the intending
sinner addressing to the deified vice which he contem
plated a prayer for the success of his design ; the adul
teress imploring of Venus the favours of her paramour ;
.
. the thief praying to Hermes Dolios for aid in
his enterprise, or offering up to him the first-fruits of
his plunder;
youths entreating Hercules to
expedite the death of a rich uncle.”*
When we reflect that criminal deities were worshipped
all over the empire, we cannot but wonder that any good
people were left; that man could still be holy, although
every god was vile. Yet this was undoubtedly the case;
* North British Review, 1867, p. 284.
�cn Religion.
ij
the social forces worked steadily on wherever there was
peace and a settled government and municipal freedom ;
and the wicked stories of theologians were somehow ex
plained away and disregarded. If men were no better
than their religions, the world would be a hell indeed.
It is very important, however, to consider what really
ought to be done in the case of stories like these. When
the poet sings that Zeus kicked Hephaistos out of heaven
for trying to help his mother, Plato says that this fiction
must be suppressed by law. We cannot follow him
there, for since his time we have had too much of trying
to suppress false doctrines by law. Plato thinks it quite
obviously clear that God cannot produce evil, and he
would stop everybody’s mouth who ventured to say that
he can. But in regard to the doctrine itself, we can
only ask, “ Is it true ?”
And that is a question
to be settled by evidence. Did Zeus commit this
crime, or did he not ? We must ask the apologists, the
reconcilers of religion and science, what evidence they
can produce to prove that Zeus kicked Hephaistos out
of heaven. That a doctrine may lead to immoral conse
quences is no reason for disbelieving it. But whether'
the doctrine were true or false, one thing does clearly
follow from its moral character: namely this, that if
Zeus behaved as he is said to have behaved he ought not'
to be worshipped. To those who complain of his violence
and injustice, it is no answer to say that the divine attri
butes are far above human comprehension, that the wavs
of Zeus are not our ways, neither are his thoughts our
thoughts. If he is to be worshipped, he must do some
thing vaster and nobler and greater than good men do,
but it must be like what they do in its goodness. His
actions must not be merely a magnified copy of what bad
men do. So soon as they are thus represented, morality
has something to say. Not indeed about the fact; for
it is not conscience, but reason, that has to judge matters
of fact; but about the worship of a character so repre
sented. If there really is good evidence that Zeus kicked
�14
The Bearing of Morals
Hephaistos out of heaven, and seduced Alkmene by a
mean trick, say so by all means ; but say also that it is
wrong to salute his priests or to make offerings in his
temple.
When men do their duty in this respect, morality has
a very carious indirect effect on the religious doctrine
itself. As soon as the offerings become less frequent, the
evidence for the doctrine begins to fade away; the pro
cess of theological interpretation gradually brings out
the true inner meaning of it, that Zeus did not kick
Hephaistos out of heaven, and did not seduce Alk
mene.
Is this a merely theoretical discussion about far-away
things ? Let us come back for a moment to our own
time and country, and think whether there can be any
lesson for us in this refusal of common-sense morality to
worship a deity whose actions are a magnified copy of
what bad men do. There are three doctrines which find
very wide acceptance among our countrymen at the pre
sent day: the doctrines of original sin,vof a vicarious
sacrifice, and of eternal punishments. We are not con
cerned with any refined evaporations of these doctrines
which are exhaled by courtly theologians, but with the
naked statements which are put into the minds of chil
dren and of ignorant people, which are taught broadcast
and without shame in denominational schools. Father
Faber, good soul, persuaded himself that after all only a
very few people would be really damned, and Father
Oxenham gives one the impression that it will not hurt
even them very much. But one learns the practical
teaching of the Church from such books as “A Glimpse
of Hell,” where a child is described as thrown between
the bars upon the burning coals, there to writhe for
ever. The masses do not get the elegant emasculations
of Father Faber and Father Oxenham ; they get “ a
Glimpse of Hell.”
Now to condemn all mankind for the sin of Adam and
Eve; to let the innocent suffer for the guilty;, to keep
�on Religion.
15
any one alive in torture for ever and ever : these actions
are simply magnified copies of what bad men do. No
juggling with “ divine justice and mercy” can make them
anything else. This must be said to all kinds and con
ditions of men : that if God holds all mankind guilty for
the sin of Adam, if he has visited upon the innocent the
punishment of the guilty, if he is to torture any single
soul for ever, then it is wrong to worship him.
But there is something to be said also to those who
think that religious beliefs are not indeed true, but are
useful for the masses ; who deprecate any open and public
argument against them, and think that all sceptical books
should be published at a high price ; who go to church,
not because they approve of it themselves, but to set an
example to the servants. Let us ask them to ponder the
words of Plato, who, like them, thought that all these
tales of the gods were fables, but still fables which might
be useful to amuse children with : “T7e ought to esteem vt
of the greatest importance that the fictions which children
first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to
the. promotion of virtue.” If we grant to you that it is
good for poor people and children to believe some of these
fictions, is it not better, at least, that they should believe
those which are adapted to the promotion of virtue ?
Now the stories which you send your servants and chil
dren to hear are adapted to the promotion of vice. So
far as the remedy is in your own hands, you are bound
to apply it; stop your voluntary subscriptions and the
moral support of your presence from any place where the
criminal doctrines are taught. ¥ou will find more men
and better men to preach that which is agreeable to their
conscience, than to thunder out doctrines under which
their minds are always uneasy, and which only a con
tinual self-deception can keep them from feeling to be
wicked'.
Let us now go on to inquire what morality has to say
in the matter of religious ministrations, the official acts
and the general influence of a priesthood. This question
�16
The Bearing of Morals
seems to me a more difficult one than the former ; at any
rate it is not so easy to find general principles which are
at once simple in their nature and clear to the conscience
of any man who honestly considers them. One such
principle, indeed, there is, which can hardly be stated in
a Protestant country without meeting with a cordial
response ; being indeed that characteristic of our race
which made the Reformation a necessity, and became the
soul of the Protestant movement. I mean the principle
which forbids the priest to come between a man and his
conscience. If it be true, as our daily experience teaches
us, that the moral sense gains in clearness and power by
exercise, by the constant endeavour to find out and to see
for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, it must
be nothing short of a moral suicide to delegate our con
science to another man. It is true that when we are in
difficulties, and do not altogether see our way, we quite
rio-htly seek counsel and advice of some friend who has
more experience, more wisdom begot by it, more devo
tion to the right than ourselves, and who, not being in
volved in the difficulties which encompass us, may more
easily see the way out of them. But such counsel does
not and ought not to take the place of our private judg
ment ; on the contrary, among wise men it is asked and
given’for the purpose of helping and supporting private
judgment. I should go to my friend, not that he may
tell me what to do, but that he may help me to see what
is right.
.
Now, as we all know, there is a priesthood whose in
fluence's not to be made light of, even in our own land,
which claims to do two things : to declare with infallible
authority what is right and what is wrong, and to take
away the guilt of the sinner after confession has been
made to it. The second of these claims we shall come
back upon in connection with another part of the sub
ject. But that claim is one which, as it seems to me,
ought to condemn the priesthood making it in the eyes
of every conscientious man. We must take care to keep
�on Religion.
this question to itself, and not to let it be confused with
quite different ones. The priesthood in question, as we
all know, has taught that as right which is not right,
and has condemned as wrong some of the holiest dutiesof mankind. But this is not what we are here concerned
with. Let us put an ideal case of a priesthood which,
as a matter of fact, taught a morality agreeing with thehealthy conscience of all men at a given time ; but which,
nevertheless, taught this as an infallible revelation. The
tendency of such teaching, if really accepted, would be
to destroy morality altogether, for it is of the very essence
of the moral sense that it is a common perception by men
of what is good for man. It arises, not in one man’smind by a flash of genius or a transport of ecstasy, but
in all men’s minds, as the fruit of their necessary inter
course and united labour for a common object. When
an infallible authority is set up, the voice of this natural
human conscience must be hushed and schooled, and
made to speak the words of a formula. Obedience be
comes the whole duty of man; and the notion of right
is attached to a lifeless code of rules, instead of being the
informing character of a nation. The natural conse
quence is that it fades gradually out and ends by disap
pearing altogether. I am not describing a purely con
jectural state of things, but an effect which has actually
been produced at various times and in considerable popu
lations by the influence of the Catholic Church. It is
true that we cannot find an actually crucial instance of
a pure morality taught as an infallible revelation, and so
in time ceasing to be morality for that reason alone.
There are two circumstances which prevent this. One
is that the Catholic priesthood has always practically
taught an imperfect morality, and that it is difficult to
distinguish between the effects of precepts which are
wrong in themselves and precepts which are only wrong
because of the manner in which they are enforced. The
other circumstance is that the priesthood has very rarely
found a population willing to place itself completely and
�18
The Bearing of Morals
absolutely under priestly control. Men must live together
and work for common objects even in priest-ridden
■countries ; and those conditions, which in the course of
ages have been able to create the moral sense, cannot
fail in some degree to recall it to men’s minds and gra
dually to reinforce it. Thus it comes about that a great
and increasing portion of life breaks free from priestly
influences, and is governed upon right and rational
grounds. The goodness of men shows itself in time
more powerful than the wickedness of some of their re
ligions.
The practical inference is, then, that we ought to do
all in our power to restrain and diminish the influence of
any priesthood which claims to rule consciences. But
when we attempt to go beyond this plain Protestant
principle, we find that the question is one of history and
politics. The question which we want to ask ourselves
—“Is it right to support this or that priesthood ?”—can
only be answered by this other question, “ What has it
done or got done ?”
In asking this question, we must bear in mind that
the word priesthood, as we have used it hitherto, has a
very wide meaning—namely, it means any body of men
who perform special ceremonies in the name of religion ;
a ceremony being an act which is prescribed by religion
to that body of men, but not on account of its intrinsic
rightness or wrongness. It includes, therefore, not only
the priests of Catholicism, or of the Obi rites, who lay
claim to a magical character and powers, but the more
familiar clergymen or ministers of Protestant denomina
tions, and the members of monastic orders. But there
is a considerable difference, pointed out by Hume, be
tween a priest, who lays claim to a magical character
and powers, and a clergyman, in the English sense, as
it was understood in Hume’s day, whose office was to
remind people of their duties every Sunday, and
to represent a certain standard of culture in remote
country districts. It will, perhaps, conduce to clear-
�on Religion.
19
ness if we use the word priest exclusively in the first
sense.
There is another confusion which we must endeavour
to avoid, if we would really get at the truth of this
matter. When one ventures to doubt whether the
Catholic clergy has really been an unmixed blessing to
Europe, one is generally met by the reply, “ You cannot
find any fault with the Sermon on the Mount.” Now,
it would be too much to say that this has nothing to do
with the question we were proposing to ask, for there is
a sense in which the Sermon on the Mount and the
Catholic clergy have something to do with each other.
The Sermon on the Mount is admitted on all hands to
be the best and most precious thing that Christianity
has offered to the world ; and it cannot be doubted that
the Catholic clergy of East and West were the only
spokesmen of Christianity until the Reformation, and
are the spokesmen of the vast majority of Christians at
this moment. But it must surely be unnecessary to say,
in a Protestant country, that the Catholic Church and
the Gospel are two very different things. The moral
teaching of Christ, as partly preserved in the three first
gospels, or—which is the same thing—the moral teach
ing of the great Rabbi Hillel, as partly preserved in the
Pirke Aboth, is the expression of the conscience of a
people who had fought long and heroically for their
national existence. In that terrible conflict they had
learned the supreme and overwhelming importance of
conduct, the necessity for those who would survive, of
fighting manfully for their lives and making a stand
against the hostile powers around; the weakness and
uselessness of solitary and selfish efforts, the necessity'
for a man who would be a man to lose his poor single
personality in the being of a greater and nobler com
batant—the nation. And they said all this, after their
fashion of short and potent sayings, perhaps better than
any other men have said it before or since. “ If I am
not for myself,” said the great Hillel, “who is for me ?
�20
The Bearing of Morals
And if I am only for myself, where is the use of me ?
And if not noiv, when ?" It would be hard to find a morestriking contrast than exists between the sturdy unsel
fish independence of this saying, and the abject and
selfish servility of the priest-ridden claimant of the skies.
It was this heroic people that produced the morality of
the Sermon on the Mount. But it was not they who
produced the priests and the dogmas of Catholicism.
Shaven crowns, linen vestments, and the claim to priestly
rule over consciences, these were dwellers on the banks
of the Nile. The gospel indeed came out of Judaea, bub
the Church and her dogmas came out of Egypt. Not,
as it is written, “ Out of Egypt have I called my son,”
but, “ Out of Egypt have I called my daughter.” St.
Gregory of Nazianzum remarks with wonder that Egypt,
having so lately worshipped bulls, goats, and crocodiles,
was now teaching the world the worship of the Trinity
in its truest form.”* Poor, simple St. Gregory! it was
not that Egypt had risen higher, but that the world had
sunk lower. The empire, which in the time of Augustus
had dreaded, and with reason, the corrupting influenceof Egyptian superstitions, was now eaten up by them,
and rapidly rotting away.
Then, when we ask what has been the influence of the
Catholic clergy upon European nations, we are not in
quiring about the results of accepting the morality of the
Sermon on the Mount; we are inquiring into the effect
of attaching an Egyptian priesthood, which teaches
Egyptian dogmas, to the life and sayings of a Jewish
prophet.
In this inquiry, which requires the knowledge of facts
beyond our own immediate experience, we must make
use of the great principle of authority, which enables us
to profit by the experience of other men. The great
civilised countries on the continent of Europe at the
present day—France, Germany, Austria, and Italy—
* See Sharpe, ‘ Egyptian Mythology and Egj ptian Christianity,’ p. 114.
�on Religion.
21
have had an extensive experience of the Catholic ^ergy
for a great number of centuries, and. they are forced by
strong practical reasons to form a. judgment, upon the
•character and tendencies of an institution which is sutficiently powerful to command the attention of all w o
are interested in public affairs. We might add the ex
perience of our forefathers three centuries ago, and ot
Ireland at this moment; but home politics are apt to be
looked upon with other eyes than those of reason. Let
us hear, then, the judgment of the civilised people o
Europe on this question.
It is a matter of notoriety that an aider and abettor ot
clerical pretensions is regarded in France as an enemy
of France and of Frenchmen ; in Germany as an enemy
of Germany and of Germans ; in Austria as an enemy of
Austria and Hungary, of both Austrians and .Magyars ;
and in Italy as an enemy of Italy and the Italians. He
is so regarded, not by a few wild and revolutionary en
thusiasts who have cast away all the beliefs of their
childhood and all bonds connecting them with the past,
but by a great and increasing majority of sober and con
scientious men of all creeds and persuasions, who are
filled with a love for their country, and whose hopes and
aims for the future are animated and guided by the
•examples of those who have gone before them, and by a
sense of the continuity of national life. The profound
conviction and determination of the people in all these
countries, that the clergy must be restricted to a purely
ceremonial province, and must not be allowed to inter
fere, as clergy, in public affairs—this conviction and de
termination, I say, are not the effect of a rejection of the
Catholic dogmas. Such rejection has not in fact been
made in Catholic countries by the great, majority. It
involves many difficult speculative questions, the pro
found disturbance of old habits of thought, and the toil
some consideration of abstract ideas. But such is the
happy inconsistency of human nature, that men who
would be shocked and pained by a doubt about the cen
�22
The Bearing of Morals
tral doctrines of their religions, are far more really and
practically shocked and pained by the moral consequences
of clerical ascendancy. About the dogmas they do not
know; they were taught them in childhood, and have
not inquired into them since, and therefore they are not
competent witnesses to the truth of them. But about
the priesthood they do know, by daily and hourly expe
rience ; and to its character they are competent wit
nesses. JSo man can express his convictions more
forcibly than by acting upon them in a great and solemn
matter of national importance. In all these countries
the conviction of the serious and sober majority of the
people is embodied, and is being daily embodied, in
special legislation, openly and avowedly intended to
guard against clerical aggression." The more closely the
legislature of these countries reflects the popular will,
the more clear and pronounced does this tendency be
come. It may be thwarted or evaded for the moment
by constitutional devices and parliamentary tricks, but
sooner 01 later the nation will be thoroughly represented
in all of them ; and as to what is then to be expected let
the panic of the clerical parties make answer.
This is a state of opinion and of feeling which we in
our own country find it hard to understand, although it
is one of the most persistent characters of our nation in
past times. We have spoken so plainly and struck so
hard in the past, that we seem to have won the right to
let this matter alone. We think our enemies are dead,
and we forget that our neighbour’s enemies are plainly
alive : and then we wonder that he does not sit down,
and be quiet as we are. We are not much accustomed to
be afraid, and we never know when we are beaten. But
those who are nearer to the danger feel a very real and,
it seems to me, well-grounded fear. The whole struc
ture of modern society, the fruit of long and painful
efforts, the hopes of further improvement, the triumphs
of justice, of freedom, and of light, the bonds of patriotism
which make each nation one, the bonds of humanity
�on Religion.
2$
which bring different nations together—all these they
see to be menaced with a great and real and even press
ing danger. For myself, I confess that I cannot help
feeling as they feel. It seems to me quite possible that
the moral and intellectual culture of Europe, the light
and the right, what makes life worth having and men
worthy to have it, may be clean swept away by a revival
of superstition. We are, perhaps, ourselves not free
from such a domestic danger; but no one can doubt that
the danger would speedily arise if all Europe at our side
should become again barbaric, not with the weakness
and docility of a barbarism which has never known better,
but with the strength of a past civilisation perverted to
the service of evil.
Those who know best, then, about the Catholic priest
hood at present, regard it as a standing menace to the
state and to the moral fabric of society.
Some would have us believe that this condition of
things is quite new, and has in fact been created by the
Vatican Council. In the Middle Ages> they say, the
Church did incalculable service ; or even if you do not
allow that, yet the ancient Egyptian priesthood invented
many useful arts; or if you have read anything which is
not to their credit, there were the Babylonians and
Assyrians who had priests, thousands of years ago ; and
in fact, the more you go back into prehistoric ages, and
the further you go away into distant countries, the less
you can find to say against the priesthoods of those
times and places. This statement, for which there is
certainly much foundation, may be put into another
form : the more you come forward into modern times
and neighbouring countries, where the facts can actually
be got at, the more complete is the evidence against the
priesthoods of these times and places. But the whole
argument is founded upon what is at least a doubtful
view of human nature and of society. Just as an early
school of geologists were accustomed to explain the pre
sent state of the earth’s surface by supposing that in
�24
The Bearing of Morals
primitive ages the processes of geologic change were far
more violent and rapid than they are now—so cata
strophic, indeed, as to constitute a thoroughly different
state of things—so there is a school of historians who
think that the intimate structure of human nature, its
capabilities of learning and of adapting itself to society,
have so far altered within the historic period as to make
the present processes of social change totally different in
character from those even of the moderately distant past.
They think that institutions and conditions which are
plainly harmful to us now have at other times and places
■done good and serviceable work. War, pestilence, priest
craft, and slavery have been represented as positive
boons to an early state of society. They are not
blessings to us, it is true; but then times have altered
very much.
On the other hand, a later school of geologists have
■seen reason to think that the processes of change have
never, since the earth finally solidified, been very diffe
rent from what they áre now. More rapid, indeed, they
must have been in early times, for many reasons; but
not so very much more rapid as to constitute an entirely
different state of things. And it does seem to me in
like manner that a wider and more rational view of his
tory will recognise more and more of the permanent and
less and less of the changeable element in human nature.
No doubt our ancestors of a thousand generations back
■were very different beings from ourselves ; perhaps fifty
thousand generations back they were not men at all.
But the historic period is hardly to be stretched beyond
two hundred generations ; and it seems unreasonable to
■expect that in such a tiny page of our biography we can
trace with clearness the growth and progress of a long
life. Compare Egypt in the time of King Menes, say
six thousand years ago, with Spain in this present cen
tury, before Englishmen made any railways there : I
suppose the main difference is that the Egyptians washed
themselves. It seems more analogous to what we find
�on Religion.
2$
in other fields of inquiry, to suppose that there, are cer
tain great broad principles of human life ■which have
been true all along; that certain conditions have always
been favourable to the health of society, and certain
other conditions always hurtful.
Now, although I have many times asked for it, from
those who said that somewhere and at some time man
kind had derived benefits from a priesthood laying claim
to a magical character and powers, I have never been
able to get any evidence for this statement. Nobody
will give me a date, and a latitude and longitude, that I
may examine into the matter. “ In the Middle Ages the
priests and monks were the sole depositories of learning.’*
Quite so ; a man burns your house to the ground, builds
a wretched hovel on the ruins, and then takes credit for
whatever shelter there is about the place. In the Middle
Agesnearly all learned men were obliged to become priests
and monks. “ Then again, the bishops have sometimes
acted as tribunes of the people, to protect them against
the tyranny of kings.” No doubt, when Pope and Caesar
fall out, honest men may come by their own. If two
men rob you in a dark lane, and then quarrel over the
plunder, so that you get a chance to escape with your
life, you will of course be very grateful to each of them
for having prevented the other from killing you; but
you would be much more grateful to a policeman who
locked them both up. Two powers have sought to en
slave the people, and have quarrelled with each other;,
certainly we are very much obliged to them for quarrel
ling, but a condition of still greater happiness and security
would be the non-existence of both.
I can find no evidence that seriously militates against
the rule that the priest is at all times and in all placesthe enemy of all men—Sacerdos semper, ubique, et omni
bus inimicus. I do not deny that the priest is very often
a most earnest and conscientious man, doing the very
best that he knows of as well as he can do it. Lord
Amberley is quite right insayingthat the blame rests more
�06
The Bearing of Morals
.with the laity than with the priesthood; that it has in
sisted on magic and mysteries, and has forced the priest
hood to produce them. But then, how dreadful is the
system that puts good men to such uses!
And although it is true that in its origin a priesthood is
the effect of an evil already existing, a symptom of social
.disease rather than a cause of it, yet, once being created
and made powerful, it tends in many ways to prolong
and increase the disease which gave it birth. One of
these ways is so marked and of such practical import
ance that we are bound to consider it here; I mean the
education of children. If there is one lesson which his
tory forces upon us in every page, it is this : keep your
children away from the priest, or he will make them the
enemies of mankind. It is not the Catholic clergy and
those like them who are alone to be dreaded in this
matter ; even the representatives of apparently harmless
religions may do incalculable mischief if they get educa
tion into their hands. To the early Mohammedans the
mosque was the one public building in every place where
public business could be transacted ; and so it was natu
rally the place of primary education, which they held to
be a matter of supreme importance. By-and-bye, as the
clergy grew up, the mosque was gradually usurped by
them, and primary education fell into their hands. Then
ensued a “ revival of religion
religion became a fana
ticism : books were burnt and universities were closed ;
the empire rotted away in East and West, until it was
conquered by Turkish savages in Asia and by Christian
savages in Spain.
The labours of students of the early history of institu
tions—notably Sir Henry Maine and M. Laveleye—have
disclosed to us an element of society which appears to
have existed in all times and places, and which is the
basis of our own social structure. The village commu
nity, or commune, or township, found in tribes of the
most vaiied race and time, has so modified itself as to
get adapted in one place or another to all the different
�on Religion.
27
•conditions of human existence. This union of men to
work for a common object has transformed them from
wild animals into tame ones. _ Century by century the
educating process of the social life has been working at
.human nature; it has built itself into our inmost soul.
Such as we are—moral and rational beings—thinking
and talking in general conceptions about the facts that
make up our life, feeling a necessity to act, not for our
selves, but for Ourself, for the larger life of Man in which
wre are elements ; such moral and rational beings, I say,
Man has made us. By Man I mean men organized into
a society, which fights for its life, not only as a mere col
lection of men who must separately be kept alive, but as
a society. It must fight, not only against external ene
mies, but against treason and disruption within it.
Hence comes the unity of interest of all its members;
each of them has to feel that he is not himself only but
a part of all the rest. Conscience—the sense of right
and wrong—-^springs out of the habit of judging things
from the point of view of all and not of one. It is Our
self, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness.
The codes of morality, then, which are adopted into
various religions, and afterwards taught as parts of reli
gious systems, are derived from secular sources. The
most ancient version of the Ten Commandments, what
ever the investigations of scholars may make it out to
be, originates, not in the thunders of Sinai, but in the
peaceful life of men on the plains of Chaldsea. Conscience
is the voice of Man ingrained into our hearts, command
ing us to work for Man.
Religions differ in the treatment which they give to
this most sacred heirloom of our past history. Some
times they invert its precepts—telling men to be sub■ missive under oppression because the powers that be are
ordained of God ; telling them to believe where they have
not seen, and to play with falsehood in order that a par
ticular doctrine may prevail, instead of seeking for truth
. whatever it may be ; telling them to betray their country
�28
The Bearing of Morals
for the sake of their church; But there is one great dis
tinction to which I wish, in conclusion, to call special
attention—a distinction between two kinds of religious
emotion which bear upon the conduct of men.
We said that conscience is the voice of Man within
us, commanding us to work for Man. We do not know
this immediately by our own experience; we only know
that something within us commands us to work for Man.
This fact men have tried to explain ; and they have
thought, for the most part, that this voice was the
voice of a god. But the explanation takes two dif
ferent forms: the god may speak in us for Man’s
sake, or for his own sake.
If he speaks for his
own sake—and this is what generally happens when
he has priests who lay claim to a magical charac
ter and powers—our allegiance is apt to be taken away
from Man, and transferred to the god. When we love
our brother for the sake of our brother we help all men
to grow in the right; but when we love our brother for
the sake of somebody else, who is very likely to damn
our brother, it very soon comes to burning him alive for
his soul’s health. When men respect human life for the
sake of Man, tranquillity, order, and progress go hand in
hand ; but those who only respected human life because
God had forbidden murder, have set their mark upon
Europe in fifteen centuries of blood and fire.
These are only two examples of a general rule. Wher
ever the allegiance of men has been diverted from Man
to some divinity who speaks to men for his own sake and
seeks his own glory, one thing has happened. The right
precepts might be enforced, but they were enforced upon
wrong grounds, and they were not obeyed. But right
precepts are not always enforced ; the fact that the foun
tains of morality have been poisoned makes it easy to
substitute wrong precepts for right ones.
To this same treason against humanity belongs the
claim of the priesthood to take away the guilt of a sinner
after confession has been made to it. The Catholic priest
�on Religion.
professes to act as an ambassador for his God, and to
absolve the guilty man by conveying to him the forgive
ness of heaven. If his credentials were ever so sure, it
he were indeed the ambassador of a superhuman power,
the claim would be treasonable. Can the favour of the
Czar make guiltless the murderer of old men and women
and children in Circassian valleys ? Can the pardon of
the Sultan make clean the bloody hands.of a Pasha?
As little can any God forgive sins committed against
man. When men think he can, they compound for old
sins which the god did not like by committing new ones
which he does like. Many a remorseful despot has
atoned for the levities of his youth by the persecution of
heretics in his old age. That frightful crime, the adul
teration of food, could not possibly be so common
amongst us if men were not taught to regard it as merely
objectionable because it is remotely connected with
stealing, of which God has expressed his disapproval in
the Decalogue ; and therefore, as quite naturally set
right by a punctual attendance at church on Sundays.
When a Ritualist breaks his fast before celebrating the
Holy Communion, his deity can forgive him, if he likes,
for the matter concerns nobody else; but no deity can
forgive him for preventing his parishioners from setting
up a public library and reading room for fear they should
read Mr. Darwin’s works in it. That sin is committed
against the people, and a god cannot take it away.
I call those religions which undermine the supreme
allegiance of the conscience to Man ultramontane reli
gions, because they seek their springs of action ultra
monies, outside of the common experience and daily life
of man. And I remark about them that they are espe
cially apt to teach wrong precepts, and that even when
they command men to do the right things they put the
command upon wrong motives, and do not get the things
done.
But there are forms of religious emotion which do not
thus undermine the conscience. Par be it from me to
�3©
The Bearing of Morals on Religion.
undervalue the help and strength which many of the
bravest of our brethren have drawn from the thought of
an unseen helper of men. He who, wearied or stricken
in the fight with the powers of darkness, asks himself in
a solitary place, “ Is it all for nothing ? shall we indeed
be overthrown ?” He does find something which may
justify that thought. In such a moment of utter sin
cerity, when a man has bared his own soul before the
immensities and the eternities, a presence, in which his
own poor personality is shrivelled into nothingness,
arises within him, and says, as plainly as words can say,
“ I am with thee, and I am greater than thou.” Many
names of gods, of many shapes, have men given to thispresence; seeking by names and pictures to know more
clearly and to remember more continually the guide and
the helper of men. No such comradeship with the Great:
Companion shall have anything but reverence from me,)
who have known the divine gentleness of Denison
Maurice, the strong and healthy practical instinct of
Charles Kingsley, and who now revere with all my heart
the teaching of James Martineau. They seem to me, one
and all, to be reaching forward with loving anticipation
to a clearer vision which is yet to come—tencLentesque
manus ripcB ulterioris amore. For, after all, such a helper ,
of men, outside of humanity, the truth will not allow us
to see. The dim and shadowy outlines of the super
human deity fade slowly away from before us; and as
the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with
greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander
and nobler figure—of Him who made all gods and shall
unmake them. From the dim dawn of history, and from
the inmost depth of every soul, the face of our father
Man looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in
his eyes, and says, “ Before Jehovah was, I am !”
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and
to encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science,
—physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature,
and Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement
and social well-being of mankind.
THE“ SOCIETYS LECTURES
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,
1878, 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 and the published lectures apply (by letter, enclos
ing postage-stamps, order, or cheque), to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm.
Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door One Penny Sixpence ;—and
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
�The Society’s Lectures by Professor Clifford are —
On “ Body and Mind.”
On “ The first and the last Catastrophe : A criticism on some
recent speculations about the duration of the Universe.”
On “ Right and Wrong; the scientific ground of their dis
tinction.”
On “ The Bearing of Morals on Religion.”
The price of each of the above Lectures is 3d., or post-free 3|d.
On “ Atoms ; being an Explanation of what is Definitely
Known about them.”
Price Id. Two, post-free, 2|d.
Recently Printed,
Mr. A. E. FIN CH. On “ The Influence of Astronomical Dis
covery in the Development of the Human Mind.” With
Woodcut Illustrations.
Miss F. MILLER. On “The Lessons of a Life:—Harriet
Martineau.”
Dr. G. G. ZERFFI. On “ The Eastern Question; from a
Religious and Social point of view.”
The price of each of the above Lectures is 3d., or post-free 3|d.
Can be obtained (on remittance of postage stamps) of the Hon.
Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Cres
cent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of Lecture;
or of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158 Oxford Street, W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The bearing of morals on religion : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 4th March, 1877
Creator
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Clifford, William Kingdon [1845-1879]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A list of the Society's lectures by Professor Clifford on back page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Sunday Lecture Society
Date
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1877
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N090
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Ethics
Religion
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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 bearing of morals on religion : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 4th March, 1877), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
NSS
Religion and Ethics
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
!
CIVILIZATION:
A SKETCH OF ITS
RISE AND PROGRESS ;
MODERN SAFEGUARDS & FUTURE PROSPECTS
Jfcrlix«
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 20th FEBRUARY, 1876.
A.
ELLEY
FINCH.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1876.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON :
PRINTED RY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET
HAYMARKET, W.
�ft 24 £
SYLLABUS.
The Creation from the stand-point of Science.
Autobiography of the Earth, and of Life on its
surface, from its fluid state through intense heat to
its attaining fitness for human habitation.
This knowledge revealed through the sciences of
Astronomy and Geology, which exhibit terrestrial
existence as a progress towards Intelligence under
the dominion of Divine Law.
Civilization explained as Man’s progress, by means
of his reason, towards the gratification of his social
impulse to live peaceably, morally, and happily.
Civilized man first found in Asia—His progress
barred by Superstition retarding the development of
his reason.
Historical illustrations from Oriental civilizations.
Civilized man in Europe. The growth of his
reason enables him to diminish Superstition, to
interpret Nature, and to exchange the theological
doctrine of Arbitrary Will for the scientific principle
of Invariable Law.
Historical illustrations from European civilizations.
The influence of Supernatural Religion.
The extinction of Superstition assured, and modern
Civilization protected from decay, by our possession
. of a criterion of Truth, a standard of Right, and a
reserve of Moral Force chiefly derived from—
�IV
Syllabus.
1. —Our knowledge of the Order and Uniformity
of Nature. The method of the govern
ment of the World. Man’s position in it.
2. —Our means of preserving and diffusing
Truth and Moral Sentiment through the
Printing Press—the Steam Engine—the
Electric Telegraph.
■ B.—International Conscience, created by Com
mercial Intercourse.
4. —Public Opinion based, on Free Discussion.
5. —Political Government through the Represen
tative
Our present Civilization a state of relative Bar
barism, attested by the existence of pauperism, over
work, vice, crime, disease, premature death, &c.
The causes of these calamities.
Prospect of great increase of human happiness and
virtue from the application of knowledge to the
improvement of the breed of Man.
How a City of “ Hygeia ” may become a possible
reality.
�CIVILIZATION:
A SKETCH OF ITS
RISE AND PROGRESS; ITS MODERN SAFEGUARDS
/
AND FUTURE PROSPECTS.
WILL ask you, for our present purpose, to dismiss
from your minds all that you may have heard con
cerning “the Creation,” as a stupendous event, represented'
as occurring, according to the precise arithmetic of our
patristic chronologers, 4,004 years anterior to the birth of
Christ; and, in place of that definite intelligence, of which
I may seem to be about to deprive you, to substitutewhat science tells us in relation to it.
In the vocabulary of science, “ creation ” is a term
simply expressive of our absolute ignorance of the be
ginning of the present order of the Universe. Science
knows nothing of Creation, having discovered only evo
lution. But, whilst it can find no trace of the Creation,
some 6,000 years ago, science can tell us something of
the history of our planet, during those millions of ages
in which it was undergoing a process of gradual cooling,
from a condition molten with intense heat, until it ar
rived at a state of temperature and atmosp here fitted
for the existence of man, and when, accordingly, man
made his appearance on its surface. This knowledge is
essential for any comprehensive understanding of human
civilization.
At the time of man’s first appearance, the Earth, and
everything upon it, appear to have been ruled by those
natural laws, especially of Motion, of Heat, and of Grravi-
I
�6
Civilization.
tation, from the study of which has been built up that
vast body of positive knowledge, termed collectively the
Physical Sciences; for science, however defined, is
strictly the pursuit of law, and, man being born under
a system of law, his intellectual nature is to seek and
discover it. The science of Astronomy, in its calcula
tions of the most ancient events, as well as in its predic
tion of those that are to come, is founded on the axiom
that all its phenomena are subjected to invariable Law,
and that there has not been in the times under conside
ration, and that there never will be in the future, any
exercise of arbitrary or over-riding Will.
The first clear view which we obtain, through science,
of the early condition of the Earth, presents it to us as a
ball of matter, fluid with fervent heat, spinning on its
axis, and revolving round the sun. The science of geo
logy then exhibits to us the remains of a long preorganic
period, termed the Azoic, or that in which life was not;
then the remains of an orderly progression of organic
life whose existence had corresponded with the varying
condition of the earth’s slowly changing atmosphere and
temperature, such series extending backwards over an
incalculable, but undoubtedly enormous, period of time,
termed the Palaeozoic, or that of antique life.
Now, when we transport our minds back to these pri
meval ages, we are enabled, apart from any of the preju
dice with which we approach the consideration of the
subject during the period of human existence, to con
template clearly two very important and distinct things,
each of which is by some minds even yet denied or
doubted. The one is, the divine principle upon which
life on Earth is governed ; the other is, that orderly and
gradual change, towards a determinate end, termed
progress.
At the remote period to which I am referring it can
hardly be doubted by an unprejudiced mind that the
government of our Earth was a dominion of physical
law, for there is no discovered indication whatever, in
�Civilization.
7
deed there then existed no subject whatever, of moral
government. The Earth tells u£ its own history, not
founded on fables but on facts, through the sciences of
astronomy and geology, and the entire range of terres
trial phenomena brought to light by those sciences are
all found to be in harmony with the effects of the ope
ration of the mathematical law which regulates the
gradual cooling of a vast body, such as, in size and
shape, we know our Earth to be.
Now our knowledge of this life of our globe, previously
to man’s appearance is, comparatively speaking, quite
modern. It has been revealed to us through a number
of discoveries, made by a succession of scientific men, all
flourishing within about the last 300 years. I may say
that the very basis of the facts and reasonings upon
which it rests was the geometrical conception of our solar
system by Copernicus, whose book on the revolutions of
the celestial orbs was published in the year 1543. That
conception, as most of you know, was in direct opposi
tion to the prevailing religious views of his time. Those
views, derived from texts of Scripture, and dogmas of the
Fathers, asserted that the Earth was the centre of the
Universe and immovable, and that the sun and stars
moved round it. Copernicus, on the other hand, de
duced from mathematical considerations a theory directly
the reverse of this. He showed reasons for assuming
that the sun was the centre, and relatively immovable,
and that the Earth and other planets moved round the
sun. When Copernicus divined this theory there was
no sufficient astronomical science, or power of penetrat
ing space (for the telescope had not then been invented),
to corroborate or refute him, and, so little did the eccle
siastics of his day appreciate the probable correctness,
or comprehend the vast significance of his theory, that
his great work was published at the solicitation of a
Cardinal, and dedicated to Pope Paul III. Copernicus
died before his work was fully before the world, and,
with the exception of a courageous expression of con
�8
Civilization.
currence by the ill-fated Giordano Bruno, hardly any
serious notice was taken of it. Nearly a century after
wards, indeed, at a time when, through astronomical
observations by means of the telescope, and philosophical
reasonings resulting from the discovery of the laws of
motion by the illustrious Galileo, and by the publication
in 1632 of his remarkable Dialogue respecting the oppo
site systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus, the sublime yet
simple grandeur of the Copernican system began to be
verified as true, then the infallible Church became
roused to resentment, and condemned Galileo to abjure
his views; to solemnly declare that the proposition
maintained in his dialogue, that the sun is the centre of
the world and immovable, was absurd, false, and ex
pressly contrary to Holy Scripture, and that his other
proposition, that the earth is not the centre of the world,
and that it moves, is absurd and false, and erroneous in
faith.
Next in importance to the discovery of the laws of
motion was the grand discovery, by the astronomer
Kepler, of the laws that regulate the planetary motions.
This extraordinary man, one of the last of the old
astrologers, by the help of a mass of observations of the
Heavens, recorded for the most part by his celebrated
precursor Tycho Brahe, discovered the three great laws
which actually regulate all the movements of the
planets, including our Earth, round the sun ; and the
subsequent marvellous discovery by Sir Isaac Newton of
the very cause itself of Kepler’s laws, viz.—the princi
ple of Universal Gravitation, showed, that those laws
might actually have been predicted as well as observed,
Newton proving, by mathematical deductions from his
discovered principle, that all bodies attract each other
with a force directly as their masses and inversely as
the squares of their distances; that the movements of
the celestial bodies, their described areas, their elliptical
orbits, the relation of the squares of their times to the
cubes of their distances, may be mathematically
�Civilization.
9
accounted for, and are indeed mathematically neces
sary !
But the fact which strikes the reason with perhaps
greatest force, as revealing the vast duration of the past
history of our planet, is the Earth’s peculiar form, which
was also discovered, through mathematical calculations,
by Sir Isaac Newton. The history of this discovery is
interesting.
In the year 1691—the astronomer Dominic Cassini,
whom Louis XIV. had placed over the observatory of
Paris, looking through his telescope at the planet Jupi
ter, was struck by observing that the figure of the
planet was not round, as had been supposed, but oblate,
or flattened at the poles. The reason of this peculiar
flattening at the poles, as regards the planet Jupiter,
we are not now concerned to follow, beyond remarking
that, as it evidently had resulted from the planet’s move
ments in obedience to the laws of motion and gravita
tion, it suggested that the Earth must have a similar
shape. That is to say, a body revolving round an axis
gives to those particles the greatest tendency to fly off
which move with the greatest velocity, those, viz., which
are furthest from the centre of rotation and nearest the
equator, whilst those particles near the poles, describing
smaller circles, move slower, and have less tendency to
fly
hence there would be an accumulation of matter
towards the equator, whilst the poles would be depressed
or flattened. Now,-if the body were fluid such ten
dency must have the effect of shaping it accordingly,
causing its equatorial axis to be longer than its polar.
The intellectual consequences of this apparently sim
ple matter have been amazing. It led at once to the
discovery by Newton of the actual form of our Earth,
Newton solving the problem by an application of the
dynamics of his immortal Principia, on the supposition
that the Earth had been originally fluid, and thence cal
culating that its diameter at the equator would be to its
diameter at the poles, as 230 is to 229—and the Earth’s
B
�IO
Civilization.
elliptic figure, which he thus arrived at, was subsquently
verified by actual admeasurement! Now, the consili
ence of these results, the correspondence of the fact
with the theory, is, considered rationally, a resistless
proof of the original high temperature of our globe,
when it must hate been fluid from intense heat; fluid
and solid being the opposite material effects of heat and
cold.
The age then of our planet is no fact of supernatural
revelation, nor is it a question to be decided by autho
rity or tradition. It is simply a mathematical problem,
that is, regard being had to the discovered laws of motion,
of heat, and of gravitation, to determine the time of the
cooling of a rotating globe, of known diameter and conducibility, by the radiation of its heat into space—and
even an approximate solution of such problem must con
vince us, that our Earth has existed for myriads of ages,
and, moreover, that it has been moulded into its pre
sent shape by mechanical means, that is, by secondary
causes.
The discoveries which have been made, through the
investigations of geologists into the Earth’s crust, of the
evidence of the action of heat in remote ages, and of
the countless remains of extinct plants and animals of
different species, all having apparently successively arisen
and died out in close correlation with the changes in
their physical surroundings consequent on the Earth’s
gradual decline of temperature, are not only in harmony
with but, confirmatory of, the discoveries of the astro
nomers, and the two, taken together, form cogent evi
dence of the fact of the state of our planet at the time
of man’s first appearance having been the result of a
process of cooling continued through ’enormously long
periods of time, not without oscillations, sometimes of
the reverse of heat, as shown in the remains of the gla
cial epochs.
They are also evidence of the two important matters
to which I have referred. They show that the divine
�Civilization.
Il
government of the earth had been and was a dominion
of primordial law, and they show that the series of
countless changes, that had occurred throughout the
lapse of those preceding ages, constituted progress, for,
when looked at as a whole, they appear as a continuous,
orderly, and progressive change towards the develop
ment of intelligence. Life and mind gradually becom
ing properties of matter, or matter becoming inhabited
by life and mind. Throughout the entire animal series
there is distinctly seen a progressively ascending nervous
development with its correlated or parallel phenomena,
automatic, instinctive, rational ; this progress amongst
the vertebrates consistingin their increasing resemblance
to man, and, when we take into one view the whole suc
cession of organisms including man, whether we regard
it physiologically or historically, we find the direction
•of evolution is towards the intellectual. Indeed, phy
siologically, there is no apparent provision in the nervous
system for moral improvement save through the intel
lectual, and historically (regarding our race rather than
the individual), we find it is the intellectual that has led
the way in social advancement, the moral being subor
dinate ; even our monitor within, the conscience, being
seen to be an organ of the mind, and to be strengthened
and purified in proportion to the education of the intel
lect.
I should here remark that though, whilst we are
summing up the results of immense periods of geological
time, progress is very clearly visible, yet that when we
attempt to gauge its rate of advance during so compara
tively brief a period of historical time as human civili
zation, it is sometimes scarcely discernible. Now, this
is owing to the rate of change in man’s physical sur
roundings being itself so slow as scarcely to be measur
able by human means, our planet having attained so
nearly a condition of equilibrium that, since the age of
the astronomer Hipparchus, who flourished about a cen
tury and a half before the Christian Era, the length of
�12
Civilization.
our solar day (according to the calculations of Laplace)
has only varied the fraction of a second of time !
Thus have I endeavoured to present to you some idea
of the grand principle or Law of progress, that vast
orderly concourse, which has successively risen in the
past, introduced the present, and is preparing the future,
and of which Human Civilization is the now continuing
phase, or further development, under the divine domi
nion of natural immutable Law.
Wherever we find man, or the traces of his former
existence, there is one fact which invariably meets us,
viz. : That the nature of the human being is social,
that is, he has an instinct which impels him to live in
the society of his fellow-creatures; and, generalising our
knowledge of his history, I may venture to define the
complex term “civilization,” as man’s progress by means
of his reason, acting under the control of natural law,
towards the gratification of his social impulse to live
with his fellow-creatures peaceably, morally, and hap
pily, and in accordance with the ever-increasing know
ledge for accomplishing this object that results from the
gradual improvement of his intelligence, for, another
fact, which history teaches us, seems undeniable, viz.—•
That the intelligence of our species has improved, and
is improving; that the powers of the mind grow with
the possessions of the mind.
The most ancient accounts we have of man show us
that originally, or as near as we can get at his origin,
his condition was barbarous and brutal, his tastes, his
habits, and his understanding apparently only in degree
elevated above those of the animal life below him.
They were such as we see in the savages of the present
day, which have been so closely observed and described
by modern travellers, especially by one whose untimely
end will ever be lamented by this Society, for the first
only lecture which the late Winwood Read lived to
deliver in this Hall gave hopes of future brilliant and
instructive discourses.
�Civilization.
J3
If you have followed my introductory argument, I
need hardly impress upon you that man’s career has been
one of constant progress, however slow and variable, from
the barbarism of the savage to our present comparatively
high condition. There have been and are, however,
writers who think differently, and who have inferred
that man was originally civilized, and afterwards became
degraded to the savage state. In the face of the primor
dial law of progress, which is traceable throughout the
countless ages during which the Earth has been the
abode of organic life, to hold that man was first civi
lized and afterwards retrograded to the savage state, is,
scientifically speaking, the same as it would be to hold,
in the face of the primordial law of gravitation, that the
rivers, which we now find flowing from the valleys of
the hills downwards to the sea, commenced originally
by flowing upwards from the sea towards the hills.
The earliest Civilizations of which we have any
authentic accounts are those of the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the Egyptians. They
were all located in or near the Torrid Zone of our Earth,
and they were probably the earliest manifestations of
civilized man, since there are strong reasons for con
cluding that man’s birth-place was in the warmer regions
of our globe. When first these ancient communities
became known to us, man had already achieved the
primary step towards his civilization, that which
enables him to advance by means of the experience of his
predecessors—the invention of written characters, or
means of recording past events.
These civilizations were, intellectually and morally,
very far inferior to the civilizations which have subse
quently flourished in the European or Temperate Zone
of the Earth, and they were all characterised more or
less by the fact that the great masses of the people were
uncared for, often treated as slaves, and always more or
less oppressed. The upper ranks of their rude societies
monopolized not only power, but nearly all such enjoy
�14
Civilization.
ments of life as their civilization produced. Their
mental powers were for the most part absorbed in the
cultivation of gross superstitions, or in weaving systems
of philosophy which were not based upon observed facts,
but were the offspring of imagination, clothed in the
allegories and subtleties of Oriental speech, or their
active powers were exhibited in styles of architecture
based upon the employment and display of great physi
cal force. If we attempt any general review of their
intellectual productions, their theology, their law, or their
science, we find that they follow a marked tendency to
fall into system and to stagnate. The mind of the
Asiatic seems essentially synthetic, that is, ideas are
added together rather than separated and analysed, and
such adding together being a process that is sooner
brought to an end, everything becomes invariable; there
ensues what in Europe is called stagnation, though in
the East it is considered repose.
Eastern civilizations appear to have reached a certain
point, and there to have stopped, hindered probably
from advancing by reason of their knowledge being
bound up with theological opinions held to be sacred
and immutable, or by reason of their mental constitu
tion having attained the natural limit imposed by their
climate and surrounding physical circumstances. Those
physical surroundings being such as powerfully to exalt
the imagination, for the sublimity and grandeur of the
aspects of Nature in the Torrid Zone, the suddenness
and violence of her convulsions, engender terror and
depress the reasoning faculty, suggesting the perpetual
interference of a supernatural Will, and so give rise to
those appalling superstitions which have to so great an
extent been inherited by Europeans, and, in their disas
trous influence upon the peace and happiness of life,
have probably done more to hinder the progress of civi
lization than any of the numerous inventions and
luxuries, derived from the East, have done to advance it.
It is not until, following the migrations of man
�Civilization.
15
from his birth-place, we find him in the climate of
Europe we can discover that any considerable progress
has been made towards the social happiness of our race.
Ancient Greece is the country where we first find man
shaping the course of his life by the exercise of his
reasoning faculties, and gradually noting those invari
able sequences in surrounding phenomena that indicate
the settled order of nature, and free the mind from the
bondage of superstition, beginning to observe and in
vestigate nature, and gradually exchanging the theolo
gical doctrine of the government of Life by arbitrary
Supernatural Will, for the scientific doctrine of such
government being regulated by invariable Natural Law.
In ancient Greece this beginning was made. In the
cross-examining elenchus of Socrates, in the logical
organon of Aristotle, in the mathematical science of
Euclid, in the mechanical genius and resources of
Archimedes, we find exhibited in wonderful distinctness
the analytical character of the European intellect, that
quality which gives birth to doubt, impels to inquiry,
and demands a reason, and which, transferred to Alex
andria, flourished there in such remarkable exuberance.
In the lives of the great men of Greece we also find
moral qualities that were unknown in the East. Yet
much of Grecian learning was evidently derived from
Oriental sources, more particularly from Egypt, several
of the Grecian sages having visited that country—
Amongst others, Pythagoras had resided at Thebes,
Solon at Sais, Thales and Democritus at Memphis,
Plato at Heliopolis. But what they derived from the
East the different physiological and intellectual endow
ments of the Greeks materially modified and improved ;
and we, now looking back, can plainly perceive that
many of the ancient Grecians had just, however elemen
tary, notions of the various problems, still under contro
versy, in theology, law, politics, natural science and
philosophy.
With respect to their fascinating philosophy, which,
�i6
Civilization.
from the period of its birth under the shadow of the
Pyramids to its final extinction in the very same place,
extended over a period of twelve hundred years, it can
hardly be affirmed that it has added very much to our
stock of practical wisdom, or that it has greatly assisted
in promoting the happiness of the human race. In the
few words I can now bestow upon it I am constrained to
say rather that the Greek philosophy, on the whole,
affords little else than a picture of the subtlety and
restlessness of the human mind. Its professors, with a
few exceptions, instead of observation and experiment,
satisfied themselves with constructing, by means of
metaphysical verbiage, ideal theories, and these, want
ing the facts of nature for their basis, have chiefly
served to perplex the human understanding and to
retard the advancement of useful knowledge. Greek
Philosophy was a failure, because its method was a false
one.
To her mathematicians, however, great admiration is
due, for, as Condorcet said, the sailor, who now escapes
from shipwreck by an exact observation of the longitude,
owes his safety to the speculations in quest of Truth of
the ancient Greek geometers, since it was their mathe
matical reasonings that brought about the renovation of
the science of astronomy, which has since led to the
present perfection of the art of navigation.
Passing onwards from contemplation of the life of
ancient Greece, the mind is arrested by the civilization
of the ancient Bomans; but, in the slight survey I am
taking of the progress of mankind towards the attain
ment of social and individual happiness, though that illus
trious people aspired to an Imperial sovereignty that event
ually subjugated almost the entire then existing civilized
world, if we inquire what they effected towards man’s
intellectual and moral advancement, the account, with
one exception, is not considerable. In intellectual ac
quirements, as well as in original genius, they were
inferior to the ancient Greeks, from whom indeed they
�Civilization.
acquired the greater part of what real knowledge they
possessed. In their language and literature this con
trast is conspicuous, but in one respect, and that cer
tainly of the highest moment to our argument, they
did make a decided advance.
They showed a re
markable aptitude for the science of Jurisprudence
and for political and municipal government, and the
protection afforded to life and property under Roman
rule was very greatly superior to what the world had
ever previously seen. We perhaps can hardly realize
the proud self-respect with which a Roman citizen
asserted his simple credentials—“ Oivis Romanus sum.”
Still however, if we look to the condition of the
people at large, we find them subjected to great tyranny
and oppression—an absence of anything approaching
our own notions of the dignity and happiness involved
in a life of honest industry. The populace of Rome
itself being encouraged in idleness and sensuality, sup
ported very largely by contributions wrung from the
conquered countries that formed the outlying provinces
of the Empire, and kept amused by the frequency of
brutalizing gladiatorial shows.
The superstitions of the ancient mythologies were,
as superstitions usually are, thoroughly inculcated upon
the credulity of the masses, and, though the educated
class, of necessity a small one, utterly disbelieved and
despised them, there was no possibility of freedom of
discussion respecting such matters. The morals of the
ancient Romans under the Emperors were extremely
impure, especially in everything relating to the true
position of woman, and, although many eminent men
of lofty principles and pure lives are found amongst
their Philosophers, especially of the distinguished sect of
Stoics, such men as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius, yet such characters were rare, and the general
moral tone of their society, summed up with graphic
force in Mr. Leckie’s instructive volumes, was degrading
and selfish. But the genius or overmastering passion
�Civilization.
of the Roman People was for military conquest and
territorial annexation, and at last their unwieldy
Empire became too extensive to hold together, and was
overwhelmed by the incursions of the barbarian nations
by whom they were surrounded, and whose enmity
they had so often provoked.
If it be asked what then became of the Romans, we
must answer that they were actually obliterated, for the
Roman ethnical element, any more than the Roman proper
names, cannot be said to have survived in the degenerate
half-breeds that resulted from the settlement on their
soil of the hordes of invaders to whose prodigious
numbers the Roman legions had succumbed, and whose,
inferior natures composed the mongrel Italian popula
tion, which throughout the middle or dark ages was
the main support of that monstrous superstition, the
mediaeval Papacy, which then ruled the emasculated
minds of those credulous men who, abdicating their
God-like prerogative of reason, sought refuge in a
fatuous faith that led them to cringe with servility at
the feet of Pontiffs, whose history is indeed imposing,
but whose lives were infamous, and whose object was,
notthe promotion of civilization, but the aggrandize
ment of their Church.
For, throughout the long ages during which the
papal despotism was omnipotent, (from about the 5th
to the 15th centuries,) nothing whatever was done by
that baleful tyranny towards advancing Civilization,
nothing to forward intellectual development. Its policy
was to subjugate the human mind, and to keep men
illiterate and ignorant, well knowing that, whilst ignor
ance is the mother of devotion, knowledge is power.
Century after century passed away without any real
improvement in the condition of the people, and it is a
fact, very shocking to those who comprehend its full
meaning, that at the end of a thousand years of this
government under an ‘ infallible ’ head, the population
of Europe had scarcely doubled !
�Civilization.
J9
After the fall of the ancient Civilizations it is not
until about the end of the 15th century of our era that
we can find much trace of any real improvement in the
social life and happiness of the people at large, but an
impartial study of history from about that time com
pels us to conclude that the progress Europe has made
from barbarism is' really due to its intellectual activity,
and that, though eminent individuals, whose virtuous
lives seemed essential as examples of moral principles,
die, and nations, that had attained the pinnacles of
political power, decay, and superstitions, that once ruled
the mind of the community, become extinct, yet, when
man, in some fresh latitude springs up, forms societies,
and cultivates his reasoning faculties, we observe that
in proportion as he endeavours to guide his life by the
dictates of reason, so does his civilization, that is, all
that tends to make him moral and happy and free,
follow in his wake.
The greatest foe to Civilization has been Super
naturalism, that principle which is the genius of every
religion whose object is to withdraw man from the
study and improvement and regard for this world, to
the contemplation of a future state of existence in a
world that is to come. To depreciate the present life
as fleeting and worthless compared with the life of that
unknown world where happiness and repose are expected
to be everlasting.
To attempt to trace in outline, however vague, the
history of Civilization without some allusion to the part
which religion has played in it, would I have no doubt
strike you as involving an obvious omission, and there
fore I shall venture to refer to the part which Chris
tianity has taken. This indeed is not easy in a sketch,
for to say all I could wish on the subject would be dis
proportionate to the rest of the picture. In regard to
one form of Christianity, that which was represented
by the Romish Church in the Middle Ages, I have
already made some remarks; what I can now say must
�20
Civilization.
have reference to it as it is manifested in the Life and
Sayings of Christ himself, as we find them portrayed
in the New Testament writings.
Now Civilization, as I am viewing it, is the progress
of this world and of this life, through the advance of
human intelligence, and it has for its main object the
getting rid of poverty and misery, and promoting worldly
prosperity, human enterprise, and happiness. Chris
tianity, as exhibited in the life and sayings of its great
founder, was not put forth as a supernatural scheme for
improving the affairs of this world, which indeed was
believed to be then shortly coming to an end, but for
establishing an unworldly kingdom in its stead, or in
opposition to it. Poverty was not to be got rid of, but
to be caressed. The Poor were to be the blest, those
who had riches were to sell their possessions and give
what they had to the poor. No thought was to be
taken for the morrow. Happiness here was not the end
in view at all. A man was to fling all he had at the
foot of the Cross and follow Christ—a man of sorrows.
The maxims of the great modern Science of organised
industry, Political Economy, a main source of our pre
sent prosperity, are set at nought by it. In fine, the
genius of Christianity, as a supernatural religion, like the
genius of nearly every other supernatural religion, is the
very opposite of the genius of Civilization, and, so far as
it has been believed in and followed as such, when we
call to mind the frightful religious wars, crusades, per
secutions, massacres, and atrocities that have followed
its footsteps—the dread Tribunal of the Inquisition,
with its horrible apparatus for the torture and vivisec
tion, not of the lower animals for the ends of science,
but of man himself, for the glory of God and in the
name of Christ, we may be permitted at least to doubt
whether the march of Civilization has been most aided
or most hindered by it.
If indeed Jesus of Nazareth had been always regarded,
in reference to his pure and beneficent life and sublime
�Civilization.
21
precepts, simply as a great moral Teacher, the case
would have been otherwise, for much of that which we
may suppose, and are taught, that Civilization owes to
supernatural Christianity is owing in reality to that
moral and social standard which the advance of human
intelligence and culture, through a succession of great
minds (amongst whom Christ shines conspicuous), has
woven into our course of life, and which is partly de
rived from Greek and Roman exemplars of noble
patriotism and heroic virtues, and is chiefly secular, and
has, in truth, little closer connection with supernatural
Christianity than conventionally going by its name.
Since the 15th century the cultivation of the human
reason, stimulated chiefly by the observation and inter
rogation of nature through the methods of the physical
sciences, and the discoveries which have been thereby
made, has greatly diminished the influence of supersti
tion, and in distinguishing knowledge from emotion has
enabled the highest class of minds to perceive that human
affairs are not regulated by any discoverable influence of
a supernatural arbitrary Will, but that the course of life
proceeds now as it did during those countless ages that
elapsed previously to the birth of man, that is, in
obedience to natural invariable Law. It is also seen
that our civilization is really the result of intellectual
development, keeping pace with the improvement and
exercise of man’s natural intelligence. A philosophical
historian of rare erudition, the late Henry Thomas Buckle,
has shown us that the diminution of the two greatest
evils with which men have yet contrived to afflict their
fellow-creatures, viz., Religious Persecution and the
Practice of War, has been effected solely by the activity
of the human intellect, and the inventions and dis
coveries which, in a long course of ages, man has been
able to make.
Now, glancing backwards over the historical period I
have so slightly sought to traverse, we see indeed that
nations, like individuals, have apparently a physiological
�22
Civilization.
life, that they are born and progress with marked regu
larity through periods of youth, maturity, decline, and
death, but we also see that the ideas and principles, both
intellectual and moral, that have been elicited through
experience in the course of their careers are not wholly
lost to mankind, and that, though for a time they may
remain buried beneath the barbarian wave, they become
resuscitated for the use of succeeding generations. Thus
it was that Greece acquired much of her wisdom from
the Egyptians, then again the Alexandrians were the
pupils of Greece, Rome learnt from both, next the
Arabians held aloft the lamp of knowledge, helping to
rekindle it in Moorish Spain, amongst the descendants
of the Goths and Vandals that had overrun that portion
of the Boman Empire. The great nations of modern
Europe, especially Germany, France, and England, have
imbibed the lore, and garnered the experience, of all
preceding times, and our own mission perhaps may be
to pass on the sacred deposit through those English
speaking races that are now illuminating with their in
telligence the New Worlds of America and Australia.
The progress of Civilization is at present more rapid
and more firmly established than at any prior period of
the world’s history. Are we to believe that it is destined
to become again extinguished or suppressed ? or can we
discover modern elements and safeguards apparently
sufficient to protect our modern civilization from retro
gression or decay ?
If we compare our social life with that of ancient
times we shall observe some very remarkable differences.
We shall find that we are in possession of a Criterion of
Truth, a Standard of Right, and a power of Moral In
fluence that were entirely wanting to the nations of
antiquity.
In the first place I will observe that one of the most
important particulars in which the moderns have ad
vanced beyond the ancients consists in our having
attained to a knowledge of the nature of and right method
�Civilization.
23
of using the reasoning faculty, of discovering truth, and
of acquiring real knowledge. We may assert that man
was never thoroughly taught these until the advent of
the two great thinkers, Bacon and Descartes, now recog
nised as the Fathers of true Philosophy. At the time
when they flourished, the beginning of the 17th cen
tury, the powers and authority of the human reason had
become discredited, partly through the influence of
superstition, and partly from centuries of failure. Taking
all the philosophers together, it was asked, what had
their subtle reasonings done towards promoting the
happiness of mankind? Yet these two illustrious men,
in the face of such discouragement, in Bacon’s case, after
reviewing the deficiencies of all preceding scientific sys
tems, boldly proclaimed that nevertheless the human
reason was the only instrument for acquiring and testing
truth—both pointed out that doubt and inquiry were its
necessary preliminaries, and both inculcated that sound
maxim of wisdom ; to distrust what the Reason cannot
be appealed to to verify. But our great countryman
Bacon went beyond this, and enunciated a fur
ther principle, which collected from his writings, and
compressed into a single aphorism, may be thus stated:
that the Reason, as an instrument for the discovery of
Truth is like the lever; it requires a point of material
support. Hence he called on men to interpret the facts
of nature, to observe her through experience and to in
terrogate her by experiment; and our superiority to the
ancients in real knowledge, and in those correct moral
principles that flow from real knowledge, is greatly the
result of modern scientific men following this the objec
tive method of research. Pursuing this method, Sir
John Herschell made the important intellectual discovery
that the axioms of mathematics are not, as the ancients
and some moderns supposed, intuitive truths, but that
they are inductions from human experience of comparison
and measurement; and thus has been imparted to the
human mind a new tendency withdrawing it from that
�24
Civilization.
delusive, and mentally demoralising doctrine, that deems
intuition to be the voice of God, and to speak with an
authority higher than Reason or Nature.
In the second place, we have become acquainted
through the Physical Sciences, with the order and uni
formity of Nature, the method of the government of the
World, and man’s position in it, and we are thereby
enabled by foresight of the future, that true power of
prevision which science bestows, to regulate life in
accordance with those inexorable conditions or laws of
nature upon which its health, its longevity, and its
happiness, so materially depend.
Thirdly, through the modern inventions of the Print
ing Press, the Steam Engine, and the Electric Tele
graph, and their subsidiary appliances, we possess
means (unknown to the ancients) of both accurately
recording, and speedily and universally diffusing, those
intellectual truths and moral sentiments which the
foremost minds amongst us are ever and anon inspired
with, and flash forth for our benefit and guidance.
Thus, society at large in all the civilized nations is
early and continually being impregnated with the prin
ciples and maxims mental and moral that should regu
late the conduct of civilized men towards one another.
In the fourth place, consequent on the first practical
use of the discovered polarity of the magnet, the
mariner’s compass, that diffusing agency of Civilization,
Commercial Intercourse,
“By which remotest regions are allied,
Which makes one city of the universe,”
has become established amongst the modern nations of
the Earth, and being founded on mutual interest and
reciprocal integrity, unites them into one brotherhood,
enabling the moral force of the whole to be brought to
bear in turn upon each, and creating, so to speak, an
International Conscience, to whose dictates each state
becomes more or less sensitive, and thereby acts of
inhumanity, aggression, and persecution, that were of so
�Civilization.
^5
frequent perpetration in the isolated communities of
antiquity, are shrunk from beneath the reproachful
gaze of surrounding nations.
In the fifth place, that assured Freedom of Speech,
(by virtue of which we are enabled freely to address
you in this Hall), and that full discussion by a Free
press which are now secured in all European countries
to an extent that in ancient times was undreamt of,
have become the true source of an enlightened public
opinion, which the greatest of potentates, be they sove
reigns or statesmen, are powerless to resist; and lastly,
I will mention that great modern discovery in the science
of politics, the Representative Principle, through whose
operation the voice of all finds utterance in the very
making of the laws enacted for the government of all.
This freedom of speech, and discussion, and political
enfranchisement, constitute our great security (wholly
wanting to the peoples of antiquity) that our property,
our lives, and our liberties, shall be, everywhere and at
all times, duly respected.
These are indeed advantages and safeguards that
seem to render our present Civilization impregnable, and
to enable us with confidence to predict a continued
progress that shall bring about a great increase of the
happiness of the human race—or, perhaps I might with
more accuracy say, a great decrease in the unhappiness
of life ; for, though the condition of modern society is,
in this respect, greatly in advance of that of ancient
nations, if we will consider it in relation to what the
life of man is capable probably of being made, we shall
see that our boasted Civilization is in truth a state of
relative barbarism. If we reflect upon the frightful
miseries of pauperism, overwork, drunkenness, vice,
crime, disease, premature death! that are so rife
amongst us, and consider the amount of physical suffer
ing and mental anguish that are essentially bound up
with them, we must conclude that modern Civilization,
comprising as it does all these calamities, falls very far
short of what Civilization should be.
�26
Civilization.
The calamities to which I am referring are so familiar
to us that they can hardly be made more impressive by
any statistical proof, yet it is painfully convincing to
know, on such undoubted authority, that, whilst (ac
cording to the Registrar-General) the normal length of
the life of man is probably now nearly 100 years, the
average length of the actual lives of our industrious
classes is not nearly half that amount, whilst, of the
children that are brought into existence, a fearful
number never live to attain manhood at all!
Now, it is a true, however melancholy, reflection that
there is sufficient knowledge in the world, if it were
only universally diffused and acted upon,—if even it
were preached from the thousand pulpits of our land in
the stead of superstition,—to banish from life nearly all
its miseries, for nearly all are traceable to ignorance,
and we may well ask how it happens that such is still
the shocking condition of our civilization, notwith
standing all our intellectual, scientific and moral pro
gress. The answer is a very simple one. Man has
never yet applied his knowledge to devise the proper
remedies. In the case of premature death, medical
and sanitary science have indeed accomplished much
towards the prevention and cure of fatal diseases,—yet
the plague is not stayed, and why, because diseases are
not the causes of premature deaths, diseases are nature’s
expedients through which such causes operate, and,
though all known diseases were stamped out to-morrow,
the effect upon the Registrar-General’s return of deaths
could be but slight.
Before I refer to the probable reason of this some
what startling proposition let me in some measure pro
ceed to verify it as a fact. I will take as an illustration
the single disease of small-pox. -Previously to the dis
covery by Jenner of a specific means of preventing
small-pox, the deaths that occurred through that loath
some malady were numbered by tens of thousands. At
the present day, death, through the agency of small
�Civilization,
27
pox, is so rare that, except at long intervals, it is
scarcely observable; even in this densely-crowded metro
polis frequently not one death out of its entire popula
tion occurs through small-pox in the course of several
weeks. Yet the average proportion of premature deaths
has been but slightly decreased by the stamping out of
small-pox, that is, nearly the same proportion of deaths
to the whole population has continued to occur, and,
when the small-pox returns and claims its victims, again
the average of total deaths is not appreciably affected
by it. In proof of this I can appeal to facts within
your own knowledge, for doubtless none can have for
gotten the terrible outbreak of small-pox in this metropolls in the year 1870-1. Well, the Registrar-General’s
weekly return of deaths throughout that period showed
that at the very time when the small-pox epidemic was
most fatal, the total number of deaths from all causes
was not only not increased, but was actually below the
usual average. Thus, (to present you with actual
details), in the week ending the 2nd of February,
1871, the deaths from small-pox were 1.87, the total
deaths “ from all causes ” were 1,632, being 163 below
the estimated average. In the week ending the 9th of
February the deaths from small-pox were 196, the
total deaths from all causes 1,683, being 46 below the
estimated average. In the week ending the 27th of
February the deaths from small-pox were 227, the total
deaths from all causes were 1,633, being 13 below the
estimated average.
The explanation of these facts is, that when, in our
present social condition, deaths decrease or increase
through one particular form of fatal disease the number
of deaths through other forms of disease becomes cor
respondingly varied. Thus at the present time we are
apparently enjoying the fruits of a remarkable stimulus
that has within the last few years been given to the
appliances of sanitary science, and there can be no doubt
that diseases and deaths that were occasioned by over
�28
Civilization.
crowded dwellings, putrescent food, polluted water,
defective drainage, and deficient ventilation, have been
very much diminished, for, not only have the medical
faculty exerted all their skilled and benevolent energies
in this direction, but the improved education of the peo
ple has brought them to some knowledge of the laws of
health, and to the regulation of life in accordance with
their teachings ; yet the aggregate gain to life by such
improvement is but slightly felt, and at this moment the
attention of the sanitary authorities, as appears from Dr.
Buchanan’s presidential address to the Medical Officers of
Health in October last, is greatly engrossed in the obser
vation of an insidious and fatal form of diarrhoea, of
recent appearance, that during the summer months
attacks and destroys young children by thousands upon
thousands !
Such is a sample of the evidence that exists in proof
of the proposition that, though all existing diseases
could be at once stamped out, (the ratio between popu
lation and subsistence remaining the same,) the diminu
tion in the aggregate number of deaths would be but
slight. Well, if that be a matter of correct inference
from actual observation, we must conclude that those
diseases, though they were the agencies by which the
deaths occurring took place, yet were not themselves the
causes of such deaths, and that the real causes must be
sought elsewhere. Now there are some interesting con
siderations that should guide us in the search.
What is it, would you suppose, that occasions the
number of people to be so different in different coun
tries, or in the same country at different times ? Why,
for instance, should the population of these Islands, in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, scarcely number five mil
lions, whilst, in the reign of Queen Victoria, it exceeds
twenty-five millions ? The answer, in a general propo
sition, is this. The means of human subsistence for our
population in Queen Elizabeth’s reign were less than
they are in Queen Victoria’s reign by the proportional
�Civilization.
29
difference between their respective populations—for the
number of the population of any particular country at
any stated time is simply that precise number which the
resources, or means of subsistence of such country, can
then support. If such resources remained stationary
the population would remain stationary, as they increase
so does the amount of the population.
Now if we turn our attention to the lower forms of
life we find that the researches of physiologists have
ascertained as an undoubted fact that all organisms are
■endowed with a physical tendency to multiply beyond
their means of subsistence, that is, by reason of the high
geometrical ratio of their increase more are born than
■can possibly survive, so that there is a surplus that must
perish. The discovered principle of the continuity of
Nature forcibly suggests that man himself can be no
exception to this physical law, that probably more
human beings are born than can possibly survive, and
that the population is constantly being reduced, to that
inexorable limit which the resources of the country can
for the time being sustain, by those various death-deal
ing agencies, “ Nature’s terrible correctives of redun
dancy,” to which I have referred.
Man, however, by the exercise of his intelligence,
controls the operation of this law in all lower forms of
life, whereby not only a limited number of individuals
is produced, but the breed itself is continued under
conditions of permanent health and vigour. The late
Edward Holland of Dumbleton, one of the greatest
breeders of sheep in this country, assured me that the
loss of life amongst his lambs, from those causes that
in a human being would occasion premature death, did
not amount to ten per cent.
Now, can it be supposed by any reflecting mind that,
whilst man, by the use of his intelligence, can so regu
late the multiplication of the lower animals as to pro
duce and rear them in normal health, he is using his
intelligence aright in abandoning the breed of the supe-
�3°
Civilization.
rior animal man to such recklesness, ignorance, and
superstition as combine to produce the diseased, the
physically and mentally stunted, the half-starved and
short-lived individuals that form almost the very staple
of the masses in the cities and towns of our most highly
civilized countries. Of our human lambs it is not ten
per cent, but forty per cent, that perish in agonies
during the period of infancy 1
It was a saying of Descartes that if it be possible to
perfect mankind the means of doing so would be found
in the medical sciences, and it has become a settled
axiom that a sound philosophy of human life must be
based upon the truths of Physiology.
The future prospects of our Civilization, not only the
future happiness, but the future virtue, (if they be
separable,) of the community are probably greatly
dependent upon the discovery of remedial means whereby
this wholesale slaughter of children, and the diseases
and other agencies that bring an untimely end to life,
may be put a stop to, and the ratio of human increase
subordinated to the ratio of the increase of adequate
human subsistence, so that the miseries of the masses,
resulting from the pressure of their numbers, may be
effectually alleviated, and the balance of the population
maintained, not, as now, by premature deaths, but by
fewer births. Such means, whatever they may be, must
approve themselves to our highest moral sense, other
wise they would deservedly remain inoperative.
If, then, instead of resigning ourselves to the despair
ing contemplation of that remote and visionary future,
which Herbert Spencer, in his 'Principles of Biology,’
has shadowed forth as the only human prospect of relief
from these evils, we may sensibly look forward to such
more immediate remedies as I have adverted to, then we
may yet hope to see the lower level of life raised to a
really civilized condition, and the most miserable and
degraded classes or members of our present society
absorbed into a superior type. Then, too, though not,
�Civilization.
31
it is to be feared, until then, the sanguine creation of the
genius of Dr. Richardson, in his captivating address to
the Social Science Congress at Brighton, may be expected
to prove a reality, and the sanitary city of "Hygeia” be
found descending from the realms of the Imagination to
assume a beneficent sway upon Earth.
FEINTED BY C. W. EEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STEEET, HAYMABKET.
�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 FOUU o'clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-Four Lectures (in three series), ending 23rd April,
1876, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket
(transferable and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight
single reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s.
6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets and the published lectures apply (by letter) to the
Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Penny ;—Sixpence ;—and
�
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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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Civilization : a sketch of its rise and progress, its modern safeguards & future prospects; a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 20th February, 1876
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Finch, A. Elley
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1876
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N216
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Civilization : a sketch of its rise and progress, its modern safeguards & future prospects; a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 20th February, 1876), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Civilization
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